Amtrak? Or something else

Elsewhere in this blog, I’ve given you my thoughts on whether it is wise to keep Amtrak in its present form, or to look at something more creative. Today, we are still digesting President Trump’s vision for infrastructure in America, and what his proposals for spending mean for Amtrak. Will they mean the end of Amtrak as we have come to know it?

First, let’s go back to last year, when Mr. Trump nixed the proposed funding of new tunnels under the Hudson River and other infrastructure improvements for New York and New Jersey. Mr. Trump made it clear that his vision of spending on infrastructure did not include financing half the cost of a project that would basically benefit the people of only two states. Whether that assessment of benefit is true or not, it pointed in the direction of this month’s budget proposals for Amtrak.

In the budget released February 12, it is proposed that Amtrak’s federal funding be cut in half, with the difference between what is proposed and what Amtrak says it needs to be made up by the individual states that Amtrak serves. The budget particularly cites long-distance routes as being the targets for more state subsidy. Liberals are seeing this as draconian cuts that will most effect those blue states already heavily involved in subsidizing Amtrak routes. Conservatives either see this as not nearly far enough (the zero-subsidy crowd) or as a step towards more creative financing of long-distance trains.

I tend to fall in the latter group of conservatives, and do not even understand why anyone would think zero-subsidy is a good idea.

To make things more interesting, there’s something else going on here. On February 16, new Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson told a House subcommittee that Amtrak would cease operation over any railroad tracks that do not have Positive Train Control (PTC) installed by the end of the year. An additional threat is that Amtrak owns some tracks on which PTC is installed, but still carries other passenger agencies’ trains with no PTC on board. So, as of the end of 2018, Amtrak may embargo, for example, NJ Transit trains between Trenton, NJ, and New York; a likely outcome, since NJ Transit is known to be woefully behind in implementation of PTC.

So, at the beginning of 2019, or soon after, what will the “new” Amtrak look like:

First, there’s a strong likelihood that things will continue on their present course, with Amtrak changing little and continuing to go downhill like a slow-motion lava flow, as it has since its inception.

We may see Amtrak become a Northeast Regional railroad, serving the same areas it now serves in that area, but expanding to include many of the so-called commuter agencies that are just as “intercity” as is Amtrak in the Northeast. To do so, Amtrak would have to shed its long-distance lines and other owned corridors. We would then soon find out if the Northeast Corridor is truly as profitable as Amtrak says it is.

My guess is that states would buy the other corridors, Chicago-Detroit, for example, some parts of which they already own, and operate them as separate railroads. We may see Amtrak create a separate operating subsidy to run trains owned by the states.

Long distance is problematic. I can’t think of any railroad or business that would want to run a California Zephyr in its present format, or a Southwest Chief, and I see little hope that, for example, the seven states through which the Chief runs could reach a funding agreement they thought was equitable to operate the route in its entirety. Shorter routes, like the “silvers” to Florida, or the Coast Starlight, may lend themselves more readily to multi-state operation, because fewer states would have to agree on something.

Just a thought: If I were the Disney people, and knew that the long-distance routes, essentially more like cruise trains than actual transportation, were becoming available, I’d consider buying in. You could imagine an outfit like Disney injecting some pizzazz into the operation. “Take Disney Rail to your next Disney destination.” Sounds hot.

Then there are the freight railroads. No longer docile when it comes to handling Amtrak, it’s doubtful that they would be any more so in track availability with the states or with private operators unless those operators were, in fact, as financially gigantic as an international entertainment and leisure travel organization.

All this may be moot. Much of Congress hates the president and have already come out to say that Trump’s budget is dead in the water. Where that leaves anything for Amtrak is hard to see. Given enough spite, Congress may just double Amtrak funding to tick off Trump and reinstate the Gateway project as well.

None of us has a crystal ball.

A few things I can say for sure: A major positive change in the way Amtrak does its business would be good for passenger rail and good for the country. Nickel and dime, airline style fees like those hinted at by Mr. Anderson to improve the bottom line wouldn’t get me to ride Amtrak if I didn’t already like trains. Cutting long distance routes makes as much sense as cutting off an infected limb to save the life of a patient without giving the patient a prosthesis to help him or her recover.

And throwing more money at Amtrak without major positive change is like throwing money at the above-mentioned lava flow. The money will get burned up long before the lava stops going downhill.

©2018 – C. A. Turek – mistertrains@gmail.com

(Charles A. Turek is a writer and novelist based in Albuquerque, NM. After four decades working in areas of the insurance industry related to transportation, he now writes on all aspects of American railroading. Charles is a political conservative but believes in public funding of passenger rail as a part of the federal government’s constitutionally conservative obligation to provide for defense and public infrastructure so that private enterprise may flourish.)