For the last 60 years or so Europe has had a lot of money for various amenities, thanks to the United States attending to most of their defense needs for them. (To appreciate how much we saved them, consider that, at the height of the Cold War, defense -- ours and theirs -- consumed up to 50 percent of our national budget.)
As for freight infrastructure, Don Phillips in the August TRAINS shows how much better off the rails are these days, largely attending to their own needs, than barges and trucks, who have to wait on Uncle Sam.
dakotafred For the last 60 years or so Europe has had a lot of money for various amenities, thanks to the United States attending to most of their defense needs for them. (To appreciate how much we saved them, consider that, at the height of the Cold War, defense -- ours and theirs -- consumed up to 50 percent of our national budget.) As for freight infrastructure, Don Phillips in the August TRAINS shows how much better off the rails are these days, largely attending to their owns needs, than barges and trucks, who have to wait on Uncle Sam.
As for freight infrastructure, Don Phillips in the August TRAINS shows how much better off the rails are these days, largely attending to their owns needs, than barges and trucks, who have to wait on Uncle Sam.
What an interesting way to rationalize our paranoid defense spending and posture.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Vet dakotafred: For the last 60 years or so Europe has had a lot of money for various amenities, thanks to the United States attending to most of their defense needs for them. (To appreciate how much we saved them, consider that, at the height of the Cold War, defense -- ours and theirs -- consumed up to 50 percent of our national budget.) As for freight infrastructure, Don Phillips in the August TRAINS shows how much better off the rails are these days, largely attending to their owns needs, than barges and trucks, who have to wait on Uncle Sam. What an interesting way to rationalize our paranoid defense spending and posture.
dakotafred: For the last 60 years or so Europe has had a lot of money for various amenities, thanks to the United States attending to most of their defense needs for them. (To appreciate how much we saved them, consider that, at the height of the Cold War, defense -- ours and theirs -- consumed up to 50 percent of our national budget.) As for freight infrastructure, Don Phillips in the August TRAINS shows how much better off the rails are these days, largely attending to their owns needs, than barges and trucks, who have to wait on Uncle Sam.
That's grownup, Dave -- our being paranoid about a peaceable, non-expansionist Soviet Union. Tell that to a fool -- also to Europe, which scampered happily under our umbrella after what had happened to their brothers in Eastern Europe.
Let any trigger-happy moderator reflect that my comment was on Europe having lots of money for railroad things, like passenger subsidies and freight infrastructure -- money that, on the U.S. side, was otherwise committed.
Yes, Sam, but reputable research says that truckers pay only about 50% of the total maintenance costs of highways that their usage requires, and this says nothing about land use and equitable division of the tax load. The point is not only that the massive investment in competition to railroads was made by government, but government prevented railroads from using their natural efficiency and postponed the intermodel revolution until after the Interstates were complete and long distance trucking became a major industiry.
If Government had not interfered, starting 90 or 100 years ago, we would now have a healthy freight railroad system without anyone considering long distance trucking as anything but a specialty case. The competition would be between many competing railroads, and they would be proud to show potential freight shippers with the excellence of service they can provide by sterling long distance passenger trains with losses considered as first class advertizing.
daveklepper Yes, Sam, but reputable research says that truckers pay only about 50% of the total maintenance costs of highways that their usage requires, and this says nothing about land use and equitable division of the tax load. The point is not only that the massive investment in competition to railroads was made by government, but government prevented railroads from using their natural efficiency and postponed the intermodel revolution until after the Interstates were complete and long distance trucking became a major industiry. If Government had not interfered, starting 90 or 100 years ago, we would now have a healthy freight railroad system without anyone considering long distance trucking as anything but a specialty case. The competition would be between many competing railroads, and they would be proud to show potential freight shippers with the excellence of service they can provide by sterling long distance passenger trains with losses considered as first class advertizing.
Whether truckers pay their fair share of the roadway system has been debated and will continue to be debated for year. What is missing in so many of these arguments are the grants and benefits bestowed on the railroads. For example, truckers pay hefty fuel taxes, which contribute a disproportionate percentage of revenues to the highway trust fund whilst the railroads pay no fuel taxes because they are classified as off road users. Whether these offset the property taxes is unclear. At the end of the day, however, it does not matter. We are where we are; the key question is what are the best solutions for America's future transport needs.
As an article in this week's or last week's Time made clear, America's freight railroads are on a roll. For 2011 America's freight railroads had a median return on sales of 15.8%; on assets of 6.5%; and on equity, which is the most important indicator of profitability, of 19%. In addition, CN, which is a Canadian company with significant operations in the United States, had corresponding returns of 27.4%, 9.9%, and 23 %, and CPR, also a Canadian company with significant U.S. operations, had returns of 12.5%, 4.8%, and 13.9% in the listed categories.
For comparative purposes, the median return on sales for the Fortune 500 (America's freight railroads are Fortune 500 companies) was approximately 5% and the median return on equity was 14.3%, which was significanty above the historical return of 12%. As these numbers show, at least from a financial perspective, America's freight railroads are performing substantially above the financial medians for America's largest corporations.
This discussion, as tends to be true for most of our discussions, has strayed off the presenting issue: What's Ahead for Amtrak? In my view it will muddle along without any significant changes until the United States hits the impending financial wall, i.e. overseas investors stop buying our bonds or demand a significant risk premium. Then we will see an outcome similar to what is being experienced in Europe, and real change likely will happen.
I am sick and tired of hearing about the "grants and benefits" bestowed upon the railroads. The railroads paid deeply with free or low cost transportation for the Government including mail into the middle of the 20th Century (it was posted somewhere here the other day what it would have cost the Government to pay transportation costs while waging WWII if it had not been for the government grants and benefits). If the railroads were never built there would have been either no or so slow population growth in the west, lack of ability to move natural resources out, and to serve the agricultural industry. Add to that the losses railroads incurred in running passenger trains so that a few post cards could be delivered. The railroads were being repaid by not being able to curtail unprofitable services nor create rates that would be profitble and competitive. Rails paid and the Government and its people reaped well...probably second only to Seward's purchase in value.
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.
As to the future of Amtrak, we need to see what future passenger rail will have in the US. From what I h ave seen, and what others have commented, passenger rail's future will lie in short haul corridors in three regions of the country: Eastern seaboard from Maine to North Carolina, upper midwest corridors radiating from Chicago, and west coast corridors. With the possible exception of Auto Train and maybe one or two others, long distance passenger trains are dead. Air travel is just too efficient. With this in mind, the states in these regions should name six of the nine directors to serve on Amtrak's board. The other three can be selected to represent the freight railroads, Congress, and the President, respectively. The states will have to take center stage here, particularly if the Republicans prevail in Nov.
A.McIntosh...the future of passenger rail in this country is at least cloudy but undefined. Yes there are the corridors you mentoned, but others, too, and still others emerging. What there isn't is a definition of what is going to emerge. Could be an intact Amtrak or one totally altered in appearance and operation. Could be in just defined corridors or regions with or without oun inter connections. Could be HSR as defined by Japan and France or HSR as defined by the US. Or it could be mass modifications and improvements on what we already have. As long as the highway lobby is in the heads of Congress and the public, not much will happen that will be noticable.
The "Good Roads" movement was begun, even before autos, by bicyclist. President Eisenhower saw the effectiveness of German autobahns as a general, and signed the Interstate Highway Act.
Railroad regulation came about because citizens were so outraged by various practices that they pushed their representatives into passing legislation. Democracies tend to cause "government interference". Admittedly, sometimes these good intentions morph into misguided consequences, but then they were brought back into line with the Staggers Rail Act. To say that without interference we would now have a healthy freight rail system is a best case scenario, and it may just have likely turned out that the rail companies would have morphed int trucking or airline companies,
Sam1 Whether truckers pay their fair share of the roadway system has been debated and will continue to be debated for year. . For example, truckers pay hefty fuel taxes, which contribute a disproportionate percentage of revenues to the highway trust fund For comparative purposes, the median return on sales for the Fortune 500 (America's freight railroads are Fortune 500 companies) was approximately 5% and the median return on equity was 14.3%, which was significanty above the historical return of 12%. As these numbers show, at least from a financial perspective, America's freight railroads are performing substantially above the financial medians for America's largest corporations.
Whether truckers pay their fair share of the roadway system has been debated and will continue to be debated for year. . For example, truckers pay hefty fuel taxes, which contribute a disproportionate percentage of revenues to the highway trust fund
sam1; To say that trucks are paying their fair share of the roadway system is incorrect. as our poster mudchicken has cited trucks wear out the interstate system not cars.
to cite a few examples Ga DOT just finished repaving I-85 from about mile post 36 to mile post 57. It took 2-1/2 years to complete on an in service road. The outer lanes of concrete were pot holed and rough ( main lane of heavier trucks ). 8" concrete was replaced with 12 - 14 " 8000# concrete. Now I-85 ( 2 lanes each way ) from mile post 0 to mile post 36 is slated for replacement in a couple years with the right lanes cracked and pot holed.
Henry6 can cite several NY parkways built in the 1960s around NYC thah have always banned trucks and have never had to be even repaved.
Maybe RRs do have a better ROI now but look at all the lean years that they did not have such ??
[quote user="blue streak 1"]
Sam1: Whether truckers pay their fair share of the roadway system has been debated and will continue to be debated for year. . For example, truckers pay hefty fuel taxes, which contribute a disproportionate percentage of revenues to the highway trust fund For comparative purposes, the median return on sales for the Fortune 500 (America's freight railroads are Fortune 500 companies) was approximately 5% and the median return on equity was 14.3%, which was significanty above the historical return of 12%. As these numbers show, at least from a financial perspective, America's freight railroads are performing substantially above the financial medians for America's largest corporations.
Maybe RRs do have a better ROI now but look at all the lean years that they did not have such ?? /quote]
Most transport experts understand that heavy trucks do more damage to the highways per vehicle mile traveled than light trucks and cars. Studies from the Texas Transportation Institute show this to be true. I did not agree or disagree with their findings. I alluded to the fact that the question of whether they are paying their fair share is being debated and probably will continue to be debated or words to that effect.
Heavy truck operators pay considerably more in vehicle taxes and user fees (primarily diesel) than light truck and car owners. In addition, the overwhelming majority of heavy trucks is operated by for profit common carriers (J.B. Hunt, Roadway, etc.) or private carriers (Ashley Furniture, Walmart, Frito-Lay, etc.) Most of these firms pay federal, state, and local income taxes, inventory and property taxes, etc. A portion of these taxes flow to highway development and maintenance. Accordingly, the key question is whether the incremental taxes and fees paid by heavy truck operators, as well as their corporate taxes, cover the incremental maintenance costs caused by their trucks.
If Henry can point to verifiable data that the Taconic Parkway in New York, as well as the Merit Parkway in Connecticut, as examples, have never been resurfaced, I'll believe it, although it has nothing to do with determining whether truckers pay the incremental cost of maintaining the highways that they use. Otherwise, having driven these parkways, both of which appear to have been resurfaced at least once, I will remain a skeptic. By comparison, you can look up the data that I presented regarding the financial performance of the nation's freight railroads. The annual reports of the reporting railroads is a good place to start, except in the case of the BNSF the data has to be dug out of Berkshire Hathaway's financial data.
As the figures shown in my previous post show, the nation's freight railroads are outperforming their Fortune 500 counterparts. And not just by a little bit. Prior to the regulatory reforms implement by the Stagger's Act, the returns was less than what they could have gotten from a passbook savings account. That was then. This is now.
I come back to what I have said and will continue repeat. Whether the railroads were treated unfairly in comparison to alternative modes of transport or are being treated fairly is irrelevant. We ain't going back! Americans are not going to give up the technological, commercial, and convenience advantages delivered by cars, planes, and trucks. It just is not going to happen. Which leaves us with this question: what is the role for passenger rail in the nation's bag of transport options?
MidlandMike Admittedly, sometimes these good intentions morph into misguided consequences, but then they were brought back into line with the Staggers Rail Act. To say that without interference we would now have a healthy freight rail system is a best case scenario, and it may just have likely turned out that the rail companies would have morphed int trucking or airline companies,
Admittedly, sometimes these good intentions morph into misguided consequences, but then they were brought back into line with the Staggers Rail Act. To say that without interference we would now have a healthy freight rail system is a best case scenario, and it may just have likely turned out that the rail companies would have morphed int trucking or airline companies,
We would have integrated transportation companies - not morphed railroads. The railroads would have poured their capital into integrating trucking and air travel into their railroad network. The roads would have merged down to 3 or 4 and served everyone, everywhere.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Also Sam, we have a two fold public relations/image problem One is several generations who have no concept of what passenger service (again, I say service and not trains) is all about. Talking to them about rail travel is akin to explaining space travel to our grandparents whose concept is Buck Rogers and Flash Gorden and not Niel Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. And second is the older generation who don't understand that the train left the station decades ago, today's railroads are not the same as those who took us through WWII and the Korean War with troop trains and billions of tons of freight. Say "choo, choo" in front of them and they remember steam locomotives belching through the night. Say "choo, choo, in front of a contemporary person and they say, "Ggesundhiet!" to you. That's why we have to start planning a transportation system for this into the next century starting from scratch, forgetting the past and the present, more than just thinking outside the box but thinking as if there was never a box at all. Therein lies the future of Amtrak and not in the timetables of the past.
Phoebe Vet What an interesting way to rationalize our paranoid defense spending and posture.
I suppose on this anniversary of our great nation's founding, I could take personal offense at that remark, especially in light of two persons who would later become my parents being independently granted refugee status to come to this country in the aftermath of WW-II and not forced to be repatriated with a newly Communist country.
But what bothers me more about such remarks is that damage is done to the cause of passenger train advocacy. Yes, being for or against public spending on passenger trains roughly correlates with the Liberal/Conservative political divide. But even in the Liberal camp there is not universal enthusiasm for trains, and given the close division of the American electorate along the main ideological lines, advancing the cause of trains is going to require support from both Liberals and Conservatives, as well as from people who question our defense spending and posture and those who unabashedly support it (not cleanly split along Liberal and Conservative lines either).
How are we going to build this broad coalition in support of trains if advocacy people go around offending people either in that coalition or who could be in it? And I have experienced this not only here but in the bricks-and-morter advocacy circles as well.
Furthermore, let's stipulate that all of this is going to change, peace is going to break out all over, and there will be this enormous peace dividend coming. It is a real stretch to think that passenger trains are going to be first in line for that money. For example, the Recovery Act (Stimulus bill) was roughly 800 billion for various worthwhile non-defense expenditures, and passenger trains got 8 billion, about 1 percent, and from an Administration who has as strong a passenger advocate (the Vice President) as you are going to ever get in high places. 8 billion dollars may not be a lot of money compared to the need and the passenger-train wish lists, but from the high-speed baggage car thread, it is not clear that money is being spent for maximum impact, it is not clear to me that the advocacy community took seriously the one-time-window-of-opportunity nature of that money.
So if not trains, what is ahead of us (besides defense) claiming Federal money? Health care for one. I had suggested in another thread that the broadening of who is covered by health insurance is going to require more money and is an important social priority, and a certain person laid into me as being a Right-wing shill for suggesting that. There are certain things about the social climate of this forum that I simply don't get.
Education is also a priority. Having enough men and women as police and firefighters and municipal workers is also a priority. Somewhere down the list are trains, probably at the one-part-in-one hundred level of the stimulus bill, given the most favorable political environment as you are going to get for this sort of thing.
The other thing that bothers me is that as soon as anyone introduces anything remotely approaching a Free Market argument in passenger advocacy circles, there is this piling on regarding the virtue as well as necessity of passenger train subsidies. The amount of subsidy Amtrak receives is just a rounding error in the Federal Budget, but then too, contrary to some vehement denials by the way, the Amtrak contribution to moving people around outside of the NEC is a footnote entry in the Department of Commerce transportation statistics.
Advocacy business-as-usual hasn't gotten us off dead center since Amtrak's inception over 40 years ago. I welcome the people who challenge the passenger-train orthodoxy on this forum because we need new ideas, and such were certainly not expressed in the bricks-and-morters circles I frequented, or if you were (a published railroad historical book author!) speaking as much, you ended up blacklisted in not being invited back for not keeping to the party line.
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:
I'm not sure how you got all of that from my reply that claiming that we have been forced to expend all of our resources defending all the other nations of the world because they have chosen not to defend themselves is an interesting rationalization.
I only replied to someone who made that claim. I have no intention of making it a protracted debate. Such a debate would be totally political and in violation of the rules of the forum.
oltmannd MidlandMike: Admittedly, sometimes these good intentions morph into misguided consequences, but then they were brought back into line with the Staggers Rail Act. To say that without interference we would now have a healthy freight rail system is a best case scenario, and it may just have likely turned out that the rail companies would have morphed int trucking or airline companies, We would have integrated transportation companies - not morphed railroads. The railroads would have poured their capital into integrating trucking and air travel into their railroad network. The roads would have merged down to 3 or 4 and served everyone, everywhere.
MidlandMike: Admittedly, sometimes these good intentions morph into misguided consequences, but then they were brought back into line with the Staggers Rail Act. To say that without interference we would now have a healthy freight rail system is a best case scenario, and it may just have likely turned out that the rail companies would have morphed int trucking or airline companies,
Yes, that also might have happened, but also an integrated company might also have decided that the rail portion was not lucrative enough and spun it off as a depleted shell. Also I prefer airline companies to be focused on air safety. Plus I think that all transportation to be controlled by 3 or 4 integrated companies would be too close to transport oligarchy to be good for the country.
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!
Phoebe Vet Paul: I'm not sure how you got all of that from my reply that claiming that we have been forced to expend all of our resources defending all the other nations of the world because they have chosen not to defend themselves is an interesting rationalization.
Um, could it have been because you characterized U.S. 'defense spending and posture' as 'paranoid'?
Which it is.
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.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
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.
You might want to be careful with labels. In 2008 I supported President Obama. Not only did I vote for him, I used my own money to fly to North Carolina to campaign for him during the primary season. I knew that he did not have a chance in Texas, so I decided not to waste a lot of time in what was sure to be a losing cause.
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.
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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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