(The following story by Knight Ridder News appeared in the Billings (Mont.) Gazette on Sept. 28.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On a trip aboard the Sunset Limited, Amtrak President David Gunn was once stranded in the remote West Texas city of Alpine.
A derailed freight train was blocking the tracks between Alpine and El Paso, Texas, so the Sunset Limited stopped in Alpine. Gunn and the other passengers were transferred to charter buses to finish the journey.
“Do you know how important Amtrak is in Alpine? In the middle of the desert, the mayor of Alpine was there at the station, helping us unload the train,” Gunn said recently.
The experience reinforced Gunn’s belief that long-distance passenger-train service is a crucial component of the U.S. transportation system.
Congress will soon decide whether to shut the trains down.
“There’s some obligation to provide transportation for these people,” Gunn said. “They pay taxes, too. Are they less important than the swells in Washington? It’s a couple hundred million dollars per year, and that provides mobility from town to town.”
Over the next few weeks, members of the House and Senate will debate Amtrak’s future. One option is to increase funding so Amtrak can modernize its equipment. Another option is to slash its federal funding and break Amtrak into regional segments that could be run by private companies and force states to finance the service.
“Whatever is going to happen is going to have to happen in the October time frame,” said Jack Schenendorf, a Washington-based transportation consultant and former chief of staff for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Shortly after Gunn took Amtrak’s top job in April 2002, he proclaimed that the rail service would never be profitable – a dramatic break from Amtrak’s traditional company line. Since Congress formed Amtrak as a for-profit corporation in 1971, the underlying assumption had been that it would eventually pay for itself.
But that has not occurred, and a growing number of critics argue that long-distance trains are obsolete and that subsidizing them is a waste of taxpayers’ money. Amtrak is receiving about $1 billion in federal funds this year. That money is used to help cover the costs of operating the rails and maintaining equipment on long- and short-distance trains and commuting corridors on the West Coast, in the upper Midwest and in the Northeast.
Despite the criticism, elected leaders have avoided shutting down Amtrak, which serves 500 cities in 46 states. For years, Congress has given Amtrak just enough money to keep going, but not enough to improve.
That practice is about to end, one way or the other, people on both sides of the debate agree. Amtrak will either improve or cease to exist, they say.
One prominent Amtrak critic, U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., says that continuing funding is slowing down the nation’s effort to build high-speed rail. Congress envisions a nationwide network of futuristic rail lines that move travelers at twice the speed of traditional trains. But developing such a system will take many years.
“I wouldn’t mind funding $100 billion if it could be done right. I could raise that in the private sector,” said Mica, who is pushing for a breakup of Amtrak. “If Amtrak is taken out of the way, and you make it high-speed, it could be a model for the country. Congress won’t have to fund it.”
What Congress will do this month or next is difficult to gauge. Among the options lawmakers will consider:
* A $900 million appropriation for Amtrak. Gunn would begin developing plans to shut down many routes, including the Texas Eagle, possibly by mid-2004. Under the Bush administration’s plan, Amtrak would be broken into regional routes, with areas of high ridership, such as the Northeast Corridor and the West Coast, managed separately. States would be responsible for covering Amtrak’s operating losses, or hiring other companies to provide rail service on specific routes.
* The Senate wants to give Amtrak $1.3 billion. Amtrak would have enough money to make it through early 2004, but would probably have to ask Congress for a supplemental allocation in the spring. Existing Amtrak service would remain intact.
* Gunn’s five-year plan calls for $1.8 billion for 2004, and a commitment for about $1.5 billion a year through 2008. The plan includes major improvements to Amtrak’s maintenance department, including the reconditioning of more than 100 rail cars that have been in disrepair for years. Amtrak would continue to operate the same routes it does today, but on better equipment.
* A $60 billion authorization over six years for an overhaul and conversion of Amtrak to a state-of-the-art system. U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Trent Lott, R-Miss., propose that Amtrak receive $12 billion in operating funds over six years plus $48 billion in capital bond funding. The capital money, which would be borrowed from investors, would be used to buy new equipment and lay hundreds of miles of railroad tracks in areas congested by freight traffic. The legislation is drawing considerable attention in Washington, but observers say that it would be such a dramatic change for Amtrak that it’s unlikely to be ready for a vote this year.
Many leaders in Texas cities say they are optimistic that Congress will choose one of the options that allows the long-distance trains to stay. Among them is former Mineola Mayor Celia Boswell, who fought to keep the Texas Eagle in her city in 1997.
“It’s amazing that Amtrak is always under attack,” she said. “It’s got so many enthusiastic backers. It’s got a lot of untapped potential.”
Amtrak’s opponents “just don’t get it,” Boswell said.