The End of the City of New Orleans?

[Anonymous]

Seen today (6/25) in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_3881991,00.html

End of the line?
Budget barriers threaten to derail Amtrak and fabled
City of New Orleans


By Bartholomew Sullivan
[e-mail]
June 24, 2005



Nighttime on the City of New Orleans

Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee

Half-way home, we'll be there by morning

Through the Mississippi darkness

Rolling down to the sea.

-- Steve Goodman, ''The City of New Orleans''

WASHINGTON -- Arlo Guthrie sings ''The City of New
Orleans'' somewhere just about every night.

The classic song about the train that's got the
"disappearing railroad blues" captures the spirit of
an America that, when it was written in 1970, seemed
to be fading fast, Guthrie said. Now, a congressional
proposal to end Amtrak's City of New Orleans service,
and most long-distance Amtrak service across the
country, has Guthrie hoping it's not too late to save
a cultural icon.

In 1979, he rode the now-defunct Montrealer from his
home in western Massachusetts to Washington's Union
Station and played a protest concert to stop a Carter
administration plan to cut passenger rail service. He
told The Commercial Appeal on Friday that it may be
time to ride from the Windy City to the Big Easy to
save The City of New Orleans. In the same breath, he
wondered if Congress would even notice.

''They're backed up against the wall with so many
other crazy things going on that the fate of the
nation's train system is probably not on their to-do
list,'' he said. ''But it should be. I can't believe
they're that preoccupied that they can't actually sit
down and reason it out and find a way to keep the
trains rolling,'' Guthrie said. ''Because it's not
just a symbol. If it were just a symbol, maybe we
could live without it. But it's more than that. It's
the hope for the future. Everyone knows that.''

The House appropriations committee last week voted to
approve only $550 million for Amtrak -- a 55 percent
cut from current funding -- for the fiscal year that
starts Oct. 1. The full House is expected to take it
up on Wednesday. Amtrak officials say that level of
funding not only prevents the continued operation of
long-distance trains like The City of New Orleans, it
effectively derails all service.

''If it's finally enacted that way, Amtrak would
simply cease to exist,'' said longtime Amtrak
spokesman Cliff Black. Debt service and severance
payments to employees working on the terminated
long-distance routes would eat up the entire
appropriation.

In a letter to employees, Amtrak president David L.
Gunn put it bluntly: ''The practical impact of $550
million in federal support would be the same as zero
funding for Amtrak, and they know it.''

Fans of passenger rail service hope something closer
to the $1.8 billion sought by Amtrak will be restored
when it comes up in the Senate, which has
traditionally been more favorably disposed to the
agency. The same bill that cuts Amtrak increases
Federal Aviation Administration funding by $877
million.

Others predict that when the public learns that
storied train routes like the Sunset Limited, Empire
Builder, Southwest Chief and California Zephyr are
slated to be chloroformed, there will be outrage. Some
of it has begun to bubble up.

''Once it becomes obvious to the public that the
passenger trains are going to die, there will be some
kind of uproar and uprising,'' said Bill Strong of
Germantown, a Southeast regional director of the
National Association of Railroad Pass- engers. ''But
it might be too late.''

An Illinois Central Chicago-to-New Orleans route was
first called The City of New Orleans in 1947, said
Amtrak's Chicago spokesman Marc Magliari. When Amtrak
took over the passenger system in 1971, it called the
overnight route The Panama Limited. In 1981, The City
of New Orleans name was restored. Since 1998, it has
run daily once in each direction. The fare is
currently $183 one-way.

It has some ardent fans in Shelby County. Many of them
meet monthly at the White Station branch of the
Memphis and Shelby County Library System as the local
chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.

Memphis Redbirds general manager David A. Chase, 51,
the society's chapter president, said that it was
''beyond my imagination'' to shut down passenger rail
service.

''Arlo Guthrie and (his late father) Woody Guthrie
will have nothing to sing about if we don't have The
City of New Orleans,'' said Chase.

''Especially in this day and age, when air travel is
in peril ... we probably need more than ever to rely
on rail service.''

The City of New Orleans chugged out of the Crescent
City northbound on Friday with 398 passengers.
Forty-nine got off at Memphis, but 51 others got on.
Southbound from the Windy City with 350 passengers, 46
got off at Memphis and 29 climbed aboard.

Amtrak ridership is up and its loss per passenger mile
has been declining in recent years, its supporters
point out.

Strong said the Bush administration ''has gotten some
very bad and incorrect information that they're
passing out as gospel.'' The truth is that no
passenger rail system could operate profitably without
a substantial subsidy, he said. He pointed to the FAA
funding of airports and the whole air traffic control
system supporting for-profit airline companies and
multibillion-dollar highway construction used by
passenger buses.

Strong said he got some encouragement from U.S. Rep.
Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., who signed a letter to the
subcommittee chairman considering Amtrak's budget in
support of a $2 billion appropriation. Rep. John
Tanner, D-Tenn., whose district contains a train stop
at Newbern, said rural Tennesseans should have a rail
option.

But Strong said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is
''buying the administration line ... and trying to
save money.''

In a statement to the newspaper, Blackburn confirmed
that view: ''Taxpayers have been bailing Amtrak out
for more than three decades. We've reached a point
where people are saying enough is enough.''

Guthrie says it's short-sighted to cut Amtrak service.

''I wi***here were some other thing that I could
think of to do that would help rekindle interest in
the train system,'' he said. ''I think if a little
more thought went into it and these guys (in Congress)
could pay a little bit more attention to it, they
could surely figure out some way to do it without
destroying one of the things that made the country
what it is in the first place.''

Contact Washington correspondent Bartholomew Sullivan
at [phone].



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[nanaimo73]

Anyone who messes with this train will have to deal with Trent Lott.

[Anonymous]

Save the trains!!!!!!!!!!

[railfan619]

I just hope that amtrak does not end . In fact Amtrak is one of the best railroads around.