More Urgent National Choo-Choo Business In The Nation's Capital
by Vince Daliessio
It's Amtrak time again - time for adults to abandon economic rationality, and time for the politicians to propose the latest reform that isn't really a reform for the government's hideously expensive 1:1 scale train set. Some precious excerpts;
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 - The Amtrak board has approved an essential step in the Bush administration plan to break up the railroad, voting to carve out the Northeast Corridor, the tracks between Boston and Washington, as a separate division.
The board, made up entirely of Mr. Bush's appointees, voted in a meeting on Sept. 22 to create a new subsidiary to own and manage the corridor, which includes nearly all the track that Amtrak owns.
The vote was not announced. It was reported on Wednesday in the newsletter of the United Rail Passenger Alliance of Jacksonville, Fla., an organization that has been highly critical of Amtrak management.
The plan, which would require action by Congress, is to transfer the corridor to a consortium including the federal government and the governments of the states in the region that would share the costs to maintain it.That would relieve Amtrak from spending billions of dollars to build and rebuild bridges, rails and electrical systems, but still let the company run its trains.
Some predictable reaction from NJ Senator Frank Lousenberg;
"The Bush administration wants to hold a fire sale on Amtrak and dump its best asset, the Northeast Corridor," Mr. Lautenberg said in a statement. "Selling the Northeast corridor is the first step in President Bush's plan to destroy Amtrak and intercity rail service in America."
Aaaaand, reaction from the choo-choo lovers lobby;
At the National Association of Railroad Passengers, which lobbies for more subsidies for Amtrak, the executive director, Ross B. Capon, said that separating the corridor into a distinct business entity was a step toward moving it out of Amtrak entirely, but that the move would also have a second effect, insulating the commuter operations in the Northeast from Amtrak troubles. That, Mr. Capon said, would give more leverage to the Transportation Department, which has been leading the charge to close Amtrak or break it up.
"Their dream is an Amtrak crisis where the commuter trains are unaffected and, therefore, the political power behind the protest is that much smaller, and they can go ahead and do whatever they want with or too Amtrak," he said.
My advice echoes Jeff Tucker's - sell the routes, keep the real-estate and sell it later after it is clear whether the markets involved want to use it for rail service, or highways, or something else.
Maybe when everyone is fed up with the demeaning, hostile treatment they receive at the hands of the federal airport goons, this railfan's utopia will come about.
But then again, it is up to the market, and not a bunch of connected people obsessed with obsolete technology.