True, but the core is still DB (which is actually a joint-stock corporation) and some contractors are actually DB subsidiaries, like DB-Schenker, the freight service.
Local and long-distance passenger trains
412 million tons freight
25,532 per day Freight: 5261 per day
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm Why Australia? Because it has private contractors? Why not adapt something more like the German model?
Why Australia? Because it has private contractors? Why not adapt something more like the German model?
Germany is doing more and more contracting out.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
CSSHEGEWISCH One factor that is consistently overlooked or ignored is that Amtrak is a political creature and has to maintain some sort of support in Congress, whether we like it or not.
One factor that is consistently overlooked or ignored is that Amtrak is a political creature and has to maintain some sort of support in Congress, whether we like it or not.
But who is driving the politics? For the average everyday person, Amtrak and long-distance trains aren't even on the radar screen. The politics is you, me, everyone on this forum, and everyone else who rides trains or has an interest in trains.
One of the infamous "modest proposals" was the Inspector General Kenneth Meade report, that got the advocacy community so upset about everything that one couldn't even discuss the proposal. The idea was not to discontinue the long-distance trains. The idea was that over 50 percent of the train was serving maybe 20 percent of the passengers -- the first-class sleeping car passengers.
The automatic assumption is that sleeping car service charges such high fares in relation to coach that it has to be contributing to the bottom line, and the idea that we are subsidizing patrons of a premium service at the level of hundreds of dollars per trip couldn't be right.
So the idea was to remove one of the locomotives, the baggage, crew dorm, the diner, the lounge car, and the sleepers from the long-distance trains -- a long-distance trains would then have a consist of a locomotive and about 4-6 coaches, just like a corridor train. There were numbers presented in the report that it could cut the long-distance train subsidy in half while serving at least 80 percent of the passengers -- most trips on these trains are in coach and most trips don't go the whole distance but instead originate and terminate at intermediate stops.
When this report came out, you could hear the cries of "oh, the Humanity" from our bricks-and-morter advocacy community, and the report was so toxic that one couldn't even speak of it around here without getting the thread locked out.
Among the many criticisms of this proposal as to "why this would never work", the more interesting one was the voiced concern of "having only one locomotive"? I mean c'mon, apart from helper districts I suppose, such name trains as the Broadway Limited and Twentieth Century Limited ran with a single (steam) locomotive (OK, OK, the Pennsy used double-headed K4 locomotives, but they reverted to single T1 locomotives, at least for a while).
I mean, is Amtrak motive power maintenance so haphazard that you can't dispatch a long-distance train with one locomotive unit? Commuter and corridor consists run that way all the time. Do our long-distance trains traverse arid wastelands like the Karoo Desert that back in the day required condensing steam locomotives, that if you had a unit break down you would have passengers stranded without food and water in sweltering heat?
Among my bricks-and-morter colleagues, I made the suggestion that maybe we shouldn't dismiss this proposal out-of-hand. If we could have day trains in the style of the Cascades Talgo up and down the Mountain West, would that be a fair trade for the long-distance trains? How about the counter proposal of keep the level of subsidy where it is at, but provide twice-daily service along the long-distance routes, which functions for most of the passengers as a kind of linear network of corridors connecting intermediate stops?
I have come to a cynical view that passenger train advocacy is about a community of people who use sleeping car service to take cross-country trips on the long-distance trains. Not all of this is pleasure or vacation travel. I am beginning to realize why "the national network" figured so prominently in our talking points in that a number of our members of the local advocacy group took trains when they had to go someplace, trips that most of the rest of us would just make airline reservations -- if you had enough time on our hands and have arrangements for local transportation at each end, you can indeed get to most places using Amtrak.
I am saying that at the high-water mark in terms of getting a train to Madison, Wisconsin, one of the people, especially, in our local advocacy group was making a big deal of it everywhere he could, from op-ed pieces to thumbtacking a note on the bulletin board when you come in to Copp's Food Store on University Avenue. The Madison train was pointedly not "a commuter train to Milwaukee, it was a gateway to the 1000 destinations (on the Amtrak network)."
We also got our foundation garments all twisted up about Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz putting the Madison station downtown (Mayor Dave went on a fact-finding trip to Spain to see the Talgo in operation and was impressed with the car-less life style that downtown train service allowed -- our people wanted to hang on to their cars thank-you-very-much so they could drive and then park their cars to take their sleeping-car trips to the 1000 destinations, just like you drive and park your car at the Dane County Regional Airport). When we all calmed down, we got together our "list of demands" to take to a meeting with Mayor Dave's aides, which included that the station "had to have a national map showing the Amtrak system."
The way I see it is that if the Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago Talgo was about fostering economic development by turning Madison into a kind of longish commuter suburb of Milwaukee and Chicago, that is strong justification for the nearly one-billion dollar investment.
If what the Madison Talgo is about is those 1000 destinations on the Amtrak network, so that a small community of people with sufficient financial resources and time can flit about the country, and the rest of us with neither the financial resources nor the time are stuffed into Canadair Regional Jets (if you are traveling on University or State business, you go by the absolute cheapest way possible, and if teaching assistants are covering your classroom lectures, you don't tack days on to the trip by going to the West Coast on Amtrak). If that is what the Madison Talgo is all about, fuggetaboutit, you are taking the Lamars/Van Galder motor coach from Memorial Union straight to Chicago Union Station, and your complaints about the sparse leg room simply don't merit the nearly billion-dollar expenditure, and I don't care how much money is wasted in Afghanistan.
So why couldn't the Madison Talgo have been about both markets? Why not in deed, but when push-came-to-shove, when the rubber-met-the road, our advocacy people threw a tantrum, and now there is no Madison Talgo and neither market is being served.
So when people say, "Yeah, Amtrak could be improved, but it is constrained by politics," who do you think is writing the local newspaper op-eds and who is e-mailing Congress on this?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
One factor that is consistently overlooked or ignored is that Amtrak is a political creature and has to maintain some sort of support in Congress, whether we like it or not. Because of this political factor, discontinuance of the Western long-haul trains is about as likely as discontinuance of the Essential Air Service program. If the long-haul trains are dropped (and I agree with the idea that they should be dropped), it's going to be a lot harder to gain support for the various short-haul and corridor services that at least fill a reasonable need.
Sir Madog Ever since its "conception", AMTRAK has provided some sort of passenger rail service, with a focus on running trains and hardly any focus on the word "service". It will continue to do so, unless a few substantial things are changed. Change of mandate: AMTRAK´s congressional mandate should reflect a service orientation, based on current, but also future needs of the US society. Change of funding: Not based on what´s left in the budget, but what is needed. Change of management: Railroads are strange animals. You need to have an excellent understanding of railroading to be able to run that business properly. In Germany, German Railways was run for some years by a guy who thought he could run it just like an airline. It´s costing billions of Euros to correct the mistakes he made. Change in attitude: Trains are not "old-fashioned" choo-choos, but a viable option of modern transport. Need people to introduce change - I may volunteer
Ever since its "conception", AMTRAK has provided some sort of passenger rail service, with a focus on running trains and hardly any focus on the word "service". It will continue to do so, unless a few substantial things are changed.
Change of mandate: AMTRAK´s congressional mandate should reflect a service orientation, based on current, but also future needs of the US society.
Change of funding: Not based on what´s left in the budget, but what is needed.
Change of management: Railroads are strange animals. You need to have an excellent understanding of railroading to be able to run that business properly. In Germany, German Railways was run for some years by a guy who thought he could run it just like an airline. It´s costing billions of Euros to correct the mistakes he made.
Change in attitude: Trains are not "old-fashioned" choo-choos, but a viable option of modern transport.
Need people to introduce change - I may volunteer
Yes. Expect it, measure it and then reward results.
henry6 I disagree on the notion that Amtrak's economy scale isn't proven or provable. Commuter trains, buses, and airlines should prove the concept; even the wistful "build it and they will come" points in that direction.
I disagree on the notion that Amtrak's economy scale isn't proven or provable. Commuter trains, buses, and airlines should prove the concept; even the wistful "build it and they will come" points in that direction.
The problem isn't that passenger rail has no economies of scale, it's AMTRAK that has the problem. Amtrak has to be fixed or improved before there will be much forward progress.
I disagree on the notion that Amtrak's economy scale isn't proven or provable. Commuter trains, buses, and airlines should prove the concept; even the wistful "build it and they will come" points in that direction. We either want to drive cars or ride trains is the attitude I get here and from the general population. If that is the case, the close Amtrak and give the money to the big oil companies, auto makers, concrete purveyors, and others who you think would benefit from Amtrak, and passenger service, demise. Why argue anymore? At least the invading Russian Army won't have a means of moving troops and Beech Grove Shops can be used either as a concentration camp or to build tanks with sickle and hammer emblems! Go ahead and fall in behind those who follow that logic since Dole was DOT Sec. and Ron and Nancy Reagan ran the White House. Sam 1's plan is just another in a series of delaying plans rather one of positive action. If whatever traffic, environmental, efficiency, and economic data has been assembled so far isn't enough to act on, then a ten point plan is only to created buracracies and delay decsions. Lets just build up or bail out. Now.
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.
Here is a better plan:
1. Discontinue long distance trains.
2. Open the routes where passenger trains could be commercially viable to competitive bidding and award contracts to the lowest effective cost bidder.
3. Establish performance standards with appropriate incentive payments. Contracts run for five years; renewable for another five years if performance standards are met.
4. Require contractors to have effective organization, management, technology and employee (labor) practices. Keep most Amtrak employees, but make it clear that the game in Dodge has changed.
5. Implement effective customer service training for contract employees. Implement performance based compensation system for all employees.
6. Sell Amtrak's infrastructure to an independent operator that will allow any operator who meets the standards to run trains on it. Infrastructure rents set to capture cost of infrastructure operations and maintenance.
6. Provide federal subsidies for a reasonable transition period, i.e. five years.
7. Phase out small federal subsidies for other modes of transport and encourage the states to do the same.
Each of these steps would need to be fleshed out in a white paper. Moreover, I have just jotted them down off the top of my head. I am sure there are some more features that should be built into the model.
The key to improved performance is competition. Without it there is little incentive to do things better, faster, cheaper, with the operative word being better. Amtrak has tried most of the things that have been suggested in our forums. None of them have worked very well.
Australia, where I lived for five years, went from being one of the most heavily regulated and statist economies in the OECD to one of the most competitive economies in less than 15 years. What has been the result? Today it is one of the shinning stars in the OECD. It is outperforming the United States and most European countries on the key economic indicators, i.e. unemployment, exports, currency valuation, GDP and GNP growth, etc.
What is the probability that we will allow market forces to drive passenger train service in the United States? None! But's its fun to thing about what could have been the outcome if Volpe's plan (Amtrak) to saving the dying intercity passenger trains had been shot down. Which it should have been!
But that would all be too logical. Something similar to that should, but probably won't happen here.
Right on target, Don.
NKP guy Let me address myself to a particular recent comment: I am absolutely to be counted among those who don't give a darn about the cost of Amtrak service, especially the long-distance trains, and just want that money coming in. Guilty as charged. I'll say this again: No long-distance trains will equal no Amtrak. Period. No Congressman is going to vote any subsidies for a service his state has just lost. The total amount of money Amtrak gets from the Feds is pathetically inadequate and a mere tiny fraction of the Federal budget. There's always money for everything else. I heard on the news yesterday that the amount of money to fly supplies to our troops in Afghanistan, because the road connection has been blocked at the Pakistan border for a year, is an extra 1 billion dollars per day! Or, to my way of thinking, that's about one year's Amtrak subsidy every two days (forgive me if my figure is wrong; you take my point, I hope). Don't tell me that it all adds up, don't repeat the Dirksen quote; I'm familiar with all of that. I'm a railfan: I want more trains and especially more passenger trains. If there's that kind of money every day for a war no one wants, and for banks that are too big to fail, I bet we can afford a national passenger rail program in this country. What sort of "railfan" wants to see Amtrak destroyed?
Let me address myself to a particular recent comment: I am absolutely to be counted among those who don't give a darn about the cost of Amtrak service, especially the long-distance trains, and just want that money coming in. Guilty as charged.
I'll say this again: No long-distance trains will equal no Amtrak. Period. No Congressman is going to vote any subsidies for a service his state has just lost.
The total amount of money Amtrak gets from the Feds is pathetically inadequate and a mere tiny fraction of the Federal budget. There's always money for everything else. I heard on the news yesterday that the amount of money to fly supplies to our troops in Afghanistan, because the road connection has been blocked at the Pakistan border for a year, is an extra 1 billion dollars per day! Or, to my way of thinking, that's about one year's Amtrak subsidy every two days (forgive me if my figure is wrong; you take my point, I hope).
Don't tell me that it all adds up, don't repeat the Dirksen quote; I'm familiar with all of that. I'm a railfan: I want more trains and especially more passenger trains. If there's that kind of money every day for a war no one wants, and for banks that are too big to fail, I bet we can afford a national passenger rail program in this country.
What sort of "railfan" wants to see Amtrak destroyed?
I don't. That's why I want them to do better. They do so little with the money they get they are almost impossible to defend. Yes, it's not much of the Federal budget, but we should give them more so they can do what? But more baggage cars? Hire more managers? Lobby congress more? Buy Popsicles and let them melt in the road?
Don't we want more and better service? Let's start holding them accountable for that! THEN see about them getting more money.
henry6 But Paul, trains cost so much because there are so few of them. If we had fewer roads or fewer airports, those forms of transportation would cost more too. Passenger rail cost so much because it is a government service of minimal support. If it received the same amount of money per mile of track or number of cars and locomotives or on some other scale other than per passenger mile, then the comparison would be different that what is given us. If we had as many passenger track miles as we do super highways or airways, then we migh get a better idea of what rail can do against them You can't ride a train to so many places where you can drive or even fly, so how can you say it is more expensive? It might only be more expensive because you have to either drive, take a bus, or fly to take a full journey. After that, it is marketing, marketing, marketing....and providins service instead of running trains.
But Paul, trains cost so much because there are so few of them. If we had fewer roads or fewer airports, those forms of transportation would cost more too. Passenger rail cost so much because it is a government service of minimal support. If it received the same amount of money per mile of track or number of cars and locomotives or on some other scale other than per passenger mile, then the comparison would be different that what is given us. If we had as many passenger track miles as we do super highways or airways, then we migh get a better idea of what rail can do against them You can't ride a train to so many places where you can drive or even fly, so how can you say it is more expensive? It might only be more expensive because you have to either drive, take a bus, or fly to take a full journey. After that, it is marketing, marketing, marketing....and providins service instead of running trains.
There is no evidence that Amtrak has ANY economies of scale.
I looked to see if economies of scale showed up when Amtrak and Illinois doubled the frequency on a couple of routes several years back. There was none.
Also, Amtrak has had a nice boost in ridership over the past couple of years. Look to see how much of that made it to the bottom line. Not very much - and it should have almost ALL made it there.
Amtrak added over 200 management jobs in the past several years while adding zero trains to the network. The "big cuts" this past year were about 200 jobs. Hmmm.
Perhaps there SHOULD be economies of scale. Amtrak does not seem interested in finding them.
dakotafred schlimm: Not what I said. Try re-reading. Done, same result. Try rewriting.
schlimm: Not what I said. Try re-reading.
Not what I said. Try re-reading.
Done, same result. Try rewriting.
Perhaps this is clearer?
It is "interesting" how conservative-leaning folks, such as sam1, greyhounds, the dakotas, to name just a few, express their ideas freely. Yet if they (plural, members of that group, not necessarily YOU specifically) are challenged, that challenge is labeled as "political" or a personal attack (again, not necessarily by you).
schlimm Not what I said. Try re-reading.
daveklepper I disagree completely with the above post. because rail transportation is far more effficient for freight than any kind of highway or air transportation, and the only reason the airlines and truckers could compete was because of the massive intervention of government, both in ivestment and regulaation. If integrated transportaton companies had emerged, and the government would not have interfered, we would proabably have integrated power and rail companeis, with elelctrification widespread, with abandonmennt of little used branch lines beause of the wide availableiltiy of intermodal transfer points. We might have had double-sttack trains (with catenary high enough to handle them) on some routes before WWII, s a logical development of what the PRR wanted to do in 1931. Instead Firestone-GM-Texaco owning most of the USA's transit systems thorugh Naitonal City Lines, the power companies would have continiued owning most of the larger ones that were not municipally owned, and in many places where there are now new light rail lines, these would have grown logically from the existing streetcar systems, where heavy trunk routes would have been upgraded, and minor ones converted to buses. Regarding mergers, of course the Hill lines would have emerged long ago, the PRR, N&W, and Southern, and possibly the ACL, with the Seabord, NYC, B&O, and C&O forming the maor competitor in its territory. Probably WP-D&RGW-MP-TP and possibly RI. Of course, all these railroads would probably own trucking companies with most freight, as today, either intermodal or unit trains. The two competing technologies would have been container on flatcar, pioneered by PRR at a major, and trailer on flatcar. But long distance truckiing and air-freight would have been specialty situations for freigiht not adaptable for intermodal or unit train operation. Loose car railroading would be a minor part of the freight business, about parallel with long-distance trucking and air-freight. We would have been better prepared for WWII. and less dependent on mideast oil after!
I disagree completely with the above post. because rail transportation is far more effficient for freight than any kind of highway or air transportation, and the only reason the airlines and truckers could compete was because of the massive intervention of government, both in ivestment and regulaation. If integrated transportaton companies had emerged, and the government would not have interfered, we would proabably have integrated power and rail companeis, with elelctrification widespread, with abandonmennt of little used branch lines beause of the wide availableiltiy of intermodal transfer points. We might have had double-sttack trains (with catenary high enough to handle them) on some routes before WWII, s a logical development of what the PRR wanted to do in 1931. Instead Firestone-GM-Texaco owning most of the USA's transit systems thorugh Naitonal City Lines, the power companies would have continiued owning most of the larger ones that were not municipally owned, and in many places where there are now new light rail lines, these would have grown logically from the existing streetcar systems, where heavy trunk routes would have been upgraded, and minor ones converted to buses. Regarding mergers, of course the Hill lines would have emerged long ago, the PRR, N&W, and Southern, and possibly the ACL, with the Seabord, NYC, B&O, and C&O forming the maor competitor in its territory. Probably WP-D&RGW-MP-TP and possibly RI. Of course, all these railroads would probably own trucking companies with most freight, as today, either intermodal or unit trains. The two competing technologies would have been container on flatcar, pioneered by PRR at a major, and trailer on flatcar. But long distance truckiing and air-freight would have been specialty situations for freigiht not adaptable for intermodal or unit train operation. Loose car railroading would be a minor part of the freight business, about parallel with long-distance trucking and air-freight. We would have been better prepared for WWII. and less dependent on mideast oil after!
Your are preaching to the choir when you say that rail is the most efficient mode, at least in a physical context . Nevertheless, many shippers consider time as part of efficiency, and rail corporations may consider the efficiency of capital to trump the rest. Depending on circumstances, rail may not always come out the winner.
I presume that when you talk of gov't interference with integrated power and rail companies, you are referring to the Public Utility Holding Company Act. This prevented regulated monopoly electric companies from mixing costs and profits with their transit companies. While the divestiture opened the door for Firestone-GM-et al. to buy up unwanted trolley lines, your theory fails to gain traction because the largest example of a traction line, the PE, was owned by the SP rather than a utility, and still suffered the same fate.
As a citizen, I feel it is the governments job to intervene where appropriate, in situations where its citizens have pointed out an obvious injustice. To lay out all these problems of the railroads as caused by our overarching socio-political institution, ie. the government, sounds like trying to find blame a place to stick to.
schlimm It is "interesting" how conservative-leaning folks, such as sam1, greyhounds, the dakotas, to name just a few, express their ideas freely. Yet if they are challenged, that challenge is labeled as "political" or a personal attack.
It is "interesting" how conservative-leaning folks, such as sam1, greyhounds, the dakotas, to name just a few, express their ideas freely. Yet if they are challenged, that challenge is labeled as "political" or a personal attack.
Don't know where this came from. I'd like to be shown where, on this thread or elsewhere, I have cried "politics" or "personal attack."
Conversely, I suppose if I accused Schlimm of making it up as he goes along, that would be a personal attack.
What part, if any, of the advocacy community do you find to be asking the right questions, making valid assumptions and pursuing reasonable goals with an effective strategy? If none, what might you propose?
henry6 On one hand I understand your queasyness, Oltmannd; and I fully understand what davelepper is saying. But what both of you are missing is that since the majority of Americans really don't have that choice of convenient passenger rail service, niether statement can be wholly accepted. We don't know what majority of people under the age of, what, 40?, would choose for several reasons beyond availability,too. Even those under 50 or 60 have been bombarded with pro automobile and only continental air schedules, how and why would they even think about a train. And if they do menton "train" the nay sayers, those with bad experiences, those who think in the same reflection as Dave presented, etc. peer pressure puts them in the air or behind the wheel on the six lane dodging trucks at 80+ mph. But that is what society has given them, what has been marketed as American transportation. It isn't until they come back from Europe or Japan that they start realizing what the US has been missing in modern and contemmporary transportation.
On one hand I understand your queasyness, Oltmannd; and I fully understand what davelepper is saying. But what both of you are missing is that since the majority of Americans really don't have that choice of convenient passenger rail service, niether statement can be wholly accepted. We don't know what majority of people under the age of, what, 40?, would choose for several reasons beyond availability,too. Even those under 50 or 60 have been bombarded with pro automobile and only continental air schedules, how and why would they even think about a train. And if they do menton "train" the nay sayers, those with bad experiences, those who think in the same reflection as Dave presented, etc. peer pressure puts them in the air or behind the wheel on the six lane dodging trucks at 80+ mph. But that is what society has given them, what has been marketed as American transportation. It isn't until they come back from Europe or Japan that they start realizing what the US has been missing in modern and contemmporary transportation.
It is not a question of whether people will ride the trains. If you build it, they will come -- people are riding the trains.
The problem is that the trains cost too much. Was the editorial staff of Trains Magazine "counting paper clips" back in the day when the article "Who Shot the Passenger Train" was published and when it was disclosed that the new 727 jet airliner beat the Denver Zephyr on direct operating cost?
The trains also cost too much "over there" -- the expenditure is on the order of our Federal Highway budget for the train market share of 5 percent of passenger miles. So, the Interstate System is cross-subsidized, gets a lion share of gas tax revenue for carrying 20 percent of passenger miles. So then it is a minimum of four times more cost effective than trains.
The problem, as I see it, is there is a main faction in the advocacy community that does not want to address the question of cost -- everyone else is getting government funding, so why not we, and anyone who questions our view of passenger trains being meritorious of public money is part of the political opposition.
The questioning of corridors vs long-distance, paper plates vs china, crew dorms vs service districts, brand new high-speed baggage cars vs convert-Amfleet has to do with the cost question. Those of us in the advocacy community are in aggregate as technically knowlegable as any one person at Amtrak, and I see a role for the advocacy community to gain some insights into the engineering and economic trades in providing train service. But there is a large segment of the advocacy community who likes trains the way they are and just wants the government funding coming in.
daveklepper Tourism, emergencies, handicapped and ellderly, these to me are the reasons for subsidizing long distance passenger trains.
Tourism, emergencies, handicapped and ellderly, these to me are the reasons for subsidizing long distance passenger trains.
This leaves me a bit queasy. I don't think I could make this argument to anyone with a clear conscience. For the same total subsidy, we could accomplish this for many, many more folk with MCI buses and hotels.
I'll add a motive question to Paul's.
There is this other thought that it is the LD trains, i.e. the "national network" that are responsible for the political "oomph" that keeps Amtrak in subsidy every year, and, if that network would to unravel down to jus the corridors, that Amtrak would lose the broad support, particularly in the Senate, that they need to keep going.
So, if this is true, why in the world would Amtrak "shift" costs onto the LD trains, making their economics so vulnerable to criticism and ridicule. (e.g. "you could give everyone on the Sunset a door to door limo ride for what it costs"...etc.)? Politically, wouldn't Amtrak want the LD trains to look as good as possible?
I think you have not carefully read my previous posts, because you have not addressed the basic issue, which is this:
Taking all costs together, capitol, infrastructure, equipment, payments to railroads, payments to communities as or in lieu of taxes, and above-the-rail operating costs, the corridors, mainly the NEC, but others as well, have recevied far more taxpayer money than long distance trains. If we look just at the number of passengers carried, the long distance trains seem extremely uneconomical, will expenditures greater than the corridor trains on a seat-mile basis or just on a journey basis. But this standard metric is unfair.
The corridor trains are used primarily by businessmen and each will ride between twice and ten times each week, for between 100 and 500 trips a year.
The long distance trains are mainly for vacations and tours and visiting family, and the travelers using them ride between twice and 24 times a year, very very few making a trip more than once a month.
Taxpayer money for the corridors is what prevents the needed greater expenditures to increase highway and airport capacity, which would indeed be even more expensive than what Amtrak does. IIN some cases, the corridor taxpayer expensses have been necessary just to keep some urban communities functioning. Spending taxpayer money for the second group of riders that is disproporionary high on a seat-mile basis but at the same time disproportionatly low on an individual citizen basis seems appropriate to me. Tourism, emergencies, handicapped and ellderly, these to me are the reasons for subsidizing long distance passenger trains.
daveklepper I am not labeling Sam's attack on long distance passenger trains as political. I am simply stating that he won't look at their general usefulness to the USA pulbic in general and won't address the issue of what massive government spending for the cojmpetition and massiver railway overregulation did to the industry.
I am not labeling Sam's attack on long distance passenger trains as political. I am simply stating that he won't look at their general usefulness to the USA pulbic in general and won't address the issue of what massive government spending for the cojmpetition and massiver railway overregulation did to the industry.
Answer me this. Amtrak receives funding from the Federal government and pays out money to the host railroads for use of the tracks. Amtrak has to operate stations, but let us assign the cost of the stations to municipalities that benefit from train service, although Sam1 tells me airports recover at least some of their costs from users, i.e. airlines.
So the argument is one of a level playing field. Why cannot a long-distance train operate as a "bus on steel wheels", that is, pay all of its costs above the rail-wheel contact patch? In fact, there is that one advocacy group that claims that the long-distance trains indeed cover such costs, namely United Rail Passenger Alliance (URPA) and their leader named Seldon. The argument is that Amtrak doesn't separate out costs of operating individual routes and spreads vast amount of overhead costs over the network.
Now I know that the Amtrak overhead money needs to come from someplace and that arguments that long-distance trains are being penalized in this regard may be rather thin. Looking more carefully at URPA's press releases and position papers, I am also wondering if they have hard numbers or if they are just flapping their arms. I once pressed an officer in our local advocacy group about URPA's claims of cost shifting, and the suggestion was that URPA's Seldon had "a person inside Amtrak feeding him numbers, and that's why he can't give them out." Really.
Again, I have gotten stern criticism from a certain party around here that you can't separate overhead from "direct costs", that the bills all have to be paid. But Trains Magazine famously claimed in the 1960's that a 727 jet had the Denver Zephyr beat on direct operating costs by a sizable margin. If a train were at least competitive with other modes on at least some measure of costs, any measure of cost, you could argue economy of scale, that if Amtrak received more funding and were a little larger, the overhead would be spread over more trains, and more passenger miles would be generated per subsidy dollar.
The sense I get is that trains and especially long-distance trains have high costs however you draw system boundaries around the operation (to get a level playing field with other modes). This is not a comparison to counting paper clips; this is an analogy to the higher-ups spending the shareholder earning buzzing around in corporate jets (or private railway cars?) rather than going commercial.
There are a lot of claims made by the advocacy communities over the years. In the pre-Amtrak NARP days, the claim was that passenger trains were covering their expenses but that railroad management was cooking the books to get their train-off petitions approved by the ICC. NARP's Anthony Haswell went as far as to suggest that railroad companies were purposefully sabotaging their operations to get rid of passenger trains, suggesting in the newsletter that if a certain railroad "would just answer the phone, their train would have ridership."
Well, we (the advocacy community) "got" Amtrak to keep the passenger trains, Amtrak answers the phone, and I am told long-distance trains operate near capacity. And they lose money hand over fist.
I guess what I am asking, is there any assertion, claim, or position issued by the advocacy community that is even "falsifiable" in the sense of Karl Popper's description of how science works? Was Haswell's remark about "answering the phone" falsifiable in that Amtrak works hard to serve customers, the trains are full, but they still lose money, so maybe we have to go back to the drawing board regarding how trains fit into the transportation picture?
Is there any metric that can be applied to say, yes, the taxpayers are getting good value for their money with this train, but that other train over there is a failing proposition and we should move on? Or is the advocacy community position that trains have such inherent social goodness that whatever level of subsidy it takes should be paid, and wouldn't you know how the United States Navy spends money like the drunken sailors that they are, so just give us the money? But there are limits placed on even the Defense program and big-ticket spending programs get canceled all the time.
Well it is political and even personal when words like "paranoid" are thrown around. With regard to the "free marketers", has "sam1" ever used language that could even remotely be construed that way?
It is like the new office manager who get extremely concerned about wastage of paper clips and neglects the simple fact that mental energy and time devoted to saving paper clips is diverted from the main effort of the parlticular business.
The conceptf the unit train isn't new. Ore and coal moved in what were effectively unit trains 90 years ago. But until Staggars railroads could not use the efficiency of unit trains in pricing. A lot fewer pipelines would have been constructed. It was government regulation that forced power companies to sell their transportation subsidiaries, and National City Lines, owned by GM, Texaco,a nd Firestone, was glad to buy them. Of course, today, if railroads owned truck companies and took full advantage of intermodel technology, the question would be what percent of the successful short lines would continue to be successful? And some of those that might fall victim to railroad-owned trucking competition might be some of our tourist passenger operations!
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.