Amtrk Senate Debate

[AmtrakRider]

Michael,

I agree that a comparison between BN and Amtrak might give one a better picture. However, I still don't think we are getting a complete picture.  Perhaps someone's suggestion about comparing what we would like to see from Amtrak to European counterparts is really valid.  There seem to be many key differences between the freight operations and the passenger ones, which perhaps we haven't clearly identified.

[Paul Milenkovic]

Does Amtrak actually uncouple the locomotive as part of the process of turning trains?  I guess they may do that for the Empire Builder, but I was under the impression that the push-pull Hiawatha train stayed with its locomotive in the manner of a Metra commuter train.

I have been told that fixed consists are the rule with the corridor trains as the coach yards have been sold to real estate developers and that adding or subtracting cars from a consist to reflect demand is too labor intensive.  Hence while varying the length of a passenger consist is considered a selling point of conventional railroading in meeting varying demand, Amtrak operates corridor trains as if they were semi-permanently coupled Talgo sets.

From Model Railroader ads and articles about commuter gallery bi-level models, I got the impression that Metra does some switching -- they have the locomotive facing the outbound direction from Olgivie Center or Union Station, and they put a cab car midway in the consist that they can uncouple the tail cars of the train to come up with a shortened consist for off-peak operation -- do they just leave the string of cars in the station or do they have a switch engine to take those cars to a yard some place?  So I guess Metra varies their consists to meet varying demand, but Amtrak doesn't have that option on trains requiring a cabbage car at the terminal end unless they would do more switching.

While commuter seats are flip-over and Amtrak coach seats could be turned by the crews, I understand that the Amtrak corridor push-pulls have half the seats oriented in each direction, so on a full train, half the passengers are riding backwards.  Some passengers are OK with that and many prefer to ride facing forward -- I remember riding CTA El trains in backward-facing seats, and there is this somewhat disconcerting visual illusion when the train stops that the view outside the window is still moving -- this may produce motion sickness symptoms in some people.

In addition to turning the locomotives, do they turn LD consists, not only that the seats are facing forward but that the baggage car is up front and that the sleepers, diner, lounge, and coaches are in the order they want?  I guess sleepers at the end of the train is a long tradition where first-class passengers have to walk less and coach passengers get to see more of the train when boarding.  Where do they turn passenger equipment in Chicago -- is there a wye track somewhere?  Is that wye track viewable from a safe and legal place as a railfan experience?

[AmtrakRider]

robscaboose,

Let me see if I understand you clearly.  You are saying that at the turnaround point for each train Amtrak runs, they need at least 12 persons to maintain the engine and an additional 10 to 12 persons for the rest of the maintainance and the preparation for the outbound service.  This is the minumum Amtrak can realistically work with to have the train ready in a reasonable amount of time.  And this number can be higher depending on the state of individual train sets.

---

A general question.  Do Amtrak's employment figures someone quoted earlier in the discussion include the CSR side of things (ticket agents, baggage handlers, etc)?

[MichaelSol]

---

A general question.  Do Amtrak's employment figures someone quoted earlier in the discussion include the CSR side of things (ticket agents, baggage handlers, etc)?

Amtrak, operating 265 trains a day, has 22,000 total employees. BN, operating 1,500 trains a day, has 40,000 employees.

[MichaelSol]

I agree that a comparison between BN and Amtrak might give one a better picture. However, I still don't think we are getting a complete picture.  Perhaps someone's suggestion about comparing what we would like to see from Amtrak to European counterparts is really valid.  There seem to be many key differences between the freight operations and the passenger ones, which perhaps we haven't clearly identified.

We do have a very good basis for comparison: U.S. Railroads.

Prior to 1970, when railroads were attributing everything they could to passenger service expense to justify abandonment, a good tightly run passenger operation like CNW's could generate a 99% operating ratio, a  more general mixed long distance carrier like Milwaukee Road, with a commuter mix, long distance, and night train operations resembling that of Amtrak's, around 130%. A very poorly situated passenger operation, like Great Northern's, would soar up to 200%.

What those numbers show is that, by and large, it cost twice as much to operate a passenger service as a freight service, and that represents a combination of higher maintenance costs for the equipment, higher overhead for personnel in general, and general operating costs not present in a freight operations, food, menus and doillies and things like that.

Amtrak's 22,000 employees, supporting the operation of a mere 2,566 pieces of equipment distributed among 265 trains per day suggests the scope of the problem. From an economic perspective, U.S. Passenger Rail Service is less efficient now than it was 40 years ago, even as U.S. Freight Railroads have become far more efficient.

 

[TomDiehl]

No, but taking one sentence out of context can be misinterpreted. It was part of a statement pointing out that a comparison between a freight railroad, serving only a fraction of the country is not a valid comparison to a passenger railroad serving most of the country and mostly on trackage it does not own.

Whoa, "serving most of the country" is a broad generality without any particular economic meaning.

90% of Amtrak's service is limited to just seven relatively small North Eastern states. It has two heavy repair facilities in that region, and one in Indiana. It needs 4,000 employees to service a total of 2,566 locomotives and cars in those three facilities. It is, in fact, highly centralized because the vast bulk of its services cover a relatively small geographical area. You might presume efficiency from the high degree of centralization.

Compare Amtrak to BN, BN is spread all over. It covers over 20 states to obtain 90% of its revenue. They are mostly big states with lots of heavy territory. BN uses 7,341 employees to service nearly 90,000 locomotives and rail transportation equipment in 8 heavy repair facilities and 46 car repair and locomotive running repair facilities. It is highly decentralized. You might presume a degree of inefficiency by duplication in so many facilities. The average BN locomotive is 15 years old. Notwithstanding the nice paint jobs, those are not spring chickens pulling those heavy trains. They require maintenance. BN has 6,300 of these hard working veteran locomotives alone, that's 15 times the number of Amtrak locomotives and three times the entire equipment fleet of Amtrak, cars and locomotives combined.

The average rolling stock at BN is close to 20 years old, used heavily in an abusive environment. At 81,000 units, that is 38 times the number of units that Amtrak uses to produce its revenue.

On a weighted average basis, the BN statistically is a far larger operation geographically than Amtrak. In addition, BN operates 32,000 route miles with 1,500 trains a day. Amtrak operates 22,000 route miles with 265 trains per day.

On a per unit of production basis, Amtrak requires 18 times the number of employees for equipment maintenance as BN.

That's high. 

 

So you're saying that the number of personnel needed to maintain and prepare a passenger car should be the same as the number needed to do the same with a freight car?

[MichaelSol]

So you're saying that the number of personnel needed to maintain and prepare a passenger car should be the same as the number needed to do the same with a freight car?

No. I am saying what I said I said: 18x the number sounds high.

[TomDiehl]

So you're saying that the number of personnel needed to maintain and prepare a passenger car should be the same as the number needed to do the same with a freight car?

(from your earlier post) Compare Amtrak to BN,

No. I am saying what I said I said: 18x the number sounds high.

You're still trying to compare a freight railroad to a passenger railroad, which is still invalid whether your talking about BNSF or NS or D-L.

Which was also the original discussion.

[MichaelSol]

So you're saying that the number of personnel needed to maintain and prepare a passenger car should be the same as the number needed to do the same with a freight car?

(from your earlier post) Compare Amtrak to BN,

No. I am saying what I said I said: 18x the number sounds high.

You're still trying to compare a freight railroad to a passenger railroad, which is still invalid whether your talking about BNSF or NS or D-L.

Which was also the original discussion.

Actually we are talking about maintenance of equipment. And, as my earlier post points out, we have plenty of data available because the freight railroads were also passenger railroads, and provided detailed data under ICC accounting for both absolute and relative costs of maintaining different types of equipment.

As I also said above, no doubt the cost of maintaining passenger equipment is higher than that of freight equipment. Of much less doubt is that a freight diesel-electric locomotive has any significantly different maintenance requirements than a diesel-electric passenger locomotive.

A passenger car costs money to maintain. So does a diesel-electric locomotive. Historically, a relatively new diesel-electric locomotive costs about three times as much annually in maintenance and repairs as the average older railway passenger car. I am taking this from a point in time when the primary cost involved was labor. The cost of maintaining a freight car is a pittance by comparison to a passenger car, but we can eliminate any consideration of the freight car, as Don Oltmann attempted to do for you above, by specifically comparing a more complex machine -- the diesel electric locomotive -- which 1) is shared by both the passenger and freight railroads, and 2) for which we have a lengthy record of absolute and relative maintenance costs to compare with passenger car maintenance, and which therefore provides a useful surrogate.

Based on that rule of thumb, and eliminating entirely any comparison with modern freight car equipment, if BN can maintain a locomotive fleet of 6,300 locomotives with 7,300 employees, Amtrak should be able to maintain its 475 locomotives and 2,100 passenger cars with 1,362 employees.

That's still high, but it provides a coarse estimate.

 

[TomDiehl]

As I also said above, no doubt the cost of maintaining passenger equipment is higher than that of freight equipment. Of much less doubt is that a freight diesel-electric locomotive has any significantly different maintenance requirements than a diesel-electric passenger locomotive.

Exactly what I was saying. However, trying to compare the the number of maintenance people that work for a freight railroad to the number that work for a passenger railroad is not valid because the jobs they do and the parts that need to be maintained are too different.

The locomotives for either type railroad are fairly similar, but the numbers Oltmand was quoting did not break down loco and car maintenance personnel numbers.

Then you can project the numbers another step: if the number of trains that either one operated was to double, would the number of maintenance people also double? Is the current numbers because of the different jobs they need to do, the number of locations they need to support with maintenance, or the quantity of cars and locos they have to maintain? His comparison was based strictly on the quantity part of the question.

[oltmannd]

As I also said above, no doubt the cost of maintaining passenger equipment is higher than that of freight equipment. Of much less doubt is that a freight diesel-electric locomotive has any significantly different maintenance requirements than a diesel-electric passenger locomotive.

Exactly what I was saying. However, trying to compare the the number of maintenance people that work for a freight railroad to the number that work for a passenger railroad is not valid because the jobs they do and the parts that need to be maintained are too different.

The locomotives for either type railroad are fairly similar, but the numbers Oltmand was quoting did not break down loco and car maintenance personnel numbers.

Then you can project the numbers another step: if the number of trains that either one operated was to double, would the number of maintenance people also double? Is the current numbers because of the different jobs they need to do, the number of locations they need to support with maintenance, or the quantity of cars and locos they have to maintain? His comparison was based strictly on the quantity part of the question.

So, what all those Amtrak Mechanical folk are doing is "not much" but you believe it's all about economy of scale and craft division of labor?

Economy of scale and labor constraints as the cause of horrible productivity are both the responsibility of Amtrak management.  What incentive has Amtrak management had to improve either?  Almost none, so Amtrak remains a mess.  Lousy productivity is lousy productivity regardless of the cause.

[TomDiehl]

As I also said above, no doubt the cost of maintaining passenger equipment is higher than that of freight equipment. Of much less doubt is that a freight diesel-electric locomotive has any significantly different maintenance requirements than a diesel-electric passenger locomotive.

Exactly what I was saying. However, trying to compare the the number of maintenance people that work for a freight railroad to the number that work for a passenger railroad is not valid because the jobs they do and the parts that need to be maintained are too different.

The locomotives for either type railroad are fairly similar, but the numbers Oltmand was quoting did not break down loco and car maintenance personnel numbers.

Then you can project the numbers another step: if the number of trains that either one operated was to double, would the number of maintenance people also double? Is the current numbers because of the different jobs they need to do, the number of locations they need to support with maintenance, or the quantity of cars and locos they have to maintain? His comparison was based strictly on the quantity part of the question.

So, what all those Amtrak Mechanical folk are doing is "not much" but you believe it's all about economy of scale and craft division of labor?

Economy of scale and labor constraints as the cause of horrible productivity are both the responsibility of Amtrak management.  What incentive has Amtrak management had to improve either?  Almost none, so Amtrak remains a mess.  Lousy productivity is lousy productivity regardless of the cause.

You still don't get it.

It's about your flawed comparison of a freight railroad to a passenger railroad and the maintenance requirements of each.

I never said that I thought Amtrak's maintenance Department was properly staffed, over staffed, or understaffed. I simply stated the comparison of the job the two have to do is so different, any comparison of that type is invalid.

[oltmannd]

As I also said above, no doubt the cost of maintaining passenger equipment is higher than that of freight equipment. Of much less doubt is that a freight diesel-electric locomotive has any significantly different maintenance requirements than a diesel-electric passenger locomotive.

Exactly what I was saying. However, trying to compare the the number of maintenance people that work for a freight railroad to the number that work for a passenger railroad is not valid because the jobs they do and the parts that need to be maintained are too different.

The locomotives for either type railroad are fairly similar, but the numbers Oltmand was quoting did not break down loco and car maintenance personnel numbers.

Then you can project the numbers another step: if the number of trains that either one operated was to double, would the number of maintenance people also double? Is the current numbers because of the different jobs they need to do, the number of locations they need to support with maintenance, or the quantity of cars and locos they have to maintain? His comparison was based strictly on the quantity part of the question.

So, what all those Amtrak Mechanical folk are doing is "not much" but you believe it's all about economy of scale and craft division of labor?

Economy of scale and labor constraints as the cause of horrible productivity are both the responsibility of Amtrak management.  What incentive has Amtrak management had to improve either?  Almost none, so Amtrak remains a mess.  Lousy productivity is lousy productivity regardless of the cause.

You still don't get it.

It's about your flawed comparison of a freight railroad to a passenger railroad and the maintenance requirements of each.

I never said that I thought Amtrak's maintenance Department was properly staffed, over staffed, or understaffed. I simply stated the comparison of the job the two have to do is so different, any comparison of that type is invalid.

OK, if that's what you want to believe. 

I'm sure my use of the English language is a bit different than yours, so I'm sure we can't communicate at all. 

[TomDiehl]

As I also said above, no doubt the cost of maintaining passenger equipment is higher than that of freight equipment. Of much less doubt is that a freight diesel-electric locomotive has any significantly different maintenance requirements than a diesel-electric passenger locomotive.

Exactly what I was saying. However, trying to compare the the number of maintenance people that work for a freight railroad to the number that work for a passenger railroad is not valid because the jobs they do and the parts that need to be maintained are too different.

The locomotives for either type railroad are fairly similar, but the numbers Oltmand was quoting did not break down loco and car maintenance personnel numbers.

Then you can project the numbers another step: if the number of trains that either one operated was to double, would the number of maintenance people also double? Is the current numbers because of the different jobs they need to do, the number of locations they need to support with maintenance, or the quantity of cars and locos they have to maintain? His comparison was based strictly on the quantity part of the question.

So, what all those Amtrak Mechanical folk are doing is "not much" but you believe it's all about economy of scale and craft division of labor?

Economy of scale and labor constraints as the cause of horrible productivity are both the responsibility of Amtrak management.  What incentive has Amtrak management had to improve either?  Almost none, so Amtrak remains a mess.  Lousy productivity is lousy productivity regardless of the cause.

You still don't get it.

It's about your flawed comparison of a freight railroad to a passenger railroad and the maintenance requirements of each.

I never said that I thought Amtrak's maintenance Department was properly staffed, over staffed, or understaffed. I simply stated the comparison of the job the two have to do is so different, any comparison of that type is invalid.

OK, if that's what you want to believe. 

I'm sure my use of the English language is a bit different than yours, so I'm sure we can't communicate at all. 

When people use the term "in comparison," the reader is led to believe that they are comparing one thing to another.

[oltmannd]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

[TomDiehl]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

[oltmannd]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

My whole point was based on a comparison between a locomotive and passenger car.  Michaels's numbers put the equivalent at 3 passenger cars = 1 locomotive, so my comparsion was more than valid (if that can be).  That NS had any workers left over to do any frt car work was "gravy", or "whipped cream and an cherry" or whatever you'd like add to the top.

A freight car is not like a passenger car.  You can quote me.  Happy now?  I am.

 

[TomDiehl]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

My whole point was based on a comparison between a locomotive and passenger car.  Michaels's numbers put the equivalent at 3 passenger cars = 1 locomotive, so my comparsion was more than valid (if that can be).  That NS had any workers left over to do any frt car work was "gravy", or "whipped cream and an cherry" or whatever you'd like add to the top.

A freight car is not like a passenger car.  You can quote me.  Happy now?  I am.

 

You're right, your comparison isn't valid. Nice to see you have your doubts.

And comparing the maintenance on locomotives to passenger cars? Since we're pulling numbers out of our butts, how about 27:1?

[oltmannd]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

My whole point was based on a comparison between a locomotive and passenger car.  Michaels's numbers put the equivalent at 3 passenger cars = 1 locomotive, so my comparsion was more than valid (if that can be).  That NS had any workers left over to do any frt car work was "gravy", or "whipped cream and an cherry" or whatever you'd like add to the top.

A freight car is not like a passenger car.  You can quote me.  Happy now?  I am.

 

You're right, your comparison isn't valid. Nice to see you have your doubts.

And comparing the maintenance on locomotives to passenger cars? Since we're pulling numbers out of our butts, how about 27:1?

No doubts.  Real sources.  Real experience.  Real education.

[Paul Milenkovic]

Any critique of Amtrak from any quarter gets some of us in the passenger-train advocacy community to circle the wagons as it were.

There was a time when the whole lot -- corridors, commuter, LD passenger -- were taken care of privately, though there too was subsidy in the form of the railroad companies carrying passengers at a loss and cross-subsidized by the freight side of the business either out of legal responsibility under ICC regs or to maintain the corporate image as in Sante Fe maintaining high standards for their Western trains.

At one time C&NW was running those Chicago commuter trains without any public subsidy and these days Metra has something like a 200 percent operating ratio, and the financing of rolling stock is off the books because they regard the provision of cars and locomotives as "gifts" provided to them by whoever funds the grant.  And I don't see evidence of "featherbedding" because as far as I can tell Metra is running longer trains with fewer crew than in the C&NW days.  But something has changed about the economics of all of that.

No one is accusing any Amtrak employee of slacking as I am sure they are dedicated and hard working and if there are issues with productivity, it is a question about how the business is run rather than the responsibility of workers low down on the chain of command.

In seeking out interesting things to do, I have been reading through stacks of old Trains from the 50's and 60's at the Wisconsin State Historical Society, which has an excellent railroads collection of books and other periodicals.  It seems that all of these same argument were made some 50 years ago when the railroads made one last generational update in locomotives (Diesel -- private railroad passenger power really only made it through first-generation Diesels, with a smattering of 2nd gen power in the SDP35-40-45's, the FP45s, U28-30CGs) and passenger cars ("lightweight" 4-axle streamliners -- the Amtrak Heritage fleet with much of it that is still running now in Canada).

Here we are 50 years later, and Amtrak is creaking along, at the brink of collapse in some people's estimation, and we are going through all of the same arguments -- what is the role for passenger trains in light of cars, buses, and airplanes, what public purpose is served by subsidy for trains, what is a reasonable rate of subsidy.  We are kind of in the 2nd Generation of the Passenger Train Crisis.

This thread was started in response to Senate debate and then passage of Lautenberg-Lott by a thumping 70-30 vote.  Senator John Sununu was castigated on this thread for "playing politics" with Amtrak for opening up the issue of the high rates of per passenger subsidy attributed to Western LD trains, but I guess his point of view didn't carry the day.  The House has to yet vote, and the President needs to sign, and while the President has a general anti-Amtrak stance, the final outcome will probably depend on whether votes are strong enough to sustain veto overrides along with how the legislation is bundled and the general horse-trading that is politics.

Given the balance of loyalties in Washington and given the high price of oil and everything, we are probably as close to getting Lautenberg-Lott as we have been in a long while and getting a not-enormous but significant capital infusion (which the advocacy community endorses) along with some formulaic oversight and "accountability" (which the advocacy community looks upon with a jaundiced eye).  If this money goes through, this may prove Amtrak's swan song as it were. 

This is it people -- the 18 billion over 6 years or whatever amount of money it is or gets whittled down to.  The combination of the high oil prices with the political votes with the much-needed capital spending is what Amtrak is going to get to do its stuff and make an impression on people.  The train advocacy community deeply believes in the inherent goodness of trains but the average person out there needs convincing by real-life experience.  If Amtrak doesn't achieve enough "bang-for-the-buck", after 6 years, I don't think there will be third and fourth chances.

[TomDiehl]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

My whole point was based on a comparison between a locomotive and passenger car.  Michaels's numbers put the equivalent at 3 passenger cars = 1 locomotive, so my comparsion was more than valid (if that can be).  That NS had any workers left over to do any frt car work was "gravy", or "whipped cream and an cherry" or whatever you'd like add to the top.

A freight car is not like a passenger car.  You can quote me.  Happy now?  I am.

 

You're right, your comparison isn't valid. Nice to see you have your doubts.

And comparing the maintenance on locomotives to passenger cars? Since we're pulling numbers out of our butts, how about 27:1?

No doubts.  Real sources.  Real experience.  Real education.

But not based on science or statistical methodology.

[oltmannd]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

My whole point was based on a comparison between a locomotive and passenger car.  Michaels's numbers put the equivalent at 3 passenger cars = 1 locomotive, so my comparsion was more than valid (if that can be).  That NS had any workers left over to do any frt car work was "gravy", or "whipped cream and an cherry" or whatever you'd like add to the top.

A freight car is not like a passenger car.  You can quote me.  Happy now?  I am.

 

You're right, your comparison isn't valid. Nice to see you have your doubts.

And comparing the maintenance on locomotives to passenger cars? Since we're pulling numbers out of our butts, how about 27:1?

No doubts.  Real sources.  Real experience.  Real education.

But not based on science or statistical methodology.

Oh, yes it is.

[TomDiehl]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

My whole point was based on a comparison between a locomotive and passenger car.  Michaels's numbers put the equivalent at 3 passenger cars = 1 locomotive, so my comparsion was more than valid (if that can be).  That NS had any workers left over to do any frt car work was "gravy", or "whipped cream and an cherry" or whatever you'd like add to the top.

A freight car is not like a passenger car.  You can quote me.  Happy now?  I am.

 

You're right, your comparison isn't valid. Nice to see you have your doubts.

And comparing the maintenance on locomotives to passenger cars? Since we're pulling numbers out of our butts, how about 27:1?

No doubts.  Real sources.  Real experience.  Real education.

But not based on science or statistical methodology.

Oh, yes it is.

And what would that be?

[oltmannd]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

My whole point was based on a comparison between a locomotive and passenger car.  Michaels's numbers put the equivalent at 3 passenger cars = 1 locomotive, so my comparsion was more than valid (if that can be).  That NS had any workers left over to do any frt car work was "gravy", or "whipped cream and an cherry" or whatever you'd like add to the top.

A freight car is not like a passenger car.  You can quote me.  Happy now?  I am.

 

You're right, your comparison isn't valid. Nice to see you have your doubts.

And comparing the maintenance on locomotives to passenger cars? Since we're pulling numbers out of our butts, how about 27:1?

No doubts.  Real sources.  Real experience.  Real education.

But not based on science or statistical methodology.

Oh, yes it is.

And what would that be?

All the above!

[TomDiehl]

And, so, I made a comparison between Amtrak and NS's Mechanical Dept staffing and Michael made one with BN's, which we believe to be valid.

You disagree with the comparison, but offer no opinion one way or the other on the conclusion.

cest la vie.

No, obviously you're reading what you want to see.

To repeat:

I guess you're trying to tell us that the work and personnel required to maintain a freight car is the same as required to maintain a passenger car.

After I pointed out this part of the discussion, Michael didn't dispute it.

My whole point was based on a comparison between a locomotive and passenger car.  Michaels's numbers put the equivalent at 3 passenger cars = 1 locomotive, so my comparsion was more than valid (if that can be).  That NS had any workers left over to do any frt car work was "gravy", or "whipped cream and an cherry" or whatever you'd like add to the top.

A freight car is not like a passenger car.  You can quote me.  Happy now?  I am.

 

You're right, your comparison isn't valid. Nice to see you have your doubts.

And comparing the maintenance on locomotives to passenger cars? Since we're pulling numbers out of our butts, how about 27:1?

No doubts.  Real sources.  Real experience.  Real education.

But not based on science or statistical methodology.

Oh, yes it is.

And what would that be?

All the above!

So my figure of 27 to 1 is just a valid as your figure of 3 to 1 because we both pulled them out of our butts.

[MichaelSol]

So my figure of 27 to 1 is just a valid as your figure of 3 to 1 because we both pulled them out of our butts.

Whoa. Don took a careful, conservative approach, equating the maintenance costs of a diesel-electric locomotive with that of a railroad passenger car. He knows its better than that, but for the sake of argument, it has to be hard to say that a railroad passenger car unit costs more than an operating power unit for all sorts of practical reasons, and so he went with 1:1.

I derived the 3-1 ratio, and I derived it from the Statistics of Railway of the United States. These are large bound volumes of data generated by the ICC, using ICC accounting, based on annual ICC reports of the railroads of the United States. Due to their size, I cannot fit the Statistics of Railways of the United States anywhere but on the bookshelf and so they were "pulled" from no other location.

 

[TomDiehl]

So my figure of 27 to 1 is just a valid as your figure of 3 to 1 because we both pulled them out of our butts.

Whoa. Don took a careful, conservative approach, equating the maintenance costs of a diesel-electric locomotive with that of a railroad passenger car. He knows its better than that, but for the sake of argument, it has to be hard to say that a railroad passenger costs more than an operating power unit for all sorts of practical reasons, and so he went with 1:1.

I derived the 3-1 ratio, and I derived it from the Statistics of Railway of the United States. These are large bound volumes of data generated by the ICC, using ICC accounting, based on annual ICC reports of the railroads of the United States. Due to their size, I cannot fit the Statistics of Railways of the United States anywhere but on the bookshelf and so they were "pulled" from no other location.

 

Don's original statement (comparing the raw figures of cars vs. number of maintenance personnel) was anything but "careful" or "conservative." It was simply meant to belittle the job Amtrak is doing. His outlandish comparison made it easy to call him on that one. Then changing it to locomotives vs. passenger cars was just as bad. Funny, if you read the post above yours, He seems to be taking credit for the 3 to 1 figure.

Comparing historical data has several flaws of its own, making separation of figures difficult, especially for the reporting railroads:

1. Pre-Amtrak, the railroads didn't have completely separate facilities for maintaining freight and passenger cars.

2. Due to their similarity, the locomotives were definately maintained in the same facilities.

But comparing the cost of maintaining a locomotive to that of a passenger car is so far out in left field it's laughable. The similarity ends at the flanged wheels and couplers.

BTW, did the "Statistics of Railways of the United States" actually compare the costs?

[MichaelSol]

BTW, did the "Statistics of Railways of the United States" actually compare the costs?

ICC Accounting required the reporting of cost of maintaining all passenger equipment as a separate accounting category as well as reporting the numbers of such passenger equipment. In a similar fashion, the cost of maintaining and repairing diesel-electric locomotives is reported as a separate accounting category, as is the number of units being maintained/repaired.

As of 1950, these were mature technologies and improvements in costs of maintenance and repair since that time were incremental, not transformational, and represented the same kind of productivity improvements over time that all mature technologies enjoy as small improvements occur in service and technology: better gasket materials, improved metallurgy, improvements in bearing design, improved electrical controls, etc. Experience suggests that mature technologies enjoy these productivity improvements at about the same rate.

In this fashion, similar technologies become "linked" insofar as statistical relationships that can be used to examine the known cost of one technology, and derive the unknown cost of another technology. The validity of this analysis is established by linear regression analysis and identification of a correlation which identifies the reliability of the relationship.

In this conversation, I did not, in fact, have any idea what the relative costs were. So, since it is an interesting thought, I looked at the Statistics of Railways of the United States, looked to three separate years 5 years apart, compared the cost of diesel-electric locomotive maintenance to the cost of passenger car maintenance, and saw that Don's figures were very conservative, no doubt intentionally so for the purpose of discussion, and that the consistent ratio looks to be about 3:1. I did this using MILW Road's figures which looked to be a useful representative of Amtrak in terms of combinations of heavy commuter traffic, night trains, and long distance trains.

This process is called "substitution" and uses a "surrogate" to identify the probable measure of an entity that we don't have a direct measure of. We use "surrogates" all the time. For instance, the definition of a second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom, referring to a cesium atom in its ground state at a temperature of 0 degrees Kelvin. Next time someone asks for the time, defer until you can get the results from your particle accelerator at absolute zero.

Obviously, we use motors, gears, and ratchets to create a surrogate measure of "seconds" because of the obvious difficulty of performing, or even understanding, the direct measurement, which in turn allows us to fairly accurately estimate minutes, hours, and days. The surrogate is acceptable, and in fact preferable, to attempting the direct measure.

Industries routinely use "industry average" surrogates, through publications such as Dunn & Bradstreet, to assess the effectiveness of their relative performance. Amtrak is a toughy, since there isn't anything like it. However, we do have millions of miles of similar performance, using similar equipment, on identical territory, over a number of years. We have a current class of equipment which is related in technology terms to the Amtrak class. We have a surrogate: the diesel-electric locomotive.

And that is what I measured. Don simply added a generous measure of doubt in favor of the railroad passenger car -- he said as much -- thinking that it would reasonably provide an unchallengeable measure of the problems with Amtrak's equipment maintenance and repair costs.

Well .... I think it did.

 

 

[PNWRMNM]

Tom,

 

Your statement of 12/11 that "pre Amtrak railroads did not have completely separate facilities for maintaining passenger and freight cars" is not accurate.  In all the cases that I am aware those facilities were separate.  Think of Sunnyside Yard for example, all passenger.

 

I worked in the 'Coach Yard" in Seattle just before ATK took it over.  It was originally a joint GN/NP facility.  Did work only on passenger equipment.  Freight car repairs were done at Balmer Yard, 5 miles away.  This arrangement was typical.  Skills and supplies were very different as between freight and passenger and mechanical facilites for each were typically separate.

 

Mac McCulloch

[oltmannd]

Any critique of Amtrak from any quarter gets some of us in the passenger-train advocacy community to circle the wagons as it were.

There was a time when the whole lot -- corridors, commuter, LD passenger -- were taken care of privately, though there too was subsidy in the form of the railroad companies carrying passengers at a loss and cross-subsidized by the freight side of the business either out of legal responsibility under ICC regs or to maintain the corporate image as in Sante Fe maintaining high standards for their Western trains.

At one time C&NW was running those Chicago commuter trains without any public subsidy and these days Metra has something like a 200 percent operating ratio, and the financing of rolling stock is off the books because they regard the provision of cars and locomotives as "gifts" provided to them by whoever funds the grant.  And I don't see evidence of "featherbedding" because as far as I can tell Metra is running longer trains with fewer crew than in the C&NW days.  But something has changed about the economics of all of that.

No one is accusing any Amtrak employee of slacking as I am sure they are dedicated and hard working and if there are issues with productivity, it is a question about how the business is run rather than the responsibility of workers low down on the chain of command.

In seeking out interesting things to do, I have been reading through stacks of old Trains from the 50's and 60's at the Wisconsin State Historical Society, which has an excellent railroads collection of books and other periodicals.  It seems that all of these same argument were made some 50 years ago when the railroads made one last generational update in locomotives (Diesel -- private railroad passenger power really only made it through first-generation Diesels, with a smattering of 2nd gen power in the SDP35-40-45's, the FP45s, U28-30CGs) and passenger cars ("lightweight" 4-axle streamliners -- the Amtrak Heritage fleet with much of it that is still running now in Canada).

Here we are 50 years later, and Amtrak is creaking along, at the brink of collapse in some people's estimation, and we are going through all of the same arguments -- what is the role for passenger trains in light of cars, buses, and airplanes, what public purpose is served by subsidy for trains, what is a reasonable rate of subsidy.  We are kind of in the 2nd Generation of the Passenger Train Crisis.

This thread was started in response to Senate debate and then passage of Lautenberg-Lott by a thumping 70-30 vote.  Senator John Sununu was castigated on this thread for "playing politics" with Amtrak for opening up the issue of the high rates of per passenger subsidy attributed to Western LD trains, but I guess his point of view didn't carry the day.  The House has to yet vote, and the President needs to sign, and while the President has a general anti-Amtrak stance, the final outcome will probably depend on whether votes are strong enough to sustain veto overrides along with how the legislation is bundled and the general horse-trading that is politics.

Given the balance of loyalties in Washington and given the high price of oil and everything, we are probably as close to getting Lautenberg-Lott as we have been in a long while and getting a not-enormous but significant capital infusion (which the advocacy community endorses) along with some formulaic oversight and "accountability" (which the advocacy community looks upon with a jaundiced eye).  If this money goes through, this may prove Amtrak's swan song as it were. 

This is it people -- the 18 billion over 6 years or whatever amount of money it is or gets whittled down to.  The combination of the high oil prices with the political votes with the much-needed capital spending is what Amtrak is going to get to do its stuff and make an impression on people.  The train advocacy community deeply believes in the inherent goodness of trains but the average person out there needs convincing by real-life experience.  If Amtrak doesn't achieve enough "bang-for-the-buck", after 6 years, I don't think there will be third and fourth chances.

I guess it is the nature of the politics that NARP and others wind up being apologists for Amtrak and totally eschew the watchdog role.  That's too bad.  I think there is room for them to be both. 

I think that you may be right that this big chunk of change coming Amtrak's way might be their best, last chance to "get it right".

I did notice in the language of the bill that it is recommended that Amtrak put some sort of performance bonus plan in place.  I think that could help a lot.  Over it's history, Amtrak seems to make significant changes only when their back is too the wall.  Once the scare is over, they go back to busness as usual.  The latest round of threats have seen them cut employment from 22,000 or so down to 17,000.  While they have done this, they have grown their business modestly.  My, "back of the envelope" benchmarking makes me think they still have a ways to go.  A bonus plan that rewards all for overall efficiency improvements would help Amtrak keep moving in the right direction with positive "heat" applied within instead of the occasional outside threat.  No doubt there are many within Amtrak with good and honorable intentions, but it's not reasonable to think that many will go out of their way to "gore their own ox" or make their life more difficult w/o some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I wish that the GAO would do some serious, detailed benchmarking, or better yet, Amtrak should do it.  It would take some real time and effort.  The GAO's  "get rid of the diners and sleepers" study took the simple approach that the way to cut costs was to cut services.  A good benchmarking study would help find ways to keep and exand services while cutting costs.

..one can hope.