Category: Uncategorized

February 1, 2022
Representative Peter DeFazio
Chairman, U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee

Dear Representative DeFazio.

We are once again writing on behalf of our members, as well as the millions of Americans who depend on public transportation on a regular basis to travel to work, see relatives, seek medical attention, food and other necessities of life.

Amtrak management is causing riders and potential riders to think twice before considering taking a rail journey – whether for leisure, business, medical appointments or anything else. This could affect appropriations, as public support for Amtrak is paramount in getting routes – whether national or state-supported, running. Since its inception during the Nixon Administration, Amtrak has operated on a federal budget designed to barely keep it alive, much less flourish.

Evidence from the past suggests that this was intended to promote the idea that passenger rail still existed while allowing the host railroads opportunity to disengage from their own passenger operations and free them to operate only as a freight operation, along with operating at most, one daily Amtrak passenger train. It was expected that Amtrak itself would be gone within five years. Obviously, passenger trains not only did not go away completely, but have gained in popularity over the last fifty years of Amtrak’s existence.

Last year, during the Covid epidemic, Amtrak, not knowing it would receive federal financial assistance, elected to reduce its service by having all trains nationwide, with only two exceptions, running only three days a week. By reducing the frequency of service, Amtrak was also able to reduce their staffing significantly, both on and off the trains.

We advocates advised them not to do this because when funding was secured or when ridership returned, they would be unable to meet that need to return to daily service. Needless to say, we were correct. Amtrak attempted to return to operating most of their routes on a daily basis, but found that many of its furloughed employees had found work elsewhere and/or would not be returning for this or other reasons. Amtrak had also furloughed their hiring and training departments during this time, again ignoring our advice. This has caused an additional severe disruption in its ability to crew the trains, so, Amtrak has, once again through its shortsighted mismanagement, decided to reduce daily service by nearly a third and run its route five days a week or less. This comes after an unprecedented allocation which was given Amtrak last year to get them through the government-mandated business shutdown – $66B ($22B to repair existing equipment and to purchase new equipment, and $44B to improve and expand the state and national network.) was expected to be used for these improvements.

Where Amtrak continues to operate, trains are often leaving their terminals late after experiencing equipment breakdowns. Also problematic, Amtrak has declared that they have insufficient crews to staff their trains so late trains are often made even later because of staffing issues. Why should this be, when Congress appropriated money to support Amtrak when ridership was reduced by government mandates? This is not only unacceptable, but it is a slap in the face of both Congress which provided this public money, as well as the traveling public, who depend upon and use or attempt to use the service. Congress, being the entity holding the purse strings, providing the operational funding for Amtrak, is the proper and responsible body to hold Amtrak accountable for this egregious mismanagement of both public monies, as well as the public trust supporting them.

We are also deeply concerned that Amtrak has unilaterally violated the statutory mandate that it refrain from reducing service on its long-distance trains without giving 210 days’ notice to members of Congress from the affected areas, as required by Section 22210(d) of the newly-enacted infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

We believe this provision was enacted in response to Amtrak’s unilateral act of slashing service on all long-distance trains to three days per week in 2020, and that service on the other four days would not have occurred if Congress had not intervened. Amtrak is now disobeying the spirit and the letter if that Congressional mandate.

We understand that subsection (c) allows a service reduction in case of an emergency, but such railroad emergencies normally involve service disruptions beyond the railroad’s control. Amtrak’s unilateral act of discontinuing many of its runs for a ten-week period (including some shorter runs in the East and Midwest) is within Amtrak’s discrepancy constitutes an abuse if it. If Congress does not direct Amtrak to restore all of these runs no later than March 27 and never to reduce service unilaterally and on short notice again, the daily service that Congress ordered might never run again.

It is important to also understand passenger trains for their transportation needs. While these reasons are singular and personal to each individual rider, overall, they range from purely business to purely leisure reasons and cover an infinite number of variations or combinations depending on that individual traveler’s needs at why Americans want their passenger trains. There are a myriad of reasons why people want and use that time. In general people want to be able to conveniently, quickly, and safely get to their destinations. They want to be able to get to or from work, shopping, or just visiting family or friends. They want to able to avoid traffic and the dangers that traffic often presents while traveling within it. People also want to be able to use this travel time more effectively while they are traveling.

When available, train travel allows the wise traveler aboard to be able to continue working, or enjoy time with friends or family, or just plain rest and relax while safely traveling. Trains also provide environmental benefits such as reduced emissions both on its own and by reducing the number of individual auto trips which would be otherwise required, and, at the same time freeing up traffic lanes for the automobiles remaining on the highway. By opening these lanes, traffic flows more freely thus also reducing stress on those drivers. This economic gain produced by passenger rail is an important part of the basis for this letter. Wherever passenger trains operate, they produce a community vitality which is very much measurable in real dollars and quality of life for that community. With all these preventable issues at hand, we again request that Congress demand answers from Amtrak as to their reasons for these grave cuts in service, which may turn riders (& future riders) off from utilizing our national rail system, which in many ways – pays for itself.

Sincerely,
Richard Rudolph, Ph.D. Chairman, Rail Users’ Network

March 16, 2022
Senator Maria Cantwell
Chair, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation

Dear Senator Cantwell.

We are once again writing on behalf of our members, as well as the millions of Americans who depend on public transportation on a regular basis to travel to work, see relatives, seek medical attention, food and other necessities of life.
As you know, Amtrak has announced it is extending its current five-day-a-week long-distance service until May 31 and possibly later. This comes after a series of events which started during the Fall of 2020. At that time, Amtrak reduced all of its daily services to three days each week, stating it was doing so because Covid had reduced ridership below a threshold enabling it to operate economically as mandated by the federal government. Rail advocates at both the national and the state level strenuously opposed Amtrak’s decision, and contacted their respective congressional and senatorial representatives.

Even though Congress ultimately provided extra funds needed to continue 7 day a week long distance service, Amtrak unfortunately ignored the concerns of Congress and rail passenger advocates not only curtailing daily service, but also furloughing operating and service personnel across their entire system of routes. Congress not only came through with funds enabling Amtrak to continue operating until the government mandated nationwide Covid shutdown ended, they added an additional 66 billion dollars ($22B to repair/refresh equipment and to purchase much needed new equipment, and $44B to improve, enhance, and expand service around the country.) This may not occur for some time because of Amtrak’s shortsighted service reduction plan which included also shutting down their hiring and training departments. Not only are the furloughed service and operating crews not returning, as we warned might occur, Amtrak is unable to rapidly hire and train new personnel. This is either a significant error in judgment on the part of Amtrak’s upper management, or a carefully calculated early step in ridding itself of long-distance train service. We can look at both cases.

If an error in judgment, then the blame may be placed squarely on Amtrak’s Board of Directors who have hired and replaced four CEOs in the last five years. During that time there has been an exodus of the railroad’s institutional knowledge, with the departure of many vice-presidents and heads of departments, as well as mid-level management. Amtrak continues to cause itself (and the traveling public) harm with its poor business decisions.

If a deliberate ploy to aid in discontinuing long-distance train service nationwide, then one may conclude they are blatantly disregarding Congressional mandates (and funding) to improve and expand passenger rail service throughout the United States. Stephen Gardner is the man who gave us the current iteration of the Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act (PRIIA), which specifies that no long-distance trains may be added to the system. This and other actions by him have led us and other to believe that he wants to completely abolish the network of long-distance trains.

Similarly, Amtrak’s woeful lack of employees, equipment, and interest in its business is a threat to the country’s transportation and economic future. Additionally, attempts to evacuate weather events by highway in recent years have been rather less than successful. Like the National Guard, the country needs standby transportation capacity for emergencies.

We need to be on record that this is inexcusable and is once again part of the effort of the President and CEO of Amtrak to ultimately destroy long distance service. Amtrak should be treated as a public service company and funded and governed as such.

We recommend the termination and replacement of its current Board. Replacement should be made up according to the recommendations of Congress to include one or more knowledgeable members of the rail passenger advocacy movement.

We again request that Congress demand answers from Amtrak as to their reasons for these grave cuts in service, which may turn riders (& future riders) off from utilizing our national rail system, which in many ways – pays for itself.

Sincerely,
Richard Rudolph, Ph.D.
Chairman, Rail Users’ Network

April 2, 2021
Senator Richard Blumenthal
U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Dear Senator Blumenthal:

We are writing on behalf of our members, as well as the millions of Americans who depend on public transportation on a regular basis to travel to work, see relatives, seek medical attention, food and other necessities of life.  We support your effort to establish an “Intercity Passenger Rail Trust Fund” which would create a dedicated funding stream to help Amtrak in planning and investing in major improvement projects, increase passenger rail’s efficiency and help promote safer, more reliable service especially on the fifteen long distance routes which have long been financially neglected.

While this indeed could be a game changer, Amtrak will still need annual appropriations to carry out what it is currently able to do. It is our hope and expectation that Amtrak, through the creation of a trust fund, will be able to restore passenger rail service on routes that it abandoned in December, 1997.  This would include the Desert Wind which was a separate section of the California Zephyr which continued on from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

A second section called the Pioneer continued on from Denver through Cheyenne to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. We also support the work of the new Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority which is working to restore passenger service to the southern part of Montana and other efforts underway to restore passenger service across the nation.

There is also the need to establish daily service on the two tri-weekly trains: the Cardinal, that operates from New York to Washington, D.C., and then onto Cincinnati, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana and Chicago; and the Sunset Limited, which operates between Los Angeles, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston and New Orleans. This one train also provides a link between numerous and important military installations along its route.

To restore these routes as well as to provide for the current service, Amtrak also needs to replace passenger carrying equipment, which is more than 40 years old.

Finally, there is also a need to provide capital and operational funds for creating new state-supported routes.  Amtrak’s current plan would provide upfront capital, but would drastically reduce operational support after the first five years. Co-operation between Federal and State rail passenger entities would help to ensure a well-used system of interconnected routes with at least daily service in each direction.

There is much work to be done with much funding needed to upgrade and extend Amtrak service.  We commend your effort to create an “Intercity Passenger Rail Trust Fund”, and hope we can work together to provide high quality public transportation options for all of our citizens.

Sincerely,

Richard Rudolph, Ph.D.
Chairman
Rail Users’ Network

April 6, 2021

U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio
Chairman, U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Dear Representative DeFazio:

The Rail Users Network thanks the members of Congress for funding the restoration of daily service on the national passenger rail carrier known as Amtrak.  We do, however, have some additional recommendations concerning funding for this important and safe transportation resource.

We believe passenger rail should be on equal footing with other USDOT-sponsored transportation resources.  This would provide an equally important, safe, and expedient alternative to driving and flying, and would also provide better connectivity to those cities and towns bypassed by air transport because of the short distances not conducive to air travel, yet too far to drive.

We believe our recommendations would not only restore this convenient mode of travel, but also make it highly accessible, by placing most of the population of the US within 25 miles of a train station.  These recommendations include:

1. Enable legislation and funding to restore routes lost since 1979.
Those routes, and others, are essential in creating and maintaining connectivity, which makes the entire system more useful by enticing ridership.  Senator Blumenthal has presented a bill to create a dedicated funding mechanism to allow for proper planning and implementation of this plan over time.  This will also require revising the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA).  The offending provision which defines the national network by limiting it is 49 U.S.C. Sec. 24102(7)(C).  This provision prohibits Amtrak’s ability to grow its system and expand its capability.

2.  Provide additional funding for much-needed new equipment.   For the system to work as planned and needed, additional equipment is also required and will require funding.  Funding for new equipment is imperative and should be immediate so that railcar manufacturing can begin tooling for production.  Amtrak hasn’t placed orders for new long-distance equipment since the mid 1980’s because of a lack of funding.  This has resulted in old equipment being run to the point where numerous breakdowns cause delayed or even terminated trains, resulting in the loss of repeat business.

3. Transparency of Amtrak’s accounting and operations.  Amtrak must answer Congress’s questions in a straightforward manner about its finances and operations.  Amtrak, in part because of its lack of proper funding when compared to other federally funded modes of transportation, has over the 50 years of its existence, resorted to a very peculiar reporting mechanism known as Amtrak Performance Tracking (APT).  The very much distorted financial picture created by APT flies in the face of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) which, like the name implies, provides a clear representation of where and on what monies are spent.  We, along with many members of Congress, believe that this lack of transparency on the part of Amtrak needs to be immediately corrected so that Congress, the states, and the public know their tax dollars are being used wisely.

4. Finally, we recommend that the Mica provision requiring Amtrak to break even or make a profit with its food service be dropped. Good food and proper service is one of the draws of travel by train.  It is long known that passenger trains have provided quality meals on board, and is but one of the reasons travelers choose the train for their transportation needs.  It provides that civility that air travel now lacks while, at the same time, allows one to fully relax while traveling.  Amtrak wastes far too many of its valuable resources, and loses far too much good will from its passengers attempting to comply with this inane mandate.

Thank you for your attention to these matters.

Sincerely,

Richard H. Rudolph, Ph.D.
Chairman, Rail Users’ Network
211 Ocean Ave., Portland, ME 04103