President Joe Biden has made it a priority to improve and expand the National Rail Passenger Corporation, better known as Amtrak. What is a problem for many people is that Amtrak does not show a profit, except for particular routes. There are repeated calls to privatize it, cut back services, or otherwise try to make the books balance.
Jim Matthews, President and CEO of the Rail Passengers Association has chapter and verse on why those demands are not supported by history, by legislative action, or judicial decree. From April 14, 2024:
Just like cicadas, the five-millionth cable re-run of 'Shawshank Redemption,' or a dyspeptic lunch, the argument about Amtrak and profitability just seems to keep coming up.
Between a few press interviews I’ve done lately and even some congressional queries, it looks as if it’s time again for me to dust off my diatribe on whether Amtrak needs to make a profit (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).
Bottom-line up front? Amtrak critics base their profit-motive analysis on a combination of ideological blindness, a quirk in Amtrak’s early legislative history, and admittedly confusing prose in the Amtrak statute itself. But, for the past 46 years the laws on the books have not required Amtrak to make a profit, and trying to make Amtrak profitable not only won’t work but will make it even harder for Amtrak to do what we already pay it to do.
None of the critics’ misperceptions can overcome these realities: that Congress changed its mind in 1978 on this topic and since then has never required Amtrak to make a profit; that the Congressional Research Service confirmed it in 2002; that the Supreme Court has ruled – twice – that Amtrak is not a “private company,” and; that when Congress re-visited Amtrak’s mission and purpose it explicitly stripped profit-making out of Amtrak’s to-do list.
Matthews goes on to parse out out the convoluted language and judicial rulings over the past 50 years that define what the National Rail Passenger Corporation is mandated to do. He cites Justice Antonin Scalia of all people, who had this to say about Amtrak in a 1995 ruling by the Supreme Court:
Writing for the majority, then-Justice Antonin Scalia noted that “Amtrak was created by a special statute, explicitly for the furtherance of federal governmental goals. ...six of the corporation's eight externally named directors (the ninth is named by a majority of the board itself) are appointed directly by the President of the United States – four of them (including the Secretary of Transportation) with the advice and consent of the Senate. See §§543(a)(1)(A), (C)-(D)....
“Although the statute restricts most of the President's choices to persons suggested by certain organizations or persons having certain qualifications, those restrictions have been tailor-made by Congress for this entity alone,” Justice Scalia wrote. “They do not in our view establish an absence of control by the Government as a whole, but rather constitute a restriction imposed by one of the political branches upon the other....”
“Moreover,” Scalia continued, “Amtrak is not merely in the temporary control of the Government (as a private corporation whose stock comes into Federal ownership might be); it is established and organized under Federal law for the very purpose of pursuing Federal governmental objectives, under the direction and control of Federal governmental appointees. It is in that respect no different from the so-called independent regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission or the Securities Exchange Commission, which are run by Presidential appointees with fixed terms.”
As Matthews sums it up:
...The yardstick we use to measure success for government programs and agencies is different than the one we use to measure the success of private companies. As a for-profit company, Amtrak fails...spectacularly. As a government agency, created half a century ago to carry out a public purpose recognized in law and in Supreme Court rulings, it is a spectacular success worth celebrating, supporting, and building up.
So for the good of rail service, future rail investment, Amtrak, and even the exciting new private-sector entrants like Brightline or established entrants like Herzog and Keolis competing on their own merits and models, let’s please stop comparing Amtrak to the private sector once and for all.
I strongly recommend joining the Rail Passengers Association to support better Amtrak service and better rail transport in general. (You also can get travel deals and discounts.)
Bonus: There’s Still Time To Comment On the WSDOT Amtrak Cascades Plan
Last night I sat in on a Zoom call with people and groups working to get Washington State DOT to drop their watered down plans for marginal improvements to
Amtrak’s Cascade Service and return to a 2007 plan they had in place with a clear agenda of track improvements for higher speeds and more trains for more frequent, faster, and more reliable service on the rail corridor that runs from Vancouver, BC down to Eugene, OR. (
I wrote it up here several days ago.) Improvements would focus on the corridor between Vancouver, BC down to Portland, OR. (Electrification was also discussed as a goal.)
Washington State had an agreement with host railroad BNSF for the necessary track work and operating arrangements to make it work — but let it lapse a few years ago. Now they claim that’s not possible — but BNSF is cooperating with passenger rail plans in California. It can be done.
Here’s just a few sample travel times and train frequencies under the 2007 plan:
Seattle - Portland 2h 30m, Seattle-Vancouver BC 2h 45m
Seattle-Vancouver 1 per day, Vancouver-Portland 4, Seattle - Portland 10
The 2007 plan would help get cars off the highways, cut emissions, and provide an alternative to air travel. It’s eminently doable with available technology.
Solutionary Rail has a web page up showing all of the groups working together on this, and where to write by the April 18 deadline for public comments.
The
Climate Rail Alliance also has a web page up for this campaign with additional information and sample comments.
TAKE ACTION to demand better: here’s where you can do it. (And consider signing up with these groups too.)
We ask transportation advocates to weigh in on WSDOT’s Preliminary Service Development Plan for the Amtrak Cascades, by April 18. Action pages are set up on the Solutionary Rail website, the Climate Rail Alliance website, and by 350 Seattle. Comments can be submitted directly to CascadesSDP@wsdot.wa.gov. Thank you in advance for demanding the rail service we must have by 2030, for the sake of mobility and the planet.