Amtrak fires David Gunn -- Updated

Amtrak President David Gunn watches as an Amtrak Acela Express train gets set to depart Union Station in Washington, Monday, July 11, 2005, as the Acela train made its run Monday for the first time since April, when the high-speed fleet was pulled from service due to cracks in many of the trains' brake rotors. Amtrak restarted the Acela service with two daily roundtrips, Monday through Friday, between New York and Washington. (AP Photo/Lauren Burke)

From the Washington Business Journal, "Amtrak Fires CEO." This report, from the Government Accountability Office, was cited in the story -- "AMTRAK MANAGEMENT: Systemic Problems Require Actions to Improve Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Accountability"--which said Amtrak "lacks effective operating practices characteristic of well-run organizations, whether public or private."

Today's New York Times editorial "A Disgraceful Signal at Amtrak," discusses the firing (as do articles in the Post and the NYT). It says:

The sudden firing by the Amtrak board of David Gunn, the best president in years of the nation's only passenger railroad, was a body blow to anybody who cares about long-range passenger trains. Mr. Gunn has done a masterly job in the last three years of holding down costs without dismantling the railroad. That, apparently, was his problem. Mr. Gunn was trying to save Amtrak, but the Bush administration wants to privatize it, bit by bit.

The battle between Mr. Gunn and Amtrak board members - all of them appointed by President Bush - intensified in recent weeks when the board took steps to break off the more profitable Northeast Corridor, putting it into its own division and sharing its control and costs with the states. Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, called it a "fire sale" intended to break up the nation's railroad system.

So last week Senator Lautenberg and Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, managed to get a 93-to-6 vote to authorize $11.6 billion for passenger rail service in the next six years - as close to an all-out endorsement of Amtrak as you can get.

But while senators were trying to help Amtrak move forward, its board took a step backward. It complained yesterday that Mr. Gunn - who has greatly increased ridership, improved management and upgraded equipment - was moving too slowly. After his firing, Mr. Gunn said, "Obviously what their goal is, and it's been their goal from the beginning, is to liquidate the company."

For Amtrak's 25 million passengers, this should be a call to arms. Amtrak should be a public transportation trust. It will never be self-sufficient, nor show a conventional profit, any more than the airline industry can fly without federal help. The Bush administration long ago threatened to disassemble Amtrak. Yesterday it began at the executive suite.