Another Attempt to Kill Long Distance Trains

Last week, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) introduced an amendment to H.R. 1401, the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007, that would have prevented Amtrak from spending any security funds on the ten routes with the highest “cost per seat mile” as presented in Amtrak’s monthly performance report for September 2006 (presumably referring to the full Fiscal Year 2006).  The amendment failed on a vote of 130-299.  NARP Board member Joe Versaggi offers his thoughts on the amendment.

Even if certain Congressmen who voted “aye” thinking they were attempting to focus security funding by risk, this amendment wouldn’t have done it. That should be left up to Amtrak, not micro-managing politicians. The Cardinal, Crescent, Silver Meteor, Silver Star, and Palmetto run on the New York – Washington portion of the Northeast Corridor. The Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited are yarded in Sunnyside, Queens and Ivy City, DC every night alongside the Acela and Regional trains. That is nearly half of Amtrak’s long distance trains right there.

In any case, terrorists, whether foreign or domestic, do not seem to distinguish by class of train or location. Amtrak’s Sunset Limited in the 1990’s, and one of Union Pacific’s “City” streamliners several decades earlier, was the victims of trackage saboteurs out west with fatal results. Neither case has been solved. Prime railroad terrorist targets in WWII included Newark Penn Station, but also Altoona, PA, and Cut Bank, MT. The latter has a trestle, which had armed guards for the duration of the war.

The amendment, which failed, got only 30% of the recorded “aye” votes and was actually a veiled attack on Amtrak’s national network, without which there would be no political support for the Northeast Corridor. At the same time, it was despicably shameless about ranking and devaluing human life by economic status according to the class of train a passenger is riding, NOT by risk.

—Joe Versaggi, NARP Board Member