Amtrak was in trouble because of growing deficits by 1978 which had grown to $578 million dollars. Based on the then RPS accounting, to save money Amtrak cut 4 long distance trains in 1979. Instead of saving money and reducing the deficit which RPS predicted, Amtrak’s deficit rose to $729 million by 1981. It was shortly after this time that Mr. Claytor took over at Amtrak. To keep the Reagan Administration from eliminating Amtrak , Claytor had to make major progress in reducing its deficit. To do this Claytor ignored RPS and expanded Amtrak’s Long Distance service. Mr. Claytor was quoted about how he was reducing Amtrak’s deficit. “That is one of the ways we hope to reach it and to get additional equipment in order to increase our revenues faster than our costs. That spread is what counts… We have more people wanting to go than we can carry, because we do not have the capacity . The first priority is to get more capacity on the routes we serve. The second priority will be to start new routes that we think have a good possibility of working.” – Interview with Graham Claytor, Trains magazine, June 1991
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