# Private operation of long distance trains?



## TheCrescent (Mar 20, 2022)

Why can’t Amtrak contract with Norfolk Southern to do switching in Atlanta?

And if there is more demand than supply for sleeping car space, whatever the reason, why can’t Amtrak reach out to a private operator to add a sleeping car? Surely haulage fees are better than nothing.


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## Cal (Mar 20, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> Why can’t Amtrak contract with Norfolk Southern to do switching in Atlanta?


Because it's the same NS that is fighting tooth and nail against the Gulf Coast route; NS is not cooperative with Amtrak. 



TheCrescent said:


> And if there is more demand than supply for sleeping car space, whatever the reason, why can’t Amtrak reach out to a private operator to add a sleeping car? Surely haulage fees are better than nothing.


Why would Amtrak want to have people use a different service than their own? Even with haulage fees, I feel like that's counter-intuitive.


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## TheCrescent (Mar 20, 2022)

Cal said:


> Because it's the same NS that is fighting tooth and nail against the Gulf Coast route; NS is not cooperative with Amtrak.
> 
> 
> Why would Amtrak want to have people use a different service than their own? Even with haulage fees, I feel like that's counter-intuitive.


Has Amtrak asked NS to handle switching in Atlanta? If so, what was NS’s response? Both railroads already deal with each other and share burdens; my local Amtrak station is one room in a Norfolk Southern building, for example.

Amtrak ought to be finding ways to increase revenue and decrease losses. If it can’t find a way to generate more revenue when demand far outweighs supply, I give up.


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## Cal (Mar 20, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> Has Amtrak asked NS to handle switching in Atlanta? If so, what was NS’s response? Both railroads already deal with each other and share burdens; my local Amtrak station is one room in a Norfolk Southern building, for example.


I doubt it, and I doubt it'd do much use. And asking them would require Amtrak to have the idea to do NYP-ATL sleepers only, which I also doubt they have thought of.


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## TheCrescent (Mar 20, 2022)

Cal said:


> I doubt it, and I doubt it'd do much use. And asking them would require Amtrak to have the idea to do NYP-ATL sleepers only, which I also doubt they have thought of.


There was a PRIIA-related performance improvement plan that called for Amtrak to have one coach run south only to Atlanta and then back north. That would have required switching in Atlanta. The study showed that it would have increased revenues for the Crescent.

Amtrak never followed through?

And Amtrak hasn’t even asked NS about switching? 

Amtrak is that pathetic?


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## Cal (Mar 20, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> There was a PRIIA-related performance improvement plan that called for Amtrak to have one coach run south only to Atlanta and then back north. That would have required switching in Atlanta. The study showed that it would have increased revenues for the Crescent.
> 
> Amtrak never followed through?
> 
> ...


I'm not an expert, I just said I doubt it. Maybe they have and I just don't know. 

And yes, Amtrak can be that pathetic.


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## TheCrescent (Mar 20, 2022)

Cal said:


> I'm not an expert, I just said I doubt it. Maybe they have and I just don't know.
> 
> And yes, Amtrak can be that pathetic.


In that case at least the long-distance trains need to be taken away from Amtrak and given over to another operator.


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## Devil's Advocate (Mar 21, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> In that case at least the long-distance trains need to be taken away from Amtrak and given over to another operator.


What exactly is stopping this "other operator" from competing with Amtrak today?


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## jis (Mar 21, 2022)

Devil's Advocate said:


> What exactly is stopping this "other operator" from competing with Amtrak today?


Actually there has been legislation in place to allow such to happen since 2008, but there have been no takers so far. Must not be that lucrative a business afterall.


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## TheCrescent (Mar 21, 2022)

jis said:


> Actually there has been legislation in place to allow such to happen since 2008, but there have been no takers so far. Must not be that lucrative a business afterall.



Correct. But perhaps affirmatively removing Amtrak’s ability to operate LD trains, and requiring that anyone who wants to operate one (including Amtrak) must bid on the right, would get some takers.

(Ducking and running for cover.)


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## jimdex (Mar 22, 2022)

jis said:


> Actually there has been legislation in place to allow such to happen since 2008, but there have been no takers so far. Must not be that lucrative a business afterall.


There are two major problems that would take legislation to correct: 1) freight railroads have no obligation to work with non-Amtrak operators, and 2) there is no mechanism to provide a federal government subsidy to non-Amtrak operators.


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## jis (Mar 22, 2022)

jimdex said:


> There are two major problems that would take legislation to correct: 1) freight railroads have no obligation to work with non-Amtrak operators, and 2) there is no mechanism to provide a federal government subsidy to non-Amtrak operators.


To start with, the existing legislation sucks.

Indeed any access to host railroads would have to be via Amtrak since that right bestowed upon Amtrak was not legislatively delegated to private operators adequately. This I suspect was by design. Afterall, look a bit deeper to discover who was one of the significant contributors to the text in that legislation!

It does have a mechanism to divert federal funds to successful bidders but the formula for it ensures that it will be way less than adequate. In short the equation for risk sharing was skewed so far towards the operator that no one in their right mind would take it on.

All of this simply won't work as long as there is no regulatory agency independent of Amtrak on issues of rolling stock standards and such. Amtrak basically took every opportunity to bleed Iowa Pacific dry on rolling stock compliance given any smidgen of opportunity to reject equipment in the ill begotten Hoosier State experiment. Actually I was astounded that IP agreed to the crap deal.


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## TheCrescent (Mar 22, 2022)

For privatization of LD trains, I say that we just look at how the UK and EU handle private operators of LD trains, and we copy and paste.


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## lordsigma (Mar 22, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> Correct. But perhaps affirmatively removing Amtrak’s ability to operate LD trains, and requiring that anyone who wants to operate one (including Amtrak) must bid on the right, would get some takers.





TheCrescent said:


> For privatization of LD trains, I say that we just look at how the UK and EU handle private operators of LD trains, and we copy and paste.


Removing Amtrak's ability to operate LD trains would likely effectively equate to their elimination. There are not private operators lining up to run LD trains. The legislation regarding private operators is deficient - but even absent the poor legislation - I would still be seriously skeptical that you'd get any takers.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Mar 22, 2022)

There was interest by groups to take over some of the routes. It’s just how the law was written that was/is the problem. As it was noted, a person who help write the law is the current President of Amtrak. So in some twisted way it might be the reason that Mr Garden got the job. He always has been political connected.


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## TinCan782 (Mar 22, 2022)

Not a long distance train but lets not forget Amtrak's Hoosier State, INDOT, Corridor Capitol and Iowa Pacific.








Rail Groups Pushing for Hoosier State Pact


A West Virginia rail passenger advocacy group issued a call to Indiana officials to continue funding the Chicago-Indianapolis Hoosier State beyond Jan. 31. Friends of the Cardinal has a vested inte…




csanders429.wordpress.com


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## cirdan (Mar 23, 2022)

Devil's Advocate said:


> What exactly is stopping this "other operator" from competing with Amtrak today?



That Amtrak gets money from government whereas a private operator doing exactly the same will not get a penny.
A private operator doing the same job much better won't get a penny either.

So Amtrak basically has a huge advantage, and no private operator has yet worked out how to get around that.


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## lordsigma (Mar 23, 2022)

And at the end of the day would using a private operator really be more cost effective for the government? Likely only if they had the freedom to lower some costs that Amtrak is unable to. A private operator wants a ROI so they have to make money somewhere.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Mar 23, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> For privatization of LD trains, I say that we just look at how the UK and EU handle private operators of LD trains, and we copy and paste.


Um I'm not sure the UK is the best model of how to do privitization, given that they seem to be slowly moving back toward renationalization. There were several flaws in their approach which would take more than a post here to discuss.


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## cirdan (Mar 23, 2022)

lordsigma said:


> And at the end of the day would using a private operator really be more cost effective for the government? Likely only if they had the freedom to lower some costs that Amtrak is unable to. A private operator wants a ROI so they have to make money somewhere.



Which in the pessimistic case may mean they nickel and dime everything and pay their staff less and generally make a slightly better profit for a few years by running everything into the ground.

But in a optimistic case may mean they seek to innovatively grow the business and don't leave money or opportunities on the table.

In reality there will probably be a bit off both.

Furthermore the UK example has shown that private companies are far better than the public sector at lobbying and telling the government what it wants and then getting it. That might lead to a bit more of a level playing field versus the freight railroads who are presently clearly at an advantage in that respect.


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## west point (Mar 23, 2022)

Privat operator on the NEC? Any operator would have to pay some allocated costs. + any service on the NEC thru the north river tunnels will need to wait for the new tunnel bores complete and one of the old bores completely refurbished. IMO that is 15 years down the pike. Now BOS <> NYP, NYP<>Albany and also the NYP substitutes NYG for NYP. doubtful if MNRR would allow with NY & CT state stating all slots needed for commuter trains. Amtrak does not have that problem.

Operation on freight RRs? If we think CSX/ Amtrak is hot just wait for the fallout for any proposal for a private operator wanting to have max speeds much faster that plug along Amtrak,


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Mar 24, 2022)

It will be interesting to see how open access works out in Europe in the long term. Seems to me that the routes being chosen are cherry picked for ones that have high demand and a lot of routes less in demand will still need government operation. Also can and will they keep these low fares indefinitely ?


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## MARC Rider (Mar 24, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> It will be interesting to see how open access works out in Europe in the long term. Seems to me that the routes being chosen are cherry picked for ones that have high demand and a lot of routes less in demand will still need government operation. Also can and will they keep these low fares indefinitely ?


The issue of "cherry picking" is a problem with all private-sector operations in many industries. Not only to the private operators want to make a "profit" (however that is defined to them), most investors insist on such a high rate of return that many enterprises that could cover their costs are not of interest to these businesses, and get shut down or never started.


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## jruff001 (Mar 25, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> There was a PRIIA-related performance improvement plan that called for Amtrak to have one coach run south only to Atlanta and then back north. That would have required switching in Atlanta. The study showed that it would have increased revenues for the Crescent.


Would it have increased revenues more than what NS would charge for the switching? There would have to be a NS engine and crew basically standing by every evening since the arrival time of 20 is so variable.

Anyway I think it would be a disaster for 20's on-time performance (which is already bad) to depend on NS to get an engine to the ATL station when it is needed. I can hear the NS dispatcher in my head now when 20 arrives in Atlanta: "Sorry, Amtrak, nothing is available at the moment; we'll get to you when we can."



> Amtrak never followed through?
> 
> And Amtrak hasn’t even asked NS about switching?
> 
> Amtrak is that pathetic?


Quite a few assumptions you are making there.


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## caravanman (Mar 25, 2022)

Would not the trials and tribulations that Amtrak experiences trying to run services over freight owned rails just be inherited by any private operator?


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## cirdan (Mar 25, 2022)

caravanman said:


> Would not the trials and tribulations that Amtrak experiences trying to run services over freight owned rails just be inherited by any private operator?



It could be even worse. I don't think any private operator can just walk up to a freight railroad and demand to be allowed to run a train. There would need to be legislation to establish some level of justified and equitable access, and that would be open to being torpedoed by lobbying.

Not to mention the red tape it would take to jump through all the hoops.

Probably the same people who say the private sector should take over from Amtrak would put themselves in the way of actually making that possible.


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## Metra Electric Rider (Mar 25, 2022)

Wouldn't a private operator essentially work like a shared trackage agreement? They'd need to negotiate and pay for access? 

As an aside, I think something people are forgetting with the UK examples (and EU generally) is that a) the tracks and rolling stock were typically already government owned and b) much less freight and heavier passenger service. It's not something that can directly translate to our situation.


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## Ryan (Mar 25, 2022)

caravanman said:


> Would not the trials and tribulations that Amtrak experiences trying to run services over freight owned rails just be inherited by any private operator?


No, the magic of the Free Market will simply make all of those hard spots go away.


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## irv818 (Mar 25, 2022)

I took one of the last Southern Crescent trips ATL - WAS a couple of days before Amtrak took over running things.

Bear in mind that at the time, the Southern RR (like most of the others) was trying very hard to get rid of passenger service. So the rail cars were old, with flaking paint and drab interiors. Elderly attendants on the edge of retirement. No one had an incentive to make the trip pleasant.

Nevertheless...

The bar car was full of young people, a couple of guys playing guitars, businessmen getting pleasantly sloshed on quality booze, and we had wonderful food and service for the entire trip. Best breakfast ever. We left on time and arrived on time. 

Amtrak has upgraded the appearance, and degraded most everything else.


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## Northwestern (Mar 25, 2022)

I was able to take a few trips on private passenger trains prior to Amtrak. The San Francisco Chief and the Burlington Northern. I could see the deterioration of the private trains back then. Rude attendants and overall train personnel with poor attitudes. They must have known their fate. The one thing I did notice, however, was the quality of food. Still very good in the 1960's.

The FAST act of 2015, as a pilot program, would allow a private passenger train on 3 Amtrak long distance routes. Nothing ever came about. If memory serves, I think BNSF said they might consider a passenger train if the feds would subsidize the venture.

Scroll down to Sec. 11307









Section By Section Analysis of FAST Act | Rail Passengers Association | Washington, DC







is.gd


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## Cal (Mar 25, 2022)

irv818 said:


> I took one of the last Southern Crescent trips ATL - WAS a couple of days before Amtrak took over running things.
> 
> Bear in mind that at the time, the Southern RR (like most of the others) was trying very hard to get rid of passenger service. So the rail cars were old, with flaking paint and drab interiors. Elderly attendants on the edge of retirement. No one had an incentive to make the trip pleasant.
> 
> ...


I thought the Southern was one of the few to keep their trains in good condition all the way till the end?


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## irv818 (Mar 25, 2022)

Cal said:


> I thought the Southern was one of the few to keep their trains in good condition all the way till the end?


Maybe good running condition, but the paint inside in corridors was worn away to bare metal where people rubbed against it while moving from car to car. And of course, the fabric in curtains and seats was pretty faded. Obviously no reason to redecorate by that time. I think it was either one, or two days before Amtrak took over.


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## ehbowen (Mar 25, 2022)

There were rumors...nothing hard in print that I can point to, but strong whispers...that, back in the day, (mid-90s) ATSF management had expressed an opinion that, if they were allowed to 'bid' on the corresponding portion of the trains' Amtrak subsidies, they might be willing to resume their operation themselves.

Didn't go anywhere; I'm sure there were a couple of reasons. First, Amtrak's 'creative accounting' made it seem that the LD trains were money pits and the NEC was the crown jewel; I'm sure they blanched at even the idea that someone might turn that one around on them and grab an outsized bite of the subsidy. Second, much of the infrastructure was/is under Amtrak's thumb...you want to run one train a day out of our Union Station in Chicago? Fine, your rent will be one million dollars a month, plus half of the utilities. Finally, about that time the merger (I almost typed 'murder'!) with BN gained traction, and under the new management any flicker of interest for the old order of things passed away.


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## Cal (Mar 25, 2022)

ehbowen said:


> There were rumors...nothing hard in print that I can point to, but strong whispers...that, back in the day, (mid-90s) ATSF management had expressed an opinion that, if they were allowed to 'bid' on the corresponding portion of the trains' Amtrak subsidies, they might be willing to resume their operation themselves.
> 
> Didn't go anywhere; I'm sure there were a couple of reasons. First, Amtrak's 'creative accounting' made it seem that the LD trains were money pits and the NEC was the crown jewel; I'm sure they blanched at even the idea that someone might turn that one around on them and grab an outsized bite of the subsidy. Second, much of the infrastructure was/is under Amtrak's thumb...you want to run one train a day out of our Union Station in Chicago? Fine, your rent will be one million dollars a month, plus half of the utilities. Finally, about that time the merger (I almost typed 'murder'!) with BN gained traction, and under the new management any flicker of interest for the old order of things passed away.


Imagine if that did happen, the Super Chief would have been running again. probably with excellent service. If it did happen prior to the merger, I think they might've fit it in to survive the merger. Would be a very interesting alternate-reality.


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## cirdan (Mar 26, 2022)

ehbowen said:


> Didn't go anywhere; I'm sure there were a couple of reasons. First, Amtrak's 'creative accounting' made it seem that the LD trains were money pits and the NEC was the crown jewel; I'm sure they blanched at even the idea that someone might turn that one around on them and grab an outsized bite of the subsidy. Second, much of the infrastructure was/is under Amtrak's thumb...you want to run one train a day out of our Union Station in Chicago? Fine, your rent will be one million dollars a month, plus half of the utilities. Finally, about that time the merger (I almost typed 'murder'!) with BN gained traction, and under the new management any flicker of interest for the old order of things passed away.



Very interesting. I hadn't realised this. The common narrative tends to be the freight roads hated passenger trains out of principle.

Management and their mantras and opinions come and go just like any other fashion, but hard facts remain and as long as the basic conditions stack up, this would suggest there may, somewhere along the line, at least be a possibility.


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## mp492_5 (Mar 26, 2022)

Why do you need NS to switch it out? Howell Y is close by and the Crescent is turned on it by Amtrak crews when it terminates in Atlanta and there is a spur at the station with a north lead that can hold the whole consist.


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## west point (Apr 1, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> Has Amtrak asked NS to handle switching in Atlanta? If so, what was NS’s response? Both railroads already deal with each other and share burdens; my local Amtrak station is one room in a Norfolk Southern building, for example.
> 
> Amtrak ought to be finding ways to increase revenue and decrease losses. If it can’t find a way to generate more revenue when demand far outweighs supply, I give up.



Amtrak would only need to have its own switcher at ATL. For the northbound #20 the outbound engineer could position the cars to go on the rear. Couple up. Then inbound crew could move switcher to steel siding once #20 left. Southbound once #19 disconnected inbound engineer could board switcher, leave steel and couple dropped cars, wye cars and pull them into steel siding. A pocket siding west of ATL would help to speed up the attaching cars to #20.

an advantage of parking dropped cars on steel is sleeper passengers could board early until say 30 minutes before any revised arrival time.

Note Amtrak crews do switch now and in the past, So no NS needed if Amtrak switcher is present. Or Amtrak could lease a switcher from NS.

NOTE" ATL has Amtrak carmen to monitor the switching moves so conductors can do passenger duties.


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## toddinde (Apr 2, 2022)

Privatization rarely works and almost always costs more. The British fiasco is one of the worst. It’s so bad, they’re renationalizing although, sadly, the Tories are insisting on operating contracts with private operators instead of just bringing back British Rail. The most successful railroads in the world are state owned like Deutsche Bahn.


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## TheCrescent (Apr 2, 2022)

toddinde said:


> Privatization rarely works and almost always costs more. The British fiasco is one of the worst. It’s so bad, they’re renationalizing although, sadly, the Tories are insisting on operating contracts with private operators instead of just bringing back British Rail. The most successful railroads in the world are state owned like Deutsche Bahn.



Rail ridership doubled in the UK after privatization. The most successful (measured by market share and costs per ton-mile) freight railroads are private.


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## Devil's Advocate (Apr 2, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> Rail ridership doubled in the UK after privatization. The most successful (measured by market share and costs per ton-mile) freight railroads are private.


Before the pandemic Amtrak ridership had roughly doubled since taking over passenger rail that private railroads were attempting to permanently abandon so kudos to them I guess. Outside a few targeted industries such as intermodal and fossil fuel refining many commercial customers find US freight railroads to be so expensive and undependable that they now prefer to ship by truck instead. The people who wax poetic about the performance of private railroads tend to be institutional investors.


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## TheCrescent (Apr 2, 2022)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Before the pandemic Amtrak ridership had roughly doubled since taking over passenger rail that private railroads were attempting to permanently abandon so kudos to them I guess. Outside a few targeted industries such as intermodal and fossil fuel refining many commercial customers find US freight railroads to be so expensive and undependable that they now prefer to ship by truck instead. The people who wax poetic about the performance of private railroads tend to be institutional investors.



Economists who have done studies of railroad economics have repeatedly shown that privately-run freight railroads have significantly reduced the cost to deliver a ton of freight one mile and are able to charge much lower rates than they did in the last. That’s a fact and publicly-operated freight railroads have not done that.

Amtrak ridership has increased since 1971, but aviation and car travel have grown much more. Amtrak’s portion of US passenger transportation was very low in 1971 and is even lower now. If Amtrak ridership had grown at the same rate as air travel, Amtrak ridership would be much greater now (and much greater than it was pre-pandemic).

You’re of course welcome to share your generalizations but if you look at cold, hard data, privately-held freight railroads have performed much better in a wide range of measurable fields than publicly-held ones. Same for private and public airlines: private ones have been able to significantly increase passenger loads and significantly reduce fares: see how British Airways performed after it was privatized.

Passenger rail in the US is somewhat different because it’s not profitable and so unlike freight rail or airlines, it’s not possible to have the same experiences of much higher volumes at lower fares if it were totally private. But other countries have introduced private-sector participants into some elements of their passenger rail systems and have seen some benefits from doing so, even though there is a large role for government, and subsidies, even with private-sector participation.


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## west point (Apr 3, 2022)

Crescent: Yes, freight RRs have reduced cost of providing service. It shows in wall street's almighty OR. But at what cost to the shippers.? The big shippers are paying more often. The smaller shippers are being discouraged or just ignored. The smaller ones can add to the bottom line of a RR but would raise the OR from a fictious 60 to 70. So instead of the RRs taking more traffic the ones that could go RR instead go trucks.

That raises the final cost of goods that are passed on to the final consumer. The chase for that OR has given delays due to inadequate dispatchers (too long districts). short sidings, lack of crew, pickled locos, and on and on. The Ukraine problem is here so, for the next few years this country is going to need for the RRs to pick up some traffic to reduce the use of diesel. But the RR operational infrastructure is so stretched I cannot see any improvements unless ORs are limited, and stock buy backs suspended. It is not going to happen.

Then we have starvation Amtrak. Arrogant RRs do not want to fulfill their common carrier obligations same as with the small freight shippers. Will RRs ever really meet their common carrier obligations? Maybe after wall street bleeds them dry with worn out facilities that have RRs ending up doing the PC - CR dance all over.


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## TheCrescent (Apr 3, 2022)

west point said:


> Crescent: Yes, freight RRs have reduced cost of providing service. It shows in wall street's almighty OR. But at what cost to the shippers.? The big shippers are paying more often. The smaller shippers are being discouraged or just ignored. The smaller ones can add to the bottom line of a RR but would raise the OR from a fictious 60 to 70. So instead of the RRs taking more traffic the ones that could go RR instead go trucks.
> 
> That raises the final cost of goods that are passed on to the final consumer. The chase for that OR has given delays due to inadequate dispatchers (too long districts). short sidings, lack of crew, pickled locos, and on and on. The Ukraine problem is here so, for the next few years this country is going to need for the RRs to pick up some traffic to reduce the use of diesel. But the RR operational infrastructure is so stretched I cannot see any improvements unless ORs are limited, and stock buy backs suspended. It is not going to happen.
> 
> Then we have starvation Amtrak. Arrogant RRs do not want to fulfill their common carrier obligations same as with the small freight shippers. Will RRs ever really meet their common carrier obligations? Maybe after wall street bleeds them dry with worn out facilities that have RRs ending up doing the PC - CR dance all over.



Some shippers pay more: have you seen sleeping car prices on the Crescent lately- over $1,000 for my 600-mile trip? Private railroads are not the only ones gouging customers. Amtrak sure does it.

All of the issues you list can be dealt with through increased regulation and/or increased competition. And having railroads be publicly-owned would just create other problems.

Some countries on the other side of the Atlantic (notably the UK and Norway) are stepping back from prior privatization models for passenger rail. But even after current changes go into effect, they’ll have more private-sector participation in intercity passenger rail than the US does.


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## caravanman (Apr 3, 2022)

Let's be honest here, if private long distance passenger trains could make money for shareholders in the US, Amtrak would soon vanish. The fact that Amtrak needed creating shows how bad private railroads were at profitable passenger services?


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## Cal (Apr 3, 2022)

caravanman said:


> Let's be honest here, if private long distance passenger trains could make money for shareholders in the US, Amtrak would soon vanish. The fact that Amtrak needed creating shows how bad private railroads were at profitable passenger services?


But to be fair, that was when flying was still fairly new. The climate has changed a lot since then, figuratively and literally. But I don't know if one could start and make it off the ground.


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## toddinde (Apr 3, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> Rail ridership doubled in the UK after privatization. The most successful (measured by market share and costs per ton-mile) freight railroads are private.


Ridership would have increased anyway due to a variety of factors. Privatization gave Britain the most crowded trains and most expensive fares in Europe. In any event, privatization failed, and they’re renationalizing.


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## TheCrescent (Apr 3, 2022)

toddinde said:


> Ridership would have increased anyway due to a variety of factors. Privatization gave Britain the most crowded trains and most expensive fares in Europe. In any event, privatization failed, and they’re renationalizing.



No, ridership wouldn’t have necessarily increased in the same way. Private operators introduced new equipment and fancier on-board services, for example, which may have helped. Ridership increased more quickly after privatization than before.

The UK is reducing the private sector’s role, but operation of most train lines will still be by private operators. That’s a greater private-sector role than in the US.


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## Barb Stout (Apr 4, 2022)

west point said:


> Crescent: Yes, freight RRs have reduced cost of providing service. It shows in wall street's almighty OR. But at what cost to the shippers.? The big shippers are paying more often. The smaller shippers are being discouraged or just ignored. The smaller ones can add to the bottom line of a RR but would raise the OR from a fictious 60 to 70. So instead of the RRs taking more traffic the ones that could go RR instead go trucks.
> 
> That raises the final cost of goods that are passed on to the final consumer. The chase for that OR has given delays due to inadequate dispatchers (too long districts). short sidings, lack of crew, pickled locos, and on and on. The Ukraine problem is here so, for the next few years this country is going to need for the RRs to pick up some traffic to reduce the use of diesel. But the RR operational infrastructure is so stretched I cannot see any improvements unless ORs are limited, and stock buy backs suspended. It is not going to happen.
> 
> Then we have starvation Amtrak. Arrogant RRs do not want to fulfill their common carrier obligations same as with the small freight shippers. Will RRs ever really meet their common carrier obligations? Maybe after wall street bleeds them dry with worn out facilities that have RRs ending up doing the PC - CR dance all over.


What does OR, PC, and CR mean?


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## jis (Apr 4, 2022)

Barb Stout said:


> What does OR, PC, and CR mean?


My guesses … for what they may or may not be worth …

OR - Operating Ratio
PC - Penn Central
CR - ConRail


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## WICT106 (Apr 4, 2022)

Barb Stout said:


> What does OR, PC, and CR mean?


OR = Operating Ratio, a financial term comparing loss & income as a percentage. PC is Penn Central, a railroad that came to represent everything wrong with the 1960s US railroad industry, & CR, judging from the context, appears to mean Con Rail, the government created entity that was created to operate the former PC rail properties.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Apr 5, 2022)

I think we have to be careful about (1) using British privatization as the primary example of what happens when you privatize a passenger railroad as it had many flaws in its implementation and (2) considering the performance of US freight railroads under "precision scheduled railroading" as an indictment of privately run freight railroading in general, as PSR seems to be mainly driven by the needs of Wall Street rather than the shipping market. I realize that the emphasis on short term profitability, along with the tendency towards monopolistic practices, are among the principal shortcomings of our capitalist system, but so far no one has come up with a better way to run an economy.


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## joelkfla (Apr 5, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> I think we have to be careful about (1) using British privatization as the primary example of what happens when you privatize a passenger railroad as it had many flaws in its implementation and (2) considering the performance of US freight railroads under "precision scheduled railroading" as an indictment of privately run freight railroading in general, as PSR seems to be mainly driven by the needs of Wall Street rather than the shipping market. I realize that the emphasis on short term profitability, along with the tendency towards monopolistic practices, are among the principal shortcomings of our capitalist system, but so far no one has come up with a better way to run an economy.


But being driven by the needs of Wall St, and short-term profitability are precisely why privately run passenger railroads would be problematic in this country.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 5, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> I realize that the emphasis on short term profitability, along with the tendency towards monopolistic practices, are among the principal shortcomings of our capitalist system, but so far no one has come up with a better way to run an economy.


We had a better way 50-60 years ago when the tax system penalized (at least somewhat) short-term profitability, and antitrust laws were more strictly enforced. Even then, they could have gone further without implementing some sort of centralized economy. Also, personal income taxation was much more progressive, that is, higher incomes were taxed at a higher rate, with the top marginal tax rates hovering around 90%. Thus, top managers and business owners had more incentives to run a company for long-term sustainability rather than run it into the ground and grab as much money as they can as quickly as possible. The 1950s are sometimes thought to be a period of conservative conformity, but it had the most egalitarian economy in our history (or at least more egalitarian than we have now).


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## jis (Apr 5, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> But being driven by the needs of Wall St, and short-term profitability are precisely why privately run passenger railroads would be problematic in this country.


That is exactly what caused it to crash and burn in the first place with some amount of help from the ICC. But one of the proximate reasons for PC to blow up was its insistence to keep paying dividends when they really did not have the money.


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## TheCrescent (Apr 5, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> But being driven by the needs of Wall St, and short-term profitability are precisely why privately run passenger railroads would be problematic in this country.



A company is “driven by the needs of Wall St, and short-term profitability” only if it is publicly-traded (i.e., its shares are listed on a stock market and available to small investors who are not accredited investors).

There are plenty of private companies that are not publicly traded. BNSF, owned by Berkshire Hathaway/Warren Buffet, and Brightline, owned by Fortress Investments, are two primary examples.

Brightline does an amazing job with its trains and it certainly ignores short-term profitability, spending lots of money now with no hope of short-term profits.

So if you don’t like a focus on short-term profits (which is reasonable to dislike), your argument should be against having a railroad be publicly-traded, not against private ownership, since there are many examples of private ownership that allow a long-term emphasis.


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## cirdan (Apr 5, 2022)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> Wouldn't a private operator essentially work like a shared trackage agreement? They'd need to negotiate and pay for access?
> 
> As an aside, I think something people are forgetting with the UK examples (and EU generally) is that a) the tracks and rolling stock were typically already government owned and b) much less freight and heavier passenger service. It's not something that can directly translate to our situation.



There are lines in Europe that see very heavy freight usage and there are even situations where there is a direct conflict between passenger and freight interests and for example passenger service improvements are blocked because of objections by freight companies. That’s not fundamentally different to the situation in the US .

What is different is that the rail network is largely developed with passengers in mind primarily and freight usage often being catered to as an afterthought (exceptions existing , for example Betuwelijn in The Netherlands )



toddinde said:


> Privatization rarely works and almost always costs more. The British fiasco is one of the worst. It’s so bad, they’re renationalizing although, sadly, the Tories are insisting on operating contracts with private operators instead of just bringing back British Rail. The most successful railroads in the world are state owned like Deutsche Bahn.


Im Germany too all contracts for local and regional lines are put out to tender which is why Deutsche Bahn sometimes loses such contracts to private or foreign competitors



TheCrescent said:


> No, ridership wouldn’t have necessarily increased in the same way. Private operators introduced new equipment and fancier on-board services, for example, which may have helped. Ridership increased more quickly after privatization than before.
> 
> The UK is reducing the private sector’s role, but operation of most train lines will still be by private operators. That’s a greater private-sector role than in the US.


This .

i think people tend to develop a glassy eyed nostalgic view of the past .
My memories of British Rail in the 1980s are far from the paradise of affordable, punctual and clean trains that many people think there must have been . On the contrary , it was an underfunded and underperforming system that was in many respects on its last legs . I think some things have clearly got worse since then but many things are clearly better .


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## Cal (Apr 5, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> There are plenty of private companies that are not publicly traded. BNSF, owned by Berkshire Hathaway/Warren Buffet,


No wonder, contrary to PSR, they are continuing to triple and even quadruple some lines


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## jis (Apr 5, 2022)

Cal said:


> No wonder, contrary to PSR, they are continuing to triple and even quadruple some lines


Why is tripling and quadrupling lines contrary to PSR?


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## Cal (Apr 5, 2022)

jis said:


> Why is tripling and quadrupling lines contrary to PSR?


Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought part of PSR was cutting down on infrastructure, which includes/especially tracks? Or is that removing sidings and not mains?


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## jis (Apr 5, 2022)

Cal said:


> Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought part of PSR was cutting down on infrastructure, which includes/especially tracks? Or is that removing sidings and not mains?


I don't think PSR per se has anything to do with cutting down infrastructure. That is motivated by the desire to meet other expectations.

Here is what PSR is according to UP:









What Is Precision Scheduled Railroading?


Your Questions about PSR, Answered



www.up.com





Indeed in the past passenger trains were operated along the same basic idea wherein cars were picked up and dropped off on the way on schedule and transfered from train to train as needed.


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## Cal (Apr 5, 2022)

jis said:


> I don't think PSR per se has anything to do with cutting down infrastructure. That is motivated by the desire to meet other expectations.
> 
> Here is what PSR is according to UP:
> 
> ...


Thank you Jis.


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## joelkfla (Apr 5, 2022)

jis said:


> I don't think PSR per se has anything to do with cutting down infrastructure. That is motivated by the desire to meet other expectations.
> 
> Here is what PSR is according to UP:
> 
> ...


I'm skeptical. The article feels like a spin job to rationalize a cost-saving concept, with lots of fuzzy qualifiers: "some", "may", "not always".


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## jis (Apr 6, 2022)

How can one be skeptical about the definition of a concept? As for how it is implemented, that is a separate matter and that is where the railroads have been guilty of sweeping all sorts of nonsense under the banner causing a lot of confusion. What is worse is sometimes things that are swept under the banner are actually antithetical to achieving the goals implied by the definition. Indeed I am pretty skeptical about many things that railroads do including some of the aspects of what they claim they are doing for PSR. They are not honest in their execution and they are worthy of getting their feet held to fire for that.

When I at least have a chance to have a conversation on the subject I first ask what definition are they using for the term and then ask how a particular act is conformant with the definition. Sometimes they can explain and sometimes they equivocate. In the latter case you know that they are the purveyors of bovine scatology.


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## joelkfla (Apr 6, 2022)

jis said:


> How can one be skeptical about the definition of a concept? As for how it is implemented, that is a separate matter and that is where the railroads have been guilty of sweeping all sorts of nonsense under the banner causing a lot of confusion. What is worse is sometimes things that are swept under the banner are actually antithetical to achieving the goals implied by the definition. Indeed I am pretty skeptical about many things that railroads do including some of the aspects of what they claim they are doing for PSR. They are not honest in their execution and they are worthy of getting their feet held to fire for that.
> 
> When I at east have a chance to have a conversation on the subject I first ask what definition are they using for the term and then ask how a particular act is conformant with the definition. Sometimes they can explain and sometimes they equivocate. In the latter case you know that they are the purveyors of bovine scatology.


I guess I can accept the base definition, being a focus on cars rather than trains. I'm skeptical of the rosy picture painted by the article, that the way it's being implemented is beneficial to the majority of shippers, and that it reduces the amount of freight sitting in yards.


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## Gary Behling (Apr 6, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> I think we have to be careful about (1) using British privatization as the primary example of what happens when you privatize a passenger railroad as it had many flaws in its implementation and (2) considering the performance of US freight railroads under "precision scheduled railroading" as an indictment of privately run freight railroading in general, as PSR seems to be mainly driven by the needs of Wall Street rather than the shipping market. I realize that the emphasis on short term profitability, along with the tendency towards monopolistic practices, are among the principal shortcomings of our capitalist system, but so far no one has come up with a better way to run an economy.



The one thing you can count on with privatizing a passenger railroad is this-- the employee pension fund will be drained and the equipment will be sold in bankruptcy. And it will be just a fond memory afterwards


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## TheCrescent (Apr 6, 2022)

Gary Behling said:


> The one thing you can count on with privatizing a passenger railroad is this-- the employee pension fund will be drained and the equipment will be sold in bankruptcy. And it will be just a fond memory afterwards



How many UK train operating companies have filed for bankruptcy or insolvency and terminated or taken funds out of employee pension plans?


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## Gary Behling (Apr 6, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> How many UK train operating companies have filed for bankruptcy or insolvency and terminated or taken funds out of employee pension plans?



Different country, different values


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## TheCrescent (Apr 7, 2022)

Gary Behling said:


> Different country, different values



Please list the specific private passenger rail companies that have liquidated pension plans and sold equipment in bankruptcy.


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## SwedeC (Apr 7, 2022)

Dare I mention Australia's private trains on public tracks? It was a pleasure to ride the Indian Pacific in a style reminiscent of our 1950's grand trains. Great Southern (the operator) seems to be doing well but I don't know to what extent the government corporation's track maintenance is a sort of subsidy. Comments solicited.


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## cirdan (Apr 7, 2022)

jis said:


> How can one be skeptical about the definition of a concept?



I think one can.

Many buzzwords are thrown around in ways that have little to nothing to do with the way they were actually defined. Six-sigma was a big one a few years back, used to justify all sorts of questionable business decisions that if you went back to the original definition had no actual connection.

So it is entirely viable to say that a definition as applied has become disaligned with what was originally intended, or communicated.


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## jis (Apr 7, 2022)

cirdan said:


> I think one can.
> 
> Many buzzwords are thrown around in ways that have little to nothing to do with the way they were actually defined. Six-sigma was a big one a few years back, used to justify all sorts of questionable business decisions that if you went back to the original definition had no actual connection.
> 
> So it is entirely viable to say that a definition as applied has become disaligned with what was originally intended, or communicated.


Exactly. That is what I said in my OP, or I guess, tried to say and failed miserably. Just to be pedantic, what you have described is being skeptical about the usage of a term as I explained in my post. Sorry for my lack of ability to communicate adequately.


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## Gary Behling (Apr 7, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> Please list the specific private passenger rail companies that have liquidated pension plans and sold equipment in bankruptcy.



I guess you must have forgotten the entire passenger rail history just before the creation of Amtrak. I guess also that you must have overlooked the history of American Capitalist takeover of so many American companies like the kind Mitt Romney ran (Bain Capital) where the business model is to drain all the operating capital under the guise of consulting fees, draining the employees pension fund and then telling the management to go run the company with what is left. and ultimately selling off the real estate and equipment in bankruptcy. THIS is American Capitalism today. And you can apply this business model to passenger railroads because it needs government support due to a lack of passenger traffic. Tourist railroads can stand alone, but not a nation-wide passenger system.


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## TheCrescent (Apr 7, 2022)

Gary Behling said:


> I guess you must have forgotten the entire passenger rail history just before the creation of Amtrak. I guess also that you must have overlooked the history of American Capitalist takeover of so many American companies like the kind Mitt Romney ran (Bain Capital) where the business model is to drain all the operating capital under the guise of consulting fees, draining the employees pension fund and then telling the management to go run the company with what is left. and ultimately selling off the real estate and equipment in bankruptcy. THIS is American Capitalism today. And you can apply this business model to passenger railroads because it needs government support due to a lack of passenger traffic. Tourist railroads can stand alone, but not a nation-wide passenger system.



Please name passenger rail operators that liquidated pension plans and sold off equipment in bankruptcy.

Penn Central didn’t, even after it went bankrupt.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Apr 8, 2022)

Gary Behling said:


> draining the employees pension fund


Under current law a company cannot just drain a pension fund. The best it can do is request a distress termination which requires them to prove to the PBGC their financial status is such that they cannot remain in business without terminating the plan, then the PBGC takes over the pension. In any case the pensioners are still paid their benefits.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 8, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Under current law a company cannot just drain a pension fund. The best it can do is request a distress termination which requires them to prove to the PBGC their financial status is such that they cannot remain in business without terminating the plan, then the PBGC takes over the pension. In any case the pensioners are still paid their benefits.


Except that in many situations, a sharp operator can manipulate a company into bankruptcy by loading it with debt, and other ways to creatively siphon off the company's assets, and under the current Bankruptcy code, PBGC may not be able to collect funds from the company that has terminated the pension plan. See the wikipedia article about PBGC, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation - Wikipedia .


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## TheCrescent (Apr 8, 2022)

First, I am still waiting for the name of a private passenger rail operator that filed for bankruptcy and liquidated a pension fund.

Second, railroad retirement funds are handled differently than other pension funds. The Railroad Retirement Board handles them for private railroads.

As an example, when the Rock Island went under, Congress worked with the Railroad Retirement Board to ensure employee assistance, including for retirement fund protection.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 8, 2022)

TheCrescent said:


> First, I am still waiting for the name of a private passenger rail operator that filed for bankruptcy and liquidated a pension fund.
> 
> Second, railroad retirement funds are handled differently than other pension funds. The Railroad Retirement Board handles them for private railroads.
> 
> As an example, when the Rock Island went under, Congress worked with the Railroad Retirement Board to ensure employee assistance, including for retirement fund protection.


Would a private company operating a passenger train on other railroads' tracks fall under railroad retirement rules?

To get back to the very first post on this topic, it might, indeed make sense for Amtrak to have a private operator (if any actually existed) provide service for a selected set of "experiential trains." (as the late unlamented Mr. Anderson called them.) Unfortunately, that's not likely, as the operator would have to have a set of working passenger cars (sleepers, diners, and observation/lounge cars) that would meet Amtrak's specification. In some ways, this is already done with private cars, though not on a regular schedule. This is also what the "Pullman Rail Journeys" did, and that was regularly attached to the City of New Orleans. The "Pullman Rail Journeys" operation was not a business success, some said it was because Amtrak management was hostile to the concept, although it's possible the fares were too low to generate the needed income to pay for everything. 

Private operators will certainly not be able to solve the current short-term challenges that Amtrak is facing -- I see no reason why they would be any more successful at obtaining working rolling stock or hiring new employees than Amtrak has been. In the long term, I'm not sure that experiential luxury train service is a particularly profitable line of business, even if it's a service hauled by Amtrak trains. There is certainly not a good track record of such services. When you think about it, the long-distance trains are really corridor trains with a single daily frequency whose main justification is to serve passengers traveling to and from rural areas. The through passengers are simply a little extra gravy to cross-subsidize that essential function, which justifies the spending of public money on the service.


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## railiner (Apr 8, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Would a private company operating a passenger train on other railroads' tracks fall under railroad retirement rules?


I am not sure, but I don’t think so…
Some other examples are the original Auto Train Corporation. I believe the T&E crews were SCL employees, covered under RRB, but not the OBS Auto Train employees. Same with the former American European Express. And for that matter, the current cruise line trains operated on the Alaska RR…the ARR T&E crews are covered, and I believe as well as ARR OBS employees on ARR’s cars, but not the cruise line (Holland America/Princess, or Wilderness Express) OBS employees, on their cars.


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## toddinde (Apr 8, 2022)

cirdan said:


> This .
> 
> i think people tend to develop a glassy eyed nostalgic view of the past .
> My memories of British Rail in the 1980s are far from the paradise of affordable, punctual and clean trains that many people think there must have been . On the contrary , it was an underfunded and underperforming system that was in many respects on its last legs . I think some things have clearly got worse since then but many things are clearly better .


Well, my British friends would disagree. They have very fond memories of British Rail, and poll after poll shows the British people want it back. It’s one of the issues that has the greatest consensus. Not everyone in Britain can be a hopeless nostalgic. They must have a basis for their views.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 8, 2022)

toddinde said:


> Well, my British friends would disagree. They have very fond memories of British Rail, and poll after poll shows the British people want it back. It’s one of the issues that has the greatest consensus. Not everyone in Britain can be a hopeless nostalgic. They must have a basis for their views.


I was quite satisfied with British Rail service during my 3-week visit in 1985. Nothing fancy, but the trains were reliable and reasonably comfortable. They had diesel trainsets that could hit 125 mph, never had a breakdown, and the trains went to way many more places than they did in the USA. I didn't have much need for food service, except we tried a dining car on a train coming back from Penzance to London, and the food and service were very good, if also very expensive (It think the equivalent of $20 for the meal -- back in 1985).


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## Northwestern (Apr 8, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> I was quite satisfied with British Rail service during my 3-week visit in 1985. Nothing fancy, but the trains were reliable and reasonably comfortable. They had diesel trainsets that could hit 125 mph, never had a breakdown, and the trains went to way many more places than they did in the USA. I didn't have much need for food service, except we tried a dining car on a train coming back from Penzance to London, and the food and service were very good, if also very expensive (It think the equivalent of $20 for the meal -- back in 1985).



***
Is the overnight Caledonia Sleeper (London to Glasgow) still privately owned (by Serco)? I see ScotRail, which is now a publicly owned company, has wanted to take over the Caledonia Sleeper. I wonder how profitable the Sleeper has been under the privately owned Serco. I would love to see something comparable to the C. Sleeper start up in this country, but, I know, a lot of hurdles.


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## tgstubbs1 (Apr 8, 2022)

One of the advantages of a state run RR should be streamlining the legal issues that come up.

When they want to add a route there isn't a long drawn out battle between competing private interests.


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## west point (Apr 8, 2022)

Pension loss===== Railway express agency. (REX)[
Also my first airline clawed back most of the variable funds retirement and I get a lot less than what was supposed to be the fixed funds pot.


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## CCC1007 (Apr 8, 2022)

west point said:


> Pension loss===== Railway express agency. (REX)[
> Also my first airline clawed back most of the variable funds retirement and I get a lot less than what was supposed to be the fixed funds pot.


I don't think the REA counts as a "Passenger" operation, as it was explicitly an LCL (less than carload) carrier.


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## toddinde (Apr 9, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Would a private company operating a passenger train on other railroads' tracks fall under railroad retirement rules?


The answer is yes. Auto Train was an employer under Railroad Retirement.


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## TheCrescent (Apr 9, 2022)

CCC1007 said:


> I don't think the REA counts as a "Passenger" operation, as it was explicitly an LCL (less than carload) carrier.


Agreed and most of the Railway Express Agency’s business by 1975 was not railroad-related. The PBGC handled the Railway Express Agency’s pensions when it went under. Retirees did not lose any pensions.


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## toddinde (Apr 9, 2022)

Northwestern said:


> ***
> Is the overnight Caledonia Sleeper (London to Glasgow) still privately owned (by Serco)? I see ScotRail, which is now a publicly owned company, has wanted to take over the Caledonia Sleeper. I wonder how profitable the Sleeper has been under the privately owned Serco. I would love to see something comparable to the C. Sleeper start up in this country, but, I know, a lot of hurdles.


I believe there are amazing markets in the US for it. Norfolk-Richmond-Washington-New York-Boston and a number of New England points like Vermont, Maine and upstate New York. New York-Montreal/Toronto. Chicago-Detroit-Toronto. Washington-Atlanta. LA-San Francisco. The list goes on.



MARC Rider said:


> I was quite satisfied with British Rail service during my 3-week visit in 1985. Nothing fancy, but the trains were reliable and reasonably comfortable. They had diesel trainsets that could hit 125 mph, never had a breakdown, and the trains went to way many more places than they did in the USA. I didn't have much need for food service, except we tried a dining car on a train coming back from Penzance to London, and the food and service were very good, if also very expensive (It think the equivalent of $20 for the meal -- back in 1985).


That’s what my British friends would say, and it was affordable. Britain, under privatization, has the highest fares in Europe. The service meltdown on the Great Southern a couple years ago was disastrous.



MARC Rider said:


> To get back to the very first post on this topic, it might, indeed make sense for Amtrak to have a private operator (if any actually existed) provide service for a selected set of "experiential trains." (as the late unlamented Mr. Anderson called them.) Unfortunately, that's not likely, as the operator would have to have a set of working passenger cars (sleepers, diners, and observation/lounge cars) that would meet Amtrak's specification. In some ways, this is already done with private cars, though not on a regular schedule. This is also what the "Pullman Rail Journeys" did, and that was regularly attached to the City of New Orleans. The "Pullman Rail Journeys" operation was not a business success, some said it was because Amtrak management was hostile to the concept, although it's possible the fares were too low to generate the needed income to pay for everything.
> 
> Private operators will certainly not be able to solve the current short-term challenges that Amtrak is facing -- I see no reason why they would be any more successful at obtaining working rolling stock or hiring new employees than Amtrak has been. In the long term, I'm not sure that experiential luxury train service is a particularly profitable line of business, even if it's a service hauled by Amtrak trains. There is certainly not a good track record of such services. When you think about it, the long-distance trains are really corridor trains with a single daily frequency whose main justification is to serve passengers traveling to and from rural areas. The through passengers are simply a little extra gravy to cross-subsidize that essential function, which justifies the spending of public money on the service.


You really hit the nail on the head, and it’s something the railroads understood. The California Zephyr for example was primarily transportation, but also served the rail cruise function. So we’re the Santa Fe’s fleet and the UP City trains. That is actually Amtrak’s advantage. The rail cruisers help subsidize the onboard services that all passengers use. When people argue that a train has to be one or the other, they don’t get it at all. Recent Amtrak management has been ignorant of their product, and thus, have sabotaged it.


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## Northwestern (Apr 9, 2022)

toddinde said:


> You really hit the nail on the head, and it’s something the railroads understood. The California Zephyr for example was primarily transportation, but also served the rail cruise function. So we’re the Santa Fe’s fleet and the UP City trains. That is actually Amtrak’s advantage. The rail cruisers help subsidize the onboard services that all passengers use. When people argue that a train has to be one or the other, they don’t get it at all. Recent Amtrak management has been ignorant of their product, and thus, have sabotaged it.



***************************************************
On another forum, there was a lot of debate with regard to whether people take Amtrak solely for transportation reasons or whether it is because of rail cruise or experiential interests ( I wish I had a chance to take the old WP Zephyr, that was quite a train!) I do agree that the high ridership, corridor trains are primarily for transportation needs. But I think people ride middle distance and long distance Amtrak trains for both transportation and experiential reasons; the pure pleasure of riding a train as well as the scenic vistas along the way.

I guess there are several reasons why the Pullman Rail Journeys failed. Many feel the fare was too steep. Some complained that the overnight train prevented the scenic aspect of the train. Some felt that the PRJ was partially intended for business travelers, but the high fares wouldn't be reasonable as a flight, CHI-NO, would be much cheaper. I think one of the problems with PRJ and the American Orient Express was that they both required being hooked onto an Amtrak train. I think it would have been better if PRJ and the AOC would have been powered by its own locomotive. It could have allowed for an independent timetable. It would avoid the cost charged by Amtrak for the hookup. Also, rather than Chicago to New Orleans, I think PRJ should have chosen a long distance route, such as the route of the E. Builder, Zephyr, or SWC.


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## cirdan (Apr 10, 2022)

toddinde said:


> Well, my British friends would disagree. They have very fond memories of British Rail, and poll after poll shows the British people want it back. It’s one of the issues that has the greatest consensus. Not everyone in Britain can be a hopeless nostalgic. They must have a basis for their views.



I haven't the time to do a search now but there are several BBC documentaries available on YouTube that were made by the BBC in the 1980s that paint a very dire picture of failing and crumbling infrastructure. The Settle and Carlisle route was on its last legs for example and had the accountants of the day had it their way it would have been abandoned back then without much ado. It was really only protests by rail fans and by local communities that prevented the inevitable. Today traffic (including freight) has recovered to the point that they couldn't make do without this route and some of the great viaducts that back in the day were supposedly beyond economic repair and utterly decrepit have been restored and are back to prime condition. And it interestingly turned out they could be restored for much less money than the accountants at the time said. If your want to close down a route you can always fiddle the figures to make it look as if there is no alternative.

Another route I used to travel on sometimes was the Waterloo to Exeter. In steam days this had been mostly double track but it had largely been reduced to single track by the 1980s and the trains running on it were among the most decrepit imaginable. British Rail were clearly playing the game of, if you annoy the passengers enough they will stop coming and then you have a good reason to close an unwanted route. Today the opposite is true and and many sections have been returned to double track and although the trains that run there today are not perfect by any stretch and are also getting on in years, they are a huge improvement on what there was before.

The 1980s also saw the introduction of the Nodding Donkeys or Pacer trains which were basically four-wheel freight-car under frames without pivoting trucks that rode very badly. They were married with low-cost bus body shells and had bus seats that might have been fine for riding around town but were a torture on longer train routes. They were among the most hated trains of all times.

Yes, I know many people do wax lyrical and want to turn the clock back. But in my view that is misplaced nostalgia.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 10, 2022)

cirdan said:


> I haven't the time to do a search now but there are several BBC documentaries available on YouTube that were made by the BBC in the 1980s that paint a very dire picture of failing and crumbling infrastructure. The Settle and Carlisle route was on its last legs for example and had the accountants of the day had it their way it would have been abandoned back then without much ado. It was really only protests by rail fans and by local communities that prevented the inevitable. Today traffic (including freight) has recovered to the point that they couldn't make do without this route and some of the great viaducts that back in the day were supposedly beyond economic repair and utterly decrepit have been restored and are back to prime condition. And it interestingly turned out they could be restored for much less money than the accountants at the time said. If your want to close down a route you can always fiddle the figures to make it look as if there is no alternative.
> 
> Another route I used to travel on sometimes was the Waterloo to Exeter. In steam days this had been mostly double track but it had largely been reduced to single track by the 1980s and the trains running on it were among the most decrepit imaginable. British Rail were clearly playing the game of, if you annoy the passengers enough they will stop coming and then you have a good reason to close an unwanted route. Today the opposite is true and and many sections have been returned to double track and although the trains that run there today are not perfect by any stretch and are also getting on in years, they are a huge improvement on what there was before.
> 
> ...


It seems that you're implying that the Bristish railway system is in much better shape than it was during the 1980s. This suggests that someone invested a lot of money to make it so. Was the source of these funds private investors who took a risk of losing their investment if the business didn't work out? If not, then there's no point in yapping on about how "private operation" can do a better job, because whatever the nature of the company, it's not really "private operation."


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## cirdan (Apr 10, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> It seems that you're implying that the Bristish railway system is in much better shape than it was during the 1980s. This suggests that someone invested a lot of money to make it so. Was the source of these funds private investors who took a risk of losing their investment if the business didn't work out? If not, then there's no point in yapping on about how "private operation" can do a better job, because whatever the nature of the company, it's not really "private operation."



Yes, definitely the network is in a better state of repair today than it has been for many decades. And also carrying more passengers and more freight.

Also the decline has been reversed. Until the 1980s there were routes being closed all the time, stations closed, formed double track lines converted to single track. It was a slow decline but the direction was clear. And it all added up over time.

Today the opposite is true. I can't remember when last a line was closed but there are lines being reopened and stations added on existing lines virtually all the time. Also junctions are being rebuilt and tracks added to remove bottlenecks and create additional paths and capacities. Overall progress is still slow, but the direction has clearly reversed.

You are right that it is not private money paying for the changes. But privatisation has created a situation where there are private companies whose interests are married to the future of rail and this makes them better at lobbying and at constructively suggesting improvement. Also, and I think this is very important, they sign multi year contracts with the government, sometimes 10 years or longer, and this prevents the government from pulling the rug from under their feet and closing down lines and stations at some accountant's whim as happened in the 1980s. So its not really about being private being better per se but about there being multiple parties engrained in a contractual situation that creates a situation favoring more long term thinking.

So I'm not yapping about how private money does. ab better job, but warning that if we go back to civil servants and ministerial accountants having absolute control we will go back to mediocrity and decline.


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## jruff001 (Apr 12, 2022)

Northwestern said:


> I think one of the problems with PRJ and the American Orient Express was that they both required being hooked onto an Amtrak train. I think it would have been better if PRJ and the AOC would have been powered by its own locomotive. It could have allowed for an independent timetable. It would avoid the cost charged by Amtrak for the hookup.


It would also have allowed the host railroads to refuse to operate those trains over their rails since they weren't part of an Amtrak train.



Cal said:


> But to be fair, that was when flying was still fairly new. The climate has changed a lot since then, figuratively and literally.


Yes, the airline climate has grown even worse for passenger trains since deregulation in 1978 - (relatively) cheaper air fares and lots more airlines with lots more flight choices.


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## Cal (Apr 12, 2022)

jruff001 said:


> Yes, the airline climate has grown even worse for passenger trains since deregulation in 1978 - (relatively) cheaper air fares and lots more airlines with lots more flight choices.


But also long security lines, increasing the number of seats while decreasing amenities, and airline meltdowns could help.


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## jis (Apr 12, 2022)

Cal said:


> But also long security lines, increasing the number of seats while decreasing amenities, and airline meltdowns could help.


And what makes you think private rail operators won't behave exactly like private air operators when it comes to number of seats and amenities?


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## Cal (Apr 12, 2022)

jis said:


> And what makes you think private rail operators won't behave exactly like private air operators when it comes to number of seats and amenities?


I didn’t say that they wouldn’t. But they have an opportunity to offer a better service that people will prefer over airlines current poor service. Maybe if one does start it won’t, but the point is that it could.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 12, 2022)

Cal said:


> I didn’t say that they wouldn’t. But they have an opportunity to offer a better service that people will prefer over airlines current poor service. Maybe if one does start it won’t, but the point is that it could.


As someone who flew before and after airline deregulation, I can say that service levels for coach class passengers has declined steadily. The slope of the decline steepened after 9/11, but the trend remained the same. I read article after article of writers asking why nobody offers an intermediate level of service at a higher price that's not insanely higher, but, with the exception of "economy plus," really nothing has been done. And all "economy plus" gives you (at least for US carriers on US domestic flights) is a little more legroom. All coach passengers (even in "economy plus") still has to deal with all the nickel-and-dime charges, poor service, security lines, and other stuff that makes flying unpleasant these days. It is clear that there is no business reason why private-sector airlines need to offer good service to coach passengers, and so they don't. I suspect the same is true for rail passengers as well, whether the trains are run by a government-owned company or a private company.


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## jruff001 (Apr 12, 2022)

Cal said:


> But also long security lines, increasing the number of seats while decreasing amenities, and airline meltdowns could help.


Sort of agree with you about security lines, although I have TSA Pre-Check and can always breeze through, and even without that the lines are usually not that bad these days.

Decreasing amenities? Also happening on Amtrak. There are plenty of posts here complaining about how coach passengers do not have dining car access, how the Texas Eagle no longer has a lounge car, how terrible the Flex Dining food is, etc.

Meltdowns? LOL, Amtrak's regular meltdowns pale in comparison to the airlines'. When is the last time a flight from (say) Chicago to San Francisco had to land in Salt Lake City and the passengers were told, "Oops, due to traffic / weather in Nevada, you have to take a bus the rest of the way." Or due to a bridge fire in northern California, all flights between Seattle and Los Angeles are cancelled for the next four months.


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## TheCrescent (Apr 12, 2022)

jruff001 said:


> Sort of agree with you about security lines, although I have TSA Pre-Check and can always breeze through, and even without that the lines are usually not that bad these days.
> 
> Decreasing amenities? Also happening on Amtrak. There are plenty of posts here complaining about how coach passengers do not have dining car access, how the Texas Eagle no longer has a lounge car, how terrible the Flex Dining food is, etc.
> 
> Meltdowns? LOL, Amtrak's regular meltdowns pale in comparison to the airlines'. When is the last time a flight from (say) Chicago to San Francisco had to land in Salt Lake City and the passengers were told, "Oops, due to traffic / weather in Nevada, you have to take a bus the rest of the way." Or due to a bridge fire in northern California, all flights between Seattle and Los Angeles are cancelled for the next four months.



Agreed. And private-sector carriers have significantly improved first class in recent years: first class on American Airlines is pleasant, and first class on Brightline is fantastic.

First class on the Crescent- sorry, I’m rolling on the floor laughing.


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## Cal (Apr 12, 2022)

jruff001 said:


> Sort of agree with you about security lines, although I have TSA Pre-Check and can always breeze through, and even without that the lines are usually not that bad these days.
> 
> Decreasing amenities? Also happening on Amtrak. There are plenty of posts here complaining about how coach passengers do not have dining car access, how the Texas Eagle no longer has a lounge car, how terrible the Flex Dining food is, etc.
> 
> Meltdowns? LOL, Amtrak's regular meltdowns pale in comparison to the airlines'. When is the last time a flight from (say) Chicago to San Francisco had to land in Salt Lake City and the passengers were told, "Oops, due to traffic / weather in Nevada, you have to take a bus the rest of the way." Or due to a bridge fire in northern California, all flights between Seattle and Los Angeles are cancelled for the next four months.


I think we’re talking about private-companies, not Amtrak. Look at Brightline, they have taken the time to make a nice service that contrasts to airlines. Airlines will probably never bother improving by much, but if private rail companies offer a service that contrasts from airlines they might be able to attract people.


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## jruff001 (Apr 13, 2022)

Cal said:


> I think we’re talking about private-companies, not Amtrak. Look at Brightline, they have taken the time to make a nice service that contrasts to airlines. Airlines will probably never bother improving by much, but if private rail companies offer a service that contrasts from airlines they might be able to attract people.


And I truly wish Brightline well on its densely populated, 75 mile Miami to West Palm Beach line. But that is hardly "long distance," and I don't think any airlines offer MIA-WPB flights?


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## Cal (Apr 13, 2022)

jruff001 said:


> And I truly wish Brightline well on its densely populated, 75 mile Miami to West Palm Beach line. But that is hardly "long distance," and I don't think any airlines offer MIA-WPB flights?


That's true. But theoretically a company could do a service with similar amenities but with long-distance trains. However I will say it would be a lot harder to match Brightline's strategy with long distance.


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## joelkfla (Apr 13, 2022)

jruff001 said:


> And I truly wish Brightline well on its densely populated, 75 mile Miami to West Palm Beach line. But that is hardly "long distance," and I don't think any airlines offer MIA-WPB flights?


It's Miami to Orlando. The WPB-Orlando segment is under construction, scheduled to open next year.


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## Ryan (Apr 13, 2022)

Cal said:


> That's true. But theoretically a company could do a service with similar amenities but with long-distance trains. However I will say it would be a lot harder to match Brightline's strategy with long distance.


Every time it's tried, it crashes and burns. As much as people like us think there is a market for something nicer, the example of the airlines is illustrative. People vote with their wallet, and the market isn't there.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 13, 2022)

Cal said:


> I think we’re talking about private-companies, not Amtrak. Look at Brightline, they have taken the time to make a nice service that contrasts to airlines. Airlines will probably never bother improving by much, but if private rail companies offer a service that contrasts from airlines they might be able to attract people.


Don't even bother talking about Brightline until they're fully up and running for a few years. First of all, they haven't even started service to Orlando. Secondly, yeah, they're giving good service now to attract customers. Once they have a customer base and then they have a few quarters with lower than expected traffic, and then they realize, like the airlines, that they can make more money by cutting service standards, they'll do just that.


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## toddinde (Apr 13, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> It seems that you're implying that the Bristish railway system is in much better shape than it was during the 1980s. This suggests that someone invested a lot of money to make it so. Was the source of these funds private investors who took a risk of losing their investment if the business didn't work out? If not, then there's no point in yapping on about how "private operation" can do a better job, because whatever the nature of the company, it's not really "private operation."


Great point. We know that the privatization of the infrastructure, Railtrack, failed. So yes, it was the Torries under Thatcher and Major that starved BR from investment, then when the scheme to privatize left the system in a mess, the government took it back over and rebuilt the infrastructure.



MARC Rider said:


> Don't even bother talking about Brightline until they're fully up and running for a few years. First of all, they haven't even started service to Orlando. Secondly, yeah, they're giving good service now to attract customers. Once they have a customer base and then they have a few quarters with lower than expected traffic, and then they realize, like the airlines, that they can make more money by cutting service standards, they'll do just that.


Absolutely! Brightline shut down entirely during the pandemic. They haven’t even operated long enough to know if they’ll be successful. I wish them well, but it’s far to early to determine whether that model will work.


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## jruff001 (Apr 13, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> It's Miami to Orlando.


No it is not.



> The WPB-Orlando segment is under construction, scheduled to open next year.


Correct.


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## west point (Apr 13, 2022)

We have no idea if Amtrak's LD trains could come close o break even. The PRIIA studies are deleted and I unfortunately did not have enough storage to save them when they were still available. The studies showed that for each additional coach added approximately $700,000 a year would be added to bottom line over expenses. That was for the 3 Silver services, Crescent to ATL, and LSL.

That will come much closer to above rail cost but not meet them if say 3 - 5 more coaches added to each of the above. Do not recall what additional sleepers would do


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## jruff001 (Apr 13, 2022)

west point said:


> We have no idea if Amtrak's LD trains could come close o break even.


I do, and they don't.


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## joelkfla (Apr 13, 2022)

jruff001 said:


> No it is not.
> 
> 
> Correct.


Then why would say that they don't qualify as intercity and "wish them well" between MIA & WPB when you know they _will_ be running intercity in about a year?


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## jruff001 (Apr 13, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> Then why would say that they don't qualify as intercity and "wish them well" between MIA & WPB when you know they _will_ be running intercity in about a year?



I never said they don't qualify as "intercity." I said MIA-WPB is not long distance. I don't think MIA-ORL is either.

Just so I understand your point, you consider MIA-ORL, which is about 250 miles and is supposed to take what, 2-3 hours (and maybe eventually another 80 miles and an hour to get to TPA) to be "long distance"?


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## jis (Apr 13, 2022)

jruff001 said:


> I never said they don't qualify as "intercity." I said MIA-WPB is not long distance. I don't think MIA-ORL is either.
> 
> Just so I understand your point, you consider MIA-ORL, which is about 250 miles and is supposed to take what, 2-3 hours (and maybe eventually another 80 miles and an hour to get to TPA) to be "long distance"?


I think all of that would be characterized as "intra-state corridor", but inter-city. Specially with planned daily frequency of 8-12 runs, it would not resemble any LD anything.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 13, 2022)

west point said:


> We have no idea if Amtrak's LD trains could come close o break even.






jruff001 said:


> I do, and they don't.



Neroden would disagree with you, especially if you use the "avoidable cost" metric as opposed to loading up the cost column with all sorts of unverifiable overhead chearges.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 13, 2022)

Cal said:


> I think we’re talking about private-companies, not Amtrak. Look at Brightline, they have taken the time to make a nice service that contrasts to airlines. Airlines will probably never bother improving by much, but if private rail companies offer a service that contrasts from airlines they might be able to attract people.


Um, the NEC service, with all its old stations, creaking infrastructure, old rolling stock and so forth competes very well with airlines, and is a much better way to travel than bus or car. The only improvement over NEC service that I can see from peoples' description of Brightline operations is that the trains are newer. You really don't need much in the way of service on a 2-4 hour trip, just a comfortable seat and a conductor that comes by to scan your tickets quickly and who is ready and available to help in case of emergencies.


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## joelkfla (Apr 13, 2022)

jruff001 said:


> I never said they don't qualify as "intercity." I said MIA-WPB is not long distance. I don't think MIA-ORL is either.
> 
> Just so I understand your point, you consider MIA-ORL, which is about 250 miles and is supposed to take what, 2-3 hours (and maybe eventually another 80 miles and an hour to get to TPA) to be "long distance"?


No, I consider MIA-ORL intercity, which is the way Brightline has characterized their service. Not LD, but similar to NEC. Sorry I misread your post that way.


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## joelkfla (Apr 13, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Um, the NEC service, with all its old stations, creaking infrastructure, old rolling stock and so forth competes very well with airlines, and is a much better way to travel than bus or car. The only improvement over NEC service that I can see from peoples' description of Brightline operations is that the trains are newer. You really don't need much in the way of service on a 2-4 hour trip, just a comfortable seat and a conductor that comes by to scan your tickets quickly and who is ready and available to help in case of emergencies.



Seats are selectable when booking for both classes of service.
Spacious, comfortable, and well-equipped waiting lounges for all passengers at all stations (so far).
Self service snacks and drinks in Premium Class lounges, including beer & wine at no charge (more than just chips).
At seat snack & drink service on the train, which is included for Premium Class, available for purchase for Smart Class.
Generally cheerful staff, who apparently are required to wave goodbye from the platform.
Coordinated pre-booked first- & last-mile transportation within 5 miles of the station. I think it's still complimentary, but they've said they will start charging for it at some point.


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## MARC Rider (Apr 13, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> Seats are selectable when booking for both classes of service.
> Spacious, comfortable, and well-equipped waiting lounges for all passengers at all stations (so far).
> Self service snacks and drinks in Premium Class lounges, including beer & wine at no charge (more than just chips).
> At seat snack & drink service on the train, which is included for Premium Class, available for purchase for Smart Class.
> ...


And, as the NEC shows, you really don't need all that stuff to be competitive for corridor travel. Remember, we're talking a 2-4 hour trip at the most.

1. Not everybody likes the idea of assigned seating. I'm of mixed opinion about it myself. 
2. Partly true, (a lot of Amtrak stations are pretty spacious - 30th St. in Philly comes to mind) but then, as lot of people on heavily traveled short-distance corridors show up shortly before departure and don't wait around in the station. But, again, the NEC is very competitive even if the seating in their stations isn't as nice. I hope as more of the NEC stations get remodeled (hello, Baltimore), they'll follow the lead of Moynihan Train Hall and put in seats with padded benches.
3. Free wine and beer for Premium class, that's like eating your profits. Aside from increasing the chance of hassles from drunken behavior. And all this nonsense about free food. It just adds to costs, and once management figures out it's not necessary to attract passengers, it will be gone with the wind. Anyway, most riders aren't going to be riding Premium class.
4. Come on, most people are taking 2-3 hour trips. When I ride Acela First class, half the people on board don't bother to take advantage of the free food. Most passengers in coach do quite well providing themselves with food purchased at the station. Most of the cafe car business is alcohol and snacks. Again, the main point of the service is to transport people, not feed them. Unlike long-distance trains, it's a very short time before the trip is over and one is in the station where food is available. 
5. Actually, NEC staff are generally cheerful, too, but then, you really don't have to interact with them too much.
6. I live 8 miles from my station with pretty flaky public transportation options. I have no problems with arranging rides with Lyft/Uber (or my wife) for both first-mile and last-mile transportation, and I don't see any advantage to having that stuff "coordinated" (whatever that means) and pre-booked with Amtrak. Not only is there Lyft/Uber, there is also a line of taxicabs waiting right in front of the station. No coordination is needed -- just walk to the taxi line, wait your turn, and get in the next cab. I mean, why is Brightline even bothering with this?

Like I said, we'll see how many of these bells and whistles last once the business stabilizes and management realizes they don't need them to attract paying customers.


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## west point (Apr 13, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Like I said, we'll see how many of these bells and whistles last once the business stabilizes and management realizes they don't need them to attract paying customers.



That is the whole metric in a nutshell. Amtrak and Brightline will need to see what is needed to attract passengers. As well Brightline, Amtrak if it ever makes its trains long enough to need to attract new passengers.


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## joelkfla (Apr 14, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> And, as the NEC shows, you really don't need all that stuff to be competitive for corridor travel. Remember, we're talking a 2-4 hour trip at the most.
> 
> 1. Not everybody likes the idea of assigned seating. I'm of mixed opinion about it myself.
> 2. Partly true, (a lot of Amtrak stations are pretty spacious - 30th St. in Philly comes to mind) but then, as lot of people on heavily traveled short-distance corridors show up shortly before departure and don't wait around in the station. But, again, the NEC is very competitive even if the seating in their stations isn't as nice. I hope as more of the NEC stations get remodeled (hello, Baltimore), they'll follow the lead of Moynihan Train Hall and put in seats with padded benches.
> ...


You said you didn't see how Brightline provided better service than Amtrak, so I listed the ways I could think of. Even if you and 50% of the riders don't take advantage of them all, there's the other 50% who do. And IMHO it's all about appearances. Brightline wants to present itself as a pleasurable and relaxing experience in contrast to driving, which may in fact be less expensive in many cases.

1) You really don't see a benefit in avoiding the mad rush for "good" seats at NYP? Admittedly with Brightline's current passenger load that's not really an issue down here, but I like knowing I'll have a forward-facing seat, and a single seat if I'm traveling Premium.

3) I'm sure the costs are built into the Premium fare. I haven't been on since the pandemic shutdown, but I've seen reports that the lounge now uses an automated tap which restricts riders to 1 or 2 alcoholic beverages. Fans coming from sports venues are the bigger drunkenness problem.

4) Not everyone will want a bag of chips or candy bar on the train, but most will appreciate a soda or coffee delivered to their seat.

6) I think studies have identified first- & last-mile transport concerns as a common reason for avoiding train travel. Taxi ranks are not common in the south except at airports, and Uber/Lyft are not always reliable and can get expensive at peak times. Having end-to-end transportation all booked at once, coordinated to get you to the station on time and meet you when the train arrives, seems like a good idea to me. As to why Brightline is doing it, again it's all about attracting riders.


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## jimdex (Apr 14, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Neroden would disagree with you, especially if you use the "avoidable cost" metric as opposed to loading up the cost column with all sorts of unverifiable overhead chearges.


I think "avoidable cost" accounting can be used as a guide to reducing some of the losses attributed to long-distance trains, but I'm not sure whether it can be used to argue that long-distance trains are actually profitable. The fixed costs of the overall system have to be deducted from revenues somewhere, Otherwise you'll have a hard time explaining why a corporation that only runs "profitable" trains still requires a subsidy.


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## Ryan (Apr 14, 2022)

That's sort of a binary "do we want Amtrak or do we not" argument.

If you wanted to cut every LD train, the fixed costs of the overall system would remain unchanged by definition.

So you've just increased the amount of subsidy required to run a lower level of service. Congrats, everyone loses.

_The best cure for what ails Amtrak is more Amtrak._. Get more trains out there that cover their avoidable costs and the overall subsidy required to cover those fixed costs go down. Everyone wins.


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## jis (Apr 14, 2022)

The folly lies in first rolling up a bunch of costs that for whatever reason Amtrak is unable to assign individually to trains and then try to allocate them using some goofy algorithm to determine something that is made to smell like marginal account but actually is not. This idiocy is what Volpe invented causing no end of trouble.


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## lrh442 (Apr 14, 2022)

Folly, indeed. Allocation of fixed costs only makes sense in the context of long-range decisions of a _for-profit entity_. Amtrak is (now) explicitly _not_ a for-profit operation and will always require subsidy. Per Congress the goal is no longer to reduce subsidy. Endless talk about allocated fixed costs, and attempts to make them favor one train or region over another (I'm looking at you, Amtrak mgt.), are not aligned with the entity's new charter.


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## jruff001 (Apr 19, 2022)

jimdex said:


> I think "avoidable cost" accounting can be used as a guide to reducing some of the losses attributed to long-distance trains, but I'm not sure whether it can be used to argue that long-distance trains are actually profitable. The fixed costs of the overall system have to be deducted from revenues somewhere, Otherwise you'll have a hard time explaining why a corporation that only runs "profitable" trains still requires a subsidy.


Exactly.

If the LD trains were truly "profitable," get rid of Amtrak, transfer Amtrak's rights of freight RR track access to a private operator (and surely there would be quite a few companies willing to do it since it is so profitable), let that operator make a ton of money, and let the Amtraktrains.com posters who believe the hype invest in that company and get rich.


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## cirdan (Apr 19, 2022)

Cal said:


> I didn’t say that they wouldn’t. But they have an opportunity to offer a better service that people will prefer over airlines current poor service. Maybe if one does start it won’t, but the point is that it could.



The bus industry has time and time again shown that somebody *could* step in and provide a better product, and here and there somebody does. But then it lasts a few years at best and they re-join the race to the bottom.


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## cirdan (Apr 19, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> 1. Not everybody likes the idea of assigned seating. I'm of mixed opinion about it myself.



I dislike it too.

But I understand that in the interests of optimizing operations and optimally filling seats, it is a necessity.


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## cirdan (Apr 19, 2022)

joelkfla said:


> 3) I'm sure the costs are built into the Premium fare. I haven't been on since the pandemic shutdown, but I've seen reports that the lounge now uses an automated tap which restricts riders to 1 or 2 alcoholic beverages. Fans coming from sports venues are the bigger drunkenness problem.
> 
> 4) Not everyone will want a bag of chips or candy bar on the train, but most will appreciate a soda or coffee delivered to their seat.



IMHO, the usefulness of this varies depending on whether I'm paying for my own ticket or travelling for work.

When I'm paying I'd much rather save a few bucks on the ticket and use that money to buy a beverage or snack of my choice before leaving or from the on-train cafeteria. This is also good for the airline / train company as they get direct feedback over which products are actually desired / appreciated rather than being taken just because they are free. They can thus work on improving their offering.

When I'm travelling for work, expensing the small stuff is always a hassle and so I'm quite happy when it's included in the fare.


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## jis (Apr 22, 2022)

Having ridden both Amtrak NEC and Brightline my personal opinion is that Brightline is better today by a long shot. Of course we will see how things develop. Brightline consistently provides a friendlier environment with smiling OBS, something that is a bit hard to come by at Amtrak consistently.

But of course, neither Amtrak NEC nor Brightline is LD, though both are inter-city.


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