What happens in Washington may seem far, far away, but decisions by Congress can and do affect people out here on the High Plains. And if House Republicans have their way, our region could lose its trains, or find them next to worthless.
Amtrak, the government corporation that operates the nation’s rail passenger trains, faces around a 50 percent budget cut under proposals in the House Commerce Committee.
It seems the House Republicans have resurrected the old myth that passenger trains can make money. That hasn’t happened in the U.S. in three-quarters of a century, and it’s not likely now.
Rail passenger service does not make money in any country in the world that we know of. Amtrak loses about the same amount of money on both its national network and the vaunted Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington.
Its service has value to many, however, despite all the problems the system faces. In the Northeast, air and motor traffic would face gridlock if trains stopped running. Out here, “national network” trains serve a lot of towns with no other viable public transportation.
No one complains about vast federal subsidies for rural airline service used by a few people a day, but every few years, someone in Congress decries the cost of subsidizing trains.
The myth that Amtrak will someday make money originated back in the Nixon administration, when the White House wanted to relieve struggling for-profit freight railroads of their passenger-train losses. Despite all the evidence, it keeps coming back.
The question is not, “do we want trains to make a profit?” No form of passenger transport makes money, airlines included. The air-traffic system gets billions of city, state and federal aid for airports, air traffic control and safety; trucks could not move freight without federal and state road spending; and water transportation (which moves a lot of grain to ports) is possible only because of federal spending.
The question is, do we want and need trains, and what is their role?
Out here, the answer ought to be yes.
You can, for instance, catch a flight from McCook to Denver — if a plane came in the night before, if the airline has a crew available, if the weather is good. Even if they get out of town, however, many become stranded when the evening flight back does not go.
Otherwise, you can drive four hours to Denver, spend three hours at the airport, pay for tickets and parking, and get to, say, Chicago by mid afternoon.
Or, you could drive to McCook, park for free at the depot, catch the midnight train and be in Chicago by mid afternoon without all the hassle of parking security, hurrying through the airport and all the rest.
Flying is no fun these days. Riding a train can be relaxing.
Amtrak has its problems, to be sure. It’s been underfunded by Congress for years, and saddled with incompetent, anti-train (yes, really) managers. Freight railroads and aging equipment conspire to make trains late, but that problem could be solved.
