Traveling Outside of Time
The cars were an immediate success. There was – and is – nothing like them on any other train in the system. When Rosenwald added a complimentary breakfast buffet and a mid-afternoon wine tasting, first-class ridership on the Coast Starlight jumped 77 percent, and first-class revenue rose from $6.5 million in 1994 to $15.9 million in 2001. Passengers were getting what Rosenwald called a “land cruise experience,” and they were loving it.
But Rosenwald was swimming upstream.
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak’s official name) had been limping along since its inception in 1971 and seemed to face insolvency on a annual basis. For three decades, no one had wanted to face the truth that, regardless of the success of any one train, like Brian’s train, the business of moving people requires, and will undoubtedly always require, significant public subsidies. Amtrak has never been self-supporting, let alone profitable. In fact, no national rail passenger system in the world is profitable. All depend on the largesse of their governments.
But the U.S. government has been particularly stingy. During the past two decades, as federal support for the national highway system doubled, and funds for aviation nearly tripled, Amtrak’s appropriations have been slashed by one-third. This fiscal year, Amtrak’s new president, David Gunn, was able to squeeze $1.2 billion out of Congress for his operating budget. Still, the U.S. passenger rail system remains among the least subsidized in the world.