Amtrak ≠ intercity, Amtrak = transit

Amtrak’s Empire Builder, seen here at Shelby, Montana, is not a train from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest, but basic public transit for rural America. Photo: Chuck Taylor.

Over the last year or so, there’s been a lot of attention given to the future of High Speed Rail in the United States. Would it work? Would we really get HSR, or would it be something short of it, something that is often labeled as HrSR, or Higher Speed Rail? Is it the next Interstate Highway System, or is it the next boondoggle? The debate goes on.

In the meanwhile, however, we mustn’t forget the importance of the good old conventional train. You know, the type that Amtrak operates on a daily basis. For many communities in the vast portions of the West, they provide basic alternative transportation. Case-in-point: Amtrak’s Empire Builder. Running between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest. When discussed, long-distance trains such as the ‘Builder often get compared to flights between similar points. The comparison, however, is inadequate. While that 757 flies its 5.5 hour flight between Seatac and O’Hare, the ‘Builder is providing basic transportation to dozens of communities across thousands of miles of the Great Plains and Pacific Northwest. The ‘Builder, then, is less a direction connection between Chicago and Seattle or Portland, than a vast, long-distance form of public transit.

And this in and of itself makes it typical of the agency’s services. Although described as an “intercity” railroad, Amtrak is in fact a transit agency write large. In 2007, the agency reported 5,784 million passenger miles. This makes it the second largest transit provider in the nation, behind New York’s subway system (at 11,500 million passenger miles) and above New Jersey Transit (3,380 million passenger miles). (See the APTA fact book 2009, page 35.) To put it in a more local context, in 2007 Amtrak provided 13.8 times the amount of passenger miles as Portland’s TriMet.

So as we debate the future of HSR in this country, let’s not forget that there remains a critical role for the old-fashioned intercity long-distance train. Many portions of rural America are depending on them.