WASHINGTON — A wire service reports that a top U.S. senator said on Monday he did not favor a break-up of Amtrak as a way to achieve efficient U.S. passenger rail service.
Sen. Ernest Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, told Reuters that funding Amtrak capital needs was a good starting point to put the money-losing railroad on a sound footing.
Hollings, whose panel would be responsible in the Senate for guiding any reauthorization of Amtrak service in 2003, expressed doubts about a plan submitted to Congress last week that would split the railroad into three companies.
“I would not look for division,” Hollings said. “The federal highway system is not divided,” he said referring to road development which received more than $30 billion in federal funding this year. Amtrak received $521 million.
Created by Congress to oversee Amtrak’s finances and recommend restructuring, the Amtrak Reform Council proposed the railroad be broken into a federally run oversight company and two subsidiaries.
One unit would run the trains for a transition period of three to five years after which Amtrak routes could be bid to private companies if they are not being run efficiently.
The other division would own and maintain the Northeast Corridor, the heavily traveled route from Boston to Washington, which is profitable and is Amtrak’s most-prized asset.
“I don’t know why they divided it up like that,” Hollings said of the council’s plan to split the corridor from rail operations. “You’ve got to have one reliable system that’s funded.
Amtrak has never turned a profit in its 30-year history. Heavily indebted and loaded with money-losing routes, the service lost $1.1 billion in 2001.
Hollings, who was instrumental last year in averting development of a liquidation proposal for Amtrak, favors plans that would grant Amtrak billions of dollars in bonding authority to fund capital improvements.