# Amtrak moving forward to stop all, most LDT



## Amtrakfflyer

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amtrak-plan-to-expand-ridership-could-sidetrack-storied-trains-11550664000?mod=breakingnews

Article  in today’s WSJ. Could see this coming a mile away. Management doesn’t care about any decries from Congress. Move the skewed  facts and lies to the public now. All the new routes would be under 750 miles and state supported. Blahh. All hands on deck.


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## cirdan

article is behind a paywall, unfortunately.


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## tricia

Behind a pay wall, and I'm unwilling to give money to WSJ. Without violating copyright with extensive quotes, can you tell us what sources were used for this article?


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## Amtrakfflyer

Basically Anderson’s plans for 18 months ago. All corridors under 750 mi. Article catch phrase is “swapping sleepers for corridor coaches”. We’re back to worse case scenario and it’s dated February 20.2019.


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## jis

This is the issue that will hopefully get resolved this way or that in the Reauthorization Bill. Anderson may be hoping it will go his way. It hopefully won't, if the current actions of Congress is any indication.

It would be worth watching out for stronger language requiring the maintenance of a national network keeping the current network substantially unchanged and growing from that base.

The Congressional testimony that Anderson gave makes a lot of sense as a strategic ploy to get Congress to fund what it wants adequately or let it be dismantled if they won't fund it. For someone like him who neither needs, nor particularly cares about retaining his position, it is an eminently reasonable transactional move. All who disagree with his push need to up their game and make sure that he fails.


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## GBNorman

Anyone recall the Warrington Y2K "Network Growth Strategy"?  Sure looks like a "dust off" of same, except this time instead of being focused around the "Mixed Train Daily", it is around ostensible Corridors operated over Class I's.

"So they think they're just like that start running more trains over our railroad" is the consensus I would think in Richmond, Norfolk, Omaha, and Ft. Worth?


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## frequentflyer

jis said:


> This is the issue that will hopefully get resolved this way or that in the Reauthorization Bill. Anderson may be hoping it will go his way. It hopefully won't, if the current actions of Congress is any indication.
> 
> It would be worth watching out for stronger language requiring the maintenance of a national network keeping the current network substantially unchanged and growing from that base.
> 
> The Congressional testimony that Anderson gave makes a lot of sense as a strategic ploy to get Congress to fund what it wants adequately or let it be dismantled if they won't fund it. For someone like him who neither needs, nor particularly cares about retaining his position, it is an eminently reasonable transactional move. All who disagree with his push need to up their game and make sure that he fails.


I think it shows that Anderson is learning the political game. If Congress wants LD trains, then step up to the plate and pay for the new equipment and costs to run them.


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## cirdan

I think that nobody is disputing that corridor trains are a good thing.

But is there even a single instance of a corridor train that cannot be run because of an LD train?

The whole thing just doesn't pass the Lithmus test.

What would the foks at Delta have said if Anderson had told them, we need to eliminate the free coffee from business class there is clearly a demand for baggae handling.


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## jis

It would at least be interesting watching what trackage charges they have to agree to and whether they can make a gainful business of it overall, at least.

At present, there is no known instance of a Corridor train outside the NE Corridor that even Amtrak with its goofy accounting claims to make money overall. Also by PRIIA, Amtrak really needs involvement only to exercise the access rights to freight tracks. We know how that goes when it comes to gaining additional access.

So either way, whether it is Corridor trains or LD trains, Amtrak has to get funding from the feds and possibly some states. With money comes shackles. It is not like tney can just go and do whatever the heck the like with the money given to them.

So all in all at least it will provide entertainment, if you are into such.


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## Ryan

Is there a link to the testimony that is referred to in the article?  I'd rather read what Anderson actually said than read someone else's take on it.


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## Devil's Advocate

I've read the title and opening post several times but I still have no clue what the OP is talking about.


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## jis

frequentflyer said:


> I think it shows that Anderson is learning the political game. If Congress wants LD trains, then step up to the plate and pay for the new equipment and costs to run them.


Either way Congress or someone else will have to step up and pay for the new equipment, since random mid distance train on random corridors are not going to generate enough money to reasonably pay for the equipment necessary to run them, nor the development of the necessary ancillary infrastructure needed. Unless PRIIA is changed states will have to be the ones that get to pay if they are willing. If not I guess there is an opportunity to become a bus line for cheap? :lol:


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## jis

Ryan said:


> Is there a link to the testimony that is referred to in the article?  I'd rather read what Anderson actually said than read someone else's take on it.


https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Anderson Testimony.pdf


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## StanJazz

The news story is on MSN for free.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amtrak-plan-to-expand-ridership-could-sidetrack-storied-trains/ar-BBTQFFM


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## PRR 60

Previously attached PDF of the WSJ article removed as violation of rules. Link to MSN version is fine.


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## crescent-zephyr

Trains should not be looked at as competition with flying vs. driving etc. Trains provide a unique transportation service that links small towns and larger cities in a way that other transit services do not.

We do need more corridors, but linking those corridors with long distance trains just makes sense.  We have such a bare bones system as it is.


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## Amtrakfflyer

What alarms me more then anything is Amtrak/Anderson/the board are still going ahead with this proposal in spite of the Senates 94-6 vote, the simular vote in the House, the SWC pushback and all the pro national network nuggets put in the final 2019 funding bill. 

They just don’t seem to care at all and think they are above the law (makers) of the land. 

My calls to my congressional members today have changed from “support Amtrak’s national network” to “Amtrak’s board and management need to be replaced to save Amtrak’s national network”.  Calls to local offices today went well staffers are aware of Amtrak management. Please call and email it takes the same amount of time as a post here.


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## jis

Well, they are always free to propose whatever they wish for the reauthorization and for each appropriation.Historically they have a very poor track record of getting all that they want. They are often lucky get 30% of their wishes in toto. They do get the money these days but with string that they do not like attached.

We'll just have to wait until the proverbial fat lady sings on the authorization. And yes, call and email your Senators and House Reps and make sure they understand which part of Amtrak's dreams need to be denied completely.


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## Ryan

jis said:


> https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Anderson Testimony.pdf




Many thanks.  Pretty solid testimony, I think, and not the doom and gloom pushed out by those that haven't taken the time to read it.  He clearly lays out what it will take to continue on the present path and tells Congress that it's up to them to actually fund it.  Most clearly stated here:



> a key topic for the next Federal reauthorization of Amtrak is the future of the Long Distance routes that use this equipment. Congress will need to make decisions about the long-term prospects of these routes and provide sufficient associated funding levels so that Amtrak can procure appropriate types and quantities of this custom rolling stock.


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## Just-Thinking-51

Custom rolling stock.  How many railcars do you need to order before it’s not a custom order?


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## mlanoue

Ryan said:


> Many thanks.  Pretty solid testimony, I think, and not the doom and gloom pushed out by those that haven't taken the time to read it.  He clearly lays out what it will take to continue on the present path and tells Congress that it's up to them to actually fund it.  Most clearly stated here:


Agreed.  A lot of what he says in there is true and makes sense.  Not sure why there seems to be such an insistence with him that we can t have both LD and Corridors. They complement each other.


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## keelhauled

It's all just pretty words that don't amount to much unless they have a plan to manage access to trackage and to convince state governments to scrounge up the subsidies required, or a way to remove the PRRIA funding requirements entirely.


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## frequentflyer

jis said:


> https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Anderson Testimony.pdf


A good grasp on the equipment situation. I get the vibe from reading the Amfleet replacements, Anderson is intrigued by EMUs/DMUs. More so than Charger/Sprinter bookending some Viaggora cars.


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## lordsigma

I think what Amtrak is really after here is predictable multi-year funding rather than having to come back to beg at the trough every year. We'll see what their "proposal" is on their vision of the reauthorization. I'm sure there will be some suggested cuts or reductions in the long distance network. Given some previous comments by Anderson it may not elimination of all LD routes - I could see him proposing keeping maybe ONE of the western trains intact as a flagship luxury land cruise route in a similar manner to how VIA has the Canadian but likely eliminating or cutting up the others. Some changes from the current routes may make sense....Congress may also be open to some changes if they are done in a way where you aren't removing service to cities. For example one could argue it might make sense to break up the Crescent into two routes. A more reliable NY-Atlanta route would probably result in ridership gains.


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## lordsigma

frequentflyer said:


> A good grasp on the equipment situation. I get the vibe from reading the Amfleet replacements, Anderson is intrigued by EMUs/DMUs. More so than Charger/Sprinter bookending some Viaggora cars.


I guess the only thing with EMUs is that you basically obsolete the relatively new Sprinters.....I guess the Sprinters would still be there for some of the LD trains that operate on the corridor.


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## neroden

jis said:


> https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Anderson Testimony.pdf


The testimony is fine.  The WSJ was pretty heavy on the spin.

Honestly, if Anderson had had the sense to propose the Amarillo/Wichita reroute instead of a *bus bridge*, or to cut station agents at smaller stations but not at *Cincinnati*, he wouldn't be finding such angry opposition.

Context for this quote is important:



> a key topic for the next Federal reauthorization of Amtrak is the future of the Long Distance routes that use this equipment. Congress will need to make decisions about the long-term prospects of these routes and provide sufficient associated funding levels so that Amtrak can procure appropriate types and quantities of this custom rolling stock.



It's in the context of bilevels -- not just LD bilevels but a long discussion of_ California's_ problems acquiring bilevels.  Those are also being described as "custom rolling stock".

Single-level long-distance coaches, which get a section of their own in the testimony, appear to be a definite purchase.  Which, if our outside estimates of the true financials is correct, makes sense.  Since the single-level trains probably all make a marginal profit at this point (i.e. Amtrak needs larger Congressional subsidies if they don't run them), there's no mention of "Congress will need to make decisions" in the single-level context; Amtrak is buying 'em.  (FWIW, my estimates say that the Auto Train and Coast Starlight are in a profitable situation; it's the other bilevel trains which are less solid financially.)

Anderson's list of underserved cities is worth noting:



> Just look at a map and you can see glaring gaps in Amtrak service to cities like Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Orlando and Tampa, Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Nashville, Austin, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Birmingham



Consider which corridors Anderson may be trying to expand based on this specific list.  Which corridors would you expect based on this list (assuming that it's in order of importance to Mr. Anderson, with Atlanta most important and Birmingham least important)?  I'd guess:

(1) more-than-daily service from Atlanta north

(2) Houston-Dallas service

(3) More-than-daily service from Dallas north

(4) Not sure what he's thinking in Florida (phone up Virgin Trains USA?)

(5) Denver: Permanent Ski Train?  Front Range Rail?  Two a day from Denver to Chicago?  Or from Denver to Salt Lake?

(6) Las Vegas - Los Angeles (phone up the XpressWest guys?)

(7) Phoenix-LA?  Phoenix-Tucson?

(8) Nashville?!?!  No idea

(9) More-than-daily from San Antonio-Austin-Dallas?

(10) Cleveland-Cincy-Columbus?  Daily or more-than-daily on the Cardinal route (since traffic from Cincy goes about equally both ways)?

(11) New Orleans-Baton Rouge?  New Orleans-Mobile-Gulf Coast?

(12) Atlanta-Birmingham?


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## neroden

Oh, and based on population, connectivity, and political support, I would say that the *only* long-distance route which can be cut or shrunk is the Sunset Limited.  Possibly the southern ends of the Crescent and CONO. The other routes all have rabid support from end to end.  A couple could possibly be made into overlapping routes (i.e. change trains at Denver) but you couldn't drop service anywhere else.


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## cpotisch

frequentflyer said:


> More﻿ so than Charger/Sprinter bookending some *Viaggora* cars.


You know that that’s not what they’re called, right? :giggle:


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## cpotisch

neroden said:


> (4) Not sure what he's thinking in Florida (phone up Virgin Trains USA?)
> 
> (8) Nashville?!?!  No idea


I know this would never happen, but strictly speaking, a revived Floridian would cover both of these...


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## neroden

cpotisch said:


> I know this would never happen, but strictly speaking, a revived Floridian would cover both of these...


He's talking corridors though.  CSX does have Nashville-Chattanooga, Chattanooga-Atlanta, and Atlanta-Jacksonville lines.  (But who wants to work with CSX?)  Perhaps Nashville-Memphis is more likely, but I figure CSX has a 0% chance of making any reasonable offer, since they've sabotaged commuter rail planes in both Memphis and Nashville (and Chattanooga!)


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## lordsigma

Adding all these corridors sounds great (in my opinion without cutting long distance service), but what makes anyone think that the freights are going to agree to higher frequency trains when you cannot get them to run the current once daily LD trains in a timely manner?


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Well if I am interpreting the MSN article (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amtrak-plan-to-expand-ridership-could-sidetrack-storied-trains/ar-BBTQFFM?fbclid=IwAR2_OlUTZZVhM08PBxemnku3KJaTgFkbwbKGqMwTJFo2bJEFQKFOuDoA8x4) correctly, the biggest expense they are worried about is replacing the LD equipment.

"Amtrak says it will need $2.2 billion to $2.7 billion between now and 2030, as part of a total $3.8 billion it expects to spend on replacing the long-distance fleet, including locomotives Amtrak has already ordered."

The Viewliner II refresh is basically complete so they must be referring to the Superliners. The replacement for those could be the biggest issue right now.


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## me_little_me

So the Diners that became Sleeper Lounges will now become Sleepless Lounges?


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## Ryan

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Well if I am interpreting the MSN article (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amtrak-plan-to-expand-ridership-could-sidetrack-storied-trains/ar-BBTQFFM?fbclid=IwAR2_OlUTZZVhM08PBxemnku3KJaTgFkbwbKGqMwTJFo2bJEFQKFOuDoA8x4) correctly, the biggest expense they are worried about is replacing the LD equipment.
> 
> "Amtrak says it will need $2.2 billion to $2.7 billion between now and 2030, as part of a total $3.8 billion it expects to spend on replacing the long-distance fleet, including locomotives Amtrak has already ordered."
> 
> The Viewliner II refresh is basically complete so they must be referring to the Superliners. The replacement for those could be the biggest issue right now.


Rather than try to parse out what someone with limited understanding tried to summarize, take 10 minutes and read Anderson's testimony where all is laid out in detail.


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## cpotisch

My main feeling here is simply that all the problems with the LD network he’s talking about (poor OTP, skeletal service, etc) should be motivation to _improve_ that network, not slash it to pieces. It’s really a self reinforcing loop to just say that the worse things are, the more it should be cut away. I really don’t think that Anderson understands what Amtrak’s goal and purpose is really supposed to be.


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## LookingGlassTie

cpotisch said:


> My main feeling here is simply that all the problems with the LD network he’s talking about (poor OTP, skeletal service, etc) should be motivation to _improve_ that network, not slash it to pieces. It’s really a self reinforcing loop to just say that the worse things are, the more it should be cut away. I really don’t think that Anderson understands what Amtrak’s goal and purpose is really supposed to be.


That's kind of my thinking, too.  I don't think it's just because Anderson used to be an airline guy, although that probably doesn't help his case.

I wish there was a way to maintain the LD network while making it more efficient and viable financially.  That's the thing that Congress looks for when deciding whether to continue the funding of Amtrak; does it manage its money well?


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## Dakota 400

If corridor routes are Amtrak's future, please remember that a Cincinnati-Dayton-Columbus-Cleveland route has been proposed for many years.  (And, not too long ago, we had a Governor who supported the concept.)  But, given the current political party in charge of our State Government, don't expect any $$ coming from our Capitol to support it.


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## keelhauled

The LD network as of now is thoroughly useless in every way but one.  It serves rural America badly--advocacy often focuses on how it provides essential transportation to low population density areas.  NARP's response to the WSJ article makes this point yet again; Jim Matthews said that "I did so with Mr. Coscia, underscoring how 'Grandma in Cut Bank deserves to have the train take her to Spokane for her medical treatments.'"  How many Grandmas, or anyone else, are there in hundreds and thousands of other small communities across America that are in similar circumstances but manage to get along without Amtrak?  The fact that the number of cities and towns without rail service vastly outnumbers those that are served by Amtrak, and are nevertheless surviving and even thriving, puts the lie to the idea that trains are somehow a critical link between rural communities and to urban centers.

It serves urban America badly, with extremely, laughably limited service that has the added bonus of being perpetually unreliable and frequently at passenger unfriendly hours that make trains an irrelevance in cities with extensive highway and air service.  And throwing more trains at the system doesn't solve the problems inherent in a network that is a legacy of travel patterns from a century ago.  The reason Amtrak even exists is that the model of long, thin routes drove the entire industry bankrupt, but instead of focusing on areas in which there is potential passenger demand, the company has remained wedded to the idea of running the same type of service that fell out of public favor before most of us were even alive.

The only things the long-haul network are (arguably) good for is helping to scrounge up political support among senators to keep it limping along with odds and ends of cash every so often, and being a cheap way for them to make it look like they care about transportation in general.  How many studies have been started with the appropriate statements attached from the area office-holders, generated a brief burst of good PR, and then fizzled away into nothingness?

And even the political benefits are hardly a sure thing--they certainly didn't save John McCain, for one, from often and loudly criticizing Amtrak.  Wasn't he the one who said that "Amtrak doesn't serve my state?"  He wasn't entirely wrong, either, just a little misleading.  It would have been completely accurate to have said "Amtrak doesn't *effectively* serve my state," and he could have been joined by a great many others in saying it.


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## OlympianHiawatha

My worry level over this is at near absolute zero; we have heard scare stories like this since Day 1 of Amtrak and nothing has yet to come of them, at least nothing regarding a wholesale elimination of long distance service.


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## Larry H.

keelhauled said:


> The LD network as of now is thoroughly useless in every way but one.  It serves rural America badly--advocacy often focuses on how it provides essential transportation to low population density areas.  NARP's response to the WSJ article makes this point yet again; Jim Matthews said that "I did so with Mr. Coscia, underscoring how 'Grandma in Cut Bank deserves to have the train take her to Spokane for her medical treatments.'"  How many Grandmas, or anyone else, are there in hundreds and thousands of other small communities across America that are in similar circumstances but manage to get along without Amtrak?  The fact that the number of cities and towns without rail service vastly outnumbers those that are served by Amtrak, and are nevertheless surviving and even thriving, puts the lie to the idea that trains are somehow a critical link between rural communities and to urban centers.
> 
> It serves urban America badly, with extremely, laughably limited service that has the added bonus of being perpetually unreliable and frequently at passenger unfriendly hours that make trains an irrelevance in cities with extensive highway and air service.  And throwing more trains at the system doesn't solve the problems inherent in a network that is a legacy of travel patterns from a century ago.  The reason Amtrak even exists is that the model of long, thin routes drove the entire industry bankrupt, but instead of focusing on areas in which there is potential passenger demand, the company has remained wedded to the idea of running the same type of service that fell out of public favor before most of us were even alive.
> 
> The only things the long-haul network are (arguably) good for is helping to scrounge up political support among senators to keep it limping along with odds and ends of cash every so often, and being a cheap way for them to make it look like they care about transportation in general.  How many studies have been started with the appropriate statements attached from the area office-holders, generated a brief burst of good PR, and then fizzled away into nothingness?
> 
> And even the political benefits are hardly a sure thing--they certainly didn't save John McCain, for one, from often and loudly criticizing Amtrak.  Wasn't he the one who said that "Amtrak doesn't serve my state?"  He wasn't entirely wrong, either, just a little misleading.  It would have been completely accurate to have said "Amtrak doesn't *effectively* serve my state," and he could have been joined by a great many others in saying it.


I couldn't disagree more. The actual problem of the long Thin lines as mentioned here is that much of the connection points that used to allow easier travel between locations are gone. It was very short sighted to reduce the existing number of cities served by Amtrak. It makes some pretty outrageous juggling of trains to go too many places. That alone is keeping the potential ridership down.  I don't fly and if I want to travel by train I usually have go way out of my way, and pay for it to boot, to end up somewhere I need to go.  To say a long distance train needs no diners or sleepers is a death knell to passengers.  I do agree that alternating equipment to make two trains a day possible on many routes would also increase ridership.  It is one thing that keeps us from train travel at times, going to the station at 12:30 at night or 4 am is not conducive to increased ridership.


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## cirdan

neroden said:


> I figure CSX has a 0% chance of making any reasonable offer, since they've sabotaged *commuter rail planes *in both Memphis and Nashville (and Chattanooga!) ﻿


Seeing Anderson's background, maybe this is his plan.


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## mfastx

I'd be fine with swapping LDT for more frequent and reliable corridor service.  Problem is, usually what ends up happening is just the first part, removing the LDT and that's it (see Sunset Limited east).


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## frequentflyer

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15zMIBJGaFhQolqEcvqSdaguz_CMra1R8/view

Saw this on another rail forum. Gives insight to Amtrak's procurement and operating plans.


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## cirdan

neroden said:


> Consider which corridors Anderson may be trying to expand based on this specific list.  Which corridors would you expect based on this list (assuming that it's in order of importance to Mr. Anderson, with Atlanta most important and Birmingham least important)?  I'd guess:
> 
> (1) more-than-daily service from Atlanta north
> 
> (2) Houston-Dallas service
> 
> (3) More-than-daily service from Dallas north
> 
> (4) Not sure what he's thinking in Florida (phone up Virgin Trains USA?)
> 
> (5) Denver: Permanent Ski Train?  Front Range Rail?  Two a day from Denver to Chicago?  Or from Denver to Salt Lake?
> 
> (6) Las Vegas - Los Angeles (phone up the XpressWest guys?)
> 
> (7) Phoenix-LA?  Phoenix-Tucson?
> 
> (8) Nashville?!?!  No idea
> 
> (9) More-than-daily from San Antonio-Austin-Dallas?
> 
> (10) Cleveland-Cincy-Columbus?  Daily or more-than-daily on the Cardinal route (since traffic from Cincy goes about equally both ways)?
> 
> (11) New Orleans-Baton Rouge?  New Orleans-Mobile-Gulf Coast?
> 
> (12) Atlanta-Birmingham?


I don't think he's actually got any proposals in the pipeline to actually make any of this happen. Sounds more like whataboutism to me.

The Florida reference is maybe more a tatrum, somebody else is making a corridor service work.


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## cirdan

frequentflyer said:


> https://drive.google.com/file/d/15zMIBJGaFhQolqEcvqSdaguz_CMra1R8/view
> 
> Saw this on another rail forum. Gives insight to Amtrak's procurement and operating plans.


That document creates the overall impression, that everything that is approaching end of life is being replaced by something new, and that the question to be clarified is what will replace it, not whether it should be replaced at all.

Let's hope this is what is actually going on.


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## dlagrua

While there isn't much in Anderson's testimony that seems to promote LD service, I don't read it as completely negative to the National Network. He just said what its going to take to keep it going.  There is substantial focus on the corridor routes but what Anderson didn't say is what the LD routes provide to families and working people in the smaller towns and cities. When we rode the Empire Builder during the height of the Bakken oil boom 5 years ago the train had many oil workers from across the Western states going for their three week shift in ND. We met people from Montana and Idaho who Anderson could refer to as commuters. It is likely that workers from states East of ND also use the service to get to their jobs.  There were also Amish people (that do not fly) seniors, vacationing families, students, America by Rail travel groups, and those that reside far from airports where hours of driving would be part of their airline trip. On that June day the train was full, and so it was on our three subsequent trips to Denver.

We can talk about Anderson, and RPA but the demand for better passenger trains must come from the American people. It is surprising that most people that I've spoken with could care less about trains unless they are on the LIRR or NJT 5 days per week.


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## sttom

If Anderson has learned the political game, I very much approve of him giving the GOP a kicking. They've been gunning for Amtrak and the Postal Service for the last 20 years to score political points, but still bluffing about a full killing of those companies. It would be nice to see someone finally calling their bluff and more or less saying "pony up or kill it, none of this half way sh*t anymore". It would also make sense to try to get more corridor service around the US. Even in California you can't make day trips between a lot of major cities or areas. The western half of the North Bay, the Inland Empire, the Sacramento Valley, Central Coast and the Sierras all have at best a bus twice a day and maybe a long distance train. The truth of transportation as an industry is my generation doesn't like driving. There have been reports of a resurgence in bus travel because of this. And bus companies are responding. Its time for someone to ring Congress's bell and either get an adequate and reliable stream of funding.


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## cpotisch

I just noticed this part, and it’s really driving me insane:



> This is reinforced when you look at where Amtrak is most successful today. Approximately 85% of Amtrak’s ridership comes from the top 100 metro areas. Further, approximately 96% of Amtrak trips are less than 750 miles in length. In fact, the vast majority of our riders’ trips are less than 250 miles. The present network simply does not fit the future.


But the vast majority of Amtrak’s trains are long distance, so that’s naturally going to happen! You can’t just say that the vast majority of people only want corridor trains if that’s pretty much all they’re being offered. To get a sense of what people actually want and need, why not look at how full the respective types of trains tend to run? By just drawing a conclusion from the total percentage of Amtrak riders using the corridors vs the National Network, you are stacking the cards heavily against LDs.


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## jis

frequentflyer said:


> https://drive.google.com/file/d/15zMIBJGaFhQolqEcvqSdaguz_CMra1R8/view
> 
> Saw this on another rail forum. Gives insight to Amtrak's procurement and operating plans.


Seems like an eminently reasonable approach to me. But I can see that many dyed in the wool mid-20th Century (or earlier) minded railfans could feel their hair on fire. :lol:


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## dlagrua

cpotisch said:


> I just noticed this part, and it’s really driving me insane:
> 
> But the vast majority of Amtrak’s trains are long distance, so that’s naturally going to happen! You can’t just say that the vast majority of people only want corridor trains if that’s pretty much all they’re being offered. To get a sense of what people actually want and need, why not look at how full the respective types of trains tend to run? By just drawing a conclusion from the total percentage of Amtrak riders using the corridors vs the National Network, you are stacking the cards heavily against LDs.


I understand the point but you can also look at LD trains as a combination of intercity routes. Only a small percentage of riders go end to end but it might take three of four corridor routes to service the same cities/towns as one LD train.  It is obviously true that LD train passengers amount to a small percentage overall travelers but every time we have traveled, those trains were sold out or nearly so. The LD trains will never see the same amount of ridership as the corridor routes around the major cities. Those routes run a train every hour or sooner. I believe that a fairer assessment of the value of the LD trains is a measure of capacity. vs percentage of ridership.


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## cpotisch

dlagrua said:


> I understand the point but you can also look at LD trains as a combination of intercity routes. Only a small percentage of riders go end to end but it might take three of four corridor routes to service the same cities/towns as one LD train.  It is obviously true that LD train passengers amount to a small percentage overall travelers but every time we have traveled, those trains were sold out or nearly so. The LD trains will never see the same amount of ridership as the corridor routes around the major cities. Those routes run a train every hour or sooner. I believe that a fairer assessment of the value of the LD trains is a measure of capacity. vs percentage of ridership.


Exactly! Every time I’ve taken an LD train, it’s been at least mostly full. And I’ve been on plenty of corridor trains which ran pretty empty. They should look at how sold out a given service tends to be, and figure out desirability from there.


----------



## Ryan

I don't see anything from your quote that says they're not.


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## jis

For corridor trains it is actually counterproductive to cancel random trains because they run in light hours. Experience shows that a clockface service tends to enhance overall ridership even though an individual train or two is lightly used. Usage should be measured on a per route basis rather than per train basis. As it is a lot ot suburban service in the US (both rail and bus) is barely usable. Let us not make it worse.


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## cpotisch

Ryan said:


> I don't see anything from your quote that says they're not.


Anderson’s argument in that paragraph is that the vast majority of riders take short distance routes. While true, that point really doesn’t really mean anything if you think about the fact that the vast majority of trains are short distance. So even if Anderson _is_ also looking at how sold out the different services tend to be, by omiting that point here, it doesn’t make much difference.


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## sttom

I'm still very interested to see where things end up going. Will Congress finally let happen what the GOP has spend the last 50 years gunning for which is killing long distance trains or will they pony up the money to keep them going while Amtrak tries to use its meager resources to start services that might actually drive ridership up? Its about time someone called their bluff. As much as the prospect of seeing a mass dismantling or downsizing of long distance service is, if Anderson and rail advocates can play Trump and a Democrat House can play this right, we might get a better more useful Amtrak out of this.


----------



## west point

frequentflyer said:


> https://drive.google.com/file/d/15zMIBJGaFhQolqEcvqSdaguz_CMra1R8/view
> 
> Saw this on another rail forum. Gives insight to Amtrak's procurement and operating plans.


If you study the link closely you will note there is not any reference to replacing Amfleet-2s which have 40%+ more mileages that -1s.  If that doesn't say something what does?  Another point is that the last available of figures has ~ 40% of total passenger miles are on LD trains.  Why does Anderson and Amtrak ignore that figure?


----------



## keelhauled

west point said:


> If you study the link closely you will note there is not any reference to replacing Amfleet-2s which have 40%+ more mileages that -1s.  If that doesn't say something what does?


And if you had read Anderson’s testimony, also linked in this thread, you would have found that he addressed Amfleet 2 replacement. Depending on what route they choose to go with the Amfleet 1 replacement order, the long distance single level procurement will either happen as part of the upcoming order, or shortly after.


----------



## dlagrua

jis said:


> For corridor trains it is actually counterproductive to cancel random trains because they run in light hours. Experience shows that a clockface service tends to enhance overall ridership even though an individual train or two is lightly used. Usage should be measured on a per route basis rather than per train basis. As it is a lot ot suburban service in the US (both rail and bus) is barely usable. Let us not make it worse.


Agree with the first part of your statement but not sure if measuring per route rather than per train would present a positive picture of the LD routes. . On a LD service like the EB , CZ or SWC you only have four train sets running on each route. Even if all the trains are filled to capacity, the usage per route will be light   As for corridors that run many more trains; judging by route load may present a more positive picture.


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## jis

American LD routes are not corridor routes in the usual use of the term. So trying to apply what makes sense for corridor trains to LD trains would be foolish to say the least.

A corridor is where you have significant multiple frequencies per day where the notion of clockface operation makes any sense at all. No point in worrying about clock face scheduling when you have a single service in each direction through any station per day.

I don't think that the number of consists necessary to maintain a service is of relevance in ridership discussions. You decide on a schedule and then use however many consists are need. So CZ has daily single frequency at any point on its route. It is a detail that it needs 6 consists to maintain such.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Richard Anderson's Testimony to Congress, from Noel T. Braymer:

https://ntbraymer.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/anderson-testimony.pdf

Quote in the section "Multilevel Fleet" ...

". As a result of the age profile of Amtrak and California’s multilevel fleets, a “sweet spot” appears between FY2026 and FY2031 for an optimally timed multilevel railcar replacement acquisition to standardize, modernize, and expand equipment on current multilevel routes. Such a procurement process would need to be begun early in the next decade and a key topic for the next Federal reauthorization of Amtrak is the future of the Long Distance routes that use this equipment. Congress will need to make decisions about the long-term prospects of these routes and provide sufficient associated funding levels so that Amtrak can procure appropriate types and quantities of this custom rolling stock."

This is where the Wall Street Journal leads to the idea of "corridor vs. LD". Can we have both? Sure, but I'll bet it will cost a lot more than $1.9B a year.


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## Ryan

Yep.  That is the key sentence I pulled out from that testimony back on page 1.

Bottom line is that nobody here disagrees that the current situation is sustainable in the long run.  Amtrak's position going back to Boardman (as he told me this personally when I met him) is that if Congress wants the LD routes to continue, they are going to have to provide the funding for it.

As time goes by and the situation becomes more dire with respect to equipment, the message has been put to Congress louder and louder.  Capitol Hill is where this battle is going to be won or lost.  Anderson will just continue to do what he's told (and funded) to do.


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## lordsigma

Too often on this issue things become black and white and people (at least seemingly) are tempted to jump into one of two camps. With one vision being that Amtrak’s long distance model shouldn’t be touched or modified at all ever or the opposite view that we should immediately cancel all 15 long distance routes and do corridors only.

My biggest problems with Anderson have not necessarily been his views but by the way he has done things. The job of the board and CEO of Amtrak, in my opinion, is to execute the company’s mission - congress sets the mission not the board and management. When it comes to reauthorization though he SHOULD present his vision of his ideal Amtrak and the debate should be had in congress. Reauth IS the time to explore and debate these things. My problem with him is that he has tried to manipulate that and force changes to the mission by doing things like trying to force the SWC bus bridge. In fact some of these actions may hurt his case as congress may be less receptive to any ideas he may have as a result.

But again I think there’s a middle ground here. I don’t think all 15 long distance routes should be just written off and cancelled. But could some changes make sense to make the future Amtrak more modern and efficient? Absolutely. Corridors are the future growth and are where Amtrak will grow ridership in the future. I do think the national network in some form is important, but it DOES make sense for the reauth process to analyze and go through each long distance route and evaluate it and see what if any changes could make sense and come up with a financial plan for each train to try to see what improvements can be made. Take each route and say - could a different service model for this route make sense? What changes could we make while still trying to provide meaningful service to as many of the stations as we can? I think one would probably conclude that some of the LD routes make sense to maintain in their current form, some make sense to make some changes like maybe break them up in the center or something along those lines, and maybe a couple of the routes don’t make sense anymore. But I don’t think it needs to be black or white - all corridors or all long distance - I think it can be (and will) some corridors and some long distance.


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## Thirdrail7

lordsigma said:


> T? I think one would probably conclude that some of the LD routes make sense to maintain in their current form, some make sense to make some changes like maybe break them up in the center or something along those lines, and maybe a couple of the routes don’t make sense anymore. But I don’t think it needs to be black or white - all corridors or all long distance - I think it can be (and will) some corridors and some long distance. ﻿


The LD network can be utilized to feed the corridors or supplement the corridors or vice versa. There is a reason why ridership on the Pigeon increased between certain city pairs when they added another train to the route.  If you bring back the Broadway Limited or some sort of replacement, you'll see the numbers to PGH rise since you've added additional service, with a favorable pattern. The LSL and the Silver Service all benefit from having additional trains. If you can improve OTP, another MSP-CHI train would certainly help the Empire Builder.  There is talk of restoring service to Mobile. That's nice but why not add it to the Crescent, and give yourself more capacity between NYP-ATL? After all, that was one of the benefits of the Gulf Breeze.

If they funded and utilized the LD network instead of starving it and more importantly, stopped robbing the equipment from it, you could justify its existence and work hand in hand with additional service..



jis said:


> American LD routes are not corridor routes in the usual use of the term. So trying to apply what makes sense for corridor trains to LD trains would be foolish to say the least.
> 
> A corridor is where you have significant multiple frequencies per day where the notion of clockface operation makes any sense at all. No point in worrying about clock face scheduling when you have a single service in each direction through any station per day.


As JIs explains, not all LD trains have dining cars and sleepers.  Vermonter, Pennsylvanian and the Palmetto are examples of long distance trains, that aren't quite corridor trains as they only have one frequency.  Yet,they don't seem to incur the wrath of the LD trains, although two are state supported.

The trains should work together.


----------



## lordsigma

Thirdrail7 said:


> As JIs explains, not all LD trains have dining cars and sleepers.  Vermonter, Pennsylvanian and the Palmetto are examples of long distance trains, that aren't quite corridor trains as they only have one frequency.  Yet,they don't seem to incur the wrath of the LD trains, although two are state supported.
> The trains should work together.


Couldn’t agree more. Whatever is decided, fund the routes properly, and equip them properly. Do what needs to be done about the host freight railroads to address OTP. Look at everything including reevaluating the question of whether the current rate they are being paid by Amtrak is fair and if that should be re-examined (and if that may entice them to be a better host to Amtrak trains) along with enforcing the laws regarding priority and holding them accountable when they aren’t following through on their obligations. Again, what makes anyone think that these hosts are going to play any better with a corridor service than a daily train? If we can’t address the OTP problem with the once daily trains we are running now I don’t see how we add corridors with reasonable OTP in some of these areas.


----------



## LookingGlassTie

lordsigma said:


> Too often on this issue things become black and white and people (at least seemingly) are tempted to jump into one of two camps. With one vision being that Amtrak’s long distance model shouldn’t be touched or modified at all ever or the opposite view that we should immediately cancel all 15 long distance routes and do corridors only.
> 
> My biggest problems with Anderson have not necessarily been his views but by the way he has done things. The job of the board and CEO of Amtrak, in my opinion, is to execute the company’s mission - congress sets the mission not the board and management. When it comes to reauthorization though he SHOULD present his vision of his ideal Amtrak and the debate should be had in congress. Reauth IS the time to explore and debate these things. My problem with him is that he has tried to manipulate that and force changes to the mission by doing things like trying to force the SWC bus bridge. In fact some of these actions may hurt his case as congress may be less receptive to any ideas he may have as a result.
> 
> But again I think there’s a middle ground here. I don’t think all 15 long distance routes should be just written off and cancelled. But could some changes make sense to make the future Amtrak more modern and efficient? Absolutely. Corridors are the future growth and are where Amtrak will grow ridership in the future. I do think the national network in some form is important, but it DOES make sense for the reauth process to analyze and go through each long distance route and evaluate it and see what if any changes could make sense and come up with a financial plan for each train to try to see what improvements can be made. Take each route and say - could a different service model for this route make sense? What changes could we make while still trying to provide meaningful service to as many of the stations as we can? I think one would probably conclude that some of the LD routes make sense to maintain in their current form, some make sense to make some changes like maybe break them up in the center or something along those lines, and maybe a couple of the routes don’t make sense anymore. But I don’t think it needs to be black or white - all corridors or all long distance - I think it can be (and will) some corridors and some long distance.


Very well said!


----------



## RPC

lordsigma said:


> I do think the national network in some form is important, but it DOES make sense for the reauth process to analyze and go through each long distance route and evaluate it and see what if any changes could make sense and come up with a financial plan for each train to try to see what improvements can be made. Take each route and say - could a different service model for this route make sense? What changes could we make while still trying to provide meaningful service to as many of the stations as we can?


Agreed. As a first step, let's dust off the Product Improvement Plan docs from, what was it, 2010, and see what suggestions still make sense.


----------



## frequentflyer

And may be time to let the past go. If the statistics are right and few patrons take a LD train from end to end, than breaking it up into corridors do make sense.

"But, but, the train names, history, the memories when I rode them as a child........" Let them go. If chopping the CZ up into corridors will increase ridership then so be it. One can still cross the country via train, may just take a little longer. But if statistics are right, not enough of you are cross country it by train anyways.


----------



## dlagrua

Lots of good ideas, comments and opinions made on this thread and I enjoyed reading them but one point is not mentioned.  The reality is Amtrak owns little of its own track.  if Anderson is serious about pushing corridor routes, he needs to explain to all of us how Amtrak will convince the freight railroads to allow the expansion of  passenger traffic.


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## Thirdrail7

frequentflyer said:


> And may be time to let the past go. If the statistics are right and few patrons take a LD train from end to end, than breaking it up into corridors do make sense.
> 
> "But, but, the train names, history, the memories when I rode them as a child........" Let them go. If chopping the CZ up into corridors will increase ridership then so be it. One can still cross the country via train, may just take a little longer. But if statistics are right, not enough of you are cross country it by train anyways.


What is the end to end percentage of the NEC trains? What is the end to end ridership of the NEC/State Supported trains, the busiest corridor? In other words, how many people are riding the entire route from BOS-RNK?  BOS-NPN? WAS-SPG?  What is the end to end ridership percentage of the Vermonter?

My point is, that figure is misleading. The trains move from point to point. The people? Not so much. Using the aforementioned trains, a lot of them are broken into a sections. The RNK-WAS section is quite busy, but a lot of it turns over in WAS. At that point, the WAS-NYP travel fills the train. At NYP, there is another high turnover but the train is then filled with NYP-BOS travel. If you went end point to end point (as PhillyRailfan did and I corrected him,)you could probably make the same argument that this train doesn't need to run as one train.

The entire picture must be regarded and that includes the expense, operating rules and associated regulations regarding the operation and expense of running one train or multiple trains.


----------



## tricia

Thirdrail7 said:


> What is the end to end percentage of the NEC trains? What is the end to end ridership of the NEC/State Supported trains, the busiest corridor? In other words, how many people are riding the entire route from BOS-RNK?  BOS-NPN? WAS-SPG?  What is the end to end ridership percentage of the Vermonter?
> 
> My point is, that figure is misleading. The trains move from point to point. The people? Not so much. Using the aforementioned trains, a lot of them are broken into a sections. The RNK-WAS section is quite busy, but a lot of it turns over in WAS. At that point, the WAS-NYP travel fills the train. At NYP, there is another high turnover but the train is then filled with NYP-BOS travel. If you went end point to end point (as PhillyRailfan did and I corrected him, you could probably make the same argument that this train doesn't need to run as one train.
> 
> The entire picture must be regarded and that includes the expense, operating rules and associated regulations regarding the operation and expense of running one train or multiple trains.


An additional consideration: How many riders (who might or might not need to ride end-to-end on any train) already need to transfer from one LD train to another to get from their point A to point B? If those routes are broken up into multiple trains, how many riders will be lost because too many transfers will be needed, with waits at each transfer point and connectivity dependent on currently-not-reliable OTP? 

Amtrak is supposed to be a NATIONAL network, not just a collection of city pairs that urban-based bureaucrats see as having the greatest value.


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## AG1

frequentflyer said:


> And may be time to let the past go. If the statistics are right and few patrons take a LD train from end to end, than breaking it up into corridors do make sense.
> 
> "But, but, the train names, history, the memories when I rode them as a child........" Let them go. If chopping the CZ up into corridors will increase ridership then so be it. *One can still cross the country via train*, may just take a little longer. But if statistics are right, not enough of you are cross country it by train anyways.


The proposed corridors don't connect across the country.


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## Larry H.

cpotisch said:


> Anderson’s argument in that paragraph is that the vast majority of riders take short distance routes. While true, that point really doesn’t really mean anything if you think about the fact that the vast majority of trains are short distance. So even if Anderson _is_ also looking at how sold out the different services tend to be, by omiting that point here, it doesn’t make much difference.


Lets not forget that sleepers tend to be the most sold out and the reduction of space is adding a lot of mis information about how many people use the long distance service. In the old days a train like the Empire Builder carried 5 sleepers and a first class lounge and dinner year round.  Toward the end however they claimed the sleepers were sold out so they could then complain no one was riding them. That  made it appear that people didn't want the service.  I rode it the last month when the notices were posted in the sleepers that in 30 days they would turn the passenger service over to the government. That train consist was nearly empty in the sleepers and yet when we tried to book one from Vancouver they said they were sold out. An officer of the Great Northern was also a passenger and his wife told us they tired to get a reservation at the 30 day time period they were accepting them, and were told there was no space available.


----------



## cirdan

jis said:


> For corridor trains it is actually counterproductive to cancel random trains because they run in light hours. Experience shows that a clockface service tends to enhance overall ridership even though an individual train or two is lightly used. Usage should be measured on a per route basis rather than per train basis. As it is a lot ot suburban service in the US (both rail and bus) is barely usable. Let us not make it worse.


Furthermore, a clockface timetable leads to an eficient utilization of rolling stock and personell.

Typically, the infrastructure gets designed around the timetable because if the line is single track, crossings will always be in the same place and thus there will be sidings in those locations for that purpose.

If you don't have a clockface but instead have a stochastic timetable, you end up having more complex infrastructure including crossing sidings that get used maybe just once per day. 

Cancelling a single service in a clockface environment leads to an imbalance with trains and staff being in the wrong place, which needs to be compensated by further assymetries. Therefore once you decide to go for a clockface arrangement, it soon becomes advantageous to go with it rigidly and to avoid exceptions. This dovetails quite neatly with the passenger perspective where a clockface timetable is just easier to use and more predicatble for the passenger.

Problems with low ridership on midday services, for example, can be mitigated by a fares system that encourages off-peak travel choices.


----------



## Larry H.

lordsigma said:


> Too often on this issue things become black and white and people (at least seemingly) are tempted to jump into one of two camps. With one vision being that Amtrak’s long distance model shouldn’t be touched or modified at all ever or the opposite view that we should immediately cancel all 15 long distance routes and do corridors only.
> 
> My biggest problems with Anderson have not necessarily been his views but by the way he has done things. The job of the board and CEO of Amtrak, in my opinion, is to execute the company’s mission - congress sets the mission not the board and management. When it comes to reauthorization though he SHOULD present his vision of his ideal Amtrak and the debate should be had in congress. Reauth IS the time to explore and debate these things. My problem with him is that he has tried to manipulate that and force changes to the mission by doing things like trying to force the SWC bus bridge. In fact some of these actions may hurt his case as congress may be less receptive to any ideas he may have as a result.
> 
> But again I think there’s a middle ground here. I don’t think all 15 long distance routes should be just written off and cancelled. But could some changes make sense to make the future Amtrak more modern and efficient? Absolutely. Corridors are the future growth and are where Amtrak will grow ridership in the future. I do think the national network in some form is important, but it DOES make sense for the reauth process to analyze and go through each long distance route and evaluate it and see what if any changes could make sense and come up with a financial plan for each train to try to see what improvements can be made. Take each route and say - could a different service model for this route make sense? What changes could we make while still trying to provide meaningful service to as many of the stations as we can? I think one would probably conclude that some of the LD routes make sense to maintain in their current form, some make sense to make some changes like maybe break them up in the center or something along those lines, and maybe a couple of the routes don’t make sense anymore. But I don’t think it needs to be black or white - all corridors or all long distance - I think it can be (and will) some corridors and some long distance.


A removal of the ability to take one train, with its needed diner and sleeper is at the heart of rail passenger service. It had been mostly in America where the railroads and now Amtrak has decided that isn't the case. Amtrak was formed to make sure the a system of city to city or cross country routes were not removed from public use.  To accept that they are not needed is a real blow to passenger rail service.  I wouldn't even consider a train where there were no diner or sleepers and you had to change trains three times to get where you trying to go. Its ridiculous at best. Look around at other nations. The premiere long distance routes are still being served by up to date and well taken care of equipment.  With the growing amount of younger people interested in rail as a choice should be encouraging us to provide more points which can be easily reached not making the trips near impossible.


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## sttom

My question in all of this is what happens if Amtrak is allowed to go through with expanding corridor service and Congress actually puts up the money to keep the long distance trains going? As much as the GOP tries to ruin Amtrak they always come up with some way to keep it going despite saying they want to privatize it full well knowing no one wants it. Considering the GOP base tends to be older, killing Amtrak seems to up their with killing Social Security. I could see and would hope Amtrak will someday pursue overnight service similar to what is done in Europe. There are decent sized city pairs along just the California Zephyr that are not that well served by it. An secondary overnight train could be worthwhile. Call me an optimist,  but anything that breaks the status quo within Amtrak and Congress's attitude toward it is a good thing. Cause right now Amtrak is doing ok for itself, but being allowed to die on the vine.


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## Ryan

sttom said:


> My question in all of this is what happens if Amtrak is allowed to go through﻿﻿ with expanding corridor service and Congress actually puts up the money to keep the long distance trains going?


Amtrak will run then, and everyone* will be happy?

*Disclaimer: Literally nothing makes everyone happy.


----------



## sttom

Ryan said:


> Amtrak will run then, and everyone* will be happy?
> 
> *Disclaimer: Literally nothing makes everyone happy.


I'd rather have a 3 times more useful system and a bunch of the same people here mad at Amtrak for not doing things their way.


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## lordsigma

Larry H. said:


> A removal of the ability to take one train, with its needed diner and sleeper is at the heart of rail passenger service. It had been mostly in America where the railroads and now Amtrak has decided that isn't the case. Amtrak was formed to make sure the a system of city to city or cross country routes were not removed from public use.  To accept that they are not needed is a real blow to passenger rail service.  I wouldn't even consider a train where there were no diner or sleepers and you had to change trains three times to get where you trying to go. Its ridiculous at best. Look around at other nations. The premiere long distance routes are still being served by up to date and well taken care of equipment.  With the growing amount of younger people interested in rail as a choice should be encouraging us to provide more points which can be easily reached not making the trips near impossible.


I'm not arguing for the removal of dining/sleeper/baggage services. I am more encouraging the idea of looking at the long distance network in a route by route method and being open to changes that make sense (but rejecting draconian changes that cut off service to huge areas - I'm not arguing for bus bridges either) rather than just looking at the long distance network as a whole in a black and white fashion and that the only two choices for the decision makers are status quo or canceling all 15 routes. Each route is different, has different challenges, and different opportunities. If it was up to me personally, I would keep the full network in place and try to enhance it and expand on it where it makes sense while also trying to develop corridors and fight for the funding to do everything. However some changes to the national network may make sense as long as they are done in good faith to enhance the service and address challenges (And not meant to undermine it or to cut away services.)


----------



## tricia

Larry H. said:


> A removal of the ability to take one train, with its needed diner and sleeper is at the heart of rail passenger service. It had been mostly in America where the railroads and now Amtrak has decided that isn't the case. Amtrak was formed to make sure the a system of city to city or cross country routes were not removed from public use.  To accept that they are not needed is a real blow to passenger rail service.  I wouldn't even consider a train where there were no diner or sleepers and you had to change trains three times to get where you trying to go. Its ridiculous at best. Look around at other nations. The premiere long distance routes are still being served by up to date and well taken care of equipment.  With the growing amount of younger people interested in rail as a choice should be encouraging us to provide more points which can be easily reached not making the trips near impossible.






lordsigma said:


> I'm not arguing for the removal of dining/sleeper/baggage services. I am more encouraging the idea of looking at the long distance network in a route by route method and being open to changes that make sense (but rejecting draconian changes that cut off service to huge areas - I'm not arguing for bus bridges either) rather than just looking at the long distance network as a whole in a black and white fashion and that the only two choices for the decision makers are status quo or canceling all 15 routes. Each route is different, has different challenges, and different opportunities. If it was up to me personally, I would keep the full network in place and try to enhance it and expand on it where it makes sense while also trying to develop corridors and fight for the funding to do everything. However some changes to the national network may make sense as long as they are done in good faith to enhance the service and address challenges (And not meant to undermine it or to cut away services.)


"Changes" should not be synonymous with "cuts." Instead of looking at every route seeking cuts in service (as current Amtrak management seems to be doing), might we not consider running every existing long-distance route TWICE daily, to improve calling times and connectivity and thereby "provide more points which can easily be reached, not making the trips near impossible" ?

An additional point that should be considered in this discussion (without, I hope, hijacking this thread entirely): We're going to need every inch of Amtrak's existing network, and then some, if we're to move our nation's transportation infrastructure toward greater fossil-fuel efficiency to mitigate human effects on climate change. The fact that our current president has his head in the sand about this doesn't make it any less of a problem that needs action, and shrinking the network will make options that future policymakers will need much more difficult and expensive.


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## Amtrakfflyer

Key word above “good faith”. Amtrak’s management has used all their benefit of the doubts.


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## neroden

keelhauled said:


> The LD network as of now is thoroughly useless in every way but one...


Yet again, I'm going to criticize you for lumping totally different trains into one bucket.

The Lake Shore Limited is *substantially more useful and effective* than the rest of the Empire Service (of which it is a part).  Both suffer the same freight-induced delays.  A corridor from NY-Chicago is better than one which stops in Buffalo.

The Silver Star/Silver Meteor/Palmetto/Crescent are highly useful and effective, as least as much so as the Carolinian, and they suffer the same freight-induced delays.

The Sunset Limited is ineffective, yes.


----------



## neroden

frequentflyer said:


> https://drive.google.com/file/d/15zMIBJGaFhQolqEcvqSdaguz_CMra1R8/view
> 
> Saw this on another rail forum. Gives insight to Amtrak's procurement and operating plans.


"Current and future potential corridors" is the interesting page.

I'm glad to see they recognize the essential value of the LSL route, which is 100% current or future potential corridors (the whole route).  Same is true of the CONO route, interestingly. 

The Capitol Limited Route from Pittsburgh to Chicago is there as well, and the Detroit-Toledo connector I've been advocating.

Most of the Cardinal is there, though the Cincy-Charleston portion is missing.  Most of the Crescent is there, but there's an effective reroute from Birmingham to Mobile and a thoughtless gap between Roanoke and Greensboro.  Most of the Silver Service is there.  So is most of the Texas Eagle, apart from Little Rock - St. Louis.

So someone at Amtrak recognizes that the Eastern so-called-long-distance trains are already providing primarily corridor services.

Some of the rest is corridors everyone's talked about forever (Minneapolis-Duluth, Cheyenne-Denver-Pueblo, 3Cs in Ohio,  Atlanta-Macon, etc.).  Some of the rest is bizarre.  The inclusion of Salt Lake to Portland as a corridor is ludicrous.


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## neroden

Ryan said:


> Amtrak's position going back to Boardman (as he told me this personally when I met him) is that if Congress wants the LD routes to continue, they are going to have to provide the funding for it.


And I'm going to criticize you (and Mr. Boardman, and Mr. Anderson) *again* for the *same thing*: treating "LD trains" as if they are all alike.

Congress doesn't have to provide funding for the Auto Train, Silver Star, Silver Meteor, or Lake Shore Limited, because they're actually profitable.  (As long as Congress funds Amtrak's underlying overhead costs -- and if Congress doesn't fund Amtrak's overhead costs, bye-bye NEC, bye-bye Chicago.)

Where I agree is that if Congress wants to keep trains running through Raton, NM, population zilch, it is going to have to fund them.


----------



## sttom

neroden said:


> Some of the rest is corridors everyone's talked about forever (Minneapolis-Duluth, Cheyenne-Denver-Pueblo, 3Cs in Ohio,  Atlanta-Macon, etc.).  Some of the rest is bizarre.  The inclusion of Salt Lake to Portland as a corridor is ludicrous.


Salt Lake City to Portland would more or less be three corridors. There would be the Idaho to Salt Lake Portion since there are a lot of Mormons in Eastern Idaho that could be a potential market. A intra-Idaho corridor and an Eastern Oregon Corridor. If we are talking starting off with 2 round trips per day, these legs could make sense to try. Although, there are far more lucrative secondary lines around the US, or even just within Oregon, Washington or California before we start on what would be heavily traveled corridors like anything in Ohio, the Carolinas or Georgia.


----------



## neroden

Ryan said:


> As time goes by and the situation becomes more dire with respect to equipment, the message has been put to Congress louder and louder.


Absolutely true, but it also has to be made clear that the situation is only becoming dire with respect to *bilevel* equipment.  There are coherent plans for replacing the Amfleet IIs and it'll be easy; and we will soon have 75 Viewliner sleepers (though we really should have more).

So I'll lay out the realistic "disaster" scenario where Congress *doesn't* provide the equipment funding.  One at a time (though not in this order), these would likely happen:

(1) First of all, the single-level long-distance trains continue operating.  With sleepers.  As always.

(2) The Capitol Limited becomes single-level -- possibly being rerouted as the Pennsylvanian on that route east of Pittsburgh, depending.

(3) The CONO becomes single-level.

(4) The Texas Eagle becomes single-level and stops having through cars with the Sunset.

(5) The Auto Train becomes single-level.

(6) Some of these trains may become all-coach (the Texas Eagle has startlingly low sleeper utilization, for example), but most would still have sleepers.

The equipment freed up by these changes would be used to keep the remaining Western trains staggering along for several years longer (by retiring the Superliners in the worst condition and using them as parts donors for the remainder). 

(7) California, Oregon and Washington would buy equipment for the Coast Starlight while buying their own equipment.  If they bought single-level equipment, this might lead it to lose its sleepers; if they bought bilevels, the old sleepers would be attached to the new coaches/cafes.  The West Coast is politically aligned in such a way that it won't allow a loss of the train connection from California to Oregon.

(8) If there were *still* no equpment orders forthcoming, the Sunset Limited (the weakest in every way) would probably get the ax to keep the other three Transcons operating.  The 15 trainsets required for this could be scraped up for indefinitely long (look at what VIA's done with the Canadian).


----------



## neroden

sttom said:


> Salt Lake City to Portland would more or less be three corridors. There would be the Idaho to Salt Lake Portion since there are a lot of Mormons in Eastern Idaho that could be a potential market. A intra-Idaho corridor and an Eastern Oregon Corridor.



[/QUOTE]


The problem is that the entire population of Idaho is negligible, and the same with eastern Oregon.  And the highways are uncrowded and empty (as a result).
 



> If we are talking starting off with 2 round trips per day, these legs could make sense to try. Although, there are far more lucrative secondary lines arond the US, or even just within Oregon, Washington or California before we start on what would be heavily traveled corridors like anything in Ohio, the Carolinas or Georgia.




Exactly.  I mean, Syracuse-Ithaca-Binghamton-Scranton-New Jersey-New York probably has more corridor travel demand than this Idaho route, just to use one local example.


----------



## west point

It will take some critical legislation to cure many of the problems posted on this and other threads.  Much of the legislation needed will deal with the need to require freight RRs to serve all their potential customers not just the select few.  Many of these changes will benefit Amtrak as well.

1.  Allow all capacity increases to be exempt from property taxes by =======

a.  Above certain ton miles and also number of trains.  number of trains will really help Amtrak

b.  Adding additional Amtrak services on present routes

c.  Allowing new routes

2.  Increasing double tracks or more where needed.  That helps with the difference in speed of freight and passenger trains

3.  Removing slow order section this especially helpful for better freights.  This especially  for the extra long trains of today. 

4.  Credit for higher than 80 MPH sections.  Those allowing positive schedule time reductions.

5.  Better grade crossing protection and federal funds for eliminating most dangerous ones ( that somewhat dependent of MAS )  .  Elimination of grade crossing that are blocked for long periods of time or that RRs refuse to stop blocking crossings for hours.

6.  Constant freight train interference sections first priority 

7.  Letting additional capacity be subject to an investment tax credit that would be clawed back if upgrades not kept.


----------



## keelhauled

neroden said:


> Yet again, I'm going to criticize you for lumping totally different trains into one bucket.
> 
> The Lake Shore Limited is *substantially more useful and effective* than the rest of the Empire Service (of which it is a part).  Both suffer the same freight-induced delays.  A corridor from NY-Chicago is better than one which stops in Buffalo.
> 
> The Silver Star/Silver Meteor/Palmetto/Crescent are highly useful and effective, as least as much so as the Carolinian, and they suffer the same freight-induced delays.
> 
> The Sunset Limited is ineffective, yes.


I don't entirely agree.  The Eastern long distance trains have the potential to be useful and effective, yes, but they don't live up to that potential they way they are operated now.  They are infrequent, unreliable, and of limited utility.  I don't buy for a moment that a service that operates hours behind schedule on a daily basis (ie, the Crescent) can be considered useful and effective.  Even assuming the trains operated at a level of reliability equal to that of the airlines, the limitations of single daily service will almost always make them far less attractive to passengers than flying or driving.

I don't mean to say that the long distance network should be written off entirely, but that the status quo is not sustainable.  At some point we have to fish or cut bait with regards to investing in the trains.  The continued limping along with hopelessly unreliable trains operated with equipment that constantly fails is a waste of taxpayer money when there are far more reliable alternatives available.  America's rail network, and in a perfect world the entire transportation system, needs to be examined in the context of population shifts and increasing urbanization to best utilize the federal dollars available, with the understanding going in that some sacred cows will end up slaughtered.  I don't mean just in terms of rail service, but things like EAS flying and the unrestricted access of personal vehicles in urban cores are two that come to my mind as being similarly potentially unjustifiable. 

I would very much like to see investment that would allow for expanded rail service along the LSL or Silver Service routes, for example.  The same level of investment would not be justified for most of the Western routes where the population density is so much lower, which brings me back to my original point that the knee-jerk reaction among many rail advocates of preserving the current route structure, and investing in it equally, is in my opinion misguided.  So much of the country's population, economy, and infrastructure has changed around Amtrak since its founding, and even more so since the genesis of the current passenger rail network many years before.  There is no justification for refusing to take these trends into account when investing in the future of American rail transport.


----------



## sttom

neroden said:


> Exactly.  I mean, Syracuse-Ithaca-Binghamton-Scranton-New Jersey-New York probably has more corridor travel demand than this Idaho route, just to use one local example.


Corridor service to Spokane and the Tri-Cities area would make more sense than a service into Eastern Oregon. About the only corridor in Idaho that would make sense is Pocatello-Idaho Fall-Salt Lake portion. The two cities in Idaho are relatively small, but they are close enough to Salt Lake City and would be a possible expansion. Mostly just because its a shorter distance than Salt Lake to Denver. 

But service in the Inland Empire or the Sacramento Valley or filling out the Capitol Corridor or expanding into the SF North Bay makes way more sense as secondary corridor service. Other than the one mentioned portion, Idaho doesn't really seem to be a big market to expand into. 



west point said:


> It will take some critical legislation to cure many of the problems posted on this and other threads.  Much of the legislation needed will deal with the need to require freight RRs to serve all their potential customers not just the select few.  Many of these changes will benefit Amtrak as well.
> 
> 1.  Allow all capacity increases to be exempt from property taxes by =======


Unfortunately for California, property tax exemptions aren't really possible or even worth it. Thanks Prop 13! 



keelhauled said:


> America's rail network, and in a perfect world the entire transportation system, needs to be examined in the context of population shifts and increasing urbanization to best utilize the federal dollars available, with the understanding going in that some sacred cows will end up slaughtered.  I don't mean just in terms of rail service, but things like EAS flying and the unrestricted access of personal vehicles in urban cores are two that come to my mind as being similarly potentially unjustifiable.
> 
> I would very much like to see investment that would allow for expanded rail service along the LSL or Silver Service routes, for example.  The same level of investment would not be justified for most of the Western routes where the population density is so much lower, which brings me back to my original point that the knee-jerk reaction among many rail advocates of preserving the current route structure, and investing in it equally, is in my opinion misguided.  So much of the country's population, economy, and infrastructure has changed around Amtrak since its founding, and even more so since the genesis of the current passenger rail network many years before.  There is no justification for refusing to take these trends into account when investing in the future of American rail transport.


There is also the prospect that Congress actually puts up the money for the long distance trains and allows Amtrak to use its existing funds to build services that make sense. Even if we gave Amtrak an ungodly $4 billion per year we could have both an improved LD service and expanded corridors. The issue is more with demagoguery that normally pervades politics. Slap billion on a number and you can scare a bunch of people into accepting or voting for something stupid. I am personally being optimistic about the current goings on in regards to Amtrak. Mostly because the prospect of the GOP getting their BS called for once is sweet.


----------



## JRR

Now thatI am retired I can enjoy the LD trains and hope to be able to continue using them. That said, someone once criticized a post of mine by saying “why should anyone subsidize your vacation?”

They had a point but the end to end travel, is not the only thing that anLD train brings.

For the most part, end to end or almost so, is for people like me who just enjoy the trip. When I was working, I could not afford the time that taking the train would take unless it was Baltimore to New York etc.

Without sleepers and diners, people like myself will forgo the train and do other things.

I think there is a place for the LD train in the system as others have pointed out. To chop up the routes and eliminate any reasonable opportunity to travel more than 750 miles will I believe, relegate train travel to just commuter service.

Maybe that’s ok in an overall plan but not what I would like.


----------



## crescent-zephyr

someone is subsidizing your vacation no matter how or where you choose to travel. 

Very few people just ride a train for 100% fun. I may plan a trip around a train route, but it’s always to ultimately get somewhere I want to be. Pretty sure On any given day there are more people making mileage runs on airlines than joyriding on Amtrak.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

If Anderson is trying to push expansion of corridor routes, maybe indirectly I'm hoping we can get the 750 mile rule abolished and routes under 750 miles can be federally funded.


----------



## sttom

Getting the mileage rule abolished would be amazing. I am very much in favor of more corridor service. Even if it makes half as much per mile compared to an LD, it can make it up if it moves more than twice the people.


----------



## Pastor_Mac

I'm presently looking at the MDOT RR map specifically at the Grand Rapids-Detroit corridor. Firstly, what a patchwork of rights of way w/ all the local players involved. Secondly, I find it very difficult to believe a suitable arrangement on CSX trackage between GRR & DET cannot be negotiated w/ MDOT. Furthermore, a true commuter shuttle between Holland & GRR also needs to happen. The West MI region has so exploded in growth and projections are still pointing higher that a major infrastructure upgrade has to happen...not *if* but *when*. The city of GR needs to evaluate a light rail network and a rail shuttle from Monroe Mall to GRR airport. I'm also amazed that there's no ROW from GRR to Traverse City or, for that matter, to Mackinac City.


----------



## Anderson

Looking over the procurement notes, I'm rather stunned at the need for 1/3 of most loco classes in the "shop" pile.  I shouldn't be, knowing the various issues, but that feels just _bad_.  It is more understandable in a few areas (I realize that a lot of locos "live" in places where you don't have a huge number of frequencies to distribute one or two spares over), but seeing that on the ACS-64 line is a bit shocking.


----------



## NW cannonball

crescent-zephyr said:


> someone is subsidizing your vacation no matter how or where you choose to travel.
> 
> Very few people just ride a train for 100% fun. I may plan a trip around a train route, but it’s always to ultimately get somewhere I want to be. Pretty sure On any given day there are more people making mileage runs on airlines than joyriding on Amtrak.


Yup.

Who can say what's a pleasure ride or a gotta get to work because I can't get fired ride. In Mumbai? Manhattan? Fargo?

Chevy Chase?

If the peasants can revolt, ??

????


----------



## neroden

keelhauled said:


> I don't entirely agree.  The Eastern long distance trains have the potential to be useful and effective, yes, but they don't live up to that potential they way they are operated now.  They are infrequent, unreliable, and of limited utility.  I don't buy for a moment that a service that operates hours behind schedule on a daily basis (ie, the Crescent) can be considered useful and effective.




Well, if that's your complaint, it applies to the state-supported services as well.  We've had multi-hour Vermonter and Empire Service delays more often than I want to count.  This is my point: most of the Eastern so-called-long-distance services have exactly the same problems as the Eastern state-supported services.  They're not different.



> Even assuming the trains operated at a level of reliability equal to that of the airlines, the limitations of single daily service will almost always make them far less attractive to passengers than flying or driving.


True, which also applies to the Vermonter, the Ethan Allen Express, the Adirondack, the Carolinian, the Pennsylvanian.... am I making my point clear yet?  Basically I'm saying that "long-distance trains" is a bad/unhelpful category, and the trains should be classified in more useful categories.



> I would very much like to see investment that would allow for expanded rail service along the LSL or Silver Service routes, for example.  The same level of investment would not be justified for most of the Western routes where the population density is so much lower, which brings me back to my original point that the knee-jerk reaction among many rail advocates of preserving the current route structure, and investing in it equally, is in my opinion misguided.




Well, I clearly agree with you here!  As a big advocate for rerouting the Southwest Chief through Amarillo and Wichita (hit the big cities, get more riders) I am certainly not one of the "keep the exact same route structure" guys.



> So much of the country's population, economy, and infrastructure has changed around Amtrak since its founding, and even more so since the genesis of the current passenger rail network many years before.  There is no justification for refusing to take these trends into account when investing in the future of American rail transport.


----------



## neroden

Anderson said:


> Looking over the procurement notes, I'm rather stunned at the need for 1/3 of most loco classes in the "shop" pile.  I shouldn't be, knowing the various issues, but that feels just _bad_.  It is more understandable in a few areas (I realize that a lot of locos "live" in places where you don't have a huge number of frequencies to distribute one or two spares over), but seeing that on the ACS-64 line is a bit shocking.




Apparently shop counts for steam locomotives were ... wait for it... over 80%.  Still, 33% seems too high for ELECTRIC locomotives, where there is very little to go wrong.


----------



## jis

Anderson said:


> Looking over the procurement notes, I'm rather stunned at the need for 1/3 of most loco classes in the "shop" pile.  I shouldn't be, knowing the various issues, but that feels just _bad_.  It is more understandable in a few areas (I realize that a lot of locos "live" in places where you don't have a huge number of frequencies to distribute one or two spares over), but seeing that on the ACS-64 line is a bit shocking.


Didn't they actually say that they were buying 25% (or something like that) more than immediately needed to make room for near to midterm future growth? If my recollection is correct, we should expect a larger proportion of them to be not necessary immediately.


----------



## cirdan

sttom said:


> I could see and would hope Amtrak will someday pursue overnight service similar to what is done in Europe.


Although Europe can be looked at as an example in terms of what can be done in terms of HSR, inter cty and corridor services, and also commuter and rural services, sadly, night trains have been heavily decimated over the last years. Many trains were eliminated entirely and on those that remain amenities have been cut back. The remaining services mostly run with life-expired cars with no plans for replacement. There are some counter-examples with some investment and even isloated examples of improvement (Caledonian Sleeper, Austrian Nightjet) but these gains are largely blotted out when we look at the vast amount of service that has been lost. Large parts of France, Spain, Germany, all of Denmark etc are now without any form of sleeper train.

Some would suggest that some of these trains have become superfluous due to the growth of HSR, and indeed, there are isolated examples where this is true (Paris to Strasbourg for example). However, many of the lost services are not paralleled by any high speed services or other improvements. The alternative journey by rail often involves multiple changes of train and even staying in a hotel overnight. Thus most people who used to take these trains now prefer to fly instead. The problem is that politicians are often not aware of night trains or their contribution and it is generally difficult to raise much protest when another one comes up for abandonment. Typically in the last years prior to a service being discontinued, they have tinkered around with the schedule, fares and amenities to lose as much patronage as possible so that they could prove nobody actually cares.

Maybe it is because for many states in the US, Amtrak is the only form of rail services, that it is much more visible politically and that congressmen do fight to keep it.


----------



## neroden

The distances are just too short for night trains in France and Spain.  Deutsche Bahn wanted to open up maintenance windows for the track at night, which is suspected to be the reason for killing their (profitable) night trains; Austria took over most of them, but not the north-south routes.

Eastern Europe, the entire train system is a mess, night and day trains.  Bulgaria's passenger trains are not in good shape, nor are Romania's, and Serbia's are worse.

China, with much longer distances, of course has plenty of functional night trains.


----------



## keelhauled

neroden said:


> Well, if that's your complaint, it applies to the state-supported services as well.  We've had multi-hour Vermonter and Empire Service delays more often than I want to count.  This is my point: most of the Eastern so-called-long-distance services have exactly the same problems as the Eastern state-supported services.  They're not different.
> 
> True, which also applies to the Vermonter, the Ethan Allen Express, the Adirondack, the Carolinian, the Pennsylvanian.... am I making my point clear yet?  Basically I'm saying that "long-distance trains" is a bad/unhelpful category, and the trains should be classified in more useful categories


Well sure, but the difference comes in the funding sources, which is a separate but related discussion.  The whole point of a federal government is to make investments in the country which are blind to state borders.  The PRRIA requirements create an artificial barrier that doesn't serve the country well. There's no reason that routes crossing state boundaries should be so much harder to start than intra-state routes of comparable length.  Part of any significant passenger rail policy overhaul should be to scrap the whole state funding requirements and allow federal dollars to pay for regional trains in markets where there is significant demand for rail service.  Just as federal money is directed at highway projects of primarily regional or local benefit, so to should it be allowed to flow towards public transportation needs in addition to or in lieu of further building out highway networks. I have to believe that Amtrak will be pushing for such legislation if they are serious about trying to reorient the business further towards corridor service.

Just as some long distance routes aren't worthy of continued funding, some existing state supported corridors probably aren't either.  I don't really see a justification for the Vermonter in the context of trying to get the most bang for the buck out of federal dollars...the single daily schedule is kind of useless and the population density isn't there to justify investing in more frequencies.  That said, there should be no prejudice against state dollars continuing to pay for service if the state's taxpayers want it.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure where I had planned to go with this, but I think it was something to do with my original point that eventually, hopefully sooner than later, the present route map really needs to go through a top-down overhaul to focus resources where they can be used to the benefit of the most passengers instead of this Balkanized network where there are occasional areas that function at least reasonably well, separated by vast swaths of the country with negligible or no service at all.


----------



## bretton88

I highly doubt that unwinding the 750 mile rule is feasible. Can you imagine all the new negotiations with the states if that occurs? I can imagine PA seeing if they can throw the keystone's back onto Amtrak's plate. Fred Frailey posted a good article about why that probably won't happen. More likely Amtrak will pursue very long corridors i.e. something like Chicago to La Junta, a retimed LSL, DC to Atlanta day train, etc. So it will be interesting to see what Amtrak pursues and what the freights will even allow.


----------



## jis

Are interstate routes really that hard to start? It seems to me that there are more examples of state funded inter-state routes that have operated or expanded of late than any federal funded ones.

Vermonter BTW is a state funded train off the corridor, not a federal funded train. Vermont wants to pay for both the Vermonter and the Ethan Allen. Who are we to decide whether they should like to have it run or not? Indeed at the rate things are going even a train like the SWC is slowly becoming a partly state owned train, which Amtrak will have to continue to run if they wish to get funded at all.

I can make a fearless prediction that a top down overhaul is very unlikely to happen. Transportation is a political thing, and that means a vast number of interest groups and stake holders have to be satisfied, with the requisite horse-trading taking place, for anything to happen. So the dreamers here can just keep dreaming if that is what gets them off. :lol:


----------



## JRR

Maybe an effort to obtain non partisan support for the passenger train operations would have a greater long term positive effect rather than the insistence that only one party can advance the ball.


----------



## keelhauled

jis said:


> Are interstate routes really that hard to start? It seems to me that there are more examples of state funded inter-state routes that have operated or expanded of late than any federal funded ones.


For every example of state-funded trains that cross borders, (of which there is what recently--CTRail and...?), you can point to one that foundered.  Iowa killed the proposed train to Iowa City, Wisconsin killed the one to Madison, New Hampshire has stubbornly refused to consider bringing service into Manchester or Concord, etc.  There is no justification for trains that run from Charlotte north to Raleigh but not south to Atlanta except for the artificial state barriers.  They do not stop travel in the corridor, but they make it virtually impossible to use rail service to serve the travel demand because of the funding restrictions placed on potential trains.



> Vermonter BTW is a state funded train off the corridor, not a federal funded train. Vermont wants to pay for both the Vermonter and the Ethan Allen. Who are we to decide whether they should like to have it run or not?


Perhaps you could point to where I said otherwise.



> I can make a fearless prediction that a top down overhaul is very unlikely to happen. Transportation is a political thing, and that means a vast number of interest groups and stake holders have to be satisfied, with the requisite horse-trading taking place, for anything to happen. So the dreamers here can just keep dreaming if that is what gets them off. :lol:


I think that without a reorganization of Amtrak's network there is no future in which it doesn't eventually atrophy into obsolescence.  Unless some sea change occurs in the demographics of the country and the trend towards urbanization reverses itself, the network will become increasingly out of sync with transport patterns, and other solutions will evolve to serve it.  Amtrak is already losing control over the state supported corridors as more states purchase their equipment and Amtrak becomes the personnel contractor only.  They have next to no presence in developing future service anywhere--not in California (they didn't even submit a bid to operate CAHSR), not in Florida, not in Texas, not to Las Vegas.  Where is the growth supposed to come from? There are only so many trainsets sitting in DC you can stretch into Virginia.  Either the US government makes a conscious decision to invest in a passenger rail network that better serves the country, or the current one eventually dwindles into disconnected regional routes.  Perhaps some would still say Amtrak on the side of the equipment, perhaps not, it doesn't really matter either way.


----------



## sttom

cirdan said:


> Although Europe can be looked at as an example in terms of what can be done in terms of HSR, inter cty and corridor services, and also commuter and rural services, sadly, night trains have been heavily decimated over the last years. Many trains were eliminated entirely and on those that remain amenities have been cut back. The remaining services mostly run with life-expired cars with no plans for replacement. There are some counter-examples with some investment and even isloated examples of improvement (Caledonian Sleeper, Austrian Nightjet) but these gains are largely blotted out when we look at the vast amount of service that has been lost. Large parts of France, Spain, Germany, all of Denmark etc are now without any form of sleeper train.
> 
> Some would suggest that some of these trains have become superfluous due to the growth of HSR, and indeed, there are isolated examples where this is true (Paris to Strasbourg for example). However, many of the lost services are not paralleled by any high speed services or other improvements. The alternative journey by rail often involves multiple changes of train and even staying in a hotel overnight. Thus most people who used to take these trains now prefer to fly instead. The problem is that politicians are often not aware of night trains or their contribution and it is generally difficult to raise much protest when another one comes up for abandonment. Typically in the last years prior to a service being discontinued, they have tinkered around with the schedule, fares and amenities to lose as much patronage as possible so that they could prove nobody actually cares.
> 
> Maybe it is because for many states in the US, Amtrak is the only form of rail services, that it is much more visible politically and that congressmen do fight to keep it.


Even if we get half of the high speed trains that are dreamed about, and with our politics and how easily swindled politicians are by reporting about Elon Musk, overnight trains between some cities could still be worth looking into. One example could be St. Louis to Denver. I doubt there is a market between them to justify more than 2 round trip trains during the day, let alone a high speed corridor. An overnight train timed to depart at one end at night and arrive the next morning is worth looking into, especially if they get corridor service around them. 

Taking inspiration or adapting something isn't the same as a 1 to 1 copy. Adding a few second tier overnight trains between a handful of cities wouldn't be remotely the same as anything Europe has, but could be a valuable addition if planned well. Especially if they are connecting two corridor networks to each other. Might not cause a lot of through traffic between the two, but if enough people are willing to take the train around those cities, between them would be the next step. 

And even if existing LD trains keep running and we get more corridor services, a lot of cities will be left with LD trains and inconvenient schedules to get to the next largest city. Like Denver to Salt Lake being a midday to early morning run time or the Starlight leaving the Bay Area in the early morning for Southern California. Lets be frank, even if we had both the existing LDs and a few supplemental budget ones, they wouldn't really be competing with each other in most markets if the pricing and schedules are different or if they even run close enough together to compete. 

And some countries are buying new cars for their sleeper services. Austria is buying Siemens cars like the states are.

 https://www.railjournal.com/rolling-stock/bb-agrees-e145bn-deal-with-siemens-for-long-distance-trains/


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## jis

I have not said anywhere that the federal government should not increase its contribution to passenger rail. All that I said was that the state funding mechanism is useful. The details of it could be adjusted, and perhaps it should be made more like the original 403b where there was no mileage restriction. States that have a specific stake in a train in terms of money spent on it tend to provide a more stable base for trains than those that don't.

The fact of the matter is that most of the passenger count in the country is  not on Amtrak or Amtrak operated routes. It is on commuter routes of various lengths. Indeed that is the case even in places like India and China. And it is also a fact that short-medium corridors generally don't pay for themselves unless they are high speed routes relative to the alternatives available. Amtrak will not suddenly become profitable because they discontinued a few LD trains a replaced them by a few SD trains, since most of the so called allocated cost will remain, and will get reallocated elsewhere, but have zero change in the bottom line or worse, depending on what kind of fares can be sustained on these SD trains. Experience in California and Midwest shows that the prognosis is not very good.

Either way at the end of the day it needs to be a collaborative effort between the states and the feds and some agreement, possibly case by case if a uniform scheme cannot be worked out, has to be used for allocating proportions of the subsidy/investment needed to provide a stable framework for such operations. All other countries that run a credible passnger service do so. I am sure the US can if there is political will. Right now that is lacking.

BTW, "for each that has succeeded others have failed" regarding state funded projects, is a silly argument, considering no new federal funded LD train has successfully started in years, beyond what was already running, in spite of many commendable plans. All died on the anvil of trackage access from private railroads, and lack of funds. Ultimately it boils down to available funds and willingness of proponents to do the footwork. There would be no Texas Eagle today without such, and SWC would probably have become Anderson's dream fragmented mess without the pushback.


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## sttom

As for trains being expensive or the cost being "too high" if we increased Amtrak's federal funding to $5 billion per year, this would be a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on road maintenance. California has to spend that much just to keep the roads in a state of tolerable deficiency. Not sure how much service we could get for $5 billion, but its a lot more than we could get now and more service in high population areas would be good for Amtrak. As for the political will, we just need to push for it. We spend billions on roads for very little return and people like trains if you push the subject.


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## Anderson

jis said:


> Didn't they actually say that they were buying 25% (or something like that) more than immediately needed to make room for near to midterm future growth? If my recollection is correct, we should expect a larger proportion of them to be not necessary immediately.


That would make more sense.  "Sitting in reserve because we don't have a use for it right now" makes more sense than "sitting in reserve because we have lots of [bleep] breaking all the time."


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## Anderson

bretton88 said:


> I highly doubt that unwinding the 750 mile rule is feasible. Can you imagine all the new negotiations with the states if that occurs? I can imagine PA seeing if they can throw the keystone's back onto Amtrak's plate. Fred Frailey posted a good article about why that probably won't happen. More likely Amtrak will pursue very long corridors i.e. something like Chicago to La Junta, a retimed LSL, DC to Atlanta day train, etc. So it will be interesting to see what Amtrak pursues and what the freights will even allow.


The "750 mile rule" is going to stay in some form, but it might be possible either (1) to get the length limit dropped (say, to 600 or 500 miles) or (2) to permit a waiver if the route involves more than two states in a significant manner.

I do think that it would be better to bump Amtrak funding up to about $5bn/yr than to chase megaprojects, so long as a good chunk of that $5bn has to go _off _the NEC.  Something like $1.5bn for the NEC and $3.5bn for the rest of the system with a mandate to partner with states for upgrades.  That would give about $1.5bn/yr for things like Richmond-to-DC, the Sunset East, etc.  But this would also likely require Amtrak to act more like a government agency than a corporation, too...


----------



## thully

I get the logic behind reorganizing the Amtrak network - many cities get poor service from the existing network (ie anywhere with middle of the night service like Cleveland or Cincinnati), and overnight trains are usually not competitive timewise with air travel (and often not money-wise, particularly if you can survive a few hours in airline coach but not overnight Amtrak coach). It seems like there would be more value in better corridors more competitive with driving/flying than some of the LD trains. Also, corridors wouldn’t have the expense of sleepers and full dining service, which could possibly free up funds for more frequencies. I see that as similar to the ridership vs coverage debate in public transit - the NEC would be the ultimate ridership route, whereas something like the Sunset Limited would be a coverage route.

Of course, to shift funding from LD trains to corridors would require either corridors over 750 miles or changing the 750 mile rule - perhaps a compromise could be to allow federal funding for all service that crosses state lines (so intrastate routes would remain the sole responsibility of that state). There’s also trackage issues with freight railroads - ideally we’d build/acquire more tracks dedicated to passenger rail (and ideally HSR), though that would definitely take more funding (which I figure would realistically would have to wait for a new administration in Washington).

At the same point, I could see this used as an excuse to discontinue service and replace it with nothing (or bus bridges a la SWC). I don’t want to see that happen, though would be OK if cuts were accompanied by service improvements elsewhere that seem likely to attract a net increase in ridership. There’s also the need to maintain service of some sort to rural communities, though I can see buses (or Essential Air Service) making more sense than Amtrak in some places. 

Thats not to say I don’t like LD routes - I enjoy riding them (and actually booked a trip on the CZ this summer), and hope that at least some (particularly the more scenic routes like the CZ, EB, and CS) are preserved with sleepers/full dining, though I could see them in the future being treated more as a rail cruise like the Canadian. However, Amtrak’s primary purpose is to provide transportation, and the existing LD network is not necessarily the most efficient way to do that.


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## crescent-zephyr

Who’s riding coach on the Canadian as a rail cruise!? 

It’s really starting to irritate me how people are convinced no one uses long distance trains as actual transportation.


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## thully

I was more referring to the sleeper operation on the Canadian. And I don’t doubt that many use long distance trains (including the Canadian in coach) for actual transportation. I just think it may be more efficient to turn some of these into corridors (and perhaps discontinue some service if adding service elsewhere would result in a net ridership gain).


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## crescent-zephyr

Canadian in sleeper too. Obviously not prestige class but when I rode the Canadian I met several Canadians in sleeper class traveling to work in Saskatchewan, back to school after visiting family in Toronto, and traveling to work in Vancouver among others.


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## bretton88

crescent-zephyr said:


> Who’s riding coach on the Canadian as a rail cruise!?
> It’s really starting to irritate me how people are convinced no one uses long distance trains as actual transportation.


It's pretty expensive to ride coach in the Canadian these days too. But VIA themselves admitted the Canadian was no longer useful as actual transportation in a report they released a couple years ago.


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## crescent-zephyr

Have you ridden the Canadian and talked to people on board in both sleeper and coach? In my experience there were Canadians in both classes (more in coach naturally) riding for transportation.

To me, the only people that make such claims are people who have never ridden the services, and never talked to the people riding.


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## lordsigma

You’re always going to have people with a fear or big dislike of flying (myself included) which was what originally brought me to rail. I use rail for day trips as well as for travel long distances. I do enjoy the long distance rail experience but as someone who has a very hard time flying I am also using it for transportation not wanting to have to drive the whole way.


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## neroden

jis said:


> Are interstate routes really that hard to start?


Yes.  New Hampshire's almost killed the Downeaster four times, Indiana keeps causing trouble for the Michigan routes, one corrupt governor in Wisconsin killed a Minnesota-Illinois project, Ohio wiped out the first iteration of the LSL (despite NY support) before Amtrak stepped in to support it nationally, and so on.  Two states are possible, three are practically impossible.


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## neroden

thully said:


> Of course, to shift funding from LD trains to corridors would require either corridors over 750 miles or changing the 750 mile rule - perhaps a compromise could be to allow federal funding for all service that crosses state lines (so intrastate routes would remain the sole responsibility of that state).


This sounds like a practical proposal.  And corridors over 750 miles are very reasonable (look at the LSL and CL).


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## jis

But then long distance inter-state routes apparently are even more hard to start since none have started of late, and the only changes that have happened decades is shrinkage and down grades of service, under the current and previous regimes of Amtrak.

I agree that it involves considerable horse trading, and if one of the states refuses to participate then the other state(s) may have to pick up the tab. But that is not very unusual, specially when we are talking of access to a big magnet metropolis, e.g. Chicago, New York or Philly.

But until the National LD system is made a priority area of growth collectively by Congress, I don;t see the LD network growing at all. Federal money is not going to become easier unless something else gives somewhere else in the budget.


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## neroden

jis said:


> But then long distance inter-state routes apparently are even more hard to start since none have started of late, and the only changes that have happened decades is shrinkage and down grades of service, under the current and previous regimes of Amtrak.


Not disagreeing.  A policy change so that Amtrak is ordered to support interstate routes (hell, "routes crossing three or more states" would be fine) might point things in a different direction.


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## pennyk

MODERATOR NOTE:

Please remember the "no politics" rule.  Political posts and the responses thereto were removed.  Thank you for your cooperation.


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## west point

A problem with the 750 mile rule is that only one state can have a route entirely in its borders.


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## William W.

lordsigma said:


> I think what Amtrak is really after here is predictable multi-year funding rather than having to come back to beg at the trough every year. We'll see what their "proposal" is on their vision of the reauthorization. I'm sure there will be some suggested cuts or reductions in the long distance network. Given some previous comments by Anderson it may not elimination of all LD routes - I could see him proposing keeping maybe ONE of the western trains intact as a flagship luxury land cruise route in a similar manner to how VIA has the Canadian but likely eliminating or cutting up the others. Some changes from the current routes may make sense....Congress may also be open to some changes if they are done in a way where you aren't removing service to cities. For example one could argue it might make sense to break up the Crescent into two routes. A more reliable NY-Atlanta route would probably result in ridership gains.


The CZ is certainly worth saving. If we're being honest, the Sunset Limited probably should have ended years ago. The Southwest Chief may die anyway with the track situation. The Empire Builder is an open question, but I'm under the impression it's popular among the members who represent the states along the route.


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## crescent-zephyr

Why is the zephyr worth saving vs. others? Just cause it has good scenery?


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## William W.

crescent-zephyr said:


> Why is the zephyr worth saving vs. others? Just cause it has good scenery?


If we're talking about keeping a "flagship" western LD train, that would be it. 

I will say that it has probably the best corridor of any of the western trains. Chicago to Denver seems quite popular, and is well-timed. I don't think any of the other trains have a similar corridor.


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## cpotisch

William W. said:


> If we're talking about keeping a "flagship" western LD train, that would be it.


I really hope that that's not what we're talking about. :unsure:


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## cpotisch

William W. said:


> The Empire Builder is an open question, but I'm under the impression it's popular among the members who represent the states along the route.


The Empire Builder has pretty massive support because it's the only long haul transit option for many of the communities it serves. It is also exceptionally busy.


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## sttom

My question about the mileage rule is could a long distance route be "reclassified" as a corridor and get supplemental shorter distance trains since the LD itself would be traveling the whole distance of the line? 

Or if Amtrak created a "Heartland" Corridor from Kansas City to Houston, how many trains would actually have to run from end to end to fit into the law?

As for dealing with it, pushing to get rid of it is how the negotiations would have to go in a political setting. We can talk about what a compromise would be, but negotiations tend to go more hard line for the sake of getting what you can get. A decent compromise would be allowing Amtrak to run between two urban areas of 1 million people or around an area of ~2 million people without having to sell the service to respective state governments to get enough money to keep the system going. Assuming Amtrak could get a stable enough funding source and that is a fight on its own.


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## neroden

William W. said:


> The CZ is certainly worth saving. If we're being honest, the Sunset Limited probably should have ended years ago. The Southwest Chief may die anyway with the track situation. The Empire Builder is an open question, but I'm under the impression it's popular among the members who represent the states along the route.




SWC has extensive support.  Beyond the recently-obvious political support in western Kansas,

-- Albuquerque and Flagstaff strongly support the train

-- It's the fastest LA-East connection, and arguably the only reasonable one (no, the Sunset isn't reasonable)

-- It's got strong Kansas City - Chicago traffic, and is heavily backed throughout there

It *also* has a lot of support in Wichita, which wishes the train actually stopped there.

Empire Builder has fanatical support from end to end, and every station punches above its weight (more ridership than you'd expect from population).  It is most threatened by the likelihood of losing the track from Seattle to Everett to the sea; the Portland side is more secure but less popular.

CZ is wildly successful from Chicago to Denver, from Denver to the ski areas (Grand Junction), and from Reno to Sacramento and the Bay Area.  Where it *isn't* so successful is Reno to Salt Lake and Salt Lake to Grand Junction.  I've made proposals for improving Salt Lake to Denver, which require more money to run more trains (run the CZ through Boulder, Loveland, Fort Collins, Cheyenne, Laramie, and Ogden, *reducing* travel time while increasing online traffic; run a separate ski train from Denver to Grand Junction daily).   I don't see any reasonable way to improve Reno to Salt Lake, which is almost as empty as El Paso to San Antonio.  There should be a Bay Area - Denver route, though, so Reno-Salt Lake has to remain.


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## neroden

William W. said:


> If we're talking about keeping a "flagship" western LD train, that would be it.
> 
> I will say that it has probably the best corridor of any of the western trains. Chicago to Denver seems quite popular, and is well-timed. I don't think any of the other trains have a similar corridor.


EB has (Fargo-)Minneapolis-Milwaukee-Chicago. Should be Minneapolis-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago, but damn ex-Governor Walker, that crook.  Also has Spokane-Seattle.

SWC has Chicago-Kansas City-(Lawrence-Topeka).

Sunset Limited's got nothin'. Houston-New Orleans could be but underperforms badly (probably because three-a-week... but given that the whole section of route is gonna be underwater soon, I wouldn't put much investment into it).

Obviously the Coast Starlight has corridors actually *operating* along most of its length, excepting the California-Oregon connection and a ridiculous gap between San Luis Obispo and San Jose (which is a perfectly good corridor). 

The Texas Eagle is also essentially 100% reasonable corridors, all the way from Chicago to San Antonio, but now we're not in the West any more.   And all the trains east of there are corridor candidates all the way along, no exceptions.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

William W. said:


> If we're talking about keeping a "flagship" western LD train, that would be it.
> 
> I will say that it has probably the best corridor of any of the western trains. Chicago to Denver seems quite popular, and is well-timed. I don't think any of the other trains have a similar corridor.


All three of them seem to have a popular CHI corridor, the CZ has CHI-DEN, the SWC has CHI-KCY, and the EB has CHI-MSP. 

As for the timing, for the entire route the Chief would get you from CHI to California way faster than the Zephyr. It gets you to LAX early in the morning vs. late afternoon into EMY for the CZ. You'd almost get to the Bay Area as fast taking the SWC/CS as you would taking the CZ (especially if you wanted to go to San Jose). I would be hard pressed if I had to choose one between the CZ and SWC to keep. It would be easier if there was a way to  have service between SLC and LAX (Desert Wind) to branch off the CZ, then the CZ would be the easy choice to keep DEN (and SLC). 



cpotisch said:


> The Empire Builder has pretty massive support because it's the only long haul transit option for many of the communities it serves. It is also exceptionally busy.


Is it that busy west of Minneapolis (and east of Spokane)?


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## neroden

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Is it that busy west of Minneapolis (and east of Spokane)?


Yep.  It really is. (OK, not on THANKSGIVING DAY when I travelled on a near-empty train, but on the other trips I've been on.)

The vast majority of the intermediate-stop traffic is coach, I'd say.  Not a rich clientele.


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## neroden

ANYway, the only transcontinental train where it would make real logical sense to break it into two trains -- for better timekeeping -- would be the CZ.  Splitting the route up, of course, at Denver, where over half the passengers on the train turn over.  Also separating the UP-dispatched portion from the BNSF-dispatched portion to create greater accountability.  Denver's got excellent facilities for putting up delayed travellers in hotels to make the connection, as well.

Unfortunately, it would require the restoration of a maintenance base in Denver.  It could only happen in concert with Denver establishing enough corridor routes to make it worth building such a base.  Which Denver should do but hasn't been doing.


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## cpotisch

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> the﻿ CZ has CHI-DEN﻿


I don’t know if you can call that a corridor. Chicago to Denver is an 18+ hour ride.


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## thully

Yeah - I would generally think of a corridor as a route that can be completed end to end in a single day, without any overnight segments. So CHI-DEN would not be a corridor, though DEN-GJT and CHI-KCY would be. The main reason to split into corridors that would seem logical would be to eliminate overnight segments and the associated bad call times (and also the need for sleepers/diners) - and I think that’s what Anderson was getting at.

The issue is you can’t really turn every LD train into productive corridors end to end (maybe some of the eastern ones like the LSL, but not the western ones), and you need multiple frequencies to allow for cross-corridor connections. As such, you’d probably be looking at cuts somewhere in the LD network offset by increased corridor service, either along part of that route or elsewhere. I don’t see an issue with that, though I don’t want to see it as an excuse to cut service without gaining anything in return (and want any changes to be a net positive for ridership). If they were to do that, I’d hope they at least maintained a high service level on the LD trains that remain (ie no “contemporary dining”), and made adjustments to preserve as many connections as possible (such as reinstating the Desert Wind for LAX service as a section of the CZ if the SWC got the axe).


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## cpotisch

thully said:


> (such﻿ as reinstating the Desert Wind for LAX service as a section of the CZ if the SWC got the axe).﻿


Didn’t Chicago to LA on the CZ/DW take like 80 hours? Because I don’t see how that would be an effective replacement for the Chief...


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

cpotisch said:


> Didn’t Chicago to LA on the CZ/DW take like 80 hours? Because I don’t see how that would be an effective replacement for the Chief...


Not at all, it was pretty comparable in time to the CZ.

http://timetables.org/full.php?group=19941030n&amp;item=0032

Back in 1994, you left CHI two hours earlier and arrived in LAX seven hours later. It's a nine hour longer trip but this is nine hours out of a two day trip and nowhere near 80 hours (over three days long).


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## dlagrua

IMO,  Anderson's vision of increasing corridor service at the cost of long distance service is a pipe dream. Amtrak can do what it wants on the NEC but Anderson needs to explain how Amtrak is going to achieve this with the freight railroads who own the track. Has anyone even asked them? The private railroads don't even want what Amtrak has right now. Also breaking up the LD network into corridors will require billions of infrastructure investment to build end stations capable of corridor service and the freight railroads ( and some states) own most of the property.  On the Western trains there are numerous places where there is only one track. How do you have frequent corridor service on a single track?   More passing sidings perhaps but with busy freight traffic ???  I'd love to have Anderson's reply to these questions. I'll wager that this whole plan is just a ruse to discontinue the LD trains and that few if any corridor trains will ever result.


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## AGM.12

One thing that could make the CZ more of a cruise type train could be re-establishing its original route on the ex WP from Salt Lake City to Oakland through the Feather River Canyon. Could that be possible?


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## Ryan

dlagrua said:


> IMO,  Anderson's﻿﻿ vision of increasing corridor service at the cost of long distance service is a pipe dream.


Where in the testimony (or elsewhere) is the “at the cost of LD service” actually documented as a part of Anderson’s vision?


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## cpotisch

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> cpotisch said:
> 
> 
> 
> Didn’t Chicago to LA on the CZ/DW take like 80 hours? Because I don’t see how that would be an effective replacement for the Chief...
> 
> 
> 
> Not at all, it was pretty comparable in time to the CZ.
> 
> http://timetables.org/full.php?group=19941030n&amp;item=0032﻿
> 
> Back in 1994, you left CHI two hou﻿rs earlier and arrived in LAX seven hours later. It's a nine hour longer trip but this is nine hours out of a two day trip and no﻿﻿where near 80 hours (over three days long). ﻿﻿
Click to expand...

Ah, I see what happened. Wikipedia lists the journey time as 48h 30m, which I thought just meant LA to Ogden, so I added the 32 hours it took from Chicago to Ogden, and got 80 hours. Thanks!


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## cpotisch

AGM.12 said:


> One thing that could make the CZ more of a cruise type train could be re-establishing its original route on the ex WP from Salt Lake City to Oakland through the Feather River Canyon. Could that be possible?


If memory serves, service to Oakland would require miles of backwards street running for the train to be serviced, which is less than ideal.

EDIT: Yep, found the thread.



Notelvis said:


> Going into Oakland would require the train to back up to reach the yard which is between Emeryville and Jack London Square. This reverse move would include running down the middle of the street through Jack London Square and that's asking for trouble.
> 
> Besides, the Emeryville Station is closer to the Bay Bridge which the connecting buses to downtown San Francisco use.


----------



## lordsigma

Note that I am not advocating for having just one flagship western route with cuts to the rest, I could just see it being proposed based on comments made in the past and some of what was in the food and beverage proposal. There does seem to be an interest in a “Canadian” like experience in the RFP. When I read that in the RFP I theorized that their vision may include having just one long distance adventure train with super premium service to try to “keep the rail fans happy” while corridorizing elsewhere else.

I don’t think it would be The only train still with sleepers But maybe the only trans con one. But I could see them keeping an overnighter in some other spots in a “new Amtrak”. For example I could see a Florida setup proposed with a day and night route paired with an intra-Florida train. Like the Palmetto by day maybe terminating in Jacksonville, the existing Meteor at night, and maybe the conversion of the star into a Florida corridor and a corridor in the Carolinas where the star currently ventures to the west. Auto Train would probably stick around as well as part of that.

Again In conclusion I don’t necessarily see all overnight and sleepers go in an Anderson Amtrak 2.0, but it would surely look a lot different than today’s national network. Again this is just all theories and trying to think from their point of view I could be way off.


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## jis

cpotisch said:


> If memory serves, service to Oakland would require miles of backwards street running for the train to be serviced, which is less than ideal.
> 
> EDIT: Yep, found the thread.


The Oakland mention in his message really is a red herring I think. It could just as well terminate at Emeryville. The WP Feather River Canyon route will still get back to the CZ route by Sacramento. I think his point was running it through the Feather River Canyon rather than necessarily terminating in Oakland.


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## sttom

On the subject of infrastructure improvements, we do need to take into consideration that the federal government essentially taxed the railroads to build the interstate highways and airports. There could be an easy argument to be made that something is owed to the railroads for this and paying for infrastructure improvements is part of it. Even if it is through some sort of loan subsidy or guarantee. But that gets us to the point of we need a nation wide transit policy, but that would make a bigger mess out of things. 

There are rather, some locations that could possibly be interested in putting up for more corridor service if Amtrak was proactive about it. Colorado has shown to be fairly transit friendly and the state if given a plan could possibly come up with the money for a Cheyenne to Pueblo route. Or possibly service between Eastern Idaho and Salt Lake City given that there are large Mormon populations there, you win them over and the politics will sort itself out. 

Not to mention out here in California, Newsom might want to work on getting some areas new or increased corridor service as a way to distract from his, pardon the pun, train wreck of comments on the high speed rail project. The point being is that this is the shake up in Amtrak that we could need and if their leadership acts more proactively and markets better rail service to states and partners with them, we could get better service out of it. With things being so up in the air, and us living in interesting times, things could go well or bad. It just depends on who is the most noisy.


----------



## AGM.12

Jis you are correct. My main point is having the CZ use its original route through the Feather River Canyon. I believe there is more scenery here than the current route over Donner Pass. I am not sure how much freight traffic UP runs over this line.


----------



## sttom

AGM.12 said:


> Jis you are correct. My main point is having the CZ use its original route through the Feather River Canyon. I believe there is more scenery here than the current route over Donner Pass. I am not sure how much freight traffic UP runs over this line.


From what has been mentioned in the past, the Feather River Route is fair more crowded than Donner Pass. There was once a proposal for California to run trains from the Bay Area to Reno via the Feather River route and it wasn't pursued because 1) it would be longer timewise 2) there are fewer people 3) UP said "NO!" more strongly than adding capacity over Donner Pass.


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## cpotisch

sttom said:


> From what has been mentioned in the past, the Feather River Route is fair more crowded than Donner Pass. There was once a proposal for California to run trains from the Bay Area to Reno via the Feather River route and it wasn't pursued because 1) it would be longer timewise 2) there are fewer people 3) UP said "NO!" more strongly than adding capacity over Donner Pass.


So would this hypothetical reroute mean losing the Sierras?


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## Blackwolf

cpotisch said:


> So would this hypothetical reroute mean losing the Sierras?


Hardly. Look up the Feather River Route; its a more northerly pass through the Sierras and is much more scenic than Donner Pass is. It is also less prone to snow issues, as Beckwourth Pass is more than 1800 feet lower in elevation.  Might also equate to better fuel economy due to not having to climb as much.  This is why UP values it more than Donner, not to mention at Keddie Wye is the link the Inside Gateway route up to Oregon and the PNW.


----------



## TiBike

sttom said:


> From what has been mentioned in the past, the Feather River Route is fair more crowded than Donner Pass. There was once a proposal for California to run trains from the Bay Area to Reno via the Feather River route and it wasn't pursued because 1) it would be longer timewise 2) there are fewer people 3) UP said "NO!" more strongly than adding capacity over Donner Pass.


The Bay Area - Reno segment is a good candidate for conversion to corridor service – i.e. scheduled to maximise its utility as a transportation service. I fly (from San Jose and Oakland) and drive to Reno several times a year, but rarely take the CZ because it means giving up an entire day in either direction, with significant schedule uncertainty westbound. Other people I know who travel that route regularly don't even consider the CZ because it's so unreliable. It would make more sense to replace it with a daily extension of the Capitol Corridor that conceptually connects to a less than daily Reno - SLC - Denver train. Keep the CZ label on the whole route, if the 750 mile requirement is relevant (doubt it will be on the California/Nevada end). Run the Reno-Denver segment as often as is profitable. There might even be a business case for continuing it on down the Feather River route, but the idea is to run a corridor service where there's corridor traffic and a land cruise service where there's land cruise traffic, designing both to meet the needs of those two very different market segments.


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## crescent-zephyr

It seems like none of us could agree on what Amtrak should be, so how do you expect congress and the Amtrak board members to all agree?

In my opinion Amtrak was created for long distance services, and that’s what the funding should be for. The corridors are needed, but that should come from state funds,  not national. That means Amtrak’s mission should be to provide a national long distance passenger train network. With a few additions, and better obs, we could have something very nice. Already we have a pretty usable network for such a large country. Sunset Daily, sunset east (but a separate train), Chicago - Florida should be the priorities followed by branches off of the crescent like crescent star (to Texas) and gulf breeze (to mobile).


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## cpotisch

crescent-zephyr said:


> It seems like none of us could agree on what Amtrak should be, so how do you expect congress and the Amtrak board members to all agree?
> 
> In my opinion Amtrak was created for long distance services, and that’s what the funding should be for. The corridors are needed, but that should come from state funds,  not national. That means Amtrak’s mission should be to provide a national long distance passenger train network. With a few additions, and better obs, we could have something very nice. Already we have a pretty usable network for such a large country. Sunset Daily, sunset east (but a separate train), Chicago - Florida should be the priorities followed by branches off of the crescent like crescent star (to Texas) and gulf breeze (to mobile).


Agreed. The vast majority of corridors already have ample mass transit options or are easily drivable, whereas long distance trains can cater much more to the communities that really need it. Corridors are still needed, and can serve as "feeders" for the National Network, but federal funding should be allocated much more towards LD.


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## Ryan

While you're welcome to believe what you want about what Amtrak was created for, it isn't a mystery:



> SEC. 101. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF PURPOSE.
> 
> The Congress finds that modern, efficient, intercity railroad pas- senger service is a necessary part of a balanced transportation system; that the public convenience and necessity require the continuance and improvement of such service to provide fast and comfortable transpor- tation between crowded urban areas and in other areas of the country; that rail passenger service can help to end the congestion on our high- ways and the overcrowding of airways and airports; that the traveler in America should to the maximum extent feasible have freedom to choose the mode of travel most convenient to his needs; that to achieve- these goals requires the designation of a basic national rail passenger system and the establishment of a rail passenger corporation for the purpose of providing modern, efficient, intercity rail passenger service; that Federal financial assistance as well as investment capital from the private sector of the economy is needed for this purpose; and that interim emergency Federal financial assistance to certain railroads may be necessary to permit the orderly transfer of railroad passenger service to a railroad passenger corporation.








> (5) "Intercity rail passenger service" means all rail passenger service other than (A) commuter and other short-haul service in metro- politan and suburban areas, usually characterized by reduced fare, multiple-ride and commutation tickets, and by morning and evening peak period operations, and (B) auto-ferry service characterized by transportation of automobiles and their occupants where contracts for such service have been [SIZE=14.666666984558105px]consummated prior to the enactment of this Act.[/SIZE]


 

I'm not really seeing "long distance" in there, the kinds of corridor service we're talking about don't fall under either exception.





Source: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-84/pdf/STATUTE-84-Pg1327.pdf


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## sttom

cpotisch said:


> So would this hypothetical reroute mean losing the Sierras?


No. Serving Reno would become harder without the Sierras. And finally getting the Capitol Corridor expanded there twice a day couldn't be done in a timely manner via the Feather River Canyon. 



TiBike said:


> The Bay Area - Reno segment is a good candidate for conversion to corridor service – i.e. scheduled to maximise its utility as a transportation service. I fly (from San Jose and Oakland) and drive to Reno several times a year, but rarely take the CZ because it means giving up an entire day in either direction, with significant schedule uncertainty westbound. Other people I know who travel that route regularly don't even consider the CZ because it's so unreliable. It would make more sense to replace it with a daily extension of the Capitol Corridor that conceptually connects to a less than daily Reno - SLC - Denver train. Keep the CZ label on the whole route, if the 750 mile requirement is relevant (doubt it will be on the California/Nevada end). Run the Reno-Denver segment as often as is profitable. There might even be a business case for continuing it on down the Feather River route, but the idea is to run a corridor service where there's corridor traffic and a land cruise service where there's land cruise traffic, designing both to meet the needs of those two very different market segments.


There have been plans to get two trains per day from Sacramento extended to Reno. But Nevada doesn't want to pony up any money (or at least didn't 8 ish years ago). This is the issue with Amtrak not having a stable source of funding or flexibility from Congress. State planned routes are nice, but there are plenty of routes that make sense, yet don't exist due to state boundaries. 



crescent-zephyr said:


> It seems like none of us could agree on what Amtrak should be, so how do you expect congress and the Amtrak board members to all agree?
> 
> In my opinion Amtrak was created for long distance services, and that’s what the funding should be for. The corridors are needed, but that should come from state funds,  not national. That means Amtrak’s mission should be to provide a national long distance passenger train network. With a few additions, and better obs, we could have something very nice. Already we have a pretty usable network for such a large country. Sunset Daily, sunset east (but a separate train), Chicago - Florida should be the priorities followed by branches off of the crescent like crescent star (to Texas) and gulf breeze (to mobile).


If Amtrak was going to be reserved for only long distance travel, then who should we sell the NEC off to? 

Amtrak should be allowed to plan routes, sell the need for the service to the states, but still have a flexible enough revenue stream to start corridor services in areas that make sense. For example, its beyond me that there are only 3 stubby corridor lines in all of the Southern southern states along the Atlantic. Amtrak needs a stable source of funding, operational flexibility and business plans for various market segments. Putting up business plans to the states might be good in some instances, but I doubt Georgia or Texas is going to be big on paying for Amtrak to start corridor services there. 

There appears to be at least 3 market segments vying for more out of Amtrak; Long distance travelers who want no change or Pullman level quality back. Corridor travelers who want more frequent and higher capacity corridor service, and people who better long distance trains, but a budget option. A case needs to be made for Congress to appropriate enough money consistently to allow enough capacity to be made for each segment. Our inability to agree shows that there are definitely enough market segments for Amtrak. And a case needs to be made for them to not split the difference between them in an insufficient manner.


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## crescent-zephyr

Ryan said:


> While you're welcome to believe what you want about what Amtrak was created for, it isn't a mystery:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not really seeing "long distance" in there, the kinds of co﻿rridor service we're talking about don't fall under either exception.
> 
> 
> 
> ﻿
> 
> Source: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-84/pdf/STATUTE-84-Pg1327.pdf


Well I'm not just making up my beliefs from la-la-land... the fact that amtrak can't create new corridor services without state funds makes me think someone else has agreed with my views. 

That doesn't mean that I'm right. It just means that is an interpretation of what Amtrak should be.


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## crescent-zephyr

sttom said:


> There appears to be at least 3 market segments vying for more out of Amtrak; Long distance travelers who want no change or Pullman level quality back. Corridor travelers who want more frequent and higher capacity corridor service, and people who better and cheaper long distance trains. A case needs to be made for Congress to appropriate enough money consistently to allow enough capacity to be made for each segment. Our inability to agree shows that there are definitely enough market segments for Amtrak. And a case needs to be made for them t﻿o not split the difference between them in a very poor way.


With regards to the long distance travelers, they can both be served on the same trains similar to the way airlines have Coach, Business Class, and 1st Class at different price points. (And the way VIA rail provides Coach, Sleeper, and Prestige Class on the Canadian).


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## TiBike

sttom said:


> There have been plans to get two trains per day from Sacramento extended to Reno. But Nevada doesn't want to pony up any money (or at least didn't 8 ish years ago). This is the issue with Amtrak not having a stable source of funding or flexibility from Congress. State planned routes are nice, but there are plenty of routes that make sense, yet don't exist due to state boundaries.


Nevada might be more interested now. There's been an influx of Silicon Valley people as companies open Reno operations, particularly Apple and Tesla. The economy is changing, but they'll also want to make it easy for car-phobic millennials to lose money in the casinos.


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## Ryan

crescent-zephyr said:


> Well I'm not just making up my beliefs from la-la-land... the fact that amtrak can't create new corridor services without state funds makes me think someone else has agreed with my views.
> 
> That doesn't mean that I'm right. It just means that is an interpretation of what Amtrak should be.


Amtrak was several decades old before the 750 mile rule came into effect, making it somewhat irrelevant when determining the rationale for Amtrak's creation.

If you want to argue what Amtrak's current purpose is, things like the 750 mile rule become relevant.


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## sttom

crescent-zephyr said:


> Well I'm not just making up my beliefs from la-la-land... the fact that amtrak can't create new corridor services without state funds makes me think someone else has agreed with my views.
> 
> That doesn't mean that I'm right. It just means that is an interpretation of what Amtrak should be.


Or Greyhound didn't want competition. This is a public entity and is subject to all of the political shenanigans that go on inside Congress. 



crescent-zephyr said:


> With regards to the long distance travelers, they can both be served on the same trains similar to the way airlines have Coach, Business Class, and 1st Class at different price points. (And the way VIA rail provides Coach, Sleeper, and Prestige Class on the Canadian).


Business class on Amtrak for the most part is just a disingenuous cash grab and advocating for a budget sleeper option gets derided as trying to kill first class sleepers. So if a business sleeper is off the table cause god forbid a few people in roomettes downgrade (not saying you think this c-z, just that some do) and corridor service should be seen as outside of Amtrak's scope, then Amtrak is going to pretty quickly face the reality that Nixon wanted, which is the death of rail travel. Corridor service, long distance service, and budget sleepers need to be seen and planned as complimentary services and advocated for as such.

For example, Amtrak needs California more than California needs Amtrak. The trains are state owned and the connecting buses are state sponsored. The ridership generated will have cross over with federal Amtrak, which is worth a lot when every last rider counts. There are plenty of transit operators to run the trains for the state and they can come up with a reservation system. The biggest loss would be station staff, but with increasing tech literacy, that is going to become less of an issue. Divorcing Amtrak would be hard, but not impossible. 

If a state will have to put up the money for equipment, crew training, maintenance facilities, train stations and whatever else would be needed, why would the states pick Amtrak to run them when they have other options? Commuter agencies already contract out to companies other than Amtrak, why wouldn't a corridor service also be on the list? This is beyond getting into logical corridors not getting started or planned well because of state boundaries. Like Chicago to Indianapolis being the same length as the Capitol Corridor here in California. 



TiBike said:


> Nevada might be more interested now. There's been an influx of Silicon Valley people as companies open Reno operations, particularly Apple and Tesla. The economy is changing, but they'll also want to make it easy for car-phobic millennials to lose money in the casinos.


Unless the casinos in Reno can be convinced to go along with it and lobby the legislature for it, it won't happen. Both states would need to pressure the UP. And the casino industry is one of the groups in Nevada that have veto power in the legislature. I for one would use the Capitol Corridor from the East Bay to Reno. I have been wanting it since I was in high school years ago.


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## crescent-zephyr

sttom said:


> Business class on Amtrak for the most part is just a disingenuous cash grab and advocating for a budget sleeper option gets derided as trying to kill first class sleepers. So if a business sleeper is off the table cause god forbid a few people in roomettes downgrade (not saying you think this c-z, just that some do) and corridor service should be seen as outside of Amtrak's scope, then Amtrak is going to pretty quickly face the reality that Nixon wanted, which is the death of rail travel. Corridor service, long distance service, and budget sleepers need to be seen and planned as complimentary services and advocated for as such.


As has been discussed elsewhere on this site, "business class" is like a dozen different things. On the LD trains that just use a coach for Business Class it's a bit of a cash grab I agree. If you get 2-1 seating that's def. a step up in my opinion. 

I'm not sure I follow the logic of trains not being able to survive without a "business sleeper." How does that make a train profitable or not? IF you can provide Business class service and charge a decent amount for it and make that the middle ground instead of roomettes and then charge way more for sleepers with better service (include drinks etc.) that could help some bottom lines I think on certain routes. But again... is that what Amtrak should be? Who knows.


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## sttom

crescent-zephyr said:


> As has been discussed elsewhere on this site, "business class" is like a dozen different things. On the LD trains that just use a coach for Business Class it's a bit of a cash grab I agree. If you get 2-1 seating that's def. a step up in my opinion.


Other than the Cascades and a few of the Midwest trains, isn't business mostly 2+2 LD coach but with pleather! seats? That is a cash grab, but if corridor service is outside the scope of Amtrak, the point is fairly moot.


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## crescent-zephyr

I think the Cardinal and Lake Shore operate (or operated?) with 2-1 business class.


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## cpotisch

crescent-zephyr said:


> I think the Cardinal and Lake Shore operate (or operated?) with 2-1 business class.


The Downeaster, Cardinal, overnight Regionals, and Empire Corridor trains (LSL, Ethan Allen, Empire Service, and Leaf), all offer 2x1 Business Class in a split Amfleet I Cafe.


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## crescent-zephyr

And all of the trains out of Chicago right? I know the Illini and wolverine both have them (or did when I rode them).


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## cpotisch

sttom said:


> Other than the Cascades and a few of the Midwest trains, isn't business mostly 2+2 LD coach but with pleather! seats? That is a cash grab, but if corridor service is outside the scope of Amtrak, the point is fairly moot.


To my knowledge, Business Class on the Starlight is the only example of a BC product where pleather seating is the only real benefit of the hard product. Though even that isn’t guaranteed.

On all the other routes, BC offers somr mix of onboard vouchers, complimentary beverage(s) and/or snacks, legroom, seat width, window curtains, and so on. There is no real rhyme or reason why some routes offer a BC product that is absolutely worth the cost and some are arguably complete ripoffs, but that’s the way it is. IMHO, the real issue is less the inconsistency in and of itself, and more that Amtrak does very little to distinguish the different variants and make the benefits (or lack of) clear.


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## cpotisch

crescent-zephyr said:


> And all of the trains out of Chicago right? I know the Illini and wolverine both have them (or did when I rode them).


All single-level state-supported Midwest trains offering Business Class use Horizon or Amfleet split 2x1 Business/Cafe cars.


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## sttom

cpotisch said:


> To my knowledge, Business Class on the Starlight is the only example of a BC product where pleather seating is the only real benefit of the hard product. Though even that isn’t guaranteed.
> 
> On all the other routes, BC offers somr mix of onboard vouchers, complimentary beverage(s) and/or snacks, legroom, seat width, window curtains, and so on. There is no real rhyme or reason why some routes offer a BC product that is absolutely worth the cost and some are arguably complete ripoffs, but that’s the way it is. IMHO, the real issue is less the inconsistency in and of itself, and more that Amtrak does very little to distinguish the different variants and make the benefits (or lack of) clear.


On the Starlight you get a $6 food voucher and 2 bottles of water along with that seat. Either way it needs to be standardized into a 2+1 configuration and a standard set of amenities. As for leg room, from the pictures I've seen of Business class, it doesn't seem to have more than a long distance coach. But what should be in a standard business class deserves its own thread.


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## cpotisch

sttom said:


> As for leg room, from the pictures I've seen of Business class, it doesn't seem to have more than a long distance coach.


Yes, but not all trains with BC use long distance coaches, so it doesn’t really matter in those cases. All that really matters is how much of an upgrade BC is _over_ the coach offerings on that train.


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## sttom

cpotisch said:


> Yes, but not all trains with BC use long distance coaches, so it doesn’t really matter that it’s no better than those.


Having the same pitch doesn't mean they use/are the same equipment.


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## cpotisch

sttom said:


> Having the same pitch doesn't mean they use/are the same equipment.


What I’m saying is that all that really matters is how much of an upgrade Business Class is compared to whatever the coach offering ia on that particular train. So on a short distance route that only uses short distance _coaches_ like the AM-Is or Horizons, it doesn’t really matter whether or not long distance coach on other routes has the same legroom.


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## sttom

cpotisch said:


> What I’m saying is that all that really matters is how much of an upgrade Business Class is compared to whatever the coach offering are on that particular train. So on a short distance route that uses short distance _coaches_ like the AM-Is or Horizons, it doesn’t matter that long distance coach would have the same legroom.


Coach is pretty much the same across the system, the only substantial difference I have experienced is corridor vs long distance. But seriously, how many times do we have to have this discussion? I think calling long distance coach with a sandwich voucher and a can of soda business class is disingenuous. Saying well this is an Amfleet 1  and not an Amfleet 2 doesn't really matter much if you've been outside the US or even on an Amtrak train with 2+1 configuration.


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## cpotisch

sttom said:


> I﻿﻿ think calling long distance coach with a sandwich voucher ﻿and ﻿a can of soda business class is disingenuou﻿s.﻿


Hey, I 100% agree with this. I’m simply pointing out the fact that some of your blanket statements are incorrect (an offense I myself have committed all too many times).


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## sttom

cpotisch said:


> Hey, I 100% agree with this. I’m simply pointing out the fact that some of your blanket statements are incorrect (an offense I myself have committed all too many times).


What you call over simplification, disregard. The top 3 lines with business class use a 2+2 configuration. Because of that, and the NEC being the only fully Amtrak corridor route with it, I consider the 2+2 the norm and the handful of trains with 2+1 outliers. I am also ignoring the few LDs with Business Class cause I can rant for a while about that.


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## bretton88

TiBike said:


> Nevada might be more interested now. There's been an influx of Silicon Valley people as companies open Reno operations, particularly Apple and Tesla. The economy is changing, but they'll also want to make it easy for car-phobic millennials to lose money in the casinos.


2 Capital Corridor trains to Reno has been on the agenda for years, and Nevada is willing to pay it's share, so that isn't the actual issue. It's that in 2009 (I forget the exact year, but it was just after the recession started ending), the UP stopped cooperating. They even stopped a study that was in progress and refused to proceed further. The CCJPA recently even has said there's still no change in that stance by the UP.


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## sttom

bretton88 said:


> TiBike said:
> 
> 
> 
> Nevada might be more interested now. There's been an influx of Silicon Valley people as companies open Reno operations, particularly Apple and Tesla. The economy is changing, but they'll also want to make it easy for car-phobic millennials to lose money in the casinos.
> 
> 
> 
> 2 Capital Corridor trains to Reno has been on the agenda for years, and Nevada is willing to pay it's share, so that isn't the actual issue. It's that in 2009 (I forget the exact year, but it was just after the recession started ending), the UP stopped cooperating. They even stopped a study that was in progress and refused to proceed further. The CCJPA recently even has said there's still no change in that stance by the UP.
Click to expand...

Which is why you'd need both states to pressure them. They'll give for something, everyone has a price. Like the potential of a triple track in the mountains.


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## TiBike

This is why the CZ needs to be on the table. Replacing a long, randomly performing CZ with one Capitol Corridor round trip a day – a shorter and more reliable train – should be a no-brainer, and replacing it with two Capitol Corridor runs a day might even pencil out for UP, particularly if it means cutting back on Reno-SLC-Denver traffic. Throw in Caltrans' demonstrated willingness to spend money on track upgrades, and you have the basis for a win-win solution and a successful negotiation. California's experience with UP proves that money talks and BS walks.


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## sttom

Why would the Zephyr have to be replaced? Whatever track improvements that would be needed to get 4 trains each way from Reno to Sac would more than likely add enough capacity to for the Zephyr. As for traffic further east, I don't see how one train per direction makes a huge difference to UP when they own both routes through to Utah. As for the getting it done, deciding what upgrades Nevada will pay for is the bigger issue. I know one of the reasons why talks broke down was who is paying for the track upgrades between Truckee and the stateline.


----------



## Anderson

neroden said:


> Yes.  New Hampshire's almost killed the Downeaster four times, Indiana keeps causing trouble for the Michigan routes, one corrupt governor in Wisconsin killed a Minnesota-Illinois project, Ohio wiped out the first iteration of the LSL (despite NY support) before Amtrak stepped in to support it nationally, and so on.  Two states are possible, three are practically impossible.


At least in the (partial) defense of the Wisconsin situation, Walker killed what was at that point a Chicago-Madison train (primarily within Wisconsin, to boot) that had a general hope of eventual extension to Minneapolis at some indefinite point in the future; additionally, it was part of an explicit campaign promise (albeit one most of us rather strongly disagree with), and he did it at a point when there was no visible path to funding the rest of the route.

By the way, on the Sunset?  While it has the lowest ridership in the LD system most years, that ridership isn't terrible considering that it only runs 3x weekly.  The daily ridership is roughly on par with a number of the eastern LD trains, and (again) that's with the "sandbagging" of running 3x weekly.


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## cpotisch

sttom said:


> As for traffic further east, I don't see how one train per direction makes a huge difference to UP when they own both routes through to Utah.


Union Pacific is pretty notorious for being extremely resistant to Amtrak adding any frequencies on their tracks, even when the capacity is there. I wouldn’t be so sure that they’ll be totally onboard here. Look at what happened to the proposed daily TE to LAX.


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## Amtrakfflyer

I’m sure UP would change their tune if a person high up had a face to face with them and played hardball. Perhaps a coalition of congressional representative stakeholders. Either way to have more corridors and reliable LDT’s the freights need to be called out.


----------



## sttom

cpotisch said:


> Union Pacific is pretty notorious for being extremely resistant to Amtrak adding any frequencies on their tracks, even when the capacity is there. I wouldn’t be so sure that they’ll be totally onboard here. Look at what happened to the proposed daily TE to LAX.


The original point was adding a few Capitol Corridor trains between Sac and Reno for the exchange of killing the Zephyr from Reno to Salt Lake. Which 1 train per direction doesn't mean much given the UP bought out the Western Pacific and Southern Pacific who used to own the lines in that area. 



Amtrakfflyer said:


> I’m sure UP would change their tune if a person high up had a face to face with them and played hardball. Perhaps a coalition of congressional representative stakeholders. Either way to have more corridors and reliable LDT’s the freights need to be called out.


UP does play hardball and we still have a fairly functional Capitol Corridor. Its just a matter of what do they want to add the promised 4 trains and will Nevada agree to paying their share. This is also why the feds should have a little bit of a say in this and why Amtrak needs a consistent revenue stream like the Highways of the FAA.


----------



## cpotisch

sttom said:


> The original point was adding a few Capitol Corridor trains between Sac and Reno for the exchange of killing the Zephyr from Reno to Salt Lake. Which 1 train per direction doesn't mean much given the UP bought out the Western Pacific and Southern Pacific who used to own the lines in that area.


That still means increased frequency on the line, which is likely enough to get UP angry and greedy. And I don’t think it makes sense to shorten a flagship LD route like the CZ. It’s a 52 hour ride offering a dining car (at least for now), a Sightseer Lounge, and sleepers, so I really doubt many people would be too keen about having to transfer to a corridor train (especially one using California and Surfliner cars) for the final several hours of their journey.


----------



## sttom

cpotisch said:


> That still means increased frequency on the line, which is likely enough to get UP angry and greedy. And I don’t think it makes sense to shorten a flagship LD route like the CZ. It’s a 52 hour ride offering a dining car (at least for now), a Sightseer Lounge, and sleepers, so I really doubt many people would be too keen about having to transfer to a corridor train (especially one using California and Surfliner cars) for the final several hours of their journey.


Yeah that is my point. California has a decent enough relationship with the railroads and any upgrades that would enable 4 extra trains each way would enable the Zephyr to be preserved and probably add some freight capacity over the sierras. I don't know why TiBike implied killing the Zephyr (a federal train) in favor of expanding the Capitol Corridor (a state train).


----------



## TiBike

sttom said:


> Yeah that is my point. California has a decent enough relationship with the railroads and any upgrades that would enable 4 extra trains each way would enable the Zephyr to be preserved and probably add some freight capacity over the sierras. I don't know why TiBike implied killing the Zephyr (a federal train) in favor of expanding the Capitol Corridor (a state train).


Tracks, equipment and money are limited. Yeah, sure, if UP wants to add additional passenger train runs to Reno and Amtrak or Caltrans/JPAs have extra rolling stock and extra money, then just add more trains. But that's not the case. UP wants to limit the impact of passenger trains on its own operation, Amtrak (at least its management) wants to put its resources into services that have higher passenger loads and lower costs and Caltrans (and the JPAs) wants to spend its budget effectively. I doubt Caltrans cares about the CZ, except to the extent its unreliability impacts Capitol Corridor operations, but changing the CZ – break it up into a daily Bay Area to Reno corridor service and a less than daily Reno - SLC - Denver tourist service, for example – would help all three organisations meet their goals.

Anderson's testimony was vague regarding details, but the overall strategy was clear: redesign Amtrak service to meet the needs of the 21st century, rather than trying to preserve the ragged remnants of the 20th. He's right.


----------



## sttom

TiBike said:


> Tracks, equipment and money are limited. Yeah, sure, if UP wants to add additional passenger train runs to Reno and Amtrak or Caltrans/JPAs have extra rolling stock and extra money, then just add more trains. But that's not the case. UP wants to limit the impact of passenger trains on its own operation, Amtrak (at least its management) wants to put its resources into services that have higher passenger loads and lower costs and Caltrans (and the JPAs) wants to spend its budget effectively. I doubt Caltrans cares about the CZ, except to the extent its unreliability impacts Capitol Corridor operations, but changing the CZ – break it up into a daily Bay Area to Reno corridor service and a less than daily Reno - SLC - Denver tourist service, for example – would help all three organisations meet their goals.
> 
> Anderson's testimony was vague regarding details, but the overall strategy was clear: redesign Amtrak service to meet the needs of the 21st century, rather than trying to preserve the ragged remnants of the 20th. He's right.


And my and maybe cpotisch point is that the California can already wrangle with the railways, a expanded Capitol Corridor could happen if Nevada agrees to it and they both pressure the UP. Ergo, the Zephyr isn't all to relevant to expanding the Capitol Corridor if California, Nevada and UP agree to an expansion plan. And this plan might happen anyways regardless of what happens on the federal level since at this point, Amtrak needs California more than California needs Amtrak.


----------



## TiBike

Lot of "ifs" there. Put the CZ on the table and the ifs are easier to solve. You'll get further sooner if all three parties – UP, Amtrak and Caltrans/JPAs – gain something from the deal. Any solution that requires strong arming even one of the parties (and you propose to strong arm two) leaves us where we are now. Which is what a lot of people on this board, but not so many in the real world, want.


----------



## sttom

TiBike said:


> Lot of "ifs" there. Put the CZ on the table and the ifs are easier to solve. You'll get further sooner if all three parties – UP, Amtrak and Caltrans/JPAs – gain something from the deal. Any solution that requires strong arming even one of the parties (and you propose to strong arm two) leaves us where we are now. Which is what a lot of people on this board, but not so many in the real world, want.


Expanding the Capitol Corridor is more a when/where than an if.

Nevada is very fond of the Zephyr, being that it is presently their only rail route. Their state rail plan calls for adding more stations and looking into expanding train service. And California is more than capable of holding its own and getting what it wants so long as the political will exists in Sacramento.

So you are advocating Amtrak eliminating service to some communities just so a state can add service in the hopes that netting up to 3 trips instead of 4 is somehow going to entice UP to the table when they are likely after money for capacity expansion. Eliminating one train doesn't make sense in doing this. 

Also, I am willing to bet Nevada would give the UP a large property tax break to upgrade their tracks in Nevada. Promise the legislature jobs and they will do almost anything for a large company. They basically gave Tesla tax breaks totaling 20 years of Washoe County School District's budget. Manufacturing isn't even one of Nevada's big industries, logistics is and rail upgrades would be a far easier sell to desperate legislators.


----------



## RPC

Let's not forget that over the decades SP added and then removed a second track over Donner Pass. The ROW for the second track is still there; if CA, NV and the UP somehow divided up the costs rail could be relaid. (Of course that would mean clearing two tracks in the winter!) The question in my mind would be whether UP is capacity constrained over the Sierra Nevada so that they'd like to have the track back; my guess is "no."

In general, I think there's a demand for sleeper service even in a corridor. I know I'd love to have one back on 66/67. So why not have, say,  an Empire Service train with a Viewliner II "compartment car" ("Get your work done in the privacy of your very own space!") which just happens to continue to Chicago? Similarly, an Empire Service train overnight NYP - BUF which became a day train to the west?


----------



## sttom

Well for some quick numbers, UP owns 1085 miles of track in Nevada, assuming the cost to double track is ~2 million per mile, that's about $2.2 billion in investments. Nevada could be convinced to give them a break to bring the overall cost of that down or at least reduce the impact of property taxes on that level of investment. This would include the part the Capitol Corridor would use from the border into Sparks. The issue then is making sure there is double tracking entirely from Auburn to the border and extra sidings. So add in about 250 miles at ~$3 million per mile and we got $750 million in costs to distribute between the California and the UP. 

This also could be tied with starting trains up to Redding or south of San Jose to Salinas if the state really wants to play hardball.


----------



## bretton88

sttom said:


> Well for some quick numbers, UP owns 1085 miles of track in Nevada, assuming the cost to double track is ~2 million per mile, that's about $2.2 billion in investments. Nevada could be convinced to give them a break to bring the overall cost of that down or at least reduce the impact of property taxes on that level of investment. This would include the part the Capitol Corridor would use from the border into Sparks. The issue then is making sure there is double tracking entirely from Auburn to the border and extra sidings. So add in about 250 miles at ~$3 million per mile and we got $750 million in costs to distribute between the California and the UP.
> This also could be tied with starting trains up to Redding or south of San Jose to Salinas if the state really wants to play hardball.


750 million (which is the starting point) is a lot of money for 2 daily trains. Not to mention these would just be extensions of existing frequencies. Any new frequencies and you're adding even more dollars.


----------



## jebr

"Trading" the Zephyr for an Capitol Corridor extension also assumes that UP actually would want to get the Zephyr off the tracks from Reno to Denver - a big if. There'd also be enemies gained in Utah and Colorado; I'd imagine Colorado in particular would put up a fight for the Zephyr to remain daily. This is also the only corridor I'm aware of where Greyhound has pushed their passengers onto Amtrak, which means Amtrak is truly the only option for the cities between Salt Lake City and Reno, along with anyone making a connection to northern California (the only bus connections would either be up through Portland or down through Los Angeles.) All to expand a train that the states have to fund anyways?

Seems like an easy way for Anderson and his team to make even more enemies in Congress than they already have.


----------



## TiBike

sttom said:


> Well for some quick numbers, UP owns 1085 miles of track in Nevada, assuming the cost to double track is ~2 million per mile, that's about $2.2 billion in investments. Nevada could be convinced to give them a break to bring the overall cost of that down or at least reduce the impact of property taxes on that level of investment. This would include the part the Capitol Corridor would use from the border into Sparks. The issue then is making sure there is double tracking entirely from Auburn to the border and extra sidings. So add in about 250 miles at ~$3 million per mile and we got $750 million in costs to distribute between the California and the UP.
> 
> This also could be tied with starting trains up to Redding or south of San Jose to Salinas if the state really wants to play hardball.


Who's going to play hardball? And why? The state's approach is to upgrade UP's track until UP is happy with it. That's what's holding up the Capitol Corridor extension to Salinas and the Surfliner extension to the Bay Area. I don't know what Nevada is doing, but if there's any real interest in upgrading train service on the I-80 corridor then that's another argument for putting the Zephyr on the table. It serves two towns between Reno and SLC, in the middle of the night. Even a bus bridge would be an improvement.


----------



## RPC

TiBike said:


> Who's going to play hardball? And why? The state's approach is to upgrade UP's track until UP is happy with it. That's what's holding up the Capitol Corridor extension to Salinas and the Surfliner extension to the Bay Area. I don't know what Nevada is doing, but if there's any real interest in upgrading train service on the I-80 corridor then that's another argument for putting the Zephyr on the table. It serves two towns between Reno and SLC, in the middle of the night. Even a bus bridge would be an improvement.


Actually, the eastbound hours for Winnemucca and Elko are quite reasonable (7:08 and 9:31 PM) and westbound at Winnemucca is borderline (5:40 AM).


----------



## MARC Rider

sttom said:


> Other than the Cascades and a few of the Midwest trains, isn't business mostly 2+2 LD coach but with pleather! seats? That is a cash grab, but if corridor service is outside the scope of Amtrak, the point is fairly moot.


On the NEC business class is 2x2 seating with legroom comparable to an amfleet2 and curtains in the windows, which are helpful for blocking sun glare at certain times of the day.  They are definitely a step above Amfleet 1 NEC coach service, especially when said NEC coaches are sold out.

I've ridden BC on the Palmetto, and have been satisfied even though the Palmetto BC is not much different from the Amfleet 2 coaches, mainly because the BC car is much less crowded than the coaches and I've always been able to get a seat pair to myself for the whole trip.  Plus, I get a 25% AGR TQP bonus for riding BC.


----------



## TiBike

RPC said:


> Actually, the eastbound hours for Winnemucca and Elko are quite reasonable (7:08 and 9:31 PM) and westbound at Winnemucca is borderline (5:40 AM).


Some times are workable, some are not, and that's not even taking all the bypassed towns into consideration. If the State of Nevada wants to provide a useful passenger transportation service between Reno and SLC, the Zephyr won't do it. I don't know if that's a priority for Nevada, but if it is, breaking up the Zephyr into corridor segments would make perfect sense.


----------



## sttom

bretton88 said:


> sttom said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well for some quick numbers, UP owns 1085 miles of track in Nevada, assuming the cost to double track is ~2 million per mile, that's about $2.2 billion in investments. Nevada could be convinced to give them a break to bring the overall cost of that down or at least reduce the impact of property taxes on that level of investment. This would include the part the Capitol Corridor would use from the border into Sparks. The issue then is making sure there is double tracking entirely from Auburn to the border and extra sidings. So add in about 250 miles at ~$3 million per mile and we got $750 million in costs to distribute between the California and the UP.
> This also could be tied with starting trains up to Redding or south of San Jose to Salinas if the state really wants to play hardball.
> 
> 
> 
> 750 million (which is the starting point) is a lot of money for 2 daily trains. Not to mention these would just be extensions of existing frequencies. Any new frequencies and you're adding even more dollars.
Click to expand...

Its $750 million under the assumption that nothing from Roseville to the stateline is double tracked, which isn't true. That is $750 million that needs to be addressed, not directly paid for. given that UP would also be facing increased property taxes, which they might want differed, or breaks in other places. The point is that is the number that would need to be worked out. Also take into consideration that this would also include upgrades into the suburbs east of Sacramento, which is presently looking into starting commuter services. 



TiBike said:


> Who's going to play hardball? And why? The state's approach is to upgrade UP's track until UP is happy with it. That's what's holding up the Capitol Corridor extension to Salinas and the Surfliner extension to the Bay Area. I don't know what Nevada is doing, but if there's any real interest in upgrading train service on the I-80 corridor then that's another argument for putting the Zephyr on the table. It serves two towns between Reno and SLC, in the middle of the night. Even a bus bridge would be an improvement.


The state. The state that has set up and expanded its rail services. California, one of the only states to tell the federal government "hold my beer, I'm going to out do you". 

And Nevada would beg to differ with you with its eastern towns being of no interest. Utah would argue with you with its state being of no interest. A bus bridge might be fine with you, but I am not going to pay $300 for a train trip across the country if a third of it is comparable to Greyhound or more likely, incapable of being booked. What you are asking for doesn't make any amount of sense. Small towns liking Amtrak is why it keeps getting money to keep trains like the Zephyr going.


----------



## TiBike

sttom said:


> The state. The state that has set up and expanded its rail services. California, one of the only states to tell the federal government "hold my beer, I'm going to out do you".
> 
> And Nevada would beg to differ with you with its eastern towns being of no interest. Utah would argue with you with its state being of no interest. A bus bridge might be fine with you, but I am not going to pay $300 for a train trip across the country if a third of it is comparable to Greyhound or more likely, incapable of being booked. What you are asking for doesn't make any amount of sense. Small towns liking Amtrak is why it keeps getting money to keep trains like the Zephyr going.


California has not expanded rail service by playing hardball. The Capitol Corridor used to have a terrible on time performance record. Maybe there were unpleasant conversations with UP – I don't know – but the problem wasn't solved until Caltrans started paying to upgrade track. Same in southern California – cash bought track and cooperation.

I didn't say Nevada and Utah were uninterested in the Zephyr route or the communities along it. I assume it's high enough, but I don't know where it ranks on the cosmic list of concerns. If they are concerned – no reason to think they're not – then the Zephyr as currently configured is only of interest as long as it's the only option.

You're basically making my argument: yes, serving small towns is part of Amtrak's mission and a source of political support. Corridor-type service will serve more of them, and with transportation service that actually meets more of their needs. Keep in mind, Amtrak trains only reach a tiny fraction of the small towns in the U.S., and when it's via long distance trains it's not optimised to meet their needs, except by happenstance. The whole point is for Amtrak to stop worrying about providing subsidised train trips across the country for people with time on their hands, and start providing a transportation service to people who need to get somewhere now.


----------



## jebr

How do we differentiate between a "corridor" train and a "long distance" train? To some extent, a long distance train is just a really long corridor, or a single trainset serving a lot of overlapping corridors. If on-time performance issues could be worked out, long-distance trains could become de facto corridor trains, just with a really long corridor. Sure, there's the problem of certain cities currently having service in the night, but breaking them up into corridors with the same funding won't fundamentally fix that issue. At best, it'll add time to anyone that wants to go somewhere beyond "their corridor," since they'll have to wait for the connecting corridor's train to run (assuming it runs at all.) You'd be better off running a second frequency and offsetting the schedule by 12ish hours, which would give those overnight communities daylight service.

For the Zephyr specifically, you could make the argument that running separate services CHI - DEN and DEN - EMY would make sense, especially once there's frequent service to nearby stations so someone going just a couple stops past DEN doesn't get stuck for 24 hours just because they missed their current once-a-day service. That's mainly because there's a _lot_ of turnover in Denver, and so there may be more to be gained by running it as two separate operations with a connection for those who are going beyond Colorado on both ends.

But there's no rationale for simply chopping up any long-distance line into a bunch of corridors, especially if they're each timed to optimize daylight-serving hours. That'd force anyone who's going between corridors to find a place to sleep overnight every time they get into a new corridor, and that'll almost certainly kill ridership worse than the current situation, with strategic overnight segment placement and occasional delays.


----------



## sttom

TiBike said:


> California has not expanded rail service by playing hardball. The Capitol Corridor used to have a terrible on time performance record. Maybe there were unpleasant conversations with UP – I don't know – but the problem wasn't solved until Caltrans started paying to upgrade track. Same in southern California – cash bought track and cooperation.
> 
> I didn't say Nevada and Utah were uninterested in the Zephyr route or the communities along it. I assume it's high enough, but I don't know where it ranks on the cosmic list of concerns. If they are concerned – no reason to think they're not – then the Zephyr as currently configured is only of interest as long as it's the only option.
> 
> You're basically making my argument: yes, serving small towns is part of Amtrak's mission and a source of political support. Corridor-type service will serve more of them, and with transportation service that actually meets more of their needs. Keep in mind, Amtrak trains only reach a tiny fraction of the small towns in the U.S., and when it's via long distance trains it's not optimised to meet their needs, except by happenstance. The whole point is for Amtrak to stop worrying about providing subsidised train trips across the country for people with time on their hands, and start providing a transportation service to people who need to get somewhere now.


You don't seem to get that cutting the Zephyr and trying to play a shell game with train schedules isn't what will get UP back to the table. They want track upgrades and the 2 states want more passenger trains. They will have to come up with a deal that they all can live with. It could be a mixed of tax credits, direct payments, tax deferments and loan guarantees. But killing the Zephyr isn't going to be on the table since it's a federal route and Amtrak is the train operator. If traffic is really an issue in the mountains, your shell game won't work and they'll expand capacity eventually and the states won't get anything out of it. More corridor service is needed, but if it's up to the states and Amtrak is the contracted operator, the states will lead it.

Also, why is it a bad thing that the state pay the railway to build out infrastructure it's trains use? It makes sense that if you are adding congestion and wear and tear that you're going to pay for it. The UP is a company not a charity. 

My point overall is that Amtrak needs to funding to deal with having long distance service and local service. Choosing one for the other isn't a smart option. Killing one to play a shell game in some areas is just nonsensical. Yeah expanding rail capacity will cost money, but the feds did tax the railways to pay for the highways, so they're kind of owed one.


----------



## neroden

Anderson said:


> At least in the (partial) defense of the Wisconsin situation, Walker killed what was at that point a Chicago-Madison train (primarily within Wisconsin, to boot) that had a general hope of eventual extension to Minneapolis at some indefinite point in the future; additionally, it was part of an explicit campaign promise (albeit one most of us rather strongly disagree with), and he did it at a point when there was no visible path to funding the rest of the route.
> 
> By the way, on the Sunset?  While it has the lowest ridership in the LD system most years, that ridership isn't terrible considering that it only runs 3x weekly.  The daily ridership is roughly on par with a number of the eastern LD trains, and (again) that's with the "sandbagging" of running 3x weekly.


Yeah, but look at the mileage and the ticket prices.  :-(  Getting that much ridership takes four trainsets (for three a week service!) vs. three trainsets for daily service on the LSL or CL, and the ticket prices aren't anywhere near enough higher to compensate -- sometimes they're even lower.  :-(  I should really dig into the ridership by station on the Sunset.  I know the ridership from stations between El Paso and San Antonio is close to nothing.  If I remember correctly, the ridership from stations between Houston and New Orleans is actually quite good (but then, that's "corridor length"...)



RPC said:


> In general, I think there's a demand for sleeper service even in a corridor. I know I'd love to have one back on 66/67. So why not have, say,  an Empire Service train with a Viewliner II "compartment car" ("Get your work done in the privacy of your very own space!") which just happens to continue to Chicago? Similarly, an Empire Service train overnight NYP - BUF which became a day train to the west?


I've proposed this before, with my "TWO A DAY" proposal for the Water Level Route.  There's a really nice schedule possible which runs in the daytime through Ohio and acts as an overnight train between NYC and Syracuse/Rochester/Buffalo -- it would be super successful, especially by saving on hotel costs in NYC.  I'm told the most likely obstacle is actually Metro North not wanting to allow an Amtrak arrival in NYC in the early morning, which is caused by the tendency of the freight railroads to delay Amtrak (Metro-North don't want a late Amtrak to end up in rush hour), which gets back to "We need to buy the tracks from the freight railroads so they will stop delaying the trains".


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## neroden

Ryan said:


> Amtrak was several decades old before the 750 mile rule came into effect, making it somewhat irrelevant when determining the rationale for Amtrak's creation.
> 
> If you want to argue what Amtrak's current purpose is, things like the 750 mile rule become relevant.


It would be a worthy political campaign to abolish the 750 mile rule and replace it with a "federal funds only for interstate routes" rule (or, for those politicians who really want to stick it to Chicago, perhaps "only for routes which spend more than 100 miles in each of three states").


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## lordsigma

Well here is my manifesto for today! For those that say the long distance trains are completely useless and serve no purpose, they serve a purpose for me, not just because I want to take a luxury land cruise but when I need to go somewhere for vacation or a family matter. While I do enjoy train travel by itself, I also take trains because I get major anxiety flying and detest it. There have been some instances where I have had to fly to get to certain places but it is never a pleasant experience. I take the train to get where I need to go to avoid having to drive and to avoid flying which I have difficulties with. I would rather spend 48 hours on a train than the anxiety and stress that anticipating a 50 minute flight causes me. None of this is invalid - the anxiety/fear may be irrational but the anxiety is nonetheless real. I am not saying that flying isn't safe, obviously statistics don't lie, but for some people, myself included that does not relieve the anxiety. Not to mention I have a difficult time with the extreme discomfort of the seating and lack of space on many airlines. I'm not saying I'll never fly again, if I really want to go somewhere overseas I'll have to make myself. But my preference, when I can, will be to take Amtrak which hopefully won't be removed as an option. As I stated earlier I am open to changes that make sense. Some GOOD faith changes may make sense. Obviously I think corridors should be expanded - there is a local one near me I would like to see (PIT-SPG-BOS.) Maybe some national network tweaks make sense, and I will wait to form an opinion on them until I see the proposals, but I do NOT believe in draconian cuts and complete abandonment of the entire national network. I think there is a way to continue to serve passengers traveling long distances, rural passengers who rely on the current services, and developing higher frequency corridors where it makes sense to grow the ridership. I am perfectly happy to see a bigger investment in Amtrak at the federal level to make this happen.


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## Ryan

lordsigma said:


> For those that say the long distance trains﻿ are c﻿ompletely useless and s﻿erve﻿﻿ no purpo﻿se,﻿


Where are these mythical people?


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## sttom

neroden said:


> It would be a worthy political campaign to abolish the 750 mile rule and replace it with a "federal funds only for interstate routes" rule (or, for those politicians who really want to stick it to Chicago, perhaps "only for routes which spend more than 100 miles in each of three states").


The only issue with this is it would negatively effect the west coast and any bill that is going to allow Amtrak to expand using federal money (assuming it also gets a stable funding stream) is going to count on support from urban representatives. And a good chunk of them are from California where you could have corridor service even hit the 750 mile rule, but be ineligible for federal funding. I'm not saying the feds should bank roll every possible corridor, but have room to start routes that make sense even if they stay within one state. 

For example, an Ohio Corridor would make sense, but for Amtrak to run it without money from Ohio, it would have to extend to at least Louisville, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. All potentially worth while connections, but as a starter line, might be ridiculous given equipment shortages. These shortages are more than likely to stay with us even with the Amfleet replacement since they'll get scrapped after replacement and the order will be at best 500 cars, baring an act of God. 

A better rule would be connecting two urban areas of 1 million each that are separated by at least 100 miles. That way an Ohio Corridor could start without convincing the state at the outset, but would prevent shorter lines like the Capitol Corridor from getting started by the feds. I would limit the number of trains that can be run in 1 state with federal funds to 6 trips daily so at least it's useful enough to attract riders and hopefully convince the state to pay for more down the road.


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## lordsigma

Ryan said:


> Where are these mythical people?


I have spoken to people who feel that way and seen opinions implying that. I'm not going to name names or boards - I don't think that does good for the sake of civil discussion as of course everyone does have the right to their opinion.


----------



## The Journalist

I don't know much of the background on the notion of extending Capital Corridor trains to Reno, but some thoughts on that:

I'm not sure how interested the legislature would be in funding such a thing. They want trains to Vegas; adding more to Reno while Vegas has none would be a tough sell. Southern Nevada already feels like they subsidize everyone else (they aren't really wrong about this, to be fair). 

Any such thing would have to be over Donner to serve Reno. Feather is way out of the way. Even so, the CZ over Donner is much slower than the current buses. I-80 has been a bit of a mess lately but that's not the norm.  

All the relevant parts of the route in Nevada are already double tracked. The single track sections are in California, between Truckee and Colfax.


----------



## sttom

The Journalist said:


> I don't know much of the background on the notion of extending Capital Corridor trains to Reno, but some thoughts on that:
> 
> I'm not sure how interested the legislature would be in funding such a thing. They want trains to Vegas; adding more to Reno while Vegas has none would be a tough sell. Southern Nevada already feels like they subsidize everyone else (they aren't really wrong about this, to be fair).
> 
> Any such thing would have to be over Donner to serve Reno. Feather is way out of the way. Even so, the CZ over Donner is much slower than the current buses. I-80 has been a bit of a mess lately but that's not the norm.
> 
> All the relevant parts of the route in Nevada are already double tracked. The single track sections are in California, between Truckee and Colfax.


One of the original goals of the Capitol Corridor was to go east of Sacramento on a regular basis and so far that has only panned out to 1 trip to Auburn and 4 (then 3 ) buses to Reno and 1 to South Lake/Carson City. As for paying for the Reno part over Las Vegas, Reno is far closer to cities in California than Vegas is. Also when the Capitol Corridor was planning eastern trains, Vegas still had a train. 

My thought on Nevada's rail issues would be to give the railways 20 year property tax deferments/credits to get them to upgrade the tracks under the agreement that the state/local governments can run trains when a funding plan is outlined. The state already is looking into commuter service around Vegas so having the capacity expanded before hand would be a good move. Also the state is assuming one of the private ventures is going to succeed in connecting LA and Vegas so funding Amtrak to Vegas is kind of off the table. 

As for paying for the service, the last cost I saw was $5 million for 2 daily round trips or $10 million for 4 daily trips. Or about $12 million in today's dollars. The state could easily tack a what? extra .1% on the room tax in Washoe county to pay for the service and some tax deferments for double tracking through out the state? The issue with deferments for all the lines would be for future service and to get the railway on board. If they can do all of Nevada for certain, they might be more amicable (or be held contractually to it) to allow commuter or expanded Amtrak service in the future.


----------



## TiBike

I never said paying for track upgrades was a bad thing – it's a good thing. The state wanted something from UP and gave something in exchange. That's how business is done. Not by knocking heads together.

Anderson says he wants to rationalise Amtrak's services and operations, and make them match 21st century needs. He wasn't specific, but he was clear that he intends to change where and how Amtrak offers service. Amtrak's resources are limited, so change means reallocating those resources, including equipment and track slots. I don't know what UP wants, but assuming they're economically rational they will listen to a proposal that reduces the impact of Amtrak's operations on their's and/or increases the profitability of the services they provide to Amtrak. That's just one piece of the puzzle, though.

Amtrak operates long distance trains on at least four routes in California that would be better served by trains scheduled and operated to maximise the utility of the transportation service offered within those routes – LA to Bay Area, Bay Area to Reno, Bay Area to Redding (or beyond) and LA to Coachella Valley. And there's LA to Las Vegas, which might have the most potential of them all, but has nothing now. If Amtrak redesigns the way service is provided on those routes – dense service where there's dense traffic, thin service where there's thin traffic – then Amtrak will increase its profitability, which is what it's supposed to be doing, and better serve the public, which is why it's getting subsidies.

The state versus federal service distinction is artificial, and as others have pointed out, relatively recent. If changing that mix improves Amtrak's results and provides greater public service, then workarounds can be found. Or laws can be changed. Amtrak has said that it will outline upcoming changes in its next reauthorisation request – if congress agrees, the law will change.



sttom said:


> You don't seem to get that cutting the Zephyr and trying to play a shell game with train schedules isn't what will get UP back to the table. They want track upgrades and the 2 states want more passenger trains. They will have to come up with a deal that they all can live with. It could be a mixed of tax credits, direct payments, and tax deferments. But killing the Zephyr isn't going to be on the table since it's a federal route and Amtrak is the train operator. If traffic is really an issue in the mountains, your shell game won't work and they'll expand capacity eventually and the states won't get anything out of it. More corridor service is needed, but if it's up to the states and Amtrak is the contracted operator, the states will lead it.
> 
> Also, why is it a bad thing that the state pay the railway to build out infrastructure it's trains use? It makes sense that if you are adding congestion and wear and tear that you're going to pay for it. The UP is a company not a charity.
> 
> My point overall is that Amtrak needs to funding to deal with having long distance service and local service. Choosing one for the other isn't a smart option. Killing one to play a shell game in some areas is just nonsensical. Yeah expanding rail capacity will cost money, but the feds did tax the railways to pay for the highways, so they're kind of owed one.


----------



## SubwayNut

The single north of SAC Capitol Corridor trip originally went all the way to Colfax when it started, from 1998 to 2000. I’ve written up a full history on its station page: http://subwaynut.com/california/amtrak/colfax/index.php


----------



## The Journalist

sttom said:


> One of the original goals of the Capitol Corridor was to go east of Sacramento on a regular basis and so far that has only panned out to 1 trip to Auburn and 4 (then 3 ) buses to Reno and 1 to South Lake/Carson City. As for paying for the Reno part over Las Vegas, Reno is far closer to cities in California than Vegas is. Also when the Capitol Corridor was planning eastern trains, Vegas still had a train.
> 
> ﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿ My thought on Nevada's rail issues would be to give the railways 20 year property tax deferments/credits to get them to upgrade the tracks under the agreement that the state/local governments can run trains when a funding plan is outlined. The state already is looking into commuter service around Vegas so having the capacity expanded before hand would be a good move. Also the state is assuming one of the private ventures is going to succeed in connecting LA and Vegas so funding Amtrak to Vegas is kind of off the table.
> 
> ﻿﻿﻿﻿ As for paying for the service, the last cost I saw was $5 million for 2 daily round trips or $10 million for 4 daily trips. Or about $12 million in today's dollars. The state could easily tack a what? extra .1% on the room tax in Washoe county to pay for the service and some tax deferments for double tracking through out the state? The issue with deferments for all the lines would be for future service and to get the railway on board. If they can do all of Nevada for certain, they might be more amicable (or be held contractually to it) to allow commuter or expanded Amtrak service in the future.


The distances aren't THAT much different; LA-LV is 50 miles longer than SF-Reno, but over much less complex terrain for rail. 

I don't think either of those subsidy proposals really work. They don't need to double track anything in Nevada, so property tax deferments wouldn't work too well. Not to mention that between Tesla and the Raiders, there's not much political appetite for more of that sort of thing. 

As far as the room tax proposal, maybe that's plausible in theory but it'd have to be a great deal more than .1%; not to mention that we already have several room fees. As a comparison, here is an article about the room tax to support the visitor's authority, which added either $1 or $2 (so roughly 2-3%) to room charges depending on where the hotel was located in order to raise $4 million annually: https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/05/14/lawmakers-approve-washoe-room-tax-hike-marketing/27340323/

To be clear, I'm from Reno and would love more trains here; given the cost, UP's lack of willingness to even talk about it, and the political realities of what part of the state is going to get subsidized train service first, I don't see it happening any time soon. Now if California saw this a priority, maybe things would be different. But why would they prioritize vacationers to another state over their own?


----------



## sttom

The Journalist said:


> The distances aren't THAT much different; LA-LV is 50 miles longer than SF-Reno, but over much less complex terrain for rail.
> 
> I don't think either of those subsidy proposals really work. They don't need to double track anything in Nevada, so property tax deferments wouldn't work too well. Not to mention that between Tesla and the Raiders, there's not much political appetite for more of that sort of thing.
> 
> As far as the room tax proposal, maybe that's plausible in theory but it'd have to be a great deal more than .1%; not to mention that we already have several room fees. As a comparison, here is an article about the room tax to support the visitor's authority, which added either $1 or $2 (so roughly 2-3%) to room charges depending on where the hotel was located in order to raise $4 million annually: https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/05/14/lawmakers-approve-washoe-room-tax-hike-marketing/27340323/
> 
> To be clear, I'm from Reno and would love more trains here; given the cost, UP's lack of willingness to even talk about it, and the political realities of what part of the state is going to get subsidized train service first, I don't see it happening any time soon. Now if California saw this a priority, maybe things would be different. But why would they prioritize vacationers to another state over their own?


Sacramento is far closer and generally speaking in a much better place as far as ridership goes compared to the Mojave Desert. As for ridership, California would want to expand connections into the towns in the mountains and the suburbs east of Sacramento, Reno getting extra trains would be more something tacked onto the end/extra leverage against the railroad. 

As for the cost, I don't remember if it was an extra $10 million for 4 extra trains ($12 million in today's money) all the way through to Reno, or just to Truckee. If it was all the way to Reno, I can't imagine Washoe County being asked to pay more than $3 million of that cost. 

As for giving the UP some sort of expansion package, the point would be that they probably wouldn't be willing to allow a train to run over the boarder without getting something out of Nevada. Best case scenario is California gives the UP something (tax deferments, credits, loan guarantees and direct payments) for double tracking and other what nots up until the border. Even if the railway doesn't need anything directly for service to Reno, it could still say it needs something east of Reno for the sake of accommodating extra trains. 

Also if Nevada were to give the railway something for a statewide project, the state would be smart to demand a contractual obligation to allow more service when needed. $2.2 billion would be the entire cost of double tracking the entire state. Deferring property taxes would probably be the easiest thing for the state to get through, I agree probably not all of it, since its putting off when the tax base gets reassessed vs not collecting or losing revenue. If UP were to put up $2 billion in property improvements, their property would become worth that much more. Not adding that value to their property value for 25 years could lead to local governments not collecting $500 million in taxes, but it would still be collecting based on the pre-construction values. 

I used to live in Reno and still visit from time to time. I would more often if I didn't have to drive, mostly because I hate driving through Sacramento. But as for which city would get it first, if a state wide plan is being put forth, Reno could get its extra trains and Vegas could get whatever projects it wants to do green lit now. I know they have been talking about a commuter rail line and light rail, getting a commitment to one of them could make legislators from Clark County more willing to go along with it.


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## cpotisch

TiBike said:


> If﻿﻿ Amtrak﻿ redesigns the way service is provided on those routes – dense service where there's dense traffic, thin service where there's thin traffic – then Amtrak will increase its profitability, which is what it's supposed to be doing, and better serve the public, which is why it's getting subsidie﻿s.


But they are already doing that. Look at the Amtrak system map and I think it’s pretty clear that there are trains galore in the busiest and densest areas. I personally feel that the Northeast and Midwest need intercity rail service the least, since we have so many other transit options. Meanwhile all the small towns in flyover country  throughout the U.S. that lack almost any long haul transportation really do need train travel. So I just don’t see how Amtrak will at all better serve America if we dismantle the national network and chop things up into only the busiest corridors, either leaving towns without any service, or requiring so many transfers that it’s not practical.


----------



## sttom

If we are talking public subsidies, Amtrak's billion is nothing compared to what the airlines got $3.2 billion in airport capital funds in 2018. Some estimates put state spending at $1 billion more. This is on top of getting bailouts, guaranteed contracts for federal business, the billions in contracts Boeing gets from the military ($13 billion just last year), labor protections and never facing state level consumer protections. I think giving Amtrak an extra billion and some flexibility isn't asking too much.


----------



## lordsigma

TiBike said:


> laws can be changed. Amtrak has said that it will outline upcoming changes in its next reauthorisation request – if congress agrees, the law will change.


It’s not going to happen. We just had 90+ senators vote to instruct Amtrak to knock it off regarding the SWC situation. I don’t think you’re going to get them to now agree to that sort of setup system wide. 

Ultimately small corridors should be the responsibility of the states as has been recently decided. The federal government should be dealing with longer corridors that serve multiple states. And the federal government has subsidized this equipment for Amtrak - it should not be able to be diverted to service that should be up to states to figure out. I’d be happy to see the federal government invest in corridor development in interested states but in addition to national network funding. I’m all for increasing Amtrak’s resources and not rearranging the current pieces. 

Could changes to some of those LD corridors make sense in an Amtrak 2.0? Sure. But changes that make those long corridors better not a redistribution to state corridors. This sort of proposal doesn’t work with the available equipment without either outright dropping out the segments between the dense corridors on the current LD routes or doing bus bridges - the SWC was Anderson’s testing the waters on this and it was pretty resoundly rejected. 

I think he is going to have to tweak his ideas a bit to get any consideration from congress. Him and his team have also hurt their chances with the lack of transparency and their atrocious PR. Had he come to the table when he was hired clear about his vision for Amtrak he’d probably get people to be more open but this sneaky cloak and dagger stuff of making cuts and alluding to it vaguely while sending mixed messages publicly I think hurts their credibility. Also, if they do indeed come forward with a proposal request to essentially disassemble the national network, then they have been outright lying when they have responded to inquiries stating that they remain committed to a national network which Coscia has done several times. However I will wait to see what Anderson’s ideas are before I form final opinions. I am hoping he learned from the SWC incident and paid attention to the recent instruction from congress and will tweak his requests accordingly.


----------



## cpotisch

sttom said:


> If we are talking public subsidies, Amtrak's billion is nothing compared to what the airlines got $3.2 billion in airport capital funds in 2018. Some estimates put state spending at $1 billion more. This is on top of getting bailouts, guaranteed contracts for federal business, the billions in contracts Boeing gets from the military ($13 billion just last year), labor protections and never facing state level consumer protections. I think giving Amtrak an extra billion and some flexibility isn't asking too much.


Your point still stands, but for future reference, Amtrak got $1.9 billion this year (FY2019) and last.


----------



## Anderson

TiBike said:


> I never said paying for track upgrades was a bad thing – it's a good thing. The state wanted something from UP and gave something in exchange. That's how business is done. Not by knocking heads together.
> 
> Anderson says he wants to rationalise Amtrak's services and operations, and make them match 21st century needs. He wasn't specific, but he was clear that he intends to change where and how Amtrak offers service. Amtrak's resources are limited, so change means reallocating those resources, including equipment and track slots. I don't know what UP wants, but assuming they're economically rational they will listen to a proposal that reduces the impact of Amtrak's operations on their's and/or increases the profitability of the services they provide to Amtrak. That's just one piece of the puzzle, though.
> 
> Amtrak operates long distance trains on at least four routes in California that would be better served by trains scheduled and operated to maximise the utility of the transportation service offered within those routes – LA to Bay Area, Bay Area to Reno, Bay Area to Redding (or beyond) and LA to Coachella Valley. And there's LA to Las Vegas, which might have the most potential of them all, but has nothing now. If Amtrak redesigns the way service is provided on those routes – dense service where there's dense traffic, thin service where there's thin traffic – then Amtrak will increase its profitability, which is what it's supposed to be doing, and better serve the public, which is why it's getting subsidies.
> 
> The state versus federal service distinction is artificial, and as others have pointed out, relatively recent. If changing that mix improves Amtrak's results and provides greater public service, then workarounds can be found. Or laws can be changed. Amtrak has said that it will outline upcoming changes in its next reauthorisation request – if congress agrees, the law will change.


The problem is that there's a base level of service that's needed to sustain transportation utility.  There was a rumored plan floated a year or two ago to, IIRC, cut the Builder to 3x/week and add trains CHI-MSP.  The problem being that losing daily service generally doesn't do much for your per-train losses since a lot of pax adjust their travel...to other modes.  Per-train ridership didn't spike when Amtrak tried this in the 1990s, and it didn't spike when VIA did this to the _Ocean_ a few years back, either.

Of course, with a substantial equipment order coming, there _does_ seem to be room to expand service on some of these corridors...it just needs to _not_ come at the expense of breaking longer trips.  I won't disagree that a good chunk of growth in the future is going to come from corridors...

...but, given that sleeper ridership reached its recent peak in FY15 (and FY16 and FY17 were the second-highest and third-highest years as of late) and ridership has remained _well_ above where it was a decade ago (or fifteen years ago, if you want to kick the recession out of the mix), raising a stink about dropping LD ridership is, generally, at most an attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy.  In FY18, somewhere around 1/3 of the ridership hits can be clearly traced to the NYP situation and/or the Cap/LSL meal fiasco, another chunk to "right-sizing" the SWC on many occasions, and some portion of the remainder to knock-on effects from the above.  LD ridership is off from record levels, yes, but how much of that is chronic OTP issues and similar problems?

Look, if the future expansions to the system are 80-90% corridor-based, I'm fine with that.  But there isn't a compelling case to axe the LD network.  If anything, there seems to be a case to refresh the trains and relaunch them with new equipment, improved amenities...and some added capacity.


----------



## TiBike

If congress is willing to increase subsidies to a loss making, long distance leisure travel business and put more more money into high traffic, high economic utility corridor service, then cool. Everybody is happy, except maybe people who prefer other government subsidised services that didn't get funded instead. But if you're running a business you have resource constraints and bottom line goals – more profit usually, but in Amtrak's case less losses.

OTP is a huge problem for Amtrak. There's little evidence outside of the outrage on this board and at union meetings that meal service changes had a measurable effect, but its inability to offer reliable transportation on long distance trains limits its market to people who aren't in a hurry and don't need to arrive at any particular time. That makes it entertainment, not core transportation. On the other hand, the frequency of trains and the level of service, cleanliness and good repair  – and the price of tickets – follows from a strategy of attracting marginal transportation customers. The evidence is that OTP problems are getting worse, not better. You can't just hand wave it away. Or legislate it away.

The logical path is to focus business lines on specific market segments, and not try to be everything to everyone. Amtrak might well be able to turn long distance service into a viable business by scheduling and pricing trains to serve customers who are willing to pay their own way – (ocean) cruise lines figured out how to do that. Amtrak can't copy that model but it can try to find a similar one of its own. And put more of its subsidies into mass market passenger transportation that better serves the people who pay those subsidies.


----------



## Maglev

This map was posted on Facebook:


----------



## cirdan

TiBike said:


> The logical path is to focus business lines on specific market segments, and not try to be everything to everyone. Amtrak might well be able to turn long distance service into a viable business by scheduling and pricing trains to serve customers who are willing to pay their own way – (ocean) cruise lines figured out how to do that. Amtrak can't copy that model but it can try to find a similar one of its own. And put more of its subsidies into mass market passenger transportation that better serves the people who pay those subsidies.


Entirely true, but then we are getting into land cruise territory. There probably aren't enough passengers willing to pay such prices so you may soon get into once a week and nothing at all in the winter sort of territory, which is morer or less the same as irrelevence.


----------



## jis

Considering that no state corridor pays anywhere near its own way unless they can take advantage of being attached to the NEC, and there is no real possibility of that changing, why is it necessary for LD to pay their own way to cover bizarre Amtrak accounting's idea of what they cost, which is almost universality acknowledged now to be way off base?


----------



## bretton88

Maglev said:


> This map was posted on Facebook:
> /monthly_2019_02/53423770_10156191949377916_2183567369060745216_n.jpg.4028dfb1fb5c3d01f0f52843a7b086b3.jpg


I've seen this float around. I wonder about it's validity. No OKC to Wichita (one that's probably the closest to being able to start)? SLC to Boise? It seems to be a good overview of what Amtrak is aiming for, but doesn't seem to be entirely accurate.


----------



## west point

If we want to be fair about adding capacity to a route lets look at this.  If a route from A - B has a new siding installed and used by AMTRAK or a freight Amtrak is passing all things are equal.  But when the Freight RR uses that siding to pass 2 freights that would not interfere with Amtrak them should that cause a maintenance credit for that siding to Amtrak for that use?


----------



## Thirdrail7

TiBike said:


> The logical path is to focus business lines on specific market segments, and not try to be everything to everyone


Yet, we charge everyone to benefit specific market segments . That is what causes the trouble.  Killing a train in one location while adding additional service to other areas is what triggered the random 750 mile rule.


----------



## sttom

The problem is some people will use "innovation" et all assorted/associated buzzwords to justify either killing long distance service or making Amtrak the contract operator of a glorified commuter service. Amtrak needs more money and money for capital improvements, but it needs to be seen holistically rather than 3 market segments fighting each other for relevance. Corridor service is needed to drive up ridership and interest that will feed into long distance trains. Along with the LDs having other options like a budget sleeper and potentially regional coach for a discounted fare on shorter trips or other such services. 

Amtrak advocacy comes off as "protect LDs and the NEC and to hell with the rest of them!" to Southerners so their politicians have no qualms about cutting Amtrak. This could easily be alleviated if part of the Silver Service got corridor service from DC to Atlanta (yes I know the Silver Service trains don't go there) would eventually get enough ridership if regional trains hooked into Atlanta and connected with the Piedmont. Another politically motivated, but useful "Corridor" would be to have a Heartland Corridor run from Kansas City to Houston. It would serve the same purpose of getting increase public buy in and therefore less pressure to cut Amtrak and eventually pressure to expand it. 

As for subsidies, all forms of transportation are subsidized from us the tax payers. The railroads just get the least amount compared to airlines and roads. The capital expenditures for major airports is more than twice what Amtrak gets to operate a year. Highways get billions which supports bus and shipping companies that directly compete with Amtrak and the railroads. Our gas taxes barely cover half the cost of road expansion, let alone expansion. Hell in California we are spending an extra $5 billion to keep our roads in a state of tolerable deficiency. $165 billion got spent on highways in 2014, gas tax revenues covered about half of that. Amtrak's farebox recovery is over 90%.


----------



## cirdan

bretton88 said:


> Maglev said:
> 
> 
> 
> This map was posted on Facebook:
> /monthly_2019_02/53423770_10156191949377916_2183567369060745216_n.jpg.4028dfb1fb5c3d01f0f52843a7b086b3.jpg
> 
> 
> 
> I've seen this float around. I wonder about it's validity. No OKC to Wichita (one that's probably the closest to being able to start)? SLC to Boise? It seems to be a good overview of what Amtrak is aiming for, but doesn't seem to be entirely accurate.
Click to expand...

It seems to me that fairly realistic objectives and distant pipe dreams have been bundled together, to the detriment of credibility.

Also, non Amtrak operations or planned operations such as Brightline in Florida and X-train Vegas and even Texas Central, are all being treated as if they were somehow Amtrak operations.


----------



## Anderson

Maglev said:


> This map was posted on Facebook:
> 
> View attachment 12686


Ok, _now_ I've seen the mythical map ;-)

The only "super shocker" is wanting to do a corridor through southern Iowa instead of via Des Moines and the Quad Cities (since that's basically passing up a midsized city to serve a rural area).

My basic read is that _if_ this were in addition to retaining the existing LD network (more or less), I'd be fine with it.  But that's a major _if_.

Edit: Also, I think they're gonna get pushback in FL.  If you notice, the Miami-Orlando line on that map is the existing Star/Meteor line, _not _Brightline (which runs up the coast and then turns inland).  That aspect, at least, will probably get pushback from the state as well as Brightline (I think there would be a lot of pressure to simply throw money at Brightline in exchange for adding some limited-frequency stops).


----------



## jis

cirdan said:


> Also, non Amtrak operations or planned operations such as Brightline in Florida and X-train Vegas and even Texas Central, are all being treated as if they were somehow Amtrak operations.


I don't believe Brightline in Florida appears in that map at all, so it is being treated more like nonexistent, than as an Amtrak or any other operation. What appears in the map is the CSX line, and presumably some corridor service on it. How it will compete meaningfully with Brightline, and more interestingly how they will manage to get 40% farebox recover running two or three corridor trains, below which Florida won't fund anything (not clear they will fund even above that, but that number has been mentioned in discussions). So as far as Florida goes, this is like a fantasy of a fantasy at present.

I agree with what Anderson says in the quote below. That is exactly my position too, and it is not clear that CEO Anderson rules it out either, specially after Congress carries out brain surgery on him. :lol:



Anderson said:


> My basic read is that _if_ this were in addition to retaining the existing LD network (more or less), I'd be fine with it.  But that's a major _if_.


----------



## Anderson

Building off of that, I _could_ see the state supporting a Jacksonville-Tampa train (since Brightline isn't going to be set up for that set of markets anytime soon) if the cost recovery numbers look right.

Of course, there also seem to be a few "strategic holes" in the map.  OKC-Wichita comes to mind, as does Charlotte-Charlottesville (which VA and NC have expressed at least some interest in building up) as well as (I _think_) Nashville-Chattanooga (I don't recall if there's an intact route there).  Of course, at that point there's a funny string of city pairs as well (Roanoke-Knoxville-Nashville-Memphis-Little Rock) that all seem to have a generalize threat of creating a proposal for an interconnected system.

Finally (well, for now) it would be very interesting to see how they see that segment in southern Ontario playing out...


----------



## sttom

cirdan said:


> It seems to me that fairly realistic objectives and distant pipe dreams have been bundled together, to the detriment of credibility.
> 
> Also, non Amtrak operations or planned operations such as Brightline in Florida and X-train Vegas and even Texas Central, are all being treated as if they were somehow Amtrak operations.


All of the routes shown on that map are in some sort of planning/lobbying. Even when Texas Central gets up and running, there will still be demand for local service that it won't be providing. Also, Brightline isn't on that map. It was only a matter of time before someone put all of the potential lines on a map and started circulating it.


----------



## jis

If you think Anderson will get a free ride for any of his stupid grand plans, think again.

Here is a letter he received from Congress in the recent past...

https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/7c8e6b_eee64e5f666340a986eb501785146e9f.pdf

We will presumably get to see th response soon after March 8.

The sad thing is that a few reasonably good ideas have gotten entangled with this hot mess of Anderson's creation.


----------



## dlagrua

I read the entire text of that letter directed to Anderson.  It really says it all. To destroy the national Amtrak network , in numerous cases will eliminate the only practical form of transportation that residents in hundreds of small towns and cities across the country rely upon. . Many of these locations have little to no access to airports that even have minimal airline services. In some cases accessing  even regional airports would represent a slow drive hundreds of miles on back roads. On our Western route trains we have encountered travelers who use Amtrak for exactly this very reason.

When Anderson came up with the bright idea to put a bus bridge from Albuquerque to Dodge city. The  Senate passed a funding bill amendment 92-6 to keep the SWC running. Point is that there is strong bipartisan support for Amtrak in the House and Senate. The House and Senate run the show as Anderson will soon find out.  IMO, no politician  in Washington believes that its good policy to cut Amtrak to pieces. That would be political suicide and while we are at it lets thank Joe Boardman for speaking out.


----------



## cirdan

Where I see the potential advantage of hiring airline exceutives into Amtrak roles is that they know the airline industry from the inside, and know precisely where the soft spots in the fattened underbelly of the airline industry are and can exploit those to the advantage of Amtrak in those corridors where Amtrak has a fighting chance of taking market share off airlines. I think that is the NEC more than anything else. 

I'd rather anderson started his tinlkering there, rather than on the LD and on regional corridors.


----------



## sttom

cirdan said:


> Where I see the potential advantage of hiring airline exceutives into Amtrak roles is that they know the airline industry from the inside, and know precisely where the soft spots in the fattened underbelly of the airline industry are and can exploit those to the advantage of Amtrak in those corridors where Amtrak has a fighting chance of taking market share off airlines. I think that is the NEC more than anything else.
> 
> I'd rather anderson started his tinlkering there, rather than on the LD and on regional corridors.


I disagree, getting the money to start a new major corridor would be a a better for experimentation rather than start with the NEC. People on the NEC are going to be more picky with any changes than would an area without an existing major corridor. Yes it would cost more money to get going, but it would fulfill Anderson's goal of expanding corridor service and making Amtrak more politically entrenched in the minds of the public. If they were to get a Southeast Corridor going, useful corridor service would be expanded to 4 states that presently have either no corridor service or sparse corridor service that makes few connections out of state. A Heartland Flyer Corridor would bring service to 3 states, including the second biggest state in the country. And since people there would not be used to Amtrak, they would be a little more forgiving of policy or schedule changes. People in the Northeast know they have the busiest and most notable Amtrak route and the Congressional representation to make a stink over anything Amtrak were to try to change.


----------



## VentureForth

cirdan said:


> Also, non Amtrak operations or planned operations such as Brightline in Florida and X-train Vegas and even Texas Central, are all being treated as if they were somehow Amtrak operations.


To be fair, it shows current and "potential" corridors.  They've never made a real effort to Vegas or to connect Houston to Dallas directly.  Seeing as they are being actively engineered (well, at least Houston to Dallas) it's probably really just on Amtrak's "wish list" - hoping they'll take over what someone else builds. 

The route they show from Miami to Orlando is the current routing, and it doesn't appear as if they are taking credit for Brightline's effort.


----------



## cirdan

sttom said:


> I disagree, getting the money to start a new major corridor would be a a better for experimentation rather than start with the NEC. People on the NEC are going to be more picky with any changes than would an area without an existing major corridor. Yes it would cost more money to get going, but it would fulfill Anderson's goal of expanding corridor service and making Amtrak more politically entrenched in the minds of the public. If they were to get a Southeast Corridor going, useful corridor service would be expanded to 4 states that presently have either no corridor service or sparse corridor service that makes few connections out of state. A Heartland Flyer Corridor would bring service to 3 states, including the second biggest state in the country. And since people there would not be used to Amtrak, they would be a little more forgiving of policy or schedule changes. People in the Northeast know they have the busiest and most notable Amtrak route and the Congressional representation to make a stink over anything Amtrak were to try to change.


So far, Brightline have been making a very spirited effort at how you can build a corridor service. I think it should be sufficiently clear that in principle, and possibly given sufficient state support, this sort of thing can be made to work in any comparable corridor (assuming that not every corridor can get an unsupported service on the back of a real estate investment as in FL, which is why the state needs to finance it in a more generic situation).

The present Heartland Flyer is a totally diferent beast, just a single daily train, pretty much useless for commuting, and pretty much dependent on state support.  To transform it into something like Brightline would require a lot of money, and it is unlikely that anybody is going to step up with that money. The best they can hope for is that somebody says, what is the cheapest minimal service you can knock together and we'll give you some money towards that.

Not even California, with its clearly rail-friendly policies has got anywhere near close to getting something like Brightline. So i don't really see how much less rail frienldy states will be falling over one another to give Anderson money. 

If that was the case, these corridors would be happening already. It's not as if Anderson can do something that his predecessors could not.

The NEC is just about the only place where money can be made available and that has received several very large investments over the last years (new Acela trains coming soon, new locomotives) so if Anderson can't pull off some magic there, he can't do it in a place with much more adverse conditions.


----------



## sttom

cirdan said:


> The present Heartland Flyer is a totally diferent beast, just a single daily train, pretty much useless for commuting, and pretty much dependent on state support.  To transform it into something like Brightline would require a lot of money, and it is unlikely that anybody is going to step up with that money. The best they can hope for is that somebody says, what is the cheapest minimal service you can knock together and we'll give you some money towards that.
> 
> Not even California, with its clearly rail-friendly policies has got anywhere near close to getting something like Brightline. So i don't really see how much less rail frienldy states will be falling over one another to give Anderson money.


My recommendation with the Heartland Flyer would be to extend it to connect from Kansas City to Houston/San Antonio with federal, as a demonstration/pilot route of an entirely Amtrak planned route. As for experimentation, I am not sure what exactly could be done other than implementing things that are already common practice in other rail systems. As for a "Heartland" corridor, it would be long enough to have both local and express service. I am also not saying we should expect the states to pay for it. That it should be a federally funded route. Advocating for it along would change the discussion around rail in this country. 

As for Brightline, at its present form its an approximately 70 mile express line. As for why California hasn't implemented express service along any of its existing routes I would chalk down to it taking nearly a decade for new cars to even begin to be built. And in that time all 3 routes have become overcrowded at peak times and decently full off peak. Along the buses getting used as well and most of them are candidates to become rail lines. 

As for the administrative reason for not starting express service, the lines are still locally planned and local government here in California are incredibly shortsighted when it comes to transportation. Personally, I don't think the local governments should have a say in how the lines operate. The state wouldn't have to balance out the petty desires of local politicians when it comes to planning out what could become a statewide rail system. We'd have to deal with the stupidity of the legislature, but they are usually to buys doing other things.


----------



## neroden

jis said:


> If you think Anderson will get a free ride for any of his stupid grand plans, think again.
> 
> Here is a letter he received from Congress in the recent past...
> 
> https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/7c8e6b_eee64e5f666340a986eb501785146e9f.pdf
> 
> We will presumably get to see th response soon after March 8.
> 
> The sad thing is that a few reasonably good ideas have gotten entangled with this hot mess of Anderson's creation.


Oh geez.  That is the hammer being dropped.  Amtrak will probably have to restore LSL meal service among other things.


----------



## cpotisch

neroden said:


> Oh geez.  That is the hammer being dropped.  Amtrak will probably have to restore LSL meal service among other things.


Yeah, they really aren't being shy in that letter. Sounds like Anderson went too far, and now he has to go in the exact opposite direction.

I don't want to jinx things, but I doubt the LSL and CL are going to have boxed meals for much longer. I do hope they can hold onto some sort of a Sleeper Lounge on the LSL (so sleeper passengers still have a nice place to stretch out and take in the views), but oh, how wonderful it would be to have full meal service back. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a boxed Asian Noodle Bowl can not replace a veggie burger with Swiss cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, a pickle, and kettle chips.


----------



## Bob Dylan

Q:What do you call an Am Veggie Burger with Bacon? 

A: A Delicious  Cheater Burger! ^_^


----------



## Steve4031

It would be great if they brought full diner service to the Cardinal, City of New Orleans and the Silver Star.


----------



## cpotisch

Steve4031 said:


> It would be great if they brought full diner service to the Cardinal, City of New Orleans and the Silver Star.


That would be amazing, but does it seem at all likely considering they all lost full meal service well before Anderson arrived?


----------



## sttom

Even if Congress does say no, Amtrak still needs to have a national vision that includes regional services along with long distance services. And dare I say it, some corridors should be started using federal money. There is no reason why a lot of Southern cities lack corridor service beyond the state doesn't see a reason to fund it and no one at Amtrak advocates for funding local corridors. If creating a Southeast Corridor is successful, the local populace will eventually push their states to pay for more train service. I know that putting federal money into regional service is basically heresy to some, but Amtrak won't be able to function in the long run without more local services and there is a long list of states that want nothing to do with public transportation. Wisconsin is the biggest example of this. We could have corridor service to Minneapolis if using federal money was a possibility. There should be limits on to what extent federal money can be used in one state, but multi state corridors need to be planned and funded at the federal level as well as the state level. Amtrak needs a shake up and a national plan.


----------



## Ryan

sttom said:


> Even if Congress does say no,


Amtrak works for Congress.  They do what they're told and funded to by Congress.  

If Congress says no, the answer is no. Don't like the answer?  Lobby Congress, don't expect Amtrak to step outside the box and do what they've been told not to.


----------



## sttom

Ryan said:


> Amtrak works for Congress.  They do what they're told and funded to by Congress.
> 
> If Congress says no, the answer is no. Don't like the answer?  Lobby Congress, don't expect Amtrak to step outside the box and do what they've been told not to.


The thinking you exemplify is why a lot of Congress has no qualms against hurting Amtrak. Amtrak needs to expand beyond the vestiges of a by gone era. Coming up with an expansion plan that builds the system out and selling it to Congress is needed. But if that is too out of the box, then what future does Amtrak have? I am not apologizing for Anderson, I am advocating for Amtrak to get built out using federal money, Anderson just wants to reshuffle the deck from the looks of it. I don't really consider what Anderson is proposing is thinking outside the box.


----------



## cpotisch

sttom said:


> I don't really consider what Anderson is proposing is thinking outside the box.


Yeah, as we've seen on the CL and LSL, he definitely likes to think inside the box.    :lol:


----------



## sttom

cpotisch said:


> Yeah, as we've seen on the CL and LSL, he definitely likes to think inside the box.    :lol:


Everyone knows a boxed lunch is the most meta way to think outside of the lunch box.


----------



## crescent-zephyr

sttom said:


> The thinking you exemplify is why a lot of Congress has no qualms against hurting Amtrak. Amtrak needs to expand beyond the vestiges of a by gone era. Coming up with an expansion plan that builds the system out and selling it to Congress is needed. But if that is too out of the box, then what future does Amtrak have? I am not apologizing for Anderson, I am advocating for Amtrak to get built out using federal money, Anderson just wants to reshuffle the deck from the looks of it. I don't really consider what Anderson is proposing is thinking outside the box.


IMHO... Congress is not hurting Amtrak and  long distance trains are not a bygone era.  Amtrak needs more corridor service, but not at the expense of the national network. 

Most of us see great potential in Amtrak’s national network I think. 

The corridors we have show how well they can work.  Michigan, Illinois, cascades, California, North Carolina... a lot to be learned by all of them.


----------



## sttom

crescent-zephyr said:


> IMHO... Congress is not hurting Amtrak and  long distance trains are not a bygone era.  Amtrak needs more corridor service, but not at the expense of the national network.
> 
> Most of us see great potential in Amtrak’s national network I think.
> 
> The corridors we have show how well they can work.  Michigan, Illinois, cascades, California, North Carolina... a lot to be learned by all of them.


Hurting, indifferent, letting die on the vine, not matter what you want to call Congress's attitude towards Amtrak it has led to a system that is in a lot of cases just limping along until a state kicks in some funds and starts planning a halfway useful route. What Amtrak needs is a national plan that builds on the foundation it has and markets that vision to Congress to get funds. That vision will largely include more corridor service because Amtrak needs to get more people on trains. Amtrak is also being faced with my generation being less likely to drive and we are looking to other forms of transportation. Bus companies are modernizing, along with new ones starting up. Amtrak needs more local services and if we wan't Amtrak to survive, it needs a plan to add regional services and advocate for the extra money to do that. Waiting around for the states to do something isn't leading to a robust system, that means there needs to be a plan at the national level.


----------



## Thirdrail7

neroden said:


> Oh geez.  That is the hammer being dropped.  Amtrak will probably have to restore LSL meal service among other things.


Until Anderson waves PRIIA and says "this is what you asked for. If you disagree with our position, THIS is how much it will cost you."  Will Congress fork over the funds? He's putting the ball in their court. We'll soon find out how much support is available...and what is being supported.


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

Thirdrail7 said:


> Until Anderson waves PRIIA and says "this is what you asked for. If you disagree wit hour position, THIS is how much it will cost you."  Will Congress fork over the funds? He's putting the ball in their court. We'll soon find out how much support is available...and what is being supported.


It’s minimal in the big picture. They appropriated $50 million extra for the SWC pretty easily. Less than that should cover the food and beverage mandate. Amtrak will ask for 4x that I’m sure though. Hence the problem Amtrak management can’t be trusted at this point to be transparent.

It can be argued contemporary   dining is actually costing Amtrak money in ridership and revenue. Unfortunately it will take 2-3 years to prove it, first year numbers will look good until ridership drops. 

Same can be said for unmanned stations, some people still pay by cash or don’t have net access. 

Biggest expense for LDT trains is the refleeting or overhaul of the Superliners.  I don’t even think that’s a problem with this Congress. If anything I could see Congress being upset about the delivered CAF cars not being used effectively. I understand convection type ovens are being installed, is that the reason half them are parked? Anderson needs to be asked hard questions IN PERSON, not writing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t respond to last weeks letter at all.


----------



## Metra Electric Rider

Am I alone in getting this feeling?:


----------



## cpotisch

This took me way too long, but I have turned the letter into actual text. This makes quoting and searching infinitely easier, so...you're welcome. ^_^



> February 22, 2019
> 
> Mr. Richard Anderson
> 
> President and Chief Executive Officer
> 
> Amtrak
> 
> 1 Massachusetts Ave NW
> Washington, DC. 20001
> 
> Dear Mr. Anderson:
> 
> We write to raise concerns shared with us by various stakeholders regarding changes that Amtrak has recently implemented and is reportedly considering making to its operations. We are concerned that such changes will diminish the valuable service Amtrak offers the public, and we request that Amtrak provide us with additional information on these actions.
> 
> As you know, Amtrak plays an important role in our national transportation system. Every year, millions of passengers rely on Amtrak to reach their destinations. This includes the 12.1 million people who traveled the Northeast Corridor and the nearly 20 million passengers served by Amtrak’s state—supported and long—distance routes in Fiscal Year 2018. While Amtrak plays a significant role in the NEC, the railroads national network is crucial to maintaining a truly national passenger railroad system. Amtrak’s web of state-supported routes and 15 long-distance routes provide service to 40 percent of the country’s rural and small communities, creating a vital link between urban and rural centers. Through its customers and direct employment of more than 20,000 workers, Amtrak helps contribute tens of billions of dollars to our national economy.
> 
> Given the benefits Amtrak provides to its passengers, our communities, and our economy, it is crucial that we maintain a viable intercity passenger rail network. Doing so requires that Amtrak provide the quality service its passengers want and expect. This is why we are concerned by recent changes Amtrak has reportedly implemented, such as eliminating station agents at stations that average fewer than 40 passengers a day. This change eliminates more than 20 agents at 15 stations throughout the country, limiting passengers’ access to onsite travel support at those facilities. Reportedly, some of those agents were replaced with contract employees responsible for caring for the station’s facilities but not providing comparable passenger support. Amtrak also recently closed its reservation call center in Riverside, California, where nearly 500 personnel remotely assisted passengers in securing and adjusting Amtrak travel. Shuttering this facility reduced the number of personnel familiar with Amtrak’s routes, schedules, and amenities who are available to capably support passengers in need of assistance.
> 
> We have also heard from numerous stakeholders who are concerned about the future of onboard food and beverage services, a feature of intercity passenger rail travel that bolsters ridership by drawing travelers to Amtrak In June 2018, dining car service was eliminated on Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited long-distance routes. Passengers traveling these routes no longer have access to meals freshly prepared onboard, including sleeper car passengers whose premium ticket fare includes the cost of meals. Instead, sleeper car passengers receive reheated pre-cooked meals and other passengers only have access to quick-service foods, such as sandwiches and snacks. As a result of this change, career Amtrak employees who provided dining car service lost their jobs with little warning.
> 
> We also understand that Amtrak has issued a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting information on “transformational service models and industry best practices” relating to food and beverage services — information that Amtrak may use to develop a Request for Proposal. As the RFI explains, past attempts by Amtrak to reduce the quality of this service were reversed after the ridership objected to the changes. Stakeholders worry this RFI may lead to attempts by Amtrak to contract-out food and beverage service — reducing the quality passengers expect at the expense of Amtrak employees.
> 
> In addition, we understand Amtrak has reduced benefits enjoyed by its ridership community, including ending discounts for veterans, AAA members, and students while raising the qualifying age and reducing the discount for seniors. Amtrak has also nearly eliminated all charter services or special trains and has significantly scaled back opportunities for private cars to travel on Amtrak trains, instituting switching location restrictions and increasing fees.
> 
> We are concerned that the changes Amtrak has made and those it may be. considering will erode ridership and harm the viability of Amtrak, especially the National Network. Maintaining an intercity passenger rail system that is truly national in scope is crucial to providing transportation access to many rural and small communities. Moreover, it is required by law. When Congress created Amtrak, we specifically called for a national system in which Amtrak would operate a national rail passenger transportation system that includes not only the NEC, but also state supported and long- distance routes.
> 
> As a quasi-public corporation entrusted with this statutory responsibility, Amtrak must uphold the law. Amtrak cannot seek to circumvent obligations by enacting a series of unilateral
> changes that harm ridership until the provision of a national passenger railroad becomes untenable. Rather, any changes to the National Network or Amtrak’s duty of providing a national service must be sanctioned by Congress alone. Lastly, as a railroad subject to federal law and labor standards“, it is incumbent upon Amtrak to provide quality jobs with the appropriate benefits. It must not seek to reduce costs by replacing its employees with a contracted workforce.
> 
> To address these concerns, we request that Amtrak reply to each of the following questions no later than March 8, 2019:
> 
> 
> Does Amtrak remain committed to meeting its statutory responsibility of providing a national intercity passenger rail network that includes state-supported and long- distance routes in addition to the NEC? Will Amtrak continue to maintain current state- support and long-distance routes, until directed otherwise by Congress?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is Amtrak considering further reductions in the assistance it provides passengers at stations throughout the system? If so, what services are under consideration and which stations may be impacted?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is Amtrak considering additional changes to its reservation call center service?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What led Amtrak to eliminate dining car service on the Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited routes? Is Amtrak considering eliminating dining car service or otherwise altering food and beverage services currently offered on other long- distance routes?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Regarding the RFI referenced above, how will Amtrak measure whether the service models or best practices submitted will improve Amtrak’s financial performance and customer experience — the goals stated in the RFI? W111 Amtrak consult with Congress and stakeholders during its examination and consideration of submissions and prior to issuing any potential food and beverage Request for Proposals?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The RFI asks each responding entity to indicate whether it would “be deemed a ‘Rail Carrier’” under federal regulations — a designation that obligates significant worker benefits. The RFI also requests entities to consider staffing “with and without Amtrak employees now performing” food and beverage services and poses a series of staffing-related questions. Is Amtrak considering contracting- out this work? How will replies relating to the “rail carrier” designation impact Amtrak’s assessment of the response? How does Amtrak perceive its responsibility to comply with the protections included in 49 USC 24321 (Section 11207, PL 114-94), which protect workers from involuntary separation as a result of a plan to eliminate onboard food and beverage service operating losses?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is Amtrak considering further changes that would limit the ability of private car owners to travel on Amtrak trains? If so, please provide the basis for such changes, as a recent Inspector General report critiqued Amtrak’s management of the private car service, including a lack of information on the costs of the service (OIG—A-2019-003).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is Amtrak considering or planning to make changes to its maintenance facilities, including closing or consolidating them or contracting—out the work currently performed at them? If so, please describe such changes.
> 
> We look forward to receiving your response. If you have questions or need further information, please contact the majority staff of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials at (202) 225-3274.
> 
> ​
> Sincerely,​
> [Five pages of Signatures]​




This part really stood out to me since it covers some of the ambiguous language regarding station staffing that was mentioned with the FY2019 appropriation.



> Reportedly, some of those agents were replaced with contract employees responsible for caring for the station’s facilities but not providing comparable passenger support.





So [email protected][/USER], would you say that it seems like Congress is finally getting fed up with all these service cuts and loopholes and such?


----------



## Thirdrail7

cpotisch said:


> So [email protected][/USER], would you say that it seems like Congress is finally getting fed up with all these service cuts and loopholes and such?


Nope. It sounds like they are speaking in double talk and are ignorant of the legislation they pass. They also seem to have forgotten they are not dealing with a politicians in Mr. Anderson and Mr. Naperstak.  In the case of Mr. Gardner, well, he had a hand in drafting PRIIA and has experience in legislation.

Such men will have a field day with the letter posted.

Hell, most of the people on this board can shoot down this posturing letter.

What group passed the law regarding Amtrak's funding?

What group passed a law that basically states (paraphrasing) NO FEDERAL FUNDS ARE TO USED FOR F&B LOSSES BY 2020 (which is right around the corner and the direct cause of the loss of dining services, the exploration of outsourcing, the box lunches)?

What group instructed Amtrak to reduce  its losses, subsidies and operate more like a business?

What group instructed Amtrak to explore different routes and explore new opportunities?

What group failed to stop Amtrak from closing Riverside when they had the chance?

What group doesn't want to properly fund Amtrak to cover the services it already has?

Do you really think these men aren't going to shove this right back into the laps of Congress??? The set up is as clear as day! We've already seen them do it, particularly in the case of Riverside.  It is easy for Congress to posture and write letters. Now, will they put their money where there mouth is when it comes time to put money to mouth?  Perhaps they will. 

Then, we'll see if they are fed up.


----------



## cpotisch

Thirdrail7 said:


> Nope. It sounds like they are speaking in double talk and are ignorant of the legislation they pass. They also seem to have forgotten they are not dealing with a politicians in Mr. Anderson and Mr. Naperstak.  In the case of Mr. Gardner, well, he had a hand in drafting PRIIA and has experience in legislation.
> 
> Such men will have a field day with the letter posted.
> 
> Hell, most of the people on this board can shoot down this posturing letter.
> 
> What group passed the law regarding Amtrak's funding?
> 
> What group passed a law that basically states (paraphrasing) NO FEDERAL FUNDS ARE TO USED FOR F&B LOSSES BY 2020 (which is right around the corner and the direct cause of the loss of dining services, the exploration of outsourcing, the box lunches)?
> 
> What group instructed Amtrak to reduce  its losses, subsidies and operate more like a business?
> 
> What group instructed Amtrak to explore different routes and explore new opportunities?
> 
> What group failed to stop Amtrak from closing Riverside when they had the chance?
> 
> What group doesn't want to properly fund Amtrak to cover the services it already has?
> 
> Do you really think these men aren't going to shove this right back into the laps of Congress??? The set up is as clear as day! We've already seen them do it, particularly in the case of Riverside.  It is easy for Congress to posture and write letters. Now, will they put their money where there mouth is when it comes time to put money to mouth?  Perhaps they will.
> 
> Then, we'll see if they are fed up.


So you're saying that you don't think this letter will have any effect or is any indication of real change to come?


----------



## Thirdrail7

cpotisch said:


> So you're saying that you don't think this letter will have any effect or is any indication of real change to come?


I'm saying what I've said all along. Words are cheap. Action speaks louder and words and I've said for quite time, we're dealing with an evil genius:



Thirdrail7 said:


> I see a petition has formed. Perhaps Mr. Anderson is an evil genius. I will elaborate in the CEO thread.






Thirdrail7 said:


> Truthfully, I wouldnt go that far, Mystic. The reality of the situation is no sane railroader wants the job. He came in to run it like a business and he knows the airline business. Plus, he has made it perfectly clear that he is attempting to run it according to the PRIIA. Others have attempted to ignore certain points of it but he isnt. I
> 
> If PRIIA allowed him to lose a ton of money in F&B service, Im not sure hed go for it but at least there wouldnt be a timeline for eliminating the losses. *This is why I suggested he may be an evil genius He'll ram PRIIA right up their nostrils and say this is what you wrote and Congress will have to put their money where their mouths are or stand aside.*






Thirdrail7 said:


> These are just proposals. Nothing is firm yet. There is plenty of time for negotiation, politics, ploys and other shenanigans. That being said,* I still have high hopes we are dealing with an evil genius. I've mentioned it before. **Sometimes, you have to give people what they want and let them see how it plays out. In this case, the 'people" are "Congress,' and instead of sidestepping the issues, he's diving right into it...and people are taking notice:*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Let's see. He's overseeing the cuts in amenities, services and sooner or later, probably routes or stops. However, it is also going after things like specials, charters and pet projects of supporters. He wants to get back to the "core" business, but wants to make a profit. *
> 
> *  *
> 
> *As such, people are writing their representatives, high profile groups are starting to complain and that leads to lobbying.*
> 
> * *
> 
> *All the while, he's clutching PRIIA and saying this is what you want!*
> 
> * *
> 
> *At that point, they'll either say continue on and he'll be justified or they'll either have to fund what he cuts or write it into some kind of law, at which point he'll say "stop complaining."*
> 
> * *
> 
> *This was similar to Gunn's way of doing things. Perhaps he is starting to push the right buttons.*
> 
> *  *
> 
> *Continue to write....and soon! *
> 
> 
> 
> *  *
> 
> *  *
> 
> *People are writing ( I hope) which means Congress will start paying attention. They already are. A senator already proposed adding staffing requirements to the funding. Who knows what the next person will add/ It may say you WILL operate the SW Chief..... *
> 
> *  *
> 
> *There may never be a better time to take action. *
Click to expand...


*He constantly weaponizes PRIIA and shoves it right back in the face of Congress. He'll likely do the same thing again. If Mr. Anderson states he is considering further reduction in F&B services and outsourcing based upon the provisions of PRIIA, will Congress change the law? Will they change the provisions of PRIIA?  *

*I don't think letters will change much. Funding will and if they don't want to increase funding the entire operation, then I believe we are back to where I suspected we'd be quite some time ago...particularly the last little paragraph: *



*  *


----------



## jis

Actually all that this message from the Congresscritters indicates is the sort of things that they are now aware of and will probably address in the Amtrak Reauthorization Bill. That is where both PRIIA and PRRIA initiated regulations are open for rescission and modification. In the past it has been hard to get the attention of the Congresscritters on this subject, since in the overall scheme of things, Amtrak's budget is so tiny that it has a tendency to get lost in the noise and then get dropped through the cracks by some nut case extreme ideologue attacking it. So my thought is that the "Evil Genius" is succeeding in his mission. At this point, what the reply to those questions are, if any is forthcoming at all, is less important than the bigger picture.


----------



## DSS&A

jis said:


> Actually all that this message from the Congresscritters indicates is the sort of things that they are now aware of and will probably address in the Amtrak Reauthorization Bill. That is where both PRIIA and PRRIA initiated regulations are open for rescission and modification. In the past it has been hard to get the attention of the Congresscritters on this subject, since in the overall scheme of things, Amtrak's budget is so tiny that it has a tendency to get lost in the noise and then get dropped through the cracks by some nut case extreme ideologue attacking it. So my thought is that the "Evil Genius" is succeeding in his mission. At this point, what the reply to those questions are, if any is forthcoming at all, is less important than the bigger picture.


Thirdrail and jis are correct.  PRIIA legislation, along with decades of underfunding, has created the current situation.  A new a better Amtrak Rauthorization with passenger train supportive language AND MORE MONEY can change the direction for Amtrak's future. Anderson is giving the legislature a true picture of the results of THEIR directives and limited funds in PRIIA. So, contact your representatives and tell them how you want the new reauthorization language to read and ask for more funding.  Labor, new equipment, track improvements, stations, signal systems and track access fees for curewnt and more service are expensive.


----------



## jis

Actually, the money amount put in Authorization Bill are at best aspirational. More often than not Congress appropriates much less, and of late they have even gone out and appropriated a bit more than authorized AFAIR. Part of the problem now is, after the reorganization of the line items in appropriation, it is not always clear which ones count against what is in the previous Authorization bill.

It is the policy directives that find their way into regulations (read CFRs and such) which are more critical. Money battles have to be fought each year in THUD Appropriations. Making Amtrak a formula automatic base amount like FHA plus additional something if so desired, has failed so far.


----------



## TiBike

I read the letter a little differently. Looking at what the top concerns are, and at the buzz about it elsewhere on the interwebs, the letter is about union issues, and not about long distance service as such, or rail fan angst of any kind. It's signed by democrats and focuses on the loss of union jobs – it's the kind of letter politicians are happy to sign on behalf of major campaign contributors, and for the members who signed it, there is no bigger contributor than labor.

I've seen this many times before, in my industry: unions jump into legislative debates and regulatory proceedings, apparently in opposition, in order to have a seat at the table when deals are cut. Sometimes agreement can't be reached and the status quo is preserved. More often, unions negotiate a sufficiently large slice of the pie, and then flip and back the deal wholeheartedly. There's a lot on the table this year, including billions in infrastructure repair/upgrades, which is also a union concern. Construction unions, not rail, but they'll want their piece too.

This is the legislative sausage machine at work.


----------



## Thirdrail7

TiBike said:


> the letter is about union issues, and not about long distance service as such


This is hardly conclusive. According to the railroads, what is their biggest costs?

LABOR.

This is not unique to the railroad industry and this is not unique to Amtrak. This is why the intent of acts such as PRIIA was to control your costs. In an ideal world, they would do it through a creative process like finding a way to get people to your train.  By filling the seats on the train instead of cutting the size of the trains. However, legislators probably recognize the easiest thing to cut is labor. That is likely why they stated in PRIIA that they should eliminate F&B losses without just cutting the entire product. Clean up your house, identify your costs, identify your expenses and refine your product.

Another example is the private cars. They made wholesale changes to product, declared that it was too expensive to perform services en route, and the delays were too much. Yet, there was no documentation that backed up these claims. Indeed, the IG basically stated that Amtrak has no idea about the costs or controls of this operation.

Then, they allegedly have dubious accounting claims regarding the costs, allocations of their products.

Yet, have we seen refined accounting? Have we seen a definition of the allocations? Have we seen consistent application of how the expenses are calculated?

No.

What have we seen?

The LD trains lose a ton of money.

The LD trains only carry a small percentage from end point to end point.

The Dining car (which competes against your cafe car on a train that the company slashed the capacity to divert equipment to various state supported services) losses too much, but if we outsource it, it might help.

The stations agents cost too much money and everyone can but tickets on the internet.

Speaking of the internet, we no longer need as many reservation offices since they cost money. After all, out website (which still doesn't have the correct schedules and STILL hasn't mentioned that ALL of the San Joaquins are reserved) is always up to snuff and a chock full of information.

Now, I'm not saying some of this may not have merit. However. it is called low hanging fruit, Tibike.  The solutions offered are the typical low hanging fruit solutions.  Continued hacks at labor, while not addressing the trunk issue: your accounting process, your allocation process, your billing process, your  marketing process.

That is why PRIIA also stated in the bid to  operate 3 long distance trains, the compensation must be comparable. This was put into to keep some company from saying "Ok, we'll pay everyone $9.00 an hour and save a fortune. We'll easily meet the 90% of Amtrak subsidy  requirement."


----------



## neroden

Thirdrail7 said:


> Until Anderson waves PRIIA and says "this is what you asked for. If you disagree with our position, THIS is how much it will cost you."  Will Congress fork over the funds? He's putting the ball in their court. We'll soon find out how much support is available...and what is being supported.


Yeah, no.  Anderson is having his head handed to him.  I'm thinking of going to RPA/NARP's Day on the Hill and handing out copies of RPA's White Paper on Amtrak's fraudulent route accounting. Once the members of the Transpo Committee see that (and I suspect many have already seen it), they're going to be completely unsympathetic to bullshitting from Mr. Anderson.

He's going to be told that he doesn't get to cut anything until he gets his accounting straight.  Which is as it should be; it's appalling that they haven't gotten their accounting straight in 40 years.


----------



## neroden

Thirdrail7 said:


> Another example is the private cars. They made wholesale changes to product, declared that it was too expensive to perform services en route, and the delays were too much. Yet, there was no documentation that backed up these claims. Indeed, the IG basically stated that Amtrak has no idea about the costs or controls of this operation.
> 
> Then, they allegedly have dubious accounting claims regarding the costs, allocations of their products.
> 
> Yet, have we seen refined accounting? Have we seen a definition of the allocations? Have we seen consistent application of how the expenses are calculated?
> 
> No.


This is the biggest issue.  And frankly Congress doesn't like falsified accounting, once they notice it.  They really don't.



> What have we seen?
> 
> The LD trains lose a ton of money.


Which is a lie on the part of Amtrak.



> The LD trains only carry a small percentage from end point to end point.


Which is irrelevant.



> The Dining car (which competes against your cafe car on a train that the company slashed the capacity to divert equipment to various state supported services) losses too much, but if we outsource it, it might help.


That one *might* be true, but who knows?



> The stations agents cost too much money and everyone can but tickets on the internet.
> 
> Speaking of the internet, we no longer need as many reservation offices since they cost money. After all, out website (which still doesn't have the correct schedules and STILL hasn't mentioned that ALL of the San Joaquins are reserved) is always up to snuff and a chock full of information.
> 
> Now, I'm not saying some of this may not have merit. However. it is called low hanging fruit, Tibike.  The solutions offered are the typical low hanging fruit solutions.  Continued hacks at labor, while not addressing the trunk issue: your accounting process, your allocation process, your billing process, your  marketing process.


Exactly.  Now, I think Congress is waking up to this "Distraction tactic" by Amtrak.  Get the White Paper in the hands of enough Representatives... see what happens....

Frankly, Mr. Anderson shouldn't like falsified accounting either.  I'm very sick right now and have to focus on medical stuff, but I'm happy to lend my weight to the effort to force Amtrak to get its accounting straight.


----------



## Thirdrail7

neroden said:


> Yeah, no.  Anderson is having his head handed to him.  I'm thinking of going to RPA/NARP's Day on the Hill and handing out copies of RPA's White Paper on Amtrak's fraudulent route accounting. Once the members of the Transpo Committee see that (and I suspect many have already seen it), they're going to be completely unsympathetic to bullshitting from Mr. Anderson.


I'd love for you to be right but can you show me all of this "having his head handed to him?" When Congress stepped in with their letter to not close Riverside for 30 days, he shut it anyway and quoted PRIAA. The response it right in my post above.

Some Congressperson wanted them to save the Solari board.  it is gone.

West Virginia was the lead cheerleader regarding private car operations. They have been severely curtailed....even though the independent IG stated there isn''t really a basis for it.  Now, the NRG train is no more.

When they raise the issue about the dining cars, PRIIA has it in black in white....and he will wave it at them...just like he did when he shut Riverside.

When  he refused the Toys For Tots train, he stated it wasn't in their charter and not a thing happened...except someone else operated it. 

Even if he blinks, it still comes with a bill. He wants to curtail the LD trains. He floated a proposal to hack up the SWC.  Congress ordered him not to do AND GAVE AN APPROPRIATION to fund track work. Once that happened, he released the funds. Sounds like you received funding to me and that is a victory that I hope is repeated.

Although there has been some set backs, he's had a fair amount of success...although I'm not sure you want Congress staring at you. 



neroden said:


> He's going to be told that he doesn't get to cut anything until he gets his accounting straight.  Which is as it should be; it's appalling that they haven't gotten their accounting straight in 40 years.


I like this! Whatever happened to that letter you wrote to the Board? Did you ever get a response?


----------



## jis

Actually the odd thing about the so called appropriation for SWC is that it is just a set aside from the general appropriation for National System telling him he cannot spend it on anything else. If they trusted him (e.g., if he was someone like Claytor) they would most likely not have done a set aside. Just a minor detail worth noting. I think he can expect a lot more of micro management of this sort, which at the end of the day is bad IMHO.

My fear is that Congress will simply remove the F&B language and possibly replace it with F&B restoration language and not add anything in appropriation and let him figure out how to restore F&B. Congress is very well known for doing unfunded mandates. Personally I like things to be above board. But for that to happen, Anderson also needs to be above board and fix his frickin' accounting which through no fault of his, he inherited. But there is no reason for him to blindly follow its nonsensical outcomes.

At the end of the day everyone might come out bloodied and Amtrak still on the verge of collapse. That is the fear I have and I don't like it.


----------



## TiBike

Thirdrail7 said:


> This is hardly conclusive. According to the railroads, what is their biggest costs?
> 
> LABOR.
> 
> -- snip --
> 
> Now, I'm not saying some of this may not have merit. However. it is called low hanging fruit, Tibike.  The solutions offered are the typical low hanging fruit solutions.  Continued hacks at labor, while not addressing the trunk issue: your accounting process, your allocation process, your billing process, your  marketing process.
> 
> That is why PRIIA also stated in the bid to  operate 3 long distance trains, the compensation must be comparable. This was put into to keep some company from saying "Ok, we'll pay everyone $9.00 an hour and save a fortune. We'll easily meet the 90% of Amtrak subsidy  requirement."


Without knowing the back story, it wouldn't be conclusive. It just looks that way to me, based on seeing it happen time and again in my world. Yes, Amtrak is going to target labor costs and the unions are going to use whatever political influence they have – universal on the democratic side, as the letter shows, but they have republican allies too – to push back. The comparable compensation requirement you cite is a perfect example. It's there to protect union jobs, same as so called prevailing wage requirements on public sector construction projects. It's always dressed up as a social equity issue, but it's about economics: more union employment means more union wages means more union dues means more political contributions. The letter is focused on items that impact union jobs, not on service issues as such. Nothing is said about on time performance, cleanliness, profitability or anything else that might reflect poorly on employees.

BTW, there's nothing wrong with going after low hanging fruit – you'd be a fool not to. Of the four things you cite, only marketing has a direct impact on the overall bottom line: Amtrak takes in X dollars and spends Y dollars, resulting in Z(ero) profit. Marketing is the X. The other three items impact how the company is managed and how the pie is cut. Those impact the bottom line, but indirectly. Marketing isn't just about advertising and promotion. It also involves pricing, product design, distribution and geographic targeting. I'd argue that Amtrak's biggest marketing sin is not changing the product mix.

Assuming Amtrak's subsidy and what it does with it generates enough political heat this year, the outcome will be determined by negotiations in Washington, with the biggest dogs at the table getting the biggest say in the outcome. This letter serves notice that labor is going to be one of the big dogs.


----------



## cpotisch

jis said:


> My﻿﻿ fear is that Congress will simply remove the F&B language and possibly replace it with F&B restoration language and not add anything in appropriation and let him figure out how to restore F&B.


If they do put that sort of language in, do you think Anderson can be expected to really interpret that the way it's intended? I mean, for pretty much any change he's made, can't he just spin it as positive?


----------



## jis

cpotisch said:


> If they do put that sort of language in, do you think Anderson can be expected to really interpret that the way it's intended? I mean, for pretty much any change he's made, can't he just spin it as positive?


Depends. At the end of the day Congress always has the upper hand, unfortunately in their bumbling way since they hold the pursestrings and can rescind anything they wish.

Actually, so far Anderson has been operating by the letter of the law using goofy accounting which is blessed by the Volpe Center and the FRA. It is not like he has been randomly inventing things. He certainly is waking many people from the wishful thinking stupor. I know this is an unpopular position to hold, but I think this hypothesis squares with the observed facts and all the panicked name calling and what not.


----------



## Thirdrail7

TiBike said:


> Without knowing the back story, it wouldn't be conclusive. It just looks that way to me, based on seeing it happen time and again in my world.


Yes, it is an old story.  As I said, it isn't unique to Amtrak. For years, companies have blamed labor, asked for concessions and since they don't go after the root issues, the place still shuts down, folds etc. The root cause was never addressed and yet it continues. It worked like a charm on you. Here you are, carping about Union protectionism yet the suspicious accounting, misappropriations that may show "Hey, we can actually afford the people we have and these routes aren't ANYWHERE NEAR as bad as we say" sail right over your head.  It even makes you say something uniformed like:



TiBike said:


> Of the four things you cite, only marketing has a direct impact on the overall bottom line


If your books are phony, your allocations misplaced and your billing process is flawed, you may not only cheat yourself of needed revenue, but not allocate costs to the appropriate line---which means you may target THE WRONG THINGS TO CORRECT. ALL of these things have a DIRECT impact to your bottom line. That was one of the biggest things in the private car IG report. You have no idea what it cost to perform this service so how can you say if it loses money, causes delays or makes money? You can't even answer if you're charging enough since there is no basis for your charges.  Therefore, you can't prove you're losing money based on its operations.   You can SAY it, but there is no  identifiable basis. The same can go for the LD trains. The costs of providing the train only fluctuate so much once the train is operating. If you run a three car train or a 14 car train, the ticket agent costs the same. The conductor costs the same. The reservation costs the same. The terminal fees costs the same. So, when you PURPOSELY divert resources from this operation (let's right size the train size) it is easy to claim your aren't recouping your losses. You have limited your capacity and have undermined your product, with logic like "well, only a small percentage travel end point to endpoint" . We've covered this before. How much of the costs of running the terminal are you attributing to the Starlight vs the Cascades? Are you billing the LD trains more for catenary costs than the Acela, making it look like it is losing less and the LD trains are losing more?

Yet, all of that is lost in the diversionary "It's the unions!"

The letter addresses what Amtrak is supposed to be----service. Are you providing the service as provided for by Congress? Do you intend to provide the service as provided for by Congress? Are you going to address your core issues, because cutting the Parlour car didn't really help the people stuck on the Coast Starlight. Changing from a full dining car to prepackaged meals didn't help with the OTP performance issues that plaque the trains and I don't think cutting the dining car off the Star was really a factor when it collided with freight trains.


----------



## TiBike

Thirdrail7 said:


> Yes, it is an old story.  As I said, it isn't unique to Amtrak. For years, companies have blamed labor, asked for concessions and since they don't go after the root issues, the place still shuts down, folds etc. The root cause was never addressed and yet it continues. It worked like a charm on you. Here you are, carping about Union protectionism yet the suspicious accounting, misappropriations that may show "Hey, we can actually afford the people we have and these routes aren't ANYWHERE NEAR as bad as we say" sail right over your head.  It even makes you say something uniformed like:


Dude, you're reading too much into what I'm saying. The only thing I'm attributing to Amtrak's unions is the letter from the congress critters. Amtrak's funding and governance is a political matter, and the unions are as involved in that game as anyone else is. Organised labor, in general, plays that game better than most. But I can just as easily and willingly point to corporate capture of political processes too. Labor or management, everyone is acting rationally, in their self interest. If I have a beef, it's with the game, not the players (with exceptions, but none that apply here).

Bad accounting can lead to bad decisions by executives and line managers. That's what I call an indirect effect. As opposed to executives and line managers (and rank and file) who simply make bad decisions about line functions, like marketing, regardless of the information at hand. That's a direct effect. It's A provides bad data that causes B to make a bad decision, versus B just makes a bad decision. If you define it differently, no argument from me. Second order versus first order effect, maybe?

The decisions that management is supposed to be making isn't "can we afford the people we have" or "is this product as bad as we think"? The proper decisions go more like "can we improve profitability by reducing (or increasing) the labor cost associated with this product" or "is this product as good as it can be", or "should we shift to a product that is more profitable"? I agree, management needs good data to make those decisions, but I've yet to see a perfect, or even perfectly objective, cost allocation system. But I am also assuming that there's a difference between the numbers that Amtrak makes public (or shares with rank and file) and the numbers that management sees and crunches. The public numbers might or might not be valid – I know a lot of people don't like them, but they don't particularly bother (or impress) me – but I'm assuming there's a lot more sophisticated bean counting going on behind the curtain. If there isn't, that's executive malfeasance. I'm not seeing that, though.

Maybe a Jobsian reality distortion field is working its charm on me, but that's my read.


----------



## Thirdrail7

TiBike said:


> Dude, you're reading too much into what I'm saying. The only thing I'm attributing to Amtrak's unions is the letter from the congress critters.
> 
> Bad accounting can lead to bad decisions by executives and line managers. That's what I call an indirect effect. As opposed to executives and line managers (and rank and file) who simply make bad decisions about line functions, like marketing, regardless of the information at hand. That's a direct effect. It's A provides bad data that causes B to make a bad decision, versus B just makes a bad decision. If you define it differently, no argument from me. Second order versus first order effect, maybe?
> 
> The decisions that management is supposed to be making isn't "can we afford the people we have" or "is this product as bad as we think"? The proper decisions go more like "can we improve profitability by reducing (or increasing) the labor cost associated with this product" or "is this product as good as it can be", or "should we shift to a product that is more profitable"? I agree, management needs good data to make those decisions, but I've yet to see a perfect, or even perfectly objective, cost allocation system. But I am also assuming that there's a difference between the numbers that Amtrak makes public (or shares with rank and file) and the numbers that management sees and crunches. The public numbers might or might not be valid – I know a lot of people don't like them, but they don't particularly bother (or impress) me – but I'm assuming there's a lot more sophisticated bean counting going on behind the curtain. If there isn't, that's executive malfeasance. I'm not seeing that, though.
> 
> Maybe a Jobsian reality distortion field is working its charm on me, but that's my read.




My mistake, Tibike. This make a lot more sense.


----------



## bmjhagen9426

I know what PRIIA is, but what are PRRIA and PRIAA?


----------



## AmtrakBlue

bmjhagen9426 said:


> I know what PRIIA is, but what are PRRIA and PRIAA?


My guess - typos


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## jis

AmtrakBlue said:


> My guess - typos


PRIAA is a typo (not mine, but typo nonetheless). It should be PRIIA.

PRRIA was the 2015 Amtrak Authorization passed by the House in early 2015 It was eventually incorporated in toto in the omnibus surface transportation authorization act called the FAST Act as the Amtrak Title in it - a first for Amtrak to be recognized as an integral part of surface transportation, not an afterthought outlier with its own separate authorization. The FAST Act was signed into law by Obama end of 2015. Amtrak currently is authorized to exist by PRRIA or the Amtrak Title in FAST 2015.

As an overview ... The much quoted Authorization from PRIIA expired in 2015. PRRIA reauthorized Amtrak by being incorporated as the Amtrak Title in the FAST Act, which incidentally expires in 2020. What we are starting to work on this year is the reauthorization that needs to be in place in 2020 for Amtrak - the followup to PRRIA.

To jog your collective memory, here is an excellent summary slideset from Amtrak Government Affairs (PDF):

http://www.highspeed-rail.org/Documents/SCORT NGEC Committee Meeting 2 18 16.pdf


----------



## sttom

One way we could mitigate having to have station agents everywhere is having those call boxes like the UK has. But that would require having an call center!


----------



## Thirdrail7

sttom said:


> But that would require having an call center!


Specifically, a call center staffed with people that know what is going on.

Did I just say that?


----------



## Inlander

Management needs to address  that call centre urgently it's costing the company business. I have had 5 separate dealings with it this year before I could get my booking finalised. I was travelling on a USA rail pass for multiple journies. Somehow they sold me two passes, then had to refund one of them. You wait over 30 mins on the phone and when you send emails it takes over 2 weeks to get a response. The operators have very poor product knowledge.


----------



## lordsigma

One thing I think could come of the letter is that it could force management to finally publicly spell out and reveal their full intentions and vision. While those intentions are starting to become clear through statements that have been made and actions that have been taken, they are still operating under a cloak of mystery and have not had to yet publicly state that “yes our vision is to eliminate these trains and run these instead.” We have gotten conflicting statements about whether they remain committed to a national network, maybe this will now force them to remove all ambiguity and spell out their intentions and plans. This would assist those opposed to that vision in being prepared for what seems like could be a nasty battle between Anderson and those opposed to his positions (RPA, unions, etc) at the reauthorization process. Management has a much better position at reauthorization if they can continue to keep the plans wrapped somewhat in secrecy until they are fully prepared to make their case.

I do eagerly await the response.


----------



## lordsigma

Just to add what I would say is the core thing that is yet to be revealed is this: does the present management outright hate the national network and want to break it up at all costs? Or are they simply using it as a hostage to get things Amtrak has wanted for years (more predictable appropriations like five year funding or something like that, a solid plan for Gateway and other NEC priorities, refleeting, and maybe some federal funding to get more corridors going.) Would they be perfectly happy if congress threw them a big chunk of change to keep running the LD trains AND address some of these other things?

Sorry fixed a bunch of incorrect auto corrections my darn phone made to my post!


----------



## RPC

Okay, I'm reading Anderson's actual testimony and seeing, "As a result of the age profile of Amtrak and California’s multilevel fleets, a “sweet spot” appears between FY2026 and FY2031 for an optimally timed multilevel railcar replacement acquisition to standardize, modernize, and expand equipment on current multilevel routes...Congress will need to make decisions about the long-term prospects of these routes and provide sufficient associated funding levels so that Amtrak can procure appropriate types and quantities of this custom rolling stock." This could be interpreted not as "let's dump these trains" but as "if we don't move on this now these trains are going away because it will become unsafe to run the equipment." And he's putting the onus on Congress to act. He's got a point: if Amtrak just keeps cosmetically renovating these cars (or not), once the welds on the frames start popping it's going to be "game over" for the western trains.


----------



## cpotisch

RPC said:


> if﻿ Amtrak just keeps cosmetically renovating these cars (or not), once the welds on the frames start popping i﻿t's going to be "game over" for the western trains.﻿﻿


“Just keeps cosmetically renovating”? I’m pretty sure they’ve only renovated the Superliner once, and it was just the SL-Is, so that statement seems a bit harsh. 

And as far as I can tell, there is no indication that the cars are falling apart like that. There are plenty of issues with the plumbing and HVAC, but the frames seem perfectly sound. Point is, it’s not like Amtrak has just been repeatedly giving the Superliners plastic surgery to cover up a broken hip.


----------



## jis

One of the documents that goes into making the sausage of the Reauthorization for next five years is a plan and funding projections from Amtrak. They should be submitting that within a few months. Usually they provide a longer term context to justify the five year Authorization request. Often their request is not accepted in toto and is modified, sometimes substantially. We will know which way the winds within Amtrak are blowing when this document comes out, and then start contributing towards fixing it to create an Authorization Bill that makes sense,. As usual, in that process, we will win some and lose some, but hopefully the most important things will get addressed, now that a significant number of legislators are already aware that all is not well.

Of course then comes the Appropriation for 2020, which from all indications will not be bad top line number wise. The question will be how much straight-jacketing is put in to prevent Anderson from doing certain things with the money. Incidentally we should see an Appropriation request from Amtrak too, which will also give and indication of where they think they are going.


----------



## neroden

jis said:


> Actually the odd thing about the so called appropriation for SWC is that it is just a set aside from the general appropriation for National System telling him he cannot spend it on anything else. If they trusted him (e.g., if he was someone like Claytor) they would most likely not have done a set aside. Just a minor detail worth noting. I think he can expect a lot more of micro management of this sort, which at the end of the day is bad IMHO.


That's Congress's style, yes.  I think he's going to get massively micromanaged by legislation, because he did stupid stuff which ticked off Congress.  This is bad in the long run.



> My fear is that Congress will simply remove the F&B language and possibly replace it with F&B restoration language and not add anything in appropriation and let him figure out how to restore F&B. Congress is very well known for doing unfunded mandates.


Yes, this is also Congress's style.



> Personally I like things to be above board. But for that to happen, Anderson also needs to be above board and fix his frickin' accounting which through no fault of his, he inherited. But there is no reason for him to blindly follow its nonsensical outcomes.


Yeah.  He should really just *do that*, fix the accounting.  I know it costs money, but it's worth it.



> At the end of the day everyone might come out bloodied and Amtrak still on the verge of collapse. That is the fear I have and I don't like it.


I expect, at this point, that Congress will preserve the national network by micromanagment, require a certain level of food service by micromanagement, earmark a large portion of Amtrak's budget for specific things (they already earmark for ADA and the SWC -- there will be more), tell Anderson to fix his damn accounting, and then Anderson will resign and the next guy will have to deal with it.


----------



## jis

RPC said:


> if Amtrak just keeps cosmetically renovating these cars (or not), once the welds on the frames start popping it's going to be "game over" for the western trains.


Fortunately, we are at least several decades away from welds popping. :lol:


----------



## Thirdrail7

This article with quotes from Mr. Gardner should leave no doubt about their vision for Amtrak 2.0!

At Amtrak, it’s no longer 1950

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/at-amtrak-its-no-longer-1950/

Here are a few brief, fair use quotes, with my emphasis added:



> Not overlooked by Gardner is the change in American demographics. “Millennials take over as the largest American cohort this year, replacing Baby Boomers as Amtrak’s core market. As demographics change, so must Amtrak’s public purpose,” he says.
> 
> The Amtrak network, hastily cobbled by Congress beginning in 1970, was secondary to relieving privately owned, primarily freight railroads of the unsustainable financial hemorrhaging of hauling passengers. That 1950s-era route structure, although occasionally tweaked, is, says Gardner, out of touch with the additional 118 million people who now live in America compared to 1971—exemplified by the millennials who tend to cluster in metropolitan areas and desire public transit out of environmental consciousness and convenience.






> Amtrak, says Gardner, has not met their expectations—not along the population-dense Northeast Corridor (NEC),*where market share is being lost to amenity-stocked motor coaches with more convenient suburban boarding points* nor between many intercity pairs that lack Amtrak service entirely. An example is the 240-mile Houston-Dallas corridor, linking the nation’s 4th and 5th largest metropolitan regions.
> 
> “Too many population centers rely on a single, often chronically late long-distance train a day, with uncompetitive trip times and intermediate-point arrival and departure times that run counter to leisure time and business travel demands,” Gardner says.
> 
> “That a sizeable number of travelers are willing to spend four hours on a bus between Washington, D.C. and New York indicates we’ve created neither enough station access to the NEC nor capacity to compete with other discretionary travel modes,” Gardner says. “If we can provide a service that meets or exceeds the bus competitor at the right price, people will trade up to rail in those markets.”


I was going to say a sizable numbers of travelers are willing to spend four hours on a bus because the prices are FAR cheaper than a train and the walk up prices aren't excruciatingly expensive...but I guess that is why I'm not in charge! ^_^



> As for Amtrak long-distance routes, trains typically pass through vibrant and growing intermediate cities at such inconvenient times and with so few frequencies as to discourage a wealth of new riders. “We must address younger riders early in their working careers who seek commercially relevant 21st century service, not the 20th century Amtrak model,” Gardner says.
> 
> *“Millennials,” says Gardner, “have no relationship to the past network, or the pre-airline and pre-Interstate Highway glory days of rail. They seek utility and comfort—grab-and-go food and workplace productivity. *We are not a preservation society. Our job is to create modern and relevant products and services that can grow rail trips and provide real transportation value with the scarce public dollars we receive.”


I mentioned this in the past:



As such, things like the dining car isn't going to appeal to Millennials.

Here's the bottom line:



> Inescapable is that of 32 million Amtrak riders last year, just roughly 650,000 booked sleeping accommodations. *“While we believe there is still a market for long-distance rail travel that provides an experience, the obvious real demand is for corridor trains of 300 to 400 miles connecting intermediate city pairs with frequent, conveniently timed service,” Gardner says.*
> 
> “Corridors work for the same reason unit trains work for freight railroads,” he says. “*We must focus on actually moving people by offering convenient alternatives to congested highways and limited air service—not just traversing landscape*. *That a city pair like Atlanta and Charlotte doesn’t have fast, frequent Amtrak service is an outrage. We are developing a long-range plan to grow the network across the nation in the corridors we think offer the most promise.”*


What has stopped Atlanta and Charlotte from making a train?  Additionally, who will fund the equipment for this 'frequent" and fast corridor service? Is there a plan to life the 750 mile restriction?

Finally, there is nothing like feeding your corridor with a long distance bridge. It works like a charm in a lot of places.

At any rate, it really seems like they are interested in corridor operation. I wonder who they will charm to pay for it.


----------



## cpotisch

Geez, the NEC has ample capacity from short distance trains. There are a total of four long distance trains that run on the NEC, and one of them is only tri-weekly. Meanwhile the NER, Palmetto, Acela, Carolinian, Pennsy, and Keystones provide dozens and dozens of trains in each direction every day (though those last two only do so between NYP and PHL).

Yet the mere presence of the Cardinal, Crescent, and Silvers are the reason so many people take the bus? Just wow. hboy:


----------



## jis

How about the thought of Long Distance trains that connect corridors without providing "an experience"? 

This should be a fun Authorization debate....

Actually it is hard to disagree with the desire to add corridor services in promising corridors. The disagreement from my perspective is whether interconnecting hubs of such corridors holds some priority or not, and unlike my generation mates, I am not too particular about the "experience" thing as long as the fundamental transportation facilities are provided that are efficient, clean and user friendly, with reasonable supply of food and creature comforts en route. For example, I don;t mind starting a service on a promising corridor, even a rather longish one to be for all practical purposes long distance with a Coach and Cafe service if there are sufficient number of people willing to take the service. I would not hold such up while people bicker about the level of Sleeper service and Diner service. So shoot me.

As usual the battle will be if someone proposes taking away an existing service in the process. It is hard to discuss such without looking at specific proposals, since everything at the end of the day is a tradeoff. I am sure there will be much mutual back scratching negotiations between various interest groups as things go along, like in everything else.

As you say Thirdrail, it should be fun to see who they charm to get all this funded.


----------



## Thirdrail7

jis said:


> As usual the battle will be if someone proposes taking away an existing service in the process. It is hard to discuss such without looking at specific proposals, since everything at the end of the day is a tradeoff. I am sure there will be much mutual back scratching negotiations between various interest groups as things go along, like in everything else.
> 
> As you say Thirdrail, it should be fun to see who they charm to get all this funded.


Well, I think we can look at the Southwest Chief News & Future Operations thread and the associated plan for their tactics:



Thirdrail7 said:


> *The presentation even includes a little bribe for future service. We're on your side and we want to run corridor trains in your state.**﻿* This is consistent with a few things I've stated before:https://www.dropbox.com/s/397rbtfluu9uifp/Dismantling-National-System-Trains-3-4.pdf?dl=0


You see the floating bribe for more corridor service on page 16. I suspect they will attempt to do they same thing again. The thing is, the Ld network is paid for by federal dollars. Corridor service sticks the states with the full costs. How many states will want that?

At any rate, I think the message is clear (although it has been clear to me for some time.) I am anxiously awaiting their long range plan for the network (which I thought would have come out last summer.)


----------



## jis

Thirdrail7 said:


> Well, I think we can look at the Southwest Chief News & Future Operations thread and the associated plan for their tactics:
> 
> You see the floating bribe for more corridor service on page 16. I suspect they will attempt to do they same thing again. The thing is, the Ld network is paid for by federal dollars. Corridor service sticks the states with the full costs. How many states will want that?
> 
> At any rate, I think the message is clear (although it has been clear to me for some time.) I am anxiously awaiting their long range plan for the network (which I thought would have come out last summer.)


Yup. They will keep trying until either they are fired or it happens, depending on who wins the argument in Congress. That has always been the case. Remember Gunn? The reason for winning does not even have to make any logical sense. It is "politics, the art of the possible" (quoting Juan Peron character from the musical Evita)

I think the long range plan has to show up before they can submit a reauthorization request, or at least as part of it. Otherwise their request is toast.


----------



## west point

So Gardner quotes a figure of 650,000 sleeper passengers out of 32M.   That is a facetious argument when sleeper space is so expensive and many legs of the  sleeper lines are still sold out.   If CAF had for whatever reason already delivered the V-2 sleepers and they filled up then what would he have said?


----------



## jebr

I'm curious what amenities are stocked on the average motor coach that Amtrak doesn't have, especially in the NEC! Their market research also seems quite off if the other advantage is "suburban boarding points" - if anything, that's a detraction for access at the destination, and only somewhat of an advantage at the origination point if there's cheaper/more-subsidized parking at the suburban boarding point.

Assuming both the train and bus run to a particular destination, price and schedule are what drives me to the bus versus the train. Amtrak is more comfortable and has better amenities (sure, the bus has wi-fi, but it's so slow as to be worthless.) However, when my only option is a single train a day, often at 4-6x the price of a booked-well-in-advance Megabus ticket, I'll take the Megabus with my preferred schedule and deal with the lower comfort levels.

That said, if Amtrak thinks moving from center city to suburbia is going to help their ridership, they have more of a car-centric mindset than any public transportation company should ever have.


----------



## neroden

Thirdrail7 said:


> Well, I think we can look at the Southwest Chief News & Future Operations thread and the associated plan for their tactics:


So they're planning to start off with fraud -- lying about the costs of the other trains.  This doesn't surprise me.  We already have the data necessary to fight back against that in the form of the RPA White Paper ("Amtrak's Route Accounting: Fatally Flawed, Misleading and Wrong").  But we need to boil it down: Amtrak is flat-out lying about the costs of operating these trains, and that's that.

https://www.railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/releases/amtraks-route-accounting-fatally-flawed-misleading-wrong/

Also, if they seriously think "suburban boarding points" are attractive to ANYONE, they're stuck in the 1950s or 1970s.

Dumbasses.


----------



## neroden

west point said:


> So Gardner quotes a figure of 650,000 sleeper passengers out of 32M.   That is a facetious argument when sleeper space is so expensive and many legs of the  sleeper lines are still sold out.   If CAF had for whatever reason already delivered the V-2 sleepers and they filled up then what would he have said?


Gardner needs to be fired.  It's becoming clear he's the one defrauding Mr. Anderson.  This fraud is his baby, for whatever reason.  Perhaps he can be exposed.  Nobody likes it when their underlying is defrauding them; someone needs to let Mr. Anderson know he's being defrauded.


----------



## neroden

It is obvious that Mr. Gardner isn't a millennial and knows nothing about what millennials want.

Yes, certainly, millennials want fast, reliable, comfortable, convenient ground transportation between metropolitan stations.

Like Chicago to New York.  Or Chicago to DC.  Or Chicago to Denver.  Or Los Angeles to Chicago.  Or Miami to New York.  Or... yeah, you get the point, right?  There is no magic "300-400 mile" limit.

-----

Here's what I'm afraid of: Mr. Anderson has made a lot of enemies, and I'm pretty sure Congress is about to hand him his head.  *But what if he isn't the problem?*  We have to make Congress aware that *Mr. Gardner is also the problem and needs to be fired.  Otherwise Gardner may manipulate the next Amtrak CEO too. *

Both Gardner and Anderson are spreading falsified numbers.

If they'd just get their accounting straight I wouldn't be so contemptuous.


----------



## neroden

Gardner gets this wrong too:



> “That a sizeable number of travelers are willing to spend four hours on a bus between Washington, D.C. and New York indicates we’ve created neither enough station access to the NEC nor capacity to compete with other discretionary travel modes,” Gardner says. “If we can provide a service that meets or exceeds the bus competitor at the right price, people will trade up to rail in those markets.”


No.  It indicates that a lot of people are very, very poor.  Amtrak is the premium service, the buses are all cheaper.

Anyone who actually hangs out with millennials understands this. It's strictly money.  They would all prefer the train, and would go out of their way to take it, but they're pinching pennies.

I have talked at times about the great demographic cultural divide -- there is a huge gap in attitudes which happens right around my birth year.  The center of it is 1974 birth year (the bottom of the baby bust), but around that year, some people fall on one side, some on the other side.  I'm lucky enough to fall on the young side, so I get along really really easily with "millennials" and "post-millennials". And often very poorly with people four years older than me, even those of similar political and social views; there's just a gap in understanding.

Gardner, despite being practically my age, is clearly falling on the wrong side of the demographic cultural divide, because he's just not getting this stuff right; he sounds like a planner from the 1970s.  I mean, he's right that millennials don't need traditional waitstaff table service, but he seems to think millennials get "grab and go" food because they *want* to.   No, it's because they're overworked and out of time.  They'd rather have more relaxed meals, if they can (while still having a chance to obsessively stare at their phones).

And every millennial I've met has wanted to travel in a sleeper compartment.  Most just can't afford it.

Of course, the one thing we all agree with Gardner and Anderson on is that On Time Performance is crucial.


----------



## Thirdrail7

neroden said:


> Gardner needs to be fired.  It's becoming clear he's the one defrauding Mr. Anderson.  This fraud is his baby, for whatever reason.  Perhaps he can be exposed.  Nobody likes it when their underlying is defrauding them; someone needs to let Mr. Anderson know he's being defrauded.






neroden said:


> Here's what I'm afraid of: Mr. Anderson has made a lot of enemies, and I'm pretty sure Congress is about to hand him his head.  *But what if he isn't the problem?*  We have to make Congress aware that *Mr. Gardner is also the problem and needs to be fired.  Otherwise Gardner may manipulate the next Amtrak CEO too. *


Ummm...isn't it pretty obvious what is happening here? Gardner, the man that  came from Congress, had a hand in crafting PRIIA and has risen to the top ranks of the corporation is probably lining up to be the next CEO.


----------



## lordsigma

I understand why Amtrak management wants to focus on adding corridors. But there’s an obvious flaw in this - why should the federal government divert money from the long distance routes to pay money to setup corridors for states who refuse to invest in them when you have other states who are willing to setup corridors and provide the funding and are doing so now? Nothing is stopping Georgia and the Carolinas from setting up an Atlanta to Charlotte corridor other than that the legislatures in those states probably don’t want to pay for it - why should I pay for that corridor with my federal tax dollars when my state is willing to invest in corridors?

I’m ok with federal funding for grants to help states get corridors started if those states are willing to make the necessary investment and incentives to try to encourage states to do so. But that really is irrelevant to the long distance routes and should be (and likely will be) a separate issue. But some of these areas where Amtrak seems to be salivating over simply do not have the support at the state level which is the real reason why there isn’t a corridor.


----------



## bretton88

lordsigma said:


> I understand why Amtrak management wants to focus on adding corridors. But there’s an obvious flaw in this - why should the federal government divert money from the long distance routes to pay money to setup corridors for states who refuse to invest in them when you have other states who are willing to setup corridors and provide the funding and are doing so now? Nothing is stopping Georgia and the Carolinas from setting up an Atlanta to Charlotte corridor other than that the legislatures in those states probably don’t want to pay for it - why should I pay for that corridor with my federal tax dollars when my state is willing to invest in corridors?
> 
> I’m ok with federal funding for grants to help states get corridors started if those states are willing to make the necessary investment and incentives to try to encourage states to do so. But that really is irrelevant to the long distance routes and should be (and likely will be) a separate issue. But some of these areas where Amtrak seems to be salivating over simply do not have the support at the state level which is the real reason why there isn’t a corridor.


Amtrak is trying to say there's a better return on that existing funding in the corridor, versus the LD train. It's just a reshuffling of existing dollars.


----------



## lordsigma

bretton88 said:


> lordsigma said:
> 
> 
> 
> I understand why Amtrak management wants to focus on adding corridors. But there’s an obvious flaw in this - why should the federal government divert money from the long distance routes to pay money to setup corridors for states who refuse to invest in them when you have other states who are willing to setup corridors and provide the funding and are doing so now? Nothing is stopping Georgia and the Carolinas from setting up an Atlanta to Charlotte corridor other than that the legislatures in those states probably don’t want to pay for it - why should I pay for that corridor with my federal tax dollars when my state is willing to invest in corridors?
> 
> I’m ok with federal funding for grants to help states get corridors started if those states are willing to make the necessary investment and incentives to try to encourage states to do so. But that really is irrelevant to the long distance routes and should be (and likely will be) a separate issue. But some of these areas where Amtrak seems to be salivating over simply do not have the support at the state level which is the real reason why there isn’t a corridor.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Amtrak is trying to say there's a better return on that existing funding in the corridor, versus the LD train. It's just a reshuffling of existing dollars.
Click to expand...

Again I understand their perspective and I have no problem with evaluating the long distance network for changes on a case by case basis to the way they are served  in ways that could make the services more useful to more people within their existing routes while providing TRAIN service to all present stations - options that do not include cutting out big sections with bus bridges. I do think there are some changes that could make sense. I have mentioned some thoughts for this before with routes I am more familiar with but I could see a desire to split up the Crescent at Atlanta as it would be come more useful for ATL-NYP travel (and all travel between) with the trains OTP struggles. The NYP-ATL segment would probably still be overnight so you'd probably still have sleepers on there - ATL-NOL would probably be a day train so you'd probably see sleepers go away there. I would not, however, support as an example eliminating the Crescent and replacing it with a Charlotte-Atlanta corridor with multiple trains per day. That sort of a corridor is meant to be funded by the states and that is my point about taking federal dollars that are serving large interstate long distance corridors and handing them to a small segment where states should be funding it. Another example of something that might make sense is rethinking NYP-MIA. One thought I've had about that is a two train one during the day and one at night approach running along the Meteor's path may make more sense than the present Star/Meteor setup as it would give people two truly different options. Essentially you could run the Meteor at night with more sleepers and then extend the Palmetto to Jacksonville and setup some type of system of shuttle trains to replace the pieces in the Carolinas and Florida lost by not running the Star that would connect to whichever of the two made sense. It Should only be once per day in each direction for these "Shuttles" unless the states wanted to invest in a true corridor. However I likewise, here, would not support eliminating the Star/Meteor and replacing them with a Florida corridor with multiple trains per day and replacing everything else with buses or nothing.


----------



## Ryan

lordsigma said:


> I understand why Amtrak management wants to focus on adding corridors. But there’s an obvious flaw in this - why should the federal government divert money from the long distance routes to pay money to setup corridors for states who refuse to invest in them when you have other states who are willing to setup corridors and provide the funding and are doing so now?


Thanks for posing the question this way - it's finally got my head around what bothers me in this situation, but haven't been able to articulate in a reasonable fashion (and I may not be, but here goes).

I don't see anything in any of Anderson's (or others at Amtrak) written or spoken comments that indicates that they are seeking to *divert* money from the LD trains.

My take is that there are two separate things at play here, first that Anderson and Amtrak are saying to Congress (correctly, IMO) "If you want LD trains to continue, you are going to have to commit to funding them in a way that we can continue to run them". You see this highlighted in one of the pitches that talk about a potential Superliner replacement and the fact that the window to ordering replacements is coming soon.  This has been a request of Amtrak's since the Boardman era.

What has changed is the second bit, Amtrak starting to hype up expanded corridor service as a means to system expansion.  If there are states that aren't willing to pony up the money for decent transit, I'm perfectly OK with my federal dollars going to support such a service.  Let's throw the 750 mile rule away, and see where service can establish itself.  More Amtrak (be it in the form of LD, state-funded corridors, or federal-funded corridors) is a good thing and helps to defray the massive capital costs that come with running a railroad.  From what I've seen, Amtrak would be perfectly happy with a "both and" endgame, not the "either or" that rail fans seem to ascribe to Amtrak in general (and Anderson personally).

Why these two fronts for discussion have been merged into one and turned into a fabricated "war on LD trains" is a mystery to me.  From what I can see of it, personal animosity towards an executive with airline and health care backround replacing a beloved railroader is rather a large part of it.


----------



## bretton88

Here's my thought on corridor trains. Intrastate trains (VA, CA, IL, etc) should be the state's responsibility. Interstate trains should be Amtrak's (or some other federal entity) responsibility. We have too many examples of state's not being able to cooperate or cooperation quickly falling apart to trust them to make something like an ATL to Charlotte corridor happen.


----------



## bretton88

Ryan said:


> Thanks for posing the question this way - it's finally got my head around what bothers me in this situation, but haven't been able to articulate in a reasonable fashion (and I may not be, but here goes).
> I don't see anything in any of Anderson's (or others at Amtrak) written or spoken comments that indicates that they are seeking to *divert* money from the LD trains.
> My take is that there are two separate things at play here, first that Anderson and Amtrak are saying to Congress (correctly, IMO) "If you want LD trains to continue, you are going to have to commit to funding them in a way that we can continue to run them". You see this highlighted in one of the pitches that talk about a potential Superliner replacement and the fact that the window to ordering replacements is coming soon.  This has been a request of Amtrak's since the Boardman era.
> What has changed is the second bit, Amtrak starting to hype up expanded corridor service as a means to system expansion.  If there are states that aren't willing to pony up the money for decent transit, I'm perfectly OK with my federal dollars going to support such a service.  Let's throw the 750 mile rule away, and see where service can establish itself.  More Amtrak (be it in the form of LD, state-funded corridors, or federal-funded corridors) is a good thing and helps to defray the massive capital costs that come with running a railroad.  From what I've seen, Amtrak would be perfectly happy with a "both and" endgame, not the "either or" that rail fans seem to ascribe to Amtrak in general (and Anderson personally).
> Why these two fronts for discussion have been merged into one and turned into a fabricated "war on LD trains" is a mystery to me.  From what I can see of it, personal animosity towards an executive with airline and health care backround replacing a beloved railroader is rather a large part of it.


What caused those fronts to be merged was how Amtrak handled the SWC. Basically proposing to replace it with a series of corridors. That definitely gave the impression of a war on LD trains. Amtrak does appear to have tweaked their messaging a bit after that. Anderson himself seems to be somewhat open to keeping LD trains but not in it's current unsustainable form. Gardner on other hand seems to have little or no use for them.


----------



## Ryan

The anti-Anderson bandwagon started long before that.  These posts on the day Anderson was named makes reference to people on social media already losing their minds:


----------



## Thirdrail7

Ryan said:


> Thanks for posing the question this way - it's finally got my head around what bothers me in this situation, but haven't been able to articulate in a reasonable fashion (and I may not be, but here goes).
> 
> I don't see anything in any of Anderson's (or others at Amtrak) written or spoken comments that indicates that they are seeking to *divert* money from the LD trains.
> 
> My take is that there are two separate things at play here, first that Anderson and Amtrak are saying to Congress (correctly, IMO) "If you want LD trains to continue, you are going to have to commit to funding them in a way that we can continue to run them". You see this highlighted in one of the pitches that talk about a potential Superliner replacement and the fact that the window to ordering replacements is coming soon.  This has been a request of Amtrak's since the Boardman era.
> 
> What has changed is the second bit, Amtrak starting to hype up expanded corridor service as a means to system expansion.  If there are states that aren't willing to pony up the money for decent transit, I'm perfectly OK with my federal dollars going to support such a service.  Let's throw the 750 mile rule away, and see where service can establish itself.  More Amtrak (be it in the form of LD, state-funded corridors, or federal-funded corridors) is a good thing and helps to defray the massive capital costs that come with running a railroad.  From what I've seen, Amtrak would be perfectly happy with a "both and" endgame, not the "either or" that rail fans seem to ascribe to Amtrak in general (and Anderson personally).
> 
> Why these two fronts for discussion have been merged into one and turned into a fabricated "war on LD trains" is a mystery to me.  From what I can see of it, personal animosity towards an executive with airline and health care backround replacing a beloved railroader is rather a large part of it.


I fully disagree with you, my friend.

Unless Congress allocates enough money for long distance AND new corridor service,  there will obviously be a choice between LD and corridor service. Since the 750 rule exists, it is quite clear that Congress is only so interested in funding corridors.

So, why the hype for corridor service? Why the exploration for as service that you weren't really asked to provide?

More importantly, where is the exploration of the PIPs for the LD network?  Where is the expansion of the LD network? Where is the conversation about feeding the LD network?

This statement says it all:



> *We are developing a long-range plan to grow the network across the nation in the corridors we think offer the most promise.”*


If Amtrak would be happy with a "both and" end game, they wouldn't have proposed eviscerating the Southwest Chief by breaking in thirds. Additionally, even if we are to continue to ignore the obvious, where is the plan for the long distance network? What are your goals? Where are your improvement plans. We've heard a lot of chatter about the NEC, which is about to receive YET ANOTHER dedicated set (that's two since the majority LD network has received equipment) and now we're hearing about corridor service.

Where is the commitment and conversation regarding your EXISTING network? Before you start taking on new things, shouldn't you take care of what you already have?

Unless, you are indeed planning to cut it.


----------



## daybeers

So...what can we do to kick Gardner out?


----------



## frequentflyer

Thirdrail7 said:


> I fully disagree with you, my friend.
> 
> Unless Congress allocates enough money for long distance AND new corridor service,  there will obviously be a choice between LD and corridor service. Since the 750 rule exists, it is quite clear that Congress is only so interested in funding corridors.
> 
> So, why the hype for corridor service? Why the exploration for as service that you weren't really asked to provide?
> 
> More importantly, where is the exploration of the PIPs for the LD network?  Where is the expansion of the LD network? Where is the conversation about feeding the LD network?
> 
> This statement says it all:
> 
> If Amtrak would be happy with a "both and" end game, they wouldn't have proposed eviscerating the Southwest Chief by breaking in thirds. Additionally, even if we are to continue to ignore the obvious, where is the plan for the long distance network? What are your goals? Where are your improvement plans. We've heard a lot of chatter about the NEC, which is about to receive YET ANOTHER dedicated set (that's two since the majority LD network has received equipment) and now we're hearing about corridor service.
> 
> Where is the commitment and conversation regarding your EXISTING network? Before you start taking on new things, shouldn't you take care of what you already have?
> 
> Unless, you are indeed planning to cut it.


Whats left to say about the LD trains or how to improve them financially? Higher yields.  Have you seen the sleeper prices in the summer time? Better  on time performance. The RRs are going to want higher user fees.  The closest LD trains came to breaking even was the Express business. Which would have been successful if Amtrak didn't go overboard (beyond baggage cars) and started tacking on boxcars and messing up the time scheduling.


----------



## jis

It would have been nice to learn whatever happened to the PIPs, and also if claims of profit/loss were made based on more credible accounting instead of harping the same BS. The current analysis based on GIGO P/L accounting is just that GIGO.


----------



## jebr

Thirdrail7 said:


> If Amtrak would be happy with a "both and" end game, they wouldn't have proposed eviscerating the Southwest Chief by breaking in thirds.


I think this is the key, especially without ever seriously proposing a reroute with some sort of caveat. It'd be pretty easy to present it as though "We can't afford to maintain the Raton route for two trains a day. However, we'd like to reroute the train over the southern transcon, with a station stop in Amarillo, with a bus service connecting stations that we'll have to bypass. In order to do this, we need to get BNSF on board." Considering BNSF is the one that decided to downgrade the Raton route, it seems fair to call them out if they're not allowing a reasonable reroute on their southern transcon, and likely would have made a lot fewer enemies.

It should be plainly obvious to an airline CEO that people want direct service and will pay more to do so, and that too many transfers will kill much of the market no matter what the price is. There is a bit of a difference where nonstop is the main key for airline service, whereas limited stops usually aren't a big issue for passenger rail service (the penalty per stop is a couple minutes versus roughly an hour with a larger jet at larger airports) but the concept of having to get off a vehicle, get onto another vehicle, then board yet another vehicle a few hours later would be unpopular, especially if you're completely eliminating the through option for everyone.


----------



## TiBike

Thirdrail7 said:


> Unless Congress allocates enough money for long distance AND new corridor service,  there will obviously be a choice between LD and corridor service. Since the 750 rule exists, it is quite clear that Congress is only so interested in funding corridors.
> 
> So, why the hype for corridor service? Why the exploration for as service that you weren't really asked to provide?
> 
> More importantly, where is the exploration of the PIPs for the LD network?  Where is the expansion of the LD network? Where is the conversation about feeding the LD network?
> 
> -- snip --
> 
> Where is the commitment and conversation regarding your EXISTING network? Before you start taking on new things, shouldn't you take care of what you already have?
> 
> Unless, you are indeed planning to cut it.


I think that's exactly what's going on. The way I read the article with Gardner and Anderson's testimony to congress, there's clear intent to reduce long distance service, and to change they way they spend "the scarce public dollars" they receive. Gardner, particularly, is talking down long distance service and talking up corridor service. It's clear corporate-speak (not to be confused with clear English) and it's been consistent since Anderson took over.

Yes, spending federal money on corridor service means changing the rules. Amtrak needs to ask congress to do that and Gardner is signalling that they will do so, if they haven't already.


----------



## bmjhagen9426

So what should we do to slow or prevent Gardner's dream from coming true? I'm assuming that there are those who oppose his intents. Sure, millenials may be the largest single customer base segment, but you need to factor in GenX'ers and pre-Boomer generations, and the sum of Boomers, GenX'ers, and Boomers themselves outnumber millenials. And of course, some millenials prefer sit-downs rather than grab-n-go and are able to afford sleeper trips. Most of the millenials do not.


----------



## tricia

bmjhagen9426 said:


> So what should we do to slow or prevent Gardner's dream from coming true? I'm assuming that there are those who oppose his intents. Sure, millenials may be the largest single customer base segment, but you need to factor in GenX'ers and pre-Boomer generations, and the sum of Boomers, GenX'ers, and Boomers themselves outnumber millenials. And of course, some millenials prefer sit-downs rather than grab-n-go and are able to afford sleeper trips. Most of the millenials do not.


In addition, people's needs and preferences change as they age. What many millenials want/need now is likely different from what they'll want/need in years to come, just as Boomers' preferences have changed over decades of their lives. 

Dismantling a national network that won't be feasible to re-build, to meet the current preferences of any age cohort, would be insanely short-sighted.


----------



## jis

I am yet to see any credible controlled study of the Millenials preference on this matter. So far it has been a case of "proof by repeated assertion" by a few, for whatever is their pet theory.


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

For those that still don’t think Anderson:Gardner are working for Elaine Chao and the Trump admin today’s WSJ online has details on Trumps 2020 Amtrak budget. Replace LDTs with buses is this years proposal. The administrations budget mirrors Gardner’s flawed goals.


----------



## bmjhagen9426

Amtrakfflyer said:


> For those that still don’t think Anderson:Gardner are working for Elaine Chao and the Trump admin today’s WSJ online today has details on Trumps 2020 Amtrak budget. Replace LDT with buses is this years proposal. The administrations budget mirrors Gardner’s flawed goals.


What are the odds that Admin proposal (stopping all 15 LD routes) and Gardner's goals being approved, considering a split congress and a handful pro-Amtrak congressmen and senators, and reauthorization being around the corner? Looks like a battle from without and within. Speaking of buses, they are more risky than trains (I ride municipal buses often, and there were many close calls, with crashes being averted with a split-second to spare). I rarely ever look at WSJ Online that often, as they built a wall to protect their articles.


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

What scares me is the ultimate reauthorization request Amtrak does submit. Amtrak management has never asked for the right to  shut down half the system before. As irrelevant as the Trump budget is they are asking for the same thing. How many uninformed members of Congress will go along  thinking hey that’s what Amtrak says is good for the system, it’s fiscally prudent? How many GOP Senate members will go along because they don’t want to cross Trump?

Dont me wrong I think it will work out but this is turning out to be Amtrak’s darkest years in spite of record funding. All self induced by a cancerous management that needs to be removed.


----------



## MARC Rider

jebr said:


> I'm curious what amenities are stocked on the average motor coach that Amtrak doesn't have, especially in the NEC! Their market research also seems quite off if the other advantage is "suburban boarding points" - if anything, that's a detraction for access at the destination, and only somewhat of an advantage at the origination point if there's cheaper/more-subsidized parking at the suburban boarding point.
> 
> Assuming both the train and bus run to a particular destination, price and schedule are what drives me to the bus versus the train. Amtrak is more comfortable and has better amenities (sure, the bus has wi-fi, but it's so slow as to be worthless.) However, when my only option is a single train a day, often at 4-6x the price of a booked-well-in-advance Megabus ticket, I'll take the Megabus with my preferred schedule and deal with the lower comfort levels.
> 
> That said, if Amtrak thinks moving from center city to suburbia is going to help their ridership, they have more of a car-centric mindset than any public transportation company should ever have.


"Suburban boarding points?" 

What are New Carrollton, BWI Airport Station, Aberdeen, Newark (DE), Metropark, and Route 128, chopped liver?  Oh, and Croton-Harmon, Paoli, and Exton, too.  Plus the zillions of commuter rail stations in the northeastern metro areas that directly connect to Amtrak corridor and long distance service.


----------



## jis

Add to those Alexandria, Yonkers, New Rochelle and Stamford. Also around Chicago, Naperville, Sturtvent and a few others. All that is before we hit California 

Who said anything about moving out of city centers anyway?


----------



## Thirdrail7

TiBike said:


> I think that's exactly what's going on. The way I read the article with Gardner and Anderson's testimony to congress, there's clear intent to reduce long distance service, and to change they way they spend "the scarce public dollars" they receive. Gardner, particularly, is talking down long distance service and talking up corridor service. It's clear corporate-speak (not to be confused with clear English) and it's been consistent since Anderson took over.
> 
> Yes, spending federal money on corridor service means changing the rules. Amtrak needs to ask congress to do that and Gardner is signalling that they will do so, if they haven't already.


I'm reading it the same way as you, TiBike.  Additionally, this is pretty much what you and I said juuuust over a year ago in the Richard Anderson replacing Wick Moorman as Amtrak CEO thread:



Thirdrail7 said:


> We may find out soon enough. My prediction is a push to corridor type trains, financed by the states. We may not have a choice. If that fails, you'll see a nod to sustaining the system by running a perfunctory train with minimal amenities and a puny consist. The rest of the equipment will be diverted to other places in the system to feed corridor type service. Again, this may NOT be the end of the world, depending on how it is accomplished.






TiBike said:


> I agree with you completely, TR7, about where things are likely headed. Expanded corridor service and skeletal, non-daily service elsewhere seems to fit both Anderson's vision of the business (transportation, not entertainment) and the mood of the administration. You have a far better grasp of the railroad business than I do, and I believe you when you say it's more complicated, in many respects at least, than airlines. But I'm betting that long distance service as we know it is not one of the choices on the table. It's either solve the problems and reshape service and schedules to maximise revenue/minimise empty seat-miles, or walk away from some routes completely.


I still don't believe the states are going to want to foot the bill for the vast majority of their operations. This is especially true with trains that cross state lines and one state doesn't find it favorable. 

Let the games begin..


----------



## neroden

Ryan said:


> Why these two fronts for discussion have been merged into one and turned into a fabricated "war on LD trains" is a mystery to me.


The repeated accounting fraud used to claim that the long-distance trains cost far more money than they really do?  The idiotic bustitution proposals?  The ham-handed, non-data-driven changes to food service?  The erratic and random removal of sleepers from the Boston section of the LSL?


----------



## neroden

jis said:


> It would have been nice to learn whatever happened to the PIPs, and also if claims of profit/loss were made based on more credible accounting instead of harping the same BS. The current analysis based on GIGO P/L accounting is just that GIGO.


This is what we have to tell Congress.

Amtrak is lying to Congress about the numbers.


----------



## neroden

daybeers said:


> So...what can we do to kick Gardner out?


I'd suggest digging up specific examples of Gardner personally using the faked/falsified numbers in public: i.e. catch him red-handed committing fraud.  I think there were some.


----------



## neroden

Thirdrail7 said:


> Ummm...isn't it pretty obvious what is happening here? Gardner, the man that  came from Congress, had a hand in crafting PRIIA and has risen to the top ranks of the corporation is probably lining up to be the next CEO.


Gardner's a fraudster who has flatly violated the PRIIA order to provide avoidable-cost accounting.

He's lying to Congress and they don't like that.

If you come to RPA's Day on the Hill, tell your Congressman's staff member that Stephen Gardner is flat-out lying about the costs of long-distance trains; that he's committing fraud, and that you have an outside audit to prove it.  Leave it at that.  Should be enough.


----------



## neroden

bmjhagen9426 said:


> So what should we do to slow or prevent Gardner's dream from coming true?


Contact your Congresspeople -- Representative and Senators.  Tell them that the so-called long-distance trains are essential to you. Tell them that Amtrak, particularly Stephen Gardner, is lying to them about the costs of these trains -- in reality, several are profitable, most are cheap -- and that there is an outside audit (cite RPA's white paper) showing this.  Tell them that Amtrak, particularly Stephen Gardner, has for 10 years ignored and violated Congress's instruction to provide real accounting. 

Suggest that:

(1) Amtrak be prohibited from discontinuing any rail service until 6 months after Amtrak provides Congress with avoidable-cost route-level accounting, with no allocations.

Congress doesn't like being lied to and it doesn't like it when Amtrak refuses to follow the law, so y'know...


----------



## neroden

jis said:


> Add to those Alexandria, Yonkers, New Rochelle and Stamford. Also around Chicago, Naperville, Sturtvent and a few others. All that is before we hit California
> 
> Who said anything about moving out of city centers anyway?


Gardner.


----------



## AGM.12

One other thing to be aware of is that Amtrak has enraged private car operators, groups that run excursions, as well as perhaps even some state governments enough so that these former allies will say to hell with Amtrak and not oppose this budget.


----------



## lordsigma

If Anderson/Gardner are indeed in cahoots with the administration that may ultimately help doom their proposals though due to the current political climate. This budget is surely dead on arrival in congress but as I said before, the similarity between the language here and what Gardner has been alluding to may give a preview of what is to come at reauth if Anderson/Gardner did have a roll in crafting that language. The question is - is what they are going to propose going to be as complete and direct a cancellation of the national network as the budget states or a more moderate approach with a trimmed down network where there may still be some trains and some buses.


----------



## TiBike

The resemblance between Amtrak's plans and the administration's proposed budget doesn't look like a coincidence. The article about Gardner was published just ahead of the budget plan, and was written by a guy who also wrote rail policy for the Heritage Foundation. The Amtrak priority for democrats appears so far to be labor concerns, per the committee letter to Anderson. But a potentially bigger passenger rail issue, primarily for democrats but also affecting some republicans, is the Gateway program. It's been zeroed out again in Trump's budget. Money for the NEC, something for corridors elsewhere and better rural bus service, combined with some guarantees for employees, might turn out to be acceptable sausage.


----------



## Amtrak706

It's over. Ride them while you can.


----------



## lordsigma

Amtrak706 said:


> It's over. Ride them while you can.


I’m not so sure it’s over. Again I think they’ve done themselves a disservice by hitching their wagon to the current controversial administration if they have. That is automatically going to make some folks in congress oppose it. Remember again the senate votes recently for language in reference to the Southwest Chief plan. I don’t think congress is going to ignore the RPA and other advocacy voices opposing this plan and just rubber stamp it. This would amount to a substantial domestic program cut with fancy language saying its “enhancement” and Democrats don’t like domestic cuts and there really isn’t a reason right now for them to do it politically as the republican controlled senate isn’t even likely to support this plan. There are some republican senators who have supported Amtrak in the past. This budget proposal also adds billions and billions more to the pentagon budget which will have a much greater impact on deficits - big picture this Amtrak cut doesn’t amount to much compared to other areas of federal spending.

If one looks at January Amtrak reports, Amtrak’s operational subsidy is on track to once again be an all time low this coming year which means a bigger slice of their federal money will go to capital programs. All service line expenses are down across the board even though Amtrak ridership seems to have hit a plateau and is unfavorable to their forecast - and these decreases are not focused to the long distance routes the NEC is seeing some decreases as well but even despite this the expenses continue to fall. Even the long distance trains that still have dining and baggage cars are seeing expense decreases which means less of a subsidy will be needed. The urgency of cutting these trains seems to decrease each and every year. If you dealt with OTP and refreshed the superliner and amfleet II equipment those expense numbers would drop even more as you’d grow ridership. It should also be noted that with state supported trains a large portion of them also lose money and not all have stellar ridership. But usually no one cares about that because those operating subsidies are picked up by states.


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

TiBike said:


> The resemblance between Amtrak's plans and the administration's proposed budget doesn't look like a coincidence. The article about Gardner was published just ahead of the budget plan, and was written by a guy who also wrote rail policy for the Heritage Foundation. The Amtrak priority for democrats appears so far to be labor concerns, per the committee letter to Anderson. But a potentially bigger passenger rail issue, primarily for democrats but also affecting some republicans, is the Gateway program. It's been zeroed out again in Trump's budget. Money for the NEC, something for corridors elsewhere and better rural bus service, combined with some guarantees for employees, might turn out to be acceptable sausage.


Re: Gardner’s Article Railway age March 9th

Instead of sitting down to do that interview maybe they should have replied to the House letter that was due March 8th. Blantant disregard and contempt for Congress.  In effect Gardner’s letter was the response it’s not a coincidence.


----------



## PRR 60

Amtrakfflyer said:


> Re: Gardner’s Article Railway age March 9th
> 
> Instead of sitting down to do that interview maybe they should have replied to the House letter that was due March 8th. Blantant disregard and contempt for Congress.  In affect Gardner’s letter was the response it’s not a coincidence.


How do you know they did not respond? Just because they did not post a PR "letter" does not mean they did not contact the reps through direct channels as would be customary for response to congressional inquiries.


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

It would have and will eventually  leak shortly after received. There’s 51 signers on that letter so potentially 100 plus staffers in addition to the reps will see it. The timing of the article is suspicious. Plus RPA will probably have it leaked to them the day it’s received whether they publish it is another story but somebody will.


----------



## neroden

Yeah, a response to a letter with that many Congressional signers does NOT remain confidential for long. Amtrak hasn't responded yet.


----------



## PRR 60

Communications does not always take place in the form of a letter. Amtrak government affairs people have phone numbers and in-person access to both representatives and staffers.


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

51 phone calls or a memo they can   throw together in an hour and send to commitee chair? The questions were softball and Amtrak management knows how they want to answer them. In fact Gardner did.


----------



## pennyk

MODERATOR NOTE:  Discussions concerning the Amtrak FY 2020 Budget have been moved here


----------



## Amtrak706

lordsigma said:


> I’m not so sure it’s over. Again I think they’ve done themselves a disservice by hitching their wagon to the current controversial administration if they have. That is automatically going to make some folks in congress oppose it. Remember again the senate votes recently for language in reference to the Southwest Chief plan. I don’t think congress is going to ignore the RPA and other advocacy voices opposing this plan and just rubber stamp it. This would amount to a substantial domestic program cut with fancy language saying its “enhancement” and Democrats don’t like domestic cuts and there really isn’t a reason right now for them to do it politically as the republican controlled senate isn’t even likely to support this plan. There are some republican senators who have supported Amtrak in the past. This budget proposal also adds billions and billions more to the pentagon budget which will have a much greater impact on deficits - big picture this Amtrak cut doesn’t amount to much compared to other areas of federal spending.
> 
> If one looks at January Amtrak reports, Amtrak’s operational subsidy is on track to once again be an all time low this coming year which means a bigger slice of their federal money will go to capital programs. All service line expenses are down across the board even though Amtrak ridership seems to have hit a plateau and is unfavorable to their forecast - and these decreases are not focused to the long distance routes the NEC is seeing some decreases as well but even despite this the expenses continue to fall. Even the long distance trains that still have dining and baggage cars are seeing expense decreases which means less of a subsidy will be needed. The urgency of cutting these trains seems to decrease each and every year. If you dealt with OTP and refreshed the superliner and amfleet II equipment those expense numbers would drop even more as you’d grow ridership. It should also be noted that with state supported trains a large portion of them also lose money and not all have stellar ridership. But usually no one cares about that because those operating subsidies are picked up by states.


There's no doubt about the fact that *externally*, Amtrak was doing better than ever. As you stated, there were record ridership numbers and a record low deficit for several years in a row, in spite of low gas prices and declining service quality. Their appropriations were way up and they actually had major support from Congress.

The disaster that has been unfolding over the past year or so is completely internal. Anderson, Gardner, and whoever on the board supports them seem intent on bludgeoning the fragile status quo at Amtrak out of existence, despite the fact that the status quo was actually positive and improving for the first time in decades. Now there are ridership problems on long distance routes where service was lowered, and the inexplicable support and funding from Congress may not last too much longer. When it goes, there will be no one left defending Amtrak as it exists now, and with that it'll be over.


----------



## west point

Thoughts!   We need a deep dive into how the 750 mile rule came about?  Especially those involved in crafting that provision?

The Va Amtrak service is technically interstate and that includes VRE.  The  NJT  to NYP is also interstate.  PATH also.

Exactly how should  the commerce clause of the constitution be  applied especially the post road section.  So the application of that has been applied to include RRs.  That was applied to the building of RRs.


----------



## bretton88

west point said:


> Thoughts!   We need a deep dive into how the 750 mile rule came about?  Especially those involved in crafting that provision?
> The Va Amtrak service is technically interstate and that includes VRE.  The  NJT  to NYP is also interstate.  PATH also.
> Exactly how should  the commerce clause of the constitution be  applied especially the post road section.  So the application of that has been applied to include RRs.  That was applied to the building of RRs.


I think the line should be whether the trains are there for the primary benefit of one State or many. I.e. the keystone's are technically multi State, but they really are there for the benefit of Pennsylvania. Versus say an Atlanta to Charlotte corridor where there are multiple states involved and it will benefit multiple states. I could see a shortening of the 750 mile rule to 400/500 miles OR entirely in one State (looking at the California services).


----------



## MikefromCrete

Explain to me why states which have supported Amtrak for years should be punished why those who have ignored Amtrak should be given a free pass. Georgia,  South Carolina and North Carolina are doing just fine. Let them pay for their short distance trains like everyone else.


----------



## John Bredin

bretton88 said:


> west point said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thoughts!   We need a deep dive into how the 750 mile rule came about?  Especially those involved in crafting that provision?
> The Va Amtrak service is technically interstate and that includes VRE.  The  NJT  to NYP is also interstate.  PATH also.
> Exactly how should  the commerce clause of the constitution be  applied especially the post road section.  So the application of that has been applied to include RRs.  That was applied to the building of RRs.
> 
> 
> 
> I think the line should be whether the trains are there for the primary benefit of one State or many. I.e. the keystone's are technically multi State, but they really are there for the benefit of Pennsylvania. Versus say an Atlanta to Charlotte corridor where there are multiple states involved and it will benefit multiple states. I could see a shortening of the 750 mile rule to 400/500 miles OR entirely in one State (looking at the California services).
Click to expand...

Is the same criteria applied to Federal funding of highway projects? There are Interstate highways in Alaska and Hawaii, for pete's sake!  :giggle:

The 750 mile rule was imposed on Amtrak by Congress. IMHO, supporters of passenger rail should not tie themselves into knots separating "true" intercity sheep from interloper state goats that don't deserve federal money, so that some rail supporters are pitted against others. The only people that benefit from that are the highway people. who walk away with sacks of money while we fight each other over scraps. Intercity rail is intercity rail.

If I was president* I'd provide for a base level of service, maybe two trains a day, at Federal expense. A state would be able to get better service by ponying up the same percentage a state contributes to highway projects, not 100%. If highways are 80 Fed-20 state, rail should be too. If highways are 50-50, rail should be too.

*Cue up music from the old Popeye cartoon.  :giggle:


----------



## bretton88

MikefromCrete said:


> Explain to me why states which have supported Amtrak for years should be punished why those who have ignored Amtrak should be given a free pass. Georgia,  South Carolina and North Carolina are doing just fine. Let them pay for their short distance trains like everyone else.


Because you just named 3 states in that statement. Getting multiple states to cooperate is near impossible, that's where Amtrak comes into play. Now if Amtrak started running intrastate trains with no state support (I.e. Dallas to Houston), then there should be questions asked.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

bretton88 said:


> Because you just named 3 states in that statement. Getting multiple states to cooperate is near impossible, that's where Amtrak comes into play. Now if Amtrak started running intrastate trains with no state support (I.e. Dallas to Houston), then there should be questions asked.



I wouldn't mind if they did run a Dallas-Houston train with federal funding, I don't know why they don't. Houston is the fourth most populous city in the US and they have one train that runs 3x/week and the connections in New Orleans require an overnight stay. If more than half of the country wanted to visit Houston on Amtrak, they'd either have to overnight in NOL or transfer to a bus in some rinky dink city in the middle of nowhere. They should have never cut the Houston leg of the Texas Eagle.

If you want a true "national" system, you have to think what is best for the nation, no state boundaries, no mileage requirements. Where do people live, where do they want to go? Imagine someone wanting to go from Point A to Point B, how can they get there? If there isn't a train there now, get one there.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

John Bredin said:


> Is the same criteria applied to Federal funding of highway projects? There are Interstate highways in Alaska and Hawaii, for pete's sake! :giggle:
> 
> If I was president* I'd provide for a base level of service, maybe two trains a day, at Federal expense. A state would be able to get better service by ponying up the same percentage a state contributes to highway projects, not 100%. If highways are 80 Fed-20 state, rail should be too. If highways are 50-50, rail should be too.



Two trains per state? So California would get the same number of trains and level of service as Wyoming? Umm, no.


----------



## John Bredin

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Two trains per state? So California would get the same number of trains and level of service as Wyoming? Umm, no.


Two trains per existing or possible new* long-distance line, not per state. California has more than one LD line.

*As to new lines, IMHO the first criteria is how much $ and train equipment Amtrak has (of course), the second is the condition of the line (how fast could Amtrak trains go without a whole lot of capital improvements to the line), and the third is the willingness of the _communities_ along a possible route to support a station. Trains serve communities, not states. If a community will support a station, it gets one. If enough communities on a possible route (that Amtrak has $ and equipment for, with decent speeds) show willingness to pony up for a station, they get service. And I don't care if the community support comes from the state, city, county, transit authority, tourism board, chamber of commerce, a downtown landowner, or the man in the moon.


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

That didn’t work too well for the Hoosier state cities and colleges that ponied up money. I just did a post on that under the Hoosier state thread,last day of service 6/30/19.


----------



## cpotisch

bretton88 said:


> I think the line should be whether the trains are there for the primary benefit of one State or many. I.e. the keystone's are technically multi State, but they really are there for the benefit of Pennsylvania.


I agree with the intent here, but I just think that would be too subjective to work well. And the way something is intended is also very different from how people use it. Something could be intended as or expected to be primarily intrastate, but riders may see and use it the other way.


----------



## cpotisch

John Bredin said:


> If I was president* I'd provide for a base level of service, maybe two trains a day, at Federal expense. A state would be able to get better service by ponying up the same percentage a state contributes to highway projects, not 100%. If highways are 80 Fed-20 state, rail should be too. If highways are 50-50, rail should be too.


Couldn't agree more. That gives Amtrak the freedom to provide service where it wishes (which can also be used as a feeder to bring more passengers to other routes), while also giving the states an incentive to chip in and improve service.


----------



## Tokkyu40

jis said:


> At present, there is no known instance of a Corridor train outside the NE Corridor that even Amtrak with its goofy accounting claims to make money overall.



The dishonest accounting system is the main problem with most of the plans being put forward. Much of the infrastructure costs of the NEC are wrapped up in the general overhead and distributed among the routes according to route length.
If you deduct the corporate overhead from the money losing LD trains and just account for the cost of the train and the route itself, the Autotrain, Silver Star, Silver Meteor, Lake Shore Limited, Palmetto and Empire Builder are running at a profit.
Average trip length on Amtrak is 800 miles, the same as on airlines.
Long Distance trains have a higher load factor and higher output in revenue passenger miles than the NEC. They are major revenue drivers and Amtrak would be economically crippled if they get closed down in favor of corridor services.
Worse, there would be no place to shift the costs of the NEC, and the true cost of the infrastructure would become obvious.
It's almost as if someone came in from an airline with a deliberate intention of ending Amtrak.


----------



## lordsigma

Take a look at the most recent news release on rail passengers. Gardner was asked about Amtrak’s upcoming funding request. They plan on asking for the full authorized amounts for next FY as well as some additional items they feel should be funded. He directly named an interest in additional federal funding to help states launch additional corridors on top of existing national network funding. When asked about LD trains he Pretty much said what I have suspected for a while. Management envisions a “core set” of today’s long distance routes having a long term future role in the network but sees other routes better served by corridors. See RPA site for full quotes as I’m on my phone and can’t quote it all ATM. This would imply that while they would like to see changes, they are not proposing as extreme a change as trump’s budget. We shall see....


----------



## lordsigma

As for which LD routes make the cut in their “core set” we can all start making bets...


----------



## Tom in PA

lordsigma said:


> If Anderson/Gardner are indeed in cahoots with the administration that may ultimately help doom their proposals though due to the current political climate. This budget is surely dead on arrival in congress
> 
> 
> Of course they are in "cahoots." From what I hear, President Trump has never ridden an LD route. The Trump administration has priorities and one of them is to get rid of anything created & nourished by Democrats that costs the government money. The GOP has no use for railroads.
> Only strong public outcry about this will save AMTRAK.


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

I read that as well on the RPA email. A set can be as few as “2” the CSL and the CZ. Knowing how Gardner and Anderson have played their cards and double talk that’s what I would expect. Benefit of the doubt has been burned beyond repair.


----------



## NES28

I think that what many people are missing in this discussion is that as much as Amtrak would like to focus on corridors (the recent Gardner column in Railway Age is their most explicit statement to date, they are not structured in a way they could, actually, implement them. Experience around the world has demonstrated that to be successful in these corridors that are "too short to fly and too long to drive" fast, frequent service must be provided. This is what Texas Central and Brightline are working to implement. U.S. Class I railroads have made it crystal clear that they will not allow their freight trains to share track with such an operation. In 2003 UPRR accepted 110 mph on CHI-STL and has put many roadblocks in place to impede actual implementation. Since then the highest speed accepted has been 90 mph for future MSP-DUL (on BNSF) and WAS-RVR (CSX). The reality is that the corridors with high potential (the usual suspects are FTW-SAS, ATL-CLT, CHI-IND, etc.) are going to have to be, at least, primarily, on dedicated tracks, with each project involving billions of $. The map of potential corridors issued by Amtrak was totally unrealistic. Opportunities for track sharing with publicly-led commuter operations in terminal areas should be considered. Implementing any of these will require successfully completing the Tier 1 & 2 EIS process and acquisition of ROW. Amtrak can't do these steps; only the states or formally-established interstate compacts can do this. Amtrak has neither the authority nor the resources. That's why they have jumped into the well-advanced MSP-DUL project as a potential operator. But they will have to compete for this role with various private entities. Even BNSF may be interested!


----------



## keelhauled

Tom in PA said:


> From what I hear, President Trump has never ridden an LD route.


In this, at least, he is much like the rest of Americans...


----------



## Bob Dylan

keelhauled said:


> In this, at least, he is much like the rest of Americans...


He'll NEVER be "much like the rest of Americans!"


----------



## Amtrakfflyer

I wonder if Biden has? Obviously he still rides the NEC. He’d be the best thing to happen to Amtrak since Claytor. Is the President the only one that can fire the Amtrak Board?


----------



## bratkinson

lordsigma said:


> As for which LD routes make the cut in their “core set” we can all start making bets...



Obviously, Anderson never looked at the significant number of LD trains lost due to two 'rounds' of cuts in the late 70s/early 80s. Trains like the National Limited, Inter American, Montrealler, North Coast Hiawatha, and the Desert Wind come to mind. I'm thinking that Amtraks' LD routes today are about 50% of what existed in the late 70s.


----------



## lordsigma

Amtrakfflyer said:


> I read that as well on the RPA email. A set can be as few as “2” the CSL and the CZ. Knowing how Gardner and Anderson have played their cards and double talk that’s what I would expect. Benefit of the doubt isn’t necessarily earned but in this case it’s been burned beyond repair.


I’d add maybe auto train and silver meteor to that list. Other than those everything else is probably open season. I’d think something would still run along the Lake Shore and Capitol routes but what it would look like not sure...

One could argue eastern routes in general are in a less precarious position as the viewiners are much newer or brand new, and there seems to be a concrete plan to replace the Amfleet IIs (Anderson indicated they could get tacked on to the Amfleet I replacement or done separately - would depend on the route they take with Amfleet I)


----------



## SanDiegan

neroden said:


> Yep. It really is. (OK, not on THANKSGIVING DAY when I travelled on a near-empty train, but on the other trips I've been on.)
> 
> The vast majority of the intermediate-stop traffic is coach, I'd say. Not a rich clientele.



This is also true of the Sunset. There is plenty of coach traffic between L.A. - Phoenix (Maricpoa)-Tucson - El Paso and San Antonio - Houston - New Orleans. The weak spot is El-Paso - San Antonio, a problem that every one of the other trains mentioned also have. If anything, the Sunset Route has more potential serving the larger and growing sunbelt cities of L.A., Phoenix, Tucson, San Antonio and Houston. If anything, make it daily and return direct service to Phoenix. 

The National network of Long Distance trains is already spread so thin that pitting ourselves (and our favorite trains) against each other is nothing but divide and conquer. In many cases, eliminating a LD train will make introduction of corridor service more difficult. Amtrak promised a L.A.-Las Vegas train when the Desert Wind was discontinued. How did that work out ? How easy has it been to implement Gulf Coast service after the Sunset was "suspended" east of New Orleans ?


----------



## SanDiegan

neroden said:


> EB has (Fargo-)Minneapolis-Milwaukee-Chicago. Should be Minneapolis-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago, but damn ex-Governor Walker, that crook. Also has Spokane-Seattle.
> 
> SWC has Chicago-Kansas City-(Lawrence-Topeka).
> 
> Sunset Limited's got nothin'. Houston-New Orleans could be but underperforms badly (probably because three-a-week... but given that the whole section of route is gonna be underwater soon, I wouldn't put much investment into it).
> 
> Obviously the Coast Starlight has corridors actually *operating* along most of its length, excepting the California-Oregon connection and a ridiculous gap between San Luis Obispo and San Jose (which is a perfectly good corridor).
> 
> The Texas Eagle is also essentially 100% reasonable corridors, all the way from Chicago to San Antonio, but now we're not in the West any more.  And all the trains east of there are corridor candidates all the way along, no exceptions.



Sunset Limited has Los Anageles-Phoenix-Tucson-El Paso (Juarez)-San Antonio-Houston-New Orleans. Those are some pretty large markets !


----------



## neroden

SanDiegan said:


> Sunset Limited has Los Anageles-Phoenix-Tucson-El Paso (Juarez)-San Antonio-Houston-New Orleans. Those are some pretty large markets !



It SHOULD have some markets, but...

(1) It doesn't stop in Phoenix. This kills the Phoenix market.
(2) LA-Tucson is a bit long for a corridor -- 10 hours -- though it would be fine if the train stopped in Phoenix, which it doesn't.
(3) There's nothin' much between Tucson and El Paso, and it's a bit over 5 hours travel.
(4) There's even more nothin' between El Paso and San Antonio (Del Rio metro area has a smaller population than the Fort Madison Iowa metro area, and the other two stops are hardly populated at all), and it's an even LONGER distance -- 12 hours travel
(5) The best population centers between El Paso and San Antonio are on the Mexican side of the border, and current immigration/border situation means that those people are simply not in the market for a US train. (If this were 1880, they probably would have been. But they're not an addressable market right now.)
(6) There are no stops between San Antonio and Houston, 6 hours.
(7) The small stops do NOT punch above their weight; unlike on the Empire Builder or the Southwest Chief where the smaller cities contribute disproportionately high ridership to the train, that's just not happening with Del Rio or Lordsburg.

This is not what corridors look like. Corridors have at least two big cities less than 6 hours apart, and a bunch of reasonable size cities with solid train patronage in between. There's a few reasonable sized cities between Chicago and KC; lots between Milwaukee and Chicago.

With a Phoenix stop, LA-Palm Springs-Phoenix-Tucson would be quite viable. LA-Palm Springs-Maricopa-Tucson, not so much. 

If Phoenix service were restored, the problem section would be Tucson-Houston, with the El Paso - San Antonio part being the real killer.

The best idea I could come up with to improve the Sunset Limited was to reroute the Sunset Limited from El Paso to Dallas-Fort Worth via Odessa, Midland and Abilene, which would attract a *lot* more patronage IMO. If you could then continue to Houston via College Station, it would be even better.

San Antonio-El Paso is a bad passenger train route. It violates the "be on the way" rule of passenger train route design; it's 12 hours of nothing, and that's not what trains are good at. If we had free movement across the Mexican border, the route would look a lot better, but we don't. What trains are good at is stopping every hour or so to pick up and drop off passengers on a "string of pearls" route. 

The only passenger train route in the US which has worse demographics than San Antonio-El Paso is the Alaska Railroad, but it's got far more tourism traffic thanks to Denali. It gets five times as many riders as the entire Sunset Limited route. Now, if the Sunset were daily, its ridership would probably triple, but still.

The Sunset East from New Orleans to Miami was a much better route than the current Sunset. :-(


----------



## amtrakmorty

The long-term investment to build a passenger-service quality track is simply prohibitive, taking away from the short-term operating loss. Fast(er) trains require tracks and supporting systems that safely accommodate fast(er) trains. The last time I rode the Empire Builder, the track was so rough that the ride/sleep was unacceptably uncomfortable. The last time I rode the CZ, the every bathroom in the sleeper car malfunctioned before we reached Iowa. There are far better and more demanding uses for my tax dollars than supporting 'unique' and unprofitable long distance trains.


----------



## SanDiegan

neroden said:


> It SHOULD have some markets, but...
> 
> (1) It doesn't stop in Phoenix. This kills the Phoenix market.
> (2) LA-Tucson is a bit long for a corridor -- 10 hours -- though it would be fine if the train stopped in Phoenix, which it doesn't.
> (3) There's nothin' much between Tucson and El Paso, and it's a bit over 5 hours travel.
> (4) There's even more nothin' between El Paso and San Antonio (Del Rio metro area has a smaller population than the Fort Madison Iowa metro area, and the other two stops are hardly populated at all), and it's an even LONGER distance -- 12 hours travel
> (5) The best population centers between El Paso and San Antonio are on the Mexican side of the border, and current immigration/border situation means that those people are simply not in the market for a US train. (If this were 1880, they probably would have been. But they're not an addressable market right now.)
> (6) There are no stops between San Antonio and Houston, 6 hours.
> (7) The small stops do NOT punch above their weight; unlike on the Empire Builder or the Southwest Chief where the smaller cities contribute disproportionately high ridership to the train, that's just not happening with Del Rio or Lordsburg.
> 
> This is not what corridors look like. Corridors have at least two big cities less than 6 hours apart, and a bunch of reasonable size cities with solid train patronage in between. There's a few reasonable sized cities between Chicago and KC; lots between Milwaukee and Chicago.
> 
> With a Phoenix stop, LA-Palm Springs-Phoenix-Tucson would be quite viable. LA-Palm Springs-Maricopa-Tucson, not so much.
> 
> If Phoenix service were restored, the problem section would be Tucson-Houston, with the El Paso - San Antonio part being the real killer.
> 
> The best idea I could come up with to improve the Sunset Limited was to reroute the Sunset Limited from El Paso to Dallas-Fort Worth via Odessa, Midland and Abilene, which would attract a *lot* more patronage IMO. If you could then continue to Houston via College Station, it would be even better.
> 
> San Antonio-El Paso is a bad passenger train route. It violates the "be on the way" rule of passenger train route design; it's 12 hours of nothing, and that's not what trains are good at. If we had free movement across the Mexican border, the route would look a lot better, but we don't. What trains are good at is stopping every hour or so to pick up and drop off passengers on a "string of pearls" route.
> 
> The only passenger train route in the US which has worse demographics than San Antonio-El Paso is the Alaska Railroad, but it's got far more tourism traffic thanks to Denali. It gets five times as many riders as the entire Sunset Limited route. Now, if the Sunset were daily, its ridership would probably triple, but still.
> 
> The Sunset East from New Orleans to Miami was a much better route than the current Sunset. :-(



I was discussing the Sunset as a long-distance train compared to the others mentioned, not as a corridor train. The Sunset serves a large population base (L.A. - Phoenix - Tucson - El Paso - San Antonio - Houston - New Orleans), with lots of intermediate traffic. It is only "weak" between El Paso and San Antonio. All of the other long distance trains have weak spots in the middle as well, but it is no reason to chop them into pieces.


----------



## GBNorman

What follows is a posting I made "elsewhere" some ten years ago. Some might honestly believe, including some within the current crop of Presidential candidates, that a proposal such as this should move forth. Obviously, I do not.

disclaimer: author holds Long position UNP



> While it was easy to predict that this topic was on its way to become a fantasy thread, allow me to add a fantasy which be assured I would be quite personally opposed to if it ever were to move forth;
> 
> I don't even think NARP has come up with this one yet.
> 
> FOUR A DAY HOUSTON LA
> 
> The trains would roundly be scheduled six hours apart and would enable travel between any two points on the route with both arrival and departure at "people hours'. Sechedul would be 36hr - as prevailed during 1959. Superliner Sleeper, Diner, and Lounge service would be offered on each identical train.
> 
> Naturally the ROW West of Phoenix would be restored and an attractive "Adobe' styled station would be built there, as would a new station in Houston reflecting the area's culture.
> 
> This service initiative would be justified in that if the LD is going to make a stand anywhere, it will be where there is a fast growing population base and that there are 'LD Corridor markets Phoenix-LA, Houston-San Antonio, et al with passenger potential.
> 
> Not enough equipment on hand? Well, let's discontinue the Auto Train (gotta gore my personal Ox) and reduce consists of others so that these "Sunset" trains will have adequate capactiy - including Sleepers with enough available capacity to ensure "last minute' travelers can be accommodated (Central and Pennsy wanted Century and Broadway to be "nearly", but not "completely', sold out).
> 
> If UP won't fully cooperate including embargoing freight traffic, "throw 'em in jail'.
> 
> OK volks, top this one.
> 
> In closing; "This is Orson Wells' and Mercury Theatre bringing you .......THE WAR OF THE WORLDS........." (Google or Wiki if need be)


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## junebug

This breaks my heart


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## junebug

Although I hate privatization, and I think it's what is ruining America, if they would just let go of our beloved long distance trains, and let some corporation buy us, we could go back to the days of white gloves and premier dining experiences. Not to mention comfortable accomodations.

Sorry for the swearing, but w t f is wrong with this world if some entrepreneur doesn't realize they could make an ****** fortune? People haven't realized yet to get their marketing demographics heads out of their a**es and see that baby boomers love to travel!!!!!


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## junebug

Anyone want to go in on this with me? I am 100% serious. I am an entrepreneur who isn't that great at rounding up money, but is amazing at starting profitable businesses!


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## Amtrakfflyer

No doubt about it now is the time to outsource a couple of the LDT’s on a 3-5 year contract. If they make a go of it great otherwise when the contract is over or they flop like IPH bring it back in house. By that time we will have a different administration and hopefully Anderson/Gardner will be a distant memory.
Everyone says it can’t be done. It can be just show them the money. Amtrak can lease the operator the cars to start, they lease them to states with no issues. 
At least seriously put out to bid the routes Amtrak proposes to cut. 
SSL operationally would be easy 3 days a week. Show them the money 50 million to run a train 3 days a week LA to NO. I pulled that number out of thin air but then again Amtrak does too. SWC would be a great train if marketed as well.

On another note I posted earlier about Biden as possible POTUS. Is the President the only one with the power to fire the board? He's probably the only candidate with any Amtrak knowledge at all.


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## keelhauled

They were mandated by Congress to allow private operators to bid on running some number of LD trains (I think up to three were permitted per operator). The fact that no such operator has stepped forward indicates that the prospect is probably not as profitable as you think.

American Orient Express and IPH's attempt at tagging cars onto the CoNO have both come and gone in the recent past, and both were short lived.


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## neroden

SanDiegan said:


> I was discussing the Sunset as a long-distance train compared to the others mentioned, not as a corridor train. The Sunset serves a large population base (L.A. - Phoenix - Tucson - El Paso - San Antonio - Houston - New Orleans), with lots of intermediate traffic. It is only "weak" between El Paso and San Antonio. All of the other long distance trains have weak spots in the middle as well, but it is no reason to chop them into pieces.



This is actually false, a point I have to repeat surpisingly often. The Lake Shore Limited has NO weak spots ANYWHERE along the route. Neither do the Silver Star or the Silver Meteor. Perhaps surprisingly, the Empire Builder doesn't either; it's got very balanced ridership, except for *extra* ridership from Minneapolis to Chicago.

The Crescent's only weak spot is on one end (Atlanta-New Orleans), not in the middle; the same is true of the CONO, whose weak end is the New Orleans end.

I certanly agree that a weak spot in the middle is no reason to chop routes into pieces, but the fact is that most of the long distance trains do NOT actuallly have weak spots in the middle. In fact, only the Cardinal, Texas Eagle, Sunset Limited, California Zephyr, and Coast Starlight have weak spots in the middle. Of these the Sunset's weak spots are by far the worst.

----

Amtrak's accounting is very dishonest, but all decent analysts have concluded that the Lake Shore Limited, Silver Star, Silver Meteor, Crescent, and Coast Starlight are definitely all profitable in the sense that Amtrak would require increased federal subsidies in order to cut any of them. In addition, sleeper cars are more profitable than coaches on the Lake Shore Limited.

I hope Mr. Anderson and Mr. Gardner have the minimum brain capacity necessary to realize this.

Network connectivity is critical, and the Southwest Chief provides the most important piece of East-West network connectivity. The SWC, CZ, EB, and even the Texas Eagle and CONO all have strong political constituencies which gain large Congresional votes. It will be impossible to cut any of them. I think the same is true of the Cardinal, but I'm not sure.

I just hope they aren't dumb enough to try to cut the LSL, which would be serious sabotage, but without quite as strong a political constituency to fight it. (It's been done before, during the foundation of Amtrak.)

The Sunset Limited as it is today should be a good route, but it isn't. Losing Phoenix *really* hurt, as did the border crossing attitudes. I would support making it daily, but I also wouldn't spend any time trying to defend it; I can't really.


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## Amtrakfflyer

keelhauled said:


> They were mandated by Congress to allow private operators to bid on running some number of LD trains (I think up to three were permitted per operator). The fact that no such operator has stepped forward indicates that the prospect is probably not as profitable as you think.
> 
> American Orient Express and IPH's attempt at tagging cars onto the CoNO have both come and gone in the recent past, and both were short lived.



I totally get that. But were they really put out to bid. If the price is right there should have been some nibbles maybe one of the commuter operators. If there ever is going to be an “experimental train”, that should be one run by a contractor this version of Amtrak has no clue how to run basic transportation much less an “experience”. 
Yes there’s obstacles but all it takes is money (probably the same or less than Amtrak’s current cut) and an executive telling/demanding the host railroads to run the train. Or present day just run the trains on time. As much as I dislike like Trump he’s not afraid of getting in the pulpit like the past couple days with GM and the plant closure.


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## Ryan

The fact that there haven't been any takers should indicate that the price isn't right.

What makes railroads less unprofitable is scale. Lots and lost of trains to bring in enough revenue to nibble away at the massive fixed costs of running a railroad. Bidding on one or two routes is a sure way to lose a whole pile of money. As someone so often said here, the cure for Amtrak is more Amtrak, not less.


----------



## sttom

bretton88 said:


> I think the line should be whether the trains are there for the primary benefit of one State or many. I.e. the keystone's are technically multi State, but they really are there for the benefit of Pennsylvania. Versus say an Atlanta to Charlotte corridor where there are multiple states involved and it will benefit multiple states. I could see a shortening of the 750 mile rule to 400/500 miles OR entirely in one State (looking at the California services).



As someone who lives in California, there are plenty of routes that would make sense, but don't exist. Why should we, a donor state, not get even get the opportunity to get anything out of loosened rules? I'm not saying the feds should bank roll the next Capitol Corridor but at least split some of the costs of a useful line.



John Bredin said:


> If I was president* I'd provide for a base level of service, maybe two trains a day, at Federal expense. A state would be able to get better service by ponying up the same percentage a state contributes to highway projects, not 100%. If highways are 80 Fed-20 state, rail should be too. If highways are 50-50, rail should be too.



Like what is pointed out here. There needs to be a split between the feds and the states when it comes to rail whether its commuter service or Amtrak. If you do want to limit how much federal money goes to a new 1 state corridor, funding could be limited to an 80/20 capital spending and operating is either on the state or subjected to whatever an doable split is. Useful interstate routes should get priority over intrastate routes, but one shouldn't be ruled out entirely. The 3Cs Corridor in Ohio is useful, but any "interstate only" rule would make that line impossible. Not every state is willing to front all the money and that reality needs to be taken into consideration.

A better rule to determine if a potential corridor is useful would be how big are the two urban areas, how far apart are they and are there reasonably sized towns in between? Two cities with an urban area of about 500,000 to 1 million people around 300 miles apart should be considered for federal funds on some level even if the line is within one state. Or for example, the distance between Chicago and Indianapolis is about the same distance as San Jose to Auburn (the Capitol Corridor). There is no reason why the Hoosier State is a tri-weekly train besides Indiana being anti public transit. Or as mentioned Atlanta-Charlotte-Charlottsville-DC not having continuous corridor service.


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## Larry H.

Lots of interesting ideas here having to do with capacity trains can possibly provide. I too contend that much of the troubles of our long distance routes is the removal of nearly all connection with other passenger service. Look at NY or Chicago. The stations are loaded with people coming and going and lines are long for people boarding. But look at St.Louis, the center of the nation with basically one route for long distance. When I moved from there to southern Illinois the train used to connect in Centralia or Carbondale to the City of New Orleans and too Kansas city to the west. A definitely much quicker way than going one day north and then returning 5 hours more just to go south by rail. That same route used to carry people past KC to Omaha. So all the interconnecting cities no longer have easy or any access to travel South. Same for many lines, the National Limited was a potential short cut to Washington ad New York and perhaps Florida, but they stopped running it. We have simply starved the natural routes people would use and at the expense of other lines as well. 

On the privatization of passenger long distance. As good as that sounds I fear no one in their right minds would take that on. The cost of stations, food services, track maintenance ect. not to mention new equipment would seem almost impossible to afford on a private basis. Yes the old days the companies could easily run extra sleepers and coaches if needed, something that kept the revenue higher in peak times that possible today, but that infrastructure no longer exist and probably isn't coming back. That private rail "Pullman" service the attached to the City of New Orleans went though our town. One thing was they wouldn't take on passengers in between, you had to ride end to end for about three times what Amtrak was already charging. A recipe for disaster I would think. They started off saying they would run something like 5 or 6 cars including fancy lounges and high class diners. But when my friends who had some money decided to ride it they had removed most of the equipment leaving a sleeper and diner and four passengers on board. Too expensive and too limited a schedule. You can't run passenger service and then eliminate its use to most of the route.


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## sttom

The issue I have with the potential privatization of Amtrak is the UK attempt at privatization isn't exactly a success. Essentially they traded a public monopoly for government enforced private monopolies that get 3 times more subsidy money, 20%-60% higher fares (after inflation), and service that in many instances isn't exactly better. Amtrak would likely suffer the same fate as far as the long distance routes would be concerned. The price would go up, the service wouldn't be better for those who need a coach seat, and we'd likely end up subsidizing it more than Amtrak presently is. This is also assuming the railways would even allow anyone other than Amtrak or the odd commuter agency run trains on their tracks. What would likely happen is we'd overpay the railways for not much better than the existing service. Then the corridors would be disjointed and the states would likely contract out to other companies that currently run commuter trains. Given how blatantly stupid our leaders are when they get a wiff of privatization, we wouldn't get a better system out of it. 

Also another thing that happens with privatization is that you can't really expect a private company to run socially beneficial programs (in this case passenger services in rural areas) and not gouge people. UK commuters and rural residents get gouged when it comes to train and bus fares. Even a month of BART fares in San Francisco cost about the same as some UK monthly rail passes commuters buy. It would be better to allow Amtrak to segment the market better and give it the funding to do so. But this would require better leadership instead of anti transit Heritage Foundation people running Amtrak these days. 

Part of how we can get better service would be to push where we can for something better. Better rules for Amtrak, a rail policy on par with what the highway get, and having this be something that won't be 100% up to the states. Things aren't going to change unless rail advocates push for better instead of trying to defend the scraps trains get.


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## jis

The biggest problem in the US is the private ownership of the railroad infrastructure, and no willingness to figure out how to fix that. Arguably the worst mistake in privatization in UK was that of the infrastructure, and they reversed it rather quickly. And yet we are stuck with it for better or worse. I do not expect that we will get a vibrant passenger system as long as the rail infrastructure is privately owned. They have no incentive for any reasonable price to support passenger service. That is why they consciously tried to destroy it and got out of it. Nothing really has changed about that basic fact in 50 years.

Only those places that have re-acquired the trackage de jure or de facto for primary public use, do we see vibrant passenger service. There are exceptions where a rail service acts as a good attachment to a vibrant real estate business - some would say akin to the Japanese private railroad model. But no freight railroad in and of itself, without itself being attached to a passenger rail dependent real estate business has any incentive to go that route either.

So we are where we are, and we will putter along with a few exceptional passenger systems being built outside of the generic American Railroad Industry. And in that context Amtrak will pretty much putter along in the delta neighborhood of where it is, for the foreseeable future.


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## neroden

Public ownership of the tracks merely requires political will -- that is clear enough from Massachusetts.

I think the poiltical will ebbs and flows, but the directional trend is mostly good, with the exception of the triply-idiotic Conrail selloff.

We are making progress in New York.

Every time I talk to anyone in government, I tell them they need to buy the tracks.


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## sttom

I would also add if you are having the state buy the tracks, they should be held by one entity rather than many. California has had that as an issue since the state bought off the NWP to bail out the SP in the 80s. Now that line is split between SMART and the NCRA, and Caltrain owns most of its route. If there was contiguous publicly owned tracks, it should be owned by one entity to prevent screw ups or short sided decisions. I know that can happen at the state level, but hopefully having to handle a larger area will reduce the possibility of a decision being made in favor of a commuter agency, but against the interests of a freight operator or Amtrak. I say this because a lot of disjointed agencies in California lead to stupid outcomes in other areas, primarily in higher education or my county having at least 4 bus agencies instead of 1.


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## Thirdrail7

People that suggest privatization of the railroads often forget what lead to the creation of Amtrak in the first place.


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## Bostontoallpoints

Thirdrail7 said:


> People that suggest privatization of the railroads often forget what lead to the creation of Amtrak in the first place.


The creation of the interstate highway system, over expansion of railroads fueled by stock speculation and the postal service switch to air-mail.


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## Bostontoallpoints

jis said:


> The biggest problem in the US is the private ownership of the railroad infrastructure, and no willingness to figure out how to fix that.


 That is only in regards to passenger rail. The biggest positive in the US is the private ownership of the freight railroad infrastructure.


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## JustOnce

Bostontoallpoints said:


> The creation of the interstate highway system, over expansion of railroads fueled by stock speculation and the postal service switch to air-mail.


Add in: 

inability for railroads to change fares or drop routes and stations without a mother-may-I from both state and federal regulators. The Pennsy didn't help matters when they reported parent holding company income (which included profits from diversification and "separate" railroads like the N&W) and not the PRR's actual losses.
excessive property taxes on railroad infrastructure including on double tracked (that would be useful to today's Amtrak) and passenger stations and terminals. Airports are usually owned by state or local governments and don't pay property taxes.


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## Bostontoallpoints

JustOnce said:


> Add in:
> 
> inability for railroads to change fares or drop routes and stations without a mother-may-I from both state and federal regulators. The Pennsy didn't help matters when they reported parent holding company income (which included profits from diversification and "separate" railroads like the N&W) and not the PRR's actual losses.
> excessive property taxes on railroad infrastructure including on double tracked (that would be useful to today's Amtrak) and passenger stations and terminals. Airports are usually owned by state or local governments and don't pay property taxes.


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## Bostontoallpoints

Yes, that too. A mostly government created collapse of the railroad industry.


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## jis

Bostontoallpoints said:


> That is only in regards to passenger rail. The biggest positive in the US is the private ownership of the freight railroad infrastructure.



At least Americans fervently like to believe that. More power to them. [emoji51]

Doesn’t do much for the poor hapless captive customers who get the worst of monopolistic pricing with no consideration of social or economic value.


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## Bostontoallpoints

jis said:


> Doesn’t do much for the poor hapless captive customers who get the worst of monopolistic pricing with no consideration of social or economic value.


 Do you ride on the MBTA in Boston too?


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## jis

Bostontoallpoints said:


> Do you ride on the MBTA in Boston too?



An odd thing about government agencies is that they try to think and behave like they are businesses with no social responsibility. That is the fashion of the day I am afraid.


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## Ryan

They do that because they're a product of the popular notion that the way businesses to things is awesome, and the way government does them is dumb. Therefore government trying to act like a business = awesome.

Or something.


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## Ryan

Bostontoallpoints said:


> despite unfair competition with government funded highways and airports.



/me imagines hundreds of tons of coal by airplane.

This is hands down the dumbest thing I'll read today.


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## Bostontoallpoints

I removed it and I agree jis, I shouldn't have name called.


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## jis

I see, so you disagree but are unable to express that without descending to name calling. OK [emoji57] I am out of here.


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## Bostontoallpoints

Ryan said:


> /me imagines hundreds of tons of coal by airplane.
> 
> This is hands down the dumbest thing I'll read today.


So why did you write it?


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## Ryan

Bostontoallpoints said:


> So why did you write it?



Fully half of your 15 posts here have been dedicated to low-content political posturing.

I invite you to stop. 

If you would like to provide in a rational discussion, please explain how the massive amount of goods moved by train could feasibly be moved by truck or train.


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## AmtrakBlue

Bostontoallpoints said:


> So why did you write it?


Look at his post again. He was saying YOUR "despite unfair competition with government funded highways and airports." was the dumbest thing he's read today.


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## niemi24s

> ". . . chaos in this divided country. . . "


 Methinks somebody's been watching too much network news.


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## pennyk

Please be reminded that the topic of this discussion is Amtrak moving forward to stop most LD trains. Please try to keep the discussion on topic and avoid any political discussion and/or name calling. Thank you.


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## junebug

pennyk said:


> Please be reminded that the topic of this discussion is Amtrak moving forward to stop most LD trains. Please try to keep the discussion on topic and avoid any political discussion and/or name calling. Thank you.



Apologies, Penny. You are right. I think we're all frustrated. I wish we could fix this  Anyone with the power to delete, please delete my off-topic posts here. Thanks.


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## rrdude

It never ends, does it? I never thought my opinion on the need for Amtrak, and LD trains would change, but I’m leaning in that direction. Not about the importance of the LD train, but about WHO runs them. I realize it would now, and likely always, have to be subsidized, like all modes are, either directly or indirectly, but Amtrak has had about 45 years, and the LD product they provide the traveling public just sux eggs. Except for the scenery. My opinions are *very biased*, having worked the LD trains in pre-Superliner and during the introduction of the Superliner fleet. No doubt there are good, even GREAT staff working onboard Amtrak. But at the mgmt level, the institutional knowledge on the “need” and the “how a LD train *should be operated*” are long gone. (Let alone how to market them). American passenger rail needs more Brian Rosenwald-types.....


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## jebr

I’m still not convinced the best way to save the long distance trains is to simply outsource them to a premium provider, likely resulting in having to charge premium prices. There might be a small market for that, but I think it’d make Amtrak even less relevant for most people than it is today.

For me, what would be best for the long distance trains is better OTP and more frequency. Alongside that, feeder bus services can help to connect more places, making Amtrak the spine of our land transportation network and have busses serve to feed the spine. I’m on a sold-out Megabus right now and there’s quite a few younger people on board. Sure, it’s cheaper, but it’s also more reliable (the Builder has pretty poor OTP, especially eastbound, where the bus is usually on time,) it’s more frequent (4x/day vs. 1x/day,) and it serves a unique market (Madison, WI.) It’s less comfortable, but when it’s a quarter to half the price and reliable, it’s hard to justify taking the train. No premium experience can make up fully for poor OTP.


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## Ralph M Bohm

What does "LDT" stand for?


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## dgvrengineer

Ralph M Bohm said:


> What does "LDT" stand for?



Long Distance Train


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## lordsigma

OTP needs to be the #1 priority for the LD side in the upcoming re authorization. Funding and legislation is needed to address the issue, both through enforcement mechanisms for less cooperative hosts as well as trying to entice the freight operators to be better stewards (whether that is by better financial incentives for timeliness and better base access reimbursements to the class Is or whatever.) Amtrak and the current CSX management have vastly improved their working relationship recently and the better relationship and cooperation have resulted in major OTP improvements. This was pointed out by Gardner at recent testimony. OTP for the Auto Train, Silver Meteor, and Palmetto have seen great improvements through these efforts with the Auto Train now actually meeting Amtrak's OTP standard for LD trains (the only long distance train to do so. there is certainly still room for improvement - Amtrak would like to get the Palmetto and Meteor into that category also.) This just shows that it is possible to improve OTP if Amtrak can establish more cooperative relationships with the hosts. The Lake Shore's performance on CSX territory has also reportedly seen some improvement.


----------



## sttom

We do need to start pushing for a more coherent and better rail policy. If we want more corridor service, it needs to be treated like the highways are. Ohio and Indiana might not be willing to fund major improvements, but their tunes could change if the Feds were willing to underwrite 75%-90% of the capital cost and could get some of the operating costs covered. I know a lot of people get mad at the prospect of the feds underwriting the cost of "state" corridors, but still even here, not a lot of people seem to have to big of an issue with highways getting better treatment. I wouldn't care too deeply if Indiana or Ohio got funding to start or expand rail services if California was also eligible to get funding through the same process. Its kind of hard to make the argument that the state should be responsible for trains when they aren't for highways.


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## neroden

Bostontoallpoints said:


> That is only in regards to passenger rail. The biggest positive in the US is the private ownership of the freight railroad infrastructure.


No way. I've studied the economics of freight rail. The private ownership of the infrastructure has been a frickin' disaster; it led to ripping tracks out where they shouldn't, and then realizing later that they had to put them back in, and a constant shift in traffic to trucks. The situation in the USSR, where the tracks were state-owned, was clearly better.

Mexico has also only gotten worse when it privatized its freight rail. The promised gains never happened.

This is because private companies generally disinvest and asset-strip, which is bad for rail service. The exception is companies owned by long-term thinkers, like BNSF in the hands of Berkshire Hathaway. They're OK.

Companies filing quarterly reports always want to juice their quarterly profits, and avoiding maintenance or short-sighted scrapping of infrastructure always improves quarterly numbers -- in recent years, Hunter Harrison was an expert at this and damaged CN, CP, and CSX in sequence before helpfully dying.

The infrastructure could be held by really-long-term-thinking charities or trusts, or by governments, or by really-long-term-thinking for-profit companies; but quarterly-results, stock-market-floated companies shouldn't own it. This is one reason I'm glad Brightline/Virgin Trains didn't IPO and I'm glad that the Florida East Coast railway is held by a private long-term investor group.

I mean, I've seen governments do the same thing -- short-sighted sell-offs of public assets. Just not as often. I'd rather wrap the railroad tracks up in a dedicated trust / charity which would be *really hard* to asset-strip, legally speaking.


----------



## neroden

lordsigma said:


> Amtrak and the current CSX management have vastly improved their working relationship recently and the better relationship and cooperation have resulted in major OTP improvements. This was pointed out by Gardner at recent testimony.



It's interesting that this required Amtrak calling them out as lawbreakers and threatening them. Sometimes the way to get cooperation and a better relationship is with threats and denunciations...



> OTP for the Auto Train, Silver Meteor, and Palmetto have seen great improvements through these efforts with the Auto Train now actually meeting Amtrak's OTP standard for LD trains (the only long distance train to do so. there is certainly still room for improvement - Amtrak would like to get the Palmetto and Meteor into that category also.) This just shows that it is possible to improve OTP if Amtrak can establish more cooperative relationships with the hosts. The Lake Shore's performance on CSX territory has also reportedly seen some improvement.


----------



## lordsigma

neroden said:


> It's interesting that this required Amtrak calling them out as lawbreakers and threatening them. Sometimes the way to get cooperation and a better relationship is with threats and denunciations...


Oh I’m all for that. My point was merely that when you can finally get the host railroad to play ball with you (whatever it takes to get there) you can get big improvements and that is an example.


----------



## junebug

rrdude said:


> It never ends, does it? I never thought my opinion on the need for Amtrak, and LD trains would change, but I’m leaning in that direction. Not about the importance of the LD train, but about WHO runs them. I realize it would now, and likely always, have to be subsidized, like all modes are, either directly or indirectly, but Amtrak has had about 45 years, and the LD product they provide the traveling public just sux eggs. Except for the scenery. My opinions are *very biased*, having worked the LD trains in pre-Superliner and during the introduction of the Superliner fleet. No doubt there are good, even GREAT staff working onboard Amtrak. But at the mgmt level, the institutional knowledge on the “need” and the “how a LD train *should be operated*” are long gone. (Let alone how to market them). American passenger rail needs more Brian Rosenwald-types.....



RRdude You hit the nail on the head. Marketing! I agree, the staff is amazing. The scenery is amazing. It's not enough, to put up with the delays and sub-par food and lodging.

What can *we* do? There's got to be something. There are a lot of other train lover online communities. Think of all the tourists from other countries that would want to tour the United States, if there were first class service.


----------



## junebug

lordsigma said:


> .....One could argue eastern routes in general are in a less precarious position as the viewiners are much newer or brand new, and there seems to be a concrete plan to replace the Amfleet IIs (Anderson indicated they could get tacked on to the Amfleet I replacement or done separately - would depend on the route they take with Amfleet I)



Being in Chicago the eastbound routes are not attractive to me as. A lot of routes are at night both ways. I know height is a restriction, but without a dome, it isn't that enticing. I'm sure the markets they serve are more lucrative than westbound. Would Keeping eastbound routes more interesting for leisure travelers be a sure boost of income for Amtrak?

Someone mentioned Virgin Train... I wonder if we could get Richard Branson interested.


----------



## neroden

junebug said:


> Being in Chicago the eastbound routes are not attractive to me as. A lot of routes are at night both ways. I know height is a restriction, but without a dome, it isn't that enticing. I'm sure the markets they serve are more lucrative than westbound. Would Keeping eastbound routes more interesting for leisure travelers be a sure boost of income for Amtrak?
> 
> Someone mentioned Virgin Train... I wonder if we could get Richard Branson interested.


Getting the eastbound routes to frickin' run on TIME would make a big difference.


----------



## west point

Congress should require Amtrak to identify the offending RR. No ifs and or buts. Wonder if identifying the offending NS caused NS to receive too many complaints?


----------



## bretton88

The problem in Mexico was that the equipment had worn out and the state had no money to replace the equipment. So they decided to privatize the railroads and make it someone else's problem. Plus it also meant cash into somebody's pockets. Was it a good deal for the citizens? Nope.


----------



## cirdan

neroden said:


> No way. I've studied the economics of freight rail. The private ownership of the infrastructure has been a frickin' disaster; it led to ripping tracks out where they shouldn't, and then realizing later that they had to put them back in, and a constant shift in traffic to trucks. The situation in the USSR, where the tracks were state-owned, was clearly better.



In the USSR, the government basically told factories how to ship their goods. So they didn't go by the cheapest route or the fatest or the most efficient but by the route that central planning ordained. This is why well into the 1980 and early 1990s even, virtually all long distance freight went by rail. The other side of the medal was that charges were also set centrally and the railroads had to accept freight even if they couldn't handle it profitably. 

Such an arrangement isn't sustaineble unless the government has very deep pockets.



neroden said:


> This is because private companies generally disinvest and asset-strip, which is bad for rail service. The exception is companies owned by long-term thinkers, like BNSF in the hands of Berkshire Hathaway. They're OK.



There are veryx many private companies who don't asset strip. This is down to the philosophy of the company and what the shareholders want. Of course being publically traded does tend to encourage a certain type of investor, so I would say the problem here is not being private per se, but being traded.
​


neroden said:


> Companies filing quarterly reports always want to juice their quarterly profits, and avoiding maintenance or short-sighted scrapping of infrastructure always improves quarterly numbers



this
​


neroden said:


> The infrastructure could be held by really-long-term-thinking charities or trusts, or by governments, or by really-long-term-thinking for-profit companies; but quarterly-results, stock-market-floated companies shouldn't own it. This is one reason I'm glad Brightline/Virgin Trains didn't IPO and I'm glad that the Florida East Coast railway is held by a private long-term investor group.
> 
> I mean, I've seen governments do the same thing -- short-sighted sell-offs of public assets. Just not as often. I'd rather wrap the railroad tracks up in a dedicated trust / charity which would be *really hard* to asset-strip, legally speaking.



Sadly there are plenty of examples of governments totally mismanaging railroads and running assets into the ground. Look at many African railroads for example. I don't think the mode of ownership is the actual problem but the people in charge.


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## jis

A worthwhile question to ponder in this context is "Is the Defense establishment in the US actually efficient in any meaningful way?" and "Are the private contractors that supply goods and services to the Defense Department really efficient economically or otherwise in any meaningful way?" If we could fix them somehow, how much money would become available for other uses without adversely affecting the ability of the Defense establishment to meet their primary objectives? Just wondering, perhaps appropriately in the morning of April Fool's Day, since it is probably a fool's errand anyway.


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## cirdan

The problem with defence is that you never know how efficient you are or how well prepared you are until you are actually attacked. And typically by then its too late to take corrective action. I'm sure consultants can come up with all sorts of metrics, but there is no way of knowing whether they actually mean anything short of actually going to war. Politicians thus have a bias to erring on the side of caution, which means given the choice between spending a little more or a littls less, they go for the former. And after 80 years of margin stacking, it gets very difficult to go back to the bone.


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## Amtrakfflyer

We are only 4.4 percent of the worlds population but effectively we spend more than the rest of the world combined on military spending. Even as a military family (wife was in Navy) I can’t wrap my head around that.

Along the same lines we spend more than the rest of the world on healthcare as well. See a theme?

A strong military is vitally important but let’s use some common sense. What’s the point of the military? To protect our people and our way of life? Our way of life needs to be protected from within now. Healthcare and infrastructure to start.

That’s what really frustrates me about Amtrak and infrastructure in general. Why do people pick fights on Amtrak/infrastructure spending? It’s statiscally irrelevant on the bottom line but without a sound infrastructure our country will eventually implode.


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## jis

cirdan said:


> The problem with defence is that you never know how efficient you are or how well prepared you are until you are actually attacked. And typically by then its too late to take corrective action. I'm sure consultants can come up with all sorts of metrics, but there is no way of knowing whether they actually mean anything short of actually going to war. Politicians thus have a bias to erring on the side of caution, which means given the choice between spending a little more or a littls less, they go for the former. And after 80 years of margin stacking, it gets very difficult to go back to the bone.


There are many ways for a country to fail and collapse. Failure of military ventures is just one of them. We are in the process of experimenting with some of the other methods I am afraid. But that is beyond the scope of this thread. Sorry for having brought this up.


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## JustOnce

jis said:


> A worthwhile question to ponder in this context is "Is the Defense establishment in the US actually efficient in any meaningful way?" and "Are the private contractors that supply goods and services to the Defense Department really efficient economically or otherwise in any meaningful way?" If we could fix them somehow, how much money would become available for other uses without adversely affecting the ability of the Defense establishment to meet their primary objectives? Just wondering, perhaps appropriately in the morning of April Fool's Day, since it is probably a fool's errand anyway.





cirdan said:


> The problem with defence is that you never know how efficient you are or how well prepared you are until you are actually attacked. And typically by then its too late to take corrective action.



The DoD intentionally keeps two contractors in business on many projects for redundancy as well as to allow scaling up during war time. That's intentionally inefficient. We order nuclear subs from two contractors: GD and HII. One builds the bow sections, the other builds the stern sections. Each delivers completed submarines.


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