Amtrak's Board of Death

Following are four short youtube videos compliments of dc3rdrail. We hope Mr. Booth approves of our sharing his video clips.

VIDEO #1 - Amtrak narrowly escaped death in 2005 when the Bush administration tried to first bankrupt the company, and then tried to break it up in preparation for partial privatization of passenger rail services. The board of directors, hand picked by President Bush, with only one member ever approved by the Senate, tried to split off the Northeast Corridor and prepare it for private operators. The push began shortly after the 2004 presidential election, and may have involved a back room deal to reward campaign contributors who wanted to run trains, which could be quite profitable on the Northeast Corridor, as long as the states paid to maintain the tracks.

In preparation for privatization of the NEC, the board essentially destroyed the job commuter class by raising fares $5,000+ per year for most NEC commuters measured against the start of 2005. (Commuter ridership dropped like a rock, and commuter revenue was flat or down.) David Gunn, Amtrak's near-legendary president, was an obstacle to the board's nefarious, secret plans. When he was summarily fired by the board -- a sorry group of four transportation-ignorant political donors, fund raisers, and disinterested bureaucracy-climbing lawyers -- the House passenger rail subcommittee responded with severe condemnations of the "runaway train" of a board in a hearing to find out why such rail-ignorant men had just fired the man who was well along in the process of successfully reforming and streamlining Amtrak.

VIDEO #2 - Mr. Jeffrey Rosen served on Amtrak's board as a surrogate for Mr. Norman Mineta, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation at the time. Mr. Rosen was the top attorney at the Transportation Department, and he had been sitting on the Amtrak board in that capacity for about a year at the point in 2005 where he helped fire Amtrak's president, David Gunn, and subsequently appeared in the hearing shown in this video. He had no known rail experience before being placed on the board by Mr. Mineta as a minor part of discharging his job at DOT. He gave $1,000 to George W. Bush in 1999. He gave President Bush another $2,000 in 2004 for his re-election campaign.

After Mr. Rosen helped raise job commuting fares by about $5,000+ per year on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, I repeatedly tried to contact him to discuss the devastation that his actions caused, hoping he could reverse the damage. I repeatedly called him at DOT, but he refused to get on the phone, instead passing me messages through intermediaries and secretaries, asking me if I was able to reach Chairman David Laney instead. Finally, he let another DOT lawyer meet with me in Washington to hear my grievances about the destruction of Northeast Corridor job commuting. The lawyer I met with heard me out and promised to relay my concerns to Mr. Rosen and get back to me. I never heard from the man again. The only communication I was ever able to get from Mr. Rosen was the repeated question, "Have you been able to talk to Chairman David Laney?" At the time, the answer was "No," as Mr. Laney was also ducking me like a pro.

About a year after Mr. Rosen started attending Amtrak board meetings, he helped fire Amtrak's president, David Gunn, apparently because Mr. Gunn was an obstacle to Bush administration plans to dismantle the railroad. Congress was outraged and called the hearing shown in this video.

In an interview I have also posted on YouTube, David Gunn characterized what I call the Amtrak "Board of Death" as being simply a "puppet board" taking administration orders to break up the railroad and privatize train operations on the Northeast Corridor.

My read is that Mr. Rosen was an entrenched bureaucrat in the Bush administration machine, protecting himself by hiding and not talking. I suspect he was far too busy with other DOT legal matters to pay any significant amount of attention to Amtrak, and that he was simply serving his masters' wishes to break up the railroad, because exercising his own judgment would just get him in hot water.

I find it sad that a Harvard-educated lawyer like Mr. Rosen would choose to behave like a lap dog without a conscience just to keep playing the Washington insider game. In my eyes, he did little more than stain his name.

VIDEO #3 - Mr. Floyd Hall, a former CEO of Kmart living in Montclair, New Jersey, was repeatedly given "recess appointments" to Amtrak's board by President Bush. As a "recess appointee," he was able to serve on the Amtrak board without Senate approval. He had no known experience in the transportation industry before being placed on the Amtrak board. His primary qualification for the board appeared to be the roughly $350,000 of political "soft money" he had given the RNC from 2000 through 2003.

After Mr. Hall helped raise job commuting fares by about $5,000+ per year on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, I repeatedly tried to contact him to discuss the devastation that his actions caused, hoping he could reverse the damage, but he never responded. He chose to hide from me. When the House passenger rail subcommittee likewise asked him to appear and explain his decision to fire Amtrak's president, David Gunn, in November, 2005, he similarly failed to show up.

My research on Mr. Hall uncovered an interesting rags-to-riches story about a high school dropout who became a fantastic huckster and climbed corporate ladders on the sales chain -- the proverbial man who could "sell ice cubes to Eskimos." I have found no Internet quotations from Mr. Hall about rail or transportation policy, but I've found plenty about accessories and apparel, including, "June sales were ahead of plan, reflecting strong performance in hot-weather-related categories such as seasonal apparel, accessories, and specialty items."

My read is that Mr. Hall, accomplished and wealthy, yet still wishing to show how far he'd come from his humble beginnings, wanted to "play around" in Washington for the prestige it would give him, and in exchange for a third of a million dollars in political donations, he was given the Amtrak board appointment much as an idle child is given a toy to occupy his time and keep his fingers out of trouble. Did he have a college education in anything? No. Did he have a background in transportation, engineering, or public policy formation? No. Was he good at selling dresses and vacuum cleaners? Yes.

I find it sad that an accomplished and wealthy man like Mr. Hall would choose to behave like a lap dog without a conscience in exchange for an obscure Washington appointment. In my eyes, he did little more than stain his name.

VIDEO #4 - Mr. Enrique Sosa, a former Amoco executive from Key Biscayne, Florida, was repeatedly given "recess appointments" to Amtrak's board by President Bush. As a "recess appointee," he was able to serve on the Amtrak board without Senate approval. He admitted that he had never set foot on an Amtrak train, nor ever ridden a train of any sort on the Northeast Corridor, before he was placed on the board. His primary qualification for the board appeared to be the roughly $50,000 he had given the RNC, Florida's Republican Party, the Bush presidential campaign, and various other political lobbying groups since the year 2000.

After Mr. Sosa helped raise job commuting fares by about $5,000+ per year on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, I repeatedly tried to contact him to discuss the devastation that his actions caused, hoping he could reverse the damage, but he never responded. He chose to hide from me. When the House passenger rail subcommittee likewise asked him to appear and explain his decision to fire Amtrak's president, David Gunn, in November, 2005, he similarly failed to show up.

I conducted extensive research in Washington and found out that Mr. Sosa had the worst reputation of all the four members of the Amtrak "Board of Death" in terms of being characterized as "disinterested" and being extremely hard for anyone to contact -- even members of Congress.

I find it sad that an accomplished and wealthy man like Mr. Sosa would choose to behave like a lap dog without a conscience in exchange for an obscure Washington appointment. He did little more than stain his name.

return to the Amtrak 2000-2008 Negotiations page

Pennsylvania Federation BMWED-IBT