If adopted, the plan would likely gut Amtrak's lomg-distance network-and perhaps even other routes-unless states agreed to subsidize the trains. Meanwhile, Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn again warned that the railroad would have to shut down if it doesn't secure an emergency loan in a matter of days.

Mineta said. the administration's support for increasing Amtrak funding beyond $521 million next year-a figure that would merely allow the railroad to shut down after October 1-would hinge on Congress backing the five principles of its plan to reform passenger rail.

That could set up a battle with Amtrak supporters in Congress. The Bush plan largely mirrors recommendations made by the Amtrak Reform Council- recommendations that found little backing on Captitol Hill.

And Some members of Congress were critical of the plan and the lack of an administration solution to Amtrak's short-term cash shortfall,which will shut the railroad down next month if it can't obtain a $205 million loan to tide it over to the beginning of the fiscal year in October.

Mineta said the administration was doing all it could to ensure that Amtrak trains continue to roll.

Although Amtrak is highballing toward a shutdown next month, the Bush plan doesn't address Amtrak's immediate cash crunch. The plan does maintain, however, that Amtrak's structure is flawed and must be completely overhauled.

"The country can ill afford to throw billions of federal dollars at Amtrak and just hope its problems disappear," Mineta said. "Thirty years experience should teach us that merely hoping for better performance is a doomed approach."

Gunn told a Senate appropriations subcommittee this afternoon that Amtrak and the service it provides are "well worth saving," despite the years of bad management decisions at the railroad.

And he was critical of the Bush plan.

"No amount of councils,commissions,study groups, panels, or symposiums will find a painless answer to what to do about Amtrak," Gunn said. "Recent proposals to privatize or restructure are exercises in problem avoidance. The Federal government must decide what role rail should play just as it does with highways and air, even waterways."

Gunn pledged to improve Amtrak's cost-recovery and to let Congress know exactly what its financial needs are.

"We will look at every route and service to improve effciencies and cost recoveryk," Gunn said. "Most of our trains lose money and they always will, but we can run them more efficiently. That is an achievable goal. Pursuing self-sufficiency was not."

Sen Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the transportation appropriations subcommittee, said the Bush administration wasn't doing enough to see that Amtrak continues to operate through the summer-much less beyond.

"If the Bush administration is not prepared to ask for sufficient funds to maintained the intercity passenger rail service that Secretary Mineta and Jackson say is so indispensable, then the Bush administration needs to be prepared and be ready to explain to the American people why it will allow Amtrak to go bankrupt in the middle of the summer travel season."

Firs, though, Amtrak will have to clear it more pressing need for cash if it hopes to avoid shutting down next month. That will be no easy task, Congress was told today.

The Bush plan itself could make it hard and more difficult for Amtrak to obtain a loan that would enable it to operate beyond July 1. Amtrak plans to use next year's requested $1.2 billion appropriation as collateral for a loan that would bridge its cash shortfall.

But commercial lenders need a sign that Congress and the White House will agree to meet Amtrak's $1.2 billion request. Lenders also need auditors to certify that Amtrak is a going concern, something else that has not happened.

"If the administration were unable, or unwilling, to give us a loan guarantee, then the only other options would be for Congress to direct the secretary of transportation to gurantee a loan, or as a last resort, to step in with short-term bridge funding for the balance of the fiscal year," Gunn said. "The window for fixing this problem in this way is short. Unless we are able to secure access to these funds either through a loan gurantee or another form of funding, I will have no choice but to announce a shitdown of the entire system."

Amtrak officials met with Rutter this week to go over the loan request. "It's a priority. There's no doubt about it," said FRA spokesman Rob Gould. "The question is can we do it?"

The RRIF program is open to short lines and regionals as well as class 1's, but it has strict eligibility requirements and is geared toward capitol improvements.

Amtrak should not be eligible for a RRIF loan because it is facing an operating cash shortfall, Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead told the Senate appropriations panel this afternoon.

Mead also said that it was unlikely that Amtrak could obtain a loan from commercial lenders. Among the few alternatives left to avert a shutdown, he said, were direct federal loans tailored to the Amtrak emergency or a special appropriation from Congress.