Didn't PA get money from the feds to upgrade the Pennsylvanian between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh? What happened to that money?
It makes sense for Amtrak to pursue buying track on some of their busier routes, like they did in the northeast, Michigan, and I think California. However, on lesser routes, why buy the line when the freight railroads will maintain it, and ATK only has to pay a below market access fee. They will never have the budget to buy what they would like.
Philly Amtrak Fan MidlandMike The feds offered to upgrade the CSX Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati corridor for passenger service, but Ohio Gov Kasich snubbed the deal. Michigan used the money to buy 100+ miles of the Wolverine corridor from NS. Amtrak should more accurately pursue buying more tracks if given the opportunity to do so. Think about how much less freight interference there would be.
MidlandMike The feds offered to upgrade the CSX Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati corridor for passenger service, but Ohio Gov Kasich snubbed the deal. Michigan used the money to buy 100+ miles of the Wolverine corridor from NS.
The feds offered to upgrade the CSX Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati corridor for passenger service, but Ohio Gov Kasich snubbed the deal. Michigan used the money to buy 100+ miles of the Wolverine corridor from NS.
Amtrak should more accurately pursue buying more tracks if given the opportunity to do so. Think about how much less freight interference there would be.
I meant actively pursue.
Unfortunately, the route between Colunbus OH and Indianapolis IN (cab signalled and heavy 152lb rail and mostly double track) is no more and East of Colubus, to Pittsburg, no longer direct. When Conrail was formed, most of that track was not included. The route from Indianaolis East is hard to find traces of ( a few bridge abutments remain and some trail) and the route East of Columbus is a Genese & Wyoming line that looks to be in good shape.
oltmannd schlimm Given Amtrak's mediocre record (no service to Phoenix? never to Columbus, OH? Wrong on Columbus. The National Limited until 1979.
schlimm Given Amtrak's mediocre record (no service to Phoenix? never to Columbus, OH?
Wrong on Columbus. The National Limited until 1979.
It was already posted, by me.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
So, what happened to the traffic that the SP/UP formerly had in Phoenix? It was this decline that brought about the decision to discontinue going through Phoenix, not an arbitray decision on the part of Amtrak's management.
Johnny
My head is starting to hurt with all this innuendo and politics.
Wasn't the decision on Phoenix largely driven by the route involving a fairly large mileage of track that saw little traffic aside from Amtrak, leaving a huge amount for the Government to provide for needed maintenance and improvement? At least that was something I remember.
If the situation has changed, it would be nice to discuss that substantively instead of going through a number of nested posts that don't.
oltmannd MidlandMike jschwendler Amtrak stopped running to so many major cities across the country it isn't funny. Phx AZ exploded in population in the late 90s, which is when your govt decided that would be an excellent time to pull out. Train now runs through Marana, 40 minutes out of the city, and Tucson, incredibly smaller. There isn't a single brain in the entire Amtrak administration. Not one. Better go back and read the history of why and who killed Phoenix service. Amtrak has people with brains. But figuring out where to best deploy assests to serve the most folks isn't what those brains are used for. It's not the "game" Amtrak plays. Amtrak's job, as they see it, is to defend the status quo. No more. No less. It's what they are rewarded for doing.
MidlandMike jschwendler Amtrak stopped running to so many major cities across the country it isn't funny. Phx AZ exploded in population in the late 90s, which is when your govt decided that would be an excellent time to pull out. Train now runs through Marana, 40 minutes out of the city, and Tucson, incredibly smaller. There isn't a single brain in the entire Amtrak administration. Not one. Better go back and read the history of why and who killed Phoenix service.
jschwendler Amtrak stopped running to so many major cities across the country it isn't funny. Phx AZ exploded in population in the late 90s, which is when your govt decided that would be an excellent time to pull out. Train now runs through Marana, 40 minutes out of the city, and Tucson, incredibly smaller. There isn't a single brain in the entire Amtrak administration. Not one.
Amtrak stopped running to so many major cities across the country it isn't funny. Phx AZ exploded in population in the late 90s, which is when your govt decided that would be an excellent time to pull out. Train now runs through Marana, 40 minutes out of the city, and Tucson, incredibly smaller. There isn't a single brain in the entire Amtrak administration. Not one.
Better go back and read the history of why and who killed Phoenix service.
Amtrak has people with brains. But figuring out where to best deploy assests to serve the most folks isn't what those brains are used for. It's not the "game" Amtrak plays. Amtrak's job, as they see it, is to defend the status quo. No more. No less. It's what they are rewarded for doing.
With the perspective being that if the status quo can't be defended, then the alternative is the organization's demise - one can better understand their thought processes. If Amtrak's future existance were in some significant manner assured, then the status quo would not have to be defended with such vigor and the 'brains' could be allocated to expansion of the brand and its offerings.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
schlimmGiven Amtrak's mediocre record (no service to Phoenix? never to Columbus, OH?
We cant have any federal agency make rulings on itself and then be accoutable to nobody but God himself. Including Amtrak we need to have the STB do its job and assert jurisdiction of the ICC or Congress write a law that gives them the jurisdiction.
Deggesty schlimm 1. We need a national passenger rail service, at least where it can be competitive. 2. Given Amtrak's mediocre record (no service to Phoenix? never to Columbus, OH?) of service and equipment orders (new baggage cars?), perhaps Amtrak is not the agency for the job. Back when the National Limited was running, it was scheduled to go through the capital city of Ohio. The one time I rode it across Ohio, I woke up west of Columbus, so I cannot be absolutely certain that it did stop in Columbus. Incidentally, the trip up along the Susquehanna the day before provided some excellent scenery.
schlimm 1. We need a national passenger rail service, at least where it can be competitive. 2. Given Amtrak's mediocre record (no service to Phoenix? never to Columbus, OH?) of service and equipment orders (new baggage cars?), perhaps Amtrak is not the agency for the job.
1. We need a national passenger rail service, at least where it can be competitive.
2. Given Amtrak's mediocre record (no service to Phoenix? never to Columbus, OH?) of service and equipment orders (new baggage cars?), perhaps Amtrak is not the agency for the job.
Back when the National Limited was running, it was scheduled to go through the capital city of Ohio. The one time I rode it across Ohio, I woke up west of Columbus, so I cannot be absolutely certain that it did stop in Columbus. Incidentally, the trip up along the Susquehanna the day before provided some excellent scenery.
Thanks for the correction. It ran through Oct. 1, 1979.
I believe Union Pacific or whoever was the host railroad at the time either downgraded the line or forced Amtrak to reroute the train away from Phoenix. I can't believe Amtrak would be that stupid.
I also remember a case when Congress interfered with Amtrak. The Cardinal was one of Amtrak's worst performing lines and Amtrak canceled it. But Sen. Byrd, who was Senate majority leader at the time, demanded it be restarted and later on the Broadway Limited/Three Rivers was canceled because Byrd wouldn't allow Amtrak to cancel the Cardinal. So in this case, I don't think it was Amtrak being idiots but Congress.
I'm not saying the Amtrak administration aren't stupid but they are handicapped by Congress and the host railroads.
Only our govt. would continue an entity that loses roughly $2.7m-plus, A DAY, for some 46 years.
No truly private corporation would have lasted a tenth that long at that rate. Makes no difference who is in the WH. Congress continues to fiddle while the country falls apart. So easy to fix, too.
As a essential goverment service it is quite sucessful with 31 million passengers a year who spend billions of dollers a year in buisness and tourist dollers in the small towns and big citys that they travel to.
BaltACD JPS1 Instead, the politicians created another federal bureacracy that has sucked more than $40 billion, when adjusted for inflation, out of the U.S. tax payers. $40B in 45 years is cheap in the way US government works.
JPS1 Instead, the politicians created another federal bureacracy that has sucked more than $40 billion, when adjusted for inflation, out of the U.S. tax payers.
Instead, the politicians created another federal bureacracy that has sucked more than $40 billion, when adjusted for inflation, out of the U.S. tax payers.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
$40B in 45 years is cheap in the way US government works.
Bartman-tn:
You are correct!
Come hell or highwater the investor owned railroads were going to get out of the passenger business, for the most part, one way or the other.
Had Amtrak not come along the investor owned railroads would have been successful in discontinuing their money losing passenger trains through train-off petitions.
Amtrak was a political response to America's declining use of passenger trains. It was designed to win political points with the public, even though most Americans had deserted the passenger train in favor of cars and airplanes.
In retrospect Amtrak was a mistake. If intercity passenger trains were deemed vital to America, a better outcome would have been for the federal government to subsidize those passenger trains deemed too important to discontinue and operated by the investor owned railroads that were
Instead the politicians created another federal bureacracy that has sucked more than $40 billion, when adjusted for inflation, out of the U.S. tax payers.
Problem is that no one other then Amtrak can get a operating agreement to start a private or new commuter railroad on so called private railroads tracks without being charged a confiscatory rate. This is in spite of railroad corperations having goverment powers that no other "private" corperations have like police powers and right of emenate domain and having benifited from land grants.
The point that railroads joined (paid in cash or equipment) Amtrak to get out of their passenger obligation is really long out of date. Remember, every railroad that didn't join Amtrak was relieved of the obligation by the early 1980s - no more passenger trains run by Southern, DRG&W, or Rock Island. Therefore, that is the era that anyone that didn't pay Amtrak initially would probably have been done anyway.
The issue that many people are looking at is the ability of one side of the contract having authority to set standards after the contract is written. A major concern by a number in the industry is that it would prevent any future expansion of passenger service as no railroad would ever allow that possible situation. Freight shippers in particular are worried that Amtrak would be able to order changes that would hurt the freight movements.
The other issue is having one party of a contract having the power to randomly change the contract based upon their wishes. For example, what would happen if the same process was used in a rental apartment agreement? After the apartment is rented, the renter (Amtrak) would be able to come back and demand a larger living room, reduced noise from the neighbor, a better pool, faster wireless, etc. Since they were also the cops, they could force it on the apartment owner even if the contract didn't include these items.
Several of the court rulings have looked at this issue. They have also stated that if the railroads aren't complying the contract with Amtrak, then there is the normal ability for Amtrak to go to the STB or any court to have the contract enforced.
The appelate court keeps defining Amtrak and the Railoads as competitors. What are they competing for, track time? Was not that the price for the goverment relieving them of the obligation to operate the passenger trains in the first place? Seems like that point was not raised.
Page 34 of appeals court's opinion
https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/7DB0A5319D2F70D385257FA4004FAB2B/$file/12-5204-1611061.pdf
Train schedules are a matter of pride and of apprehension to nearly everyone. When, far up the track, the block signal snapped from red to green and the long, stabbing probe of the headlight sheered the bend and blared on the station, men looked at their watches and said, ‘On time.’ There was pride in it, and relief too. The split second has been growing more and more important to us. And as human activities become more and more intermeshed and integrated, the split tenth of a second will emerge, and then a new name must be made for the split hundredth, until one day, although I don’t believe it, we’ll say, ‘Oh, the hell with it. What’s wrong with an hour?’ . . . One thing late or early can disrupt everything around it, and the disturbance runs outward in bands like the waves from a dropped stone in a quiet pool.
JOHN STEINBECK, EAST OF EDEN 533 (Penguin Books 2002).
It may be said that PRIIA’s architects shared Steinbeck’s pride in the punctuality of train schedules. But as we’ve shown, there are limits to how far Congress may go to ensure Amtrak’s on-time performance. The Constitution’s drafters may not have foreseen the formidable prerogatives of the administrative state, but the Due Process Clause effectively guarantees the regulatory power of the federal government will be wielded by “presumptively disinterested” and “duly appointed” actors who, in exercising that awesome power, are beholden to no constituency but the public good. Because PRIIA grants this power to the economically self-interested Amtrak and to an unconstitutionally appointed arbitrator, it transgresses that vital guarantee. We therefore Reverse.
Reverse, remand, rinse, repeat ... and now, perhaps with only eight justices to decide on the inevitable Round 2...
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