WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal oversight panel for financially troubled Amtrak voted yesterday to recommend opening the nation’s intercity rail system to competition, the Washington Post reports.
Under the plan, Amtrak, for three decades the nation’s monopoly provider of long-distance trains, would be competing with private companies to operate trains. But Amtrak’s tracks and stations, as well as its authority to make rail policy, would be distributed among state, federal and private entities.
The plan, approved 8-1 by the Amtrak Reform Council, is only a recommendation. Congress will decide Amtrak’s future after it receives a final version of the council plan Feb. 7.
The council opted for the most radical and free-market option among three plans it considered. The only member to oppose the plan was Charles Moneypenny, who represents labor interests on the panel.
Established by Congress in 1997, the panel has been praised by critics of Amtrak who contend that mismanagement is responsible for its perpetual financial problems. Amtrak supporters reply that the problem is a paucity of federal financing for an overlooked mode of transportation.
“What we’re trying to do is produce a new national rail passenger system that works and is modern and meets the needs of this country and this century,” Gil Carmichael, the council’s chairman, said before the vote.
Amtrak officials declined comment. Bruce Richardson, president of the United Rail Passenger Alliance, said the plan would improve the national rail network. “Any time you have competition, as the late Soviet Union learned, the better off you are,” Richardson said.
Congress and President Richard M. Nixon created Amtrak in 1970 to take over passenger service from freight railroads, who wanted to concentrate on moving cargo.
Moneypenny, who opposed much of the council’s work right through the final vote, questioned whether anybody but Amtrak wants to operate passenger trains.
“If you’re going to privatize stuff, you better have someone willing to do it,” he said. “What if you give a party, and nobody shows up?
Tom Till, executive director of the reform council, insisted the private sector is fertile territory. He said Peter Pan Bus Lines has expressed interest in running trains in the United States, as have four of Britain’s 19 rail operating companies.
The council voted in November that Amtrak could not meet a Dec. 2, 2002, congressional deadline to begin operating without federal subsidies. Under the 1997 law that created the council, that finding authorized it to come up with a plan for a restructured rail system.