CLEVELAND — Amtrak set an all-time ridership record last year, serving nearly 33 million passengers, but it came with an operating loss of $705 million, a number the rail service points out is decreasing. Still, it was part of the reason why Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno raised the question, when it comes to Amtrak, what are we doing?
"The government should just sell it," Senator Moreno told News 5. "We shouldn't be in the railroad passenger business. It's the only business line that the government is involved in that deals with consumers."
In 1971, Washington took over the nation's passenger rail system in an effort to save it. Routes remain limited in areas like Cleveland, where the only Amtrak trains that come through do so in the middle of the night.
"The government is just incapable of running a private business, let's just sell it. I'm not against rail service," Moreno said. "I think we need to have great rail service, and the impediment to great rail service is America owning Amtrak."
He held up as an example Brightline, a private rail service that started operating across Florida in 2018, connecting Miami to Orlando in 3.5 hours, he said, vs. seven on Amtrak.
"Price, by the way is the same. Much more modern cabin, much better experience, much better facilities," said Moreno.
Longtime Ohio rail advocate Stu Nicholson, who is a national board member of the Railroad Passenger Association, was disappointed in the senator's stance.
"I think this is very typical of the kind of lazy logic that Amtrak critics within Congress used for decades," said Nicholson.
"With all due respect to Senator Moreno he has the unsurprising view of a car dealer whose interest is in highways and the use of gasoline. And I don't say that to be anti-highway, all I'm saying is if we did what he is proposing, we would have fewer options and not more to travel between cities."
The senator's comments come at a time when Ohio is working with Amtrak on the study of expanded rail service in Ohio. Three routes, including the much talked about 3C+D, reconnecting Cleveland and Cincinnati with stops in Columbus and Dayton.
It's a discussion that began 15 years ago, when the Obama administration awarded the state under Governor Ted Strickland $400 million for a high-speed passenger rail system. Money that Governor Kasich sent back because he had promised to do so if elected, after studies revealed the average speeds of those trains.
"If I'm governor, the 39 mile an hour high speed passenger train is dead," Kasich said in his 2010 debate with Ted Strickland.
And kill it he did. And when Amtrak approached the state a few years ago, Governor DeWine told me he had the same concerns about speed but agreed to the studies that would answer that very question and whether there would be ridership to support it.
That's why Nicholson says it's not the time for talk of cuts.
"I think it would be very shortsighted either at the federal level or at the state level to be cutting funding for this and ignoring this," he said.
Back in Florida, Husein Cumber, Senior Advisor with Brightline Holdings, told News 5 they were honored by the mention in the Senate hearing. He believes what they did in Florida is applicable in other markets, but they don't have their eyes on Amtrak.
"When people ask me, 'Is Amtrak something that you guys would like to take over at Brightline?' It's a totally [different] business model than what we're running," said Cumber.
"So outside of Brightline Florida, we're doing Brightline West, that's connecting Las Vegas to Southern California, and that project is just starting construction. We see the markets being 250 to 300 miles long. We call that the 'too long to drive to short to fly' market," he said.
"So as you look around the country, that's the Atlanta to Charlotte, the triangle in Texas of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio. You've got the Pacific Northwest of you know Seattle and Portland." He also said yes, that would also include the Cleveland-to-Cincinnati route.
"They've been very interested and have been watching what we've done in Florida and have really asked us to kind of help them think through whether or not what we're doing in Florida is a model for what they'd like to do in Ohio," said Cumber.
"I can't today say that we've spent the time looking at right of way and ridership and station locations and you know anything like that but can say it's a market we would definitely look at, for sure. Because the first thing you want is a groundswell of support for the idea and I think that's definitely there in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus," he said.
