"We almost lost this one to Nevada." (National Railroad Passenger Corp.'s decision to locate its Western Regional Sales Office in Riverside, California) (Corporate Expansion & Relocation 1st Quarter '93: Focus on California)

Nothing like a little friendly competition to make a region even happier when it plucks an economic plum like the new Amtrak Western Regional Sales Office that's going up in Riverside

Keith Butler said it in an offhand manner, probably not thinking about how much meaning he was packing into one quick quotation.

"We almost lost this one to Nevada," he said.

Butler is the vice president of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. He was talking about Amtrak's decision last year to build a new Western Reservations Sales Office in Riverside, one of the cities in the two-county Inland Empire of Southern California.

Butler's remark, in an interview about Inland Empire development efforts, packed a lot of meaning because Nevada is one of the states most aggressively courting California businesses.

When Amtrak's board of directors in Washington, D.C., approved plans for the new regional sales office last year, it marked the end of more than two years of research into where the nation's passenger rail line should locate the new office. As Butler's comment implies, Nevada was obviously in the running, which made the victory even more satisfying for the Inland Empire.

Consolidating offices

The site selected for the Amtrak office is in Riverside's Mission Grove office/industrial park. Now under construction and expected to open this summer, the new Amtrak office will occupy approximately 51,000 square feet and will house 400 reservations sales agent work stations. Employment at the center will eventually reach 900, approximately a third of them part-time workers, and the facility will consolidate operations now being conducted in two separate offices in Los Angeles and the Riverside County city of Corona.

Amtrak said the Riverside proposal "offered the best financial arrangement and a very desirable community environment." It added that its experience in filling positions at its temporary Corona office "has confirmed expectations about the quality of the available work force."

Amtrak expects to staff the office for 18 hours a day, seven days a week. It also plans to conduct an extensive training program so that agents will be both knowledgeable about Amtrak services and proficient with the computers that support the railroad's ticketing and reservation system.

Glimpsing the future

The new center is also a glimpse into the future of Amtrak and other organizations that operate large, centralized, highly automated systems. The center in Riverside, for example, is one of just three facilities nationwide that will handle all of Amtrak's reservations and information via its toll-free 800-USA-RAIL number. More than 7 million calls a year are processed at the Western Regional Sales Office alone.

The center is also one of many steps Amtrak -- formally known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp. -- is taking in its efforts to streamline and improve its operations. W. Graham Claytor, the corporation's president and chairman, pointed out in its 1992 annual report that Amtrak is attacking the issue of improved rail passenger transportation on a number of fronts.

Among other efforts, it is encouraging states to invest in rail passenger infrastructure, seeking higher federal capital investment, and making the cases for the establishment of a trust fund to support investment in Amtrak and high-speed rail.

The corporation is also attempting to expand its share of the business travel market by innovations such as its Conference Car, which enables groups of executives to work together while in transit. The car provides ample room for reviewing documents and conducting business meetings and Amtrak touts it as an option unavailable on airlines. The room provides booths, tables, telephones, a display board and video equipment so that travel is no longer "down time."

Commuter rail

Claytor also pointed out that for the first time in its history, Amtrak is now carrying more commuter passengers than inter-city travelers, thanks to decisions by transit agencies in Los Angeles and San Francisco to contract with Amtrak to operate their commuter rail services.

Commuter rail travel is an important issue in California, of course, because of ongoing concerns about traffic congestion and pollution. From Amtrak's perspective, Claytor said that the importance of commuter rail to the corporation's future "cannot be overestimated."

Increasing numbers of communities nationwide also are planning "intermodal transportation centers" where inter-city trains, commuter trains, rapid transit and local buses meet to provide travelers with mode-to-mode transfers under one roof.

These centers, like many of the refurbished Amtrak stations, will differ markedly from the inventory of outmoded and dilapidated passenger stations that Amtrak inherited in 1971 when it was created to preserve a national rail passenger system.

Recent improvements

The refurbishing projects continue today. Among the stations where remodeling or reconstruction was completed in 1992 were:

* Chicago Union Station. This $32 million complete rebuilding and renovation was funded jointly by Amtrak and Metra, the commuter rail agency, and has transformed the station from a maze of pedestrian bottlenecks to a smooth-flowing, passenger-friendly facility.

* Warrensburg, Mo. Station. A $438,000 rehabilitation of a facility that was originally constructed in 1890, this project was funded by the community, the state, a local charity and Amtrak.

* Hudson, N.Y. Station. Ninety-five percent of the $1.5 million cost of renovations was provided by the state.

* Fostoria Station, Ohio. The improvement of portions of the station was funded by the city of Fostoria.

* Planning began for intermodal facilities in Atlanta, Seattle, St. Louis and Detroit.

With these and other projects it is planning, Amtrak is likely to be a recurring name in expansion and relocation circles in the coming years.