2001 news archives

Photo gallery

Subscription info

Rail gift shop

Rail Travel News is a twice-monthly print publication, published since Dec 10, 1970.
Publisher: Message Media Company,
PO Box 9007,
Berkeley CA 94709.
Website copyright © 1997-2005 by Message Media Co.

Contact us
Site map

   Under his "Reform" plan Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta
proposes a zero budget for Amtrak for FY 2006. This will force Amtrak into bankruptcy, and make it discontinue (in Mineta's view) "running
trains nobody rides between cities nobody wants to travel between".
Mineta claims a better Amtrak will emerge, focused entirely on short-distance corridors. But this plan actually assures there will be
no interstate train service in the United States!

Yet his view of corridors seems short-distanced indeed! On March 31 he cited the 47 mile San Jose-San Francisco Caltrain commuter service as
a "model" for the new Amtrak! Even such routes as the heavily used PACIFIC SURFLINER from San Luis Obispo to San Diego would not fit
within such a localized Amtrak! He hints that the Bush administration might provide 50/50 Federal matching dollars to help the states with
capital costs (although none of this is funded in the FY 2006 Federal budget), but there will be no Federal money for actual train operations.

The Mineta plan will be a debacle for many reasons. Its greatest weakness is that makes the false assumption that Amtrak should
function as a series of isolated corridors, because of Mineta's belief that Amtrak's long-distance trains are unused. The facts eloquently prove that to be false. These trains produced the majority of Amtrak's 2004 passenger miles, 2.7 billion, compared to the Northeast Corridor's 1.7 billion. (A passenger-mile is one passenger traveling
one mile.) These trains also provided essential connecting traffic to the very short-haul routes that Mineta favors.

Amtrak carried an all-time record ridership of 25,000,000 in FY 2004. The long-distance trains did particularly well. The New York-Florida
route served 738,200 passengers; the Chicago- Seattle/Portland EMPIRE BUILDER 437,200; the Seattle-Los Angeles COAST STARLIGHT 415,600; the Chicago-San Francisco CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR 335,800 and even the much maligned Chicago-San Antonio TEXAS EAGLE carried 234,000. Typically only 10-20 % of passengers are on-board for a train's full run. Most ride between the countless intermediate cities and towns, or connect to other towns Mineta sees as "nowhere" at Amtrak's hubs. Amtrak's
trains provide the only public transportation at hundreds of communities.

The Mineta plan fails all tests. The multi-state compacts required to subsidize actual operations will prove unimaginably difficult to reach. In order to continue the very heavily-used COAST STARLIGHT from Los Angeles to Seattle a three-state compact would be required. The
CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR and SOUTHWEST CHIEF east-west services would require
agreements by no less than seven states for each train! Mineta cynically says if a state refuses to pay trains will pass through with the doors locked. If Oregon refused to pay, would the trains skip
Portland? How will the states find this money? We know the states are already broke.

Costs will explode when the states have to pay all costs for operation, reservations, ticketing and equipment maintenance. Even California's successful corridors will collapse, as Amtrak directly funds massive expenses that would fall to the state under the Mineta plan. The San Luis Obispo-Los Angeles-San Diego line is a classic
example. 80% of the "Surfliner" cars belong to Amtrak and would have to be purchased and maintained entirely at California's expense.
Amtrak funds over 30% of all operating costs for the Los Angeles-San Diego portion of this route as a part of its mandated basic system.

Under the most optimistic possible outcome of the Mineta plan, isolated local trains would run in no more than 8-12 states. Such a reformed Amtrak "network" would never win a vote in Congress, which is exactly what Mineta really intends.

Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has eloquently framed the reality of the Amtrak debate by stating that Amtrak will either
provide a nationwide service or it will cease to exist. We have a Federal government because there are issues like Amtrak which transcend state lines. Amtrak is remarkably well-used. Patronage is growing despite virtually no Federal capital support, and the case for properly funding Amtrak is overwhelming. The carrier is pleading for
less than 2 billion dollars per year, in contrast with total US highway spending of over $145 billion (40% of which is not recovered from gas taxes). Under the Mineta plan it will truly be "All Aboard
for nowhere"!
  Carl Fowler is Vice-President/General Manager of
Rail Travel Center. He has worked full-time promoting travel on Amtrak and other railways since November 1982. Mr. Fowler served for over a decade on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Railroad Passengers and was a member of Amtrak's Travel AgencyComputer Advisory Committee. He has addressed the National Press Club on Amtrak and train travel and has ridden over 350,000 miles by train. Rail Travel Center is located in Putney, Vermont. Its web site is
www.railtravelcenter.com.

   The westbound Portland section of Amtrak's Empire Builder, train 27, derailed Sunday morning along the Columbia River in Washington State 20 miles west of the Bingen-White Salmon station.
   The link below goes to the announcement of this on the Amtrak Web site. 
Click here