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Amtrak Story by Frank N. Wilner 158 pgs Soft Cover
The Amtrak Story by Frank N. Wilner
158 pages
Copyright 1994
Soft Cover
FIRST EDITION. First printing
PREFACE
With an unabashed self-assurance born of association and research, I assert that the three most renowned, revered and resplendent American railroaders -chosen as much for their leadership qualities as the results they produced -are individuals I have had the distinct honor and high privilege to know.
I worked for and later corresponded with one, and enjoyed the company of all three. Each is worthy of a biography.
Al Perlman, the legendary president of New York Central Railroad, inspired his peers and subordinates, mastered his environment and beheld the future like no other. The fabled Stan Crane, whose celebrated tenure at the helm of Southern Railway is achievement enough for mortals, demonstrated a wizardry of greater fame: he restored to private ownership, self-respect and financial independence the phoenix called Conrail. There is a third whose titanic accomplishments dwarf all others. Against an armada as awesome as the D-Day Allied Fleet, William Graham Claytor, Jr., spoke his mind, told the truth, stood his corner and saved Amtrak.
The most popular President of the United States since FDR - Ronald Reagan - hurled every political and economic weapon at his disposal against Amtrak. But Graham Claytor absorbed the blows, and in so doing rallied, persuaded, guided and inspired his team onward. Only after Amtrak's survival was assured did Graham Claytor, his own body nearly consumed with an unforgiving and deadly disease, relinquish command.
Graham's intrepid fight to the finish brings to mind the story as narrated by acclaimed historian Francis Parkman.' It is of the English Major General James Wolfe, mortally wounded on the Plains of Abraham during his rout of the Marquis de Montcalm in 1759 during the French and Indian War:
"They run; see how they run," shrieked an aide.
"Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!" murmured General Wolfe with his final breath.
Graham Claytor, who died in May 1994, was a successful attorney in private practice before he earned his first railroad paycheck. Packing the advantage of a superior education at the University of Virginia and Harvard Law School, Graham merited coveted clerkships with Federal Judge Learned Hand and Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.
His love of railroads and, most assuredly, divine providence, delivered Graham Claytor to America's railroad industry - first to Southern Railway; then to Amtrak.
Those who knew this considerate, enduring, dignified Virginia gentleman; those who took his instruction; and those who grasped his wisdom are fortunate indeed. The words that follow chronicle many railroad people and railroad events, and each was affected in some positive manner by Graham Clayton None was affected more positively than was Amtrak.
Let the record show for eternity - for it cannot be contradicted by evidence - that Amtrak survived, that Amtrak is, and that Amtrak will be because of William Graham Clayton Jr.
FOREWORD
Throughout the 140 years that the American railroads offered passenger service to the public, no date could nearly match in importance that of May 1, 1971, when the congressionally mandated National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) came into being. Nor has any single date in the 23 years since had such significance. Sluggishly, the legislation creating Amtrak worked its way through Congress, and was signed with little enthusiasm by President Nixon. Minable dials! It did happen.
I lad it not, it is pretty safe to assume that there would not now be any regularly scheduled intercity passenger trains operating in the United States. Not even in the Northeast Corridor. That service had become so unattractive by March 1970 that in no way could it have withstood the competition of the commuter air services, or even that of bus lines operating over the parallel freeways and toll roads, despite the feeble effort made by the federally sponsored Metroliner program. At take-over time, Penn Central was operating nine daily Metroliners each way, on a three-hour schedule. They were rough riding, and trouble prone. Penn Central had no plans to put its money into Corridor improvements nor could it be expected to do so.
In the pages following, Frank Wilner has faithfully documented the development of Amtrak from the day it inherited its mostly wretched fleet of cars and locomotives from the former passenger train operators, to June 1994, when Amtrak was planning the purchase of high-speed trains for 150-mph operation over its greatly improved Washington-New York-Boston route; when new cars and state-of-the-art locomotives were coming onto the system nationwide; when service in California was making the passenger train the carrier of choice on many intercity runs; and Amtrak was adding the operation of commuter railroads to its task of moving Americans by rail.
Wilner has done the kind of writing - terse but thorough, authentic to a fault - that has become expected of him after his two recently published titles, The Railway Labor Act & the Dilemma of Labor Relations, and Comes Now the Interstate Commerce Practitioner.
Wilner has written the right book at the right time. It will doubtless serve as a reference for many years.
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword
Introduction: America Is Getting Back into Training .
Chapter 1: Who Shot the Passenger Train?
Chapter 2: Railpax Is Born
Chapter 3: Out of the Station-Barely
Chapter 4: Woe Be the Equipment and Track
Chapter 5: Toward a New Order
Chapter 6: Forging New Labor Agreements
Chapter 7: The Unique Northeast Corridor
Chapter 8: Amtrak Today
Chapter 9: The Realities of a Shared System
Chapter 10: Amtrak's Future
Afterword
End notes
Index
Data Tables
U.S. Passenger Market Share
Passenger-Train Deficits
Buy-In Fees from Railroads
Amtrak Equipment Profile
Amtrak Financial Performance
Amtrak Profile
Amtrak Payments to Railroads
Incentive Payments to Railroads
Amtrak On-Time Performance
Worldwide Rail Share of Passenger Traffic
Passenger Death Rates
Federal Support for Amtrak
Train Profiles 1993
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