Crunch time at Amtrak

[psa188]

In Bob Johnston's "Crunch time at Amtrak", he laments "Virtually non-existent advertising" at Amtrak. Yet the carrier has wasted over $26 million in stupid marketing ideas in the last year or so. In fact, although although I'm generally supportive of passenger rail,
recent events at Amtrak have caused me to question
whether Amtrak as an agency deserves to continue to exist. It's not difficult to understand why they need to cut costs these days considering that their current management, instead of striving to improve the operation, have been preoccupied with wasting money on marketing gimmicks. For example, Amtrak has adopted a
most insipid name for its new Northeast service.
"Acela" is a meaningless string of letters concocted by an overrated "branding consultancy".

Perhaps the experience of UAL Inc., United Airlines’ holding company, in the late 1980s would be illustrative. UAL acquired Hertz Rent-A-Car and Western International hotels and attempted to reposition itself as a "total travel conglomerate". The name selected by UAL, "Allegis" was universally ridiculed and ultimately dropped. Donald Trump was
widely quoted in the press as saying "Allegis" sounded like the next world class disease. "Acela" sounds like the HMO that treats cases of "Allegis". Wags on the Internet are commenting that it’s an acronym for "Amtrak Customers Experience Late Arrivals".

To add insult to injury, Amtrak then saw fit to waste more money on a brainless advertising campaign to sell us on the wonderful new "Acela" service. However, delays in getting the new trains into service resulted in the ads running months before the trains were actually running. While we can't blame Amtrak for the equipment delays, it's obvious that the timing of the
questionable marketing campaign was poor. Finally,
Amtrak wasted more money introducing a new logo to
replace its "Pointless Arrow" motif. The only problem is the new, generic-looking logo resembled that of Bank of America. Once again we see Amtrak spending money with no tangible benefits to either the customer or the bottom line.

Amtrak could make a better case for its survival if it was running an efficient railroad and not wasting money on trendy "branding consultants".

[thirdrail1]

While everything you say is true, the real blame lies with the US Congress, which cannot make its mind up whether Amtrak is a social agency or a business. I suspect that a good deal of the wasted marketing expenses were the result of congressional meddling for constituents who had "marketed" their candidacies. For all its desirability as a means of luxurious transportation, the long distance passenger train is not economically viable, any more than the transatlantic steamship. Since Amtrak's very existence is constantly threatened, it is also unable to keep competent management.

[Anonymous]

I am afraid the stupid naming of new services, products and even companies is somewhat coming of age these days - just think of the many new names newly merged companies come up with. Back here in Europe is is the same as with Acela - every new high speed line gets their own brand name like Thalys, Eurostar (in fact there are now two Eurostars - one between London and Paris, one between Milan and Rome), AVE etc etc. Instead of creating a common brand name for all long distance or intercity trains of quality, railroads too often follow the bad example from other industries like telecommunication (or do you remember all those newly formed ex baby bells correctly ?)

[Anonymous]

This Amtrak discussion should not be happening. This issue should have been resolved years ago. I recall when President Nixon formed the fake corporation which became AMTRAK, the pointless arrow as David Morgan called it. So I watched a Congressional hearing last week (early August) about the funding of two Amtrak's, one for maintaining the infrastructure and one for operating the trains. I got a good laugh from the heated debate. It seems that it "could" cost the federal government 15 billion dollars or more to pay off the unpaid loans for highspeed rail service in the major corridors. Understand of course the taxpayers are already shelling out more than 15 billion dollars for five miles of highway through Boston.

"Let me get this straight. fifteen billion dollars buys 5 miles of highway in one city. While the same amount creats safe, highspeed, low emission, fuel efficient rail service for many cites and there is a debate about it? Yaaaaa?

[MP57313]

The Amtrak debates continue. Meanwhile, how much is its accumulated debt...$3 billion? Is there any realistic way this can be paid off (without replacing it with new debt, a la paying off Visa with MasterCard).

[Anonymous]

Bill:
I agree with you; part of Amtrak's financial distress can be traced to wasting money on establishing the Acela brand name. However, the root cause of Amtrak's financial difficulties is its continued low ridership over the years. According to the statistical summary in Amtrak's FY 2000 Annual Report its annual ridership between FY 1991 and FY 2000 has averaged 21 million passengers. Further, according to the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics trips by train only accounted for one half of one percent (0.5%) of all passenger trips over 100 miles between 1977 and 1995. I got that last figure from the Amtrak Reform Council's Second Annual Report which was published in March, 2001

Speaking of the Acela Express; the July 9, 2001 schedule shows its Boston-New York timing is 3-1/2 hours. What happened to the 3 hour service it advertised for the Boston-New York run? Three and a half hours between Boston and New York is an average speed of 65 mph, hardly high speed rail especially when Amtrak's Turbotrains made the same run in 3-3/4 hours in the 1970's.


Rudy Volin

[Anonymous]

The sad truth is I have more milage at this web site recently then the the last three years on Amtrak or the MBTA commuter rail. the flat economy is cutting ridership about 6 % below the modest projections for the Acela.

I say draw straight line between Boston and New York an build a real highspeed line. This is what happend on the TGV and the bullet train in Japan.

So we have "sic trainsit" while our highway bridges look like thry are made out of plaster of Paris, airports are overcrowded and planes are late and stuffy.
Airlines are loosing money, merging, running old planes into the ground, making travelers a little stressed. In the meantime we are making people that don't care for us very rich selling us sweet crude so we can carry on the dream that maifest destiny is not dead. We have a transportation problem that extends beyond Amtrak.

For Amtrak if not now when? If not here where? The Acela service should have at least one non-stop Boston to New York run making the trip in under three hours

[Anonymous]

Rudy,

I recently saw a news item saying the direct Boston-New York had too small a ridership, at this time, to continue. They added station stops to reach a geater number of patrons(which they are)thereby increasing the income. That's not to say they won't try in again to compete with the air shuttle as "Acela' service gets better well known.

Walter

[Anonymous]

Don,

You're right about the mileage for too many of us. We complain about what we have used, we complain about what we don't use.

But we don't think of giving our bright ideas to Amtrak itself. When was the last time any of us sent a reasonable, workable suggestion to Amtrak that we think could generage income or cut costs?

Walter

[Anonymous]

Bill,

You make a good point or two. But then there's more to Amtrak than promoting a newer image. And, by the way, if you don't like it TELL THEM.

I knpw I've been guilty of saying what wrong and even saying what should be done. If you want a change to beat the consultants - be an advocate of sensable, reasonable, workable ideas and suggestion directly to Amtrak.

Every voice added is a chance for something to work for the better of the service we want! If it's Congress that's screwing it up. Hound your Congressperson!

I know I need Amtrak and it's up to me to try and keep it.

Walter