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Elimination of all long-distance trains-and retention of all other Amtrak service-ultimately would reduce Amtrak's operating grant requirement by $300 million, or less than one third of what Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta yesterday said the long-distance trains lose. Speaking at the Mobile train station, Mineta said "all 15 of Amtrak's long distance trains combined lost more than $908 million in 2004."

The lower, $300 million figure was in written testimony by DOT Inspector General Ken Mead, for a May 12 Senate appropriations hearing. At that hearing, Amtrak Chairman David Laney similarly testified that, although the trains lose about $600 million, so many costs--such as for shared facilities--would be reallocated to short-distance services that actual savings from eliminating long-distance trains ultimately would be only half that amount, or $300 million.

DOT General Counsel Jeffrey Rosen, also a witness at that hearing, did not disagree with Mead or Laney about this. Rosen did, however, directly contradict other information now on DOT's website.

In an apparent attempt to make Amtrak and all of its trains look as bad as possible, DOT has posted a list of trains and alleged 2004 losses. The losses for all routes add to $1.5 billion, even though Amtrak's federal grant was only $1.2 billion, and half of that went for capital projects ($355 million) and debt service ($276 million).

The DOT table shows these Northeast Corridor losses: Northeast Regional trains $214 million; Acela Express $63 million; Metroliner $10 million; Clockers $13 million.

At the May 12 hearing, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) noted that President Bush had included in his budget $360 million for the Surface Transportation Board [in event of an Amtrak shutdown]. She said this could only be used for commuter trains using Amtrak facilities, and could not be used for Amtrak trains, even those in the Northeast Corridor.

Rosen disagreed: "It would require a legal determination as to whether Amtrak trains could be called commuter. Northeast Corridor trains do operate break even, so it is not a given that those trains would cease." So, do the trains break even as Rosen told Senator Murray, or do they lose $300 million as the DOT website claims?

Also in Mobile, Mineta said the Alaska Railroad is a good model for Amtrak's long-distance trains. However, Alaska's big run is just 350 miles and 12 hours, through some of the world's most spectacular scenery.  At best, Mineta seriously overstated the relevance of Alaska to the issues Amtrak faces.

In 23 states, long-distance trains are the only passenger trains; Laney--and Senator Lott--have testified to the problems of funding any system where so many states would lack service. Moreover, Mobile is an anomaly in this sense: almost every other major city Amtrak serves has much higher ridership, either because service is at least daily (rather than tri-weekly) or comes at a better time of day, or both.

   The Wall Street Journal has been running a survey on its web site at www.wsj.com, asking viewers whether they favor increasing Amtrak funding, keeping it about the same, decreasing it or cutting it out entirely.

  With its fiscally conservative audience, the WSJ would be expected to produce results favoring the elimination of the Amtrak budget. However, as of the latest viewing, the results were as follows:

  Increase it: 66%
  Keep it the same: 8%
  Decrease it: 4%
  Cut it out: 22%.

Thus by about 3/4 to 1/4, WSJ viewers favored increasing funds for Amtrak or keeping them the same. Total votes were 5737. The poll is not a scientific poll.

LONG DISTANCE TRAINS GET ADDED SLEEPER SPACE FOR SUMMER

   Western long distance trains will be equipped with an added sleeping car for the heavy summer travel season, which begins with the Memorial Day weekend. In addition, Amtrak announced that the California Zephyr and the Capitol Limited will have sleeping car space available in the transition dorm car at the front of the train.

   Roomette space in the transition cars, which primarily hold crew members, will be sold to the public. The rooms are numbered 17-24. Passengers using them will be provided with all the usual first-class amenities. They will use different washrooms and showers than crew members use. 

   Train 5 will have the space available May 26-Sep 6. Train 6 will have it May 29-Sep 9. Train 29's dates are June 10-Sep 6 and 30's are June 11-Sep 7. Rail advocates are in the past urged Amtrak to sell this space to increase capacity, something that could be accomplished without the addition of more cars.

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ACELA BRAKE CRACKS WERE FOUND AS LONG AS 3 YEARS AGO

   Testimony before a House committee on May 11 revealed that the hairline cracks in Acela disk brake spokes that have sidelined the high- speed trains for several months were found in inspections in Philadelphia as long as 36 months ago.

   However, the report of the finding apparently was not passed on to higher Amtrak officials. 

  In addition, testimoney revealed that inspections should have been made every 12,500 miles, but were being performed much more infrequently. The inspection recommendation was not passed along to Amtrak mechanics because of a glitch in translating shop manuals from one European subcontractor to another.

  FRA Acting Administrator Robert D. Jamison also told the Congressmen that it was simply by chance that one of his inspectors noticed a hairline crack, which led him to look for more. He said that we were lucky that the cracks were found because a serious accident could have resulted if a brake rotor assembly failed. It could have caused a train axle to crack, derailing the train.