Opinion: Loss of Amtrak
Would Damage Nation's Transportation Security
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- For much of its three-decade life, Amtrak has
been on the wrong track. Yet the national rail passenger system,
including service between Memphis and such cities as New Orleans and
Chicago, remains worth saving, according to an editorial by George
Rieves in the Commercial Appeal. Rieves of McKenzie, Tenn., is a
rail historian and former publicist for the Tennessee Valley
Railroad Museum in Chattanooga.
Amtrak has tried to
perpetuate the past era of long-distance rail travel that died in
the 1950s, as airlines took away the bulk of this business.
Automobiles already had claimed most of the shorter-distance travel
between 1925 and 1940, hindered only by the Depression of the 1930s
and gasoline rationing during World War II.
Faced with
wholesale desertion by the public in the 1960s, the standard
American passenger train became obsolete. U.S. government
investments that supported the auto and airline industries through
tax-funded highway subsidies and airport financing gave a huge
competitive advantage to nonrail travel.
The American-style
passenger train, with its dining cars, Pullman sleeping cars and
other extensive services was in line to join the side-wheel
riverboat and the stagecoach in history books.
Yet Amtrak
has had its ups as well as its downs. Born in 1971, the system at
first inched along, struggling painfully with old equipment and
run-down stations.
The skeletal system, however, gained
ground throughout the 1970s. Well-received Superliner cars and other
new equipment, new or renovated stations, and a modern ticketing
system got unexpected boosts from the first Arab oil embargo and a
second oil "slowdown."
In the 1980s, Amtrak patronage rose,
and improved management and operations improved Amtrak's
cost-to-income ratio. The oil scares and turmoil in the Middle East
had focused public attention, however briefly, on the weakness of a
national transportation system that depended excessively on the
availablity of abundant and inexpensive oil.
At the same
time, rate wars have boosted air travel substantially because of
low, deregulated fares. But the fierce competition helped bank rupt
many once-dominant carriers such as Eastern, Braniff and Pan Am.
Amtrak has stumbled along, largely unnoticed by a public
that was too willing to overlook the fact that speed and
"convenience" of other modes of travel have depended on cheap oil
from uninterrupted supply sources. Over and over, we have seen
warning lights flash to tell us that our national well-being is at
stake because of the unpredictability of our oil sources.
Now airlines are screaming in agony they say can be eased
only by massive bailouts from taxpayers. Billions of dollars to prop
up mismanaged and unprofitable companies would come on top of
billions already invested in high-tech airports and support systems.
The world's oil supply is shrinking as worldwide consumption
increases. Resulting scarcity brings higher prices, assuming
upheavals in the Arab world do not suddenly reduce or halt our oil
supply.
We risk national disaster because of our lack of a
balanced transportation system as a defense against oil blackmail.
Trains can carry more people per gallon of fuel used than any other
mode of transportation on a nationwide scale.
Amtrak is
living on borrowed time. It faces a December 2002 deadline to become
"profitable" or shut down. It cannot meet that timetable.
It
may come to a halt even before the deadline, because of expected
cuts in its federal funding. While the airlines rake in billions,
there is not enough left for fuel-efficient passenger trains.
Amtrak needs to restructure its trains to serve shorter
travel distances, trips of 300 to 400 miles. It needs world-class
standards for speed, not the rates it has now. Amtrak needs better
tracks and the freedom to shift into new markets. These things would
require an additional federal investment of more than $400 million.
Airlines are screaming for, and getting, billions of dollars
so they can guzzle fuel and do business as usual, while our
transportation system remains vulnerable. A modern Amtrak can help
meet our vital needs for basic transportation.
To let it
vanish, totally or in large part, this year would rob us of a
necessary element of our national security. Time is fast running out
for a fuel-efficient transportation system.