Still more news for your Monday morning:
— Four people who were aboard a special Amtrak train that hit a trash truck in a fatal 2018 accident have sued the truck driver, trash company, Buckingham Branch Railroad, and an Amtrak crew member, the Charlottesville, Va., Daily Progress reports. Those four — Andrew Bruot, Leonard Condron, Frank Cottone, and Andrew Ripetta — filed suit in January seeking $750,000 in compensatory damages, plus $350,000 in punitive damages from truck driver Dana Naylor. A fifth, Leonard Claytor, is suing only the trash company and Naylor, seeking $72,500 in damages. The train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat in West Virginia derailed near Charlottesville, after hitting the truck at a grade crossing, killing one person aboard the truck [see “Amtrak special for members of Congress strikes truck in Virginia,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 31, 2018]; Naylor was later acquitted of involuntary manslaughter [see “Truck driver found not guilty in 2018 fatal accident with Congressional Amtrak charter,” Trains News Wire, March 4, 2019]. These suits join three others filed previously.
— Missoula County, Mont., has created a draft resolution calling for the restoration of passenger rail service in southern Montana, and is now seeking other counties willing to form a regional rail authority for that purpose. KPAX-TV reports that Missoula County Commissioner Dave Strohmaier will take the resolution to the Montana Association of Counties this week, seeking partners; at least one other county must join before the regional authority can be established. The train would follow the former route of Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha, serving Billings, Livingston, Bozeman, Helena, and Missoula, among other cities.
— A Florida company wants to build a Maglev pod transportation system in the Tampa Bay area, the Orlando Weekly reports. A Clearwater, Fla., councilman has asked for a “resolution of encouragement and assistance” for skyTran Inc., which says it would build the solar-powered system with no tax dollars.
