This Was The Week That Was, Vol. I No. 17, 2001-11-14
Version XVII-A - This Was The Week That Was - An Amtrak Saga
November 14, 2001
It’s the middle of Week One of Soon To Be Life After Amtrak as we know it.
Did you notice how fresh the air smells now? Did you notice the world, after all, is a wonderful place? What will Amtrak, Jr. be like?
- It’s a sure bet that present and soon-to-be former Amtrak senior management is going to make a last ditch public relations stand to try and save their jobs. This bunch won’t give up easily.
Beyond the sophomoric public statement the company issued Friday in response to the ARC, you can probably expect an assault directly on the ARC, its legitimacy, its mandate, and its findings. It’s even possible they will try to file a lawsuit in court to stop the ARC finding.
There is a possibility of economic terrorism from Amtrak senior management. They may try to hold individual routes hostage, saying they will file discontinuance notices on routes they deem unprofitable. At the least, they may start slashing frequencies to less than daily status as a result, probably claiming that the company can’t exist another 10 days by maintaining daily service for the national system.
Probably, they have already started lobbying individual congressmen and senators (more likely senators than congressmen since the Democrats are in charge in the Senate) to try and overturn the ARC finding and have Congress ignore it.
Most likely, they are allowing rumors to run rampant in the company concerning untruths about the ARC and the findings. It is highly likely they will fan these flames to try and sway public opinion their way.
Stay tuned. It’s going to be fascinating watching this show. This has become a sad caricature of aged politicians who have not yet become statesmen who stay just one term too long in office, and end up being thrown out of office instead of gracefully departing when things still looked good.
The saddest part is that we, the traveling public, are paying the price for this. Hubris can be very, very expensive for those paying the tab.
- Now that the exact findings of the ARC have been made public, its astonishing to read what was found by that august body. Rarely in any single lifetime is such strong language and outright condemnation used in Washington circles to describe anything short of an alleged criminal enterprise. Many have been shocked by the language; the old gentlemen’s club didn’t kick in this time.
This brings several subjects into the glare of the spotlight. For some, it is a confirmation of many things that have been said, almost word for word, for years. For others, it’s a nasty, total surprise.
Why was the condition of Amtrak so evident to some, and yet so out of focus for others?
One of the reasons was public relations. When public relations professionals are good at what they do, the public can be led to believe almost anything. If enough people say it often enough, then it must be true. There has also been the question of blind allegiance.
Many thought Amtrak was the only game in town, and without it, the world of passenger trains would come to an end. As a result, many coyly averted their eyes as sure signs came boiling up to the surface, and kept hoping against hope that everyone else was wrong and the world was a good place.
How sad and how wrong.
An unelected group of people who were placed in power by a board of directors that was appointed against almost every dictate of the law that created it were allowed to run unchecked chasing a failing business plan. Only through extremely well done public relations efforts and the duplicity of other organizations and opinion makers was this sham allowed to continue.
Some averted reality because of friendships, others averted because of pitiful perks that turned out to be meaningless in the long run. For whatever reason, a lot of people got away with a lot of things using our money for a losing purpose.
Did they “give it the old college try and just failed?” Hardly. Any recent college graduate that read the ARC report will realize that ego, eccentricity, and hubris were the driving forces. A blatant disregard for anyone in disagreement was obvious, and many paid the price, including with lost jobs, lower retirement incomes, and even heart attacks.
We, as the public, will continue to pay the price with the $3 billion debt that Amtrak racked up in the last few years. Not to mention the rolling stock that is gone, the mortgage on Penn Station in New York, and the 25% of the $2.2 billion TRA money that has been identified as misused and misspent.
Plus, there is one enduring legacy that is not going to go away easily. The public and many members of government have been falsely led to believe that the American public is only clamoring for corridor trains, that “money losing” long distance trains are dinosaurs that should be put to sleep.
It’s time to stop this nonsensical thinking and focus on the truth.
The truth is that long distance trains are not “money losers.” They produce high amounts of income. For years, the subsidy to Amtrak has been conveniently close to almost the exact amount of subsidy that was needed to keep the NEC afloat. For years the national system supplied cash that kept the NEC and other short hauls alive.
The truth needs to be told far and wide. The truth is that long distance trains are viable, and more than just as a public service. Long distance trains are desirable and a legitimate form of transportation.
Corridor trains are good, too, but they must be taken in the context that they are much closer to being a social service than anything else. As a result, they have higher costs directly associated with them and a different type of return than long distance trains.
In short, both are good, each in their own way. Both must be financed differently, and both must be held to unique standards. You can’t judge one based on the other. Long distance travel and social utility are two very different concepts. While they may both share the same rails, each is unique.
So, the next time you hear someone say that corridors are the future and long distance trains are the past, remember where you heard that first. It was from a discredited management that has been shown to have failed miserably at running a passenger railroad and determining national policy. If you now realize we don’t believe what they said on so many different things, how can any rational person believe them for what they said about corridors and long distance trains?
That’s enough for now. Things are moving at a fast pace in Washington. It’s going to be a fascinating holiday season.