Amtrak, Running in Red, Will Cut Service, Jobs

Amtrak will begin scuttling more than a fifth of its rail passenger service and firing 5,500 workers in the next two months to address a mushrooming deficit and the prospect of reduced federal subsidies.

Officials said Wednesday that they would begin reducing the frequency of some routes on Feb. 1 and start eliminating others two months later.

“In the past we have tried to be every place all the time,” Amtrak President Thomas M. Downs said during a news conference to announce the cuts. But he said “rail passenger services can’t afford that anymore . . . in a rapidly changing transportation environment.”

In recent years, cheaper airline tickets resulting from frequent fare wars have cut deeply into the passenger bases of both intercity trains and buses. Amtrak is still a serious competitor with airlines in its busy Northeast corridor, but limited service in other areas and the time it takes to travel long distances by rail have taken their toll.

Amtrak officials, faced with tens of millions of dollars in losses annually, have sought more money from Congress for capital investments. Amtrak has always depended heavily on federal subsidies--$952 million this year--but has faced mounting pressure to reduce them.

Officials of the quasi-government agency feared that the new Congress, where members of both parties are proposing tax cuts, might not look favorably on continuing to spend taxpayer dollars on the service.

Amtrak officials said they were eliminating just three complete routes, but were closing down segments of several other routes. Most of the savings will come from reducing the frequency of trains.

Amtrak routes scheduled for elimination on April 1 are the Capitols, which run from San Jose to Sacramento to Roseville, Calif.; the Hiawatha service between Chicago and Milwaukee, and the Pere Marquette between Chicago and Grand Rapids, Mich.

In Southern California, Amtrak plans to reduce service Feb. 1 on the Desert Wind between Chicago and Los Angeles from daily round trips to three times a week, for a savings of $9.7 million. Service on the popular Los Angeles-to-San Diego train is unaffected but could later be subject to price increases.

Metrolink commuter trains in the Los Angeles region are not affected, even though they are operated by Amtrak employees, said a spokesman for the Southern California Regional Rail Authority.

No decision has been made on how many Amtrak employees in Southern California will be laid off, an Amtrak spokeswoman said.

All of the cuts are expected to save $173 million in the current fiscal year and more than $360 million in 1996 and annually thereafter. Further frequency reductions are being planned and will be announced later in the year, railroad officials said.

Where service is being eliminated, Downs said, local governments can pay the costs to retain all or part of that service.

The Clinton Administration voiced support for the proposed cuts.