Super Trains Need Public Funding, Experts Say : Transportation: Their views on high-speed rail lines are in marked contrast to the private-money philosophy behind the failed Anaheim-Las Vegas project.

Super-speed trains will never become a reality nationwide without substantial support from federal and state governments, a group of the nation’s top high-speed rail experts asserted Thursday.

The experts’ views stand in marked contrast to the “private money only” philosophy that lay behind the apparently failed attempt to develop a high-speed rail link between Anaheim and Las Vegas.

The contractor designated to build the $5-billion system, Bechtel Corp., pulled out of the project last fall, citing the worldwide economic climate, and the commission promoting the rail link is no longer legally authorized to conduct business.

“In most cases, we need public money in high-speed train systems in this country,” said Joseph Vranich, a consultant to the High Speed Rail Assn. and the author of a new book on high-speed rail systems.

“Aviation and highways are heavily, heavily subsidized,” Vranich said. “How could you expect somebody to build a high-speed train line and (then) say: ‘You do it all with private money, and you have to compete against these subsidized systems?’ ”

Those conclusions generally support the findings of the National Research Council, the working arm of the National Academy of Sciences. In a report released in November, the council said high-speed trains are feasible but are not likely to attract enough riders to become self-supporting. The trains can transport passengers at speeds of nearly 200 m.p.h. and dramatically reduce highway and airport congestion.

Vranich spoke at a press conference at Washington’s Union Station passenger terminal called to enlist federal help in promoting construction of high-speed rail systems. Among those joining him were Ross Capon, executive director of the National Assn. of Rail Passengers; Bob Pattison, chairman of the High Speed Rail Assn.; and Gil Carmichael, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration.

Despite the failure of the Anaheim-Las Vegas project, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission is proceeding with preliminary plans for a $4-billion, privately financed high-speed rail system that would follow freeway rights of way between Los Angeles International Airport and Palmdale. Eight companies so far have picked up proposal documents, a commission spokeswoman said. A contract could be awarded as early as 1993.

“The point is, we don’t know” whether such a system could be built solely with private funds, said Sharon Neely, the commission’s director of transportation policy. “That’s why we want to explore it. . . . We won’t know until we go through the (proposal) process.”

Vranich and others said that the Japanese and Europeans, with the aid of their governments, have built successful rail systems with super trains that travel as fast as 200 miles an hour, either on steel rails or suspended over a guideway by a powerful electromagnetic field. In addition to reducing congestion, super trains are significantly cleaner than automobiles or airplanes, supporters contend.

“We’re in a race in the United States for high-speed surface transportation,” said Carmichael, “and that race is with Europe and Japan and around the world. These trains exist. They are not pie in the sky, and they are not dreams and visions.”

The fastest train currently running in the United States is the Amtrak Metroliner, which reaches speeds of 125 m.p.h. on its trip between New York City and Washington. High-speed rail systems are in the planning stages in California, Nevada, Florida, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The new Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, approved by Congress last November, sets aside $700 million for construction of a magnetically levitated train model and makes other funds available for high-speed rail research.

Vranich said the federal government should go much further. The government should consider using money from the federal highway and aviation trust funds, which are financed with federal fuel taxes, to help build high-speed rail systems in areas where the systems will ease congestion on highways and at airports, he said.

“More and more Americans want modern passenger trains like those in Europe and Japan,” Capon said. “We need a way to pay for them. . . . What we need is a penny of the gasoline tax earmarked for intercity rail passenger trains.”

The highway and aviation industries have strongly opposed such measures, and the Bush Administration so far has not moved to change the way that trust fund dollars are distributed.

In addition, Vranich said, Congress should allow state and local governments to use federal transportation aid earmarked for highways and mass transit to build intercity, high-speed rail lines. And, he said, Congress should loosen regulatory restrictions on rail system operators, as it has for airlines.

Congress also should permit promoters of high-speed rail systems to float tax-exempt bonds, through government agencies, to finance the projects, just as airport authorities are allowed to issue such bonds to build airports. Finally, several of the speakers said, the federal government needs to spend much more money than is currently authorized for research on super-speed trains.

The Anaheim-Las Vegas project ran into trouble after Bechtel was unable to secure financing for construction of the project, which was to have been built wholly with private funds. The giant construction company withdrew as the designated franchisee last October, after having paid $500,000 for the right to build the project to the California-Nevada Super Speed Ground Transportation Commission.