DwightBranch Don't take my word for it: http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/responsibility/environmental-leadership/ I think you are very wrong. Because of the much lower surface area of contact between wheel and rail (about the size of a dime) and far lower friction the mechanical energy required to move a similar weight on rails is much lower than for rubber tires on pavement. I used to watch switchmen push covered hopper cars around by hand in the ICG Bloomingon yards. I also drove a semi when I was a student, try to push that by hand, empty or not.
Don't take my word for it:
http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/responsibility/environmental-leadership/
I think you are very wrong. Because of the much lower surface area of contact between wheel and rail (about the size of a dime) and far lower friction the mechanical energy required to move a similar weight on rails is much lower than for rubber tires on pavement. I used to watch switchmen push covered hopper cars around by hand in the ICG Bloomingon yards. I also drove a semi when I was a student, try to push that by hand, empty or not.
I have studied the energy efficiency of rail and other modes of transportation since my days as an engineering undergraduate nearly 35 years ago when a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University suggested I purchase a copy of Hoerner's Fluid Dynamic Drag, and my copy is either on the bedroom floor as we speak where I keep bedtime reading or in my home office under a stack of papers somewhere.
The resistance of the steel wheel on steel rail is about a factor of ten lower than that of a pneumatic tire on concrete, but that is only at very low speeds. At passenger trains speeds, there is considerable aerodynamic drag, which supplies the majority of the resistance for all modes -- auto, bus, train, airplane. Furthermore, Hoerner reasons that there is a non-trivial aerodynamic drag in comparison to the rolling resistance from the rotation of train wheels and the wheels acting as centrifugal air pumps, but Hoerner also refers to a large anomoly in train resistance at higher speeds (anomoly being unaccounted increase) that he speculates is the coupling of linear motion into the side sway that is characteristic of trains and derived from the way cone-tapered wheel sets with solid axles are self-steering and exhibit kinematic "hunting."
Trains should be favorable from the standpoint of aerodynamic drag because one train car is in the wind shadow of the train car ahead of it, and Hoerner devotes a great deal of page space to theoretical treatment of that effect along with the drag achieved in practice with the kinds of trains we have in operation.
Railroads, especially in the U.S., have long been skeptical of streamlining as the shrouds and covers increases maintenance expenses by making it harder to access various parts, and maintenance has long been a much larger expense in railroading until the runups in fuel prices starting in the mid 1970's. 2nd-gen Shinkansen, TGV, and ICE trains are light weight and carefully streamlined as a result of wind tunnel tests, and some of the very favorable energy efficiency CO2 emissions reported for these trains may result from these optimized designs, even when operated at high speeds. How that streamlining impacts the maintenance costs is not known, but maybe that is a maintenance man-hour vs fuel cost trade that pushes you in the direction of finely tuned streamlining for HSR and aviation.
If you have looked at the underbody clutter of an Amfleet coach, U.S. passenger cars are streamlined not nearly as much, and Hoerner goes into great detail in interference drag effects and how the detailing of a train, auto, or airplane can result in much higher drag than the theoretical minimum.
The other consideration with passenger rail is that passenger trains are much heavier on a per seat basis than any other mode of transportation. That weight incurs losses in accelerating the train to speed or when climbing even modest hills, and even an electric train using regeneration recovers only a portion of that weight-induced energy consumption. U.S. passenger trains, furthermore, are perhaps twice as heavy as anything in Europe or Japan on account of the FRA safety standards. Those standards may be waived for a completely dedicated HSR line with positive train control, although it is hard to see those standards ever being waived for anything that interacts with freight with the train lengths and loadings in the U.S.. Who wants to be the person waiving that seeming unnecessary requirment and then a grisly accident takes place?
The other cultural aspect to trains is that there is an expectation, especially in the advocacy community, regarding trains being a particularly comfortable and spacious accomodation, where one is free to leave one's seat and walk around, perhaps walk to a dining car or the entire Talgo car dedicated as a "bistro car" on the 86-mile Chicago-Milwaukee train, if the Talgo is ever put in service there owing to the political in-fighting in Wisconsin.
The one and only time I was ever on HSR was in Japan in the late 1980's, and I rode in one direction in the unreserved coach, which was 5-across seating, not as crammed in as a regional jet, but comparable in elbow room and seat pitch to the last time I rode a DC-9 jet, which was a year ago.
Maybe all of that "walking around room" and train cars devoted to dining and other amenities is a requirement of non-HSR trains given the culture of what is expected of train travel in the U.S., and maybe if we had HSR with airline trip times, we would go to 5-across seats as they do in Japan? Would 5-across seats in a 1 Hr 35 Min Hiawatha train trip from Chicago to Milwaukee be a reasonable way to accomodate the burgeoning ridership, or would the advocacy community raise strenuous objections? If we had HSR, would the advocacy community object to going to much higher seating density as they do in Japan in trade for the much shorter trip times?
The other thing you need to factor in is load factor, how many seats are occupied. Airlines get their seemingly favorable energy efficiency these days by packing people in, both with short amounts off leg room and running planes nearly full all the time, which imposes all manners of inconvenience with regard to travelling at the times you want to. The France TGV has airline-level load factors, but I do not have any personal experience on how hard it is to book a TGV ride on the day and time you want and whether the nearly-full TGV train is similar in experience to riding a nearly full jet.
David Lawyer (the guy who has looked into transportation energy efficiency in real-world data I linked to) suggests that trains run at percent-seats-occupied levels not that different than automobiles. Do we really want to run trains as full as airplanes, with the inconvenience of planning your trip on when the airline has cheap seats and the Greyhound-Bus aspect to modern airline travel of being stuffed into a tube in close quarters with people you don't know?
With respect to your link to CSX discussing the energy efficiency of trains, trains are a particularly energy efficient way of moving things that are dense and heavy at low speed, i.e. freight and especially bulk freight. To the extent that trains need to be heavy to be safe (and also because of the shock and vibration aspects of steel-on-steel contact -- efforts at light weight trains such as Talgo and the United Aircraft Turbo Train have frequently been criticized by commenters on this forum as sacrificing ride quality), to the extent that there is a cultural expectation that we give passengers lots of personal space in a high-weight conveyance to begin with, and to the extent that streamlining works against doing maintenance operations on trains in a cost-effective manner, passenger trains may not effectively utilize the low-rolling resistance property of the steel wheel on steel rail mode.
I could check out the "carbon calculator" linked on your other post. I had checked out the carbon calculator of the California HSR Authority and commented at length on another thread that in my engineering judgement, the numbers were overly optimistic. In my opinion, the carbon calculator made unrealistic carbon consumption assumptions regarding automobiles, since by the time the CHSR is operational, cars will have made substantial strides in fuel efficiency owing to President Obama's rule making on more stringent CAFE standards.
As to argument-by-authority, I have been participating in passenger train advocacy since the late 1960's, and I have been making calculations and looking at data on transportation fuel efficiency since the mid 1970's because the energy efficiency aspects to transportation is one topic I am truly passionate about.
If someone has some hard data on this topic, I am really interested in seeing it. Another thread suggested that Amtrak Diesels all have digital readouts visible from platform-side of their fuel levels, and it should not be to hard to ride the Hiawatha or Pacific Surfliner and get those readouts upon embarking and disembarking the train? Are there Amtrak conductors on this forum who could get this info -- I would like to know Station A, Station B, the fuel burn, the time and date, and the consist.
To anyone who is new around here, we have a research engineer with over 30-years experience, an accountant from the electric-power utility industry with an even longer work history along with international experience, and an employee of a major U.S. railroad lurking around this forum, all of whom are railroad enthusiasts and passenger-train advocates in their own way, and any assertions about passenger trains will be subject to much more intense scrutiny than your local circle of passenger-train advocate friends.
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
Many interesting points, just to be brief, I think dedicated rights of way would solve a lot of the problems you mention regarding weight and wind resistance. Passenger trains that interact with freight trains in the US in any way (most of them) must be (mandated by the FRA) built to withstand a buff force of (I believe) 800k lbs. which makes them enormously heavy. I recall an article by Don Phillips in Trains in which he repeated the name the French engineers who designed the Acela trains and worked out its bugs secretly had for it: Le Cochon (the pig). I am afraid for example of the cost cutting being used in CA by routing the HSR line down freight tracks in LA and the Bay Area instead of a dedicated right of way, which will necessitate that they use heavy trains like Acela instead of off the shelf tried and true lightweight trains like TGV or the ICE trains in Germany. And as regards wind resistance lightweight articulated cars can be streamlined much easier than Acela with its heavyweight frame. I rode both the TGV and ICE in Germany, they were more like airplanes or commuter trains than our Amtrak inside, I remember snack booths at the end of cars and they obviously flew even though the ICE was on tracks over 100 years old where I was, on the Rhine River line. Packed full of weary, glum German businessmen. But exceedingly efficient.
Paul Milenkovic DwightBranch: Don't take my word for it: http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/responsibility/environmental-leadership/ I think you are very wrong. Because of the much lower surface area of contact between wheel and rail (about the size of a dime) and far lower friction the mechanical energy required to move a similar weight on rails is much lower than for rubber tires on pavement. I used to watch switchmen push covered hopper cars around by hand in the ICG Bloomingon yards. I also drove a semi when I was a student, try to push that by hand, empty or not. I have studied the energy efficiency of rail and other modes of transportation since my days as an engineering undergraduate nearly 35 years ago when a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University suggested I purchase a copy of Hoerner's Fluid Dynamic Drag, and my copy is either on the bedroom floor as we speak where I keep bedtime reading or in my home office under a stack of papers somewhere. The resistance of the steel wheel on steel rail is about a factor of ten lower than that of a pneumatic tire on concrete, but that is only at very low speeds. At passenger trains speeds, there is considerable aerodynamic drag, which supplies the majority of the resistance for all modes -- auto, bus, train, airplane. Furthermore, Hoerner reasons that there is a non-trivial aerodynamic drag in comparison to the rolling resistance from the rotation of train wheels and the wheels acting as centrifugal air pumps, but Hoerner also refers to a large anomoly in train resistance at higher speeds (anomoly being unaccounted increase) that he speculates is the coupling of linear motion into the side sway that is characteristic of trains and derived from the way cone-tapered wheel sets with solid axles are self-steering and exhibit kinematic "hunting." Trains should be favorable from the standpoint of aerodynamic drag because one train car is in the wind shadow of the train car ahead of it, and Hoerner devotes a great deal of page space to theoretical treatment of that effect along with the drag achieved in practice with the kinds of trains we have in operation. Railroads, especially in the U.S., have long been skeptical of streamlining as the shrouds and covers increases maintenance expenses by making it harder to access various parts, and maintenance has long been a much larger expense in railroading until the runups in fuel prices starting in the mid 1970's. 2nd-gen Shinkansen, TGV, and ICE trains are light weight and carefully streamlined as a result of wind tunnel tests, and some of the very favorable energy efficiency CO2 emissions reported for these trains may result from these optimized designs, even when operated at high speeds. How that streamlining impacts the maintenance costs is not known, but maybe that is a maintenance man-hour vs fuel cost trade that pushes you in the direction of finely tuned streamlining for HSR and aviation. If you have looked at the underbody clutter of an Amfleet coach, U.S. passenger cars are streamlined not nearly as much, and Hoerner goes into great detail in interference drag effects and how the detailing of a train, auto, or airplane can result in much higher drag than the theoretical minimum. The other consideration with passenger rail is that passenger trains are much heavier on a per seat basis than any other mode of transportation. That weight incurs losses in accelerating the train to speed or when climbing even modest hills, and even an electric train using regeneration recovers only a portion of that weight-induced energy consumption. U.S. passenger trains, furthermore, are perhaps twice as heavy as anything in Europe or Japan on account of the FRA safety standards. Those standards may be waived for a completely dedicated HSR line with positive train control, although it is hard to see those standards ever being waived for anything that interacts with freight with the train lengths and loadings in the U.S.. Who wants to be the person waiving that seeming unnecessary requirment and then a grisly accident takes place? The other cultural aspect to trains is that there is an expectation, especially in the advocacy community, regarding trains being a particularly comfortable and spacious accomodation, where one is free to leave one's seat and walk around, perhaps walk to a dining car or the entire Talgo car dedicated as a "bistro car" on the 86-mile Chicago-Milwaukee train, if the Talgo is ever put in service there owing to the political in-fighting in Wisconsin. The one and only time I was ever on HSR was in Japan in the late 1980's, and I rode in one direction in the unreserved coach, which was 5-across seating, not as crammed in as a regional jet, but comparable in elbow room and seat pitch to the last time I rode a DC-9 jet, which was a year ago. Maybe all of that "walking around room" and train cars devoted to dining and other amenities is a requirement of non-HSR trains given the culture of what is expected of train travel in the U.S., and maybe if we had HSR with airline trip times, we would go to 5-across seats as they do in Japan? Would 5-across seats in a 1 Hr 35 Min Hiawatha train trip from Chicago to Milwaukee be a reasonable way to accomodate the burgeoning ridership, or would the advocacy community raise strenuous objections? If we had HSR, would the advocacy community object to going to much higher seating density as they do in Japan in trade for the much shorter trip times? The other thing you need to factor in is load factor, how many seats are occupied. Airlines get their seemingly favorable energy efficiency these days by packing people in, both with short amounts off leg room and running planes nearly full all the time, which imposes all manners of inconvenience with regard to travelling at the times you want to. The France TGV has airline-level load factors, but I do not have any personal experience on how hard it is to book a TGV ride on the day and time you want and whether the nearly-full TGV train is similar in experience to riding a nearly full jet. David Lawyer (the guy who has looked into transportation energy efficiency in real-world data I linked to) suggests that trains run at percent-seats-occupied levels not that different than automobiles. Do we really want to run trains as full as airplanes, with the inconvenience of planning your trip on when the airline has cheap seats and the Greyhound-Bus aspect to modern airline travel of being stuffed into a tube in close quarters with people you don't know? With respect to your link to CSX discussing the energy efficiency of trains, trains are a particularly energy efficient way of moving things that are dense and heavy at low speed, i.e. freight and especially bulk freight. To the extent that trains need to be heavy to be safe (and also because of the shock and vibration aspects of steel-on-steel contact -- efforts at light weight trains such as Talgo and the United Aircraft Turbo Train have frequently been criticized by commenters on this forum as sacrificing ride quality), to the extent that there is a cultural expectation that we give passengers lots of personal space in a high-weight conveyance to begin with, and to the extent that streamlining works against doing maintenance operations on trains in a cost-effective manner, passenger trains may not effectively utilize the low-rolling resistance property of the steel wheel on steel rail mode. I could check out the "carbon calculator" linked on your other post. I had checked out the carbon calculator of the California HSR Authority and commented at length on another thread that in my engineering judgement, the numbers were overly optimistic. In my opinion, the carbon calculator made unrealistic carbon consumption assumptions regarding automobiles, since by the time the CHSR is operational, cars will have made substantial strides in fuel efficiency owing to President Obama's rule making on more stringent CAFE standards. As to argument-by-authority, I have been participating in passenger train advocacy since the late 1960's, and I have been making calculations and looking at data on transportation fuel efficiency since the mid 1970's because the energy efficiency aspects to transportation is one topic I am truly passionate about. If someone has some hard data on this topic, I am really interested in seeing it. Another thread suggested that Amtrak Diesels all have digital readouts visible from platform-side of their fuel levels, and it should not be to hard to ride the Hiawatha or Pacific Surfliner and get those readouts upon embarking and disembarking the train? Are there Amtrak conductors on this forum who could get this info -- I would like to know Station A, Station B, the fuel burn, the time and date, and the consist. To anyone who is new around here, we have a research engineer with over 30-years experience, an accountant from the electric-power utility industry with an even longer work history along with international experience, and an employee of a major U.S. railroad lurking around this forum, all of whom are railroad enthusiasts and passenger-train advocates in their own way, and any assertions about passenger trains will be subject to much more intense scrutiny than your local circle of passenger-train advocate friends.
DwightBranch: Don't take my word for it: http://www.csx.com/index.cfm/responsibility/environmental-leadership/ I think you are very wrong. Because of the much lower surface area of contact between wheel and rail (about the size of a dime) and far lower friction the mechanical energy required to move a similar weight on rails is much lower than for rubber tires on pavement. I used to watch switchmen push covered hopper cars around by hand in the ICG Bloomingon yards. I also drove a semi when I was a student, try to push that by hand, empty or not.
Another thoughtful and thorough explanation from Mr. Milenkovic. He is as mindful of the opinions from the guys and gals who work the trains as a fellow professional engineer.
Paul Milenkovic schlimm: Aside from the subsidy, I would suggest that your numbers may work for purely electric cars, but not for hybrids. To compare with electrified passenger rail corridors, highway mileage is the comparable figure. While a hybrid such as a Prius gets great highway mileage (48mpg),that is almost totally with a gasoline engine. Consequently it would produce far more CO2 as well as other pollutants than a train carrying 400 passengers powered from green energy sources. This would be true per passenger/mile and probably even on a 1:1 comparison. One person in a Prius at 48 highway MPG is using 2600 BTU/passenger mile, which is about what Amtrak is averaging, using some electricity from a mix of sources and more Diesel fuel, which is a petroleum product. If you are talking full-electric or plug-in hybrid cars, there is potentially more savings at higher capital investment. The same is true if you are talking electric trains.
schlimm: Aside from the subsidy, I would suggest that your numbers may work for purely electric cars, but not for hybrids. To compare with electrified passenger rail corridors, highway mileage is the comparable figure. While a hybrid such as a Prius gets great highway mileage (48mpg),that is almost totally with a gasoline engine. Consequently it would produce far more CO2 as well as other pollutants than a train carrying 400 passengers powered from green energy sources. This would be true per passenger/mile and probably even on a 1:1 comparison.
Aside from the subsidy, I would suggest that your numbers may work for purely electric cars, but not for hybrids. To compare with electrified passenger rail corridors, highway mileage is the comparable figure. While a hybrid such as a Prius gets great highway mileage (48mpg),that is almost totally with a gasoline engine. Consequently it would produce far more CO2 as well as other pollutants than a train carrying 400 passengers powered from green energy sources. This would be true per passenger/mile and probably even on a 1:1 comparison.
One person in a Prius at 48 highway MPG is using 2600 BTU/passenger mile, which is about what Amtrak is averaging, using some electricity from a mix of sources and more Diesel fuel, which is a petroleum product.
If you are talking full-electric or plug-in hybrid cars, there is potentially more savings at higher capital investment. The same is true if you are talking electric trains.
I think you've missed my point. Are you actually saying that ~267 Prius autos (1.5 passengers per car) on the highway, carrying the 400 passengers an Acela would carry, burning gasoline almost totally, would not emit far more hydrocarbons than an electric train using green (wind, solar, etc.) energy or even one relying on electricity from coal, oil, gas and nuclear?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
"Paul M.:To anyone who is new around here, we have a research engineer with over 30-years experience, an accountant from the electric-power utility industry with an even longer work history along with international experience, and an employee of a major U.S. railroad lurking around this forum, all of whom are railroad enthusiasts and passenger-train advocates in their own way, and any assertions about passenger trains will be subject to much more intense scrutiny than your local circle of passenger-train advocate friends."
From what I've read on here, we have an engineer who belittles almost every proposal for higher speed passenger service, an accountant from the utility industry who though critical of Amtrak, has a realistic view of short to medium distance corridor services and a railway employee, who has actually ridden a modern passenger rail system in Germany (as have I and others). In most research endeavors, appeals to authority without supporting data are often, though not always, suspect.
I read this a few minutes ago and I think if Amtrak is cut, even tho i hate the railroad, it would be a disaster on the NEC. I think if Amtrak wants to expand even further into the country, they should:
-don the colors of the famous train they took off. (ex. The Green Diamond from the IC, Amtrak have all green cars)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/03/15/railroads-republicans-muscling-out-amtrak/
What do you feel about amtrak because it is a hit and miss in my book.
Mr. LMD, Owner, founder
The Central Chicago & Illinois Railroad
The LION has thought of this before.
The railroads want to *CONTROL* passenger trains on their lines. Maybe park them on a siding while their freight trains make money?
They would probably rather be rid of the passenger trains altogether, but are in a position to take them over just to get rid of AMTK.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
The opening line is quite interesting:
"America’s leading freight railroads are plotting their return to passenger service as Amtrak faces a threat from privatizing politicians in Congress..."
Yeah, they want to rake in the money like they were in the '60's. Not.
It sounds a bit to me like the railroads will be willing to do passenger service as long as the government guarantees a profit. Nice work if you can get it.
As far as what I feel about Amtrak--I'm a railfan, so I pretty much like it. I think it would be swell if I didn't have to subsidize it. Then I could spend those bucks on something else.
Turning to a "civilian" (my wife): I took her on a trip from Oakland to Chicago via Portland. We had a compartment. She has said that she's not planning on doing anything like that again. On t'other hand, we just took the Acela (first class) from DC to New York, and we both enjoyed it a lot. Plenty of overhead storage, really nice attendant (or whatever the name is), clean cars, and we arrived on time.
So, in summary, I guess I, too, have a mix of positives and negatives.
Ed
7j43k The opening line is quite interesting: "America’s leading freight railroads are plotting their return to passenger service as Amtrak faces a threat from privatizing politicians in Congress..." Yeah, they want to rake in the money like they were in the '60's. Not. It sounds a bit to me like the railroads will be willing to do passenger service as long as the government guarantees a profit. Nice work if you can get it. As far as what I feel about Amtrak--I'm a railfan, so I pretty much like it. I think it would be swell if I didn't have to subsidize it. Then I could spend those bucks on something else. Turning to a "civilian" (my wife): I took her on a trip from Oakland to Chicago via Portland. We had a compartment. She has said that she's not planning on doing anything like that again. On t'other hand, we just took the Acela (first class) from DC to New York, and we both enjoyed it a lot. Plenty of overhead storage, really nice attendant (or whatever the name is), clean cars, and we arrived on time. So, in summary, I guess I, too, have a mix of positives and negatives. Ed
IF Amtrak stays around, I would hope they paint their cars to match the cars of the famous trains they took over because some people might like the steel blue, but it wouldn't hurt to add different styles on their lines. Keep would be passengers interested and probably book many tickets in the future
1) the writer is an employee of a company which could be an operator or owner of all or part of Amtrak. He's got a need to fill.
2) Yeah, Republicans are spouting the concept of private enterprise and private operator and private this and that but no private anything, including freight railroads, have said "boo" to this anthem.
3) Amtrak has not taken advantage of anything simply because it can't.. No matter who runs it, who is CEO, who is in the White House, who is in the Senate or the House, no one gives Amtrak anything but hassels, yellow lights, pats on the back and shivs in the budget. It can't stand up because it is so cramped with politicians and politics.
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.
henry6 3) Amtrak has not taken advantage of anything simply because it can't.. No matter who runs it, who is CEO, who is in the White House, who is in the Senate or the House, no one gives Amtrak anything but hassels, yellow lights, pats on the back and shivs in the budget. It can't stand up because it is so cramped with politicians and politics.
What makes you think that if Amtrak's budget were increase 7-10 fold per the recommendation of the Vision Report that Amtrak would be free of political interference along with the litany of problems you describe?
If something is in the private realm, its management can do whatever they want, subject to complying with applicable law and subject to covering their costs and making a small profit. If something is in the public realm, it becomes subject to politics.
You can't have it both ways, saying on one hand that Amtrak deserves public money because of the inherent goodness of trains and then complaining about all of the strings attached to the public money. I have never, ever advocated on this forum for a pure free-enterprise system and that Amtrak should be privatized based on a belief in pure free enterprise, although others have pointed in that direction and maybe I believe that point of view at least deserves a hearing rather than being dismissed out-of-hand.
One of the goals of privatization is to draw some engineering system boundary around something and say, "Municipalities will operate the trains stations, the Federal government will provide the trackage rights payments or provide the track, and everything above the steel wheel on steel rail contact patch has to balance its books, much like all of the other modes of transportation that receive government support." The purpose of such a scheme is to set some ground rules and provide a level playing field and then let the operator of the trains do what they want free from political interference, allowing them to find the best tradeoffs in running their operations. But it seems most in the advocacy community want nothing to do with such an arrangement, believing, perhaps, that unlike other modes, trains will always require high levels of operating subsidy, and that such a privatization plan is a thinly veiled plan to end Amtrak.
There are all manner of worthy and competing uses for public money, and if Amtrak does not compete in the free market, it has to compete in the political sphere, and one way it can compete politically is by delivering value, as measured by political considerations, for the amount of public money it receives. The argument that there are public expenditures that "waste a lot of money" and by implication "why can't we waste more money on Amtrak" is one I simply won't abide. And it is for this observation, that even public expenditures are subject to cost-benefit evaluation and need to compete with alternative public expenditures towards the same goal, that I receive criticism that I belittle any and all plans to improve passenger rail.
I did not say put more money in the budget and that would cure the problem. Reagan said to give teachers more money and everything would be ok in education and it didn't work. Budget is important but managing and allowing professional managers to manage, allow for long term planning, do not use band aid politically inspired legislation and allocations, second guessing, etc., i.e. don't play politics but allow it to work or fall on its own. If you are not a teacher or educator, don't throw money at it and automatically expect it will be a better education. If you are not a railroader or part of the transportation field do not throw money at Amtrak one year, take it away the next, change managers the next, etc. and expect it to flourish in anyway. Money is but a budget...what you do with the budgeted money is managing.
henry6 I did not say put more money in the budget and that would cure the problem. Reagan said to give teachers more money and everything would be ok in education and it didn't work.
I did not say put more money in the budget and that would cure the problem. Reagan said to give teachers more money and everything would be ok in education and it didn't work.
Henry, this is a stretcher if I ever heard one. I'm a close student of the Reagan presidency, and you gotta show me where he ever said teachers -- and education -- need more money than they're already getting.
He wanted to put more money into education for teacher pay saying that would be the thing that would make better teachers who would produce better student results. I remember the TV news statement well. Likewise, just throwing money at Amtrak will not cure the problems it faces; it needs a non meddlesome Congress, an adquate and long term budget and not short term until the next budget year budget and keep their hands off the president, and not change board positions so often. Let Amtrak operate more like a business (er, isn't that one of the mantra's of the Republican Party?) rather than a political football that gets changed with every election or get (mis)handled like a ball in a Ruby scrum.
Paul Milenkovic The argument that there are public expenditures that "waste a lot of money" and by implication "why can't we waste more money on Amtrak" is one I simply won't abide. And it is for this observation, that even public expenditures are subject to cost-benefit evaluation and need to compete with alternative public expenditures towards the same goal, that I receive criticism that I belittle any and all plans to improve passenger rail.
The argument that there are public expenditures that "waste a lot of money" and by implication "why can't we waste more money on Amtrak" is one I simply won't abide. And it is for this observation, that even public expenditures are subject to cost-benefit evaluation and need to compete with alternative public expenditures towards the same goal, that I receive criticism that I belittle any and all plans to improve passenger rail.
Gee do you think that just maybe folks think you "belittle any and all plans to improve passenger rail" because that's what you've done on this forum for the past two years? I do agree that throwing more money down the long distance component of Amtrak is a total waste of resources. But what constructive statements have you made of late in the vein of improving passenger rail? I may have missed that, but I sure don't recall one post from you along those lines.
henry: Reagan wanted to eliminate the new Dept. of Education. He favored national testing to evaluate schools, much like the ill-fated "No child left behind" policy adopted years later. He favored merit pay for teachers, though didn't get it. To claim he wanted more money for education and teachers just doesn't jive with reality.
schlimm But what constructive statements have you made of late in the vein of improving passenger rail? I may have missed that, but I sure don't recall one post from you along those lines.
But what constructive statements have you made of late in the vein of improving passenger rail? I may have missed that, but I sure don't recall one post from you along those lines.
Some regard my remarks as criticism of passenger trains and of the passenger train advocacy community. But the implication that I have made no constructive suggestions over the past two years doesn't stand up to the record. What follows is a selective list of representative comments from the previous month alone. To argue that nothing constructive was offered is to view passenger trains and passenger train advocacy through a lens that admits no view of what could be done differently.
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Partial List of Suggestions on Passenger Rail and Passenger Advocacy From the Month of March, 2012: Amtrak: Privitize it? Posted 3-22-2012 The one and only time I was ever on HSR was in Japan in the late 1980's, and I rode in one direction in the unreserved coach, which was 5-across seating, not as crammed in as a regional jet, but comparable in elbow room and seat pitch to the last time I rode a DC-9 jet, which was a year ago. Maybe all of that "walking around room" and train cars devoted to dining and other amenities is a requirement of non-HSR trains given the culture of what is expected of train travel in the U.S., and maybe if we had HSR with airline trip times, we would go to 5-across seats as they do in Japan? Would 5-across seats in a 1 Hr 35 Min Hiawatha train trip from Chicago to Milwaukee be a reasonable way to accomodate the burgeoning ridership, or would the advocacy community raise strenuous objections? If we had HSR, would the advocacy community object to going to much higher seating density as they do in Japan in trade for the much shorter trip times? Amtrak: Privitize it? Posted 3-21-2012 The problem is not that automobiles are so energy inefficient, the problem is that we use them too much because they are so much more convenient than other choices. Ultimately, a program to provide trains to replace automobiles has to be coupled with a plan to curtail automobile usage, through gasoline taxes, zoning restrictions, and so on. Amtrak: Privitize it? Posted 3-21-2012 But maybe, just maybe, passenger train advocacy could compete more effectively in the political sphere if trains were not regarded as an end in themselves, if more realistic claims could be brought to the table, and if criticism of the cost-effectiveness of trains were taken more seriously. 　 CA HSR looking at more route adjustments. Posted 3-27-2012 Maybe the problem is trying to build the HSR where the people are, what with the "green" Bay Area people saying "you are bringing HSR past my community over my dead body" and what not. Why not build the thing where the people ain't. That is, you build where there is open space and let people move next to the HSR train stations with new development rather than push this thing into city cores where people don't want it? 　 CA HSR looking at more route adjustments. Posted 3-27-2012 Where weight is a concern in HSR is longevity and maintenance of the track. Weight, and especially axle weight of "nose suspended" traction motors is a concern, even for 110 MPH operation. The British are said to have studied this and concluded that the common type of traction motor setup in just about every Diesel locomotive in the U.S. pounds the ballast and subgrade to dust. For HSR, you want some kind of shaft drive as in the PCC streetcar (and the Shinkansen, essentially a big, fat PCC car) or "quill drive" (gear drive to a hollow "quill" shaft around the axle, that floats around the axle and supplies torque through cups and springs on the old GG-1, through a flexible linkage on modern European locomotive). Is this even on the Amtrak radar screen for their next Diesel order if they want the fleet to be 125 MPH capable, or is long-term damage to the track "in someone else's budget"? 　 Wisconsin passenger saga part? Posted 3-11 2012 Amtrak has the right idea in going with the bi-level California Car design for next-gen corridor service everywhere the clearances allow it. You have 50% more seating space per platform length along with the low step-up for boarding, and yes, these cars will be 110 MPH capable. 　 30 year old TGVs getting remodelled Posted 3-8-2012 This statement about every passenger rail service in the world requiring subsidy is standard advocacy boilerplate, but it doesn't answer the question regarding subsidy rate. I never, ever, ever said that Amtrak should be profitable. Did you ever see me demand this, here or anywhere? I am just asking that the advocacy community be open to ideas where maybe Amtrak could give more return on the subsidy dollar. Have I ever reasoned or argued otherwise? 　 　 　
Partial List of Suggestions on Passenger Rail and Passenger Advocacy From the Month of March, 2012:
Amtrak: Privitize it? Posted 3-22-2012
Amtrak: Privitize it? Posted 3-21-2012
The problem is not that automobiles are so energy inefficient, the problem is that we use them too much because they are so much more convenient than other choices.
Ultimately, a program to provide trains to replace automobiles has to be coupled with a plan to curtail automobile usage, through gasoline taxes, zoning restrictions, and so on.
But maybe, just maybe, passenger train advocacy could compete more effectively in the political sphere if trains were not regarded as an end in themselves, if more realistic claims could be brought to the table, and if criticism of the cost-effectiveness of trains were taken more seriously.
　
CA HSR looking at more route adjustments. Posted 3-27-2012
Maybe the problem is trying to build the HSR where the people are, what with the "green" Bay Area people saying "you are bringing HSR past my community over my dead body" and what not. Why not build the thing where the people ain't. That is, you build where there is open space and let people move next to the HSR train stations with new development rather than push this thing into city cores where people don't want it?
Where weight is a concern in HSR is longevity and maintenance of the track. Weight, and especially axle weight of "nose suspended" traction motors is a concern, even for 110 MPH operation. The British are said to have studied this and concluded that the common type of traction motor setup in just about every Diesel locomotive in the U.S. pounds the ballast and subgrade to dust. For HSR, you want some kind of shaft drive as in the PCC streetcar (and the Shinkansen, essentially a big, fat PCC car) or "quill drive" (gear drive to a hollow "quill" shaft around the axle, that floats around the axle and supplies torque through cups and springs on the old GG-1, through a flexible linkage on modern European locomotive). Is this even on the Amtrak radar screen for their next Diesel order if they want the fleet to be 125 MPH capable, or is long-term damage to the track "in someone else's budget"?
Wisconsin passenger saga part? Posted 3-11 2012
Amtrak has the right idea in going with the bi-level California Car design for next-gen corridor service everywhere the clearances allow it. You have 50% more seating space per platform length along with the low step-up for boarding, and yes, these cars will be 110 MPH capable.
30 year old TGVs getting remodelled Posted 3-8-2012
This statement about every passenger rail service in the world requiring subsidy is standard advocacy boilerplate, but it doesn't answer the question regarding subsidy rate. I never, ever, ever said that Amtrak should be profitable. Did you ever see me demand this, here or anywhere? I am just asking that the advocacy community be open to ideas where maybe Amtrak could give more return on the subsidy dollar. Have I ever reasoned or argued otherwise?
As they say, "D***ed by faint praise."
schlimm As they say, "D***ed by faint praise."
If you consider suggesting 1) consideration of higher-density seating to meet ridership demands on short routes, 2) the need to consider trains as part of a change in living patterns rather than a direct substitution for auto passenger miles, 3) the suggestion that the advocacy community present concrete numbers rather than make broad and sweeping claims in promoting trains, 4) the suggestion that instead of fighting the NIMBYs that HSR be located in the anticipated growth areas in real estate development, 5) that Amtrak look into the question of unsprung mass on locomotives as part of the evolution into 110 MPH operation, 6) praise for the California Car as a comfortable conveyance that maximizes the ability serve more riders, and 7) the suggestion that the advocacy community take concerns about costs seriously, if you consider all that to be "faint praise" or "weak tea" or "off the reservation", I suppose you are entitled to your opinions.
As I said before, it is kind of like the difference between sports fans and sports superfans. I consider myself to be as much a fan of the Green Bay Packers as anyone else in the state, but some of us are able to have realistic discussions regarding the prospects for a team with a rich history but in one of the smaller markets in the NFL in comparison to "Oh yeah, da Pack is gonna win da Super Bowl dis year and anyone who sez different is a bum!"
I'll give you an example of advocacy "fans" and "superfans." Our local advocacy group brought in some loud-mouthed advocate from Illinois to tell us "how it is done." In response to the complaint of overflow weekend ridership on trains serving University of Illinois, I suggested the use of Metra bilevels for peak loads, which was greeted with the snark, "Yeah, how about having the passengers ride in gondala cars!" Some while later, our same group was meeting with the Wisconsin DOT point person on passenger rail, where we were pressing him about a goal of getting a second daily train over the Milwaukee-St Paul segment of the Empire Builder. His reply was, "There are just not enough (passenger railroad) cars. You guys are going to get creative -- maybe work something out to put Metra bilevels into this service."
I'll give you another example. Our local advocacy group effectively blew the opportunity to get the 810 million dollars of appropriated Federal ARRA money for rail in Wisconsin. Yeah, yeah, it was a far-right Governor who returned the money. But we had an over 6-month window where this thing was still in play, and we wasted time hassling Wisconsin DOT and everyone else that the Madison, WI train station was going into the Downtown, which we didn't want because our long-distance train riders in the group wanted a convenient park-n-ride out by Dane County Regional Airport.
Paul Milenkovic 3) the suggestion that the advocacy community present concrete numbers rather than make broad and sweeping claims in promoting trains
3) the suggestion that the advocacy community present concrete numbers rather than make broad and sweeping claims in promoting trains
The argument that you are making, that only quantitative analysis (in your case, prices of discrete moves on alternative modes are transport) is valid in determining social outcomes, is derisively referred to as "physics envy" within the social sciences (where I earned my PhD). It almost wrecked political science and made it a laughingstock when it was attempted in the 80s. I won't spend much time on this other than to point out that, for example, the concept "quality of life" is not quantifiable. When San Fransico decided to tear out the Embarcadero Freeway because it harmed quality of life it was not based on competing analysis of the number of passengers that can be transported on various modes divided by the overall cost of that mode. Other cities are making the same determination, New York City for example with the West Side highway. And this is simply a fact about forms of explanation (my specialization), I am not even questioning the numbers themselves. No denigration intended, but the old saying figures don't lie, but liars can figure, is very true, and confining one's argument to only those facts that are quantifiable only gives one part of the picture. .
Given the political environment in the United States, privatization of Amtrak, i.e. incorporate it as a stock company or break it into several stock companies, is probably not politically doable. Too many people have a vested interest in the system as it is, i.e. Amtrak management, employees, political supporters,etc. Once the government takes over a commercial activity; Amtrak is a commercial activity, privatizing it is very difficult.
As I noted in a prior post, an Italian investor owned stock company is planning to launch privatized passenger rail service to connect Rome with three other Italian cities. My information came from an article in Trains, which did not include any significant details regarding financing. However, the project proponents claim that they will cover their costs out of the fare box.
The Australians privatized a significant portion of their intercity train network, as well as the intrastate trains in Victoria. And they privatized the trams, commuter trains, and buses in Melbourne, which is the second largest city in Australia. However, they need and get substantial subsidies from the federal government in Canberra and the state government in Melbourne. One of the outcomes was an investment in new equipment by the corporate operators, paid for in part by improved employee productivity.
I was involved in the privatization of the electric utility business in Australia. It had been owned by the state of Victoria since the 1920s. It was known as the State Electric Commission of Victoria (SECV). As a result of privatization, the number of employees required to manage and operate the electricity grid in Victoria dropped from more than 27,000 to approximately 7,700. And the lights did not flicker once.
In Victoria the contracts to operate the public transport services were bid. The companies that won them, which initially were for five years, had to agree to some reasonably robust performance standards, with the understanding that if they failed to perform satisfactorily, they would lose the contract as well as the performance incentives that were built into them. The last time that I checked one of them had lost its contract. Most of my friends in Melbourne believe that the transport services have been much better following privatization or perhaps partial privatization would be a better term.
Government entities have little incentive to do things better, faster, cheaper, unless they are in competition with alternative service providers, i.e. USPS competes with FedEx and UPS for package delivery business. Stock companies are accountable to their shareholders as well as their customers, employees, etc. They have to do things better, faster, cheaper, with the operative word being better all the way around, or they go out of business, or in the case of single or sole source contracting, lose the contract. For this reason, I believe that privatizing an Amtrak test market, e.g. NEC, with the appropriate subsidies, would be a worthwhile exercise. It could provide some significant benefits.
One things is crystal clear. Keep doing things the way they have always been done; don't try anything different; and in time an entity will wind up in the dust bin.
Sam1 One things is crystal clear. Keep doing things the way they have always been done; don't try anything different; and in time an entity will wind up in the dust bin.
When Congress formed Amtak, it's intent was that it would cease to exist when it's 1st legislation renewal authorization came up for vote. Amtrak was conceived by Congress to fail, and every renewal of the Amtrak authorization legislation has attempted to put it's body in a coffin. The fact that Amtrak has seen it's 40th Anniversary is a testimony to it's management and employees in outworking and outsmarting Congress.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD,
I have heard this "ATK was designed to fail" story several times from the wide eyed ATK advocates. None of them has ever come up with any credible evidence.
What is your basis for this tale?
Mac McCulloch
What i believe is needed is a cost to operate a passenger train 1 mile. Now that cost is going to be variable as the incremental costs to add additional cars needs to be calculated. So we need a table of the costs for operating a train with 1 car 1 mile to a figure of 24 cars one mile. That would include dinners, baggage lounge etc.
Then figure the ~~ 20 cents per mile that passengers are paying Amtrak. Take those revenue passengers and see how many are needed to meet the crossover costs of ?? so many train cars. That will give you the average number of passengers needed for for the train to break even. Route costs will vary some what. Then if you can guarantee that average passenger miles then you can privitize that route.
I would suspect this is what FEC is doing ??
PNWRMNM BaltACD, I have heard this "ATK was designed to fail" story several times from the wide eyed ATK advocates. None of them has ever come up with any credible evidence. What is your basis for this tale? Mac McCulloch
"Amtrak's origins are traceable to the sustained decline of private passenger rail services in the United States from about 1920 to 1970. In 1971, in response to the decline, Congress and President Richard Nixon created Amtrak.»http://www.fra.dot.gov/rpd/passenger/30.shtml The Nixon administration secretly agreed with some railroads that Amtrak would be shut down after two years. After Fortune magazine exposed the manufactured mismanagement in 1974, Louis W. Menk, chairman of the Burlington Northern Railroad remarked that the story was undermining the scheme to dismantle Amtrak. Though for its entire existence the company has been subjected to political cross-winds and insufficient capital resources, including owned railway, Amtrak's ridership has maintained consistent growth"
I have been unable to link to the Fortune article, but it is there.
Real world experiencing the politics of the day and the politicians that concocted the plan. The politicians hope was the service would be so bad that the public would totally forget about rail pasenger transportation and take exclusively to the Interstates.
Several folks keep citing the $ .20 per mile figure as the operating loss figure to use when discussing passenger rail in the US. That figure is an aggregate number, which includes ATK LD services. Since many folks, such as sam1, clearly recognize the need to build passenger rail as short corridors with rapid, frequent service, the figure to use would be the Acela service or perhaps some of the other short corridors. That way, one has a realistic picture of the sort of operating subsidies, if any, that would be needed.
As Dwight Branch mentioned, the original article was in Fortune. It is in the archive, but is accessible only to current subscribers. The article was also cited in a Trains article 1-2 years ago. That's two reputable magazines that have seen fit to print this. Of course, it is possible that the original article was a hoax or that Menk was joking, but I believe the burden of proof rests with those who would claim the notion was untrue.
We've heard this conspiracy theory of Amtrak before -- without, as Mac says, any convincing evidence. The Nixon administration may or may not have thought it had programmed Amtrak to sell-destruct; Lou Menk and some others in the industry may even have thought they had an "understanding" with a few Nixon insiders. I doubt it, but even if it were true, so what?
Amtrak was created by an act of Congress passed by a majority of the 535 members, most of whom -- I would guess 100 percent, myself, but say 99.8 percent -- had no knowledge of any such conspiracy. If they had, the numerous friends of labor, among others, in Congress, would have screamed bloody murder. There goes BaltACD's "intent."
The plain legislative intent was to continue a form of rail passenger by government means. And, contrary to claims on another thread months ago, there was absolutely no expressed intention to do away with Amtrak after a set number of years. In fact, one of the arguments against creation of Amtrak at the time was that it would be a millstone around the neck of taxpayers into perpetuity. Which, Amtrak detractors would say, has turned out to be the case.
dakota fred: Why do you believe you have more knowledge of the situation in 1970-71 than Menk would have had? As to the members of Congress, the true purpose of Amtrak would not need to have been revealed to them, and in fact, couldn't have been for the reasons you give. Do you actually believe Congress has never been deceived? I imagine our political scientist could give several examples of that!!
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