I believe that Amtrak has realized that the LD trains are really political creatures and that any attempt to eliminate them or adjust their schedules and consists to provide a useful service will have costs that can't be quantified.
As long as NARP and its allies insist that Amtrak maintain long-distance operations more suited to a previous era, we will never find out what might be possible and really useful.
Dragoman And elsewhere, such as on the Capitol Corridor in California, service has doubled and doubled again over the years, and I believe the corresponding host costs have not been linear. Also, you do not take into account the increased (more-than-double) revenue I would predict. Of course, once again one must distinguish between capital costs (both in host RR costs and additional equipment) on one hand, and operating costs on the other.
Good points. The cost to add trains to corridors seems to be reasonable. Another that comes to mind is the Richmond to Norfolk extension. The estimated cost to add additional trains is fairly low.
A few years back, IL doubled up on the Carbondale and Quincy trains. I think additional ridership was in the 50% range...far short of double. I wonder if any of that data is still floating around in the ether...
The biggest problem is that all of this is academic. Amtrak has not shown the least interest in fitting their service to the markets they serve. They are 100% consumed with running the same train today that they ran yesterday.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
MidlandMike Many LD trains schedule their large city endpoints (and many large intermediate Points) at convenient times, and mostly small town as inconvenient times. If you run a second set of trains offset by 12 hours, most of the large towns will now be served at inconvenient times. Many of the people getting on at the now conveniently scheduled small towns, would now find themselves arriving at their destination city in the middle of the night. This second set of trains would attract few riders. They certainly would not double overall patronage. LD trains are always going to have some inconvenient stops.
Many LD trains schedule their large city endpoints (and many large intermediate Points) at convenient times, and mostly small town as inconvenient times. If you run a second set of trains offset by 12 hours, most of the large towns will now be served at inconvenient times. Many of the people getting on at the now conveniently scheduled small towns, would now find themselves arriving at their destination city in the middle of the night. This second set of trains would attract few riders. They certainly would not double overall patronage. LD trains are always going to have some inconvenient stops.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
oltmannd Dragoman But I think it should be pointed out that the subsidy would not be doubled to double service Correct, but you have it in the wrong direction. The subsidy would more than double by a considerable amount. The host roads would want capital improvements to be made whole, plus enough per train mile to make some money hosting the second train. The current train runs because it's part of the "deal" between Amtrak and the host roads. A second train would be "business".
Dragoman But I think it should be pointed out that the subsidy would not be doubled to double service
Correct, but you have it in the wrong direction. The subsidy would more than double by a considerable amount. The host roads would want capital improvements to be made whole, plus enough per train mile to make some money hosting the second train.
The current train runs because it's part of the "deal" between Amtrak and the host roads. A second train would be "business".
You may be right, but we really don't know what Amtrak might be able to negotiate with the host railroads, until they actually attempt to do so. Yes, UP was making absurd (IMHO) demands just to make the Sunset daily -- though there is no evidence that Amtrak actually entered into any negotiations after UP's initial demand. And elsewhere, such as on the Capitol Corridor in California, service has doubled and doubled again over the years, and I believe the corresponding host costs have not been linear.
Also, you do not take into account the increased (more-than-double) revenue I would predict. Of course, once again one must distinguish between capital costs (both in host RR costs and additional equipment) on one hand, and operating costs on the other.
DragomanBut I think it should be pointed out that the subsidy would not be doubled to double service
dakotafred Dragoman BaltACD Everywhere can't be serviced at 'convenient' times. With long distance trains what is convenient at Origin and Destination will be inconvenient at many intermediate stations. So long as long distance trains take longer than 8 to 12 hours for the run somewhere will have to have inconvenient service times. But that is precisely why many LD supporters suggest that, to maximize LD potential, what is needed is to have at least 2 daily trains on every route, scheduled approximately 12 hours apart. That way, nearly every stop will have at least 1 convenient daytime schedule (and many will have an even more convenient morning-and-evening service. A consummation devoutly to be wished. But try getting a doubled subsidy for Amtrak out of Congress; not even most Democrats would vote for it. The serious budgetary pressure is on this kind of "discretionary" spending. (Read, the kind of spending that used to distinguish the United States and do great things like going to the the Moon.) Whereas, all the competition -- entitlement spending -- has to do is show up at the pay window.
Dragoman BaltACD Everywhere can't be serviced at 'convenient' times. With long distance trains what is convenient at Origin and Destination will be inconvenient at many intermediate stations. So long as long distance trains take longer than 8 to 12 hours for the run somewhere will have to have inconvenient service times. But that is precisely why many LD supporters suggest that, to maximize LD potential, what is needed is to have at least 2 daily trains on every route, scheduled approximately 12 hours apart. That way, nearly every stop will have at least 1 convenient daytime schedule (and many will have an even more convenient morning-and-evening service.
BaltACD Everywhere can't be serviced at 'convenient' times. With long distance trains what is convenient at Origin and Destination will be inconvenient at many intermediate stations. So long as long distance trains take longer than 8 to 12 hours for the run somewhere will have to have inconvenient service times.
Everywhere can't be serviced at 'convenient' times. With long distance trains what is convenient at Origin and Destination will be inconvenient at many intermediate stations. So long as long distance trains take longer than 8 to 12 hours for the run somewhere will have to have inconvenient service times.
But that is precisely why many LD supporters suggest that, to maximize LD potential, what is needed is to have at least 2 daily trains on every route, scheduled approximately 12 hours apart. That way, nearly every stop will have at least 1 convenient daytime schedule (and many will have an even more convenient morning-and-evening service.
A consummation devoutly to be wished. But try getting a doubled subsidy for Amtrak out of Congress; not even most Democrats would vote for it.
The serious budgetary pressure is on this kind of "discretionary" spending. (Read, the kind of spending that used to distinguish the United States and do great things like going to the the Moon.) Whereas, all the competition -- entitlement spending -- has to do is show up at the pay window.
Fred, of course you're right.
But I think it should be pointed out that the subsidy would not be doubled to double service (since fixed costs, such as overhead, station costs, administrative costs, etc, would mostly remain the same, and just be spread over more trains/passengers). Also, if my thinking is sound, the increase in subsidy would only be temporary, since such a plan would greatly increase (more than double) the passengers, revenue, etc., covering more of the fixed costs. Ah, we can dream ...
If you need to know, face to face, socially. Don't particularly care to say more. Most governmental decisions and for that matter business decisions seem to be made that way. No legislation came from it nor did I claim it did, but we do have a representative government and they are just people, looking to represent what the voters think if possible, while making their own informed decisions.
Dis-utility of time means that trip decisions are made with time as a cost but not at a straight rate related to the clockface only (This is not Latin or something impenetrable). In other words time is not equally weighed, one might "pass the time away" at a nice resturaunt but "time drags on" in the TSA line.
It really affects transportation assumptions but fits the marketplace better, after all SUV's aren't cheaper or faster, but more comfortable. I typically provide the link to the Dr. Martland/Lu thesis paper, sometimes it is just easier to provide a link than describing it every time, hence the reason for writing a paper that includes references as you can't post 40 pages to this forum. I think I understand why people start their own blogs now.
If you want to compare road and rail to find efficiency, you have to use the same interest rate, that is the only way to convert financial values, even though our current arrangement has them at different rates. I might post some transcribed Senate hearings with the link to the original text next to illustrate the mid 90's thinking prior to CATO/Reason poisioning the debate. Things seemed so much more reasonable then.
V.Payne Yikes, looks like ideas are not being discussed but the person attacked. I have spoken to my Senator three times over the last year. The paper was featured on the National Corridors website (look at the link). I was actually thinking of running it through the TRB paper process. Technical jargon is not talking about interest rates. Technical jargon is talking about psuedo-static forces from an earthquake time-history loading. The senate is discussing Amtrak funding as part of the highway bill this year (due in May).
Yikes, looks like ideas are not being discussed but the person attacked. I have spoken to my Senator three times over the last year. The paper was featured on the National Corridors website (look at the link). I was actually thinking of running it through the TRB paper process. Technical jargon is not talking about interest rates. Technical jargon is talking about psuedo-static forces from an earthquake time-history loading. The senate is discussing Amtrak funding as part of the highway bill this year (due in May).
How do we know that you talked to your senator three times over the last year? Who is your senator? How did you talk with him or her, i.e. face to face, email, telephone, etc.? Where is the independent verification of your claim? Also, what legislation, if any, has your senator proposed as a result of your input?
In previous posts you have use the term disutility of time or similar terminology. That's jargon. And it is just one example. A mature writer, addressing a non-technical audience, would simply have said that time is important for some travelers; not so much for others.
The benchmark hurdle (interest) rate for a federally funded project, i.e. highways, waterways, etc., is the 10 Year Treasury Note or the Treasury's weighted average cost (interest) for marketable debt.
The benchmark hurdle rate for a private business is its weighted average cost of capital.
You referenced AAA bonds. It was not clear what you meant. U.S. government debt is not uniformily rated AAA. And none of the Class 1 railroad railroad debt is rated AAA, which I attempted to show by listing the ratings for each road.
No one said that talking about interest rates is jargon.
The serious budgetary pressure is on this kind of "discretionary" spending. (Read, the kind of spending that used to distinguish the United States and do great things like going to the the Moon.) Whereas, all the competition -- entitlement spending, interest on the debt -- has to do is show up at the pay window.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Exactly! Proves my earlier point. More travellers would make both Amtrak and the frieght railroads embarrassed. The only long term solution is obviously more trackage and high speed trains. But the congress is deaf to those thoughts.
Real hard for a place like Redding to attract train travellers when the only Amtrak services are 2:30 am SB and 4:00 am. NB. And with no station agent on duty, one never knows real times of arrival and departure. Wanna wait outside a cold and dark station with the motor running to keep warm?
Sam1 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. 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 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.
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.
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.
Mr. Payne: Some concerns since your scheme fails to address various sticking points:
1. If a new, non-Amtrak service is started, you can bet the ranch the private freight rails are NOT going to accept the same, heavily discounted rental rate Amtrak pays, even less likely that they would accept multiple trains per day.
2. You suggest a "sweetener" funded by eliminating the 40% overhead Amtrak tacks on to each route. I imagine the states would like to see the math on that because as I said before, other than the West Coast and TX and MO, it's doubtful if any of the other states west of the Mississippi River would fund such an undertaking.
3. Bringing highways into the discussion is a non-starter.
4. Your writing: Get someone to clean up your proposal with clear syntax and zero jargon.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
You say you hate trains? And the cities they serve, too?
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.
"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.
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.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....
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.
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 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.
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.
"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.
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