Let me start by saying that I love passenger trains. I’ve ridden a lot of them, but I’ve got to be realistic about what those trains can and should do. I often hear about the train service available in Europe and it is great. But no one goes from, say, Barcelona to Stockholm on a train. That is about the same distance as Chicago to Las Vegas. They go between city pairs that are 200 to 300 miles apart and they do it quickly, conveniently, and safely. It is possible to travel longer distances, but you must change trains to do it.
In North America, we have a number of city pairs that make sense for this kind of high-speed travel. But, we run passenger trains between city pairs that simply don’t make sense. Realistically, the long distance passenger train is a land cruise and should be treated as such. Let some entrepreneurial group assemble top-notch equipment, establish appealing schedules and destinations and let demand determine the frequency. Again realistically, if anyone needs to get from Chicago to San Francisco for an important engagement, they will fly. And, if they really want to make the trip by train, they can likely find an appropriate cruise to book and travel at leisure from here to wherever there is. We simply can’t saddle a quasi-public corporation with the responsibility of making long-distance passenger service as luxurious, affordable, and convenient as the small number of long distance train riders want it to be.
As for those city pairs where trains should be promoted as the best way of getting between them, we need use the funds that are currently being channeled into the cruises to obtain the right of way and build the kind the high-speed infrastructure that we love to hold up as the ideal way to travel in Europe and Japan.
Hear, hear!! Some of us have been saying that about most of the LD train routes for quite some time. They make little sense.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Just a few comments, in my opinion ...
(1) Have you actually done some research, to say that "... no one goes from, say, Barcelona to Stockholm on a train."? I believe that you are not completely correct. While most passengers probably use the high-speed corridor services (I say probably based on logic, since I have not done any research), there is evidence, even to the casual observer, that there are long-distance passengers -- the fact that there are long-distance services in Europe! Not all trains in Europe are TGV, Eurostar, Thalys, ICE, Pendelino, AVE, and the like. In fact, just a few weeks ago, a new conventional (not high-speed) through train was re-instituted between Moscow and Nice -- not exactly "city pairs that are 200 to 300 miles apart ".
(2) I understand from Amtrak materials that most passenger-miles logged on a train like the California Zephyr are not going Chicago - San Francisco. Rather, there are people going SF to Truckee, Reno to Winnemucca, Granby to Denver, Omaha to Chicago, and the like. In fact, Amtrak has in the past had extra cars between Emeryville & Reno, and between Denver & Chicago. An Amtrak LD train takes passengers between many, many city pairs -- for some of which, it is the only public transport available. Not exactly "a land cruise ".
In a recent article in, I believe, Trains, I read that the Empire Builder has room for 300 passengers, but sells an average of 700 tickets for each trip. Obviously a lot of those 700 people are not taking the train from Chicago to Seattle.
I have taken the Coast Starlight from LA to Oakland, and from LA to Santa Barbara and back. And that's a route that could be sped up a lot by just improving the ROW and eliminating some scheduling glitches.
Inevitably the LD trains serve many intermediate stops. And many of these stops are hard to get to by any other means. Take La Plata MO. Either one flies to KC or St. Louis and take a puddle jumper plane or drives for four hours. Or gets off the Southwest Chief right in the middle of town.
Improve the speed and regularity of LD trains and many more will ride it on intermediate trips.
Jack
I bet that very few people take the train from Boston to DC either, but the Northeast Corridor carries more people every day than all the airlines combined. The secret? Fast, frequent, and on time.
As long as Amtrak runs one slow train a day, they will never be useful as transportation.
Trains are more convenient than the airlines and will remain so until the paranoid Department of Homeland Security brings their Gestapo tactics to train stations.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
The hypothesis for the past 60+ years has been that there is a niche for passenger trains in densely populated corridors and that service could cover it's operating costs.
In the 1950s, the RRs played around with lightweight trainsets to support such service. NYC tried with Train X in Cincy, Columbus, Cleveland service. There was the Aerotrain demo in NYP-Pittsburgh, the Keystone in NYP-WAS service and many others. None of these panned out, largely because the RR's weren't allowed to bail on the LD trains in order to support new, corridor service.
Th final stunt was the NYC jet propelled Budd car. The next day, they petitioned the ICC to drop their LD trains. The petition was denied.
Later, the Fed DOT bankrolled the Metroliner/TurboTrain NEC project, which was by and large, successful.
The creation of Amtrak envisioned a future where the original LD network would be pared down as new corridor service was initiated and that the surplus from the corridors would cover the operating losses from the remaining LD trains. Whether this was overly optimistic, we'll never know, because what happened at Amtrak was exactly the opposite. The LD lines on the map grew in the first decade in response to political pressure and no new corridor services were introduced or improved.
Some of the poorest LD lines were pared during the last Carter Admin years and there have been bits and pieces of corridor development along the way, mostly NEC and NEC extensions plus some west coast stuff.
Now, we're investing in various types of corridor development more vigorously than ever, in a wide variety of ways. The proof will be in the pudding. It's put up or shut up time!
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Thank you all for sharing your opinions on this issue. Passenger train travel is both a political and emotional issue. Neither of which bodes well for good decision making. I'm sure that votes have been traded for routes and that is not good. In my opinion, the threat to the entire Amtrak system is real and we are saddling NRPC's management with routes and issues that are detrimental to long-term viability. When Class 1 railroads were allowed to abandon under-performing lines many of them were kept alive by companies like MRL and KYLE. Those companies have figured out how to provide service that bigger roads couldn't address profitably. It may well be that getting to La Plata, Mo. may be in company with someone who has figured out how to do without the overhead of dining cars, sleepers, and high speed locomotives.
Jack_S In a recent article in, I believe, Trains, I read that the Empire Builder has room for 300 passengers, but sells an average of 700 tickets for each trip. Obviously a lot of those 700 people are not taking the train from Chicago to Seattle. I have taken the Coast Starlight from LA to Oakland, and from LA to Santa Barbara and back. And that's a route that could be sped up a lot by just improving the ROW and eliminating some scheduling glitches. Inevitably the LD trains serve many intermediate stops. And many of these stops are hard to get to by any other means. Take La Plata MO. Either one flies to KC or St. Louis and take a puddle jumper plane or drives for four hours. Or gets off the Southwest Chief right in the middle of town. Improve the speed and regularity of LD trains and many more will ride it on intermediate trips. Jack
While generally agreeing with you; I would argue that quite a few passengers drive some distance to or from places like La Plata, MO for whom the center of town has little relevance. Now taking the train to downtown Chicago is relevant because of road congestion, high cost of parking, and ability to get to places like Wrigley Field without a car in addition to the costs of gas and tolls to get there and back.
Dragoman Just a few comments, in my opinion ... (1) Have you actually done some research, to say that "... no one goes from, say, Barcelona to Stockholm on a train."? I believe that you are not completely correct. While most passengers probably use the high-speed corridor services (I say probably based on logic, since I have not done any research), there is evidence, even to the casual observer, that there are long-distance passengers -- the fact that there are long-distance services in Europe! Not all trains in Europe are TGV, Eurostar, Thalys, ICE, Pendelino, AVE, and the like. In fact, just a few weeks ago, a new conventional (not high-speed) through train was re-instituted between Moscow and Nice -- not exactly "city pairs that are 200 to 300 miles apart ". (2) I understand from Amtrak materials that most passenger-miles logged on a train like the California Zephyr are not going Chicago - San Francisco. Rather, there are people going SF to Truckee, Reno to Winnemucca, Granby to Denver, Omaha to Chicago, and the like. In fact, Amtrak has in the past had extra cars between Emeryville & Reno, and between Denver & Chicago. An Amtrak LD train takes passengers between many, many city pairs -- for some of which, it is the only public transport available. Not exactly "a land cruise ".
I quite agree with you. It's not just about the end points. Volume is generated by medium and small intermediate markets that have higher non-local travel generation rates than large cities. Ridership is weighted being found empirically to be related to the sum of the squares of the town or city pairs inversely related to the distance and time.
oltmannd Th final stunt was the NYC jet propelled Budd car. The next day, they petitioned the ICC to drop their LD trains. The petition was denied.
I don't know if it is fair to characterize the jet-powered Budd car as a stunt. The rationale for the jet was a quick-and-dirty solution for running a rail car at high speeds, to collect data on whether high speeds were possible with conventional equipment or if some exotic truck designs were required.
Perhaps a more exotic thing on the NYC jet-powered demo was the use of cylindrical wheel profiles instead of the usual cone taper. The purpose of that is/was to suppress hunting, which would be dangerous at high speed. Jerry Pier recently let on that the Amtrak Turboliners, used in the Midwest and on the Empire Service, had cylindrical wheel treads.
One problem of cylindrical wheels as that you rely more on the flanges for steering, although there are some flange-fillet profiles that obtain gradual flange steering without a hard contact. The second problem is the effect of wear -- the cylinder can wear into a hollow, which can be very unstable at speed. My understanding is that maintaining low cone-angle wheel treads requires a lot of frequent wheel maintenance.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul Milenkovic oltmannd: Th final stunt was the NYC jet propelled Budd car. The next day, they petitioned the ICC to drop their LD trains. The petition was denied. I don't know if it is fair to characterize the jet-powered Budd car as a stunt. The rationale for the jet was a quick-and-dirty solution for running a rail car at high speeds, to collect data on whether high speeds were possible with conventional equipment or if some exotic truck designs were required. Perhaps a more exotic thing on the NYC jet-powered demo was the use of cylindrical wheel profiles instead of the usual cone taper. The purpose of that is/was to suppress hunting, which would be dangerous at high speed. Jerry Pier recently let on that the Amtrak Turboliners, used in the Midwest and on the Empire Service, had cylindrical wheel treads. One problem of cylindrical wheels as that you rely more on the flanges for steering, although there are some flange-fillet profiles that obtain gradual flange steering without a hard contact. The second problem is the effect of wear -- the cylinder can wear into a hollow, which can be very unstable at speed. My understanding is that maintaining low cone-angle wheel treads requires a lot of frequent wheel maintenance.
oltmannd: Th final stunt was the NYC jet propelled Budd car. The next day, they petitioned the ICC to drop their LD trains. The petition was denied.
Next May we will "celebrate" the 40th anniversary of Amtrak. Pardon me if I don't attend the party. Amtrak,except in the Northeast corridor and to a lesser extent in California, has not improved passenger rail service in America one bit. Basically you either fly or drive. Even commuter rail is suspect. A friend of mine was visiting from Britain last September and I took him train watching. I wanted to show him the new Northstar commuter rail in the Twin Cities and took him to the Fridley Minnesota station. I thought that he would be impressed; instead he was shocked. Such an elaborate station for such limited service. He said that if his Member of Parliament proposed such a station in Britain for this limited service; HE WOULD LOSE HIS SEAT IN PARLIAMENT. Minnesota does not have the money to buy more equipment for Northstar, yet we talk about rail passenger service to Duluth and debate what route it will use. America will be sadly in 2030; in the same spot it is today in regards to rail passenger service; Behind the 8 ball!
aricat Such an elaborate station for such limited service. He said that if his Member of Parliament proposed such a station in Britain for this limited service; HE WOULD LOSE HIS SEAT IN PARLIAMENT.
Such an elaborate station for such limited service. He said that if his Member of Parliament proposed such a station in Britain for this limited service; HE WOULD LOSE HIS SEAT IN PARLIAMENT.
I think this is part of the problem... Why does a commuter rail station need to be more than timber and asphalt platforms with a graded gravel parking lot? The passengers are there for all of 10 minutes a day, at the most.
We do these projects all backward. Instead of identifying the benefits and then seeing how cheap we can capture them, like a "for profit" would do. We identify the benefits and then see how much of that we can spend w/o jeopardizing the money flow.
The last two posts have been on target. Passenger rail's biggest problem is lack of the profit motive in running the trains. Added to all that is that money is allocated to "...building a depot" rather than moving people from where they are to where they need to be. Or, to running 120 MPH trains that don't markedly improve the schedule because of the stops. Finally, in my opinion, government should mandate the desired result, allocate money to the appropriate agencies and stay out the decision on what the best way to achieve is. For example, spend $X billions to reduce air pollution and let the experts decide how to spend the money AND hold the experts accountable for success.
I don't think governemnt should be mandating anything. Let's look at a recent article; Amtrak is buying 70 new electrics because the HHP8's are junk. How much did we as taxpayers pay for those? I'll never get to ride behind one and enjoy my money. Even with all the governemnt safety regulations and building requirements, those engines were late getting into service and based on what I've read, have never performed up to requirements.
Private enterprise built that that sysytem. A private company designed what it needed to effectively perform a task and make a profit. Government intervention caused that sytem to crumble. The governemnt took over and hasn't been able to run it as well or improve upon it in almost 40 years!
All government mandates do is add to the cost and delay production.
Possibly on this thread I need to restate why I think some subsidization of long distance passenger trains is necessary and also what incremental changes I think may make them more relevant to today's North American economy and transportation needs.
1. Long distance trains permit access to the entire (or almost entire) NA Continent for certain elderly and disabled people, including veterans, who cannot fly or spend lots of time in an airplane, auto, or bus.
2. Needed for foreign tourism
3. A backup when air transportation is down and for emergencies like Katrina.
4. An historical asset, much as the National Parks, memorials, preserved military items, etc.
5. Linking together the transportation and congestion relieving needed high-speed corridor routes to make a national transportaton network.
Having defined the needs, here is the way I would conceive the system: A top quality first-class product in every way, designed specifically around tourism and enjoyment of the trip, with fairs appropriate for reasonably affluent middle-class Amiercans and foreigners to enjoy the sights and people of the North American continent. Possibly the Candian's first class service sets the standard. Meals included. Possibly drinks up to a point and extras as well.
A comfortable but reasonably spartin coach service on the same trains to provide basic transportation for the towns on the way that might otherwise lack decent public tranportation connectivity to the rest of the country. Box lunches, sandwiches, etc. Those who can afford it can move to the first class diner but would be expected to cover the incremental costs of their meals.
I submit that if the Interstate Highway system were privatized there would not be a need for a subsidy and all transportation costs would rise to represent their true worth. Air Lines would also be earning a fair return again.
The problem I've always had with Amtrak, is that for being government run, it's very undemocratic (in the democracy sense, not political party sense). It's logical in dense population areas like the NEC, to have superior service. The unequal access to service comes into play in small towns of equal population and economic significance (or insignificance). An individual living in rural central Wisconsin, along an Amtrak route, may take the train regularly to the major regional cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, or Minneapolis. This person doesn't like to, or perhaps can't drive. To them, Amtrak is the greatest government program since Social Security . Collectively, passengers such as this will exert pressure on their congressmen to retain this service if it is threatened. I recall such a situation some years back, when The Texas Eagle was targeted by congress. Voters from southwest Arkansas and northeast Texas testified before a congressional hearing, as to how vital the train was for access to Dallas. Last I checked, The Texas Eagle is still running.
The opposite side of the coin, is an individual living in western Kentucky.. They live in a small town not unlike the one in Wisconsin. The only Amtrak train stops 50 miles away, and comes through at 3 in the morning. It runs from Chicago to New Orleans, with Memphis being the only significant destination along the way. The nearest cities to the Kentucky passenger, are St. Louis, Nashville, and Louisville. Having a few hours trip to these cities by train would be as significant to the Kentucky passenger, as access to major regional cities is to the Wisconsin passenger.
If you don't live where Amtrak's darts land on the map, Amtrak is insignificant. Out of reach, and out of mind.
Long distance trains in the US are irrelevant to the majority of the population, and a waste of money. They are a throwback to the old Greyhound Scenicruiser and the oceanliner. For passengers with plenty of time, who just like looking at snow capped mountains or the desert cactus. Also in the manifest are a few masochistic railfans, who would live on The Empire Builder if given a chance.
I followed railroading intensely as a young boy. I remember the vast network of passenger trains, operated by the various railroads back then. You could get from one place to another by rail. Just like making connections on the urban rail systems today, only on a much larger geographical scale. The creation of Amtrak and my high school graduation coincided. I never had much interest in Amtrak, and have not followed the 40 year evolution of their route system. Looking at their map today, it is somewhat puzzling, how they chose the "token" routes of the long distance trains of yesteryear. So many routes were abandoned. There's entire states with no service at all. Many medium sized cities are also ignored. It just seems if you're going to have a national, government run rail system, it should be more inclusive. If not, then save the taxpayer's money, and don't have one at all.
We have a transportation system which was defined in the 1950's, and will be difficult to reverse. We chose the interstate highway system and the airlines as the intercity modes of transportation for the future. The railroads at the time, were given no incentives to develop new technology in the passenger service arena. Passenger trains were viewed as obsolete, and the name trains of the day, with some exceptions, were allowed to slowly decline into decrepit condition. If my history is correct, the Japanese were developing their Bullet trains in this same time period.
With the sad state of airline service today, unless you live in a major hub, a trip of 500 miles or less consumes about the same amount of time as travel by automobile. It would be nice to have a mode of transportation to bridge the gap. True high-speed rail would be a possible answer. But to do it right would require scrapping Amtrak, and starting from scratch. I don't see the will to do that. It's too political and nobody in the private sector seems to think it's worth the massive investment.
Airlines, high-speed rail, and buses, need to be integrated into a seamless air/ground transportation system. FedEx and UPS already do this with packages. Instead of airlines merging with airlines, and railroads merging with railroads, we should have airlines merging with railroads. Until then, market forces forbid an entity such as the airlines, from ever allowing any advances in passenger rail technology that would threaten their business.
Amtrak is a political creation that has drained the national treasury of more than $26 billion since its inception. Amtrak's long distance passenger trains are politics piled on top of politics. They require the highest level of per passenger and per mile subsidy of any form of commercial transport.
The number of people who ride The Texas Eagle between southwestern Arkansas and northeast Texas to Dallas or Fort Worth is very small. I lived in Dallas for more than 33 years. I traveled to east Texas on numerous occasions on business. I have taken the Eagle from Dallas to Longview and been the only passenger in the coach.
Most people drive DFW. Moreover, those desiring to travel to other areas of the country can use the good regional air service out of Longview or take a bus. The Texas Eagle is a political animal promoted by Senator Hutchinson, who by the way, to the best of my knowledge, has never ridden it other than as a stunt.
The future of the passenger train in North America lies in those relatively few short, high density corridors where the cost to expand the highway and airway systems is prohibitive. At a minimum, they should be required to cover their operating costs. Ideally, they should be required to cover the capital costs.
Contrary to the views expressed by many people contributing to these forums, users of the highways and airways pay for them, although not always directly through ticket taxes or fuel taxes and motor fees. They pay for them because of the large number of users who also pay federal, state, and local taxes, some of which flow back to the highways and airways. Only passenger rail, especially the long distance trains, requires an major infusion of taxpayer money from non-users.
As the one who started this thread, I must say that we've covered the gamut in these discussions. I think "Sam1" said it very well in the post above. I have a suggestion, pull up Google Maps and you'll likely see a map of the United States, not sure what you see in the UK or elsewhere. But starting with that map visually draw triangles between the largest cities on the map within in each region of the country. These are the cities that could be linked together by superior rail service. Let's say we link Chicago, Cleveland and Cincinnati. Every morning a train leaves each city bound for one of the others, ditto at lunch, and in the evening.
Let's suppose Chicago, Minneapolis, and Des Moines were connected. If you wanted to travel from Cincinnati to Des Moines, you do so by changing trains in Chicago. I think this logic would work most of the places east of Rockies. Perhaps there is one train a week that leaves Houston (or San Antonio), Kansas City, Omaha, and Minneapolis and goes west. If you want to go from Cincinnati to Denver, you may change trains twice and only be able to make the trip on Thursdays. But you could get there by train if you wanted to.
The key to a system like this working is to pick the right set of triangles and be sure to connect the apexes to right other triangles. You could end up with far better service where most of the potential riders live and do it with shorter, faster trains that would likely keep closer to their schedules since the longest transit between end points is 4 to 5 hours. Remember the competition is the interstate highway and the :90 flight that takes 4 hours due to security, parking, etc..
If you are planning one train a week you might as well save your money. It will be very lightly used.
To be useful transportation, it must be reasonably fast, frequent, and on time.
79 mph every 2 or 4 hours will be more popular than 300 mph once a day. Once a week would be a total waste of money and manpower. If the proposed corridor cannot support the frequency, then build it somewhere else.
Here's a point of reference concerning Amtrak vs automobile. I travel southern and central Illinois somewhat frequently. Both the old 2 lane highway and the interstate, parallel the old IC main much of the way. On the old 2 lane, 50 years ago, IC passenger trains would regularly blow by the cars on the road. Now present day, on the interstate, I blow by Amtrak.
Carbondale to Chicago, I can better Amtrak by 30 minutes, and for less money. Until that changes, passenger trains are a poor option.
Highway user chargers and gas taxes only pay for 51% of highway costs. The
general fund has been raided three times in recent times to make up the
balance. So that users pay for the entire costs of highways is a MYTH.
I also don't like the fact that the highway-only folks could care less for those that
can't drive, don't want to drive and for that matter may not be able to fly for
medical reasons. About half of what has been invested in Amtrak was for
capital. Capital costs for highways not made up by taxes is a SUBSIDY as well.
nyc#25 Highway user chargers and gas taxes only pay for 51% of highway costs. The general fund has been raided three times in recent times to make up the balance. So that users pay for the entire costs of highways is a MYTH. I also don't like the fact that the highway-only folks could care less for those that can't drive, don't want to drive and for that matter may not be able to fly for medical reasons. About half of what has been invested in Amtrak was for capital. Capital costs for highways not made up by taxes is a SUBSIDY as well.
Is the glass on tenth full or is it nine tenths empty? Your assertion that "users pay for the entire costs of highways is a MYTH" pretty much makes the anti-train case. By your numbers, the subsidy for auto travel works out to about 2 cents/automobile mile whereas the Amtrak subsidy is about 10 times as much, in excess of 20 cents/passenger mile.
Does the highway subsidy mean that train travel is entitled to whatever subsidy it takes, or are you suggesting that highways and trains should get equal shares, which would mean a 10-fold reduction in Amtrak funding? Should highways and Amtrak get equal dollar amounts of support, regardless of whether Amtrak carries many fewer passengers (see the Vision Report)?
I really believe we need to retire the argument that since highways receive subsidy, trains should too. I think Don Oltmann's suggestion is a valid one, that we should look for places where a train is more cost effective than perhaps and expensive highway-construction alternative.
Paul Milenkovic By your numbers, the subsidy for auto travel works out to about 2 cents/automobile mile whereas the Amtrak subsidy is about 10 times as much, in excess of 20 cents/passenger mile. I really believe we need to retire the argument that since highways receive subsidy, trains should too. I think Don Oltmann's suggestion is a valid one, that we should look for places where a train is more cost effective than perhaps and expensive highway-construction alternative.
By your numbers, the subsidy for auto travel works out to about 2 cents/automobile mile whereas the Amtrak subsidy is about 10 times as much, in excess of 20 cents/passenger mile.
I agree with Phoebe, Don, yourself and even sam1 that we need to look for short routes with fast (sustained speed) and frequent service of large population markets, which would eliminate proposals such as the 3C's in Ohio (at 40 mph) or the Madison - MILW route (one endpoint is too small).
But I also think the metric anti-passenger rail proponents use is misleading, namely cents per passenger mile. Some of the operating costs on a route are fairly fixed, whether it has 2 trains serving 100 people/day or 10 trains serving 1000+ people. Therefore, a true service (as opposed to running a train) will show a reduction in the cents per passenger mile figure, yielding a truer picture of the subsidy.
Once again, I've had trouble on this new fangled webpage copying the post to which I'm responding. But I have one other observation on the argument that "highway users" aren't covering the full cost of highways and are being subsidized.
"Highway users" include both passenger vehicles (primarily automobiles) and heavy trucks. It is well established by any number of studies that user fees paid by heavy trucks do not come close to tcovering the costs they impose on the highway system. To the extent that the "shortfall" between highwayuser fees and highway costs includes the costs imposed by heavy trucks, that has nothing to do with the relative subsidy of people traveling by highways vs people traveling by train. I recall seeing some analyses showing that passenger vehicle user fees fully cover the highway costs imposed by these vehicles and some portion of the truck costs as well, but I can't immediately put my finger on them.
There you go, Falcon48 -- a basic fact we should never forget. On most highways, it's trucks in combination with Ma Nature that imposes most of the repair/replacement costs. A highway engineer once said famously, of a stretch of highway in the Southwest (where frost heave was not an issue) that, if it were not for trucks, the pavement there wouldn't need to be touched for 50 years.
You are absolutely right. I should have also said that automobiles are, in fact, subsidizing truck transport. This makes it more difficult for non-subsidized freight railroads to compete. I would think
the true free market folks would be opposed to this.
again, privatization of the national highway system would make frieght railroads more competitive, present a truer picture of driving costs, and possibly even allow long distance trains to cover more than out of pocket costs --to the point where at least some freight railroads might find them worhtwhile public relations and advertizing windows for the public.
schlimm But I also think the metric anti-passenger rail proponents use is misleading, namely cents per passenger mile. Some of the operating costs on a route are fairly fixed, whether it has 2 trains serving 100 people/day or 10 trains serving 1000+ people. Therefore, a true service (as opposed to running a train) will show a reduction in the cents per passenger mile figure, yielding a truer picture of the subsidy.
So what is misleading, as in dishonest or perhaps even fraudulent, of using cents per passenger mile as a metric? If you are indeed getting economy-of-scale of increased service over a route with fixed sunk cost, you should see the cents per passenger mile go down, no? And if Amtrak service exhibits such economy-of-scale, we should point to routes (the Hiawatha and the Pacific Surfliner are two corridor routes outside of the NEC), where this effect holds up.
The pro-passenger train community should have a flip chart showing that as the ridership and train frequency on the Hiawatha and Surfliner have increased since their inception, which they have, the subsidy rate per passenger mile has declined. That would be such a powerful argument in defense of new train projects (from small acorns mighty oaks grow). I haven't seen such a chart. Most of what we do in the advocacy community is argue that this chart must exist somewhere, and anyone who doesn't believe in that chart is misinformed, ignorant, has their facts wrong, and so on.
Paul Milenkovic schlimm: But I also think the metric anti-passenger rail proponents use is misleading, namely cents per passenger mile. Some of the operating costs on a route are fairly fixed, And if Amtrak service exhibits such economy-of-scale, we should point to routes (the Hiawatha and the Pacific Surfliner are two corridor routes outside of the NEC), where this effect holds up. The pro-passenger train community should have a flip chart showing that as the ridership and train frequency on the Hiawatha and Surfliner have increased since their inception, which they have, the subsidy rate per passenger mile has declined.
schlimm: But I also think the metric anti-passenger rail proponents use is misleading, namely cents per passenger mile. Some of the operating costs on a route are fairly fixed,
But I also think the metric anti-passenger rail proponents use is misleading, namely cents per passenger mile. Some of the operating costs on a route are fairly fixed,
And if Amtrak service exhibits such economy-of-scale, we should point to routes (the Hiawatha and the Pacific Surfliner are two corridor routes outside of the NEC), where this effect holds up.
The pro-passenger train community should have a flip chart showing that as the ridership and train frequency on the Hiawatha and Surfliner have increased since their inception, which they have, the subsidy rate per passenger mile has declined.
Well, Paul, that wass my point, but expressed much better by you with specifics. I only said "misleading" b/c the anti-pass-rail crowd often uses that metric to show how wasteful any future service would be, not mentioning the fixed costs or economies of scale or the examples of the Hiawatha, Surfliner (and possibly Cascades) where the subsidy rate has decreased as service and ridership have expanded.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.