Amtrak Strikes Gold at WSJ; Financial Times Publishes My Letter

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a superb letter from Peter Hine of New York, under the headline “Meant to Commit Suicide, Amtrak Does a Hercules.” Some key quotes: “The notion that Northeast Corridor passenger service will somehow be improved by stripping Amtrak of its permanent capital assets is a cynical ploy…If Balkanizing railroad operations and divorcing them from integral assets such as utility corridors [and] real estate development rights is such a good idea, why don’t other Class One railroads hasten to do it?”

Hine was responding the Journal’s positive story of August 23, which ran under these headlines: “Crowds Heed Amtrak’s ‘All Aboard’; Improved Service, Air Woes
Lure Travelers in Northeast; Long Hauls Still Suffer.” It was encouraging that the only negative quotes were from the Bush Administration and JetBlue; they even had positive comments from two, prominent, former airline executives (Bethune and Crandall).

Here is the letter I submitted: “Thank you for an insightful report on the public’s growing preference for train travel in the face of the Bush Administration’s continuing opposition to Amtrak (“Crowds Heed Amtrak’s ‘All Aboard,’ August 23). With a supportive White House, ridership growth would be even greater and more widespread.

“As for the comment that some passengers are riding because ‘they think’ Amtrak is more fuel efficient than the plane—they are right! The latest Energy Department statistics—for 2005—show that airlines on average consume 20% more energy per passenger-mile than Amtrak. While the article noted that overnight trains suffer reliability problems, it did not mention the capacity problems that have faced these services as older equipment was retired and not replaced due to lack of federal commitment to the system’s capital needs. Even so, there has been ridership growth on these trains. Reliability problems do not only plague overnight trains. Unfortunately, many state corridors are also suffering, including services around Chicago where a major, public-private infrastructure project to improve both passenger and freight train performance is proceeding slowly because of miserly federal funding.”

Although the WSJ did not publish my letter, their article did result in my appearing on MSNBC the afternoon of August 24; MSNBC interviewed Amtrak President Alex Kummant the next day.

On Monday, August 27, the Financial Times published my letter which praised an August 22 op ed column by Felix Rohatyn (senior adviser to the chairman of Lehman Brothers) and Warren Rudman (former Republican U.S. Senator from New Hampshire). However, I took them to task for not including railroads or transit in their definition of infrastructure, and noted that even the Dodd-Hagel infrastructure bill which they praised did include transit (but not private railroads). I quoted the AASHTO railroad needs investment figures. My letter ran next to a picture of an Acela and under the headline “Role of railroads too often forgotten.”

—Ross Capon