Not Under The Gunn

Amtrak's board of directors, staffed with Bush appointees who want to dismantle the national passenger railroad, fired President David Gunn, despite his ability to get costs under control and ridership increased. He was also able to get Congress to provide Amtrak with federal funding, a move Bush opposes. There is great fear that Amtrak's board, which voted in secret two months ago to give control of the Northeast Corridor to a new subsidiary to make it easier to break Amtrak up, will now let the railroad collapse in the wake of stiff competition from other forms of transport - planes, automotive travel - whose own subsidies rarely raise an eyebrow in Washington. Without some kind of funding, Amtrak cannot develop vital corridor routes that would allow it to compete with highways or the notoriously energy-inefficient airlines. Bush, a former oilman, knows that. >:-(