December 3, 1969

Buffs Cheer Subsidy Of U.S. Passenger Trains

Will the real buffs stand up!

No, not you rabid football fans, bird watchers or camera hobbyists.

I mean those with a hang-up on rail-roads.

Save your transfers, the passenger train will roll again.

It may take a heavy government subsidy, but this is better than outright public ownership or - worst of all - oblivion for the grand old Pullman car.

Ever since British enthusiasts turned out in their buff-colored dusters to gape at James Watt's snorting locomotives, and thereby giving a new word to English-American slang, the love affair with railroads has been bigger than both of them.

In the olden days - i.e. before World War II - U.S. passenger trains performed a valuable service in style, comfort and profit.

First the automobile, then the bus and airplane pushed the once mighty passenger train aside - all too hastily it now appears.

The auto is dangerous and tiring, bus service uncomfortable and uncertain, air travel frustrating and expensive.

The passenger train was slow and - towards the end - beset with rude employees.  Yet it was comfortable and carried you safely from center-city to center-city in all kinds of nasty weather.  Only speed, and profit for stockholders, prevented it from being the perfect carrier.

As jet planes stack up ever higher over the nation's airports - and traffic clogs the highways - our planners have concluded that the moribund passenger train can and should be saved.  A mushrooming desire to move about the country makes dependable, mass-transportation essential.

The Department of Transportation has given substantial sums to develop faster trains.  A two-mile-a-minute train has been achieved, but a 200-mile-per-hour vehicle is the goal.

Yet it seems likely that passenger trains - providing abundant service at low cost - never will be profitable.

So, the Senate Commerce Committee is readying a far-reaching railroad improvement bill that would give federal subsidies for long-distance passenger trains.

The program would cost about $250 million over the next five years, but extension of the service throughout the country probably would exceed this modest outlay.

The bill proposes a national rail passenger system, similar to those successful in Europe.  Railroads would be paid two thirds of their losses on trains in the national system.

The House of Representatives is working on a similar bill.  The railroads, consumer groups and the Nixon administration all favor the bill.

The Senate version says, in part, "The Congress finds that modern, efficient, intercity railroad passenger service is a necessary part of a balanced transportation system.  Public necessity requires continuance and improvement of such service to provide low-cost transportation between crowded urban areas and in increasingly isolated rural areas."

The Interstate Commerce Commission has warned that without immediate action by Congress, the remaining intercity passenger service of fewer than 550 trains will disappear within five years!

Only determined campaigning by a St. Louis, Mo., nun saved the famous Wabash Cannon Ball.  The Twentieth Century Limited has already gone to that Great Roundhouse in the sky.  Government subsidy seems to be the last hope for the beloved passenger trains of our heritage.

There are those private enterprise purists who will complain that federal subsidies make zombies of corporate bodies that should live or die in a natural way.  This is, however, a simplistic argument that flies in the face of tradition.

As a nation, the United States has often used the federal subsidy to nurture important public services.  The very first subsidy was to newspapers, by way of preferential postal rates, to keep them healthy and free.  The device continues to operate today to maintain an independent press as envisioned by the first amendment to the Constitution.

The railroads were recipients of a generous subsidy of land to help finance expansion to the west coast.  Air lines were brought into reality by federal mail subsidies in the early days.  Farmers have received subsidies for many years to keep them producing profitably.  Even our friends overseas receive U.S. aid because their vitality is considered important to our own interest.

The alternative to subsidy for those services we would not do without is public ownership.  Those services that can not be made profitable by any means rightly come under direct control of government.  The Postal System is a good example.  Those who would raise postal rates to the point of "making the service pay its own way" are not being realistic.

The telephone companies - principally the Bell System, - have made private enterprise work for a vast network of public service.  Consequently it has never had to ask for a government handout.

Passenger rail service, on the other hand, has been given a good try by open competition and found wanting.  Yet, the public interest demands an intermediate form of mass transportation.

Public ownership, or federal subsidy?

The American compromise is the latter for it keeps control in the hands of private management still charged with the necessity of making some profit, even if a reduced one.

Here is one buff, and a strong believer in the private enterprise system, who looks forward to a subsidized trip to Chicago on the wonderful Iron Horse of yore.

Author: Lindsey Williams