Hotline #172 - January 5, 2001

Amtrak passengers continue to experience severe delays in the Midwest, while Amtrak has annulled three trains through the end of the month and is running less than normal capacity on some others. The annulled trains are the Chicago-Janesville Lake Country Limited and two of the three Chicago-Detroit-Pontiac round trips (only morning westbound and evening eastbound are running).

NARP is deeply concerned and dismayed by the current situation, and continues to collect facts about what is transpiring and about the adequacy of Amtrak management's response to the weather. The situation was the subject of a big part of a teleconference meeting of the NARP Executive Committee last night with Amtrak Intercity President Ed Walker and his executive staff. The Amtrak people gave their perspectives on the crisis, and answered questions from Executive Committee members.

Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta is President-elect Bush's choice for Transportation Secretary. Mineta would be the only Democrat in the new Cabinet. He is a former mayor of San Jose and U.S. Representative from that area. He worked his way up the seniority ladder of the former Public Works Committee, serving as Surface Transportation Subcommittee chairman during the passage of ISTEA in 1991 -- at a time when jurisdiction over railroads (and Amtrak) had not yet been transferred to that committee. Mineta was chairman of the full committee in 1993-94.

In early 1995, Republicans became the majority in the House, at which point Public Works became the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (chaired by Bud Shuster, see below), and railroads (and Amtrak) were transferred there. Mineta became ranking Democrat then, but resigned from the House before Amtrak legislation reached the full committee level that year. Mineta's voting record on Amtrak was good, indicating a general support of passenger rail, but it's too early to tell how that will translate in the new administration.

William Thomas (R.-Cal.), whose district includes Bakersfield, is the new House Ways and Means chairman. The Republican leadership passed over the more senior Phil Crane (R.-Ill.) to pick Thomas, who thus could play a major role in the fate of the High Speed Rail Investment Act (HSRIA) that Senate Leaders Lott and Daschle promised to bring up early this year.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee once again will have a Subcommittee on Railroads. John Mica (R.-Fla.) reportedly is eager to chair it. It appears that Rep. Thomas Petri (R.-Wis.) will continue as chairman of the Surface Transportation Subcommittee.

Congress Daily yesterday said "several GOP sources indicate that ... Harold Rogers (R.-Ky.) will become chairman of the [House Appropriations] Transportation Subcommittee," succeeding Frank Wolf, whose chairmanship was term-limited.

Bud Shuster (R.-Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee since 1995, announced he is resigning his House seat effective January 31. He cited recent "health scares" (for both him and his wife) and the belief that he had "reached the pinnacle of [his] congressional career." Indeed, under House rules, he could not serve as chairman over six years, and his successor (Don Young, R.-Alaska) was named yesterday. Shuster was criticized last fall by the Standards of Official Conduct Committee for "serious official misconduct" in connection with lobbying relations with a former staffer, though Shuster admitted no wrongdoing.

Shuster left a deep imprint on national transportation policy, but one that cannot be said, in its entirety, to benefit railroad passengers. Two of his key pieces of legislation -- TEA-21 in 1998 and AIR-21 in 2000 -- created budgetary firewalls that guarantee funding for transportation programs that benefit from trust fund revenues. That's great for highways and aviation (and transit, too, whose users don't pay a trust-fund user fee), but bad news for unprotected programs like passenger rail, which face a dwindling transportation appropriations allocation.

Shuster also was a main force behind the most recent Amtrak reauthorization act ("Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997"), which mandated operational self-sufficiency for Amtrak by fiscal 2003 and provides for a liquidation scenario for America's only intercity passenger rail service; but which provides no guaranteed capital funding as enjoyed by other modes. Shuster also opposed the HSRIA, which would have provided a federal-state capital funding partnership for many corridors, including many used also by long-distance trains.

Little Rock Union Station is for sale, according to the January 2 Dallas Morning News. Tenants include Amtrak, the Children's Museum of Arkansas, and a restaurant.

Extension of Caltrain commuter trains into the Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco will be the subject of a $900,000 study commissioned last week by the Caltrain Joint Powers Board. Such an extension would open significant intermodal transfer opportunities with BART, Muni rail and several bus systems, but would require reconstruction of the terminal itself.

VIA Rail Canada will acquire 139 "NightStar" passenger cars that were built for night trains using the Channel Tunnel, but which were never deployed. The cars apparently will be used in corridor and Eastern services, displacing equipment there for other uses. Because the cars reportedly have extremely strong crash resilience, with crumple zones and a coupler design that prevents cars from jack-knifing or riding up over each other in a collision, rail passenger advocates in Canada are optimistic that the equipment eventually will be allowed to run in the U.S. However, the tough stance FRA took on the Talgos suggests that a favorable outcome for these cars is not inevitable.