Washington ? Amtrak will renovate Civil War-era tunnels and replace overhead electrical wires installed when Franklin Roosevelt was president under a five-year upgrade plan announced Friday.

Amtrak President David Gunn’s plan would ignore calls for eliminating a number of money-losing long-distance trains and would keep the railroad’s high-speed service at existing levels.

The quasi-private passenger service came under pressure from Congress last year after announcing that 18 of the long-haul runs would be scrapped to save money.

“If you’re going to have any service left, this is what you’re going to have to do,” Gunn said about the refurbishing plan presented to Amtrak’s board Thursday. “When it’s done, we’ll have a good railroad.”

Gunn said Amtrak needed twice the $900 million President Bush planned to spend in 2004 to keep the trains running.

Amtrak President David Gunn says the company will need .8 billion in federal funds next year just to keep its trains running.

Transportation Department spokesman Leonardo Alcivar said the department did not expect to ask Congress for more money. He also was skeptical of Gunn’s plan.

“What was presented today represents a staff draft and is unfortunately a best-case scenario that consists of several assumptions, multiple risks and is noticeable for what is not included as potential costs,” Alcivar said.

He said the plan made unrealistic cost estimates for buying new rail cars and assumed troubles with the high-speed Acela service will go away. Last year, the high-speed trains along the East Coast were taken out of service because of cracks in shock-absorbing assemblies that keep the locomotives from swaying.

Last year, Gunn’s threat to shut down the railroad resulted in a $200 million government loan.

Congress allowed the passenger railroad to survive through 2003 by granting almost all the $1.2 billion requested through September.