(The Wichita Eagle published the following article by Alan Bjerga.)
WASHINGTON — The Southwest Chief runs through Newton at 3 a.m. About 15 people board the train, most from Wichita but some from small towns in southern Kansas or northern Oklahoma.
Every time someone boards that Amtrak train, the federal government says it loses $247.
Ticket costs don’t cover rail expenses, and never have in Amtrak’s 32-year history.
That’s why President Bush wants to cut several cross-country passenger rail routes from its 2004 budget, even though he’s increasing overall Amtrak spending.
The Southwest Chief, running from Chicago to Los Angeles through Newton, is on the hot seat.
Budget hawks say it’s time to stop Amtrak’s long-term losses. Those 15 passengers have cars, planes and buses they could take.
Amtrak backers say the losses are exaggerated, and a little beside the point considering the larger subsidies airports and highways receive.
But those arguments have gone on since shortly after 1971, when Amtrak was founded. Ultimately, neither Bush nor Amtrak determines its future — Congress does. Long-distance trains run through a lot of districts, and lawmakers like to keep them going.
“I don’t think (cuts) will happen this year,” said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard.
Lloyd Stagner was on the job with the Santa Fe Railway the day Amtrak started. The Newton train enthusiast said Amtrak’s doing a good job of serving passengers –“but as far as making money, never.”
Amtrak has lost $2 billion in the past two years. For every dollar of tickets sold, it loses two.
The problem could get worse as rail lines age and passenger numbers stagnate — in 2002, Amtrak experienced its first passenger decline since 1996.
A 1950s mindset?
The rail service’s red-ink history is an ongoing sore spot for critics who call it inefficient and well behind its times.
“It’s a 19th-century system in the 21st century,” said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, a Washington, D.C., group that advocates low taxes and low spending.
Sepp said passenger rail makes sense in some parts of the country with high usage.
Subtracting capital costs, trains in the northeastern United States have turned profits, and certain routes on the West Coast, in Texas and between cities in the industrial Midwest hold promise because they have the population base that can make Amtrak work, he said.
But across the Plains, where low population densities and an almost complete lack of mass transit make sitting on a train a tough sell, it’s best to let Amtrak wither away, he said.
“We have buses we can subsidize more cheaply,” he said. “We have small airports people can use. We have to get out of this 1950s mindset,” he said.
A likely stalemate
But the mindset that keeps Amtrak going isn’t outdated, said Scott Leonard, who works up the street from Sepp as assistant director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers.
Leonard said money-loss statistics can be sliced and diced different ways.
It’s true the Southwest Chief is a leading loser per passenger, but long-distance routes don’t have as many passengers per mile as shorter routes.
Plus, Leonard’s group estimates that passenger rail is the least-subsidized of any form of transportation.
In 2003, his groups says that federal and state governments will give $32 billion to highways, $14 billion for aviation, and barely $1 billion for Amtrak.
Unlike highways, which are subsidized in part by gas taxes, and airports, which have ticket surcharges to fund their operations, Amtrak doesn’t have any pay-as-you-go revenue — it’s fully dependent on lawmakers for its subsidies.
That, Leonard said, might be at the root of the annual Amtrak funding crisis: “Amtrak particularly annoys some people for that reason.”
Leonard and Sepp agree Amtrak needs major changes. Leonard would like to see route improvements and regional rail management agencies that would be attuned to the needs of long-distance lines. Sepp would like to see lines cut and state governments taking control of some operations if they think passenger rail can work.
They also agree that either route runs uphill in Congress.
Faced with budget pressures on one side and constituencies on the other, a likely result is more funding, but only enough to keep the crisis alive another year.
Long-distance routes won’t end “because congressmen like having Amtrak routes running through their district,” Sepp said.
And Amtrak likes routes running through as many votes as possible. Cut the Southwest Chief, he notes, and Amtrak loses dozens of lawmakers with a stake in its operations.
But boosting funding is even tougher now than in the late 1990s because of today’s deficits, he added.
Tiahrt said he sees the quandary.
Tiahrt said he’s never been on the Southwest Chief, though his wife and children have. “I’m not a railroad guy,” he said.
The problem with Amtrak, he said, is that “there are two of them” — short-distance, passenger-popular East Coast lines and more expensive, but politically popular, long-distance lines.
The passenger-popular lines don’t get money if the politically popular ones don’t also, Tiahrt said. For that reason, he added, reports of the Southwest Chief’s demise are greatly exaggerated.
“There’s some risk, but I don’t think that will be the outcome.”
But ultimately, that outcome satisfies no one — neither the budget hawks nor the rail buffs. Amtrak isn’t being ended. Nor is it being resolved.
“That’s a mistake,” said Stagner in Newton. “Rail deserves better than that.”