HarveyK400 YoHo1975: This is exactly what happens in Southern California, The Pacific Surfliner Slots in between Metrolink trains and Coaster trains. In LA area, it's a combined ticket. Amtrak acts as an express with fewer stops. But metrolink ticked passengers can board. I don't think it's the same - aren't those separate trains (and comparatively short)? In this case, combined trains of up to ten cars with two separate classes of accommodation and amenities run as a rush hour express fleeted at minimal headways. Tickets may be transferable; but do the Coaster and Metrolink trains have similar accommodations as the Surfliners?
YoHo1975: This is exactly what happens in Southern California, The Pacific Surfliner Slots in between Metrolink trains and Coaster trains. In LA area, it's a combined ticket. Amtrak acts as an express with fewer stops. But metrolink ticked passengers can board.
This is exactly what happens in Southern California, The Pacific Surfliner Slots in between Metrolink trains and Coaster trains. In LA area, it's a combined ticket. Amtrak acts as an express with fewer stops. But metrolink ticked passengers can board.
I don't think it's the same - aren't those separate trains (and comparatively short)? In this case, combined trains of up to ten cars with two separate classes of accommodation and amenities run as a rush hour express fleeted at minimal headways.
Tickets may be transferable; but do the Coaster and Metrolink trains have similar accommodations as the Surfliners?
The Surfliners, Metrolink and Coaster trains are all separate trains. Surfliners user Superliner type equipment (the California version) operated in push-pull mode. They are essentially intercity cars. Metrolink and Coaster commuter trains use standard double deck comuter cars (also push pull), which are nearly identical to each other, but not operationally compatible with the Surfliner equipment. You might be able to physically run them in the same train with Surfliner equipment but it's impractical because passengers are unable to pass between the two types of cars (the passageway between cars on the Surfliner cars is on the upper deck while, on the Metrolink and Coaster cars, it's at standard floor level.
The accomodations on the two types of cars are also different. The Metrolink and Coaster trains are clearly commuter cars and the accomodations are pretty spartan. The Surfliner cars are more comfortable, befitting their intercity status.
All of this said, the point being made in the YoHo note is valid. The three services essentially complement each other, with the Surfliners providing express, through service and the Coasters and Metrolink trains providing the local services on the south and north segments of the route, respectively
I agree. Without really hard data, it is hard to come to any definitive conclusions, but it would seem the LD trains have a much larger crew to passenger ratio than the shorter, coach-only corridor services. Even so, Amtrak seems to have awfully high labor costs, some of which come from the service and repair shops.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
While overall Amtrak trains may be labor-intensive, some corridor trains would be more comparable to bus were it not for the differences in wages.
Paul Milenkovic The high costs of train operation, and there is a lot of data to suggest that the above-the-rail costs of trains are considerably higher than airliners and motor coach buses, is a bit of a mystery. Cannot a given on-board crew transport many more passengers than the driver of a bus on a crew-hour basis?
The high costs of train operation, and there is a lot of data to suggest that the above-the-rail costs of trains are considerably higher than airliners and motor coach buses, is a bit of a mystery. Cannot a given on-board crew transport many more passengers than the driver of a bus on a crew-hour basis?
The high operating costs for Amtrak are not a function of equipment. I refer back to the info I posted from the Amtral report. As you can see, it is personnel, i.e., passenger rail is labor-intensive:
According to Amtrak's 2009 Annual Report, expenses totaled ~$3.5 bil. Of that, $1.7 bil was from wages, salaries and benefits, which is 48.5%, by far the largest category. That report doesn't break that down any further, but the FY2011-2015 Appendix to Five Year Financial Plan
does. For 2011 (in $ mil.):
Salaries 273.6 Wages & Overtime 997.8 52.3% of the totalEmployee Benefits 605.3 Employee Related 30.1 Total Salaries, Wages and Benefits 1,906.9
Amtrak's operating expenses (Total Cost of Operations) in FY09 were $3,507.3 million. It carried 27,167,014 passengers whilst recording 5,897,441,000 passenger miles and 11,909,350,000 seat miles. The operating cost was 59.47 cents per passenger mile and 29.45 cents per seat mile. Revenues covered approximately two thirds of the operating costs, leaving a revenue/cost gap of 19.6 cents per passenger mile and 9.7 cents per seat mile to be covered by federal and state subsidies. The subsidies are somewhat larger after accounting for interest and special charges. Total Cost of Operations is somewhat different than variable operating costs in that they include depreciation of capitalized items.
These figures are for the system as a whole. The figures for select segments of the system are much better, especially before taking into consideration depreciation and interest. The problem comes in determing how much depreciation is charge to each route. Amtrak reports total depreciation as a cost of operations, which is correct, but it has not developed a workable methodology to assign depreciation and interest to each route. It says that it is working on it. As a result, the route results understate the cost to operate them.
Most of the commercial airports in the United States were built by a municipal authority. And most were funded with tax free debt, which resulted in lower interest charges than would have been the case if they had been required to raise funds in the fully taxable capital markets. However, the interest spreads are not nearly as great as many people assume, depending on when the financing was arranged and the credit rating of the issuer. In addition, some of the airports have received federal support, either through the FAA Airport Improvement Program or the transfer of government owned facilities.
The cost of the nation's airports is paid for by the users, i.e. commercial airlines, general aviation, military users, etc. These airports issued revenue bonds to cover their construction costs. They have to earn sufficient revenues to meet the mortgage covenants or default on them. The revenues consist of payments from the airlines, general aviation users, parking fees, vendor rentals, etc. It is not just the airlines that support the airports.
Except for the nation's largest airports, e.g. DFW and Houston Intercontinental in Texas, the majority of flight operations are logged by general aviation and, in some instances, military operations, usually in the form of National Guard operations. At Dallas Love Field, for example, the airlines log approximately 35 per cent of operations. The remainder is recorded by general aviation. This per cent of operations is pretty close to those found at the state's other commercial airports.
The airlines pay for their share of airport facilities with landing fees, hangar fees, gate fees, etc. They capture these costs through their fares or ticket taxes. These costs, for the most part, are shown in their Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, and Statement of Retained Earnings. They are period statements that show the results of operations. The Balance Sheet (Position Statement), which is a point in time glimpse of the financial status of the organization, shows the firms assets, liabilities, and shareholder's equity. Most financial analysts believe that the Cash Flow Statement is the most import financial statement for determining how well an organization is performing.
SRen I am getting really tired of this old rubric that Amtrak's costs are so much higher than that of competing airlines. Amtrak's expenses include the entire cost of providing rail passenger service including stations and other related infrastructure. Since Airtran relies on government owned and operated airports and air traffic control, the true costs of any given airline's service is not reflected on its balance sheets.
I am getting really tired of this old rubric that Amtrak's costs are so much higher than that of competing airlines. Amtrak's expenses include the entire cost of providing rail passenger service including stations and other related infrastructure. Since Airtran relies on government owned and operated airports and air traffic control, the true costs of any given airline's service is not reflected on its balance sheets.
Airlines are cheap because their equipment moves fast and they keep it moving and full.
Buses are cheap because... buses are cheap. They cost about $400,000 for a 50 seat coach. And they don't need dedicated facilities to operate. They are truly incremental traffic on highways were cars and trucks are the base load.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
SRen oltmannd: Once you get past the capital costs to get into business, the two biggies for transporting people are the productivity of the equipment and labor. Airtran in 2009, per their latest 10K, has an operating cost per seat mile of 9.29 cents Amtrak (after doing some simple math from their Sept 2010 report) has an operating cost per seat mile of 19.6 cents. Ouch. Hard to compete when your costs are double.... Add to this that Amtrak had a load factor of 48% while Airtran had 80% It would interesting to see if the problem mostly equipment or labor or a bit of both. I am getting really tired of this old rubric that Amtrak's costs are so much higher than that of competing airlines. Amtrak's expenses include the entire cost of providing rail passenger service including stations and other related infrastructure. Since Airtran relies on government owned and operated airports and air traffic control, the true costs of any given airline's service is not reflected on its balance sheets.
oltmannd: Once you get past the capital costs to get into business, the two biggies for transporting people are the productivity of the equipment and labor. Airtran in 2009, per their latest 10K, has an operating cost per seat mile of 9.29 cents Amtrak (after doing some simple math from their Sept 2010 report) has an operating cost per seat mile of 19.6 cents. Ouch. Hard to compete when your costs are double.... Add to this that Amtrak had a load factor of 48% while Airtran had 80% It would interesting to see if the problem mostly equipment or labor or a bit of both.
Once you get past the capital costs to get into business, the two biggies for transporting people are the productivity of the equipment and labor.
Airtran in 2009, per their latest 10K, has an operating cost per seat mile of 9.29 cents
Amtrak (after doing some simple math from their Sept 2010 report) has an operating cost per seat mile of 19.6 cents.
Ouch. Hard to compete when your costs are double....
Add to this that Amtrak had a load factor of 48% while Airtran had 80%
It would interesting to see if the problem mostly equipment or labor or a bit of both.
Given that the anti- and pro-rail factions each have an agenda, it is perhaps hard to definitely establish that passenger rail is an expensive mode of transportation in a way that airlines are not.
But as a research engineer, my Peter Parker-esque "spider sense" tells me that airliners and intercity motor coaches are a particularly low cost way of providing passenger miles. Passenger trains along with automobiles are in contrast high-cost modes of transportation.
The high cost of driving is in having to own, maintain, and insure a car. Once car ownership is a given, the marginal costs of an additional trip are lower. The high costs of train operation, and there is a lot of data to suggest that the above-the-rail costs of trains are considerably higher than airliners and motor coach buses, is a bit of a mystery. Cannot a given on-board crew transport many more passengers than the driver of a bus on a crew-hour basis?
I am beginning to suspect it has something to do with the shock and vibration environment of a train of steel wheel on steel rail vehicles being much more severe than that of rubber pneumatic tire on concrete vehicles (buses). The lightweight experimental trains of the late 1950's -- Aerotrain, early generation Talgo, Train-X, RDC, Budd "tubular" train -- were the last gasp of the private railroads to hang on to providing passenger service, much as the Pennsy T-1's and NYC Niagras were the last major effort for steam to compete with Diesels. The driving factor behind these trains was to reduce cost by reducing weight and making them more bus-like: the Aerotrain coaches were in effect modified motorcoach bus bodies. The experiment didn't work because automotive structures and suspensions cannot withstand the shock and vibration of the railroad environment.
Hence passenger trains are both heavier per seat and more expensive per seat than motorcoach buses in order to deal with the vibration environment, and the maintenance cost per seat is much higher on account of the same. If it were strictly the on-train crew cost, trains would do OK because of the much greater number of seats per driver. If trains were that much more energy efficient than other modes, there would be costs savings at todays high fuel prices, but trains are heavy, driven, again, by the shock and vibration environment and you don't see trains pulling ahead cost-wise in times of high fuel cost.
We can sharpen the pencils and go over balance sheets and we can argue 'tist'aint all day long on whether the Amtrak subsidies are merely providing a level playing field or are going well beyond that. It is just that it seems that on an above the wheel-rail contact patch basis, there is a lot more to a train than operating a steel-wheeled motor coach, and I think there is some fundamental relationship why this is the case.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
oltmannd Once you get past the capital costs to get into business, the two biggies for transporting people are the productivity of the equipment and labor. Airtran in 2009, per their latest 10K, has an operating cost per seat mile of 9.29 cents Amtrak (after doing some simple math from their Sept 2010 report) has an operating cost per seat mile of 19.6 cents. Ouch. Hard to compete when your costs are double.... Add to this that Amtrak had a load factor of 48% while Airtran had 80% It would interesting to see if the problem mostly equipment or labor or a bit of both.
oltmannd schlimm: Labor makes up the bulk of Amtrak's operating expenses. Out of curiosity, and at the risk of enraging some folks, how much does the typical engineer for Amtrak get paid annually? I realize the way pay is calculated is more complicated than dollars/hour X time worked. Conductor? Trainman? How about your "typical" engineer on any of the Big Six freight lines? Anyone able to provide info about this? I think you might be able to tease this out of the annual report or 10K. I'll have to check
schlimm: Labor makes up the bulk of Amtrak's operating expenses. Out of curiosity, and at the risk of enraging some folks, how much does the typical engineer for Amtrak get paid annually? I realize the way pay is calculated is more complicated than dollars/hour X time worked. Conductor? Trainman? How about your "typical" engineer on any of the Big Six freight lines? Anyone able to provide info about this?
Labor makes up the bulk of Amtrak's operating expenses. Out of curiosity, and at the risk of enraging some folks, how much does the typical engineer for Amtrak get paid annually? I realize the way pay is calculated is more complicated than dollars/hour X time worked. Conductor? Trainman? How about your "typical" engineer on any of the Big Six freight lines?
Anyone able to provide info about this?
I think you might be able to tease this out of the annual report or 10K. I'll have to check
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the annual wage for a locomotive engineer ranges from $33,430 (10% point) to $88,690. The median is $47,870, whilst the 75% point is $61,880. The BLS does not set out the data for Amtrak. I suspect the wage for Amtrak's experienced engineers is some where between the median and 75%.
The spread for conductors (combined with yardmasters) is $$33,100 to $81,200, with a median wage of $53,940 and 75% of $66,300. Again, Amtrak's experienced conductors probably fall some where between the median and 75%.
The wage range for airlines pilots is $56,620 to $166,400, with a median of $106,240. The 75% point is $144,010. Some commuter airline co-pilots with low seniority make about half of the bottom figure, which is the 10% point.
These are wage comparisons. They do not include benefits, which can increase the total compensation package by 25 to 35%.
I have never been able to find any information published by Amtrak regarding its pay schedules. However, in a sense, comparative findings, whilst interesting, are not terribly meaningful. Attempting to compare the productivity of an airline pilot with a railway engineer is a bit of a stretch. I am not sure at the end of the day that it tells us anything meaningful.
shorebreeze Amtrak's problems center on two things; their service isn't good enough, and their fares for short distance trains are too low. First, service. Consider Amtrak California. Self-opening doors on the cars, fairly short dwell times, and a minimum of security theater on the station, even on the platform. It's convenient. It's also obviously had some money spent on it. Now consider the Midwest. The old fashioned trap-style doors, train crews whose main goal is to make things easy for themselves instead of the customers, shoddy timekeeping, and tragicomic security theater. Why do they keep herding people for a particular destination to a particular car, thereby making for a crowded experience even on a lightly booked train? What's with only having 16 business class seats on a consist when they could sell four or five times that number? What's with the security arrangements, particularly at Chicago Union Station? Second, the fares. A walkup fare from Chicago to St. Louis is $66. Advance purchase is $24. That's why Amtrak can't cover its costs. How about better service, performance-related pay for the staff, and helping to fund the improvements with higher fares? Obviously, we need the government to step up to the plate too given the extent to which both freight and passenger rail are shortchanged compared to highways. But how do you politically create more of a slam-dunk? Making what we already have better is a good start.
Amtrak's problems center on two things; their service isn't good enough, and their fares for short distance trains are too low.
First, service. Consider Amtrak California. Self-opening doors on the cars, fairly short dwell times, and a minimum of security theater on the station, even on the platform. It's convenient. It's also obviously had some money spent on it. Now consider the Midwest. The old fashioned trap-style doors, train crews whose main goal is to make things easy for themselves instead of the customers, shoddy timekeeping, and tragicomic security theater. Why do they keep herding people for a particular destination to a particular car, thereby making for a crowded experience even on a lightly booked train? What's with only having 16 business class seats on a consist when they could sell four or five times that number? What's with the security arrangements, particularly at Chicago Union Station?
Second, the fares. A walkup fare from Chicago to St. Louis is $66. Advance purchase is $24. That's why Amtrak can't cover its costs. How about better service, performance-related pay for the staff, and helping to fund the improvements with higher fares? Obviously, we need the government to step up to the plate too given the extent to which both freight and passenger rail are shortchanged compared to highways. But how do you politically create more of a slam-dunk? Making what we already have better is a good start.
Nobody at Amtrak gets rewarded for "better". That's half the battle. Good post!
A thoughtful posting. Welcome!! I've never ridden Amtrak California. What a difference! I guess it goes to show what can be done, instead of archaic (even though not so old) equipment and platforms.
I took a look at a Southwest 10K for 2008. Southwest is actually quite unionized. Total employees = 35,500. Total operating expenses were $10,574 mil., salaries, wages and benefits $3, 340 mil. That works out to 31.6% far less than that for Amtrak (48.5%). Per employee = $94,084.
In 2009, total Amtrak employee wages and benefits were $1.7 billion. The number of employees was 18,600. That works out to an average of $91,000 per employee in wages and benefits, less than Southwest.
schlimm According to Amtrak's 2009 Annual Report, expenses totaled ~$3.5 bil. Of that, $1.7 bil was from wages, salaries and benefits, which is 48.5%, by far the largest category. That report doesn't break that down any further, but the FY2011-2015 Appendix to Five Year Financial Plan does. For 2011 (in $ mil.): Salaries 273.6 Wages & Overtime 997.8 52.3% of the totalEmployee Benefits 605.3 Employee Related 30.1 Total Salaries, Wages and Benefits 1,906.9 I wonder how Amtrak's numbers compare with airlines, both union and non-union?
I wonder how Amtrak's numbers compare with airlines, both union and non-union?
First, one needs the numbers of salaried and hourly employees; and the latter includes more than train crew.
Second, employee benefits and related expenses probably a co-mingled for salaried and hourly.
My guess is that the biggest expense is the hourly rate of keeping passenger equipment in service -- amortization, interest, maintenance, and insurance. You would think that railroad equipment should be cheaper than aviation equipment, but the last time those numbers were considered on a thread around here, the maintenance worker-hours per passenger mile for a passenger railroad car worked out to some multiple of the airline industry.
schlimm Labor makes up the bulk of Amtrak's operating expenses. Out of curiosity, and at the risk of enraging some folks, how much does the typical engineer for Amtrak get paid annually? I realize the way pay is calculated is more complicated than dollars/hour X time worked. Conductor? Trainman? How about your "typical" engineer on any of the Big Six freight lines? Anyone able to provide info about this?
Paul Milenkovic I was thinking for the Mad City Model Railroad Show and Sale in February of building some wooden ramps representing different numbers of inches of cant deficiency that people could stand on them, comparing the tilting Talgo train with reduced cant deficiency experienced by the passenger with a conventional train. One thing I was worried about was liability, of someone tripping on those wooden platforms and getting hurt -- a remote chance but something one has to plan for. Now, the with the Talgo on hold or effectively stopped (the original motivation for this thread), this exhibit is kind of moot.
I was thinking for the Mad City Model Railroad Show and Sale in February of building some wooden ramps representing different numbers of inches of cant deficiency that people could stand on them, comparing the tilting Talgo train with reduced cant deficiency experienced by the passenger with a conventional train. One thing I was worried about was liability, of someone tripping on those wooden platforms and getting hurt -- a remote chance but something one has to plan for. Now, the with the Talgo on hold or effectively stopped (the original motivation for this thread), this exhibit is kind of moot.
Wis DOT's order for two Talgo sets, covering the existing CHI-MKE Hiawatha service and replacing the existing Horizon/Amfleet equipment, is still on. Work on those sets is not affected by the shutdown of the MKE-MSN project.
The maintenance base for the Talgo equipment, however, is part of the ARRA grant for the Madison project. That facility was estimated at $52 million. If the Madison project is canceled and the ARRA funds are forfeited, Wisconsin is still on the hook for building a possibly smaller maintenance facility.
Similar problem; and I suggested a similar solution when I was a planner for Northwest Indiana. Since then, high level platforms were built at Hegewisch, Hammond, and East Chicago. Gary (Broadway) is still in the works.
oltmannd That sounds sensible. The trouble area is going to be in the east. What do you do with the trains that start and finish on the NEC where the train must cope with a mix of platforms? Do you do something goofy like the SEPTA Silverliner Vs? Or, to you just work your way toward high level platforms and cope until you get there? Or, do you provide a mix? For example, Wilmington DE has two tracks with a center high level platform, but the outside platforms are low level (or, at least it used to be that way). You could flip it. Center low level and outside high.
That sounds sensible. The trouble area is going to be in the east. What do you do with the trains that start and finish on the NEC where the train must cope with a mix of platforms? Do you do something goofy like the SEPTA Silverliner Vs? Or, to you just work your way toward high level platforms and cope until you get there? Or, do you provide a mix? For example, Wilmington DE has two tracks with a center high level platform, but the outside platforms are low level (or, at least it used to be that way). You could flip it. Center low level and outside high.
With the possible exceptions of the Lakeshore, Cardinal, and Florida trains, the Acela could be the standard platform for single-level Eastern trains. First, they tilt. Instead of a center door, one end door would be high and the other low for a non-Acela/Regional option. I don't know if the profile would allow for the bunk beds for sleeping cars which seems to be the only sticking point for a single single-level car type.
The high-low arrangement depends on whether dwell times would be affected significantly at intermediate stations, notwithstanding an allowance for deploying lifts for mobility devices.
I can't say whether the Amfleet or Horizon cars could be rebuilt economically with the suggested high-low/high-high arrangement and given active tilt suspension; but this seems to be a lower cost option and a consideration in establishing viable domestic manufacturing and re-building capability.
I'm all for KISS-ing (Keep It Simple Stupid).
None of the problems with doors, ticket collection, platform heights. etc. seem insurmountable. A failure to proceed to correct these problems would seem to be from a lack of will, not lack of know-how.
WJM2223 Can you explain the engineering term "cant deficiency" to a non-engineer? Is it more than how much the car leans outward as it negotiates a curve.? So called centrifugal force?
Can you explain the engineering term "cant deficiency" to a non-engineer? Is it more than how much the car leans outward as it negotiates a curve.? So called centrifugal force?
As Don Oltmann explained, railroad people quantify the amount of force, trying to slosh your coffee and trying to knock you off your feet into the lap of the person you are standing next to, in terms of the number of inches they would have to jack up the outside rail to cancel out that force. With the rail jacked up, called superelevation, you still feel the centrifugal force of rounding a curve, but that force is pointed downwards in the direction of your feet instead of sideways.
The deal with railroads, however, is that they use fewer inches of superelevation than needed, and the reduction measured in inches is called the cant deficiency. For example, if you went around a curve at a speed that would require 6 inches of superelevation but "they" put only 3 inches of superelevation on the track, say, because freight trains use that line and freights don't take curves that fast, that means a train passenger would feel that as if there were no superelevation and you were taking the curve at a slower speed that required 3 inches of superelevation.
Actually, that these inches of cant and cant deficiency add up is a mathematical approximation. You are assuming that if the gauge is 4'8.5" (56.5") and you jack up the rail by 3" you get a certain angle of tilt. You are assuming that if you jack up the rail by 6" that the angle of tilt is exactly twice as much -- to get the exact value you need to use your college trig, but for the small amounts 3" and 6" for a gauge of 56.5", the deviation from twice-as-much is something that is small enough to ignore.
South Shore has had to deal with two different platform heights since at least 1926. The IC station stops are all high-level, Gary is high-level, Hammond is high-level with gantlet tracks and I believe that the rest are ground level. End doors are equipped with steps and traps and center doors are high-level only. Remote door operation is done at high-level platforms but I don't think that it's possible at ground-level platforms when a trap is involved as you may have standees on the trap.
HarveyK400 oltmannd: .... Where low level platforms are the norm, the trainmen can only open one door at a time because they have to manually raise the trap (which lowers the stairs). You can't leave the trap up and and close the door (nor would you want to - you don't want people going from car to car to fall down the steps). You also don't want to open all doors - you could have people falling out the unattended doors since there's nobody there to get the trap. This does not make the status quo the best you can do, however. 1. The trainmen could make an effort to get more doors open, opening adjacent doors one at a time, then walking the car length and getting two more. 2. The traps and stairs could be automated so that the passengers could get their own door by push button. (Lots of details to work out on this one...) 3. Amtrak could extort high level platforms from the towns with high traffic levels. They don't need to be elaborate. What PC put in (and had last for 40 year) at Metropark would suffice. Wood piles/supports, wood and asphalt platforms, wood railing and steps. 4. Have the cafe car attendant join the train crew in getting doors open. The door trap is the problem with this type of car in the Midwest. Stations like Normal and Springfield also would need platform gauntlet tracks if the was no space for separate platform tracks as well as signaling; but then what about the Eagle? What about Saint Louis? What about utilization at Chicago Union Station? I remember the Horizon car developed off the NJT commuter coach with a remote-controlled low level door; but the higher steps makes boarding more difficult and less desirable. The most compatible solutions seem to be Talgo's for the tilting except for some gallery cars for rush hour Hiawatha's. New bi-levels off the California design would be compatible for long-distance trains and Midwest routes; but I'm wondering if that many doors are needed where additional seating might be provided..
oltmannd: .... Where low level platforms are the norm, the trainmen can only open one door at a time because they have to manually raise the trap (which lowers the stairs). You can't leave the trap up and and close the door (nor would you want to - you don't want people going from car to car to fall down the steps). You also don't want to open all doors - you could have people falling out the unattended doors since there's nobody there to get the trap. This does not make the status quo the best you can do, however. 1. The trainmen could make an effort to get more doors open, opening adjacent doors one at a time, then walking the car length and getting two more. 2. The traps and stairs could be automated so that the passengers could get their own door by push button. (Lots of details to work out on this one...) 3. Amtrak could extort high level platforms from the towns with high traffic levels. They don't need to be elaborate. What PC put in (and had last for 40 year) at Metropark would suffice. Wood piles/supports, wood and asphalt platforms, wood railing and steps. 4. Have the cafe car attendant join the train crew in getting doors open.
....
Where low level platforms are the norm, the trainmen can only open one door at a time because they have to manually raise the trap (which lowers the stairs). You can't leave the trap up and and close the door (nor would you want to - you don't want people going from car to car to fall down the steps). You also don't want to open all doors - you could have people falling out the unattended doors since there's nobody there to get the trap.
This does not make the status quo the best you can do, however.
1. The trainmen could make an effort to get more doors open, opening adjacent doors one at a time, then walking the car length and getting two more.
2. The traps and stairs could be automated so that the passengers could get their own door by push button. (Lots of details to work out on this one...)
3. Amtrak could extort high level platforms from the towns with high traffic levels. They don't need to be elaborate. What PC put in (and had last for 40 year) at Metropark would suffice. Wood piles/supports, wood and asphalt platforms, wood railing and steps.
4. Have the cafe car attendant join the train crew in getting doors open.
The door trap is the problem with this type of car in the Midwest. Stations like Normal and Springfield also would need platform gauntlet tracks if the was no space for separate platform tracks as well as signaling; but then what about the Eagle? What about Saint Louis? What about utilization at Chicago Union Station? I remember the Horizon car developed off the NJT commuter coach with a remote-controlled low level door; but the higher steps makes boarding more difficult and less desirable. The most compatible solutions seem to be Talgo's for the tilting except for some gallery cars for rush hour Hiawatha's.
New bi-levels off the California design would be compatible for long-distance trains and Midwest routes; but I'm wondering if that many doors are needed where additional seating might be provided..
Cant deficiency is the amount of (additional) superelevation you'd need so that you wouldn't feel that "leaning out (a.k.a centrifugal)" force in the curve.
HarveyK400 Passenger service seems to be modeled after the airlines, from reservations to boarding, although I remember having to check in and get a boarding pass at a movable desk out in the concourse of the old Union Station for the Blackhawk and Western Star. So in this sense, the airline system is relevant.
Passenger service seems to be modeled after the airlines, from reservations to boarding, although I remember having to check in and get a boarding pass at a movable desk out in the concourse of the old Union Station for the Blackhawk and Western Star. So in this sense, the airline system is relevant.
I remember only one instance of having to show identification before boarding a train: in the spring of 2008, when we were leaving Washington on the Capitol Limited; my driver's license was sufficient. Except for this instance, in all of our travels since air travel began to be scrutinized carefully, we have never had to show who were are, except when crossing the Canadian border. Two years ago, when we had to fly to Baton Rouge and back on short notice, our experience was quite different. We hope that we never have another occasion to fly.
Johnny
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.