# Lawmaker Wants To Put Amtrak Service Up For Bid



## MrFSS (May 26, 2011)

Congress would take away Amtrak's popular Northeast corridor train service and invite private investors to bid for the right to develop high-speed rail under a plan outlined by a key House Republican Thursday.

The densely populated corridor — which extends from Washington to Boston, including service to New York and Philadelphia — is the most viable region in the country for truly high-speed trains averaging speeds better than 110 mph, said House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica, R-Fla.

But Amtrak has failed to provide fast service despite tens of billions of dollars in federal aid, he said while outlining his plan at a hearing.

Full Story *HERE*.


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## jis (May 26, 2011)

Yet another idea that will go exactly as far as the Republican budget idiocy went. Even some Republicans will vote against it in the Senate!


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## George Harris (May 26, 2011)

NOT WORTH READING

It is an exhibition of ignorance. How many times adn how many ways need it be said, Amtrak has squeezed about all the speed out of the Northeast Corridor that they can without major expense on realignments. Even replacement of the south end catenary, which should be done, will probably not save another 10 minutes in run time, maybe not even 5 minutes.


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## transit54 (May 26, 2011)

I suspect that attempts like this are a veiled attempt to attempt to kill off the bulk of Amtrak while retaining service on the Northeast Corridor. Once you separate the NEC, it's much easier to kill off Amtrak, or at least greatly reduce their services. It will also cause riders in the Northeast to shift their loyalties away from Amtrak, providing less political opposition when funding cuts are proposed.

Ultimately, I see the long term future of Amtrak much like SNCF and other international operators - using operating profits on high speed routes to cross-subsudize slower, connecting lines. Removing the NEC from Amtrak's control would be a major blow to Amtrak. Besides, the corridor will still require substantial federal capital investment.

If Mica thinks this is a good idea, he ought to also propose selling the entire interstate system to private companies and end federal support for highways. Also a terrible idea, but why treat highways any different than rail?


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## D.P. Roberts (May 27, 2011)

transit54 said:


> I suspect that attempts like this are a veiled attempt to attempt to kill off the bulk of Amtrak while retaining service on the Northeast Corridor. Once you separate the NEC, it's much easier to kill off Amtrak, or at least greatly reduce their services. It will also cause riders in the Northeast to shift their loyalties away from Amtrak, providing less political opposition when funding cuts are proposed.



Yeah, that was my thought as well. Here's my favorite quote from Rep. Shuster: "We’ve tried it Amtrak’s way without success for nearly 40 years..." Really? How often have Amtrak's proposed budgets been approved so Amtrak can actually try to do things "their way"? As Rep. Mica said, "If anyone is holding their breath for Congress to approve $117 billion for Amtrak’s 30-year plan, they’re going to turn blue." So you'll never approve Amtrak's plan, and yet you're doing things Amtrak's way...


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## Anderson (May 27, 2011)

I think there's a second game going on here: A private operator on the NEC could undoubtedly incorporate in a state like Virginia, with open shop laws, neh? If they did that, you'd have a decent chance of breaking some of the railroad unions in the process...and this goes double, as a non-unionized operator (or one operating under better agreements) could make a better bid for the operation.


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## jis (May 27, 2011)

Anderson said:


> I think there's a second game going on here: A private operator on the NEC could undoubtedly incorporate in a state like Virginia, with open shop laws, neh? If they did that, you'd have a decent chance of breaking some of the railroad unions in the process...and this goes double, as a non-unionized operator (or one operating under better agreements) could make a better bid for the operation.


Really? Do the labor laws of the state where a company is incorporated apply to employees who reside and work in a different state?


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## Nexis4Jersey (May 27, 2011)

I think the NE Division of Amtrak could survive and become very profitable for a company , if the FRA got rid of the weight regs , Horn rules , and Freight sharing rules. They need to get into the 21st century , and accept the fact that lighter trains are no more dangerous then heavier trains. PTC should be mandatory for all NE Railroads.... I think SNCF , or JR East could run and expand Amtrak NE into the 21st century.


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## Anderson (May 27, 2011)

jis said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > I think there's a second game going on here: A private operator on the NEC could undoubtedly incorporate in a state like Virginia, with open shop laws, neh? If they did that, you'd have a decent chance of breaking some of the railroad unions in the process...and this goes double, as a non-unionized operator (or one operating under better agreements) could make a better bid for the operation.
> ...


Companies can, at the time of negotiating a contract, fight for a choice of forum for the laws to operate in when coming up with the contract. Once they come up with the contract, I _believe_ that some form of full faith and credit applies, depending on how the union is set up. This is why the SAG can enforce demands on film companies operating in, say, Virginia (open shop laws) but Ford or GM haven't simply been moving plants to Texas and Georgia (though Boeing got into a kerfluffle on this point lately).


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## MikeM (May 27, 2011)

Nexis4Jersey said:


> I think the NE Division of Amtrak could survive and become very profitable for a company , if the FRA got rid of the weight regs , Horn rules , and Freight sharing rules. They need to get into the 21st century , and accept the fact that lighter trains are no more dangerous then heavier trains. PTC should be mandatory for all NE Railroads.... I think SNCF , or JR East could run and expand Amtrak NE into the 21st century.


Sure, if you relieve the new operator of all pension and legacy costs, and use public capital to fund the improvements to infrastructure to obtain higher speeds, then let them rent track access at some nominal amount... Sure, they could be very profitable. And those legacy costs would then be retained by Amtrak and spread over remaining LD and regional routes, which means they'd appear even that much less profitable.

The real crux of the issue is that no passenger rail system is fully profitable, and that's a false goal for any rail operator. Amtrak hasn't done the greatest job, but given their capital constraints, constantly shifting political winds, and meddling by politicians, it does a reasonable job. If they had excellent capital funding, costs might drop and timeliness would improve. Or we could starve Amtrak of capital, run the wheels off the trains (like the Pre-Gunn era) and see some temporary improvement, only to have everything come crashing down when deferred maintenance caught up with the company.

Really, I think the best option is to keep a national network, run it carefully, and just know it will never be self sustaining. Then again, when oil keeps increasing in cost, and travel by other modes gets more expensive, there will be another option available that can be built on for future growth.


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## GlobalistPotato (May 27, 2011)

This isn't the first time a Republican lawmaker has proposed privatizing the NEC.

Like others have said, the NEC contributes a great deal of revenue for Amtrak. Even with the "half-high-speed" Acela service was able to take Amtrak's annual subsidy from around $974 million in 2000 (when Acela was introduced) to somewhere around $400 million today, and made train travel the premier business travel option in the Northeast. The NE air shuttles have lost most of their market share, and thus there shouldn't be any airline opposition to true-HSR between WAS and BOS.

Yes, there are a lot of stupid regulations that hamper Amtrak's fiscal situation, like the 750 mile rule (which prevents Amtrak from directly setting up corridor services) or some of the FRA's rules, or until 2002 mandating LD trains have to make a profit.

Expanding the number/mileage of "NEC-like" corridors in Amtrak's system would help improve the fiscal situation for Amtrak. Heck, just lengthening the most popular LD trains would help improve their cost recovery.

But hey, what's wrong with a government agency that's actually SOLVENT for once?


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## MikefromCrete (May 27, 2011)

Nexis4Jersey said:


> I think the NE Division of Amtrak could survive and become very profitable for a company , if the FRA got rid of the weight regs , Horn rules , and Freight sharing rules. They need to get into the 21st century , and accept the fact that lighter trains are no more dangerous then heavier trains. PTC should be mandatory for all NE Railroads.... I think SNCF , or JR East could run and expand Amtrak NE into the 21st century.


Horn rules? What the heck are horn rules?


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## dlagrua (May 27, 2011)

The posts in this thread goes with the automatic assumption that privatizing the North East Corridor will be detrimental. Until we see what the total plan is, we won't know if its good or bad for the passenger. At this point its all speculation and I predict that the plan will probably go nowhere.


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## Nexis4Jersey (May 27, 2011)

MikefromCrete said:


> Nexis4Jersey said:
> 
> 
> > I think the NE Division of Amtrak could survive and become very profitable for a company , if the FRA got rid of the weight regs , Horn rules , and Freight sharing rules. They need to get into the 21st century , and accept the fact that lighter trains are no more dangerous then heavier trains. PTC should be mandatory for all NE Railroads.... I think SNCF , or JR East could run and expand Amtrak NE into the 21st century.
> ...


The Horn blowing , its so backwards and does it really work? We still have crashes then any other developed country in the World , Germany has less crashes and alot more Urban / Suburban crossing then we do. The T Banned the horn rule and nothing increased , this rule is holding back alot of projects due to the NIMBYs not wanting the horn blowing near the house and i can agree with them....what is the point of it? Just Four Gate the crossings like they do in parts of Europe and Japan make the crossings safer and harder to jump.


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## George Harris (May 27, 2011)

Nexis4Jersey said:


> MikefromCrete said:
> 
> 
> > Nexis4Jersey said:
> ...


Nexis, I think it would be safe to say that you do not work in the railroad industry, at least not in North America. There is far more involved in these issues than you appear to even imagine. As to the Boston area NIMBY's: These people will always find reasons to be against something. If not horns, then there will be something else. It is a wasted effort to try to satisfy the insatiable. The "horn rule" is a non-issue in the NEC where there are no grade crossings in high speed tracks, and is insignificant in cost in any case. If you have seen any pictures of a rail vehicle post-crash in Europe, and they do have them, then you would have a greater appreciation of crashworthiness standards. As to your crashes relationships, do you have statistics or is that assumption? I really do not know what the situation is now.

And you want PTC everywhere!! This stuff is expensive. So far there has yet to be any system that cannot be overcome by determined stupidity. That is, PTC will not prevent everything. It also addes one more system that can go wrong.

If people crash through two gates what makes you think they will not crash through four, or pull up and stop on the crossing regardless of all signs, lights, gates, etc.

When you have to use such descriptives as "backward" and "get into the 21st century" for logic, it indicates a lack of understanding of the real issues. There are reasons that some things should be changed, but not because they are "backward" but because there is a better way, and it does not matter whether the better way was developed last week, last year, or in the previous century.

I would like to sit back and watch what would happen if SNCF tried to run the US passenger system. If it were not for the disaster it would be, it would be simply hilarious. At least the Japanese recognize that different parts of the world are different. Not sure that applies to SNCF.


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## AlanB (May 27, 2011)

George Harris said:


> The "horn rule" is a non-issue in the NEC where there are no grade crossings in high speed tracks, and is insignificant in cost in any case.


I've got to correct you here a bit George, there are still about 9 or 10 grade crossings left on the NEC in CT and RI. Several in the New London area are in areas with 60 MPH or slower speeds, including the Miner's road crossing where the only fatalities in a car vs. Acela accident happened. But in RI there are at least 2 or 3 crossings where Acela blazes through at speeds of 110 MPH or so.


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## George Harris (May 27, 2011)

AlanB said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> > The "horn rule" is a non-issue in the NEC where there are no grade crossings in high speed tracks, and is insignificant in cost in any case.
> ...


Thanks, Alan. I knew about the New London area crossings, but not those in 110 mph territory. It is scarey enough sitting in the front end coming down on a crossing at 70 to 79. But at 110? No such thing as enough crashworthiness for that.


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## GlobalistPotato (May 28, 2011)

George Harris said:


> Thanks, Alan. I knew about the New London area crossings, but not those in 110 mph territory. It is scarey enough sitting in the front end coming down on a crossing at 70 to 79. But at 110? No such thing as enough crashworthiness for that.


Which is why for those speeds, grade separation is the best solution.


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## Devil's Advocate (May 29, 2011)

George Harris said:


> NOT WORTH READING. It is an exhibition of ignorance. How many times adn how many ways need it be said, Amtrak has squeezed about all the speed out of the Northeast Corridor that they can without major expense on realignments. Even replacement of the south end catenary, which should be done, will probably not save another 10 minutes in run time, maybe not even 5 minutes.


Wouldn't _not_ reading the article be an "exhibition in ignorance" itself? I agree that this plan probably has little if anything to do with actually improving schedules or timing, but there's an excellent chance it has an awful lot to with breaking unions and weakening Amtrak. Refusing to read about it and hoping it will simply go away isn't going to do anything to address this new threat.



dlagrua said:


> The posts in this thread goes with the automatic assumption that privatizing the North East Corridor will be detrimental. Until we see what the total plan is, we won't know if its good or bad for the passenger. At this point its all speculation and I predict that the plan will probably go nowhere.


I think it's fair to assume Amtrak would be severely weakened by loss of the NEC operations. If you have some sort of explanation for how that would not be the case then I'd like to hear it.


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## rrdude (May 29, 2011)

Texas Sunset said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> > NOT WORTH READING. It is an exhibition of ignorance. How many times adn how many ways need it be said, Amtrak has squeezed about all the speed out of the Northeast Corridor that they can without major expense on realignments. Even replacement of the south end catenary, which should be done, will probably not save another 10 minutes in run time, maybe not even 5 minutes.
> ...


Pretty simple, if you pull the NEC out from Amtrak, and give it to Veolia, SNFC, Virgin, or some other concern, you basically "kill" Amtrak.

Not so much for the revenues/traffic, but you kill Amtrak's POLITICAL leverage.


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## eagle628 (May 29, 2011)

An absolutely heartwarming comments section on this Washington Post article about the idea. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/house-gop-proposal-would-privatize-high-speed-rail-along-amtraks-northeast-corridor/2011/05/26/AGBEZKCH_allComments.html?ctab=all_comments


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## The Journalist (May 29, 2011)

Dang. Washington Post commenters largely have their heads on straight it seems. Couldn't say that for most newspapers' websites....


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## George Harris (May 30, 2011)

Texas Sunset said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> > NOT WORTH READING. It is an exhibition of ignorance. How many times adn how many ways need it be said, Amtrak has squeezed about all the speed out of the Northeast Corridor that they can without major expense on realignments. Even replacement of the south end catenary, which should be done, will probably not save another 10 minutes in run time, maybe not even 5 minutes.
> ...


Not reading something because it quickly becomes obvious that it is an exposition of ignorance, or because you know the nature and mindset of the author is not ignorance, it is avoidace of wasting time.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 5, 2011)

Nexis4Jersey said:


> I think the NE Division of Amtrak could survive and become very profitable for a company , if the FRA got rid of the weight regs , Horn rules , and Freight sharing rules. They need to get into the 21st century , and accept the fact that lighter trains are no more dangerous then heavier trains. PTC should be mandatory for all NE Railroads.... I think SNCF , or JR East could run and expand Amtrak NE into the 21st century.


Why do I read your posts? I haven't bought stock in Bayer recently. The problems surrounding Amtrak are so complex, I doubt you can list them in a book less than an inch thick. No silver bullet exists. People could write tomes about Amtrak's problems and how to solve them- and have.



George Harris said:


> Nexis, I think it would be safe to say that you do not work in the railroad industry, at least not in North America.


He doesn't work in reality. But more so, Nexis seems to not listen to anything those of us with knowledge and experience say... so what's the point of arguing with him



Texas Sunset said:


> Wouldn't _not_ reading the article be an "exhibition in ignorance" itself?


Not automatically. I am in the glove and safety industry and probably know enough about hand, ear, eye, face, arm, fall and visibility protection that you'd need to take a week long course just to understand some of the things I could tell you I know about the industry and its products. You wouldn't need to know that information- ever- so if the New York Times writes and article on the subject, it is going to be dumbed down (and generally inaccurate) so that its readers can understand it without a crash course in the finer details of what they are talking about.

George is in the rail industry. Him reading an article about the rail industry in a national newspaper would be like me reading about gloves in one. He gets his knowledge about the trade from the trade, just like I do with mine. Reading any article outside of our trade for that purpose is only useful for understanding what the public perspective on it is. That article just continues to confirm that the public and politicians are woefully lacking of knowledge in the mechanics of running a railroad passenger service. Since it illustrates nothing industry insiders and well-informed advocates don't already know, reading it is a waste of time.



George Harris said:


> Not reading something because it quickly becomes obvious that it is an exposition of ignorance, or because you know the nature and mindset of the author is not ignorance, it is avoidace of wasting time.


Amen.74


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## Nexis4Jersey (Jun 6, 2011)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Nexis4Jersey said:
> 
> 
> > I think the NE Division of Amtrak could survive and become very profitable for a company , if the FRA got rid of the weight regs , Horn rules , and Freight sharing rules. They need to get into the 21st century , and accept the fact that lighter trains are no more dangerous then heavier trains. PTC should be mandatory for all NE Railroads.... I think SNCF , or JR East could run and expand Amtrak NE into the 21st century.
> ...


Your right i don't , i think outside the box. I'm part of a growing movement of Modern Rail Fanners , Rail planners ,and your Rail Employees who want Change. Our system is the laughing stock of the entire planet , part of the problem is politicians but the other problem is the older employees who don't want change and fight it. The older Employees are just as bad as some of the Anti-Rail politicians....


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## Ryan (Jun 6, 2011)

Nexis4Jersey said:


> Your right i don't , i think outside the box. I'm part of a growing movement of Modern Rail Fanners , Rail planners ,and your Rail Employees who want Change. Our system is the laughing stock of the entire planet , part of the problem is politicians but the other problem is the older employees who don't want change and fight it. The older Employees are just as bad as some of the Anti-Rail politicians....


Change for the sake of change is worse that the status quo.
Unless you can demonstrate that the changes that you propose are realistic and would actually help the situation you're just wasting everyone's time.


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## Anderson (Jun 6, 2011)

*sigh* Change for the sake of change tends to be two things: Expensive and incompetent. At _best_, some versions of reworking Amtrak services might get a bunch of new rolling stock (if you load it into the bid deal as a requirement)...but even that is unlikely.

I won't disagree with there being a case that can be made for reworking parts of the system. If you take the whole "megaregion" idea that a lot of folks are enamored with, I think you can make a good case for a short-haul passenger rail network at 110-125 MPH within each region combined with overnight or day-long trains connecting regions to one another. That is...well, at a slower speed, that's what we _used_ to in effect have (along with a lot of other rail service). Five of the eastern ones (NEC, parts of Piedmont-Atlantic, Florida, Texas Triangle, and the Great Lakes) are possibly doable, and you can _probably_ throw in the Front Range if you can tighten up the CZ's timetable by an hour or two. The western ones are too far off from these to really be workable (ABQ-LAX is too small of a market, and Denver is too damn far out to make work even with a pretty good HSR line going through flyover country), but with the eastern ones...I think you could work off of hubs in Orlando, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Dallas (and possibly some secondary hubs).

The rub is that this would involve Congress getting some idea of "the vision thing" with rail...something that they just don't have on a sustained basis.


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## GlobalistPotato (Jun 7, 2011)

Anderson said:


> *sigh* Change for the sake of change tends to be two things: Expensive and incompetent. At _best_, some versions of reworking Amtrak services might get a bunch of new rolling stock (if you load it into the bid deal as a requirement)...but even that is unlikely.
> 
> I won't disagree with there being a case that can be made for reworking parts of the system. If you take the whole "megaregion" idea that a lot of folks are enamored with, I think you can make a good case for a short-haul passenger rail network at 110-125 MPH within each region combined with overnight or day-long trains connecting regions to one another. That is...well, at a slower speed, that's what we _used_ to in effect have (along with a lot of other rail service). Five of the eastern ones (NEC, parts of Piedmont-Atlantic, Florida, Texas Triangle, and the Great Lakes) are possibly doable, and you can _probably_ throw in the Front Range if you can tighten up the CZ's timetable by an hour or two. The western ones are too far off from these to really be workable (ABQ-LAX is too small of a market, and Denver is too damn far out to make work even with a pretty good HSR line going through flyover country), but with the eastern ones...I think you could work off of hubs in Orlando, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Dallas (and possibly some secondary hubs).
> 
> The rub is that this would involve Congress getting some idea of "the vision thing" with rail...something that they just don't have on a sustained basis.


That, and you'll have the case of Western Senators not agreeing with Eastern Senators. Sure, HSR would work east of I-35 and in some booming regions on the West Coast, but the geographical inequality wouldn't go over well politically.

Think about it like this. What if the EU was actually a real country back in the 1970s and had a senate like here in the US? France probably won't be able to build their first HSR line because some other senator from Iceland didn't think it represented his consistutates and that the EU would never be able to build an HSR line from Moscow to Reykjavik, cause it'd cost too much and people would rather fly the distance? France can't build their HSR line, the Western Europe HSR system is never built, passenger rail in Europe declines to several skeletal routes, most Europeans fly or drive between cities, etc.

Sounds like what's happening over here in America, right? People thinking America isn't dense enough for HSR because they either live in a western state or the countryside, that HSR from NYC to LA won't work, they elect leaders with those views, etc etc.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 7, 2011)

Nexis4Jersey said:


> Your right i don't , i think outside the box. I'm part of a growing movement of Modern Rail Fanners , Rail planners ,and your Rail Employees who want Change. Our system is the laughing stock of the entire planet , part of the problem is politicians but the other problem is the older employees who don't want change and fight it. The older Employees are just as bad as some of the Anti-Rail politicians....


"Thinking outside the box" is a cliche, an extremely tired one. Thinking must be done within the box defined as the possible. Thinking must also be done understanding many complicated and detailed things that may not be obvious. John Mica is, and has always been, anti-rail. I am automatically wary of any idea he has concerning changes to the system, since I tend to assume his intentions are not benign to the overall system.

I am not an older employee, Nexis. I'm 26 years old, and a rail advocate who has a very real reason for wanting improved transportation in this country- I am slowly going blind, and within the next few decades, will need to depend on the mass transit infrastructure this country has to offer. I do more than sit around on internet forums pontificating on the absurd.

I know many, and know of practically all influential people in my state regarding rail. I have spent my time reading into and understanding not just what people want to do, but the political waters that have to be navigated in order to do them. If you think public opinion is a major deciding factor in what gets done in New Jersey, you have another think coming. The system is a mares nest of corrupt politicians, political patrons, and large organizations that want the best legislators money can buy to further their interests.

Politicians in New Jersey (and elsewhere) care first about getting reelected, second about lining their pockets solidly when doing it, third about making sure their friends are taken care of, and fourth, to a small extent, what their voters want. If you think your ideas are plausible, you need a padded cell.


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## Anderson (Jun 7, 2011)

GlobalistPotato said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > *sigh* Change for the sake of change tends to be two things: Expensive and incompetent. At _best_, some versions of reworking Amtrak services might get a bunch of new rolling stock (if you load it into the bid deal as a requirement)...but even that is unlikely.
> ...


I'll avoid the "dense enough" jokes for now...

The answer, plain and simple, is not pretty...but to use your EU example, I'd throw in a fancy RR-to-nowhere running from Berlin through Warsaw and then up the Baltic Coast, and I'd make sure that you had some sort of line to rope the Benelux folks in. You'd need a bit of sausage-making to take place, but that's politics.

In the case of the US, I'd drag Nevada onboard with a line into Las Vegas, and I'd push the lines west with some shorter links into Nebraska and Kansas (Omaha, Topeka, and Wichita leap to mind as places I'd plug in)...and then your opposition would be limited to a batch of "flyover country" Senators you could logroll with _something_ (maybe cut them a good deal on highway funding or something like that). Yes, you hang ornaments on the tree (or put some presents under it with another bill)...such is life. We've done it for long enough on highway bills, after all.

Of course, another outcome to the Europe scenario is that France comes up with some taxes to sneak in through the back door, builds their line, and rolls their eyes when Iceland complains. Oddly enough, your scenario makes a strong argument for pushing things more to the state level...which would be fine if urban areas generally conformed to national boundaries. The NE Regional runs through nine states and the Acela through eight. Without a national organization, I don't think you'd even have that much.


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## George Harris (Jun 8, 2011)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Nexis4Jersey said:
> 
> 
> > Your right i don't , i think outside the box. I'm part of a growing movement of Modern Rail Fanners , Rail planners ,and your Rail Employees who want Change. Our system is the laughing stock of the entire planet , part of the problem is politicians but the other problem is the older employees who don't want change and fight it. The older Employees are just as bad as some of the Anti-Rail politicians....
> ...


Well said, GML.

Have had some very interesting discussions concerning ways of doing things and what should be done, and am finding that it is the old guys that are more likely to be willing to give something new and different a shot. Also, it tends to be the old guys that recognize the likelyhood that the current latest and best and gone as far as we can go with something is truly as good as it gets is most likely wrong. Why? Because we have seen latest and best change several times over the years. Also, we been around the block a few times and have learned that ideas that deny the basic laws of physics and economics won't work no matter how good they sound, and have also seen the "revealed wisdom" on quite a few things proven false. Also, because a lot of know that new, shiney, and promoted as the greatest and best idea to ever come down the road does not make it so.

It is also worth noting that the phrase, "those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is very true in all areas. Bad ideas in the railroad world seem to have a cycle of between 30 and 40 years. Why? Because the people that got burned by them in their previous incarnation have retired and the younger guys don't know what is about to happen.

Having said that, it is also very important to know why something was a failure. It could be a problem in detail, not in concept. If so, that may be fixable. If it is a problem in concept, regardless of how good it looks, walk away.

Some problems are much more complex than they appear. Some problems are much simpler than they appear. It takes a certain amount of wisdom to know which is which.

When the Japanese opened their first Shinkansen line in 1964, the revealed wisdom was that a speed on rails in the range of about 110 to 130 mph was about as fast as it was practical to run. That is why they originally designed for about 210 km/h. That was regarded as "pushing the envelope" at that time. At this point, 220 mph is not truly pushing the envelope of the reasonably possible.

I am totally unimpressed with the current with the current panic on "global warming" Why? Because 40 years ago the panic was "global cooling" including such dire predictions as massive extinctions and a drop in average temperature by the turn of the century, that being the year 2000, folks, the average temperature on this planet would drop 11 degrees F. Did not happen. Why should we expect the current run of predictions, many from the same organizations, to be any more accurate?

Yes, we should reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, yes we should be looking toward geothermal and other *practical* alternative energy sources, but not because the plant is heating up but because the easy and cheap to get oil and gas is gone and for much of it we are sending massive amounts of money to the most irratonal and repressive governments on this plant to get the fuel we use.

As it is, if the reason being used to justify reduced fuel usage is discredited, it will in the minds of many also indicate that there is not need to be concerned about fuel consumption.


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## RCrierie (Jun 10, 2011)

I think Amtrak has to privatize completely in order to be workable.

In the 1980s, Frank Borman (of Apollo 8 fame) was able to get loans worth quite a lot today (I would have to check his autobiography with Robert Serling for details) to buy 20+ Airbus A300s -- and this was with an airline (Eastern) which was losing money / in a poor financial position.

Sure, the loans and other budgetary items that Amtrak gets from the Federal government for rolling stock are far cheaper than any loan possible in the private sector; but they limit Amtrak to the whims of whoever controls the US Government at the time.

Since Joe Biden is VPOTUS, Amtrak's been riding relatively high with new government support/funding, etc.

But what happens when Slow Joe is no longer VPOTUS? We go back to the way things were.

Same thing with High Speed Rail. HSR is "sexy" to the politicians; but makes little business sense due to the enormous costs you need to sink into it.

Going private would give Amtrak a lot more options regarding their future fleet status, instead of having to chase whatever the politicans think at any one moment -- and instead focus on long term fleet renewal, allowing existing routes to have capacity added back to them.

Ideally, in my IDEAL WORLD [tm]; the freight railroads would get megabuck tax breaks or writeoffs if they offered passenger/commuter rail service over their lines at an acceptable level of service, whether through "in house" or contracted out.

Outside the NEC, Amtrak could operate similarly to how the Pullman company worked in the good old days -- offer the freight railroads a turnkey solution for passenger rail; instead of the RRs having to keep all that experience and rolling stock "in house".

Naturally, the contracted out trains would be in the freight railroads' "fallen flags" colors. :lol:


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## RCrierie (Jun 10, 2011)

*Bad ideas in the railroad world seem to have a cycle of between 30 and 40 years. Why? Because the people that got burned by them in their previous incarnation have retired and the younger guys don't know what is about to happen.*

It's not just the railroading world -- a lot of bad ideas come back in the Defense Industry, particularly the shipbuilding industry for warships. Everyone seems to get it into their head that a short, fat planing hull works; or that a multi-hull warship would be great!!! every 18-20 years.


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## Anderson (Jun 11, 2011)

RCrierie said:


> *Bad ideas in the railroad world seem to have a cycle of between 30 and 40 years. Why? Because the people that got burned by them in their previous incarnation have retired and the younger guys don't know what is about to happen.*
> 
> It's not just the railroading world -- a lot of bad ideas come back in the Defense Industry, particularly the shipbuilding industry for warships. Everyone seems to get it into their head that a short, fat planing hull works; or that a multi-hull warship would be great!!! every 18-20 years.


I've seen some studies on there being a similar tendency within the stock market, too (the late 1920s, late 1960s, and late 1990s/mid 2000s all had a _lot_ in common). On a similar note, I've seen much shorter cycles in student organizations at colleges...I was in the William and Mary College Republicans for nearly a decade (they let me in when I was in 8th grade, and I stayed at least marginally involved until I graduated), and I saw a boom-bust cycle run about 4-5 years. It's tied to institutional memory getting cycled out...something about not learning from history (and that coming about from lacking people on staff who were there).

To solve this problem, hire elves.

RCrierie,

The biggest problem I see with what you suggest is that a lot of those routes don't make money. You've got a couple of regional routes with higher CR numbers, but once you get outside the Northeast Regional/Acela routes (note that LYH-WAS and NPN-WAS fall in here) _nothing_ turns a regular profit. This is not to say that a privatized entity might not be able to, in the present environment, push a couple of those routes into the black with higher fares...but without a reasonable guarantee, you'd be handing the private sector control of something they by and large don't want to have there. Now, if you gave the RR's tax incentives to run passenger operations (and/or subsidized losses up to a certain point), you _might_ be able to make something work in some areas...but the big problem is that the passenger operations will get shoved aside the minute they need those tracks for freight shipping.

As to financing, outside of an economic boom I can't see banks putting money into something that hasn't turned a profit in the US in a long time. In your example, Eastern Airlines might have been in trouble, but you had a bunch of lines that were profitable as well...the industry wasn't _all_ in the red. With passenger rail, you might be able to get _some _kind of loan at an awful rate without government backing...but I suspect that would involve going to people whose names end in vowels.


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