Hiawatha Study

[oltmannd]

My opinion is that lots of Amtrak and public transit projects are gold plated. There is very little push to try to trim costs. Need a station? Lots of concrete, curbs, landscaping, etc. Why not just a timber and gravel lot and platform? Don't have to design storm sewer and retention ponds this way. Don't bother with lighting or power if daylight operation. If you need a shelter, a couple bus-stop shelters will work. You can get operational much faster this way, too, so your investment starts paying back sooner. Get started this way, then build out as traffic demands. Same thing with equipment and staffing. The status-quo of the past 50 years seems to get baked in to every new proposal. There have to be better ways. Why to the on board service guys have to sleep on the train? Why can't the train crew and on board service personal share job functions? They do on the airlines. Why do I need a guy to serve me a soda and a bag of chips? A vending machine does that for me every day. Why do I need a commercial kitchen on the train when there are multiple commercial kitchens every 20 or 30 miles along the route? I'm not saying ALL of these are viable, but, with no skin in the game, Amtrak and the others aren't particularly motivated to even LOOK at anything.

[passengerfan]

I rde both the Empire Builder under GN and the North Coast Limited under NP , I akso rode th North Coast Hiawatha when Amtrak operated. You ask how the proposed North Coast Hiawatha loses time across Montana and in the state of Washington. The North Coast route is longer across Montana thethe Builder route nd would have more stops. The NCL was always slower across Washington as there route to Seattle from Spokane is much longer. The old NP route leaves Spokane ad travels to Pasco then turns toward Seattle via akima, Ellensburg and Stampede Pass. In NP days theNCL left Seattle about 2-1/2 hours earlier then the EB and both arrived in Spokane about the same time.

Al - in - Stockton  

[Dakguy201]

I should have put a link in my post.   Here:

 http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/PRIAA/NorthCoastHiawathaServiceStudy.pdf

[wjstix]

linkee??

[Dakguy201]

I took some time to read the Amtrak study on a revived Hiawatha.  The complete document can be found on their web site.

The start up costs are breathtaking -- $1.043 billion to be spent over a 5 years start-up period.  $619 mil of that is for track improvements, $330 mil for additional engines and Superliners, $60 mil for PTC (mostly in ND and Montana), $17 mil for stations, and $15 mil. for personnel related start up.

After that, Amtrak projects a $39 mil annual operating loss.

The proposed route would be the same as the Empire Builder from Chicago to Fargo, running about 3 hours ahead of the Builder westbound.  From Fargo, the Hiawatha hits Bismarck, Billings at 11:13 am the next day, Helena, and Sandpoint at 11:15 pm.  It arrives at Sandpoint a half hour before the Builder on the Builder's current schedule but continues as a seperate train getting into Seattle at 10:42 am the second day.  Just how the Hiawatha goes from running ahead of the Builder at Sandpoint to being behind it (on the current schedule) at Seattle is not explained. 

The consist is envisioned as 2 engines, a baggage car, a transition dorm, 2 sleepers, 3 coaches, a diner and a lounge car.

Beginning with the report earlier this year on the Sunset East, it seems to me Amtrak is gold plating their start up costs.  In this case, it appears in the infrastructure portion, which even included some work on the CP east of Minneapolis ($44 mil) and the BNSF between Minneapolis and Fargo ($24 mil) is especially questionable.  On the other hand, I understand the North Dakota and Montana portions are largely single track and used by a number of coal drags, so the provision of additional sidings and the elimination of ground thrown switches seems reasonable.

Has anyone else given some thought to this report?   .