SAN JOSE — The train that carried Amtrak President David Gunn to Oakland’s Jack London Square station on Friday was right on time, a good omen for a service he called the nation’s model, the Tri-Valley Herald reports.
Amid continuing news of Amtrak’s shaky future, Gunn stepped off Train 537 from Sacramento and told an assembly of state and local rail officials that he’s optimistic about turning Amtrak around.
“It’s one of the best kept secrets in the country, how much California has supported passenger rail. You’re doing it right. It’s an example that should be followed by the rest of the country,” Gunn said.
The nation’s rail chief of four months was referring to the Capitol Corridor service, which Amtrak, Caltrans and BART jointly run between Auburn, Oakland and San Jose.
On Friday, Capitol Corridor General Manager Eugene Skoropowski announced an $88million investment to improve tracks, stations and service between Oakland and San Jose.
“We know the way to San Jose, and it’s definitely on a train. We’ve got the plan. We’ve got the funds,” he said.
The funds come from a 2000 Alameda County sales tax measure and from a state transportation account.
The plan, over the next 14 months, will bring the number of daily trains from four to seven and maybe 11. BART connections will be added with new Capitol Corridor stations at the Coliseum and Union City BART stations. A new station will be built in Fremont. Tracks will be improved and added. Skoropowski said the improvements will double the number of passengers, adding one million a year.
By 2008, passengers along the corridor could take the train to a direct monorail connector to Oakland International Airport.
The Capitol Corridor service is the fastest growing in the country, which gives Gunn something to hang his political hat on when he asks Congress to keep Amtrak alive and to pay for it.
He, Caltrans Director Jeff Morales, and others believe Congress will not pull the plug on Amtrak’s funding. They expect to get the full $1.2 billion Gunn has requested, not the $762 million that a congressional committee has committed to.
“When the crisis was going on this summer, I did not feel good about our relationship with Amtrak, and I told them so. Now, particularly after today, I feel a lot better about it,” said Morales.
He said a conversation with Gunn aboard the train from Sacramento gave him more assurance that the Golden State will not be left with a multimillion dollar investment in rail but no Amtrak employees to run it.
Still, as part of Gunn’s reorganization of the crippled rail corporation, he eliminated the Amtrak West division and moved its Oakland-based chief, Gil Mallory, to Washington, D.C. Mallory said the Oakland office will continue as a branch and that his job is to replicate the Capitol Corridor plan in other parts of the country.
State and national rail officials think Congress will keep cost-bleeding long-haul service because national rail laws require that most laid-off Amtrak employees get six years’ worth of pay. Amtrak would not save money by wiping out that long-distance service, and Gunn said Friday that Congress must decide whether it wants to keep a national system intact or not. He would prefer it did. Gunn and Mallory said Amtrak has no immediate interest in California’s proposal to build a $25 billion high-speed rail network linking the Bay Area and Southern California.
California voters will consider a bond next year to build that system and Congress is weighing a bill to provide federal money for high-speed train systems. Amtrak officials said they were focused on keeping the current system alive.