When push comes to shove, what Amtrak will axe

No shots your way.  Just a sad agreement that you are right.

I keep telling my friends and coworkers that with gas prices that will only go higher, roadways and bridges that we can't maintain, a population that will not pay higher fuel taxes and a general revulsion toward the TSA and airlines, we NEED more trains in this country.

Would never harm a hair on your head, Fred. Much of the blame for the ongoing drama of Amtrak is, in my opinion, because its structure was never configured for success, starting with the Board which fails to represent railroading business expertise,transportation economics, state & municipal interests or even passenger interests. Top this with the failure of DOT Sec. Ray La Hood to put any priority into articulation of a National Transportation Plan which would reveal the true subsidy given to highway and aviation interests as well as layout rational options given various likely energy scenarios. Such a plan would likely render absurd any arguments presented by the likes of Rep. Mica.

You know Fred, I don't think Amtrak's ever going to go away, and I'll tell you why.  Somehow, I've got the feeling that the American public WANT passenger trains in some form or another, even if they'll never ride them.  Somewhat analagous to the National Park System, such as Yellostone, Yosemitie, Grand Teton, et al.  All are taxpayer supported, and most Americans will never go there, but just the IDEA all that wilderness exists makes them feel good. Of course Amtrak doesn't turn a profit.  What governmental organization does? At least it recoups SOME of it's expenditures which is more than you can say for other Federal agencies.

Part of the answer might be to turn some of the eastern LD trains into state supported day trains.  For example, whack the Crescent in half and make it a NYP to ATL day train and a ATL to NOL day train.  Then, let the trains be treated like the other state supported corridors.

A big part might be some rationalization of work.  Amtrak appears to have a very large number of employees for the amount of equipment and train miles they operate.  Compare the number of mechanical employees  to the fleet size on NS vs. Amtrak.  NS has more locos than Amtrak has locos + passenger cars, but a far smaller mechanical department.  Why?

I notice that the biggest losers are the triweekly trains.  The poor old Sunset is a victim of the idea of a true transcontinental and the Cardinal is some sort of hangover from the days of Harley Staggers.  

I think we are going to end up with some Northeast trains, a Chicago hub and California.  I don't like it but the successful Empire Builder passes through my town without stopping, and I have been getting by with Southwest Airlines or the bus.

With the PRIIA Section 209 methodology ostensibly in place the worst kept secret in the passenger railroading world is that the state supported trains will be bid on by outside providers. It won’t happen all at once but eventually look for more options in this growing market. This will leave Amtrak with the NEC and the LD's...that is until the NEC is turned over to someone else.

President Obama would veto any attempt to make government smaller, anger Amtrak unions and other lesser poobabs.

What's interesting in this country is that as ridership is at record levels, and polling indicating the public wants more trains, not fewer, that still Amtrak gets the ax. To me this is a great illustration of the disconnect between the people and Congress. I have friends who tell me "The next generation wants trains and green transportation." But it won't happen, because the political system is pretty much disconnected from what the people want or don't want. It will be a cruel joke (and make our country look foolish, as has been happening so much the past few years) when we cut off passenger trains despite the obvious benefit.

You are probably right, but this is slippery track for Amtrak to follow. The company should think very carefully before eviscerating its national network. John Mica may applaud the death of the CARDINAL, but other influential members of Congress in West Virginia for example very correctly will not. The train is the only option for any intercity public transportation across much of its route.

The long-hauls losses are certainly real, but we also know that Amtrak's internal allocation of those costs is more than open to debate. The Midwest Corridor trains out of Chicago derive a very substantial portion of their ridership from connecting passengers off the long-hauls--for many trains typically around 30%. Remove this business and the revenue recovery ratio looks very different indeed. The potential loss of this revenue cuts both ways.

Amtrak's purported sleeping car losses are simply not credible. The fares charged for that business exceed coach levels typically by over 200%, (sometimes even more--a Deluxe Bedroom can run over $1440 in July of 2012 from CHI/LAX, compared to coach rates on the same train beginning at  only $152 and tops at a maximum of $299) yet the company alleges massive losses for First Class service that it has never adequately justified or proven. I am convinced the sleepers are substantially profitable.

But fundamentally there is the reality that Amtrak can not survive a conversion into a series of isolated corridors. The Libertarians want an NEC/California Amtrak at best--which if all states Portland, ME to Richmond, VA (plus California)retain service is at most a 13 state network including California. And of all the California regional trains only three former "San Diegan" PACIFIC SURFLINER trains are fully Amtrak funded. All the others require state support.

Throw in the Midwest Corridors and you add Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin and you still have Amtrak service coverage in only 18 states. Be kind and add Washington and Oregon and you claw up to 20--not close to winning a vote in Congress.

And this assumes the regional corridor services somehow survive. Amtrak may think it will break even on Corridor/Regional services  after the state-support rules change in 2013, but that assumes the states somehow can find the money to cover 100% of those costs. This is very unlikely and the near certain result is far fewer state-supported trains, which will negatively impact overall Amtrak revenues, connectivity options and patronage.

To assume that the long-hauls must go because of their purportedly higher losses ignores a greater reality that they are now one of the strongest arguments for Amtrak's existence, as in many cases they are literally the only public transit option available to Americans outside of the great cities.

No regularly scheduled bus service exists parallel to the EMPIRE BUILDER for nearly a thousand miles from Spokane to Fargo. Air options along the line are equally pathetic. Greyhound has dropped direct Denver-Omaha service, and even where it does run, increasingly skips smaller towns while trying to turn itself into a feeder from regional centers to hub airports.

On the Burlington, Vermont--Boston line the through Grehound Bus service now rolls majestically past Concord, New Hampshire, (the state capital and literally just a three mile side trip off the highway) without even a remote highway-side stop, but stops down the line at the Manchester, NH Airport (but not in downtown Manchester--New Hampshire's largest city) in an all too typical example of what now passes for "bus service".

Concord still enjoys service to Boston on Concord Trailways, but the network aspect of bus service in the United States is rapidly vanishing. This is replicated all over the country.

I do not dispute the probability that Boardman will try to create any cuts from the national network services. I don't doubt he will follow this course, because he thinks it will be "easier" to sell, but he will be wrong and the outright en of Amtrak as a national carrier will rapidly follow. The core of the NEC will certainly have the best chance to survive, but an Amtrak in only 13-20 states will never win a budget vote after the date that it ceases to serve the greater part of the entire country. Most sadly I can not really argue with that result. Why should Nebraska, Colorado, Texas or West Virginia pay for a National Railroad Passenger Corporation that is no such thing?  

Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson put it very eloquently when she observed that Amtrak will either be national or it will be nothing.

Carl Fowler

President

Rail Travel Adventures

Probability tells me you are close to being right on target with the political, sacrificial budget cuts "required" by the annual send in the clowns charade that defies logic, when the greater public good is considered traditionally primarily secondary to private special interests in the transportation field.  

I recall the cries of pinko communist conspiracy in the immediate era in advance of public transportation authorities being formed to offset the loss of abandoned passenger services while freight railroads continually receive federal funding with public money for any number of productivity ailments, What is in the national interest? It certainly is not a balanced transportation policy ad nauseum.  Amtrak remains a joke because it is designed to fail without a reliable subsidy while private concerns and stockholders slide out the back door with public cash in hand. As Yogi Bera observed, "It's Deja Vu all over again." It's a intentional design for either marginalizing issues begging to be addressed or outright failure by political mismanagement.

I must append a mild dispute of the loss ratios cited above. The NEC's $70,000,000 "profit" is before the allocation of capital and overall system costs. This is at best what the ICC used to call an "out of pocket" profit and ignores depreciation, costs derived from under-reimbursed commuter operations on the NEC, capital and allocated system costs. Add those in and it loses huge amounts--likely more than the long-haul network.

Similarly Amtrak's operating ratio of 130 for regional trains is only possible because it escapes observing most of the behind the scenes (non out of pocket) costs on the regional corridors in the formula, with the benefit for these trains of direct state subsidy payments and with state and direct Federal grants paying not only for new cars but also for much of the capital and track budgets on these lines, costs entirely assigned to the long-hauls.

The real ratios would be very different if national system costs were fairly allocated.

There is no disputing that Amtrak loses money, but there is considerable basis to question where/how/why those losses occur. The long-hauls gross the highest amounts per passenger mile in the system, but get allocated hugely disproportionate parts of Amtrak's fixed costs, especially for central office/Washington functions.

There is no question Amtrak requires a subsidy, but so do the highways. The disingenuous argument that the gas tax "users fee" pays for the highways is clearly false. Overall 40% of US highway spending comes from taxes not raised on gasoline.

But the matter is academic anyway. When was the gas tax not a tax? When did any of us get a dividend check from I 95? We "invest" in highways and "subsidize" Amtrak, but in-fact it is the same in both cases. We invest through taxes (subsidies) in essential, but unprofitable multi-modal transportation, both rail, air and highway, because we should and must.

Carl Fowler

Something that should be examined by transportation decision makers is how to effectively make seamless service to points not served by the remaining trains.  In New England, stations such as Boston, Hartford and New Haven are true intermodal depots, but in other cities such as Minneapolis, Denver, Chicago, and Kansas City give rise to the "Huh?" when it comes to getting from one mode to another.  Bus connections that are not merely incidental should be part of any ground transportation system.

What's the operating ratio of the Interstate Highway System?

I'll take my answer off the air, thanks.

(sorry, couldn't resist... :-)

I would think that the Southwest Chief would be the first on the cutting block with Amtrak having to take over all maintenance from La Junta to the cut off for  Santa Fe and  then Albquerque to the Dalles.  Adding that cost will change the loss ratio for that train dramatically. They have lots and lots of jointed rail on that route.

Of course I presume the other trains mentioned are not 100% responsible for maintenance on their routes. Are they?

Mr. Stamkey, funny you should bring up Amtrak's paying for track maintenance for the SW Chief through southern Colorado and New Mexico. Not long ago I made discreet inquiries at both Amtrak and BNSF and found that the railroad has never sent the maintenance bills to Amtrak. May have changed in recent months, but I sort of doubt it. When the sale of this line to NM fell through, so it seems did BNSF's resolve to make Amtrak pay. Obviously, there is lots we don't know about this.

Fred Frailey

The litmus test for passenger trains should be cost/benefit.  It is not too difficult to see the benefit of the NEC in terms of avoided highway construction that would be needed to replace the NEC's capacity. You could probably replace the rural LD train routes with vouchers for taxis to the nearest air/bus location and come out ahead.

I hope the government keeps in mind a very important issue.  The Sunset Ltd used to be daily.  Then it was cut back to 3x/week.  Amtrak has discussed going back to daily service with the UP, and UP wants lots of capital invested to increase capacity on the line before agreeing to daily service.  So when a route is ended, it will likely be very difficult to get it back again without a big dollar cost for new capacity.

When combined with other annoyances such as the PRIIA service standards for which the AAR is suing the Feds, and the strings attached to Federal HSR funding, any ground given back by Amtrak will be very expensive or perhaps even impossible to regain if sentiment changes.

Why should cuts to the budget always mean train-offs?  Why is reform to Amtrak always centered around privatizing?  Can't Amtrak become more efficient from within?  Quick benchmark:  DB Bahn + Netze (passenger plus infrastructure) generates 8000 passengers per employee per year.  Amtrak does 1500.  Yes, it's not all apples to apples, but that's a huge difference!

Good point, Oltmannd. See my story that went online today, above this one: $100 million in operating cost cuts, without a single train coming off.

Fred Frailey

It's logical that the long distance trains are candidates for trimming.  They neither have a profitable operation (NEC)or are state supported.  Long distance trains have no champions.  However I hate for a possible misstatement to get perpetuated.  When Boardman first claimed the increase in deficit was due to long distance trains I looked at Amtrak's own reports on the web which did not confirm that statement.  Just now I went and looked at the same report for July and August 2011.  Both month show that the route performance data is unavailable due to a system conversion.  Hmmm.

Please look at postings on the web site for the United Rail Passenger Alliance by Andrew Selden and others (like Gil Charmichel).  He has a posting from earlier this year with a detailed outline of costs related to long distance trains.  In his breakdown of "losses" for LD trains, it is reported that some LD trains lose up to 40 mil a year including over 15 mil of "national" management costs.  How could one train operating once a day create 15 mil of "national management costs (namely over $41,000 per day).  As Andrew hast stressed for years, Amtrak has been spreading out NEC costs over the system for years.  End the LD trains and the NEC "losses" will soar.  If it ends up being just the NEC, then politically, the NEC must become funded solely by the various NE states.  It can no longer be funded by all the rest of us when it only benefits one area.

Fred:  Politically an announcement of the termination of the trains you mention might persuade an effort by Congressmen in the affected states to push for earmarks to maintain XYZ train service? Can't you see the uproar if certain ones continue service with said earmarks?

About 36% of Amtrak's passengers ride a little over 2% of the system - the NEC

. True, that's an expensive 2% of the miles because Amtrak has to fork over the capital and maintenance.

If you add corridors outside the NEC - Illinois, Wisonsin,Michigan,California and the PNW about 80% of the customers are riding less than 20% of the system. I doubt the LD trains are here for the long term - but then alot of people said that in 1971.

Since that 80 % represents about 20 statres in total, the only viable way forward may be three super regional authorities to maintain the hardware and let the private sector take a shot at the "above the rail" operation.

 BTW, the Empire Builder's numbers may not look so great when the $33 million Amtrak has "committed" to the Devil Lake line project is factored into the costs.

I suppose one really needs to consider the competition. The 50+ year capital subsidy for passenger vehicles on the interstates is between $0.06/VM to $0.13/VM in today's dollars depending on the discount rate used and the distinctions between intercity versus urban travel (intercity is more expensive per VM). However, if one doesn't charge 80kip truck what they should be charged this would go up quite a bit. I figured this out by taking the FHWA expenditures from the HF-10 series from 1958 to 2005 and put them into a spreadsheet with stated average fuel economy and the then existent federal fuel tax then used the interstate VM traveled to find the "fare" paid.

The FHWA has something close to this but it uses the term "highway" to refer to all roads including the street out in front of your house. In this way it masks the fact that 4+ million miles of road feed funds to the network that people truly consider to be highways.

The document is here,

www.fhwa.dot.gov/.../chap6.pdf , take a look at exhibit 6-10. It shows a spending level of $0.13/VM in the 50's and the federal fuel tax still would have been only $0.01/VM with the state at another $0.01/VM or less. Once you consider the leveraging the results are a lot worse. Even now it is $0.06/VM.

Further the FHWA doesn't account for the governmental spending on accidents and medical care, If I recall right that is about $70 Billion without compensation, though the share of intercity road travel would only be a quarter of that.

Now lets apply just this capital roadway subsidy to Amtrak, it works out to about $15 to $30/trainmile depending upon the usage, aka almost the full subsidy. We really do need a study of the entire system as some politicians will incorrectly quote the 1997 Federal Highway Cost Allocation equity ratio to state that roads pay their way when this is only a statement of incremental maintenance costs for the relatively flush 1990's period.

I suppose my position is halfway between NARP and URPA.

The long distance trains should not be cut, but rather doubled in frequency to create a better network effect.  This would double operational costs but might triple the revenue and help reduce fixed costs per train.  For instance, in considering a trip to Chicago where I would have a three-hour window to catch the connecting long-distance train, even as a railfan I will either not take that trip or go by other means, because if the first train is three hours late (especially if reputedly often so) I will miss the second train and have an uncomfortable 21-hour-long wait for my connection.

If there were two trains per day (12-hour frequency) on all long-distance corridors, then a traveler would never have more than a twelve-hour wait for his/her connecting train.  Thus, with doubled frequency, effect of a delay enroute or in origination would have a less arduous effect upon a two-train traveler, so all long-distance trains meeting at a connection point would then attract passengers now lost to a different modal choice or to trips not taken.

We are so disfunctional about trains it makes me want to spit. Just returned from Europe where trains are plentiful, attractive, efficient and operating with excellence. We are such chumps to allow our transportation system to devolve into an occasional bus to nowhere.

You had to take a shot at the working people, didn't you, Fred.  Nobody, and I mean nobody at Amtrak works harder than the OBS and T&E crews out in front on-board the trains.  I should know, I was an LSA for 14 years and considered it a real break going to freight T&E.  I suppose you consider anyone in a blue collar job who makes a living wage to be "coddled".  It's the fact that those who work on the trains make a living wage and stay years to become experienced that enables them to be more able to deal with the equipment failures, freight railroad delays and detours, and other problems that would lead underpaid workers who turn over frequently totally incapable of dealing with all of the problems that come up out on the railroad.

I also believe that those holding those jobs are entitled to fight tooth and nail to keep those jobs paying a living wage and beat back things like the attempt to contract out Empire Service food service to Subway.  Amtrak's opponents do their best to sow conflict and discontent between natural allies, like the passengers and the employees.  We all want Amtrak to be there and succeed, but by cutting Amtrak funding to the bone and then saying, "...if it wasn't for those greedy and lazy on-board employees Amtrak would have enough money to operate", the far-right opponents manage to turn those at about the same level against each other.  It's the same theory behind attempts to gut the last group of workers who make a decent living and have decent benefits - government employees.  The arguments that "hey I don't have decent wages or benefits, why should they", is exactly what the 1% want the 99% to fight over.  We should all turn on the 1% and take it out of their hides.   Most fans who've never actually drawn a paycheck from a railroad take management's side, while those of us who've actually been there know the real deal.  

I should have said a 24-hour wait for the connecting train if the originating train misses the window.

I truly believe that if the LD trains were actually made to be real travel choices they wouldn't lose any more money then the other trains. All the LD trains are, is lots of corridor trains put together. The only problem, is there are no connections, except at end points and maybe a few bus connections. Now imagine if every major city on the LD routes had bus or rail connections to other cities? This is the type of transportation system we should be working toward. LD losing lots of money has less to do with "running in the middle of nowhere" and lots to do with running only 3 days a week in some cases.

every govt agency and program when it shows failure will always say more money needed for success!  so throw more money at amtrak for more losses

Making 3-days-a-week trains run every day would bring more revenue and spread fixed costs per train.  I've been told that Cardinal employees are paid to just sit on the days the train doesn't run.  So the only added cost to run it 4 more days per week would be fuel for the loco, and some additional days of pay for station agents.  Admittedly a simplistic analysis, but if the train doesn't run on a day I need to go or return that's lost revenue for Amtrak, since I've got to use another mode to get to my destination.

In our small community the airline operates 4 flights a day and in past years carried just over 10,000 passengers a year.  The airline pays no landing fees.  The Federal govt. paid the airport 1 million dollars a year as the airline carried over 10,000 passengers.  When the passenger count drops below 10,000, the subsidy will drop to $250,000.  How many cities receive this subsidy every year. Plus, we pay property taxes to support the airport.  This should be stopped.  

In Amtrak funding is indeed reduced to $1.5 billion, there needs to be some requirements that come with it:

1) Operation of the Northeast Corridor (NEC) is turned over to the USDOT.

2) Joe Boardman, all officers, and all Board members are terminated immediately.

3) Appoint a person with a reasonable plan to operate Amtrak.  PREREQUISITE: MUST NOT LIVE IN A STATE SERVED BY THE NEC! Andrew C. Selden of Minneapolis Minnesota should be appointed President, and the Board Members of the United Rail Passenger Alliance appointed to the Amtrak Board.  The NARP leadership MUST NOT be allowed on the new Amtrak Board of Directors because they (NARP)supported the old Amtrak philosophy of NEC first and National System last.