Word: amtraks
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...most of its first two years, Amtrak, the quasi-public corporation created to preserve U.S. railroad passenger service, seemed to be highballing down the final stretch of track toward extinction. Amtrak began operations on May 1, 1971, by discontinuing almost half the nation's rail passenger service; as it rolled through the next 20 months, it lost $239 million. Last year its long distance trains ran late 47% of the time, and drew angry complaints from riders about dirty cars, erratic heating systems and rest-room toilets that did not flush...
Stubbornly optimistic, Amtrak President Roger Lewis insists that "we see a business with a future now." Last week his bosses in the Nixon Administration agreed. The Department of Transportation recommended that when Amtrak's original mandate expires July 1, Congress should give the corporation the go-ahead to keep operating its present network.* The department also called on Congress to increase Amtrak's $100 million in Government loan guarantees to $500 million and requested that Amtrak be given an "open-ended appropriation," in effect a blank check to finance operations. The department cited "notable gains" for Amtrak...
Last December, after Chief Justice Warren Burger complained about the smokers on the Amtrak Metroliners between Washington and New York, cigars and pipes were prohibited in first-class cars. Pipe-puffing Senator Hugh Scott wrote to Non-Smoker Burger to ask him to rescind his request to Amtrak: "May it please the court," said Scott, he wanted a ruling "to the effect that pipe smokers may enjoy the use of the presently interdicted area for the indulgence of their contemplative addiction." Burger's answer to Scott has not been revealed...
...home builders pressured the Government to increase subsidies greatly; under the present Administration, the number of federally assisted housing starts has jumped 150%, to almost 400,000. After passenger rail service had become a hopeless drain on profit, Congress last year relieved the railroads of that burden by creating Amtrak, the Government-sponsored rail corporation...
Last week John P. Fishwick, 55, N&W's chief executive for the past 21 months, went to Wall Street to tell analysts what they had already assumed: after deducting $15 million from earnings as a result of the Amtrak takeover of its long-haul passenger business, the Roanoke-based N&W still had a net profit last year of $63 million. That was by no means N&W's best year; in 1966 it earned $98 million. But unlike the other large Eastern railroads, which all reported losses after extraordinary expenses last year, N&W had been...