COLUMN: Riding America's rails

If Amtrak's creaky coaches, cranky conductors and laughable punctuality standards aren't warning enough, I'll take this opportunity to point out something obvious: The American taxpayer is being taken for a ride. And though Amtrak likes us to think this ride is smooth, speedy, and picturesque -- yes, nostalgic of the golden age of locomotion -- the "national railway" is on a collision course with disaster. This year, 1.2 million people boarded Amtrak to go home for the holidays. But if last year's numbers are any indication, travelers again faced aggravating delays, rode in decrepit cabins, and encountered crew members as cold as Scrooge himself. In 1994, Amtrak logged 70,000 passenger complaints. Today, public discontent with the carrier is so great that Congress will soon consider weaning Amtrak off subsidies and eventually putting the railway back into private hands. Complete privatization of Amtrak is not just the best option, it's the only option. Since 1990, the railway's ridership has shrunk by three percent per year. Accordingly, passenger revenues have plunged -- from $1 billion in 1990 to $880 million last year. No Amtrak passenger route is profitable. Amtrak's punctuality leaves much to be desired: 29 percent of trains are held up at the platform or in transit, and for most of 1995, trains were tardy more than in any other year this decade. Amtrak's equipment is also dangerously old. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, many coaches are ready for the junkyard, and some cars have been squeaking down the rails for 40 years. Amtrak's locomotives, when they're running, are also a hazard: half are ready for retirement. Amtrak says it needs $4 billion to bring its equipment into a satisfactory state of repair, begging the question: What state is it in now? And Amtrak's labor practices are something Eugene Debs once dreamed about. Amtrak has one employee for ever four passengers. It pays four times more into pensions than most corporations. Half of Amtrak's operating costs are consumed by the salaries and benefits of its 23,000 unionized employees. And courtesy of a 1971 government mandate, Amtrak must maintain one of history's most generous unemployment packages: any laid-off employee gets salary and benefits for six years. In some countries, inter-city train travel is an efficient alternative to driving or flying. Nevertheless, comparing the 185 mph TGV or the German Ice Train to Amtrak's 90 mph Metroliner is like comparing the Concorde to a propeller plane. Some Amtrak trains can't even stack up to early 20th century standards. "Amtrak's performance has serious weaknesses," says Mark Reutter, a writer and railroad historian. Reutter cites the St. Paul and Chicago route which hosted three private railroads in 1935. Sixty years ago, six trains a day made the trip in six hours. Amtrak runs one train that takes eight hours. Compare, too, the Metroliner's top velocity of 125 mph with steam Engine #999 of the old New York Central Railroad, which hit 112.5 mph in the early 1890s. How fast do most Amtrak trains go? 79 mph. And there's no light at the end of Amtrak's tunnel. Unless Congress moves soon, Amtrak's future will be more painful than its present, for this year, the railway faces an onslaught of new costs. Freight railroads, not Amtrak, own 97 percent of the track the "national railway" uses. Currently, travel rights are leased to Amtrak for the meager sum of $90 million a year -- a number Washington ordered in 1971. "We now lose money every minute Amtrak is on our tracks," says Conrail's William Rich. So what to do with Amtrak's rusty fleet, inefficient operation and substandard service? One thing is certain: unless Congress takes decisive action, the "national railway" will crash. "Continuing the present course -- maintaining the same funding level and route system, even with proposed cuts -- is neither feasible nor realistic because Amtrak will continue to deteriorate," said the GAO in its most recent report. The GAO maintained that Amtrak's case is a double-or- nothing proposition. Congress faces a choice: it must either privatize or subsidize, but it better be brave and quick in selecting one or the other. This choice comes after five years of government subsidies, many of which exceeded $1 billion. Nonetheless, these subsidies didn't begin to cover the ever-widening gap between expenses and revenues. So what does Amtrak think? "We think privatization is a good idea, provided we're permitted to wean ourselves off of operating subsidies," Amtrak spokesman Clifford Black said. It's time Congress relinquishes the tracks. There's no reason why private railroads, like Conrail, CSX, and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, can't do for passengers what they now do for oil, grain, iron and coal: move them efficiently for a profit. After 23 years of socialized failure under Amtrak, our most auspicious option is to cut losses, have faith in the free market, and let passengers, investors, and competent, non-bureaucratic managers call the shots. Only complete and unbridled privatization of our rails may someday free up our tracks for a new chapter in the once-romantic story of train travel.