Hotline #123 - January 28, 2000

January 31 is a historic day in passenger railroading -- the introduction of electric revenue service between New Haven and Boston. Two Acela Regional Washington-Boston round trips (one daily, one Monday-Friday) will replace two existing NortheastDirect round trips, covering the New York-Boston segment in four hours. They will depart Boston 6:15 am weekdays, 5:00 pm daily; depart New York eastbound 8:35 am weekdays, 4:55 pm daily. Other Northeast Corridor schedule changes take effect the same day, including replacing the 8:10 am departure from Newport News with one at 10:30 am. Also on January 31, a special train will depart Boston in the morning and head for New York, making stops for ceremonies at some stations. NARP President John R. Martin will be one of the guests on this historic occasion.

The snowstorm that hit the Eastern Seaboard on January 25 had a great impact on all forms of transportation, including rail. North of Washington, Amtrak ran fairly well on the Northeast Corridor, though it cancelled many Metroliners on January 25 in anticipation of greatly reduced business travel demand (as is typical during such storms). South of Washington was another matter, as on January 25 everything except the Crescent was cancelled (even, somewhat surprisingly, the Cardinal). CSX was apparently unable to keep up with the snow in its territory and was shut down. Keeping switches clean was one of the many problems.

On January 26, all trains south of Washington were cancelled again, though some service resumed in the afternoon. Virginia Railway Express managed to run on a "snow schedule," but somehow CSX was not able to run its two MARC commuter rail routes. Because of many investments made since the many failures during the storm of January 1996, Washington Metro ran well during the storm itself, but has suffered problems since then with about 100 cars. Other rail transit agencies reported sporadic delays.

The southbound Silver Palm of January 28 was canceled. The westbound Three Rivers that left New York on January 27 was annulled at Pittsburgh due to frozen plumbing.

President Clinton delivered his State of the Union address on January 276, and transportation issues were virtually absent from it. However, the night before, Wisconsin Governor (and Amtrak Chairman) Tommy Thompson (R.) delivered his State of the State address. He repeated his call for $50 million in state investment for the Milwaukee-Madison line as part of the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative, plus $100 million in federal spending -- something that could be accomplished if S.1144 (TEA-21 flexibility for states to spend federal funds on passenger rail) ever passes, or if President Clinton proposed the fully authorized amount of $989 million for Amtrak in fiscal 2001 in early February (and then Congress approves that).

State bills are pending in Indiana, Illinois (HB3032), and Nebraska to allow those states to join a compact to push forward with the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative. Three of the nine states must pass identically worded laws for the compact to formally take effect. NARP members in those states should urge their state legislators to support these bills.

The Amtrak Reform Council met on January 24 and released its first annual report on Amtrak. Chairman Gil Carmichael and Vice Chairman Paul Weyrich repeatedly made clear their desire to see Amtrak succeed and add more routes. The report's tentative recommendation that Amtrak expand its mail and express business seems consistent with that desire. The Council is correct to condition that on confirmation that this business is -- or soon will be -- profitable. NARP also believes Amtrak must reduce the time added to schedules for handling this business, and reduce the number and extent of related delays.

However -- unlike the Council -- NARP, Amtrak, and the Clinton Administration do not believe that the law requires Amtrak to cover depreciation and progressive overhaul costs with commercial (or other non-federal) revenues in order to meet the "test for operational self-sufficiency). It will be a significant challenge to achieve that without covering those two items. Raising the bar by $567 million (Amtrak's fiscal 2002 estimate for those items), as the Council report hints may be required, would insure that Amtrak could not meet the test.

Congressional hearings on this are likely. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R.), who chairs the Senate Commerce Transportation Subcommittee, said in a wire story that "if we are not going to be on the same description of self-sufficiency, then that could be a disaster." Governor Thompson claimed that the Council had "raised the bar ... in the middle of the game."