AKRON, Ohio -- Most Akron residents have never seen the small Amtrak train station tucked away behind Quaker Square, or spotted the darkened passenger cars as they chug through the city in the dead of night, according to the Akron Beacon-Journal.

The train pulls into the sleeping city sometime after 2 a.m., picks up a handful of yawning travelers and leaves town before the sun even thinks about rising.

And yet many would argue that Akron -- and Ohio, for that matter -- is an important player in the nation's passenger rail service.

Expect those people to get vocal very soon.

Ohio would be dropped from Amtrak's rail system if the company goes ahead with threatened cuts to long-distance service.

Company officials said unless the government doubles its subsidy to the troubled train system, it will cut 18 routes this fall, including five through the Buckeye State.

The “Three Rivers” train that stops in Akron on its journey from New York to Chicago would be eliminated. The other Ohio cities that would lose service are Cleveland, Youngstown, Hamilton, Alliance, Elyria, Sandusky, Fostoria, Toledo, Cincinnati and Bryan.

President Bush's budget proposal released Monday calls for $521 million for Amtrak -- the same amount as the last three years. But Amtrak said it needs $1.2 billion in the 2003 budget year, which begins in October.

Just a couple of years ago, Congress had ordered Amtrak to become operationally self-sufficient by 2003 or face dissolution.

Akron city spokesman Mark Williamson said Mayor Don Plusquellic has been working with the U.S. Conference of Mayors to find a solution to the current rail crisis.

Rail service is an integral part of the country's transportation mix, Williamson said. He mused that while train travel has been successful on other continents, “this country hasn't been able to figure out an efficient way to do it, I suppose.”

Losing Amtrak in Akron would have little effect on the city economically.

“The train comes through in the middle of the night -- usually between 2 and 4 a.m.,” noted Scott Yaeger, vice president of operations for Crowne Plaza Quaker Square. Amtrak's city-built-and-operated train station sits behind the shopping, restaurant and hotel complex.

“People come down and wait for the train at the station at such odd hours, we get little out of it,” he said.

But losing rail service here would definitely impact those who love train travel, like William and Sandra Engel of Clinton, who met on a train in 1990.

“We still use the train several times a year,” said William Engel. He said traveling by rail is special, in part because it has a unique social element that is conducive to meeting new and interesting people.

Richard Jacobs, a train fan from East Union Township in Wayne County and a member of the Orrville Railroad Heritage Society, added that trains have become more important than ever since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made some people fearful of flying.

“It's an alternative where some people feel safe,” he said. Eliminating long-distance service “would be a serious mistake.”

Engel added that health restrictions make the train a better choice for some people as well.

But Amtrak has been in financial trouble almost since it was founded in 1971.

It spent most of the 1980s and 1990s cutting service to save money. Akron -- where about 8,000 passengers climbed aboard each year -- fell victim to that strategy in 1995, when the city was eliminated as a stop for the New York-Chicago route's Broadway Limited train.

In 1997, Amtrak executives said they expected to run out of money in less than a year.

But in 1998, lured by a state grant and a promise by Akron city officials to supply a caretaker for a new station, passenger service returned to the city. The Three Rivers train was routed through here, and riders from the local area no longer had to make a trip to Alliance or Cleveland to catch the train.

By 2000, it appeared Amtrak was changing course, embarking on a strategy of growth to increase profits. It expanded 11 routes in 21 states and added daytime stops in Cleveland.

Amtrak has long had critics who opposed government subsidies of the rail service. They have advocated letting the railroad die, saying it's an expensive anachronism in an era of cars and air transportation.

Train travel has been declining steadily since 1944. The last year Americans chose trains over planes was 1956, when rails recorded 28.2 billion passenger-miles, while airlines netted 23.2 billion.

But U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Lakewood, said Amtrak is a critical part of the nation's transportation system.

“The administration is getting so tied up with its plan to prosecute war anywhere it wants to in the world that it's forgetting to take care of things at home,” he said. He said he will help introduce legislation to protect the train service to Ohio and other affected states.

The Amtrak Reform Council was expected to release a report tomorrow recommending that the government break up the railroad and open passenger rail to competition.

Rep. Steven LaTourette, a member of the House Transportation Committee, agreed. He said it's too early in the budget process to worry about the future of Amtrak.

“We always appreciate the president's input,” said LaTourette, R-Painesville. “We've fought the fight on Amtrak for years and we've won it every year, and I have no reason to think that we won't this year.”