Amtrak has announced that they plan to lay off 700 persons in the coming months including 300 managers. Particularly disturbing, at least to myself, is that they also plan to reduce maintenance on all equipment. I forsee more than the usual number of breakdowns as well as the potential for a dangerous situation which could lead to injury of passengers (Or worse). I feel that cutting back is fine but one can not sacrifice safety at any cost. Under the present set of circumstances and the possibility of a breakup of Amtrak, an incident surely would do nothing more than to further sour public relations and ridership. Anyone else have a viewpoint on this? Russ
Sadly, it looks like history is going to repeat itself. When the major railroads wanted to get out of the passenger business in the 50's and 60's, they took the same approach ..... deferred maintenance, reduced crew size, lower management competancy, etc. This Country (and Congress) either MUST(!) acknowledge that rail passenger transportation is a Public Service and fund it and allow it to be managed accordingly, or it should be dropped completely. This half-hearted approach by the White House and Congress just to appease various voting and power groups is RIDICULOUS!
You're right Hank, this is the only country in "The Free World" that DOES'NT operate their psgr trains as a public service but rather as a business. Why do you think all the private railroads dumped their psgr trains - because it was a money losing proposition! Sept 11 showed what a great & powerful country this is, yet compare our psgr service to that of Japan, France or Germany - three countries that were completely deciminated in WWII - and there is no comparison! This has to change! Lets see how well Northwest or American does if they have to build, staff, and maintain their own airports including the air traffic controllers!
I agree, but I don't think the current "AMTRAK" is the thing that should be keeping passenger trains in the USA running. They have done a poor job in recent years, and made many bad decisions that have seriously affected the Corporation. I Think a new gov't group, agency or what ever, with a new budget, with a new Board of Directors, with new upper managment should come and take control of the passenger newteorks in the US. Not only that I would like to see the current Amtrak split into two different operating groups, while staying with the gov't. 1) Long Distance Purelly AMTK. routes. They will run the trains that there isn't huge state funding in. 2) State funding assistance, and equipment maintance provided by another group. Frankly, the trains run by the states eem to be much better, and I don't want them to get messed up with all the long haul 'problems' that will always remain when the government controls the passenger RRs (I am not saying they shouldn't). G'Day Dane
