John WR I don't want to go on and on arguing issues where we will never agree. And this certainly is one of those issues. But I can accept the logic of your position that we drop all long distance trains. If it does come to that far better that Amtrak should have a clear and clean ending than that it should just slowly be dismembered which would only prolong its death.
I don't want to go on and on arguing issues where we will never agree. And this certainly is one of those issues. But I can accept the logic of your position that we drop all long distance trains. If it does come to that far better that Amtrak should have a clear and clean ending than that it should just slowly be dismembered which would only prolong its death.
i don't want to belabor the point either, but I do not agree with your premise/contention. Cutting off the most useless and biggest expense drains within Amtrak doesn't kill it. If anything, those changes are to save Amtrak and convert/expand it into a real transportation alternative for the future. Running one nostalgia train per day or three times per week each way on a 2000 mile run is not a viable transportation service. Land cruises? Maybe, but not something Amtrak should be engaged in, anymore than the government should offer heavily subsidized (~25-60 cents on the dollar) river and ocean cruises.
To put it another way: if a properly conducted survey were done of Americans 16 and up, and you asked if they thought they would use a train service that takes 40+ hours to get somewhere, I'll bet 98% would say no, and of the 2% who said yes, less than half of them would use it more than once a year. So you want a government program that might serve less than 2% of the public, at best?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Amtrak reports 31.2 million passengers rode its trains in 2012. The US population is about 313 million. So altogether about 10 per cent of the total population road Amtrak. I think that is pretty respectable.
However, it is well established that 85 per cent of all passengers ride on the north east corridor. That means about 4.7 million rode long distance services which is, as you say, less than 2 per cent of the whole public.
Of course some people are not really available to ride Amtrak because they are too infirm to travel or incarcerated or in the military and overseas and for similar reasons. Still, I think your "under 2 per cent" figure is pretty reasonable.
But the question I would ask is if there are people who genuinely need a service should the government as a matter of principal ignore that need because there are so few of them?
John WR Amtrak reports 31.2 million passengers rode its trains in 2012. The US population is about 313 million. So altogether about 10 per cent of the total population road Amtrak. I think that is pretty respectable. However, it is well established that 85 per cent of all passengers ride on the north east corridor. That means about 4.7 million rode long distance services which is, as you say, less than 2 per cent of the whole public. Of course some people are not really available to ride Amtrak because they are too infirm to travel or incarcerated or in the military and overseas and for similar reasons. Still, I think your "under 2 per cent" figure is pretty reasonable. But the question I would ask is if there are people who genuinely need a service should the government as a matter of principal ignore that need because there are so few of them?
Approximately 72 per cent of the U.S. population is 18 or older. Most people over 18 determine how they will travel; many if not most people under 18 have that choice made for them by a guardian.
Amtrak's 32.1 million passengers in FY12 is not comparable with the population. They are different data. The population is the projection of the estimated population generated by the results of a valid statistical sample. The population is every human body that can be counted in accordance with the Census Bureau guidelines. The number of passengers reported by Amtrak represents the number of tickets lift from customers (individuals).
Last year I made 11 trips on Amtrak. I was one person who used Amtrak 11 times and, therefore, I was counted as a passenger 11 times. I also made six trips on Southwest Airlines and, as was true for Amtrak, I was one person counted as six passengers.
Just reporting the number of passengers carried without disclosing the number of customers hoisted by a carrier, i.e. Amtrak, commercial airlines, commercial bus companies, cruise ship lines, etc., does not reveal the true picture. Well, does not tell a reader how many customers the company has, and that is different from the number of its riders or passengers.
As far as I have been able to determine, Amtrak does not reveal how many customers it had in FY12. Clearly, it was less than 32.1 million, if for no other reason than I was one customer taking 11 trips. My guess is Amtrak may have had as few as 22 million customers in FY12. When I lived in NYC and Hartford (12 years), I knew people who took the train from NYC to Philadelphia and Washington two or three times a week.
The same dynamic that applies to determining Amtrak's customers, as opposed to passengers, also applies to the commercial airlines and the commercial bus companies. However, it does not apply to motorists. They are licensed as individuals. In 2010, if I remember correctly, there were approximately 210 million licensed motorists in the U.S.
In a nation of 81.8 million people, DB (German Railways) serves about 2 billion people. They provide good service to many people. Seems to me we might learn something from their examples, which include serving many towns with local services, but not burdening intercity services with routes that serve few. And they manage quite well without baggage cars, even on their overnight sleeper trains, which go beyond the German borders.
JohnWRAmtrak reports 31.2 million passengers rode its trains in 2012. The US population is about 313 million. So altogether about 10 per cent of the total population road Amtrak. I think that is pretty respectable.
You fall into a statistical error here. Many of those 31.2 million rode multiple times. So it is simply not true to say 10% of Americans ride Amtrak. That is why I suggested a survey which would probably show very few ride Amtrak even once in their lifetime and even fewer ride the over 2000 mile/40 hour LD trains.
Sam,
I agree you have a valid point. The total number of Amtrak riders is some fraction of the total number of passengers because many passengers ride the train more than once. In fact some passengers ride the train a lot more than once. For example, commuters who typically ride 10 times a week.
But if the purpose of government is to do for people what people cannot do for themselves how do we decide when the number of people who need a service is so low that we will dismiss their needs?
If such a number does exist the fact that Amtrak carries more passengers than ever suggests that there is no consensus that we have reached that number.
Finally, if the purpose of government is not to do for people what they cannot do for themselves how then do we justify even expenditures for national defense?
John
Even more off base is your use of total ridership for Amtrak rather than long distance ridership. No one on these forums is talking about elimination of the entire system, except you. Boardman and others have politely suggested that the LD routes, if they perform some social need, should be funded separately, not drain money from the corridors, which are Amtrak's future.
schlimmNo one on these forums is talking about elimination of the entire system, except you.
That is correct, Schlimm. And there is a reason for it. I believe the one essential element that must be maintained if Amtrak is to continue is a national consensus. Cutting back the long distance routes undermines that consensus and in my view ultimately is what would lead to abandoning Amtrak. No one here has come forth to agree with me and that is why no one except me talks about eliminating the entire system. However, I do believe that is what would happen.
Other people are free to disagree with me on this point. No where is it written that anyone must agree with me and I don't expect anyone to. On the other hand, did you ever read Henrick Ibsen's parable of the lone scout?
Well, if that is your view, it seems much like saying "If we can't have long distance, then all of Amtrak will die, so let's kill it now." I searched for the Ibsen work (a poem?). I found nothing besides his plays, except his complete poetry, in Norwegian only, which I do not read.
A political wag told me JohnWR is correct. You cut here then cut there. Soon any program dies because it is very regional. "Try cutting the whole thing at once never". He used the example of agriculture subsidies..
My point, Schlimm, is that underlying Amtrak is a political consensus in America that we need a national passenger rail system. The foundation of that consensus is a system which serves the whole nation. Any long distance route we take away weakens that consensus and if enough are taken away the consensus will be destroyed. With no national consensus it doesn't matter how efficient Amtrak is; we will loose Amtrak. Even now Amtrak critics argue that the fact that the Northeast Corridor has relatively slight losses or even operates at a profit is a reason to sell it to the private sector. Since I believe that Amtrak is rooted in a national consensus I do not believe the the important issue is whether or not individual routes lose money but rather how best do we preserve that national consensus.
I personally do not want to see Amtrak abandoned but I do understand the logic of those who do. If all subsidy is bad then any service subsidized by the government should be stopped. But if subsidy is bad it makes no sense to stop some subsidies and let others continue.
As far as Ibsen goes, I did not intend here to give you a homework assignment. If I recall correctly the parable of the lone scout is from The Master Builder. On a beautiful sunny day an army marches along a road. The soldiers and officers feel very strong and confident they are invincible and each reinforces everyone else's belief. Then a lone scout who has been riding far ahead rides back to warn that up ahead is the enemy and the army is marching into an ambush. But the feelings of self confidence are so strong that the army ignores the lone scout's warning and is ultimately destroyed.
blue streak 1A political wag told me JohnWR is correct.
Thank you, Streak. It is good to know that somewhere out there a political wag agrees with me.
I would like to see a real passenger rail system here. Pruning back the legacy routes which are irrational as transportation is a means to expanding corridors. Portions of some of those routes could be converted into new corridors. You value consensus, which is important. But there will be far greater support, by the numbers of passengers using it, if we build a real service network within the limitations of where passenger rail can compete, i.e., corridors of various lengths, dependent on sustained speeds, but generally no more than 4-5 hours between the rider's start and destination points.
I agree with you about corridor service, Schlimm. I even agree that increasing and improving (speeding up) service along those corridors will increase support for Amtrak in places where the corridors exist. There is an irony in the fact that the recent reform cut back or eliminated money for precisely those corridors where Amtrak is most successful. Corridor service will come only to the extent that the states involved are willing to pick up the costs. I hope they will do that but I imagine different states will make different decisions.
However, to maintain a consensus for Amtrak it is not enough to have more people supporting it along new corridors. There also needs to be broad support over the whole country. The only way I can see to maintain that is to run the long distance trains that you so dislike. Cutting back on long distance trains will remove service from whole states. After taking away their rail service why should those states support Amtrak?
John WRThe only way I can see to maintain that is to run the long distance trains that you so dislike. Cutting back on long distance trains will remove service from whole states. After taking away their rail service why should those states support Amtrak?
It will gather support because LD services serve so few people, even in those states, that the discontinuance will be largely unnoticed. Also you seem to have overlooked my suggestion that some of those routes could be developed into new corridors for a portion of the route, much as Don has proposed for the Crescent and Empire Builder and sam1 has mentioned for a different type of split. The role for subsidies will become largely for infrastructure (RoW and capital improvement) along with short-term operating subsidies for new corridors in partnerships with states. Along those lines, if the folks in Montana or Wyoming, for example, really want passenger rail, let them pony up like folks in NC and Illinois.
Schlimm,
Here is an article about a group of 40 mayors from cities along what was the Sunset Limited Route between New Orleans and Jacksonville, FL. They met in Mobile because they want the service back. They believe there are adverse economic consequences for them by no longer having the service. The route operated up to Hurricane Katrina but has never been restored. It was a very lightly ridden route and a very expensive one from Amtrak but none the less the loss of it is noticed:
http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/transportation-nation/2012/aug/24/7-years-after-katrina-washed-it-away-mayors-amtrak-considering-gulf-coast-rail-bigger-than-before/
schlimm Also you seem to have overlooked my suggestion that some of those routes could be developed into new corridors for a portion of the route
I acknowledged your suggestion and I agreed that paired city routes would be desirable. However, recent legislation specifically excludes corridor routes of less than 750 miles from Federal funding.
John WR Schlimm, Here is an article about a group of 40 mayors from cities along what was the Sunset Limited Route between New Orleans and Jacksonville, FL. They met in Mobile because they want the service back. They believe there are adverse economic consequences for them by no longer having the service. The route operated up to Hurricane Katrina but has never been restored. It was a very lightly ridden route and a very expensive one from Amtrak but none the less the loss of it is noticed: http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/transportation-nation/2012/aug/24/7-years-after-katrina-washed-it-away-mayors-amtrak-considering-gulf-coast-rail-bigger-than-before/ John
It appears that they want the "Sunset" reinstated, but they also don't want to pick up any part of the tab for operating it.
"The route operated up to Hurricane Katrina but has never been restored. It was a very lightly ridden route and a very expensive one from Amtrak but none the less the loss of it is noticed: "
Not quite sure why that makes any difference. The residents of the 40 cities apparently didn't notice it when it was there. I'm sure there are plenty of mayors who would like a train service, but there needs to be a clear rationale established as to why that would be a wise use of funding.
CSSHEGEWISCHIt appears that they want the "Sunset" reinstated, but they also don't want to pick up any part of the tab for operating it.
It is not really up to the mayors to decide about paying for the Sunset Limited. But I imagine you are right and the states involved have not been forthcoming with any funds. On the other hand, this is part of a transcontinental route and states do not pay for other transcontinental routes.
John WR CSSHEGEWISCHIt appears that they want the "Sunset" reinstated, but they also don't want to pick up any part of the tab for operating it. It is not really up to the mayors to decide about paying for the Sunset Limited. But I imagine you are right and the states involved have not been forthcoming with any funds. On the other hand, this is part of a transcontinental route and states do not pay for other transcontinental routes.
I want free stuff for my town, too! Where do I sign up?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
schlimm The residents of the 40 cities apparently didn't notice it when it was there.
Well, Schlimm, I visited parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast when the Sunset Limited did run. Local communities had spent money to fix up their stations and seemed to be well aware of it.
Of course, when it comes to subsidy the Sunset Limited is the most expensive transcontinental route in the country. And the Jacksonville to New Orleans segment is the most expensive part of the the most expensive route. As far as I know Amtrak has never announced the abandonment of that part o the route. For several years after Hurricane Katrina it appeared on their schedule with a note saying service was suspended there. Finally the portion was omitted all together but there still is a note about the suspension. It ends "Future service has not been determined." It seems to me Amtrak just doesn't want to spend the money to reinstate it.
Of course, Louisana, Mississippi and Alabama could get together and fund service between New Orleans and Mobile as paired cities. They could even set up their own service which would be cheaper for them than Amtrak. But they haven't.
schlimm"part of a transcontinental route" seems to be a loophole for lightly used intrastate or at most a four state service but instead of the states funding, it gets Amtrak to foot the bill. I wonder how many folks actually used the discontinued segment? And of those, how many rode the train to TX and the west coast?
I don't know how many people used this route. But I do know that fewer people used it than used the route west of New Orleans. I also know that much of it ran in the late night and very early morning hours. I am not arguing that it should be restored; I am only arguing that the mayors along the route would like to see it restored. And yes, they would like to see it restored with Federal money.
My own thinking is that part of this route offers a real opportunity to carry out Don's suggestion of intercity service between New Orleans and Mobile with the states served funding the service. However, I would propose that the states operate the service themselves rather than have Amtrak do it. They could acquire a married pair of mu's and shuttle back and forth during the daylight hours. They could organize it in such a way that the costs would be substantially less than with Amtrak. Today the Mississippi Gulf Coast has a lot of casinos and a much greater population working in them than it has traditionally had. I think there are enough customers to support it. But I doubt the states involved will do it.
The west has huge untapped opportunities for both inter-city and interstate routes to be developed. Unfortunately, Amtrak has no equipment and cannot add service. For example, the most scenic routes like the Coast Starlite and California Zephyr have at best one train a day, serving many communities in the middle of the night. They are mostly sold out well in advance. If weather (snow) delays trains, connections are impossible to make up the lost time. Riding intercity is almost hopeless since the train arrives at 2 am and gets to a major metro area by 10 am after delays from freight service. Actual trains scheduled are about 10% of scheduled service in the postwar, pre-Amtrak era. Scanty service means far fewer passenger miles and badly distorts the cost/revenue statistics.
John WR schlimm"part of a transcontinental route" seems to be a loophole for lightly used intrastate or at most a four state service but instead of the states funding, it gets Amtrak to foot the bill. I wonder how many folks actually used the discontinued segment? And of those, how many rode the train to TX and the west coast? Schlimm, I don't know how many people used this route. But I do know that fewer people used it than used the route west of New Orleans. I also know that much of it ran in the late night and very early morning hours. I am not arguing that it should be restored; I am only arguing that the mayors along the route would like to see it restored. And yes, they would like to see it restored with Federal money. My own thinking is that part of this route offers a real opportunity to carry out Don's suggestion of intercity service between New Orleans and Mobile with the states served funding the service. However, I would propose that the states operate the service themselves rather than have Amtrak do it. They could acquire a married pair of mu's and shuttle back and forth during the daylight hours. They could organize it in such a way that the costs would be substantially less than with Amtrak. Today the Mississippi Gulf Coast has a lot of casinos and a much greater population working in them than it has traditionally had. I think there are enough customers to support it. But I doubt the states involved will do it.
The problem with the Gulf Coast is that most of the travel is to/from the north. You might make a case for Mobile to NOL, but east of Mobile there's not much there.
The notion that MS and LA would find $$ to start service from Mobile to NOL is pretty far fetched. You are talking about states that are "infra-red" and whose state budgets are really skinny.
If you really wanted to try to "connect the dots" with existing service, perhaps rerouting the Crescent via Montgomery and Mobile would make more sense. But, this is pretty far fetched, too.
dmikee They are mostly sold out well in advance
Er, not so much. They sell out during peak times and seasons but the overall load factor is 60% or less. You can't get a sleeper during the summer, but you can get a coach seat mid week just about any time.
You can get seat from Chicago to Emeryville for tomorrow right now.
You can get seat from Chicago to Seattle for tomorrow right now.
You can get seat from Chicago to Dallas for tomorrow right now.
You can get seat from New Orleans to Los Angeles for tomorrow right now.
You can get seat from Seattle to Los Angeles for tomorrow right now.
Tomorrow's SW Chief is sold out Chicago to LA, but you can get a sleeper from KC to LA.
I agree with you that the "middle of the night" times make the trains pretty much useless to those locations. I think the solution is to ditch the sleepers and only run trains during the day, as much as possible. Let the overnight passengers sleep in hotels
About splitting all trains into day trains ? How will they fit into the 750 mile short distance restrictions ? Wash - ATL / SAV /Pittsburg / sCLE / TOL are aall under 750 miles + ATL NOL / NYP - TOL CHI - MSP, CHI - MEM. amound other rooutes. Now NYP - ATL / SAV can meet the 750 restriction
oltmanndThe problem with the Gulf Coast is that most of the travel is to/from the north. You might make a case for Mobile to NOL, but east of Mobile there's not much there.
That's why I tried to make the case from New Orleans to Mobile, Don.
And I agree it is unlikely Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama would fund a Gulf Coast rail line. I'm not able to do any objective research but I do wonder if research would show it would benefit the whole area.
There was a time when the Crescent divided at Birmingham and sent some cars down to Mobile. But that was long ago. I find it ironic that the first north south transcontinental was the Mobile and Ohio to the Ohio River where it met the Illinois Central to Chicago.
So what to do about the LD trains west of the Mississippi where they make the least sense: the Sunset, TX Eagle, CZ, SWC and EB?
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