Amtrak's Future

[sward84]

What u guys think?

[TrainFreak409]

I see Amtrak in the same position it is now.

~[8]~ TrainFreak409 ~[8]~

[Anonymous]

I say it is very unclear right about now.
Allan.

[Anonymous]

My sense is that the long-haul "land cruise" type of train like the Empire Builder will pretty much be a thing of the past, except for luxury service where sighseeing and tours are more the point than transportation. (Consider how the "Royal Canadian" service at CAN$ 5K+ a pop is the only p-train operating on the CPR except for the occasional Empress excursion.)

I pretty much despair of any significant technological improvement being made in the corridors, but the corridors will still run. Unfortunately, I don't think they'll run any better, even though electrification of corridors like San Diego - L.A. or Chicago - Detroit to 1960s Metroliners standards would be comparatively easy and cheap (and could cut down the time it takes to go from Chi to Motown from 6 to about four hours).

But our governance is almost pathologically addicted to roads and planes and in Amtrak's behalf I must say that they have never really been given the means to provide a "balance" of transportation or really that much an alternative, except Boston-NYC-DC. There is more than a little hypocrisy in this, as freight will thrive along congested Interstate corridors, but the machinery just isn't in place for (a) Amtrak to do any real planning or improvement, or (b) non-corrupting subsidy can be given to private enterpreneurs willing to "homestead" a route witih high-speed, say.

Sorry to be a wet blanket but in the 34 years since 1971 next-to-nothing has happened to improve the speed, frequency and availability of rail travel in this country and only a little to keep up with technology (the "Highliners," after all, are a refinement of a design that was patented in the 1950s).

[Anonymous]

Thats a hard question to answer.

[ndbprr]

As long as politicians are involved you can only expect it to have a life twice as long as it should. IMHO Amtrak should have died the year it was founded. In political opinion it is still a youngster of a program that has 50 or more years that they can tack pork onto.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ndbprr

As long as politicians are involved you can only expect it to have a life twice as long as it should. IMHO Amtrak should have died the year it was founded. In political opinion it is still a youngster of a program that has 50 or more years that they can tack pork onto.

You hit the nail on the head. I think if Amtrack were run as a private bussiness they could make money. Get the trains on time, make it more or as cheap as driving, and provide sevice it could have a real furture. You could try to slowly reduce the government funding and let Gunn show what he's made of. I had the Idea of amtrack buying some auto racks and letting you take your car with you, only running betweeb big cities as you could drive to smaller ones. Or really fast service to Las Vegas and back. Future depends knowing what I know about government at the ripe old age of 14 I think it will just stay the same.
James[C):-)]

[Anonymous]

It's disappointing that most governments subsidize roads, air, and rail, but here only roads and air. Not that I'm asking for a government handout, but whenever anything is spent on passenger rail, belly-achers drop from trees to complain. Europe and Japan have Great rail service, but the government made a conscious decision to get behind them. Downtown to downtown rail travel is still faster than air travel in all except the longest routes.

I miss being close to the rivers and countryside. When I drive, I have to focus for hours on the yellow line in front of me, and in the air, hills look like the rest of the countryside but without roads. Rails brought people to the national parks and were part of the romance between people and the land we call America. Now the people think of their land as a political subdivision, or merely a place to fly over when they do business. Amtrak could do a great deal to bond the people with their land, but instead, most people will only see this country on their giant screen TVs. ... Sad.

[SSW9389]

Amtrak is a very political animal and must change its spots every two or four years as the politics change. I answered the poll "Don't Know" because no one can predict with any certainty what the politicians will do.

[IRONROOSTER]

I'll agree it's hard to predict, especially since it's a political beast. But I am afraid it will be limited to NE corridor and maybe a couple of other places.
Enjoy
Paul

[Anonymous]

i am a retired railroad conductor and i travel frequently on amtrak.it is a safe form of transportation. fuel efficient , and does pollute the air like autos and planes. the senate passed a transportation bill giving amtrak extra money than was expected.i'am glad. we need passenger service with gas pushing close to $3.00per gal and no relief in sight. but along comes the most hateful and degenerate person named norman mineta who say with more money added he will try to pursuade congress to veto the bill and put amtrak into bankruptcy. than he has the gall to say that the alaskan railroad knows how to do business without subsidy. from the federal government that is a bunch of bunk.they got big subsidies and there passenger trains are tourist train with there total mileage of 360 miles.if alaskan railrod is so good why won't they spend money to extend south to vancouver.b.c. and to seattle.wa. no that would be fantastic. but it won't happen as long as anti-amtrakperson named norman mineta is still doing his job which has been a failure.istead of helping amtrak with there problems all he has done is spew bad information about amtrak. it is time that he is to be put in the pasture and put somebody that is honest and will work with amtrak so we can have the best rail passenger service second to none. thank you

[TomDiehl]

You hit the nail on the head. I think if Amtrack were run as a private bussiness they could make money. Get the trains on time, make it more or as cheap as driving, and provide sevice it could have a real furture. You could try to slowly reduce the government funding and let Gunn show what he's made of. I had the Idea of amtrack buying some auto racks and letting you take your car with you, only running betweeb big cities as you could drive to smaller ones. Or really fast service to Las Vegas and back. Future depends knowing what I know about government at the ripe old age of 14 I think it will just stay the same.
James[C):-)]


Actually the passenger trains WERE run by private business, first, the railroads ran the service themselves, then they no longer wanted the losses burdening their freight business, so the government took over. The Autotrain from DC to Florida was started as a private business, but went bankrupt. Now it is run by Amtrak.

The government took over rail passenger service as a public utility. They subsidize (heavily) all other forms of transportation, so why is rail singled out as "paying its own way?" Maybe the airlines should also pay for the air traffic control system (fares would go up). I'll bet you'd hear some major "crying of the blues" if that happened. They're so poorly run now that some are headed for bankruptcy.

[alstom]

I "personally"--don't care about Amtrak. It could go or stay, and I wouldn't care. It's nice to see it around though. So I voted for "don't care."

[vsmith]

Passenger trains have NEVER paid for themselves, even when they were privatley owned, freight revinue has ALWAYS subsidiezed passenger service, to say "If it was privately run" denies 150 years of rail business history in the US.

If the US is to have a national rail system it will HAVE to be goevrnment subsidiezed, as the government is the only agency with the finacial ability to support it. Europe, Japan, and almost every other nation on Earth have rail systems that are either owned or heavily subsidiezed by their respective governments, pull that subsidy here and you might as well scrap every rail passenger car in the country the next day, it simply WILL NOT pay for itself.

Lets face it folks, either we HAVE a National rail system or we DONT. As it is we barely have what could laughably call a "National system". Corridor Only service means just that, commuter only service, never again will we be able to cross the nation by rail, we will be further enslaved to the vested interests of the air and automotive lobbys. Anyone in DC talking about saving some $$$ taking away THAT subsidy?

[Anonymous]

So if they never made money, why did railroads run them?

I saw the chart in Trains Magazine and I think Amtrak is far less of a problem than the airlines, which receive way too much money. What I meant by run as a private business, is I am naive enough to think passenger service could make money. By the way airlines were subsided long before the terrorist attack. In fact I saw an old video the other day telling how much airlines get to keep up services and how much ports get as well. While the railroads have to keep up their own infrastructure, not that they want the government to do it. Would you want track work done like freeway work? It would take forever to get anything done.
James[C):-)]