BALTIMORE — Amtrak’s new president said he won’t “dismember” the money-strapped passenger rail system by eliminating 18 long-distance lines as his predecessor threatened, a wire service reported.
David Gunn, who started his job last month, flatly rejected the proposed cuts, which former Amtrak chief George Warrington said would be necessary if Congress didn’t grant the company’s request for $1.2 billion next fiscal year. In proposing to cut the lines running through the Midwest, South and West, Warrington was protecting the Northeast corridor between Washington and New York, its most heavily traveled route.
Congressional vote
Congress hasn’t yet voted on Amtrak’s budget, but many members of both parties have indicated they’ll support the request.
“The whole system will rise and fall together,” Gunn said. “I didn’t come here to dismember Amtrak. I won’t do it.
“It would become absolutely a political nightmare if you did that,” he said. “There’s no way we’re going to get funded for just the Northeast corridor.”
But even before he can worry about the next fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, Gunn is grappling with an immediate cash crunch that could shut down the entire system temporarily next month if Amtrak is unable to secure a $200 million loan soon. That could lead to large-scale disruptions of commuter rail service from Washington to Boston because hundreds of transit trains not only ride Amtrak rails every day but also use Amtrak dispatchers to coordinate train traffic.
“The whole thing is inter-related,” Gunn said this week in an interview with Gannett News Service. “They can sort out pieces later on, but it would be a real mess.”
Hopeful about loan
As he rode Amtrak’s high-speed Acela train to a transit conference in Baltimore, the 64-year-old rail veteran said he’s optimistic the government-controlled company will secure the loan.
Gunn said he would repay the loan out of next year’s budget, a strategy he admits could land Amtrak in the same fiscal soup it’s facing this year. He said he has no choice given the company’s finances.
A plainspoken grandson of a steamship captain, the Harvard-educated Gunn has spent most of his career running transit systems, including the nation’s largest in New York City. His candor has gotten him in trouble with some of his previous bosses, but many believe he has the experience and bluntness to restore Amtrak’s shattered credibility on Capitol Hill.
In a speech in Baltimore on Wednesday, Gunn told his transportation colleagues that many elected officials view them as “a bottomless pit” and that too many railroad agencies don’t do enough to maintain their tracks, fix their cars or efficiently run their operations.
“We have big problems in all of these areas and we tend to focus on trying to find somebody who will fund us,” he told them.
That kind of honest self-assessment has won over Amtrak’s harshest critic on Capitol Hill: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
In a June 6 letter, McCain applauded Gunn’s “surprisingly refreshing” candor and his “back-to-basics approach to running a railroad.” Though he continues to harbor deep misgivings about keeping most of Amtrak’s long-distance lines, the senator has pledged his support to avoid a shutdown this year.
Under Warrington, Amtrak labored — and ultimately failed — to meet a congressional mandate to wean itself off taxpayer subsidies for its day-to-day operations. In trying to meet what Gunn now calls a “failed strategy,” Amtrak mortgaged Penn Station last year.
“I would never have done the Penn Station deal. I’d have missed my payroll before I did that. You never use long-term borrowing for short deficits,” Gunn said. “All it did was delay the inevitable, which is here.”
The mortgage saddled Amtrak with another $700 million in debt, leaving the company some $3.7 billion in the hole.
Gunn has quickly moved to undo some of the corporate-driven trappings of his predecessor, reducing the number of vice presidents from 84 to 20, reorganizing the company’s divisions to streamline chain-of-command and reminding Amtrak employees that passengers would no longer have to be called “guests.”
Warrington, now the head of New Jersey Transit, declined to comment, saying he preferred to “take the high road.”
James RePass, a staunch rail supporter who runs the National Corridors Initiative, said Gunn is a welcome gust of fresh air.
“This man will say exactly what he’s thinking,” said RePass. “He’s a man with a track record that’s second to none.”