More About Possible Daily West Coast-Texas Amtrak Service
Clearly, there is a great deal of interest in the proposal to increase service between San Antonio and the West Coast from three days a week to a daily train. For more details, here are the relevant details from a recent letter sent by NARP’s president, Ross Capon, to Amtrak’s board chair, Tom Carper.
June 8, 2010
The Honorable Thomas C. Carper, Chairman
Amtrak
Dear Tom:
This is to reaffirm our strong support for Amtrak’s proposal to institute daily service in place of the existing tri-weekly operation along the route between New Orleans and Los Angeles. We appreciate Amtrak’s initiative and effort to increase service frequency to some of the nation’s fastest growing states—both in terms of total population and of retirees that are strong passenger train users.
Please let me know if there is anything further our Association can do to support this important effort.
As you can imagine, we have had some complaints about the elimination of through service on the leg serving Houston and New Orleans, whose passengers will have to transfer at San Antonio. We have accepted this as a short-term sacrifice for the greater good, passing along Amtrak’s assurances that—if the market proves as strong as hoped—through cars will be restored there.
However, we are concerned about the possibility that a San Antonio-New Orleans train absent through cars will be treated as a short-distance train under the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008. This is because San Antonio-New Orleans is only 573 miles and PRIIA assigns responsibility for service under 750 miles to the states.
In our view, such an interpretation of the law would be nonsense because the train would:
1. be designed as an integral part of the existing long-distance network and indeed would owe its existence to Amtrak’s effort to comply with the PRIIA Section 210 requirement for Performance Improvement Plans for the long-distance routes;
2. operate with long-distance equipment;
3. be dominated by passengers making very long trips and connecting at San Antonio with the Chicago-Los Angeles train;
4. with a 38 mph average speed (on today’s schedule) be attractive primarily to long-distance passengers.
Further regarding #1, Amtrak would market and price the connection as part of the overall New Orleans-Los Angeles service—just as was the case when Boston-Albany was operated without through cars. Albany was not a route end point, but a transfer point. Amtrak should make clear from the outset that the end points are Los Angeles and New Orleans and that San Antonio is only a “transfer point.”
In short, PRIIA Section 209 calls for “equal treatment in the provision of like services” with regard to state payments. The key words “like services” should be interpreted as making section 209 irrelevant to a New Orleans-San Antonio train.
Nonetheless, we are concerned that a future administration could take advantage of a different reading of the law to kill the train. We urge you and your general counsel to take any possible steps early on to protect the train from this threat. For example, please consider making public the fact that you intend to restore New Orleans through-cars as soon as demand for this is evident. Also, in light of Chairwoman Brown’s recent comments, I should note that the distances from San Antonio to Jacksonville and Orlando are 1,194 miles and 1,341 miles, respectively.
Thank you again for the daily initiative across the Southwest.
Sincerely,
Ross B. Capon
President and CEO
