Editing 79-10-A4 (section)

=== Transcript ===
I suppose I could be called a "train buff". I've never been able to pass a toy
store window or model shop without pausing if there is a toy train on display. I
longed for an electric train when I was a boy but we weren't up to that spending level
so I had to do with the wind up variety.

But it was as a grownup in the years following World War II that I found trains
really becoming a part of my life. Turning my back on air travel I criss-crossed the
country on the Super Chief, the 20th Century Ltd., the City of Los Angeles, the Great
Northern, Sunset Ltd. and the Lark. I loved every minute of it.

Now all of this is to establish a position for what follows. I wanted you to know
of my partiality to trains before bringing up the question of how far our nation should
go in subsidizing passenger train travel.

Amtrak, a government corporation, has taken over passenger trains from the railroad
companies. They could no longer run such trains without incurring great losses.

The head of one major railroad has told me they might have run those trains at a
profit if the government had given them the same relief from unnecessary regulation
it granted to Amtrak.

Amtrak was launched on the premise of being a profit-making corporation. In
1973 it lost $153 million. Last year the annual deficit had grown to $587 million.
It has never -- repeat, never -- made money on any of its routes. Passenger fares
only cover about one-third of operating costs. Tax dollars make up the balance.

About two years ago it was revealed that Amtrak lost enough on the Chicago-to-
Miami run that it would have been better off if it bought each passenger a plane
ticket and paid the hotel bill. The fare for the run is $88.00; the cost of operating
is $298.00 per passenger.

The horror stories continue. A study of 10 Amtrack routes revealed they would
have lost money if every seat had been filled every trip. On the Chicago-to-Milwaukee
run the government loses $32.00 for every passenger it keeps from buying a $5.50
bus ticket.

Are we subsidizing nostalgia? Do we just like to know the trains are there even
though we know we aren't going to ride them? Of course there is the energy argument
that trains are a form of mass transit carrying passengers at great savings in fuel
over the automobile. Not so. Fuel use on Amtrak is 48 passenger-miles per gallon,
exactly the same as the average automobile. Buses do two-and-a-half times better
than that.

If Amtrak quit and the government granted the railroad companies now hauling
freight the right to carry passengers under the same regulations now applying to Amtrak,
maybe we could have trains without the subsidy. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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