(The Boston Herald posted the following story by Doug Hanchett on its website on May 27.)
BOSTON — Earlier this month, Melrose native David Gunn completed his first year at the helm of Amtrak, the beleaguered national passenger railroad he was hired to save from financial ruin. He sat down with the Herald on the eve of his one-year anniversary to talk trains and reflect on his days at the MBTA in the mid-1970s, during which he said state transportation officials “thought I was a madman.”
The following is an edited transcript of the interview.
— How do you view your first year on the job?
I didn’t have a lot of high expectations. It’s not like I came in thinking we were going to be declaring a dividend (laughing). I’ve had more pleasant surprises than unpleasant, that’s for sure . . . when I look back, I think we’ve made progress. I’m basically an optimist . . . I think I’m a realist (too), but I didn’t take the job to close the place down, that’s for sure.
— Talk about the decision to walk away from the operation of the MBTA’s commuter rail.
What happened with the T is they put (the contract out to bid) . . . and we said it was the type of contract we couldn’t bid on. It was bad business from our point of view. It was just a bad deal.
— Was the T contract a money maker for Amtrak or not?
It was basically break-even for us. There was no large sum of money that we were making. I think when the dust settles, we won’t be any better off or any worse off (without it).
— How is the transition to the new contractor going?
It seems to be going very well. I just wrote a letter to (MBTA General Manager) Mike (Mulhern) . . . and based upon what he’s telling me, it’s going great. By the end of next month, we’ll be out of there . . . If there’s a problem, that has not been communicated to me.
— What’s your assessment of the Acela Express? It’s been struggling over the past year.
There’s two ways of looking at it. From a passenger’s point of view it’s been pretty successful. In terms of the train sets themselves, we’ve had a series of problems . . . (and) there are other problems beginning to occur . . . (but) our mechanical people are basically optimistic that can be made into a good train set.
— You mentioned that Acela’s been a success with the passengers, but ridership has been slipping and on-time performance has been slipping.
Yeah, but you’ve got to watch why on-time performance slips. . . . If you look at the on-time performance, it’s certain slots, certain trains (having trouble). Some trains get clobbered all the time and it’s basically the capacity isues we have getting in and out of Penn Station and (through southern Connecticut), where they’re doing a lot of track work . . . From New Haven in to Stamford they have a track out of service, so it’s a real nightmare. And if anything goes wrong – for us or for them – you’re late. So don’t jump to the conclusion that that’s the (fault of the) train.
— If you had to give the Acela a grade, what would it be?
A letter grade for what – reading, writing, math?
— For passengers.
Oh, I’d give it a high mark . . . It’s a good train. The passengers like it.