Amtrak may feed the nostalgia of train buffs, but as a component in America's transportation system, critics say it's a drag. FLS FILE PHOTO Visit the Photo Place

If you want to play with trains, pick a cheaper way than Amtrak

Amtrak is no substitute for other means of transportation.

Date published: 4/7/2006

MY FIRST REACTION to Colin Peppard's plea for Amtrak ["The A Train: Amtrak Survives on Life Support," Viewpoints, March 26] was to wonder why an East Coast author writing in an East Coast newspaper about a rail system whose service disproportionately serves the East Coast begins his article quoting an anonymous official living in the Midwest? But as I read further, a likely explanation emerged: That's how far Colin had to travel to find somebody whose views on transportation were as insensible as his.

We don't know much about the credentials of this Michigan "official"--he may be the mayor of Ypsilanti or a policeman who gave Colin directions to the Detroit zoo--but we do know from his quote that knowledge of Amtrak is not one of his core skills. "If we had more trains, we'd put more people on 'em," the official says, but that statement can't be reckoned with Amtrak's acknowledgement that not more than a half of 1 percent of America's inter-city passengers use the system, and that during 2005, Amtrak's trains were less than half-full on any given day.

Colin follows this odd quote by noting that Amtrak's ridership is at a record level, but in a growing economy almost every measure of activity is at a "record high." The minimum wage is at a record high, and so is the price of a movie ticket, corporate profits, the U.S. population, the deer population, Lipitor sales, and ownership of iPods, to name just some of the records broken in 2005. In actual fact, however, Amtrak in 2005 saw just a 1.9 percent increase in ridership while domestic airline passenger volume grew by 3.9 percent.

Colin's article was twinned with an echo from Christopher Ott ["Europe understands: Reliable rail matters"], described as a writer who has traveled by rail in other countries, an approbation yours truly has earned by virtue of his 19-hour train ride from Sofia to Istanbul. Colin/Chris use much of their allotted ink attacking President Bush's efforts to squeeze the waste out of the system, but for what purpose? Amtrak acknowledges it loses $100 million a year selling food and drink--but the Colin/Chris team offers no solution beyond more money for a system few use.

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Date published: 4/7/2006