(The following article by Don Phillips was posted on the International Herald Tribune website on November 16.)
PARIS — Nowhere in the world do the railroaders who supervise and run freight trains and those who operate passenger trains truly get along well. Throughout the world, one group dominates operations, and the other gets the crumbs. One group is nervous about losing dominance, and the other lusts for it.
In Europe, the passenger train is the king of the hill. Even the European Union is having difficulty getting European railroads to accept an EU policy pushing transfer of freight from road to rail.
In the United States, it’s the opposite. Freight is king. Outside the Washington-New York-Boston corridor, freight is actually more than king. Passenger trains out in the heartland of America survive only because freight railroads do not want the bad publicity that would come with the death of the passenger train. Freight railroads therefore have a policy of containment for passengers. If they could get away with it, the freight railroads would crush the passenger train tomorrow. Or so it seemed.
But a funny thing has happened. David Gunn, the president of Amtrak, was fired last week by a new Amtrak board of directors, all conservative Republican businessmen despite a requirement that there be a mix of Republicans and Democrats on the board. Not a single member of the board, recently appointed by President George W. Bush, had any railroad experience.
Oddly, Gunn was on his way to see the board chairman, David Laney, when he was fired. He came to see Laney with good news, but he never got to deliver it: Amtrak was doing better than ever; ridership was up, and the deficit was declining.
Gunn actively opposed some of the policies being pushed by the board and by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, the only Democrat in Bush’s cabinet. Gunn was particularly opposed to splitting operation of the Washington-Boston corridor from the rest of Amtrak. Although Gunn is one of the most professional and effective presidents Amtrak has ever had, he is not a politician. He speaks his mind. His working life has been spent on railroads and transit systems. He is credited, among things, with cleaning up the crime- and graffiti-ridden New York subway system.
Gunn’s dismissal sparked an uproar in Congress. Hearings were held this week, and Republicans and Democrats alike deplored the move.
To the surprise of many, the dominant freight railroads also weighed in – on the side of Gunn, a fellow professional.
Technically, there are several major shareholders in Amtrak, including the large freight railroads that once operated passenger trains. They have long since written the stock down to zero and all but forgotten about it. But suddenly they were using it for leverage.
“As a longstanding shareholder of Amtrak,” said Richard Russack, a vice president for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the second-largest U.S. railroad, “we would hope that the board would give us the opportunity to review their actions. We do have the right, as a common-stock shareholder, to vote on whatever action they’re going to take.”
In other words, who wants amateurs operating on their railroad?
There is no telling how this dispute will turn out. But clearly Mineta and the Amtrak board have made powerful enemies in Congress and among the freight railroads. Consumer groups have come down on them. State governments are weighing in. Even the railroad unions, who squabbled constantly with Gunn, have blasted the Amtrak board and the Bush administration.
And even Mineta found himself being called names. The Democrat who once advocated tax increases for road construction was already under fire from many who felt he had become ineffective. Larry Kaufman, an influential columnist who has been a part of railroading for decades, including a stint as a railroad vice president, has called for Mineta’s resignation.
“With Norman Mineta’s depth of experience and knowledge, he should be transportation’s principal advocate – to the country and inside the government,” Kaufman wrote in Argus Rail Business, a specialist magazine, last month.
Perhaps Mineta has accomplished one thing: solid support for Amtrak everywhere but the White House.