Lynch at Large

The headline is not exactly news, but it does describe the latest offense against truth committed in the name of destroying any reasonable chance this nation might ever have to enjoy a balanced and sensible transportation system. Fortunately, one local journalist saw through the haze and the analysis of the Transportation Secretary's speech is copied here.

If this is the level of truthfulness this administration employs dealing with a relatively insignificant program such as Amtrak, one must wonder what is the standard of truthfulness for bigger things like Iraq.

Oh, sorry. I guess we already know the answer to that one.

Comparing our super railroad to Amtrak is unfair, responce to Mineta's ARR speech.

8 July 2005 - Anchorage Daily News

By BETH BRAGG

The railroad depot at the airport is a bit like those destination-nowhere construction projects we Alaskans excel at conceiving and sometimes even building -- a bridge to nowhere, a road to nowhere, a tunnel to nowhere.

This is a depot for no one, or at least for only a few of us. A sleek addition that opened two years ago, it was built by the people ($28 million in federal tax dollars) but not for the people, except those who are cruise-ship passengers. The only way an Alaskan, or anyone else, can ride the rails that link the airport in Anchorage with the docks in Seward is to buy a rail/cruise travel package.

You had to appreciate the irony, then, of the depot providing the backdrop this week for a speech by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, who used the occasion to bash Amtrak as a ``disservice to riders
and to taxpayers nationwide`` that each year ``gets in line for another subsidy.``

Strong criticism. Maybe even deserved criticism, given the huge losses -- $908 million last year -- Amtrak suffers annually.

But the words would`ve packed more punch if they hadn`t been spoken at a train depot built with federal dollars for the benefit of the cruise-ship industry.

This depot is all about the cruise industry -- so much so that the airport-to-Seward train schedule is set by the cruise industry, according to Tim Thompson, the Alaska Railroad`s public affairs officer. This year the train is making three round-trips a week during a 16-week summer season, for a total of 48 trips.

Once summer is over, it`s a depot with no trains. Eight months a year, the bronze plaque of Bill Sheffield -- the former governor and railroad president who managed to get his name attached to the glass-walled depot with little or no public input -- stands guard over an empty depot. Eight months a year, the tunnel connecting the depot to the main
terminal, a beautiful walkway where overhead light fixtures change colors to resemble the northern lights, gets little or no use.

Not exactly the ideal place to scold Amtrak for wasting money and ignoring the needs of riders.

After riding the train from the downtown depot to the airport depot (a scenery-packed trip that took 21 minutes), Mineta praised Alaska`s privately operated railroad as a subsidy-free model for the rest of the country. He called Amtrak a ``dysfunctional monopoly`` in need of reform, and he hailed the Alaska Railroad as a prototype for inter-city rail travel in the rest of the country.

``Here in Alaska, you know how to run a railroad,`` he said.

No argument there. Most of us are proud of the Alaska Railroad and love the blue-and-gold cars that you can only see here.

Like Mineta said, it operates privately and profitably. It`s ambitious and inventive -- it just opened a new depot in Fairbanks, it`s upgrading much of its tracks and ties, it`s experimenting with ways to reduce whistle noise, and it`s forged a successful partnership with the cruise-ship industry. It boasts a safety record considerably better than
railroads in the Lower 48.

It carries Alaskans to homes and recreation areas off the road system, and it carries tourists by the carload. Of the nearly 500,000 passengers who rode the Alaska Railroad last year, 67 percent rode on cruise-company rail cars.

But mostly the Alaska Railroad hauls freight. Of the $129.5 million in revenue the railroad pulled in last year, $89.5 million came from freight.

That`s why touting the Alaska Railroad as a model for Amtrak isn`t fair. Amtrak doesn`t haul freight. Amtrak is all about long-distance passenger transportation, with routes that criss-cross the country. The longest passenger route in Alaska is the 350-mile stretch between Anchorage and Fairbanks.

Mineta hammered on the fact that Amtrak exists on federal subsidies while the Alaska Railroad is subsidy-free. That`s true. The Alaska Railroad uses no federal money for operating costs.

But suggesting no federal money goes to the railroad is flat-out wrong.

Since 1996, the railroad has received more than $372 million in federal grants for capital projects. According to Bill O`Leary, the Alaska Railroad`s chief financial officer, about $15 million of the railroad`s revenues last year came from federal grants. That same year, the railroad reported a profit of about $15 million.

And then there`s that $28 million airport depot. The place built by the people for a few of the people.

Mineta was on the right track when he praised the Alaska Railroad. But to do so at the expense of Amtrak was disingenuous.