On the recordMarch 4, 2015
The Amtrak reauthorization before us today speaks volumes for the chairman and ranking member of our committee. It is the first Amtrak bill on the floor since 2008. It is a bipartisan bill. But, it also speaks volumes that Amtrak has performed so well without additional revenue. This bill leaves Amtrak at about level funding, just a tiny bit more. When we call Amtrak ``America's railroad,'' that is not a metaphor, Mr. Chairman. All of its stock is owned by the Department of Transportation. The reason for that is that the private sector in the 1970s found running a railroad to be a money-losing proposition and asked the Federal Government to take over Amtrak. Amtrak, of course, is a fiction. It is structured as a private company. But like every railroad in the world, it is either subsidized by the government or the public cannot afford to ride. The bill has almost no new funding, but even without new funding, Amtrak has already scored great points. Amtrak has essentially overseen the revival of train travel in the United States of America, and it has done so in a way that the government can take almost no credit for. For example, ticket revenue was $1.5 billion in 2005; then we go 5 years later to 2010, it is $1.8 billion; and today, it is $2.1 billion. Yet the average ticket has increased only $5 every 5 years over that period of time. Amtrak knows what the market is about, and it has grown based on volume, not revenue.…
