I was reading through the 2011 KDOT Study (below) on extending the Fort Worth Heartland Flyer from Fort Worth to Kansas City. They stated in there that Amtrak is asking for three new trainsets (lol - can't see Kansas paying for that) for the daytime option. They do not want to add a Sleeper (shocker to me) nor do they want to add a Dining Car. Instead they want to have four Coaches and a Cafe car but the stipulation on the Cafe Car was the current Amtrak Cafe Car menu was unacceptable. They wanted upgraded to Deli Lunch offerings at a minimum. This was Amtrak 2010-2011 management prior to Andersens arrival. The also preferred the current push-pull configuration. They widely speculated in the report that the Midwest High Speed Rail Compact could be used and the new trainsets added onto the order (that was before shifting to Siemens single level cars, they speculated they would be bi-level). I am not sure the Midwest would pay for this either...........is this really part of the Midwest or is it Southwest? Somewhat interesting reading...
http://www.ksdot.org/PDF_Files/PDF-Passenger-Rail-SDP.pdf
I live in Wichita. I at one time supported this but all that has been heard since 2011 or so is "another study" Every yr another such study is conducted. All and any issues concerning running through KS should have already been conducted. Burn out on it. Total false hope. Tired of it and wish the nail in the coffin would be hammered for the final time. All is redundent anyway w/the better than 50/50 chance the Chief will be abolished within the next yr, there will be no need in extending service north out of OK anyway
SFbrkmn All is redundent anyway w/the better than 50/50 chance the Chief will be abolished within the next yr, there will be no need in extending service north out of OK anyway
Why do you believe there is a 50/50 chance the Chief will be abolished?
Ridership on the Southwest Chief declined by 8.8 percent between 2017 and 2018. It declined 9.8 percent between 2016 and 2018.
The Chief still carried 331,200 riders in 2018. If the pattern for the first nine months of FY18 holds, it will carry approximately 320,000 riders in FY19.
There seems to be sufficient political support to keep the Chief chugging for years to come.
JPS1 - Again a better metric is revenue passenger miles not passengers. Do you have those figures ? If the boy scout count decreased and also the KCY cuto off was not year around then ?
blue streak 1 JPS1 - Again a better metric is revenue passenger miles not passengers. Do you have those figures ? If the boy scout count decreased and also the KCY cuto off was not year around then ?
Trains serve people.
Revenue per passenger mile is a metric that can be used to compare the earning efficiency of one train to another or one mode of commercial transport to another.
Until FY16 Amtrak showed the fully allocated operating loss per passenger mile. In FY16 the Southwest Chief lost 17.8 cents per passenger mile compared to 16.3 cents in FY15. It lost 20.3 cents per passenger mile in FY14 and 22.9 cents in FY13.
In FY17 Amtrak changed its monthly performance reporting format. Without access to the company’s books, it is impossible to know how the reporting changed. Nevertheless, it was still possible to calculate the loss per passenger mile. In FY17 the Southwest Chief had an Adjusted Operating Loss of 17.7 cents per passenger mile. However, as of FY18, Amtrak no longer reports passenger miles per route in its monthly performance reports, so it is not possible to calculate per passenger mile statistics from any public source information.
Amtrak says that an interested party can send a Freedom of Information Act request for additional financial information, but I have not had very good luck with the requests that I have sent.
Why is passenger miles better than passengers? Because it is based in favor of longer rides? The purpose of Amtrak is to serve people. Most other nations report the number of passengers carried, not passenger miles. Ditto with transit authorities.
charlie hebdoWhy is passenger miles better than passengers? ...
Because it measures the actual service performed for those people. Are you saying that a cross country trip is equal to a transit trip. Besides, you can't measure (unique) passengers, you only count tickets sold.
Charlie, we have had this out before: The corridor passenger who takes 256 commuter trips each year is one person. The retired veteran who cannot fly takes one round trip, two trips, a year is one person. Both pay taxes to subsidize Amtrak, or at least the verteran's host family for his visits do, since he probably now has Social Security and VA pension as only income.
Per ticket sold, the LDs server an order of magnitude, ten times, the number of people that corridor trains serve, per ticket sold. This is from obervation when I rode the trains, both kinds.
Do you finally get the point?
You both seem to confound distance with people. If a person rides every day of the year, it is getting that car off the road and serving him and the public. As I said, most other nations report number of passengers, not passenger miles.
SFbrkmn I live in Wichita. I at one time supported this but all that has been heard since 2011 or so is "another study" Every yr another such study is conducted. All and any issues concerning running through KS should have already been conducted. Burn out on it. Total false hope. Tired of it and wish the nail in the coffin would be hammered for the final time. All is redundent anyway w/the better than 50/50 chance the Chief will be abolished within the next yr, there will be no need in extending service north out of OK anyway
Amtrak has placed funding for the train and the extension in their 2020 funding request from Congress. Doesn't mean they will get any money but Amtrak does not usually do this unless it really has it's eyes set on route expansion.
The last plan I heard about this locally was no longer just a route extension but a complete second frequency between OKC and Fort Worth with the second frequency being the extension to Newton and it would run during daylight hours vs getting into Newton just an hour before arrival of the Chief.
Eventually they want it expanded to KC Union Station which I don't think will ever happen. However the train to Newton.....I'd be curious what happens with the next FY Budget for 2020.........which of course starts this October 1st.
charlie hebdo You both seem to confound distance with people. If a person rides every day of the year, it is getting that car off the road and serving him and the public. As I said, most other nations report number of passengers, not passenger miles.
I'm not comfounding, I'm telling the full story of the service which has both elements, the people and how much they use the service. Just counting people is cherry picking a single statistical element. The milage itself would be useless data. The point of getting cars off the road is reducing gas consumption and he cost of building highways, which are both based on miles. Most of the other nations rails are government supported, and I suppose politicians like to simplify the message and just count people, who they hope will vote for them.
MidlandMike charlie hebdo You both seem to confound distance with people. If a person rides every day of the year, it is getting that car off the road and serving him and the public. As I said, most other nations report number of passengers, not passenger miles. I'm not comfounding, I'm telling the full story of the service which has both elements, the people and how much they use the service. Just counting people is cherry picking a single statistical element. The milage itself would be useless data. The point of getting cars off the road is reducing gas consumption and he cost of building highways, which are both based on miles. Most of the other nations rails are government supported, and I suppose politicians like to simplify the message and just count people, who they hope will vote for them.
Last I looked, Amtrak is also subsidized federally and by some states. Why insult other countries that actually are successful in running passenger services for people? Perhaps we could learn from others instead of wallowing in the ditch with the American Exceptionalism myth?
charlie hebdo MidlandMike I'm not comfounding, I'm telling the full story of the service which has both elements, the people and how much they use the service. Just counting people is cherry picking a single statistical element. The milage itself would be useless data. The point of getting cars off the road is reducing gas consumption and he cost of building highways, which are both based on miles. Most of the other nations rails are government supported, and I suppose politicians like to simplify the message and just count people, who they hope will vote for them. Last I looked, Amtrak is also subsidized federally and by some states. Why insult other countries that actually are successful in running passenger services for people? Perhaps we could learn from others instead of wallowing in the ditch with the American Exceptionalism myth?
MidlandMike I'm not comfounding, I'm telling the full story of the service which has both elements, the people and how much they use the service. Just counting people is cherry picking a single statistical element. The milage itself would be useless data. The point of getting cars off the road is reducing gas consumption and he cost of building highways, which are both based on miles. Most of the other nations rails are government supported, and I suppose politicians like to simplify the message and just count people, who they hope will vote for them.
I'm an equal opportunity annoyer; politicians framing the discussion in simple terms is universal. Nothing exceptional here. I doubt that other nations passenger rail success is due to the characterization of the passengers carried metric. By the way, I looked up the stats for Swiss rail, and they show passenger traffic performance in Pkm (Passenger kilometers).
https://reporting.sbb.ch/en/transportation?rows=2,7,8,12,16,24,82,87,90,93,96,97,100,103,104,105,106,107,108,109,110,111,112,115,120,121,129,130,131,132,133,134,147,152,155,167,170,184,187&years=0,1,4,5,6,7&scroll=0
^^^^ Yes the United States should get on the metric system, it would lower costs of international trade for starters......probably boost tourism as well if we went fully to the international standard for road signs.
Charlie, if serving the public through reduction of road congestion is what you are after, then one who chooses public transportadtion for a trip of 500 miles vs. single-occupant driving is obviously doinig five times as much to reduce road congestion than one taking that option for a trip of 100 miles.
You might want to rethink that proposition.
daveklepper... if serving the public through reduction of road congestion is what you are after, then one who chooses public transportadtion for a trip of 500 miles vs. single-occupant driving is obviously doinig five times as much to reduce road congestion than one taking that option for a trip of 100 miles.
That seems far from obvious to me except in certain very artificial circumstances. Practically 'reducing road congestion' first requires removing a 'car's worth' of people from actual congested roads, then doing so at a time those roads are actually congested. Neither of these conditions are likely to prevail over the 'whole' of a practical corridor.
So in many cases the practical effect of a "100-mile" trip -- say, out of Chicago -- might be just the same as a "500-mile" trip when there is little or no congestion on the concerned parallel roads on 400 miles or more of the route; likewise, there may be little practical reduction if the trains run through an area congested at certain times of day (and many areas in fact are, for example Madison, Wisconsin's "rush minute") at times far removed from those times of day.
What might help solve this, of course, is tracking the passenger miles in key regions, at key times, independent of either overall passenger-mile, passenger-trip, head, or total passenger head counts. (Any or all of which might be appropriate for other statistical analysis and, I think, should be extracted on an appropriately dereferenced basis and maintained.)
Or it might be that the 100 mile trip has no congestion and 500-mile trip 10 congested locations. You may disagree, but the 500-mile trip to me has five times the possibility of congestion than the 100-mile trip.
Of course, in a practical matter, most congestion relief is done by the commuter railroads, not by Amtrak. Most, not sll.
And when you throw airport congestion into the mix, then you have another situation entirely, where LDTs do more than their share.
But serving the poeple, again says that one person making 250 trips a year in a corridor is still only one person and the retired non-flyer making two trips, one round-trip, a year is also one person.
It's the total number of human passengers served, not number of individual persons. Serving one elderly foamer (or drooler/dribbler) or boy scout seeking an "experience" is not the proper purpose of passenger rail transportation, in my opinion and according to Amtrak's charter.
What we should have, for that purpose, is open access as in Europe where a museum or historical group can operate authentic steam charters through interesting routes.
charlie hebdo It's the total number of human passengers served, not number of individual persons. Serving one elderly foamers (or drooler/dribbler) or boy scout seeking an "experience" is not the proper purpose of passenger rail transportation, in my opinion and according to Amtrak's charter. What we should have, for that purpose, is open access as in Europe where a museum or historical group can operate authentic steam charters through interesting routes.
It's the total number of human passengers served, not number of individual persons. Serving one elderly foamers (or drooler/dribbler) or boy scout seeking an "experience" is not the proper purpose of passenger rail transportation, in my opinion and according to Amtrak's charter.
It's actually a middle aged lady in Eastern Kansas that is pushing and coordinating the entire project of this Heartland Flyer extension. She is not foamer but I have no idea what her motivation is. She is coodinating and keeping the ball rolling between Amtrak and the state legislatures and she is the one that eventually wants to see the extension reach Kansas City Union Station from Fort Worth, TX.
Forget her name but if you drill down deep enough eventually you will find it. Rough guess that her motivation is that the LD train is a first step in developing a corridor or kind of a foot in the door for a multi-train route between KC and Ft. Worth or Dallas. Not sure though.
How far is it from KC to the Metroplex and what population centers would be on a likely route?
charlie hebdo How far is it from KC to the Metroplex and what population centers would be on a likely route?
8-10 hours depending on road conditions in Eastern Oklahoma, which sometimes can be horrible. I believe the route is KC, West to Newton, KS, Newton KS South to Witchita, OKC and Fort Worth. Dallas is served indirectly via cross platform train transfer to TRE Mon-Sat.
So only two metro areas en route. And the distance is 545 miles. If you had a 125mph top speed, that would be ~5 hours. Is there a rail route directly to Dallas?
charlie hebdoIt's the total number of human passengers served, not number of individual persons.
So you are really talking about tickets sold.
charlie hebdoServing one elderly foamers (or drooler/dribbler) or boy scout seeking an "experience" is not the proper purpose of passenger rail transportation, in my opinion and according to Amtrak's charter.
Since highways now need additional subsidies from the federal general fund, I guess the highway patrol should fan out and notify elderly people on a Sunday drive that they should get back to the senior home, and scouts on the way for a camping experience should lose their badges.
Your logic is so strained. You are grasping at straws to justify an archaic train service.
MidlandMikeMidlandMike wrote the following post 12 hours ago: charlie hebdo It's the total number of human passengers served, not number of individual persons. So you are really talking about tickets sold.
charlie hebdo It's the total number of human passengers served, not number of individual persons.
Last I looked, a person needs to purchase a ticket to ride a train.
You seem to value one person (elderly or boy scout on a land cruise) riding a train 500 miles one time in a year far more than one person riding a train 50 miles ten times. The passenger miles are equal but the various measures of social utility heavily favor the multiple ride person.
BTW, do the Boy Scouts earn merit badges for riding LD trains? Do they still take trains to the Boy Scout jamboree? To high school seniors take the train to visit DC on spring break? I think the answer is no to all three. Dave is about 50-60 years out of date on those. I think if a scientific survey were made asking the question, "Would you like to take an overnight train trip?" you'd find most people under the age of 50 would say no, most 50-65 would say probably not, most 65-75 maybe. That leaves those over 75, of whom ~60% might say yes.
charlie hebdo Your logic is so strained. You are grasping at straws to justify an archaic train service.
My logic is strained?? I just applied the conclusion of your logic to another mode of subsidized transportaton. If the results seem absurd, maybe you should look at your original arguement.
charlie hebdo MidlandMike MidlandMike wrote the following post 12 hours ago: charlie hebdo It's the total number of human passengers served, not number of individual persons. So you are really talking about tickets sold. Last I looked, a person needs to purchase a ticket to ride a train. You seem to value one person (elderly or boy scout on a land cruise) riding a train 500 miles one time in a year far more than one person riding a train 50 miles ten times. The passenger miles are equal but the various measures of social utility heavily favor the multiple ride person. BTW, do the Boy Scouts earn merit badges for riding LD trains? Do they still take trains to the Boy Scout jamboree? To high school seniors take the train to visit DC on spring break? I think the answer is no to all three. Dave is about 50-60 years out of date on those. I think if a scientific survey were made asking the question, "Would you like to take an overnight train trip?" you'd find most people under the age of 50 would say no, most 50-65 would say probably not, most 65-75 maybe. That leaves those over 75, of whom ~60% might say yes.
MidlandMike MidlandMike wrote the following post 12 hours ago: charlie hebdo It's the total number of human passengers served, not number of individual persons. So you are really talking about tickets sold.
I don't make a value judgment about any one. Actually I am replying to your marginalization of elderly rail buffs (IIRC you call them droolers) and boy scouts who ride a train to a camp near no major airports. I am for all modes of rail, including LD and corridor.
Also I don't know why you try to assign a value on the age of the person traveling. The only survey I need is Amtrak's which shows the LD trains have some of the highest utilizations (load factors) on the system.
A high load factor only because a ride is grossly underpriced compared with corridor services. And if you were to measure what percentage of an entire trip (especially on the western LD trains) was a space used, you might find that load factor much lower.
I was being sarcastic about drillers as the term foamers was also there, but I guess that went over your head. Heck, I'm a senior. We can joke about ourselves.
charlie hebdoI was being sarcastic about drillers as the term foamers was also there
What's this about 'drillers'? It went over my head too.
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