Schlimm your last two posts support what I am saying should be done but making me seem to have said something else!
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Marketing starts with a product, and trying to sell LD trains with sleepers and diners to a shrinking generational cohort is like trying to sell some 1955 Buick Roadmasters. The nostalgia buffs might buy (if cheap enough) but not the general public. Insistence on the sleepers and diners for occasional riders would be fine, IF they helped offset the losses the LD train incur. But they don't. They add to the loss, maybe even double it.
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henry6 No where else in the world could one say that when you see how technologically advanced and how much used rail service are in Europe and Asia.
I am personally very familiar with train services in Europe and to a lesser extent, in China. Their services are used heavily because they are not providing 50 year old-style services as we do with our LD trains which you and the NRPA so adamantly support. They are providing a modern rail network with HSR and HrSR as the centerpieces..
But Schlimm, I don't believe Amtrak should preserve an out of date anything but modernize to the latest technology and philosophies of passenger train operations. The past is gone...I'm over it, I'm looking at what can be built on, what has to be thrown away, and what has to be done. But I disagree that a loss of LD service would not be noticed or mourn. LD trains serve a purpose for transportation of local people from place to place but in order to pay the bills, longer distance, non daily riders have to be enticed aboard. Marketing...that is planning, designing equipment and schedules and frequency, pricing, advertising, to provide a service...is what is needed and not second guessing by politicians.
henry6And I know all of you are skating around your political views but lets face it: many of you don't want to accept the fact that government has to get involved in passenger rail as deeply as they are in water, air, and highways. But if you want Amtrak closed down and done away with, say so and not dance around the topic. If you believe in a future for passenger rail, a need for it, that is has to be included in the transportation mix, no holds barred, then say that.
I do not hold any such views. You attempt to smear those who disagree with your insistence that Amtrak must preserve an out-of-date long distance passenger service. If anything, your (and the NRPA's) rigid nostalgia for days gone by is why 40 years later, other than the NEC and some state-supported short corridors, Amtrak is a mess. If the LD services were shut down tomorrow, few would notice or mourn.
Totally disagree with the idea that all passenger rail supporters are nostalgia buffs. Totally disagree. While I enjoy looking at and remembering the past, I in no way consider it the way passenger railroads should operate now or in the future....the past is a great place to visit and dream about, but no a place to live. No where else in the world could one say that when you see how technologically advanced and how much used rail service are in Europe and Asia. The US is too stuck in the mentality of the American Wild West as portrayed by Hollywood and not look at the future to be nothing more than a replay of the past. And I know all of you are skating around your political views but lets face it: many of you don't want to accept the fact that government has to get involved in passenger rail as deeply as they are in water, air, and highways. But if you want Amtrak closed down and done away with, say so and not dance around the topic. If you believe in a future for passenger rail, a need for it, that is has to be included in the transportation mix, no holds barred, then say that. But picking little things and each other apart isn't going to prove or do anything but fill forum pages.
Paul MilenkovicBut in the absence of changes in Amtrak, we are going to see Amtrak pretty much the way it is, with the Perils of Pauline thing happening every few years as the pendulum swings in political cycles. And Amtrak the-way-it-is carries about a tenth of 1 percent of total U.S. passenger miles and is making a microscopic difference in congestion relief, providing a less stressful travel mode, reducing fuel consumption, accomodating people who cannot or will not take a cramped bus or plane, and so on.
Well said!! I could not agree more. You call them "the advocacy community" while I call them "nostalgia buffs" but we are talking about the same resistance to improving Amtrak so it can strive toward any of the desirable outcomes you mention above.
henry6 Buy an automobile for basic transportation. All you need is a frame, a cab for a seat, a steering wheel and a motor. A comfortable and adjustable seat, heat and air conditioning, wipers, radio are all beyond basic. What will you buy?
Buy an automobile for basic transportation. All you need is a frame, a cab for a seat, a steering wheel and a motor. A comfortable and adjustable seat, heat and air conditioning, wipers, radio are all beyond basic. What will you buy?
Not much of an analogy. A more accurate one is you want a subsidized (by other car buyers and the government) BMW instead of the Honda Civic.
I do not think the problem is with Amtrak, and I do not think the problem is with Congress, except perhaps indirectly. I do think the problem is with and within the advocacy community, and I advance the discussion here as Exhibit A in making my case.
I mean who is Congress apart from the people who elect its members and inform its members on what we want. And most people are rather indifferent to trains except for the minority of people who really care about trains, whose views are represented here.
I have never said "get rid of the long distance trains and concentrate on the corridor trains" or the other way around. I have, however, expressed the opinion that the "goodness" that we achieve from Amtrak, and yes, taking into account the subsidies that go to highways and airways, is not great enough in relation to the per passenger or per passenger mile expenditure on Amtrak to justify a serious expansion of Amtrak beyond current funding levels.
The politics of Amtrak has been such that Amtrak has been pretty much on an even keel of public expenditure, adjusted for inflation, since its inception. There are Perils of Pauline threats that gets Amtrak tied to the tracks (in front of a rushing freight train), and a lot of energy gets expended complaining about these threats, which haven't materialized after years of trying by the anti-train people. There are other proposals to expand Amtrak -- I guess we shall see how the CA HSR works out -- but to date they haven't gotten very far either.
So maybe when I observe that the cost-benefit ratio does not favor expanding Amtrak, I am simply commenting on the state of affairs rather than advocating that Amtrak not expand.
But what happens is that there is a faction within the community of people who like trains and want trains, I speak of this as the "advocacy community" as a shorthand for the long run of words. There is a faction within the greater advocacy community of persons who likes Amtrak or at least the modes of Amtrak service-thank-you-very-much and is resistant to any and all proposals to "reform" Amtrak in any serious way. The cost-benefit ratio is dismissed with "all the other modes receive subsidy" and that it is "a matter of political will to come up with the money (to run Amtrak or perhaps even expand Amtrak in its current form)."
Traditionally it had been railroad industry people with a conservative streak of "That idea was tried, and it was a 'failure'", but as of late it is people in the advocacy community who are set in what they want from Amtrak and don't want to see any changes.
I am pretty set in my ways and don't want to see any changes either -- with a lot of things. But in the absence of changes in Amtrak, we are going to see Amtrak pretty much the way it is, with the Perils of Pauline thing happening every few years as the pendulum swings in political cycles. And Amtrak the-way-it-is carries about a tenth of 1 percent of total U.S. passenger miles and is making a microscopic difference in congestion relief, providing a less stressful travel mode, reducing fuel consumption, accomodating people who cannot or will not take a cramped bus or plane, and so on.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
A basic concept in retail is determining what market niche you are serving. For Amtrak LD, it is supposed to be basic transportation between points, not a luxury land cruise, which seems to be what you and a few others want. There are/have been other providers for that, though most have tried and failed. Reason? The concept is not appealing to enough people at a price they are willing to pay. And what are that market's demographics? Senior citizens. Would many of them pay the real cost for a sleeper on the CZ or EB with a really good restaurant car? Apparently not. They want the service, but only if it is (apparently) heavily subsidized. That is why I suggested the need to have a study that breaks out the costs and compares with the fares. My hunch is that the sleeper/diner feature is responsible for 75% of the loss on LD trains.
henry6 But how can you say that out of hand......"operated as basic transportation minus 60 year old dining cars"? If you put people aboard a train for five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty four or more hours, how are you going to control them or how can you ask them back if you don't take care of them? Have you ever been in the retail sales or service industry? Do you know what it takes to get a customer and keep him? Your way, yes, you'll have smaller loses but you may also have smaller or no income. Or worse yet, you might have to pay more for the alternatives. I agree "60 year old dining" cars and service need be updated. But not thrown away; rather altered, changed, updated, revised, made attractive and useful by today's standards and needs.
But how can you say that out of hand......"operated as basic transportation minus 60 year old dining cars"? If you put people aboard a train for five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty four or more hours, how are you going to control them or how can you ask them back if you don't take care of them? Have you ever been in the retail sales or service industry? Do you know what it takes to get a customer and keep him? Your way, yes, you'll have smaller loses but you may also have smaller or no income. Or worse yet, you might have to pay more for the alternatives. I agree "60 year old dining" cars and service need be updated. But not thrown away; rather altered, changed, updated, revised, made attractive and useful by today's standards and needs.
Yes, in retail management long ago. What do you mean by "control them?"
I was not referring to the dining cars. I was referring to providing anything beyond a basic service and contracted out to professionals in the food service industry. And sleepers' fares should either cover their full additional cost or they should be dropped.
Too much all or nothing thinking. A limited LD network can be retained, since it could connect developing corridors as Don mentioned. But they need to be operated as basic transportation minus the 60 year old-style dining services and without sleeping cars. By trimming those major cost centers, the losses would be much smaller. And the fare structures need to be designed to cover the much higher labor costs of LD trains.
The problem would lie in defining a "properly regulated" market. There are those who would tightly regulate a market, similar to the Interstate Commerce Commission, Civil Aeronautics Board or state Public Utilities Commissions in years gone by. On the other end of the spectrum are those who believe that the only proper regulation is no regulation. There is probably a happy medium at some point but defining that point is going to be a political exercise that will probably continue without providing a real answer.
But Sam1, et al., Amtrak will never get it right as long as Congress has control over what is and isn't done. Amtrak has to be even more independent than the USPS! But Congress is between a rock and a hard place because the public has indicated they want and need passenger rail service and transportation and urban planners urge it while big business and Class One railroads don't want it. Add to the fact that Class One railroads wanted Amtrak so whey would not be responsible for passenger services but fear altering Amtrak would throw rail passenger services back in their laps. So we circle the tree like a Lionel train at Christmas instead of operating on an efficient layout. If we can unpoliticize Amtrak then we may get the right service efforts needed.
oltmannd dakotafred Why do we need trains as "basic transportation," when we already have planes and busses? That gets right to the "nut" of this whole discussion, doesn't it! There are a few answers to pick and chose from. 1. Because, we really don't - at least most places. The NEC is the single exception since it provides capacity that can't be replaced by road or air except at great cost. Easy to demonstrate. 2. Because, in other "emerging corridors", trains are the most cost effective way to increase capacity in areas that have constrained air/road capacity (So. Cal and routes in/out of Chicago are good examples). Have to do total cost/benefit to show return. This can get rather fuzzy. 3. Because, trains really aren't cost-ineffective. The proof on this one is really shaky. 4. Because trains spur economic development. This one is really hard to show since the alternatives to trains have some effect, too. I'd call this one "fuzzy and shaky". 5. Because trains are our heritage and we should retain them "as rolling museums" or "kinetic art". Their value is not calculable. This one is supported as a tenet of faith. 6. Because "The People" want them. Voters vote. Legislators legislate...and occasionally authorize taxes and spending. No further analysis necessary! Personally, I'd like to see the trains do "useful" work, as efficiently as possible. I'd like to see the whole argument about LD trains become a moot point. The only way that can happen is if the corridor growth is great enough that the LD trains just have to bridge the gaps in the corridors. This increases the base of potential passengers and spreads the cost of fixed facilities out over more traffic. Secondly, I'd like to see the LD trains "bottom line" improve as much as possible. You can't do this running the current 1950s schedules and service arrangements. Its' time for some fresh thinking. ...or even argument #6 will fail.
dakotafred Why do we need trains as "basic transportation," when we already have planes and busses?
Why do we need trains as "basic transportation," when we already have planes and busses?
Oltmann...I don't think #5 has any merit while the others are shaky at best. If trains had no merit there would be no reason for urban and other planners to include and promote them. The point is that for efficiencies in fuel usage, in environmental safety, volume loadings, bad weather operations, etc, railroads do provide a superior mode. Building cost factors may be higher than highway and air but otherwise there is a real efficiency and priority need for railroads for both freight and passengers. What is the most shaky thing is use of railroads. For freight, even the trucking companies are turning to rail to reach customers and markets quickly, safely, and less expensively. For passengers, the "freedom" of owning a car and cruising the open road has been imbedded in our lifestyle that we've ignored the good of other modes including trains and buses. What is really needed is a national transportation policy which utilizes and applies the best mode to any given job or market.
Depends upon if its a blonde or a PCC. Certainly not a Kawasaki!
henry6And, BTW all, "buses" is plural of bus and "busses" is many buss or kisses.
Kisses are generally preferable to buses.....
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Good question, really. And the answer is that each mode offers something or things the others don't in any given situation. In commuter service or in tight corridors, planes may not be as efficient or inexpensive as driving or rail; but highways can become congested, even gridlocked, and is puts a lot of pollutants into the atmosphere and need a lot of land for traffic lanes; trains can move a lot of people quickly and efficiently, but don not give door to door service. So you choose what is best for you.
Long distances, planes are definitely faster, trains take a lot longer but are more relaxing, and automobiles will also take longer but you can't put them on auto pilot so cannot be moving 24/7.
The cost vs. benefit for each is different in each application, but each application is different making the need for air, highways, and rail each an important component of an overall transportation system
And, BTW all, "buses" is plural of bus and "busses" is many buss or kisses.
schlimm The airlines realized people do not fly to eat meals. And most people do not ride a train so they can have a meal. Amtrak should stick to running trains: fast, frequent, convenient. Contract food service out to experts who know what they are doing.
The airlines realized people do not fly to eat meals. And most people do not ride a train so they can have a meal. Amtrak should stick to running trains: fast, frequent, convenient. Contract food service out to experts who know what they are doing.
BroadwayLion CMStPnPVending machine approach has been tried and has failed via Amtrak. I think Passengers expect more. No, it really had not been tried. AMTRAK's attempt to run vending machines has failed, but AMTK is rife with union labor, union work rules and premium prices. Put Pepsi Machines in the cars, let Pepsi stock them at the terminals, it is just another stop for them, or let some other terminal based vendor provide and service the machines. The lines to get mediocre stuff at the cafe car are not acceptable. How can crowds like this be served better? ROAR
CMStPnPVending machine approach has been tried and has failed via Amtrak. I think Passengers expect more.
No, it really had not been tried.
AMTRAK's attempt to run vending machines has failed, but AMTK is rife with union labor, union work rules and premium prices.
Put Pepsi Machines in the cars, let Pepsi stock them at the terminals, it is just another stop for them, or let some other terminal based vendor provide and service the machines.
The lines to get mediocre stuff at the cafe car are not acceptable. How can crowds like this be served better?
ROAR
Several Private Railways tried it as well prior to Amtrak. The most notorious at using vending machine cars was Southern Pacific......I believe. They failed as well.
dakotafred Hey, Sam1, don't jump on me for trying to correct your spelling. Your sometimes-ally Schlimm has been working on that for years. I have to think "dinning" is somehow a point of pride with you.
Hey, Sam1, don't jump on me for trying to correct your spelling. Your sometimes-ally Schlimm has been working on that for years. I have to think "dinning" is somehow a point of pride with you.
Agreement on passenger trains doesn't necessarily make folks allies. And BTW, although "busses" is correct, the vastly preferred spelling is "buses."
http://grammarist.com/spelling/buses-busses/
dakotafred I'm bound to wonder, as NKPGuy did months ago, what people like Schlimm and Sam1 are even doing on here. They're opposed to what Amtrak was chartered to do ... run LD trains. Nobody, including Congress, has revoked that charter. All the rest of which they are enamoured -- the high-density, short-distance stuff, which depends on state funding, and so probably going away soon -- is incidental to the original business. They have basically nothing constructive to say about Amtrak as it was constituted 40 years ago and is supposed to be today ... with (horrors!) diners (not dinners, Sam1) and sleepers. Yeah, it loses a little money, which it has in common with every other operation of government. However, unlike so many other operations of government, it actually delivers a product that does not end up in the cemetery or the wastewater treatment plant. Amtrak is the kind of product, like highways and space exploration -- which also seem beyond us now -- that is the hallmark of a civilization that aims, or used to aim, at being a world leader.
I'm bound to wonder, as NKPGuy did months ago, what people like Schlimm and Sam1 are even doing on here. They're opposed to what Amtrak was chartered to do ... run LD trains. Nobody, including Congress, has revoked that charter. All the rest of which they are enamoured -- the high-density, short-distance stuff, which depends on state funding, and so probably going away soon -- is incidental to the original business.
They have basically nothing constructive to say about Amtrak as it was constituted 40 years ago and is supposed to be today ... with (horrors!) diners (not dinners, Sam1) and sleepers. Yeah, it loses a little money, which it has in common with every other operation of government. However, unlike so many other operations of government, it actually delivers a product that does not end up in the cemetery or the wastewater treatment plant.
Amtrak is the kind of product, like highways and space exploration -- which also seem beyond us now -- that is the hallmark of a civilization that aims, or used to aim, at being a world leader.
You found a mistake in one of my postings, i.e. dinners instead of diners. Wow! If you are focused on finding spelling errors, you probably have missed most of what I have argued for years on these forums.
"Amtrak was initially created as a for-profit enterprise with common stock issued only to railroads, though only four chose to become stockholders. The law also charged the federal transportation secretary with choosing the metropolitan areas that would constitute the basic system of service. The initial plan was for lines radiating out from Chicago and New York, with routes chosen based on a set of clear criteria including cost effectiveness. However, once the plan was released for comment, “political resource allocation abounded through the system” and additional routes were added." A New Alignment: Strengthening America's Commitment to Passenger Rail by Robert Puentes, Adie Tomer, and Joseph Kane, Background, Page 2, Brookings Institution, March 2013.
As per the above referenced paragraph, there is nothing in the National Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 that requires Amtrak to run long distance trains. They were and remain the outcome of Congressional politics.
At no time in Amtrak's history have the long distance trains come close to meeting the cost effectiveness criteria.
Amtrak would have covered its operating costs in FY12 and made a significant contribution to the fixed costs if it had not been for the losses racked-up by the long distance trains. Those losses, which were acerbated by the food and beverage loses, wiped out all the operating profits and contributed to more than half of Amtrak's annual loss of $1.3 billion. This for a service line that carries approximately 15 per cent of Amtrak's system passengers.
If you believe that the hallmark of a great nation is to operate money losing long distance trains, which are used by less than one per cent of the nation's intercity travelers, that is your choice. That's a poor commercial decision. And Amtrak is supposedly a commercial operation.
One of the hallmarks of a great nation, however, is to allow different points of view to be presented in the public square. This is a public square of sorts, and I will continue to express my views irrespective of what you or anyone else thinks.
I have been participating in these forums for more than five years. My views, if nothing else, have been consistent. Passenger rail makes sense in relatively short, high density corridors where the cost to expand the highways and airways is prohibitive. I have seen nothing to cause me to change my mind.
So out come the knives when you are unable to make a cogent argument. I will say it one more time: I favor a modern 21st century passenger rail system, not some pathetic attempt to preserve a travel option that was dying 50 years ago. And I remember the "Golden Age" with fondness, but it simply is not a viable mode today, as can be seen by the miniscule numbers who use LD trains. But if we have to continue LD trains, then run them as basic transportation.
As to why i am here, i suggest you read the heading for the passenger forum, in case you forgot.
"The place to discuss Amtrak, the future of passenger rail, and high speed proposals."
Even when Amtrak started, most of it was the NEC. Given your desire to ignore HSR, HrSR and corridors and concern only with preservation of LD services, perhaps you might consider Classic Trains. "Like Classic Trains magazine itself, this forum celebrates the "golden years of railroading." Covering the railroad scene from the late 1920s to the late 1970s, this forum section is everything from giant steam locomotives and colorful streamliners."
Amtrak is the kind of product, like highways and space exploration -- which also seem beyond us now -- that is the hallmark of a civilization that aims, or used to aim, at being something above.
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