“Having
spent much of my productive life at the state and federal levels
observing, studying, regulating and then leading a rail management
team, I am appalled with what increasingly appears to be a unilateral
violation of the public trust by Amtrak's current leadership to
dismantle our interconnected, intercity passenger network, beginning
with the hollowing out of its long-distance passenger network.
-Joseph
Boardman, former Chief Executive Officer, in Railway Age, May 10, 2018
“There's something about a train
that's magic...” In the 1980s Amtrak launched what may have been
its most successful marketing campaign ever. In the face of shutdown
budgets from the Ronald Reagan Administration, Amtrak, which had
taken over most American intercity passenger trains in 1971, ran a
series of television advertisements for its of long-distance western
trains, featuring the throaty and sensuous voice of Colleen Dewhurst
promising mystery and adventure: "And where the Rockies are most forbidding
you will pass through and travel on to the ocean named
for peace,” she huskily intones in the 1986 ad promoting the
Chicago-Seattle/Portland Empire Builder. The
legendary folksinger Richie Havens ends the commercials with a
plaintive “All Aboard Amtrak.”
Passengers flocked to the trains, whose
1950s-era equipment had recently been replaced by double-deck
Superliner cars. And every time Reagan or his successors promised to
cut Amtrak out of the budget, these same passengers deluged their
representatives in Congress with letters and calls, and the national
system survived. Today the “national” in the National Railroad
Passenger Corporation, Amtrak's official name, is under assault by,
of all people, its Chief Executive Officer. And his first target for
elimination is the Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief.
In its first 46 years of operation,
Amtrak's management understood that while the busy Boston-New
York-Washington Northeast Corridor was the core of its operation, it
had an obligation to serve the rest of the country as well, with both
short-distance intercity trains and the overnight long-hauls, such as
the Empire Builder and
Southwest Chief. Not only do
the long-distance trains serve places with little or no alternative
public transportation, they assure support from members of Congress
who would hesitate to fund Northeastern service alone. But on January
1, 2018, when former Delta Airlines chief Richard Anderson became
Amtrak's sole CEO, that whole understanding has vanished.
Anderson is no
believer in the magic of train travel. After all, air travel once had
its own aura of magic. But since the advent of airline deregulation
and the rise of executives such as Anderson, flying has become more
of an ordeal than a magical experience. And Anderson's first actions
as Amtrak CEO were to impose the kind of passenger-unfriendly rules
so familiar to fliers—confiscatory refund policies, the elimination
of discount programs such as AAA and Veterans' Advantage, and a
reduction in senior and child discounts.
It
then announced it would eliminate (the press release said “retire”)
the Pacific Parlour Car on the Los Angeles-Seattle Coast
Starlight—a first-class lounge
car that has boosted ridership on the route. There are no plans to
replace it.
In late March
Amtrak announced it would stop operating most special trains or
charter operations, thus throwing away the goodwill of hundreds of
organizations, along with the extra revenue such services provided.
And
then Anderson began bad-mouthing the long-hauls. At the California Rail Summit April 19, Anderson, who appeared angry when asked about
the services, said that the long-distance services cost $750 million
a year to operate (a figure based on questionable accounting
practices—something I'll cover in a later post), and then went on
to complain that only four per cent of passengers travel from end to
end. This seems to reflect Anderson's airline background—the idea
of multiple stops is simply alien to him. Anderson was asked, “What
about the 'National' in NRPC? Are you not supposed to operate a
national system? He was, according to one observer, “fuming,” and
abruptly said,“Anyone
have a question about policy?” as though these questions weren't.
On
the same day as the California Rail Summit, a news release announced
that “Amtrak will offer contemporary and fresh dining choices for
sleeping car customers, instead of traditional dining car service,
embarking aboard its Capitol Limited and Lake Shore
Limited trains beginning June 1. Translation: No more hot meals;
cold boxed dinners for sleeping car passengers, whose meals are
included in the ticket price; and no option but the lounge car menu
for coach passengers, who until June 1, could pay for meals in the
diner.
And
then on May 8, railroad artist and railfan Andrew Fletcher released a
bombshell—an e-mail he had received from Joe Boardman, Amtrak CEO
from 2008 to 2016—which accused Amtrak management of attempting to
eliminate the national Amtrak system beginning with the Southwest
Chief. I was skeptical at first because the e-mail seemed hastily
written and was replete with grammar and punctuation errors. It was
not like the well-crafted Boardman messages I was used to reading
when I worked for Amtrak. But Mr. Boardman confirmed the message, and
later published a more polished version in Railway Age, That a
former Amtrak CEO would publicly criticize his successor was
unprecedented.
Amtrak,
Boardman reminds us, “is not a privately held corporation whose
fate is to be determined by a few individuals behind closed doors. It
was created by the people and for the people and and is funded by
taxpayers who help supplement Amtrak's farebox revenue. Amtrak
provides a cherished public service, with opinion polls repeatedly
validating support for its existence and even expansion.”
And
in June, Boardman's prediction that “Amtrak management and its
board of directors have drawn a line in the sand at the foot of Raton
Pass, targeting the Southwest Chief as their first—but not
last—long-distance train to target for cutting” came true.
The
Chief is a special case. Much of its route through Kansas,
Colorado, and New Mexico is little-used or unused by Burlington
Northern Santa Fe freights. But BNSF was willing to work with the
states and Amtrak to maintain the line. And the states came up with
the money, in the form of TIGER (Transportation Investment Gaining
Economic Opportunity) Grants. In March of this year, New Mexico
Senator Mark Udall announced that Colfax County, New Mexico had
received a $16 million TIGER grant for improvements on a 200-mile
stretch of track between Lamy, New Mexico and Trinidad, Colorado.
But
there was a catch: Amtrak had to make a $3 million copayment in order
for the county to receive the grant. And in May, Amtrak Chief
Financial Officer William Feidt refused to make the payment unless "a
comprehensive financial plan and accompanying commitments by relevant
states and BNSF for the remainder of the infrastructure investments
and additional maintenances (sic) costs for this route in New Mexico
must be completed.” Amtrak has never imposed such conditions on
track improvement projects on other segments of its route.
Senators
and Representatives from the there states were incensed, to say the
least, at Amtrak's decision to renege on its earlier commitment to
maintain the line. They requested a meeting with Amtrak officials.
But instead of negotiating with the people's representatives, they
arrogantly refused to consider anything but cutting the route. They
proposed replacing the train with bus service between Dodge City,
Kansas or La Junta, Colorado on the one hand, and Albuquerque, New
Mexico on the other. New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich said, I think
this was one of the most unproductive meetings with an agency level
official that I’ve ever experienced,” he said. “To learn that
not only are they planning to pull back their commitment to the TIGER
grant, but that they're going to abandon the route I think is just
outrageous.”
And
if Anderson gets his way, he'll effectively kill the train. There's
very little about a bus that's magic, after all.
Image: Westbound Southwest Chief emerging from Raton Tunnel, by "Hinge of Fate," Wikimedia Commons
