United Rail Passenger Alliance

Vol. 2, No. 23 - August 29, 2005

1. Hurricanes and trains just don’t mix well together. While there is an illustrious history of passenger railroads trying to evacuate refugees from storms (often with disastrous results for both the refugees and train crews and equipment, too), these days that’s not going to happen.

   In what seems like a lifetime ago, this writer was evacuated from a short vacation in Miami in 1979 when Hurricane David threatened Florida. We were told we had a mandatory evacuation of the neighborhood where we were staying. Having arrived on Amtrak just two days before, the first impulse was to call Amtrak for available space on the next train north to home in
   Jacksonville. That train turned out to be that same day’s Floridian, and there were only a couple of seats left. By the end of the conversation, there were two less seats.

   Arriving at the then-new Miami/Hialeah station, Bill Grimmer, the man in charge of Miami Amtrak in those days was seated in his second floor office, overlooking the waiting room. Always friendly, he said that Amtrak was sending everything north possible and accommodating as many people as possible. He was staying in Miami, running things in Florida.

   The Floridian, packed to the rafters with passengers, left Miami on time, and it was the last train of the day out of Dodge; David was due that evening.

   Those days are long gone. Now, railroads, ever mindful of lawsuits and safety of their own employees, shut down at the threat of hurricanes. Every crossing arm at every grade crossing is considered a potential projectile in a hurricane. All are either removed or manually secured against the wind. That leaves crossings with no protection other than the common sense of drivers, and we all know how non-existent that can be. Too, employees now more want to take care of their homes and families than report for work. Times have changed.

   New Orleans on Monday was spared a direct hit by Hurricane Katrina, but it still had enough potential that the entire city was placed under a mandatory evacuation by its mayor. Around 80% of the city’s population wisely left. Amtrak, too, didn’t stick around. The Crescent terminated in Atlanta, 12 hours away from New Orleans. The City of New Orleans terminated in Memphis, about eight hours north of New Orleans. And the Sunset was held at San Antonio, 13 hours away to the west.

   On the previous Friday, when Katrina stormed across South Florida, all Florida service was terminated in Orlando, halfway up the state from the maintenance and crew bases in Miami.

   Sadly, once again, Amtrak overreacted, and acted in the best interests of its operating department rather than that of passengers. In every instance, when trains were terminated, no alternate transportation was provided for ticketed passengers. Basically, people were left to fend for themselves.

   Now, reality says that if you’ve ever been part of a hurricane evacuation, especially in a limited space like Florida, it’s no picnic, and there’s not much maneuvering room. It probably would be difficult if not impossible to provide alternate transportation to cities where evacuations were being ordered. That’s just reality.

   However, let’s take a couple of examples and see what Amtrak could have done differently. The Sunset was stopped in San Antonio, where there is a turn maintenance facility for the Texas Eagle. But, what about alternate transportation between San Antonio and Houston, where there was no threat of a storm? And what about Beaumont, Texas, or some of the far western cities and towns of Louisiana that were out of harm’s way?

   The same holds for Florida. Orlando is next door to Sanford, the southern maintenance base for Auto Train and the Sunset Limited. But, what about passengers from Sebring, Tampa, Lakeland, Winter Haven, and a host of other small towns? Why leave them stranded, when there was little chance of the fury of the storm?

   It’s understandable that Amtrak has to work within the confines of its host railroads during natural disasters, as well as protect its own employees and property. No one will criticize that. But, Amtrak is becoming much too cavalier about providing no alternate transportation under any circumstances under too easy conditions. Amtrak is acting like a wannabe airline, saying, “Sorry, we can’t control the weather. You’re on your own. Call us later when it’s more convenient for us to run trains.”

   The days of railroads being all-weather transportation seem to be gone. The question is, do those days need to be gone, or does Amtrak (and the airlines, for that matter) have any obligation to passenger service and to take care of its customers who have entrusted their travel fates to its unwilling hands?

2. What’s a good conservative that likes Amtrak and passenger trains to do these days? Ever since Amtrak’s founding in 1971 by a conservative Republican administration, it has slipped from being a conservative business priority to a socialist jobs program.

   Conservatives control both the federal executive and legislative branches of government, yet Amtrak stubbornly remains entrenched in liberal ideology, led by a president and chief executive officer who is a holdover appointee from the Amtrak Board of Directors appointed by former President Clinton (which is quickly going down in history as perhaps the worst collection of board members in the company’s history). Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn manages to be contrary to everyone in sight that makes a difference, such as Congress (his bankers and chief source of financing beyond farebox revenues), and the administration, that, through the Department of Transportation, is his primary regulator. Even though a new Amtrak board is in place that has been appointed by conservatives, Mr. Gunn, the third of the Transit Trio of Tom Downs, George Warrington, and Mr. Gunn (who collectively have nearly destroyed Amtrak), still pursues illogical liberal policies and remains as the most dominant crisis monger in Washington.

   Plus, there is often still a great deal of misunderstanding among conservatives outside of Washington. Here’s an actual quote from a local Republican party county vice chairman, while cruising one starlit night down a Florida river on his oversized yacht: “You support Amtrak? Why would you want to support a Democrat program like that? Republicans aren’t supposed to support Amtrak.” (Sigh) This is a typical comment that conservative passenger rail supporters for years have received in their own ideological circle.

   Then, try working with liberals and others and state and national membership rail fan organizations. Any conservative ideas or suggestions or even hints of things like privatization are quickly, loudly, and most rudely shouted down while questioning your patriotism and parental heritage. Liberals have brilliantly achieved three things for the benefit of their image with the public. First, liberals always stake out the alleged moral high ground on any issue; to disagree with the liberal position is to be morally bereft. Second, they try very diligently to blunt the power of conservative AM talk radio by labeling everyone who appears on talk radio and everyone who listens to it as part of hate radio. And, third, they have introduced a new name for anyone they disagree with into the lexicon, “neo con.” All of these tactics are brilliant and well-tuned, and have had a certain measure of success. Conservatives, on the other hand, have taken a perfectly legitimate word like “liberal” and turned it into the equivalent of a four letter word. Even innocent uses such as “liberal arts education” now have sinister overtones in the eyes of many conservatives. With battles like this going on, there seems little middle ground.

   Even the venerated supposedly unbiased railroad industry publication since 1876, Railway Age, espouses a liberal slant so obvious even a blind person can’t miss it. Railway Age’s idea of covering passenger rail issues is to focus heavily on transit and government funding. Railway Age covers Amtrak as an afterthought, and then includes Amtrak in the transit section of the magazine, and focuses mainly on corridors. As far as rail fan publications, heaven forbid any one of them should ever print a word of heretical dissent about Amtrak. Most rail fan publications could easily be secretly written by Amtrak’s corporate communications department, but it’s doubtful the corporate communications folks would have as much of a love fest for Amtrak as the magazine editors have in every issue.

   Much of the mainstream news media, beyond publications such as The Wall Street Journal, cover Amtrak with general assignment reporters that don’t understand the difference between a locomotive and a coach. They have no grasp of issues, and usually refer to the same, tired sources for quotes that always promote the Amtrak party line. When one of them by accident does get a quote from a conservative, it’s usually so freakish to these reporters that they don’t know what to do with it.

   Previously, much of the professional staff on Capitol Hill hasn’t been exposed to any line of thought other than that of Amtrak and its ever vigilant watchdog of Amtrak-correct propaganda, NARP. As far as most elected politicians are concerned, Amtrak is something to vote on once a year and ignore for much of the rest of the time.

   So, what’s a passenger train supporting conservative to do? The only answer is to strike out on our own, with our own agenda, according to our own doctrine, and our own beliefs based on realistic, empirical data. Along the way, an effort has to be made (which has been fruitful) to make other conservatives and politicians and Capitol Hill staff members understand there is a second, thoughtful opinion on what should happen to passenger rail and how important it is to a balanced domestic transportation network. Every day, Amtrak is moving further away from being a partisan issue to a bipartisan issue. However, the move is difficult because so many people who have been fighting the battle of Amtrak for so long have been doing so with the same, old, tired methods and don’t want to face the reality of change. Until that reality sets in, change will remain slow.

3. One thoughtful TWA reader from Texas, who is a respected professional railroader in his state kindly wrote to TWA last week sharing his thoughts on several topics. One of the things the gentleman shared was the thought that in order to save Amtrak and passenger rail, we all must work together.

   Well, no, we shouldn’t.

   What working together generally translates to is that liberals want conservatives and moderates to change to their failed liberal viewpoints of the last 30 years and continue with the same type of enabling of Amtrak and its problems that has gone on for too, too, long. We don’t need to work together under those circumstances. If we’re going to work together, it must be under the banner of new ideas and new methods that have some meaning and hope for the future. It’s time to put the ghost of Neville Chamberlain to rest.

   Amtrak is a crippled and broken organization. It’s an embarrassment on the world stage that a country as powerful as ours has a passenger rail transportation network (despite our expansive interstate highway system and air system) as weak and ineffectual as Amtrak.

   For years, the rallying cry has been “save Amtrak!”. Save it for what? So it can be a perpetual financial loser that’s wholly dependant on the whims of government largesse? So it can limp along because “it’s all we have?”

   The “it’s all we have” argument is perhaps the most inappropriate of all arguments. In reality, if Amtrak is all we have, maybe we would be better off allowing the entrepreneurial marketplace to fill the void. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the concept of different ideas. But, the liberals and socialists and Amtrak apologists and cultists don’t even want to acknowledge the existence of any idea beyond their proven broken dreams, modal envy for the astronomical free federal monies others receive, and the bizarre and wholly inappropriate thought that only government can run passenger trains.

   Here’s a news bulletin: Those of us who have been supporting Amtrak with our federal tax dollars, and those in states with rail programs that are paying double taxes to support Amtrak, want something better for all of our money that is being spent. We want something that is robust and healthy, that is well managed, and has a positive hope for the future. We don’t want a beleaguered company that when it is in the news, every story begins with “The perpetually struggling Amtrak today …”.

   No one has a lock on every good idea. The late Bill Johnson used to always espouse, “there is no such thing as the last, best deal.” That is certainly true with Amtrak, despite what the liberals say about “it’s all we have, and when it’s gone, there will be nothing!”.

   For the benefit of everyone, Amtrak’s current board of directors is one of the most professional and best the company has ever had; they are facing tremendous pressures, but seem to be sorting things out. We can all hope their collective wisdom will bring Amtrak to the unusual point of success.

4. One would think that conservatives, giant corporate railroads, and Amtrak would be a natural fit together. How wrong that is in the 21st Century. It seems, on the surface, that host freight railroads would just as soon see Amtrak disappear altogether. The under-market-performing revenue from Amtrak just isn’t enough to make the railroads want to bother with running passenger trains.

   Here’s something to think about: of all of the senior executives in all of the major railroads in the country, not a one of them was old enough to be employed by a railroad during the last hurrah of passenger trains in the immediate post-World War II years. Some of the execs may have some dim memories of the last of private passenger trains in the 1960s just before Amtrak, but most likely only observing as a child or very young adult. Simply put, there is no one in the executive ranks of private railroads that has any institutional knowledge of passenger and dining car departments, station services, or the joint marketing of both passenger and freight services. The average rail hobbyist probably has more knowledge of passenger train history than the average decision maker at today’s railroads. Today’s railroad executives concentrate on what makes their railroad run, and what satisfies stockholders and Wall Street, as is appropriate. They leave the concept of any return of passenger trains to their long range planning departments and others charged with finding new sources of revenues.

   Then, there are the capacity issues that railroads love to talk about these days. The most general thought is that railroads are too busy and have too little main line track to host passenger trains. Many will remember when railroads, bewildered by interstate highways, the rise of long haul trucking, the huge bite of the tax man on every level, were cheerfully tearing up what was considered surplus or redundant main line track in the name of financial stability. A lot of railroads wish today they still had those tracks in some sort of bank that could be rolled back out as needed.

   There are other capacity issues, too, including lack of enough train and engine crews due to corporate miscalculations, lack of rolling stock and locomotives, and lack of adequate classification yard facilities.

   What does all of this have to do with Amtrak? Together, it’s the railroad’s “get out of jail card” that allows them to rebuff any attempts at expanding Amtrak to accommodate predicted growth. One does have to consider, though, how many of these issues could be worked around if someone really tried.

   First, the onus would be on Amtrak to properly maintain its fleet of rolling stock and locomotives to keep from the numerous main line breakdowns that are experienced today.

   Second, Amtrak and it host railroads need to come to a new, more equitable contractual agreement, where the freight railroads as compensated for use of their facilities at least as well as Amtrak is compensated for use of its facilities in the NEC by freight railroads. Fair is fair, no matter if you’re a private corporation or a public agency. Everybody needs to pay the same. One former director of pricing for an eastern railroad was involved in the usual conversation about how freight railroads just couldn’t handle Amtrak trains, given capacity constraints. When the question was raised, “well, how about if the railroads were paid the same amount for an Amtrak train that is received for (a hotshot tightly scheduled daily commodity train), wouldn’t they somehow find the capacity?” “I suppose they would,” he said, with a stunned look on his face. So, is it really a matter of capacity, or financial priority?

   Every major railroad in this country is either in the middle of, beginning of, or end of major track and yard capacity expansions. Double track is reblossoming, more passing and side tracks are being lengthened and installed, and yards are growing by leaps and bounds. If there truly is a capacity problem today, it won’t last long in the overall picture.

   The final issue is the ability of Amtrak and railroads to seek reasonable solutions to reasonable problems, beyond the many proposals of S. 1516, the Lott Amtrak reauthorization bill. A conservative approach is to find a way for everyone to prosper, not one party being forced on the other by federal law, while the injured party is kicking and screaming all the way along the main line.

5. He’s shamelessly at it again. Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn is complaining in public about the people who control the fate of Amtrak - the United States Department of Transportation. When is this guy going to realize that you don’t accuse your company’s owner of attempting to commit corporate murder?

   This particular silliness last week took place before an audience in St. Louis, and was reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Mr. Gunn said such fallacies as “If Amtrak fails, intercity passenger rail will be gone in this country,” and, perhaps his most memorable line from the David Gunn School of Dramatics and Greek Tragedy, “The goal is to destroy Amtrak; I think the (DOT) is viewing it as a budget-cutting exercise.”

   Perhaps it would be best if Mr. Gunn was just confined to his office, with no outside link to the news media, if he’s going to continue to berate the powers that be in Washington. How can he expect consideration from people he is accusing of attempted corporate murder? How can the members of the Amtrak board of directors function in such a poisoned atmosphere when they are charged with cleaning up the company, yet it’s most visible spokesman speaks such heresy and foolishness?

   It’s been said before, and it’s time to say it yet again, David Gunn needs to leave Amtrak, and the sooner the better. Whatever very good accomplishments he’s had in the past are spoiled and the good will is gone forever in his quest for high drama. The Amtrak apologists and cultists and the liberals may like what he’s saying, but they are not the people in charge in Washington. You play to your audience that’s in power, not those who can’t help you, no matter how many awards and accolades they give you.