WASHINGTON — Amtrak is trying to enlist governors in a fight to preserve its budget, telling them that nearly all of its long-distance trains may be canceled if the government does not give it enough money in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, according to the New York Times.
But Amtrak and its supporters are mildly optimistic that it will get $1.2 billion it says it needs to maintain its passenger rail service in 46 states.
“If funding falls below Amtrak’s budget, it is likely that certain trains will be discontinued,” Amtrak said in a letter faxed this weekend to the governors of those states.
The letter said 18 routes, almost all of Amtrak’s long-distance network, were in jeopardy. The only overnight trains not on the list are the Auto Train, from the Washington area to the Orlando, Fla., area, and the Carolinian, from Charlotte, N.C., to New York City. The Empire Builder, the Lake Shore Limited and the City of New Orleans could be dropped.
The warning was issued as the Amtrak Reform Council, which Congress created in 1997, urged changes to cut Amtrak’s costs. One proposal was for Amtrak to contract out, or franchise, parts of its system, an idea that the Bush administration might adopt, people involved in the deliberations said.
The Amtrak Reform Council recently calculated that the Sunset Limited, which runs from Orlando through New Orleans to Los Angeles and carried 110,000 people in 2001, lost $347 per passenger and that other trains lost smaller amounts. Amtrak calculates losses differently, but its long routes still lose far more per passenger than its short ones.
The trains not endangered are in the Northeast, the Chicago area and along the Pacific Coast, and they include those connecting New York to Boston and Washington.
The inspector general of the Transportation Department, Kenneth M. Mead, told Congress recently that the number of riders grew 11.4 percent in 2001 and the value of ticket sales increased 26.1 percent, but for every dollar in revenue growth, he said, expenses rose $1.05.
The 1997 law seeking to overhaul the railroad’s finances requires Amtrak to give 180 days of notice before canceling a train. That provision led many experts to anticipate a formal warning of cancellations last month because without Congressional action on next year’s budget full service could not be guaranteed beyond the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30.
Amtrak’s letter to the governors, however, said the deadline did not apply if the railroad had to cut service because Congress cut its budget.
Senator Thomas R. Carper, Democrat of Delaware, a former member of Amtrak’s board of directors who commutes to Washington on Amtrak, responded in a statement that “given the demands on every budget dollar, securing $1.2 billion for Amtrak is going to be a steep hill to climb.”
“Many of us are willing to make that climb,” Senator Carper added, “but supporters of passenger rail service — mayors, governors, passengers — are going to have to raise their voices over the coming months for the president and the Congress to hear.”
The $1.2 billion that Amtrak is seeking is covered in the Senate Budget Committee’s budget resolution, a guideline for Congressional action on spending bills. It was included after Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, gathered the signatures of 52 senators supporting it. Prospects in the House are uncertain.
Mr. Hollings, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, which oversees Amtrak, has introduced a much more ambitious National Defense Interstate Rail Act that would provide a $1.3 billion one-time subsidy for security costs, including $806 million to make tunnels safer in New York, Baltimore and Washington. His bill would also add $1.55 billion annually for development of high-speed rail corridors outside the Northeast, $1.31 billion a year for the Northeast corridor and $580 million a year for long-distance trains. With other subsidies, the total would be $4.6 billion a year for five years. No committee has voted on the bill.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Commerce Committee when the Republicans controlled the Senate, has a proposal for introducing competition and privatizing Amtrak over four years, with a less generous subsidy until then.
The Bush administration glossed over Amtrak when it issued its budget this year, putting in $521 million that it described as a “place-holder” figure until a consensus emerged about what to do. Allan Rutter, the administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, is scheduled to testify before the House Transportation Committee committee this week to lay out the administration’s plan. That may include franchising, but exactly what is not clear. It could mean contracting out anything from running the dining cars to running entire trains.
Representative Don Young, an Alaska Republican and the chairman of the House committee, has been negotiating with Representative James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, the committee’s ranking Democrat, over what strings to attach to a $1.2 billion subsidy for next year.
The two have also discussed bond proposals to finance Amtrak’s deficit, largely a product of Amtrak’s need to keep buying modern trains. One proposal would let Amtrak issue tax-free bonds; another would let it issue bonds offering federal tax credits instead of interest.
All of this is uncertain, but Amtrak’s allies say the outlook is not as grim as it was in 1997, when Congress contemplated that Amtrak would write a liquidation plan if it did not operate without a subsidy by the end of this year.
“The mood seems to be, we really want to be sure that Amtrak is funded this year,” said Donald M. Itzkoff, deputy federal railroad administrator in the Clinton administration. Because of the airline disruptions after Sept. 11, Mr. Itzkoff said, “people recognize that rail is an important form of transportation, and we need to preserve our options.”