Passenger Trains > NY Times editorial about David Gunn

A Disgraceful Signal at Amtrak

Published: November 10, 2005

The sudden firing by the Amtrak board of David Gunn, the best president in years of the nation's only passenger railroad, was a body blow to anybody who cares about long-range passenger trains.

Mr. Gunn has done a masterly job in the last three years of holding down costs without dismantling the railroad. That, apparently, was his problem. Mr. Gunn was trying to save Amtrak, but the Bush administration wants to privatize it, bit by bit.

The battle between Mr. Gunn and Amtrak board members - all of them appointed by President Bush - intensified in recent weeks when the board took steps to break off the more profitable Northeast Corridor, putting it into its own division and sharing its control and costs with the states. Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, called it a "fire sale" intended to break up the nation's railroad system.

So last week Senator Lautenberg and Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, managed to get a 93-to-6 vote to authorize $11.6 billion for passenger rail service in the next six years - as close to an all-out endorsement of Amtrak as you can get.

But while senators were trying to help Amtrak move forward, its board took a step backward. It complained yesterday that Mr. Gunn - who has greatly increased ridership, improved management and upgraded equipment - was moving too slowly. After his firing, Mr. Gunn said, "Obviously what their goal is, and it's been their goal from the beginning, is to liquidate the company."

For Amtrak's 25 million passengers, this should be a call to arms. Amtrak should be a public transportation trust. It will never be self-sufficient, nor show a conventional profit, any more than the airline industry can fly without federal help. The Bush administration long ago threatened to disassemble Amtrak. Yesterday it began at the executive suite.

November 9, 2005
Lautenberg Slams Bush Over Firing of Amtrak President David Gunn
WASHINGTON, DC -- United States Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) issued the following statement today expressing his outrage over the Bush administration's decision to fire Amtrak President David Gunn.

"A rogue Amtrak board made of up of the President's cronies and campaign donors has made a rash decision to terminate CEO David Gunn without any consultation with affected communities or other interested parties. Under David Gunn's leadership at Amtrak it has cut its payroll, increased service and attracted a record number of riders.

Surprisingly this action comes one week after the U.S. Senate voted 93-6 for a bipartisan plan to reform and modernize Amtrak with Mr. Gunn's leadership. It is outrageous such action would come at a time when our country is beset with threats of terrorism or natural disasters where evacuation by rail might be required as it was on 9/11 when movement by air or vehicle was almost impossible.

Over two million people rode Amtrak last month alone. Should we be pushing those people onto the roadways when the price of a gallon of gasoline is at $2.50? Or, into the crowded skies with all the delays we are facing at airports? In fact, near misses by airliners are up 30 percent over last year. This decision to fire Mr. Gunn is not only wrong, it is dangerous."

Jaap Wrote:
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> > November 9, 2005
> Lautenberg Slams Bush Over Firing of Amtrak
> President David Gunn
> WASHINGTON, DC -- United States Senator Frank R.
> Lautenberg (D-NJ) issued the following statement
> today expressing his outrage over the Bush
> administration's decision to fire Amtrak President
> David Gunn....

Sounds like a politician that is upset over the prospect of his state having to pay its fair share in maintaining the NEC.

Ahh but do states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut,Maryland, Massachusets have to pay twice ???
They alrady provide train service, and nobody can force them to pay for doubling up on that by funding Amtak, but that would be an entire different tread.

Jaap Wrote:
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> Ahh but do states like New York, New Jersey,
> Connecticut,Maryland, Massachusets have to pay
> twice ???
> They alrady provide train service, and nobody can
> force them to pay for doubling up on that by
> funding Amtak, but that would be an entire
> different tread.

Don't know? But apparently from the GAO synopsis, Gunn had not made much headway on improving the accounting and management systems to be able to determine the comparative performance of all routes. To me that would have been a top priority and could have headed off the argument that the NEC needed to be split off.

As for NJ, I don't know if NJT pays its fair share of NEC costs and whether NJ is a loser or a winner in its contributions to the Fed government versus what it gets back. In my ideal world, I like any subsidies explicit rather than hidden, and I like for those that benefit from something to be the ones that pay for it to the extent possible. I think that Sen. Lautenberg would rather keep the status quo with the NEC than having to get involved with fashioning a multi-state compact to run the NEC (which is where any spinoff is liable to go).

I guess Lautenberg was ticked off because he learned
about it in the newspapers, not by some anointed inside
communication.

Since when does a legally constituted corporate board
owe any "consultation" to local hack politicians, anyway?

If Amtrak were a "public transportation trust" as the NY Times
seems to wish, then the Senator might have a point. But
it isn't. Senator Lautenberg, you are a legislator. Either
LIVE with it or DO something about it. Don't just spew hot air.

And Lautenberg is from NEW JERSEY, where the greatest,
most honest and most competent public transportation
administrator in the known world and the two adjacent
planets <G> is running NJ Transit.

Come on, now, Frank, you can bellyache better than THAT!

-GP

First read Lautenberg's message as politics as usual. Anything to discredit the opposition is OK and required. The NY Times should be viewed the same way. Whether Gunn satisfied the board or not is about corporate resonsibility.

That said, how much of Amtrak's budget has gone into fixing up the NEC? Maybe its better in the long run to dump the NEC on the using states and get back to the train business.

Here in MI we could use some decent train service. Maybe we snitch a few of the highway dollars to get a train ride to CHI or Cleveland or Indy or anywhere within 300 or so miles.

jwevans Wrote:
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> That said, how much of Amtrak's budget has gone
> into fixing up the NEC? Maybe its better in the
> long run to dump the NEC on the using states and
> get back to the train business.

IIRC, NJT already foots a good portion of the bill for maintaining parts of the NEC. Unless I was told wrong by an Amtrak employee, NJT pays the entire cost of maintaining two of the four tracks.

The problem with flogging the NEC off onto the states is the fact that going forward there will be no clear synergy (financial or maintenance) between the states involved.

Were bullet trains in other countries ever "built by committee"? Apparently, our administration feels our system is better off being built and maintained that way.

In response to the comments by Genepoon, do you live in New Jersey? Do you understand what the traffic situation is up and down this congested, overpopulated state? He took the ball and got it rolling with the 93-6 passing of the $11.6 billion rail bill. There is not much more he can do as a Senator that could change the fact the Bush Administration wants to wash Amtrak down the drain. I mean god forbid a Senator actually wanted to do something right for his state...