This Week at Amtrak; June 19, 2008

A weekly digest of events, opinions, and forecasts from
United Rail Passenger Alliance, Inc.
1526 University Boulevard, West, PMB 203
Jacksonville, Florida 32217-2006 USA
Telephone 904-636-7739, Electronic Mail info@unitedrail.org
http://www.unitedrail.org



Volume 5, Number 19



Founded over three decades ago in 1976, URPA is a nationally known policy institute that focuses on solutions and plans for passenger rail systems in North America. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, URPA has professional associates in Minnesota, California, Arizona, New Mexico, the District of Columbia, Texas, and New York. For more detailed information, along with a variety of position papers and other documents, visit the URPA web site at http://www.unitedrail.org.


URPA is not a membership organization, and does not accept funding from any outside sources.


1) “There’s trouble my friend, right here in River City,” sang Tony Award winner Robert Preston first on Broadway in 1957 and on the silver screen in 1962's The Music Man. Preston was playing Professor Harold Hill, who had just arrived in fictional River City, Iowa on the Rock Island Railroad. The setting was pre-World War I, and the trouble was River City’s children were trying out near-beer, known by the brand name of Bevo, and reading a salacious monthly magazine called “Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang.” The alleged real fear Professor Hill was promoting was the satanic influence of a new pool table just arrived in town in a pool hall, which was unfortunately owned by River City’s mayor.

If only problems in the Midwest were that simple this week.

The Midwest has been soaked by torrential rains, and equally torrential flooding has occurred as a result. Mighty rivers are over-running their banks, and entire communities as being washed away.

The freight railroads of the Midwest and Upper Midwest are dealing with huge problems of washed out or flooded tracks and infrastructure, disappearing bridges, rolling stock suddenly sitting amidst inland oceans of muddy water, and things generally grinding to a screeching halt.

It’s a colossal mess, and a firm indication that lest anyone forget, Mother Nature is ALWAYS in charge.

Open routes for essential freight trains are few and far between. Power companies are running out of coal to provide electricity to millions of people. Manufacturers depending on “just in time” freight deliveries are out of luck. The shaky economy will take a hit because so much business has halted due to flooding, and food prices will be shooting up because it’s summer, and essential crops that feed the nation are disappearing under water. Railroads will have huge clean-up bills, but earnings are also down due to stopped and unmovable trains. This mess could take weeks to sort out.

But, we have seen what the Union Pacific Railroad can do when Mother Nature deals it a raw hand. We saw a bridge replaced in Northern California in a time that was measured in days and hours instead of weeks and months. We saw the mudslide in Oregon that deposited most of a side of a mountain on UP’s north-south mainline that hosts Amtrak’s Coast Starlight go away with amazing speed, considering what it took to reopen that line. It took weeks to get the job done, but geniuses of engineering, coordination, and sheer perseverance overcame the continuing punches of Mother Nature on the side of that mountain and UP won the day and reopened the line.

Here in the Southeast, in 2005, we saw what good planning and great execution did for Norfolk Southern, CSX, and Canadian National after Hurricane Katrina blew ashore that summer. By April 1, 2006, every piece of track had been repaired or replaced, and every bridge was back in place, and full passenger train operations were able to resume – if Amtrak had chosen to do so with the Sunset Limited east of New Orleans.

2) We know today’s railroaders are every bit the heroes their predecessors were who blazed trails across America in the 19th Century. We know as soon as the flood waters started rising, the professional engineers and maintenance of way people at Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Kansas City Southern, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, Norfolk Southern and CSX were dusting off emergency and contingency plans to get things back to normal and once again move our nation’s freight with the urgency needed by every American.

Amtrak, through all of this, has either annulled or provided reduced substitute service in the Midwest and Upper Midwest. It’s been very understandable that passenger trains which carry such a small amount of domestic travelers in our nation would not receive very high priority. That’s not a happy scenario, but a realistic scenario.

3) The question is, when things get back to normal, what is Amtrak going to do? It’s the middle of the summer travel season; will Amtrak try to get its trains back running at the earliest possible moment, or will it do what it did when the Coast Starlight route was blocked: throw it’s corporate hands into the air, surrender more quickly that the French staring down the barrel of a popgun, and think it will save a few bucks in operating expenses by just not operating any trains until it is compelled to do so?

Here on the Right Coast, Amtrak is doing its usual gold-plating of the Northeast Corridor, and replacing the Thames River Bridge in Connecticut, on its main route between New York City and Boston.

From the moment the bridge replacement was announced, Amtrak let everyone know that for four days, it was virtually abandoning its passengers and loyal customers, and annulling most service over the NEC north of New York City, even though a substitute route via Hartford, Connecticut is available. Amtrak is running some service over that route, but not nearly anything near what it normally says is a critically-needed service level it provides over the main NEC route.

Amtrak just “doesn’t get it” when it comes to providing service to its passengers. It claims it’s the largest carrier of passengers on the East Coast, even larger than the airlines operating north of Washington, D.C., but it doesn’t seem concerned that 80% of a business week (which it says is its busy time) is going away without much replacement or substitute service. Are we yet – again – seeing Amtrak operate for the comfort and convenience of its operating department, and not for the comfort and convenience of its passengers?

4) Let’s review the history. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit, and the Sunset Limited went away, and has yet to return. Amtrak President and CEO Alex Kummant told Passenger Train Journal readers in the magazine’s current issue people should “get over it,” when it comes to the return of the Sunset east of New Orleans, even though there is a clamoring for return of the service.

Early in 2008, when the mudslides hit the Coast Starlight route in Oregon, Amtrak annulled the entire three-state, 1,377 mile long route of the Starlight because one stretch of track was out in Oregon. It was only the protests of California’s brave RailPAC organization which forced Amtrak to return the Starlight to service piece by piece, dragging its corporate feet like a stubborn child.

Now, in the summer of 2008, we have the devastating Midwest floods, which will be talked about for years to come. The freight railroads will, with great aplomb and sweat on their brows, reopen their tracks and serve their customers. But, will Amtrak be back as soon as possible? Or, will someone at Amtrak make yet another decision based on some middle level manger receiving a personal wage bonus for saving the company money by not running trains, to delay and delay the return of service?

Amtrak, the eyes of America will be watching and waiting and wondering. Don’t disappoint us.



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J. Bruce Richardson
President
United Rail Passenger Alliance, Inc.
1526 University Boulevard, West, PMB 203
Jacksonville, Florida 32217-2006 USA
Telephone 904-636-7739
brucerichardson@unitedrail.org
http://www.unitedrail.org