Gunn to be fired

[PigFarmer1]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bbrant

QUOTE:
And why should Bush care? Him and his rich cronies have their SUV and limo convoys they can ride around in. They certainly wouldn't lower themselves to use PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Gunn was the best man available for the job, but since he wouldn't get on board with the plan to bury Amtrak, he's history.

Maybe he'll shut down the Northeast Corridor and take the whole area from gridlock to parking lot.

When was the last time any president used public transportation, Amtrak or otherwise. Don't you think that they ride in special SUVs and limos for a reason?!?

The prez uses public transportation on a daily basis. Our taxes pay for just about every single ride he takes whether it be Air Force One, Marine One, or his limo. The public pays a hefty price for his rides on public transportation.[}:)]

[jeaton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dutchrailnut

Maybe Vranich can run the job, he has been telling everyone in USA how Amtrak is F**k**p and how he would change things;-)

No doubt he would an excellent choice. He sure can talk the talk and that is all that is required these days.

[RudyRockvilleMD]

The Amtrak Board made a very bad mistake when it fired David Gunn because he was one of the best, if not the best president Amtrak ever had. But, let’s keep this in perspective. There were two topics on firing David Gunn, and in each there were a lot of calls for Secretary of Transportation Mineta to be fired. so let’s get a few things straight.

Cabinet Secretaries are nominated by the President, they are confirmed by the Senate, and they serve at the pleasure of the President; he cannot be fired by anybody except the President, so any calls for his firing are silly. A hearing is scheduled in the House for November 15, but I predict nothing will come of it.

Secretary, Mineta was accused of murder in another post in connection with evacuating people from New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Katrina. This is irrelevant, and too absurd to be addressed further.

Some feel the “public” will have little concern over David Gunn’s firing, and I agree with that. An article appeared about his firing on the first page of last Thursday’s Washington Post business section, but nothing has appeared in the news media since then.

[Anonymous]

There have been numerous other articles in the press...

Opinion: A disgraceful signal at Amtrak
(The following editorial was posted on the New York Times website on November 10.)

NEW YORK -- The sudden firing by the Amtrak board of David Gunn, the best president in years of the nation's only passenger railroad, was a body blow to anybody who cares about long-range passenger trains.

Mr. Gunn has done a masterly job in the last three years of holding down costs without dismantling the railroad. That, apparently, was his problem. Mr. Gunn was trying to save Amtrak, but the Bush administration wants to privatize it, bit by bit.

The battle between Mr. Gunn and Amtrak board members - all of them appointed by President Bush - intensified in recent weeks when the board took steps to break off the more profitable Northeast Corridor, putting it into its own division and sharing its control and costs with the states. Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, called it a "fire sale" intended to break up the nation's railroad system.

So last week Senator Lautenberg and Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, managed to get a 93-to-6 vote to authorize $11.6 billion for passenger rail service in the next six years - as close to an all-out endorsement of Amtrak as you can get.

But while senators were trying to help Amtrak move forward, its board took a step backward. It complained yesterday that Mr. Gunn - who has greatly increased ridership, improved management and upgraded equipment - was moving too slowly. After his firing, Mr. Gunn said, "Obviously what their goal is, and it's been their goal from the beginning, is to liquidate the company."

For Amtrak's 25 million passengers, this should be a call to arms. Amtrak should be a public transportation trust. It will never be self-sufficient, nor show a conventional profit, any more than the airline industry can fly without federal help. The Bush administration long ago threatened to disassemble Amtrak. Yesterday it began at the executive suite.

[bbrant]

Figures the Times would have such an article. They'll print anything to make Bush look bad. Just so happens that Amtrak is there most recent way of doing so. Oh well, liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it's stated intent.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bbrant

Figures the Times would have such an article. They'll print anything to make Bush look bad. Just so happens that Amtrak is there most recent way of doing so. Oh well, liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it's stated intent.

From a lifelong Republican...

Bush is doing just fine making himself and the GOP look awful just fine without Amtrak or the NYT. Having a national passenger rail system shouldn't be about politics...

LC

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dutchrailnut

Maybe Vranich can run the job, he has been telling everyone in USA how Amtrak is F**k**p and how he would change things;-)

No doubt he would an excellent choice. He sure can talk the talk and that is all that is required these days.

That is about all Vranich is good for, talk...

LC

[Anonymous]

Gunn, about his firing and Amtrak from the Railway Age website:

November 9, 2005
David Gunn: “I did the honorable thing”

When he came out of retirement to accept the position as Amtrak’s President and Chief Executive Officer little more than three years ago, David L. Gunn—a highly respected career railroader with more than 40 years’ experience operating freight trains and running transit systems in the U.S. and Canada—said he didn’t need the job, and if his superiors didn’t like the job he was doing, they could fire him. He’d return to his home in Nova Scotia.

That’s exactly what happened earlier today, when Amtrak’s four-person, Bush-Administration-appointed Board of Directors (only one of which—Chairman David M. Laney—has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate), released Gunn, saying that Amtrak “needed to intensify the pace and broaden the scope of its reforms.” He was reportedly let go because of “philosophical differences” with the Board, most likely a clash over the Board’s vote in September to authorize splitting off the Northeast Corridor, an idea backed by the Bush Administration. That apparently was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Chief Engineer David Hughes has been named Acting President and CEO, and the Board “has launched a national search to find the railroad’s next leader.”

“The Board members came in this morning and asked me to resign. I refused, so they fired me,” Gunn said in an interview this afternoon with Railway Age Editor William C. Vantuono. “I feel at least that I did the right, honorable thing. I wasn’t going to abandon our people.” He said that the Bush Administration’s people wanted to implement their plan, “which is destroying Amtrak.” “I stood in their way,” he said. “That’s why they fired me.”

Gunn, a veteran of the Santa Fe and Illinois Central railroads who made his mark in transportation by turning around transit systems in Boston, New York City, Washington D.C., and Toronto, spent the past three-plus years streamlining Amtrak’s management structure, improving financial controls, and implementing many state-of-good-repair programs on plant and equipment. “If you want an example of getting fired for producing good numbers, this is it,” he said. “It’s an upside-down world we live in.”

The biggest question: Who will want Gunn’s job? Presumably, it will have to be someone willing to be more aggressive in carrying out the Administration’s plans for “reforming” Amtrak and intercity passenger rail.

“David Gunn has helped Amtrak make important operational improvements over the past three years,” said Laney in a prepared statement. “Amtrak's future now requires a different type of leader who will aggressively tackle the company’s financial, management, and operational challenges. The need to bring fundamental change to Amtrak is greater and more urgent than ever before. The Board approved a strategic plan in April that provides a blueprint for a stronger and more sustainable Amtrak. Now we need a leader with vision and experience to get the job done.”

“I have known David Gunn many years and respect the work he did to help streamline and stabilize Amtrak,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said in a prepared statement. “However, it is the job of Amtrak’s Board to make decisions that are in the best interest of Amtrak. I am confident in the Board’s judgment and its belief that different leadership is needed to address the serious challenges facing the company. The U.S. Department of Transportation stands ready to support Amtrak as it reforms its long distance services, upgrades the Northeast Corridor, and establishes new fiscal accountability measures and will continue to work with Congress to ensure the future of intercity passenger rail.” (Just two days ago, following a highly critical General Accountability Office report, Mineta said that Amtrak needs to “clean up its act and become more accountable to taxpayers and the traveling public.”)

“Anything they’ll tell you is bulls_t,” Gunn told Railway Age in his characteristically frank, shoot-from-the hip manner. Citing the 93-6 vote in the Senate approving an Amtrak reathorization bill earmarking nearly $12 billion in mostly capital investment over the next few years, Gunn said “it doesn’t compute. The Administration is serious about taking this place apart.”

Gunn’s ouster has prompted a flurry of mostly angry reactions:

“Today’s decision to fire David Gunn is wrong, ill-advised, and further proof that the Bush Administration doesn’t want Amtrak to succeed,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a former Amtrak Board member. “Strangely, this decision comes just a week after the Senate overwhelmingly approved an Amtrak reform bill in one of the most pro-Amtrak votes I’ve ever seen. Ninety-three senators are now on record supporting a meaningful and thoughtful Amtrak reform bill. It’s unfortunate that the Administration, through the Board, would rather play games with Amtrak’s management than engage Congress on how to make Amtrak stronger. Today’s action was taken by a weak Board with questionable legitimacy. It is just one in a long line of poorly thought-out proposals to come out of the Bush Administration. Earlier this year, the Administration proposed to eliminate all funding for Amtrak and reform it through the bankruptcy courts. Then they proposed splitting off the Northeast Corridor. Now they’re firing someone who’s actually made real progress at bringing some much-needed change to Amtrak.”

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who with Sen. Frank Lautenberg (d-N.J.) cosponsored the successful Amtrak reathorization bill, called the Amtrak Board’s action “a step backward.”

“The manner in which Mineta has handled this is disgraceful,” said one industry observer. He described the Secretary as “widely regarded in the railway industry as little more than a Bush Administration puppet.” Mineta’s pronouncements on Amtrak, particularly, the FRA awarding grants to Amtrak only if it “demonstrates that it has reformed its acquisitions practices,” have sounded like “the petulant parent who threatens to punish a misbehaving child by cutting off his allowance.”

David Laney was previously on record as opposing Administration plans to break up Amtrak. He “is now seen as a part of that effort,” said the National Corridors Initiative. “Many people believe that the Administration will attempt to sell off the Northeast Corridor to a consortium of private interests. Administration officials are reportedly in the process of meeting with the private-sector organizations involved.”

Other sources have told Railway Age that a possible scenario would involve retaining federal ownership of the NEC but placing operations under the auspices of a public/private partnership that would include a federal/multi-state consortium. That model, Gunn maintains, won’t work, given a railroad’s unique (compared to other transportation modes) need for fully integrated operations and infrastructure.

What happens next? “The Administration is running out of time,” Gunn told Railway Age. “They have to do a lot of the dirty stuff this year, because next year is an election year, and what they’ve got in mind will be very unpopular.” Gunn predicted that, within the next few months, “there will be a lot of train-offs and other service cutbacks.”

LC

[Modelcar]

...As stated above..." trainoffs and other service cutbacks".....by the Adminsistration are not hard to believe....They are completely against this country having a rail passenger system...{maybe the exception is at campaign time when they like to climb on a train, etc....}. One way or another, they will get it done...{kill the system}. Thanks for term limits.

[bbrant]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

...As stated above..." trainoffs and other service cutbacks".....by the Adminsistration are not hard to believe....They are completely against this country having a rail passenger system...{maybe the exception is at campaign time when they like to climb on a train, etc....}. One way or another, they will get it done...{kill the system}. Thanks for term limits.

Quentin -

I disagree. I think the Bush Administration is for a national rail passenger system that's more privatized and less reliant on govenrment funding.

Brian

[Big_Boy_4005]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bbrant

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

...As stated above..." trainoffs and other service cutbacks".....by the Adminsistration are not hard to believe....They are completely against this country having a rail passenger system...{maybe the exception is at campaign time when they like to climb on a train, etc....}. One way or another, they will get it done...{kill the system}. Thanks for term limits.

Quentin -

I disagree. I think the Bush Administration is for a national rail passenger system that's more privatized and less reliant on govenrment funding.

Brian

But what private company in their right mind is going to take it on? That statement is oxymoronic.

[bbrant]

QUOTE:
But what private company in their right mind is going to take it on? That statement is oxymoronic.

The way I see it, the Bush Administration would make Amtrak it's own private company. Personally, I like the idea.

[bbrant]

I do have to ask this. If Amtrak can't be profitable as a private company, then why should anyone be in favor of the government continually putting money - our money - into something that isn't profitable? Not trying to start anything, just asking.

Brian

[Modelcar]

...Brian.....What form of transportation {overall}, that the government puts money in...is profitable....It is my opinion we need public transportation in our big and great country....Why can't we just state the art of moving passengers by rail...{other forms too}, is a service we should have...Why does it HAVE to be profitable....We know the systems world wide that transport people {with few exceptions}, DON't make money....What is the big hangup of funding this process if it is structured to be a sensible workable program that does the job....? We sure fund lots of stuff that I don't have any benefit from and I'm not screeming bloody murder over every separate instance where that's done....I just don't understand all the noise about it...[:0]

[Anonymous]

BRIAN, WOULD THE AIRLINES BE EVEN REMOTELY PROFITABLE IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR AIR TRAFIC CONTROL. WOULD THE BARGE COMPANIES BE PROFITABLE IF THEY HAD TO P[AY FOR THE WORK THE ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS DOES.COULD YOU AFFORD TO PAY THE TOLLS IF ALL OF THE HIGHWAYS WERE PRIVATIZED.I THINK NOT.

[oltmannd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bbrant

I do have to ask this. If Amtrak can't be profitable as a private company, then why should anyone be in favor of the government continually putting money - our money - into something that isn't profitable? Not trying to start anything, just asking.

Brian

One of the very first things the gov't did was to spend taxpayer money on transportation - a road over the Appalachian Mtns (more or less on the allignment of US40). There was no hard dollar income from this road, but it did help open up the "west" (Ohio) at the time.

"The common good" does not always yield a profit in the traditional sense.

Most transportation project DO yield benefits greater than their costs, but those benefits do not often show up as hard dollars in the same "pocket" the money came out of.

Overtly profitable operations belong in the private sector. Those that aren't, the gov't either has to contrive to make them overtly profitable (Airlines, Post Office) or operate themselves.(Interstate Highways, Air Traffic Control, ACE, mass transit)