National Association of Railroad Passengers: www.narprail.org

Hotline #399

The deadline for Democratic representatives to sign on to the pro-Amtrak letter to House appropriations leaders has been extended until close of business Wednesday, May 25.  As of yesterday noon, 137 Democrats had signed, out of a possible .  Ask your representative to sign if he or she has not; they should contact Steve Feldgus in Rep. Melendez’s office.  The House website has the contact information you need.  Click here for a list of those who have not signed.  Don’t worry about asking someone who may have signed later—just say “please sign and, by the way, thank you if you have already done so.”

The Senate on Tuesday passed H.R.3, the six-year (FY 2004-2009) highway/transit reauthorization, by 89-11 after defeating an “anti-transit” amendment by Jeff Sessions (R-AL) 84-16.  The bill “guarantees” $293.8 billion, including $53.8 billion for transit.  Although both votes were overwhelming, the future remains uncertain.  The next step is a House-Senate conference committee.  The House leadership seems unwilling to bring to the floor any conference report that exceeds the House-passed level of $284 billion, which is the level acceptable to the Bush Administration.  (The House bill has $52.4 billion for transit.) But some “donor-state” senators (most notably the Texas and Wisconsin delegation which symbolically voted “No” on the final bill) find even the Senate funding levels unacceptably low.  There might be another attempt to cut transit—this time in conference—to permit more highway spending while backing down from the $293.8 billion total.  And there could be delays getting any final product through if the judge confirmation controversy slows Senate action to a crawl.

Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta, after a hiatus of nearly a month, did another rail passenger event, this time at the Mobile train station, as part of a week-long bus tour of the southeast to promote National Transportation Week.  Mobile probably has lower Amtrak ridership than any other major city the railroad serves, due to tri-weekly service in the middle of the night and the well-documented on time performance problems of the Sunset Limited.

Mobile—on three separate occasions—has been the terminus for failed state-supported trains that ran daily, at more attractive times.  The Gulf Coast Limited (Mobile-Gulfport-New Orleans) ran on two separate occasions: April 29, 1984 to January 6, 1985 and June 29, 1996-March 31, 1997.  Both incarnations of the train faced funding problems: in the 80’s, Alabama didn’t want to pay their share, in the 90’s Mississippi didn’t keep paying.  The Gulf Breeze (Birmingham-Mobile split off New York-New Orleans Crescent) operated October 29, 1989 to April 1, 1995 and faced similar funding problems from the State of Alabama.

For a Gulf Coast service to work well in the future, we need the federal-state partnership Mineta proposes—but preferably with 80% federal funding rather than 50%.  We need flexibility in the early years to let states use the federal funds for operations as well as capital.  And this partnership must be in addition to Amtrak, not in place of Amtrak as Mineta proposes.

In Mobile, Mineta also issued a broader attack on Amtrak, saying “Across the country, taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth when it comes to intercity passenger rail. All 15 of Amtrak’s long distance trains combined lost more than $908 million in 2004.” The consensus—shared by DOT Inspector General Kenneth Mead and Amtrak Chairman David Laney and echoed in Congressional hearings over the past few weeks—is that the ultimate savings from eliminating all long distance trains would be just $300 million a year, and that only after several years of labor protection payments.

DOT posted on its web site a list of alleged losses for all Amtrak routes, including losses totaling $300 million on the four Northeast Corridor product lines.  This contradicted the May 12 testimony of DOT General Counsel Jeffrey Rosen, who—answering a question from Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)—said Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor services “break even.”

NARP issued news releases both before and after the event, the later responding to Mineta’s remarks.

Amtrak has announced the elimination of food service for all Empire Corridor trains that run only between New York City and Albany on July 1.  Amtrak will close its brand new commissary at the Albany train station.  Amtrak states that the service is lightly patronized and elimination will result in savings of approximately one million dollars per year.  Food service on Empire Corridor trains continuing west or north of Albany will continue.  NARP is urging Amtrak to take a more creative approach.

The Portal Bridge fire near Newark, NJ (reported in last week’s hotline) caused delays for much of last weekend and into this week.  One track has been cleared for full-speed operation; the other still has a 30 mph speed restriction on it.  Amtrak says that it may take up to one year to make all repairs to the bridge, but that full-speed rail service should resume next week.  What is unclear at this time is how long will it take to restore the swing mechanism that permits the bridge to open (the Hackensack River has a moderate amount of commercial marine traffic on it).

The Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers hosted their first annual “Ohio Rail Summit” on Wednesday in Columbus.  The event was intended to encourage Ohio rail advocates to lobby for the Ohio Hub Plan with their state legislators.  Participants who attended the event got “the ask” from Jim Seney, Executive Director of the Ohio Rail Development Commission, received advocacy training from Stephanie Vance of AdVanced Consulting, participated in a press conference and rally on the Capitol steps, and then attended pre-arranged meetings with their State House and Senate members.

Metrolink will operate three “Beach Trains” this summer on weekends.  In previous years, one train per Saturday and Sunday has operated.  This year, three beach trains will run on weekends between San Bernardino, Riverside, and intermediate points, en route to San Clemente and Oceanside.  Visit the special Beach Train website for more information.