Any discussion must end at some point and I think this point has been reached.
Time to move on, folks!
Sam1 Intercity passenger trains are not critical to the well being of the nation. They may become so in the future because of increased congestion and environmental reasons. If they went away, which I would not like to see, few people, with the possible of those living along the NEC and southern California, would not miss them. In in those busy corridors there are viable alternatives. Think Megabus.
Intercity passenger trains are not critical to the well being of the nation. They may become so in the future because of increased congestion and environmental reasons. If they went away, which I would not like to see, few people, with the possible of those living along the NEC and southern California, would not miss them. In in those busy corridors there are viable alternatives. Think Megabus.
I understand that airport congestion caused by the air shuttles between the major Northeast cities was a consideration for retaining the NEC. But since the airport take-off slots bare probably mostly filled by now, Megabus mat be the only alternative if you got rid of it. The question is, how many Megabus runs per day would it take to replace NEC service?
dakotafred Sam1: We have beat this topic to death. It is time to move on. Sounds like Sam1 is locking the thread. I wish she wouldn't, because since the thread on California HSR got shut down, this is one of the few Forum discussions that isn't about grade crossings or train wrecks. (I know, if I'm not interested in those subjects, I don't have to read -- and I don't.)
Sam1: We have beat this topic to death. It is time to move on.
We have beat this topic to death. It is time to move on.
Sounds like Sam1 is locking the thread. I wish she wouldn't, because since the thread on California HSR got shut down, this is one of the few Forum discussions that isn't about grade crossings or train wrecks. (I know, if I'm not interested in those subjects, I don't have to read -- and I don't.)
I don't have the authority to lock the thread. But I am moving on.
Sam1 We have beat this topic to death. It is time to move on.
schlimm And what is the context that magically changes the meaning of your statement? It does appear to have some problems with syntax, which makes it unclear, with internal contradictions.
And what is the context that magically changes the meaning of your statement? It does appear to have some problems with syntax, which makes it unclear, with internal contradictions.
Here is the paragraph: "Intercity passenger trains are not critical to the well being of the nation. They may become so in the future because of increased congestion and environmental reasons. If they went away, which I would not like to see, few people, with the possibility of those living along the NEC and in southern California, would not miss them. In those busy corridors there are viable alternatives. Think Megabus!"
Lifting Think Megabus out of the paragraph is akin to claiming that a movie trailer is the movie. Think Megabus was set in the context of intercity passenger trains not being critical to the well being of the nation. Just quoting "Think Megabus" is stating it out of context. Intercity buses, as well as other modes of transport (commercial and personal) are viable alternatives. Megabus is a viable alternative. And unlike Amtrak, it makes money. It either does so or it goes out of business.
Megabus is the answer to filling empty seats which would otherwise be empty on a bus between to points. Does not guarentee a similar price on return trip. More a markrting tool than a real rate. Also price starts at a buck and can move up, too.
Amtak has been able to fill trains with rates they've got. That is not the problem The problem is that with Congress being its bank and being the ones who hire and fire the President and its board according to it's whim and fancey, there is no stability. With an election coming up this November, no one who works under those circumstances is sure of his employment after January 2013. So, why bother plannng for Valentines Day when you may not be celebrating New Years?
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
One version of Megabus, but on a much smaller scale is one that one of our neighbours has put together that transports Amish/Mennonite families between London ON and places to the north of here.
I think privatization has its role here here as well.
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
schlimm "Think Megabus." I guess that says it all. This is supposed to be a forum of Trains, for passenger trains, and yet this poster seems to think intercity buses are the answer, even in the NEC. If that is so, why post on this forum? Of course free speech allows that, but why continue when he clearly would like to see Amtrak or any other government passenger rail service replaced by a private bus company.
"Think Megabus." I guess that says it all. This is supposed to be a forum of Trains, for passenger trains, and yet this poster seems to think intercity buses are the answer, even in the NEC. If that is so, why post on this forum? Of course free speech allows that, but why continue when he clearly would like to see Amtrak or any other government passenger rail service replaced by a private bus company.
No, it does not say it all. You have taken the last phrase out of context.
henry6 V.Payne: I am not going to argue that contracting out say car supply, including design, capital lease, maintenance, and operations, might be a cheaper way of doing things. But WHO would do it with our current arrangement of maybe 1-2 years of funding. It seems like so many capital projects on the long distance network have been differed as there is no real idea of what will be operated in the next few years. So if you could get a say 15-20 year guarantee that some level of passenger cross-subsidy will be provided to whoever operator is bidding on in say 5-year blocks then you might get some movement. But wasn't Amtrak itself directed by Congress to "in-source" operations for train crews and such on the long distance routes in the late 1970's or early 1980's, maybe the 1979 bill? Up until then it was a contracted operation with the investor owned railroads. As to the idea of splitting the long distance trains into daylight corridors, I see this destroying a massive amount of utility. For the non-hub airport folks a long distance train into major city is a pretty good way to compete. You've got the crux of the problem...short term financing and planning, all at the whim of Congress which changes its mind and direction with every session and Congress. You hear the the business class in Congress saying it should be run like a business then choke off the funds so plans cannot be made in a business like fashion. Setting Amtrak up lke the U.S. Postal service or like the did Conrail (two entirely different things, I know, but niether are Amtrak) to get it out from under all the thumbs of Congress would be a good start. Once Amtrak was set up like that, then it might be able to make business or operating decision which would bring progress if not success.
V.Payne: I am not going to argue that contracting out say car supply, including design, capital lease, maintenance, and operations, might be a cheaper way of doing things. But WHO would do it with our current arrangement of maybe 1-2 years of funding. It seems like so many capital projects on the long distance network have been differed as there is no real idea of what will be operated in the next few years. So if you could get a say 15-20 year guarantee that some level of passenger cross-subsidy will be provided to whoever operator is bidding on in say 5-year blocks then you might get some movement. But wasn't Amtrak itself directed by Congress to "in-source" operations for train crews and such on the long distance routes in the late 1970's or early 1980's, maybe the 1979 bill? Up until then it was a contracted operation with the investor owned railroads. As to the idea of splitting the long distance trains into daylight corridors, I see this destroying a massive amount of utility. For the non-hub airport folks a long distance train into major city is a pretty good way to compete.
I am not going to argue that contracting out say car supply, including design, capital lease, maintenance, and operations, might be a cheaper way of doing things. But WHO would do it with our current arrangement of maybe 1-2 years of funding. It seems like so many capital projects on the long distance network have been differed as there is no real idea of what will be operated in the next few years.
So if you could get a say 15-20 year guarantee that some level of passenger cross-subsidy will be provided to whoever operator is bidding on in say 5-year blocks then you might get some movement. But wasn't Amtrak itself directed by Congress to "in-source" operations for train crews and such on the long distance routes in the late 1970's or early 1980's, maybe the 1979 bill? Up until then it was a contracted operation with the investor owned railroads.
As to the idea of splitting the long distance trains into daylight corridors, I see this destroying a massive amount of utility. For the non-hub airport folks a long distance train into major city is a pretty good way to compete.
You've got the crux of the problem...short term financing and planning, all at the whim of Congress which changes its mind and direction with every session and Congress. You hear the the business class in Congress saying it should be run like a business then choke off the funds so plans cannot be made in a business like fashion. Setting Amtrak up lke the U.S. Postal service or like the did Conrail (two entirely different things, I know, but niether are Amtrak) to get it out from under all the thumbs of Congress would be a good start. Once Amtrak was set up like that, then it might be able to make business or operating decision which would bring progress if not success.
If Amtrak were out from under the sponsorship of Congress, it would be dead in the water in a heartbeat. It survives not because it is an effective business model but because it is a political animal.
Business is a relatively simply proposition. Offer goods or services that people will buy in an arms length transaction. Price them to cover the costs and provide a return to the shareholders. If the users won't pay the price to cover the costs, the business fails.
If the business provides a service that is critical to the well being of the nation, e.g. electric energy, and it cannot earn a return, one can make a viable argument that it should be run by the state or subsidized.
V.Payne I am not going to argue that contracting out say car supply, including design, capital lease, maintenance, and operations, might be a cheaper way of doing things. But WHO would do it with our current arrangement of maybe 1-2 years of funding. It seems like so many capital projects on the long distance network have been differed as there is no real idea of what will be operated in the next few years. So if you could get a say 15-20 year guarantee that some level of passenger cross-subsidy will be provided to whoever operator is bidding on in say 5-year blocks then you might get some movement. But wasn't Amtrak itself directed by Congress to "in-source" operations for train crews and such on the long distance routes in the late 1970's or early 1980's, maybe the 1979 bill? Up until then it was a contracted operation with the investor owned railroads. As to the idea of splitting the long distance trains into daylight corridors, I see this destroying a massive amount of utility. For the non-hub airport folks a long distance train into major city is a pretty good way to compete.
The point is Sam1, outsourcing and privitizing is not the answer to all the problems...probably will create more problems in fact. Be like the drug company...privatge enterprise mind you...when they no longer made the huge profit they wanted to with a certain cancer drug, they stopped making it despite they had a monopoly and millions suffered and were endangered because the drug was gone. Moral and social responsiblity is gone when private enterprise enters the picture 100%. I used to think different, but now I don''t trust private enterprise and free markets to do much for the future of our country. Scarey, ain't it?
Accounting and HR have become outsourced areas for small to middling companies, since the contractors can often provide more skilled competencies than could be provided in-house without an expensive increase in staff.
henry6 I agree with you, NKP. Privatizing is not the panacea for everything our government does. And private enterprise will agree with you on many things in this area, too. I have seen buracracies in private business that were role models for inefficiency, indolence, and self preservation before even admiting there might be a customer or a product to be conisdered. Waste and ignorance are not confined to government and its agencies. Yes, even some business will find contracting out services is better than providing or producing themselve. Wholesale outsourceing could be counter productive but can also be the perfect solution situtation by situation, product by product, company by company. A mixed bag would be janitorial services. Not a value added service but needed. Some corporations have just hired outside companies to do it all while some smaller companies have found that they can keep their staff on board by having them sweep floors and empty trash cans. Overall, outsourcing is not for every job and every company, but is an available and viable alternative in some cases.
I agree with you, NKP. Privatizing is not the panacea for everything our government does. And private enterprise will agree with you on many things in this area, too. I have seen buracracies in private business that were role models for inefficiency, indolence, and self preservation before even admiting there might be a customer or a product to be conisdered. Waste and ignorance are not confined to government and its agencies. Yes, even some business will find contracting out services is better than providing or producing themselve. Wholesale outsourceing could be counter productive but can also be the perfect solution situtation by situation, product by product, company by company. A mixed bag would be janitorial services. Not a value added service but needed. Some corporations have just hired outside companies to do it all while some smaller companies have found that they can keep their staff on board by having them sweep floors and empty trash cans. Overall, outsourcing is not for every job and every company, but is an available and viable alternative in some cases.
Privatization of a government managed commercial enterprise and outsourcing select activities (non core) are different. The first removes the activity from government operational control. The second contracts ancillary competencies whilst keeping the core competencies in-house. Unless the company in a janitorial company, sweeping floors and emptying wastebaskets along with the mailroom, to the extent there still is enough snail mail to justify it, are the activities that are outsourced.
Indeed, competitive corporations can and do have wasteful practices. If they don't fix them in time, they are out of business, unless they can get the federal government to reward them for their mistakes (GM and Chrysler). Who or what puts an inefficient government organization, i.e. Amtrak, out of business because of wasteful business practices?
Don: Along with contracting for the DB web site, why not sub-contract with DB (actually DBAG) to develop and run a passenger train network?
NKP guy Why not contract out our Law-making to the Canadian Parliament ? They probably have some extra time. Why not privatize the armed forces? We could hire the French or the Japanese to patrol for us. We already pay Blackwater for this service Why not terminate the "socialistic" Veterans Administration? The USA has plenty of extra hospital space and spreading out the wounded and ill to private hositals is a no-brainer money-maker for community health-delivery systems. Why not end Amtrak and give everyone who needs it a free Lear Jet? Why not privatize the Supreme Court? We have tons of would-be legal experts here in this room who would glady do the Court's job for free. Why not fire ALL the air traffic controllers this time? Pilots ought be be able to avoid crashes simply by being more observant. I don't see any need for USDA food inspectors. Why not rely on the traditional caveat emptor system our great-grandparents used? Why not have one big computer and one person do ALL the switching and dispatching in the USA? Or why not let VIA, CP, and CN do it for us? So much more efficient. Why not fire all train crews? Railfans, at least those that don't hate trains, would likely do the job for free. Why not pay railfans in other countries to post comments here? That would give about a half dozen men here untold extra hours to do something more useful with their lives. Why not steeply fine or jail those perverse people who'd like to ride a train across the USA? Don't they know they must learn to love "corridors"? Why not fire all the police and firemen in the country? We could let individuals patrol the streets with their precious guns (think George Zimmerman), and we could pay people not to have fires. Let's privatize the Post Office. Surely UPS and Fed Ex can deliver the mail cheaper because they are private companies. We could privatize the National Weather Service and let older folks in various parts of the country simply predict the weather by dint of their long experience or the size of the coats on wooly bears. Why not simply jail or deport union members or people who expect to work in a secure, decent job, with reasonable pay? Why simply privatize all labor by re-introducing the very American tradition of chattel slavery? No benefits or health care system were needed in those halcyon days. Why not change the name of this site, forum, and the magazine to more closely reflect the beliefs of seemingly so many here? I suggest "No long-distance passenger TRAINS", instead.
Why not contract out our Law-making to the Canadian Parliament ? They probably have some extra time.
Why not privatize the armed forces? We could hire the French or the Japanese to patrol for us. We already pay Blackwater for this service
Why not terminate the "socialistic" Veterans Administration? The USA has plenty of extra hospital space and spreading out the wounded and ill to private hositals is a no-brainer money-maker for community health-delivery systems.
Why not end Amtrak and give everyone who needs it a free Lear Jet?
Why not privatize the Supreme Court? We have tons of would-be legal experts here in this room who would glady do the Court's job for free.
Why not fire ALL the air traffic controllers this time? Pilots ought be be able to avoid crashes simply by being more observant.
I don't see any need for USDA food inspectors. Why not rely on the traditional caveat emptor system our great-grandparents used?
Why not have one big computer and one person do ALL the switching and dispatching in the USA? Or why not let VIA, CP, and CN do it for us? So much more efficient.
Why not fire all train crews? Railfans, at least those that don't hate trains, would likely do the job for free.
Why not pay railfans in other countries to post comments here? That would give about a half dozen men here untold extra hours to do something more useful with their lives.
Why not steeply fine or jail those perverse people who'd like to ride a train across the USA? Don't they know they must learn to love "corridors"?
Why not fire all the police and firemen in the country? We could let individuals patrol the streets with their precious guns (think George Zimmerman), and we could pay people not to have fires.
Let's privatize the Post Office. Surely UPS and Fed Ex can deliver the mail cheaper because they are private companies.
We could privatize the National Weather Service and let older folks in various parts of the country simply predict the weather by dint of their long experience or the size of the coats on wooly bears.
Why not simply jail or deport union members or people who expect to work in a secure, decent job, with reasonable pay? Why simply privatize all labor by re-introducing the very American tradition of chattel slavery? No benefits or health care system were needed in those halcyon days.
Why not change the name of this site, forum, and the magazine to more closely reflect the beliefs of seemingly so many here? I suggest "No long-distance passenger TRAINS", instead.
The idea is to privatize government run commercial enterprises, i.e. post office, Amtrak, airports, municipal sanitation (already done in my town) etc. No one ever suggested privatizing non-commercial activities, i.e. defense, legal systems, police, fire, etc. No one has ever suggested removing regulation, especially that dealing with health and safety. In fact, the key to privatization is smart regulation that ensures a level, safe, effective, competitive platform.
oltmannd A night in an Amtrak sleeper is $200-500 a night on top of Amtrak's coach fare. A night in the Hampton about a mile from Union Station in Denver is about $160 and includes breakfast. Passenger gets cheaper trip.
A night in an Amtrak sleeper is $200-500 a night on top of Amtrak's coach fare. A night in the Hampton about a mile from Union Station in Denver is about $160 and includes breakfast. Passenger gets cheaper trip.
Don, again I would remind you: You have already dumped the First Class trade. What's left are coach passengers who never were going to pay that $200-500 -- and, in my opinion, aren't going to spring for a hotel room, either.
And, these are just things that have popped into my head. Not much study needed.
Why not:
Why not contract out locomotive overhauls? Amtrak doesn't own enough diesels to really need a backshop.
Why not contract out the coach cleaning to Merry Maids or similar?
Why not contract out sleeper operation to Marriott or Norwegian Cruise Lines?
Why not require conductors and trainmen on LD trains to help with "hospitality" ala flight attendants on airplanes?
Why not get your trains into the Expedia et. al. travel sites?
Why not code share with more Continental for a handful of flights?
Why not buy the DB web site and E ticketing and seat reservation system lock, stock and barrel?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
dakotafred Good creative thinking by oltmannd, but I have two objections off the top. 1. I understand that people "in a hurry" are always going to fly. But one or more night-long interruptions would, I think, destroy the usefulness of the route for more through travelers than Don says. (Just elimination of the sleeper loses me, but I realize the bean counters among us would say, "Don't let the door," etc.) How many coach travelers need a hotel bill or two and extra meals on top of the cost of their fare? And how about the guy or gal whose destination is 100 miles the other side of the "split"? 2. We are basically talking buses on rails here, and how many of these new "corridors" actually need additional coach capacity of this straitened kind? On most of them, the planes and real buses run faster and more frequently. And a few, like Glacier-Seattle/Portland and Glacier-Minneapolis, look like non-starters to me. In short, Don stands suspected of a stealth scheme to scuttle the long-distance passenger train in a politically correct way -- that probably wouldn't work.
Good creative thinking by oltmannd, but I have two objections off the top.
1. I understand that people "in a hurry" are always going to fly. But one or more night-long interruptions would, I think, destroy the usefulness of the route for more through travelers than Don says. (Just elimination of the sleeper loses me, but I realize the bean counters among us would say, "Don't let the door," etc.) How many coach travelers need a hotel bill or two and extra meals on top of the cost of their fare? And how about the guy or gal whose destination is 100 miles the other side of the "split"?
2. We are basically talking buses on rails here, and how many of these new "corridors" actually need additional coach capacity of this straitened kind? On most of them, the planes and real buses run faster and more frequently. And a few, like Glacier-Seattle/Portland and Glacier-Minneapolis, look like non-starters to me.
In short, Don stands suspected of a stealth scheme to scuttle the long-distance passenger train in a politically correct way -- that probably wouldn't work.
A night in an Amtrak sleeper is $200-500 a night on top of Amtrak's coach fare. A night in the Hampton about a mile from Union Station in Denver is about $160 and includes breakfast. Passenger gets cheaper trip. The few who are on the other side of the gap either enjoy their time in the city they are laying over or drive to that city (or take a connecting bus ala California). Let the market sort it out. The passengers you gain by not stopping at places at 3AM would be more than you would lose.
A trains IS a bus on steel wheels - everywhere it provides useful service, like all of Europe and Japan and the NEC. You got corridors? Trains work. As fast and frequent as you can figure out how to do and pay for.
Amtrak's current level of subsidies on a per passenger mile basis for LD trains are beyond silly. They need to be fixed if we are to ever have any hope of better train service in the US. And, they better hurry up. If the FEC manages to do their Miami to Orlando thing w/o any subsidy, Amtrak won't have a leg to stand on and the plug will be pulled. Then, we'll have the NEC and it's branches, the FEC in Florida, the Amtrak California corridors, the Chicago hub and nothing else.
You want that?
Split corridors of 2-5 pieces might be the way to make LD more viable, or at least reduce the hemorrhaging, while maintaining the route for political purposes. It has the added advantage of allowing more than one train each direction per day. While two trains a day is hardly service, it's more in that direction. Something overlooked is having a service where a potential traveler has some flexibility on shorter routes about when to depart and the possibility of returning the same day.
Paul Milenkovic ... Among my bricks-and-morter colleagues, I made the suggestion that maybe we shouldn't dismiss this proposal out-of-hand. If we could have day trains in the style of the Cascades Talgo up and down the Mountain West, would that be a fair trade for the long-distance trains? How about the counter proposal of keep the level of subsidy where it is at, but provide twice-daily service along the long-distance routes, which functions for most of the passengers as a kind of linear network of corridors connecting intermediate stops? ...
...
Among my bricks-and-morter colleagues, I made the suggestion that maybe we shouldn't dismiss this proposal out-of-hand. If we could have day trains in the style of the Cascades Talgo up and down the Mountain West, would that be a fair trade for the long-distance trains? How about the counter proposal of keep the level of subsidy where it is at, but provide twice-daily service along the long-distance routes, which functions for most of the passengers as a kind of linear network of corridors connecting intermediate stops? ...
I always liked the idea of connected corridors. Having twice-daily service about 12 hours apart would be great. As a railfan I would take a train during daylight hours to see everything. At night I would get off the train in some convenient city, stay comfortably (and probably for less than a sleeper) in a hotel, and continue my journey on the next train in the morning. Amtrak could offer to attach sleepers for a fee to tour companies that would bear all their own costs.
Paul Milenkovic CSSHEGEWISCH: One factor that is consistently overlooked or ignored is that Amtrak is a political creature and has to maintain some sort of support in Congress, whether we like it or not. But who is driving the politics? For the average everyday person, Amtrak and long-distance trains aren't even on the radar screen. The politics is you, me, everyone on this forum, and everyone else who rides trains or has an interest in trains. One of the infamous "modest proposals" was the Inspector General Kenneth Meade report, that got the advocacy community so upset about everything that one couldn't even discuss the proposal. The idea was not to discontinue the long-distance trains. The idea was that over 50 percent of the train was serving maybe 20 percent of the passengers -- the first-class sleeping car passengers. The automatic assumption is that sleeping car service charges such high fares in relation to coach that it has to be contributing to the bottom line, and the idea that we are subsidizing patrons of a premium service at the level of hundreds of dollars per trip couldn't be right. So the idea was to remove one of the locomotives, the baggage, crew dorm, the diner, the lounge car, and the sleepers from the long-distance trains -- a long-distance trains would then have a consist of a locomotive and about 4-6 coaches, just like a corridor train. There were numbers presented in the report that it could cut the long-distance train subsidy in half while serving at least 80 percent of the passengers -- most trips on these trains are in coach and most trips don't go the whole distance but instead originate and terminate at intermediate stops. When this report came out, you could hear the cries of "oh, the Humanity" from our bricks-and-morter advocacy community, and the report was so toxic that one couldn't even speak of it around here without getting the thread locked out. Among the many criticisms of this proposal as to "why this would never work", the more interesting one was the voiced concern of "having only one locomotive"? I mean c'mon, apart from helper districts I suppose, such name trains as the Broadway Limited and Twentieth Century Limited ran with a single (steam) locomotive (OK, OK, the Pennsy used double-headed K4 locomotives, but they reverted to single T1 locomotives, at least for a while). I mean, is Amtrak motive power maintenance so haphazard that you can't dispatch a long-distance train with one locomotive unit? Commuter and corridor consists run that way all the time. Do our long-distance trains traverse arid wastelands like the Karoo Desert that back in the day required condensing steam locomotives, that if you had a unit break down you would have passengers stranded without food and water in sweltering heat? Among my bricks-and-morter colleagues, I made the suggestion that maybe we shouldn't dismiss this proposal out-of-hand. If we could have day trains in the style of the Cascades Talgo up and down the Mountain West, would that be a fair trade for the long-distance trains? How about the counter proposal of keep the level of subsidy where it is at, but provide twice-daily service along the long-distance routes, which functions for most of the passengers as a kind of linear network of corridors connecting intermediate stops? I have come to a cynical view that passenger train advocacy is about a community of people who use sleeping car service to take cross-country trips on the long-distance trains. Not all of this is pleasure or vacation travel. I am beginning to realize why "the national network" figured so prominently in our talking points in that a number of our members of the local advocacy group took trains when they had to go someplace, trips that most of the rest of us would just make airline reservations -- if you had enough time on our hands and have arrangements for local transportation at each end, you can indeed get to most places using Amtrak. I am saying that at the high-water mark in terms of getting a train to Madison, Wisconsin, one of the people, especially, in our local advocacy group was making a big deal of it everywhere he could, from op-ed pieces to thumbtacking a note on the bulletin board when you come in to Copp's Food Store on University Avenue. The Madison train was pointedly not "a commuter train to Milwaukee, it was a gateway to the 1000 destinations (on the Amtrak network)." We also got our foundation garments all twisted up about Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz putting the Madison station downtown (Mayor Dave went on a fact-finding trip to Spain to see the Talgo in operation and was impressed with the car-less life style that downtown train service allowed -- our people wanted to hang on to their cars thank-you-very-much so they could drive and then park their cars to take their sleeping-car trips to the 1000 destinations, just like you drive and park your car at the Dane County Regional Airport). When we all calmed down, we got together our "list of demands" to take to a meeting with Mayor Dave's aides, which included that the station "had to have a national map showing the Amtrak system." The way I see it is that if the Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago Talgo was about fostering economic development by turning Madison into a kind of longish commuter suburb of Milwaukee and Chicago, that is strong justification for the nearly one-billion dollar investment. If what the Madison Talgo is about is those 1000 destinations on the Amtrak network, so that a small community of people with sufficient financial resources and time can flit about the country, and the rest of us with neither the financial resources nor the time are stuffed into Canadair Regional Jets (if you are traveling on University or State business, you go by the absolute cheapest way possible, and if teaching assistants are covering your classroom lectures, you don't tack days on to the trip by going to the West Coast on Amtrak). If that is what the Madison Talgo is all about, fuggetaboutit, you are taking the Lamars/Van Galder motor coach from Memorial Union straight to Chicago Union Station, and your complaints about the sparse leg room simply don't merit the nearly billion-dollar expenditure, and I don't care how much money is wasted in Afghanistan. So why couldn't the Madison Talgo have been about both markets? Why not in deed, but when push-came-to-shove, when the rubber-met-the road, our advocacy people threw a tantrum, and now there is no Madison Talgo and neither market is being served. So when people say, "Yeah, Amtrak could be improved, but it is constrained by politics," who do you think is writing the local newspaper op-eds and who is e-mailing Congress on this?
CSSHEGEWISCH: One factor that is consistently overlooked or ignored is that Amtrak is a political creature and has to maintain some sort of support in Congress, whether we like it or not.
One factor that is consistently overlooked or ignored is that Amtrak is a political creature and has to maintain some sort of support in Congress, whether we like it or not.
But who is driving the politics? For the average everyday person, Amtrak and long-distance trains aren't even on the radar screen. The politics is you, me, everyone on this forum, and everyone else who rides trains or has an interest in trains.
One of the infamous "modest proposals" was the Inspector General Kenneth Meade report, that got the advocacy community so upset about everything that one couldn't even discuss the proposal. The idea was not to discontinue the long-distance trains. The idea was that over 50 percent of the train was serving maybe 20 percent of the passengers -- the first-class sleeping car passengers.
The automatic assumption is that sleeping car service charges such high fares in relation to coach that it has to be contributing to the bottom line, and the idea that we are subsidizing patrons of a premium service at the level of hundreds of dollars per trip couldn't be right.
So the idea was to remove one of the locomotives, the baggage, crew dorm, the diner, the lounge car, and the sleepers from the long-distance trains -- a long-distance trains would then have a consist of a locomotive and about 4-6 coaches, just like a corridor train. There were numbers presented in the report that it could cut the long-distance train subsidy in half while serving at least 80 percent of the passengers -- most trips on these trains are in coach and most trips don't go the whole distance but instead originate and terminate at intermediate stops.
When this report came out, you could hear the cries of "oh, the Humanity" from our bricks-and-morter advocacy community, and the report was so toxic that one couldn't even speak of it around here without getting the thread locked out.
Among the many criticisms of this proposal as to "why this would never work", the more interesting one was the voiced concern of "having only one locomotive"? I mean c'mon, apart from helper districts I suppose, such name trains as the Broadway Limited and Twentieth Century Limited ran with a single (steam) locomotive (OK, OK, the Pennsy used double-headed K4 locomotives, but they reverted to single T1 locomotives, at least for a while).
I mean, is Amtrak motive power maintenance so haphazard that you can't dispatch a long-distance train with one locomotive unit? Commuter and corridor consists run that way all the time. Do our long-distance trains traverse arid wastelands like the Karoo Desert that back in the day required condensing steam locomotives, that if you had a unit break down you would have passengers stranded without food and water in sweltering heat?
Among my bricks-and-morter colleagues, I made the suggestion that maybe we shouldn't dismiss this proposal out-of-hand. If we could have day trains in the style of the Cascades Talgo up and down the Mountain West, would that be a fair trade for the long-distance trains? How about the counter proposal of keep the level of subsidy where it is at, but provide twice-daily service along the long-distance routes, which functions for most of the passengers as a kind of linear network of corridors connecting intermediate stops?
I have come to a cynical view that passenger train advocacy is about a community of people who use sleeping car service to take cross-country trips on the long-distance trains. Not all of this is pleasure or vacation travel. I am beginning to realize why "the national network" figured so prominently in our talking points in that a number of our members of the local advocacy group took trains when they had to go someplace, trips that most of the rest of us would just make airline reservations -- if you had enough time on our hands and have arrangements for local transportation at each end, you can indeed get to most places using Amtrak.
I am saying that at the high-water mark in terms of getting a train to Madison, Wisconsin, one of the people, especially, in our local advocacy group was making a big deal of it everywhere he could, from op-ed pieces to thumbtacking a note on the bulletin board when you come in to Copp's Food Store on University Avenue. The Madison train was pointedly not "a commuter train to Milwaukee, it was a gateway to the 1000 destinations (on the Amtrak network)."
We also got our foundation garments all twisted up about Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz putting the Madison station downtown (Mayor Dave went on a fact-finding trip to Spain to see the Talgo in operation and was impressed with the car-less life style that downtown train service allowed -- our people wanted to hang on to their cars thank-you-very-much so they could drive and then park their cars to take their sleeping-car trips to the 1000 destinations, just like you drive and park your car at the Dane County Regional Airport). When we all calmed down, we got together our "list of demands" to take to a meeting with Mayor Dave's aides, which included that the station "had to have a national map showing the Amtrak system."
The way I see it is that if the Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago Talgo was about fostering economic development by turning Madison into a kind of longish commuter suburb of Milwaukee and Chicago, that is strong justification for the nearly one-billion dollar investment.
If what the Madison Talgo is about is those 1000 destinations on the Amtrak network, so that a small community of people with sufficient financial resources and time can flit about the country, and the rest of us with neither the financial resources nor the time are stuffed into Canadair Regional Jets (if you are traveling on University or State business, you go by the absolute cheapest way possible, and if teaching assistants are covering your classroom lectures, you don't tack days on to the trip by going to the West Coast on Amtrak). If that is what the Madison Talgo is all about, fuggetaboutit, you are taking the Lamars/Van Galder motor coach from Memorial Union straight to Chicago Union Station, and your complaints about the sparse leg room simply don't merit the nearly billion-dollar expenditure, and I don't care how much money is wasted in Afghanistan.
So why couldn't the Madison Talgo have been about both markets? Why not in deed, but when push-came-to-shove, when the rubber-met-the road, our advocacy people threw a tantrum, and now there is no Madison Talgo and neither market is being served.
So when people say, "Yeah, Amtrak could be improved, but it is constrained by politics," who do you think is writing the local newspaper op-eds and who is e-mailing Congress on this?
Nobody in Congress will complain if Amtrak improves service and cuts costs. Well, almost nobody....depending how they do it.
I don't even think you have to whack the route structure, if that's what's politically required. Just flip everything into day trains by segment and have deals with hotels to shuttle passengers to and from the station at the split points.
Off the top of my head:
Empire Builder: Seattle to Glacier, Glacier to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Chicago.
Cal Zephyr: SF to Salt Lake, Salt Lake to Denver, Denver to Chicago
SW Chief: LA to Albuquerque, Albuquerque to KC, KC to Chicago
Sunset:LA to El Paso, El Paso to Houston, Houston to NOLA
Starlight (rename Daylight): Split it at SF
City of NOLA: split at Memphis
Eagle: Day train from Memphis to SA
Crescent: split at Atlanta
Silver Service: Day train to Orlando (Meteor Route only). Day train Atlanta to Miami (replaces Star). Day train Jax - Orlando - Miami
Cardinal: Split at Cincy
Capitol and LSL: no split, just run with early morning departure with arranged lodging at destination.
Auto Train: Leave it alone. It is not part of the network and does well enough as is.
Benefits: Business model greatly simplified. You get completely out of the sleeper and diner business. No commissary, no laundry, no dormatory cars, etc. And, all the maintenance and logistics needed for all of that. You do food on the train from a cafe with tables. Sandwich and microwave fare - delivered to the train by the vendor. You stop serving major population centers in the dead of night and stop there when people are actually awake. You can convert or sell sleeper and diners (tour operators might want to ride your train...). Use the sale proceeds to buy more capacity and support increased frequency where the market is.
Route map looks the same, so politicians are happy. Slightly longer trip for those few travelers with destinations spanning split points - but if they wanted speed, they would fly. Tourist trade improved - all scenery during the day. Trains available to haul tour company equipment. Dead of night is available as a network "reset" period - every day starts out with all trains "on time".
Why doesn't something like this ever get off the starting blocks? I suspect it's easier to beg for money and not rock the boat. There is no reward in the system for Amtrak to do these kinds of things.
schlimm Why Australia? Because it has private contractors? Why not adapt something more like the German model?
Why Australia? Because it has private contractors? Why not adapt something more like the German model?
The key is competition. Not Australia! I happened to live through the Australian transition from a highly statist commercial environment to a competitive commercial environment, albeit properly regulated. It is a reference point.
As I have stated on other posts, I began my electric utility industry career with a major utility in Dallas. It was a regulated monopoly. It looked like the government, talked like the government, and walked like the government. Without getting into all the details, it was grossly inefficient. Then competition came to the TX electric utility business. And it changed dramatically. Long story short we dropped from more than 18,000 employees to fewer than 10,000 whilst increasing our customer base 25%, and the lights did not flicker once. Competition forces people to work better, faster, cheaper, with the operative word being better. Those who could not hack a competitive environment were let down gently. But they were let down.
Competition is not a panacea. But it forces people to pay attention to the entities key stakeholders, i.e. customers, employees, shareholders, etc. If they don't, they go out of business. In the case of a government managed enterprise, there is little in the way of a driving force to optimize results.
Lived through the process! Been there! Done it!
Paul Milenkovic But who is driving the politics? For the average everyday person, Amtrak and long-distance trains aren't even on the radar screen. The politics is you, me, everyone on this forum, and everyone else who rides trains or has an interest in trains. So why couldn't the Madison Talgo have been about both markets? Why not in deed, but when push-came-to-shove, when the rubber-met-the road, our advocacy people threw a tantrum, and now there is no Madison Talgo and neither market is being served. So when people say, "Yeah, Amtrak could be improved, but it is constrained by politics," who do you think is writing the local newspaper op-eds and who is e-mailing Congress on this?
Paul: A very interesting account of your frustrations with the advocacy group in Madison (the meetings sound about as silly as many departmental meetings I wasn't able to get out of in the past). But what to do for the future?
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