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36–687 PDF 2007

AMTRAK’S CAPITAL NEEDS

(110–56)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS 

MATERIALS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 11, 2007

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

VACANCY 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

(II)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS 

MATERIALS 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida Chairwoman 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(ex officio) 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennylvania 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

LYNN A. WESTMORELND, Georgia 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(ex officio) 

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS Page

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

Kummant, Alexander, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Railroad Passenger Corporation ................................................................................ 7

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Brown, Hon. Corrine, of Florida ............................................................................. 29

Costello, Hon. Jerry F., of Illinois .......................................................................... 35

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 36

Rahall, Hon. Nick J., of West Virginia .................................................................. 40

Shuster, Hon. Bill, of Pennsylvania ....................................................................... 41

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Kummant, Alexander .............................................................................................. 44

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(1)

HEARING ON AMTRAK CAPITAL NEEDS 

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS

MATERIALS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Corrine 

Brown of Florida [chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. The Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials will come to order. The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on Amtrak’s capital 

needs. This is our third hearing on Amtrak as we prepare to develop a long-term reauthorization bill. 

Amtrak serves nearly 25 million riders annually at more than 

500 stations in 46 States on approximately 22,000 route miles. Amtrak directly owns or operates 730 route miles, primarily between 

Washington, D.C. and Massachusetts on the Northeast Corridor, 

and in the State of Michigan; several station facilities including 

Penn Station in New York, Chicago Union Station, and several 

major maintenance and repair facilities. The rest of Amtrak’s operations are on tracks owned by the freight railroads and some on 

commercial railroads. 

In 2005, Amtrak completed a comprehensive catalog of its capital needs, which showed a $4.2 billion backlog of investment to bring 

its infrastructure system to a state of good repair. With the backlog 

of major bridge and tunnel work, the backlog approaches an estimated $6 billion. 

Even with adequate funding, resources, and additional equipment, Amtrak estimates the backlog of work will take a minimum 

of 10 years to complete in order to maintain a reliable level of rail 

service. 

However, this estimate does not include service enhancements to 

improve on-time performance or increase train speeds. Addressing 

these concerns is important and necessary if Amtrak wants to improve service and grow its ridership for the future. But we cannot 

get to the future unless Amtrak is able to meet its current capital 

needs. I know for a fact that some of their major infrastructure 

projects are desperately needed to improve the safety and security 

of the system, such as the fire and life safety improvements to the 

tunnels in New York, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. I can’t say 

it often enough that passenger rail is a prime target of terrorists 

and we haven’t prepared the way other countries have. 

2

As I have said over and over again, other countries continue to 

invest billions and billions of dollars each year into their passenger 

rail system, while the United States continues to fall further and 

further and further behind. We enter into an annual debate in 

Congress, each time the transportation appropriation bills come to 

the floor, on whether it is wise to invest $1 billion in our Nation’s 

passenger rail, while other countries that are much, much smaller 

than the United States are spending five to ten times what we are 

spending for passenger rail on an annual basis. We need to make 

a real commitment to Amtrak in this reauthorization bill. 

I want to thank Mr. Kummant for joining us again to discuss 

Amtrak’s capital needs. 

Before I recognize Mr. Shuster for his opening statement, I ask 

unanimous consent to allow 14 days for all members to revise and 

extend their remarks, and to permit the submission of additional 

statements and materials by members and witnesses. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I want to thank 

you for holding today’s hearing. It is a good follow-up to the last 

hearing we had on the benefits of the inner city rail to this Nation. 

I also want to welcome and thank Mr. Kummant for being here 

today and for testifying on behalf of Amtrak. 

At the previous hearing I alluded to we heard testimony about 

how trains can cut pollution, reduce highway congestion, and provide a real alternative to driving our automobiles. But we didn’t 

hear much about the cost of what it would take to upgrade the system and building a high speed rail system. We know it is not going 

to be cheap, but this is an investment that I believe will pay huge 

dividends in the future. 

The State of Pennsylvania and Amtrak recently upgraded the 

Keystone corridor, which those trains are traveling at about 110 

miles an hour, and already we are seeing big results, positive results: increased ridership, better on-time performance, and better 

reliability. But there is still much to be done. For example, I read 

that on the Keystone the power transformers are 70 years old. 

Those transformers should probably be in a museum, but we are 

still relying on them to provide power on the Keystone. 

Our grandparents, our forefathers, built this Nation’s railroads, 

and I think it is important, part of our legacy of this generation 

to build fast, efficient, high speed rail system. So, with that, I am 

looking forward to the testimony today. I appreciate your being 

here, and I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Mica? 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

First of all, I think this is an important hearing, and I appreciate 

the Chair and the Ranking Member calling together this important 

review of Amtrak’s capital needs. 

I have been termed in some quarters as a critic of Amtrak, but 

I think that most people who have the opportunity to sit down with 

me and talk to me understand that I am one of the leading advocates of passenger rail service in the United States Congress, both 

for long distance service and also for high speed service, and a 

strong advocate of public transportation. 

3

I have spent some time since I got, last night or yesterday afternoon, the information provided by Amtrak and look forward to reviewing some of their estimates and guess estimates on what it 

would take to meet their capital needs. However, as we know, they 

have had some problems, both from management and an operational standpoint and both with construction of high speed corridor in the United States, the only one that we have that even resembles high speed, which is the Acela in the Northeast Corridor 

operations. 

I have reviewed again the amount of money that they requested. They are estimating a capital backlog of $5 billion. We have a 

maintenance backlog of some $5 billion to $6 billion estimate, probably, and we also, according to the information given to us by Amtrak, have potential long-term needs for improving the high speed 

corridor that we have now, the Northeast Corridor, somewhere 

around $10 billion to $12 billion, according to their estimates. I 

think they are looking at a guess estimate of about $10 billion to 

improve bridges and tunnels. I think there are $680 million, approximately, to improve the catenary for the Northeast Corridor. 

However, I think there are larger questions that loom about Amtrak’s capital needs, and that is how much of this effort Amtrak 

undertakes itself, as far as replacement of rolling stock, and how 

much they undertake as far as improvement and development of a 

truly high speed corridor. Unfortunately, in the last area I mentioned, the record there has been rather rough. The Acela acquisition was mired in legal contention. We ended up getting equipment 

that is not, for various technical reasons, capable of high speed, the 

design flaws one of those factors. We bought equipment for which 

we didn’t have spare parts or the different changes and specifications in the acquisition of equipment that also have caused problems. 

Additionally, it is not just a question of how much money we give 

Amtrak, it is how they spend it. As we have seen through a couple 

of studies and reports that I have requested, one was food service, 

where about a quarter of a billion dollars over a several year period 

in additional cost was consumed. In fact, for every dollar spent on 

Amtrak food by a passenger, it costs the taxpayers, according to 

that report, two dollars. We had, again, the brake issue, which 

closed down the Northeast Corridor for nearly some six months, 

not having adequate equipment. And, of late, one of the investigations that I asked to be conducted reviewed legal expenditures and 

found serious problems with the way legal contracting work was 

conducted by Amtrak. So it is not always how much money we give 

them, it is how they spend it. 

Now, I will say that Mr. Gunn and Mr. Kummant have made 

some changes. I am anxious to hear from them today and am willing to work with them. But let me just say to them that unless 

somebody has been in a coma the last decade, they would never 

conclude that Amtrak has either the management capability or the 

technical capacity to develop, to construct, or operate a truly high 

speed rail corridor. Even elementary mathematics of the Senate 

Amtrak bailout plan of $2 billion a year for four years barely covers 

the backlog of $5 billion in maintenance that is required that I 

mentioned, an operating loss that now exceeds half a billion dollars 

4

a year, and interest payments of almost a quarter of a billion dollars a year. Just do the math, and it doesn’t work. 

That makes Amtrak’s plan for development of the Northeast Corridor as a truly high speed system a pipe dream, at best. Testimony 

provided to us by Amtrak states that $625 million in catenary and 

other improvements achieves a D.C.-New York average speed of 90 

miles per hour. However, as you will see in the information they 

are providing us also, another $10 billion in tunnels and bridges 

gets us to 96.6 miles per hour, also not a high speed rail system. 

We end up with an average speed of less than 97 miles per hour 

and a corridor congested with 1700 daily commuter trains, plus 

freights and slow long-distance service trains all operating in the 

same congested corridor. 

The capital plan presented today by Amtrak unfortunately continues the status quo. It fails in improving high speed service and 

puts another band aid on the hemorrhaging vital northeast rail and 

transportation corridor. 

I think that, in closing—I appreciate your giving me a few moments—while I have been critical, I think we need to be supportive 

of a true Amtrak capital needs program. The first thing that we 

need to do is to develop a high speed corridor somewhere in the 

United States and, of course, I would favor the Northeast Corridor 

since it has such an incredible potential ridership and also lends 

itself to dealing with one of our Nation’s most congested transportation corridors and would provide a viable alternative to move 

people as an alternative to airports and congested highways. That 

is going to take—and we have heard this repeated before this Committee before—a separation of traffic, and to get truly high speed, 

we are looking at 120 to 150 miles an hour minimum, absolute 

minimum. To truly separate that traffic and have high speed service, we are looking at, my guesstimate is $100 million per mile, 

which is $22.5 billion to develop that corridors, plus the bridges 

and tunnels, which have been cited here that give us some additional speed in the system but don’t do the job, which could be as 

much as $10 billion, Amtrak’s guesstimate that they are presenting 

today. 

So I would support an investment of $32.5 billion for the corridor, separate the traffic. That would also give us a model something like this. I don’t know if you can see it. We probably should 

put it on the screen. 

Madam Chairman, I will present you with one of these for the 

record. 

But that would give us a separated high speed corridor, truly 

separated, that would run probably on an elevated system. Someone would have to make a decision whether it is steel rail vehicle, 

as they use with Shinkansen, TGV-ICE and some of the other systems, and/or maglev, which would be the latest technology that 

they use in Shanghai from the airport to downtown. So this would 

be the model I propose. It has got a pretty busy and high price tag, 

but it could be done, and this is the kind of capital expenditure I 

think we need to make a truly high speed corridor. 

Thirty-two billion dollars is not pie in the sky; it can be paid for. 

The current traffic on this route is about 9.4 million passengers per 

year. It could easily increase to 24 to 36 million passengers per 

5

year, which amortized over a 30 to 40 year period would make this 

project feasible and financible with a little bit of Federal assistance, but most private backing. Then we would need someone first 

to separate out and operate the system, and then the most important component, of course, is developing the system and financing 

the system. 

So that can be done. This isn’t a pipe dream, as I said, and I 

wanted to take this opportunity, while Amtrak is presenting a capital plan, to show not only what they are proposing, but what I 

think can be a reality and give this Country at least one corridor 

with a true high speed rail service. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you, Mr. Mica. 

Now I yield to the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Oberstar, 

who is a real supporter of Amtrak. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for holding 

this hearing and for the work you have invested on this issue. Mr. 

Shuster as well, the Ranking Republican on the Subcommittee. He 

is a strong passenger rail, freight rail advocate. 

I listened with great interest to the words of our Ranking Full 

Committee Member, Mr. Mica, who has set forth some very ambitious thoughts and is willing to work forward in a very strong and 

well-financed initiative for passenger rail service. How we get there 

is a matter of discussion, but that we get there I think is a matter 

that no one can or should dispute any longer. 

In the summer of 1944, in the early days of France’s liberation 

from her German occupiers, time needed to travel from Paris to 

outlying regions of France was measured in days, not hours. Half 

of the country’s 40,000 kilometers of rail were destroyed. What remained was pounded into fragments by bombing by both the Nazis 

and the allies. A third of the major train stations had been destroyed. Five-sixths of the locomotives were gone, either taken by 

the Germans for use in Germany or destroyed in the war effort. 

Seventy-five hundred bridges were destroyed. The road system in 

France was rutted. The most dependable trucks were U.S. Army 

vehicles. France was in shambles. 

Under our post-war effort, the United States, in the even preMarshall Plan, shipped 1,000 steam locomotives to France to help 

rebuild that country’s rail system beginning in November 1945. But 

36 years later, the first TGV rolled out at 345 kilometers an hour. 

Today, the TGV operates at an average 185 miles an hour. 

I traveled to graduate studies in Belgium in 1956, from Paris to 

Brussels, on a train that took six hours. In April of this year we 

did that same trip in reverse, from Brussels to Paris, in 80 minutes. Ms. Brown was on board. We experienced exhilaration of 

travel in a corridor that now has no air service because the train 

service is so good. Passenger trains operating at 185 miles an hour 

with 1100 passengers on board depart every three minutes from 

Brussels Station for Paris. People commute between those two 

major metropolitan areas, the capital of Europe and the capital of 

France. 

We can do that in the United States. Mr. Mica has laid out a vision. Ms. Brown has laid out an advocacy. Mr. Nadler and I, in 

March of this year, traveled to an Amtrak conference in PhiladelVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:38 Nov 09, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\36687 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
6

phia; lots of enthusiasm, lots of excitement. But I have to say that 

the situation I described in France at the end of World War II was 

not unlike the United States in 1970. When Amtrak was created 

in 1970, the Congress relieved the freight railroads of ‘‘all responsibilities as common carriers of passengers by rail.’’ The freight 

railroads were begging the Congress to let them get out of rail passenger service. 

I remember the discontinuances that the railroads applied for in 

cahoots with the U.S. Post Office. They wanted to take the RPO, 

the Railway Post Office overnight delivery service, off the passenger rails so then the passenger part would become unprofitable 

and they could then apply for discontinuance; and they did, one 

after another, until there was a fragment left of rail passenger 

service. And then they handed it to Congress and said, here, this 

is your responsibility, America. 

The Committee report on the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 

said the railroads have been downgrading service in the deliberate 

attempt to support elimination of passenger trains. That was an 

understatement. It was a scheme. There were 20,000 passenger 

trains operating in the United States in 1929. But by the end of 

World War II, just like France, 9,000 of those had been eliminated. 

When we began work in the Congress on Amtrak—I served here 

on the staff at the time—there were fewer than 500 trains, and 100 

of those were engaged in discontinuance proceedings. 

That is the bundle that was dumped in Amtrak’s lap, this kaleidoscopic patchwork quilt mess of deterioration of service, and said, 

okay, here, you run passenger service and, oh, by the way, you are 

going to run it over freight rails, over antiquated equipment, with 

no new locomotives, no new service, and a minimal investment. 

And since then Amtrak has literally been on life support for its 

capital needs. That has to come to an end. 

Amtrak can operate. It can be a first-class, world-class passenger rail service. As Mr. Mica said, $36 billion, whatever it takes, we 

need to do that. We need to make that capital investment in the 

Northeast Corridor, in the upper Midwest, in the corridor from Chicago down to New Orleans, in what used to be the Empire builder 

corridor along the northern border, and in California, where 5 million people use Amtrak a year. Twenty-five million people a year 

use Amtrak. We need to get there. 

And I believe, Mr. Kummant, that, in our various conversations, 

you have the will to do this. You have a good sense of where we 

need to go. You understand the capital investment that is needed. 

I think we need a different management structure. We probably 

ought to change the oversight board, management board of Amtrak 

and free the operating side, those who are running the system, you 

and your associates, and give you the money that you need to do 

and set you on course to make those improvements. We can do it 

in America. We need to do that, and that is the purpose of this 

hearing. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. Enough preaching from the pulpit 

here. Time to listen to Amtrak. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Chairman, you forgot one thing. 

You didn’t mention Florida in that long list. 

[Laughter.] 

7

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. I just want to be included in every 

thought about——

Mr. OBERSTAR. Northeast to Southeast Corridor. I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Nadler. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. I will speak very briefly. I have only 

two comments to make. One, Florida is over all this and, second, 

a very brief comment. The distinguished Chairman of the full Committee mentioned $36 billion a moment ago. That is a very 

daunting figure. And to have a proper transportation system in this 

Country will be a lot of money, will require a lot of money. We look 

at figures of $36 billion or $20 billion or $40 billion and, my God, 

where are we going to get that kind of capital investment? 

I would just point out to everyone that we have just, as of now, thrown $450 billion totally wasted, totally useless into a stupid 

drainpipe in Iraq. If we had, instead of committing the colossal stupidity of invading Iraq, spent that $450 billion on building up this 

Country, where would we be? 

I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Brown. 

Mr. BROWN OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

My main statement this morning is, as we watch the demographic 

changes of the United States, we certainly need to be cognizant of 

that as we look for long-range planning in our infrastructure, particularly the rail infrastructure, and also, I guess, transportation 

across the board. But as we look at the eastern seaboard, which is 

going to be the growth corridor for the 21st century, and we need 

to be proactive in establishing that infrastructure as the needs are 

there, but try to even advance ahead of the needs. So I would just 

add that you certainly look at that and to be sure that every 10 

years, when the census has been resubmitted, you will see the demographics changes, that population shift, and we need to be cognizant of that. 

I yield back, Madam Chair. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you, Mr. Brown, and I do get 

your message that we need to include a different area of the east 

coast. 

I want to welcome our sole witness for today, Mr. Alexander 

Kummant, who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Amtrak. Usually, we limit oral statements to five minutes, but you 

have asked for additional time. My paper says we are going to give 

you seven to eight minutes. That is not what we are going to give 

you. We are going to give you as much time as you may need, and 

you can submit your written statement and it will appear in the 

record, because we really want to hear what you have to say; we 

have been waiting. Thank you very much. 

TESTIMONY OF ALEXANDER KUMMANT, PRESIDENT AND 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION 

Mr. KUMMANT. Madam Chairwoman, members of the Committee, 

thank you so much for the opportunity and for taking the time on 

this important topic. I will, nevertheless, try to move quickly. Many 

of my slides up front here you all have a very good understanding 

8

of. In fact, much of what has been articulated here in the first minutes, this is a restatement. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Again, an overview of Amtrak: 21,000 route 

miles. Clearly, as we have talked here quite a bit, the key property 

is the Northeast Corridor, 457 miles in total length, 363 miles of 

that is actually Amtrak property. And, of course, the facilities piece 

is not small. We will talk about that in a little bit. Just as a 

placeholder, remember it is out there, that is about $2 billion worth 

of property. And the point that I will come to at the end that is 

very important to us is equipment overall, and the need we will address in terms of beginning a new procurement cycle to replace 

much of our equipment. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here again is the map that you are all very well 

familiar with, essentially, Boston to Washington, the Metro North 

piece between New Rochelle and New Haven, which is not Amtrak 

property. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. A few other overall facts. Again, this has been 

well articulated here, the complexity of this. Nineteen hundred 

train movements a day, 8 commuter railroads or again, as was 

pointed out, one of the real complexities in every contemplating 

fundamentally changing the velocity or type of service on the corridor; and 50 freight trains, as well, use the corridor. Parenthetically, I might note that some of this structure in terms of how the 

line is laid out, not the track obviously, goes back to pre-1850s, so 

there is very substantial complexity here. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here is another snapshot of looking at the number of daily trains by commuters. Gives you a sense of how complicated and how many different stakeholders are involved in the 

Northeast Corridor. Penn Station, again, specifically, has over 

500,000 commuters a day all in, including Amtrak passengers, 

passing through that station, which is more than all the New York 

airports combined on a daily basis, with 1200 train movements 

alone around Penn Station; 10 million Amtrak passengers. And, 

again, this has all been constructed in strong partnership with the 

Northeast Corridor States, with significant capital from the States 

as well. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. A quick comment and the point really on high 

speed is well taken. What might it take? Very daunting. Quick answer why have we never advanced that? And quite right, we are 

not configured to even begin discussing, as Amtrak, with our current engineering structure, our own project management structure, 

Amtrak itself could certainly not manage a $30 billion project. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. But why is the Northeast Corridor today not a 

true high speed corridor as in 200 mile an hour plus? It is exactly 

as has been articulated: it is not a dedicated high speed passenger 

right-of-way. Eight commuter railroads, multiple traffic types, curvature issues, numerous stops. The whole history of the Northeast 

Corridor is in fact to serve all the communities along the way, 

9

without making choices of long end-point travel. So that is, of 

course, the complexity. And as you all well know, the European 

TGV style lines have been engineered from the beginning and dedicated to high speed type of service at a cost of $20 million to $25 

million per mile. Again, in our sense, the $10 billion number is simply a crude calculation but does not really include any engineering 

constructability issues, nor does it include any real estate components. So our point is that it certainly goes well beyond the scope 

of anything Amtrak has ever contemplated, as was well noted. We 

talk in terms of low single digit billions. And, again, the numbers 

here on comparable European systems, they are all high multiple 

billions, obviously. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Going forward, this is a snapshot of what a reasonable, ongoing capital plan may look like in the coming years. 

And I will break these pieces out as we come. In a moment here, 

I will talk about the infrastructure piece, the standard, ongoing, 

every year replacement on the Northeast Corridor is about $350 

million. The legacy costs—and I will break those down in a moment; and it is a question of how you annualize that—that represents basically an ongoing state of repair working down over 10 

years and major legacy projects being worked down over 15-plus 

years. Rolling stock is a separate topic I will touch at the end of 

this presentation, where really beginning to replace all of our rolling stock over the next 10 or 15 years, again, begins to look something like that on an annual basis. The other big pieces are capacity and corridor development with the States, really some of the 

more successful projects we have going forward, and within that we 

would suggest an incremental approach to developing some of the 

high speed corridors that we will address—Detroit, Chicago, Florida, California—again, on an annualized capital basis. To get the 

single digit billions, we would have to be spending something like 

$400 million to $500 million a year to work through projects like 

that. 

So this, in a sense, what an ongoing annual capital program 

could well look like for us. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here is again the snapshot we have chatted. I 

will just touch on this briefly because it is well understood. Our ongoing state of good repair backlog. We have worked it down since 

2003 from about $2.2 billion to about $1.5 billion, and project that 

well below that number the next five years. So, again, that number 

we believe we can work down in the next 10 years. The major legacy project backlog are these major bridges and tunnels. Here too, 

that is a rough estimate. It certainly can creep higher than that depending on how broadly that is defined. That is something we could 

envision working off over 15 years. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here is really an example of a five year engineering plan for us. The only point I would want to make here is it is 

certainly within the constraints that we have basically worked in 

over the last five years, something between the $400 million and 

$600 million a year range. This also includes sources of funding 

10

from other areas. But it gives you a sense, again, of the type of 

level we have been working with that would obviously have to be 

significantly increased to begin working off some of the larger 

projects, as well as working on transformational corridors elsewhere. A point to make here is the FRA works very closely with 

us on this. They approve and vet projects. They work through at 

a very detailed level. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here is an eye chart, only for the point, in terms 

of the level of detail that we interact with the FRA, and they work 

with us on all of our capital programs. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Good example here, Thames River Bridge, which 

is in progress, built in 1919; major structure, Amtrak property. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. We are replacing that today to a tune of almost 

$80 million. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here is a classic kind of example of a project we 

work every year, every month, which is changing out a turnout, 

going from wood ties to concrete ties. Again, that is the sort of 

thing that allows us to gain velocity and reliability. 

Another classic problem, we have to upgrade all of our signaling. 

Here is an example of a signaling box with a huge spaghetti of wiring before. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here it is after, with programmable logic controllers. And this is even not the final point you would get to with a 

pure solid state, but it gives you an example of how complicated 

some of these things are to get done. 

Trip time reduction was also touched on; I won’t hit this too 

hard. But in order to get, say, another 15 minutes from Washington to New York, all the types of things we need to do, that 

alone would cost us about $600 million, the 625. And to get beyond 

that, as you see in the second bullet point, to get down to 2:20 transit time, there you have to start addressing the major legacy 

projects. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Corridor development, I will just touch on this 

briefly. Fundamentally, again, we are restructuring our organization to pivot toward the States, to work with the States. This is all 

very closely integrated with the States and the freight lines to continue driving these projects. Here again are examples you well 

know, our six top corridors: California certainly well represented; 

the Keystone was brought up as a great example, we split that capital 50/50 with Pennsylvania. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here is a snapshot of the San Joaquin train and 

Merced. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here, as we go forward, this is the type of detail 

we work through with the States. The Chicago-Milwaukee. The 

Hiawathas are a great program. The State is very interested in extending that to Madison. That is the type of project we are working 

11

through with them; what funding do you need, how do you upgrade 

the line, where does that capital come from. And that is, again, the 

type of project we would expect our corridor program capital to flow 

into. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. The Cascades are a great example of a project 

that has worked well. There, the UP and BNSF have worked with 

the two States to drive that business. There are many more 

projects identified where, again, we want to partner with the 

States and the railroad to keep expanding that capacity as well as 

increasing the velocity of those routes. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here are examples of working with the States 

where we have expanded those corridors. California, for example, 

has themselves invested a tremendous amount of money since 

1990, and we have helped out there. The other expenditures have 

generally flowed from the States, so the States have been very involved there with a lot of our engineering and operational help. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. You know the map well, and we see those issues 

really across the map. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Closely linked, obviously, to corridor development 

is how do we work going forward with the States on expanding capacity wherever the freights have bottlenecks that we run on. We 

have processes running. For example, we have a fairly robust dialog going with CSX today on the southeast portion of our corridors, 

but all along we are identifying with the freight railroads where 

the key constraints are, and that is where we really believe we can 

apply either State-Federal capital matching grants or Amtrak 

money to work with the railroads to expand capacity. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Chicago, the Porter, Indiana piece is well known 

as a bottleneck to get either from Chicago to Detroit or Chicago 

across east in order for our capital service to work effectively. So 

we do have a very good sense of where these are and continue 

working with the freight railroads. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here is a more detailed piece. We break these 

down in individual projects, and all these are projects ongoing, in 

discussions with the States, and forward-looking plans to say 

where can we continue working on the system. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here again, Joe Boardman, at the FRA, has done 

a very thoughtful job in really working on the lower eastern seaboard here and has a website up that articulates a lot of these 

issues, and this is CSX. In fact it will be sitting down with us in 

the next few months with their plan to address a number of these 

that have been highlighted. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Just to bring up the point, as well, our facilities 

always need attention. Equipment maintenance shops. Stations are 

a complicated issue; 525 total stations. We only outright own 46 of 

them, but we are responsible for the maintenance and platforms of 

12

a great deal more. Dispatch centers are also something we have to 

maintain and continually upgrade and modernize. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Again, to give you a sense, it is about $2 billion 

in structures and facilities. You would typically want to spend 

something around a depreciation/amortization rate, perhaps 5 percent of that value. We have certainly been spending less than that. 

So that does represent an issue we need to continue addressing. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. I definitely want to spend time on equipment. 

Our equipment is aging. We range probably from 15 to even 50 

years. We have some snapshots here, some diner cars that were actually built in the 1950s, that we will show you. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. We do a good job of maintaining them, but there 

is a point where, when you run them as hard as we do—and here 

are some comparisons of how we run our equipment relative to 

other services—you will see that our locomotives get a much higher 

annual mileage than anybody else out there. To some degree, you 

wonder how can that be. If you look at the commuters, a great deal 

of their traffic and their equipment is needed for peak loading, so 

they will have a great deal of equipment running at peak, but then 

not being used in off-peak. We run much more 24/7. 

The same thing you might ask about freight railroads. How is it 

that a freight railroad, particularly with their long stretches, can 

actually run less miles on their locomotives than we do. That is because most freight guys will tell you that their locomotives, in very 

crude terms, spend almost half their time idling because they are 

waiting in yards. It is a very different type of service. So we really 

run our equipment. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Same thing is true for our electric locomotives. 

And this, again, is in contrast to the commuters, where we basically run the same number of units out there most of the time, as 

opposed to having a much different peak loading. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. And on car miles the same thing, we are the 

highest in any U.S. passenger service. So if anybody questions 

whether or not we are really using our equipment, we certainly 

are. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Here is again an example a diner built by the 

Budd Company, and we have some out there, again, that were built 

in 1950 and 1951 as well. We rebuild those, we refurbish those, but 

there comes an end point. They become difficult to maintain; they 

are not modular. Every one is different; every one is a one-off. It 

becomes difficult to turn the equipment and difficult to maintain 

the equipment. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. Again, here is another snapshot. Average commuter rail industry, age of equipment, 18 years. Our passenger 

cars are about 23 years, on average. 

[Slide shown.] 

13

Mr. KUMMANT. Very round numbers, again. And this is not to 

scare people, but the facts are we do need to launch a new equipment procurement cycle. These are very rough numbers, obviously. 

If you were to replace everything we have, the 1500 passenger cars 

and locomotives, that would perhaps be a $6.5 billion price tag. 

Now, that does not at all include what you do with purchasing efficiency, so we don’t really know what that number is. But if you did 

that over 15 years or so, that would accrue to about a $400 million 

plus a year sort of number. So just to ballpark that for you. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. In summary, you might ask, okay, what do you 

want, what kind of projects particularly for the railroad we run 

today. Again, I would stipulate we would be very enthusiastic 

about major high speed corridors. Today, our reality is the system 

we run today and what do we need. We do need to find way for 

more capacity through New York City. In a broad sense, that is the 

largest constraint on the Northeast Corridor. We will continue to 

work the trip time reduction efforts that were referenced earlier. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. The Acela today is a very good story in terms of 

how we run the business as it is. Yes, there are some legacy issues 

with design. We have overcome most of those. In June we ran 90 

percent on time; ridership is up 20 percent. That is a good news 

story. As much as anything, what we would like to be able to do 

is actually expand those train sets from 6 cars to more cars. That 

is actually very difficult to do from an engineering point of view. 

That would certainly give us more capacity. Today, I think, as you 

all well know, if you travel, it is actually tough to get a ticket on 

a Thursday or a Friday in peak hours. 

[Slide shown.] 

Mr. KUMMANT. As we have referenced, overall, we need to begin 

a new cycle of equipment procurement. 

Then, when we talk about high speed corridors, what we would 

like to suggest is really an incremental approach. For example, I 

very much like the Chicago-Detroit example. We own a good piece 

of that track, I believe 96 miles in Michigan. If we could get across 

Indiana, which is very constrained, and then use the CREATE 

project to drive speed into Chicago, it would cost maybe another 

$80 million to really drive velocity into Michigan. You could very 

reasonably, for probably less than $1 billion, have 80 to 100 mile 

an hour service between Chicago and Detroit, which, again, I would 

favor as a terrific first step. 

You alluded to the political lift of $30 billion. We would applaud, 

like anybody else, if that were possible, but I think we can build 

service and constituency with 80 to 100 mile an hour service. 

We would say the same thing on the West Coast in terms of L.A. 

to Oakland I think there are those opportunities; south of Washington; and then, of course, within Florida. I believe meeting with 

FDOT here over the next couple of months. So it is key to us, in 

terms of a national perception of Amtrak as well, to really develop 

a significant corridor outside of the eastern seaboard. 

And finally, of course, as we alluded to, reducing the capital 

backlog on the Northeast Corridor. 

14

In terms of key policy, I think the one thought I would like to 

leave you with in terms of questions how do we reduce the backlog 

more quickly, how do we get more effective, it is really a multi-year 

funding horizon, so we can plan our organization more effectively, 

so we can plan our capital programs more effectively. One of the 

answers would be, well, if we just had more capital, we could work 

the backlog off more quickly. There is some truth to that, but it is 

not the whole story. We can’t plan our workforce, we can’t plan 

projects, we can’t plan the organization unless we have a longer 

trajectory to be able to manage major capital projects. 

Again, finally, I think there are a lot of thoughts and good 

thought about matching State-Federal capital programs in order to 

continue developing corridors. 

So, with that, I will leave it and be happy to answer any of your 

questions. 

If I may also, I would like to introduce Frank Vacca, who is behind me on one side, who is our Chief Engineer, and on more detailed questions I won’t be at all shy in leaning back to him and 

asking his advice if it is a detailed question I don’t know the answer to. But I would be happy to answer anything you have. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you for your presentation; it was 

very thorough. 

I am going to go to Mr. Nadler first, because he has another appointment at 11. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the indulgence. 

Mr. Kummant, your written testimony states it would cost ap- proximately $10 billion, not including real estate costs, to convert 

the Northeast Corridor to a dedicated high speed TGV-type rail 

line. 

If there were funding and if that kind of plan were to move forward, how would the existing non-high speed rail traffic be affected 

by the high speed rail traffic, and how would this affect the ability 

of Amtrak to run high speed rail trains along the corridor generally? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, it would be a vast project. I was asked to 

present that number simply as, look, what might the number be. 

And again I would stress that is without real estate. I would actually venture to say it would be such a daunting task from an engineering and, frankly, from a traffic management point of view, that 

I am not saying it is impossible, but it would be very, very difficult. 

Again, I come back to the eight commuter agencies that run on 

that network today; 750,000 commuters are on the Northeast Corridor every day. That would have to be an entirely separate system. 

So I would simply say it would be a vast, vast engineering, capital 

management, and even governmental governance effort. 

Mr. NADLER. And you would probably have to get the freight off 

the Northeast Corridor. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Probably, yes. I mean, the 50 freight trains a day, 

obviously that could not function unless it were completely separated out. So it would be a vast undertaking. 

Mr. NADLER. Let me ask you one other question. You stated New 

York City Penn State, New York is the biggest bottleneck in the 

system. 

15

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes. 

Mr. NADLER. We are building a new tunnel into Penn Station, 

the so-called ARC tunnel——

Mr. KUMMANT. That is right. 

Mr. NADLER.—which is no longer called that, now it is the New 

York-New Jersey Tunnel. 

Mr. KUMMANT. That is right. 

Mr. NADLER. How will that affect this, if at all? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, my understanding—and I will look behind 

me to see if I am saying anything incorrect—is we are not actually, 

at this point, have any guaranteed slots in that capacity, so that 

is essentially a——

Mr. NADLER. But it will certainly free up slots in any event. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, it doesn’t necessarily free up slots for Amtrak, and that is projected as growth basically for New Jersey transit. Let me glance back if I am saying anything wrong. So that capacity does not really accrue to what I would call the through capacity, if you are thinking in terms of Boston to D.C. So that is 

really a New Jersey transit issue. 

Now, I would love to say if they have extra slots, could we find 

a way to contribute capital and have some of those slots accrue to 

Amtrak. I am not trying to be politically inflammatory at all, but 

that is really one of the last opportunities to truly generate capacity there. 

Mr. NADLER. Now, let me ask you one other question. I was intrigued by the first slide that you had, which said that the Acela 

was a 150 mile an hour train in the first line, the second line said 

it was 135 miles an hour. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Oh, forgive me. It is capable of 150, and it 

reaches that in Rhode Island-Connecticut. It only peaks at 135 

south of there. 

Mr. NADLER. Now, you developed two proposals for decreasing 

the trip time from Washington to New York. Current time is 2 

hours 45 minutes. You propose spending about $625 million to reduce that all the way down to 2 hours and 30 minutes. That level 

of funding would allow Amtrak to upgrade tracks from 135 to 150 

miles between New York and Washington, modify equipment and 

improve onboard cab signals and constant tension catenary. 

The second proposal is for $10 billion, which would reduce the 

Acela trip time just 10 more minutes, to 2 hours 20 minutes. There 

is a big difference between $625 million and $10 billion. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes, there is. 

Mr. NADLER. How did you arrive at that $10 billion general forecast? And is that something Amtrak is considering requesting? 

Let me add one thing. Why the huge difference in cost for very 

small payout in 10 minutes? 

Mr. Kummant. No, we are not really suggesting, hey, please 

write us a check for that. That was in response to a question, what 

would it take. You bump into the major legacy capital issues, as 

was alluded to earlier. It becomes a tunnel issue; it is tunnels out 

of New York. I believe we have—and correct me if I am wrong—

the full $6 million [subsequently edited to read: $6 billion] for the 

New York tunnel. 

16

If I could ask Frank Vacca to make a comment directly, if that 

is okay with the Committee. 

Mr. NADLER. Sure. 

Mr. KUMMANT. He is the expert. 

Mr. VACCA. The difference in the 10 minutes and the dollars is 

that for those additional 10 minutes, significant infrastructure 

projects, such as replacement of B&P tunnel and——

Mr. NADLER. Which tunnel? 

Mr. VACCA. Baltimore and Potomac, the tunnel going into Baltimore, presently 30 miles an hour. In order to get that extra 10 

minutes, you need to get the speeds up, change that tunnel and 

other tunnels in New York. So it is significant infrastructure improvements to get that additional 10 minutes. 

Mr. KUMMANT. I do think that number is a bit extravagant. 

Mr. NADLER. Let me just ask one thing in the eight seconds I 

have left. Ten billion dollars for 10 minutes, obviously you are not 

going to do. If you wanted to bring it down to under two hours, 

what would it cost, any idea? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, again, I mean, you are talking about complete grade separation, complete dedicated right-of-way, high 

speed. At that point I think you would—again, you are talking 

about a completely different structure. 

Mr. NADLER. So 2 hours 30 minutes is about the best we can 

hope for in the real world, in the foreseeable future. 

Mr. KUMMANT. With the railroad we have today. Again, if we 

look at dramatically different capital profiles and completely different structure, sure, it is possible to do something very different. 

But, fundamentally, to continue moving the railroad we have today 

to the next level, I think it would be well nigh impossible to get 

below two hours. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Thank you. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Well, I will just continue with what Mr. Nadler was 

asking. First of all, Mr. Nadler, if you look at this, there are, what, 

1900 trains in the corridor a day. Seventeen hundred of those are 

mostly commuter service. You pointed out a very good observation, 

that for $10 billion, when they complete the project, it is going to 

take—to do the catenary, it is about $600 million, $700 million. 

That gets you a few more minutes. You have to do the tunnels and 

bridges at some point. That gets you a few more minutes. But 

when you get through, the fact is, even if we spend $11 billion, 

ballpark figures, in the Northeast Corridor, you still have about 

less than 97 miles per hour average speed. High speed rail is 125 

to 150. 

We have plenty of projects. We have done then for 15 years on 

the Committee. At Newark we elevated and put in the monorail. 

It costs you between $50 million and $100 million a mile to elevate 

track. I am estimating it is going to take $100 million a mile. And 

if you extrapolate that out, we have got 225 miles, we are looking 

at $22 billion to do it. That is not that much today. We will probably spend between $10 billion and $13 billion to move around 

some runways at O’Hare Airport. But if we are going to spend $10 

17

billion or $11 billion, we have got a 97 mile an hour thing. People 

aren’t going to use it to the degree we need. Then the other thing is once we elevate it, we pay the $100 mil- lion a mile and I think the $10 billion in the bridges and tunnels 

is a low-ball figure. Some of those bridges and tunnels, as you saw, 

are decades and decades old, hundred-year-old structures. I have 

been up in your area; we could spend that easily. But you make 

that investment, we design where we want those stops to be intermodal to airports and to other transportation systems so you get 

the best utilization. I have no more capacity at New York airports. 

I have been to JFK, I have been to LaGuardia, I have been to Newark and traveled all around those. We have no more capacity. We 

could move the New Jersey Turnpike——

Mr. NADLER. Would the gentleman yield for a second? Would the 

gentleman yield for a second? 

Mr. MICA. Moving the New Jersey Turnpike was one consideration we looked at. You can’t do that. But I am telling you that we 

could invest in this, and the cash return—think about this too. The 

staff told me it takes $50 million worth of revenue to support $1 

billion in bonds. You can get up to 24 to 36 million passengers. 

Right now they have got 9.4 million passengers in the high 

speed——

Mr. NADLER. Would the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. NADLER. Far be it from me to ever suggest that we shouldn’t 

spend huge investments in rail infrastructure, period, as you are 

saying. I would simply suggest that perhaps a better way of analyzing this, rather than looking and saying, well, you have got 97 

miles per hour here; a high speed rail is defined by somebody as 

125 to 150. Those are artificial categories. I think maybe what 

might be a better way of looking at it is to say what level of speed, 

what level of investment would really take most of the passengers 

off short line, that is to say, New York to Washington, let’s say, air 

traffic. There really shouldn’t be air traffic under 400 miles in this 

Country. 

Mr. MICA. Exactly. 

Mr. NADLER. In terms of global warming, in terms of the atmosphere, in terms of just——

Right, now, when I go from my home down here, I take Amtrak 

normally. It takes me about four hours door-to-door. If I took the 

Delta shuttle or the U.S. Air shuttle—not to give any advantage 

here—it would take me about one hour less. 

Now, how much would it cost to get it so there is essentially no 

difference? 

I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. Yes, but once you get the $12 billion, you have got to 

make a major investment for separation. 

Mr. NADLER. Agreed. 

Mr. MICA. Then the question becomes do I use steel wheel or do 

I use maglev technology. And once you elevate it, you can put one 

of those. 

The other thing, too, for you, Jerry, and others in the Northeast 

Corridor, Amtrak is only running 200 trains, 157 a day. There are 

1700 other commuter trains that you can free up. We have talked 

18

about freight and the need to move freight in that corridor. What 

you do is you take an asset and maximize it. 

See, from the private sector, you would have somebody do an 

asset investment study to realize what the best potential is. But I 

guarantee just on the cash flow, which I started talking about, 

from 9.4 million passengers to 24 to 36 million passengers, the private sector will come in and finance this in a heart beat because 

of the revenue; it is a nonstop source of cash, it is a cash register 

that never stops. Tangentially, I get better commuter service and 

free that up, because most of that is dictated now by 200 trains; 

I get better freight service and move freight along; and I get an incredible benefit by our airports. There is no place else to expand. 

But if I can get on down here at Union Station and be in Downtown New York in less than an hour and a half, I am telling you 

they will be lined up from here to Union Station to get on the 

thing; and that can happen. The thing that you have got to do and 

the unions have got to do and other people on the other side is 

think in a bigger picture. Then we free up that corridor, we have 

the first high speed rail corridor in the United States, and the private sector will finance this. 

If you think Congress is going to finance it all, you are wrong; 

and they don’t need to. I would say that we should put in 30 percent, maybe 40 percent of the capital needs, maybe 50 percent, like 

we do for other transit projects; and I don’t have a problem with 

that. The rest is easily obtainable. 

But he has testified that he cannot develop and operate that kind 

of a system, is that correct? 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. That was my question, one question. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Okay, good. Mr. Mica, I am trying to get 

to the question. What is your question? 

Mr. MICA. Can you develop a $32 billion high speed project and 

operate it? 

Mr. KUMMANT. I would say it would be very, very difficult. I 

think in the end we could probably operate it, but to manage the 

entire capital project is something outside of the scope that we 

have ever done, no question. 

Mr. MICA. But what you would do is have professionals come in, 

write the specs. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Sure. 

Mr. MICA. We would entertain bids who could do it for what it 

costs, and then operationally we could do that. And also, I think, 

protect labor. 

And let me say something about labor. I have been here for 

26,000, maybe 28,000 down to what have you got, 19,000 employees now? Just hang around and you will see the base continue to 

shrink of employment, when it can do just the opposite. We would 

be hiring twice as many people, not to talk about the tangential 

benefits of creating a system. And this is a model system which 

could be replicated in other corridors. 

Thank you. Appreciate your cooperation. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Mica, are you finished with your 

questioning? 

[Laughter.] 

19

Mr. MICA. Yes, that is good enough.

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Okay. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. I do have a follow-up question. As I said 

before, in the 2005 Amtrak completion aid comprehensive catalog 

of its capital needs, entitled Engineering State of Good Repair, I 

would like to know what is the definition of good repair. And the 

estimate for the Northeast Corridor at that time was $2.5 billion. 

I understand it has gone down. And I recently took the train from 

Washington to New York, and the Baltimore area, in the tunnel, 

that area clearly needs some work. So can you expand on that? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Sure. First, let me say we have worked down that 

number from $2.2 to about $1.5 billion, and there are fundamental 

engineering standards, particularly when we look at, again, constant tension catenary, signaling cable is something that gets 

changed out, and the tunnels themselves in Baltimore are clearly 

sort of a separate issue because of the curvature and because of the 

narrowness and the whole track structure there. We drop down to, 

I believe, 30 miles an hour, so that reduces a lot of the ability to 

get through there quickly. 

So, again, there are pretty well defined engineering standards to 

bring the whole system up to what we run farther north toward to 

New York, as well as when we hit 150 miles an hour in Rhode Island and Connecticut. But that 1.5 is something, again, we think 

we can work down in 10 years, and then we would estimate with 

the other major structures about another $3-plus billion to work off 

those structures. That would include the billion for the Baltimore 

Tunnel. 

And, again, there, the real question is what do I get for that. You 

do get time, you do get reliability, but the tradeoff is we are effectively rebuilding all of this as we go, but we do it slowly, we give 

up all kinds of track time to maintenance time, as opposed to train 

time, and we do it expensively, because it is not planned out in 

long, well managed projects. So in a sense we are, on a continuing 

basis, renewing all of this, but it is done, for example, on a bridge. 

You will have an issue on a bridge, so you will have to work on 

weekends, shut that piece down, engineer fixes to a piece of a 

bridge as opposed to replacing the whole bridge, and then you do 

that for 10 years or so. So that is the real difference of what you 

get with a major capital program. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Well, the only one problem I think we 

have is that we really do not have 10 years. So, you know, it is a 

lot of pressure as far as the price of gas, congestion. I mean, we 

don’t have 10 years. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, the response there would be it is capital, it 

is annual capital, but it is also that we can have a multi-year funding look, because without being able to look out five years and plan 

projects out, the other thing we haven’t really mentioned here is 

workforce management. How do you really staff up, how do you put 

crews in place to say we are going to have this crew here for two 

and a half years. Today, that is very difficult to manage on our annual appropriation cycle. So it is not just having the capital to do 

it faster, but it is giving us, in some sort of an authorization or appropriation structure, a multi-year look so we can really manage all 

20

of our processes across that period of time and not stop and start 

every year. That is the other piece, besides just capital, to get it 

done more quickly. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Shuster? 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

I think Mr. Mica hit the nail on the head. We really need a big 

picture view of this. The hearing today is on capital needs and the 

programs, and we are talking about equipment and upgrading 

track. We are also mixing in TGV or high speed rail, maglev. What 

we really need—and I know years ago there were studies done on 

what it would cost to put high speed in the Northeast Corridor. 

Again, we manage this, as you said, year-to-year, year to five years 

out. What we really need is a study done in a timely manner. I 

don’t mean a study that is going to take three years or five years, 

but something in the next 6 to 18 months. And I am asking do you 

agree with that. Is that the way we really should be looking in this 

Committee to figure out the big picture? 

Mr. KUMMANT. I do agree with that, and we are really beginning 

to reach out, and let me very honestly say we have not been configured, nor have we been focused on that challenge. I mean, I think 

we would be the first to admit that, given the work that has been 

done on cost reduction and really more on contraction. But we, 

with our planning group, need to reach out particularly to the 

thoughtful high speed programs around the Country. Florida has 

a well developed group, Texas, California, the Midwest High Speed 

Initiative. We need to take that body of work that has been done 

and really create an umbrella for that and then, as well, look at 

what really could be done in the Northeast Corridor realistically. 

So I do agree we need to take that look and we need a thoughtful 

planning process there. 

Mr. SHUSTER. But you are saying, and I think from what I could 

see, Amtrak is really not equipped. I mean, you could have input, 

but you don’t have the manpower to be able to really put that 

study together. Should we be going outside to the outside two companies, two groups that have a competition to choose two groups 

to say, okay, you two study the corridor and you two come with 

your two studies as to what is the best——

Mr. KUMMANT. I would say we are equipped to manage it, but 

you are quite right, we are not equipped to do it internally. But I 

think they would need our knowledge base and our guidance in 

terms of the existing challenges in order to be able to study and 

say here is the next step you could take or here are the next steps 

you could take. So we are equipped to manage it; we certainly are 

not equipped internally to do that study ourselves. 

Mr. SHUSTER. What about the idea that I just put forward? 

Mr. KUMMANT. No, I think——

Mr. SHUSTER. Take two consulting companies and say go at it. 

Mr. KUMMANT. No, I think that is very reasonable. I think we 

could get an RFP out for that type of effort and get that done. That 

is realistic, certainly. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And you think two private sector companies are 

enough? 

21

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, we would probably put an RFP out and see 

who responds. I am sure more than two would respond would be 

my guess. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And I would guess, when you put it out, that hopefully 50 companies. But, at the end, a minimum of two different 

competing studies. 

Mr. KUMMANT. That is right. You would probably get four or five 

serious bids, serious offers. I mean, that expertise is out there, certainly. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And picking two would be the way to go? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, it is a thought. I mean, I think if you put 

a thoughtful RFP together, you can narrow that down and come 

down to two finalists, but in the end only have one of them do the 

work. But they will be kept honest by the fact if they go off track, 

so to speak, we would certainly reach out to the other organization. 

But those skills are out there. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And is your view—I think I heard you say this, 

what Mr. Mica was getting at—was that the long-term answer—

going blindly at it, because we haven’t had anybody really look at 

it, study it recently—is to go to maglev? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes. I can’t exclusively say that. I do think a TGV 

steel wheel approach certainly makes sense. Maglev, I am not sure 

there is a lot of history yet on maintenance costs. One of the things 

I think we would want to go out and really look at sustainability, 

maintainability. I would hesitate to shoot from the hip here and 

say that I can guess at the technical solution. I just think we would 

want to be careful. And by the time we would implement, there 

would actually be a lot of history in place already to make that 

right choice. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I yield back. Thank you. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. I don’t know that we want to go to 

maglev. I think that we would want to just look at all of the systems and give people an opportunity to—various people. I don’t 

think we want to sit here and negotiate what kind of study and 

what kind of design and what is the best system that we want. We 

are looking at all systems and we have had presentations from various systems, and we want to continue to study it and look at it 

and see what is best for our particular needs here in the United 

States in the areas that we are looking at. 

I will now turn it over to Mr. Oberstar for his questions. 

Okay, Mrs. Napolitano, then. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. I appreciate that. 

Listening with great interest to your report, and as I look at the 

map provided to us in your testimony, the Amtrak is wonderful on 

the eastern part of the United States, and the western part is like 

a skeleton. I am wondering what future plans does Amtrak have, 

since California has provided some of the State bonding money to 

be able to promote the usage and lay some of the groundwork. That 

is one question. 

The other is the age of your locomotives, since I have great concern about the effect on the environment the engines have, especially the old engines. And then I go on to the life. Interestingly 

enough, in one of the briefings, the rail life of the rail itself is about 

22

50 years, and you are going to cement ties, replacing wood, which 

is something the railroads are doing; and I am concerned about the 

life of cement, since it does crack eventually and because of the vibrations that could conceivably create more problems for infrastructure repair, and, of course, the life of the rails. Have you assessed 

the age of your system and what it would take to bring it up to 

date, since sometimes that creates problems for issues, 

derailments, things of that nature? 

Those are just a couple of questions. I have more that I would 

like to bring up if I have the time. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I will start with the first one. First, again, 

California has done an incredible job You have spent $1.8 billion, 

$1.9 billion of State money since 1990. When I go through my list 

of where I think, I would call them sort of transformational opportunities to take the first step toward high speed, you have a great 

high speed group in your State. I certainly would love an approach 

to see could we go from L.A. to Oakland at, say, 100 miles an hour, 

not necessarily 180 miles an hour, and work on a new right-of-way 

through the Tehachapi. 

So you take an intermediate step, you work with perhaps a 

BNSF and work in conjunction with them to take an intermediate 

step. That would be similar to the approach I would suggest between Chicago and Detroit. And at that point you develop experience, constituency, operating knowledge, and then you say, hey, 

now we are prepared to really look at a true high speed approach, 

and a political lift for the big capital dollars are perhaps more feasible. 

The issue of Amtrak on the east coast is of course a historical 

phenomenon. We own that track, so that is simply what we inherited in the early 1970s. Had we inherited a major corridor in the 

west, you know, I think the history probably would look a bit different. But I do think that going over the Tehachapi and up to Central Valley, and even affording people an alternative to ride on a 

train for a little bit over five hours, as opposed to driving, I think 

would be very well received. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, we are running out of time. 

Mr. KUMMANT. I am sorry. The rail question, real quickly, we 

have very well developed engineering standards and our own property. I am certainly very comfortable with the concrete technology; 

that is very well vetted and tested by the whole rail industry. So 

we are comfortable with that. It is also used by the Europeans on 

high speed systems. 

And on the engine front, yes, we do need a program to buy new 

engines, and the emissions there is not really a substantially different issue than anybody else has, and certainly our fleet is very 

small compared to other issues out there. But in the general realm 

of maintainability and reliability, we do need a procurement program there as well. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Okay. In California, again, going back to California, Amtrak has 174 stations. Only four are in Los Angeles 

County, which bears a third of the State’s population. Are there 

any plans for expansion to be able to move those masses, as you 

say, up into either the Oakland area, San Diego area? 

23

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, yes. Again, I think we work with the State 

DOT very well and partner with them on any projects that 

they——

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Do you have any in the books, though? Are 

you working on something currently? 

Mr. KUMMANT. We are working on more frequencies and we have 

a constant discussion about that. There is certainly not an effort 

right now for a brand new corridor. I would certainly love to see 

that. Like I said, looking at L.A. to Oakland at a much more high 

speed approach would be where I would love to go. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Okay, because you did talk about that before. 

The Alameda corridor east in my area is going to increase tenfold 

within the next 10, 15 years for moving goods and product to the 

rest of the United States. Is Amtrak at all involved in being able 

to help ameliorate? Because I know at the Colton Crossing there 

is a very poor on-time performance, probably caused by this issue 

of the goods movement. But it is going to get worse. 

Mr. KUMMANT. That is right. Well, that is where I suggest that 

if we have a pool of capital that we can work with the freight railroads to identify those bottlenecks, we can help in that process. 

Clearly, we have ongoing discussions with UP; we have a new sixyear deal, we are working off slow orders with them. CXS is going 

to present to us their plan for mitigating bottlenecks on I-95. That 

is a process we need to drive and continue, you are exactly right. 

There are no easy answers to that, that is grinding it out issue by 

issue. But it is capital availability and I do think we need to partner with the freight railroads to really work on de-bottlenecking. 

The big issue, of course, UP has, they are still in the process of 

double tracking the whole route. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Double tracking? I thought it was triple tracking. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, no. Across the south, across Arizona and 

New Mexico there are still areas of single track there that they are 

working on double tracking. Their central corridor is triple tracked. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I would like to submit some more questions 

for the record, Madam Chair. Thank you for your courtesy. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

There has been a lot of discussion today about speed, but being 

reliable is crucial. I think the Chinese, when they came and testified, said that the most they have been late was six seconds. I 

mean, that was very, very impressive to me. But, of course, the 

planes have problems. I experienced it all day yesterday in Jacksonville, waiting because of various conditions. 

So, in your summary, as you think through it, because we do 

have votes around 11:30 and we are going to hear from the Chairman, I would like to know what do you think we can do as far as 

improving reliability of the system. Also, the Senate recently reported from Committee its reauthorization proposal, Senate 294. I 

would like to know what do you think of the Senate proposal. 

Go ahead. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Excuse me. If I may respond to that. Reliability, 

again, fundamentally, state of good repair is about reliability. We 

have seen delay minutes drop every year. I believe our unplanned 

delay minutes are down 40 percent. The other piece is also the new 

24

equipment procurement. There are always things that happen with 

older cars, freezing up of systems in the winter, so really new capital procurement of cars is a big issue on reliability. 

S.294, fundamentally, what we like to see is, like I said, that 

there is a multi-year funding horizon that we can manage this appropriately like a business, looking out over four or five years in 

terms of what capital we have available and how to manage it. 

That is one of the biggest things for us. Also, the proposed StateFederal capital match again I think is something where we can develop corridors with the States in conjunction with the freight railroads. Those are the two biggest issues that we think are very positive for us. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. I think members of Congress are beginning to think that there is a problem with the structure of the 

board and the actual operation of Amtrak. I don’t know whether or 

not you can give us an honest assessment, but we are really looking at that because we just don’t think that, based on the last two 

or three executive directors, that the Board has been with the same 

vision as moving Amtrak that we in Congress feel it has to move. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I will have to defer on that to the folks that 

have watched this for a lot of years. Obviously, I work for the board 

today, but—and let me say we have some very hard working board 

members. At a personal level, I think they are very committed. I 

think those of you who have been watching this structure for some 

time probably have a little bit more insight, looking from the outside in, than even I do at this point, after 10 months. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Very good comment. 

Mr. Lincoln Diaz? No questions? 

Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Kummant, I am pleased to finally have the 

capital investment needs proposal that we asked for in February. 

It took a very long time to develop that. My first reaction was, 

goodness, this is your 2005 plan. Then in our discussion yesterday 

you explained how that really is an up to date proposal. And I am 

very intrigued by the way you have laid this out. You have provided the capital investment needs sort of raw data and then a 

prioritization of how you would invest the funds, were they available to Amtrak. 

In looking at this plan, a few questions emerge. How long would 

it take to do the upgrade in the Baltimore Tunnel and the New 

York Tunnel? Those are major bottlenecks. If you had the money 

and you went out on the street, made the bids, how long a time 

frame are you looking at? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I will very honestly look over my shoulder 

here at Frank Vacca; he is the expert. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Vacca, please, take the table. Identify yourself for the record. 

Mr. VACCA. Frank Vacca, Chief Engineer of Amtrak. As you have 

indicated, those are major construction efforts and——

Mr. OBERSTAR. Please lean into the microphone a little more. 

Mr. VACCA. These are major construction efforts and, generally 

speaking, between the design and construction phase of infrastructure improvements that are in the billion dollar range, it would 

take four to six years to complete. 

25

Mr. OBERSTAR. What has to be done in those tunnels? What are 

the engineering challenges? 

Mr. VACCA. On the Baltimore tunnels, we believe a totally new 

tunnel needs to be constructed, totally new alignment——

Mr. OBERSTAR. You wouldn’t just fix up the existing tunnel, just 

rebuild it entirely? 

Mr. VACCA. Yes, we believe. And we have worked with the FRA 

in some planning efforts. A completely new tunnel would be required. Right now it has a great many curves; 30 miles an hour is 

the maximum speed; built in the late 1800s. We need a new tunnel 

in and out of Baltimore. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That makes good sense to me. 

Mr. VACCA. Thank you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I was thinking we are going to have to do this 

and the other thing in the tunnel, and we are going to shut down 

traffic and try to do it at night. I was looking at 10 years. But 

building a new tunnel makes eminent good sense. Do it right, do 

it big, do it for the future, do it for the capacity needs in the corridor. And that would be a package Amtrak would own, right? 

Mr. VACCA. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. And in the New York area the same thing? 

Mr. VACCA. The existing tunnels, we have been completing the 

fire and life safety portion of the upgrades to those tunnels in the 

last four or five years and making great progress. By the end of 

2008, all of the fire and life safety systems in all six tunnels will 

be to 21st century standards, which is a great progress that we 

have made with the help of Congress and the funding we have gotten. 

To increase capacity, we really need to work with New Jersey 

Transit on the new tunnel and get additional capacity in and out 

of Penn Station. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I visited with New Jersey Transit just a couple 

of weeks ago, in fact, with our colleague, Mr. LoBiondo, and they 

are building two new tunnels. There is no more room above ground 

to get across the Hudson, and very limited space in which to build 

tunnels. So they are moving ahead with these two new tunnels, 

$6.5 billion cost. 

Mr. VACCA. Correct. As far as I know, they are moving ahead 

with two tunnels, one would be the 34th Street; the other one 

under design, one of the alternatives is to come into Penn Station, 

the other alternative is to bypass it, at this time. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Would that tunnel construction benefit Amtrak as 

well? 

Mr. VACCA. We believe that if we were to connect the tunnel into 

Penn Station, that that would serve jointly for the region for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit to increase the capacity and our ability to get more throughput in New York, absolutely. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I really admire what New Jersey has accomplished in transit. They really have achieved the goal of many European metropolitan areas of a 10 percent mode shift from the 

automobile to transit, and they are moving 800,000 people a day. 

They are double-stacking, bought a whole new fleet of vehicles 

which are double-stacked with a lower truck and a higher elevation 

26

interior. Maybe one car less, but still carrying 1100 to 1400 passengers. Now, that is what we expect of Amtrak. 

I don’t understand why Amtrak, in response to Mr. Mica’s question earlier, why you say you don’t think you would be able to undertake the upgrading if you were given the money. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, let me just say this. Any business I have 

been involved in, I am simply trying to be conservative by saying 

we are used to managing $200 million projects. Managing a $30 

billion project is an entirely different animal. Do I say absolutely 

we couldn’t do it? We could staff up, we could hire people. Yes, I 

mean, it is feasible. I am simply trying to be reasonable in terms 

of saying we could be part of a governance structure that manages 

that, but there would be significant outside skills that would be 

brought in to manage something of that magnitude. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, what I am envisioning is not much different 

than the State Departments of Transportation building highways 

and bridges. They don’t have construction companies. Minn-DOT, 

New York Department of Transportation doesn’t have its own construction company; they put the project out for bid, companies that 

are experienced in the construction arena go out and bid the job, 

and then they do it and the DOT supervises it. Isn’t that what Amtrak would do? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes. Again, I don’t really think there is a lot of 

space between what you are saying and what I am saying. I am 

simply trying to say that it would be like a municipality. If you 

took the town I grew up of 15,000 people, if, all of a sudden, they 

were responsible for building the freeway across the State. I mean, 

they have the processes in place, but it is a question of scale. And 

there is also a great deal of advanced engineering that would occur 

in terms of systems and approaches that we normally don’t deal 

with. So I am simply trying to suggest that if you wrote us a check 

today, if I were you, I would be very wary about the execution, and 

it would take us a lot of work to get the organization in place to 

even manage it. I am just trying to be conservative. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Would you envision a design-build approach to 

construction of——

Mr. KUMMANT. I mean, I will toss it to Frank here in a moment, 

but it would have to be something like that, I would imagine. 

Mr. VACCA. Well, of course, we would divide up the project that 

we could do some design-builds, we could do some designs and 

builds. I think the point that Mr. Kummant is making is that given 

time to staff up, given time to get the experts, and using the process you explained, eventually we certainly could manage that program, but it would take time to ramp up to that. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, we are together of a like mind on this Committee, the Democratic and Republican side, to advance the cause 

of passenger rail. We have some differences on the structure within 

which it should occur, but I think that the objective is a unified objective, and the most effective means within which to achieve that 

goal is what we are deliberating. 

We also have to keep our eye on results, short-term results as 

well as long-term. We need some patient capital here, and that is 

where Government comes in. It can be more patient with capital 

investments than the private sector can be. These track upgrades 

27

that go from 135 to 150 miles an hour in the Northeast Corridor, 

equipment modifications, onboard cab signals, the catenaries in 

some places are over 100 years old. In this heat that we are experiencing today, those catenaries sag and a pantograph can get caught 

in it. 

What is the time frame within which you would envision making 

improvements, again, given availability of money? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Again, if you look at our projection over five 

years, we can work off more than half of the remaining state of 

good repair in that, and that would be covered by that. 

Frank, I will toss it to you in terms of the catenary question in 

particular. 

Mr. VACCA. In a five year period, we would replace those 

stretches on the southern end between New York and Washington 

with constant tension catenary, which would allow us to increase 

the speed to 150. During that same period you would complete the 

construction of our signal, the positive stop access system, which 

would also allow us to go to 150 miles an hour. Those are two key 

points to get to that 2 hours and 30 minute time frame. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. There is more to pursue than we have time within which to do this, but I want to come to your midwest initiative. 

I know, Mr. Kummant, you are very strong on the Chicago-Detroit 

segment, but there is also the Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison-Minneapolis-St. Paul segment there. What combination of AmtrakState of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Michigan initiatives is 

necessary to put together the midwest rail initiative? 

Mr. KUMMANT. I think we are working all those. Obviously, the 

Wisconsin group is very strong and their DOT is very committed. 

We are working through the process on that line to Madison that 

they own. I think we are in the process of identifying what upgrades will be necessary. And then at this point it is also a capital 

discussion; where does the capital come from and how do we get 

the rolling stock for it is something that we are continuing to work 

through. 

Relative to the other direction, to Michigan, we don’t have a formal process running there. That is my interest, because, again, the 

capital there is a little higher than we are used to as Amtrak. I 

would view that as transformational because it would be probably 

half to three-quarters of a billion dollars to fix the Indiana piece 

of that challenge. But that is something I want to pursue here in 

the next several years, working with both Illinois and Michigan, 

and obviously the Norfolk Southern in terms of suggesting that 

that would be really great for all parties. So I am still in the early 

missionary stage of that. I think the Chicago-Wisconsin piece is 

much further advanced in terms of dialogue. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, I want you to be a vigorous missionary 

going forth, and I want to participate with you. Minnesota is on the 

verge of a great leap forward in rail transit, in commuter rail and 

city rail. The Hiawatha light rail project has exceeded its expectations by 10 months in ridership. There is a thirst for passenger rail 

service, and I want to launch this initiative and get it moving as 

quickly as we possibly can. 

I know we are under votes now, so I will relinquish my time. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

28

Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Just for the record, again, if we spend $620 million, 

that gets us approximately a 90 mile per hour operation. If we 

spend $7 billion to $10 billion additional dollars—I have seen two 

different figures—we get to 96.6 miles. That is with the tunnels 

and the bridges. That is still not a high speed rail operation by any 

definition. 

The other thing, too, when you get through with this, you have 

got your traffic mixed with 1700 other commuters, freight and additional. I think what we probably need, if we are going to do the 

major infrastructure investment, is a major infrastructure investment study where we bring in the freight, we bring in the commuter service, and we bring in Amtrak, and then we figure out a 

master plan so that they can all operate; and that we have one corridor that is truly high speed, which I would say would be a minimum of 125 miles per hour. If we use maglev, it could be as much 

as 250, 300 miles per hour. 

So would you concur with those observations? 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Is that your question, Mr. Mica? 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Oh, I don’t disagree that, as you laid out the capital piece, we will not be at 120 miles an hour average speed. I 

don’t disagree with——

Mr. MICA. Because I don’t want people to think, four years from 

now—the Chairman just left, but that he is going to end up with 

a high speed rail system. We basically are band-aiding. The tunnels are needed, blah, blah, blah. But we may even be making mistakes, because to run a separated, truly high speed corridor, they 

may need to be in a different configuration. 

Is that correct, Mr. Vacca? 

Mr. VACCA. That is correct. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Okay, I do have a question. I have one 

question, and just take one minute to answer it. Can you give us 

a status report of the negotiations between Amtrak and the union? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes. This week we have had meetings with four 

different unions. I would say two of them are quite productive. We 

are going to be going, probably shortly, out back for a re-vote on 

the FOP proposed settlement, and, again, two other unions we still 

hope to have fairly constructive conversations with this week. I 

would be happy to brief you in more detail any time you are available in a closed session and can give you a sense of where we are. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. Thank you for that update 

and thank you for your testimony. 

Members have 14 days in order to ask additional questions, because I didn’t get to all of my questions. 

But thank you very much for your testimony. We will be moving 

forward. You can see that there is a lot of support for Amtrak moving forward, but not a lot of patience for slow pace because of the 

pressures that we are receiving. Thank you very much. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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76


36687.057
77


36687.058
78

Æ


36687.059