Amtrak's Mixed Blessings

For most businesses, the energy shortage has been a burden. For a lucky few firms in such industries as oil and nuclear power, it has been a blessing. For Amtrak, the three-year-old quasi-Government agency that operates most U.S. passenger trains, the crisis has been a little of both. Riders are cramming aboard some of the trains in prodigious numbers because they cannot get gasoline for their cars. Yet it seems that the more people Amtrak carries, the more money it loses.

System wide revenues are running as much as 40% ahead of last year's. Ridership is up 36% between New York and Washington on Amtrak's speedy Metroliner, and nearly double last year's on the New York-Boston run. Therein lies Amtrak's problem: good fortune has landed in the wrong place. Those Northeast runs were well packed to begin with, and the new riders are giving Amtrak officials more business than they can handle effectively.

In the rest of the country, traffic is up less dramatically--a pattern that seems to reflect the geographically uneven bite of the gasoline shortage. Amtrak cars are still rolling across the Midwest and Far West nearly empty, while station managers in the Northeast have had to rent cars from local commuter railroads to help handle the crush. Amtrak's losses swelled to $158 million last year, $11 million more than in 1972, despite a 24% gain in revenues, to $202 million. Congress is picking up nearly all of the tab through a $154 million subsidy, and Amtrak officials are expected to ask for even more money for the fiscal year that starts in July.

Uneven distribution of the energy bonanza is not Amtrak's only problem. As traffic rises, so do wear and tear on the 1,400 cars of Amtrak's fleet, some of them superannuated hulks in need of replacement. Amtrak executives are still choosing a design for new cars; most will not be in service before 1976. Until then, passengers on many runs face equipment breakdowns and a decline in comfort. Punctuality is also on the wane; the Metroliner's on-time percentage dropped to 63% last year from 76% in 1972, and some trains--including the St. Louis-Washington, D.C., and Chicago-New Orleans runs--went for months last year without ever arriving on time. Says Harold L. Graham, Amtrak vice president for marketing: "Frankly, there will be times during the next few months when we won't be able to give you the kind of service you deserve."

As a result, Amtrak's critics are growing increasingly vocal. The National Association of Railroad Passengers is trying to block congressional reappointment of Roger Lewis as Amtrak president this year. NARP, a Washington, D.C., group that lobbied for the creation of Amtrak, accuses the line's executives of kowtowing to the private railroads that allow Amtrak to use their tracks. NARP charges that Amtrak trains were illegally delayed 2,398 times by private-line freight trains last November and December. "Amtrak is both fantastic and terrible," says NARP Chairman Anthony Haswell. "In terms of re-creating a public enthusiasm to ride trams, it has been fantastically successful. But it has failed to provide a level of service that is even remotely acceptable."

Best Hope. To help cut Amtrak's deficit, Lewis imposed a 10% fare increase last year on Florida runs that have been gaining passengers, and he plans another 20% boost this summer on some long-distance trains west of Chicago. Yet chopping unprofitable routes --the easiest way for Amtrak to round the bend financially--is severely unpopular with local politicians. Nor is it particularly consistent with a growing national concern over energy consumption; an Amtrak study indicates that trains are roughly twelve times more efficient as passenger carriers than automobiles. Besides, the nation's passenger grid already has been pared to half its pre-Amtrak size, and cities as large as Cleveland are now without passenger service of any kind.

Amtrak's best hope is probably that the Government will underwrite its deficits until passenger traffic grows enough to meet operating costs, and until the line can replace its aged rolling stock. Beyond that, Amtrak executives can only hope that the fuel shortage will pinch harder outside the Northeast.

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