A good example would be that Amtrak didn't try very hard to reform their dining car service until the GAO questioned why they had them at all.
How Amtrak reacted is one matter, but many in the advocacy community screamed bloody murder that GAO was even asking those questions. There is a sentiment that Amtrak gets a small dollar amount of subsidy relative to other modes, therefore Amtrak is underfunded, and until Amtrak gets the amount of money the advocacy community thinks is appropriate, questions about rates of subsidy or about dining cars or sleeping cars are all "red herrings" advanced by people who want to do away with trains.
I am thinking that the heart and soul of the advocacy community are the LD trains with the sleepers, diner, lounge. I mean hourly service, although at 40 MPH average speed, between LA and San Diego is quite the accomplishment, but who can get excited about a trip to San Diego on a Pacific Surfliner car? The high level of service and varied tiers between Acela express and Acela Regional is quite an accomplishement, but you ride from NY to Philly for a bunch of money in what is essentially a jet airliner on steel wheels -- many people are served by this, but what is the big deal to brag that you have been on the Acela train?
But to take a sleeping car West on the Empire Builder -- that is a journey, and adventure, a travelling experience to talk about. In contrast, what is the Hiawatha except a somewhat faster bus ride?
So the advocacy community talks corridors, high-speed trains, congestion relief, high gas prices, but our hearts are about the long railroad journeys. When these long railroad journeys are threatened, we feel threatened.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I think the diversity of viewpoints and opinions expressed thus far illustrate the complexity of the problem. Everything from food service to scheduling to track ownership to union rules affects the financial performance and marketability of a long distance train. Throw in a handful of political ideologies, personal needs and preferences of countless individual travelers, and a few armchair analysts, and you have a confusing cacaphony of ideas about what is "best." If there were easy answers they would have been taken care of long ago.
If I was running things, I would gather together the following people...
And lock them up until one of two things happens:
Mr. Toy wrote: I think the diversity of viewpoints and opinions expressed thus far illustrate the complexity of the problem. Everything from food service to scheduling to track ownership to union rules affects the financial performance and marketability of a long distance train. Throw in a handful of political ideologies, personal needs and preferences of countless individual travelers, and a few armchair analysts, and you have a confusing cacaphony of ideas about what is "best." If there were easy answers they would have been taken care of long ago. If I was running things, I would gather together the following people...Representatives from AmtrakRepresentatives from the freight railroadsProfessional transportation plannersRepresentatives from USDOTRepresentatives from state transportation departmentsRepresentatives from NARP, National Corridors and URPARepresentatives from the railroad unions.And lock them up until one of two things happens: They produce a blueprint for a national passenger rail policyTheir bickering causes the building to explode.
3. They agree, then reneg saying they are being misrepresented...
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Prior to the deregulation of the electric utility business in Texas, the utility executives 'knew' what was best for their customers. But after deregulation they got a shocker. They found out that in a competitive market it is the customer who determines what he or she wants. They vote with their dollars.
Missing from the team to hammer out a blueprint for a national rail policy is a cross section of potential customers. Including them could involve a significant risk. They might decided that they want something very different from what the so called professionals want. And it could turn out to be a shocker. It could also produce a better outcome.
Samantha wrote:Missing from the team to hammer out a blueprint for a national rail policy is a cross section of potential customers. Including them could involve a significant risk. They might decided that they want something very different from what the so called professionals want. And it could turn out to be a shocker. It could also produce a better outcome.
I would think that such group would make the effort to conduct a market study before they go out and start selling a product. Actually, professional planners take great care to establish public demand for rail service before they start building things. In fact, they have to in order to get funding. What I listed above, presented somewhat tongue in cheek, is merely Part I of a larger proposal I have suggested on other forums for years.
For the rest of the program, the group would be instructed to do the following:
I have run this past two professional transportation planners, one who headed a state rail program for several years, and another who has worked on rail projects in this and other countries, and both have said this is pretty much how it should be done. The most important thing is getting all interested parties involved in the process so that everyone's needs are taken into account. The "reform" proposals put forth in the last several years all tried to impose an ideology from the outside, without bothering to even consult with the players. And most of them only covered step 6. It is no surprise that each of these reform plans was DOA on Capitol Hill.
Conducting a market study is not the same thing as customer participation. In fact, market studies often suffer from the biases of the studiers and the "simplifying assumptions" that form the foundation of the study. The customers, of course, take no part in making up the assumptions, and they have their own biases. Worse yet, the current vogue in management is to hire young graduates, some with master's degrees and PHDs, who claim to be experts in statistical analysis and statistical test design. That they may be, but my experience in my last few years working for the Navy Department in Washington, DC, is that these study experts more often than not know nothing about the business at hand. So, bias and unfamiliarity with the operation equals a study that very poorly represents the desires and needs of the market.
Now, upper-level managers are not all conceited and condescending, but they all seem to have an overpowering aversion to consulting or working directly with users and customers. What are they afraid of? My guess is that they know that they have to have more allegiance to other stakeholders in positions to influence their careers.
When the electric utility industry in Texas was deregulated, my company ran focus groups for existing and potential customers. The participants represented a cross section of the adult public. The objective was to determine what they wanted in electric services and what they would be willing to pay for them.
The groups were facilitated by an independent facilitator who did not have a dog in the hunt, which is Texan for saying that he did not have a vested interest in the outcome.
NARP is not a bias free organization. It is a rail advocacy group. Its mission is to promote passenger rail irrespective of whether it is the best solution. As the president of TXARP put it, our mission is trains and more trains everywhere.
Ideally the U.S. should develop a national transportation framework. The objective should be to optimize the modes of transport, i.e. use what works best for the users in a given location. Frameworks are less specific than policies and, therefore, have a better chance of working. If the U.S. had a national transportation framework that required each mode of transport to stand on its own, without any subsidies, passenger rail probably would be confined to high density corridors.
Not to worry! This country is too big, too diverse, and too contentious to adopt a rational national transportation framework. There are too many people who have a vested interest in the status quo or their favorite mode of transport.
During WWII the nation's motto was "We can do it!"
Now, according to Samantha, everyone has their minds made up, nobody can agree on anything, so we can't do it.
I've tried to present a way we might actually do it, but the cynics say "We can't do it."
And its not just about transportation, it's also about health care, immigration, middle east peace, energy, the environment, and a host of other issues. Saying "We can't" tends to be a self fulfilling prophecy.
I'm not giving up that easily.
Mr.Toy, you process is fine, but I question if it would produce anything but more paper. Several of the states have started regional services in the past few years; and some of those appear to be successful. Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, California are all examples of recent start ups.
A state may choose Amtrak as the source of equipment and the service operator; and indeed may be forced to do so as a condition of using a private right of way. However, New Mexico is building a service that largely ignores Amtrak.
My point here his that the "a train in every town" approach advocated by NARP and what I believe your panel of experts would recommend has accomplished little in more than 30 years, while in the last few years the states have jumped in and begun to provide real services to real passengers. Top down planning accomplished nothing of note, but the bottom up approach just might be working.
Somehow I'm reminded of the Chinese saying to the effect that you don't really care if it is a black cat or a white cat if it catches mice.
The premise underlying the use of focus groups and independent facilitators is that no one has made up his or her mind. Moreover, it is intended to find out what potential users want and what they are willing to pay for without pre-determined biases.
Mr. Toy wrote: During WWII the nation's motto was "We can do it!"Now, according to Samantha, everyone has their minds made up, nobody can agree on anything, so we can't do it.I've tried to present a way we might actually do it, but the cynics say "We can't do it." And its not just about transportation, it's also about health care, immigration, middle east peace, energy, the environment, and a host of other issues. Saying "We can't" tends to be a self fulfilling prophecy.I'm not giving up that easily.
It's not that "we can't do it". It's one step upstream of that. It's WHAT should we do and why. And then, once we decide, it's HOW should we do it.
There is no doubt that we can do it. We just shouldn't do wasteful things in a wasteful manner.
Samantha wrote: The premise underlying the use of focus groups and independent facilitators is that no one has made up his or her mind. Moreover, it is intended to find out what potential users want and what they are willing to pay for without pre-determined biases.
The problem is, it is a "top-down" approach in that it appears to be an effort to create a "national policy" which invariably is a one size fits all, a Central Planning approach, even as it seeks a stamp of approval by including so-called user groups in its formulation.
Advocates of rail passenger service are, to me anyway, split into two distinct groups. The first -- old men for whom rail transportation represents a nostalgic memory of what once was a very good, comprehensive system whose cost impact on railroads was much less than they complained about and, with government support in the form of RPO (support for which the government received a service), may have even made a nickel here and there.
The second, "policy" planners who never saw a government mandate that they didn't like and for whom centralized rail passenger policy fills an ideological need for them, even as it may or may not fill a genuine national transportation need.
For whatever it's worth, effective rail passenger transportation service in the United States will have to rebuild itself, route by route, network by network, almost as it did at the start. Each project will have to be self-justifying either economically or politically at the local level. Inevitable price rises in fuel costs will drive these efforts just as naturally as can be. The key to this approach -- a "bottom-up" approach -- is that these projects will generate genuine management expertise. Each successful project will create an experience pool that each new project can draw from. And that is really the genius, but also the "market approach" that I happen to think promises success.
Piece by piece, a national rail passenger transportation system will slowly come into being as the result of rational needs. Amtrak is an obvious backbone and Congress needs to look at it from that standpoint. Much like the Interstate Highway System -- fund the backbone appropriately, and all sorts of commerce begins to develop around it.
The problem, and it is a big one in my view, is that the rising price of fuel will also generate increasing cost differentials for freight transportation in favor of railroads. As the rail industry gains increasing pricing power through the relative efficiency gains in a key cost -- diesel fuel -- vis-a-vis other transportation forms, rail corridors will simply be as full up as the railroads want them to be. The industry thinks it has congestion problems now -- "it ain't seen nuttin yet." This is probably the ultimate reason behind Warren Buffet's interest in railroads: the ultimate leverage of transportation cost -- fuel -- will from here on out leverage entirely in favor of railroads, and that leverage will continue to increase. At about $6.20 a gallon on diesel fuel, Electrification will become entirely cost-effective, but this will even further increase the rail industry's leverage on cost of operation compared to competing forms.
But, at those fuel prices, rail passenger service is also going to look mighty attractive as a cost-effective solution for moving people.
If there is a national rail passenger transportation policy debate, it may be less useful to impose planning solutions on how to do it, but rather, when freight railroads are simply full up, to attempt to figure out where are the passenger trains going operate? I suppose the railroads would be glad to sell the service at the appropriate price for highly expedited service, but the problem is that the cost of operation on a rail system at maximum capacity is 150% higher per unit output than the cost at optimum capacity.
And "optimum" -- measured by profitability -- is surprisingly low compared to maximum capacity. If a railroad really wanted to operate at maximum profitability, it would run about 9 trains a day on a single track mainline with 6 mile siding spacing, even as track capacity might be 33 trains per day. Filling up that extra capacity reduces profitability by increasing variable costs of operation, and railroads don't want to do that, so naturally the price charged for the service goes up, as utilization is increased. Unfortunately, it's passenger rail service that operates -- or will conceivably be operating -- in the high cost margin zone.
Add to that the system costs of a high priority train -- of any type -- and the cost of operation per unit output can exceed 200% of the cost of operating a non-priority service under conditions of optimum (minimum) cost of operation per unit output. What that means is that the cost of rail passenger service will rise correspondingly faster than anything else that uses the railroad, and will be considerably more expensive, relatively, than it is today.
And that's going to be a bit of a damper on things. A "National Policy" approach can put a terrific tailwind on these projects without necessarily having a rudder to adjust for rapidly changing circumstances. And diesel fuel costs are it.
Local projects can probably accomodate these changes more successfully and, as I say, create step by step the necessary management expertise to slowly put together a useful system.
Using focus groups to determine what people want and are willing to pay for is a bottom up technique.
I did not argue for a national transportation policy; I sugested a national transportation framework. There is a significant difference between them. Policies along with procedures tend to be rigid. Frameworks by their nature tend to be flexible.
The advantage of a national framework is that governments, i.e. federal, state, local, as well as private investors, could use a variety of incentives to promote the best transport option for the country's many diverse locales.
Samantha wrote: Using focus groups to determine what people want and are willing to pay for is a bottom up technique.
Not if they go into a "national" report, particularly in a democracy where funding comes from representatives at all levels elected to represent relatively local concerns. These people just don't read "national" policy white papers. Big Reports lack "focus" and elected representatives are hard enough to get "focused" on anything, let alone big reports about national transportation needs. Even if they understood what any of it meant. "All politics is local" offered the genial, rotund, ruthless gentleman from Massachusetts, and I think he was right on matters like this one.
But that's also why I think Amtrak is a crucial focus, simply because it is there, it exists, it is a tangible entity, and they have something to focus on besides a big report filled with statistics about focus groups. It can tie the successful projects together -- the backbone -- and itself benefit from each such successful connecting project.
Congress needs to be urged to look at Amtrak as the necessary template for the future just like the Interstate Highways, a "build it and they will come" approach; rather than the endlessly draining subsidized "service" that never seems to be able to make the promises it is forced annually to make. Rail passenger advocates need to control the language of the discussion and they haven't; they measure in the negative -- losses per rider -- and that simply needs to be eliminated from the discussion because nobody talks about that regarding any other transportation mode. Those modes understand how to talk, and one rule is to eliminate a discussion denominated entirely in negative measurements.
The terms of the debate needs to be changed, and a "national policy" paper aimed at a very large subject would, I think, detract rather than strengthen the actual efforts that currently exist simply by both diluting the conversation in too many directions, but also simply creating what is really just one more contribution in an overwhelming deluge of yet another Big Report on Something.
Focus groups have provided useful information for many multi-national organizations, including my former employer. They have also been used by a variety of governments. The information that they generate is only one piece of the data needed to develop a policy, or as I pointed out previously, a framework. Knowing what is important to potential users is critical to knowing if they will pay to use the system. Otherwise, you get a situation in which the "experts" cobble together a system that never pays for itself.
Focus groups were used to help put together the Medicare prescription drug program. It is not a perfect program, but it is a good start.
Showing the cost of a service may be perceived as a negative if the numbers run against the interests of the viewer. But I don't know a single business person or government official who ignores the cost of a service - government or otherwise - because they think discussing costs is negative. It may be unpleasant, but it is the real world.
Samantha wrote: Otherwise, you get a situation in which the "experts" cobble together a system that never pays for itself.
Otherwise, you get a situation in which the "experts" cobble together a system that never pays for itself.
That's why I think it works best at local initiative. Let the system build, bottom-up. I don't mind focus groups, but to attempt to use them to implement a national policy when, ultimately, each train has to respond to a regional or local need is where I can see the whole exercise screw up, since the focus groups are 1) invariably filtered through the experts, and 2) legislators still don't want to read Great Big Reports whether they are made big by focus group surveys or endless numbers.
I'm not disagreeing about focus groups, I am saying that the best ones are at that regional/state/local level.
Samantha wrote: Showing the cost of a service may be perceived as a negative if the numbers run against the interests of the viewer. But I don't know a single business person or government official who ignores the cost of a service - government or otherwise - because they think discussing costs is negative. It may be unpleasant, but it is the real world.
I am speaking to controlling the focus of the debate. And if the advocates start off talking about the negatives .... well .... you can imagine what the opponents will talk about. And given the attention span of the average legislator/representative, the debate is lost ...
I dont' think that advocates choose to talk about the negatives -- if the subject comes around to subsidies to Amtrak, many advocates are quick to argue "all modes receive subsidy", which a few of us believes misses the point that Amtrak might be expensive compared to what it produces in service.
If advocates talk about negatives, it is that Amtrak is "underfunded" relative to what our trading partners are doing with trains, or our threadbare trains are a "national shame." URPA famously has critiqued the view that "the glass is half empty" because Amtrak is starved for appropriation rather than "the glass is half full" in terms of what could or can be accomplished with the amount of appropriation in hand. Another negative is to place blame for delays on host railroads without considering what it would take to make it worth their while financially to have high priority trains run at high priority on their network.
As to the bottom-up approach, the advocacy community points to two deficiences. One is that if a train runs across state lines, it is notoriously hard to get coordination. At least for a highway, you can fund Illinois to build a highway up to the state line and not worry about what state the road is on when it crosses into Kentucky. So you have California and more recently Illinois doing in-state trains, but trains crossing a state line (Hiawatha) or perhaps even an international border (Cascades?) let alone the multi-state NEC are a different matter.
The other sticking point is the money, those "negatives" of pointing out the required expenditure that cannot be raised through private enterprise. States are somewhat limited in the money they can raise -- if they raise taxes too much business and people will migrate to other states -- but the Federal government is at least perceived to have limitless abilities to raise money. If the Federal government can't raise the money in taxes, it seems to have limitless powers of deficit financing and raising money through Treasury bonds. That too has limits and whether we have reached those limits is a topic of considerable political debate.
I don't want to talk about something to incur the Wrath of Bergie, but I cannot remember attending a single public or board meeting of the advocacy group I participate in where the "I" word that shall not be mentioned on this forum hasn't come up. "If we can put a man on the Moon, we can (fill in the blank)" These days its "If they can spend untold billions on you-know-what, why can't we have the train come to our city?" Personally, I think it is a grave mistake to tie passenger train advocacy into a much larger political issue that has the country very deeply divided, but I think the people who say these things are only thinking of the enormous amounts of money that can be spent at the Federal level and why are we only getting crumbs?
There is a mechanism for getting Federal gas tax money to pay for transit projects and numerous such projects have sprouted up. Whether they are a Good Thing is arguable as there are many critics of light rail, but at least a bunch of light rail projects have been implemented so the wonks can debate whether they are of value or if the money should have been spent on roads. There is no such mechanism to get Federal money for intercity rail, and with Amtrak getting enough money to creak by to do any expansion, you get the advocacy community complaining about underfunding of Amtrak.
I see your point about national studies. Senate Bill S-294 passed by an overwhelming majority to give Amtrak an extra 3 billion over 6 years or so to get some of these projects going -- I support this level of expansion and then evaluating what we got for the money. On another thread I talk about a National Study that is coming out and will get aired before Congress that "recommends" spending 350 billion over 40 years -- that to me sounds like a non-starter.
oltmannd wrote: Amtrak needs fixed.
Amtrak needs fixed.
Amtrak is just like all other rail passenger operations that exist in the world. A Public Service that does not operate at a profit. Expecting Amtrak to operate at a profit is an unreasonable expectation.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
We already accept the part that passenger trains are not profitable, not here and not many other places in the world that have them. The question is, how unprofitable? What level of subsidy is justified by the social return? Whatever amount of money it takes?
Is discussion of the operational efficiency of Amtrak off-limits to the railfan/passenger train advocacy communities because it is disloyal to the cause or plays into the hands of the Highway Lobby?
The passenger advocacy community has been saying for over 30 years now that it is unreasonable for Amtrak to be profitable or even to be profitable according to some set of rules (allow for capital grants but break even in operating cost). The response from the larger society, by and large, has been, fine, we will trim Amtrak. Presidents with a more "free market" or "laissez-faire" or "highways-rule" approach have been more aggressive in hounding Amtrak, other Presidents who are more open to public funding social needs have been less aggressive, but the general trend line has been decline in Amtrak route miles over time.
The Vision for Passenger Trains report has appendices talking about the amount of money that our trading partners are spending on trains -- it does not get into the amount of results in terms of passenger miles or highway/train/air split. France and Germany are spending 10 and 8 billion a year on their trains. Scaling up to the US population, that means they are spending the equivalent of our entire highway budget on trains. There are people in the advocacy community who think that is what we should be doing too, and that we are not constitutes a national "shame" (this shame argument is remarkably ineffective in persuading people beyond the confines the already-committed), and that we should have European-level gas tax levies to pay for it. Not going to happen.
Then the discussion shifts to how "France has the political will" and "the U.S. lacks the political will." Well, France is France and does a lot of things in that kind of way, and the U.S. is the U.S. does other things in another kind of way. France has 80 percent of their electricity from nuclear power -- it does things like power TGV's among other uses. Don't see that happening here any time soon.
BaltACD wrote: oltmannd wrote: Amtrak needs fixed.Amtrak is just like all other rail passenger operations that exist in the world. A Public Service that does not operate at a profit. Expecting Amtrak to operate at a profit is an unreasonable expectation.
I'm not expecting a profit. I'd just like it to be a bit less embarrassing to be an advocate!
Samantha wrote: If the Sunset were discontinued, the funds, presumably, could be used to improve existing corridors or help develop new ones.
Tha amount saved wouldn't begin to cover the cost of developing a 300mile corridor passenger railway. Keep the Sunset and the other long distance trains, make them run on time and encourage their use for vacations.
A recent article in THE JERUSALEM POST quoted a Continental Airlines executive as stating that NO USA AIRLINE IS SHOWING A PROFIT OR EVEN BREAKING EVEN ON DOMESTIC USA ROUTES!
Continental makes profits on its overseas long distanc flights and uses parts of that profit to subsidize its USA domestic flights. It believes it needs the USA domestic routes to act as feeders and vacation traffic generators for its overseas routes. (It promotes Israeli tourism to the USA very heavily.) It does provide meal service in economy on domestic flights. It does not want foreign visitors to the USA to get a bad impression of domestic travel.
It ownes its own ariline catering firm, hotels, and restaurants, and works with Israelil travel agents (as I am sure it works with travel agencies in other free-world countries) to sell packages that involve travling, eating, and sleeping "Continental" while seeing the USA.
Chafford1 wrote: Samantha wrote: If the Sunset were discontinued, the funds, presumably, could be used to improve existing corridors or help develop new ones. Tha amount saved wouldn't begin to cover the cost of developing a 300mile corridor passenger railway. Keep the Sunset and the other long distance trains, make them run on time and encourage their use for vacations.
During the fiscal year that ended on 30 September 2007, the Sunset Limited lost $29.8 million before interest and depreciation. Assuming Amtrak's annual interest and depreciation charges attributable to the long distance trains add ten per cent to the operating costs, the estimated total loss incurred by the Sunset was $32.78 million. This would not build many miles of Tier I rail in a year. However, the future value (FV) of the annual savings over time would.
The FV of $32.78 million for 30 years, using the most recent U.S. Treasury long bond interest rate, is $2.4 billion. Moreover, if the Texas Eagle, which is also a lightly patronized long distance train, especially south of St. Louis, was discontinued, the annual savings would be $27.8 million per year or $1.8 billion over 30 years. The combined FV savings from these two trains would be $4.2 billion. If all the long distance trains were discontinued, the FV of the savings would be approximately $31.8 billion.
Projecting the FV of savings over 30 years is challenging. Hitting the targets shown above would be coincidental. But hitting a range of plus or minus ten per cent from the target is probable. So we can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that elimination of the long distance trains would produce FV savings of $28.6 billion to $35 billion.
High speed rail projects in France, Spain, and Taiwan, which have been built largely from scratch, have cost between $24 million and $47 million per mile. But as I have said, one does not need to start with high speed rail. One can get significant improvements by upgrading existing rail corridors to handle more trains, reduce or eliminate bottlenecks, improve facilities, and buy new equipment. These improvements can make passenger rail competitive with alternative transport modes in relatively short, high density corridors. High speed rail, which is often times as much about bragging rights as an optimum transport solution, is not necessary in most instances. It is the SST of passenger rail.
The cost to upgrade existing corridors depends on the amount of improvement required. Amtrak estimates that it would cost $625 million to upgrade the NEC to shave 15 minutes off the Washington to New York schedule. The distance is approximately 226 miles; the upgrade works out to $2.8 million per mile. The cost to upgrade the Portland to Seattle line to Tier I status, including amounts already spent, is estimated at $1.1 billion or approximately $6.1 million per mile. This includes upgrading stations, parking lots, etc. as well as the purchase of new equipment.
The FV of the savings from discontinuing the Sunset Limited could build approximately 390 miles of Tier I line, assuming the costs were similar to the costs incurred to upgrade the Portland to Seattle line. If the long distance trains were discontinued, 5,213 miles of Tier I or 895 miles of high speed rail could be built with the FV of the savings. The high speed estimate assumes an average construction cost of $35.5 million per mile.
Most people cannot afford to pay cash for a house. This is especially true for first time home buyers. That's why they go to the bank for a mortgage. They are not expected to payoff the loan in a year. The same concept applies to upgrading rail corridors. The financing would be paid off over time. Thirty years is a common period. This is why I used the U.S. Treasury long bond rate; in fact, the FV of the savings from discontinuing the long distance trains might generate a considerably higher return if the monies were invested in higher yielding albeit relatively safe investments, e.g. high grade equities, corporate bonds, etc.
Amtrak has tried a variety of marketing incentives to boost the number of riders on the Sunset and Texas Eagle as well as all of its long distance trains. They have met with only limited success. Most people do not want to travel long distances in a train. They prefer to fly.
Less than one half of one per cent of the people who travel by commercial carrier in the United States choose long distance trains. This is the major reason why the long distance trains, whilst carrying a little more than 14 per cent of the Amtrak passengers, rack up almost 48 per cent of Amtrak's losses.
Samantha wrote: Chafford1 wrote: Samantha wrote: If the Sunset were discontinued, the funds, presumably, could be used to improve existing corridors or help develop new ones. Tha amount saved wouldn't begin to cover the cost of developing a 300mile corridor passenger railway. Keep the Sunset and the other long distance trains, make them run on time and encourage their use for vacations.The cost to upgrade existing corridors depends on the amount of improvement required. Amtrak estimates that it would cost $625 million to upgrade the NEC to shave 15 minutes off the Washington to New York schedule. The distance is approximately 226 miles; the upgrade works out to $2.8 million per mile. The cost to upgrade the Portland to Seattle line to Tier I status, including amounts already spent, is estimated at $1.1 billion or approximately $6.1 million per mile. This includes upgrading stations, parking lots, etc. as well as the purchase of new equipment.
Here in the UK, the Government has spent £8billion ($16 billion) upgrading the 400 mile West Coast Line from London to Glasgow, with more 4 tracking, new 125mph 'Pendolino' tilting trains and reduced journey times. As a result, the number of passengers on the London-Manchester (185 miles) section has increased by 40% since 2003 and the rail/air percentages which were 60/40% in favour of air in 2004 are now 63/37% in favour of rail.
As with all things you get what you pay for!
oltmannd wrote: BaltACD wrote: oltmannd wrote: Amtrak needs fixed.Amtrak is just like all other rail passenger operations that exist in the world. A Public Service that does not operate at a profit. Expecting Amtrak to operate at a profit is an unreasonable expectation.I'm not expecting a profit. I'd just like it to be a bit less embarrassing to be an advocate!
When it comes to rail passenger tranportation the mind set has to be changed to the point that it is viewed as a necessary public service with minimal regard to the cost....the same view as is being applied to airline. Were the airlines required to fund all the costs that are a part of air travel no air carrier would ever consider approaching the break even point. The fees that the carriers pay for airport operation and the air traffic control system at present are just token payments for the services rendered, and still most airlines can barely break even.
CG9602 wrote:The objection to Samantha's last post is that loss or profit of trains is measured in terms of the revenue passenger mile. When you quote these figure, Samantha, how did you calculate the figures per revenue passenger mile ?
Amtrak's ticket revenue per passenger mile in 2007 is the total ticket revenue ($1,519,130,000) divided by the total passenger miles (5,653,581,000). The result is $.2687 revenue per passenger mile. These numbers can be found on Page A-2.2 of the Amtrak September 2007 Monthly Performance Report. This report contains Amtrak's results for September 2007 as well as the fiscal year ended September 30, 2007.
During 2007 Amtrak's operating ratio was 1.45, which means that operating expenses were 145 per cent of ticket revenues. Accordingly, the operating expenses were $.3896 per passenger mile, and the loss was $.1209 per passenger mile before interest and depreciation.
Total National Train System Revenues during 2007 were $2,153,500,000 or $.3809 per passenger mile. Total expenses were $3,204,900,000 or $.5669 per passenger mile. The loss on this basis was $.1860 per passenger mile. However, total system revenues and expenses include items that are not directly related to operations, e.g. infrastructure management, ancillary businesses, federal and state capital payments, etc. These numbers can be found on Page C-1 of the aforementioned report.
These numbers are system averages. The results for the Northeast Corridor, State and Other Corridors, and Long distance trains vary significantly from the averages. The revenue to cost deficit is narrower for the NEC, which covers its operating costs and contributes to its fixed costs. The loss incurred by the long distance trains is much greater than the system average.
I don't recall discussing revenues, other than to point out that NARP frequently talks about year to year increases in Amtrak's revenues and riders. Unfortunately, it never discusses the costs, especially those associated with the long distance trains. Cost is the other side of the accounting equation. The key number, therefore, is how much it costs Amtrak to deliver its service and whether the revenues cover the costs. They don't.
Some commentators have noted that no scheduled passenger trains cover their costs. This fact is hardly the mark of excellence. They along with competitive modes of transport should be required to cover their costs, thereby creating a level playing field where passenger trains could compete in high density corridors.
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