The nation's other railroad workers and employers would end up paying more taxes into retirement and unemployment insurance funds, the report released Tuesday by the General Accounting Office says.

It does not say how much Amtrak's assets are worth. The equipment is old, it says, and the market value of its most valuable property, the Northeast Corridor, hasn't been tested.

Gilbert Carmichael, former chairman of the Amtrak Reform Council, said he does not think anybody knows how much the railroad is worth. "With the accounting process that Amtrak uses, they don't know how much parts inventory they've got," he said.

The GAO report said that, as of December 31, 2001, Amtrak's secured liabilities included $3.8 billion in debt to private lenders for equipment and property. Amtrak has another $4.4 billion in unsecured liabilities, including severance pay and debts to vendors. It owes the government $14.2 billion on a 970-year promissory note that has a principal balance of $3.8 billion.

Much of that debt could be paid off by selling the Northeast Corridor, which runs from Boston to Washington, Carmichael said.

Grim prospects
The prospect of bankruptcy increased Friday with a vote in the House Appropriations Committee to give Amtrak $762 million, less than the $1.2 billion the railroad says it needs to keep running for another year. Although the Senate approved a $1.2 billion appropriation for Amtrak, the Bush administration wants to give it $521 million.

Liquidating Amtrak would cost the independent federal body that pays pension and disability benefits to retired railroad workers and survivors $400 million, or 9 percent of its receipts, if Amtrak's employees could not find new railroad jobs. Other railroad employees and employers would have to pay 8 percent more in payroll taxes to fund the system between 2002 and 2023, the report said.

It said railroad unemployment taxes also would rise to 12.5 percent between 2002 and 2004.

In 1997, Congress gave Amtrak five years to wean itself from federal subsidies. If the railroad could not meet that goal by the end of 2002, lawmakers ordered it to draw up a plan to liquidate its assets.

A Democratic spokesman said the report was another attempt by Republicans to kill passenger rail transport.

"The Republicans have tried and tried again to use anything they can get their hands on to justify killing all passenger rail service in the United States," said David Sirota, spokesman for the Democratic minority on the House Appropriations Committee.

The report said liquidation of Amtrak would force commuter and freight trains along the Northeast Corridor to pay $600 million annually in additional operating costs.

Amtrak was formed in 1971 to relieve freight railroads from the cash-draining responsibility of passenger service and has struggled ever since to meet expectations that it break even or turn a profit.

The railroad serves more than 500 communities in 46 states over a 22,000-mile route system.

A 970-year promissory note? That sounds like a debt from hell.