Just finished reading much of the ARC "Final Restructuring Plan"
for Amtrak. The plan itself is so much nonsense, but more interesting
are "concurring and dissenting opinions" by some of the council
members. Should the council's recommendations become reality
or if Amtrak were to shut down completely there would be
consequences for those who preserve and operate historic
equipment, especially "private varnish". The fate of some
railroad structures might be affected as well.


http://www.amtrakreformcouncil.gov/finalreport.html

mw

Preservation of basic rail services are summed up well on MyDD:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/2/7/81642/86614#readmore


(I might have posted this before, but can't remeber and can't find it. If I did, I apologize.)

Rob

Not many people would mistake me for a conservative Republican, but I find most of these arguments unconvincing at best.

Take Chicago-New York for example - I doubt the good people of Cleveland consider Amtrak a real alternative, as the only time they can get on or off a train is in the middle of the night. Not to mention all the towns that are miles from the nearest stop.

And if anyone has 40+ hours to get from from Chicago to LA, does that require the federal government to provide trains for their leisure and comfort?

Train service (note that I did not say "Amtrak") makes sense in many places. Population density, trip length, and frequency are important - an airline doesn't serve a city with only one departure a day (pre-9/11, the minimum tended to be 4-5) for good reasons. Paris-Nice in France, for example: less than six hours be TGV, with departures every hour or more, and overnight sleeper service as well.

Amtrak's long-distance trains are hardly a robust national network. One departure a day, often at odd hours, is not a viable alternative to air or auto travel. No one should expect Amtrak to break even - I don't think the Interstate Highway System is in the black - but service offerings should make more sense, and if the justification is on "myriad esthetic advantages," I'm not sold.

JAC

Yeas, and I should have put in a disclaimer that MyDD is rather left, and a little cynical, in their polictical bent. It is interesting to see arguments made outside of the rail world.

JAC,

Thank you! Perhaps (not likely, but perhaps) the threat of killing Amtrak might cause a compromise that builds a system that makes sense. In Canada, service to places like Churchill and Sentennare is because they serve isolated areas. If the Empire Builder (for example) provides a lifeline for isolated communities in North Dakota and Montana then let's call it such and fund it that way. Perhaps government money that now goes to subsidize air service to small communities could be opened up to transportation in general.

Also, it is time for labor to get on board with service. By my estimate, about 33% of the on-board staff is at best indifferent and at worst sadistic. All of us who have ever been on an Amtrak train know about having a bad crew. In the 70's and even in the 80's we were told they were just following what they learned from their previous employer (usually SP and PC are mentioned). Folks, we are running out of members of the general public who will put up with this stuff. There has not been nearly as much outcry against cutting Amtrak as compared to previous times. I fear this time the number of people who have had a horrible experience or know someone who has may have reached critical mass.

Where do you find "Bad Amtrak Employees?" I ride Amtak out of St. Louis several or more times each year. Never have I experienced a bad situation caused by an Amtrak person. I have found that the on board persons to be friendly and helpful. When I am traveling with private cars, I have found the employees that connect the cars to the train to be friendly and helpful. Perhaps, it is because I treat them the way I would want to be treated. I have witnessed bad behavior by passengers many times. I have yet to see an Amtrak employee respond in kind.

But maybe it is just me. I look for the good.

Jim Butler

In my opinion, Amtrak has been a travesity since it was founded in 1971. Created to essentially remove the burden of passenger operations from the railroads, it had an un-written mission of getting rid of the trains, especially the long distance trains.

In the beginning, Amtrak's "refurbishment" program consisted of adding their stripes and paint to the exteriors of cars while ignoring the mechanical refurbishments needed. Interiors were redecorated with a disgusting combination of colors that clashed (red, orange and purple). Decent materials were replaced with plastic. Carpets were replaced with cheesy patterns of red and purple that added to an adverse impression. Add to that the frequently failing air conditioning that was common on every train in the country. Dining car menus were stripped of most of the variety they contained under railroad operation. Cars built for service in the East were sent West and visa versa. Amtrak management was resented by it's employees and the public heard the complaints. Trains were generally drastically late and the freight railroads did their best to make them so. Frequencies on many routes were reduced to ridicilous levels. The Santa Fe forced Amtrak to drop the name "Super Chief" because of low quality service. Yet in spite of all of this, the public rode the trains, proving that there was a market. Amtrak has never exploited that market.

I have always felt that Amtrak's management was it's own worst enemy.
They never seemed to have the drive or mission of really building a system that would serve the country, except for the North East Corridor.
There were "experts" who said that long distance trains could not contribute effectively to the "profit" demanded by Congress. Prior to Amtrak's beginning, SCL president W. Thomas Rice testified to Congress that if he could have kept the profitable NY-Florida trains and dropped the feeders that lost money, he would have kept SCL out of Amtrak. Under Amtrak management, those same NY - Florida trains have never been profitable. Over the years Amtrak has turned it's back on Florida by reducing train consists and dropping some of the trains and the routes they served. When I see Amtrak pull into Tampa with one train having one or two sleepers I have to wonder why SCL could do it with three trains daily that had three to four sleepers, two diners and four or five coaches.

Amtrak has had an on-going program to dispose of cars that could have been refurbished for second frequencies on their better or expanded routes. The claim that they had no equipment was generally preceeded by auctions of cars they could have rebuilt. It's a history that continues to the present time.

Amtrak's leadership has never gone to Congress with demands for better service. Instead, they have cow-towed to the whims of a stingy group of elected officials that peeled of what for Congress is pocket change to run a stripped down system for one or two more years, after which they have to go hat-in-hand for another stipend. What really bothers me is the continuing insistance from Congress that Amtrak must generate a "profit" and calls the shortfalls "losses". Why don't they "invest" in a decent rail system as they do with waterways, highways and air traffic controllers?
This difference of terminology has created a crucial problem that has plagued Amtrak management all along.

In spite of all of it's shortfalls, Amtrak has improved but not without many, many mistakes. I believe the original decision to create Amtrak was the biggest mistake. What should have been done was to fund the railroads to operate their own trains and supply them with new equipment as needed over the years. Yes, it would have been a subsidy but aren't all other forms of transportation subsidized? In fact, aren't the freight railroads subsidized to a point with such programs as TEA-21, etc? Perhaps this is the way to build a realistic rail passenger system for the future.

Any comments?

The bottom line is that the U.S.A. does not now and has never had a comprehensive transportation policy. No one seems to have the political will, interest or vision to to develop a policy integrating air, rail, and bus systems. One can envision airlines flying to hub air terminals around major cities, with high speed rail links to other major cities up to 400 miles distant. One can dream about bus service from intermediate stations to smaller cities and towns. In the most remote areas, where even a bus may run nearly empty, why not outfit the mail truck with an extended cab to accomodate a handful of passengers?

For the most part, Amtrak is a political system, and politicians are notorious for feathering their own nests and damn the rest. Trains that wend their way across unpopulated regions to appease politicians are an unpleasant fact of life for Amtrak. Truly, airlines and airports have never paid their way, nor has the Interstate highway system. If we were all paying the actual cost of flying or driving straight out of our pockets instead of through our taxes, I'll bet their would be a huge backlash, and people would demand a viable transportation system.

Sooner or later, hydrocarbon-based transportation will have to turn in on itself as the cost of owning and operating private vehicles spirals out of sight. I can foresee a time when ordinary people will have to choose between food and fuel. Then they will have to ride their bicycles to the bus or the train, whether they want to or not.

[quote="Jim Herron"]In my opinion, Amtrak has been a travesity since it was founded in 1971. ///
I have always felt that Amtrak's management was it's own worst enemy.
They never seemed to have the drive or mission of really building a system that would serve the country, except for the North East Corridor.
///
What should have been done was to fund the railroads to operate their own trains and supply them with new equipment as needed over the years. Yes, it would have been a subsidy but aren't all other forms of transportation subsidized? In fact, aren't the freight railroads subsidized to a point with such programs as TEA-21, etc? Perhaps this is the way to build a realistic rail passenger system for the future.[/quote]

It should be noted that Council-member (and one-time Council chairman) Paul Weyrich was once a staunch AMTRAK supporter. AMTRAK's general lack of effective management (outside of the Claytor years) changed his opinion, to that of scrapping AMTRAK as it presently exists, and starting out anew.

I agree that the best way to operate intercity passenger rail is for the railroads themselves to do it. Interestingly enough, I was told years ago by a former RR employee that financial "losses" supposedly incurred by the railroads passenger train operations were created by accouting "tricks" to make the trains appear to lose money..

One advantage of a national system like Amtrak is a uniform ticketing system. In theory, you don't have to deal with multiple companies when you buy a ticket for a really long trip that includes several different railroads. This, of course, presupposes that the national company has a good ticketing system. I won't say anything about Amtrak's system one way or the other because I don't know enough about it.

That said, I've felt for some time that the best way to subsidize passenger trains is to give 'em back to the freight railroads. Then you provide the freight railroads with a subsidy to upgrade tracks for higher speeds and more capacity. Any line that has passenger service gets a subsidy. Stations would be built, staffed, and maintained by the communities they're in. Of course you'd have to provide a set of rules for serving those stations, but that's detail stuff.

The thing about this approach is that the subsidy benefits freight trains as well as passenger trains. Heck, I'd even allow mixed trains to keep the costs down on marginal routes. Freight railroads could operate a couple passenger cars at the head end of a hotshot pig train, for example.

This is a very simplistic description, there would have to be lots of rules determining what the minimum service could be, etc. But I think most RR managers would be ameanable to taking back passenger trains if it meant free upgrades of ther tracks.

Another option would be to subsidize any passenger routes by paying the local property taxes on lines with passenger trains. Again, there'd have to be all sorts of rules, but it could be done.