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15 November 2005 - New York Times
November 12, 2005
By JOHN TIERNEY
Amtrak`s president was fired this week, which was good news for those of us who love trains and want a reformer in charge of the railroad. Yet members of Congress along the Northeast Corridor immediately denounced the firing.
One obvious reason is that these politicians are indebted to Amtrak`s unions, which want no part of reform. But there also seems to be a more baffling reason. Northeastern politicians actually like the railroad the way it is. After being held captive for decades by Amtrak, they`re suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.
Before he was fired, David Gunn ran Amtrak according to the same principles of his predecessors. Amtrak was created to be a for-profit private corporation, but it instead went into the red by running unprofitable long-distance trains while stinting on service and maintenance for the Northeast Corridor, the route that makes the most economic sense.
When the White House or Congress balked at covering the annual losses, Gunn and his predecessors resorted to extortion. They ritually set a date and threatened to shut down Amtrak at midnight if the ransom wasn`t paid.
It has always been a powerful threat, but not because the nation depends on Amtrak`s trains. They`re about as vital to America`s transportation system as horse-drawn carriages are to New York`s. The railroad share of the intercity travel market has been falling for half a century and is now less than half of 1 percent.
No, what makes the threat powerful is the chokehold that Amtrak has on other railroads. Commuter trains, which carry nearly 20 times as many passengers as Amtrak does, would be crippled by an Amtrak shutdown in the many cities where they use tracks and stations owned by Amtrak, including New York and much of the Northeast, as well as Chicago and San Francisco. Thanks to its power to strand hundreds of thousands of commuters, Amtrak is the troll on the tracks.
Los Angeles and Boston used to be hostage to Amtrak`s annual threats because it operated their commuter trains, but they had the sense to free themselves by switching to other operators. You`d think Northeastern politicians would yearn for similar relief, but they`ve rebuffed the White House`s offers.
The Bush administration proposed disarming Amtrak by giving away its tracks and stations in the Northeast Corridor to a new public agency, run by the states. While Amtrak stuck to running trains, this new agency would get money from Washington to rehabilitate the tracks neglected by Amtrak, and then the tracks would eventually be open to other railroads, too.
This is hardly a radical idea for transportation. The Northeast Corridor tracks, instead of being an Amtrak fief, could be like a highway or an airport: a regional public facility used by a variety of public and private carriers. Amtrak and other railroads would compete to run passenger trains, maybe with the help of further subsidies from taxpayers, although an efficient railroad might well be able to operate profitably.
It`s difficult, of course, to imagine Amtrak ever turning a profit at anything. Even though it has a captive audience of customers for meals and drinks aboard the trains, it collects only $1 in revenue for every $2 that it spends on its food service, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. The report forecast that the railroad`s operating losses would increase by 40 percent in the next four years.
Gunn, brought in as a turnaround expert, was fired by Bush appointees on the Amtrak board. They criticized him for inept management and reluctance to pursue their plan to make the Northeast Corridor an independent entity. The firing was immediately questioned by senators like Tom Carper of Delaware and Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer of New York.
Carper called the firing ``further proof that the Bush administration doesn`t want Amtrak to succeed.`` Schumer made the same point: ``The policy difference is that the board wants to kill Amtrak, and Gunn wants it to prosper. It`s that simple.``
Well, he`s right about it being a simple policy difference. The Bush administration, in an unexpected bit of benevolence toward voters in blue states, is trying to rebuild the Northeast Corridor, improve service and remove Amtrak`s power to shut down the system. The senators along the corridor are focused strictly on protecting Amtrak. They`ve been held hostage so long they can`t imagine life without their captor.
