Hotline #151 - August 11, 2000

As Democrats prepare for their convention in Los Angeles this week, an Associated Press report says their platform committee is considering language that encourages investment in "our national passenger railroad, Amtrak, and high-speed trains that would give Americans choices -- freeing them from traffic, smog-choked cities, and being held hostage to foreign oil." The Gore campaign also has published calls for investment in Amtrak and high-speed rail. The Democrats' 1996 platform was silent on rail.

Republicans approved a platform August 1 that supports an "intercity passenger rail system" and high-speed rail. The AP story contrasted the 2000 platform with the 1984 platform that boasted of cutting "taxpayers' subsidy to Amtrak," and with President Reagan's attempts to kill Amtrak in the 1980's, and with Bob Dole's call in 1995 for a "roll back" of "federal programs" like Amtrak. The story noted prominent Republicans who openly support passenger trains, like Wisconsin Governor (and Amtrak board chairman) Tommy Thompson, and Senate Commerce Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas -- though, clearly, opponents remain. The 2000 Republican platform does not make specific reference to investment.

Amtrak in July recorded its highest monthly ridership since August 1990. There were 2,053,996 riders, bringing in $107.2 million in revenues -- 11.6% above July 1999. Amtrak President George Warrington said, "Amtrak is having its best summer ever, because we're putting the guest at the center of everything we do and backing it up with a one-of-a-kind guarantee." However, it is not a problem-free summer for Amtrak travelers, especially those on long-distance trains ...

NARP looked at the performance of 192 long-distance trains out of the just over 200 dispatched by Amtrak from August 4 to about August 10, and found that 67% of them were over 30 minutes late at their final destination. The information came from Amtrak's web site, which reports degree of delay (but no causes). The average end-point delay to all 192 trains (both for those that were late and on-time) was two hours and 15 minutes. NARP advises travelers on the worst performers (trains 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 30, 40, 48, 50; all averaging over three hours late) to be aware of the potential for serious delay.

The newest member of the Amtrak Reform Council is Nancy Rutledge Connery, of Woolwich, Me., appointed July 26 by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. She replaces conventional-rail critic Joseph Vranich, who resigned last month. A Council release says Connery is "an independent researcher, lecturer and policy advisor on infrastructure, transportation, and community development." She headed a Reagan Administration advisory panel that studied transportation issues. In the 1990's, she was a vocal opponent of the effort to start Boston-Portland passenger rail service. A letter-to-the-editor she wrote last year questioning the route's "financial sustainability" did not acknowledge government's huge role in planning and financing competing highways, or the pro-rail wishes of Maine voters as expressed through their elected officials.

Amtrak's proposed Los Angeles-Las Vegas Talgo train service has been postponed by at least another year. The most recent opening date had been September 2000 (next month), but an Associated Press story says it will now be late 2001 at the earliest. One factor in the delay is a ten-month project to build 20 miles of double track on the Union Pacific line in the Mojave Desert, work on which has not yet begun. UP required the double track to reduce passenger and freight train interference. Amtrak and UP have a permit request pending before the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where one outstanding issue is the track's potential effect on desert tortoise habitat.

Another outstanding issue is Amtrak's petition for "grandfathering approval" for the five existing Talgo train sets -- four of which are in current revenue service on the Pacific Northwest Corridor, and the fifth of which is planned for the Las Vegas service. The petition is necessary for continued operation of the trains because the trains predate the Federal Railroad Administration's new passenger-car safety standards. NARP testified in favor of the petition at a hearing on July 21. An FRA decision is possible by month’s end and, in any event, long before the Mojave Desert double-track project is completed.

An August 9 Wall Street Journal story on the FRA process, "Amtrak Cars Challenged Over Safety," begins, "A Canadian rail-car manufacturer [Bombardier] is pressuring U.S. transportation officials to take out of service the Talgo passenger cars used on the Amtrak Cascades line…" Stan Suchin of Washington DOT said, "We're extremely worried." Talgo America CEO Jean-Pierre Ruiz said, "The questioning of our safety is insulting…My competitor is causing this problem." Bombardier Transit Corp. President Peter Stangl said, "If there is a [safety] standard out there, then everybody ought to meet it."

A landslide west of Santa Barbara July 30 on Union Pacific tracks got a temporary fix by August 5 allowing Amtrak trains (Coast Starlight and Pacific Surfliner) to pass through. Freight trains are being rerouted around the area.  Permanent work that requires state and local approval is still needed to stabilize the area. Union Pacific has not yet decided when this should occur (or how long it will take), so the passenger trains continue to run with a speed restriction. There is a chance that this permanent work can be done at the same time as a two-week tunnel project between Chatsworth and Simi Valley, Cal., that will require closure of the line starting in late September.

Over 1200 enthusiastic people rode demonstration commuter trains August 10 on the line between St. Cloud and Minneapolis, Minn. The train they rode was on its way west from the Bombardier factory to Seattle to be put into Sounder service next month.