The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 4 of 10)

If the Iron Horse has to be shot, its death should at least be humane.

p>Yours in the spirit of (ahem) alliance, br> -- Martin Kelly br> Glasgow, Scotland /p> p> I am not sure what rail lines Mr. Tucker is speaking of when he notes that freight trains wait for hours for a passenger train to pass. I have ridden Amtrak on the main line through Pennsylvania numerous times and the freight cars had the right of way: The tracks are owned by Norfolk Southern. The reality on this route is quite the opposite of what was written. The Amtrak trains have to wait repeatedly for freight trains. It makes the trip a rather slow one. If freight trains are waiting for a passenger train then the right of way must be owned by another rail line, e.g. Amtrak. If the freight company finds this intolerable, it should build another rail line. If that is too expensive, then let the market find another more profitable method of transporting those goods. br> -- Chris O'Hara /p>

While Amtrak's problems are numerous and obvious to most, Mr. Tucker's boilerplate arguments serve mostly to display his misinformed ignorance of the subject.

Fact: Hauling passengers by rail has NEVER been profitable and never will be. In 1971 when Amtrak was formed all but the most pie-in-the-sky liberals knew from day one that the government-controlled railroad would never earn a penny. I have no idea who told Mr. Tucker that Amtrak would "someday be profitable," but obviously he should find better sources of information. Amtrak's creation had the sole purpose of relieving the freight railroads (specifically the ill-fated Penn Central) of the burden of hauling people -- nothing else. And while Mr. Tucker, Joseph Vranich and others make very good points about Amtrak's shortcomings (there are many), saying we can't afford Amtrak is absurd. Killing off Amtrak will make an inconsequentially tiny difference in the total federal government budget.

Complaining about Amtrak is just another way to divert attention from America's real transportation problems. Amtrak's average annual budget is about what we pay to rebuild three freeway interchanges.

According to the information I have at hand, over its entire existence Amtrak has received substantially less than half the government subsidies handed over to private U.S. airlines in just 1996 alone. Yet I never hear a peep of complaint about the trillions handed out to private airlines over the last 34 years, and the airlines are still crying that they're broke! People like Mr. Tucker are too busy whining about an average of $800 million per year given to Amtrak in its entire lifetime to consider where the transportation subsidies are really being wasted. Get people worked up over hundreds of millions so they'll never notice the hundreds of billions.

I must take issue with the statement, "Sitting for days and nights in a railroad car no longer has any appeal." He should speak for himself. Maybe Mr. Tucker should take the time to actually experience a long distance train trip before spouting such arrogant nonsense. But I would suggest to him to buy his sleeper ticket early since I wouldn't want him to have to sleep in a crowded coach on one of his "nearly empty trains." In 34 years of riding Amtrak very rarely do I ride one of these "nearly empty trains" in normal service, and regularly ride trains that are booked solid because there aren't enough of them. Amtrak can't haul more people without more trains, and more trains cost money, and Amtrak must fight tooth and nail for every penny it gets every year while annually private airlines are silently handed dozens of billions without a word of complaint from anyone.

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