oltmannd NittanyLion D.Carleton Simply put, today's Amtrak is too small to matter but just large enough to make some noise. Amtrak's budget is practically a rounding error in the Federal budget. Its not just too small to matter it...doesn't even register. Oh, good! Then you will surely support my plan! As you may be aware, many American cities have traffic issues. Atlanta is one of them. Some days, I drive to work on highly subsidized interstate highways. They are terribly congested when I go. I want to help fix the problem. Here's my solution. I'd like the Federal Gov't to collect an additional one cent tax (just a single penny!) from every income tax filer and pay it to me in exchange for a vow that I will never again use any highway during rush hour. I'll leave my car in the garage except during off-peak hours. Here are the benefits: reduced highway congestion Improved air quality Improved quality of life Reduced reliance on foreign oil Reduced need for fire/police/ambulance Reduced need for subsidized highway maintenance Selling points: The total cost is much much less than an Abrams main battle tank. I am a US citizen and deserving government benefits The per person tax burden is exceedingly tiny, compared to other things the government buys The government has many similar programs, like farmers being paid not to grow certain crops. I will use the money to create jobs. (only the "good" kind) The whole program would be less than the rounding error on many gov't programs (Point #6 should really appeal to you!) How could anybody possibly be against this! Lobby your congressman now! Meanwhile, I'm going to keep driving. It's up to you. Oh, and if you are not for this, I can only conclude you hate me!
NittanyLion D.Carleton Simply put, today's Amtrak is too small to matter but just large enough to make some noise. Amtrak's budget is practically a rounding error in the Federal budget. Its not just too small to matter it...doesn't even register.
D.Carleton Simply put, today's Amtrak is too small to matter but just large enough to make some noise.
Simply put, today's Amtrak is too small to matter but just large enough to make some noise.
Amtrak's budget is practically a rounding error in the Federal budget. Its not just too small to matter it...doesn't even register.
Oh, good! Then you will surely support my plan!
(Point #6 should really appeal to you!)
Editor Emeritus, This Week at Amtrak
oltmannd John WR henry6 It was expected to fail because the freight railroads and politicians believed and wanted us to believe that people either wanted to drive their own cars or fly on jet planes to wherever they wanted or needed to go. Railpax would die a quiet death and nobody would be the wiser. I agree with you Henry up to the point where, after creating Railpax, you believe the Congress and President expected to to "die a quiet death." D. Carlton, who after all writes a lot about railroads agrees with you and I suspect just about everyone else who posts here agrees with you. Except for me. I just can't bring myself to believe that anyone would create a whole new Federal agency in the belief that it is going to suddenly wither away and die. So there I guess we just have to agree to disagree. There is a nice essay somewhere out in the ether (some of it here: http://www.trainweb.com/travel/stevelog/sg_tr_sw.htm ) that tells the story of how the sec. of DOT during the Nixon admin worked with Congress and pushed the Railpax bill through over the objections of most of the White House staff. It seems there were three sets of "common wisdom" at that time. 1. Don't do it. 2. It's just a pretext for failure 3. It can morph into something useful. (this one included the notion that Amtrak would further cut the LD network, develop corridors and come out covering operating costs) Nobody expected what actually happened. Preservation of LD network. Little investment in corridors. Increasing levels of subsidy.
John WR henry6 It was expected to fail because the freight railroads and politicians believed and wanted us to believe that people either wanted to drive their own cars or fly on jet planes to wherever they wanted or needed to go. Railpax would die a quiet death and nobody would be the wiser. I agree with you Henry up to the point where, after creating Railpax, you believe the Congress and President expected to to "die a quiet death." D. Carlton, who after all writes a lot about railroads agrees with you and I suspect just about everyone else who posts here agrees with you. Except for me. I just can't bring myself to believe that anyone would create a whole new Federal agency in the belief that it is going to suddenly wither away and die. So there I guess we just have to agree to disagree.
henry6 It was expected to fail because the freight railroads and politicians believed and wanted us to believe that people either wanted to drive their own cars or fly on jet planes to wherever they wanted or needed to go. Railpax would die a quiet death and nobody would be the wiser.
I agree with you Henry up to the point where, after creating Railpax, you believe the Congress and President expected to to "die a quiet death." D. Carlton, who after all writes a lot about railroads agrees with you and I suspect just about everyone else who posts here agrees with you. Except for me. I just can't bring myself to believe that anyone would create a whole new Federal agency in the belief that it is going to suddenly wither away and die. So there I guess we just have to agree to disagree.
There is a nice essay somewhere out in the ether (some of it here: http://www.trainweb.com/travel/stevelog/sg_tr_sw.htm ) that tells the story of how the sec. of DOT during the Nixon admin worked with Congress and pushed the Railpax bill through over the objections of most of the White House staff. It seems there were three sets of "common wisdom" at that time. 1. Don't do it. 2. It's just a pretext for failure 3. It can morph into something useful. (this one included the notion that Amtrak would further cut the LD network, develop corridors and come out covering operating costs)
Nobody expected what actually happened. Preservation of LD network. Little investment in corridors. Increasing levels of subsidy.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
NittanyLionI'd wager that most don't care one way or another and I know that most don't say a word either way.
I agree. However, in the Republican Primary John Mica found himself up against Sandy Adams. She attacked him because he not only supported Florida's Sunrail program; he also had his picture taken with Barak Obama. He won the primary but he knew his politIcal wounds were still oozing and he needed to stop the bleeding. After all, 2 years (now less than 2 years) is not all that far off. He needs to restore his credibility with the tea partiers in his district. And Amtrack was handy.
BaltACD NittanyLion D.Carleton Simply put, today's Amtrak is too small to matter but just large enough to make some noise. Amtrak's budget is practically a rounding error in the Federal budget. Its not just too small to matter it...doesn't even register. But if you listen to the politicians when it comes to Amtrak - they would have you believe it is higher than the World's debt, let alone our National debt and will cause the end of the world as we know it if Amtrak gets $1 more.
But if you listen to the politicians when it comes to Amtrak - they would have you believe it is higher than the World's debt, let alone our National debt and will cause the end of the world as we know it if Amtrak gets $1 more.
I'd wager that most don't care one way or another and I know that most don't say a word either way.
Its not that they hate Amtrak or anything. They're being smart. People have no concept of money beyond a few hundred thousand dollars. I mean, that's how much a house costs. A number like $300 million sounds like a giant mountain of money, because in day to day life that is a giant mountain of money. But in terms of a national government (that's not some mudhole third world country) that's literally a peanut.
Take that rover we just landed on Mars. It cost $2.65 billion, if you see what the news said. Well...it didn't. It costs $2.65b to research, design, build, operate, and staff. Over eight years. That's $330 million a year, averaged out (some years are more expensive than others). Seems like a huge pile of money. Except NASA's budget over that eight years exceeded $136 billion. Which also seems like a giant pile of money.
That's half a percent of the Federal budget (less, actually. Its more like 0.42%). The Federal government takes 47 minutes to expend $330 million.
But these numbers confuse people. And, honestly, when you live in that world where you work with them...you started to go the other way and think "$9 billion isn't that much." There's an awful lot of people that want spending reduced and I'm not going to argue one way or another there, or even deliver my opinion about that. Politicians are shrewd and crafty people. I wouldn't want some non-shrewd and crafty person anyhow. They'd just get taken by all the other politicians. They know that Regular Guy has no concept of huge sums of money. So he can stand there and say "I want to cut Amtrak by five percent over the next five years!" and guy back in...who knows, Wyoming or something goes "Yes, reduce the spending!"
Except Wyoming guy has no idea that that five percent is a mere $15 million and represents about two minutes of government spending. You could double the amount that Amtrak gets and it wouldn't even register. Hell, you could double what NASA gets (which is around 12 times the Amtrak budget) and still not have a significant impact on the debt and whatnot. But people don't get this because they're used to dealing with, at best, a couple thousand dollars at a time. No one, anywhere for any reason, seems to want to try to explain this to people. To cut the amount of money you'd need to cut to actually affect change to the debt issue, there'd be blood in the streets.
I'll end this with an example (because this thing got way out of hand on me here): let's say you make $45,000 a year, which I believe is the national average. You want to buy new car. Nothing expensive, something around $25,000. You have no savings, at all, so you're starting from scratch. Even for the down payment. Also you take the bus everywhere, so have no trade-in. You have no spare money. So you decide to cut back on spending to build up your money supplies. You reduce spending at the same percentage that cutting Amtrak would save the Federal government. This means you'd save $18 a year. In 111 years, you'd have the $2000 down for your new car. Is that even worth doing?
John WR D.CarletonTo add insult to injury the Northeast Corridor was ceded to Amtrak. At this point [during the 1970's?} the total culture at Amtrak began to change. Instead of being a partner with the railroads they became an independent entity with a bureaucracy that ebbs and flows with the political tides. Simply put, today's Amtrak is too small to matter but just large enough to make some noise. D. Carlton, You offer a fascinating historical note with insightful analysis of Amtrak's early years, an evolution that I suspect continues. Even after reading your post three times I cannot grasp all of your implications. You may be assured I'll carefully follow your future posts. Of course when the tide is at its ebb that doesn't mean it has gone away and we now stand on dry land; rather it means the tide is turning and it will come back. John
D.CarletonTo add insult to injury the Northeast Corridor was ceded to Amtrak. At this point [during the 1970's?} the total culture at Amtrak began to change. Instead of being a partner with the railroads they became an independent entity with a bureaucracy that ebbs and flows with the political tides. Simply put, today's Amtrak is too small to matter but just large enough to make some noise.
D. Carlton,
You offer a fascinating historical note with insightful analysis of Amtrak's early years, an evolution that I suspect continues. Even after reading your post three times I cannot grasp all of your implications. You may be assured I'll carefully follow your future posts.
Of course when the tide is at its ebb that doesn't mean it has gone away and we now stand on dry land; rather it means the tide is turning and it will come back.
John
Yes the ebb and flow of politics is well documented. But there is also the shifting ethos of the nation to take into consideration. When NRPC was conceived the public thought we were within a decade of vacationing on the moon. It was a time of plenty and the answer to all questions was "more."
Today these are very different times.
The national paradigm has shifted almost 180 degrees. The common citizen no longer sees himself as rich or capable of attaining riches. The age of austerity is upon our collective psyche. Recently a mandated grouping of encompassing financial cuts befell the Federal Government. It received some press but now the national conversation is engrossed with marriage and guns (which in my neck of the woods is one in the same, but I digress...). Everyone feels they need to make cutbacks in their lives and this has been reflected in the highest halls of power.
This is where the irony of our transportation situation sets in. By 1971 the public had been leaving public transportation in droves for over two decades. Today the public is back and the demand is growing. But all of the largess spent to go to the moon and build the interstate highways is gone. People want trains to ride but there is no real money to make it happen.
Eventually the demand will reach the point where private monies see an opportunity for investment. This October the PRIIA section 209 conditions take effect and the private operators are circling like sharks. Within a few years our passenger rail system will look very different. How different and what order the dominoes will fall is still being sorted out... but it will be interesting.
BaltACDBut if you listen to the politicians when it comes to Amtrak - they would have you believe it is higher than the World's debt, let alone our National debt and will cause the end of the world as we know it if Amtrak gets $1 more.
Yes. But then there are other politicians who are more favorably disposed toward Amtrak.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
D.Carlton: a good summary of the genesis of Amtrak, Conrail, and today's railroading picture.
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Amtrak is like the Federal Reserve it is private but the people who run it are from the government.
Railroad to Freedom
I would like to interject a little of our history here. When one reads the industry periodicals of the mid-to-late 1960s there is a continuous call/desire on the part of the railroads for some sort of government welfare for the railroad industry. It was believed they were due some sort of relief due to the overt subsidizing of their competition. Then came Penn Central Black Sunday of June 21, 1970 and the government's hand was forced to do something; a corporation too big to fail had done just that. The original Railpax legislation had been kicking around since January of that year and now was kicked into high gear. Amtrak was at first a public/private partnership and the railroads went along. When the whole thing went belly-up the railroads could shrug their shoulders, smile and say, "well, we tried."
Then came 1973 and the realization that passenger trains were not going to be nice and just go away. But the big bomb came in 1976 with ConRail. The railroads wanted a handout but instead they were mortified when they saw all the major Northeast railroads stripped of their property at less than desirable financial compensation. At this point the railroads realized their salvation was not going to come from Washington and looked to right their own ship. The Rock Island was allowed to expire and its pieces picked over by the survivors. The Milwaukee Road was sold to the Soo. Needless to say they lost all interest in Amtrak at this point. ConRail followed the plan but continued to bleed red ink at the expense of the tax payer. It was because of ConRail that Washington finally got around to partial deregualtion of the industry in 1980.
To add insult to injury the Northeast Corridor was ceded to Amtrak. At this point the total culture at Amtrak began to change. Instead of being a partner with the railroads they became an independent entity with a bureaucracy that ebbs and flows with the political tides. Simply put, today's Amtrak is too small to matter but just large enough to make some noise.
henry6 Subsidizing was out of the question because that would mean the railroads were still in the passenger business and they didn't want to be.
A couple of railroads held on to the passenger business but most turned it over to the Feds. But why would they have been reluctant to accept a subsidy for a business there believed was dying out anyway? Except, perhaps, because they really did not believe that and were really not in good faith?
henry6They saw opportunities and ways to build railroads or factories so they went ahead and did it not knowing or understanding fully the consequences of their actions.
When it comes to Jay Gould he knew early on what he wanted: To make money. He might have gone to college but did not do that to pursue his goal. He started working as a book keeper for a blacksmith and worked for free to learn book keeping. He moved to the leather industry where he was quite successful and either loved or hated. Then he moved to New York City, became a day trader and opened his own brokerage. Next he bought the Rutland Railroad to learn the business, sold it and came back to his brokerage, Gould and Belden. John Eldridge want to build the Boston Hartford and Erie; Gould became his underwriter and got a seat on the Board of Directors. Then in 1867 he parleyed that to a seat on the New York and Erie Board where Daniel Drew was Treasurer and Jim Fisk was another Director . He listened and learned. When Henry Workman, who represented Cornelius Vanderbilt, suggested a pool with the New York Central Gould and Fisk balked; they wanted to operate the railroad and compete. Vanderbilt was outraged when the Erie charged only $100 a carload to ship live cattle undercutting the NYC's price of $125 a carload. Ultimately the NYC reduced the tariff to $1 a carload. Gould and Fisk went to Chicago and brought up all of the live cattle they could and shipped then to New York City. On the New York Central. They made a bundle and began the Erie wars.
The Erie wars were one ting that caused Gould to have his reputation of robber baron. And yes, he did some things that we would see as underhanded. Bribing legislators, for example. He learned from Vanderbilt and Cornelius Vanderbilt was not exactly a paragon of virtue. Gould also is accused of trying to corner the gold market. He did invest in gold and drove the price up but could not have done so without the active cooperation of President Ulysses Grant. Charles Francis Adams thought Grant so corrupt he coined a new word: Grantism. And Gould was very secretive. Ultimately British investors drove him out of the Erie and he went on the Western railroads but it was with the Erie and the gold corner that he got his reputation as satanic. When he died he was the second richest man in the country.
You, Henry, suggest these men where human beings who were acting according to the rules of their age. You would have left my history teachers sputtering at your misunderstanding of what bad men they were. But I am inclined to think you are right.
The railroads wanted out of the passenger business but knew it was not a popular thing to do...so they talked the Nixon Administration into taking the passenger trains off their hands. The railroads would "sell" the equipment to the government which in turn would "operate" the services with scheduling, crewing the train for handling passengers, maintain the equipment, do the advertising and the marketing, and pay the railroads to allow the trains to run on their tracks. It was expected to fail because the freight railroads and politicians believed and wanted us to believe that people either wanted to drive their own cars or fly on jet planes to wherever they wanted or needed to go. Railpax would die a quiet death and nobody would be the wiser. The problem was, of course, that the people were the wiser and them damned passengers kept buyint tikets to ride trains. Subsidizing was out of the question because that would mean the railroads were still in the passenger business and they didn't want to be.
D.CarletonYou have to put yourself into the context of the age.
Having lived through the 60's and 70's it is really hard for me to think of that time as an "age." But if it was I think it must have been the age of the Vietnam war. That is what everyone I knew was talking about and had on their minds. And the guys were almost all afraid of the war. I lucked out. I enlisted in the Army as it began to heat up but was never sent to Vietnam. But that was rare.
Flying cars? That isn't my experience but perhaps we traveled in different circles. However, accepting your experience (which is certainly as valid as mine is), why then did Nixon and the Congress create Railpax in the first place? Why not just subsidize Conrail and the private roads to continue the passenger service they had and make it easier for them to abandon service that was too costly? There was no reason to create a whole new Federal agency unless you believed it was important to preserve passenger rail.
We assume greed was the driving force for the Robber Barons. But there also is a good argument that either with or without greed as a driving force they were traveling in areas no businesses, industry or government had ever been before...it was ll new and no one really understood (nor probably cared) what they were doing or how they were going to do it. They saw opportunities and ways to build railroads or factories so they went ahead and did it not knowing or understanding fully the consequences of their actions. One railroad to one town was perceived a monopoly, two or more, cutthroat competition or collusion. Steel, railroads, banks, and anything new that came along had the same growing pains. Money was power. J.P. Morgan wielded more power than Trust Buster Teddy Roosevelt. But even Teddy couldn't fight J.P. when the banker told him that the steel industry and the country were about to fall if one Ohio steel company failed and that the President would not condemn or shut down the division of the company to various other companies under anti trust laws or of his own Presidential Powers. In the long run I believe the Robber Barons did more good for our country, its industry and economy, than what we learned in school. These guys were not the same as today's investors and bankers in that they built businesses and industry and thus towns and cities and products for our country and others to consume. Today their ilk have taken manufacturing off shore, closed factories and made ghost towns of industrial cities. Railroads today are put together and operated solely for the purpose of moving products for the benefit of manufacturers and exporters rather than for the benefit of our consumers.
henry6But his business acumen cannot be denied nor dismissed.
No doubt John D. Rockerfeller worked hard and worked smart. But so did all of the robber barons. They were focused and strongly goal directed and worked and worked until the job was done. Many of them had been poor boys with little or no education and very little behind them. Some years ago I read Maury Klein's biography of Jay Gould, a man who was widely hated in his own lifetime. He, too, worked compulsively to make his money.
But history has not judged Rockerfeller or Gould or many who made fortunes after the Civil War kindly.
That is not my revisionist thinking...but one I read in a biography about 15 years ago. It was the daughter of a cooper who started the anti Rockefeller movement when he abandoned her father's barrels in favor of steel. He was not lily white by any means...but he was shrewd and knew how to spend or not spend in order to make money. He believed his product, kerosene, was a good product but would lose not only market share but also credibility if poor quality was marketed for less money...his nickle for the good stuff vs. 3 cents for poor quality. If the products were so bad everyone, he feared, would stop buying all products because of the danger of explosion or flaming up and putting a dirty smoke into a room. One day he had to borrow a nickle from a coworker and paid it back the very next day...His coworker was surprised and said so but J.D. explained the value of that nickle was the interest earnings on a dollar for a year. (How much is in your savings account today? How much does it earn you in a year?) He was a Scotsman and knew the value of everything plus the value of the return. Not only was the tare weight important to the cost of shipping 50 gallons of crude or kerosene, but also in the ability to keep the price at a nickle a quart despite other factors Yes, there were things he didn't want to know about as well as things he didn't know about which caused him problems or dictated the way he dealt with them. But his business acumen cannot be denied nor dismissed.
John WR BaltACDAmtrak - was formed as a near monopoly (certain carriers opted out) formed by the government to relieve carriers of the financial burden of continuing passenger service and was expected to vaporize at the sunset of it's enabling legislation. Balt, I hate to be disagreeable, especially with a guy as thoughtful has you are. But here I have to add my own thoughts. I just cannot believe that anyone in Congress or the Executive branches of our national government would make a law creating an agency without realizing that they are also creating a whole host of people who have a vested interest in that agency continuing and will bitterly oppose any effort to shut it down. Amtrak was proposed to the Congress by President Nixon. Whatever Nixon was he was not stupid and he was not naïve. Certainly our law makers had to realize that Amtrak would fight in every way possible to survive and continue and they had to realize that when they created it. John
BaltACDAmtrak - was formed as a near monopoly (certain carriers opted out) formed by the government to relieve carriers of the financial burden of continuing passenger service and was expected to vaporize at the sunset of it's enabling legislation.
Balt,
I hate to be disagreeable, especially with a guy as thoughtful has you are. But here I have to add my own thoughts. I just cannot believe that anyone in Congress or the Executive branches of our national government would make a law creating an agency without realizing that they are also creating a whole host of people who have a vested interest in that agency continuing and will bitterly oppose any effort to shut it down. Amtrak was proposed to the Congress by President Nixon. Whatever Nixon was he was not stupid and he was not naïve. Certainly our law makers had to realize that Amtrak would fight in every way possible to survive and continue and they had to realize that when they created it.
henry6I disagree labeling Standard Oil and J.D. Rockefeller with monopolizing the oil industry.
You have a very interesting perspective here, Henry. I never thought of you as a historical revisionist. When I was in college my history professor (who I do not particularly admire) did believe John D. was one of the prime examples of a monopolist.
I disagree labeling Standard Oil and J.D. Rockefeller with monopolizing the oil industry. J.D. purchased many companies when the were producing an inferior product (not white, burned dirty and smokey, not safe or healthy) of kerosene but left other "quality" producers alone. In the process he would hire the entire staffs of the purchased company and fold them into his companies. He was not afraid of competition as long as the competition was as good as his. He got into problems when shaving wood barrels to 3/8 of an inch to save tare weight when shipping and later going to thin steel barrels for both better tare weight and less space or larger barrel content; thus wood barrel makers made all kinds of claims against him. J.D. was shrewd, smart, practical with his money and prosperous: all attributes which attract criticism and attacks in our society.
CSSHEGEWISCH ontheBNSF I want amtrak broken up similar to How standard oil was broken up. Standard oil has 60% market share Amtrak has nearly 100%. Standard oil was formed voluntarily as well. The idea came to me when I realize much of what the government does is corporatized. What would a breakup of Amtrak accomplish? Amtrak may have virtually all of the intercity rail passenger market but I don't see a lot of potential competitors beating down the doors to get into that market, which is really quite small.
ontheBNSF I want amtrak broken up similar to How standard oil was broken up. Standard oil has 60% market share Amtrak has nearly 100%. Standard oil was formed voluntarily as well. The idea came to me when I realize much of what the government does is corporatized.
I want amtrak broken up similar to How standard oil was broken up. Standard oil has 60% market share Amtrak has nearly 100%. Standard oil was formed voluntarily as well. The idea came to me when I realize much of what the government does is corporatized.
What would a breakup of Amtrak accomplish? Amtrak may have virtually all of the intercity rail passenger market but I don't see a lot of potential competitors beating down the doors to get into that market, which is really quite small.
Lest we forget - Standard Oil was a monopoly formed by a private citizen through the use of predatory business practices to put competing businesses out of business.
Amtrak - was formed as a near monopoly (certain carriers opted out) formed by the government to relieve carriers of the financial burden of continuing passenger service and was expected to vaporize at the sunset of it's enabling legislation.
right now the class 1s are anti trust exempt.. I wonder if AMTRAK can be included as well ??
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