WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Amtrak’s Auto Train derailed in Florida on April 18, a top Amtrak official said the corporation was “one wreck away” from losing so many passenger cars that it could not keep all its long-distance trains running, the Washington Post reported.
That one wreck-too-many happened yesterday near Kensington.
“This will impact us,” Amtrak President David L. Gunn said. “We’re scratching our heads on what to do now.”
Gunn, who has been Amtrak president for about three months, said the Kensington wreck leaves Amtrak in a serious bind. Before the Capitol Limited derailed yesterday, the corporation had barely enough of the double-decker Superliner cars it uses to keep the whole system running.
At Kensington, two sleepers, two coaches and a crew dormitory car were damaged but can be repaired. Three cars, however — a diner, a lounge car and a coach — were totaled and will be cut up for scrap, according to an Amtrak official.
Amtrak has more than enough passenger cars to handle all its long-distance trains and to run a few more. But many of those cars have been damaged in wrecks, and the cash-strapped corporation has been storing wrecked cars at the Beech Grove Shops in Indianapolis rather than repairing them.
More than 230 of the 800 employees at Beech Grove have been laid off. Most of the cutbacks took place over the past few years as then-President George Warrington made a futile effort to meet Congress’s mandate to become “operationally self-sufficient” by next year.
More than 100 wreck-damaged cars are at Beech Grove and other shops. Amtrak is considering a proposal to spend $15.9 million to repair 51 cars during fiscal 2003, including 34 Superliner cars. According to Amtrak records, the wrecked Superliner cars in the program include 10 coaches, 11 sleepers, six lounge cars, five dining cars and two crew dormitory cars.
The estimated cost for repairing each car ranges from $130,000 for a diner involved in the April Auto Train wreck to $873,000 for a sleeper damaged in a Dec. 20, 1998, wreck at Arlington, Tex.
The Superliners were involved in a total of 15 wrecks dating to 1993. Many of the wrecks were minor but left the cars with enough damage to prevent continued use without repairs.
Gunn said that, coincidentally, he was holding a meeting with his top officials on what to do about the equipment shortage when word came of yesterday’s wreck. He said he ordered his chief mechanical officer to begin repairing dozens of wrecked cars as soon as possible rather than waiting for the next budget cycle.
“I told him, ‘Just start. We are in real trouble,’ ” Gunn said.
Laid-off employees must be rehired, parts must be ordered and an orderly repair process must be set up, Gunn said.
The Northeast Corridor will not be affected by the problem because there is not a shortage of the single-level coaches used on it. In fact, there are enough double-decker Superliner coaches to serve the long-distance trains. The trouble is that there is a severe shortage of dining cars, lounge cars and sleepers.
Amtrak now must decide whether to re-equip what normally is a double-decker Superliner train with single-deck cars. That option is complicated by a shortage of low-level dining cars, lounges and sleepers. Another option would be to simply stop running one long-distance train for a while, “but I’m not sure we want to do that,” Gunn said.
“This is very depressing,” Gunn said.