In my humble opinion, I seriously doubt whether Amtrak will be able to meet the self-sufficiency deadline. Moreover, I feel the deadline is grossly unfair and will prevent Amtrak from being able to compete against other forms of transportation that benefit from a publicly owned infrastructure. But I suspect most of us here are probably in agreement on that.

I think that in order for Amtrak to become a serious player in the transportation world, it will need public funding for some of its needs. Amtrak's critics do make some valid points. Mismanagement has been a problem. Service is not as good as it should be. But cutting it off completely, to force it to be "run like a business" or die, isn't the answer.

I believe Congress should take a carrot and stick approach to Amtrak. The stick: Continue the self sufficiency requirement, but apply it only to Amtrak's day-to-day operations. Such things as payroll, food service, fuel, maintenence, etc, should be paid for entirely through ticket and operational revenue. Congress would not authorize one dime to cover these costs. This would require Amtrak to be run like a buainess.

If Amtrak can do that, then Congress would reward Amtrak with a carrot: investment in equipment, station construction and upgrades, and other infrastructure improvements to help expand the passenger rail network. Any profits Amtrak makes would also be applied towards these things.

For this to work, Amtrak should also develop a long-range plan for expanding routes and upgrading equipment, and Congress would have to approve the plan and commit itself to it over the long term.

I think this would satisfy most of the critics and supporters of Amtrak, level the playing field with the airlines, and put it on a solid footing for the future. Any thoughts?

Amtrak has always been a political animal. By that I mean that it is dependent upon the whims of Congress. To placate some members, it established trains where there is not justification for a train. We all know the story. Somehow, Amtrak needs to be removed from such political dependency so that funding is assured.

Perhaps a trust fund should be established, much like the highway trust fund. The problem is where to get the money. A tax on tickets? A tax on Amtrak's freight revenue? Diverting 1/2 cent per gallon from the fed gasoline tax?

No one should argue that Amtrak does not need subsidy, I challenge anyone to name a national passenger rail operation in any country of the world which is self sufficient. That is not a realistic expectation.

One must remember that when the freight-companies operated their own systems , the SIZE of each was "small" compared to the immense system Amtrak attempts to operate today.

In my opinion, Amtrak simply can NOT survive beyond the year 2003 without developing a FULL and COMPLETE "partnership" with the freight-companies----with PROFIT sharing a vital component. Furthermore, to "entice" freight-companies to cooperate, Congress must offer them substantial TAX incentives. A financial/tax package they simply can NOT refuse is the only way, in my humble opinion, to get the freight companies to offer their FULLEST cooperation in working WITH Amtrak instead of against it. As the "system" is set up now, the freight companies consider Amtrak a "financial DRAIN" on their systems and thus have NO intention of REALLY cooperating. WITHOUT this FULL cooperation, Amtrak is simply "treading water."

I was doing the math to see what percentage of the TOTAL US yearly budget Amtrak's appropriation was, and got THIS: Amtrak's ENTIRE yearly appropriation is only 3/100th of 1% of the ENTIRE US budget!! Another way to compare it is to omit the zeros for Amtrak's appropriation, then omit the SAME # of zeros from the total yearly US budget, and see how Amtrak's amount compares to the federal budget. If you do THIS, here is what you get:
US budget for FY 2001 = $16,400
Amtrak appropriation = $ 5 !!!

NOW do you understand why it is SILLY to argue about AMTRAK's appropriation?? There are MANY other things our tax dollars get spent on that take a MUCH bigger bite out of the federal budget than poor underfunded Amtrak does.

Yes, Amtrak DESPERATELY needs GOOD LONG-RANGE planning. NOW. It does NOT need to be forced to pay its own way, when NO OTHER passenger train system in the WORLD is able to be self-sufficient.

And Amtrak needs better management, if what I have been reading on the Web is true. For instance, it needed a new logo LESS than a chicken needs mammary glands! It DOES need to RUN MORE TRAINS! LOTS more! NOW! (& in partnership with the freight RRs, using taxes diverted from somewhere else, such as the gas tax, or such....)

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rmiller wrote:

Somehow, Amtrak needs to be removed from such political dependency so that funding is assured.

Perhaps a trust fund should be established, much like the highway trust fund. The problem is where to get the money. A tax on tickets? A tax on Amtrak's freight revenue? Diverting 1/2 cent per gallon from the fed gasoline tax?

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A tax on tickets or express revenue would reduce Amtrak's competitiveness. And I'm not sure of the logistics. You pay a tax with your ticket so that Amtrak can send it to the government and the government in turn gives it back to Amtrak?

A small increase in gas taxes might work best. People wouldn't really notice it. I once read that in the 1950s the government imposed a tax on the railroads topay for the interstate highway system. Turnabout is fair play, don't you think?

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John Toth wrote:
I am beginning to think that it is humanly impossible to operate a NATION-WIDE passenger-rail system efficiently.

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I disagree. It can't be any harder than, say, running an international airline.

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John Toth wrote:
In my opinion, Amtrak simply can NOT survive beyond the year 2003 without developing a FULL and COMPLETE "partnership" with the freight-companies----.

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I agree with that completely. The freight railroads need to be partners and have a stake in the outcome. I hear rumors that such ideas are being seriously discussed by at least some of the powers that be, though I don't know who is discussing it.

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Margaret wrote:
if what I have been reading on the Web is true. For instance, it needed a new logo LESS than a chicken needs mammary glands! It DOES need to RUN MORE TRAINS! LOTS more! NOW!

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I agree that the new logo was a waste of time. I see it all too often that struggling companies change their logo to "improve their image," only to see the company tank soon after because they don't bother to improve their operation.

And Yes,Yes,Yes they need lots more trains. I'd like to see long distance trains offer twice daily service to be more convenient for everyone along the route (so places like Salt Lake City can have service during the day, instead of 4:00am). They also need short connecting trains, not long bus rides, to connect to the major trains.

And thanks for sharing the numbers. It reall ydoes put it into perspective. Is anyone in Congress paying attention?

Thanks for the great comments folks. Together we can save the railroad world.

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Originally posted by Mr. Toy:
In my humble opinion, I seriously doubt whether Amtrak will be able to meet the self-sufficiency deadline.
I believe Congress should take a carrot and stick approach to Amtrak. The stick: Continue the self sufficiency requirement, but apply it only to Amtrak's day-to-day operations. Such things as payroll, food service, fuel, maintenence, etc, should be paid for entirely through ticket and operational revenue. Congress would not authorize one dime to cover these costs. This would require Amtrak to be run like a buainess.

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While I agree that AMTRAK is grossly underfunded, I disagree that AMTRAK can even cover its operating costs. And, I suspect, that exept for a very few number of limited cases, passenger railroads operating in other countries also do not cover their costs either.

Certainly in this country commuter operations do not cover their costs. Yet local governments continue to subidize such service because the service is considered worthwhile and essential.

AMTRAK's operating costs should be supported on the same basis. The idea that they have to make a profit or minimize their losses as paramount to its existence results in the establishment of mail and express trains, such as the Pennsylvanian, that only incidentally haul passengers, rather than passenger trains that supplement revenues by houling express.

I suspect that the wholesale cancellation of trains out of Chicago had a lot to do with the philosophy of minimizing losses as oppsoed to hauling passengers.

Minimizing losses has resulted in deferred maintenance resulting in the substitution of busses for the trains whenever feasible.

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Originally posted by MLC:
...if the service is essential and wothwhile, then the government ought to fund the service....

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Unfortunately I don't think Congress would be willing to go along with that. Moreover, unless Amtrak has some financial discipline, it will never be run as well as it should be. It can't continue to go running to Uncle Sam every time it wastes money. Somebody needs to run the numbers and see what Amtrak can pay for on its own, then commit the revenue to that. The government would then finance those things the operational revenue cannot.

Perhaps states with long distance trains could also commit some money to support the portion of the line that passes through their state.