New Senators Letter to Anderson

[jis]

When is the last time a board member had to testify in front on Congress?

Has it ever happened?

Not that I am aware of. Chairman of the Board, yes. But random potted plant Board member? I don’t recall.

 

[Amtrakfflyer]

Not that I am aware of. Chairman of the Board, yes. But random potted plant Board member? I don’t recall.

I’m really curious how hard it would be to remove (fire) the board or most members. Say Biden gets in and really wants to improve Amtrak with his choices?

 

[Anderson]

IIRC the board members have terms, but I'm not sure if the President can just fire them or if they're "protected" appointments.

 

[TiBike]

I saw this link to a Washington Post editorial on Train Orders:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...869d18-6c37-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html

One sentence in it sums up the editorial board's position:

"Congress should at last overcome the special-pleading of rural railway stops and help Amtrak eliminate its wasteful long-distance service."

The WaPo, and particularly its editorial board, sits dead center in the Washington establishment. It's neither a Trump administration house organ or left wing propaganda. I interpret this to mean cutting long distance and beefing up corridor services is now reckoned to be centrist policy in the Beltway, and not some right wing conspiracy.

There's opposition on the left(ish) side – the union backed letter from blue state members – and the right(ish) side, from senators representing red and/or rural states, but I think both are bargaining ploys to wave the flag for constituents and win a few minor concessions, rather than effective counterattacks. I'm betting Anderson walks out of the meeting (more likely, walks into the meeting) with a done deal that gives Moran something he can claim as victory, and allows Anderson to move forward with the core of his plan.

 

[bretton88]

I think Anderson is starting to realize these kind of meetings with Congress members are necessary to get things done. If he can lay out a credible vision and a good "why" he might find Congress might go along with it. We're slowly seeing Amtrak realize stonewalling didn't get them much.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

Where do the more logical (in the sense of more people going to them than a tiny small town that just happens to be on an LD route) long-distance routes (for example, east coast to Chicago, east coast to Florida, perhaps Seattle to Los Angeles) fit into the scheme of no long distance and all corridor? I would think a lot of people ride these--and a lot would be millennials and baby boomers, groups who Amtrak seems to think [mistakenly] that it understands. Millenials wouldn't want to be bothered with the hassle of figuring out corridor connections. And many of us baby boomers, contrary to what Amtrak may think, are still traveling and not in assisted living yet--some of us just don't like flying, and more and more of us will be giving up driving.

Will these be cut along with all the other LD trains? The assumption being "You can only fly--just deal with it"? Or do you think exceptions will be made for these and similar routes?

 

[Amtrakfflyer]

We need to see how the meeting goes before we get into any worst case scenarios. We might be surprised. The Senate did vote 93 to 6 plus or minus to support the national network.

Say the Senate committee cuts the long distance funding. One Senator will bring up a motion to fund the network and it would pass with way more than 51 votes. The same way Senators of the recent past brought up all the anti Amtrak motions 5-10 years ago that miserably failed. I’m not so worried about the House at the moment.

I don’t know the ins and outs of the Senate rules but does this sound about right?

Also for all intents and purposes it is an election year and loss of the network would hurt rural/midwest America which is a key demographic for both parties.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

Thanks, Amtrakfflyer--these are all good and sensible points.

 

[jis]

I don't believe Senate (or the House for that matter) will change much in the way of level of funding for Amtrak in next year's appropriation.

What is more interesting anyway is what specific language of guidance they will include in the Transport Authorization Bill (most likely Title 7 of it for passenger rail) for the next five years. Will they take the trouble to rescind the F&B loss reduction language? Will they put anything specific about the national network? Will, they rescind PRIIA Section 209? Those will have more long term impact than one year's appropriation.

I also don't think there will be any significant material effect on the upcoming election from whatever happens to Amtrak. I also think it is highly unlikely that there will be any real major sweeping changes to Amtrak between now and the election.

 

[Willbridge]

I saw this link to a Washington Post editorial on Train Orders:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...869d18-6c37-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html

One sentence in it sums up the editorial board's position:

"Congress should at last overcome the special-pleading of rural railway stops and help Amtrak eliminate its wasteful long-distance service."

The WaPo, and particularly its editorial board, sits dead center in the Washington establishment. It's neither a Trump administration house organ or left wing propaganda. I interpret this to mean cutting long distance and beefing up corridor services is now reckoned to be centrist policy in the Beltway, and not some right wing conspiracy.

There's opposition on the left(ish) side – the union backed letter from blue state members – and the right(ish) side, from senators representing red and/or rural states, but I think both are bargaining ploys to wave the flag for constituents and win a few minor concessions, rather than effective counterattacks. I'm betting Anderson walks out of the meeting (more likely, walks into the meeting) with a done deal that gives Moran something he can claim as victory, and allows Anderson to move forward with the core of his plan.

That's how things have been since the "Railpax" legislation was rushed through in 1970. Have a look at the 1971 proposed route structure. When Amtrak started up it was designed to strip large amounts of rolling stock from the better fleets of the Western railroads and move them east to replace the junk on Eastern lines. It's why with NEC clearance restrictions they bought so few dome cars. (I witnessed this in my 1969 and 1971 Army travels - including 1969 riding in a Pennsy commuter coach with advertising cards overhead as the through coach on the "Spirit of St. Louis". By the end of August 1971 the "Broadway Limited" was beautiful in Armour Yellow, looking like the "Portland Rose" or the "Utahn".)

Working on this for Oregon DOT, I figured out that the folks in DC were using readily available aviation statistics due to the rush to keep Penn Central's Northeast Corridor alive. That explained the intended omission of some big rail traffic points like San Diego and Portland that were not major air hubs. The plan was vague enough that it could have been run with the Union Pacific's "City of Everywhere" -- until the Senate saw to it that the Twin Cities and Kansas City and northern Montana had to be included. A north-south route from San Diego to Seattle was forced on Amtrak by politicians. As MP David Kilgour, a Canadian expert on constitutions told me later, "you wouldn't have a national system without the U.S. Senate." Canada shows what can happen with an impotent senate, a land of twice-weekly trains and where the substitute transcontinental bus service was recently shut down.

I also learned that as long as trains kept going in and out of the Potemkin's Palace called Washington Union Station, the "national" media would think that every cutback was warranted. Local media vary, but the political backlash to service cuts does not come until reporters start doing the nostalgia stories after the public input phase is over. Then there is a long downward spiral over a generation as the intercity bus service that was used to justify the end of rail service fades away. And now we have the greatest irony: the people who will be most hurt voted for Donald Trump.