(The following story by Jennifer Brooks appeared on the Delaware News Journal website on March 30.)
WILMINGTON, D.C. — Few members of Congress have a more personal stake in Amtrak’s future than the three lawmakers from Delaware who ride the train to work.
“It’s like an extension of my office,” said Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., settling in for the 90-minute commute from Wilmington to Washington. He placed his briefcase on an empty seat nearby and settled in with his files, cell phone, BlackBerry and paperwork. On an average morning, he can polish off four newspapers before the train passes Baltimore.
“I spend a good part of my life on trains,” he said. “I like to get some work done in the process.”
But the passenger rail system that carried 25 million riders, 700,000 of them Delawareans, last year, is under attack. Unless Castle and his colleagues can restore Amtrak’s gutted federal budget, the system faces bankruptcy and shutdown.
“It drives me crazy that people think I want to save Amtrak just because I use the system,” Castle said. He wants to save Amtrak because it is a vital link in the nation’s transportation net, one that can help reduce road congestion and air pollution, he said. Castle could drive to Washington, and sometimes he does, but he’d rather ride. The drive along gridlocked I-95 takes longer, and he can’t get any paperwork done.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., once estimated that he has spent three years of his Senate career on trains. All those hours in transit give the delegation a unique perspective on Amtrak.
“The first time I rode the Acela, it was like an out-of-body experience,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., a train buff since the age of 6 and past member of the Amtrak board. The high-speed trains have helped boost ridership to record levels along Amtrak’s northeastern corridor, which runs through Wilmington and cuts the trip from Washington to Boston to about five hours.
The delegation’s days revolve around the train schedule. Carper and Castle keep district offices a block from the train station. Biden frets about the holes he’s observed in the rail safety system, and has worked up doomsday scenarios involving the House of Representatives and a tanker car full of chlorine gas.
Castle knows where to find the best fast food in Union Station. Carper has given up correcting his fellow commuters when they call him “Congressman Castle” or “Senator Biden.”
On the last Monday before the congressional recess, Castle and Carper strolled into the station side by side, bound for a round of afternoon votes on the Hill.
On the platform, they bumped into Biden’s wife, Jill, who was also headed to Washington. Two Washington-bound trains pulled into the station and the delegation parted ways – Carper and Biden boarded the Acela, while Castle opted for the local.
Morning rush hour at the depot has the usual crowd of business commuters mixed in with families hitting the rails for Easter vacation. Overhead, an old-fashioned message board clatters softly, flipping to report arrivals and departures: the 7:15 a.m. Acela express, bound for Washington; the 8:58 a.m. regional to New York; the 9 a.m. Carolinian, bound for Charlotte, N.C.
College sophomore Kathy Bonelli, sporting a George Washington University sweat shirt, was heading back to school after spring break. James and Mildred Martin, who just spent a week visiting their great-grandchild, were about to board a train for the 11-hour trip home to South Carolina. Kelly Bridges is playing cards with her 6-year-old daughter, Jace, who was joining her on her commute to work in New York City.
The Martins take the train from their home in Florence, S.C., to Wilmington several times a year. The train is cheaper than a plane ticket and less of a hassle, and they come armed for the trip with blankets, reading material and a portable DVD player to pass the time.
“I hope they keep Amtrak running,” James Martin said. “People need these trains. Everybody can’t afford to fly.”
Commuter rail travel is on the increase in Delaware. According to the Delaware Department of Transportation, ridership has almost doubled in the past decade, from 419,000 in 1994 to 783,000 last year.
“Quite frankly, the Acelas are one of the reasons our company decided to relocate here,” said Bridges, who lives in Kennett Square, Pa., and works for a magazine publishing company. She can make the trip between her office in Wilmington and the main office in New York in an hour and 40 minutes by high-speed rail. The quick commute allows workers to live in places like Wilmington, where the cost of living is lower than New York and – she says – the standard of living is higher.
But Amtrak’s growing popularity couldn’t save it from the budget ax. President Bush left Amtrak out of his budget plan for 2006, and last week the Senate followed suit, voting to eliminate the railway’s $1.2 billion federal subsidy. Their budget proposal includes just $300 million to maintain Amtrak’s main commuter corridor, the Boston-to-Washington line, if Amtrak goes bankrupt.
The Bush administration hopes to turn the passenger system over to the states, which would, in theory, turn over daily operations to private companies, who might finally be able to turn a profit on Amtrak.
Skeptics scoff at the idea that cash-strapped states would want to shoulder responsibility for running the rail service.
“It’s not a matter of choosing between the highways or [the railways]. As a former highway engineer, I can tell you, we need both,” said Thomas Caramanico, a member of the CEO Council for Growth, an alliance of business executives from northern Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. The council estimates that 6 million people in the region ride Amtrak, traffic that would be forced onto already crowded roads if the rails shut down.
Amtrak supporters are vowing to fight to restore its budget when the House reconvenes in April.