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--> --> Amtrak is doomed due to `cell yell' By Roger Simon WASHINGTON - It seems like Amtrak is always facing one financial crisis or another, and yet somehow it always muddles through. Currently, it is $3 billion in debt and needs an additional $300 million to carry it until Oct. 1, when a new fiscal year begins. In order to get that money, it wants to mortgage Penn Station in New York. It is possible the Amtrak might severely cut back its service or fold all together, though most think Congress will continue to pour money into it. In my opinion, however, Amtrak is doomed, and it has nothing to do with its service, reliability or washrooms that smell like they haven't been cleaned since Strom Thurmond was a boy. The crisis that will finally sink Amtrak is a simple one: cell phones. People don't use cell phones on planes. The airlines won't let you. Yes, you can use one of the air-phones that are embedded in the back of the seat in front of you, but the kind of people who can afford that usually have butlers to make calls for them. Trains, however, are a whole different story. Cell phones work on trains. So people use them. Constantly. And loudly. There is a phenomenon known as the "cell yell" that leads people to shout into their cell phones. "I'm paying $1,600 for a one-bedroom apartment and it's rent controlled," the twit behind me on my most recent Amtrak trip is bellowing into his phone. "I'd like to get a nicer, cheaper place." Do I care? Do I want to know this? And how about the woman across the way, who has been talking into her phone for an hour and only looks like she might get off because every five minutes she yells: "The battery is going! I think the battery is going." But, alas, the battery does not go. Instead, I hear: "And he kept calling Eric, Robert! Can you believe that. Eric looks nothing like Robert! Robert was a troll!" There is only one question that goes through your mind when you ride Amtrak these days, and it has nothing to do with whether you will arrive on time. The question is: If I killed these people by jamming their cell phones into their ears, would any jury in the world convict me? I think not. Amtrak has tried to solve this problem, but it has done so in a very Amtrak way, which is to say in a way that guarantees complete and utter failure. Amtrak has designated "quiet" cars, in which cell phones, noisy electronic devices and even loud talking are banned. Sort of. But not really. Which is very Amtrak. On my way from Washington to New York a few days ago, I rode in a regular Metroliner car. (A roundtrip Metroliner to New York costs a stunning $250, which is only $21 cheaper than a plane, but it drops you in midtown Manhattan rather than in Queens. Why not take a regular train? Have you ever gone into a washroom on a regular train? Don't even think about it.) So I am sitting in a regular Metroliner car, and the twit behind me starts calling up about apartments and the twit across from me starts talking about trolls, and this starts off what I term "defensive calling." To block the sound of obnoxious cell-phone users, people start using their own cell phones. And the problem snowballs. Soon, the car is filled with people making useless phone calls. Of the countless phone calls I have been unable to avoid hearing, I have never heard a single one that sounded essential. So on the trip back, I go to Amtrak's designated "quiet" car. You can only tell where the quiet car is by listening to the announcement in the station, which states: "The quiet car is the coach car in the front of the train." Or, as it sounded over the loudspeakers in Penn Station, "The quaicoshcarfunrain." So on the platform I asked a conductor for the quiet car, and he directed me to the front car, which was a long way down the platform. But that was fine. I shlepped my luggage down there and climbed aboard. And the first thing I noticed is that there were no signs that said "Quiet Car" either outside or inside the car. "Is this the quiet car?" I asked the conductor who punched my ticket. "That's right," he said. "No cell phones. No computers with loud noises." Great, I said. And it was great. Until we got to our first stop in New Jersey. There, a guy got on, sat down, had his ticket punched by the conductor and moments later whipped out his cell phone. "Hey, Tim, it's Tom," he shouted. "I've got to talk to you about the voluntary filing." Many heads whipped around in the quiet car and we stared at the guy. Did Amtrak not make the announcement in his station? Or did he not understand what "quaicoshcarfunrain" meant? Any one of us could have gotten up and walked over to him and informed him that this was a quiet car. None of us did, however, invoking the rule of Modern America: "Always deal with strangers as if they were carrying Uzi's." So instead we looked around for the conductor, who was not in the car. As I got off the train, I wondered how much would it cost Amtrak to take a couple of sheets of paper and write on them with a felt tip pen: "Quiet Car. No cell phone use." What could this cost? A buck per train? Less? But this solution is way beyond Amtrak's powers of comprehension. It is way too easy. And way too cheap. But given enough time and maybe a couple of government grants, I am guessing Amtrak will finally decide it needs a few signs. And someday, perhaps when the Metroliner costs $500 for a roundtrip ticket and Amtrak is only $2 billion in debt, it will come up with big signs that say "Quiet Car." But they will be electronic. They will cost $35,000 each. And they won't work. Roger Simon is a syndicated columnist for the Baltimore Sun. Email your... 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