A Stitch in Haste

ITEM: Think the government can run businesses as well as the private sector? Think again:

Amtrak is in another financial hole after posting a $1.3 billion operating loss last fiscal year and again receiving far less than it requested in federal subsidies, an influential transportation watchdog said on Sunday.

The Transportation Department’s inspector general, Kenneth Mead, said in a report to Congress that the nation’s only city-to-city passenger railroad faces a gigantic cash crunch as well as a mounting backlog of infrastructure projects, like bridge repairs, that can wait no longer.

“Continued deferral brings Amtrak closer to a major point of failure on the system but no one knows where or when such a failure will occur,” Mead warned.
…
Ridership continues to set records (more than 25 million in fiscal 2004), but Amtrak is hobbled by expensive and aging equipment and other components of its infrastructure that limit its ability to expand service on popular routes or start new ones. To draw and keep customers, the railroad also has to hold down fares, which further erodes its bottom line.

Amtrak is also caught in a political vortex in Washington that essentially prevents it from cutting some routes outside its flagship Northeast service. While many lawmakers with sway over transportation matters deride the cost of subsidizing passenger rail, they covet the service and jobs Amtrak and its commuter affiliates provide to their states.

Think about that for a moment: business is booming and the more it booms the worse Amtrak performs. Even the airlines aren’t that bad in running their businesses.

Cato has more in today’s Daily Dispatch.

ITEM: Think the government can run businesses with as much respect for customer privacy as the private sector? Think again:

Amtrak conductors have begun random checks of passengers’ IDs as a precaution against terrorist attacks. The onboard checks, which started at the beginning of November, are part of a broader program to improve security, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said.

“It is a ticket verification program, which is not intended to determine a person’s identity, but to make sure the person who’s traveling with the ticket is the person whose name is on the ticket,” Black said.

The checks have not resulted in any arrests, he said.

What can it possibly accomplish to suddenly start walking up and down train cars asking for ID in the middle of a trip? Even the airlines don’t do that.

Of course, the new policy is coming down from Washington, but then again, Amtrak is a creature of Washington itself. If it were a private company, perhaps it would have challenged this dubious rule or at least demand more input into setting policy. It’s hard to question the edicts of a government that is giving you a $900 million annual subsidy.

Related Posts:
“Give In, Give Out, Give Up, It’s Over…”
Runaway Train
Republican Train Conductor Gets Railroaded
Amtrak Update
Slouching Towards “Air Amtrak”

Similar Posts:

• Amtrak Update: New Leader, No Leadership
• Transportation Secretary Defends Proposed Amtrak “Cut” (Sorta Kinda)
• Why Not Treat Amtrak Like Base Closings?
• Amtrak Update: What Economists Call “Elasticity of Double-Talk”
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