Joseph Vranich, Author of New Book on Amtrak, Available for Radio/TV Interviews
AEI | AEI Online
February 22, 2005
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End of the Line
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 22, 2005

The Bush Administration's proposal to end subsidies to Amtrak has sparked a debate about the railroad's future. In his recent book, End of the Line, Joseph Vranich, a former staunch Amtrak supporter who has turned into a critic, emphasizes that:

  • Strong action is needed because Amtrak remains just one more bailout away from bankruptcy, even though it has already spent $27 billion in federal subsidies and Congress has just approved another $1.2 billion subsidy.
  • Amtrak’s financial failures have nothing to do with local commuter trains. Amtrak's long-distance trains are so costly that it would be cheaper for the government to discontinue such trains and give Amtrak passengers free or discount airline tickets.
  • The Bush Administration's proposal to end subsidies may succeed because Amtrak's coalition has weakened. No longer do all commuter agencies defend Amtrak. Boston and Los Angeles have dumped Amtrak as their operator in favor of private companies. And commuters in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Chicago are fed up with Amtrak's repeated threats to shut down their trains (even though Amtrak’s financial failures have nothing to do with local commuter trains).
  • In addition, Amtrak has shown a reckless disregard for public safety by failing to improve fire-safety conditions in the tunnels it owns under Manhattan—one of the most important pieces of passenger rail infrastructure in North America. It would be safer to end Amtrak's ownership of railroad infrastructure in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor and transfer those facilities to a more responsible regional or local agency.

About the Book:
End of the Line: The Failure of Amtrak Reform and the Future of America's Passenger Trains (AEI Press, December 2004) provides a clear explanation of why Amtrak must be replaced by imaginative public-private partnerships. Backed by thorough research and documented work, Vranich argues that the end of Amtrak need not mean the end of passenger train service. In fact, in the United States (in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Jose and Dallas-Fort Worth), 40 million passengers already ride trains operated by private companies in partnership with public authorities. The book also outlines how and why fifty-five nations are doing away with their versions of Amtrak by privatizing, franchising, regionalizing, and devolving train services to competitive, private operators. Stunning traffic growth has been the result in Great Britain, where privatized railways last year carried more than 1.1 billion passengers—the most in almost sixty years. The United States, too, successfully privatized and devolved federally-owned railroads with Conrail and the Alaska Railroad, and those experiences can be replicated with Amtrak.

About the Author:
Joseph Vranich has been involved with rail passenger since 1970-71, when he worked to create Amtrak. He later served as an Amtrak public affairs spokesman, as president of the High Speed Rail Association, and, in the late 1990s, as a U.S. Senate appointee to the Amtrak Reform Council. End of the Line is his third book about rail service. He remains a passenger-train advocate, in particular for commuters, who represent the overwhelming majority of American rail travelers. Joseph Vranich can be reached at 949.551.3150 (jvranich@cox.net).

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