What railroad companies refused to give up their passenger service when Amtrak came along in 1971/1972?
The three railroads that are usually mentioned are Southern, Rio Grande and Rock Island. Also not joining were Georgia RR and Reading. South Shore may have been eligible to join but I'm not sure about that.
In the case of the Rock Island, I'm not sure "rebelled" would be the right term. IIRC (remembering an article in "Remember the Rock" a year or so back) when Amtrak started the railroads who were making money on passenger operations received compensation from the government, but those who were losing money had to pay the government for taking over their losing operations. The dollar amount was based on how much the railroads were making (or losing) on their passenger operations. The Rock's trains were losing a lot of money and they were in such poor financial shape that they couldn't afford the lump sum payment to have Amtrak take over their trains, so had to keep operating their passenger trains themselves.
I'm sure it was much more complicated than that, but I think that was the general idea of the problem.
Nobody was making money on intercity passenger service, and the entry fee was based on losses from 1969, I think. RI had discontinued a sizable number of trains from that time, leaving only the Chicago-Peoria and Chicago-Rock Island round trips. For RI, it was cheaper to absorb the losses from those two runs than pay the entry fee.
Georgia RR had a favorable tax situation that was written into its charter. The tax provision had been upheld in court over the years. There was no legal obligation to maintain passenger service but management was loathe to provide an issue that might prompt somebody to re-open the tax issue. This was why the Georgia mixeds remained in service as long as they did.
Paul, I do not remember anything about the South Shore or the Reading. What trains was the Reading operating besides the commuter trains in 1971 (the commuter trains were already being operated uder contract to SEPTA)? I well remember that the other roads you and Stix named did not, for one reason or another, go into Amtrak
Johnny
from the Wiki article:
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Reading's RDC service over an RDG/CNJ route to Newark was considered an intercity route. South Shore's Chicago-South Bend runs were viewed the same way, even though the reality was that both services were more suburban than intercity in character.
As I understand it, Amtrak defined "intercity" routes as those over 150 miles, regardless of the actual nature of the service.
This definition came into play with Southern Pacific in northern California. The historic Del Monte, from San Francisco to Monterey, was operated by SP as a once-daily "long-distance" train, complete with parlor car service (although on the San Francisco to San Jose segment of the route, it did combine with an SP Commute train).
Come May 1, 1971, Amtrak would not even consider the route, because it was only about 125 miles. But the state PUC could not force SP to continue operating it, because (SP successfully argued) it was not a part of the commute operation.
Yes remember Amtrak was only for "inter-city trains". Rock Island, Burlington Northern, and Chicago & NorthWestern continued to operate their Chicagoland commuter operations for a many years after Amtrak.
The RTA (which started in 1974) set up Metra in 1984 to takeover all Chicago suburban commuter operations. It had subsidized and purchased equipment prior to '84 and many of the legacy non- stainless steel coaches were painted the hideous RTA colors.
Rock Island had discontinued a lot of trains in 1968 - 1969; they would have paid more to join Amtrak than the losses they had on their trains.
Rio Grande and Southern didn't want anything to do with Amtrak.
South Shore was considered "commuter", like the Long Island.
The more interesting cases were the railroads that came close to staying out of Amtrak. Santa Fe studied staying out but discovered that staying out would have consumed all the railroad's profits. Seaboard Coast Line considered staying out, but its New York - Florida trains were dependent on connections north of Richmond (RF&P and Penn Central).
The Chicago and Northwestern had a $ 150,000 loss on passenger trains in 1969. If the loss was a profit, they could have stayed out.
I do not remember the source or exact numbers, but when Amtrak(NRPC/RailPax) was authorized by congress - it was something like this:
$ 1,000,000 - Initiation Fee, plus 50% of your prevous years losses. So, if you lost 2.9 million on passenger service last year, your 'entry fee' was $3.9 million dollars. Rock Island could not justify the expense, and felt that over the next few years they could get 'train off' petitions run through the ICC.
The Santa Fe also balked until the last minute on joining. From the time the bill was passed, there was a delay so NPRC could inspect engines/cars and decide which ones they were going to purchase. The inspectors rode thetrains in some cases to do the inspections and placed a small 'inspected' sticker on the electrical cabinet of the passenger cars. All in all, this was a big 'win' for most railroads as they were able to get rid of the passenger losses, and 'sell' their passenger equipment at the same time. In the Rock Island's case, I think all they had left was maybe one Perioa Rocket, and the Quad Cities Rocket service. The Peoria train went fast and the Quad Cities train hung on for some time before it too was gone.
The distinction between 'inter city' and commuter trains was at Amtrak's decision. I remember an argument about a Milwauke-Watertown run on the Milwaukee Road resulting in a court order to keep it runninng while the final decision came down(it was discontinued).
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Passenger trains operating on the eve of Amtrak and on May 1, 1971 include Rio Grande Zephyr, Georgia Cannonball, ex-Reading Crusader and ex-Wall Street, R.I. ex-Des Moines Rocket and Peorian, and Southern Crescent.
http://ctr.trains.com/~/media/import/files/pdf/f/7/7/passenger_trains_operating_on_the_eve_of_amtrak.ashx
Mr. Railman What railroad companies refused to give up their passenger service when Amtrak came along in 1971/1972?
Western Pacific kept their service as well...
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
carnej1 Mr. Railman: What railroad companies refused to give up their passenger service when Amtrak came along in 1971/1972? Western Pacific kept their service as well...
Mr. Railman: What railroad companies refused to give up their passenger service when Amtrak came along in 1971/1972?
WP had discontinued its last passenger train, the "California Zephyr" in March 1970.
What train(s) did they run?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
WP was out of the passenger business by that time. They had dropped the California Zephyr at least a year before that(March 22, 1970).
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