(The following story by Tom Shaw appeared on the Omaha World-Herald website on November 4.)
OMAHA, Neb. — It has a fun name, but Amtrak’s California Zephyr passenger line through Omaha hasn’t always been a joy for travelers.
Trains on the Chicago-to-San Francisco route — the only route serving Omaha — were late 90 percent of the time in the past year. And ridership was down almost 2 percent, while most of Amtrak’s long-distance routes saw an increase in the number of riders over last year.
But with American travelers increasingly considering rail travel as an alternative to high gas prices, crowded planes and airport delays, Amtrak says it’s working to make trains more reliable in the Midlands.
Spokesman Marc Magliari said the California Zephyr was on schedule more than half the time last month.
“That is an indication perhaps that performance is improving,” he said.
At this point, Amtrak’s regional Zephyr service is the only passenger line accessible in Omaha. A proposed commuter line between Omaha and Lincoln has not moved ahead because of the daunting cost.
Improving Amtrak service is a major focus of a recently passed U.S. Senate bill authorizing federal funding for Amtrak for another six years.
That goal is a departure from past efforts by Congress to make Amtrak financially independent. If the House approves the bill, it will then go to President Bush, who has questioned the price tag. The bill boosts yearly funding for Amtrak by about $700 million — mostly for infrastructure and railcar improvements.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and others blocked a proposed amendment to the Senate bill that would have capped federal subsidies for long-distance routes. Nelson’s office said such a cap likely would have killed the California Zephyr route, which served nearly 330,000 passengers in the past year.
The California Zephyr line has one westbound train and one eastbound train each day. Catching one of the trains in Omaha may be a challenge for some, given the departure times. The westbound train departs Omaha at 10:39 p.m., while the eastbound train departs at 6:29 a.m. Besides Omaha, the trains run through Lincoln, Hastings, Holdrege and McCook in Nebraska.
Magliari said scenery is a big reason for the Omaha departure times. Amtrak wants to give passengers in both directions as much daylight as possible to see western mountain ranges.
While Nebraskans appreciate the Platte River Valley through Nebraska, most long-distance travelers prefer to view the Rocky Mountains or the Sierra Nevada along the California Zephyr route, Magliari said. So the trains pass through Nebraska mostly in darkness.
Another reason for the eastbound departure time from Omaha is that it puts travelers in Chicago with time to catch afternoon train connections to other cities.
Those departure times aren’t likely to change, but Amtrak says it has taken steps to improve the timeliness of the trains. Since much of the Amtrak system relies on tracks owned by private rail companies, schedules and routes are heavily influenced by freight train traffic and track maintenance operations, Magliari said.
Earlier this year Amtrak and Omaha-based Union Pacific announced an agreement in which U.P. pledged to make certain track improvements on western routes so Amtrak trains won’t be forced to slow down.
Amtrak agreed to temporarily adjust California Zephyr line schedules until 2010, when U.P. will complete the track improvements. Rails owned by BNSF Railway and CSX Transportation also host many Amtrak trains.
Track availability and conditions are the main reasons why the California Zephyr line does not pass through such major Iowa cities as Des Moines and Iowa City. Instead it travels through smaller, southern Iowa cities such as Burlington and Ottumwa.
In pursuit of improved passenger rail service, a regional group over the years has explored ways to add passenger trains and routes in the Midwest. The group — the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative — would like to see a 3,000-mile, high-speed rail system with a hub in Chicago that would serve major Iowa cities between Chicago and Omaha.
But several hundred million dollars would be required for track upgrades and trains, making the project unlikely anytime soon.
The State of Illinois, however, is looking at working with Amtrak to restore some passenger lines between Chicago, Rockford, Ill., and Dubuque, Iowa. Illinois already pays Amtrak to run extra trains between Chicago and St. Louis.
Ellis Tompkins, rail and public transportation engineer with the Nebraska Department of Roads, said Nebraska would need to see how far west in Iowa such a system developed and how much federal money would be available before deciding to join the effort. The Senate bill that just passed includes money for states to develop regional rail corridors.
Also doubtful in the short term is a commuter rail line connecting Omaha and Lincoln.
Tompkins said “nothing has been resurrected with that” since a report four years ago determined that the $80 million project would have been too expensive to qualify for federal funding based on estimated passenger figures. That would leave the state and the cities to foot the entire bill.
“I don’t see how we as a state can fund any of these things without some federal support,” Tompkins said.