 
|
|||||||||||||||||
              
|
Will the whistle stop?: Amtrak a lifeline for some far-flung communities
Wednesday, December 23, 1998 By David Patch, Block News Alliance
David Patch, a transportation writer for the Post-Gazette's sister newspaper, The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, recently traveled to Seattle and back to report on the state of North American passenger trains. He filed this report.
DEVIL'S LAKE, N.D. -- When Sharon Eickenbrock and her mother, Lily Henderson, boarded Amtrak's Empire Builder train here, it wasn't for a vacation. They were embarking on an overnight trip to Pasco, Wash., for a relative's funeral.
Chris Westerburg of Long Prairie, Minn., was taking the train to Montana to look for work as a combine operator.
And Scott Robinson of Pittsburgh, who had ridden a connecting Amtrak train to Chicago to board the Empire Builder there, was traveling to Minot, N.D., to make a sales call at a steel company in Regina, Saskatchewan. Robinson used to fly all the time, but after a few harrowing experiences - warning lights coming on in the cabin and such - he is now a confirmednon-flier.
For most people, train travel is a novelty, but in many parts of America, it's a lifeline. The Empire Builder and Amtrak's other long-distance trains get their heaviest business during the summer, when tourists fill many of the seats, and sleeping-car berths can be sold out for months in advance. But in places like Devil's Lake, Minot, and Cut Bank, Mont. - cities that have little, if any, airline service and are hundreds of miles from population centers - the train continues to fill a vital transportation role.
Fred Bott, the mayor of Devil's Lake, population 7,782, said the train becomes even more vital in winter, when severe cold and drifting snow can make North Dakota roads treacherous. Although the trains often run late then, he said, they "will get you through," and the risk of being stranded far from help is eliminated.
And officials say Amtrak's value to their communities extends beyond transporting local residents to distant destinations or bringing relatives home to visit. The train also is a development tool.
"It's one of the community's lifelines to the outside world," said Paul Tuss, director of Glacier Action and Involvement Now, Inc., a nonprofit economic development agency in Cut Bank. "It's one more selling point for economic development. It's something we have that some much larger cities don't."
"It's a plus to say we have service," Bott agreed.
But the Empire Builder and Amtrak's other cross-country trains lead a precarious financial existence.
During the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 1997, the most recent year for which figures are available, Amtrak spent $762 million more than it received in revenue. The Amtrak Intercity Business Unit, which operates most long-distance service, accounted for $286 million of that deficit.
American taxpayers picked up the bill.
Critics of the rail system, such as Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), chairman of the Senate commerce, science and transportation committee, say the federal government should get out of the passenger-train business.
Amtrak "was intended to be privatized two years after it was created in 1971 but instead has racked up more than $22 billion in taxpayer support, even though it serves less than 1 percent of the traveling public," McCain said Sept. 22 during nomination hearings for two new members of Amtrak's board of directors.
And the U.S. General Accounting Office, in a June 5 report to the transportation subcommittee of the House appropriations committee, said that of Amtrak's 40 intercity routes, only the Metroliner service between Washington, D.C., and New York makes money - $9.6 million in fiscal 1997.
Travelers on the Empire Builder wonder why trains don't warrant the unquestioned taxpayer support that highways and airports get.
"All transportation is subsidized, really, when you consider the highways. Why not subsidize the trains and keep them up to par?" said Nancy Nelson of Duluth, Minn.
"People need it," said Dan Hanson, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad employee from Minot, N.D., who was being sent by his company to run a freight train back from Williston, N.D. "A lot of people don't like to fly, and a lot of people can't drive. People need to have a way to move across the country."
More than just travel
The panorama outside the Empire Builder's windows as it leaves Chicago Union Station is one of gritty, graffiti-scarred back walls and commercial strips, but as the distance grows between the suburbs, the scenery softens.
Urban surroundings return at Milwaukee, where the 13-car train, complete with sleepers, coaches, a diner, a lounge and baggage cars, twists on elevated tracks that thread between old warehouses. But the trip west across Wisconsin crosses a lush, green countryside of rolling hills, rivers, lakes and small towns. Except for those awake for the nighttime stops in Minneapolis/St. Paul and Spokane, Wash., no one aboard the train will see another big city until the trip is over.
Dorrell Long, a lounge-car attendant, lets little time pass after the Chicago departure before starting his announcements over the train's public-address system. Along with the sandwiches and soda pop for sale, Amtrak postcards, playing cards, blankets and other souvenirs are all bargains, it seems - "marked down from $99," Long says after each item, to passengers' growing amusement.
"And please put your Amgarbage in the Amgarbage bags," he cheerfully requests.
His patter serves as an ice-breaker for coaches full of strangers, and visitors to the lounge are regaled with his stream of one-liners.
"If you keep people with laughter and love, they won't have time to find problems," Long explained. Over 10 years of working on the Empire Builder, Long, trim in his crisp white shirt and black vest, said he has made friends from all over the United States and even Great Britain.
Some passengers become absorbed in reading or work soon after they board the train. Others seem to fall asleep within moments of sitting down. But within 80 minutes of leaving her Milwaukee home for a family visit in Rugby, N.D., Heidi Peters is engrossed in a card game with Mark Brown, a Philadelphia resident pursuing a job offer in Seattle.
Riding the train offers more than just travel, Peters said.
"You get to meet new people too. You can do that on planes, but on the train, it seems more friendly, and you can walk around," she said.
"About eight hours after leaving Chicago, you can see the transformation - people start walking around and loosening up," said John Little, the train's chief of on-board services. "By the time we get to Seattle, they'll be crying because they've made friends who'll be leaving. If you're not in a hurry, and you want to meet people, there's no better way - it's a hotel on wheels."
As the Empire Builder winds its way across the vast expanse of America's northern Great Plains, vistas of sunflowers, corn and wheat appear, interrupted from time to time by the occasional small town. At Minot, whose 34,544 people make it the biggest city on the 1,225-mile route between Fargo and Spokane, a throng of children boards for a 50-mile ride to the next stop, in tiny Stanley, N.D. - population 1,371. Havre, with 10,201 residents, is the largest stop in Montana, and passengers have time to buy ice cream in the station or take pictures of a Great Northern Railway steam engine displayed near the platform.
North Dakota and Montana flow by as the Empire Builder heads west.
The sun sets over the Rocky Mountains, which rise sharply from the high plains, while passengers gasp at the train's passage over several high trestles along the route over Marias Pass on the southern edge of Glacier National Park. Another mountain crossing, over the Cascade Range, greets the train on the final morning of its run into Seattle, followed by dramatic views of the Skykomish River and Puget Sound.
Delays and added costs
Some travelers find it hard to believe that the Empire Builder is in financial trouble.
"They're actually thinking about closing these things down?" said Lyle Lehrke of New Germany, Minn., who was wrapping up a vacation with his wife and three daughters.
"Apparently there's a need for the passenger service," said Bud Austed, an Idaho-bound vacationer from Moundsview, Minn. "Look at the size of this train - and it's full."
But Pearl and Pam Conley, a Springtown, Texas, mother and daughter traveling to Spokane to visit another daughter, learned first-hand about some of Amtrak's financial woes.
The Conleys' train out of Fort Worth was two hours late and lost enough additional time along its route that it missed the Empire Builder connection in Chicago. So the pair and several other passengers were provided airline tickets and taxi fare to get them to Minneapolis, where they caught up with the train. Other delayed travelers were offered rooms for the night and rebookings on the next day's train.
"I can see why Amtrak has some money problems," Pam Conley said the following morning, as the train sped across North Dakota. Air and taxi fare probably cost Amtrak as much as the Conleys paid for their entire trip, she said.
"There are a lot of nice people on the train," Pearl Conley said. "If [Amtrak] could just get it running right ... No wonder they're going bankrupt."
Amtrak spokesman Clifford Black said locomotive purchases during the last five years have been a big factor in improving Amtrak's on-time performance by 4 percent, to 80 percent, since 1993.
But delays still can, and do, creep into the schedule. Some are attributable to Amtrak, while the freight railroads that own the tracks over which the passenger trains operate shoulder the blame for others. Weather can be a factor, especially in winter.
Economics of reairoading
If the number of people on board the Empire Builder were the only factor determining its finances, its future probably would be secure.
"The Empire Builder's ridership is very strong. It's growing in popularity," Amtrak's Black said. In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 422,174 people had ridden the Empire Builder.
But the route's economics, he said, may be entirely different.
"What's also important is the cost structure of a given train," Black said. The number of operating crews, the cars and locomotives needed, and the market for mail and express business are among the many elements that affect long-distance trains' viability, he said.
During its 27-year existence, Amtrak has cut the nationwide passenger-rail system about as far as it can go. "To shrink it any further would be counterproductive," Black said. But that doesn't mean that train routes won't be changed to improve financial performance, he said.
"We're evaluating our long-distance network for the best deployment of our fleet, the best route system," Black said. "We need to maximize revenue and go to those markets where our customers will vote with ticket purchases."
Amtrak officials are facing a congressional mandate that its passenger trains operate free of federal subsidies by fiscal 2002, now a scant three years off. If Amtrak's board of directors determines at any time after December 1999, that operating subsidies will be needed after December 2002, then it is required by law to submit a liquidation plan to Congress.
Last month, Amtrak released a four-year business plan that it believes plots the route toward the self-sufficiency mandate. To sustain long-distance trains like the Empire Builder, Amtrak is counting in particular on increasing shipments of mail, packages and express freight that are handled in boxcars and specially equipped truck trailers on the trains.
The business plan projects a $180 million profit from high-speed rail service in the Washington-New York corridor by fiscal 2002, which Amtrak would use to subsidize other routes. Amtrak hopes to generate additional funds by developing high-speed service on other corridors and by winning more contracts to run commuter trains in major cities.
Black said he's sure Amtrak will be running a national train network 10 years from now. The precise shape of that network, he said, is uncertain.
"The existing route system is no longer sacrosanct," Black said. "A train is not inviolable just because the Department of Transportation kept a particular train in 1971. We have to create a market-driven network and deliver consistent quality service."
Black said Amtrak's bottom line has improved by more than $300 million during the last three years. But he said the company needs at least $609 million this year to sustain itself while it works toward self-sufficiency. A proposed Senate appropriation of $555 million for Amtrak in fiscal 1999 would cripple that effort, he said.
According to a General Accounting Office report, Amtrak's bottom line improved by $74 million a year between 1994 and 1997, but still faces massive system-wide net losses yearly. The GAO forecasts that by 2003, Amtrak's deficit will be $687 million.
Sen. McCain said he is monitoring Amtrak closely.
"I plan to continue to do so in order to protect the American taxpayers' multibillion dollar investment in this rail passenger transportation system."
John Little, the Empire Builder's on-board services chief, said what Amtrak lacks is a firm commitment from Washington to have a national rail system.
"I don't think it will go away, but they won't commit, either," he said. "I really think the government's short-changing us. ... Amtrak made its changes. Now Congress needs to do its part."
Little is counting on senior citizens' lobbying to keep the trains rolling.
"They're the ones who write their senators" to plead for continued Amtrak funding, he said. "They don't drive, and they won't, or can't afford to, fly."
|
||||||||||||||||
