Hotline #945 - August 30, 1996

The arrival of the Labor Day weekend means that Congress will reconvene next week. It is quite likely that September 1996 will be the most critical month that Amtrak has ever faced politically, and events that will unfold -- or not unfold -- this month will determine whether there will be any intercity passenger rail service at all a few years from now.

Three major items are necessary in September.

First, for Amtrak to survive through 1997, it is absolutely necessary that Amtrak get the Senate numbers for capital and the Northeast Corridor that are in the Senate 1997 DOT funding bill. Any result approaching the terrible House figures will be disastrous.

Second, there is a chance the Senate will finally take up S.1318, the Amtrak reauthorization bill. It contains important measures that would reduce Amtrak's operating costs, which is important to train service if federal operating grants keep declining.

Third, there is a chance that the Amtrak gas-tax half cent will be dealt with somehow. It has already been approved in concept by the Senate, in a sense-of-the-Senate vote in May, and is favored by more than half the members of the House Ways and Means Committee. The half cent would provide Amtrak a stable, significant funding source for the next few years, allowing Amtrak to reduce operating costs through modernization and through reducing its debt principal. The half cent would allow Amtrak -- for the first time ever -- to plan more than a year at a time how much it can invest in itself and how much service it can provide. It is the best bet for Amtrak to ever be able to expand into new markets and re-enter old ones.

President Clinton rode a chartered train through the eastern Midwest earlier this week on his way to the Democratic convention in Chicago. He described seeing America from a train as his "idea of heaven." That prompted the Christian Science Monitor radio network to call NARP this week and ask whether average citizens could have a similarly good experience by duplicating the President's trip on regular Amtrak trains. The answer for the most part, of course, was "no," because there is no Amtrak service from Ashland to Columbus and Toledo, or from Toledo to Detroit. The radio reporter was astonished to learn that Wyandotte, Mich., where the President stopped on August 27, had not had passenger service since 1960! On the other hand, the places in Michigan and Indiana the special train visited later do have Amtrak service, thanks to the State of Michigan.

The train itself was drawn by Amtrak AMD-103 locomotives and had several Superliner cars. The President probably spent most of his time in the private cars at the rear of the train, but was seen on CBS News on August 27 sitting in the Superliner lounge car as the train inched its way through Milwaukee Junction in Detroit.

Amtrak treated this train as a charter, which the Clinton campaign paid for on a cost-plus basis. Similarly, Amtrak ran a special train for the California Republican Party a couple weeks ago for the San Diego convention, but Republican nominee Bob Dole was not aboard that train.

President Clinton will be in his home state of Arkansas on September 1, which stands to lose its only passenger train, the Texas Eagle, thanks in no small part to his budget request for only $200 million for Amtrak operations in 1997.

A meeting was held this afternoon in Hermiston, Ore., to discuss Amtrak's plans to eliminate the Pioneer. The meeting was open to the public, but was meant as a way for mayors in Oregon to meet with officials of the Oregon DOT and Amtrak to discuss their options. Sen. Ron Wyden (D.) opened the meeting.

The southbound Vermonter struck a truck at a grade crossing near Roxbury, Vt., on August 27. The train derailed, but remained on the track bed. Five people, including the truck driver, received minor injuries.