(The Chicago Tribune posted the following story by Jon Hilkevitch on its website on April 28.)
BEECH GROVE, Ind. — Here lie the charred and twisted remains of Amtrak’s City of New Orleans, a 14-car train that smashed into a truck near Bourbonnais, Ill., four years ago, killing 11 passengers.
On another track sit the crumpled double-decker coaches of Amtrak’s Capitol Limited — its windows boarded with plywood and the interior stripped — that left Chicago and derailed in Kensington, Md., last year.
Amtrak wrecks from around the country are hauled on “hospital trains” to this 100-year-old maintenance facility for repair. Yet over much of the last decade, reflecting Amtrak’s moribund financial condition, the rail yard became a train graveyard.
Now Amtrak, a perennial victim of mismanagement and underfunding, is attempting to recover. The renewed activity at Beech Grove is a tangible example of Amtrak’s strategy, which was detailed in a five-year plan released Friday to return more trains to service and lure travelers back to the rails.
For the first time in years, refurbished cars — shiny and mechanically sound on the outside, nicely appointed with new furniture, air-conditioning and other amenities on the inside — are starting to roll out of the massive train sheds at Beech Grove, which is near Indianapolis. It will take time. Fourteen wrecks are scheduled for repair by September, with about 90 other cars and locomotives waiting for their turn.
“When you walk into a car, the lighting, carpets, drapes, seat cushions and bathrooms will look like the 21st Century instead of 1970,” said Lew Wood, general manager of the facility. “All the safety equipment is being completely rebuilt and overhauled to brand-new condition.”
The previous Amtrak leadership furloughed hundreds of mechanics, welders and other craftsmen at Beech Grove during the 1990s and halted repairs of wrecked locomotives and cars to save money. The move was part of a flawed strategy, imposed by Congress, that the railroad would wean itself off federal subsidies by 2003. Former Amtrak CEO George Warrington made regular trips to Capitol Hill to report Amtrak was on a “glide slope to self-sufficiency.”
That wasn’t the case. Warrington’s focus on stemming the red ink only cost Amtrak more customers and got it deeper into financial trouble because shutdown costs exceeded the savings, according to many industry experts. Excuses were offered in place of customer service.
“Congress told him Amtrak must turn a profit and Warrington said, `OK, we’ll make a profit,’ even though he knew it was impossible,” said one passenger rail industry expert, still angry over Warrington’s purported progress reports to the government.
Amtrak officials acknowledge that the inventory of junked trains at Beech Grove and at Amtrak’s repair shops in Bear, Del., was partially responsible for Amtrak’s ridership remaining flat after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Many passengers too afraid to fly attempted to purchase Amtrak sleeping berths, at prices similar to or greater than airline seats, and to endure 18 hours on the train from Chicago to Washington and other routes. But Amtrak couldn’t provide enough equipment.
Amtrak will be out of money again in October. The patience of the government and the traveling public has reached its thinnest point since Amtrak’s creation 30 years ago, after the freight railroads abandoned passenger service because they couldn’t make money at it.
David Gunn, a transit turnaround artist who is completing his first year as president and chief executive officer of Amtrak, acknowledged there are no guarantees his beleaguered operation will even exist a year from now. But under Gunn’s direction, Amtrak is trying to show critics in the White House, Congress and governors’ mansions that long-distance train service is a viable — and vital — component of the national transportation network. And that Amtrak is the right choice to get the job done.
“You cannot leave this operation in its current state, financially and physically, and have five more years’ debate of people figuring out how they want to reform Amtrak,” said Gunn, 66, a 40-year railroad man. “You just can’t. Amtrak will croak. It will come completely apart.”
Although he doesn’t think Amtrak can survive without some kind of subsidy, Gunn is confident he can make the operation leaner and more efficient. He points out that both highway and air travel are heavily subsidized by the government.
His team is producing financial reports and income statements that government watchdog groups say represent major improvements over the fudged budget documents of the past. Runaway costs are being controlled. Productivity has risen.
The crews that repair train air brakes at Beech Grove are completing 1,400 a month, up from 520 brakes monthly, after the production facility and work rules were recently revamped, Wood said.
“They say we got a lot more work coming in. I hope it’s true because this is a very stressful company to work for. You don’t know how long you’ll have a job,” said Mike Lucas, 54, a car welder who has been laid off twice since 1990. Despite the uncertainties, Lucas called Beech Grove “a fun place filled with a great group of people. Experience, knowledge, talent — it’s all here.”
Beech Grove has about 620 workers, half the number of the late 1980s. The average age is the mid-50s, Wood said.
On Friday, Amtrak released its five-year recovery plan, which focuses on restoring financial stability and a state of good repair.
Common sense is being brought to train schedules so passengers don’t leave one city or arrive in another at 5 a.m. The new schedules take effect Monday.
Food service, which is boring at best, will soon be kicked up a notch and varied so customers on long-distance routes won’t face the same menus for three days in a row.
Experts, meanwhile, predicted Gunn would be more successful than his predecessors in getting support for funding increases in Congress, but that Amtrak will continue to walk a tightrope.
“Sen. [John] McCain has already said that Gunn is a breath of fresh air,” said Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers. “But that doesn’t satisfy the question in some people’s minds over whether what Gunn is managing is worth saving.”