Henry,
What are you blathering about with "end value". I have not seen that term before. It sounds to me like the begining of an arguement for ever more govt medling with the economy to me.
It is the medling that is the source of the problem. Instead of allowing people to make their own decisions based on the market cost of things, which is equal to all, and the relative value of things to them, which is not equal, we simply declare everything to be a right. This destroys the ability of all individuals to choose privately, makes everything a political issue, shifts ever more power from individuals to the politicians, and subjects the people to the cost of the government's "generosity" either through taxes or unfunded mandates on an ever shrinking pool of people who do useful work.
Mac
PNWRMNM But Henry, why can not the commuters, your foundation of commerce, pay the full cost of their ticket? Mac
But Henry, why can not the commuters, your foundation of commerce, pay the full cost of their ticket?
My point isn't about who pays but where do you put the end value. In our country the foundation of commerce is the investor owned businesses. Therefore the business that benefits from a work force able to get to and from work which otherwise couldn't, could be the end point of the value, or the town in which the business is located could find the endpoint of the value somewhere in their tax structure or their mere existance.
And let me add...how much real estate is sold, how many jobs are chosen, with the sales point of good convenience to public transportation...bus stop or commuter rail? It is a bonus to industry and businesses, it is their benefit as much as it is the commuter's. So, again, where is the end point at which we determine cost, value, and return?
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.
Goods and services, including public transit and transportation, should be priced at the user interface to reflect their true cost. Then if society decides that everyone should be able to ride public transit (I agree), as an example, those who meet an income test could be given vouchers to pay the difference between what they can theoretically afford and the cost of the service.
If people see the real cost of their "stuff", they are likely to make better decisions about how much of it they really need, i.e. buy a vehicle that pollutes less, live closer to an urban community as opposed to facilitating urban sprawl, etc. Don't worry, however, the politicians will never allow it.
Sam1 henry6: One of the determinations that has to be made is where to you measure financial success of a passenger service? At the cash box or somewhere else? And are you talking all passenger services, just commuter, or just intercity/long distance? In commuter services...if there were no trains running in and out of NYC for instance, what would the economy be like? How many businesses would not longer be and how many would not be working? So, take the commuter's ticket price and subsidy and determine the value of the service, What does the service do for the overall economy and business of a region and what would happen if the service were gone? How about any and all services on Amtrak's Boston-D.C. Corridor? What if Amtrak weren't there, no trains besides commuter trains existed? What is the value to the commerce and ecnomony of the East Coast? Is there only one way to determine value and profit of railpassenger service, i.e. somebody gets to count more money in the cash box? Doesn't it really mean the most after where you put the cash box? If the users pay for the goods and services that they consume, thereby covering the costs of the entity offering them, it is a financial success. If they require a taxpayer bailout to cover the cost of goods and services, it is not a financial success. I don't know a single accountant, financier, or economist who would argue otherwise. This is true for commercial enterprises run by the government, e.g. passenger rail, postal services, etc., as well as non-commercial activities, e.g. police, education, etc. If a nation covers the cost of the services that people want, it is a financial success. Passenger rail is not a financial success in the sense that the passengers are willing to pay for it. And given the debt structure of the United States, which is in hawk to the tune of $18 trillion, which includes national as well as state and local government's debt, it would be a stretch to say that the republic's citizens are willing to pay for the government that they supposedly want. Part of the transport problem with in the United States, as well as the other countries where I have lived, is hidden and cross subsidies distort the true cost of the transport services, with the outcome being that most people don't understand the financing and, therefore, make sub-optimum decisions, i.e. drive big SUV's because they don't see the true cost of doing so. I am a strong advocate of passenger trains in relatively short, high density corridors where the cost of expanding the highways and airways is prohibitive. I am also a strong advocate of fiscal responsibility. That is to say, people should be willing to pay for what they want and not pass it off on others, either those now living or those to come. The argument that we should tear everything up and start over is unrealistic. That is not the way things work. No country, even one as rich as the United States, can afford to do so.
henry6: One of the determinations that has to be made is where to you measure financial success of a passenger service? At the cash box or somewhere else? And are you talking all passenger services, just commuter, or just intercity/long distance? In commuter services...if there were no trains running in and out of NYC for instance, what would the economy be like? How many businesses would not longer be and how many would not be working? So, take the commuter's ticket price and subsidy and determine the value of the service, What does the service do for the overall economy and business of a region and what would happen if the service were gone? How about any and all services on Amtrak's Boston-D.C. Corridor? What if Amtrak weren't there, no trains besides commuter trains existed? What is the value to the commerce and ecnomony of the East Coast? Is there only one way to determine value and profit of railpassenger service, i.e. somebody gets to count more money in the cash box? Doesn't it really mean the most after where you put the cash box?
One of the determinations that has to be made is where to you measure financial success of a passenger service? At the cash box or somewhere else? And are you talking all passenger services, just commuter, or just intercity/long distance? In commuter services...if there were no trains running in and out of NYC for instance, what would the economy be like? How many businesses would not longer be and how many would not be working? So, take the commuter's ticket price and subsidy and determine the value of the service, What does the service do for the overall economy and business of a region and what would happen if the service were gone? How about any and all services on Amtrak's Boston-D.C. Corridor? What if Amtrak weren't there, no trains besides commuter trains existed? What is the value to the commerce and ecnomony of the East Coast? Is there only one way to determine value and profit of railpassenger service, i.e. somebody gets to count more money in the cash box? Doesn't it really mean the most after where you put the cash box?
If the users pay for the goods and services that they consume, thereby covering the costs of the entity offering them, it is a financial success. If they require a taxpayer bailout to cover the cost of goods and services, it is not a financial success. I don't know a single accountant, financier, or economist who would argue otherwise. This is true for commercial enterprises run by the government, e.g. passenger rail, postal services, etc., as well as non-commercial activities, e.g. police, education, etc.
If a nation covers the cost of the services that people want, it is a financial success. Passenger rail is not a financial success in the sense that the passengers are willing to pay for it. And given the debt structure of the United States, which is in hawk to the tune of $18 trillion, which includes national as well as state and local government's debt, it would be a stretch to say that the republic's citizens are willing to pay for the government that they supposedly want.
Part of the transport problem with in the United States, as well as the other countries where I have lived, is hidden and cross subsidies distort the true cost of the transport services, with the outcome being that most people don't understand the financing and, therefore, make sub-optimum decisions, i.e. drive big SUV's because they don't see the true cost of doing so.
I am a strong advocate of passenger trains in relatively short, high density corridors where the cost of expanding the highways and airways is prohibitive. I am also a strong advocate of fiscal responsibility. That is to say, people should be willing to pay for what they want and not pass it off on others, either those now living or those to come.
The argument that we should tear everything up and start over is unrealistic. That is not the way things work. No country, even one as rich as the United States, can afford to do so.
But Sam. my point was not about the immediate attributal cost and return for service but also counting the success at a point where thousands if not millions can get to and from work be it through suburbs to city or a whole city or town existing or a facility able to be in business employing so many and being a successful enterprise because of public transit, a case where if transit were not available, there would be no commerce.
schlimm ... CSSHEGWISCH Paul is quite right about the failure of advocacy for clinging to the past, by extolling the virtues of long distance trains. Paul M. also is critical of the advocacy community for a host of reasons, here and earlier, but does not seem to articulate any reason FOR passenger service, only all the fallacies. Are there any positives, in his view, such as some corridors?
... CSSHEGWISCH Paul is quite right about the failure of advocacy for clinging to the past, by extolling the virtues of long distance trains. Paul M. also is critical of the advocacy community for a host of reasons, here and earlier, but does not seem to articulate any reason FOR passenger service, only all the fallacies. Are there any positives, in his view, such as some corridors?
I disagree in that too many passenger train advocates have held on to the past too dearly. I keep saying that the whole transportation system ( rail, air, highway,waterway, intercity, interstate, intrastate, freight and passenger) should be shut out of one's mind and the whole thing redsigned from the ground up...it is more than thinking outside of the box, it's thinking like there was no box at all. Yes, it is just like reinventing the wheel, but too many are trapped in the past of choo choo's with robber barons and union thugs, grandpa's Oldsmobile, business jet flights of the 60's, and the romantic life of on the road again truckers. None of them ain't the future! Yes, there are some good things about the past that must be incorporated in the future, but those are blocks to be attached after it is determined what we need and how it will work and not the base foundation.
henry6 One of the determinations that has to be made is where to you measure financial success of a passenger service? At the cash box or somewhere else? And are you talking all passenger services, just commuter, or just intercity/long distance? In commuter services...if there were no trains running in and out of NYC for instance, what would the economy be like? How many businesses would not longer be and how many would not be working? So, take the commuter's ticket price and subsidy and determine the value of the service, What does the service do for the overall economy and business of a region and what would happen if the service were gone? How about any and all services on Amtrak's Boston-D.C. Corridor? What if Amtrak weren't there, no trains besides commuter trains existed? What is the value to the commerce and ecnomony of the East Coast? Is there only one way to determine value and profit of railpassenger service, i.e. somebody gets to count more money in the cash box? Doesn't it really mean the most after where you put the cash box?
BaltACD So long as it is talk - it is posturing. When REAL money is being invested and spent and construction projects are moving dirt or purchasing equipment then it becomes real. Until then posture away!
So long as it is talk - it is posturing. When REAL money is being invested and spent and construction projects are moving dirt or purchasing equipment then it becomes real. Until then posture away!
You want to talk about posturing vs "real" money. I'll tell you all about real money, posturing, and the advocacy community.
It is in the early Summer of 2010. Extending Hiawatha Service to Madison, Wisconsin had 810 million dollars of real ARRA "Stimulus Bill" money behind it.
Sometime in May, 2010, the Governor of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin DOT Secretary, and the Mayor of Madison, WI gave a joint news conference and announced that the location of the train station would be on East Wilson Street within walking distance of the Capitol Square.
This was not something our brick-and-morter advocacy group, which had been promoting the Madison train for more years than anyone can remember, was ready for. In fact, from the president of that group on down through the ranks of the membership, this announcement was something of a betrayal. The station for years and years of WisDOT plans was "supposed" to be neighbor to the Dane County Regional Airport -- you can in fact see the train tracks when you turn the corner after dropping off or picking someone up at the airport just as you leave the terminal. The train station was supposed to share parking with the Airport.
The Downtown location of the proposed Madison station had some technical problems. One problem was parking. Another problem was, as explained by a WisDOT person, that the train tracks to be used ran through the Oscar Mayer plant. Yes, that Oscar Mayer as in "My bologna has a first name, O-s-c-a-r . . ." Every time a train goes through, they have to clear the factory floor to let it by. DOT was looking into "sinking" the train line below the factory floor. Furthermore, there was no way you were going to back the Empire Builder with its long consist into the Madison train station and then send it on to St Paul if they ever completed the complete Madison connection on to the Twin Cities.
What drove the Downtown location was the then Mayor of Madison with the unspellable name. He and others had gone on a European fact-finding tour that included the Talgo factory in Spain, and along the way he was impressed on how the European trains were integrated into the central cores of major cities. The Governor wasn't going to disrespect his fellow Democrat the Mayor, and the press conference was a show of unity that everyone was on the same page on the Madison train station.
On to early summer 2010 when WisDOT's Donna Brown addressed the membership of the local bricks-and-morter advocacy group and other interested citizens at the Middleton, WI Public Library. Our people, and I say "our" as I had been a long-time member and board member, comported ourselves with Donna Brown in what I considered to be a rude and disrespectful manner. The train station was "supposed" to be at Dane County Regional Airport, not Downtown, and how dare the WisDOT do this? I am telling you this meeting was ugly, it was Tea Party ugly.
Anyone who wasn't in the Liberal Madison Bubble could tell that there were storm clouds on the horizon, there was push-back looming against the Obama Adminstration reforms on many fronts, and there were grumblings at the Middleton Public Library meeting about "those Republicans", but it didn't seem there was anyone at that meeting who knew of anyone who voted Republican or was active in the Tea Party, so it was ironic that we put on a good simulation of Tea Party people giving their member of Congress a hard time at a town-hall meeting.
I guess I am partly to blame that I wasn't more vocal, but I tried on multiple occasions to persuade the leadership of our group to act something along the lines that maybe the Downtown Madison location was not optimal, but maybe we had a short window of opportunity to break ground on the Madison train line prior to the November elections in 2010, and maybe we should pull together with the Mayor, the WisDOT Secretary, and the Governor and show our solidarity and support for this train and worry about having an Amshack at the Dane County Regional Airport down the line.
Well, some people just never give up, and the last I heard was our local advocacy group asking in E-mail for a laundry list of "demands" of what services and amenities the Madison Downtown station had to have, and present that list to the Mayor's representative in a meeting with representatives of this group. My thought was "just build the train line already" and put an Amshack at the Downtown.
And then we had the November 2010 elections giving us Scott Walker in Wisconsin, John Kasich in Ohio, and Rick Scott in Florida. I suppose you are going to say that since ground was never broken that it was "all posturing." I suppose the fault lies with Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Rick Scott along with everyone who voted them into office. But do you suppose that the advocacy community had a teensy bit of influence of tipping matters in that direction?
My read on all of this is that the talk about Corridors and 110 MPH Midwest Regional Rail Initiative and a Chicago regional rail hub was partly for show. The real motivation was that the members of our local advocacy group wanted to ride the long-distance trains out of the Chicago hub, and were put out that they had to take the Van Galder bus with the 4 1/2 hour schedule and the tight leg room to Chicago Union station. Were the Madison Station at the Airport, it would be Park-n-Ride. With the Madison Station at the Downtown, it was the Madison Mayor who wanted to build streetcars and his vision of a post-automobile New Urbanism in Downtown condos.
So don't insult me that the talk around here is mere posturing. The talk around here and in advocacy circles on-line or in the community is about high stakes, billion-dollar level stakes.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Seems like all the usual cast of characters with the usual set of opinions. Two stand out, to me at least. CSSHEGWISCH Paul is quite right about the failure of advocacy for clinging to the past, by extolling the virtues of long distance trains. Paul M. also is critical of the advocacy community for a host of reasons, here and earlier, but does not seem to articulate any reason FOR passenger service, only all the fallacies. Are there any positives, in his view, such as some corridors?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Paul Milenkovic BaltACD: So the consensus of all this back and forth posturing is Everybody pays for everything and nobody pays for nothing! If anybody or anything had a viable idea and the resources to pull it off to make rail passenger service in the US a profit producing entity - it would have already been done. As a research engineer by profession, I take exception to the blanket characterization of my opinions or the opinions of others on this forum as posturing.
BaltACD: So the consensus of all this back and forth posturing is Everybody pays for everything and nobody pays for nothing! If anybody or anything had a viable idea and the resources to pull it off to make rail passenger service in the US a profit producing entity - it would have already been done.
So the consensus of all this back and forth posturing is
Everybody pays for everything and nobody pays for nothing!
If anybody or anything had a viable idea and the resources to pull it off to make rail passenger service in the US a profit producing entity - it would have already been done.
As a research engineer by profession, I take exception to the blanket characterization of my opinions or the opinions of others on this forum as posturing.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Paul,
You correctly note that the passenger train advocacy community has not made any significant progress over the last 45 years.
I suggest the fundamental problem is that the general public quite simply does not give a dam about passenger trains. I think that is true for a whole host of reasons.
The only "corporate interests" are the freight carriers who are forced by law to give ATK virtually free access to their very expensive fixed plants and to suffer the costs of thousands of hours of uncompensated freight train delay every month. They have every reason to resist expansion of ATK in terms of either route or frequency. You would do the same thing if you were in their shoes.
My personal opinion is that the advocacy community would be wise to support termination of ATK as we know it, including their free ride on the freight carriers. That would regionalize the NEC and allow anything involving the freight carriers to be based on market based access to the network.
For the foreseable future that would be the end of service beyond the NEC. At some point if demand ever warrented it, the business would be organized on business principles, as opposed to theft of freight capacity.
As long as the interstate highways and jet planes exist, passenger service is not a business, it is just another welfare program.
Mac McCulloch
The "golden era" is a fairly apt description for passenger trains in the 1945-55 decade. The new trains were reasonably fast and with air conditioning, arguably more comfortable than pre-streamliner trains. In addition, long distance driving was a bit of a pain in most places before the interstate highways and air travel was uncomfortable (pressurized airliners were uncomon for several years after WW2) and had a high accident rate (design problems with planes, poor air traffic control, unreliable engines, etc).
IMHO, the big mistake with the California passenger rail advocates is concentrating too much on HSR and ignoring the corridors. I would guess that uprated LOSAN corridor would generate more passenger miles than the proposed HSR would generate outside of the LOSSAN area and for less than a tenth of the cost of the proposed HSR. With reference to my first paragraph, airlines would not be competitive with an improved LOSSAN service.
- Erik
The advocacy community has lost a lot of credibility with a lot of people since they appear to be clinging to a "golden era" represented by the streamliners of the post-WW2 period. They need to realize that the long-distance passenger train no longer serves a useful purpose and re-direct their energies to that which is realistically attainable.
BaltACD So the consensus of all this back and forth posturing is Everybody pays for everything and nobody pays for nothing! If anybody or anything had a viable idea and the resources to pull it off to make rail passenger service in the US a profit producing entity - it would have already been done.
I will characterize one line of reasoning in the advocacy community. Passenger rail service has never been a money maker -- seems that was the case for a long time and will continue to be the case. Private highway transportation has never been a money maker, also requiring substantial government money, and we can argue about whether the gas tax is a "user fee" for highway users or simply a general tax. Ergo, we should spend whatever quantity of money it takes to keep passenger trains running. QED.
The fallacy with that reasoning is this. Amtrak is subsidized at the rate of 20 cents per passenger mile. Were highway transport to be subsidized at the same rate, we would see somewhere close to a trillion dollars per year being spend on highways and subsidies to other aspects of automotive transport -- that amounts to about 6 percent of GNP.
I do not see how a person comes up with a trillion/year in either direct or indirect subsidy to highways taking into account all levels of government. Hence passenger trains have a much higher subsidy rate. Wouldn't the subsidy rate diminish were it not for the fact that trains are underfunded. Well, no, not if you believe the Vision report advocating for a 10-fold expansion in U.S. passenger rail service over 50 years.
The argument in the advocacy community that all modes get substantial subsidy so trains should get their fair share really needs to be retired after, what is it, the 45'th anniversary of the founding of NARP? Were we to support trains to get a fair share as a proportional share of transportation subsidy, well, that is pretty much what Representative Mica is asking for isn't it? What basis does anyone in the advocacy community have to disagree?
This is not a matter of back and forth posturing; it is a matter of the fundamental posture and direction of the passenger train advocacy community. Let's put it another way. If the arguments we in the advocacy community have been advancing for 45 years were persuasive in the political arena, wouldn't we be much farther ahead? And arguments such as corporate money having too much political influence don't wash because there are other advocacy communities that have made much more progress against intrenched corporate interests than we have.
BaltACD If anybody or anything had a viable idea and the resources to pull it off to make rail passenger service in the US a profit producing entity - it would have already been done.
Ain't that the truth! But, I still think we could get more for our tax money....
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Yes, that´s it in a nut shell!
History shows us, that only very few railroads were built with passenger service in mind. Railroads always relied on the revenues from freight services. Even in the days, when railroads had a quasi monopoly, passenger services hardly earned their keep. It is said, that in the 1840´s, the King of Prussia turned down a proposal to build a state-owned line from Berlin to Potsdam with the words "no need to be in Potsdam an hour earlier". In most European countries, railways since then have been regarded as a necessary public utility for the welfare of the people, and thus have invested substantial amounts of tax money into their systems. Most attempts to privatize railroads were not made to turn railroads into profit-making entities, but to reduce the amount of public funding.
Thus Amtrak, on the one hand, and highways and roads and streets, on the other are both financed, in part, by various taxpayer sources. Some of them use Amtrak (very few) and some use highways (many to most). So both have a mixture (though differing in percentages) of taxpayer and user financing.
The general fund comes from all those paying taxes to the general government and federal loans. Many but not all of those who pay into the fund are not users. Thus it's costs are not being borne entirely by its users, but rather entire taxpaying American public.
ComradeTaco "It is true that user fees pay for a shrinking portion of the federal highway system for a variety of reasons. The biggest is the unwillingness of the Congress to raise the federal fuel taxes to compensate for increased highway growth and maintenance requirements. As a result in FY10 the federal government transferred $14.7 billion from the general fund to the HTF. Who pays the money into the general fund. Taxpayers with a federal income tax liability as well as those who buy the goods and services of corporations and businesses with a tax liability." So the cost of highways and highways alone is not being repaid by the users.
"It is true that user fees pay for a shrinking portion of the federal highway system for a variety of reasons. The biggest is the unwillingness of the Congress to raise the federal fuel taxes to compensate for increased highway growth and maintenance requirements. As a result in FY10 the federal government transferred $14.7 billion from the general fund to the HTF. Who pays the money into the general fund. Taxpayers with a federal income tax liability as well as those who buy the goods and services of corporations and businesses with a tax liability."
So the cost of highways and highways alone is not being repaid by the users.
And since most of those taxpayers are users of the highway system, its costs are paid for by its users.
An "expensive model collector"
ComradeTaco I would think there would be a tad bit of difficulty running over sleepers if only because no companies have had much experience with the matter,
I would think there would be a tad bit of difficulty running over sleepers if only because no companies have had much experience with the matter,
Just think of them as glorified coaches with a few more bathrooms! (and nothing would stop Herzog from hiring the guys with the expertise that would be laid off at Amtrak)
oltmannd ComradeTaco: Sam Regardless, no company would want to take up competition against subsidized alternatives. No company would want Amtrak. You are right. But, lets bid out piece of Amtrak where the winner gets to own and control everything (and keep the revenue). Guy who needs the smallest subsidy wins. Think anybody could underbid Amtrak? They are getting underbid everywhere in the commuter operation contract arena. I suspect the same players partnered up with the right people would do the same. How about Herzog plus Marriott running all the western LD trains?
ComradeTaco: Sam Regardless, no company would want to take up competition against subsidized alternatives. No company would want Amtrak.
Sam
Regardless, no company would want to take up competition against subsidized alternatives. No company would want Amtrak.
You are right. But, lets bid out piece of Amtrak where the winner gets to own and control everything (and keep the revenue). Guy who needs the smallest subsidy wins. Think anybody could underbid Amtrak? They are getting underbid everywhere in the commuter operation contract arena. I suspect the same players partnered up with the right people would do the same.
How about Herzog plus Marriott running all the western LD trains?
This is the scheme followed by the Australians with the Great Southern Railway, which is a stockholder company that operates the Indian Pacific, Ghan, and Overland. Winning and keeping the contract was and is predicated on keeping the subsidy at the lowest level reasonable. The level of service on these trains is heads and shoulders above the level of service on Amtrak.
I would think there would be a tad bit of difficulty running over sleepers if only because no companies have had much experience with the matter, but I think it would be a very plausible arrangement. I'm thinking the rest of Amtrak could still be a public entity focused on medium speed corridor development. Sort of like the Harrisburg line (except with new electrification).
ComradeTaco Sam Regardless, no company would want to take up competition against subsidized alternatives. No company would want Amtrak.
" This response is not worthy of further comment"
Lovely. We can end with the conclusion that the cost of interstates,state highways and local roads are not entirely taken on by users.
Don,
Certainly the railroads provided T&E crews for years, but that is not the same as what you previously proposed, which was that the private operator would control fares and service; ATK controlled fares and service from the begining.
You are correct the railroads never cared about ATK. I would add that they never had any reason to. This simply illustrates the point I was trying to make, which is that congress made a choice to set ATK up the way they did. There is no reason to believe anyone writing the bill much cared, or even had a clue in the economic sense, about the incentive structure they were creating.
You are proposing a different incentive structure. Take credit for that.
PNWRMNM Don, While I agree with the point you are making, I think it is important to note that congress could have simply picked up the operating losses the railroads were incurring, and providing capital funds for infrastructure maintenance and improvement rather than create ATK in the form that they did. Had they done this, ATK would have been five guys deciding which routes to operate and approving capital requests.
While I agree with the point you are making, I think it is important to note that congress could have simply picked up the operating losses the railroads were incurring, and providing capital funds for infrastructure maintenance and improvement rather than create ATK in the form that they did. Had they done this, ATK would have been five guys deciding which routes to operate and approving capital requests.
This is essentially how Amtrak operated in the beginning. Amtrak did own the equipment, though, and did consolidate maintenance and overhaul locations. But, the operating crews were still provided by the host road for the first decade or so.
It's also how most of the commuter agencies started life.
It didn't work out very well in either case. The RRs felt they were being shortchanged on their total costs and they were rather disinterested in finding and negotiating savings or improving service. They just wanted out altogether.
From what I've read, the Nixon admin and Congress did what they did with cross purposes. There were some "true believers", such as the Sec of Trans Volpe, who thought that the whole thing could be managed to a net benefit (through economies of scale, phasing out most LD trains, and adding in more corridor trains) and those that have been whispered to believe that is would be a convenient way to kill it all in one fell swoop a few years out. Volpe actually got a bill to Congress by smoking it past Nixon's notable toadies.
In the end, both camps were wrong about how it would play out.
The question I think is why congress did what they did. I would posit it was for control and power, which is what our government has come to be about. What you are suggesting makes sense and is probably the most realistic "privatization" model that exists. My prediction is no change until congress wakes up about our unsustainable Federal Budget Deficit. To fix that we have to stop doing a lot of stupid stuff and ATK will be part or a long list of real cuts.
The only ATK asset of importance is the NEC and its associated line to Harrisburg. If I were an ATK partisan, I would be worried about how to keep the NEC running without Federal money.
tomikawaTT One key fact which the sponsor of this idea seems to have overlooked: Before a governmental entity can be privatized, somebody in the private sector has to be willing to buy it. I dare say that, were the United States to put Amtrak on the auction block, the only bidders would be scrappers. If the sale includes a requirement to continue operations, the only bidders would be morons. Chuck.
One key fact which the sponsor of this idea seems to have overlooked:
Before a governmental entity can be privatized, somebody in the private sector has to be willing to buy it.
I dare say that, were the United States to put Amtrak on the auction block, the only bidders would be scrappers. If the sale includes a requirement to continue operations, the only bidders would be morons.
Chuck.
You are right. Nobody is going to bid anything to take over an Amtrak LD route. But, that's not the beginning and end of privatization.
I think the definition of "privatization" is where we are getting all tangled up. In terms of rail passenger service, a subsidy of some sort is required. It could come from an owning infrastructure company ala Germany or it could come in the form of a "negative bid". That is, "how much do I have to pay you in order for you to provide this service". Sort of like a contract operator except the winner gets to set fares, market service and keep the revenue.
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