Amtrak was never very popular with the current house and now with a conservative Senate just wonder what Amtrak fate will be?
Status quo, most likely. Remember all those years the Reagan WH wanted to “zero out” Amtrak’s budget (remember David Stockman?) Even when the whole gov’t was R, it didn’t happen. In fact, there were almost now changes to Amtrak during that era.
What you’ll see long term is a continuous squeeze on Amtrak’s budget as the government gets more interested in reducing deficit spending. This isn’t an R of D thing, generally. All forms of discretionary spending are going to get pinched.
I think that is wishful thinking!!!
Do you remember the 1980s? The Reagan administration called for Amtrak’s death every year for eight years - often in very copius ways.
The climate for Amtrak funding - even in the House - is much better than it was back then. Bud Shuster’s kid is running the committee that deals out the money for Amtrak. He’s not been shy about coming up with $$ for Amtrak. There is no talk from anyone of zeroing out Amtrak’s budget.
Amtrak will get just enough money to limp along.
You seem much more optimistic than what trains posted yesterday. A frozen operating and capital budget. Not enough capital to be self substaining system. Certainly no budget for any new equipment.
which is indeed a repetition of the latter Bush years. but remember the effects of the Warrington management. hopefully the management will be a bit better at least. hopefully, there won’t be a new Minetta. And management of real estate can make up for some of the shortfall.
There was one attribute of Anthony Haswell and NARP, which he founded. He gave a shout out to political leaders he deemed “Friends of the Railroad Passenger”, but he never complained about or criticized opponents nor brought partisan politics into the discussion.
In my innocent youth when me and my train enthusiast childhood friends sent in that portion of our lawn-mowing and paper-route earnings to pay NARP dues that remained after purchasing a new Athearn locomotive and some Atlas turnouts, I thought of NARP as this massive organization with lobbyists prowling the halls of the Capitol. It was nothing of the kind, and back in the day, NARP was Tony Haswell producing that monthly newsletter.
The newsletter had a large name of Sponsors, which included, if I remember correctly, author Ray Bradbury and other notable persons of the day, but these were people who authorized Mr. Haswell to invoke their good name in support of passenger trains. NARP was simply Tony Haswell collecting member dues to support his one-man operation of putting out the Newsletter and press releases.
The Newsletter had a back page feature “Friend of the Railroad Passenger”, and for some reason I remember Vermont Senator Winston Prouty (R) featured one month. Yes, most of the featured personages were probably liberal Democrats rather than conservative Republicans like Prouty, but Anthony Haswell acknowledged anyone and everyone who supported passenger trains in some manner, never demonized or even talked about anyone not on his side, and certainly didn’t make generalizations and categorizations based on political party.
The story I heard is that Mr. Haswell got his start in Public Relations for the then Illinois Central railroad before going off on his own as the pioneering passenger-train advocate. Maybe the corporate culture of attempting to influence the political process is to notice you friends, pay no heed to your opponents, and keep partisan pol
Very true. I recall that Paul Weyrich, who was a very conservative activist (he came up with the term “Moral Majority”), was also a great advocate of passenger rail and local rail transit.
Predicting what Congress will do about Amtrak or anything else is akin to timing the stock market. No one has ever done it successfully, other than by happenstance.
…and this is different from the vast majority of Amtrak’s years how?
You clearly don’t remember David Stockman… or recall what Jimmy Carter did to the Amtrak map.
Paul Weyrich was, indeed, a friend of Amtrak (he was on the Board of Directors) and also believed very much in integration of various means of public transit systems. We shared numerous communications over the years and I was impressed by not only his rational thinking but also his intellectual commitment to “the common good.” He also published just prior to his death a book titled something like “How to convince conservatives the value of passenger trains” which is, I think, available from his old organization Free Congress Foundation in WDC.
As I recall Carter wasn’t a member of the GOP.
Without creating a political argument the conservative’s of the 1970,1980’s were a different lot compared to today’s conservative’s and tea party. Amtrak has embedded it self in the fabric of America by operating state and regional trains. Its the long distance trains that will be on the chopping block, as we saw with Jimmy Carter who eliminated a few good routes. And yes I know jimmy was a dem.
Without sufficient capital Amtrak will not limp along, it will become even more unprofitable. The first order of 200 amfleet cars were placed in service by Budd in 1975. Not sure what thier service life is but 40 years seems a little long in the tooth. They are considerable older than the cars they replaced.
Excerpt from the Congressional Record
Mr. Allot. Mr. President, Donald E. Deuster, of the Department of Transportation, has made a remarkable, candid, and factual speech to the Railroad Transportation Institute meeting in St. Louis, Mo., on November 5, 1970. Mr. Deuster discussed, from a first-hand view, the administration’s struggle to get the Railpax bill enacted into law. In the speech he correctly quotes my statement regarding the role played by the distinguished junior Senator from Vermont (Mr. Prouty) in the effort to get a bill through the Commerce Committee. In addition, he paints a vivid picture of the effort made by a distinguished Coloradan, Mr. Robert Kessler, now general counsel for the Federal Railroad Administration, in the final moments before the Railpax bill passed the Senate. I must say that I was pleased with Mr. Deuster’s candor in telling the story which I think many of my colleagues who were not directly involved with the bill will find interesting. For that reason, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Deuster’s remarks be recorded in the Record. There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Saving the Passenger Train (Remarks of Donald E. Deuster)
Americans should be singing “Hallelullah and Amen! Congress has saved the passenger train!"
Absolutely! If history notes one great decision
Exactly! Neither party has been kind to Amtrak! No reason to expect change now - particularly when there is even less money to go around.
The tea party is not in charge of the R’s. in fact, they may be pretty much irrelevant to any bill the gets passed that the prez will sign. Bill Shuster is not going to chop the LD routes. The cars Amtrak replaced with Amfleet were carbon steel. Amfleet is all stainless. The diners and baggage cars that are just now being replaced are all stainless and are over 60 years old. Amfleet is not technologically obsolete - can be rebuild indefinitely.
Most companies do not operate equipment indefinitely for a wide variety of reasons.The fact that they can be rebuilt indefinitely doesn’t mean it make sense to. New technology can be incorporated into new equipment making them more efficient and better addressing customer needs.The cars that amtrak replaced were not carbon steel. Amtrak from the outset purchased a fleet of primarily budd stainless cars. Amtrak didnt even purchase cars built by pullman standard because of how PS cars were manufactured. The fact that some of these budds are still in daily service today only acknowledge the fact of how well the cars were engineered and how well Amtrak mechanical people have kept them in operating condition.
As far as the mood in congress, even train’s magazine in this forum takes a position where things could get rough for Amtrak. Historical Amtrak long distance trains have taken a hit, some of it under the dems as well.
This is incorrect. Amtrak purchase lots of Budds, but a huge amount of carbon steel cars as well. Don’t be fooled by the stainless steel facade…
You are right about new technology driving new equipment purchases. It’s what drives the railroad’s locomotive purchases. Otherwise, railroads would just rebuild SD40-2s indefinitely.
However, what new technology for single level cars has come about in the past 40 years? That Amtrak’s current purchase of sleepers is just a tweaked 30 year old design speaks volumes…
The mood has been rough for most of Amtrak’s existence. It was nastiest under Reagan. Every budget he sent to the hill had zero $ for Amtrak. Even the “worst” R’s now talk about “reform” rather than death. (even though the reform would probably kill most LD trains in the long run)
Bill Shuster, a House R, fought like crazy to find money to keep the Pennsylvanian going. A deep red state - Kanas - is finding money to keep the ATSF’s weedy mainline through their state alive enough to host the SW Chief.
The real pressing need is to get the NEC up to a good state of repair. Finding enough money will be tough - it might take a crisis. But, that was the case when Washington was recently all “D”, too. I’m not any more worried about Amtrak now than I was 30 years ago.