(The following article by Jennifer McKee was posted on the Billings Gazette website on June 27.)
HELENA, Mont. — Willie Zeller lives 145 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart. If he gets sick and needs treatment not available at the Glasgow hospital, he’s looking at a 275-mile road trip to Billings.
The lifeline for Zeller and the 3,300 other people who live in Glasgow where Zeller serves as mayor is Amtrak.
“Every day, there’s people getting off and on,” he said. Last year, riders got off and on Amtrak’s Empire Builder in Glasgow more than 6,000 times, enough for almost every person in town to ride the train twice.
But the federal money needed to keep Amtrak and the Empire Builder running may not come next year. President Bush has recommended spending no money on the federally owned rail service. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is taking up a bill that allocates no money for long Amtrak routes like the Empire Builder, while slashing so much money from other Amtrak operations, the president of the railroad has said it would likely have to close down altogether.
Leaders around Montana have rallied to keep the Empire Builder running, launching several “whistle stop” tours this spring on the line, which runs from Chicago to Portland and Seattle, cutting across Montana’s Hi-Line and northwest corner.
“Right now, the Empire Builder is the only mass transit out of Glasgow,” Zeller said. Sick people take the train to the Mayo Clinic for treatment. People take it to go on vacation. The local florist shop gets her flowers in on Amtrak.
Anyone who would think of pulling the plug on the Empire Builder “has no idea at all” what it’s like to live in a county with more antelope than people, where the closest Wal-Mart is in Williston, N.D. he said.
“That’s a ridiculous plan,” Zeller said.
Norman Mineta, the U.S. Transportation Secretary, told Montana reporters this month the long-term plan for the railroad is to allow states to enter into agreements with the federal government to keep Amtrak in their states. The states would have to pay to run the train, but could enter into 50-50 matches with the federal government to update rail lines and pay for other infrastructure. States could also decide where the trains will run.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer criticized the plan, saying there’s no way a small, rural state like Montana forbidden by law from running a budget deficit can pay to operate the federal rail system within its borders.
In April, Amtrak suggested its own plan. The rail line asked for $1.8 billion for fiscal year 2006. It also called for states to enter into agreements with the federal government to expand Amtrak with an 80-20 federal match grant program.
Under that plan, said Marc Magliari, a Chicago-based spokesman for the agency, Montana could choose to expand a southern line of Amtrak to include cities like Billings, Bozeman and Missoula in rail service.
A southern Amtrak route called the North Coast Hiawatha used to run through the state, connecting Billings and Missoula. The route ended in 1979 as a cost-cutting measure, Magliari said.
A U.S. House committee recommended spending $550 million for Amtrak, but none of that money could be spent on longer routes like the Empire Builder. That’s down from the $1.8 billion the railroad requested in April and less than half the $1.2 billion the railroad received in the 2005 fiscal year. The full House is set to take up the $550 million proposed Amtrak budget this week.
Amtrak President David Gunn has said $550 million is not enough money to operate any Amtrak lines.
U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., has twice tried unsuccessfully to replace money for the railroad or exclude the Empire Builder from cuts.
Rehberg – as well as Sens. Conrad Burns and Max Baucus – has vowed fight to keep the Empire Builder in operation.
“Amtrak cannot run like a business,” Rehberg said in an interview Friday. “It is a public service. Similarly, you don’t expect the airline industry to pay for everything. It’s the same thing with highways. Highway funding is not run like a business.”
Rehberg said the canceling of Amtrak’s budget in Bush’s recommendations stems from the president’s basic philosophical stance. Bush strongly believes in the free market, Rehberg said, a position Rehberg said he shares with the president on most things.
But transportation is different.
“I don’t put transportation in that category,” he said. “We need to have the opportunity to move our people around and move our products around.”
Montana wouldn’t be as modern as it is with Interstate highways crossing the state and electrical and telephone lines out to every far-flung farmhouse without government help.
“That’s why Montana is in the 21st century along with the rest of the states,” he said.
Ultimately, Rehberg said the House probably won’t restore Amtrak’s money, but he’s hopeful the U.S. Senate will do so.
“We’re a long ways from losing Amtrak,” he said.
Baucus has already asked Senate colleagues to allocate enough money to keep Amtrak as it is.
“This isn’t going to fly in the Senate,” Baucus said last week. “Amtrak is a vital lifeline to our Hi-Line communities.”
James Pendleton, a Burns spokesman, said Burns is also going to work to restore the railroad’s funding.
“Anything we can do to protect Amtrak is good,” he said.
For Sheila Bowen, president and chief executive officer of the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce, the Empire Builder is not only a source of economic growth for the Western Montana town, but a part of Montana’s history.
“Whitefish’s heritage is as a railroad town,” she said.
Today, the town is home to Amtrak’s busiest station in the state, with more than 56,000 riders getting off and on the train in Whitefish in 2004. Many are regional skiers who can take the train to Whitefish and Glacier National Park for downhill and cross-country skiing without braving icy winter roads, she said. Others are locals who take the train to Spokane, Wash., or Seattle for trips.
Losing Amtrak, she said, “would definitely hit our economic status; it would definitely have a ripple-down effect.”