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AMTRAK REAUTHORIZATION 

(110–128) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS 

MATERIALS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 14, 2008 

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, Vice 

Chair 

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 

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. ARCURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

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 

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 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RAILROADS, PIPELINES, AND HAZARDOUS 

MATERIALS 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida Chairwoman 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio, Vice Chair 

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 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

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 

Busalacchi, Frank, Secretary, Wisconsin Department of Transportation ........... 9 

Carson, Andre, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana ........... 7 

Corbett, Kevin, Vice President, DMJM Harris-AECOM ...................................... 9 

Dodd, Jed, General Chairman, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes 9 

Kummant, Alexander, President & CEO, Amtrak ................................................ 9 

Wytkind, Edward, President, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO ... 9 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Braley, Hon. Bruce L., of Iowa ............................................................................... 45 

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 48 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Busalacchi, Frank J. ................................................................................................ 53 

Corbett, Kevin .......................................................................................................... 62 

Dodd, Jed .................................................................................................................. 65 

Kummant, Alex ........................................................................................................ 70 

Wytkind, Edward ..................................................................................................... 76 

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD 

American Public Transportation Association, William W. Millar, President, 

written statement ................................................................................................. 82 

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(1) 

HEARING ON AMTRAK REAUTHORIZATION 

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 

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 [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Would the Subcommittee on Railroads, 

Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials come to order? 

Good morning. The Subcommittee meeting today is a hearing on 

Amtrak reauthorization. Amtrak was last authorized in Congress 

in 1997. Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower created the national 

highway system, which changed the way we travel in this Country. 

Today, we need to do the same thing with passenger rail, to make 

the level of investment necessary for it to become even more successful for the 21st century. That is why I am so excited about H.R. 

6003, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, which 

was recently introduced by Chairman Oberstar, Ranking Member 

Mica, Subcommittee Ranking Member Shuster, and myself. It provides $2 billion per year for capital and operational grants, $500 

million per year for developing State passenger corridors, $345 million per year to pay down debt, $345 million per year for highspeed rail projects, $60 million to start work on constructing a new 

tunnel through Baltimore, and it requires a plan for restoring service to the Sunset, limited from New Orleans to Sanford, Florida, 

which is in my district, Mr. Mica’s also. 

Amtrak is extremely valuable to our Country. It takes cars off 

our already congested highways, it reduces congestion in the sky, 

and it is better for the environment. In many areas of the Country, 

Amtrak is the only mode of transportation available. Let me repeat 

that. In many areas of our Country, Amtrak is the only mode of 

transportation available. They have shown major increases in ridership, as ridership has increased in eight of the nine last year and 

reached a record level of 25.8 million passengers this year. And 

with the cost of gas potentially rising $4.00, $5.00, $6.00 a gallon, 

there will be even more riders lining up for Amtrak. 

Unfortunately, for many years Amtrak has been given just 

enough money to limp along, never given the necessary funding to 

make serious improvements in the system. The high voltage electric system is over 70 years old. Sixty-five percent of the bridges 

2 

were built in the 1920s, and several tunnels that trains travel 

through every day were built in the 1800s. 

In 2005, Amtrak conducted a comprehensive review of the capital 

needs, and because of the request of Congress. The review determined that Amtrak should invest $4.2 billion to bring the infrastructure to a state of good repair. Today, with the backlog of major 

bridges and tunnel work, the necessary investment capital has approached an estimated $6 billion. 

As other countries continue to invest tens of billions of dollars 

each year to improve their passenger rail systems, we have fallen 

further and further behind in our deferring the much needed improvements to our system. We must find ways to speed up Amtrak 

backlogs of repair work and bring its assets to a state of good repair so that Amtrak can concentrate on increasing capacity, increasing speed, developing new facilities, and planning for the future. These major infrastructure improvements are also necessary 

to improve the safety and security of the system and its passengers 

and workers. 

Amtrak has and will continue to play a critical role in evacuation 

and transporting citizens during national emergencies. Unfortunately, it is also a prime target for those who wish to harm us, and 

we must provide resources to make the system less vulnerable. 

I am looking forward to working with my colleagues in the House 

and Senate to pass this legislation. The United States used to have 

a strong passenger rail service. Now, we are the caboose. And they 

don’t even have cabooses any more. The American people deserve 

better, and I believe that the Amtrak reauthorization bill will go 

a long way to bring the United States to its rightful place as the 

world’s leader in passenger rail. 

With that, I want to welcome today’s panelists and thank you for 

joining us. I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

Before I yield to Mr. Shuster, I ask that the Members be given 

14 days to revise and extend their remarks, and to permit the submission of additional statements and material by Members and 

witnesses. Without objection, so ordered. 

I yield to Mr. Shuster for his opening remarks. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Welcome to those who are going to be testifying today. I have to 

give you notice up front, I have a markup going on in Armed Services, so I will probably be in and out of here this morning. But that 

doesn’t diminish my interest at all in what the hearing is about 

today. 

Last week, I joined with our leader, Mr. Mica, and Chairman 

Oberstar and Chairwoman Brown in co-sponsoring H.R. 6003, 

which reauthorizes and reforms Amtrak. Amtrak has not been reauthorized since 1997 and there has certainly been a lot of change 

occurring in this Nation in transportation since then. 

In 1997, the average gas price was about $1.27, and today we are 

moving up towards $4.00 a gallon. We thought highway traffic was 

bad in the late 1990s, but I don’t think we really envisioned the 

level of congestion that exists out there today on the roadways. 

And the same could be said of the airlines; delays have increased 

significantly since 1997 and there doesn’t appear to be any relief 

3 

in sight. One way to address this congestion is by expanding our 

passenger rail system, especially high-speed rail. 

Our Amtrak reauthorization bill directs the Department of 

Transportation to solicit high-speed rail proposals for the Northeast 

Corridor and other lines around the U.S., which I think is one of 

the highlights of this reauthorization bill. Companion bill H.R. 

6004, also known as RIDE-21, which was introduced in the previous Congress, will provide $24 billion in bond funding to begin 

construction of these high-speed rail projects. 

But we cannot focus just on passenger rail. Amtrak trains, as we 

all know, operate on our Nation’s freight tracks, and these lines 

have become also increasingly congested over the past five years. 

That is why I also have co-sponsored H.R. 2116, the Freight Rail 

Infrastructure Capacity Expansion Act. This legislation promotes 

investment in new rail capacity which will help not only shippers, 

but rail passengers at the same time. 

Madam Chairwoman, I am looking forward to our hearing this 

morning and, again, excuse me when I have to depart for this other 

markup. But I am sure I will be in and out, as I said. Thank you 

very much and I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

Now, Mr. Mica. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I am pleased to join Chairman Brown, 

Chairman Oberstar, Mr. Shuster, our Ranking Member, in support 

Amtrak reauthorization. I know several people in the audience just 

fell over and croaked, but we did reach what I consider an historic 

agreement. What we did was partner our interest in moving passenger rail service forward in the United States. What we will have 

is authorization of funding and projects for Amtrak in a bipartisan 

fashion from the House for the first time, and incorporated in that 

is, I think, again an historic proposal to advance high-speed rail. 

One of the things that I have advocated is development of the 

Northeast Corridor, at least on a preliminary basis, and this bill 

contains that provision. It provides for the Department of Transportation to take proposals from the private sector to develop, finance, construct, and operate a high-speed rail corridor initially 

from Washington to New York. We chose that because Amtrak 

owns that entire corridor 100 percent. They own most of the track 

and right-of-way above New York to Boston, but not all of it. However, we do not preclude other proposals from coming forward to 

DOT in corridors that make sense for high-speed rail. 

The only caveat we have on the Washington-New York service is 

that it be door-to-door in two hours. That would revolutionize 

transportation, I believe, in the Northeast Corridor. People would 

be able to go to Union Station and get to downtown New York in 

less than two hours. The dramatic impact on congestion in that corridor, just for aviation alone, as you may know, in excess of 70 percent of the delays for our entire system begin in New York City air 

space area and that northeast region, and this gives people an alternative. 

Obviously, this is going to be a very expensive proposition—it 

will be many billions of dollars—but we think that we can have the 

Federal Government partner with the private sector for developing 

and separating out that traffic. I think it will be a dramatic boost 

4 

to commuter service in that corridor because, in separation, you 

will be able to have better commuter service, better utilize the corridor for freight service. 

Then, we also request that we look at the development of that 

corridor. I said it is time that we stop sitting our assets. When you 

have a corridor from Washington to New York, one of the most 

densely populated urban areas and most valuable real estate, and 

we are not fully utilizing that asset, we are in fact sitting on our 

assets and not maximizing their potential. 

Another beneficiary of this will be labor. Mr. Oberstar and Ms. 

Brown made certain that there are good labor protections in. No 

matter who runs the service, labor will prevail and be a partner. 

The history of Amtrak, as you know, they had some 28,000 employees when I came to the Committee. They are now down to—Mr. 

Kummant will tell us—what, 17,000? What is it? Nineteen thousand. In any event, we think that we can reverse that and actually, 

through increased development of these corridors, dramatically increase employment opportunities for the future. 

Pretty exciting proposal and pretty dramatic agreement. I thank 

Mr. Oberstar and Ms. Brown for their vision in this. I think, if you 

look at the bill, there are also, as Ms. Brown has pointed out, opportunities for public-private partnership and expansion of service, 

partnerships with States and other entities, and developing with 

other partners passenger rail service where we need that service 

and where there is the desire for additional partnerships. 

So pretty exciting proposal. I look forward to working with the 

Chair of the full Committee and Ms. Brown getting this passed, 

and working with our Senate partners and educating them as to 

the potential we have for an exciting new era in passenger rail 

service in America. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

Now our full Committee Chair, Mr. Oberstar. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Last Thursday there were rumblings and shakings on the foundation of Fort Rayburn as four Members of Congress reached 

across the aisle, held hands, and agreed on the Amtrak legislation 

before the Committee this morning. It was a transformational moment in the history of passenger rail service in America. The first 

began in the 1850s; the second began in 1970, when passenger rail 

service was all but abandoned by the freight rails and converted 

into Amtrak. This will be the third transformational moment. I 

think we will look back in time and say this was a moment when 

a new birth of energy and new opportunity for intercity passenger 

rail, for America to take its place among first world countries in 

passenger rail service. For that, I am most appreciative to Ms. 

Brown, who, like Harry Truman, actually took Amtrak rights, advocating two or three years ago for continuation of Amtrak service, 

which was proposed to be bankrupted by the previous Administration—current Administration, I should say—and to Mr. Mica, who 

has been a continuing vigorous advocate for high-speed passenger 

rail; Mr. Shuster, who has been a continuous strong advocate for 

high-speed intercity passenger rail service. 

5 

While there were differences of approach, I can truly say that 

this legislation incorporates the best of the ideas on both sides. We 

all had to make compromises, and that is in the best interest of the 

legislative process. I think we have an extraordinary opportunity to 

move forward with a solid, strong bill, substantial funding. Instead 

of keeping Amtrak on life support, as it has been from year to year, 

instead of a budget in which the former Secretary of Transportation said our purpose is to bankrupt Amtrak, we have a proposal 

here that will give vigorous life to Amtrak and to invite opportunities from the private sector, public-private partnerships, alliances 

of States to participate with each other, with Amtrak in combinations we haven’t even thought of yet. And the idea here is to initiate new energy, new ideas, and new investment opportunities 

from the private sector. 

I will just close by saying a week ago I had the great privilege 

of being invited to address the meeting of the European transport 

ministers in Slovenia, all 27 transport ministers, unveiling the second phase of their $350 billion surface transportation investment 

plan for the European Union. A cornerstone of that plan was substantial investment in additional high-speed passenger intercity 

rail service for Europe, truck routes, passenger car routes, and port 

development, as well as an extraordinary linkage by canal of the 

Atlantic Ocean, English Channel, Sienne River, the Rhine, the 

Danube, to the Black Sea. That is big picture visioning. That is serious investment in a vigorous transportation future. It is one that 

we must match and exceed. 

Yes, the price tag of $14 billion plus sounds big, but that is what 

France invested in its TGV to get it launched, and Denmark is investing about half as much—little Denmark, 4 million people investing that much—in upgrading its high-speed passenger rail 

service; and on with other countries. I won’t recite the litany. This 

is a transformational moment. Yes, we are going to have differences of viewpoints from the various witnesses we will hear 

today, but the cornerstone package we have here is a solid beginning on a new future for our intercity passenger rail for America. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

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

Mr. Boswell. 

Mr. BOSWELL. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you for your 

leadership and bringing this to the point we are at now. I would 

like to relate myself with everything that has been said. It is good. 

I appreciate it very much. 

I would just like to make a point that the outstanding men and 

women, the very professional people that have and will devote their 

working lives to efficient, safe, and faster rail. They are folks that 

we ought to recognize. 

I agree, we have to do something about the east coast, west 

coast, the congestion. The need is so prevalent and we have to do 

it. We have to connect the Country, too. We are the United States; 

we have to connect the Country, and I think there is need and demand for doing that. So we all understand and I certainly know 

that our full Committee Chair understands; I have heard him 

speak of it many, many times. The congestion, the air congestion, 

the costs, the delays, consolidations, things going on, it is a big conVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
6 

cern and we have ways to make relief, and I think we are talking 

about it right here. 

I remember many years ago returning after a four-year deployment, if you will, to Europe, and came back and they were building 

and expanding rail. We got here and they were doing just the opposite. I said then I think I know who has got it wrong. I said I 

thought so then. Well, now I have to correct it; I know so. We really screwed up, and it is going to have to be fixed, and we have to 

get this back on track. 

Lastly, one time not so many years ago I went from Lisbon to 

Brussels. It has been a few years ago. And we went clickety-clack, 

slow, rocking along getting out of Portugal and across parts of 

Spain, and all of a sudden we hit France and I couldn’t believe it. 

I turned to my wife and I said, my gosh, what has happened here? 

And there was no noise and all of a sudden you could tell, I mean, 

the trees were flying by and we found out that we were moving on. 

And we got into Belgium and Germany, and other times I had opportunity to travel and so on. 

So this is way overdue, we know that. I am speaking to the choir 

here. But I just appreciate that finally we are coming to grips and 

we have to do it. We don’t really have a choice. It is kind of like 

Chairman Oberstar working on our infrastructure, the other part 

of transportation that is, of course, important too, the highways 

and bridges. We have to do it. That is nothing we are going to sit 

around and talk about, we have go do it. 

And we talk about stimulation and I would defer to you, Mr. 

Chairman or Madam Chairman, but I think when we spill a billion 

bucks in transportation, the number of jobs are in the multi-thousands, it is 47,000—something like that—and they are high paying 

jobs and, guess what, they are not exportable. And we are going 

to have to do it anyway, so let’s get on with it. 

Thank you very much for your time. I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Boswell, let me just say that recently the Committee took a trip to Spain, and I went from Barcelona to Madrid, 300 miles, two hours and a half, and we felt 

nothing. So they have straightened out their system. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Madam Chair. I too associate myself with the remarks in support of this great reauthorization and 

thank you for holding this hearing. 

To us in California, this is really not only a needed investment, 

but a dramatic, critical investment in our infrastructure that is 

long coming. It creates our new State program, which, of course, 

is desperately needed in California. As you know, we have three of 

the five top busiest rail corridors with Pacific Sunliner in the Capitol Corridor in San Joaquin Corridors, and those choke points will 

be hopefully alleviated with the investment granted by this bill. It 

really will be very much an incentive for a lot of people to leave 

their cars at home, which is sorely needed in many of the areas to 

improve the environment, and the investment will put people to 

work; and there are so many other things that this will create. 

So, again, thank you. I am glad to be part of it, and I yield back. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

Let me just introduce our first panel. Recently elected to Congress, Mr. Andre Carson is here to testify today. Mr. Carson now 

7 

serves in the seat held by the former Transportation Infrastructure 

Committee colleague, Congresswoman Julia Carlson. I am pleased 

to have you here with us this morning. 

Recently, I spent a day in your district in Indiana, so I welcome 

you and we await your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF ANDRE CARSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I want to first 

thank Chairwoman Brown and Ranking Member Shuster for holding this timely hearing on Amtrak reauthorization. As you know, 

my grandmother was a Member of this distinguished Subcommittee and, like her, I hold it and its Members in the highest 

regard. I truly thank you for giving me the opportunity to briefly 

testify today. I also want to inform the Committee that I will have 

to leave after this testimony to attend another hearing on Financial 

Services. 

Madam Chairwoman, as this Country’s sole provider of regularly 

scheduled intercity passenger rail service, Amtrak’s importance 

and necessity to all Americans is clear. In the face of continually 

rising gas prices, overloaded highways and congested airports, 

many Americans are being forced to make difficult financial decisions regarding their modes of travel. Amtrak has become an ever 

more viable transportation option at such a time, and continues to 

be a practical option for many of those people searching for an efficient and economic travel alternative. 

Amtrak has many hurdles to overcome, the biggest of which is 

her $3.17 billion worth of debt. Although Amtrak has taken great 

steps in reducing this debt, by almost $600 million since 2002, it 

still has a long way to go. As a result, it is extremely important 

that Amtrak makes business decisions that maximizes her current 

resources, while maintaining the highest quality of services and facilities. 

Madam Chairwoman, the maximization of Amtrak’s facilities is 

an issue that particularly hits home with constituents from the 7th 

Congressional District of Indiana. As you know, I have the Beach 

Grove Amtrak maintenance facility located within my district, 

which is the largest Amtrak maintenance facility in the Country. 

I am also proud to say that Chairwoman Brown came to this facility personally, and I thank you again for that. 

Approximately 550 experienced employees at this facility perform 

a number of train maintenance, from wheel work to painting. A lot 

of these people have 10 years or more experience on the job and 

really take pride in what they do. But, recently, many of these employees at the facility have been notified that a lot of the work that 

they do will be transferred to other facilities and that they will 

have to either move or lose their jobs. 

In speaking with many of these employees, I was told that in the 

past there had been repeated attempts to close and move this facility. They also mentioned Amtrak has continually increased the 

amount of work being outsourced and that this facility has been 

forced to downscale its entire workforce. 

Madam Chairwoman, I would be the first to understand if Amtrak simply did not have enough work to keep this facility open. 

8 

Everyone understands that industries change and, therefore, a 

company’s labor needs must be realized. However, this is not the 

case for this facility. Amtrak has a backlog of cars waiting to be 

fixed. As you know, many freight companies have locomotives that 

need maintenance, as well as insourcing this work, that would give 

Amtrak an amazing opportunity to grow her profits. If Amtrak 

could be incentivized to lessen its practice of outsourcing and begin 

to insource more work and find viable ways to do maintenance 

work for freight companies, Amtrak would raise her revenue and 

the facility in the Beach Grove would thrive. The Beach Grove facility needs more work, and it already has all of the equipment necessary to fix Amtrak cars. 

Finally, the Beach Grove is already up and running, with a highly experienced and knowledgeable labor force. For example, last 

year the California Department of Labor asked the Beach Grove 

maintenance facility to rebuild two of its damaged Superliner cars. 

After receiving the completed work, the California Department of 

Transportation then wrote a letter to Mr. Kummant praising the 

professionalism and quality of their final product. 

Madam Chairwoman, we all want Amtrak to do well and be profitable, and I believe the need to incentivize the insourcing of their 

own maintenance work and having the opportunity to do maintenance work from rail companies can greatly impact Amtrak’s profits and aid to ensure its financial solvency and give hardworking 

Americans like those at the Beach Grove facility a fair chance to 

aid in the reinvestment of our Nation’s infrastructure. 

Madam Chairwoman, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from 

the California Department of Transportation be inserted with my 

testimony for the record. Thank you, ma’am. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Without objection. 

I appreciate Mr. Carson has taken the opportunity to speak on 

this issue. This is an important issue for his constituents and also 

for the people of this Country. 

My staff have spoken with Amtrak’s inspector generals regarding 

the Beach Grove facility. The inspector general has told staff that 

a number of concerns that have been raised with the facility have 

been addressed. However, I would like Mr. Carson to please inform 

me of the outstanding matters needing our attention, and I would 

be happy to follow up with the Amtrak IG. 

Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. Oberstar, do you want to—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chair, I would just like to compliment 

Mr. Carson on his advocacy for the Beach Grove facility and thank 

you for taking the time to visit. I did a tour with Ms. Carson three, 

four years ago. I was really overwhelmed with what I saw. The 

level of skill, the ability to take these seriously damaged cars—you 

look at them and say how are they ever going to fix them, and then 

you see the completed product. It is an exceptional tribute to their 

skill, devotion, dedication to service, and the Beach Grove facility 

really could do outsourcing for the freight rails in repairing their 

freight cars as a supplemental opportunity for jobs and business at 

Beach Grove. So I join with Ms. Brown in saying we will do all we 

can to help you with that and come to an understanding or, as LynVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
9 

don Johnson used to say, we will bring you together with Amtrak 

and we will reason together, in the words of the prophet Elijah. 

Mr. CARSON. Thank you, Mr. Oberstar. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

Would the next panel please take their seats? 

Evidently, we are not sitting in the order that we are supposed 

to. We have Mr. Kummant and then the Secretary from Wisconsin, 

and then Mr. Ed Wytkind, and then Mr. Jed Dodd. Is that right? 

And Mr. Corbett is last. I am sorry, but that threw us off. 

Let me welcome the panel and introduce the second panel. 

Our first witness is Mr. Alexander Kummant, President & CEO 

of Amtrak. Welcome. Our second witness is Mr. Frank Busalacchi, 

Secretary of Wisconsin Department of Transportation; our third 

witness is Mr. Ed Wytkind, President of the Transportation Trades 

Department, AFL-CIO; our fourth witness is Mr. Jed Dodd, General Chairman of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes; and our fifth witness is Mr. Kevin Corbett. 

Let me remind the witnesses that, under our Committee rules, 

oral statements must be limited to five minutes, but the entire 

statement will appear in the record. We will also allow the entire 

panel to testify before questioning the witnesses. 

It is my pleasure to have with us here this morning the Chairman of Amtrak, Mr. Kummant, for his testimony. Thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF ALEXANDER KUMMANT, PRESIDENT & CEO, 

AMTRAK; FRANK BUSALACCHI, SECRETARY, WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; ED WYTKIND, PRESIDENT, TRANSPORTATION TRADES DEPARTMENT, AFL-CIO; 

JED DODD, GENERAL CHAIRMAN, BROTHERHOOD OF MAINTENANCE OF WAY EMPLOYES; AND KEVIN CORBETT, VICE 

PRESIDENT, DMJM HARRIS-AECOM 

Mr. KUMMANT. Good morning, Madam Chair, Mr. Shuster, distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

Recently, we celebrated Amtrak’s 37th anniversary. We opened 

our doors for business on May 1, 1971, as was referenced earlier, 

and took over the vast majority of the Nation’s existing intercity 

rail passenger services from 20 Class I carriers. At the time, this 

was widely viewed as a nice farewell gesture to passenger trains, 

which were not expected to survive the decade. 

Today, as you know, we are seeing record numbers of Americans 

choosing Amtrak for its convenience, its comfort, and its environmentally friendly qualities. I think we can take a little justified 

pride in the work we have done over the years to make sure that 

the trains keep coming, and it is a tribute to the many people who 

worked for Amtrak over the years and our front-line employees 

who deliver the product every day. For our part, we appreciate the 

strong support we have enjoyed from the general public, the Congress, and this Committee. 

I am very pleased that your Committee has decided to consider 

the question of reauthorization for Amtrak, a measure that is timely and important; and I will speak directly to the bill you have introduced. But, first, I want to make the point that a lot has 

changed since our last reauthorization was enacted in 1997. A galVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
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lon of unleaded cost about $1.24 in October 1997, and it costs almost $4.00 per gallon today. Congestion, as was well noted earlier, 

is increasing and the highway infrastructure is showing signs of fatigue. 

I think we all agree that we need a strong national transportation policy that recognizes the role rail can play in our national 

life. Our transportation policy needs to evolve, and I think it will 

evolve, and this authorization must eventually become a part of an 

integrated national policy where rail will play its meaningful role. 

To that end, I think we need to work harder at using our existing 

resources and infrastructure to make better policy. In the last 10 

years, State governments have redefined rail service: as a congestion mitigator, an engine of development, and an environmentally 

friendly way of providing for travel needs on existing networks, and 

this is an example of a creative and successful use of existing resources and infrastructure. We need to find transportation solutions that will build system connectivity, allow consumers a range 

of relevant choices, and develop the funding streams that will allow 

us to plan, build, and operate our services without the turmoil of 

the annual funding cycle. I am pleased that this bill recognizes that 

need and incorporates, both in spirit and intent, measures that will 

allow us not just to pursue and extend successful policies, but to 

begin the larger national debate about the future of transportation 

in America. 

I would like to touch on a few examples of services we think are 

successful. Amtrak just finished a year of record ridership and is 

on its way to another. There are a number of great examples of the 

kind of growth we want to see. I will confine myself to two that 

are geographically and demographically distinct, but that together 

give us a sense of how we hope the system of the future will look. 

The first is our Keystone Corridor between Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and New York City. Together with the Pennsylvania DOT, we 

put $145 million into much-needed improvements. This allowed us 

speeds up to 110 miles an hour, and we got more frequencies out 

of the same equipment. We restored electrified service in 2006 and 

our ridership grew by 20 percent in 2007. Our growth was so 

strong that last month a U.S. Airways carrier providing service between Harrisburg and La Guardia canceled its service on that 

route because it couldn’t compete with Amtrak. City center to city 

center access is a tremendous selling point and a natural enhancer 

of connectivity. 

Our partnership with California has also been a success. We 

have built a network of three major passenger rail corridors. 

Eighty-six percent of the stations in California have some kind of 

intermodal connectivity, and the result has been a very strong system built on the range of choices we can offer travelers. The Pacific 

Surfliner between San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, and San Diego is 

our second largest corridor operation after the Northeast Corridor, 

and the Capitol Corridor between San Jose and Sacramento was 

one of the 10 fastest growing corridors on the system last year. 

While our focus will be on corridors, my view is that there will 

always be a place for long distance trains. They provide basic 

transportation to communities that lack transportation choices and 

they will continue to connect corridors. But I believe the real opporVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
11 

tunity for growth lies in those corridors a few hundred miles long 

that use shared rights-of-way to provide people a real transportation service. We have some very real challenges and the next few 

years are going to be important if we are going to meet them: in 

terms of our relations with the States, our ability to procure new 

equipment so that we can grow our ridership, and in finding a 

more reliable source of funding so that we can develop and execute 

programs without trying to keep things moving under a continuing 

resolution. 

With that in mind, I will comment on the bill. I think the timing 

is right, the national transportation crisis is upon us, as many of 

you have commented on, and Congress and the Nation will have 

to address it in the next couple of years. I think the bill that has 

been introduced in the House is a strong statement of support not 

just for Amtrak, but for the cause of passenger rail service generally. I think the Committee recognizes certain basic realities and 

the bill is a ringing endorsement of the need for corridor service. 

The authorization of a Federal-State partnership program is the 

single most important aspect of the bill. The 80-20 matching program will do a lot to level the modal playing field and help States 

to pursue passenger rail projects. The investment grants for congestion mitigation measures will also benefit many of our existing 

services. The increases in the authorization of funding levels are 

going to be essential if we are to realize these visionary proposals. 

We are seeing inflation in costs of fuel, basic materials, and health 

care expenses, and these will directly translate into higher operating and capital costs. 

As I mentioned in our fiscal year 2009 grant request, I do not 

believe Amtrak will be able to comply with all of the provisions of 

the Americans With Disabilities Act by the July 26, 2010 deadline. 

Ownership and responsibility questions complicate compliance, 

since we don’t own all of the 527 stations we serve, and in many 

cases we are not responsible for altering parts of the station that 

we do not own. In addition, the question of whether DOT will implement its proposed new rules regarding full-length level boarding 

of trains from rail platforms is adding to the delay in achieving 

compliance. 

I want to close by thanking you for taking up this matter. While 

it is certainly vital for Amtrak, I think Amtrak is vital for the 

Country. I look forward to working with you on a collaborative effort to develop our reauthorization, which will, I hope, become the 

first step towards a comprehensive, integrated, and balanced national ground transportation policy. Thank you very much. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Chairman Oberstar, Chairwoman Brown, 

Ranking Member Shuster, Members of the Committee, my name is 

Frank Busalacchi. I am Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of 

Transportation, Chair of the States for Passenger Rail Coalition, 

and I served on the National Surface Transportation Policy and 

Revenue Study Commission. 

As a Member of the Commission, I was able to share my perspective and goal for a new direction in national transportation policy, 

one that includes a Federal-State funding partnership for intercity 

12 

passenger rail, similar to the partnerships that exist for highways, 

transit, and aviation. 

The Commission submitted its report to Congress in 2007. The 

report provides a new multi-modal 50-year transportation vision for 

the United States, with recommendations for passenger rail expansion based on an 80-20 Federal-State cost share program. 

The bills before you today are critically important. H.R. 6003, the 

Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, does 

much more than reauthorize Amtrak; it begins the process of investing in passenger rail, a mobility option that our citizens are 

choosing in record numbers. 

Since 2002, Amtrak has not had a dependable revenue stream. 

The Administration has shown a lack of leadership on rail finance, 

starving Amtrak each year in its budget bill. Yet, people are flocking to trains. Reauthorizing Amtrak will end the year-to-year cobbling together of the finances of a major corporation. The bill funds 

State investment in rail, providing stable funding for Amtrak and 

policy provisions to assure its expansion and financial accountability. It aligns Federal policy with demand at a time when gas 

prices are approaching $4.00 a gallon. 

At a recent campaign stop in Indiana, Senator Barack Obama remarked, ‘‘The irony is, with gas prices what they are, we should 

be expanding rail service. We are going to be having a lot of conversations this summer about gas prices, and it is a perfect time 

to start talking about why we don’t have better rail service.’’ 

H.R. 6004, the Rail Infrastructure Development and Expansion 

Act for the 21st Century, or RIDE-21, provides $12 billion in Federal tax credit bonds over 10 years, the equivalent of 60-40 Federal-State grants for infrastructure and equipment on high speed 

rail lines. For 50 years our Federal policy and funding approaches 

have led to disinvestment in passenger rail. H.R. 6003 puts passenger rail on equal footing with other transportation modes. Its 

80-20 grant program for capital investment will help the States implement their passenger rail service plans. Despite the Federal 

Government’s focus on targeted congestion relief, congestion grows. 

Expanding urban highway capacity is extremely expensive and is 

often difficult to accomplish. Funding for passenger rail gives 

transportation officials another option for solving their transportation problems. 

The expansion of intercity passenger rail can help address the 

Nation’s global warming challenge. Intercity trains generate 60 

percent fewer CO2 emissions per passenger mile than cars and half 

the emissions of airplanes. Since 1990, carbon dioxide, or CO2, 

emissions grew 1.2 percent annually in the U.S., and the transportation sector contributed to one-third of those emissions. The projected population growth will only exacerbate this problem. 

As Secretary of the Wisconsin DOT, I know firsthand that the 

public wants more train service. Wisconsin works in partnership 

with Illinois to provide financial support to Amtrak’s Hiawatha 

service in the Milwaukee to Chicago corridor. Wisconsin has committed over $100 million to improving our rail stations and service, 

and has invested $7 million in the Milwaukee to Madison corridor 

for future rail service. 

13 

’The Federal funding authorized by H.R. 6003 over five years will 

fund Amtrak partnership with States in regional corridors, operations in the Northeast Corridor, and long-distance trains. A new 

emphasis on Federal-State Amtrak partnerships is reflected 

throughout the bill. Three billion is authorized over five years for 

Amtrak operating grants, eliminating the annual uncertainty of 

whether Amtrak services will be cut. H.R. 6003 recognizes the need 

for new equipment by providing capital funds to address equipment 

shortages on Amtrak routes, including State-supported corridors. 

Funding is also provided for compliance with the Americans with 

Disabilities Act at our train stations. 

Most importantly from a State perspective, the bill recognizes the 

need for a Federal-State capital program to expand and improve 

the current Amtrak system. The legislation authorizes $2.5 billion 

in 80-20 Federal-State grants for infrastructure and equipment, 

and another $1.75 billion in 80-20 grants to authorize high-speed 

rail corridors. The 80-20 cost share will finally put Federal investment in passenger rail on an equal footing with aviation, highway, 

and transit programs. 

I respectfully ask the Committee to continue its efforts to provide 

a dedicated passenger rail capital program to fund the Nation’s 

intercity passenger rail needs. Thank you. 

Mr. WYTKIND. Madam Chair, thank you for inviting me to appear 

before you on behalf of the Nation’s Transportation Unions; to 

Chairman Oberstar, as always, he is the leader, in fact, the conscience of this Congress on transportation issues; and to Mr. Shuster and I know Mr. Mica, who has departed the hearing room, for 

their leadership and for allowing us to participate in this discussion and debate leading to this hearing. 

The debate over Amtrak and the question of how to achieve a 

first-class national passenger rail system is not occurring in a vacuum. A collapsed bridge in Minneapolis, failed levies in New Orleans, a steam pipe explosion under New York City and so many 

other examples of disaster in our infrastructure and our transportation system all drive home the point that our Nation’s infrastructure is indeed collapsing. Our historic failure to invest in a national 

passenger rail system and this Administration’s refusal to lead on 

the subject is a product of that national failure. 

Amtrak has never been more vital to our Nation, nor more in 

need of a significant long-term investment plan. Performance, ridership, and revenue are all rising. Employee productivity has increased dramatically and Americans are riding passenger rail at 

record levels. We need to change the way we look at and fund Amtrak. Forcing the carrier to limp from one financial crisis to the 

next with no long-term finance plan is a recipe for assured failure. 

For too long, Amtrak has been known for its deferred maintenance, 

lost expansion opportunities, unmet security needs, outdated cars 

and equipment, and an unfairly treated workforce that until recently went eight years without general wage increases. American 

can do better if Congress and our Government give Amtrak and its 

employees the resources they need to deliver the world’s best passenger rail service. Shut-down budgets from this Administration 

and wildly unrealistic privatization and contracting out initiatives 

should be scrapped in favor of a long-term multi-year authorization 

14 

of Amtrak that places the company on a glide path to financial stability and long-term success. 

I commend the Committee—led, of course, by Mr. Oberstar, Ms. 

Brown, and others—for introducing the Passenger Rail Investment 

Act and, of course, RIDE-21. These bills provide the foundation to 

bring an end to the era of under-funding and neglect that has defined America’s national Amtrak network for too long. H.R. 6003 

will provide over $14 billion during the next five years. This commitment to Amtrak is indeed historic. It is recognition of the deteriorating state of the Nation’s transportation system and infrastructure, and it makes an important downpayment towards reversing four decades of neglect of Amtrak at a time that American’s 

want more and better transportation choices. 

Funding levels in this bill must be adequate to cover Amtrak’s 

obligations in new collective bargaining agreements recently agreed 

to by Amtrak and its union. Paying Amtrak workers a fair and reasonable wage constitutes a basic cost of doing business, akin to 

maintaining tracks or paying fuel costs. We must also ensure that 

the back pay awarded to Amtrak workers after they went eight 

years without a wage increase is funded at the earliest opportunity 

between now and spring of 2009. 

While we understand and appreciate that this bill makes a significant multi-year commitment to Amtrak and, indeed, this bill is 

historic, we are concerned with provisions that appear to promote 

privatization of parts of the system. There are still those who believe Amtrak could somehow turn a profit. Others believe private 

companies can offer better service by cherry-picking the most attractive assets in Amtrak’s system like the Northeast Corridor. 

The story of British Rail privatization, of course, underscores the 

threats of that model, and, of course, rail privatization has hardly 

been a success generally where it has been tried. British passengers during that experiment were saddled with increased fair, 

shoddy maintenance practices, and dangerous cost-cutting, including excessive job reductions. This resulted in higher accident rates, 

deteriorated service, and coordination problems within a maze— 

and, indeed, it was a maze—of poorly managed providers. 

Amtrak was created in 1970 because Congress recognized that 

private passenger rail was going bankrupt and disappearing across 

the Country. It would be a mistake to ignore this history and assume that today private operators will magically offer a better way 

to deliver the service. We are specifically opposed to the provision 

requiring a request for proposals for a high-speed route between 

D.C. and New York City. Obviously, Amtrak already operates several routes on this corridor, including its highly successful and 

growing Acela service. While this service can and should be improved and expanded, we do not understand how the public will 

benefit by allowing a private operator to take over one of the most 

successful routes and prized assets in Amtrak’s network. It is unclear how and if the winning bidder will be held accountable for the 

promises made in the application. 

Those of us in labor know that this, of course, wouldn’t be the 

first time that a private company seeking to win a government contract over-promised, but then under-delivered. The applicants are 

required to achieve two-hour express service from D.C. to New 

15 

York. What happens if the winning bidder, in all likelihood a foreign corporation, makes promises about achieving the two-hour objective but then predictably falls short? And what if the Northeast 

Corridor express service requires certain stops to be curtailed or 

abandoned altogether? And if the promises made by private interests are not met, will America recreate the British Rail disaster 

right here in America? And will Congress and the Administration 

face a multi-billion dollar price tag, as they did in Great Britain, 

to unravel a failed privatization experiment? 

We think these questions deserve an answer. And while we understand this to be the intent of the bill, we urge the Committee 

to state explicitly in the legislation that the Section 502 RFP process shall not move on to final implementation until Congress has 

expressly authorized it through legislation. It also must be assured 

that any provider of rail service is covered as a rail carrier for all 

applicable rail and labor laws, and that the jobs and the rights of 

workers are adequately protected. The transformation of the Nation’s passenger rail system should not come at the expense of important statutory requirements and any worker protection such as, 

for example, railroad retirement, which this Committee has championed throughout its history. 

We have spelled out in our testimony our support for very important reforms included in this bill, and I won’t go into those today, 

including, however, the composition and makeup of Amtrak’s board 

and the IG reforms that you have placed in the bill. I would just 

add if the Committee would consider that a board seat representing 

Amtrak’s employees should be mandated in this legislation. 

I want to again thank Chairman Oberstar, Chairwoman Brown, 

Mr. Shuster, and Mr. Mica for bringing H.R. 6003 forward, because 

we think it is a radical departure from the past. After years of 

shut-down budgets, it provides a capital and operational assistance 

so desperately needed to make Amtrak a success. But we ask the 

Committee and the Congress to embrace this new blueprint, but at 

the same time to reject any ill-advised privatization measures that 

we think will undermine Amtrak, potentially undermine safety, 

and harm Amtrak’s employees. 

We again thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

Mr. Dodd? 

Mr. DODD. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes 

Division-International Brotherhood of Teamsters (BMWED) thanks 

the Committee for being given the opportunity to present its views 

on the proposed reauthorization of Amtrak as proposed in H.R. 

6003—— 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Excuse me, sir. Would you please bring 

your mic up just a little bit? Thank you. 

Mr. DODD. Our union is te labor union that represents the men 

and women who build and maintain the railroad track, bridges, 

buildings and overhead catenary system for Amtrak. Our members 

are highly skilled and include heavy equipment operators, welders, 

carpenters, plumbers, foremen, linemen, electricians, repairmen, 

and a host of other crafts. We work night and day, seven days a 

week, performing tough, dangerous work in all weather conditions. 

We build and maintain a complex infrastructure so that Amtrak 

16 

can ensure that their passengers can arrive safely and on time to 

their destinations. 

My name is Jed Dodd, and I was hired into the Maintenance of 

Way Department of Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor as a 

trackman in early 1977. In September 1983, I was elected to the 

position of General Chairman of the Pennsylvania Federation. My 

office is elected by the membership and I have been re-elected 

every four years since 1983. One of my duties as General Chairman 

of the Pennsylvania Federation is to chair the BMWED bargaining 

committee on Amtrak, and I have done this for the last 25 years. 

The BMWED supports the core mission of Amtrak: providing 

safe, reliable, and environmentally-friendly intercity passenger 

transportation. Despite Amtrak’s uncertain beginning, the men and 

women who worked for Amtrak held the system together, to the 

point that today ridership and revenue levels for Amtrak are at its 

highest in history. The rate of return for the investment in Amtrak 

by the American taxpayer has been huge. There is an enormous environmental benefit to intercity rail service, as Amtrak’s service 

significantly reduces congestion on the highways and in the airports on the Northeast Corridor. Our reliance on foreign oil is less 

because of passenger rail service. 

In addition, Amtrak workers are among the most productive passenger rail workers in the world. Amtrak covers 78 percent of its 

operating needs at the fare box, as opposed to a national average 

of 47 percent for commuter railroads and a national average of 58 

percent for heavy transit systems. This success story was achieved 

in the face of, at times, hostility from the Executive and Legislative 

Branches, and what seemed like a revolving door of top Amtrak 

management who, with minor exception, have fostered a labor relations climate on Amtrak that treats its dedicated workforce like an 

unwanted annoyance. Despite the sometimes annual changes in 

Amtrak management, the workers at Amtrak are the constant that 

has served America by going to work every day and producing one 

of the finest intercity passenger railroads anywhere in the world. 

In the early years, worker safety on Amtrak suffered as well. 

Many good men and women sacrificed their lives working for Amtrak to keep intercity rail passenger service available to the people 

of this country. In Union Station, in Washington, D.C., there is a 

plaque that lists the names of 72 men and women who have been 

killed at work while on duty. Our union represents about 10 percent of all Amtrak workers. However, more than one-third of the 

names on that list were members of our union whose lives had 

been cut short because they were hit by a train, electrocuted on the 

high voltage wire, or crushed to death by the machinery. Next time 

you are hurrying to catch your train at Union Station, please take 

a moment at this plaque and reflect a little on te sacrifices that 

have been made in sweat and blood to ensure that Amtrak is successful. Railroading is hard and dangerous work, and no one should 

ever underestimate or denigrate the courage, dedication, and effort 

Amtrak workers expend to ensure this Country’s rail passengers 

get to their destination safely and on time. 

The BMWED is delighted that H.R. 6003 contains a multi-year 

reauthorization of appropriations for Amtrak. Amtrak’s infrastructure on the Northeast Corridor includes tunnels from the 19th cenVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
17 

tury and a number of major, movable bridges that date from the 

early 20th century. The renovation of these parts of the infrastructure requires a dedicated, multi-year source of authorized appropriations in the manner proposed by this Committee. We are happy 

to see this Committee step forward with a strong commitment to 

the long-term success of Amtrak and thank Ms. Brown and Mr. 

Oberstar for their tireless efforts and work in support for Amtrak. 

Nevertheless, we are compelled to mention a note of caution. 

BMWED’s support for a single, national intercity rail passenger 

carrier in the form of Amtrak should not be considered unquestioning support for Amtrak management, and especially Amtrak’s 

Labor Relations Department. 

BMWED’s support for the operating and capital monies which 

Amtrak claims is sufficient for its needs during the fiscal years 

2009 through 2013 is conditioned on a commitment that Amtrak 

will come to the bargaining table on January 1st, 2010 and begin 

to bargain a fair and equitable extension to our collective agreement in good faith. They must abandon their style of labor relations which seeks to starve the employees into submission. The 

dedicated employees of Amtrak must never again be subject to the 

type of labor relations policies that permit eight years to go by 

without a reasonable raise. Amtrak Labor Relations must not be 

permitted to interpose a complaint that congressionally authorized 

appropriations are insufficient for them to bargain a fair and equitable agreement. We respectfully ask this Committee to require 

such an assurance from Amtrak management and specifically its 

Vice President of Labor Relations. 

Finally, we must comment on a portion of H.R. 6003 that troubles the BMWED very much. While much of the bill demonstrates 

continued support for Amtrak and a strong support for the development of new intercity rail passenger service that complements the 

Amtrak operations; Title V of the bill contains a provision that 

could well be the Trojan horse for the demise of Amtrak. 

Section 502 of the proposed legislation makes almost the first 

order of business a command that the Secretary of Transportation 

issue an RFP for the ‘‘financing, design, construction and operation 

of an initial high-speed rail system’’ between Washington and New 

York. That relatively innocuous phrase is, in BMWED’s opinion, an 

opening to privatize Amtrak’s operations on the Northeast Corridor. As I said earlier, Congress has invested substantial sums in 

rehabilitating the Northeast Corridor and this proposed legislation 

will ensure that Amtrak puts the Corridor in a state of good repair. 

However, all of that investment and hard work performed by Amtrak employees will be lost if the corridor is handed over to a private operator to cherry pick the assets as part of a plan to provide 

two hour service between Washington and New York. 

The BMWED thanks the Committee for the opportunity to share 

its views on this subject. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. [Presiding] Thank you, Mr. Dodd. 

Next we have Mr. Kevin Corbett. 

Mr. CORBETT. Thank you, Congresswoman Napolitano and Ranking Member Shuster and Members of the Subcommittee for allowing me to give testimony today. 

18 

My name is Kevin Corbett. I am Vice President of Corporate Development at DMJM Harris-AECOM, and a board member of New 

York’s Regional Plan Association, a private, independent planning 

group. I am here today representing the Business Alliance for 

Northeast Mobility, a coalition of over 30 chambers of commerce, 

civic, and business associations from Boston to Washington which 

have come together to advocate for bringing Amtrak’s Northeast 

Corridor back to a state of good repair and improving the frequency, speed, and reliability of intercity and regional rail service 

in the Northeast. 

We met with some of you on April 2nd, when the Business Alliance came to the Capitol to show our support for Amtrak authorization and appropriations. The meeting was attended by Representatives Nadler, Gerlach, DeLauro, Senators Carper and Specter, and Amtrak President Kummant. 

Our goal is to protect and enhance the economic competitiveness 

and sustainability of the Northeast, which is currently threatened 

by congested, aging infrastructure that limits the ability of the 

Northeast megaregion to attract jobs and compete in the global 

economy. As business leaders, we recognize the that expanded and 

reliable funding for Amtrak will provide the cities and regions in 

the Northeast with vital, economic mobility and environmental 

benefits. We intend to work with our respective governors, Amtrak, 

and leadership in Washington to secure the funds necessary to preserve and improve this irreplaceable economic asset. 

We are also interested in expanding the role that intercity and 

regional rail can play in the Northeast by replacing regional air 

trips, providing alternatives to auto trips, and focusing development around train stations, to help accommodate the additional 19 

million people anticipated in the Northeast megaregion by 2050 

and a corresponding growth in its economy. 

We strongly support the H.R. 6003, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008, which would authorize increased funding benefits for Amtrak and significant new funding 

for returning the Northeast Corridor to a state of good repair. This 

bill would be the first authorization for Amtrak since 2002 and, as 

a multi-year authorization, would allow Amtrak to develop multiyear plans for Corridor investment and improvement. 

Bringing the Northeast Corridor to a state of good repair is our 

top priority because of the vital role the corridor plays in the 

Northeast and the Nation’s economy. 

The Northeast Megaregion, which includes the metropolitan regions of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, 

and smaller cities in between, produces a combined GDP of $2.4 

trillion dollars, about 18 percent of the Nation’s GDP. Over 750,000 

people ride some portion of the corridor each weekday on Amtrak 

or the eight regional rail services that share the corridor. 

The corridor is important to daily commuters on the regional 

services and business travelers who choose Amtrak’s Acela and regional service for travel between Boston, New York, Washington, 

and points in between. Amtrak has become an increasingly attractive alternative to regional air trips as delays in northeast airports 

have risen. 

19 

The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act would 

allow Amtrak to make the needed investments in the Northeast 

Corridor to improve the reliability, safety, and speed of regional 

and intercity service by undertaking long-overdue projects such as 

the two Baltimore Rail tunnels, several bridges in Connecticut and 

other bridges, and replacing aging catenaries, train sets, ties and 

interlockings. 

We are particularly supportive of the following elements of the 

bill: 

In Section 209, the creation of a Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission, made up of Amtrak, 

USDOT, and the Northeast States. We believe it is essential that 

these stakeholders work together to develop and implement a longterm vision for the corridor that returns the infrastructure to a 

state of good repair, increases capacity, and reduces trip times. 

We also support the Acela Service Study, which authorizes $5 

million to determine the infrastructure and equipment investments 

needed to achieve shorter trip times in the northern and southern 

ends of the Corridor. 

The Business Alliance is also supportive of your Ride-21 Act, also 

introduced this week, which provides $12 billion in tax credit bonds 

and $12 billion in tax exempt bonds for developing high-speed rail 

corridors in the United States. We believe this is an important 

source of new funding for developing new high-speed rail corridors 

which can help replace air trips of 500 miles or less. It is also a 

first step towards finding additional sources of funding for intercity 

rail in this country, outside the annual appropriations process. We 

urge this Subcommittee to explore new additional funding sources 

for intercity rail, including in the next surface transportation bill. 

Finally, the Northeast Corridor’s potential to promote transit-oriented economic development is of major interest to the Business Alliance. Philadelphia’s Cira Center, a Class A office tower adjacent 

to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, presents a prime example of 

how the Northeast Corridor can help focus and attract new real estate investment along its length, while increasing ridership, reducing the need for auto trips, and revitalizing the Northeast’s older 

industrial cities. New York City’s Moynihan Station project will 

play a similar role in the promoting economic development and revitalization of Manhattan’s Far West Side. 

In closing, I urge you and your colleagues to support multi-year 

funding for Amtrak that will allow it to meet the immediate and 

future challenges in the corridor. These investments are crucial to 

addressing the congested roadways and air space that will only 

worsen and will only hinder our ability to grow and sustain a competitive economy in the Northeast and the Nation. 

Thank you Madame Chair and Members of the Subcommittee for 

the opportunity to address you. In due course, I would be happy 

to answer any questions. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. We 

will now proceed to put questions to you, and I think I will start 

off. 

To any of you, the bill provides for commuter railroads with a 

forum at the Surface Transportation Board to mediate negotiations 

with the freight railroads over the rights-of-way and operations 

20 

agreements. What are your opinions on the provisions and do you 

have any additional legislative comments, recommendations to improve the cooperation between freight and passenger given that we 

continually have—especially in my area, in Pomona, where I have 

very, very minimal service and it has very, very poor on-time pickup? 

Gentlemen. 

Mr. KUMMANT. I would certainly encourage some language—and 

I am agnostic as to the specifics—to nevertheless emphasize the ontime performance issues and preserving and perhaps restating Amtrak’s preference rights. I still think that is important. As I testified in a previous hearing, there is a lot we can do before, we get 

there, so to speak. There are things we have to take off the table 

with the railroads and core operations. We have to work on slow 

orders, and then certainly capacity and capital become the issue. 

But I certainly think that is still an important provision. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Madam Chair, I agree with what Mr. 

Kummant just said, but I think it is important that this investment that we are going to make will solve this problem. On-time 

service is critical to what is going to happen with passenger rail. 

We know that. I am spoiled in the corridor that I have, between 

Chicago and Milwaukee, in that our on-time percentage is 90 percent. We work very well with Canadian Pacific. 

But I do believe that we have to work this out together. Expansion is going to be critical in doing this. We are convinced that, as 

we expand passenger rail, more and more people are going to be 

on these trains. We know that; we see this coming. But at the same 

time, we also have to be aware of the fact that the freight companies have a business that they are trying to run. So we have to 

work this out between the two of us, and I think we can. I think 

this legislation that is in front of us here is going to go a long way 

in starting that. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. Wytkind. 

Mr. WYTKIND. I don’t have a specific position on the exact language you referred to, but it is clear that over the years, as Amtrak 

has tried to provide the best service possible and as Amtrak’s employees have been at the front lines of trying to accomplish that, 

that many of the problems that Amtrak encounters are not Amtrak’s problems that they can solve on their own. So what happens 

is, those who are looking for opportunities to criticize Amtrak and, 

therefore, promote an agenda to dramatically alter the way we provide passenger rail service, they use metrics like on-time performance to make that point. But the on-time performance problems, 

while Amtrak certainly gets its fair share of the blame, is not all 

Amtrak’s problems. We do have to solve those problems, and they 

are solved by more than just Amtrak; they are solved by various 

parties that are involved in the process. So I think that will move 

the debate forward and give us a chance to debate how we make 

Amtrak succeed, by giving it the resources it needs and not u se 

these kind of scapegoat issues to claim that Amtrak is a failing enterprise. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, I couldn’t agree with you more, because 

in my area we are going to have an increase from the Alameda 

21 

Corridor east to the rest of the United States, I would assume, at 

least tenfold. And if I have problems now in my area with Amtrak, 

it is going to obliterate any passenger rail and people won’t be able 

to get—and then the other area is the Colton Crossing. And I am 

not sure that you are aware of it, but that is just east of my district, and it is a bottleneck. Somehow, we need to sit down, as Mr. 

Wytkind is suggesting, to be able to address those to find out how 

we can allow the passenger rail to go through—because, supposedly, I am going to have a train every 10 minutes going through 

my district—to be able to have a good, solid way of being able to 

accommodate both, but ensuring that we get more people off the 

roads, because that is also an issue of environment, as well as publicly safety. 

Mr. Dodd. 

Mr. DODD. I don’t have anything else to add that the other witnesses haven’t already said. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. Corbett? 

Mr. CORBETT. Congresswoman Napolitano, just broadly I would 

say, regarding Section 209, where I commented about the Operations Advisory Commission, if that is the forum or not and the 

body, but I think bringing in the States, the individual States, particularly in the Northeast, in the aftermath of the breakup of Conrail, a lot of the individual States had also significant investment 

besides the Federal investment that they worked with in cooperation with CSX Norfolk Southern, and I think bringing them to the 

table would also allow to give both some leverage and be able to 

put that in the bigger picture as well as the Federal picture of the 

relationships with the balance between freight and Amtrak. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. And there is a section there that talks to more 

cooperative work with the States. Has there been a problem working with States before and being able to have a good partnership? 

Mr. KUMMANT. I think that really depends generally on the quality of the State DOTs. I would view it more as an opportunity. I 

prefer to look on the positive side of that. You look at the phenomenal work in California with the $2 billion they have put in; 

Illinois; Wisconsin, obviously; New York. We deal with the highly 

competent groups and I think we see skills growing there, and that 

is a positive trend. We also have worked very hard in the last two 

years to reconfigure ourselves to recognize the relationship with 

the States as our future, so we have borne part of that in terms 

of being dysfunctional with having too many contact points, and we 

are in the process of fixing that. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. So the new State grant program should be a 

positive step. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes, I think very positive. Obviously, the FRA 

will play a substantial role in managing and approving capital programs as well, but I think it will be very positive. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

I guess I am a little disappointed to hear the word—used twice— 

cherry-picking. Of course, you pointed out the Northeast Corridor, 

which is the crown jewel in Amtrak’s operation. But I think what 

22 

Mr. Mica—it was actually Mr. Mica’s proposal. I think to attract 

the funding, and Amtrak very well could be part of that deal, 

partnering with people that went to invest and want to provide 

high-speed rail. 

So I guess I understand when you talk about cherry-picking 

when you mention the Northeast Corridor, I disagree. I think that 

there is great opportunity, especially for labor. As I think we pointed out, 21,000 down to 19,000 in the last couple years. We could 

see 20 percent, 30 percent, who knows how many more people we 

could have employed on a real high-speed rail system. So I think 

it is a proposal that we should embrace. 

But when you used the word cherry-picking, you didn’t mention 

that we have specifically in this bill—and this is something I 

worked very hard on with Chairwoman Brown—non-service, re-establishing rail lines. Whether it is the Sunset Limited or places 

around the Country that don’t have rail service. You didn’t mention 

that, which, again, is disappointing. So I would like to get your 

view on that. 

Also, the other thing we had in there was poor performances. 

Let’s find the five worst performers and let’s see if somebody else 

might be able to come in and improve that performance, whether 

it is—it is probably a combination of service and financial performance, to be able to, once again, improve it and get ridership increased and employment increased on those lines. 

So could you talk about those two parts of the proposal, Mr. 

Wytkind and Mr. Dodd? Do you have negative things? 

Mr. WYTKIND. I guess would disagree on one point, which is I 

think it is cherry-picking when you take the most prized asset on 

Amtrak’s system and provide an opportunity for the private sector 

to take advantage of that asset to make a lot of money. The Nation 

is littered with decades of experience of many promises that are 

unfulfilled by the private sector that likes to come in and take over 

or be a partner, if you will, in running or maintaining, or whatever 

the case may be, public assets. So I do think it is an appropriate 

way to describe it. 

I don’t think in my comments or in my testimony I would question the motives of anyone on this Committee that is behind this 

legislation in trying to improve passenger rail in this Country. 

What I think is a big mistake is to take the Northeast Corridor and 

not allow Amtrak, as the entity that runs it and owns it, to provide 

the service you are looking for, instead of trying to find someone 

out there in the private sector who can magically provide it. I just 

don’t agree with the premise. We have a lot of experience in private 

industry—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. I figured we were going to disagree on that, but 

what about the other provisions we had in there about re-establishing service? If Amtrak couldn’t do it, they couldn’t have the performance there, what about re-establishing, having somebody else 

come in, instead of not having that line anymore? What is your 

view on that? 

Mr. WYTKIND. Well, that is a different proposition. If you are 

suggesting that it would be the choice between a private operator 

and perhaps abandoning or not having service altogether, those are 

discussions that States are going to be involved with all the time. 

23 

I think one of the things I point out in the testimony is that in the 

State initiatives, like we have seen in several States across the 

Country, it is important for us to make sure that the employees’ 

interests and concerns are considered, and also that we don’t create 

an unlevel playing field where you have a hodgepodge of operators 

across the Country that do not comply with the railroad statutes 

that apply to the industry today, like, for example, railroad retirement, which you have been a strong supporter of throughout your 

career. And that is happening right now as we speak. As I sit here 

today, there are plenty of operators around the Country that are 

providing service that are not complying with the same railroad 

law requirements that all rail carriers in this Country do. 

So I don’t want to take up and filibuster—as they do in the other 

house—all the time, but there are a lot of very complicated issues 

in this bill. This bill presents a transformation of the rail industry, 

but I do not think we have adequately addressed all the questions 

that this bill poses, which is why we are going to continue to work 

with the Committee to try to answer some of those questions. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Transformation, yes, but going back to the golden 

days of passenger rail when private companies did operate and do 

it very well, and I think the key is getting people to want to ride 

the rails. I believe Amtrak’s ridership is 26 million, or thereabouts. 

In the airlines, they are approaching, I think, 800 million people. 

Railroad is not going to go back to the days—I don’t believe there 

are going to be 800 million people riding passenger rail, but what 

we need to do is get it up to 30 and 35 million. And if we put the 

service in place, like we are talking about the Northeast Corridor 

and some of these other places, we will attract more people. And 

I think at the end of the day that serves everybody, people that 

need to travel and labor. You are going to have more people working and the conditions—we have provisions in there that say they 

are going to be protected if we go forward with this, so—— 

Mr. WYTKIND. Well, we agree with the proposition that you need 

to increase development and rail capacity across the Country, including the Northeast Corridor. I would not agree with the proposition that the private industry did it very well. Amtrak was born 

out of the bankruptcy of private passenger rail service in this 

Country. Our mass transit program in the 1960s was born out of 

bankrupt bus and transit providers in this Country. So we have 

been through one transformation. For us to go back to a private 

model ignores 40 years of history. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, but it doesn’t ignore the air travel, as well 

as the automobile. I mean, that is a big reason why people got off 

the trains; they got into their cars. And now we are having just the 

opposite we want to occur, and we are seeing it in the Northeast 

Corridor. We want people to get out of their cars, and people want 

to get out of their cars and onto the trains. 

Once again, obviously there are different reasons for things to 

occur, but, again, I think this is a great opportunity for us all to 

embrace this and move forward in a positive direction, because I 

think that the future for rail is going to be high-speed and that, 

I believe, is going to be the great salvation, is making sure we have 

the service in place. 

24 

Again, we have to look at a new model to do it, and I think this 

puts forth a model that I think doesn’t necessarily meet 

everybody’s—not even all my—expectations or desires, but I think 

it is a positive move in the right direction. So I would like to continue to talk to labor and work these things out, because I think 

this is a huge step in the right direction. 

I have gone way over my time. We can finish this discussion. I 

would like to talk to Mr. Dodd in private down the road, if we 

could. 

Ms. BROWN. [Presiding] Mr. Sires. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. Kummant, I represent the northern part of New Jersey— 

Newark, Jersey City, that whole area—and there is a lot of talk 

about construction of a new ARC tunnel going into the city, and I 

just wanted to know what impact it is going to have on Amtrak 

and are you going to be able to work with New Jersey Transit 

when this is done. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, we work with New Jersey Transit every 

day, and I think we work with them very well. Our biggest concern 

is the total capacity on a north-south basis through New York. So 

I think a legitimate question to ask is is there going to be a tunnel 

that reaches into Penn Station and allows the total Northeast Corridor capacity to expand, or is it only something for New Jersey 

traffic going into the city. And I think that is something we continue to have fairly strong feelings about and would like to continue a dialog on. We work with New Jersey Transit every day. 

They get great service from us, they are over 90 percent on time 

and we have a good relationship, and I don’t see any reason why 

that would change. 

Mr. SIRES. Because, I mean, New York City is certainly an engine that promotes jobs for the whole region, and we are constantly 

seeing an increase in ridership, so I was just wondering what kind 

of impact you saw that having on Amtrak. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, again, I think the biggest question for Amtrak is actually a north-south capacity, and if there is an overall 

design and structure that precludes any capacity expansion northsouth, I would say that is an issue for the entire region, it is not 

just Amtrak’s issue, and that is something we need to keep talking 

about. 

Mr. SIRES. A.a large part of this Amtrak reauthorization bill provides for Amtrak funding for debt service. Can you explain the reasons for such debt? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Sure. It is a historical artifact of having dropped 

our funding to zero in a number of years and there were sale leaseback deals that were made. Most of the debt is for leases on equipment. And the debt service number that is shown provides us an 

opportunity, on a cost-benefit basis, to be more effective if we buy 

down some of those leases and it really reduces costs in the outyears. So we can continue just paying that off. We have added no 

new debt in five years and we continue working it down. 

Mr. SIRES. So you are actually reducing the debt? 

Mr. KUMMANT. That is correct. We have reduced the—— 

Mr. SIRES. And you haven’t had any debt for the last five years? 

25 

Mr. KUMMANT. That is correct. We have added no new debt and 

we have reduced debt. We could continue running at a $285 million 

debt service clip. The only reason we show some expansion of that 

is that allows us actually to reduce some of the debt in the outyears, which is at fairly high rates and it makes sense to buy it 

down if we have that ability. 

Mr. SIRES. Is that the type of debt you can refinance with the 

low rates now? 

Mr. KUMMANT. It is difficult to say. The collateral and Amtrak’s 

overall financial structure makes debt covenants very complicated, 

so there is no very straight answer to that, it is sort of a deal-bydeal sort of question. Difficult, I would say. 

Mr. SIRES. And I see that you do some outsourcing. How is this 

going? And the reauthorization bill, is that going to impact that at 

all? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, we keep doing the right things and trying 

to make the right decisions for the business. I don’t see that that 

is necessarily going to change. We have a great core of employees 

and, again, if you were to double Amtrak ridership, you would 

probably add 5,000 to 10,000 jobs at Amtrak, and that will continue. So I think we will continue responsibly managing the business. 

Mr. SIRES. Anybody want to comment on the outsourcing, the impact that it may have on the reauthorization bill? 

[No audible response.] 

Mr. SIRES. I guess not. 

Okay, thank you, Madam Chairperson. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

We are going to stand in formal recess. The Chairman has some 

questions and I also have some questions. We only have one vote, 

so as soon as we finish that vote we will reconvene. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. We are going to get started. I know the 

other Members are coming back, but I have questions. A reporter 

stopped me in the hall and asked me about the privatization that 

is in this bill. There is nothing in this bill saying that we have to 

privatize, nothing in this bill saying that Amtrak cannot participate, and, in fact, there is nothing in this bill saying that we will 

move forward unless they come back to Congress. One of the things 

I have learned since being elected 25 years, if all else fails, read 

the bill. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Kummant, the intercity passenger 

rail opportunities that are present along the Southeast Corridor to 

improve connection for people and improve our economy along the 

east coast. Do you want to respond to that? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes, absolutely. I guess I would frame it in the 

context if you just gave me $10 billion or $20 billion and asked 

‘‘what would you do,’’ one of the first things I would look at, actually, is going south, rather than necessarily changing things in the 

north. We obviously want to do all the state of good repair work 

on the Northeast Corridor, but we all know D.C. to Richmond is 

one of the most congested corridors in all modes in the Country. 

That would be a very natural place to put capital in. Then I can 

26 

imagine an electrified system from D.C. down to Atlanta. North 

Carolina has a wonderful rail program and I am sure would embrace that idea. I think of it in stages of D.C. to Richmond, Richmond to Charlotte, Charlotte to Atlanta, but I think that would be 

an enormous opportunity for the whole region and tie these highgrowth population centers, and then we would truly have an Eastern Corridor, not just a Northeast Corridor. So I think that would 

be an enormous opportunity. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. I think there is some money in there for 

a study for what you are discussing. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes, I think that also goes along the lines of the 

continued I-95 improvement program and certainly is something 

we continue looking at. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Recently, my mayor was up here and I 

flew from Washington to New York—we had meetings in New 

York—and he took the train, and he beat me there. And I sat on 

the runway for over two hours, running. This was the shuttle. So 

can you explain to us about the difference in the cost? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Sure. Again, overall, we market pretty competitively, particularly with the Acela product, that it is sort of in the 

range of what you pay for a walk-up ticket on the airlines as well, 

and I think going city center to city center makes a big difference. 

We have an express service today that also gets you center to center in two and a half hours with a stop in Philadelphia. So, again, 

the cost that the passenger sees on Acela , we view that as airlineequivalent. We have about 63 percent market share, I believe, in 

the first quarter, of the air-rail share between New York and D.C. 

The Regional product is certainly a little slower and is also priced 

accordingly. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Okay. You stated at last year’s Amtrak 

capital needs hearing that Amtrak’s current trip time of two hours 

and 45 minutes could be reduced to two hours and 20 minutes with 

approximately $7 billion of improvements. How would Amtrak’s air 

market share improve as a result of this investment? Do the benefits match the investment in this scenario? 

Mr. KUMMANT. We would probably qualitatively say not. Again, 

that is the big Baltimore Tunnel and all the other tunnel issues, 

and taking some of the sharper curvature out of that right-of-way. 

That is a difficult question to answer. There hasn’t been a detailed 

market share study done, but, as I say, we do put an express service on where we are essentially learning more about that market. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. You stated in your testimony that U.S. 

Air canceled its service between La Guardia and Harrisburg because it could not compete with Amtrak. Very good. What do you 

equate this to? How do you evaluate this? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes, we looked again at the city center to city 

center opportunity, and even though you go through Philadelphia, 

the connectivity was good enough that passengers just liked the 

service, they liked the speed, the 110 miles an hour was fast 

enough to make a difference, an the connection up the Northeast 

Corridor really worked for them, so it has just been convenient. 

There is also a tipping point, as we have talked about before, on 

frequency, the same sort of thing we see on the Hiawathas. When 

you get to a certain frequency, you really have ridership take off 

27 

because they no longer have to just peg their schedules to one or 

two trains in a day. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Secretary, we put—I think it is— 

about $50 million for the 80-20 share. It is important to encourage 

States to make passenger rail investment. Why is this cost sharing 

important? 

And, Mr. Kummant, could you answer that also? Would you care 

to respond? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the State of 

Wisconsin, it is going to be critical because we are looking at expanding our service from Milwaukee to Madison. The State legislature, along with the Governor, has given us about $85 million in 

bonding authority for our match, so it is important that we get the 

federal investment. 

And that is what I keep calling all of this, I call it investment. 

It is not like we are putting money someplace where we are not 

going to get something back for it; we are going to get some real 

public good out of the dollars that we are investing here. So that 

is why this bill is so important. 

There are still going to be highways, Madam Chair. I mean, we 

know that. And being a DOT Secretary, I have all kinds of work 

that we need to do. But we need to provide these modal options to 

the American public. The American public wants passenger rail, 

and I believe, as we get into this integrated system across the nation, more and more people will ride these trains. Then we’ll need 

more expansion. So that is why I believe this bill is so important. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

Mr. KUMMANT. All I would add is equipment as well as infrastructure. These dollars can buy equipment for the States, and that 

is so critical. In the past, when Amtrak had a lot of equipment in 

storage, we could get corridors started up, add a little incremental 

cost and say, hey, why don’t you use this equipment for a while. 

We no longer have that option, so it is critical in order to procure 

equipment to get these going. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Kummant, where is the equipment 

now? For example, on your train from Virginia to Sanford, you run, 

I don’t know, but it is about 500 people a day each way, so it is 

about 1,000 people. It is filled the entire time. Why can’t we add 

more services? 

Mr. KUMMANT. We are basically out of equipment. We have some 

opportunity. We have some—they are called Amfleets that we have 

slated to refurbish, but we are talking about maybe 10 or 12 more 

cars that we can put into service on the Northeast Corridor. But 

we really don’t have any equipment except for a few stray cars that 

are in wreck repair status, but we really are basically out of equipment. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. So if you had more cars, you could provide more service? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Madam Chair? 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. This is also a concern that the States for Passenger Rail Coalition. Equipment is a big issue, and as people are 

migrating to trains, everybody wants to know what is the tipping 

28 

point that is going to get people out of their cars. I think we are 

seeing that that is happening. But we are not ready. Amtrak is not 

ready. I mean, to get equipment, to procure equipment is going to 

take some time. We need to move quickly on this bill. 

I know it is difficult because we have a process that we have to 

go through, but when the American public starts moving to 

trains—and they are, and they are going to be moving to this in 

greater numbers very, very quickly—they are going to ask the 

question, well, why isn’t the nation doing more of this. And that 

is really the concern that the Coalition has and that I have in our 

State. We need to somehow get this equipment ordered and get it 

on time. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

Mr. Oberstar. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Brown first. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Oh, I am sorry. Mr. Brown. 

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

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming. My district is coast area of 

South Carolina, which includes Myrtle Beach and Charleston, and 

we have a tremendous amount of influx; over 14 million visitors a 

year coming into that region, and we don’t have any real rail service other than the Charleston. Myrtle Beach doesn’t have any rail 

service attached at all. So it is a big concern of mine, and I want 

to follow up on that. 

But my first question, Mr. Corbett, your company was instrumental in helping build some roads in Myrtle Beach, which has 

helped with the congestion problem some, and I just wanted to give 

you credit for that. It was a design-build and on-time and below 

budget, and so with that in mind, as we work towards developing 

a high-speed rail corridor here in the United States, how should we 

structure development of these projects? What would be your 

thought? 

Mr. CORBETT. Well, thank you for that and, of course, I am here 

as part of the Business Alliance, but looking at Amtrak, I think we 

have touched on, in my testimony, about the importance of transitoriented development for all the right reasons when we look at corridors in a belief to capitalize on that. I think there are a lot of 

very interesting items in here. I know Congressman Shuster was 

talking earlier, before the break, about where the possibilities are 

for P-3s, public-private partnerships on that. In certain areas you 

can see where capturing the value of the real estate to help with 

some of that funding from a State or local perspective ties in. 

But I think sort of a new initiative is when we look at the core 

of the funding for this bill for Amtrak, what would be of concern 

is that those initiatives do not become a distraction from the importance of getting the core funding for Amtrak as shareholders, public or private, as an entity. Whoever owns the shares of Amtrak, 

it is common sense that you make being on time, on budget, that 

you invest in your assets, regardless of what you are going to do 

with them down the line. And I think—not to praise Alex, because 

he is here, but if you look, I think, from the business community, 

Amtrak as a partner, the credibility that David Gunn, and now 

Alex has continued, about that money being wisely spent and also 

working cooperatively, as Alex touched on with New York, working 

29 

as a partner on a number of areas, Amtrak has certainly, from the 

business community’s viewpoint, really made a remarkable turnaround and it has certainly been seen as a sustained turnaround 

under Alex’s leadership. 

But, Congressman Brown, I think there are a number of opportunities that capitalize on corridors and transit-oriented development, 

and being able to bring in the private sector, where appropriate, 

you can be on time and on budget with public in those cases. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BROWN OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Okay, thank you. 

The next question is for Mr. Kummant. I know that you have a 

tremendous responsibility in moving passengers around, but I don’t 

know whether you are privy to the current high-speed rail corridor 

that was last amended about 1998. I am not sure what form it was 

used to address the needs of the growing population or the shifting 

population or even tourism. In the movement of passengers now, 

do you see the biggest, I guess, customer, are they tourists or business travelers, or what mix do you see, and how do you make your 

determination what routes should be established based on either 

one of those criteria? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I think we look at the same maps, and I 

think if you look at the demographic growth, the megaregions— 

Phoenix, Tucson, L.A., Bay Area, Pacific Northwest, Chicago, the 

macro Chicago area, Dallas, Ft. Worth, obviously Florida in the 

Southeast, and then the whole Northeast—it is major corridors between those regions that we have to concentrate on, and it is not 

too different a mix from what airlines see today. A lot of it is business travel. I don’t have the breakdown at my fingertips, but we 

have a pretty detailed breakdown of what those are. So I think we 

look more at the longer-term demographics. 

Then there is also the question—and this is always the debate 

that involves pragmatic decision-making, which is what is doable. 

Where is there existing capacity? Where is there rail? Where is 

there a willing partner? What can you get done? Because you can 

have a remarkable need and opportunity, but huge hurdles to get 

there, while you can have something that is maybe number two on 

the list that is very doable. So we always have to make choices 

about what is doable. 

Mr. BROWN OF SOUTH CAROLINA. I am not sure whether it is just 

because they don’t have an option, but in Myrtle Beach, with those 

14 million tourists coming a year, 92 percent come by automobile, 

and I don’t know how many would translate to high-speed rail if 

that was available. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I would have to stare at a rail map, but I 

believe you end up being constrained with where the rails run 

there. You have rails that run inland and then major sort of rail 

corridor that is farther inland. I would have to verify that to look 

at it. But, again, we have robust programs in the States there and 

that is all about the relationship with the State DOTs. They really 

need to push that and they need to get their balanced view of the 

State’s transportation needs. 

Mr. BROWN OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Thank you. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Oberstar? 

30 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, I want to thank this panel for their contributions and, again, Madam Chair, thank you for your persistence on the subject of Amtrak; Mr. Shuster as well for the cooperation that we have had in negotiations that we entered into and the 

agreement that we reached that resulted in the introduced bill. 

We have an extraordinary opportunity to move ahead with the 

kind of sustained funding—Mr. Corbett suggested in his testimony 

multi-year funding that will sustain Amtrak, multi-year funding 

that Railroad Brotherhoods have asked for for year after year instead of the year-to-year, hand-to-mouth, just squeak Amtrak over 

the top of a billion dollars so we can keep it on life support for yet 

another year. We have here the potential for really sustained investment in track and rolling stock, in stations, in the upgrading 

and modernization of the entire Amtrak network. 

And I know that there are some differing views that were very 

clearly expressed in the testimony, but let me begin, Mr. 

Kummant. Questions have been raised will there be enough capacity in the United States for production of rail passenger cars to 

meet the increased demand when we get this—and I am not saying 

if, I am saying when we get—funding in place. I know that there 

is currently production capacity for about 100,000 freight rail cars 

a year in the United States. I also know passenger rail car production declined because we weren’t investing in that mode. But with 

the potential here, do you see the ability of the production sector, 

the rail car manufacturing sector to meet increased needs? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I think it is all a question of time. I think 

if a bill like this passed, I think it would get everyone’s attention 

and you would probably also have foreign entities looking for assembly sites here if we had a structure that allowed that. From a 

standing start right now, no, we don’t have that much capacity, but 

I am certainly confident. You talk about stimulative effect. I think 

a bill like this would certainly drive people to look at that. It would 

take some time, but—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. In the transit sector we saw production of transit 

vehicles, bus and rail, move offshore. Allied Signal was about the 

only thing left in the mid-1980s. But now that has been repatriated 

to the United States. 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I am really originally a manufacturing guy. 

Where the dollar is, the U.S. is a very attractive manufacturing 

site. So if the demand is there, I think the capability and the capacity will come. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Do we have to stick with the much heavier passenger rail cars, compared to, say, Talgo and to TGV or even 

Shinkansen? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I don’t want to get into trouble with my 

friends at the FRA. Let’s just say that there is room for discussion 

there, I think. I think some of those folks have some very advanced 

energy management approaches to crash test worthiness and I 

think we do need to look at some of the static requirements that 

have been put on this. 

I think we all acknowledge that some of the difficulties with 

Acela resulted in the increase in mass in those structures. So let’s 

just say that I think we need to look at that and I think there is 

some opportunity. After all, the more we can buy off the shelf or 

31 

minimally modify the core structure, the more cost-effective it will 

be. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Is there also the consequence of operating on 

freight rail track that requires heavier passenger cars because of 

potential for conflict with—— 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, that is the argument, but then if you imagine—and you hate to talk about these things, but collisions between transits or commuters and intercity rail, then suddenly you 

have a different equation if you have beefed up one and not the 

other. I would much rather put my money into collision avoidance 

and advanced technology on collision avoidance than necessarily 

continue adding mass to rolling stock. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is a very constructive comment. I appreciate 

that. That is what we have done in aviation as well, collision avoidance. 

Commissioner Busalacchi, your testimony is so refreshing. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Thank you. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Just so uplifting to see this advocacy and to have 

your specifics on what the State of Wisconsin has done on its own 

and in cooperation with the State of Illinois. Could we move you 

a little bit west, take over Minnesota? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. We want to do that, Mr. Chairman. I mean, obviously, extending to Madison is critical, but also equally critical is 

going from Madison to Minneapolis. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. We do have a new Commissioner of Transportation in Minnesota—— 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. I know that. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Let me rephrase that. We have a Commissioner 

of Transportation in Minnesota—we haven’t had one in a long 

time—and I think we will begin the process of professionalizing our 

commitment and investment, and hopefully a partnership with 

Wisconsin and Illinois and other States—Iowa—who are anxious to 

join in the Midwest rail initiative. 

You cited a concentration of corridors of 500 miles or less. What 

was the reason behind the 500 miles? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. As you probably know, Mr. Chairman, USDOT 

has limited data on passenger rail. They could tell you every inch 

of concrete that has been poured and asphalt, but when it came to 

having data on passenger rail, they had much less. So we formed 

the passenger rail working group, and the working group, we came 

up with this plan in these 500 mile corridors. It is an integrated 

system, in populated areas, because our feeling is that once the 

passenger rail service system is running, and we get it up and running quickly, that it is going to expand throughout the whole Country. 

The map that was in the report was illustrative. Each State is 

going to be responsible for their own corridors. But in the past few 

weeks I spent time in several different states. States really want 

to implement this plan in these populated corridors. Across the 

State of Ohio it would be huge connecting the number of cities that 

they have. That is why this legislation, Mr. Chairman, is so important. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. What is the significance of the 500 miles? Is that 

in consideration of competition with air service? 

32 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Hub and spoke air service, where you can serve 

routes of 500 miles or less? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Absolutely. Absolutely. That is really the reason for it. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. In what time frame? What time do you anticipate? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Well, we would like to implement this as soon 

as possible. Obviously, it is going to—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. But I mean the travel time from point to point. 

If you have, say, quad cities to Chicago now takes on the order of 

five or six hours. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Six hours at least by car. We would like to 

shrink that down to three, four hours if we can. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. And if you do that by passenger rail, then do you 

attract people from other modes, from getting out of their car? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Oh, absolutely. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Not taking airplanes? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Kummant, is that your experience as well? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes. For example, the Hiawatha Corridor, is 86 

miles, and there we have seen dramatic shift in its frequency, and, 

of course, the Northeast Corridor here. You look at the typical transit time New York to D.C. today is two hours and 45 minutes, two 

hours and 50 minutes. That kind of gives you a sense of that. 

I think, also, if you think in terms, in my view, of even what 100 

to 110 miles an hour can do, you are talking about 500 miles in 

less than five hours. And I think if you think of sort of your normal 

airport experience, an hour at each end, an hour in transit, plus 

some time, you are talking about three or four plus hours not city 

center to city center. So I think a four to five hour chunk of time 

is kind of a natural break, which leads you to the 400 to 500 mile 

as the outside. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Mr. Chairman, the corridor from Minneapolis 

down to Madison and down to Milwaukee, through Chicago, is totally congested. You know that. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. This rail program would dramatically reduce 

that congestion. Dramatically for automobiles. And it would also 

compete very strongly with the regional airlines. So this corridor in 

particular would be critical to what we are talking about with this 

integrated system. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. You also reference in your testimony that service, 

and I just recall the Milwaukee 400, Milwaukee Railroad that I 

took as a graduate from St. Thomas College en route to Europe for 

studies on a scholarship I won in 1956, and I traveled by train to 

the east coast. This was obviously before the era of air service. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Sure. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. And it was the Milwaukee 400, 400 miles in 400 

minutes. That is six hours and 40 minutes. Well, that 400 miles 

in Europe takes about two hours or so. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Correct, especially in France and Spain. I have 

been there; you have been there. We have seen it. 

33 

Mr. OBERSTAR. So if you can cut an hour plus out of that time, 

you will clearly attract passengers from air service between the 

Twin Cities and Chicago. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. No question about it, Mr. Chairman. No question about it. Again, if we look around the Country and we look at 

these corridors, these trains are packed, whether it is California or 

the Carolinas, our corridor, and it is because of this setting this 

system that we are talking about setting up. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Did the Commission consider any further depth 

or is there any other entity that has considered the type of service, 

that is, maybe a non-stop morning and evening service and then 

with more frequencies in the course of the day? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Well, I think that would be up to the respective 

States. I know I have been talking to Amtrak for a couple of years 

now about going to hourly service because we are so successful. I 

think the various corridors can do what they want to do. Amtrak 

has been very good about it. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, in an hour and a half we are going to have 

a hearing on a proposed airline merger, and if that thing should 

happen,—which I am doing my best to make sure it doesn’t happen—we will need Amtrak, because that hub in Minneapolis will 

be so quickly devalued that we will need Amtrak service from 

Union Station, St. Paul to Union Station, Chicago. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. I agree. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Our new hub for air service. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. I agree. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Wytkind, you spelled out some very troubling 

scenarios in your reference to British Rail and concerns that you 

have with privatization provisions in our pending bill. What specific recommendations—and your recitation of the experience with 

British Rail was right on track. I remember our previous Chairman, Mr. Shuster, and I traveled to the U.K., among other stops, 

in December of 2000, had a meeting with Members of the British 

Parliament committee on transportation and the Minister of Transportation, and they had, just a day before we arrived, voted 600 

million pound bailout for British Rail, and it was going to the owners of the track. And we asked why would you do that, and they 

said, well, because if we don’t bail them out, they will walk away 

and there will be this enormous mess we won’t be able to resolve. 

We have to keep them on life support for a while. 

So you raise very serious questions about the ability of the private sector or privatized entities to operate intercity passenger rail 

profitably. You reference Section 502 of our bill. What specific recommendations do you have for adjustments to our language? 

Mr. WYTKIND. Well, first of all, we stated, I think pretty clearly, 

that our view is that it makes no sense to pursue an RFP on the 

Northeast Corridor because we do believe it is a bit of a path to 

having a debate up here to privatize Amtrak, or parts of it. You 

have been the leader on opposing air traffic control privatization 

for a number of similar, but I understand different, reasons in 

terms of the public policy debate. You and I have seen for years 

the impact that privatization has had in the mass transit industry, 

where you have these big promises that are never delivered upon, 

and Amalgamated Transit Union, the largest mass transit union in 

34 

the Country, has seen many examples of under-promising and then 

having to basically help bail out the system because it didn’t quite 

work out the way it was intended. 

I think the pure answer to your question would be to remove the 

provision from the bill. The other alternative would be to make it 

very clear in this legislation that this is really nothing more than 

studying the possibility of having an RFP on the Northeast Corridor or elsewhere in the Country and then making it very clear 

in the bill that Congress is going to have to legislate again. I understand the Chairwoman’s comment earlier, but I think it is important to make it very clear that once the Department of Transportation completes its work, that the work is completed and that 

it is going to be the will of Congress to decide what it does with 

the RFP. I understand that is the intent of the bill; however, it 

doesn’t exactly say that and we think it should. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I think it is important, at this juncture, as we are 

trying to move in a very different direction for Amtrak, that we 

give these privatization proposals an opportunity to be heard, to be 

evaluated in the public sector, either purely privatized proposition 

or a public-private proposal, and evaluate them and give them an 

opportunity to show what they can offer to the public. 

I think that is an essential part of the debate of the future of 

intercity passenger rail. We want this to be a fully bipartisan initiative—I would hope, in a sense, nonpartisan—and I think we 

need to have that element as a part of the process as we go forward. So I take seriously your concerns and we are at the beginning of the process here and we will move forward with those in 

mind. 

Mr. WYTKIND. If I could, Mr. Chairman, I think I have been here 

in Washington representing transportation workers for almost 18 

years and there, frankly, isn’t a Member of the House of Representatives who has listened to the views of employees in this industry 

more than you have, and I have every confidence that, as we move 

forward with this debate, that the interest, the rights, the jobs, etc. 

of the workers at Amtrak and across the transportation industry 

will be not only a concern of yours, but that you will champion 

their interests as we go forward. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. 

Mr. Dodd, I take seriously your concern about—well, let me just 

use your words. We cannot imagine any practical way to separate 

the two hour service from the other intercity commuter and freight 

operations on the corridor. In your view, from your experience as 

you said, starting as a trackman yourself in 1977—you don’t look 

old enough to have started in 1977, but, at any rate, you have had 

your feet on the ground and probably as a gandy dancer. So what 

specifically do you see as impediments in that mix of service that 

you cite in your last page of your testimony. 

Mr. DODD. I realize the proposed legislation doesn’t specifically 

say take an RFP to run privatized train service on the corridor, 

but, as a practical matter, the Northeast Corridor between New 

York and Washington, D.C. is the only place to do it. It is a heavily 

congested area; the population centers are there; major rivers; 

major infrastructure problems. So any proposal would quite naturally have to take into account running some sort of privatization 

35 

scheme on the Northeast Corridor as a practical matter, and we 

view that as a serious public policy problem and a problem that all 

historical experience has indicated will result in the worst service 

and less bang for the public dollar. 

I think Amtrak has demonstrated the best ability to operate 

intercity passenger rail trains on the corridor in terms of the ability to recover money from the fare box and the wise use of the taxpayer’s dollar, and I think these types of schemes literally result 

in expenditure of Federal funds, threats to worker’s safety and 

worker employment security and working conditions, and eventually the diluting of that asset by the privateer and dumping it back 

on the Government to start all over again; and we would recommend that you drop this provision. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. All right. 

Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I hear you. Thank you. 

Mr. Corbett, what elements have to be present for a purely 

privatized operation to be successful financially or what would be 

the elements of a public-private venture to be successful? 

Mr. CORBETT. I would think, starting from a macro level, we 

were involved globally in a number of infrastructure projects, either public, private, or public-private partnerships. I think in the 

transportation side, where we look at, say, port privatization overseas and you see ports here, if we look at aviation and what has 

been done, and then looking at rail, I think if you look at some of 

the possibilities in the bills, as you commented, I look at our percentage of GDP in the Nation, what goes to infrastructure. 

Lord knows we need as much investment, both public and private, to catch up with what Europe, much less what India and 

China are doing. I think when you get down to the rail portion, 

though, the idea sometimes you can throw something against the 

wall and see what happens, and we have seen certain 

privatizations that are not particularly well structured—not on the 

rail side, really, because there hasn’t been much—and the consequence of that can be pretty unfortunate. 

I think when you are talking about serious bidders in infrastructure, the due diligence efforts that they have to put in—financial, 

environmental, legal, labor—if you want a serious bidder, they 

want to have very clear parameters of what they are bidding on, 

a lot of due diligence, even geotechnical. It gets very extensive and 

very costly, so I think to look at people who want—if you want 

quality bidders coming in, I think you have to look at the experience, what kind of due diligence would be, and I would—for the 

Northeast Corridor I think it is very hard to imagine that is the 

plum that would be—that process would be so deep and cumbersome. As I think I mentioned earlier, I would be very concerned 

that that may lead people to defer the core investment in this valuable asset. 

Putting out more of a greenfield kind of proposal or some other 

kind of—I think, Chairman Oberstar, you know, I remember, with 

the aviation pre-9/11, I think there were five pilot projects for commercial airports in privatization and that was sort of to test the 

waters. Of course, 9/11 changed that. New York Stewart Airport 

was one of the first with National Express Group, at the time a 

36 

credible bidder, but then, of course, they decided to get out of the 

aviation business and concentrate on the bus business, and that 

left a hole as a private sector participant there. 

So there are a lot of those kind of issues that I think you have 

to be very cautious and make sure that a structure will be able to 

take those kind of contingencies into effect. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. What effect would the cost or does the cost of capital have on the considerations that have to go into a privatization 

scheme? 

Mr. CORBETT. I am not the financial guru in our shop, but I 

would say certainly when you look at the cost of—which is an interesting component that the business alliance support, is for taxexempt bonding or the credit bonding, I think that levels the playing field to a certain degree. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. But without tax credit or tax exempt bonding, 

can such a privatization initiative be financially successful in, say, 

the Northeast Corridor? 

Mr. CORBETT. I think you would have to do a financial sensitivity 

analysis at what point. But if you add that additional cost, private 

sector companies are in this to make money. There are times they 

can add certain efficiency, but if you take the higher cost of capital 

and put that all into analysis, what kind of fares they would have 

to charge to get back without—that is an incremental cost that 

would go above it if it is not tax-exempt, yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, those are the kinds of considerations that 

we anticipate the Inspector General to make as directed by the legislation to evaluate the lowest performing routes of Amtrak and 

make recommendations to the Secretary about the investment. 

I just want to say to my colleagues on the Committee that I 

talked with Chairman Rangel, Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, about the tax credit bond provision, and we had done in 

previous legislation we moved in Ride-21 and then considered by 

the then Ways and Means Committee the substance of the bill was 

stripped out and nothing was left. Mr. Rangel is willing to consider—very supportive of a tax credit bond provision of the magnitude we are talking, but he said that his staff has consulted with 

CBO, Congressional Budget Office, and OMB, and they require an 

offset of at least $4 billion. That is something that our two Committees are going to have to work on, and it is not likely something 

we can add as an integral part of the Amtrak authorization bill, 

but as a separate piece of legislation hopefully—well, I would anticipate in the balance of this Congress in the context of another 

tax bill. 

Not the kind of news that I was hoping for, but we have tied ourselves into knots about paying for things and this is going to be a 

pay-for and we have to find the offsets. 

I thank the panel. Am grateful for your contributions and yield 

back the balance of my time. 

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

We have a couple more questions. 

Mr. Wytkind, you stated in your testimony that some segments 

of the transportation networks are best left to the public sector. 

Please explain what you mean. I guess this is what we have been 

talking about. 

37 

Mr. WYTKIND. Well, I believe that providing a national rail transportation system for this Country through Amtrak is largely a public enterprise that needs to balance the economic interests of those 

investing the money and the public interest, which includes the interest of riders, the interest of the public around rail transportation 

facilities and the communities through which they travel. I think 

the same debate we have had over maintaining the inherently governmental functions of our air traffic control system, maintaining 

a strong public transportation system that understands that the 

system has some cross-subsidization in it which focuses on making 

sure all communities get the service they deserve, as opposed to 

just allowing private interest to choose where service will be provided, which, of course, would maximize their investments and 

hopefully reach some sort of profitability. 

I just think that we have to understand the history of this Country since we began with the national interstate highway system. It 

has always been largely a public system. I understand that the private sector has an important role to play in our transportation industry, and I said that in my testimony, including the work that 

contractors do in our highway industry and the use of other private 

sector participants in aviation and elsewhere, but I believe, as a 

general proposition, providing a national passenger train service to 

this Country is basically a public service and it ought to be kept 

in the public sector because of all the complications and all the 

other motives that get interjected into a debate about whether or 

not Wall Street or anyone else in the private sector should be involved in financing these kinds of operations because, as I said in 

my testimony, it sounds real good when you bring a lot of money 

and put it on the table, but when the promises are not delivered, 

when the system fails, like we saw in Great Britain, oftentimes the 

taxpayer is saddled with the bailout, as Mr. Oberstar said earlier, 

as we saw in Great Britain. So I just inject great caution into this 

Committee’s deliberation on how you proceed with this legislation. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Well, when we had a hearing, the European Union came and testified. They finally got their system on 

track and it is moving. The French had been there for a long time, 

but finally the other part, the English part, is moving forward. So 

we really need to make that kind of financial investment into our 

system. 

Mr. WYTKIND. Oh, I do not quarrel with that. I agree wholeheartedly with you that we have to find a way to increase investment across our entire transportation industry. But I know from 

reading media accounts in Great Britain that politicians from all 

sides of the aisle were fumbling all over themselves trying to see 

who could be more against the Great Britain privatization experiment. So I think it is fairly clear that that experiment wasn’t just 

an experiment; it was a debacle, and I, frankly, am worried that 

we are going to repeat that in the United States if we proceed with 

this kind of privatization. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Well, with your support, I am sure we 

will be very cautious as we move forward. In your testimony, Amtrak must retain good employees and often pay Amtrak an attractive place to work and the Amtrak employees. I have to tell you, 

38 

Mr. Kummant, they are first-class. I mean, we have a wonderful 

workforce, but what do you think of the new labor contracts now? 

Mr. WYTKIND. Well, I would defer to Mr. Dodd, who actually was 

involved in that bargaining, but these agreements present an historic opportunity to move this company and its employees forward. 

But that is only if the company is allowed to—excuse me, is given 

the investment, the resources it needs to pay its obligation to employees. I have testified more than a dozen times up in this Committee on Amtrak, and I have seen, one time after another, that 

every year the employees are unfortunately an afterthought because ‘‘we can’t afford wage increase,’’ and that went on for eight 

years. 

We now have historic agreements. You now have, hopefully, a 

historic funding bill that will become law. Hopefully, the appropriators will work with the authorizers to actually fund the entire program. And it is my sincere hope that Amtrak will begin to, as it 

goes forward, to budget accordingly to deal with this employee cost, 

and not ask employees to go years and years at a time without 

wage increases we saw for almost an entire decade. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Dodd? 

Mr. DODD. It is a complex question, but, yes, what do we think 

of the current agreement? Obviously, taking eight years to resolve 

it is inexcusable, and that created a great deal of harm to the 

workers and their families. The agreements themselves I think we 

can characterize as what Amtrak workers could justly say they 

were entitled to receive, because they were patterned after the 

freight agreements, which has patterned the Amtrak agreements 

since Amtrak began. But the problem with the freight agreement 

is, if you were making $1.00 an hour when those agreements 

began, in 1999, if you subtract inflation, health care, cost sharing, 

and increase in prescription drugs and whatnot that the current 

contracts provide, you are still making $1.00 an hour eight years 

later, and even though your own productivity has substantially increased. So those agreements are not a true reflection of the value 

that the workers have produced, although they are a reflection of 

what was available to us to negotiate at the time and what we 

were entitled to receive. 

I hope that is an answer to your question. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Has anyone received any of the checks 

yet? When I spoke with them Monday, they had not. 

Mr. DODD. Yes, they have. They have received 40 percent of the 

back pay and the wage increases have gone into effect and there 

is an additional 60 percent that is oweable a year from March 19th 

or March 10th. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. So as of today they have received 

checks? 

Mr. DODD. Yes, they have. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Okay. 

Mr. DODD. And we appreciate that every much. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Okay. Well, let me just point out that 

hopefully, as we move forward, we will move forward together. I 

mean, we have had a problem in that we had a budget that zeroed 

out all of Amtrak. 

Mr. DODD. Yes. 

39 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Shut it down. So all we could do was 

try to hold on until we could move forward, and I hope we keep 

that in mind as we—this is not a political statement, but as we 

move forward, we need to make sure that the Members of Congress 

and candidates all support. 

Mr. DODD. We consider you and Chairman Oberstar to be great 

friends of the Amtrak worker, and we really appreciate the support 

and the solidarity you showed with us through that very difficult 

period. 

Mr. WYTKIND. Madam Chair, one other point that needs to be 

made, if I might, is the 60 percent that is left to pay isn’t due until 

the spring of 2009. However, we have been pushing very hard to 

make sure that that obligation is adequately funded in appropriations going forward. This authorization, if and when it becomes 

law, will still require an appropriation in the next fiscal year, and 

that pay day comes due in spring of 2009, and I am hoping Congress satisfies that obligation as quickly as possible so that we do 

not have the situation that, come spring of 2009, as you know, 

under those collective bargaining agreements, the right to self-help 

is restored for both the employees and management. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Mr. Kummant, you want to respond to 

that? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Oh, I don’t have any disagreement with that. In 

fact, at the end of this year, anything we can find to apply toward 

that, we will. Right now, basically, our increased ridership and the 

revenue we are generating for that is basically paying for fuel. A 

year ago we spent $123 million in diesel; this year we may end up 

spending about 215. But there may be 20, $25 million in cash that 

we can apply to that. I know there are some opportunities with efficiency grant money, if that can be basically re-legislated. So there 

is some of that that I think can be found, but there is still a pretty 

good chunk that is certainly an issue. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. 

Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. I see the Chairman has left. I just 

wanted to thank him again and commend him for putting some of 

these provisions in here, the RFP and the non-service and the poor 

performing lines take a different look at it. I think he points out 

the importance of allowing it to play out, allowing the RFP, which, 

Mr. Corbett, you brought about talking about the financials, the 

funding levels, things like that. That is what the RFP, I believe, 

does, it will flush all that out. Companies will look and they will 

put the numbers down, real numbers, if they are interested in 

making the investment or in getting involved. So I think that is an 

important reason to have the RFP in there. Let us take a look at 

it and either say, oh, it makes sense or maybe it doesn’t. But I 

think that is the importance of putting these types of provisions in 

this bill. 

Also, I would like to point out we have 100 years of experience 

in passenger rail service which was a success, and it was done by 

private companies up until the 1950s, if I am not mistaken, or 

thereabouts. That is when passenger rail started to lose money, so 

100 years experience versus 27 years of experience of under-fundVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
40 

ing it and the Government trying to operate this. So from the experience we have, I think that it is at least worth taking a look at. 

I would like to question Mr. Secretary, on the high-speed rail initiative, nationwide, what do you figure the cost of that is going to 

be? And then also specifically on the Midwest high-speed rail, 

which I would imagine you have even deeper knowledge of. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Well, I think you have to differentiate. A lot of 

times, in this Country, when we talk about high-speed rail, we look 

over to Europe and we see what is going on in Spain and France 

and things like that, 200, 250 miles an hour; and I really don’t 

think that is what we are talking about in this Country. I mean, 

in this Country, at least the way I look at it, I think we need to 

get out of the gate here, and if we can get 110 mile an hour service 

and move in these corridors, I think that is really where we need 

to go. That is why I am always so very cautious when we start 

talking about high-speed versus what we are doing now. Highspeed rail, based on what they are doing in Europe, costs about $30 

million a mile, maybe even more. I think the type of rail improvement that we are talking about here would be about $1 million to 

$1.5 million a mile. So that is the difference, and that is why sometimes, Mr. Shuster, I really get concerned when we talk about 

high-speed versus this integrated system that we are talking about. 

I believe very strongly that we need an integrated system first. 

California has got a great plan for really authentic high-speed rail. 

I think Florida does as well. But I think, for now, what we need 

to focus on with the kinds of dollars that we are talking about is 

getting this integrated system across the Country going. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And I agree with you when I talk about highspeed. The Keystone Corridor, which runs from Harrisburg to 

Philadelphia, I have used it. In fact, I don’t drive to Philadelphia. 

I live in the western part of the State. When I go to Philadelphia, 

I drive to Harrisburg, get on the train and take the train downtown, because it is so much easier and I am more productive. I 

think probably you are right, that should be the model. In fact, this 

weekend I am going to Philadelphia, so I will take the train to 

Philadelphia, then the train back to Harrisburg, and then drive my 

car, because in my part of Pennsylvania I don’t have many options 

besides the automobile. 

And I think, talking about that, Mr. Kummant, can you talk a 

little bit about—because I think that is really a model for what we 

need to do around the Country. 

Mr. KUMMANT. That is right, and I think we can also do that in 

non-electrified systems to start with, because the electrification can 

be so expensive. We have talked about Detroit to Chicago. I think 

St. Louis to Chicago is also a wonderful example of a rail bed that 

is set up really well where we could do that. 

I also want to point out that if you look at the German population overall, in all the passenger ridership in passenger rail, only 

about 20 percent of that population is riding on high-speed. There 

is still a whole base population who, in their daily lives, travel at 

conventional speeds. And I would argue there is an awful lot, obviously, we can do there. 

And, again, we mentioned southbound from D.C. I think are 

large opportunities where probably electrification would start makVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
41 

ing sense earlier on because of the connection with the Northeast 

Corridor and the population density. So there is a lot of opportunity out there. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And we had a discussion the other day, 20 percent 

increase or 19 percent increase in ridership in the Keystone Corridor? 

Mr. KUMMANT. That is right, annual riders. And, again, there 

you see both the speed and the frequency, the same sort of tipping 

point we have seen on the Hiawathas with more frequency. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And the only way to make the frequency affordable 

is ridership. 

Mr. KUMMANT. That is right. I mean, it is kind of a flywheel that 

has to start spinning. You have to lay the bet, in a sense, put the 

frequency out there. But every time we have done that—you see it 

in the California Capitol Corridor as well—you really see the ridership pick up. 

Mr. SHUSTER. What do you anticipate the ridership, has it 

peaked? I mean, I imagine the increase is going to continue, but 

that 20 percent jump, are you going to see 20 percent every couple 

years? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, I think we will see it stabilizing a little bit, 

but I still think it will be I double digits for a while. What we see 

in the Northeast Corridor right now, our Acela product is nearing 

sold-out conditions, so we will start seeing year-over-year single 

digit increases there only because we don’t have more seats. But 

we will continue seeing, I believe, double digits in the Regional 

product. 

Mr. SHUSTER. How about employment on that line? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Yes, that will depend on if we can find somewhere to drive frequency. So I think until we start driving frequency in other corridors and new corridors, that is what really 

will drive employment. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. In closing, I participated in the National 

Train Day and I am encouraging other Members to continue 

throughout the year this spring to do likewise. And I understand 

we had something like 60 activities throughout the system, and I 

rode the train from Jacksonville to Deland through Palatka, and I 

also did the Auto Train yesterday. There were 500 people there and 

500 people coming in, and I talked with the town about doing more 

as far as they have been doing this in Sanford for 25 years, so it 

is really an economic development tool if they take advantage of it. 

In some of the places we went through, like Palatka, they don’t 

have an agent there. We cut down a great deal, and those stations, 

have we looked at—and not for you to answer now, unless you 

want to make some comments—what do we need to do to beef up 

those individual stations? Because I think we could have more ridership when you actually have a person physically there. It is a 

beautiful station, and the train stops and you jump on. It would be 

much better if we had at least an attendant there. And I think this 

is true throughout the system, because we have had to dumb-down 

so much the system. 

Mr. KUMMANT. In the end, it is all about operating dollars and 

capital dollars. One of the agonizing capital decisions we always 

42 

make is we would love to put so much more capital into the stations, but we are always saying, gosh, you have to put in the equipment and rail, and there is just none left over after that. And that 

goes to staffing as well. Obviously, we love to do that because that 

is often the face of Amtrak, what people see, and they see an old 

station that is unmanned, it doesn’t look good. So that would clearly be a place that would, again, really drive ridership and perception. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. Madam Chair, conversely, there are situations 

where you can have a station and you don’t have a person there 

or people are able to purchase tickets from a kiosk to go to their 

destination. We put a station at the Mitchell Field airport in Milwaukee. I think there are only four cities that have a station at an 

airport. It has exceeded our expectations. We don’t have a person 

there selling tickets. We have a parking lot, we have machines, and 

people can purchase tickets from them, rather than driving into the 

city and then taking the train back south. They go there, park 

their car, buy their ticket, and go to Chicago or points south, and 

then come back. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Do you all have a station there? 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. We have a station at Mitchell International 

Airport. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. I see. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. But we don’t have it staffed with people. We 

have machines and people are able to park so they don’t have to 

go into downtown Milwaukee; they can just get on the train and 

go to Chicago or points south. That has worked out very well. I 

think the point is when you make it convenient and it is on time, 

people are going to ride it. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. I definitely think the key to making it 

work is not just how fast it will go, but the fact that it is reliable 

and it is on time and you can count on it. I mean, that is the key, 

and that is what the testimony has been. 

Mr. BUSALACCHI. No question. This station outside of Milwaukee 

has exceeded our expectation. That parking lot is full. People are 

constantly taking the trains. As Alex knows, the trains are full because it is convenient and it is on time. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Your people may be a little bit more sophisticated than mine. Mine need an attendant. 

Anyone else have any other comments that they want to make, 

a minute? Any closing statements? 

You hear Mr. Carson, and you and I talked about it, Mr. 

Kummant. We need to think about what we need to do, because I 

asked the question, for example, if we are moving forward, we need 

additional trains. I mean, how can we continue to run Amtrak like 

a business? I have a facility in Jacksonville where we do work for 

the Navy, the Air Force, foreigners, whatever. We restore those 

planes. What would it take to put the largest maintenance facility 

in the Country? What would it take? I know that it is old, but our 

whole system is old. How do we update it? How do we give it a 

facelift? How do we do the things that we need to do to move it 

forward? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, again, the dilemma is it would take capital, 

and a lot of it. It is a over 100-year-old facility. If we had that capVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
43 

ital, that is not the place we would put it anyway. So that is the 

dilemma. If you actually said here is an incremental 50 or $100 

million, we have all kinds of other needs that need to be met. 

I also wanted to correct a couple of things. Those jobs are being 

moved to other locations, so it is not really an outsource kind of 

question. It is very similar to the process we have done with Albany and Los Angeles, as well. Let me also say those are very difficult decisions. They are great people. And, by the way, we still do 

our major wreck repair there. It takes a lot of talent and creativity 

to do that kind of work. So those are very difficult decisions and 

we don’t take them lightly. I think we always have to keep the door 

open and see if there are ideas that can work. 

But the dilemma we are in is that we are starved for capital. If 

there is incremental capital, that would not make the list of where 

we have the most crucial capital needs. The notion of getting involved in freight railroad repair business kind of makes sense at 

a certain level. But when you dig down into it, there are so many 

different things you would have to do that, again, we just have to 

pick our spots very carefully where we put our effort. If we were 

a richer, broader organization, maybe it is something that would 

make the cut, but where we stand today, we just have so many 

other crushing needs. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Well, I want you to kind of think 

through it, because I hear what you are saying, but I also know 

that when we look at insourcing, I mean, constantly on this Committee Mr. Mica has tried to get you to make a profit out of a hamburger, which doesn’t make any sense to me, but in that facility, 

when you can do a job and walk away with $200,000 plus, that is 

the kind of profit that we need to be looking at. I mean, what is 

a dollar or a hamburger? Those people need to be able to have their 

hamburger if they want to on that train. They need to be able to 

have services. But how can we really invest in a system to make 

Amtrak a money maker? 

Mr. KUMMANT. Well, we will keep working those issues. They are 

tough ones. Again, maintenance overall is a $500 million operational cost issue for us, so we work that very hard. We take those 

comments seriously and need to do anything innovative we can 

find. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. I surely hope you will take those things 

into consideration, Mr. Kummant. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Can I just make one closing comments? I just 

think this is a great opportunity for us to do something with Amtrak. I know the former Chairman, who was my father, told me 

that one of the great regrets he had was he wasn’t able to do something with Amtrak, wasn’t able to move legislation forward, and I 

think most people who know him know he was a pretty effective 

Chairman; and he couldn’t. So we have an opportunity. We have 

a bipartisan agreement. It is going to take all of us. We are not 

going to get all we want. And if we move this thing forward—because I think it is critical that we do something now, and the number that I look at is the population of the United States. It took 

us 65 years to go from 200 million to 300 million. It is going to take 

us 35 years to go from 300 to 400 million. And when you look at 

the population, the density on the map, it doesn’t all move to AriVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:16 Jun 24, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\42439 JASON
44 

zona. The population density in the Northeast Corridor, in Chicago 

and Milwaukee, and all these high-speed corridors we have, that 

population gets denser, and this is an opportunity for us to look at 

everything and move forward. 

Also with the realistic outlook that there are people in politics 

that would like to just get rid of Amtrak, and we have a President 

that I disagree with on right now, and we may have another Republican president, and he may not agree with this. But if we have 

broad support within the community, within the Congress, we can 

move something forward, and, as I said, I think this is an opportunity to move forward. 

I might also add—I will probably get disagreement with this— 

maybe there will be a Republican majority some day down the 

road. And I an not one of those in my party that—obviously I support Amtrak and I do believe that transportation is part of the national agenda of the Government; it is in the Constitution and, 

heck, it is a Republican tradition. If you look back through history, 

Republicans have been leading on the fight to improve transportation. 

So I just think this is a historic opportunity for us to do something. I don’t know if I will be here 35 years from now when we 

cross that 400 million threshold, but I would like to be able to say 

we have passenger rail service in this Country that is working well, 

it is effective, and there are great opportunities there for people. 

Thank you. 

Ms. BROWN OF FLORIDA. Thank you. And let me just say that we 

all want to leave our mark on transportation. I have been in the 

area of transportation for 25 years and I have been on this Committee for 16 years, and I really think this is an opportunity to 

move forward not just with Amtrak, but with the entire multimodal transportation and move our Country forward. So I want not 

thank the witnesses for their testimony and the Members for their 

questions. Again, the Members of this Subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond 

to them in writing. 

The hearing record will be held open for 14 days for Members 

wishing to make additional statements or for further questions. 

Unless there is further business, this Subcommittee is adjourned. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 1:02 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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