When the Trains Collapse

Running Hoover's Railroad

Anybody who has lived in an old house with wiring from the Depression era knows something about Amtrak's troubles. Plug in the iron and the TV and, zap, suddenly there is an eerie pre-industrial silence, signaling that the electricity has gone out.

Similarly, last month's sudden blackout in the Northeast Corridor focused the attention of thousands of commuters on how decrepit some of the Amtrak rail system really is. While Amtrak has yet to determine the precise reason that thousands of commuters were stalled on May 25, with hundreds stuck for hours in tunnels, it has acknowledged that some of its infrastructure was new when Herbert Hoover was president.

Officials have promised that they will have emergency cars ready to rescue people from tunnels a little sooner in the future. That's nice, but the passengers would prefer not to need rescuing in the first place. For a modern, reliable system, Transportation officials have estimated they need several billion dollars extra each year to upgrade the infrastructure alone.

At this point, Congress is just starting to figure out how much money to give Amtrak next year, and the news is not comforting. The House of Representatives approved a paltry $1.1 billion, just a shred over the lowball amount requested by the president. The Senate is expected to come in with a little more, just enough for Amtrak to squeak along for another year.

Amtrak officials seem to be working hard to patch up the older parts of the system. But recent delays serve as only the latest reminder that Amtrak's problems are not bad management so much as stingy government. With gas prices up and airplanes overloaded, the nation's leaders should be trying to figure out why this advanced nation does not have a more advanced passenger rail system.

The system works well enough most of the time which is why the public is not screaming. What they don't understand is that it is floating on a thin film above disaster. I'm afraid that something really bad will have to happen before anything will change.