RailSpike I have been riding the rails since I was a kid. Even then, I remember the great meals in the dining cars, great service and clean, operational equipment. Still riding the AMTRAK sleepers at age 71. When I tell friends my wife and I are getting a sleeper on the train they look at me like "What planet are you on?" I explain my love of the rails and tell them, however, I would not recommend they try it. Then they tell me they've never even thought of the train and how fun it might be. I still won't recommend it. With duck taped doors, upper bunks tied with rope, hit-and-miss malfunctioning equipment, and the same mediocre food on all diners. As much as I would like to, I still can't recommend it? Something to think about: (This is not a statement about whether AMTRAK is a business, or should make a profit, etc) What if Congress gave AMTRAK a one-time budget allotment to upgrade all LD equipment, including locomotives and even add more capacity? What if chefs actually prepared meals with regional menu selections? Dome cars return? Forget it!! I'm dreaming!!
I have been riding the rails since I was a kid. Even then, I remember the great meals in the dining cars, great service and clean, operational equipment. Still riding the AMTRAK sleepers at age 71. When I tell friends my wife and I are getting a sleeper on the train they look at me like "What planet are you on?" I explain my love of the rails and tell them, however, I would not recommend they try it. Then they tell me they've never even thought of the train and how fun it might be. I still won't recommend it. With duck taped doors, upper bunks tied with rope, hit-and-miss malfunctioning equipment, and the same mediocre food on all diners. As much as I would like to, I still can't recommend it?
Something to think about: (This is not a statement about whether AMTRAK is a business, or should make a profit, etc) What if Congress gave AMTRAK a one-time budget allotment to upgrade all LD equipment, including locomotives and even add more capacity? What if chefs actually prepared meals with regional menu selections? Dome cars return?
Forget it!! I'm dreaming!!
Your dream could come true if Amtrak ceased running 'LD' trains in the winter and ran them in the summer months as tour trains with golden age equipment and amenities of yore.
BaltACDand also be well paid for the failures,
A lot of times that is viewed as the "good ole boy network" or the chumminess between CEO and Board of Directors that sets salaries.
In reality, most of the time they don't penalize the guy too heavily because they are thinking already of the next guy. Say you were an Executive in a job search and you were pretty good with fixing or running things. Would you be attracted to a firm that nailed it's last CEO to the wall financially? Probably not.
RailSpikeI have been riding the rails since I was a kid. Even then, I remember the great meals in the dining cars, great service and clean, operational equipment. Still riding the AMTRAK sleepers at age 71.
Geez, when I tell Amtrak onboard staff I have been riding passenger trains since before Amtrak existed and know where everything is..... they look at me like I am an escaped Museum exhibit and I am only in my 50's.
They ALWAYS had them. My brother is a Delta captain (ex-NW) and says Delta is better (for the pilots).
Backshop Northwest had terrible labor relations and always did. Anderson did a good job with Delta and made it the powerhouse that it is today. It is generally acknowledged as the best of the US3 and the leader of Skyteam.
Did Northwest Airlines have terrible labor relations before Anderson took over or were they terrible because of him?
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
Az Pecan I concur, I saw Anderson wreck Northwest Airlines, then Delta was gullible and took him on. He seems to operate as a human wrecking ball.
I concur, I saw Anderson wreck Northwest Airlines, then Delta was gullible and took him on. He seems to operate as a human wrecking ball.
PJS1 Az Pecan I concur, I saw Anderson wreck Northwest Airlines, then Delta was gullible and took him on. He seems to operate as a human wrecking ball. From what perspective did you observe Anderson's wrecking of Northwest Airlines? As an employee? Shareholder? Investment Banker? Passenger? Unless you sit in the room when the executive committee is making a decision, you cannot even be sure that decisions attributed to the CEO were really made by her. Maybe the CFO was the engine behind the decision, and the CEO just put her stamp of approval on it. Happens frequently!
From what perspective did you observe Anderson's wrecking of Northwest Airlines? As an employee? Shareholder? Investment Banker? Passenger?
Unless you sit in the room when the executive committee is making a decision, you cannot even be sure that decisions attributed to the CEO were really made by her. Maybe the CFO was the engine behind the decision, and the CEO just put her stamp of approval on it. Happens frequently!
Even more important than the process is the record. Did NW fall apart under Anderson's tenure? Were they bought out by Delta for scrap value? How did Delta do during Anderson's tenure? Let's see some objective numbers, not just some unsourced acecdote or an opinion possibly stemming from a grudge.
PJS1 zugmann PJS1 Maybe the CFO was the engine behind the decision, and the CEO just put her stamp of approval on it. Happens frequently! But the CEO stamped it. Can't pass the buck. Not trying to pass the buck! Just pointing out that not all corporate decisions that carry the CEO's signature have been made by her. She gets the glory if it goes well, the goat if it doesn't. And that is one of the reasons CEO's get paid well.
zugmann PJS1 Maybe the CFO was the engine behind the decision, and the CEO just put her stamp of approval on it. Happens frequently! But the CEO stamped it. Can't pass the buck.
But the CEO stamped it. Can't pass the buck.
Not trying to pass the buck! Just pointing out that not all corporate decisions that carry the CEO's signature have been made by her. She gets the glory if it goes well, the goat if it doesn't. And that is one of the reasons CEO's get paid well.
Unfortunately we see way too many CEO's get well paid for their successes and also be well paid for the failures, sometimes even better paid for their failures than their successes. And from time to time you see CEO's try to play the blame game to excuse their failures.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
PJS1 Maybe the CFO was the engine behind the decision, and the CEO just put her stamp of approval on it. Happens frequently!
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
If it is in some semblence of working - wreck it.
BaltACD If you are not paying a credit card off in full monthly you are not using it correctly - from a consumer perspective. From the card issuer, they hope you never pay off the balance and continue to accrue interest and penalty charges.
If you are not paying a credit card off in full monthly you are not using it correctly - from a consumer perspective. From the card issuer, they hope you never pay off the balance and continue to accrue interest and penalty charges.
For the most part yes but there are times when the interest rate charged on a Credit Card is lower than the expected return of an item you can purchase with it.
In those limited cases the spread between the CC interest rate and what you can bring to the bottom line via return of the item purchased. Makes sense to incur the CC Debt to obtain the item now vs waiting.
Thats really how Corporate Debt should work with a company like Amtrak but what happens of course is forecasted returns are sometimes wrong.
sorry to read all of this, as I love riding trains and plan to do that as long as I can. I did notice it took more points to book sleeper on City of NOLA this year as it did in 2016 and asked about it. Does not matter if you are senior, they don't use that in the formula any longer. And does not seem to get enough points for other stuff, Chase Card gave points for anything you spent anywhere, now it seems like it needs to be a partner with Amtrak. I was able to get 2 trips for free to NOLA, not sure what will happen the next time I go. I do not like "propeller head" and his ideas and agree with those who think he was put in charge to ruin Amtrak. It employs a lot of people who have worked there for years, but lately I've run into conductors and staff who have only been there 2-3 years, not like 20-30 as previously, I guess the older ones are getting out while they can. Sad situation
Overmod daveklepper And long distance trains also spawn hosts of tax-paying private businesses. Just for grins, what are some of these, and what profit is specifically from LD train operations?
daveklepper And long distance trains also spawn hosts of tax-paying private businesses.
Just for grins, what are some of these, and what profit is specifically from LD train operations?
I can only think of a few and they're generally not related to just LD trains, specifically. Contract Mechanical services and car cleaners for turning trains at outlying points. Any others?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
PJS1BTW, the Supreme Court is not infallible, ...
And neither was the National Railroad Passenger Corporation when they set up the business accounting plan for Amtrak. Still, whereas the Supreme Court has reversed itself in consideration of new evidence, Amtrak still dutifully records its losses and lack of profits as it has done from day one as if it were a profit making business, despite all evidence to the contrary.
daveklepperAnd long distance trains also spawn hosts of tax-paying private businesses.
A few points require comment:
Again, highway tax revenues have not kept pace with costs of maintaining the highways. And long distance trains also spawn hosts of tax-paying private busineses.
Fairness demands retaining long distance trains. Granted the subsidy for a corredor or commuter psssenger may be less per-ride that for long-distance-train rider, but the regular corredor rider or commuter rider gets a yearly subsidy far greater than the rural long-distance train rider who rides out of necessity, the handicapped and elderly who cannot fly, and the vacation and tourist traveler, with one-to-several trips a year .
The handicapped access provisios and hard-of-hearing provisions in places of public gathering do not pay their way. In a sense, long-distance trains serve the same role with respect to the totsllity of USA transportation.
Serving the public good? Every bit as much as municipal libraries and natlonal parks. Defnition of the public good is not just that te nation's economy would be severely damged by the absence.
These arguments are repeated over and over again. We ought to agree to disagree and go on to try to reduce losses while increasing the value of the service. I am convinced that on-board food service can be profitable, buf only if part of the busines of a large nation-wide chain of excellent broad-customer-base restaurants with a healthy take-out business.
Once that is successfull, perhaps we can look at sleeping cars and somehow find a way of reducing costs by making them part of a nation-wide hotel chain?
BackshopI would think it would depend on how the entity was set up at inception.
Agree!
One way to assess the intent of Amtrak's architects is to look at its accounting and financial statements structure. They were designed at the beginning to record the transactions of a capital stock business albeit one that is owned and controlled by the federal government.
The Statement of Operations includes provisions to record profits and losses, although in Amtrak's case it has been a loss from the get go. Even more revealing, it is set-up to record income tax expense, which Amtrak has been doing since 2012.
The Balance Sheet includes an equity section showing Amtrak's capitalization structure, just like the equity section of the balance sheet of a private corporation, and a line item to record deferred income taxes, which it has been doing since 2012.
If the intent was to have the company function as a non-profit government agency, why were the accounting and financials set-up to record and show capitalization, income tax expense, etc.?
Government agencies, including transit systems and commuter railroads, use fund accounting. It does not record net income (loss), income taxes or deferred income taxes for a good reason. They have no expectations of net income and an income tax liability.
BackshopWhy would you pay interest on a credit card?
You'd be surprised -- a great many cards now point out, safely down in the fine print, that they bill interest 'from posting date'. So unless you incrementally pay down the "balance" as soon as, or even 'before', the charges post, you'll be paying interest, this before any other applicable fees and charges.
This up to now has been far more observable on "special needs" cards marketed to poor or higher-credit-risk markets now that usury laws have been largely rejected. But I do expect to see the premise extended to 'special interest' cards that purport to offer enhanced "benefits" that particular fan communities might excessively value without looking too carefully with how those benefits might be monetized...
endoftrackThe credit card is way too high in interest rate to be of any benefit.
PJS1Amtrak competes in the market place just like a commercial airline, intercity bus operator, etc. It is a business. The fact that its voting shares are owned by the federal government does not negate this fact.
Commuter rail and transit also competes in the marketplace. Are you saying that makes them businesses also?
blue streak 1 Until someone can show that the per capita allocation to Amtrak is more than the per capita allocation to roads and bridges from general tax funds, Amtrak will seem to be a good return.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.