Is a daily "Sunset Limited" worth $750 million?

Surprise, surprise Amtrak Joe makes a totally groundless assumption (a daily-each way- extra train on a largely single track will cause no more schedule interference than a 3 day intrusion!) and on that basis, his rubber stamp board pronounces a virtually done deal. For some reason this ego centeric behavior by Amtrak which ignores input from essential partners, customers, and we, the stockholders, just goes on and on. Oops, my distain is showing.

Well, if the STB cuts the baby in half (isn't government helping itself just wonderful - as in, STB helps Amtrak) the result will be a $375 million subsidy for this train from the Union Pacific customers.

This will increase their cost of doing business, harm the US economy and kill jobs.

OH please, guys, this is just more of the anti-passenger attitude of the UP. $750 million so that two passenger trains a day don't mess up their flow of traffic. I wonder who the UP wants to charge for who ever is forcing  its trains to sit for hours at a time on its northbound main south of Steger Road in Steger, IL. I guess they're getting ready to put Dick Cheney back on the board.

It amazes me that BNSF seems to be able to get its trains and Amtrak across their rails effectively every day. UP is going to have mostly a double track between LA and El Paso fairly soon, and how much traffic they'll have between Sierra Blanca and New Orleans/Houston is probably an open question. It's really going to cost, according to the UP, $400,00,00.00 for one train in either direction a day, not including a New Orleans connection, between SA and LA ???

Perhaps my comment seemed too negative regarding Amtrak's decision making process but, my point is that Amtrak management has a history of making decisions by fiat and then being totally surprised when the other party essential to any action reacts in a less then cheerful and accommodating manner. In an adversarial negotiation process necessitated by this approach, the other party will respond in kind and so why not demand the kitchen sink? "Shovel ready" rail improvements like this and the SW Chief route problem may meet this new stimulus/capital fund bank proposal Obama is announcing on Labor Day.

Sorry, The Sunset is a political football, it is not worth the bother. UP has all the cards, so if the Sunset is to be a daily operation, Amtrak will need to pay for a lot of capacity improvements. The regime might approve the payments if you-know-whose approval numbers in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are too low in late 2011.

I have a solution to the problem.  Build the additional capacity on the Sunset west of Houston with the $400 million from government/Amtrak funds.  Then, everytime the UP causes the Sunset Limited to be delayed due to signal failures, track failures, freight train equipment failures or dispatch screw-up, fine the UP $1,000,000.

Let's see.  365 days per year at two trains a day...

Not to just be snide-Is the $400 million necessary to meet the criteria of running both freight trains AND Amtrak on time, or is that the incremental cost to build capacity to run Amtrak in a system already built up to handle all freight on time?  Not that I know the numbers, it seems that $400 million would buy a substantial number of long passing sidings.  

First question anyone should ask is what level of delay does RTC show for 3 day Sunset at 2007 traffic levels?  RTC simulations are only useful when you have a base case to make comparisons.

It's hard to believe that UP is running trains in the Sunset's slot only on the four days the Sunset doesn't run.

I'd bet that $400/$750M buys a lot of improvement for both parties - most of which provide tiny increments in performance.  Amtrak needs to get their nose into the details of the RTC simulation....

If Union Pacific can't run eight more trains a week on an increasingly ungraded line between New Orleans and Los Angeles, I'd say they need to hire some new Train Dispatchers.

I think Amtrak needs Hunter Harrison on its BOD to work out the details.

It's counter intuitive that $400 million is required to add 8 trains a week. Depending on the assumptions you can come up with a big number for those 8 trains.  The real relavent comparison is what increase in delays would there be at 2007 levels of freight   with 6 Amtrak trains and with 14 Amtrak trains a week.  What does it take to keep those delays level with more passenger trains.  It's always amusing when they talk about line of road delays but never mention the far bigger delays getting and out of terminals.

The whole point is that Union Pacific philosophically hates the concept of Amtrak.  Is it fair that BNSF is subsidizing all those passenger trains that are running daily on their railroad? Can BNSF say put up $X or your trains are going tri-weekly?  There's got to be one standard for all the railroads whatever that is.  Either congress defines Amtrak's rights or it's just one ad hoc decision after another.  

My opinion of UP will forever be colored by watching one of their slick corporate lawyers argue against construction of a recreational trail in the Truckee River Canyon, not because it would use any of their property, but because of hypotheticals like "a piece of metal might fly off a train and hit someone." Their apparent view was "we have that entire side of the river to ourselves now, and we want to keep it that way." Add to that the dismal UP record (relative to BNSF) of running Amtrak trains late, the insistence that the shadow of Picacho Peak State Park is the only spot in all of Arizona suitable for a new yard, and now this extortionate demand relative to the Sunset Limited. Vanderbilt's "The public be damned" attitude lives on! As a railfan, I suppose I ought to oppose reregulation, but the arrogance of the UP makes it seem like a fine idea.

Can you show us the raw components of the computer study along with the data?  Then we can see if the study was slanted by the existing practices.  What speed for their Z's?  Have they had a previous plan in place for increasing capacity, and now see an oppurtunity to use other than their own funding for some of that?  Can you show us the OTP of each entity that hosts AMTRAK as a comparison?  Does it really appear that UP is less than  user-friendly?  

I think the most sad commentary in all of this is that the UP of the 1970 and early 1980's would have made the Sunset daily without asking for any extra money.  The UP seems to be a railroad that was subverted (in terms of management styles) from the inside by the corporate culture of first the Missouri Pacific (remember their corporate arrogance in the1970's and toxic hostility towards Amtrak---at that time UP would add a Fast 40 SD40 on front of the CZ/Desert Wind to keep in on time while MP would do everything possible to delay the InterAmerican, etc.) and then the SP  The UP has changed from the friendly-proud road of the 70's to the angry-arrongant road of today.

Any possibility of 4 times-a-week operation LAX to NOL for maybe a bit less than 750M?

Conductor Al: I don't have access to the computer study itself or the attendant data. For the purposes of argument, just assume it is well and honestly presented; I know the software UP used, and it is doggone powerful.

Union Pacific Z trains are permitted 70 mph speeds across the Sunset Route, Amtrak trains 79. UP was (before the Great Recession) engaged in a double-tracking of the line between Palm Springs, Calif., and El Paso. To date it has double tracked from El Paso to west of Tucson, Ariz. That whole project, which includes a new hump yard between Tucson and Phoenix and a new intermodal, refueling and inspection terminal just west of El Paso, was priced at roughly $2 billion a couple of years ago. Would the $750 million UP says is needed in infrastructure additions for a daily Sunset Limited include some of the still-undone double tracking? I would think so. But half of the Sunset Limited route lies east of El Paso.

Fred Frailey

Any mention of the computer simulations jiggering with the Sunset's arrival and departure times, or were the sims performed using the current timetable?

It sure would be nice for Houstonians to arrive and depart at a decent hour. (Westbounds leave Houston about 10P and eastbounds leave Houston about 5A) It would generate more revenue, I'm sure. Even a 6P westbound departure would put the train into San Antonio before midnight - not a bad way to end a Friday night and start a long weekend on the River Walk. Westbounds would have to leave New Orleans around 8A - not so bad.

For eastbounds, the Sunset could depart LA in the morning, arrive in San Antonio by suppertime, make it into Houston before midnight and into New Orleans by morning.

If Amtrak wants to run a daily train between New Orleans and El Paso during peak freight traffic times on single track, I can easily see a need for several large capital improvement projects. The current track between SA and New Orleans is extremely rough for 80mph operation. Double tracking west of Houston to Rosenberg where the KCS turns south to Victoria and building a flyover near Englewood yard over the PTRA seems necessary and will carry a large price tag.

mdw wrote:

"I think the most sad commentary in all of this is that the UP of the 1970 and early 1980's would have made the Sunset daily without asking for any extra money...UP seems to be a railroad...subverted (in terms of management styles) from the inside by the corporate culture of...Missouri Pacific...and then the SP"

While this reference to Southern Pacific may have been applicable in the 1970s, by the early 1980s, when SP's boss was Rob Krebs, things were quite different.  Amtrak trains pretty much ran on time and dealings between SP and Amtrak were, if not totally cordial, at least cooperative.  Krebs knew that payments from Amtrak were important to SP in its then-weakened financial condition, after Santa Fe had effectively taken away SP's extensive non-railroad holdings and the revenues they brought in.  Later on, of course, when Santa Fe was forced to divest the remaining shell of the once-proud Southern Pacific Company, the moribund railroad, they took Krebs away, too.

One item that is identified by Fred Frailey as an issue of concern for Union Pacific is that "...every time you switch the Chicago-LA cars from the Texas Eagle onto the New Orleans-LA Sunset at San Antonio, or vice versa, our freight trains grind to a halt for a considerable period."

The current Amtrak plan for a daily Sunset Limited eliminates the switching.  In truth, the train becomes a daily Texas Eagle between Los Angeles and Chicago, with a connecting daytime coach-only stub train operating between San Antonio and New Orleans on that portion of the Sunset route.  There would be no switching of cars between the two trains at San Antonio.

One item that is identified by Fred Frailey as an issue of concern for Union Pacific is that "...every time you switch the Chicago-LA cars from the Texas Eagle onto the New Orleans-LA Sunset at San Antonio, or vice versa, our freight trains grind to a halt for a considerable period."

OK. Even if switching would be needed, how about to change the track layout (or built a new one etc.), so that the freights can "grind around"(whilst switching is done).

Another thought: Passenger trains often stops at stations also for smoking and so blocking the main. Or, sometimes more than once to receive passengers on short platforms.I never have ridden the SL but experienced this on the CZ in Naperville (Chicago) to name just this example. But there are 3 tracks where the freights etc. can "grind around".

See it this way, then at least some money spend to get rid of blocked mains makes sense.

Also if Amtrak paid for this, they can charge UP if they use the Amtrak track.(Little joke that is).

Herby DA

Interesting companion piece to the one on UP's high-speed passenger rail accomodation policy.

This illustrates one thing UP must have learned  from the early 2000's 'meltdown' on the Sunset route, when the UPS train was taken away from BNSF, as described in one of your (Fred's) articles in Trains at the time:  Don't let or commit to anything happening that your infrastructure, operating plan, and crew and locomotive resources can't tolerate or support.  And the UPS train's critical priority was for - what, only like 2 or 3 days per week (account of the weekends providing 2 more days of transit time) ?  This would be all 7 days of the week . . . twice a day, too.

To value that service, UP may have considered the effect on its revenue if the lowest money-making trains otherwise that would be on the route were forced off by the Amtrak trains.  But that's too speculative, and gets Amtrak too involved in UP's rates and business model and plan.  Instead, if I were UP, I'd ask how many  extra passing sidings would have to be built to allow a 79 MPH Amtrak get around my fleet of 10,000 ft. = 2 miles long freights moving at an average speed of about 40 MPH, and running on about hal-hour headways - say, 50 trains a day, each way.  Sparing you the math, each such siding would need to be about 8 to 10 miles long, and could cost around $10 - 15 million each if carefully sited to avoid major bridges or earthwork, etc.  And there'd be roughly 25 to 30 such sidings needed to get around the freight trains that would be encountered from San Antonio to LA, so there's the $300 - 400 million.  And as a 'negotiating room' tactic, I'd add a 'kicker' or double the amount, fully expecting the STB or Amtrak to try to cut it in half or something of the sort . . .

But as suggested above, if ATK pays 100 per cent for the improvements, then it should have exclusive use of them . . . UP should have to pay trackage rights or joint facility fees every time it needs to use them.  That might actually be a more equitable way to work that out, on a 'pay-as-you'go' basis.

And UP should watch out for what might happen if the STB tries to check up on ore review UP's CASH demand by doing the 'fictional railroad' cost estimates as it did with BNSF on the coal rate case a year or so ago.  I'm not familiar enough with the methodology to predict the result with any confidence, but if the STB apportions the total replacement capital costs for the route on almost any basis, Amtrak will come out ahead.  For example, Amtrak's time occupancy, tonnage, train length, etc. are all miniscule compared to UP's fleet of trains at max. capacity - roughly 1 train in 50 each way per day, or 2 per cent.  If we guess that the value whole route might be worth even $5 Billion, 2 per cent of that is only $100 million - Amtrak could probably live with that.  

And I don't think UP is 'crying wolf', either.  Look at the route map on their webpage for new industries, "Guidelines for Rail Service to New Industry Locations" dated Sept. 14, 2006, 4 pages, at -www.uprr.com/.../industry_guidelines.pdf - and you'll see there are lots of routes that are at or near capacity, and this is one of them, being designated as "Restricted Access - Mainline Corridor".  Read that page, and you'll likely to be surprised that UP seems to be discouraging new traffic = turning away business on those routes - who would do that unless it was real ?

And "jeaton": Your comments about the sidings matches my thoughts, and I liked your driveway comment, too !

- Paul North. 

Our apologies to Paul North. A software glitch resulted in his posts getting stuck in the system. The software has been tamed, and I thank Paul for his contributions.

Fred Frailey

Hey, Fred - not a problem - I knew it wasn't you personally.  Thanks for looking after and taking care of thaT - and also for 'gluing together' my 1st post above that was inadvertently separated - by ME.  And you're quite welcome for the contribution, as you've certainly given enough to the hobby and the profession.  Looking forward to much more in the future.

- Paul North.    

The Fred Frailey article that I referenced above was in the February 2005 issue of TRAINS, Vol. 65, No. 2, pp. 30 - 43 inclusive, entitled "RISING PHOENIX . . . On A Winged Shield - How the Union Paciifc stumbled again is an interesting story.  How it is coming back is a better one." There's too much in that article pertaining to this subject for me to quote verbatim.  But the key points are that starting in July 2003, it ook just 1 more major UPS 'bullet' train a week between LA - NYC, 2 more between Atlanta and LA, and a few more from Dallas to LA, on top of the then 45 - 50 trains a day on the Sunset Route- about half again more than what the SP had run - "tore the railroad apart between El Paso and Los Angeles" (pg. 35, col. 2, bottom).  

Reading through the rest of the article, it seems there was a culture change afoot - from no longer just operating the most or the fastest trains, but operating the ones that made the most money - there were several quotes or passages about dropping less profitable trains for more profitable ones.  Perhaps that's a result of Jim Young - an accountant - becoming President and now CEO, instead of an up-from-the-ranks operating person: Every train now has to pay its own way.  Also, the double-tracking of the Swas noted to cost around $2 million per mile