This Week At Amtrak 2005-06-05
Vol. 2, No. 11 - June 05, 2005
- “Well, Stanley,” Ollie said famously many times, “this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” Today it’s not that famous comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy, but rather that soon-to-be-infamous duo of Norman and David that is providing some early summer hijinks.
Yes, United States Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and Amtrak President and CEO David L. Gunn (the third of the Transit Trio of Tom Downs, George Warrington, and Mr. Gunn) are trading snide letters publicly fussing about the final $60 million of the FY 05 Amtrak free federal money. It seems that Secretary Mineta is worried, in his role as Amtrak’s banker and auditor, that Amtrak is spending more than it has for the last part of the fiscal year (not including the disputed $60 million), and Mr. Gunn is saying that the DOT already approved Amtrak having use of the $60 million, even though by law it had been set aside to cover contracted commuter operations if Amtrak should be shut down due to any reason.
Really, gentlemen, is this something that needs to be hashed out in the public arena? Was it really necessary for Mr. Mineta to write the letter and then issue a press release about it?
A recent brief survey by a travel agent looking for available space on summer departures on trains on the national system showed a dismal display of plenty of space available still for sale. Apparently, in spite of what one of Amtrak various attendant sycophant lapdog organizations is warning to its members, that is no shortage of space for summer travel, particularly in high revenue sleeping cars.
Once again, through self-generated or federal government generated negative publicity, Amtrak is shooting itself in its corporate foot with the traveling public, furthering the notion that Amtrak is about to go out of business and that it wouldn’t be prudent to pre-purchase tickets for the normally busy and sold-out summer season.
When is Amtrak going to learn this lesson? One has to only suppose that Amtrak is so accustomed to having free federal money to make up any deficits that it really doesn’t care how many revenue passenger miles are generated on the national system, as long as passengers keep boarding trains on the black hole commonly referred to as the Northeast Corridor.
- Amtrak’s monthly financial report to Congress for April (the last available report) shows, as expected, a huge dip in Acela revenues, of $14 million. However, there is a large increase in Metroliner and Northeast Regional services, of over $6 million. Amtrak reports that it lost nearly $8 million in expected revenues in April by the loss of Acela service. The true trend will show in the May numbers as to whether or not travelers are merely switching services or abandoning rail altogether for other types of common carrier travel.
Bombardier is now reporting that it expects to have some Acela trainsets running in June, with the entire Acela fleet back in service by the end of summer. Let’s hope that Amtrak continues to promote (and keep in the long term) its dependable Metroliner service; why take another chance on Wondertrain Acela tanking, yet again?
- Amtrak is launching many excellent service upgrades on the Empire Builder between Chicago and Seattle/Portland. Many of these upgrades (more in a later column) will make the Builder equal to or surpassing the Coast Starlight of years past.
But, as we all know, timing is everything, unless, of course, you’re the operating folks at Amtrak. The upgrades will be launched the first of August, less than a month before the end of the busy summer travel season. On an optimistic note, perhaps all of the kinks will be out of the system by the time of the months later busy winter ski season for the Empire Builder.