hi, I just read about the NARP's new Grid and Gateway Proposal, and I'm asking for opinions and predictions if it might work with the increased demand for passenger rail throughout the U.S.
read about it at www.narprail.org
If there is "an increased demand for passenger rail" it seems to be flying well below the media radar. Even here, in tourist-oriented Las Vegas, the "demand" generates about thirty seconds a quarter (2 minutes per year) of news coverage - mostly for hare-brained ideas that would be about as attractive to the general public as a stage coach. ("High speed rail" to a park-and-ride north of Cajon Pass, for example. If somebody in the LA basin has to drive to Victorville, he'll most likely keep on driving all the way to Sin City.)
Maybe the NARP would generate more interest if they had as many members as the NRA. They certainly would if they demonstrated an interest in putting up the $$$ to create the service they want out of their own wallets.
Chuck
The demand for passenger rail might not be high now, but if Amtrak and congress gets their act together to create a better rail network, it might appeal to them more rather than having to drive hundreds of miles or sitting on a stuffy grounded airplane for 5 hours.
lattasnip9 wrote: The demand for passenger rail might not be high now, but if AMTRAK and Congress get their act together to create a better rail network, it might appeal to them more rather than having to drive hundreds of miles or sitting on a stuffy grounded airplane for 5 hours.
The demand for passenger rail might not be high now, but if AMTRAK and Congress get their act together to create a better rail network, it might appeal to them more rather than having to drive hundreds of miles or sitting on a stuffy grounded airplane for 5 hours.
Note underline. You're joking, right.
If Congress ever allocates enough funds to create a better rail network there will be another problem in the nation's airways - all those pigs requesting altitude slots and vectors.
Remember, nothing is ever so badly fouled up that politicians can't make it worse.
tomikawaTT wrote: lattasnip9 wrote: The demand for passenger rail might not be high now, but if AMTRAK and Congress get their act together to create a better rail network, it might appeal to them more rather than having to drive hundreds of miles or sitting on a stuffy grounded airplane for 5 hours.Note underline. You're joking, right.If Congress ever allocates enough funds to create a better rail network there will be another problem in the nation's airways - all those pigs requesting altitude slots and vectors.Remember, nothing is ever so badly fouled up that politicians can't make it worse.Chuck
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You're probably right, and if I had to guess I'd say our country is going to grow relatively poorer in terms of HST-using nations than richer. What's worse, political impasse at all levels -- including their suburban counterparts NIMBY and BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) is a real problem; but then how many of us want "the [planning, infrastructure, transportation] experts" whom nobody elected to have much more power?
But I haven't given up entirely on the good ol' USA. If push came to shove it would cost relatively little money to upgrade passenger rail in a sensible, low-cost direction. The VIA corridor of Windsor - Toronto - Montreal - Quebec City comes to mind. Travel on it ain't cheap, but it is seamless and reliable. Not everywhere can be the NEC, but enough places like it are NEC-similar in infrastructure and demand (think: BNSF "Racetrack" Chgo/Union Station to Aurora,IL), that further improvements ought to be made.
Knowing next to nothing about high finance and macro-economics, I still don't see why the fed. gov't can't do what it did to smooth out and securitize the mortgage market in the 1960s: Fannie Mae, Ginnie and the kids and their bond or bondlike investments. I even had an idea for a cute name and nickname: Federal Rail Infrastrure Development and Administration Maintenance Corporation: FR(E)IDA MAC! Feel free to tell your local legislator about my punnish-ing idea, providing you think s/he's bright enough to understand the analogy.
You heard it hear first! (Or maybe you heard it here worst, but I'm just sayin'.) - a. s.
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Ah, but there's a difference. Squaring away the mortgage market had a direct, positive impact on homeowner/taxpayers from San Diego to Seattle to the Bay of Fundy to the Key West Channel - and all points in between. How do you propose to convince some farmer in Succotash, South Dakota that improved rail travel will be an advantage to HER? Even in the heyday of US prairie railroading, the closest a railroad ever came to Succotash was a two day buckboard ride - and that line carried one mixed train a WEEK except during the harvest season.
The way the US Constitution structured the Congress, rural areas have a lot more clout than urban areas. That, plus the, "What's in it for ME?" attitude of the general population, is almost an ironclad guarantee that AMTRAK will never have an opportunity to, "Get its act together." And, since AMTRAK has a Congressionally-mandated monopoly on inter-city passenger service, nobody else can even try.
South Dakota is the only contigious US state that has NEVER had Amtrak service. We do have several active secondary lines -- mostly BNSF, although there could be a significant upgrade to the existing DM&E relating to Powder River coal.
We simply don't have the population densities to support passenger rail, so you can expect our politicans to vote appropriately. I thought the NARP map proposal was simply an attempt to give something to everyone, without giving the least consideration on how to get from the current situation to there -- essentially a railroad version of "a chicken in every pot".
Dakguy201 wrote: South Dakota is the only contigious US state that has NEVER had Amtrak service. We do have several active secondary lines -- mostly BNSF, although there could be a significant upgrade to the existing DM&E relating to Powder River coal.We simply don't have the population densities to support passenger rail, so you can expect our politicans to vote appropriately. I thought the NARP map proposal was simply an attempt to give something to everyone, without giving the least consideration on how to get from the current situation to there -- essentially a railroad version of "a chicken in every pot".
**Supposing, for the sake of argument, that George McGovern had won the 1972 Presidential campaign?** - a.s.
al-in-chgo wrote: Dakguy201 wrote: South Dakota is the only contigious US state that has NEVER had Amtrak service. We do have several active secondary lines -- mostly BNSF, although there could be a significant upgrade to the existing DM&E relating to Powder River coal.We simply don't have the population densities to support passenger rail, so you can expect our politicans to vote appropriately. I thought the NARP map proposal was simply an attempt to give something to everyone, without giving the least consideration on how to get from the current situation to there -- essentially a railroad version of "a chicken in every pot". **Supposing, for the sake of argument, that George McGovern had won the 1972 Presidential campaign?** - a.s.
Even if Georgeous (??) George HAD won, it still wouldn't have changed the fact that South Dakota has miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles - then and now.
In 1980, the third largest community in South Dakota was an Air Force base! (I know, because I was stationed there. It wasn't even a particularly big base.)
I rather suspect that the NARP propoal was put together by some lobbyist inside the beltway who has never been anywhere near the less populated parts of the US, and whose knowledge of railroad operations and finance are on a par with my (4 year old) grandson's.
After all, a New Jersey pol was the main driver behind the old Double Nickel speed limit. You can cross New Jersey in less time than it takes to drive to the next town in South Dakota - a fact that never entered the, "Drive at 55!" equation.
NARP's map is based on established travel patterns using all modes. The assumption is that rail could play a role in each of these markets. Its a start, but more market research needs to be done to justify any particular route development, and that's as it should be. I don't think NARP considers the map to be the final word, but rather a starting point for policy discussion.
NARP has a more complete plan buried deep in its website at http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/resources/more/mpt/ It goes into more detail on how to accomplish its goals. You'd think they'd have a link on the "vision" page to the "plan" page (and I even wrote to them suggesting they do so) but they still haven't bothered.
I'm a NARP member, but this is the sort of thing where I have problems with NARP. NARP does good work behind the scenes, mostly putting out political fires, but they do a terrible job at getting the word out to the public at large. When I ride the Starlight, I often meet other regular passengers. The vast majority of them have never even heard of NARP. If NARP can't even get the word out to Amtrak's regular customers, how do they expect to get the average citizen to pay attention?
As for NARP's stated goals, I have long believed that there is a strong latent demand for rail passenger services of all types. Where trains have been reintroduced, ridership often exceeds expectations. Even the much maligned long distance trains manage to sell out fairly regularly despite poor connectivity, unreliable timekeeping, and middle of the night hours at many stops. If Amtrak can do that, think what it could do if the trains ran consistently on time, with easy connections, at convenient schedules. But the public can't openly "demand" a service that most Americans don't even know exists, much less know anything about.
tomikawaTT wrote: al-in-chgo wrote: **Supposing, for the sake of argument, that George McGovern had won the 1972 Presidential campaign?** - a.s. Even if Georgeous (??) George HAD won, it still wouldn't have changed the fact that South Dakota has miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles - then and now.In 1980, the third largest community in South Dakota was an Air Force base! (I know, because I was stationed there. It wasn't even a particularly big base.)Chuck
al-in-chgo wrote: **Supposing, for the sake of argument, that George McGovern had won the 1972 Presidential campaign?** - a.s.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
al-in-chgo wrote:**Supposing, for the sake of argument, that George McGovern had won the 1972 Presidential campaign?** - a.s.
Murphy Siding wrote: tomikawaTT wrote: al-in-chgo wrote: **Supposing, for the sake of argument, that George McGovern had won the 1972 Presidential campaign?** - a.s. Even if Georgeous (??) George HAD won, it still wouldn't have changed the fact that South Dakota has miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles - then and now.In 1980, the third largest community in South Dakota was an Air Force base! (I know, because I was stationed there. It wasn't even a particularly big base.)ChuckChuck: Me thinks you are exagerating a bit, to say Ellsworth was/is bigger than Aberdeen/Brookings/Yankton/Mitchell/ etc/etc. I grew up in Rapid City. I will agree with you, about the miles and miles of nothing, though. Some years back, I wrote a letter to the (late) Governor, George Michaelson, about why Amtrak didn't operate into Rapid City. His explanation, of why it would never happen, was based on miles and miles of nothing.
Brother Murphy, I was going by the 1980 census data, which lumped Ellsworth with Box Elder (nobody's idea of a metropolis!) Shocked the socks off me, too - but, there it is.
Why don't we have a lot more solar energy? John Rowe, CEO of Exelon, spoke about his own green tendencies at the State Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin(He is against further burning of coal because of Global Warming. Really. An electric utility CEO.) He told us that there is nothing wrong with solar photovoltaic (a favorite cause of the Left) -- if you were willing to pay 40 cents per kilowatt-hour. But Germany is doing it, people will whine. Yes, cold, damp, cloudy, north-latitude Germany has created a solar-cell shortage by buying up the supply. Doesn't make any economic sense but it reflects the political reality in Germany.
But all forms of energy are subsidized, why can't solar get its meager share of the subsidy dollar? Nothing wrong with that, only it will cost somebody a lot of money. Why don't we solve the energy problem by building nuclear power plants like crazy (favorite cause of the Right). No problem with that at all if you are willing to pay 14-20 cents/kilowatt-hour, as many people in New York or California already do.
With the high price of natural gas, why don't I build a "solar wall" on the south side of my house? Why not indeed? With the high cost of natural gas, each square foot of solar collector would save $1.50/year, even in cloudy Wisconsin. If I wanted a 20-year payback, a reasonable requirement at today's interest rates, I figure I would come out ahead if I could get someone to install a glass solar-wall hot air collector at $30/square foot. Yeah right, where am I going to find a solar contractor after cheap gas had driven everyone out of that business, and where am I going to find any contractor who will build a glass structure on the side of my house for $30/square foot? And what is the tax assessor going to charge me for that solar "improvement", setting the payback interval even longer? It is simply cheaper to pay high gas bills so someone else will build an LNG tanker to get natural gas from some remote part of the world.
If as a homeowner I decide to just pay whatever heating gas costs instead of being green and putting in a solar wall, does this mean I am part of the Global Warming Conspiracy? Or should I get tax credits or some other form of subsidy because there is some intrinsic goodness to paying someone to build a glass wall instead of paying someone to build an LNG tanker?
There is a thread of thought among NARP, the passenger rail advocacy community, and others that there is so much intrinsic goodness to trains that we don't have trains is a sign of a political conspiracy or the result of malignant stupidity. Germany has high speed trains! We will be left behind! Speaking as a person of Ausland Deutch immigrant heritage, there are also a lot of malignantly-stupid things the Germans have been known for, and running up the price of solar cells to generate electricity in a damp, cold, cloudy land is just the beginning. If this were not so, in an alternate historical timeline I would be living life as a German-speaking person in Novi Sad with jingoistic attitidues towards the Fatherland instead of as an English-speaking person with jingoistic American attitudes in Wisconsin.
If one wants to advocate passenger trains, one must "market" this concept to the American public beyond the already-believing community. Blaming Congress as corrupt and beholden to "highway interests" won't get the job done. Scolding people that they are the inferiors of the Germans won't get the job done.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
As a NARP member myself I don't believe there is any conspiracy against passenger trains. What I do see among Washington politicians is indifference resulting in neglect and ignorance resulting in poor policy.
By and large, state transportation agencies understand the importance of rail and they are eager for some federal leadership on the issue, particluarly in the area of funding. When Uncle Sam is willing to put up 80% of the funds needed for a new or upgraded highway, but nothing for a new or upgraded railway to serve the same market, it doesn't take a traffic engineer to figure out which one will get built. If both rail and roads were funded by the same formula then the choice would be made on the project's merits.
That the Federal Government will put up 80 percent of the cost of a new highway but nothing for rail line improvements along the same route hits the nail dead square on the head.
That 80 percent is raised by a tax on fuel, which is for the most part paid by the people using the roads. There is no equivalent funding mechanism whereby Amtrak capital project could be financed by a tax on passenger locomotive fuel or a tax on Amtrak tickets, because costs for Amtrak are that much larger in proportion to what a "user fee" tax could raise, which is another part of the problem.
As to high users' concerns about cross-subsidy, I am well aware of the argument that there is all manner of cross-subsidy going on with highways, from having to pay Federal gas tax to drive my car on non-Federal highways to the construction of very low-utilization highways in areas of low population density to the construction of ultra-expensive urban freeways that are congested the day they are built but may never pay for themselves from the gas tax revenues of car on the freeway.
As to treating "transportation" as a broad category and using gas tax money to support all modes of transportation, we are already doing that for urban transit, this funding method is relatively uncontroversial across both sides of the bi-partisan aisle, it has built much of all of the new transit passenger rail since the 1970's. It has also funded transit and especially HOV lanes in a way that many highway users see as preferential to straight highway expansion, and it has left the average highway user congestion-clogged owing continued expansion of highway use along with weak or no expansion of overall transit use.
But we are not doing this (using gas tax money for rail) with Amtrak. I think that Congress is simply reflecting the will of the people, because I don't see the broad-based popular support for it.
Part of the problem is "bang for the buck." Whatever very small amount of governement money is spent on Amtrak is moving an even very much smaller number of people compared to funding for other modes. It is not so much whether "Amtrak runs at a loss" or whether Amtrak gets a pittance while other modes are funded generously, the issue is that passenger trains are a high cost means of moving people the way they are currently structured, and we have been running the "Amtrak experiment" for over 30 years to get data on that.
I have asked the question before -- does passenger rail scale? The whole point of a common carrier mode of transportation and especially the rail mode is economy of scale. Many argue that passenger trains are expensive because they are a small operation in the whole transportation picture. But if you doubled Amtrak's money, would you get four times as many passengers/passenger miles or whatever metric?
I don't think Congress is reflecting the will of the people at all. Polls consistently show the public wants more rail development, but these polls don't get much press attention. A Harris poll not too long ago listed long distance and regional passenger trains as the two top choices for expanded transportation development.
As for economies of scale, Amtrak's skeletal network precludes that now. Stations that serve one train a day in each direction probably aren't operating all that efficiently. I think that expansion is necessary for better efficiency across the system. But without a source of capital funding, as you point out, there is a bootstrapping problem. Funds for expansion would have to come from outside the system to get the ball rolling. Personally, I have no problem with a 2-4 cents on the gasoline tax to cover it. That's less than the weekly price fluctuations at the pump, and probably would go unnoticed, especially after seeing prices jump 50 cents during the last two summers.
But before one asks for money, one needs to ask some baisc questions. Where are the potential riders and where do they want to go? What sort of schedules would be convenient for people? What services and amenities do they desire and require? This sort of basic market research is step one. From that you can establish a route network, decide what sorts of equipment will best serve the system, and so forth. From this information you can establish a set of justifiable goals and from that develop a plan for implementing them. Only after you have a plan in place should you ask for money. Its the same with any business start-up or expansion.
But many rail advocates turn it around. They say Amtrak can't make plans without a source of funds. I say that's nonsense. Without a plan Congress has nothing to fund. Plan first, money second. That's the way it works.
Interesting discussion!
Is Amtrak scalable? Probably. Extension of existing routes, increased freqency on existing routes and longer existing trains could work out pretty well on an incremental cost to revenue basis.
...provided there is rail capacity.
Which brings up another problem. Capital funding for capacity. Amtrak's prez has talked about this one as have some of the class one's. There seems to be a push to expand rail network capacity in general and Amtrak and the class one's (well, at least NS and CSX explicitly, that I know of) have made pitches for public funding that would include passenger capacity.
Amtrak's other big problem is that they are not very efficient. Managment at all levels has little incentive to improve efficiency. It would just lead to a subsidy cut. It took much wailing and gnashing of teeth to reduce dining car staff. It impetus to do it came from outside the organization, not within. That it worked out pretty well demonstrates that mgt is competent, at least! (they just don't have any motivation to change anything)
Here's an idea. On airlines, the required safety personnel serve as cabin attendants, too. On trains, we have two jobs. Conductor/Trainman and coach/sleeper attendant. Why not combine the jobs? (Lots of issues, I know, but any physical show stoppers?)
And another. Put the food service out for bid with the winner getting to keep a % of the take, to make sure they were working on a profit motive that involved revenue rather than just working the cost side.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
The thoughts on consolidating positions and contracting out food service are non-starters from the outset. Unless you're willing to go to the mat with the Brotherhoods on either of these issues, it's not possible. Also, how many restaurant operators would be willing to bid on providing food service on trains?
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote: Also, how many restaurant operators would be willing to bid on providing food service on trains?
I thought Subway tried that, and failed, between New York City and Albany.
nanaimo73 wrote: CSSHEGEWISCH wrote: Also, how many restaurant operators would be willing to bid on providing food service on trains?I thought Subway tried that, and failed, between New York City and Albany.
Not quite. Subway WANTED to try it. There was a union snit fit over it and Subway backed out. And, Amtrak didn't push the issue why?
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote: The thoughts on consolidating positions and contracting out food service are non-starters from the outset. Unless you're willing to go to the mat with the Brotherhoods on either of these issues, it's not possible. Also, how many restaurant operators would be willing to bid on providing food service on trains?
Might be worth it to go to the mat for it, but why would Amtrak's mgt even want to try. Nothing in it for them!
I'm sure you can find lots of restaurants and commercial caterers that would bid (this is an "Amtrak pays them to provide service" deal)
A big cost of providing dining car meal service is the dining car itself -- its capital expense prorated as interest and amortization costs, and the maintenance of a passenger railroad car. Even if the food and service labor were contracted out and somehow made lower in cost, dining car meals are served in a very expensive venue.
That an airplane wins hands down in a direct operating cost comparison over a long-distance train was established 40 years ago in a comparison of a Boeing 727 with the Denver Zephyr and confirmed what was happening with the passenger train discontinuances in the pre-Amtrak era. This was a surprising result. One would accept that the 727 is much faster than the train, but that the 727 would be cheaper than a train was counterintuitive. The 727 was pound for pound much more expensive than a railroad car and it required a high-level of specialized maintenance to make it safe to fly. But the jet goes 10 times faster than the train and gets more passenger miles per dollar spent both on the jet as well as the crew to operate it.
The jet also packs a large number of seats into a tiny cabin, and people (or at least most people) tolerate that for the two hours or sor; the train passengers on an 18-hour trip hav come to expect low density coaches, individual-cabin sleeping cars and a separate dining car. Combined with the comparative slow speed of trains affecting the "number of cycles" you can get with the equipment, trains are expensive and hence require substantial operating subsidy in order to charge comparable fares to competing modes.
Paul Milenkovic wrote:A big cost of providing dining car meal service is the dining car itself -- its capital expense prorated as interest and amortization costs, and the maintenance of a passenger railroad car. Even if the food and service labor were contracted out and somehow made lower in cost, dining car meals are served in a very expensive venue.
When rail speeds are, thanks to regulation, held down to a 40-mph average speed (which is 10 mph lower than the average speed of most trains at the turn of the 20th Century), of course jet travel can be considered "less expensive" to a degree. However, perhaps airlines should have been made to follow the railroad model, with full ownership of airports funded out of pocket (including air traffic control), and then get charged all sorts of property taxes on the airports on top of all the up-front costs. Whatcha think?
The jet also packs a large number of seats into a tiny cabin, and people (or at least most people) tolerate that for the two hours or so; the train passengers on an 18-hour trip have come to expect low density coaches, individual-cabin sleeping cars and a separate dining car. Combined with the comparative slow speed of trains affecting the "number of cycles" you can get with the equipment, trains are expensive and hence require substantial operating subsidy in order to charge comparable fares to competing modes.
Economy-class seating on any airline is miserable. Thanks to the need for pressurized cabins, it's not very efficient space-wise, either. (Compare 3-3 seating in an 11' 6"-wide cabin with 2-2 seating in a 10' 6"-wide railcar.)
Oh yeah; on airlines, not all flights are direct. Ever deal with the connecting-flight syndrome? Saves bucks, adds hours; and your alleged two-hour journey becomes as long as eight, or perhaps longer than a LD train takes, thanks to broken equipment and missed connections. Sometimes makes you wish the USA did invest in high-speed rail, because in a lot of markets, the plane is literally the only choice, which is not a choice at all. 13 billion gallons of jet fuel wasted every year in this country on domestic flights testifies to the waste and the dependence on rogue nations for our supposed "freedom" in this arena.
Oh well; onto another issue…
oltmannd wrote: nanaimo73 wrote: CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:Also, how many restaurant operators would be willing to bid on providing food service on trains? I thought Subway tried that, and failed, between New York City and Albany.Not quite. Subway WANTED to try it. There was a union snit fit over it and Subway backed out. And, Amtrak didn't push the issue why?
nanaimo73 wrote: CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:Also, how many restaurant operators would be willing to bid on providing food service on trains? I thought Subway tried that, and failed, between New York City and Albany.
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:Also, how many restaurant operators would be willing to bid on providing food service on trains?
Would you trust managers of a business that violate a contract and thus breach good faith? I sure wouldn't. WADR, sir, you seem to have an outlook that would be quite at odds with that of Theodore Roosevelt. Countenancing dishonest business practices is the same as countenancing anarchy and chaos. Holding businesses to what they agreed to is not called a "snit fit"; it's called asserting your rights.
BTW, just to be factual: There was no food service on the Empire Corridor trains prior to the Subway operation, which did indeed operate in November of 2005 at least. There was to have been a four-month pilot program. If there were no union agreements as to dining service on the Empire Corridor, how could the unions object to it (unless there were agreements in place that Amtrak was about to violate)? The program stood and fell on its own merits.
Care to show us your spreadsheets?
Yes I will show my "spreadsheets" -- it is all in the Inspector General Kenneth Mead Report, which is derived from the Amtrak RPS cost accounting numbers, but as soon as I mention Mead, no one wants to listen anymore because anyone critical of Amtrak, forget that, people get upset.
How about you show me your spreadsheets. Really, I am not saying this rhetorically or as a debating device or as a put down. Can anyone out there show me their spreadsheets that disprove Amtrak's direct-operating cost numbers? URPA talks how they are inflated, but no one has any alternate hard numbers; I would really like to see such numbers, I really would, because as a rail fan I wish it were some other way.
That's a blanket statement. (FTR, all TGVs have dining cars.)
More blanket statements. Conveniently left out are the facts that back during that time, airports were being directly subsidized (which means that the airlines did not have to worry about infrastructure costs; and the later trust funds still ameliorate direct infrastructure costs to a certain degree) and that the railroads, thanks to ICC over-regulation, were saddled with undue new and exorbitant cost requirements to make rail travel competitive speed-wise even over medium distances. (I notice that you didn't compare the 727 with the PRR in the NY-Washington DC market. Somewhat conveniently, perhaps? nor did you cite any other comparison between jet power and electric rail power.)
Yes more blanket statements, quoting what was printed in back issues of Trains Magazine. I am talking direct operating cost. Back in the day as in this day it was thought trains were at a disadvantage because of unfair accounting for indirect costs, but the counter-intuitive thing is that trains lose on direct operating costs. As far as the electric-powered NEC market, that is where there has been agreement that if trains are competitive, that is where they will do this. But the NEC is not the long-distance trains with their ultra-low revenue seat density and dining and sleeping cars, apart from the pass-through LD trains.
Yes economy seating is plain miserable, but it is driven by market forces, where airlines which receive subsidy, yes, but not for direct operating costs (yeah, yeah, post 9-11 bailout, but this is not a permanent and ongoing thing) where airline passengers have voted with their dollars and desire for cheap fares that they would prefer low fares to the extra room you desire. Why is 2-2 seating inherent in a railcar -- why not the 3-2 seating of coach on the Bullet train or the 3-3 seating on some of the newer "widebody" Japanese trains?
I would hardly call the 13 billion gallons of jet fuel wasted when Amtrak fuel efficiency is only marginally better than jets, owing to those dining cars, low-density "chair car" coaches, sleepers, etc., which many people regard as an inherent feature of the rail mode. As to delays in LD travel, Amtrak has not been exemplery in that score. Also, with connecting-flight airline ops, the goal is cheap fares -- I argued that the jet beats the train on equipment and crew cycles, not necessarily on getting there quick, and again, the airlines compete on price rather than on amenities or performance.
The NARP-informed passenger-rail advocacy community has had over 36 years to make the arguments you are making, both to the public and large and to Congress. That is a long time to make a case, and I think it is high time to examine critically where Amtrak has disadvantages relative to other modes rather than reading our own press releases, so that we make progress in advancing trains as an alternative. We are like GM and Ford, subject to some structural disadvantages relative to Japanese auto makers, but like GM and Ford we blame the disadvantages and don't look to what we are selling to see why our customers (public, Congress) have left us for the competing product.
Argue with me about how I am making blanket statements and not citing references for my assertions -- you can argue me into silence, but you haven't changed one thing that is keeping Amtrak stalled at 1 percent of the common-carrier intercity market.
Paul Milenkovic wrote:Care to show us your spreadsheets?Yes I will show my "spreadsheets" -- it is all in the Inspector General Kenneth Mead Report, which is derived from the Amtrak RPS cost accounting numbers, but as soon as I mention Mead, no one wants to listen anymore because anyone critical of Amtrak, forget that, people get upset.
That's a blanket statement. (FTR, all TGVs have dining cars.) And TGV gets government subsidy money
More blanket statements. Conveniently left out are the facts that back during that time, airports were being directly subsidized (which means that the airlines did not have to worry about infrastructure costs; and the later trust funds still ameliorate direct infrastructure costs to a certain degree) and that the railroads, thanks to ICC over-regulation, were saddled with undue new and exorbitant cost requirements to make rail travel competitive speed-wise even over medium distances. (I notice that you didn't compare the 727 with the PRR in the NY-Washington DC market. Somewhat conveniently, perhaps? nor did you cite any other comparison between jet power and electric rail power.) Yes more blanket statements, quoting what was printed in back issues of Trains Magazine. I am talking direct operating cost. Back in the day as in this day it was thought trains were at a disadvantage because of unfair accounting for indirect costs, but the counter-intuitive thing is that trains lose on direct operating costs.
The AE defies that argument, as do the high-speed trains of other countries. Even Amtrak Regionals defy that argument.
You denying that infrastructure costs are still a factor?
As far as the electric-powered NEC market, that is where there has been agreement that if trains are competitive, that is where they will do this. But the NEC is not the long-distance trains with their ultra-low revenue seat density and dining and sleeping cars, apart from the pass-through LD trains.
Economy-class seating on any airline is miserable. Thanks to the need for pressurized cabins, it's not very efficient space-wise, either. (Compare 3-3 seating in an 11' 6"-wide cabin with 2-2 seating in a 10' 6"-wide railcar.)Yes economy seating is plain miserable, but it is driven by market forces, where airlines which receive subsidy, yes, but not for direct operating costs (yeah, yeah, post 9-11 bailout, but this is not a permanent and ongoing thing) where airline passengers have voted with their dollars and desire for cheap fares that they would prefer low fares to the extra room you desire. Why is 2-2 seating inherent in a railcar -- why not the 3-2 seating of coach on the Bullet train or the 3-3 seating on some of the newer "widebody" Japanese trains?
Why cite the Shinkansen, when its loading gauge has always been wider than that of US passenger trains, the 0-series (the first Bullet Train) being 11 feet wide, and subsequent trains wider still? Note that even the 0-series was roomier for passengers than the Boeing 727, even with the difference in cabin width—and the speed is competitive with air travel, which is a chief selling point.
Oh yeah; on airlines, not all flights are direct. Ever deal with the connecting-flight syndrome? Saves bucks, adds hours; and your alleged two-hour journey becomes as long as eight, or perhaps longer than a LD train takes, thanks to broken equipment and missed connections. Sometimes makes you wish the USA did invest in high-speed rail, because in a lot of markets, the plane is literally the only choice, which is not a choice at all. 13 billion gallons of jet fuel was Reply Paul Milenkovic Member sinceJuly 2004 2,741 posts Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Saturday, October 6, 2007 10:05 PM I don't have a side of an argument, just an observation that the economic fundamentals of the passenger train business, as it were, don't look good, given the rate of subsidy that Congress can realistically be expected to appropriate, and given the NARP model of fighting any reduction in service by Amtrak in the manner of fighting discontinuances in the pre-Amtrak days. If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks? Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, October 7, 2007 2:01 AM It is NARP's position (and mine) that Amtrak would be better off financially with a larger network than a smaller one, hence their (and my) opposition to cutting routes. We talked about economies of scale earlier. You don't get that by selling less of your product while fixed costs stay fixed. But that's how Congresscritters and government bureaucrats think. They see trains as costs to be avoided, not as sources of revenue. Under that theory cutting routes leads to fewer losses. Thus under years of such political pressure Amtrak has tried to cut its way to profitability, only to find the company losing more money than before the cuts. The reason why these cuts don't work is because fewer and fewer trains have to support the same fixed plant. So I see the problem being more political than economic. Maybe its time to reverse the process. Add a few carefully selected routes and see what happens. It has the merit of being the only thing that has not yet been tried. Reply Edit Paul Milenkovic Member sinceJuly 2004 2,741 posts Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Sunday, October 7, 2007 10:04 AM Maybe it is because the subsidy rate is such that Amtrak routes on balance are a net cost than a source of revenue. There are also negative economies of scale: John Kneiling had long written about the fictitious discount store that loses money on every sale but makes it up on the volume.Amtrak has a "fixed infrastructure" in terms of management overhead. It also has a fixed infrastructure in terms of locomotives and cars, and my understanding is that Amtrak does not have spare locomotives and cars apart from ones parked on the repair line at Beech Grove. As to Amtrak not having the money to refurbish more cars, that speaks to the cost, not only of buying rail cars but of keeping them in service long term, and of course, all of these issues can be solved by granting Amtrak more money.That is also where marginal cost vs fully-allocated cost accounting makes a big difference. Even if you are operating at a loss and need subsidy money to make fully-allocated cost, if you are operating at a profit on marginal cost, it pays to expand your service. Let's say Amtrak is appropriated 1.2 billion in subsidy. Let's say we could increase that subsidy from 1.2 to 1.8 billion, by 50 percent, but in the bargain double the number of revenue seats on trains. Lets say cutting Amtrak from 1.2 down to 1 billion would effectively mean shutting the whole thing down -- all that money would pay for overhead and you would not be able to operate trains. Don't you think Congress and the American people would say, "Hmm, we could spend a little bit more on Amtrak and get a whole lot more trains."There was mention about airline bankruptcies. For all of the subsidy money the airlines get, there is a certain "above the tarmack" cost that they have to meet from fares, they submit a business plan to their funding sources (banks, shareholders) that they can cover that portion of cost, and when they fail, they go bankrupt, banks and shareholders lose their stake, and people start over.NARP is great on proposals like "grid and gateway." Is there a price tag on this project in terms of rate of funding over so many years and a projection of yield in terms of so many train seat miles? Is anyone willing to stick their neck out on this one, that if we don't meet those targets we are prepared to accept funding cuts? If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks? 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I don't have a side of an argument, just an observation that the economic fundamentals of the passenger train business, as it were, don't look good, given the rate of subsidy that Congress can realistically be expected to appropriate, and given the NARP model of fighting any reduction in service by Amtrak in the manner of fighting discontinuances in the pre-Amtrak days.
It is NARP's position (and mine) that Amtrak would be better off financially with a larger network than a smaller one, hence their (and my) opposition to cutting routes.
We talked about economies of scale earlier. You don't get that by selling less of your product while fixed costs stay fixed. But that's how Congresscritters and government bureaucrats think. They see trains as costs to be avoided, not as sources of revenue. Under that theory cutting routes leads to fewer losses. Thus under years of such political pressure Amtrak has tried to cut its way to profitability, only to find the company losing more money than before the cuts. The reason why these cuts don't work is because fewer and fewer trains have to support the same fixed plant.
So I see the problem being more political than economic. Maybe its time to reverse the process. Add a few carefully selected routes and see what happens. It has the merit of being the only thing that has not yet been tried.
Maybe it is because the subsidy rate is such that Amtrak routes on balance are a net cost than a source of revenue. There are also negative economies of scale: John Kneiling had long written about the fictitious discount store that loses money on every sale but makes it up on the volume.
Amtrak has a "fixed infrastructure" in terms of management overhead. It also has a fixed infrastructure in terms of locomotives and cars, and my understanding is that Amtrak does not have spare locomotives and cars apart from ones parked on the repair line at Beech Grove. As to Amtrak not having the money to refurbish more cars, that speaks to the cost, not only of buying rail cars but of keeping them in service long term, and of course, all of these issues can be solved by granting Amtrak more money.
That is also where marginal cost vs fully-allocated cost accounting makes a big difference. Even if you are operating at a loss and need subsidy money to make fully-allocated cost, if you are operating at a profit on marginal cost, it pays to expand your service.
Let's say Amtrak is appropriated 1.2 billion in subsidy. Let's say we could increase that subsidy from 1.2 to 1.8 billion, by 50 percent, but in the bargain double the number of revenue seats on trains. Lets say cutting Amtrak from 1.2 down to 1 billion would effectively mean shutting the whole thing down -- all that money would pay for overhead and you would not be able to operate trains. Don't you think Congress and the American people would say, "Hmm, we could spend a little bit more on Amtrak and get a whole lot more trains."
There was mention about airline bankruptcies. For all of the subsidy money the airlines get, there is a certain "above the tarmack" cost that they have to meet from fares, they submit a business plan to their funding sources (banks, shareholders) that they can cover that portion of cost, and when they fail, they go bankrupt, banks and shareholders lose their stake, and people start over.
NARP is great on proposals like "grid and gateway." Is there a price tag on this project in terms of rate of funding over so many years and a projection of yield in terms of so many train seat miles? Is anyone willing to stick their neck out on this one, that if we don't meet those targets we are prepared to accept funding cuts?
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