What does Bush and parts of the US not understand about Amtrak and the national passenger rail?

[Sterling1]

There's generally one thing about politicians we can all relate to . . .

They're made of flour . . . and dust . . .

I'm sure Bush has his use in his last term in office . . .

[daveklepper]

I read I don't see a lot of Bush supporters. I happen to have been one. I believe Bush is, hopefully WAS, mistaken about Amtrak, about some other things as well. But I think he is a far more honest person than Kerry. Kerry for good public transportation? Look at the record. He had his chance with the Big Dig. The North Station South Station connector is deperately needed for both commuter travel and Amtrak. What he did after being discharged from the Navy and his suppression of what he did indicates to me that Bush is a more honest person. That is why I voted for Bush and I am not shy about the matter in the least.

I have written Bush emphasizing the points made earlier: standby in emergencies, accessability for most of the country for most of the handicapped and elderly, congestion relief in corridors, tourism. You who agree should also write him. I think his mind can be changed on the issue, particularly with Amtrak's own plan for reform on the table.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The difference in energy usage isn't solely based on the difference between diesels and gas turbines. A Super Constellation with four Turbo Compound radial piston engines also consumed a lot of energy. Flight in itself requires more energy to be expended than rolling a train or truck over the ground.

[Anonymous]

I have to differ.... Airlines have to man every airport with a number of personnel, from the ticket agents to the baggage handlers to the maintenance workers on top of its flight crews, whereas Amtrak mans in comparison only a few stations and depots with a single ticket agent even though Amtrak has more personnel on its trains.

Its not the number of passengers, its the number of passenger miles that count. Outside the NEC Amtrak trains run around a thousand miles a day.... However, in the NEC Amtrak trains do a number of 300 miles runs in both directions. From my naval engineering days, diesels consume less energy than jet turbines.... A Lot Less! IF TURBINES WERE CHEAPER, WHY AREN'T ALL OF THE EIGHTEEN WHEELERS POWERED BY JET TURBINES?

Therefore its not so easy to compare labor costs. Quite the contrary labor costs for Amtrak per passenger is less than the labor costs for airline passenger, on top of lesser fuel costs per passenger..... Airlines have pilots and which earn up to $300,000 a year, many over $100,000 per year, not to mention the high salaries of co-pilots. Don't just slip in that brand new upstart commuter airline pilots earn less..... Over a career of 30 years, I can guarantee you that they'll be earning twice that small amount.....

[Anonymous]

Everything

[Anonymous]

I belive that Amtrak has Higher Labor costs then the airlines. Commuter Airline pilots only make 40,000 a year. Amtraks works there people 12 hours to carry 200 passengers,The airlines can carry three times that many people in the same time frame using the same amount of labor

[Anonymous]

I the last quarter, Southwest was the only airline that turned a profit.... If it wasn't for the mulit-year fuel deal which has lessened its costs for fuel, a very wise move for Southwest , Southwest would have been another airline with its tin cup out.....

In the last quarter the spiral of fuel costs finally did in AirTrans and JetBlue.... Except for Southwest, all of the airlines lost money...... The day is reckoning when Southwests fuel deal ends.......

In this age when just about every airline is losing money, somehow, remarkably, Amtrak is supposed to turn a profit...............

[mnwestern]

From reading this, I don't see a lot of Bush supporters. So how did this clown get re-elected in the first place? Don't people consider his actions, or do this just listen to the dribble?

[dthede]

Paul Milenkovic recently said, among other things in his posting titled "Slightly off topic":

"To say that GM builds 10 cars and needs to sell 6 of them to pay their pension costs might be a tad misleading. That kinda suggests that 60 percent of the cost of a car goes to pensions, and I find that hard to believe. I think what it means that if GM builds 10 cars, the profits on 6 of them go into the pension fund and the profits on the remaining 4 go to the shareholders. Pensions may be large compared to profits, ..."

You should not worry about what you find hard to believe. That is a criterion for nothing, just as my finding something hard to believe is not a standard of anything useful. Many of these issues have progressed beyond the grasp of common sense. You should simply become more informed by following the various corporate Annual Reports to stockholders, the Union negotiations news, and so on. Go to primary sources where you can -- i.e., not this or that news reporting company, but rather to the information published by the various parties themselves. Follow the money trail.

Generally it is true that the Automotive industry as well as the Airline industry have been paying out huge sums in pensions, have been looking for any and every way to unburden themselves of these costs -- ethical or otherwise -- and have extended the ploy of getting the Unions to "give back" in order to help the company survive, to being taken over or bought out, or even merged, whereby the penions can be reduced substantially, into the latest tactic: simply defaul on the pensions.

The economic and financial analysis done by corporations appears to be astonishingly poor or remarkably astute, -- given their forked tongue support of self-sufficiency virtues on the one hand, and their willingness to solicit (perhaps demand) government bailouts on the other.

What Bush and parts of the US _do_ understand about Amtrak and the national passenger railroad, is that it has no connection between family values, right-to-life, international swagger-ability, statistically significant vote blocks, and the next election. The President of NARP and the President of Amtrak do appear to understand the bind that they are in: chronically short funding to preclude substantial capital investment in infrastructure, but funding which is just sufficient to keep Amtrak's head on the radar -- namely enough to keep it operating and thereby _to_have_ the usual periodic messes occur (derailments, disc brake spoke failure, the list goes on and on...). The stable owners needed some broken-down cars along the highway, to make their alternative look more appealing, analogous to Baltimore's light rail advertising on billboards along the I-83 commuter road: "You'd be there by now..."

A likely fact is that if Congress just let Amtrak collapse and go broke on its own, private enterprise would _not_ pick up the pieces and make a go of it, without substantial Federal guarantees, inducements, and a capital reinvestment "package" over the next 20 years that would equal what has been paid into the national highway system over the last 20 years, and a firesale "auction" price to boot. Would Bombardier own and operate it? TGV? Virgin?

There simply has been no national committment to passenger or freight railroad transport on anything like the scale directed toward the national highway system. With the cost of gasoline at $2.51/gal between Cleveland & Baltimore, it is now a different calculation to decide to drive it, vs. bus or train it, than it used to be.
--Didrik

[dthede]

Chris, Denver CO, recently said:

"And even though I've cruised at 125 and more, I don't think I'd care to do it on a Freeway with other drivers, no matter how good the roads are. Traveling at that speed is deadly. Doing it with the number of American drivers that would try it if we had it? Suicide."

Ironically, Amtrak would be hard pressed to send a passenger train cross-country at near that speed. SF to D.C. is approx. 2510 miles. At 125 mph, one is talking, say, 21 hours, plus acceleration & slowdown, layover, crew change, etc. Say a day. What is Amtrak's current cross-country schedule show? About 71-1/2 hours, or about 3 times longer. Looked at in terms of mph, we're back to 41 mph, or slower than the speed limit on the Northern State Parkway into NYC in 1952.

A fact is (not "the fact is...") that the petroleum, construction, and auto manufacturing political interests far outweighed the RR political interests. Part of the legacy of the "RR barons" is a deep-seated association between monopoly and rip-off from railroads, steel, associated unions, and politicians in bed with some or all of these. After WWII, "Detroit" promised us a way to "go where we wanted to go, do what we wanted to do" via automobiles -- and of course the infrastructure which had to be funded thereafter: highways.

Perhaps the bottom line is that our society simply said: yes, we want to fund roads, not "railroads," as it is now saying, "no, we do not want to fund education; it is not a priority." In both cases, the question will be how the U.S. can weather the long-term effects of these short-sighted exercises in wastefulness, before it collectively comes to its senses and realizes it has become a "third world" nation" in the new sense: "had everything, wasted much of it, failed to learn from the mistakes of others." (These are all marks of hubris: the behavior that we're better than the rest of the world, that it can't happen here; that, like France, there is a life-exception for us.)

While it has often been stated the other way round, Europe is, in some ways, a laboratory from which the U.S. might learn some things. Unfortunately, blinded by its own exceptional, short-term historical perspective, the U.S. is not receptive to learning from others. Like the post-teen, young adult, it is too intent on teaching others, to have time or vision to acknowledge its own ignorance.
--Didrik

[jeaton]

I think there is ample evidence that the American public will leave the car behind if other forms of transport will provide a competitive level of service. However, with our desire to move toward the larger open spaces, aka urban sprawl, we have put ourselves in a situation that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to build the competitive service at anything close to a reasonable cost.

Of course, that does not reconcile the question of why the size of the car owned often far exceeds the size of the car that is needed. I suspect that if the bill for the car payment, the gas credit card, the auto insurance and the registration fee all arrived on the same day, there would be a lot of down-sizing.

Jay

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

We dont do a thing about it...

They do.

All we should do is buy the product that best fits our needs and wants...its up to the guys who makes the cars to find a way to supply the buyer with what they want.

And its up to the airline to find a way to supply seat at a price the consumer is willing to pay, to a place the consumer is will to go...and make a profit.

If that means buying and flying only one type of aircraft, and offering a no frills service, well, if that’s what it takes to make your company profitable, then that’s what your stock holders expect you to do!

It’s not up to you, me or the government to bail them out, it’s up to the company to adapt and change to fit the times.

Ed

Well stated, Ed. After all that's what they said early on about Amtrak, and passenger trains.

Mitch

[Sterling1]

I'm wondering US residents are too well glued or is it welded to their vehicles?

[edblysard]

We dont do a thing about it...

They do.

All we should do is buy the product that best fits our needs and wants...its up to the guys who makes the cars to find a way to supply the buyer with what they want.

And its up to the airline to find a way to supply seat at a price the consumer is willing to pay, to a place the consumer is will to go...and make a profit.

If that means buying and flying only one type of aircraft, and offering a no frills service, well, if that’s what it takes to make your company profitable, then that’s what your stock holders expect you to do!

It’s not up to you, me or the government to bail them out, it’s up to the company to adapt and change to fit the times.

Ed

[Anonymous]

Ed, thanks for the reply, I agree that the problems are the companies own making. But now there is the problem, so what do we do about it? Thanks again for the reply,
Brad

[Paul Milenkovic]

Slightly off topic.

To say that GM builds 10 cars and needs to sell 6 of them to pay their pension costs might be a tad misleading. That kinda suggests that 60 percent of the cost of a car goes to pensions, and I find that hard to believe. I think what it means that if GM builds 10 cars, the profits on 6 of them go into the pension fund and the profits on the remaining 4 go to the shareholders. Pensions may be large compared to profits, but I think a lot of other costs are large compared to profits -- profits are typically a thin margin after all expenses are paid in a mature, competitive industry. That said, pensions are still a concern because the car company has to pay out at least some profits unless we decide to subsidise car making (you know, airplane makers get subsidies in the form of defense contracts, and a person has gotta have a car, and a lot of jobs are at stake to make cares in the U.S. -- at some point the government may have to take over auto manufacturing from the Big 3 and institute the National Automobile Manufacturing Corporation and be prepared to subsidise it).

Another issue is the effect of the oil/gas squeeze on auto profits. What I don't understand is the Ford World magazine comes in the mail, and the headline was "SUV and truck sales down -- we think it has to do with high gas prices." It is largely believed that one of the choke points on gas prices is refinery capacity because no one wants a refinery in their back yard (think northern Indiana or much of New Jersey). Doesn't someone at GM and at Ford do the math -- gee, there is so much gasoline refining capacity, and SUVs use so much gas, and we won't be able to sell more SUVs then there are refineries to keep their tanks full? Is anyone minding the store over there or do they just make cars and trucks and hope for the best?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by passengerfan

But Southwest Airline's is smart enough to own only one type of aircraft the Boeing 737 and they do not have galleys. They only have to maintain a parts inventory for that one type of aircraft. United on the other hand has at least eight different typoes of Aircraft and must maintain parts inventory for all. Personally I have never seen happier airline employees than those that work for Southwest.
Just because the guy flew a 747 for twenty years did that make him worth the $300, 000 he was receiving in pay and benefits. The plane only transports 350 passengers in most versions. No Amtrak engineer makes anywhere near that amount of money for carrying the same passenger load and is just as responsible for the safety of the passengers as the airline captain is. What's wrong with this passenger.

Not to mention suburban train engineers that work 6 days a week and can carry upwards of 1400 souls on one trip. If he works 4 trains a day, and makes $200 for that, in essance when he arives at the depot with his first train carrying all those folks, safely and on-time, he's handed a crisp $50 bill for his efforts.

Mitch

[passengerfan]

But Southwest Airline's is smart enough to own only one type of aircraft the Boeing 737 and they do not have galleys. They only have to maintain a parts inventory for that one type of aircraft. United on the other hand has at least eight different typoes of Aircraft and must maintain parts inventory for all. Personally I have never seen happier airline employees than those that work for Southwest.
Just because the guy flew a 747 for twenty years did that make him worth the $300, 000 he was receiving in pay and benefits. The plane only transports 350 passengers in most versions. No Amtrak engineer makes anywhere near that amount of money for carrying the same passenger load and is just as responsible for the safety of the passengers as the airline captain is. What's wrong with this passenger.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by passengerfan

Just finished reading an article that said GM builds six of ten cars just to meet the employee retirement and benefit packages. And people wonder why the cost of automobiles are what homes sold for in some parts of thr country during the 1960's.
And if United goes under inspite of there dumping the retirement on the government that could very easily be like a falling stack of blocks. How solvent is AMR parent of American, Delta, Northwest, and US Air. Probably the survivors will be the discoiunt airlines such as Southwest.

Employees' retirement and benifit packages. Does that include those of the CEO, COO, CFO, and The VP in Charge of Looking Out the Window? If it does, that's where a huge chunk o' dough is draining.

Mitch

[Anonymous]

Also, remember that the airline industry was heavily regulated, and then deregulated just as the railroads were. High cost structure. Flying used to be expensive - many people couldn't afford to fly. Being new, Southwest and others have been able to pick and choose without the burden of the heavy past.

[passengerfan]

Just finished reading an article that said GM builds six of ten cars just to meet the employee retirement and benefit packages. And people wonder why the cost of automobiles are what homes sold for in some parts of thr country during the 1960's.
And if United goes under inspite of there dumping the retirement on the government that could very easily be like a falling stack of blocks. How solvent is AMR parent of American, Delta, Northwest, and US Air. Probably the survivors will be the discoiunt airlines such as Southwest.

[edblysard]

Brad,
It easy to point the finger at the UAW, or unions in general, and say that’s where the blame lies...
They make an easy villain, and on the surface, it looks like they are greedy...
But trust me; a retired UAW member makes no more in retirement benefits than just about any other person retired from a company with a pension plan.

Take the railroad and the retirement board, which we, the employees, fund.

If I manage to live long enough to retire, and I want my full payment, I have to work, full time, until I am 68.
Because my wife works, and by then will be drawing her measly $726.00 a month SS payment, I get less than if she had stayed at home, and never worked.

Where you should place blame is squarely on the shoulders of the people who deserve it, the financial management and risk cost management.
You cant tell me the financial managers and the top executives at these companies cant do the simple math needed to figure out that, on any given date in the future, X number of employees are going to be retiring, X number of employees will already be retired, and they will need X number of current employees, being productive at a given rate, to cover the cost of the retired workers and earn the company money.

Insurance companies do this every single day!
Actuary tables are not that hard to grasp!

With today’s current computer technology, and almost instant world wide communication, the ability to figure this stuff is simple.

The big problem for GM, United, and companies like that is they gambled, and lost.
I can tell you straight up that at the last contract negations, the UAW didn’t ask for anything new, or any more perks or money.
In fact, all they were hoping for was to maintain the status quo...no changes.

Which is pretty much what the BLE and UTU are hoping for this time around with the railroads, but it looks like we will lose at least one more crew member this time.
So crew consist will change, even though, in the 1985 contract, the carriers, as part of a legal binding contract, agreed to never attempt to change crew consist, as long as any pre 1985 man was employed, in exchange for the then current and very deep cuts in employee benefits.
Those cuts include, but are not limited to, increased employee payment towards health insurance, lower COLAs, smaller percent in the staggered raises....thanks to the "greed" of the UTU, I now earn, because of my last "raise" enough to buy a large cup of Star Bucks coffee, every other day.
Of course, I pay more towards my health insurance now too, so in reality, my last raise cost me, about one hundred bucks a month.
To bring it into perspective for you, my UPS driver earns more take home pay on a daily basis than I do.

You want to blame someone for GMs problem; blame GM, same as United.
Management at both companies do have a crystal ball of sorts, they can project how many people will use or buy their products in the near future.

Could anyone project, the 9/11 disaster?

No, but you want to know something?

The insurance companies figured that a given number of people will be flying in airplanes today; May 12th, 2005...they figured this number out in 2000.
In fact, they have the projected numbers for every single day, based on data updated daily, on any date you choose.

And surprise...no one quit flying.

That’s right, the projected number, figured out in 2000, for today’s number of airline passengers, is accurate, to within 1%.

Guess what?

GM knows how many pick ups it will sell next year, and the year after, barring any disaster.

They have the knowledge to project that, and they still did nothing but continue business as usual.

I would hold the 1980s Chrysler corp. up as a good example of how to survive...
Before you scream the government bailed them out, (it did and didn’t) understand this...what Chrysler asked for, in simple terms, was for the government to issue them guaranteed loans, at fixed interest rates.
They then did something GM, and Untied, failed to do.

They changed the way they did business, and the product they sold.

Chrysler dumped the old school concept of the American automobile.
The went front wheel drive with a vengeance, because their competitors were destroying the American market with low cost, well built front wheel drive cars, that looked good and sold great.

GM and Ford didn’t, until well into the 1980s, and by then Chrysler had paid back the government loans, on time, with interest, and had managed to change the way they build cars enough to capture enough of the market to survive, and survive well today.

They also did something you don’t see to often.
They went to the UAW, and the other unions they have to deal with, and honestly stated the facts.
To survive, this is the bottom line on what we can pay perks and all.
If you want the jobs, great, we want the skilled workers.
If you don’t want the jobs at this rate, we will close the plant and move it, or close the company.
The unions are not as dumb and greedy as you might think, and they did the smart thing.

Never doubt for an instant that United didn’t know this point was going to be reached, and when it would happen.
They stated so in all the news reports that they had been looking for some resolution for years...
What they will not tell you is they manipulated their numbers to look a lot better than they were, (GM does that too) hoping the government would somehow fix the industry, which the government is still trying to do.
Remember when everyone was proclaiming that the airline industry was dead due to 9/11...no one would ever get on a plane again..
Didn’t happen.

Tell you what, if United goes belly up, I will feel sorry for the employees, but not for the industry.

Here’s why.

They refuse to change, to adapt to the current market requirements.
People who fly for business will still fly...they will pile into an old Ford Tri-motor if that’s all there is.
Tourist will fly the cheap seats.
The "executives" and what is termed first class passengers will find some way to travel, first class has never paid for itself (sound familiar).
So, if they refuse to become lean and mean, they go out of business.
And you know what?
Someone like Southwest will step in, offer a basic service, and fill in the gap.
That’s how business works, adapt or fail.

United (and GM) have failed to adapt.
They had all the info needed to see this coming.
They refused to change they way they did business.

Paying your CEO a 4.5 million pension for 2 years of service, while defaulting on the pensions of all your workers who put 20 plus years into you business is not a good way to stay in business, nor does it point to a enlightened management.

Ed

[daveklepper]

Do you suppose that GM might be more profitable today if they had run with the fuel conservation issue after 11.09.01 and borrowed some Electro-Motive Division technology for their cars and come up with Hybrids that would have been even more effiicient than the first Japanese Hybrids? I happen to think that would have guaranteed their success. And I think they had the ability to do so and consciously avoided doing so. It is not that they are out just to maximize oil profits, but rather it is taxes on petroleum that pay for highway expansion which is what GM spends money for politically by contributing to the pressure groups and think tanks that promote highway expansion. This repeats the history of their reaction to the first "compact revolution" when they first lost market share to VW and Toyotta (and MG).

[Anonymous]

what is the key to all that? Union jobs... At my work, I have a 401K, and since it is in my name, I can take it with me if I go to another place. If the company I work for goes under, Yes I will lose part of the money they put in, (since it is in company stock), but the rest will ber there. Because of the unions, United, Ford, GM, are all barely making it. There is a reason that all those jobs that were in Michigan have gone to Mexico. So you have a choice to give up part of your retirement, or have no job. Plus you get the job of giving up a bunch of your salary in union dues. If you are a republican, you are doubly spat on as they will be campaigning against everything that you believe in as well with your money.
Brad

[Anonymous]

Kerkorian recently took a 4% ownership of GM. Has offered to buy to 9%. Split off GMAC from GM manufacturing plus pension plus healthcare liabilities. Kind of reminds you of the "railroads" that became "industries" during the 60's.

[Modelcar]

....Not only the high cost of pension fund staring GM in the face but among others is the higher than normal cost of building their vehicles per vehicle....AND then we still have the enormous cost of HEALTH CARE.....It is a shame....GM is really up against reality like they haven't been for who knows when...Sad. They gave away too much in contracts agreements and now it's catching up with them. Somehow....Can't imagine how.....But somehow they will have to lower costs or we may see something we would have never guessed could happen....We loose GM as we know it.....!
GM is not the only one in such a serious situation but we have another....FORD. and it all goes on......On top of that is both those Co's. are loosing market share to the Japaneese Co's....And that continues to happen without a way of stopping it in sight...!
Chrysler Corp. has been purchased by the Germans....Can't remember when our own auto Co's have been in such state of affairs....Again, Sad.....

[Paul Milenkovic]

QUOTE:
Just remember, when Clinton lied, thousands of Serbs died. BTW, have we rebuilt the Serbian rail network yet? After all, first bombed, first served.

Yeah? Tell me all about Serbs. That Blagojevich fellow is completely out of control. First off, I wanted to return to my homeland, but when I crossed the border I got hit up for a dollar at each toll station instead of 40 cents. And then he wants to back out of paying his share of the Hiawatha train.

[edblysard]

Thanks, Hugh,
I couldnt remember if it was millions or billions...all those zeros get me confused!
Either way, it still ought to scare everyone!

Ed

[Hugh Jampton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

If I remember correctly, last night on ABC evening news, the feds said the pension fund guarantee was 23 million in the red already... yet a few years ago; it was 10 million in the black.

I saw a retransmission of that and it was Billions they were talking about