What it will probably take to save the SWC is for the affected states to pony up more money to pay for the required work and to draft more comprehensive long term plans to satisfy Anderson’s demands. Anderson would probably continue the train if Amtrak had less skin in the game and received more state support and if there was a sustainable path to solving the problem. Whether the states should have to is another discussion but thats what it comes down to.
The issue is that Anderson already abandoned several grants and deals with the states, and lost a lot of credibility in the process. So to say that he (and Amtrak) want even more money to save a route that shouldn't have needed saving in the first place, probably won't seem particularly authentic or appealing.
That is only partly true. While I categorically disagree with Anderson's approach we should be accurate about the facts of the situation. The facts AFAIK are:
1. The financial plan for continuing service is incomplete, with various parties pointing fingers at each other as to who is/should be responsible.
2. Amtrak failing to take responsibility for continuing service is not something that started with Anderson. It started with Boardman as we descended into this piecemeal attempts to fix this segment or that segment based on jerry-rigged plans for funding through a mix of uncertain TIGER grants, Amtrak, BNSF and small contributions from various other interested parties.
3. What Anderson changed AFAICT is that he has refused to continue this current jerryrigged arrangement and replace it with a more complete plan and commitments. His method is to withdraw from the last such arrangement, which IMHO is not very gentlemanly in that it breaks a gentleman's agreement.
4. I think it is also true that what he is looking for, he cannot get because of the nature of the funding process for all government agencies. Indeed if someone asked Anderson for a funding commitment for all of Gateway over 12 years, he could not produce one either. So he is being a bit disingenuous.
5. This what raises questions about his true intentions regarding the LD network. Again there, he may be deliberately trying to get the Congresspeople upset, so that they'd stop pussyfooting around, get off their butts and make a solid commitment to the LD network. Right now Congressional endorsement for the LD network is lukewarm at best what with their inability to fund even a small gap filling on the Gulf Coast.
Given all this, my guess is that irrespective of what happens to the SWC or Anderson, we may have come to a point that Amtrak will not continue as is for too much longer.
I suspect that Anderson is OK with making a Hail Mary pass on this. If it succeeds the future of Amtrak will become clearer. If he fails he will quit and let things be. We will just a get a proper even more incompetent Trump appointee. All in all things are not looking good no matter what happens.
The cogent thing for us to do at this point is to get the Congress people all aligned to recommit to the national network and legislate such. The rest has to then follow in terms of targeted funding for this (and possibly other) endangered routes. RPA has started this effort and it is moving along. Will it succeed or not only time will tell. Attempts to get Anderson fired by itself is unlikely to create a good solution to this problem, irrespective of whether it succeeds or not.
BTW, the Rail Runner PTC issue is the current iceberg that presents the greatest danger in a statutory sense. Anderson can huff and puff all he wants, but there is no statutory requirement for Amtrak to stop operating on the non-PTC sections between Dodge and Lamy, since those are all Exempted or exemptable, and it is hard to make an argument that things that have operated fine will suddenly stop doing so. Only the section between Lamy and Dailies becomes statutorily inoperable unless Rail Runner reduces its level of service on weekdays leaving room for the SWC, which at present they do not plan to. They plan to reduce just enough to be able to ask the FRA for an exemption. And all this business about using ATS etc. etc. is all possible only if Congress passes a law exempting that segment. The current PTC law is pretty water-tight giving no authority to the FRA to make exceptions, which FRA has pointed out to the Governor of NM in a letter a couple of weeks back. So question becomes, who is going to bell the NM cat?
