Exactly, and true of all long distance trains. If Amtrak made any efforts at all to advertise and cultivate these intermediate stops as destinations, they would need to at least double the number of present trains. Of course, that would prove that passenger trains are still needed and worth developing, anathema to today's budget and tax cutters.
oltmannd LehighLad The network effect could be much improved by doubling the frequency of all long-distance trains terminating at the Chicago hub.
LehighLad The network effect could be much improved by doubling the frequency of all long-distance trains terminating at the Chicago hub.
V.PayneWhy the need to ask would a train recover its incremental costs from direct users when the interstates did not and are increasingly not doing so at about double the rate in the past?
Two wrongs make a right? (I am trying to be snarky! )
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
dmikee Exactly, and true of all long distance trains. If Amtrak made any efforts at all to advertise and cultivate these intermediate stops as destinations, they would need to at least double the number of present trains. Of course, that would prove that passenger trains are still needed and worth developing, anathema to today's budget and tax cutters.
Proving LD trains are still needed is a highly subjective exercise - and probably not worth the effort. It depends a great deal on how you define need.
However, your point about Amtrak making an effort to improve the utility of these trains has merit, I think.
Fit the trains to the current travel demand. What people are likely riders? Where do they live? Where do they want to go? What time of day is likely to attact them. What schedule yields the best results?
Fit the service to the current state of the art. What processes and practices are the state of the art in the hospitality industry? How can these be applied to improve service qualilty and cut costs simultaneously?
We need a better Amtrak! Everything else comes second.
dmikee If Amtrak made any efforts at all to advertise and cultivate these intermediate stops as destinations, they would need to at least double the number of present trains.
If Amtrak made any efforts at all to advertise and cultivate these intermediate stops as destinations, they would need to at least double the number of present trains.
oltmannd V.Payne Why the need to ask would a train recover its incremental costs from direct users when the interstates did not and are increasingly not doing so at about double the rate in the past? Two wrongs make a right? (I am trying to be snarky! )
V.Payne Why the need to ask would a train recover its incremental costs from direct users when the interstates did not and are increasingly not doing so at about double the rate in the past?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Route improvements are not rocket science. Many solutions to fit train schedules to current travel demand are self explanatory - and can easily be seen to have more benefit than cost. Resistance is the result of variations on themes of politics or lack of concern.
Examples are all around us. Why are there absolutely no passenger trains today between the two largest metropolitan areas in Texas? Because that was not where the traffic patterns stood during WWII. Why does the fourth largest city in the United States today have only tri-weekly passenger train service? Because Southwest Airlines believes that competition would hurt business.
Why do all long-distance trains in San Antonio operate only in the wee hours and out of a poor station in a bad neighborhood? Because nobody cares enough to change it. Why is there no passenger train service to the fastest growing areas of the Lone Star State, Laredo and the Lower Rio Grande Valley? Because they don't have political cloudt.
Why does passsenger train service along the U.S. Gulf Coast vary between poor and non-existant? (Let's not bother to go there.)
Please somebody smell the coffee and send a wake-up call to Amtrak and the Congress.
South TexasWhy are there absolutely no passenger trains today between the two largest metropolitan areas in Texas? Because that was not where the traffic patterns stood during WWII. Why does the fourth largest city in the United States today have only tri-weekly passenger train service? Because Southwest Airlines believes that competition would hurt business.
Very true. Train services in TX (and elsewhere) for passengers are the tail wagging the dog. In this case they are the remnants of long distance (transcontinental/western) routes from the post-WWII era.
South TexasExamples are all around us.
A couple more:
Why does the Crescent move through growing, populous, Piedmont area in the dead of night, but through rural AL and MS at prime time?
Why does Florida - the 4th largest state - have less service than it did a couple decades ago?
South TexasPlease somebody smell the coffee and send a wake-up call to Amtrak and the Congress.
It has become readily apparent that neither really care - except about the subsidy. NARP is not helpful, either.
"Continuing with the snarkiness or truth memes (depending on one's P.O.V.) how about seeing just how poorly the long distance routes' incremental costs would truly be if each paid rent to the freight rails that more accurately resembled the actual costs?"
That sounds fine as a conceptual exercise, just apply the same standards to highway costing, namely private capital Weighted Average Cost of Capital equivalent discount rates to match those needed by investor owned railroads raising money on the market and paying property taxes.
Where those rates to be used in the NPV analysis (I typically defalt to AAA bond rates) to determine highway costing, practically no mid or long-distance trucking could survive in the marketplace and practically all rail routes as a consequence would be multiple tracks with no fluidity issues, yielding infrastructure rental rates around 50% more per trainmile than current, or about $7/trainmile, that would cover all costs. You have to address the costing of freight to talk about ground infrastructure costs, this paper provides a simple method to price road freight that might be politically possible as it avoids automobile taxes.
So again, why is it ethical to deny equivalent funding (measured off the interstate cross-subsidy) per person mile for the safer intercity rail alternative? This same mode also just happens to allow one to travel in comfort, accomodates handicapped persons better than any mode, and allows older individuals who have lost eyesight and the ability to sit still in a confined space for long periods to continue to travel to visit their families. After you get past this question and the sillyness of eliminating routes while not touching $600 million in G&A and large station costs, a rational basis for intercity rail for the rest of US is evident.
If you answer that this is the way the Highway Trust Fund was configured in the past and rail cannot have the same benefits, I hope you understand that this is a much greater, unconsidered through-back than the scheduling and routes mentioned. The orginal intent of the HTF was inter-regional mobility, but the mechanism employeed intentionally destroyed financially solvent land use density in cities to solve traffic congestion problems through the taxing of use of local roads paid for by general city property tax funds to spread out daily destinations.
V. Payne: Sorry and call me dense, but I have trouble reading and understanding your brand of techno-jargon. You may well be making some good points, but it is lost to me in the muddy prose. As a professional and an academic, I was taught to avoid using the specialized jargon of one's field with the general public, except when addressing people in the same field
V.Payneall rail routes as a consequence would be multiple tracks with no fluidity issues,
Not so fast. Some of the worst fluidity problems in the east this year were in multiple track territory. Just ask Amtrak.
V.PayneSo again, why is it ethical to deny equivalent funding (measured off the interstate cross-subsidy) per person mile for the safer intercity rail alternative? This same mode also just happens to allow one to travel in comfort, accomodates handicapped persons better than any mode, and allows older individuals who have lost eyesight and the ability to sit still in a confined space for long periods to continue to travel to visit their families. After you get past this question and the sillyness of eliminating routes while not touching $600 million in G&A and large station costs, a rational basis for intercity rail for the rest of US is evident.
The problem with this arguement is two-fold. One is the status quo isn't coming close to doing any of this except for a very, very small number of folk who happen to be plane/car adverse an just happen to live along an Amtrak route. Everyone else is SOL. The other is the most cost effective solution to the problem might not be more trains.
You are recommending the complete abandonment of passenger rail service to the nation's fourth largest city. No one of any political experience would believe that Amntrak could survive as a national organization after that. I'm too polite to say any more.
South TexasYou are recommending the complete abandonment of passenger rail service to the nation's fourth largest city. No one of any political experience would believe that Amntrak could survive as a national organization after that.
It seems to me a rational examination of the future of Amtrak's LD routes, especially but not only west of the Mississippi, would examine passenger patronage on intermediate stops. Real services for more people might well be created by breaking those services into shorter segments, since very few folks ride between the endpoints. There are also large metro areas that for various reasons are underserved (several TX cities already cited and others) or not served at all (Phoenix, Las Vegas to name two). But there is little evidence that a rational analysis is forthcoming at Amtrak.
South Texas Why do all long-distance trains in San Antonio operate only in the wee hours and out of a poor station in a bad neighborhood?
Why do all long-distance trains in San Antonio operate only in the wee hours and out of a poor station in a bad neighborhood?
Yes, the trains operate in the wee hours, but what reasons do you have for calling it a poor station in a bad neighborhood? The times I've visited I thought the station was adequate, it looks about as sophisticated as Miami, Orlando or Jacksonville.
I thought the neighborhood was ok, and reasonable walking distance, about 2 blocks, from the bustling downtown riverwalk. Last time I was there was Thanksgiving weekend 2008, it certainly didn't look like a seedy part of town.
Patrick Boylan
Free yacht rides, 27' sailboat, zip code 19114 Delaware River, get great Delair bridge photos from the river. Send me a private message
"Some of the worst fluidity problems in the east this year were in multiple track territory. Just ask Amtrak." I guess I would disagree, it was in mostly double track territory for sure, that had been effectively single tracked by parking trains due to overloaded terminal conditions and trackwork delayed past the point of when it should have been done.
The point was that the rail infrastructure capacity issue is exaggerated by the relative lack of road freight pricing. If this pricing deficit is even partially corrected passenger operations can shoulder the prorated expense but they can never exclusively pay the $750 million UP wanted as though this was exclusively beneficial to passenger operations. Part of UP's response (Disclosure, worked for them a long time ago) in regards to a daily Sunset, is due to the level of performance demanded by the Federal performance metrics. I would like to see a number for a more reasonable timekeeping standard for such a long route. Might it just be the cost of a few extra sidings. If you relate everything to equivalent subsidy per person mile you just let the market decide what is acceptable, instead of regulating.
I too find the sparseness of the rail passenger network frustrating, I can only travel north-south by rail for example. Busses when used just aren't that enjoyable and our Essential Air Service routes are now running $0.60/passenger mile "above the runway" subsidies.
The solution however is to expand the network routes close to what existed in say the mid-1960's, with at least twice daily frequencies. The general level of even red-state support noted in the earlier poll thread show that many do actually find intercity rail as a good fit.
V.Payne The solution however is to expand the network routes close to what existed in say the mid-1960's, with at least twice daily frequencies. The general level of even red-state support noted in the earlier poll thread show that many do actually find intercity rail as a good fit.
I took a look at my July 1965 copy of the Official Guide and there was quite a bit of deadwood in the schedules, even by the standards of that time. As examples: EL had two Hoboken-Chicago round trips plus shorter runs out of Hoboken, CGW still ran Minneapolis-Omaha, CB&Q ran Omaha-Billings, N&W (ex-WAB) ran St. Louis-Omaha, etc. Most of these runs served few (if any) sizable intermediate points and probably depended on mail contracts to keep losses manageable. I'm not sure that they would do much better today.
Yes, Paul, many of these routes you mentioned could well have been still in service because of mail contracts. I remember reading (I do not remember the author or when he took the train) an account of an overnight trip from Twin Cities to Omaha on the Chicago Great Western which entailed a long stop in Council Bluffs for mail work; the author wondered about making his connection in Omaha, for the stop took much longer than the timetable indicated it should. Apparently Council Bluffs, and not Omaha, was the important mail distribution point.
In the fifties, Southern's #17 and 18 (Birmingham Special) both had scheduled lengthy stops in Johnson City, Tennessee, for mail work. I do not remember such stops for #41 and 42 (Pelican), but #45 (Tennessean) also worked mail before arriving in the station. I was given the impression that Johnson City was a distribution point for many communities in both northeastern Tennessee and northwestern North Carolina. I do not know about outgoing mail there.
Johnny
V.Payne"Some of the worst fluidity problems in the east this year were in multiple track territory. Just ask Amtrak." I guess I would disagree, it was in mostly double track territory for sure, that had been effectively single tracked by parking trains due to overloaded terminal conditions and trackwork delayed past the point of when it should have been done.
All of that counts. I was and remains a double track railroad. Double track has inherently higher capacity than single track, but it doesn't have inherently higher fluidity. Thats a function of more things than main track count.
A nice chunk of the track work is to improve capacity for Michigan train. Another nice chunk is PTC signal work.
V.PayneThe point was that the rail infrastructure capacity issue is exaggerated by the relative lack of road freight pricing. If this pricing deficit is even partially corrected passenger operations can shoulder the prorated expense but they can never exclusively pay the $750 million UP wanted as though this was exclusively beneficial to passenger operations. Part of UP's response (Disclosure, worked for them a long time ago) in regards to a daily Sunset, is due to the level of performance demanded by the Federal performance metrics. I would like to see a number for a more reasonable timekeeping standard for such a long route. Might it just be the cost of a few extra sidings. If you relate everything to equivalent subsidy per person mile you just let the market decide what is acceptable, instead of regulating.
Live by RTC model, die by RTC model. You can use it to figure out what investements are needed to keep frt delays constant. Itterate until Amtrak train delays come in at schedule threshold and UP freight delays are flat before and after. I suspect this is exactly what UP did and the $750 was an opening bid that Amtrak did not have any idea how to respond to.
I'm all for more passenger trains. I'm not sure Amtrak really is....
Agreed... I do wonder if there is any room to negogiate on the "standards" now however.
I am thinking of just asking my senator to insert language that would allow a compact of states and/or groups take over a long-distance train service if they agree to a lower (say 95%) of the existing total Federal subsidy level (or better yet 75% of the existing per-person mile subsidy level). This would be written to provide an option if the cut Amtrak group gets going in coming years.
There would have to be some type of bribe, say slightly higher trackage fees or a tradeoff elsewhere for the Class I railroads. There would also need to be a large loss per passenger mile insurance fund (similar to oil pipeline spill fund) with the operator covering first dollar insurance to say $100k/incident. The assumption is you could do quite a bit without cutting wages by reducing the 40% of total costs from the train operation lines that is overhead.
The main reason though... just to get some movement on improving these services through simple fixes.
V.Payne Agreed... I do wonder if there is any room to negogiate on the "standards" now however. I am thinking of just asking my senator to insert language that would allow a compact of states and/or groups take over a long-distance train service if they agree to a lower (say 95%) of the existing total Federal subsidy level (or better yet 75% of the existing per-person mile subsidy level). This would be written to provide an option if the cut Amtrak group gets going in coming years. There would have to be some type of bribe, say slightly higher trackage fees or a tradeoff elsewhere for the Class I railroads. There would also need to be a large loss per passenger mile insurance fund (similar to oil pipeline spill fund) with the operator covering first dollar insurance to say $100k/incident. The assumption is you could do quite a bit without cutting wages by reducing the 40% of total costs from the train operation lines that is overhead. The main reason though... just to get some movement on improving these services through simple fixes.
Other than west coast states and maybe MO and TX, what states west of the Miss. would be willing to pony up even that amount? East of there is quite different.
V.Payne "Continuing with the snarkiness or truth memes (depending on one's P.O.V.) how about seeing just how poorly the long distance routes' incremental costs would truly be if each paid rent to the freight rails that more accurately resembled the actual costs?" That sounds fine as a conceptual exercise, just apply the same standards to highway costing, namely private capital Weighted Average Cost of Capital equivalent discount rates to match those needed by investor owned railroads raising money on the market and paying property taxes. Where those rates to be used in the NPV analysis (I typically defalt to AAA bond rates) to determine highway costing, practically no mid or long-distance trucking could survive in the marketplace and practically all rail routes as a consequence would be multiple tracks with no fluidity issues, yielding infrastructure rental rates around 50% more per trainmile than current, or about $7/trainmile, that would cover all costs. You have to address the costing of freight to talk about ground infrastructure costs, this paper provides a simple method to price road freight that might be politically possible as it avoids automobile taxes. So again, why is it ethical to deny equivalent funding (measured off the interstate cross-subsidy) per person mile for the safer intercity rail alternative? This same mode also just happens to allow one to travel in comfort, accomodates handicapped persons better than any mode, and allows older individuals who have lost eyesight and the ability to sit still in a confined space for long periods to continue to travel to visit their families. After you get past this question and the sillyness of eliminating routes while not touching $600 million in G&A and large station costs, a rational basis for intercity rail for the rest of US is evident. If you answer that this is the way the Highway Trust Fund was configured in the past and rail cannot have the same benefits, I hope you understand that this is a much greater, unconsidered through-back than the scheduling and routes mentioned. The orginal intent of the HTF was inter-regional mobility, but the mechanism employeed intentionally destroyed financially solvent land use density in cities to solve traffic congestion problems through the taxing of use of local roads paid for by general city property tax funds to spread out daily destinations.
You want us to refer to your paper for an independent verification of your points of view?
The appropriate discount rate for federal borrowing for infrastructure projects is that for the 10 year Treasury note.
The average cost of the marketable Treasury debt as of 12/31/14 was 2.013 per cent, and the average cost of non-marketable debt was 3.182 per cent.
The cost of state debt varies from state to state.
You say you hate trains? And the cities they serve, too?
"Other than west coast states and maybe MO and TX, what states west of the Miss. would be willing to pony up even that amount? East of there is quite different." The suggestion is to allow the groups of states to have access to a lower Federal subsidy to support inter-regional passenger mobility than currently enjoyed if they continue to run the route. This is made possible by not having the 40% overhead Amtrak puts in the route costs.
V.Payne Did I say the paper was independent, my name is on the front after all? The point is investor held railroads have a much different interest rate they must meet to get funds and if one wants to figure out what is the most financially efficient for the economy then the two types of infrastruture should be compared at the same interest rate, particularly when one talks about freight competition that ultimately drives the infrastructure marketplace for railroads. I did both interest rate extremes with AAA bonds in the middle. This isn't a new concept, but has been discussed since the 1920's (references in the paper). Since I am not for socialism, let highways infrastructure projects pay an equivalent to what the market requires and require electronic tolls on road freight to recover that amount, or alternately if there is some common good allow investor held railroads get Federal fund rates for infrastructure without the crazy FRA process. With our politics you will probably have to always give passenger operations (road and freight) a financially leveraged, offset, or otherwise free ride (weighing public good on equivalent subsidy rates per person-mile), but this freight competitive arrangment would take care of infrastructure provision. But there is deep illogic is suggesting different interest rates for each and such drives the ultimate lack of responsive infrastructure. The $750 M to make a tri-weekly train daily is what you get when you move away from the marketplace as otherwise you could get slots at a relatively decent rate.
The paper refers to independent references stretching back nine decades.
I just summarize things in these blog posts and send readers to the link for more information.
Unless you have a personal relationship with your senator, he or she is not likely to read your letter or take your phone call. You will be lucky if you can get your views before a staff member, who in all likelihood will respond with a form letter. And it may or may not address the issues you raise.
You don't appear to have any real sense of how the political sytem in the United States works. Or any other country for that matter.
V.Payne The paper refers to independent references stretching back nine decades. I just summarize things in these blog posts and send readers to the link for more information.
More information according to your perspectives, which don't strike me as being realistic.
Speaking of your paper. Has it been published? Has it been presented to a peer group?
You seem to be saying that all Amtrak would have to do to improve the results generated by long distance passenger trains in the U.S. is to increase capacity People would flock to them, at least by implication. History suggests otherwise.
Following WWII America's railroad managements invested a lot of money in new passenger train equipment. The investment, if restated in constant dollars, probably is equal to several billion 2014 dollars. They produced some of the best passenger trains in the world at the time. Maybe some of the best ever! They were sure that Americans would flock to them. They were wrong. And it was all over by 1960 - 1965.
Americans chose cars and airplanes for well known reasons, i.e. comfort, convenience, dependability, privacy, speed, etc. There is a history lesson here. Outside of a few high density corridors, there is no market for passenger trains.
You could double or triple the capacity of passenger trains. People are not going to ride them. That is the lesson of history that the nation's railroad managements learned from their post WWII efforts to reinvent the long passenger train.
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