Amtrak attracts waves of support

Gov. Brian Schweitzer's "whistlestop" tour ended in Whitefish Thursday with a rally to oppose the Bush administration's plans to eliminate funding for Amtrak.

Schweitzer has been traveling by rail across Montana's Hi-Line for the last two days to draw attention to the Amtrak dilemma.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta earlier this week touted the president's proposal as a way to reform passenger rail service across the country with a 50-50 cost-share program with participating states. The Passenger Rail Investment Reform Act would allow passenger rail companies to compete for services from state to state and give states the ability to shape passenger rail services to meet their particular needs.

Mineta said Amtrak lost $75 million last year, and at that rate of loss, he predicted Congress will eventually withdraw support from a rail service that has been around since 1971.

He also said Amtrak has failed to properly meet public demands and infrastructure needs in Montana and other states. The Empire Builder, he said, runs late 30 percent of the time.

But Schweitzer and other officials on the whistlestop tour refuted those claims.

Schweitzer countered Mineta's assertion that Amtrak serves only 3.5 percent of Montana's population, in terms of the populations that the train passes through.

People from cities to the south regularly use Amtrak, he said, and for communities such as Whitefish and the rest of the Flathead Valley, Amtrak is an economic engine.

With Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., sitting at his side, Schweitzer pointed to Montana's bipartisan opposition to the administration's proposal.

"I think President Bush and Secretary Mineta are finding out that the capable delegation we have in Washington, including Denny, are saying we aren't nobody in Montana," Schweitzer said.

Schweitzer ribbed Rehberg, saying the state's lone congressman has "been in the woodshed" for defying the Republican president on the Amtrak issue.

Rehberg is not only defying the president's zero-budget proposal for Amtrak, he is proposing to raise Amtrak funding to $2 billion over a three-year period.

Schweitzer and Rehberg contend the federal government is not viewing passenger rail service with the same regard it has for highways and aviation.

"How come we didn't zero out the highway budget?" Schweitzer asked. "How many times in the last 30 years did we bail out the airline industry?"

"This is important to Montana's economy," he said.

More than 129,000 people got on or off the train in Montana last year, 56,000 of them in Whitefish.

Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger said the governor's whistlestop tour along the Hi-Line attracted sizable crowds, including about 300 people in Glasgow.

"We saw in every community signs of encouragement, signs of support," Bohlinger said.

Montanans consider Amtrak to be an "absolutely essential" service, Bohlinger said, and it is a service that must have the backing of the federal government because the country can't have 50 states running their own passenger rail systems.

"I get frustrated that we have to have these meetings every two years," Whitefish Mayor Andy Feury said.

Like Rehberg, Feury said Amtrak needs reliable long-term funding.

David Laney, chairman of the Amtrak board of directors, agreed that is precisely what Amtrak needs.

"But I'll be very blunt about it," said Laney, who traveled to Montana from Dallas. "Amtrak is at risk."

Laney said he views the Bush administration's position as "a call to reform" Amtrak operations, even though it can be viewed as a push to send Amtrak into bankruptcy.

Amtrak's leadership recently presented the administration and members of Congress with a detailed reform plan. But the necessary response from the federal government, he said, "has to be adequate levels of funding."

While federal funding for highways and aviation services have climbed over the last 20 years, he said, Amtrak's funding has remained relatively flat over the same period, making it difficult to upgrade the trains as well as Amtrak's fixed facilities.

But as the long-distance model, the Empire Builder is getting upgraded this year, he announced.

The Empire Builder's trains are being remodeled and rebuilt, Amtrak personnel are being specially trained for duties on the Empire Builder and menus on the train are being revised and improved.

Laney said the Empire Builder, with a 5 percent increase in passengers last year, serves as a model for other long-distance Amtrak operations.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com