WASHINGTON, June 26 (UPI) -- The $200-million poker game between Amtrak and the federal government continued without resolution Wednesday, with thousands of commuters on the sidelines sweating out the prospect of having to find alternate ways to work as early as next week.
Amtrak officials, offered a $120-million federal loan guarantee to keep the railroad chugging along through July into August, are apparently reluctant to accept an offer that would include cost-saving measures such as mortgaging assets and route eliminations.
Congress, meanwhile, has just hours left before shutting down for the Independence Day holiday to obtain a $200 million emergency appropriation to keep Amtrak rolling to the end of the fiscal year.
"It's a very fluid situation," Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black told United Press International. "Right now, if we do not get a resolution of this problem, this cash problem, through a loan guarantee or an appropriation and the Congress recesses, then we will have to begin the process of an orderly shutdown of the system as soon as the Fourth of July."
About 60,000 people commute on Amtrak daily. Hundreds of thousands of others depend on other commuter systems that use Amtrak rails and facilities.
"Refusing to grant this loan guarantee unless it is tied to service cutbacks, route eliminations, privatization, contracting out, or other controversial measures is the death knell for Amtrak," Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., wrote Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.
"I hope that cooler heads will prevail and that the administration and Amtrak can agree on a short-term solution today."
Amtrak was created by Congress in 1970 as a for-profit organization and signed into existence the following year. However, Amtrak has never produced profits. Last year alone it lost some $1.1 billion.
In 1997, Congress imposed a statutory deadline of December 2002 for it to achieve operational self-sufficiency.
About 23.5 million people travel the carrier each year. Its long-distance "Empire Builder" route from Chicago to Portland, Ore., lost $45 million last year, while service along the heavily traveled Boston-Washington corridor made $51.3 million.
Other profitable routes exist on the West Coast.
"The potential shutdown of Amtrak would have a serious and adverse impact on California commuters," Gov. Gray Davis said in a letter to Mineta Tuesday. "I urge you to do whatever is necessary to avoid these impacts."
That sentiment was echoed by Republicans and Democrats alike on Capitol Hill.
Mineta and other government officials have voiced confidence a short-term solution to Amtrak's money woes can be worked out, but also stress the need for Amtrak to clean up its act.
Amtrak, they said, is not immune from business fundamentals, especially since it has been receiving public money.
"We're committed to keeping Amtrak service going, but there also needs to be change from Amtrak," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told UPI. "Were talking about money from the taxpayers, and if Amtrak keeps coming back to the taxpayers for money then there needs to be the beginnings of change, of reform."
Amtrak has rejected the idea of cutting unprofitable routes, such as the Empire Builder, and has also rejected mortgaging some of its property, such as Union Station in Chicago, to fill the vacuum of operating funds, although it mortgaged Pennsylvania station in New York for $300 million last year.
Cutting routes, it argues, would leave some Americans without viable commuter or long-distance transportation and would run counter to Amtrak's role as a national passenger rail service.
"(Amtrak chief David) Gunn has publicly said he wants a national passenger rail system," said Karina Van Veen, an Amtrak spokeswoman.
"Congress needs to say what they want us to be -- a for-profit organization that generates revenue or a public service, in which case we serve areas that may be under populated but don't have other trans alternatives, in which case we might lose a bit of money on those routes."
Amtrak's credit line for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, has been frozen by lenders worried about the rail system's future.
"What we would like is a clear and long-range plan for intercity transportation in this country -- something we've not had in Amtrak's entire 31 year history," Black said. "It has been a day-to-day, hand-to-mouth existence.
"What we need is a clear, well-planned vision and mechanism for funding intercity passenger rail in this country."
Black said it was illogical for the government to subsidize, through a variety of mechanisms, airways, highways and waterways "and then expect passenger rail to stand alone."
"The problem is that Amtrak in the eyes of its critics at least, is not seen as both a company and a system. In fact we are. Amtrak is the nations passenger rail system.
"Critics like to see us as failed company. (But) we are the trains, the company that uses them, and the system."
