see also: “Warrington Named Amtrak President” Washington Post, 22 December 1998; Page A21
On 21 December 1998, the Amtrak Board named George Warrington, former head of the Northeast Corridor, as Amtrak’s new CEO.
Warrington’s outlook is upbeat; in accepting the position, Warrington said that 1998’s improved performance bodes well for a thriving Amtrak.
He was referring to the recent annoucement that, in Fiscal Year 1998, Amtrak’s ridership rose 4.5%, the biggest increase in a decade; and that passenger revenue topped the $1 billion mark for the first time.
The Associated Press quoted Warrington: “We can no longer exist only with a survivor mentality, focused on cost-cutting and being apologists for mediocrity. Instead, our future depends upon growth - identifying and attracting new customers.”
Yet critics wonder how much can be accomplished, especially in light of the recently released Business Plan. Amtrak must be self-sufficient by 2003.
The Amtrak Reform Council, a separate body, is already considering restructuring plans should Amtrak fail to meet its financial goals. Its acting chairman, Paul Weyrich, said Amtrak’s finances do show “positive signs.”
CEO candidate Andy Selden wrote to the All-Aboard e-mail list, “Like all supporters of passenger rail service, I wish Mr. Warrington well… But I think it would be wise for all rail advocates, including especially those who opposed my own candidacy, to ponder the implications of the fact that Mr. Warrington’s strategic plan to save Amtrak from oblivion (which I have read) bets the survival of the company on a plan that (1) has never worked anywhere in the world; (2) has failed repeatedly in the United States; and, (3) treats the national network of interegional long distance trains as a costly burden and obstacle to the achievement of financial self-sufficiency. In the entire strategic plan, except for a single passing reference to the potential importance of the growth of express business in the context of dismissing the long hauls as hopeless losers, there is not one sentence about the long haul trains or their role in the future of Amtrak.
“When I interviewed with the Board, I made clear my view that the Warrington plan was doomed to failure, and that if what the Board was seeking was simply a CEO to carry out that plan, I would not be interested in the job. The long delay in offering Mr. Warrington this position on a full-time basis suggests that the Board may have had some second thoughts itself. Certainly the parallel conclusion expressed by the DOT Inspector General cannot give much comfort.
“In my analysis and that of my colleagues, Amtrak cannot achieve financial breakeven, including the infrastructure costs of the NEC, until it achieves a level of output measured by revenue passenger miles of approximately three times its current level. Increases of that scale cannot be achieved in the NEC or in any combination of short corridors anywhere in North America. Even in the wildly improbable event that the semi-high speed effort in the NEC achieves exactly what its advocates predict for it, it will still leave Amtrak with more than $100 million a year in unrecovered infrastructure and administrative costs in the northeast. Any of us is free to predict what Congress will do three years hence when and if that is the position in which Amtrak finds itself.”
