Country Needs Passenger Trains

We appreciate your Oct. 1 editorial, “Face It, Rail Needs Subsidy.” We happened to be aboard the Amtrak Sunset Limited on Sept. 11, and we have been concerned that so little attention is being paid to the vital role played by Amtrak.

The terrorist attack should have been a wake-up call to our government about the danger to our country in relying so completely upon one mode of long-distance travel: the airlines. On Sept. 11 and 12 Amtrak was the only long-distance system working. We watched Amtrak employees cope, with determination and a smile, with hordes of airline passengers grounded all over the country--making room for them, feeding them and adjusting schedules to make connections--against archaic restrictions that our government has permitted to hamstring their operations.

For the good of the country, the government must give passenger train travel the chance to be successful, to compete with air travel as a viable alternative. As an immediate first step, Congress should reverse the practice by which passenger trains are shunted aside to allow freight trains to pass. Give passenger trains the priority. As a second step, Amtrak should have the ability to own its own rails so that it can improve the quality and speed of passenger train travel.

The airlines have nothing to fear from an effective passenger rail service; the train cannot compete with the speed of air travel. But the country has a lot to fear from a passenger rail service that is crippled by well-intentioned but outmoded regulations.

Stephen Gamble

Patricia Gamble

Alhambra