110 mph is easy for Chicago-Saint Louis; but only compounds the problems with growing peak suburban services and the need for more frequent peak Hiawatha service. As it is, 79-mph Hiawathas catch up with Metra trains and limit line capacity.
The Hiawathas #330 and #339 are scheduled for 10 and 5 additional minutes despite no additional stops. How much of these differences are allowances for running around and not passing a Metra train at a station is not readily apparent. The basic 92-minute schedule allows 5 minutes padding for an unhindered trip.
110-mph Hiawathas would expand the size of the service window that is needed, reducing capacity for Metra without major investment in adding a third main. Adding a third track takes more than some grading and drainage; there are bridges, signals and crossovers, more grade separations just for safety for rising train volume, and relocating crossing signals and outbound platforms and shelters. While $270 million for triple-tracking affords some benefit for expanding Metra express services, the prime beneficiary would be an expanded, faster Hiawatha service.
In addition, the Hiawatha already is faster than the auto throughout most of the day. Where the train begins to lose competitiveness is in the time waiting for a departure or early arrival, and in arrivals too late and departures too early for the purpose of the travel. The current Hiawatha schedule mitigates this with relatively convenient schedules to serve time-sensitive mid-morning, mid-day, early afternoon, and late afternoon markets.
Concurrently, Canadian Pacific probably does not like being shut out during the peaks, as many as six hours and would like a third track from Techny to Rondout. In preliminary discussions, CP is asking for substantial capacity improvements for hourly 79-mph service; and Amtrak doesn't want to sour a good working partnership.
For these reasons, I believe combined peak 79-mph Hiawatha-Metra outer zone/skip-stop express trains would more fully utilize capacity and share costs offsetting the additional Metra car-miles, possibly reducing or deferring the need for a third track. Slower service with additional suburban stops still would be as fast as driving; and half-hourly service reduces the wait time and reaches underserved and unserved markets.
Samantha wrote: Competition tends to produce a better outcome. One of Amtrak's problems, it appears, is a lack of any passenger rail competition.
Competition tends to produce a better outcome. One of Amtrak's problems, it appears, is a lack of any passenger rail competition.
I don't think the lack of competing rail matters as much as the enormous competition from the other transportation modes
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
In addition to the Los Angeles-San Francisco HSR core; how much more bang for the buck could be achieved extending service north from San Jose to Richmond and south, bypassing LAUPT, to San Diego with additional direct one-seat services?
Electrification of the line from Fresno to Sacramento may provide faster through service than through Oakland as well as partial HS running from San Diego and Los Angeles.
Time is Money, why would anyone, with a need to travel, other than a Railfan, ride for 2 days when they can fly in 2 hours?
The Railroads of the USA were going bankrupt running both Long Haul and Commuter Passenger Service in the 1960s.
The US Government formed Amtrak to take over "Interstate" Passenger Service.
States, or groups of States, took over and set up Commuter Railroads.
The Freight Railroads, without fleets of Passenger Locomotives and cars to run on government dictated high speed service, began to make money, lots of money. Even the US Government Freight Railroad, Conrail, after billions spent, made money. It was "Privatized", later it was broken up and sold.
Unless America was to turn to "Socialism", in this "Free Enterprse System", no "for profit" corporation would even bid on Passenger Service unless the Government would Guarantee to cover the losses.
All Transportation should have some Goverment support, Airports and Traffic Control, Highway Construction, Passenger Railroad Support. It is how you GROW a country, promote Industry and Trade.
Long Haul Passenger Service does not support the above, it is for Tourists, it might be better supported by Cities or States that would package the trips.
Commuter Service under the present setup seems to be growing underwritten by local Taxpayers.
Passenger Runs of 500 miles or less, this is the only place Amtrak belongs. This is where the Amtack Budget should be spent, developing High speed Corridors where densely populated Cities are close enought to provide a NEEDED Service. Remember, The Acela is only "First Class" and "Business Class", no Coach. The people in the Northeast know about it and ride it, it's there for them every hour, no long Airport Check-in, no bumper to bumper Traffic. Take a run from New York to Washington, ride in a clean and comfortable train, do business, interview perple, and be back in New York that afternoon.
Don U. TCA 73-5735
If ever there was a glaring hole in Amtrak service it is LA to LV. The traffic is bad on I-15 everyday now but Feidays and Sundays are out of the question. The major problem is the two states involved cannot get together. And the UP does not want any Amtrak traffic on tthat line.
Al - in - Stockton
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
oltmannd wrote: I tossed out this idea a while back, but I'll throw it out there again. Have Amtrak bid out the sleeper/diner service to a hotel/restaurant company. It actually would be a reverse bid, i.e. "how much do I have to pay you for you to run this business". The winner would get the lump sum and then get to keep all the revenue or at least some fraction of it. Lowest bid wins. Contractor sets fares, does marketing, branding, reservations, staffing, packaging, tours ...everything. Amtrak just promises a ride and servicable equipment.
I tossed out this idea a while back, but I'll throw it out there again.
Have Amtrak bid out the sleeper/diner service to a hotel/restaurant company. It actually would be a reverse bid, i.e. "how much do I have to pay you for you to run this business". The winner would get the lump sum and then get to keep all the revenue or at least some fraction of it. Lowest bid wins. Contractor sets fares, does marketing, branding, reservations, staffing, packaging, tours ...everything. Amtrak just promises a ride and servicable equipment.
I would do it a little bit differently.
Although I referenced the contracting for the long distance trains in Australia for illustrative purposes, I would get out of the long distance train business.
I would keep the Amtrak reservation system; it works very well, although I would bid it out.
I would provide federal and state incentives for city to city trains in corridors of approximately 300 miles. The trains would offer light meal service, but the traditional dinning car would be history.
Amtrak could take a lesson from Greyhound, which is a competitive business that has to respond to market forces. It, realizing that it cannot compete for the long distance passenger, has restructured its routes to concentrate on paired cities, i.e. San Antonio to Dallas, Pittsburgh to Cleveland, etc.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd wrote: henry6 wrote: oltmannd wrote:[ The other side of this line of thinking is, if Amtrak gets chump change and does even less with it, would anyone other than railfans miss it much if it was dissolved?Why does everyone assume that only railfans like Amtrak? There are thousand using Amtrak daily who are not "foamers" but real people needing public transportation. And thousands more would if it were availabe, frequent, reliable, efficiently operated and properly marketed. That's not a railfan foamer's dream, thats the outline of what should be Amtrak's business and operating plan.Outside of the Northeast, LA & SF, and perhaps Chicago and Seattle, who, other than railfans, even knows if an Amtrak train goes thru their town? 0.1% of all intercity trips are on Amtrak, and that includes the NEC, where 50% of the ridership comes from. There are 4.5M people in metro Atlanta. I don't know a one, other than RRers and railfans who know that:1. there is only one Amtrak a train a day, each way in Atlanta. You tell people that and they are surprized that there aren't more.2. the train goes to NY and New Orleans3. where the train station is in Atlanta, even though it is right next to the busiest road in the state. (I75-I85 "connector")I agree that there is a need for "available, frequent, reliable, efficiently operated and properly marketed" service and it's what should define "Amtrak's business and operating plan." But, does any of that describe most of the lines on Amtrak's map? No. Most of the lines on Amtraks map have "infrequent, only occasioanally reliable (and that begs the question of relaible to begin with...), expensive to operate, 1950's style, and invisible to the public" service.Would dissolving Amtrak (which is very different from eliminating all Amtrak service) help or hurt the cause of getting "availabe, frequent, reliable, efficiently operated and properly marketed" service" where it can be justified?
henry6 wrote: oltmannd wrote:[ The other side of this line of thinking is, if Amtrak gets chump change and does even less with it, would anyone other than railfans miss it much if it was dissolved?Why does everyone assume that only railfans like Amtrak? There are thousand using Amtrak daily who are not "foamers" but real people needing public transportation. And thousands more would if it were availabe, frequent, reliable, efficiently operated and properly marketed. That's not a railfan foamer's dream, thats the outline of what should be Amtrak's business and operating plan.
oltmannd wrote:[ The other side of this line of thinking is, if Amtrak gets chump change and does even less with it, would anyone other than railfans miss it much if it was dissolved?
The other side of this line of thinking is, if Amtrak gets chump change and does even less with it, would anyone other than railfans miss it much if it was dissolved?
Why does everyone assume that only railfans like Amtrak? There are thousand using Amtrak daily who are not "foamers" but real people needing public transportation. And thousands more would if it were availabe, frequent, reliable, efficiently operated and properly marketed. That's not a railfan foamer's dream, thats the outline of what should be Amtrak's business and operating plan.
Outside of the Northeast, LA & SF, and perhaps Chicago and Seattle, who, other than railfans, even knows if an Amtrak train goes thru their town? 0.1% of all intercity trips are on Amtrak, and that includes the NEC, where 50% of the ridership comes from.
There are 4.5M people in metro Atlanta. I don't know a one, other than RRers and railfans who know that:
1. there is only one Amtrak a train a day, each way in Atlanta. You tell people that and they are surprized that there aren't more.
2. the train goes to NY and New Orleans
3. where the train station is in Atlanta, even though it is right next to the busiest road in the state. (I75-I85 "connector")
I agree that there is a need for "available, frequent, reliable, efficiently operated and properly marketed" service and it's what should define "Amtrak's business and operating plan." But, does any of that describe most of the lines on Amtrak's map? No. Most of the lines on Amtraks map have "infrequent, only occasioanally reliable (and that begs the question of relaible to begin with...), expensive to operate, 1950's style, and invisible to the public" service.
Would dissolving Amtrak (which is very different from eliminating all Amtrak service) help or hurt the cause of getting "availabe, frequent, reliable, efficiently operated and properly marketed" service" where it can be justified?
Competition tends to produce a better outcome. One of Amtrak's problems, it appears, is a lack of any passenger rail competition. So the incentives to do things better, faster, cheaper are insignificant or non-existent. Competition could change that. One way to do it, perhaps, would to be to adopt, with adjustments, the model used in Australia.
The long distance trains (Ghan, Indian Pacific, and Overland) are operated by a private contractor over tracks owned by the federal and state governments. The contractor does not have any direct completion from other railway operators. But the contract is re-bid every ten years. If the operator wants to keep the contract, he had better meet the contractual performance standards. Having ridden all three of the aforementioned trains, I took away the impression that the service is far superior to the service offered by Amtrak's long distance trains, including the much acclaimed Empire Builder.
In Victoria, which is located on the Southeastern coast of Australia, the intrastate passenger trains are operated by a private contractor. Prior to privatization the service was poor. After the service was restructured, it improved dramatically.
In Texas the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) operates quite nicely, without Amtrak, over tracks owned by Dallas and Fort Worth. It is a commuter service, to be sure, but it is also an intercity service, although Dallas and Fort Worth are only 32 miles apart. It is an example of a good service that operates independent of Amtrak. Another example of this model is staged to open in the Austin area near the end of this year.
Paul Milenkovic wrote: But unless there is a concerted effort to define, market, and operate a rail passenger service in this country, the argument is all there is! ....The crux of the matter is that there may be an added 1.5 billion per year to "do some stuff" with Amtrak. What are the priorities?....
But unless there is a concerted effort to define, market, and operate a rail passenger service in this country, the argument is all there is!
....The crux of the matter is that there may be an added 1.5 billion per year to "do some stuff" with Amtrak. What are the priorities?....
The first priority is before that, it is to determine the priorities of transportation needs and applications. When that is determined, then you can start talking about how much money you throw at each mode, where, and why.
There's a nice chart in this month's Trains with revenue, ridership and frequency of the Capitols Corridor trains. Interestingly, the farebox recovery is now over 50% and the cost per pass. mile is 1/4 of that on NEC.
Maybe a template for the salvation of Amtrak?
The crux of the matter is that there may be an added 1.5 billion per year to "do some stuff" with Amtrak. What are the priorities? Do you concentrate on adding or enhancing operations such as the California trains, the Illinois trains, the Michigan trains, the Empire Service, the Harrisburg electric trains, or do you spread it around spending money on more sleeping cars and adding a Chicago-Florida LD train?
Or on the thread where Don Oltmann raised the question of priorities, the general sense was that the extra 1.5 billion/year of Lautenberg-Lott was unserious when we should be building HSR, which requires much higher budgets.
I am of the opinion that an extra 1.5 billion over 5 years can have a significant impact if it is spent wisely, although my concern is that the advocacy community is committed to business as usual and spending the money on more of same. You want a 110 MPH Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison-Minneapolis train with 10-trains a day frequency, or do you want more sleeping cars and more LD trains (Desert Wind, Portland Rose, Chicago-Miami, daily Sunset, New Orleans-Jacksonville)? Or are you going to be mad at "the politicians" for not allowing you to have both right now?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
henry6 wrote:Why does everyone assume that only railfans like Amtrak? There are thousand using Amtrak daily who are not "foamers" but real people needing public transportation. And thousands more would if it were availabe, frequent, reliable, efficiently operated and properly marketed. That's not a railfan foamer's dream, thats the outline of what should be Amtrak's business and operating plan.
I agree 100%
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Jack_S wrote: Well, sorry, but you may consider this political. I think avoiding some politics when discussing a government-subsidized service is impossible.Haven't you noticed a fact about the Democratic VP candidate? Perhaps he wasn't named when you composed this, so a reminder: he is Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. He lives in Wilmington and does not maintain a residence in DC. He rides Amtrak to work every morning and back home every evening.I believe that, if the Dems win the White House in November, Biden's experience with Amtrak will have a positibve influence on governmental policy towards Amtrak.Jack
Well, sorry, but you may consider this political. I think avoiding some politics when discussing a government-subsidized service is impossible.
Haven't you noticed a fact about the Democratic VP candidate? Perhaps he wasn't named when you composed this, so a reminder: he is Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. He lives in Wilmington and does not maintain a residence in DC. He rides Amtrak to work every morning and back home every evening.
I believe that, if the Dems win the White House in November, Biden's experience with Amtrak will have a positibve influence on governmental policy towards Amtrak.
Jack
henry6 wrote:[quote user=" "So, if Amtrak only ran one train a day, it would be OK because it's only 1% of the DOT's budget? The point being that Amtrak doesn't produce as much with their subsidy as the other modes."You've got the point wrong...the point is that since Amtrak's budget is only around 1% of the total transportration budget its inclusion is not going to sink a Coast Guard Cutter or close an airport or eliminate one lane of highway anyplace. Its so miniscule it is rediculous to argue about!
"So, if Amtrak only ran one train a day, it would be OK because it's only 1% of the DOT's budget? The point being that Amtrak doesn't produce as much with their subsidy as the other modes."
You've got the point wrong...the point is that since Amtrak's budget is only around 1% of the total transportration budget its inclusion is not going to sink a Coast Guard Cutter or close an airport or eliminate one lane of highway anyplace. Its so miniscule it is rediculous to argue about!
So, if the gov't just gave me $1B "just because" it would be OK because it's such a small % of the overall budget?
If any new long distance route were to be implemented, Chicago-Florida would seem to offer the better prospect in conjunction with regional corridor services. If for no other reason, one long-distance over-night train cannot provide an optimized regional service when compromizing for convenience to endpoints. Separate trains would be needed such as Chicago-Indianapolis-Louisville-Nashville, Nashville-Chattanooga-Atlanta, and Atlanta-Macon-Jacksonville.
Similarly, New Orleans-Orlando may be more viable with regional corridor services such as New Orleans-Biloxi-Mobile and Pensacola-Tallahassee-Jacksonville sharing infrastructure mprovements.
New Orleans was questioned as a hub point. Maybe the Crescent should extend to Houston and the Sunset originate there. This is a question for evaluation, not a recommendation.
As much as Houston-Denver-Seattle would make a great scenic trip, I don't think this should be a priority for limited resources. Luxury rail tours have not fared well recently; so this may not be a viable business model that would support long-distance service.
Kansas City-Texas would take state assessments of value and coordination. I envision overlapping multi-state regional services such as Oklahoma City-Houston, Bartlesville-Houston, and Kansas City-Dallas. I might suggest extending the corridor to the Twin Cities as well for northern Iowa and southern Minnesota.
I dare say capacity improvements would be needed to make the railroads whole.
I go back many years before Amtrak and see a poor route structure in many parts of the country that needs to be addressed and the sooner the better.
Of course it will mean large expenditures for new equipment to not only add additional capacity to existing trains but add new equipment for expanded route structures.
Of course in UP's case they do not want to see Amtrak in any shape or form operating on there trackage. Maybe we need to address this concern about to much capacity on given tracks and giving Amtrak preference. I for one do not see a problem in the present route stucture other than it needs to be expanded.
The Amtrak Floridian was doomed to fail from the beginning with the route selected. Instead why not resurrect the old City of Miami route the most successful of all of the routes between Chicago and Florida. And what is wrong with the Southbound and Northbound Crescents making connections with the new City of Miami in Birmingham each way to offer Atlanta and other points direct service to Florida and to the midwest.
Two other routes that need to be reinstated are the Desert Wind and Pioneer. In the case of the former there should be designated Los Angeles - Las Vegas cars that would set out and added to the southbound. I realize the train lost most of its passenger load at that time but there were good passenger counts going to Denver and Omaha as well. The Pioneer was the only decent service the major Idaho and eastern Oregon cities had that connected them to the east and Seattle. Besides if properly marketed the trip along the south bank of the Columbia River is worth the fare alone. And yes both of these trains should connect in Salt Lake City with the California Zephyr.
A truly neglected route is one that would connect Houston/Dallas with Denver then through Wyoming to connect at Spokane with the Empire Builder for Seattle and Portland. This would satisfy most of those living in Southern Montana as well.
Through car service should be provided on the Coast Starlight from San Diego to Vancouver or at least decent connections on the north end.
Kansas City to Texas needs to be brought back I don't know that the train needs to originate in Chicago like the old Texas Chief but maybe it does. That was far better service than Texas has today and was a faster route. If they want to run a connecting train between the Texas Chief to Austin and San Antonio maybe a rerouted Sunset from El Paso to Fort Worth than on to these two Texas cities may be the answer. I'm not sure that the Sunset needs to operate all of the way to New Orleans any longer. The government can not keep pumping tax payer dollars into a city that should never have been built in the first place. I'm not sure that the population will ever return to what it was and with the possibility of another hurricane in a couple of days how much additional damage will be done to the city. And does that mean that another evacuation will be called for.
Another route that should be considered is an Empire Builder connection to Winnipeg.
There is a lull in gasoline prices at the moment but it's not going to last. I for one cannot afford gasoline at $5 a gallon or more. I drive an economy car and still put $50 in the tank every two weeks. I walk to work both ways. I will soon be able to walk to a new Supermarket that is being built. I plan on buying a little cart I can pull to get my groceries home. I use the car for shopping and rarely for anything else other than visiting outlaws etc.
Car lots throughout the area are offering great deals on used SUVs and many dealers don't even want them as trades. They suggest to the car buyers they may have better luck selling them privately. Three very large RV dealers have gone bankrupt in the last few monts in are area alone. Not to mention that we are the foreclosure capaital of the country with an average 980 homes a month being foreclosed. And the forecast is it will only get worse. Many of these homes were purchased by people working in the bay area and they found it was cheap to commute back and forth but now that gasoline is so high they can no longer afford the commute and are having to let there homes go. But still they resist the alternative commuter rail services which by the way are running at capacity. The Altamont Commuter Express is looking for additional cars and diesels. Amtrak San Joaquins are nearing capacity so these commuters are losing there homes.
Enough of my rambling this morning.
HarveyK400 wrote: You don't want to be selling a lot of space for Iowa on a California train - Burlington, Mount Pleasant, and Ottumwa are enough. I would love to see service to Clinton, Cedar Rapids, Marshalltown and Ames; but the Zephyr is not the way to do it.The second problem is the UP is a very busy and often congested road, often with eastbound trains backed up across Illinois. If there is a problem on the BNSF, switching to the UP will not help. The better solution may be to expand Amtrak regional service on Iowa Interstate in conjunction with a feeder bus system. One proposal that has advanced is for an Iowa City-Moline-Chicago 2 round trip service using the BNSF from west of Wyanet. Eventually a Des Moines-Iowa City-Moline-Chicago and a Lincoln-Omaha-Des Moines-Iowa City-Moline-Chicago train connecting with the Zephyr could be added. Theses would provide the seats for regional travel. Amtrak is up against BNSF and Metra traffic getting a Quad City train into Chicago before 10am like the Rock Island Rocket. An Amtrak study released this year proposed a train originating in Iowa City in conjunction with an Illinois service and arriving in Chicago around noon. This is a more acceptable fit for the railroad and offsets the less than optimal service in Illinois. The Chicago-Iowa City round trip, a second train, could be extended to Lincoln.
You don't want to be selling a lot of space for Iowa on a California train - Burlington, Mount Pleasant, and Ottumwa are enough. I would love to see service to Clinton, Cedar Rapids, Marshalltown and Ames; but the Zephyr is not the way to do it.
The second problem is the UP is a very busy and often congested road, often with eastbound trains backed up across Illinois. If there is a problem on the BNSF, switching to the UP will not help.
The better solution may be to expand Amtrak regional service on Iowa Interstate in conjunction with a feeder bus system. One proposal that has advanced is for an Iowa City-Moline-Chicago 2 round trip service using the BNSF from west of Wyanet. Eventually a Des Moines-Iowa City-Moline-Chicago and a Lincoln-Omaha-Des Moines-Iowa City-Moline-Chicago train connecting with the Zephyr could be added. Theses would provide the seats for regional travel.
Amtrak is up against BNSF and Metra traffic getting a Quad City train into Chicago before 10am like the Rock Island Rocket. An Amtrak study released this year proposed a train originating in Iowa City in conjunction with an Illinois service and arriving in Chicago around noon. This is a more acceptable fit for the railroad and offsets the less than optimal service in Illinois. The Chicago-Iowa City round trip, a second train, could be extended to Lincoln.
I'm aware of the proposal to expand Amtrak on the IAIS (former Rock Island) mainline from Wyanet westward into Iowa (Quad Cities; possibly Iowa City and perhaps Des Moines). The problems I see with that (as much as I'd like to see it) would be the costs involved in getting the IAIS mainline in shape to handle such service. First, there would be the building of a new connection between the BNSF and IAIS at Wyanet itself. Second, I'm guessing that not only getting the IAIS mainline up to Class 4 standards ( again, just a guess here) AND the installation of new signals not to mention structures would be frightening from a pure cost standpoint. The IAIS certainly does not have the money to do this alone and knowing the stodgy tendency of the Iowa legislature over the years it would be no small miracle if they were to finance a huge chunk for the work involved.
No doubt that the former CNW portion of the "Overland Route" is simply clogged these days. I think a much more workable solution would be some sort of public/private partnership that might go a long way in easing this congestion. In fact, one solution at hand right now would be in western Iowa where the UP and CN mainlines parallel each other between Denison and Council Bluffs. WHY is it so hard for the UP and CN to get together on this to make a paired track possible?
Speaking of the CN, I would almost advocate Amtrak taking a serious look at extending any new service they may initiate someday between Chicago and Dubuque westward to at least Waterloo. In fact, if they were to use the CN's Iowa Division for new connecting service to Omaha and thence on BNSF to Lincoln they would find a lot less work that would have to be done - save for the segment between Tara and Council Bluffs.
We have one of the world's better freight railroad systems. Maybe that is the role of the Janney coupler and how they struggle with that link, screw, and spring buffer system in Europe. That network has contracted greatly over the latter half of the 20th century, but the current mileage what people had predicted in Trains Magazine back in the 1960s as representing a balance between traffic demand for primarily freight traffic and cost of maintenance, ownership, and operation. That contraction of the route network and the Staggers Act has helped railroads immensely. The freight railroads are no longer the subject of Conrail-style bailouts but are regarded as bringing in a tidy enough profit to interest the likes of Warren Buffet and others.
The freight railroad network is clogged to congestion with freight traffic let alone run Amtrak LD trains on time, but that congestion is a good thing as far as the railroad companies are concerned because business is booming and earnings are increasing. These booming railroad companies are doing things, they tell me, like triple track over Cajon pass, double-track transcontinental lines, the rail lines serving the Wyoming Powder River Basin, and so on. It seems to me the railroad companies are doing just fine charging their customers enough to pay for improvements to handle the increases in business coming their way, as they properly should as public corporations in a capitalist financial system.
I have been in advocacy meetings where this need for a public-private partnership to address a crisis in rail infrastructure was brought up. The tone of the discussion was that private railroads are unable to meet the demands of even their favored and profitable freight traffic and that public money will be required, and this will be the means to get the freight railroads to accept Amtrak trains and run them on time. Kind of like, as passenger advocates we have been unable to get what we want by any other means, so we will get what we want by these indirect means, to obligate the freight railroads in exchange for accepting public infrastructure money.
That the capitalists (the freight railroads) will be begging for the embrace of the socialists (the passenger advocacy community reliance on public money) out of necessity to handle the freight traffic seems like wishful thinking. The freight railroads seem to be doing OK-thank-you-very-much making profits on their freight business with which to raise capital for required expansion for that business. Public contributions to facilitate improvements to speed passenger operations will have to be treated as such and budgeted against passenger operatins
Los Angeles Rams Guy wrote:One thing that I hope does come into play that would be in Amtrak's favor would be more public/private partnerships between the government and the freight railroads that would aim to increase capacity in key corridors that would not only be a huge benefit to the freight railroads but would also allow possible expansion of Amtrak service in such corridors. Two prime examples I can think of off the bat are the Union Pacific's famed "Overland Route" mainline in the Chicago-Omaha segment (the former CNW; where the current California Zephyr really should be) and the "Joint Line" mainline (at least) between Denver and Pueblo/La Junta/Trinidad.
That is a very real probablity as neither has the financial resources to do it alone. Sorry, Capitalists. Sorry, Socialists. Each side has to embrace the other to survive into and thorugh the 21st Century.
I got 'em in the basement and in the office
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