No Time for the Hiawatha

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The past two weeks’ posts in montanacharley.com examined proposals to re-establish passenger rail traffic through southern Montana. The Amtrak North Coast Hiawatha. These posts have drawn heavily on sources close to the subject.

Hopefully after reading and researching the posts you now have a sense of what the North Coast Hiawatha’s proponents are embracing in their arguments. If you have given much thought to the Hiawatha restoration plans as presented, you probably have an opinion on the idea.

If you haven’t formed an opinion, and have more than passing interest STOP now and go back and peruse the archives at montanacharley.com. There’s a lot to the story and at the end of the day it’s of no small significance to Montana and Montanans.

Read on.

Thanks!

Charley Pike

Charley gives Thumbs Down to the restoration of Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha rail passenger service. Sorry.

While this is a tough one to judge on the surface, as we peal back the layers of the idea, Amtrak’s North Coast Hiawatha is simply too much.

Too much money. Too much speculation. Too much hype. Too much rhetoric. Too much politics.

And, it’s short on a lot. Short on research. Short on objectivity. Short on details. Short on track record (no pun).

Amtrak is a “for-profit” corporation with the U.S. government being the principle shareholder. It was formed by Congress in 1971 as a legal monopoly governing the nation’s inter-city passenger rail service.

Tellingly, Amtrak by design assumed the “obligations” of the nation’s private passenger railroads. Nationwide—even in the highest-traffic regions of the country—it has always been a money loser. Red ink to the tune of billions of dollars per year.

Only eight years after it’s creation Amtrak ditched the Hiawatha as one of the system’s biggest money losers.

To expect that in today’s travel culture, the Hiawatha line, traveling through the wide open spaces between Chicago and Seattle will be anything but a money pit is inconceivable.

Granted, travel and transportation have always been much a taxpayer burden—local, state, and national—and for good reason.

And, in defense, it’s hard to argue the romance and pleasure of train travel. It’s safety is a given.

Last year the Billings-based Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority received a $500,000 Federal grant to investigate restoration of the Hiawatha. As a state chartered agency the BSPRA is doing an admirable job of meeting it’s mission.

But like cheerleaders at a football game, BSRPA leadership is hollering a one-sided chant.

Those of us on the sidelines aren’t getting much of an alternative—or objective—message.

Especially when it comes to the cost. Enormous cost when you begin reading between the lines.

Hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent if our region’s passenger rail advocates advance the Hiawatha and advance beyond the Hiawatha. Of course it’s “feasible”—as is nearly anything—if enough money is granted.

But, maybe in this new-fashioned society of ours billion(s)-dollar investments into an already money-losing business makes sense to somebody…

Even the Hiawatha’s passenger rail advocates realize restoration of the southern route is not going to happen overnight. BSPRA originally set 2030 as a completion date. That’s been moved to a “projection” of 2039, if Congress pulls the trigger on funding by the end of this year.

After that, subsequent federal administrations working with Congress will need to keep the funding wheels rolling over the next decade and a half.

If restoration of the Hiawatha goes through—and in today’s political climate it could very well go through—let’s hope the advocates have done their homework well. Let’s hope it really does make sense.

And when it makes sense this pundit will be aboard the first train to Missoula to see the grandkids!

Charley

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