Loading ...A Better Way To Travel?
By Peter Richmond
Published: November 4, 2007
EDITOR’S NOTE: After our November 4 issue went to press, the Senate approved the Lautenberg-Lott Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act on October 30. The bill is now before the House.
American spent about 3.7 billion hours stuck in traffic last year, burning gasoline whose price had soared by 60%. At the airports, security lines snake endlessly, runways are choked, and delays are common. One recent study found that, between January and August 2007, one in four flights arrived late; 159 flights were kept on the tarmac for more than three hours in August. As a result, more than half of U.S. businesses augment commercial air travel with expensive corporate jets and charters. Isn’t there a better way?
One solution is staring us in the face. Many transportation experts insist that the best answer to transportation gridlock is efficient intercity rail travel. Trains use one-fifth less energy than cars or planes. They run in bad weather. They’re business-efficient and tourist-friendly. Yet, since the early 1960’s—with the exception of the Northeast Corridor, from Boston to Washington, D.C.—railroad transportation in the U.S. has become largely irrelevant. For most Americans, train travel from city to city remains an afterthought. And for good reason: Our national rail system is inadequate, relying on aging equipment and a shrinking route-map. The system sorely lacks both financial resources and government support.
“The transportation funding mechanism is skewed toward highway construction,” says James RePass, principal executive of the National Corridors Initiative, a transportation advocacy group. “The game is rigged against rail.”
In contrast, the rest of the industrialized world is investing heavily in its train systems. From border to border, Europe is wiring itself for high-speed rail. The result? Decreased emissions and increased productivity. Some predict the eventual obsolescence of air travel on the continent.
How did we fall so far behind? Blame it on our love affair with the automobile and a historical antipathy of legislators for subsidizing the nation’s railroads. Our government’s disdain for trains began with FDR, who in the late 1930s turned his back on fat-cat railroad barons asking for federal handouts. Two decades later, President Eisenhower certified our commitment to cars when he built the interstate highway system.
The current administration has been particularly unfriendly. Amtrak, which is federally funded, received just $1.3 billion last year—the same as 25 years ago. Compare that to the $40 billion allocated for highways and the $14 billion for airlines in 2006. For the 2008 fiscal year, the Bush Administration pro- posed just $800 million for the railroad—a $500 million cut from 2007. In 2005, the President proposed pulling the plug entirely on Amtrak’s subsidy.
Critics of federal funding for Amtrak argue that, since it was created by Congress in 1970, the railroad has never turned a profit and serves only a small percentage of intercity travelers. They believe the system is a waste of taxpayer money. But Amtrak’s advocates in Congress point out that passenger rail systems around the world operate with government assistance. Others add that the government subsidizes our highway system and supports many aspects of passenger air travel.
“I’m amazed at the rancor about our numbers—they are so small,” says Alex Kummant, Amtrak’s CEO. “ It costs about $1.50 for every man, woman and child to sustain this network—one cup of coffee per person. Look at highway congestion, environmental issues, the capacity of airline travel. For city-to-city transportation, we need passenger rail.”
As our airways and highways have slowed down, demand for train travel has been increasing. In fact, Amtrak ridership was up for the fifth year in a row, reaching record levels—despite the fact that a third of trains arrived late last year. In the Northeast, since Amtrak introduced higher-speed Acela trains in 2000, the railroad’s share of 10,000 daily commuters between Washington, D.C., and New York City increased from 45% to 54%.
“Train travel is the thing for a one-day business trip,” says Malcolm Edgerton, a Chicago architect who travels often from Chicago to Springfield on Amtrak for work. A recent trip, he said, “would have meant seven hours of driving, and I would have been exhausted. Instead, I left in the morning, did work on the train, got there at noon, did my thing, even had time to visit a museum. Then, on the way back, I drank Scotch in the bar car and traded stories with a salesman and another architect. The round trip was $40.”
Experts predict that, with the population climbing well past 300 million, the demand for travel will only grow. Severe weather will further add to the transportation turmoil, leading travelers to look for alternatives to air travel. Witness the Midwestern storms last winter that forced the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights in two days in Chicago and St. Louis.
An efficient Amtrak, suggests New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, could have carried riders through those squalls in style: “How wonderful is it to get on a train, look outside at the snow and say, ‘ Ho, ho, ho, here we go’?”
The key to improvements may be federal incentives for state investment, say train watchers of all stripes. They point to two successful projects that relied heavily on state funding. Amtrak recently expanded service from Chicago to downstate Illinois and St. Louis, where ridership is up about 50%, and major improvements were made to the Philadelphia-Harrisburg line.
In light of those successes, the newly Democratic-controlled House approved $50 million in matching funds for state Amtrak projects, and the Senate approved a similar program for $100 million. “We are on the edge of a revolution in thinking and the thinking of policy-makers of the future of transportation,” says Rep. James Oberstar (D., Minn.), who heads the House transportation and infrastructure committee. “And that future is filled with high-speed, reliable rail service.”
Now Congress is considering legislation that would allow the trains to rebuild. The Lautenberg-Lott Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, designed to completely overhaul the system, may reach the Senate floor this session. The legislation would commit $10 billion over four years to develop high-speed, short-haul rail corridors modeled on the European city-to-city routes. They could run between Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, N.C.; Portland and Seattle; Chicago and Detroit; Miami and Jacksonville, Fla.
“We’re sick and tired, and we’re not going to take it anymore,” says Frank Lautenberg, who co-sponsored the Senate bill. “We spend money on all other means of transportation, but we already have the best thing right in our hand.”
Private-sector involvement also could boost service and revenues. Amtrak CEO Alex Kummant would like to see private, high-end luxury trains tacked onto Amtrak’s. Others suggest putting some of Amtrak’s routes out for private bidding.
“It’s not a nostalgic thing, like, ‘Let’s save the old choo-choo,’ ” insists Lou Drummeter, a sleeping-car attendant on Amtrak’s Washington-Chicago Capitol Limited for 20 years. “It’s a 21st-century answer to our transportation problems. People want an alternative.”
Can We Catch Up?
While U.S. railways have languished, the rest of the industrialized world has been building up its high-speed rail systems.
FRANCE Last fall, Parisians celebrated the unveiling of a new 200 mph TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) linking Paris to the German border, where it meets up with Germany’s own high-speed InterCityExpress. In April, an experimental TGV run on the Paris-Strasbourg route hit 357 mph, while French fans lined the tracks, cheering.
SPAIN High-speed trains have run between Madrid and its southern cities for more than a decade. Soon they will cover the 375 miles between Barcelona and Madrid—the distance between Washington, D.C., and Boston, a 7-hour trip—in 21⁄2 hours. There’s even talk of a rail tunnel to link Spain with Morocco, beneath Gibraltar.
JAPAN The pioneer of the bullet train, Japan has developed a 360 mph magnetic-levitation, or maglev, train that rides a cushion of air. Propelled by the electromagnetic force of magnets, these trains are designed as complete transportation systems.
CHINA Given its vast distances, China has committed a quarter-trillion dollars to its railway service. A trip from Shanghai to Beijing—the distance from Chicago to Baltimore, 18 hours by Amtrak —will eventually take 5 hours.
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Railroads in the Twentieth Century
The Twentieth Century began on a high note for railroads which were nearing the end of their period of expansion. But that high point was not to last. Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, but he was responsible for the use of the production line. And by 1920 almost everyone could afford an automobile. Highways - funded by the government - were built to handle these cars. Trucks soon followed.
By the 1930s, commercial aviation was born. Travel between the East and West coast was reduced from days to hours. Government funding both before and after World War II further encouraged the growth of commercial airlines. The government also provided billions of dollars to expand and improve the nation’s network of inland waterways.
The 1930’s also brought the Great Depression. While all industry suffered, few felt the ravages of the economic disaster more than the railroads. As production from American industry declined, so did the need for freight transportation. As people were laid off, the demand for passenger transportation also went into steep decline. During the 1930’s, railroad after railroad went into bankruptcy and thousands of miles of line were abandoned.
The economic stimulus of World War II provided railroads with a new period of growth. But it was not to last. At the end of World War II, railroads provided almost 70 percent of the nation’s passenger and freight service. By the end of the 1960’s, railroads provided just 40 percent of the freight service and less than 10 percent of the nation’s passenger-miles. Then, in the 1970’s, freight share shrank to just 35 percent and more than 20 percent of the industry went into bankruptcy.
The reasons for the decline were not hard to find. Rail competitors received lavish subsidies, while railroads were expected to pay their own way and operate money-losing services in the public interest, a burden not placed on their competitors. And railroads remained regulated as if they were still a transportation monopoly.
Legislators grappled with “the railroad problem” for more than a decade. In the end, they succeeded in crafting legislation that made railroad recovery possible. In 1970, Congress created Amtrak to operate money-losing passenger trains, relieving freight railroads of that burden. Ten years later Congress took the most significant action when it enacted the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 freeing freight railroads from many of the antiquated regulations that prevented them from operating like other businesses.
The results from partial deregulation were breathe-taking. Rail market share began to increase. Return on investment increased. Railroad rates decreased. And railroad service innovations took hold. For example, between 1980 and 2000, rail intermodal transportation - the movement of maritime containers or truck trailers on trains in cooperation with steamship lines and trucking companies - more than tripled. The result was the rebirth of the nation’s freight rail industry.
Even in this modern era, while all types of transportation service have been in a process of evolution, the railroads have held their place as the single most important freight-carrying transportation mode. Today’s railroad network covers approximately 130,000 miles of line. Railroads operate 20,000 diesel locomotives and use a fleet of approximately 1.4 million freight cars.
One measure of the railroads advantage in transportation is their superior economy in the use of natural resources. For example, railroads move three times more freight traffic per gallon of fuel than big trucks and 80 times as much cargo as planes. In terms of manpower, railroads handle more than seven times the amount of freight traffic per employee than trucks and 21 times as much as planes. In addition, railroads have the unique ability to expand their transport capabilities without comparable expansion of plant and other installations.
In 1907, there were 1,564 line-haul railroads. Today, there are about 550 freight railroads, but only eight major or Class I railroads. Since the last half of the 19th century, railroads have been undergoing recurrent cycles of consolidation. But while some companies have disappeared, the industry as a whole has come a long way.
At the bottom of this story lies the continuing truth of a simple concept: wheels on rails move more easily than wheels on ground. When steam boilers were put on wheels and those wheels were put on railroads, the truth was undeniable. It is still the factor that makes railroads the backbone of national transportation today.