WASHINGTON — Amtrak is taking an optimistic approach to budget uncertainty, rehiring furloughed workers and repairing wrecked equipment in anticipation of federal funds that some in Congress still hope to reduce, according to the Associated Press.
Amtrak President David Gunn says his decisions are based on assumptions Amtrak will receive $1.2 billion in federal support for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, even though House appropriators have approved less than that amount.
In a recent interview, he said anything less than $1.2 billion will cause Amtrak’s demise.
“Congress can vote $700 million and turn to me and say, ‘Handle it,”’ Gunn said, “but I’m telling you, it has enormous repercussions.”
The Senate has voted to give Amtrak $1.2 billion for the current budget year, but the House Appropriations Committee approved only $762 million. With no resolution imminent, the railroad’s board of directors approved a $3.4 billion budget that assumes the $1.2 billion in federal support.
Gunn said the budget is responsible and conservative, emphasizing existing service and repair of wrecked equipment. He said it is designed to leave $76 million in working capital by year’s end “to avoid crisis.”
He noted that the budget does not assume any outside financing. Amtrak mortgaged parts of New York’s Penn Station in 2001 and needed an emergency government loan this summer just to make it through September, the end of the last fiscal year.
“We’re not selling my desk or mortgaging my desk, and we’re not assuming any bank loans,” he said.
Gunn’s priority is maintaining the current passenger system and addressing a backlog of out-of-service cars. Amtrak’s short-lived EXPRESS freight program, which was designed to be a moneymaker but never lived up to that promise, will be phased out in the coming year.
The budget includes $11 million to repair 21 Superliner long-distance passenger cars at the Beech Grove Maintenance Facility in Indianapolis, Amtrak’s central repair yard for damaged cars. All told, about 105 cars await repair at Beech Grove, Gunn said.
Also, Amtrak is rehiring 48 furloughed workers at its maintenance facility in Bear, Del., to fix 10 wrecked and damaged Northeast Corridor cars.
Gunn said Amtrak now has about 22,500 positions, down about 500 from when he took over in May. Of the 500 cut, about 200 are management posts, he said.
On the revenue side, Gunn’s stated goal is to make states pay for the net operating shortfall of all intermediate-distance routes within two years. Not surprisingly, he is encountering some resistance from states, which are dealing with financial squeezes of their own.
“Obviously they’d rather we pay for them,” Gunn said, “but people are fairly understanding of what’s happening.”
As for long-distance trains, which continue to be the top target of some lawmakers because of the routes’ large losses per passenger, Gunn said cutting them would save less money, less quickly, than people imagine.
Gunn has been traveling throughout the system, recently completing a train trip to the West Coast. The mood among Amtrak workers, he said, “is amazingly good for what they go through and have been put through.”