What if Amtrak had never been formed

[Overmod]

charlie hebdo

Lots of what ifs that ignore the two largest reasons for the need for Amtrak's formation: the building and completion of an Interstate Highway System and the increasing use of successful passenger jet airliners.

Actually, I want to see conductorchris flesh out some of the things he's said.  Exactly where would the 'revenue stream' to provide greater Amtrak service have come from in the political systems of that day?  I don't see, for example, the idea of reversing the Post Office cuts that caused the last great wave of train-offs, or some revival of REA that would at least implicitly subsidize trains to a variety of intermediate stations where passenger traffic alone was not adequate.

And just how does he think Perlman could have been more successful, or tried harder than he did at NYC, to get at least the cream of passenger service to work? 

I do think things might have been different with 'better' champions, or more input from passenger departments with good ideas about service (Santa Fe being a good one -- but with clear ties to an understanding of the importance of passenger service to its own shippers, something that does not easily translate to an organization like Amtrak).  But that 'difference' might not have translated into any greater success than Amtrak had 'in the event'; in fact, I can easily see how someone with strict standards on passenger-service quality might have been inclined to 'pull the plug' on a national network long before now.  

Something I still don't quite understand is this business about 'a successful rail operator that could have been a good customer'.  About the only railroad with a half chance of integrating reasonably fast passenger trains with its evolving freight operations was ATSF, and the fuel crisis slammed any door on high-speed freight service that lack of shipper willingness to pay the cost of additional freight speed hadn't already.  Just exactly where -- in a real world -- would revenues from passenger-train accommodation even cover the pain and aggravation of having to host it ... and that before we start in on the risk involved in the passenger service, its potential failure on a railroad's main, its potential wrecks, and so forth.  Or the falling share and changing effective demographics of those continuing to ride passenger trains as the existing pool of equipment grew older...

[Overmod]

Miningman

Still deliberate disabling and destruction of a cab signal and crews stoned on pot would have resulted in some kind of disaster somewhere, ...it was behaviour that could not have gone on.

Yes, but just exactly what sort of disaster that might have been is the question here.   I'm sure that we'd have gotten to strict whiz-quiz enforcement at some point not too much later.  It was established before 1920 that the only sensible 'enforcement' of an ABS system was automatic train stop on running an absolute red, and that compromises such as forestalling really represented compromises in the ABS architecture away from what an 'absolute red' should connote.  It remains true that an absolute method of stopping a train short of an impediment it can't negotiate -- whether or not its crew, or the dispatcher, or the folks at Mantle Ridge, want it to keep going; whether or not it gives the crew warning or options before it has to act -- is an important part of the PTC mandate, and has essentially been for a century.

[charlie hebdo]

conductorchris

An interesting question is what else might have been done besides Amtrak. 

Subsidizing the frieght railroads to provide the service is one that was mentioned.  That might have had better results on some routes.  Maybe.  But we wouldn't have got a solid national system and operator.  But it might have kicked the can down the road for a national system to be created later on a different basis.

What if the effort to start Amtrak was more serious?  Did not start with such a drastic cut to existing services?  Was better funded with its own revenue stream from the beginning (wouldn't have taken much in the big scheme of things).  I'm not sure the political will existed to make that happen, but things could have been different if the political players had been a little different.  Amtrak's original intent was a fiction with the real idea to avoid poiltical fallout and let the trains wither in the future.

What if the railroad world had been a bit more serious in offering leadership to make trains a success?  A few champions would be needed.  They were few then, but one or two people could have made a read difference at that time.  What if the initial leadership of Amtrak included people like John W Barriger (who was too old to have lived much of Amtrak's history).  What if Perlman had figured out how to make passenger trains somewhat successful?  What if Restrop had been a little older with more solid executive and political talents.  What if Amtrak hadn't been basically formed out of the Penn Central Passenger department but instead out of the SCL or SantaFe passenger leadership and experts?

The problem was the big powers that controled what happened didn't really include any true passenger rail champions.  Unions controlled a lot of strings but were bleeding railroads.  Freight railroads wanted their problem resolved, but didn't seem to care much about making a successful rail operator that could have been a good customer (they werent taking care of their freight customers either, often).  Politicans didn't want the political fallout of train-offs, but didn't have the vision either.  NARP . . . well, maybe if it had been different?

 

Lot's of what ifs that ignore the two largest reasons for the need for Amtrak's formation: the building and completion of an Interstate Highway System and the increasing use of successful passenger jet airliners.

[Miningman]

Oltmannd-- I see ( I think). 

Still deliberate disabling and destruction of a cab signal and crews stoned on pot would have resulted in some kind of disaster somewhere, ...it was behaviour that could not have gone on. 

However, thank you for that...makes sense what you say.

[oltmannd]

Miningman

Something akin to the Chase wreck would have occurred soon enough. Disabled cab signals, stoned crews, it could not go on like that. 

I disagree.  All the PRR/PC electrics had speed control and train stop.  That is, the speed control enforced the signal aspects by requiring braking if you were over speed and the train stop feature applied a penatly brake if you didn't acknowledge. 

Conrail diesel power had cab signals, but no train stop, nor speed control.  If you sailed by an aspect change, all you got was an annoying whistle (maybe) until the reservior powering whistle ran out of air.

If Amtrak had not take over the NEC, the lite power would have been electrics with speed control.  The crew could have been dead and the power would have stopped short of the switches.  There was a cut section more than 1000 feet ahead of the interlocking signal where the signal went to restricting.  

[oltmannd]

Deggesty

I have the impression that all passenger cars in regular service depended upon steam from engine for all heat (and some, such as Santa Fe and Southern, also depended upon steam for cooling).

I wonder if, when there were through cars from the east coast to the west coast, if the non SFe cars' cooling systems gave the SFe maintenance people trouble--and likewise if the PRR and NYC crews that handled SOU and SFe passenger cars also had trouble. Maybe not. 

 

That's exactly what Jim McClellan said was a problem at the start of Amtrak.  Amtrak blended the fleet, moving some western cars to the NE because the PC stuff was sooooo bad. There was a lack of expertise in keeping the stuff running.

[conductorchris]

An interesting question is what else might have been done besides Amtrak. 

Subsidizing the frieght railroads to provide the service is one that was mentioned.  That might have had better results on some routes.  Maybe.  But we wouldn't have got a solid national system and operator.  But it might have kicked the can down the road for a national system to be created later on a different basis.

What if the effort to start Amtrak was more serious?  Did not start with such a drastic cut to existing services?  Was better funded with its own revenue stream from the beginning (wouldn't have taken much in the big scheme of things).  I'm not sure the political will existed to make that happen, but things could have been different if the political players had been a little different.  Amtrak's original intent was a fiction with the real idea to avoid poiltical fallout and let the trains wither in the future.

What if the railroad world had been a bit more serious in offering leadership to make trains a success?  A few champions would be needed.  They were few then, but one or two people could have made a read difference at that time.  What if the initial leadership of Amtrak included people like John W Barriger (who was too old to have lived much of Amtrak's history).  What if Perlman had figured out how to make passenger trains somewhat successful?  What if Restrop had been a little older with more solid executive and political talents.  What if Amtrak hadn't been basically formed out of the Penn Central Passenger department but instead out of the SCL or SantaFe passenger leadership and experts?

The problem was the big powers that controled what happened didn't really include any true passenger rail champions.  Unions controlled a lot of strings but were bleeding railroads.  Freight railroads wanted their problem resolved, but didn't seem to care much about making a successful rail operator that could have been a good customer (they werent taking care of their freight customers either, often).  Politicans didn't want the political fallout of train-offs, but didn't have the vision either.  NARP . . . well, maybe if it had been different?

[Convicted One]

Can you say "accommodation run"?

[Victrola1]

Without Amtrak, how long would the Interstate Commerce Commission have continued requiring railroads to maintain money losing passenger trains? 

[Miningman]

So today multi billionaire NFL owners demand new multi billion dollar stadiums under threat of moving the team, plus the tax concessions and breaks are through the roof. Or how about Solindra or other boondoggles. 

I like Dave Kleppers suggestion of direct subsidy through tax credits based on service and passenger numbers. 

Besides, I was merely asking not telling.

Yes, I envision a Godfather like scene on the 32nd floor in the Penn Central Boardroom with all the railroad bigwigs from across the land smoking their cigars, Empire State Express picture in the background, getting together to run passenger trains after making an offer to the Government that they can't refuse. 

[Overmod]

daveklepper

The Turboes were rerouted by Amtrak from GCT to Penn, making across-the-platform transfers to Metroliners

We know that.  The question is how that would have come about in the absence of Amtrak, especially given the incompatibility of Penn third-rail with the Turbotrains 'as delivered'.  Essentially with a bankrupt PC likely doing the work but with money from the high-speed ground transportation Federal program that would have been supporting some of the Turbotrain service testing at that general period in time.  I still think that laying a few thousand feet of 'alternative' third rail to specific tracks would have been cheaper, easier, and perhaps MUCH more "reliable" in service than 'ginning up and then maintaining adaptable switchover shoe arrangements on all the Turbos.  (Although I'm sure UA or one of its contractors would have been almost sickeningly eager to provide workable shoe-control options if the Government had agreed to underwrite the effort... )

[daveklepper]

1.  The Turboes were rerouted by Amtrak from GCT to Penn, making across-the-platform transfers to Metroliners,

2.  At the time of Amtrak's formation, I felt a far far better way to retain passenger service would be direct subsidiy of the freight railrioads through tax credits based on service and passenger numbers.  But the thought was that Amtrak could be profitable.

[Overmod]

Miningman

Is it viable or reasonable to ask if the Railroads got together at some point to form their own separate entity, backed by real estate holdings and equity and formed their own system of reasonable passenger service?

I almost hate to have to mention this, but are you aware of something called 'American Premier Underwriters'?  Look up the history of that company if you don't know it, and then come back and decide if your question is still as valid...

In the pre-Staggers era, government still looked at a large railroad as a kind of evil cash cow.  I believe the prohibitions against pooling and such that applied to freight would still apply to passenger operations, no matter how unprofitable they were individually, without specific and reasonably directed Congressional legislation.  Which, at the time, would almost certainly have gone down an Amtrak-like path rather than trusting private enterprise of the Saunders/Menk/Biaggini type.

I am sure they could have received low cost loans for new revitalized equipment from the States and the Feds in good faith with few strings attached.

You must be from Canada.  Access to capital is different up there.  As stated, this is one of the funniest comments I've ever seen on the Forum, especially considering that the loans/grants you're proposing would be to private railroads, in the interest of increasing private revenues, with little or no State (or Federal) oversight.  Now, it would be a fine thing indeed if this happened, and in fact there are examples where it did happen for a while (my beloved U34CHs being one example) but in general private railroads wanted to get rid of passenger operations like poison, and at any time in the late '60s through the '70s would have been eager to do so -- look at what most railroads provided 'free' to Amtrak to get out from under when that system was established.

Where the money was in those years was in the real estate, or the financial markets where IC went, or perhaps a bit later in communications ventures (you do know what the "SP" in the Sprint telecommunications company originally came from?) -- in short, in things offering far more effective ROI and growth than even freight railroading provided.  Why lose money even under the best of conditions propping up passenger service that interferes with freight? 

(I could mention the sorry history of REA in the great die-off of cheap slow passenger service to all those little service points, but that's just an illustration from a different direction.)

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Miningman

Is it viable or reasonable to ask if the Railroads got together at some point to form their own seperate entity, backed by real estate holdings and equity and formed their own system of reasonable passenger service. This would have removed the yolk of government from their necks and given them better control. I am sure they could have received low cost loans for new revitalized equipment from the States and the Feds in good faith with few strings attached. Maybe not. 

In the regulatory atmosphere of the time, that would have been highly unlikely.  Railroads were still being regulated as public utilities and the change in public opinion toward regulation was still a long way into the future. 

[Shock Control]

BaltACD

  At the time of Amtrak's creation - NY to Boston wsa a run down mess and was only electified to New Haven.  Without Amtrak where would the money come from to improve conditions North of New York?  Remember, at the time of Amtrak, ConRal had yet to be formed and the financial condition of the railroads in the Northeast had yet to be acknowledged.

 

My point is that the corridor between Boston and DC would have been financially viable.  It would have happened. 

[erikem]

Overmod

Were there not some restrictions about the use of propane in tunnels, though?

 

Yes. This was discussed in White's book The American Railroad Passenger Car. The propane tanks had to be removed efore going into NYC's passenger tunnels, but not, as far as I know, for normal mainline tunnels.

[Overmod]

Note that in everything we're discussing, the assumption is only that 'Railpax' as it evolved in the Nixon Administration was not implemented as Amtrak (whether 'born to fail', as some have indicated, or not).

We might gainfully look at some of the initiatives to 'fix' the rail passenger problem that were contemporary with Amtrak's formation, and see where any of these would have gone had Amtrak not been established.  I think it is highly unlikely that "all" rail passenger service would have continued to wither away unremarked; some other political step (perhaps comparable in a way to Staggers) would have been taken, even if only to provide a national rail system comprised largely of Harley's-Hornet-style corridor services of convenience.

[BaltACD]

Shock Control

 

BaltACD

Without Amtrak the only operations left would be the NEC and that would probably only be from NY to DC. 

I would suggest DC to Boston.  There is a lot of activity between New York and Boston.

At the time of Amtrak's creation - NY to Boston wsa a run down mess and was only electified to New Haven.  Without Amtrak where would the money come from to improve conditions North of New York?  Remember, at the time of Amtrak, ConRal had yet to be formed and the financial condition of the railroads in the Northeast had yet to be acknowledged.

[Overmod]

Shock Control

BaltACD

Without Amtrak the only operations left would be the NEC and that would probably only be from NY to DC.

 I would suggest DC to Boston.  There is a lot of activity between New York and Boston.

 

Yes, but that portion of the Corridor was relatively run-down under the chronically bankrupt New Haven, and of course the portion north of New Haven or on the alternative inland lines was not electrified.  The latter might be easily addressed with more Turbotrains, but then the former becomes a glaring limitation verging on a safety hazard for effective service times.  So I would expect run-throughs with GG1s just as we got them, from Washington to New Haven, probably with some kind of Connecticut and Massachusetts and DOT assistance to get more modern passenger power north of there to Boston.  Remember that even today revenues come nowhere near maintaining the NEC in full running condition, so expect buy-in from state agencies as well as some Federal program assistance (which I leave carefully unspecified).

 

Certainly not a complete train-off between New York and Boston, and very likely not a train-off between New York and New Haven even with the presence of by-then-subsidized commuter service on that portion.  But it is at least technically possible that some of the Boston-New Haven service would be run as a 'shuttle', connecting with GG1-hauled trains 'the rest of the way', perhaps with trains of SPV2000s with streamlined noses, optimizing resource use to the part of the line requiring self-propulsion.  It was not difficult to fix the serious emergent issues with the SPV2000 design, and the history of these units, and perhaps of the Budd company in the absence of Amfleet, might have been very different and much more successful.

 

Oh, yes: Turbo service might have stayed directed into GCT for a while, making something of a disconnect for passengers wanting to get as swiftly through New York as they might have gotten to New York from either end of the Corridor, but I suspect the development of third-rail compliance into NYP would have proceeded without Amtrak, and pretty quickly too -- the catch, of course, being the reliable switchover of the shoe apparatus.  In the PC days I'd be tempted to assign a couple of 'Turbo tracks' lined for across-platform transfer to Metroliners, and re-lay those on one side with NYC-compliant third rail out to where the turbines could do their job...

 

(As an aside: Even in the absence of a large-scale program to upgrade the electrified part of the Corridor, like the one in the Carter administration, the issue of rebuilding the passenger Gs would have come up early, and the same approaches I used would have been available, but at comparable cost vs. new construction.  With trackwork at an early-Seventies level, rebuilding even at about 4-1/2 million per unit would make better sense than trying to adopt any of the comparable designs of the day that could reach anticipated speed.  Might have been interesting!)

 

(As another aside: there was some early work in providing 11kV electrification for the Cripe Turbotrain design -- it was deprecated, of course, by the Red Team Metroliner folks, but in the true Collinwood Black Beetle American style, some design work on how it could be done was conducted.  As I recall it, this placed the pan support on an enhanced A-frame at one of the single-axle trucks and not on one of the power-dome units, with a variety of locations for the initial transformer, and there was discussion about optimizing the design for conversion to 60Hz "as soon as expedient" to reduce weight and packaging issues.  It was specifically designed to fit Park Avenue clearances but still have aerodynamic pan performance at elevated speed.  Such a train could easily operate the length of the NEC at the highest speeds the track could support (and give us all an unforgettable show from the domes while doing so!) while at the same time dealing with at least some of the post-'73 fuel price shock for turbine power.

Sadly, no private entity whatsoever could, let alone would, have paid for electrification north of New Haven, even with extension of the commuter zone north of there had demand warranted.  Might have been interesting indeed to see any political attempt to build that out with Federal money with most of the perceived benefit going to just three states...)

[Shock Control]

BaltACD

Without Amtrak the only operations left would be the NEC and that would probably only be from NY to DC.

I would suggest DC to Boston.  There is a lot of activity between New York and Boston.

[Deggesty]

Overmod

 

 

Deggesty

I forgot to add that not only were there axle-driven generators, there also were Waukesha generators.

 

 

Not to mention Waukesha Ice Engines for air conditioning, in addition to Enginators.

Were there not some restrictions about the use of propane in tunnels, though?

 

I do not recall seeing in such restrictions, but I certainly remember the stink by the train at least once when I was boarding in Central Station in Chicago.

[tree68]

BaltACD

Without Amtrak the only operations left would be the NEC and that would probably only be from NY to DC.

My thoughts as well, although it's possible local interests might have tried to maintain or expand any other commuter/corridor operations elsewhere around the country.  I'm sure Chicago commuter operations would have survived.

What probably wouldn't have happened was any new operations.  Amtrak kept passenger service's "foot in the door."  I'm sure the railroads would have fought any such incursions on freight operations.

[PennsyBoomer]

The NEC's freight volume was significant and if conscientiously managed could have been a revenue source for Amtrak that it's going to need. The NEC wasn't built as or promulgated as a passenger only investment. PRR did a damn good job running the NEC and Penn-Central certainly tried, and I suspect Conrail would have run a class operation were it turning a profit.

The seachanges in the passenger biz following WWII were a slow, inexorable change much as the disappearance of the anthracite coal biz (as one example). I guess the situation, had Amtrak not been instituted, would have been a domino reaction of failing roads and deteriorating service. And that is exactly what was happening in the east that precipitated Amtrak. It took Penn-Central and Hurricane Agnes to get everyone's attention.   

[Miningman]

Is it viable or reasonable to ask if the Railroads got together at some point to form their own seperate entity, backed by real estate holdings and equity and formed their own system of reasonable passenger service. This would have removed the yolk of government from their necks and given them better control. I am sure they could have received low cost loans for new revitalized equipment from the States and the Feds in good faith with few strings attached. Maybe not. 

Sometimes the minuses and the minuses make for a positive. 

I wonder if they ever got together to discuss this. 

Something akin to the Chase wreck would have occurred soon enough. Disabled cab signals, stoned crews, it could not go on like that. 

[BaltACD]

Without Amtrak the only operations left would be the NEC and that would probably only be from NY to DC.

[seppburgh2]

From the vantage point of observing Amtrak from start to today, there would be no long distant trains/intercity trains except for commuter services in the North East. Southern and ATSF would have lasted a few years. There may have been some tour trains, such as the Auto Train and maybe a cross country charter train. If not for intervention, we all be reading about the "good old days of train travel" on the Classic Trains site.

[Overmod]

Deggesty

I forgot to add that not only were there axle-driven generators, there also were Waukesha generators.

Not to mention Waukesha Ice Engines for air conditioning, in addition to Enginators.

Were there not some restrictions about the use of propane in tunnels, though?

[Deggesty]

I forgot to add that not only were there axle-driven generators, there also were Waukesha generators.

Relying on axle-based generators to supply your air conditioning was fine, as long as you ran the cars far enough to keep the batteries charged; however the Wildwood-St. Pete combines were not run enough to keep the combines cool, even in February (I rode in the combine on the Silver Meteor in February of 1971, and the conductor apologized for the warmth in the car, explaining that its run was not long enough to keep the batteries charged; it was cooler in the diner, which had come down from New York).

[BaltACD]

Deggesty

I have the impression that all passenger cars in regular service depended upon steam from engine for all heat (and some, such as Santa Fe and Southern, also depended upon steam for cooling).

I wonder if, when there were through cars from the east coast to the west coast, if the non SFe cars' cooling systems gave the SFe maintenance people trouble--and likewise if the PRR and NYC crews that handled SOU and SFe passenger cars also had trouble. Maybe not. 

I am sure the cars assigned to the Trans-Con service were done with the understanding of the requirements of all carriers involved.