This is an email I got from a contact.
In the U.S. House of Representatives, legislation is currently in development which will shape the future (or lack thereof) of passenger rail in our region over the next few years. This legislation is H.R. 749, the Passenger Rail Reform & Investment Act of 2015 (PRRIA-2015).
Today, Representative Gosar of Arizona is offering a number of amendments to be considered by the House Rules Committee for inclusion in the final bill. One amendment would change the time line for achieving break even status for food service on Amtrak trains. The present requirement calls for Amtrak to achieve break-even status on food service within five years, and Amtrak has indeed made significant progress during the first year of that process. Gosar's amendment would force Amtrak to achieve break even status within one year.
If this amendment actually becomes a part of PRRIA-2015, it would mean the end of Amtrak food service as we know it. The newly restored full dining car on the Texas Eagle would be gone, as would most if not all other food service. The end of this service would quickly kill our growing sleeping car business, leaving the train with little more than coaches and perhaps some sort of automated vending machine service. It is a recipe for the demise of the national network as we know it.
There will be several opportunities to stop this amendment, but the first is today when it will be heard by the House Rules Committee, chaired by Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas. Other Rules Committee members from our region include Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Michael Burgess of Texas.
Please CALL your representative's office today (Capitol Switchboard is 202-224-3121. Ask to be connected to the staff person handling transportation and Amtrak issues, and request that they oppose the Gossar "1 year" amendment and instead preserve the "5 year" requirement on food service profitability.
For those of you who attended Saturday's TEMPO meeting, this issue was discussed by Amtrak VP Tom Hall during his presentation, and this message will help bring everyone else up to speed on this newly emerging threat to our passenger rail service in Texas, Arkansas and Missouri.
Thanks for your assistance on this matter.
P.S. It is a known fact that food service on passenger trains operated by the private railroads in the pre-Amtrak era never made a profit; dining car service was provided as a loss leader amenity to encourage passengers to purchase a ticket for the train, much as the cruise ship industry now provides limitless food variety as an inducement for people to purchase a cruise ticket. These arguments may be helpful as we go forward, but the immediate need is to make sure that the time frame for this discussion remains 5 years rather than being reduced to the impossible 1 year proposed by Representative Gossar.
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