John WR oltmannd daveklepperFor ...a very tiny number of.... daveklepperforeign tourists, Amtrak can be a good American face to the world. Making travel uncivilized certainllly does not prsent a good face. One of many reasons to keep dining cars and sleepers, I wonder just how tiny this tiny number is. And there may well also be American tourists who want to see our country in comfort and, perhaps, with a little luxury. Success may lie in doing a lot of little things right.
oltmannd daveklepperFor ...a very tiny number of.... daveklepperforeign tourists, Amtrak can be a good American face to the world. Making travel uncivilized certainllly does not prsent a good face. One of many reasons to keep dining cars and sleepers,
daveklepperFor
...a very tiny number of....
daveklepperforeign tourists, Amtrak can be a good American face to the world. Making travel uncivilized certainllly does not prsent a good face. One of many reasons to keep dining cars and sleepers,
I wonder just how tiny this tiny number is. And there may well also be American tourists who want to see our country in comfort and, perhaps, with a little luxury. Success may lie in doing a lot of little things right.
Even if you filled the trains with foreign tourists, the LD trains are just a tiny fraction of the markets they serve. They are irrelevant (and expensive) any way you slice them.
I do like having them around, though. I would like to see them perform better.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmanndEven if you filled the trains with foreign tourists, the LD trains are just a tiny fraction of the markets they serve. They are irrelevant (and expensive) any way you slice them.
I forget the exact number but long distance trains account for a lot of passenger miles.
I found this: During fiscal year 2010 long distance trains carried 4.5 million passengers 2.8 billion passenger miles ― 44 percent of total Amtrak passenger miles
The total P-M for Amtrak is about 550M per year.
Airline P-M are: 60B....for a month. ~720B a year
Personal vehicles: 2500B per year.
Air travel is about 1/4 of auto travel.
ALL of Amtrak is less the 0.1% of air travel. So, Amtrak LD is 0.001% of all travel.
That's pretty small.....
Why didn't you tally comparable travel, that is trips over 200 miles in Long Distance land for served OD pairs? Even back in 1929, the first year I am aware of for records, lots of auto trips at 5-20 miles skewed the results.
The short answer might be that the data is hard to find and you would have to set up your own experiments to get it in many cases. The FHWA recorded Rural interstate auto mileage has never recovered above the peak before fuel got expensive.
oltmannd I found this: During fiscal year 2010 long distance trains carried 4.5 million passengers 2.8 billion passenger miles ― 44 percent of total Amtrak passenger miles
I had no idea that it was that high. That does explain why Amfleet -2s have twice the milleage of -1s. Also the few trains that are really LD ( ex: Carolinian ) could skew the number further ?
oltmannd The total P-M for Amtrak is about 550M per year. Airline P-M are: 60B....for a month. ~720B a year Personal vehicles: 2500B per year. Air travel is about 1/4 of auto travel. ALL of Amtrak is less the 0.1% of air travel. So, Amtrak LD is 0.001% of all travel. That's pretty small.....
I find it interesting you would draw your conclusions from the data you present, Don. In your analysis there is an inherent belief that each and every rail mile, road mile and air mile are identical. As I recall in some of your previous posts you have disputed such a belief. If you now believe it that is all well and good but I think the issue needs to be addressed before arriving at your conclusion.
One example of the difference is the Morris Canal in northern New Jersey which existed from about the 1830's up to 1924. During the revolution New Jersey developed an iron industry using iron ore mined in the western part of the state. After the revolution trading with Britain resumed. New Jersey iron manufacturers who were about 30 miles from New York City could not compete with British iron manufacturers. The reason was that it was more expensive to ship iron goods 30 miles using draft animals than it was to ship the same goods across the Atlantic Ocean by ship. The answer was the Morris Canal. It made New Jersey iron wares profitable until cheaper sources of iron ore were found further inland. And up to the 1860's it was also a very cheap way to haul coal from the anthracite area. Clearly, a canal mile could not be compared with an over the road mile using draft animals.
So I think we need to show that the miles are identical to support your thesis.
John
V.PayneEven back in 1929, the first year I am aware of for records, lots of auto trips at 5-20 miles skewed the results.
You are correct in pointing out short local auto trips are different than much longer rail trips. There is also automobile commuting miles which may exceed 20 miles but is also different than Amtrak intercity miles. Although Amtrak commuter miles many need to be unraveled from it.
Another problematic area is can think of is the long history of government treatment of rail miles and road miles. Although Amtrak pays no property tax private freight railroads do and it is a significant amount. One result is that many miles of railroad track have been torn up. Property taxes have considerable weight in that decision. With fewer miles of railroad track available Amtrak has fewer routes and, on existing routes, may have to travel more miles than it would had some of the torn up track been available.
Roads, on the other hand, not only pay no property tax; they are build at government expense. Even motor fuel taxes pay only a small part of the cost of building and maintaining roads. And local and country roads which are essential to connecting interstate highways with actual points of delivers are built with property taxes, taxes which are levied on railroad tracks. Freight railroads are required to subsidize the road system which their competitors use. This too limits the tracks available to Amtrak.
V.Payne Why didn't you tally comparable travel, that is trips over 200 miles in Long Distance land for served OD pairs? Even back in 1929, the first year I am aware of for records, lots of auto trips at 5-20 miles skewed the results. The short answer might be that the data is hard to find and you would have to set up your own experiments to get it in many cases. The FHWA recorded Rural interstate auto mileage has never recovered above the peak before fuel got expensive.
The short answer is correct. Ain't no data out there....Even the stuff I used was a bit "gray". But, it's pretty good for order of magnitude answers.
The other fault with what I did was not to consider markets. Amtrak, unlike the air and highway, really doesn't have a national market reach. Going from Denver to Boise? Nashville to Miami? Amtrak's not in the mix....
But, even if you assume 10:1 suburban/urban to intercity and another 10:1 for market reach, you still have a pretty tiny Amtrak LD network.
The real problem I have with the "overseas tourists as justification for Amtrak LD train" proposition is that it's a "tail wagging the dog" proposition. It starts with "having the trains" and then hunts for a justification.
If the goal is to encourage and enable foreign tourists, then let's start there and find the best ways to reach that goal. Trains may be part of the solution, but I don't see where the Silver Meteor adds much to the tourist experience over and above flying from the NE to Orlando (to see the Mouse, of course, and maybe Shamu).
I like the LD trains as much as the next guy. They are the remnant of "the best of the best" of passenger service at it's peak. But, I think it's intellectually dishonest to start with "I like them. We should keep them" and then hunt down the justifications and problems they partially solve.
If the goal is rural to urban transportation or links between corridors, then let's start there. If that's the market, then where are the people and where and when do they want to travel. If it's tourists, then, beyond "where and when" is "what about the train route itself?"
This "remnant of the best of the best" are still running on their big city to big city businessman's schedules from 60 years ago. Every blessed last one of them without a wink or a nod to the changing demographics on their routes.
Why is this?
John WREven motor fuel taxes pay only a small part of the cost of building and maintaining roads.
John WRAnd local and country roads which are essential to connecting interstate highways with actual points of delivers are built with property taxes, taxes which are levied on railroad tracks.
Those same local roads are your access to Amtrak at least at one end of the trip.
John WRSo I think we need to show that the miles are identical to support your thesis.
I think you're making the "markets served" argument. That's true. But we still need to move that decimal point two or three places to get into the land of "relevant".
oltmannd I found this: During fiscal year 2010 long distance trains carried 4.5 million passengers 2.8 billion passenger miles ― 44 percent of total Amtrak passenger miles The total P-M for Amtrak is about 550M per year. Airline P-M are: 60B....for a month. ~720B a year Personal vehicles: 2500B per year. Air travel is about 1/4 of auto travel. ALL of Amtrak is less the 0.1% of air travel. So, Amtrak LD is 0.001% of all travel. That's pretty small.....
Don, I think you missed one decimal place in there.
The figures I had seen place the Amtrak passenger miles in the 5 billion per year range, not the 500 million you quote. I have long been quoting the auto-to-air-to-Amtrak passenger miles as 1000 to 100 to 1.
Hence, Amtrak is at 1 percent (one part in one hundred) of airline travel (just about all of which is intercity) and roughly a tenth of 1 percent of all passenger miles (the 2.5 trillion vehicle miles is more passenger miles because often drivers carry passengers; it is hard to get a breakdown of vehicle miles between intercity and local travel; vehicle passenger miles may have been in decline owing to the economy and high gas prices).
So I guess I am a stickler for getting the numbers right, although Don, our disagreement over the decimal place on Amtrak is probably something we can straighten out and agree upon a number.
On the subject of working on the figures and agreeing on a set of numbers, the originating post of this thread on Long Distance Trains was one of our regular participants "reluctantly" quoting a NARP press release (but doing it anyway), a press release subject to a deep "innumeracy" fallacy that I had pointed out, a fallacy that appears to be solidly ignored by many around here.
NARP's claim is that because (of the usual suspects, high gas prices, whatever), train travel, make that long-distance train travel has grown faster than population growth, auto travel has declined in relation to population or whatever measure, ergo, unless the gummint boosts Amtrak funding ASAP, there will be (in NARP's words) a mobility crisis.
What I pointed out is that if people are driving around 10 percent less, dunno, because gas is expensive, people have lost their jobs requiring commutes, or people can't afford driving vacations in today's crummy economy, and if people are using the train 10 percent more, because trains are 1 part in 1000 in relation to driving, the overwhelming majority of people not driving are not using trains as a substitute, won't be using trains as a subsitute, and aren't even thinking about using trains as a substitute.
To make up for a 10 percent loss in auto miles on a one-for-one basis would require a 100 fold increase in Amtrak, and no, the European experience where they have a 50-fold increase in service over Amtrak shows there are no economies of scale.
Are people prepared to budget 100 billion per year on Amtrak? Yes the money would be there if there were "the political will", dunno, to take 100 billion per year out of health care for the poor and aged. The Europeans spend roughly half that amount per year on trains to supply 5 percent of total passenger miles. Are people happy with that level of "bang for the buck"? Are people happy asking Congress, asking their fellow citizens to spend the same amount as the Federal highway budget on trains to carry 5 percent of the passenger miles of the highway network?
But the Amtrak presser that the shortfall in auto travel represents this unmet need for train travel that we are going to meet by giving Mr. Boardman the 2 billion he is asking from Congress, that dog just doesn't know how to compute.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
The Acela does not make money. It hemorrhages money while blame forlosses is shifted.TRAINS MagazineJune 2013by Don Phillips> Seldom in my life have I seen such a mass of misinformation spread> about any one subject as is being spread now about the American> passenger train. The misinformation is spread by confused and> shallow politicians, young reporters who have no idea what they’re> talking about, and by Amtrak officials who have learned they can> count on the first two not to understand their technical jargon.> Before we go an inch farther, let me say something. This column is> intended to hammer home this fact: The Acela does not make money. In> fact, it loses money big time. What’s more, long-distance trains are> losers but not big money losers. If Amtrak calculated long-distance> train financials the same way it counts Acela financials, most> long-distance trains would be profitable.> Now, please read this paragraph again. Let it soak in. When I first> heard Amtrak President Joe Boardman call Acela profitable at a Senate> committee hearing, I had to bite my tongue not to protest openly. In> later testimony and in meetings with reporters, Boardman has added> moderating language, and now several months later, his descriptions> are totally accurate technically. He is also technically accurate> about long-distance train losses. But his descriptions have set up an> apples-and-watermelons comparison, whereby Acela makes money and> long-distance trains lose money.> The problem is that members of Congress and most reporters (and the> general public) have no idea what he has said. I guess it’s not his> fault if those misinformed people don’t know that he is counting a> small number of cost items in Acela “profits” and has thrown every> conceivable cost into long-distance “losses.” No comparison is even> possible on that basis, but those misleading “facts” have become> holy writ. Acela “makes” money and long-distance trains “lose”> enough money to drag down Amtrak’s financial results. Just read any> newspaper story or listen to any TV story about Amtrak and that’s> what you see. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong...
This whole thread is nonsense. Long Distance trains loose very little money and the Acela looses the most money. People want LD trains to be cut as to get more money into the Northeast.
Railroad to Freedom
Paul MilenkovicDon, I think you missed one decimal place in there.
Crap. An order of magnitude off. And I used a calculator!
ontheBNSF Long Distance trains loose very little money and the Acela looses the most money. People want LD trains to be cut as to get more money into the Northeast.
That's funny, the Easter Bunny told me the same thing last month!
But, seriously, the LD trains "capital costs" are bound up in their payment to the host RR as an operating cost.
But, the dirty secret is that that "rent" doesn't even come close to the true cost. The frt RRs are subsidizing the LD trains
The other half of the dirty secret is that the other "tenants" of the NEC don't come close to paying for their fair share of the NEC. Amtrak is subsidizing the commuter roads.
I suspect Phillips column, which, not surprisingly has no hard numbers, is a case of stating what he WANTS to believe.
Shoot, I want it to be true, to, like the Easter Bunny, but it just isn't. Sorry.
Paul MilenkovicNARP's claim is that because (of the usual suspects, high gas prices, whatever), train travel, make that long-distance train travel has grown faster than population growth, auto travel has declined in relation to population or whatever measure, ergo, unless the gummint boosts Amtrak funding ASAP, there will be (in NARP's words) a mobility crisis.
Well, eventually there will be a mobility crisis.
But, it won't be one that "Grid and Gateway" solves. More baggage cars and sleepers on the Silver Meteor won't help much either.
It's going to be in the Northeast where things already are pretty sticky and incremental improvements in the NEC and it's spurs have done pretty well. That's the place rail can make a difference and provide good value compared to alternatives.
I know others claim "not fair" when all the money goes to the NEC. But, it is fair. When the US has another area with 50+M people along a 500 mile corridor, come talk to me!
Paul MilenkovicOn the subject of working on the figures and agreeing on a set of numbers, the originating post of this thread on Long Distance Trains was one of our regular participants "reluctantly" quoting a NARP press release (but doing it anyway), a press release subject to a deep "innumeracy" fallacy that I had pointed out, a fallacy that appears to be solidly ignored by many around here.
Paul,
I appreciate the fact that you do not personalize your disagreement with NARP. At the same time I'm the guy who started the first post and who used the term "reluctantly." I now withdraw "reluctantly."
Whether or not we agree with NARP that is the organization which, more than any other, speaks for the public to the Congress about Amtrak related issues. I believe it is helpful to know what NARP says regardless of our personal views.
oltmanndThe other half of the dirty secret is that the other "tenants" of the NEC don't come close to paying for their fair share of the NEC. Amtrak is subsidizing the commuter roads.
And there are a lot of tenants. Most o the states Amtrak passes through as well as the District of Columbia is a tenant.
oltmanndI know others claim "not fair" when all the money goes to the NEC. But, it is fair. When the US has another area with 50+M people along a 500 mile corridor, come talk to me!
I think you know I'm an almost lifelong resident of the northeast, Don. But I don't see how we can successfully make the argument that fairness demands that the rest of the country shall subsidize the northeast.
John WR oltmanndI know others claim "not fair" when all the money goes to the NEC. But, it is fair. When the US has another area with 50+M people along a 500 mile corridor, come talk to me! I think you know I'm an almost lifelong resident of the northeast, Don. But I don't see how we can successfully make the argument that fairness demands that the rest of the country shall subsidize the northeast. John
Does NJ get it's "fair share" of highway tax?
Does the economic health of the northeast benefit the rest of the country?
Relatively speaking, is NJ cross subsidizing the Empire Builder?
John WR oltmanndThe other half of the dirty secret is that the other "tenants" of the NEC don't come close to paying for their fair share of the NEC. Amtrak is subsidizing the commuter roads. And there are a lot of tenants. Most o the states Amtrak passes through as well as the District of Columbia is a tenant.
MBTA, Connecticut DOT (Shoreline East), MetroNorth (in all it's forms), NJT, MARC, VRE, SEPTA, in particular.
oltmannd Does NJ get it's "fair share" of highway tax? Does the economic health of the northeast benefit the rest of the country? Relatively speaking, is NJ cross subsidizing the Empire Builder?
According to reports in The Star-Ledger for every dollar New Jersey sends to Washington 55¢ is returned. This is a very low rate compared to other states. At the same time New Jersey is one of the nation's wealthier states. What keeps a lot of people in this state which has the highest property taxex in the nation is the fact that they can earn so much here. There is a steady stream, and a large stream, of retirees leaving New Jersey for states where the tax rates are a lot lower.
Also interesting is the fact that fares on the Northeast Corridor are higher than other Amtrak fares.
For example, a ticket between New York and Boston on June 5th costs $49 which is the lowest fare on that line. The distance is 225 miles.
A ticket between Chicago and Toledo for the same day costs $39. The distance is 234 miles.
So, who's zoomin' who?
John WR oltmannd Does NJ get it's "fair share" of highway tax? Does the economic health of the northeast benefit the rest of the country? Relatively speaking, is NJ cross subsidizing the Empire Builder? According to reports in The Star-Ledger for every dollar New Jersey sends to Washington 55¢ is returned. This is a very low rate compared to other states. At the same time New Jersey is one of the nation's wealthier states. What keeps a lot of people in this state which has the highest property taxex in the nation is the fact that they can earn so much here. There is a steady stream, and a large stream, of retirees leaving New Jersey for states where the tax rates are a lot lower.
So, not to worry if we spend more on Amtrak in NJ than we do in Kansas, then?
I sure we do spend more on Amtrak in New Jersey than in Kansas. The fact that Amtrak owns the tracks in New Jersey means a lot more is spent her. And Amtrak is about to spend big bucks to upgrade the catenary.
But I don't know that we can ignore Kansas.
John WR I sure we do spend more on Amtrak in New Jersey than in Kansas. The fact that Amtrak owns the tracks in New Jersey means a lot more is spent her. And Amtrak is about to spend big bucks to upgrade the catenary. But I don't know that we can ignore Kansas.
We aren't ignoring them. They have I-70, which was just rebuilt from the dirt up, at great cost, despite only being about 40 years old. I'll bet NJ has fewer free interstate miles than Kansas, despite having way more drivers, more cars, and more gallons of gas pumped in the state.
oltmanndWe aren't ignoring them [Kansas]. They have I-70, which was just rebuilt from the dirt up, at great cost, despite only being about 40 years old. I'll bet NJ has fewer free interstate miles than Kansas, despite having way more drivers, more cars, and more gallons of gas pumped in the state.
Well yes, Don. But we both know roads transportation and passenger rail transportation are not seen as part of the same thing as they should be. Rather they are seen as different things and spending for them is based on different processes. Very few people are going to have their opinions on Amtrak influenced by the amount of money we spend for highways.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.