Amtrak's chief faces biggest challenge yet

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Amtrak's chief faces biggest challenge yet
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- David Gunn has spent his 40-year career turning around troubled transit systems throughout North America, including those in New York, Toronto and Washington, D.C. But his present role of president and chief executive officer of Amtrak, the nation's sole passenger railroad, may be his biggest challenge yet, according to this report by Gregory Richards published by the Florida Times-Union.
When Gunn came aboard Amtrak in May 2002, the company was on the brink of insolvency and its trains were hobbling along. Today, the leaner and more efficient railroad is back in the black with record ridership levels and badly needed maintenance projects under way. Every day, on average, 65,000 passengers ride on Amtrak's 265 daily trains -- with names like Empire Builder and City of New Orleans -- to 500 communities in 46 states.

But many challenges remain for Amtrak, formally called the National Railroad Passenger Corp. There's the annual fight, currently under way, with Congress for enough funding just to place all its cars in service. And there's the delicate balancing act that Amtrak needs to maintain with the nation's big freight railroads, including Jacksonville's CSX Transportation, which provide the track that Amtrak runs its trains on throughout much of the country.

On Monday, 67-year-old Gunn came to Jacksonville, headquarters of Amtrak's Southern Division, to give service and achievement awards to company employees. Decked out in a tie decorated with images of locomotives, box cars and crossing signals, the plainspoken executive sat down with the Florida Times-Union to discuss passenger railroading in America.

And yes, he took the train to Jacksonville.

Q: What do you say to a resident of Northeast Florida who drives everywhere and wouldn't even think of taking a train?

The fact that people like cheap oil and have built their whole lifestyle around it -- I'm not arguing with that. But all I'm saying is you'd better start thinking about what you'd do if that lifestyle is put in jeopardy, and I think it is. And one solution -- and not the only solution -- is to make use of the railroad rights of way that exist and to make use of the capacity that you can build into that relatively cheaply, cheaper than you can build more interstates. I would submit it's getting to the point where you can't even build more interstates. The NIMBY [not in my back yard] factor comes into play ... If you're planning your future by looking in the rear-view mirror as to what we've done, I think it's a bad mistake.

Q: Should Florida build a bullet train, and should it be done by a constitutional amendment?

I'm not an expert on Florida, but my sense is you probably have areas where this would work. But whether it's an amendment -- that's local politics. I would not touch that with a 10-foot pole.

Q: How would you describe the relationship between Amtrak and CSX?

I've tried very hard to have pretty decent relationships with the six big railroads. CSX is -- they've been trying. The problem CSX has -- their infrastructure is really congested ... They've also had some maintenance issues over the last few years ... We're all in the same boat together. They're suffering, I think, in many respects from the same thing that affected intercity passenger rail -- lack of investment.

Q: Last month, The New York Times reported that the agreement between Amtrak and the freight railroads left Amtrak paying the bill for Amtrak accidents, even when the freight carriers were at fault because of poorly maintained tracks. The article said this arrangement has cost Amtrak more than $186 million since 1984. Should this system be changed?

You cannot pick out one piece of the relationship with the freight railroads and focus on that. The relationship between Amtrak and the freight railroads was established by law back when Amtrak was set up. If you're going to start picking away at one piece that benefits us, then the freight railroads have the right to pick at some other pieces which benefit them. You're opening Pandora's Box so to speak if you pick on just one issue.

(The preceding report by Gregory Richards was published by the Florida Times-Union on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004.)

November 2, 2004