
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 7, 1995                   TAG: 9504070077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

AMTRAK CUTTING MORE ROUTES

The train they call the City of New Orleans will be cut from seven to five days a week, the Broadway Limited to Chicago will end at Pittsburgh, and Houston residents who want to ride the Texas Eagle north will have to start with a bus trip to Dallas.

Amtrak dropped the other shoe Thursday, announcing a series of service cuts scheduled to take place in June and September as the passenger railroad tries to eliminate red ink.

Without the cutbacks, which will total 24 percent of the railroad's routes when complete, Amtrak might have been facing bankruptcy by midsummer, said Thomas M. Downs, president of the railroad.

If the savings from reducing service and staff go as planned, Amtrak will have a balanced budget this year and next, he said.

Amtrak was facing a $240 million shortfall and had been warned to expect no increase in federal subsidies. Amtrak receives nearly $1 billion a year from the Federal Railroad Administration.

``This is our last anticipated downsizing, we hope,'' Downs said.

Downs blamed Amtrak's money problems on years of reduced capital spending on railroads while subsidies were provided to other types of transportation, combined with intense competition from new low-cost airlines.

by CNB