RAIL: DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH

The number of Americans who lived in what was known as the “golden age” of train travel, which ended in the late 1940s, is rapidly diminishing.

So the attraction of many of us today toward railroads is twofold, either one of nostalgia, one evocative of old movies and glamour, or one of a futuristic mode of transportation, something along the lines of the sleek, quick and quiet monorails in Disney World.

Thus, the preliminary results of a recently released federal study that showed two proposed new passenger rail lines going through Chattanooga probably quickened many of our pulses or had us dreaming of a train trip we might make in the near future.

We’ll admit the New York to Houston route had us thinking about visiting relatives in Texas or seeing a Broadway show in New York City, while the Chicago to Miami route had us dreaming of taking in a Cubs baseball game in Chicago or stopping at a Florida beach in the other direction.

However, the likelihood of any of those who recall the “golden age” of train travel being alive when, or if, those routes ever come into being is slim.

And the bigger question is why would the federal government continue to subsidize and expand a passenger mode of transportation that has been a consistent money loser?

Amtrak, the corporation established by the Congressional Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, combined 20 struggling private passenger railroads into a privately controlled but federal government-owned corporation. And, as of a year ago, that corporation had never — never — turned a profitable year.

Undaunted, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act authorized up to $108 billion in deficit spending for public transportation, including $66 billion for rail travel. Amtrak, for its part, subsequently released a plan to add service to 160 new communities through the addition of 39 new routes and the enhancement of 25 others.

Such service and new routes are not just spoken into being, though. Since the federal government is involved, it means study after study after study and then a study to determine whether the studies were studious enough. We exaggerate but not by much.

In fact, according to the infrastructure act, the Federal Railroad Administration is required to study whether long-distance passenger rail service (routes of 750 or more miles) is warranted. After such a study, the agency said “further analysis … would be necessary … through project planning and project development activities” before any such service could be thought about becoming a reality.

But in the meantime, we have the tease of two of the proposed new lines coming through a city once known — 100 years or more ago — as a railroad hub.

Of course, the Federal Railroad Administration’s preliminary study is different from a $500,000 federal grant announced by the city in December that would study — that word again — potential passenger rail from Memphis to Atlanta, passing through Nashville and Chattanooga. A state report also has recommended the Tennessee Department of Transportation study — ! — the potential of passenger rail from Nashville to Chattanooga and Atlanta.

The rail industry claims that freight rail is already well ahead of other modes of transportation in preserving the environment. It says new technologies can, on average, move one ton of freight nearly 500 miles per gallon of fuel, giving it a much smaller carbon footprint than tractor-trailer trucks. In fact, according to the Association of American Railroads, if 10% of the freight shipped by the largest trucks were shipped by rail instead, greenhouse gas emissions would fall more than 20 million tons annually.

Freight rail, deregulated and privatized for decades, is not passenger rail, though. Amtrak passenger trains are slow (compared to some of their global counterparts), rarely on time, have to travel long distances that reduce profitability and are not as entrepreneurial as their private counterparts.

If the White House remains in Democratic hands in November, and at least one house of Congress remains held by Democrats, at least some of the long-term passenger rail funding is likely to continue. If Republicans make a clean sweep of the White House and both houses of Congress, any new rail passenger funding is likely to be slow-walked because of its inefficiency.

We’d be excited as anybody for the possibilities of passenger train service through Chattanooga but not if it means decades of throwing good money after bad. We have enough of that coming out of the federal government already. But in the meantime, there’s that word — study. The possibilities will continue to be studied.

The bottom line, no matter who’s in charge in Washington, D.C., is that we probably shouldn’t plan to board in Chattanooga and see that cousin in Houston or that Cubs game in Chicago via rail anytime soon.