Amtrk Senate Debate

[Anonymous]

lt is my understanding that the bill already allows two routes to be contracted out as an experiment to see if it would really work. The Sununu amendment would have allowed any number of routes to be so done. I don't think it would hurt to try it and see what happens, but I see no point to the amendment except as a delaying tactic.

Of greater concern was an earlier amendment by Sununu which would have shut down any route with a loss per passeger (fully allocated, one must assume) of $200 or more. That would shut down every long distance train in the system. It was defeated 66-28. 

SFb... Do you have any insights from the debate, such as who was arguing for and against, and how they presented their arguments? 

[Prairietype]

Debate continued this morning. Kit Bond had an ammendment on the floor seeking accountabilty. I didn't get to follow it absolutely/clearly so I won't try to interpret it. He emphasized accountability

Accountability is fine, but Amtrak has to operate with handcuffs, and a straight jacket.

Sununununununus ammendment would have effectively killed Amtrak; of course this prejudicial legislative stunt did not propose an improvement, or compensatory arrangement, and was an embarrassment for him based on the inherent silliness of the proposal.

 

[SFbrkmn]

Please don't be fooled by this yaking going on up there of sub contracting out routes. First it is an attempt by the anti Amtrakers, pro airline bunch to slowly kill the system. What is not said in public about the new operation is that it  would by staffed by non union, lower paying jobs (w/most likely constant turnover). I doubt that the freight carriers would allow a 2nd party for profit company to operate on their trks. If a big profit were to be made in psgr rail, the freight carriers would be doing it themselves. Problem is that psgr rail simply is not a money maker. Yes this made Sununu look bad and it showed his lack of knowledge of Amtrak. The one that got me though was when Jeff Sessions of Alabama was on the floor talking about when the Sunset Limited was running east of New Orleans through his state prior to hurricane Katrina. He did not even know the name of the train or the train numbers, just refered to it as the 'overnight eastbound and westbound train that stopped @ Mobile". I have no problem w/someone stating their opinion on an issue but atleast do the homework, know by name in detail what you are speaking about. If anyone is interested in how each Senator voted on this issue, you can check the CPSAN or US Senate websites and that information should be in there somewhere.

[alphas]

You don't understand NH politics.   Amtrak has little support there as evidenced by the state's attitude towards the Boston-Portland passenger operations, even with the Democrats having taken control of the state.   I suspect this, if anything, helped him improve his image as a fiscal conservative in the state.  

 As for the non-union lower paying jobs, if that's what it takes to improve service, that's fine with me.  As with any government program, its supposed to be what's best for the US citizens as a whole, not what's best for the unions and their membership!!!   (Having to constantly deal with Federal and various states' employees for the last 24 years of my work career, the attitude expressed by SFbrkmn is held by way too many of them and is a major reason why government has such trouble accomplishing anything these days.  And there is very little that can be done about it since they all have both Civil Service and iron-clad Union protection.) 

[Paul Milenkovic]

The issue is whether one is a passenger rail fan or a passenger rail super fan.

I'm a Packer fan as much as anyone in Wisconsin or Upper Michigan, but I am not a Packer "super fan."  When Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long get on the TV and opine "yeah, the Packers are 4 and 1 but they still don't have much of a running game and they don't look like Super Bowl prospects" I don't call Bradshaw and his colleagues "uninformed" or say they are "embarrassing themselves" -- I am a Packer realist and until there is an effective and sustainable running game, the Pack will get tripped up.

We might be upset with Senator John Sununu, but he is certainly not uninformed, and if he is pushing this $200/passenger subsidy threshold, maybe he wants to kill Amtrak.  That Amtrak is this Good Thing is not immediately self evident to the vast body of non-foamerdom.

If Amtrak is operating under too many restrictions, what latitude or freedom should they be given that would help them out?  I ask this because a lot of the restrictions come from the rail advocacy community fighting the elimination of trains.  It is a different game than the pre-Amtrak railroad discontinuance petition game -- if Amtrak is given a certain pot of money, discontinuing one train may allow them to apply more resources to another train.

If Amtrak is underfunded, what is an adequate level of funding?  Senator Sununu's $200 per passenger subsidy cap may be a political maneuver, but it is a clever maneuver in that it frames the question in a way that we don't want to engage the debate.  What is a more appropriate subsidy cap -- $400 per passenger boarding?  $1000 per passenger boarding?  No cap, whatever it takes to provide the service?  If the in excess of $200 per passenger boarding for an LD train is a ficticious number owing to accounting practices, what is the correct numbers, or are we just going to wave our hands that we don't know the correct number, but it has to be less than $200?

I just read David P Morgan, April 1959, Who Shot the Passenger Train?, Trains, and nothing has changed in 50 years, especially the 1959 discussion about how sleeper and dining car service is particularly high cost and now the 2007 rail advocacy community bristles at the suggestion that diners and sleeper service are high cost -- the fight over LD trains is essentially one over sleepers and diners because in the absence of sleepers and diners you are in effect running the Pacific Cascades-type service over the Mountain West routes.

[TomDiehl]

(Having to constantly deal with Federal and various states' employees for the last 24 years of my work career, the attitude expressed by SFbrkmn is held by way too many of them and is a major reason why government has such trouble accomplishing anything these days.  And there is very little that can be done about it since they all have both Civil Service and iron-clad Union protection.) 

Civil Service and iron-clad Union protection???  Obviously spoken by someone who's never been in Civil Service.

[Prairietype]

If Amtrak is underfunded, what is an adequate level of funding? 

I'm going to stick may neck way out there and invite the ax by providing an answer to your question. I will not offer a number because I am no accountant and no economist, and I could never calculate exactly (to a dollar figure) what Amtrak needs as a proper level of funding other than this: per capita funding that is equivalent to what the government of japan or the governments of Europe provide there. Or, maybe even half of that.

Considering the wealth of this country I think the requirements of Amtrak are affordable.  The Missouri train only costs that State $5m a year; are you kidding me? That wouldn't even pay for the repaving of an ice/salt damaged cloverleaf in that State?

Amtrak's image is constantly tarnished by the treatment it gets from being preempted by freights. No one in the public ever calls the Union Pacific on the carpet for the way it shafts Amtrak in Missouri every-week-of-every-year, but Amtrak gets the blame; and this sets up the circumstance for this private "not-for-profit" corporation to get kicked around by Congress and the press.  

[Paul Milenkovic]

Anyone know the European numbers (I think Japan can be considered a special case on account of ultra-high population density in coastal areas with a sparsely-populated mountain interior region)?  Anyone know their subsidy per boarded passenger numbers?  A side-by-side comparison of European ridership and subsidy rates with Amtrak may be helpful in creating a vision of what a scaled-up Amtrak would be like. 

As to a 5 million dollar state subsidy being a pittance compared to salt damage repair on one highway cloverleaf, I think one has to look at the usage figures.  For all I know the one cloverleaf provides more utility to more people than one state-supported passenger train.

As to what the Union Pacific is doing to Amtrak schedules and damage to repeat ridership and taxpayer support, I think one needs to look at a big-picture comparison between the U.S. and Europe.  Europe has nowhere the freight railroad traffic of the U.S. -- part of that is because of better European access to coastal and riverine shipping, part of that is that they have a really bad freight coupler, and part of that is the entire short-haul nature of transportation patterns, both for people and for freight.

NARP has long promoted the claim that one track has the passenger capacity of 20 freeway lanes.  That may be true if it is a double track line with the proper kind of block signals running 11 car trains of full gallery cars on short headway during rush hour, but that kind of capacity is hardly true of single-track lines carrying long freight trains at 20 MPH average speeds.  My understanding is that a daily passenger train is quite highly disruptive of the normal flow of traffic on such a line.  While Amtrak points the finger at Union Pacific (and CSX and NS), these railroads claim that they give Amtrak trains a slot in their traffic pattern and that when Amtrak cannot keep their schedule, they get put in the hole.

I suppose one can insist that UP, CSX, and NS live up to their public accomodation duties as common carriers and under the terms of the Amtrak founding -- does this mean that the rebuild and maintain double-track lines, and does the double-tracking get to be fully allocated against Amtrak operations.  We haven't really solved the passenger train problem as it was recognized by David Morgan in 1959.

Do we really want to force UP, CSX, and NS and others to provide a high level of Amtrak traffic priority without paying them a lot more money?  If we had public money to subsidize track construction, would we get more bang for the buck if we concentrated on getting more freight traffic off the highways?

 

[Anonymous]

This thread has gone off on a lot of tangents. I'm just going to tackle a couple, taking issue with  both sides of the debate. 

Please don't be fooled by this yaking going on up there of sub contracting out routes. First it is an attempt by the anti Amtrakers, pro airline bunch to slowly kill the system.

Though I am very pro-passenger rail, I am not wedded to Amtrak as a concept. I don't care who is running the trains as long as they are running. Having said that, I have yet to see an alternative proposal put forth in sufficient detail to convince me it will work any better than, or even as well as what we have now, but that doesn't mean there aren't any good ideas out there somewhere.

I'm keeping an open mind about the privitization issue. There are several ways it might be done successfully, and if it makes train travel more economical it is all to the good.  One must be careful not to step blindly into a proposal, but the Senate bill's option to open two routes to experimentation seems like a cautious way to test new ideas. 

One such idea might involve returning passenger service to the private railroads who own the tracks, with some sort of tax incentives, publicly funded infrastructure improvements, or even direct subsidies in exchange for meeting a prescribed set of service standards. Another scenario might keep Amtrak as the operator of reservation systems, locomotives, and operational crews, while contracting out everything behind the locomotives to operators who would be required to maintain certain service standards. If they fail to meet those standards or another operator bids for a lower cost, another operator might be chosen. I'm not saying these would work, but I don't want to automatically say they can't, either. 

Moving on to... 

  Senator Sununu's $200 per passenger subsidy cap may be a political maneuver, but it is a clever maneuver in that it frames the question in a way that we don't want to engage the debate.  What is a more appropriate subsidy cap -- $400 per passenger boarding?  $1000 per passenger boarding?  No cap, whatever it takes to provide the service?  If the in excess of $200 per passenger boarding for an LD train is a ficticious number owing to accounting practices, what is the correct numbers, or are we just going to wave our hands that we don't know the correct number, but it has to be less than $200?

It may be a clever political tactic, but it is simplistic (as most political tactics tend to be.) It ignores the complexities involved in the accounting. I don't think Amtrak even reports "loss per passenger" figures anymore. When they did, they reported fully allocated costs, not direct costs, and there is a huge difference.

Direct costs are those associated with the day to day operation of a train, such as labor, fuel, supplies, cleaning, maintenence, etc. They do not include costs for reservation centers, real estate, infrastructure, and other fixed costs.  

Fully allocated costs refer to every thing Amtrak pays for, right down to the wages of the janitor who dumps the trash in Alex Kummant's office. These are allocated to each train as part of each train's costs. However, most of these costs are not directly related to a particular train's operations. More importantly, these are costs that won't go away if a few trains are shut down. If a train goes away, those costs are simply reallocated to surviving trains, making their losses "increase" even though their individual financial performance, measured in direct costs, doesn't actually change.

Fully allocated costs give you a picture of what is happening with Amtrak as a whole, but is useless in measuring the financial performance of an individual train. Thus Sununu's tactic is erroneous in its premise and ineffective at actually reducing losses.

I take the opposite view. If eliminating trains does not reduce fixed costs, then why not add trains to spread those fixed costs over a greater number of routes so the loss per passenger or passenger mile could also be reduced while at the same time increasing mobility and choice for the traveling public? Amtrak can't achieve economies of scale with its present skeletal network. I don't know how large Amtrak's system would need to be to achieve critical mass (URPA estimates about three times its current size - in passenger traffic if not route mileage), but I am convinced that cutting routes won't help Amtrak's bottom line. 

 Here's and Amtrak fact sheet on this subject:  http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/LongDistanceTrains.pdf

[Paul Milenkovic]

As long as we are dismissive of Amtrak critics as engaging in a "clever political tactic" and providing "simplistic analysis", we will continue to lose the battle as we have been losing the battle on trains since the end of WW-II.

The argument about "fully allocated" vs "direct operating" costs has been going on since the petition the ICC for train discontinuance days -- it is all layed out in the April 1959 Trains Magazine article.  The problem then as well as now is not only are the trains operated at large losses fully allocated, they are operating at considerable losses direct operating.  Folks at URPA claim that Amtrak cooks the books and that the LD trains break even by some measure of direct operating cost.  They claim that but I haven't seen any hard numbers on this.

I would just love to write to my Congressional and Senate representatives and say, "for all of the talk about buying airline tickets for all of the people riding Amtrak, the Empire Builder breaks even on its direct cost, and we need a second Chicago-Milwaukee-Minneapolis day train to provide a proper alternative to airline service out of O'Hare and the terrible road congestion in and out of Minneapolis and Chicago."  But I can't say that because no one knows if it is true, so we just bluster about how Amtrak critics are taking cheap shots, and our main political position is give us more money.

[Prairietype]

Another stick my neck out for the axe question, giving some other turkey a 30 minute repreive.......

So, just just how many billions of dollars do the airlines and supporting industries kick into the construction of airports, homeland security, air traffic control, the power grid, fuel tank storage on site, and everything else that keep the friendly skies friendly to the tax paying public? Do they contribute a fair share or is there just a little subsidy, here and there? 

 

[Paul Milenkovic]

So, just just how many billions of dollars do the airlines and supporting industries kick into the construction of airports, homeland security, air traffic control, the power grid, fuel tank storage on site, and everything else that keep the friendly skies friendly to the tax paying public? Do they contribute a fair share or is there just a little subsidy, here and there? 

Well, that is the problem right there.  One argument made in rail advocacy circles is that you can't really trace all of the subsidy going into airlines -- the power grid largely is a private undertaking, just like the freight railroads, but there are various direct and indirect subsidies such as military spending on advanced jet engines, and so on.

If you look at one major subsidy, in rough round number, the FAA gets about 12 billion to run the air traffic control system of which 10 billion comes from airline tickets and av fuel taxes and which 2 billion comes from general revenue.  Furthermore, airlines carry about 100 times more passenger miles than Amtrak does in intercity travel.

If you look at Federal highway spending, that budget is around 30 billion per year in rough round numbers and is supported by about 50 cents per gallon tax on gasoline which is split between Federal and individual states.  The intercity auto passenger miles is about 500 times what Amtrak handles.

Another way to look at it is that if there is 50 cents per gallon paying for roads, there might be another 50 cents per gallon not levied against the gas tax but coming out of property tax -- you are paying the gas tax as soon as you turn the key on your car, but the initial mile of any trip is on a local road.  If we assume in rough round numbers a 25 MPG car and 50 cents per gallon external subsidy, cars are getting subsidized at about 2 cents per vehicle mile.  Amtrak (again there is the question of fully-allocated and direct cost), is subsidized at about 20 cents per passenger mile.  Amtrak in that sense requires 10 times the subsidy as driving.

The essential Amtrak problem is that the subsidy is small compared to the total amount spent on other modes but large on a passenger mile or other unit of of work product basis.

The other issue with subsidy of the other modes is that with airlines there is everything from the runway surface and below, and everything from the landing wheel tire patch on up.  On the everything on the landing wheel tire patch up basis, airline operations are run on a for profit basis.  Yes, 9-11 airline bailout, but that was a one-time thing.  If there was some kind of one-time grant to Amtrak to put it on a for profit basis forward, you would find a lot of support.

The case for Amtrak subsidy needs to be made on its own merit in terms of unique social benefits of having rail transportation because if the case is made on "everyone else is getting subsidy" we will fail.

[SFbrkmn]

I am pro psgr rail also but do not buy into the current concept of Amtrk. This will never take place, but I would rather see all long distance routes abolished, every diner & slpr rebuilt into coaches and all that equipment be used on more short haul corridor daylight runs that would most likely  create more public interest. I live on the route of the Southwest Chief. Gets old getting up in the middle of night to catch the train (I'll be doing that on a vac next Feb). I will  gladly replace 3&4 w/a daylight train to either KC or Oklahoma City anytime.

[Prairietype]

So, just just how many billions of dollars do the airlines and supporting industries kick into the construction of airports, homeland security, air traffic control, the power grid, fuel tank storage on site, and everything else that keep the friendly skies friendly to the tax paying public? Do they contribute a fair share or is there just a little subsidy, here and there? 

If you look at one major subsidy, in rough round number, the FAA gets about 12 billion to run the air traffic control system of which 10 billion comes from airline tickets and av fuel taxes and which 2 billion comes from general revenue.  Furthermore, airlines carry about 100 times more passenger miles than Amtrak does in intercity travel.

How many passengers would the airlines be carrying if they only flew three airplanes a day from let's say Chicago to LA, or Chicago to Denver, with no landings in Des Moines or Wichita, Phoenix, Nashville, or Louisville, and dozens of other major cities? It would be kind of hard to justify the expense of the airport, the plane and the taxpayer money 'thrown at it."

Now Paul, I understand your points, and am not arguing this to be combative.  Everything you have said is correct, and indisputable, and sadly unfortunate for this country. We're not getting ahead with such a system, where actually digging ourselves in deeper and deeper, laboring under a collective sense that we're wasting money on Amtrak, when we can't keep up with the demands and responsibilities of maintaining the other forms of surface and air transportation. So why do Americans think they're over-taxed when we can look forward to a bright future of 16 lanes cutting quarter mile swaths across the landscape?  Heck, think of the jobs it creates, the road crews, the sign holders, the port-a-potty maintenance business, the orange cones and the years of job security to improve a two mile stretch that consumes over 4.5 years-and it still takes 30 minutes to travel 23 miles because the top speed on this stretch is 65mph, but all you'll ever do is average 39mph, at best.

Also, when there is a fatality (or serious accident) these days, the highway patrol has taken to shutting down the entire highway no matter what kind of traffic jam it causes in order to do a thorough crash-scene investigation. This can last 2-3 hours. 

 

[conrailman]

Amtrak should get the 6 year bill for 11 Billion Dollars when the Highways to get about 40 Billion and Airlines is get about 15 Billion and poor old amtrak is getting pennys to these big players and this Aid to these other Countrys every year 200 Billion. Spend the in money in the Good USA

[oltmannd]

Amtrak's current level of subsidy for the LD trains is very hard to defend.  Many of the reasons the subsidy is so high have been discussed here - low frequency of service vs. fixed costs, lack of labor productivity improvements/no profit motive, low equipment utilization/cost of ownership, etc.  These are all intertwined.

So, is it all hopeless?  No.

If the backbone of Amtrak was a series of short/medium haul corridor daylight trains whose expense was justified by avoided public spending for highway/air expansion, then the LD network would only have to be justified in terms of their incremental cost to operate.

I think this is what Kummant sees when he talks about Amtrak as a growth industry.  The problem is getting the political stars to align properly to get on with this.

[oltmannd]

Here's an interesting comparison:  Airtran vs Amtrak.

Airtran has 8800 employees, 70,000 passengers day who ride an avg of 750 miles per trip.

Amtrak has 18,500 employees (8700 employed on trains or in stations), 78,300 passengers per day who ride 232 miles per trip.

Airtran has TWICE the labor productivity of Amtrak (using just the train and station employee count), based on passenger-miles and number of employees.

Sounds like a broken business model, to me.

And what, exactly are the other ~10,000 employees doing?  Some are Mech, C&S, MoW, etc, which Airtran pays for in other ways (ticket tax, contract maint, etc.) but still.......

I don't want to kill it.  I just want it fixed.  Not everyone who suggests some change is an enemy.

[Prairietype]

S-294 is on the floor today. The ammendments issues have been resolved and Lautenberg is speaking, the roll call has been completed and the Bill looks to pass probably around 65-27.

[CG9602]

S. 294 has passed the Senate with 70 votes in support.

[Prairietype]

S. 294 has passed the Senate with 70 votes in support.

This is good news, and it would help if everyone who cares would rally in continued support. Amtrak has problems and needs fixing. The private sector will not readily step and and take the lead, and since Amtrak is now a national railroad, we the people need to encourage our government to rebuild and expand a working passenger rail system.

[conrailman]

Great bill for Amtrak over 6 Years about 19 Billion Dollars, to Airlines 15 Billion & Highways 40 Billion Dollars every year. When Amtrak just gets about little over 1 Billion Dollars every year. We needs Amtrak in the USA not less service, but more trains in the USA.

[Prairietype]

My perspective on Amtrak spending is that our rail passenger system has been snipped to point of collapse. If most of it had gone under and all that was left was the northeast, that system would/may have continued as the equivalent of a big light rail system.

Airways and highways have their place and are vital for transportation infrastructure. These systems are also under great stress. I'm stressing balance, and a modest increase in a passenger rail system contribues to the balance and actually benefits the other systems.

[oltmannd]

Great bill for Amtrak over 6 Years about 19 Billion Dollars, to Airlines 15 Billion & Highways 40 Billion Dollars every year. When Amtrak just gets about little over 1 Billion Dollars every year. We needs Amtrak in the USA not less service, but more trains in the USA.

Amtrak has historically done a horrible job or leveraging their subsidy.  Horrendous labor productivity.  Horrendous overhead.  No real mgt incentive to improve either.

We get much, much, much more for our tax dollar subsidy to air passenger and highway travel.

This bill helps starts moving things in the right direction. 

We need to support this funding....

AND

we need to keep Amtrak's feet to the fire to deliver!

[Dakguy201]

Amtrak has 18,500 employees (8700 employed on trains or in stations)

Assuming that is correct, it really bothers me.  Sure, people are needed for repairs in the shops, train cleaning in the yards, and MOW on the relatively short portion of the tracks owned by Amtrak.  But what is it that those 10,000 people are doing?

Does anyone have a more detailed analysis of the headcount by function?   

[oltmannd]

Amtrak has 18,500 employees (8700 employed on trains or in stations)

Assuming that is correct, it really bothers me.  Sure, people are needed for repairs in the shops, train cleaning in the yards, and MOW on the relatively short portion of the tracks owned by Amtrak.  But what is it that those 10,000 people are doing?

Does anyone have a more detailed analysis of the headcount by function?   

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/0708monthly.pdf  page 77

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

There are 500 people in purchasing.  300 in finance.  90 in the IG's office. 170 in HR (and this doesn't include labor relations - there's another 35 there)

There are 400 in risk mgt.  (say what?)

There are 1700 in engineering to maintain 500 route miles of track, catenary and signals.

About the only number that seems right to me is the 250 in IT.

 

[Paul Milenkovic]

So the S294 19 billion over 6 years -- is this a standalone bill or is the Amtrak funding tied into a larger transportation bill?  Do people have a sense of how this will fly in the House?  The 70 votes in the Senate are a good sign if it comes to a veto override.

Does someone have a roll-call on this?  It is almost certain that of the Wisconsin delegation, Herb Kohl (who is based out of Milwaukee) voted for this; there is a possiblity that Russ Feingold (who is based out of Madison) sided with the minority as a fiscal conservative.

I just want you all to know that I am happy this bill passed and I will e-mail Tammy Baldwin to support this in the House.  I view this bill as "test of the hypothesis" that a significant infusion of funds can results in substantial improvement to Amtrak by some agreed upon metric.  Once Amtrak gets this money, it will have to deliver.  Part of a "test of the hypothesis" is that if Amtrak doesn't deliver, we will need to accept the consequences instead of blaming it on the Amtrak critics and highway interests.

[Paul Milenkovic]

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

The number of people in mechanical is an important insight into the cost-competitiveness of trains relative to airlines.  What does Amtrak have in service -- about 2000 revenue cars and the locomotives that go with them?  Assuming a high-level of utilization on LD trains and making some assumptions about the work week, that is roughly one worker-hour of mechanical work per road-hour of a revenue passenger car.  I had heard that the early jetliners needed something like 4 worker-hours of maintenance per flight hour (keep in mind there is not that much downtime on a jet -- there may be a squad of workers assigned to a jet when it is in the maintenance hanger), and perhaps the jetliners have improved since the early days.  Also keep in mind that each flight hour may be the equivalent of 10 rail car road hours in terms of mile productivity.  Is this saying that operating a passenger rail car and its associated locomotive power takes twice the maintenance per revenue mile as a jet airliner?

The thing is that everyone assumes that a jet is mechanically expensive to operate because it has to meet strict standards of airworthiness and a jet needs to be lighweight to fly so it is built to narrow margins on strength and wear on bearings.  A train should be cheaper mechanically because it is not on such a strict weight budget and can be overbuilt of longevity.  If trains are higher maintenance than airliners, there is a major problem long term for maintaining train service.

[oltmannd]

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

The number of people in mechanical is an important insight into the cost-competitiveness of trains relative to airlines.  What does Amtrak have in service -- about 2000 revenue cars and the locomotives that go with them?  Assuming a high-level of utilization on LD trains and making some assumptions about the work week, that is roughly one worker-hour of mechanical work per road-hour of a revenue passenger car.  I had heard that the early jetliners needed something like 4 worker-hours of maintenance per flight hour (keep in mind there is not that much downtime on a jet -- there may be a squad of workers assigned to a jet when it is in the maintenance hanger), and perhaps the jetliners have improved since the early days.  Also keep in mind that each flight hour may be the equivalent of 10 rail car road hours in terms of mile productivity.  Is this saying that operating a passenger rail car and its associated locomotive power takes twice the maintenance per revenue mile as a jet airliner?

The thing is that everyone assumes that a jet is mechanically expensive to operate because it has to meet strict standards of airworthiness and a jet needs to be lighweight to fly so it is built to narrow margins on strength and wear on bearings.  A train should be cheaper mechanically because it is not on such a strict weight budget and can be overbuilt of longevity.  If trains are higher maintenance than airliners, there is a major problem long term for maintaining train service.

....so a likely conclusion is....

that maybe the Mech forces aren't all that busy

or

they spend a lot of time doing things that don't need doing

or

Amtrak's equipment is horribly designed and overly complicated.

(also don't forget one jetliner carries about 2 or 3 coaches worth of people.  If you add in the current load factors for each mode, it's even worse - 55% vs 80%)

[alphas]

Friend of mine is a long-time Amtrak employee.   Based on what he tells me, I have the impression that Amtrak has been slower to modernize, including labor, than the freight railways the last 35 years.   Trying to hold Amtrak's feet to the fire sounds good in theory but past experience has been that when push comes to shove or even one of the Amtrak labor unions objects to something, nothing changes.

[oltmannd]

Friend of mine is a long-time Amtrak employee.   Based on what he tells me, I have the impression that Amtrak has been slower to modernize, including labor, than the freight railways the last 35 years.   Trying to hold Amtrak's feet to the fire sounds good in theory but past experience has been that when push comes to shove or even one of the Amtrak labor unions objects to something, nothing changes.

During the same time period, and dealing with the same unions, the frt RRs have moderinzed a great deal and managed some pretty impressive productivity gains.

It may be hard, but, it's not hopeless.

[alphas]

You're forgetting the one major difference: with the freight railroads the unions don't have government to run to and politicians who are receiving their financial and "get out the vote contributions" to step in and put pressure on managment to cave.   And Amtrak has no stockholders exerting pressure not to cave.

[Anonymous]

Amtrak has no stockholders exerting pressure not to cave.

Actually, Amtrak DOES have stockholders. Amtrak stock was provided as compensation to the Class Is when Amtrak acquired their passenger equipment in 1971. Some of this stock has been bought and sold over the years. The majority shareholder is American Financial Group. The second largest shareholder is BNSF.

The issue of stockholder rights came into play a couple years ago when the Laney board proposed spinning off the NEC, as described in this article.  

[Anonymous]

The Amtrak Monthly Performance Report provides detailed head count information.  It can be found on the Amtrak web site.

[oltmannd]

The Amtrak Monthly Performance Report provides detailed head count information.  It can be found on the Amtrak web site.

There's lots of good info in those reports.  That's where I got some of my facts for my earlier post.  What's interesting to me is that not a single person can even give a semi-plausible reason for Amtrak's bloated head count.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

You're forgetting the one major difference: with the freight railroads the unions don't have government to run to and politicians who are receiving their financial and "get out the vote contributions" to step in and put pressure on managment to cave.   And Amtrak has no stockholders exerting pressure not to cave.

I'm not sure but almost anytime a railroad labor dispute results in a strike, it usually requires an Act Of Congress (literally) to settle the dispute.

Much of the reduction in force on the freight Class 1's was accomplished by buyouts.  I'm not sure that Amtrak is in a position to ask Congress to provide funding to do the same.

[oltmannd]

You're forgetting the one major difference: with the freight railroads the unions don't have government to run to and politicians who are receiving their financial and "get out the vote contributions" to step in and put pressure on managment to cave.   And Amtrak has no stockholders exerting pressure not to cave.

I'm not sure but almost anytime a railroad labor dispute results in a strike, it usually requires an Act Of Congress (literally) to settle the dispute.

Much of the reduction in force on the freight Class 1's was accomplished by buyouts.  I'm not sure that Amtrak is in a position to ask Congress to provide funding to do the same.

For the non-agreement jobs, you can just cut and provide severence per corp policy.  Amtrak did exactly this when they whacked the express business. CSX has done this many times in the recent past.  Buyouts come when companies can use off-books pension funds to pay for the buyout.  If the pension fund isn't overfunded, you're out of luck.

For the agreement jobs, you just cut off the jobs and let seniority determine who falls out the bottom.  This is what's currently done at all the class ones.  You can wind up paying somebody to stay home ala NY Dock, depending on who and how the cuts effect.  I believe this arguement was used by Gunn - even total shutdown will still cost a good chunk of change.

Rather than cuts, I'd perfer to see more service......

[JT22CW]

Great bill for Amtrak over 6 Years about 19 Billion Dollars

Where did you get that figure from? I count between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion over six years, which works out to $10.8 billion over the six years, when I look at the text of the bill.

We get much, much, much more for our tax dollar subsidy to air passenger and highway travel

How so? For $862,310.56 per route-mile every year, the interstates are not cheap, nor can they keep up with the costs of serving their captive audience—note all the ongoing moves to privatize not only toll roads, but also highways that are presently un-tolled. Even if this bill passes the House and the President signs it, Amtrak's going to get a tenth of that per route-mile, in current route miles, and they'll still be getting 12 percent of what commuter railroads get on average, per route-mile.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical, (approximately) 4000. By comparison, NS has about 1000

Source for that NS figure?

(FTR, Amtrak's figure for the mechanical headcount is 3,863, which is 52 fewer than authorized. If you don't like the figure, then you're going to have to ask Congress as to why they authorized so many, not to mention find out what they're paid out of that $1.2 billion per year subsidy. I'm not excusing it-I find it very curious, myself-but the question still remains as to why such a number was authorized and how much of that small "pie" they are consuming.)

The number of people in mechanical is an important insight into the cost-competitiveness of trains relative to airlines

Actually, no. It is, however, an insight into the corruption in Washington DC and their attempts to make rail travel look far more expensive than air travel. States are quite complicit—consider the example of NJ Transit's "River Line" light rail, which cost $29 million per mile to construct (close to double the cost per mile of the LGV Sud-Est), and this along an already-operating freight line, and another NJ Transit project, Access To The Region's Core, which is going to cost three to four times what the Pennsylvania Railroad spent to build not only New York Penn Station but also all of the tunnels leading to that station (with modern technology assisting, to boot). Further note Alexander Kummant's claim that it would cost some $7 billion to upgrade the Northeast Corridor merely to allow Acela Express to achieve a 96-mph average speed between New York and Washington DC—that's an unheard of $31 million per mile, which hasn't even been spent on dedicated high-speed rail alignments anywhere in the world that I know of, and if so, then only so that they may traverse the most difficult terrain in earthquake-prone environments. Bought-and-paid-for politicians are not going to give you a true picture of rail costs-you're going to have to look overseas and see what they're doing there.

During the same time period, and dealing with the same unions, the frt RRs have moderinzed a great deal and managed some pretty impressive productivity gains

They're still losing market share to trucks, though, and we continue to lose track miles. When "Productivity gains" means more money for the bosses alone, then that's no gain. Remember how the salaries of CEOs have risen beyond the bounds of the reasonable—between 300 and 500 times the average employee salary nowadays, whereas twenty years ago the highest was 20 times the average employee salary. Greed is out of control.

[oltmannd]

Great bill for Amtrak over 6 Years about 19 Billion Dollars

Where did you get that figure from? I count between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion over six years, which works out to $10.8 billion over the six years, when I look at the text of the bill.

We get much, much, much more for our tax dollar subsidy to air passenger and highway travel

How so? For $862,310.56 per route-mile every year, the interstates are not cheap, nor can they keep up with the costs of serving their captive audience—note all the ongoing moves to privatize not only toll roads, but also highways that are presently un-tolled. Even if this bill passes the House and the President signs it, Amtrak's going to get a tenth of that per route-mile, in current route miles, and they'll still be getting 12 percent of what commuter railroads get on average, per route-mile.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical, (approximately) 4000. By comparison, NS has about 1000

Source for that NS figure?

(FTR, Amtrak's figure for the mechanical headcount is 3,863, which is 52 fewer than authorized. If you don't like the figure, then you're going to have to ask Congress as to why they authorized so many, not to mention find out what they're paid out of that $1.2 billion per year subsidy. I'm not excusing it-I find it very curious, myself-but the question still remains as to why such a number was authorized and how much of that small "pie" they are consuming.)

The number of people in mechanical is an important insight into the cost-competitiveness of trains relative to airlines

Actually, no. It is, however, an insight into the corruption in Washington DC and their attempts to make rail travel look far more expensive than air travel. States are quite complicit—consider the example of NJ Transit's "River Line" light rail, which cost $29 million per mile to construct (close to double the cost per mile of the LGV Sud-Est), and this along an already-operating freight line, and another NJ Transit project, Access To The Region's Core, which is going to cost three to four times what the Pennsylvania Railroad spent to build not only New York Penn Station but also all of the tunnels leading to that station (with modern technology assisting, to boot). Further note Alexander Kummant's claim that it would cost some $7 billion to upgrade the Northeast Corridor merely to allow Acela Express to achieve a 96-mph average speed between New York and Washington DC—that's an unheard of $31 million per mile, which hasn't even been spent on dedicated high-speed rail alignments anywhere in the world that I know of, and if so, then only so that they may traverse the most difficult terrain in earthquake-prone environments. Bought-and-paid-for politicians are not going to give you a true picture of rail costs-you're going to have to look overseas and see what they're doing there.

During the same time period, and dealing with the same unions, the frt RRs have moderinzed a great deal and managed some pretty impressive productivity gains

They're still losing market share to trucks, though, and we continue to lose track miles. When "Productivity gains" means more money for the bosses alone, then that's no gain. Remember how the salaries of CEOs have risen beyond the bounds of the reasonable—between 300 and 500 times the average employee salary nowadays, whereas twenty years ago the highest was 20 times the average employee salary. Greed is out of control.

Re: Subsidy

Let's try it on a per passenger mile basis, and back out direct use taxes....  Route miles mean nothing.  It's what moves on those routes that counts.  Amtrak's route mile subsidy would look really good if they'd just stop running trains

But, having said that, I do believe that no matter how hard you try to figure out the subsidy game between modes, you always wind up with apples and oranges.  So, I don't think direct comparisons are all that useful.  However, Amtrak's subsidy per passenger mile is SO far out of whack that any attempts to justify it ring very hollow.

Re: NS Mechanical Dept man count

It has been between 1000 and 1100 for the past couple of years - and that includes staff.  How do I know that?  Check my profile.  How does Amtrak justify having 4000?  What are all these people doing all day long? 

Re: cost to upgrade NEC

The NEC uniformly runs through the most expensive real estate in the country.  Are you suggesting that a new alignment could be had at the same price as French farmland?

Re: RR productivity

At least you're not denying that the productivity gains are real!  Where are Amtrak's productivity gains?  Although I would agree that CEO compensation is out of whack  (NS's CEO has opined similarly), the productivity gains, in part, have rescued the industry from a slow, but certain death to a postion of having a chance at being going concern.  I've spent the past 29 years watching it happen from the inside.

RR market share vs truck is as misleading as comparing pipeline market share vs. truck.  You have to compare the niches where there is direct competition.  In the past decade or two, train miles, ton miles and shipments on the RRs have all continued to grow faster than the rate of economic growth.  The slight decrease in route miles is the last of the obsolete 19th century branch lines giving up the ghost as the last few dollars are squeezed out of the physical plant and the de-industrialization of the US is nearly complete.

Re:  The institution and culture of Amtrak.

Amtrak is a fat, sloppy, inefficient, low productivity outfit.  You can look at their numbers.  You can listen to anecdotes and stories.  The pattern is clear.   But, it's not their fault.  They've never been given any incentive to be anything but.  

I just think it's time we got more for our money.  Amtrak as a starting point for intercity train travel may be justifiable.  Amtrak status-quo is not.  Fix it or kill it.  I vote for "fix it".

[TomDiehl]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

[oltmannd]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

[TomDiehl]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

[oltmannd]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

Forget the freight cars.

Lets just compare a locomotive to a passenger car since NS has more of them than Amtrak has cars plus locos. 

If you assume that the mechanical maintenance of a locomotive = that of a passenger car, then you 're still left with an additional 3000 people who's sole job is to clean 1000 coaches  and do the laundry for a couple hundred rooms every day. 

 Come on.  Just give me something remotely plausible....

[TomDiehl]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

Forget the freight cars.

Lets just compare a locomotive to a passenger car since NS has more of them than Amtrak has cars plus locos. 

If you assume that the mechanical maintenance of a locomotive = that of a passenger car, then you 're still left with an additional 3000 people who's sole job is to clean 1000 coaches  and do the laundry for a couple hundred rooms every day. 

 Come on.  Just give me something remotely plausible....

So you failed to make the point that a passenger car and a freight car have comparable amounts of maintenance to be done to them.

Your argument has gone from incomplete to ridiculous. Comparing locomotives to any type of car is nowhere near "plausible." The only similarity of one to the other is they both have flanged wheels spaced 56.5 inches apart and couplers to hold them together. Locomotives have 2 to 4 seats, passenger cars have a lot more than that. Locomotives have diesel engines and generators, cars consume power. Freight cars only consume it to be pulled, passenger cars need to be pulled AND provided with electrical power, but you've alread conceeded the freight/passenger car argument. Do I need to go on?

You seem to be the only one interpreting that statment to mean that they have 3000 car cleaners and laundry people. You choose to completely ignore the fact that there's a lot more to maintaining the interior of a passenger car than there is a freight car. More work and jobs to do=more people to do it.

[Paul Milenkovic]

I believe that Don Oltmann's original observation is that there are "4000 Amtrak people in Mechanical" compared with "1000 people at Norfolk Southern."  None  here on this forum have a roster of Amtrak's mechanical department and what everyone's job description and assigned duties are.

On the other hand, one of the kind of due-dilligence for people who own stocks in companies or for financial and pension managers who invest other people's money in the market is to read annual reports and other kinds of disclosures regarding how the business is run.  As Amtrak is a taxpayer supported corporate entity, the American people are business partners as it were, and it is the business of all of us as to where all the money at Amtrak goes.

No, Tom, or Don, or Paul, or anyone else on this forum without inside information doesn't know if we are talking about pipe fitters or car cleaners or any other kind of job description.  And no, one cannot compare the maintenance required to operate a freight car with a passenger car, but perhaps a locomotive is indeed a fair comparison if we are talking about mechanical work.  While a passenger car obviously has many more seats, and it has mechanical systems such as lighting, HVAC, doors, retention toilets, and so on along with side-motion trucks, a locomotive has HEP, prime mover, traction electrical system, traction alternator, motors, and cooling blowers, radiator, along with similar side-motion trucks to a passenger car with some modifications, to talk about a locomotive as a point of comparison with maintenance of a passenger car is a reasonable starting point.

But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the comparison between Amtrak and NS is something to think about that.  Forget the comparison between a freight car and a passenger car.  How about the comparison between a passenger car and a jet airliner.  The numbers suggest that a railroad passenger car has maintenance requirements, per passenger mile, some multiple of a jet airliner, which we think of as being a maintenance-intensive conveyance.

There is this sentiment I am encountering in the passenger-train advocacy community that everything is the way it should in the business of passenger trains because it is tried and tested and all of the new-fangled ways are something people will get over after bitter experience with them (I had someone tell me the Budd RDC car was a "failure" in the context of interest in the Colorado Railcars DMU).  There is a sense that anyone who says anything critical of Amtrak has crossed over to the other side of those with the long budget-cutting knives who are eyeing it up.

Part of the idea behind passenger trains is that putting people in steel tubes on top of rollers running on ribbons of steel on the ground is a way of transporting more people in greater comfort and safety and with less cost and expenditure of fuel than putting people into pressurized aluminum tubes supported by the force of the wind against aluminum barn doors, held up in the sky by burning kerosene at high temperatures and pressures to get a tornado-force wind to come out the back.  If the first way is turning out to be only marginally more effective in fuel but some multiple of the cost of the second way, we need to reexamine our thinking on this.

If there is something intrinsically expensive about a passenger car compared to even a locomotive because of the large number of seats in a passenger car, well then the game is up as far as passenger trains as transportation instead of as a form of entertainment for people who enjoy that sort of thing.

[oltmannd]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

Forget the freight cars.

Lets just compare a locomotive to a passenger car since NS has more of them than Amtrak has cars plus locos. 

If you assume that the mechanical maintenance of a locomotive = that of a passenger car, then you 're still left with an additional 3000 people who's sole job is to clean 1000 coaches  and do the laundry for a couple hundred rooms every day. 

 Come on.  Just give me something remotely plausible....

So you failed to make the point that a passenger car and a freight car have comparable amounts of maintenance to be done to them.

Your argument has gone from incomplete to ridiculous. Comparing locomotives to any type of car is nowhere near "plausible." The only similarity of one to the other is they both have flanged wheels spaced 56.5 inches apart and couplers to hold them together. Locomotives have 2 to 4 seats, passenger cars have a lot more than that. Locomotives have diesel engines and generators, cars consume power. Freight cars only consume it to be pulled, passenger cars need to be pulled AND provided with electrical power, but you've alread conceeded the freight/passenger car argument. Do I need to go on?

You seem to be the only one interpreting that statment to mean that they have 3000 car cleaners and laundry people. You choose to completely ignore the fact that there's a lot more to maintaining the interior of a passenger car than there is a freight car. More work and jobs to do=more people to do it.

So, you think Amtrak's 4000 person Mechanical Dept is reasonably staffed?  You're the only one so far.  I, for the life of me, can't figure out what all those guys are doing.

 BTW, I do have a good bit of professional experience in locomotive and passenger car design and maintenance.....

A locomotive may be an apple and a passenger car an orange, but they're both 1/4 lb and hae 200 calories....

[Railway Man]

So, you think Amtrak's 4000 person Mechanical Dept is reasonably staffed?  You're the only one so far.  I, for the life of me, can't figure out what all those guys are doing.

 BTW, I do have a good bit of professional experience in locomotive and passenger car design and maintenance.....

A locomotive may be an apple and a passenger car an orange, but they're both 1/4 lb and hae 200 calories....

Seems also to me to be a darn good question to ask.  But what do I know; I've only been in this business for 30 years.

RWM

[TomDiehl]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

Forget the freight cars.

Lets just compare a locomotive to a passenger car since NS has more of them than Amtrak has cars plus locos. 

If you assume that the mechanical maintenance of a locomotive = that of a passenger car, then you 're still left with an additional 3000 people who's sole job is to clean 1000 coaches  and do the laundry for a couple hundred rooms every day. 

 Come on.  Just give me something remotely plausible....

So you failed to make the point that a passenger car and a freight car have comparable amounts of maintenance to be done to them.

Your argument has gone from incomplete to ridiculous. Comparing locomotives to any type of car is nowhere near "plausible." The only similarity of one to the other is they both have flanged wheels spaced 56.5 inches apart and couplers to hold them together. Locomotives have 2 to 4 seats, passenger cars have a lot more than that. Locomotives have diesel engines and generators, cars consume power. Freight cars only consume it to be pulled, passenger cars need to be pulled AND provided with electrical power, but you've alread conceeded the freight/passenger car argument. Do I need to go on?

You seem to be the only one interpreting that statment to mean that they have 3000 car cleaners and laundry people. You choose to completely ignore the fact that there's a lot more to maintaining the interior of a passenger car than there is a freight car. More work and jobs to do=more people to do it.

So, you think Amtrak's 4000 person Mechanical Dept is reasonably staffed?  You're the only one so far.  I, for the life of me, can't figure out what all those guys are doing.

 BTW, I do have a good bit of professional experience in locomotive and passenger car design and maintenance.....

A locomotive may be an apple and a passenger car an orange, but they're both 1/4 lb and hae 200 calories....

Reasonable staffing size is not the point you were making in your first statement, quoted above. You were comparing the number of maintenance section personnel for a freight railroad, confined to the south and central eastern part of the US, to a passenger railroad that covers the entire US.

Your comparison of the two was the major flaw, and you conceeded the point that passenger cars have more work to be done to them than freight cars.

To pick out another flaw in your comparison, you also didn't compare average age of the fleet, cars to cars or locos to locos.

And most passenger cars weigh more than freight cars, so it would be more "apples to watermellons."

[oltmannd]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

Forget the freight cars.

Lets just compare a locomotive to a passenger car since NS has more of them than Amtrak has cars plus locos. 

If you assume that the mechanical maintenance of a locomotive = that of a passenger car, then you 're still left with an additional 3000 people who's sole job is to clean 1000 coaches  and do the laundry for a couple hundred rooms every day. 

 Come on.  Just give me something remotely plausible....

So you failed to make the point that a passenger car and a freight car have comparable amounts of maintenance to be done to them.

Your argument has gone from incomplete to ridiculous. Comparing locomotives to any type of car is nowhere near "plausible." The only similarity of one to the other is they both have flanged wheels spaced 56.5 inches apart and couplers to hold them together. Locomotives have 2 to 4 seats, passenger cars have a lot more than that. Locomotives have diesel engines and generators, cars consume power. Freight cars only consume it to be pulled, passenger cars need to be pulled AND provided with electrical power, but you've alread conceeded the freight/passenger car argument. Do I need to go on?

You seem to be the only one interpreting that statment to mean that they have 3000 car cleaners and laundry people. You choose to completely ignore the fact that there's a lot more to maintaining the interior of a passenger car than there is a freight car. More work and jobs to do=more people to do it.

So, you think Amtrak's 4000 person Mechanical Dept is reasonably staffed?  You're the only one so far.  I, for the life of me, can't figure out what all those guys are doing.

 BTW, I do have a good bit of professional experience in locomotive and passenger car design and maintenance.....

A locomotive may be an apple and a passenger car an orange, but they're both 1/4 lb and hae 200 calories....

Reasonable staffing size is not the point you were making in your first statement, quoted above. You were comparing the number of maintenance section personnel for a freight railroad, confined to the south and central eastern part of the US, to a passenger railroad that covers the entire US.

Your comparison of the two was the major flaw, and you conceeded the point that passenger cars have more work to be done to them than freight cars.

To pick out another flaw in your comparison, you also didn't compare average age of the fleet, cars to cars or locos to locos.

And most passenger cars weigh more than freight cars, so it would be more "apples to watermellons."

Is this the 5 minute argument or the full half hour?

[TomDiehl]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

Forget the freight cars.

Lets just compare a locomotive to a passenger car since NS has more of them than Amtrak has cars plus locos. 

If you assume that the mechanical maintenance of a locomotive = that of a passenger car, then you 're still left with an additional 3000 people who's sole job is to clean 1000 coaches  and do the laundry for a couple hundred rooms every day. 

 Come on.  Just give me something remotely plausible....

So you failed to make the point that a passenger car and a freight car have comparable amounts of maintenance to be done to them.

Your argument has gone from incomplete to ridiculous. Comparing locomotives to any type of car is nowhere near "plausible." The only similarity of one to the other is they both have flanged wheels spaced 56.5 inches apart and couplers to hold them together. Locomotives have 2 to 4 seats, passenger cars have a lot more than that. Locomotives have diesel engines and generators, cars consume power. Freight cars only consume it to be pulled, passenger cars need to be pulled AND provided with electrical power, but you've alread conceeded the freight/passenger car argument. Do I need to go on?

You seem to be the only one interpreting that statment to mean that they have 3000 car cleaners and laundry people. You choose to completely ignore the fact that there's a lot more to maintaining the interior of a passenger car than there is a freight car. More work and jobs to do=more people to do it.

So, you think Amtrak's 4000 person Mechanical Dept is reasonably staffed?  You're the only one so far.  I, for the life of me, can't figure out what all those guys are doing.

 BTW, I do have a good bit of professional experience in locomotive and passenger car design and maintenance.....

A locomotive may be an apple and a passenger car an orange, but they're both 1/4 lb and hae 200 calories....

Reasonable staffing size is not the point you were making in your first statement, quoted above. You were comparing the number of maintenance section personnel for a freight railroad, confined to the south and central eastern part of the US, to a passenger railroad that covers the entire US.

Your comparison of the two was the major flaw, and you conceeded the point that passenger cars have more work to be done to them than freight cars.

To pick out another flaw in your comparison, you also didn't compare average age of the fleet, cars to cars or locos to locos.

And most passenger cars weigh more than freight cars, so it would be more "apples to watermellons."

Is this the 5 minute argument or the full half hour?

That would depend on how many flaws in your comparison I need to point out.

[oltmannd]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

Forget the freight cars.

Lets just compare a locomotive to a passenger car since NS has more of them than Amtrak has cars plus locos. 

If you assume that the mechanical maintenance of a locomotive = that of a passenger car, then you 're still left with an additional 3000 people who's sole job is to clean 1000 coaches  and do the laundry for a couple hundred rooms every day. 

 Come on.  Just give me something remotely plausible....

So you failed to make the point that a passenger car and a freight car have comparable amounts of maintenance to be done to them.

Your argument has gone from incomplete to ridiculous. Comparing locomotives to any type of car is nowhere near "plausible." The only similarity of one to the other is they both have flanged wheels spaced 56.5 inches apart and couplers to hold them together. Locomotives have 2 to 4 seats, passenger cars have a lot more than that. Locomotives have diesel engines and generators, cars consume power. Freight cars only consume it to be pulled, passenger cars need to be pulled AND provided with electrical power, but you've alread conceeded the freight/passenger car argument. Do I need to go on?

You seem to be the only one interpreting that statment to mean that they have 3000 car cleaners and laundry people. You choose to completely ignore the fact that there's a lot more to maintaining the interior of a passenger car than there is a freight car. More work and jobs to do=more people to do it.

So, you think Amtrak's 4000 person Mechanical Dept is reasonably staffed?  You're the only one so far.  I, for the life of me, can't figure out what all those guys are doing.

 BTW, I do have a good bit of professional experience in locomotive and passenger car design and maintenance.....

A locomotive may be an apple and a passenger car an orange, but they're both 1/4 lb and hae 200 calories....

Reasonable staffing size is not the point you were making in your first statement, quoted above. You were comparing the number of maintenance section personnel for a freight railroad, confined to the south and central eastern part of the US, to a passenger railroad that covers the entire US.

Your comparison of the two was the major flaw, and you conceeded the point that passenger cars have more work to be done to them than freight cars.

To pick out another flaw in your comparison, you also didn't compare average age of the fleet, cars to cars or locos to locos.

And most passenger cars weigh more than freight cars, so it would be more "apples to watermellons."

Is this the 5 minute argument or the full half hour?

That would depend on how many flaws in your comparison I need to point out.

You've yet to find one, or even an ally. 

"Reasonable staffing size is not the point you were making in your first statement,"  See my 10-30-07 post in this thread.  It is EXACTLY the point I'm trying to make.   You're trying to tell me the point I'm trying to make isn't the point I'm trying to make? 

As Paul M pointed out, if there's something intrinsic about passenger cars that make them more than 4x more labor intensive

[Dakguy201]

I am disturbed also by the comparison (in part because of the long history of featherbedding within the railroad industry that Amtrak inherited), but I agree most of us do not have nearly enough data to make a decision regarding the validity of the comparison.  The problem here is that we all know a passenger car would require more maintenance than, say, a coal gondola, but we have nothing to measure the extent.

If anyone had any numbers regarding the maintenance employees of one of the big commuter operations that might serve as an additional point of reference in this matter.

A further complication is the extent to which a private railroad such as NS has contracted out some portion of the maintenance work as compared to Amtrak. 

 

[TomDiehl]

Here are some high (low?) lights.

There's a small mountain of people in mechanical ~4000.  By comparison, NS has about 1000 and the number or locomotives and cars Amtrak has is less than the number of locomotives NS has.....and NS has to inspect and lace up a few hundred thousand frt cars a week, to boot.

Unfortunately, you forget what you're comparing. How many of those NS freight cars have heating and air conditioning? Just to name an obvious difference.

A boxcar load of washing machines or a hopper full of coal doesn't require climate control, lighting, food, etc. that the human "cargo" requires.

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that NS has more LOCOMOTIVES than Amtrak has locomotive and cars combined!  So, unless you believe taking care of a passenger car is 4x more labor intensive than keeping after a locomotive, what, exactly are those 4000 guys doing all day long?

I didn't miss anything, in fact it was even quoted above. The mechanical maintenance crews required for maintaining freight cars would only cover the shell of a passenger car. What I did say is maintaining a passenger car is more than four times more involved than maintaining a freight car. Add to that the NS doesn't cover the whole country, so they can centralize more easily. Only Amtrak's heavy maintenance facility is centralized. Inspection and maintenance crews need to be available all over the national system.

In addition to the points I mentioned above, the furnishings need to be maintained, linens need to be removed and washed, supplies need to be replenished. A car load of washing machines isn't going to complain about a door that rattles or is drafty, or a torn or stained carpet.

Forget the freight cars.

Lets just compare a locomotive to a passenger car since NS has more of them than Amtrak has cars plus locos. 

If you assume that the mechanical maintenance of a locomotive = that of a passenger car, then you 're still left with an additional 3000 people who's sole job is to clean 1000 coaches  and do the laundry for a couple hundred rooms every day. 

 Come on.  Just give me something remotely plausible....

So you failed to make the point that a passenger car and a freight car have comparable amounts of maintenance to be done to them.

Your argument has gone from incomplete to ridiculous. Comparing locomotives to any type of car is nowhere near "plausible." The only similarity of one to the other is they both have flanged wheels spaced 56.5 inches apart and couplers to hold them together. Locomotives have 2 to 4 seats, passenger cars have a lot more than that. Locomotives have diesel engines and generators, cars consume power. Freight cars only consume it to be pulled, passenger cars need to be pulled AND provided with electrical power, but you've alread conceeded the freight/passenger car argument. Do I need to go on?

You seem to be the only one interpreting that statment to mean that they have 3000 car cleaners and laundry people. You choose to completely ignore the fact that there's a lot more to maintaining the interior of a passenger car than there is a freight car. More work and jobs to do=more people to do it.

So, you think Amtrak's 4000 person Mechanical Dept is reasonably staffed?  You're the only one so far.  I, for the life of me, can't figure out what all those guys are doing.

 BTW, I do have a good bit of professional experience in locomotive and passenger car design and maintenance.....

A locomotive may be an apple and a passenger car an orange, but they're both 1/4 lb and hae 200 calories....

Reasonable staffing size is not the point you were making in your first statement, quoted above. You were comparing the number of maintenance section personnel for a freight railroad, confined to the south and central eastern part of the US, to a passenger railroad that covers the entire US.

Your comparison of the two was the major flaw, and you conceeded the point that passenger cars have more work to be done to them than freight cars.

To pick out another flaw in your comparison, you also didn't compare average age of the fleet, cars to cars or locos to locos.

And most passenger cars weigh more than freight cars, so it would be more "apples to watermellons."

Is this the 5 minute argument or the full half hour?

That would depend on how many flaws in your comparison I need to point out.

You've yet to find one, or even an ally. 

"Reasonable staffing size is not the point you were making in your first statement,"  See my 10-30-07 post in this thread.  It is EXACTLY the point I'm trying to make.   You're trying to tell me the

Smile, it makes people wonder what you're up to. Chief of Sanitation; Clowntown