Trains, Buses Getting Swamped

By Tom Incantalupo | STAFF WRITER

September 16, 2001

As practically the only long-distance transportation games in town, Amtrak and Greyhound Lines were overwhelmed last week with added riders. How long it will last, especially once the airlines are fully operational, is anyone's guess, but some experts think it could be months before many Americans are comfortable again in airplanes.

Amtrak says it has handled twice the normal number of riders since Tuesday and, despite adding cars and running some extra trains, has had to turn some customers away. "They're selling out on a number of long-distance trains," said Rick Remington, a spokesman for the for-profit quasi-governmental corporation created in 1971. In the Northeast, he said, the effects of the attack impaired operations but added, "We'll be back to normal Monday." A record 22.5 million passengers rode Amtrak last year.

It has been exchanging airline paper tickets for its own tickets.

At Greyhound Lines, the nation's largest provider of intercity bus service, spokeswoman Kristin Parsley says passenger traffic has doubled across its system, which handled a record 25.4 million riders last year. "In certain areas," she said, "we've seen quadruple the \[normal\] number." With 2,300 buses and 5,000 drivers, she said, the company, a division of publicly traded Laidlaw Corp. in Canada, routinely increases service by that percentage during holiday periods, so only a few customers had to be turned away this week.

Rental car companies also reported a surge in business.

Many of the additional renters and riders on Amtrak and Greyhound were stranded airline passengers with few choices to reach their destinations and neither company is counting on Americans in significant numbers to become permanent riders or even long-term customers. "We'll just see day by day," Parsley said.

But transportation industry analysts expect many Americans to avoid flying in droves in coming weeks and perhaps months, depending upon world events, especially over shorter distances where trains, buses and cars are a viable alternative. "A lot of it depends on how this war plays out," said Joel Denney, airline analyst for U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis.

In Amtrak's case, said Remington, it cannot expand very much in the foreseeable future, in part because it operates most of its trains on tracks owned by freight railroads and must coordinate its schedule with their trains. It is, however, asking Congress for $12 million to upgrade tracks for the inauguration of more high-speed service, such as the Metroliner and Acela trains between Boston, New York and Washington.

"We've maxed out," Remington said, "and there is a lot of demand we can't meet."