(The following article by Ted Jackovics was posted on the Tampa Tribune website on January 19.)
TAMPA, Fla. — Tax consultant Robert Becker clearly uses a different financial rationale for making travel plans than he does in his High Bridge, N.J., business.
Becker, his wife, Suzy, and friends Alice Burke and Jeri Struening rode home from Tampa to Trenton, N.J., in one of Amtrak’s sleeper cars on a recent vacation trip. The northbound leg of Tuesday night’s 24-hour journey cost them a combined $833.15, about $400 more than they might have paid for discount airline tickets and a three-hour flying trip.
He also knows that operating expenses for the government-subsidized train far exceeds revenue. The Silver Star lost $43.8 million for the 2004 fiscal year ended in September, out of $601.9 million in losses among 16 long-distance Amtrak trains last year. Amtrak’s only segment in the black was the Boston-Washington corridor trains, which cleared $10.6 million.
However, the costs – personal and tax-supported – did not concern Becker, who simply explained: “I do not fly.”
Amtrak clearly is looking for more people like the Beckers, especially those willing to pay the extra charges for meals and a room with a bunk bed. In this case, the Becker couple paid $203.15, although other sleeping/eating rates are available. Each person also has to pay the train’s standard coach fare of $79 from Tampa to Trenton.
The Beckers and Burke and Struening, who needed only one-way tickets north because they had arrived in Tampa at different times and by different modes of transportation, might be an indicator that better train service for Tampa could attract more riders.
In November, Amtrak re- routed the Silver Star to serve Tampa. These days it usually is a 10-car train including coaches, sleeping cars and dining and lounge cars. The Silver Star replaced the Silver Palm, an all-coach train that had no diner, an uncomfortable prospect for a long journey.
The railroad also established better hours for passengers here. Amtrak rescheduled the Tampa train’s northbound departure to New York and two dozen intervening destinations at 5:22 p.m., about three hours earlier than the Silver Palm’s former northbound run. The Silver Star is scheduled to leave Tampa for Miami daily at 10:26 a.m., about four hours later than the previous schedule.
Have the changes worked? Comparative ridership figures in Tampa for November 2003 on the Silver Palm and November 2004 for the Silver Star for Tampa are not available. Still, an official with the National Association of Railroad Passengers, a Washington- based advocacy group, rode the Silver Star southbound last week and said the train’s Tampa business exceeded the numbers of passengers who disembarked at Orlando.
“Tampa passengers now have a train they will find more useful than the previous all- coach train and its schedules,” said Ross Capon, who is executive director of the railroad passengers group.
An Amtrak agent in Tampa, Gilbert Dolores, echoed Capon’s comments.
“Ridership has slowed down since the holidays, but it is better than it used to be,” he said.
Overall, ridership on the Silver Star’s entire route – which includes several cities in the Eastern Seaboard – improved over 2003 by 218 passengers in November to 23,726 and by 1,723 in December to 26,426, records showed.
Tampa’s Union Station served about 43,000 passengers in 2003, seventh highest among the 29 stations Amtrak served in Florida that year. Some towns, like Dade City, Wildwood, Ocala and Waldo, lost service in November when the Silver Palm was discontinued in Florida and the Silver Star was routed through Orlando. Those in cities that lost service can get railroad connections via Amtrak buses.
While the local rail ridership is minuscule in comparison with air travel – Tampa International Airport handled about 17 million passengers in 2004 – Amtrak provides choices beyond driving and flying, NARP assistant director David R. Johnson pointed out.
And it’s not just Amtrak receiving government subsidies, Johnson said. Airline and highway travel also are tax supported, including billions of dollars to support the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control and inspection network, he said.
The familiar political bouts over Amtrak subsidies continued as usual last year, with Congress authorizing $1.2 billion for Amtrak. NARP officials said that subsidy was thanks in part to efforts of longtime passenger railroad advocate U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores. Young helped with the Amtrak appropriation in 2004, his last year as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful positions in Congress. Young remains on the appropriations committee after stepping down as chairman last month.
NARP remains concerned that the level of spending will not be enough to make capital improvements it believes are required to attract more travelers.
Those perennial political and financial arguments, including assertions by some in Congress that it would make more sense to hand out airline tickets to passengers than subsidize Amtrak, don’t faze the Beckers or fellow passenger Larry Yermack, a retiree from Skillman, N.J., who headed north on the Silver Star earlier this week.
“The European nations have terrific railroad systems,” he said. “Why can’t the United States?”