Amtrak Merchandise & Roadrailer cars.

[Dewitt Clinton]

What happened to the roadrailers and merchandise cars which headed and tailed  Amtrak trains of  the past?

[Avianwatcher]

We have some at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris CA.  oerm.org   There are a number [50+ ?] at the Amtrak yard in Los Angeles sitting on sidings.  

[oltmannd]

Triple Crown Services got all the RoadRailers

[D.Carleton]

Wanna buy one? http://gatewayrailservices.com/inventory/inventoryfaae.html

[carnej1]

Dewitt Clinton

What happened to the roadrailers and merchandise cars which headed and tailed  Amtrak trains of  the past?

 There have been a number of Discussions on the forum over the years about the demise of Amtrak's express business. The consensus is that it just was not profitable to them,and they were never able to develop the network of service they needed to win more business...

[Dragoman]

carnej1

Dewitt Clinton

What happened to the roadrailers and merchandise cars which headed and tailed  Amtrak trains of  the past?

 There have been a number of Discussions on the forum over the years about the demise of Amtrak's express business. The consensus is that it just was not profitable to them,and they were never able to develop the network of service they needed to win more business...

I thought those discussions centered on the host railroads suing Amtrak over the non-passenger competition.

[daveklepper]

There was also the situation of disruption to timekeeping and other matters for regular passenger service.

[carnej1]

Dragoman

carnej1

Dewitt Clinton

What happened to the roadrailers and merchandise cars which headed and tailed  Amtrak trains of  the past?

 There have been a number of Discussions on the forum over the years about the demise of Amtrak's express business. The consensus is that it just was not profitable to them,and they were never able to develop the network of service they needed to win more business...

I thought those discussions centered on the host railroads suing Amtrak over the non-passenger competition.

There were debates over that point...the consensus was that the idea was dead on arrival whether the host railroads were for or against it.

[Jim200]

At the time, I thought it was a good idea, but it seemed that it ended almost immediately. How many routes was it tried on and how many merchandise cars and roadrailers were on each train? Did the extra weight affect the schedule or was it something else?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Jim200

At the time, I thought it was a good idea, but it seemed that it ended almost immediately. How many routes was it tried on and how many merchandise cars and roadrailers were on each train? Did the extra weight affect the schedule or was it something else?

It did indeed sound like a good idea at the time.  Besides the damage caused to train schedules by the extra switching, it barely generated enough revenue to cover its own costs, much less make a real contribution to the bottom line.

[passengerfan]

It was a poorly concieved idea from the start. It was just a few years prior to Amtrak that the Railway Express Agency failed simply because UPS and others were far more suited to the package business. If Amtraks idea was to revive this business they needed more business acumen then they had working for them at the time, and someone at the top should have been wise enough to kill the idea before any taxpayers monies were spent on equipment. They should have taken the same wasted funds and put it into additional passenger equipment.

Al - in - Stockton

[rcdrye]

The mail and express idea was dumped on Amtrak by Congress - like the micro-managing of food service.  It took a considerable amont of guts to cut it loose.  There are still a bunch of purpose-built former mail-and-express facilities that are less than 30 years old sitting in places like Springfield MA, Savannah GA and Jacksonville FL.

[oltmannd]

Random Mail and Express notions:

The start came during the Down's years, I think.  The idea was the the revenue on a cost+ basis would be a net positive.  It was continued during the Warrington era and dumped by Gunn.

It was dumped for a variety of reasons.  

1. It didn't cover the fully allocated costs of running it.
2. It was a distraction from the primary line of business.  
3. It was starting to overlap the boundary between freight (not allowed) and express (allowed) and was "annoying" the UP.  
4. It was driving some passenger unfriendly schedules (Janesville train,   NY-Chicago)

The high speed RoadRailers were an interesting inovation.

Ed Ellis was running it.  Some ex-Conrail intermodal guys were in the group at the end.

[Jim200]

MERRY CHRISTMAS and thanks for the good info. Is there a list of the locations of the mail and express facilities? Also how is the present Amtrak Express Service related to mail and express of the past? Amtrak's website says that they are transporting packages up to 500 lbs on a pallet and up to 50 lbs in a size less than 3 ft cubed, to 100 cities.