ALBUQUERQUE — It appears that weekend train service on the New Mexico Rail Runner Express won't get the ax this summer after all.

Officials with the Rio Metro Regional Transit District on Friday voted to overturn an earlier decision to eliminate weekend train service because of a projected $1.2 million shortfall in the train budget.

Rejecting that plan, members voted to consolidate late-night southbound trains on weekdays, replace the earliest northbound trains with a bus, and make other weekday schedule changes they say will save $1.4 million in operating costs. In addition, Saturday trains will be less frequent in the winter months.

"If we are ever going to make this train a viable sustainable train, we have got to have weekend service," said board chairman Larry Abraham, mayor of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.

The board expects to discuss potential fare increases as soon as September and will convene a task force to look at long-term budget issues involving the Rail Runner.

Last month, the board issued a split decision to cut Saturday and Sunday trains between Belen and Santa Fe. But after resistance from merchants and officials in Northern New Mexico, it took up the issue again.

In recent weeks, Santa Fe Mayor David Coss and other Santa Fe officials met with Rio Metro board members to argue for keeping the service. Coss said at Friday's meeting that the new plan was important for the local economies at both ends of the train route.

"We are all facing economic challenges and we should face them together," he said.

The Rail Runner began serving Albuquerque, Bernalillo and Belen in 2006, then started coming to Santa Fe in late 2008. Planners expected to cancel weekend runs after an initial launch. But the next year, they said that because of demand they would make the Saturday schedules permanent. That summer, Gov. Bill Richardson funneled federal stimulus dollars to the project so that trains would also run on Sundays.

Terry Doyle, Regional Transit District operations manager, told board members and a packed spectator section at Friday's meeting that the main reason officials are facing a shortfall is because a federal grant that helped subsidize operations is ending this year. Another $5 million from the feds will drop out of the revenue stream in the next fiscal year, leaving the train with a deficit, after reserve spending, of about $3.6 million in FY13.

John Alsobrook, a councilor for the village of Corrales, was the only one of 15 board members to vote against Friday's plan, noting he finds it premature to eliminate some service before weighing fare changes.

For the fiscal year that just ended, the train had operating expenses of $24 million. Fare box revenues were about $3 million, and gross-receipts taxes brought in $12.4 million.

Rio Metro Transit District's board officially inherited oversight of the Rail Runner in 2009 from the Mid-Region Council of Governments — a consortium made of the same partners as Rio Metro and that held the original contract to manage the train operations.

The transit district's voting members are from the cities of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, villages of Los Lunas, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, Corrales, and Bosque Farms, and counties of Bernalillo, Sandoval and Valencia.

Those counties, along with Santa Fe County, levy a gross-receipts tax that helps pay for train operations. Other operating money has historically come from the state, but Abraham said Friday that his efforts to secure permanent agreements with Gov. Susana Martinez's administration have not panned out.

"We have a state right now that really is not wanting to take ownership of this train," Abraham said. "A lot of the Rail Runner was built on these verbal agreements with an administration that wanted to get this train running, but we can't rely on those verbal agreements anymore. That's one of our major problems."

New Mexico's Transportation Department borrowed nearly $400 million to buy train tracks and rolling stock and put the train into service as part of a bond program promoted by Richardson. Bond repayments and maintenance of the tracks are still its responsibility. Rio Metro maintains the rolling stock and controls operations.

A spokesman for Martinez did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.

SCHEDULE CHANGES

Rail Runner schedule changes approved Friday by the Rio Metro Regional Transit District include:

• The 4:02 a.m. northbound weekday train between Albuquerque and Santa Fe will be replaced with bus service.

• The last two southbound weekday trains from Santa Fe at 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. will be consolidated into one train departing at 9 p.m.

• During the winter months, Saturday's Rail Runner service will be reduced to the equivalent of current Sunday service: two northbound runs and two southbound runs.