WASHINGTON -- A federal panel weighing Amtrak's future is proposing ''a new federal bureaucracy'' to manage passenger rail, the railway's president wrote in a letter critical of the idea, a wire service reports.

The letter from Amtrak president George Warrington to Gilbert Carmichael, chairman of the Amtrak Reform Council, is a preview of a report being released Tuesday by the council.

Warrington, who received an advance copy, said it proposes five options for restructuring Amtrak, which is to lose federal operating subsidies by 2003.

All five options, he wrote, envision creating a government corporation to oversee all or part of a national rail system.

In three of the five options, the corporation would own and operate Amtrak's physical assets, which include the tracks between Boston and Washington and stations including those in Philadelphia and Chicago. In another option, the states would assume ownership of the assets.

The fifth option, according to Warrington, would put Amtrak's physical assets under private ownership, but with government oversight. Privatization, he wrote, ''has given rise to serious operating, safety, and financial problems in Great Britain.''