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Amtrak: Stuck in Its Tracks

Contributed by mm | June 12, 2005 6:09 AM PST





Even bankruptcy is not an option for Amtrak. And the treasury is on the hook to foot the bill.

From New York Times:

The national passenger railroad has never managed to pay its own way, absorbing $29 billion in federal aid over its 34-year history. That has made it a perennial target for budget-cutters and fiscal conservatives, who say that what Congress cobbled together in 1971 from the fading passenger operations of the major freight railroads was not a phoenix but a Frankenstein.

...

But for Amtrak, bankruptcy would be poison. It wasn't Amtrak's doing, but the bankruptcy law covering railroads would provide it with hardly any benefits at all. To start with, Amtrak could not renounce its labor contracts unless it liquidates itself. So there is little hope of reducing costs in bankruptcy except by shedding operations.

...

Amtrak's pension problem has a twist as well. Airlines and other companies have revamped or dumped their pension plans in bankruptcy, but the system for railroad workers is a unique pay-as-you-go retirement fund that resembles Social Security in miniature.

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