United Rail Passenger Alliance

Volume 3 Number 23

1. A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was released in Washington earlier this week under the signature of JayEtta Z. Hecker, the Director for Physical Infrastructure Issues of the GAO. The report purports to predict what will happen to commuter agencies if the sky starts falling in the highly unlikely event Amtrak would cease operations because of its many financial and other struggles.This report can be considered from two different viewpoints. For Amtrak apologists and those wishing to prop up Amtrak at any price, “Commuter Rail: Commuter Rail Issues Should Be Considered in Debate over Amtrak” provides plenty of ammunition why Amtrak should be kept at least in a minimum level of existence, if for nothing more than a convenience for hidden funding and cheaply available workforce for some commuter agencies.For those more enlightened, this report demonstrates vividly why the Northeast Corridor infrastructure desperately needs to be pulled away from Amtrak in its present form and put under a separate, more accountable structure for the benefit of everyone including Amtrak, contracting NEC commuter agencies, commuters themselves, taxpayers on every level, and the commonweal. The report, as others before it, also points out a number of issues which need the utmost attention of the next President and CEO of Amtrak. Again, we see unforgivable business practices by past stewards of Amtrak which have caused the company – and the entire issue of viable passenger rail for the United States – to constantly be questioned as to practicality and desirability. Not until these issues are solved will Amtrak be able to begin to move forward to its rightful place as an important part of our domestic transportation network.

   This report does not necessarily reveal any startling new issues about Amtrak, but it does reiterate a number of issues needing to be reviewed over and over for the benefit of the news media, those interested in passenger rail in the United States, and stakeholders in Amtrak including the United States Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, and various interests of the Congress.

   To have a full understanding of the report, read the entire document at the GAO website: “Commuter Rail Issues Should Be Considered in Debate over Amtrak,” issued by GAO on May 22nd: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06470.pdf. Parts of the report are excerpted here for ease of reading via electronic mail, and are without footnotes or other attributions found in the report when viewed in its entirety.

2. In brief, what GAO recommends:
   

   GAO recommends that the Department of Transportation (DOT) further refine cost estimates of commuter rail directed-service scenarios. GAO also recommends that Amtrak improve its accounting practices as well as its financial reports. DOT generally agreed with the report’s findings and the intention of the recommendation, but expressed concern about refining the cost estimate at this time because of data and resource limitations. Amtrak generally agreed with the report’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

3. What GAO found
   

   Most commuter rail agencies rely on the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) for some level of access to infrastructure and services, particularly those that operate over Amtrak-owned portions of the Northeast Corridor (NEC). This reliance includes the use of key stations, access to the NEC, and equipment maintenance services. Commuter rail agencies typically pay Amtrak for access to infrastructure and services, although their financial relationships with Amtrak vary and often lack clarity. Several issues contribute to the lack of clarity, including limitations in Amtrak’s accounting practices, the lack of transparency in Amtrak’s financial reports, and the structure of the financial arrangements between Amtrak and commuter rail agencies. This makes it difficult to fully understand the financial relationship between these agencies and Amtrak and whether they are contributing their fair share for improvements and maintenance of Amtrak’s infrastructure. Also, this lack of clarity hinders Amtrak management’s ability to make fully informed decisions about its commuter rail line-of-business. … Private transportation companies could provide options for commuter rail agencies in the long term; however, other issues would need to be addressed to ensure a smooth transition. … Amtrak’s fiscal year 2006 appropriation directs the Secretary of Transportation to assess a fee on commuter rail agencies that use the NEC. This fee is designed to compensate Amtrak for maintenance and capital expenditures resulting from commuter rail agencies’ use of the NEC and has important budgetary implications for some commuter rail agencies. … A longer-term solution in the event of an abrupt Amtrak cessation is for commuter rail agencies to contract with private transportation companies for the services currently provided by Amtrak. Private transportation companies with whom we spoke expressed interest in providing the services that Amtrak currently provides to commuter rail agencies.

4. Background information:
   

   … Commuter rail is a type of public transit that is characterized by passenger trains operating on railroad tracks and providing regional service (e.g., between a central city and adjacent suburbs). Commuter rail systems are traditionally associated with older industrial cities, such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. However, over the past decade, commuter rail systems have been inaugurated in such cities as Dallas and Seattle, and seven new systems are in various stages of planning in cities across the country. Currently, there are 18 commuter rail agencies throughout the country, and, in 2004, these agencies provided an average of 1.1 million passenger trips each weekday. … Most commuter rail service uses rights-of-way (to run over tracks) that are owned by Amtrak, freight railroads, or are publicly owned. Amtrak owns most of the NEC between Boston, MA, and Washington, D.C., but there are several portions of the NEC owned by either commuter rail agencies or states. The NEC is also the busiest rail corridor in the U.S. For example, on an average weekday, over 1,800 commuter rail and Amtrak trains operate on the NEC. … Three federal agencies — FRA, STB, and FTA — are responsible for different aspects of federal rail transportation policy, including freight, intercity passenger, and commuter rail service. FRA administers and enforces the federal laws and related regulations that are designed to promote safety on railroads, such as track maintenance, inspection standards, equipment standards, and operating practices. Commuter rail agencies are subject to FRA regulations. FRA provides funding for Amtrak’s operating and capital improvements, and since fiscal year 2003 has administered these funds through grants. STB is responsible for the economic regulation of freight railroads, which encompasses those instances when there is an impasse in negotiations over Amtrak’s access to freight rail facilities. STB also has authority to issue directed (or emergency) service orders to continue rail service if a rail carrier is unable to provide service to its customers. In 2004, this authority was amended to authorize such orders in the event that there is a failure of freight or commuter rail service due to a cessation of service by Amtrak. Directed-commuter-service orders could enable one or more operators to gain access to Amtrak’s facilities and equipment. In addition, directed-service orders could provide these operators the ability to offer employment to former Amtrak personnel for the provision of essential commuter service. The Secretary of Transportation, through the FRA, would be the funding agency for any STB directed-service order for commuter rail operations. According to STB staff, while the STB (and its predecessor agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission) have directed freight service in the past when freight railroads have experienced service failures, STB has not issued any directed-service orders explicitly for passenger rail service. Unlike FRA and STB, FTA is not principally a regulatory agency. FTA is the primary federal financial resource for supporting locally planned, implemented, and operated transit capital investments. As a form of public transit, commuter rail projects are eligible for FTA funding.

5. Many commuter agencies rely on Amtrak:
   

   Most commuter rail agencies rely on Amtrak to some extent for access to infrastructure and services. This dependence can range from heavy use of Amtrak infrastructure and services to limited reliance on Amtrak infrastructure and services. Having access to Amtrak-owned infrastructure, rights-of-way, stations, platforms, equipment maintenance facilities, and storage yards is critical to many commuter rail agencies’ operations. The reliance on Amtrak for infrastructure and services by many commuter rail agencies has led to a variety of financial relationships between commuter rail agencies and Amtrak. In general, these financial relationships are complicated and lack clarity. This lack of clarity makes it difficult to determine if commuter rail agencies are paying their fair share for access to infrastructure and services. Amtrak’s fiscal year 2006 appropriation directs the Secretary of Transportation to levy a fee on commuter rail agencies that use the NEC as compensation for maintenance and capital expenditures resulting from their use of the NEC. This fee has important budgetary, and other, implications for commuter rail agencies.

   … Most existing commuter rail agencies (12 of 18) rely on Amtrak-owned or Amtrak-operated infrastructure, such as stations or platforms; rights-of-way; and maintenance facilities. Amtrak owns most of the NEC, which runs from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Of the nine commuter rail agencies in the Northeast, eight agencies — including the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and New Jersey Transit (NJT), two of the largest commuter rail agencies in the country — operate over Amtrak-owned infrastructure. Seven of these nine commuter rail agencies operate on the NEC between Washington, D.C., and Boston. On an average weekday, these seven commuter rail agencies run approximately 1,630 trains on the NEC, which represents over 90 percent of all passenger train traffic on the NEC. According to officials from the commuter rail agencies that operate over Amtrak-owned portions of the NEC, access to this infrastructure is essential for their services. In addition to providing access to the Amtrak-owned portions of the NEC, Amtrak also maintains its rights-of-way and dispatches all trains on its rights-of-way, including commuter rail traffic; these are critical services for commuter rail agencies using the NEC. For example, from its centralized dispatching center in Boston, Amtrak dispatches all of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s (MBTA) trains on one of its lines and provides initial dispatching for two-thirds of all other MBTA trains, as well as its own intercity trains. Amtrak also distributes power to commuter rail agencies that use electrically powered trains on the NEC. These trains, which may be hauled by locomotives or made up of self-propelled, multiple-unit cars, require electric power (called “traction power”) delivered directly from overhead power lines.

   In addition to owning most of the track comprising the NEC, Amtrak also owns or controls a number of key facilities both on and off the NEC, many of which are critical to commuter rail service.

   These facilities include many of the busiest passenger stations in the country, such as Pennsylvania Station in New York City and Chicago Union Station, as well as the platforms and train storage facilities outside of Washington Union Station. For example, according to LIRR officials, LIRR and NJT trains account for 87.4 percent of the trains coming into Pennsylvania Station in New York City, while Amtrak intercity trains represent the remaining 12.6 percent. Amtrak also owns or controls a number of equipment maintenance and storage yards that are strategically located near key urban or downtown stations. For example, some commuter locomotives and coaches used by Virginia Railway Express (VRE) and Maryland Transit Administration, which owns Maryland Rail Commuter Service (MARC), are maintained at Amtrak’s Ivy City Yard, just north of Washington Union Station. These trains are also stored in Washington, D.C., during midday so that they can make evening rush hour trips. This allows VRE and MARC to avoid running trains back out to storage yards in outlying areas during the middle of the day — a practice officials from both agencies said would make the service too costly to provide. Similarly, Sound Transit in Seattle relies on Amtrak to maintain and store its trains during the midday at Holgate Yard, an Amtrak maintenance facility near Sound Transit’s King Street Station in downtown Seattle, which serves both Sound Transit and Amtrak trains. (See fig. 4 for a picture of Holgate Yard.) According to Sound Transit officials, the use of Amtrak’s facility saved Sound Transit the one-time cost of building its own multi-million dollar maintenance facility.

   Amtrak provided the following information to the GAO for this report, regarding 10 key facilities in the United States owned by Amtrak and the relationship between Amtrak and commuter agencies:

   • Holgate Yard; Seattle, Washington. Maintenance facility used by both Amtrak and Sounder Transit.
   • Chicago Union Station; Chicago, Illinois. Passenger station used by Amtrak and Metra. 48 Amtrak trains per day, 268 Metra trains per day.
   • Route 128 Station; Boston, Massachusetts. Passenger station used by Amtrak and MBTA. 34 Amtrak trains per day, 73 MBTA trains per day.
   • Sunnyside Yard; New York, New York. Maintenance facility used by both Amtrak and NJT.
   • New York Penn Station; New York, New York. Passenger station used by Amtrak, LIRR, and NJT. 127 Amtrak trains per day, 919 LIRR and NJT trains per day.
   • 30th Street Station; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Passenger station used by Amtrak, SEPTA, NJT, and PennDOT. 100 Amtrak trains per day, 277 SEPTA, NJT and PennDOT trains per day.
   • Wilmington Station; Wilmington, Delaware. Passenger station used by Amtrak and SEPTA. 84 Amtrak trains per day, 137 SEPTA trains per day.
   • Baltimore Penn Station; Baltimore, Maryland. Passenger station used by Amtrak and MARC. 84 Amtrak trains per day, 48 MARC trains per day.
   • Washington Union Station; Washington, D.C. Passenger station used by Amtrak, MARC, and VRE. 86 Amtrak trains per day, 116 MARC and VRE trains per day.
   • Ivy City Yard; Washington, D.C. Maintenance facility used by Amtrak, MARC, and VRE.

   This breakdown clearly demonstrates what a small presence Amtrak has on its own NEC in relation to the commuter agencies it hosts over the line. Amtrak as the landlord bears the brunt of ownership and all related responsibilities, while commuter agencies, which do contribute a share of the upkeep and maintenance, still enjoy the privileges of a lessee without the overall responsibilities of being a lessor. It is Amtrak’s role as lessor to these many agencies that in large part causes it to annually beg for money from Congress to cover the upkeep and upgrading of the NEC.

   If the NEC is broken away from Amtrak, even just as a corporate restructuring, and develops a real accounting for the costs of hosting these many commuter agencies, then Amtrak’s financial affairs will be much less murky and more clearly defined, allowing Amtrak to better fulfill its real mission as a national passenger railroad.

   While Amtrak apologists constantly argue the false benefits of ownership of the NEC and the pipedream of sustained high speed rail, the reality is that the NEC causes many more problems for Amtrak than it provides benefits. The NEC, at best, is a regional issue that long ago became a national issue and a overbearing burden to the rest of the country outside the Northeast.

   There is nothing wrong is keeping the NEC as part of the transportation network of the Northeast, as long as the NEC is structured in a way which keeps its finances and continuing spiraling upward costs away from the main corporate body of Amtrak. Since the end of the 1970s when the federal government forced the NEC onto Amtrak, the rest of the country has had reduced passenger train service while the NEC has constantly drained the company of resources. We know that every dollar invested in the NEC, either in propping up operations or the constant black hole of maintenance of way, has been one less dollar that could be more wisely invested in the long distance train network, which produces far better financial and operating results than short haul corridors such as the NEC. There are far fewer trains outside of the NEC simply because of the too high cost of the too many trains on the NEC.

   Perhaps one of the reasons why the NEC has captivated Amtrak management so much is that it begins in corporate headquarters’ backyard on the passenger platforms of Washington Union Station. If Amtrak corporate management was away from Washington (there is no compelling reason to keep it in Washington other than to provide taxable high paying jobs to District of Columbia residents), perhaps management could focus better on the whole United States instead of one small part of the United States.

6. There is no consistency in Amtrak’s policies when contracting with commuter agencies:
   

   … The financial arrangements between commuter rail agencies and Amtrak vary. One reason for this variation is the negotiation process. Although some financial arrangements have grown from the historical relationships between Amtrak and commuter rail agencies, most of today’s arrangements are the product of individual negotiations. Through these negotiations, Amtrak and a commuter rail agency reach agreement on the terms and conditions — including price — for the commuter rail agency’s use of Amtrak services and infrastructure. This agreement is typically documented in a contract between Amtrak and the commuter rail agency. The specific contract terms and conditions vary due to a number of factors, such as the comparative bargaining power of each party, the specific services and infrastructure used, and the extent of competition for the contract.According to Amtrak officials, another factor that influences the specific terms and conditions of some of Amtrak’s commuter rail contracts is the Interstate Commerce Commission’s 1983 ruling known as Ex Parte 417. This ruling governed compensation for access to the NEC for some commuter rail agencies, but not necessarily others.

   • Amtrak officials stated that NEC commuter rail agencies that were established prior to the ruling — namely, LIRR, SEPTA, NJT, MBTA, and MARC — start from an avoidable cost basis in NEC-access negotiations with Amtrak. Avoidable costs refer to only those expenses above what Amtrak would pay if the commuter rail did not use Amtrak infrastructure.
   • Amtrak officials stated that other commuter rail agencies must negotiate NEC-access agreements from a fully allocated cost basis, which could include all of Amtrak’s costs for running commuter rail trains over the NEC (e.g., including avoidable costs, depreciation, and overhead). These agencies include PENNDOT, SLE, and VRE.

   Commuter rail agencies’ financial arrangements with Amtrak also vary in relation to the terms of their capital contributions for shared infrastructure. Some commuter rail agencies contribute significantly more to capital projects that benefit both the commuter rail agency and Amtrak than others. For example, NJT has negotiated a $600 million, 10-year (1997-2006) joint benefit capital investment program with Amtrak. In contrast, SEPTA made over $30 million in capital investments on Amtrak-owned portions of the NEC between fiscal years 1995 and 2005.

   The financial arrangements between Amtrak and commuter rail agencies also vary in terms of how they are structured. For example, Amtrak may have separate contracts for services, infrastructure access, and capital investment with one commuter rail agency, while another agency might have only one contract that bundles several services and access fees together in a fixed price. In addition, a few commuter railroads have entered into “quid-pro-quo” exchange arrangements with Amtrak. For example, Sound Transit and Amtrak have an exchange arrangement where monetary values are not established for maintenance of the two stations they share — that is, Amtrak uses the Tukwila Station, which is maintained by Sound Transit, and in turn Sound Transit uses the King Street Station, which is maintained by Amtrak. No recognition is given to this exchange in Amtrak’s financial records and reports. Similarly, Amtrak grants MBTA commuter service access to 5.7 miles of track that Amtrak owns and maintains; in exchange, MBTA grants Amtrak the right to run intercity trains over 37 miles of track owned by MBTA. No money is exchanged between Amtrak and MBTA for the use of those portions of track.

   The financial arrangements between Amtrak and commuter rail agencies also lack clarity. That is, although such information could help decision makers consider potential reforms to Amtrak, it is difficult for commuter rail agencies, Amtrak’s management, and external stakeholders (such as Congress and DOT) to identify the overall amount of revenue Amtrak generates and the costs it incurs in providing services and infrastructure access to commuter rail agencies. It is also difficult to determine whether commuter rail agencies are being over- or under-charged for services and infrastructure access. Several factors contribute to the lack of clarity, including limitations in Amtrak’s accounting practices, a lack of transparency in Amtrak’s financial reports, and the structure of some of the arrangements. Specifically:

   • Limitations in Amtrak’s accounting practices: Limitations of Amtrak’s cost-accounting practices produce a lack of clarity in the financial relationships between commuter rail agencies and Amtrak — particularly with respect to Amtrak’s ability to clearly show all of the costs it incurs in providing access to infrastructure and various services. While Amtrak can support amounts in periodic billing statements to some of its commuter rail customers, it cannot identify (and does not allocate and bill) the full cost of providing these services or access. In prior reports, we noted that Amtrak has insufficient unit cost metrics to measure the full costs of its core functions, such as train operations or infrastructure maintenance. Amtrak officials acknowledged that the methods for assigning its costs are not exact, and some commuter rail agencies with whom we spoke expressed dissatisfaction with Amtrak’s ability to clearly document these costs. For example, officials from one commuter rail agency explained that Amtrak relied on historical cost data from prior negotiations and regularly adjusted these amounts for inflation rather than on clear and transparent actual annual costs. As a result, these commuter rail agency officials believed that Amtrak significantly overcharges for some items and significantly undercharges for others. In October 2005, we recommended that Amtrak enhance financial management transparency by lines-of-business (which include commuter operations) and establish unit cost measures, which could help Amtrak increase the accuracy of its cost information in providing services and infrastructure access to commuter railroads. Amtrak received $5 million in its fiscal year 2006 appropriations to develop and implement a new managerial accounting system, which could also help improve its financial transparency.
   • Lack of clarity in Amtrak’s financial reports: Amtrak’s financial reports do not clearly and transparently present useful information for all amounts of revenue generated and all costs incurred for providing infrastructure access and services to commuter rail agencies. Amtrak has made some progress in showing its revenues and costs in its monthly performance reports; however, the total amount of revenue and costs from providing infrastructure access and services to commuter rail agencies is still unclear. For example, income generated from Amtrak’s operation of commuter rail service is shown as commuter revenue; however, infrastructure access fees from commuter rail agencies are included with other railroads’ access fees as infrastructure management revenue.Similarly, Amtrak’s audited consolidated financial statements — while they properly report all items of revenue, cost, and offsets to capital items from commuter rail activities — Amtrak’s management does not separately disclose all of this activity in one place, which would increase its usefulness. The lack of transparency in Amtrak’s financial reports is due, in part, to limitations in Amtrak’s accounting practices. Although commuter rail activities are not the focus of Amtrak’s financial reports, the lack of transparency about the revenues and costs incurred as a result of Amtrak’s commuter rail activities makes it difficult for Amtrak’s management and external stakeholders to make fully informed decisions about its commuter line-of-business.
   • Structure of financial arrangements: The structure of Amtrak’s financial arrangements with commuter rail agencies also contributes to the lack of clarity. For example, as noted above, some commuter rail agencies have a single contract for both infrastructure access and services. According to Amtrak officials, while these contracts separate charges for infrastructure access and services, commuter rail agencies are not able to identify Amtrak’s specific costs associated with these charges. As a result, several commuter rail agencies stated that this makes it difficult to determine the value of the specific services or access that they are purchasing from Amtrak. In addition, the “quid-pro-quo” arrangements are not recorded as revenues or expenses by Amtrak. Because these arrangements are not assigned monetary values, it is difficult to quantify the financial value or impact to Amtrak’s or commuter rail agencies’ bottom line.Officials from Amtrak acknowledged that there is a lack of clarity in the current financial arrangements between Amtrak and commuter rail agencies. In particular, officials noted that because of Ex Parte 417 and the practice of some (but not all) commuter rail agencies contributing to capital projects, there is a built-in imbalance in access fees and capital contributions paid to Amtrak from commuter railroads on the NEC. Amtrak officials said they would welcome a uniform capital contribution and access fee policy from the federal government.As part of Amtrak’s fiscal year 2006 appropriation, Congress directed the Secretary of Transportation to assess a fee on commuter rail agencies using the NEC. According to the statute, the fee will be based on annual NEC maintenance and capital costs — net of any current contributions from commuter rail agencies — attributable to commuter rail use of the infrastructure. The statute directs the Secretary of Transportation to calculate the fee based on relative use of the NEC (e.g., train mile usage or another factor). The revenue generated from this fee would be used to support capital projects on the NEC. As of March 2006, FRA was working to develop and implement the fee.

     FRA and FTA officials identified several challenges in implementing this new fee. First, FRA officials stated that developing a formula for assessing the fee could be complicated; several factors could be used as a basis for the fee, including ridership or train miles — both of which are already used in other federal funding formulas — or other factors. Second, FTA officials noted that most commuter rail agencies already have negotiated agreements with Amtrak concerning cost-sharing approaches for capital investments, which will complicate the development of a separate formula for assessing the fee. Finally, FTA officials stated that they will need clarification regarding whether the Congress intended this fee as a rescission to federal funding of capital projects from FTA to commuter rail agencies, or as a new federal funding source to Amtrak.

   Commuter rail agencies using Amtrak-owned NEC share many of these concerns — especially that the contracts they have negotiated with Amtrak already establish their contribution for infrastructure access and capital contributions. These agencies also noted to us that their state fiscal year 2006 budgets have already been passed and did not include any funding for such a fee. As a result, these agencies may face difficulties in securing funding to pay the fee if DOT levies the charge as directed during the remainder of fiscal year 2006. In addition, because commuter rail agencies and Amtrak use the NEC in different ways (e.g., Amtrak high-speed intercity trains require more costly maintenance-of-way requirements as compared to slower commuter trains) and have different levels of use, commuter rail agencies argue that there are valid reasons for cost differentials between commuter rail agencies and Amtrak. Finally, officials from several commuter rail agencies expressed concern that they were not consulted prior to the enactment of this fee and believe that Amtrak, the federal government, and representatives of the affected states and commuter rail properties should cooperatively develop a formula for determining and allocating costs and compensation for shared-track operations on the NEC. According to FRA officials, FRA is in the process of meeting with commuter rail agencies to develop a methodology to calculate and apply this fee.

7. Federal policy makers will help determine Amtrak’s future:
   

   … If federal policy makers allow an Amtrak bankruptcy to occur, a trustee would be appointed to oversee the bankruptcy proceedings. Under current law, the trustee, along with the bankruptcy court, would make decisions about Amtrak’s future. Although it is difficult to predict what decisions a bankruptcy court would make, there is no guarantee that all of Amtrak services — such as the services it provides to commuter rail agencies — would continue. In October 2005, we suggested that as a first major step toward implementing and rationalizing the provision of intercity passenger rail service, Congress should consider establishing a clear national policy for intercity passenger rail service that would address, among other things, the interests of the diverse set of Amtrak stakeholders and limit unintended consequences to these parties.

8. Some commuter agencies seek services from organizations other than Amtrak:
   

   … Seven commuter rail agencies currently contract with private transportation companies to provide services, such as operations and equipment maintenance. Of these seven commuter rail agencies, two agencies had contracted with Amtrak for services in the past, but in one case, moved away from Amtrak because of dissatisfaction with the service Amtrak was providing and its unresponsiveness in meeting the needs of the commuter rail agency. In the other case, Amtrak withdrew from the commuter rail agency’s most recent procurement process and did not submit a proposal in response to the agency’s RFP to continue providing services.Other commuter rail agencies have also expressed interest in moving away from contracting with Amtrak for services, including commuter rail agencies on the NEC. These agencies cited a number of reasons, including Amtrak’s unstable federal funding and long-term planning challenges, in their decisions to reduce their reliance on Amtrak — either by conducting more of their services in-house, or by contracting with a private transportation company. For example, one commuter rail agency constructed its own maintenance facilities so it would not have to rely entirely on Amtrak to service its equipment at Amtrak facilities. In addition, another commuter rail agency recently conducted a procurement process and recommended that a private transportation company be awarded the contract to provide the services previously provided by Amtrak.