Light in Amtrak's Tunnel

FOR most of its first two years, Amtrak, the quasi-public corporation created to preserve U.S. railroad passenger service, seemed to be highballing down the final stretch of track toward extinction. Amtrak began operations on May 1, 1971, by discontinuing almost half the nation's rail passenger service; as it rolled through the next 20 months, it lost $239 million. Last year its long distance trains ran late 47% of the time, and drew angry complaints from riders about dirty cars, erratic heating systems and rest-room toilets that did not flush.

Stubbornly optimistic, Amtrak President Roger Lewis insists that "we see a business with a future now." Last week his bosses in the Nixon Administration agreed. The Department of Transportation recommended that when Amtrak's original mandate expires July 1, Congress should give the corporation the go-ahead to keep operating its present network.* The department also called on Congress to increase Amtrak's $100 million in Government loan guarantees to $500 million and requested that Amtrak be given an "open-ended appropriation," in effect a blank check to finance operations. The department cited "notable gains" for Amtrak, and the praise was not undeserved. Despite its miserable start, Amtrak and its riders can really see light at the end of the long, dark tunnel.

Although total U.S. rail travel continued its almost quarter-century decline last year (see chart), Amtrak logged a slight increase in passenger miles. In the five months ended last Sept. 30, the company carried 10.4% more riders than in the comparable period of 1971. The increase helped hold Amtrak's deficit in the first half of fiscal 1973 to $63 million--a huge amount, but down 9% from a year earlier.

Amtrak's Metroliner, which covers the 227 miles between New York and Washington in three hours and runs on schedule 95% of the time, has established itself as a serious competitor to air and bus service. Lewis plans to start similar runs in the Midwest later this year with four turbotrains capable of hitting 170 m.p.h. to be leased from Canadian and French firms. Reservations and ticketing for Eastern Amtrak runs are now handled by a central computer, which by 1974 will take over ticketing for the whole country. Amtrak lately has even been expanding rather than curtailing its services; for example, with Canadian cooperation, it has put sleepers on trains running from Montreal through Boston to Miami.

Attitude. Lewis and a crew of Amtrak marketing men, most of them hired from airlines, are out to promote rather than merely provide rail passenger service. Lewis himself came to Amtrak from the aerospace industry (he was once president of General Dynamics) and has maintained his zeal for rail travel despite a Congress-ordered slash in his salary from $125,000 to $60,000 a year. Amtrak is now plugging airline-style package weekend tours that include train and hotel reservations in a single, discount price, and has negotiated car-rental discounts for Amtrak passengers at some destination points. Although these are not exactly startling innovations, the attitude behind them is the exact opposite of the viewpoint of private railroad executives, most of whom believe that passengers only get in the way of freight.

Unfortunately for Amtrak, the corporation must rely for track and equipment maintenance on the 13 investor-owned railroads whose passenger networks it took over. It has got much less than maximum cooperation. One stretch of Penn Central track between Chicago and Cincinnati is in such disrepair that Amtrak's "James Whitcomb Riley" train sometimes can chug along it at no more than 10 m.p.h. Louis Menk, chairman of Burlington Northern, who also sits on Amtrak's board, admitted in a television interview earlier this month that he would still not mind seeing rail passenger service ultimately die out.

Lewis thinks that he can convert the public to a different view. He has some strong selling points. Trains can carry people over long distances with less air pollution than any other form of public transportation and impressive economy of increasingly scarce fuel. Besides, they have a potential novelty appeal: a Louis Harris poll last year indicated that only 4% of Americans aged 18 or over had traveled 100 miles or more by train in the previous twelve months. The remaining 96% constitute a vast untapped market.

* With minor exceptions. Four little-used runs--New York to Kansas City, Chicago to Miami, Newport News, Va., to Richmond, and Washington to Parkersburg, W. Va.--will be dropped.

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