WASHINGTON — According to a wire service, a budget squeeze and last month’s train derailment in Florida have left Amtrak with no room for error, the railroad’s acting president said Monday.
“I’m one derailment away from having to cut service,” warned Stan Bagley.
He said he “pulled every rabbit out of the bag” to keep the nation’s passenger railroad at full service after the April 18 crash of its Florida-to-Virginia Auto Train. Four people died and 150 were injured in the accident, which is under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (news – web sites).
Most of the train’s 40 cars derailed in the accident, including 14 double-decker “Superliner” passenger cars that are used on many of Amtrak’s long-distance trains.
Already dealing with a backlog of cars needing repair and servicing, Amtrak struggled to compensate for the loss of the equipment damaged in Florida.
Bagley told a supportive crowd of rail professionals and advocates that Amtrak’s perennial need for more funding has become acute.
“I’ve got 89 wrecked cars and locomotives that I can’t fix because of money,” said Bagley, a 28-year Amtrak veteran. “As long as I’ve been doing this, I’ve never seen such a backlog.”
But he insisted that the budget squeeze has not compromised passenger safety.
Bagley is Amtrak’s executive vice president for operations, but is filling in as head of the passenger rail service until the new president, David Gunn, starts work on Wednesday.
Bagley was a featured speaker at an annual conference sponsored by the National Corridors Initiative, which supports development of intercity and regional rail service. The chairman of the group, Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian, Miss., is also chairman of Amtrak’s governing board.
The lively ongoing debate on Capitol Hill over Amtrak’s future is a major theme of this year’s conference. The group’s president, James RePass, said he hopes that Amtrak’s days of “lurching from crisis to crisis” will end with creation of a substantial, long-term federal rail program.
The House Transportation subcommittee on railroads approved a bill last week that would give Amtrak the $1.2 billion it requested for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, plus $775 million for security and safety upgrades.
The Senate Commerce Committee has approved a bill by Sen. Ernest Hollings (news, bio, voting record), D-S.C., that would keep Amtrak operating for five more years and spend $4.6 billion a year on improving and expanding rail service.
Amtrak has warned that it will have to make cuts — starting with its 18 long-distance routes — if it receives less than $1.2 billion.
Gilbert Carmichael, chairman of the congressionally appointed Amtrak Reform Council, told the conference that he believes Amtrak needs even more — at least $1.5 billion — but was reluctant to ask for that much.
The reform council, a major critic of Amtrak’s current structure and management, has recommended breaking up the rail company and allowing private companies to bid on taking over individual routes.
The question of opening up passenger rail service to competition is one of the biggest issues Congress must address.
Carmichael added his voice to the chorus of criticism of the Bush administration for not putting forward its ideas for the national passenger rail system.
“I do not believe that this administration can afford to stand aside from the debate,” said Carmichael, a Republican who led the Federal Railroad Administration when Bush’s father was president.