STB’s New Chairman Might Be Good News for Amtrak On-Time Performance Issues

The Surface Transportation Board got a new member and chairman when President Bush made the appointment and designation on August 14: Charles D. Nottingham. He had been the Federal Highway Administration’s Associate Administrator for Policy and Governmental Affairs, but he served from 1999 to 2002 as CEO of the Virginia Department of Transportation. In that capacity, he gained some familiarity through Virginia Railway Express with issues involving CSX handling of passenger trains. This could be good for the issue of Amtrak on-time performance. The previous chairman, W. Douglas Buttrey, seemed to readily accept CSX and Union Pacific arguments that, well, really, they were doing the best job they could of handling Amtrak trains. Nottingham has the advantage of being appointed just before receiving detailed rebuttal letters from Amtrak Acting President and CEO David Hughes. Fortunately, Nottingham is not handicapped by quickly having written a letter to NARP (as Buttrey did) accepting CSX and UP’s arguments, and that he has that Virginia experience.

Hughes in his two letters (one dealing with CSX and one with UP) noted that some other railroads “indicate that when Amtrak is running on time, it is a sign their network is functioning well.  Operating Amtrak on time is not a zero-sum game where other traffic must suffer if Amtrak does well.” Hughes also noted that “none of the capacity investments specifically cited in CSXT’s letter is on lines used by Amtrak,” and that “UP’s efforts have been ineffective in reducing slow orders faster than new slow orders have appeared.”

The best news of all would be enactment of S.1516, which explicitly gives STB powers regarding Amtrak’s legal right to priority dispatching.

—Ross Capon