Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Gunn on Amtrak: Here come the Train Offs

Edit topic

Updated your discussion topic below.

Subject
Enter a subject for your topic. Maximum 150 characters.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
From 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.”
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
E-mail Subscribe
Check the box below if you want to receive e-mail notifications when replies are made to this thread.

Receive notifications