USA - The Wall Street Journal missed the train

[John Ashworth]

July 8, 2008
Editorial Comment: The Wall Street Journal missed the train

With gas prices at $4.00 a gallon and airlines imploding under soaring costs and long delays that make flying a generally unpleasant experience, American travelers are returning to passenger trains in volumes not seen in years. Yet, here’s The Wall Street Journal with yet another misinformed, wrong-headed editorial criticizing Amtrak for operating slow, “money-losing service.” This particular editorial, “The Need for Speed,” which was posted July 7 on the WSJ’s website, takes aim at Amtrak’s Acela Express service in the Northeast Corridor.

The editorial praises a proposal by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), ranking Republican on the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to reduce rail travel time between New York and Washington, D.C. to two hours or less. Mica’s lofty proposal is part of the $14.4 billion Amtrak reauthorization bill the House recently passed.

“Mica has a radical idea,” said the WSJ. “He wants to develop high-speed rail service. . . . We know what you’re thinking: Isn’t there already a high-speed train between New York and Washington? Unfortunately, nobody who's taken the Amtrak Acela train would suffer from this confusion. The Acela service, much hyped before its launch, currently shaves only about 30 minutes off Amtrak’s regular service between the capital and the Big Apple, taking two hours and 48 minutes—when it’s on time. The high-speed [TGV-based Thalys] train that connects Paris and Brussels covers approximately the same distance in one hour, 22 minutes.”

Enough is enough. Let’s look at the WSJ’s simplistic arguments, point-by-point.

Let’s start with the comparison of Acela and Thalys (and for that matter, all high-speed trains in Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc.). Acela, whose top speed between New York and Washington is 135 mph and average speed, with several intermediate stops, is 83 mph, operates on a shared right-of-way designed and built by the Pennsylvania Railroad that dates back to 1910. Over the years, the infrastructure has had several upgrades—chiefly, welded rail and concrete ties. The catenary system is variable-tension—state-of-the-art when it was completed in the late 1930s. Acela shares track time with numerous commuter trains, Amtrak regional services, and some freight trains. Large numbers of passengers do not travel endpoint-to endpoint. New York and Philadelphia, for example, are a “city pair.” So are Philadelphia and Baltimore, and so on. On-time performance (including the New York-Boston leg) averaged 83.5% in the 12 months from May 2007 to May 2008—not bad, considering all the variables. By comparison, high-speed trains in Europe and elsewhere can run at 200 mph or better because they operate express, on dedicated rights-of-way equipped with constant-tension catenary and signaling and train control technology a bit more sophisticated than the (albeit reliable and safe) cab signals and wayside position lights we use here. In summary, the Northeast Corridor is multi-purpose. Europe’s high-speed corridors are single-purpose. The comparison is apples-to-oranges—illogical.

Amtrak’s “suffering” Northeast Corridor passengers? Last count, they were suffering to the tune of nearly 60% market share (vs. air) between New York and Washington and nearly 50% between New York and Boston, with both percentages on the rise.

The WSJ says the House version of the Amtrak reauthorization bill is “larded with union giveaways and grants for expanding money-losing service around the country.” Aside from saying that there is probably room for some work-rules reform, I’m not going to get into an argument about the merits of adequate compensation and benefits for railroad employees whose prime responsibility is the safety and security of Amtrak’s 25-million-plus annual passengers. Money-losing service? Show me a passenger rail system anywhere in the world that—all costs considered, above and below the rail, including the initial costs of designing and building infrastructure and acquiring rolling stock—turns a profit. (Airlines wouldn’t make any money either, if they had to pay for the air traffic control system and build their own terminals and runways. And what would highway travel be like if motorists had to pay for the full costs of building and maintaining them through higher tolls and other user fees?)

So how do we get this ultra-high-speed rail system between New York and Washington built? Noted the WSJ of Mica’s plan: “The Department of Transportation would solicit proposals from the private sector for building dedicated high-speed tracks within the right-of-way between the two cities.”

Great idea. One problem: Where are you going to put the tracks? On top? Underneath? There’s literally no room on either side, unless you displace and move millions of people. (There’s a limit to eminent domain.)

Another problem: The private sector. Said the WSJ: “Amtrak could participate in the bidding, if it chose to. But the real benefit would be in seeing whether private rail companies can come up with a plan to do what Amtrak couldn’t—build a high-speed service that is competitive in cost and time with the airline shuttles that ply that route today. . . . Mica’s provision doesn’t privatize anything; it merely asks the private sector to offer proposals for doing something Amtrak couldn’t do, despite spending billions trying.”

Give me a break! First, Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor service is already cost- and time- competitive with the airline shuttles, not to mention far more convenient and comfortable. That’s its real value to passengers. As far as high-speed rail being “something Amtrak couldn't do, despite spending billions trying” is concerned, Amtrak has indeed invested billions over the past 30-plus years in the Northeast Corridor. Most of those billions, however, have been the minimum required to maintain a state of good repair. Many planned upgrades to tracks and signals and equipment have been postponed or done in piecemeal fashion because of capital funding shortfalls. Don’t blame Amtrak for that. Blame the U.S. government, which—unlike its French or German or Spanish counterparts—has never had a true federal transportation policy with a comprehensive federal rail development program.

Finally, says the WSJ, “It might well be that entrepreneurs can’t come up with an economically viable plan for such a train, but even then we will have learned something about high-speed train travel in the U.S., and at minimal cost to the taxpayer. On the other hand, if someone like Richard Branson, who’s building private high-speed train service in Britain, thinks he can make a go of it in one of the most heavily trafficked corridors in the world, there’s no harm in letting him try. It can hardly be worse than Amtrak.”

Really? Let’s see. Just prior to privatization in 1996, the British government was subsidizing British Rail annually to the tune of about $3.5 billion. Last year, this “private” system (whose infrastructure, by the way, is owned and maintained by the government) was subsidized to the tune of about $7 billion. There’s nothing wrong with that. By the way, the British, and most of the world’s developed and developing countries, don’t call government funding of high-speed passenger rail a subsidy. The word they prefer is “investment.” Richard Branson? He may be willing to give it a go here—if our government was willing to commit some real dollars. He’s not stupid.

The Wall Street Journal knows mostly how to talk about dollars and cents, not dollars and sense—the cost of everything, and the value of nothing.

—William C. Vantuono, Editor, Railway Age

Comments are welcome. Email wvantuono@sbpub.com

RailwayAge