# What would happen... if Amtrak failed?



## Tlcooper93 (Jun 9, 2021)

This may be sacrilegious for this forum, or maybe this is already talked about in another topic. Feel free to delete nonetheless.


I've been wondering lately:
What would happen if Amtrak failed? This is virtually impossible in the current state, but I've been considering.
Would passenger rail improve through new companies providing intercity service? Would private rail companies provide a better product than Amtrak?
Would existing companies/agencies expand to provide intercity service, such as MTA, SEPTA, Metronorth, Metra, MBTA, etc...
Would a phoenix rise from the ashes and build Amtrak back better?
Would freight railroads provide service again?

OR

Would rail travel cease to exist altogether save for a select few companies (Brightline, etc..).
Would other forms of traffic spike?
Would transportation patterns actually remain rather unchanged (especially car traffic), and all of our whining about the good of trains be proved wrong.

I do think it's fascinating to think about.

Essentially, what would your predictions be for passenger rail and transportation overall in America should Amtrak cease to exist.


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## cirdan (Jun 9, 2021)

I think examples such as Mexico show that things would only go further downhill . Bus companies would try to pick up the fallout on the LD system . Some might do a good job but others would engage in a race to the bottom.

The NEC is of course indispensable and I am sure some way would be found of that continuing to operate outside of the Amtrak basket . I expect an agency would be created especially for this purpose and that it wouldn’t be privatized .

I don’t think people like bright line would be interested in picking up Amtrak routes by the dozen but maybe there would be a market for private players or mixed private and public players to pick up corridor routes outside of the NEC and run them on behalf of the states , in return for subsidy . In states such as NC and CA the state already owns much of the equipment and has put money into stations and tracks and could maybe form an arm’s length operating company so things can keep going much as they are, or continue with the gradual improvements that have already been initiated . Maybe in states that have a positive attitude towards passenger rail things might even get better more quickly because they are cutting out the middle man and Amtrak has sadly not always shone through its ability to jump on opportunities .

I fear that a coast to coast LD system, once lost, will not return . This is why it is so important so defend this here and now .


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## Exvalley (Jun 9, 2021)

The Northeast Corridor would likely survive in some form.

Some routes that states have a vested interest in keeping would survive. For example, I can see California keeping the Pacific Surfliner. 

One challenge for state supported routes is that they would no longer enjoy the economy of scale that Amtrak enjoys. So you may see some state supported routes fold for that reason alone.

You would also have a VERY small number of privately operated routes.


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## Qapla (Jun 9, 2021)

The freight lines would seize the opportunity to terminate the agreements that force them to allow Amtrak on their tracks so LD would probably disappear and those freight companies may not be interested in sharing their tracks with any private passenger companies.


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## jiml (Jun 9, 2021)

Qapla said:


> The freight lines would seize the opportunity to terminate the agreements that force them to allow Amtrak on their tracks so LD would probably disappear and those freight companies may not be interested in sharing their tracks with any private passenger companies.


That would be the scariest and most likely outcome.


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## Rasputin (Jun 9, 2021)

the northeast corridor would be re-constituted in some fashion and some other metropolitan area corridors might still exist but it would not be pretty and I don't think there would be any miracle solution. We basically have to look at what happened in Mexico and in those parts of the U.S. and Canada which lost passenger rail service. Once it is gone, it is not likely to come back.


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## jiml (Jun 9, 2021)

For a template look to the north. A corridor more robust in some states than others. A single long-distance "experiential" train from coast to coast. A handful of "essential" routes forced on freight railroads by government agencies. 

Then, as mentioned above, I'd predict that state-supported route clusters in California and the Midwest would probably survive in some form. The Cascades could go either way, but Oregon/Washington/BC would probably work together to preserve some service.


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## Mailliw (Jun 9, 2021)

VIA would be able to replace their entire sleeping car fleet at bargain prices if they so chose. The private car market would collapse since freight railroads are unlikely to want any thing to do with (or it they do it'll be priced for eccentric billionaires).


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## Rasputin (Jun 9, 2021)

I don't think there would be any government agency to run any transcontinental service. We might see a train such as the American Orient Express or Rocky Mountaineer operate an expensive tourist-oriented train a few times a month but it would not provide transportation for people in communities along the route.


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## crescent-zephyr (Jun 10, 2021)

State supported corridors would likely be bid out to other operators.

Northeast Corridor would likely be broken up and managed by separate commuter rail lines that could partner together to run through trains if they wanted to. (NJ transit, SEPTA, Marc, etc.)

Long distance would most likely go away. The bus lines would see a small bump in passenger loads.


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## me_little_me (Jun 10, 2021)

Rasputin said:


> the northeast corridor would be re-constituted in some fashion and some other metropolitan area corridors might still exist but it would not be pretty and I don't think there would be any miracle solution. We basically have to look at what happened in Mexico and in those parts of the U.S. and Canada which lost passenger rail service. Once it is gone, it is not likely to come back.


One doesn't have to look that far. Think of all the trains Amtrak took over from the railroads and how many have permanently disappeared.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 11, 2021)

Tlcooper93 said:


> Would passenger rail improve through new companies providing intercity service?





Tlcooper93 said:


> Would private rail companies provide a better product than Amtrak?





Tlcooper93 said:


> Would freight railroads provide service again?


Since Amtrak holds no right of refusal over roughly 95% of the network what do you think has held everyone back for the last half-century? If private operators could offer a better service for less money where are they and why have they failed to eat Amtrak's lunch for decades now?


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## Tlcooper93 (Jun 11, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Since Amtrak holds no right of refusal over roughly 95% of the network what do you think has held everyone back for the last half-century? If private operators could offer a better service for less money where are they and why have they failed to eat Amtrak's lunch for decades now?



These were not my opinions, but rather pointed questions that I thought represented the spectrum of what may happen.

In terms of what I think, I agree with pretty much everything already stated. NEC would still exist in some form along with a few other corridors that states may fight to keep. LD network would cease to exist; best case scenario would be a coast to coast experiential train (honestly don't hate that idea, assuming current LD network could be kept).

I think the value of a discussion like this is to really figure out just how essential or non-essential Amtrak is, therefore help us (or at least me) better understand being a rail advocate.

Playing devil's advocate can also help too (no pun intended to our forum friend).


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## cirdan (Jun 11, 2021)

I think many places served by Amtrak, even out on the LD lines, derive notable benefit from being served.

New Orleans extended their streetcar to serve the passenger terminal that gets, uh, between two and three arriving trains a day.

Lots of people I've met on LD trains were tourists and intended to get off and explore places along the route, places they probably wouldn't be going to if there wasn't Amtrak. Those people will be spending money in those communities.

And then there are a lot of people who don't ride Amtrak very often but like to know it's there when they need it.

I have no doubt that a lot of people would lose out if Amtrak, or any large part thereof, were to vanish. Which is why Amtrak does get a lot of support politically. No congressman wants their local train to shut down on their watch. That's not good for votes.


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## crescent-zephyr (Jun 11, 2021)

Tlcooper93 said:


> I think the value of a discussion like this is to really figure out just how essential or non-essential Amtrak is, therefore help us (or at least me) better understand being a rail advocate.



Depends on what your definition of essential is?

Long distance passenger trains are not at all essential. But neither are sports stadiums and arenas and look at how much our tax dollars go to them.


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## Qapla (Jun 11, 2021)

crescent-zephyr said:


> Long distance passenger trains are not at all essential. But neither are ...




... Interstate highways since local roads can take you to all the same places - again, look at how much tax dollars are spent to make these traffic congestion parking lots bigger and bigger so the traffic can flow slower and slower ...

There is a road going out of Ocala, Fl that used to be a small two-lane road back before that road became a "major interchange" for Ocala. A person we know said that, back when it was two-lane it used to take them 45 minutes to get from the I-75 crossing to their home - now that the road is a divided 6-lane "improved" road it takes them over an hour to get home "on a good day" and even longer when traffic is heavy.


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## me_little_me (Jun 11, 2021)

The difference between highways and Amtrak is that highways are at a stage that making existing ones wider just encourages more use of them than they are built for - kind of like adding more storage in your house.

On the other hand, Amtrak has the opposite problem. As they shrink, people make less use of them because they no longer go where the people want, the onboard service deteriorates, and the schedules for the few trains there are, do not meet the needs of the people.


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## toddinde (Jun 12, 2021)

If Amtrak failed, most rail passenger service would end, and quickly. There might be a few corridors that might keep going. The NEC, California, Pacific Northwest, maybe some in the Midwest like the Hiawatha. All long distance trains would be gone. There would be no national system. There would be no centralized reservation system. There would be no mechanism to add service and no right of access to the freight rail network. We would probably look a lot like Canada with only the corridors and no Canadian or Ocean. Or like Mexico with almost no trains. Those that imagine wonderful private operators just chomping at the bit to pick up the pieces are living in a fantasy world.


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## crescent-zephyr (Jun 12, 2021)

There *MIGHT* be the possibility of an operator running a long distance train sponsored by multiple states. Coast Starlight would be a good example - California, Oregon, and Washington all support rail service.


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## jis (Jun 12, 2021)

I thought some of you may find this slide set from RPA informative and educational regarding the overall impact of the presence or absence of a train service on the economy of a region...

How Trains Make Money - Advancing our Understanding of Passenger Rail


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## neroden (Jun 12, 2021)

Mexico. First, everything would disappear, and then after a decade or two, frustrated politicians would start new intercity services. Possibly not in the most obvious locations first (Mexico is doing... the Yucatan first?). I am fairly sure a New York to Chicago train would be restored, but I'd hate to suffer through the multi-year gap.


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## jis (Jun 13, 2021)

neroden said:


> Mexico. First, everything would disappear, and then after a decade or two, frustrated politicians would start new intercity services. Possibly not in the most obvious locations first (Mexico is doing... the Yucatan first?). I am fairly sure a New York to Chicago train would be restored, but I'd hate to suffer through the multi-year gap.


About the New York - Chicago train on the Water Level Route, that already happened once, upon the creation of Amtrak. Of course, now the train that was chosen by the Committee is no more, and the train that was discontinued back then now lives on. Time can have strange effects on the best laid out plans, and even the not so well laid out, I might add.


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## allanorn (Jun 13, 2021)

NEC becomes privatized; hope CSX doesn't buy it up? Maybe the Conrail Shared Operations takes it over until there's an agreement on how to keep it running - though I wouldn't want to be the entity saddled with repairing and updating infrastructure along the NEC. NEC begins a more rapid decline in any case, unless the owner has massive funds to pump into upgrades.

Amtrak routes entirely within one state (like California, Illinois, New York, and the Pennsylvanian services) are released to the individual states. Some survive, some don't.

Interstate rail agreements become extremely dicey unless there's a framework covering interstate passenger rail. I would imagine the current Michigan services to/from Chicago would terminate because Indiana won't want to play nice, but maybe they just get truncated to within Michigan. Hiawatha services are a coin toss entirely on Wisconsin's turf. Pacific Cascades services probably continue as Washington and Oregon generally agree to most things with a net environmental benefit, but maybe the trains to Vancouver BC get truncated to Bellingham.

Everything else that isn't commuter rail or on state-owned tracks die off, unless for some reason the US Federal Government decides to mandate that the railroads resume passenger service. If the railroads have to resume service, especially LD service, expect service to be so poor that people _want_ Amtrak to be revived.

Private operators may be able to continue but it becomes highly dependent on a state's political climate and the Class Is. Brightline East (Florida) probably continues to exist in some form for a while, but Brightline West (Las Vegas-southern California HSR) is probably dead. I think TTC (Texas HSR) is cancelled or otherwise stopped before any rail is laid down - even if this scenario doesn't play out.


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## MARC Rider (Jun 13, 2021)

allanorn said:


> NEC becomes privatized;


Why should the NEC become privatized? What private capital is going to want to spend the zillions of dollars needed to fix the 100+ year old infrastructure and pay the high maintenance and operating costs? Also, remember that publicly owned commuter service operates on nearly all of the NEC, and turning over a valuable public asset to the private corporate overlords is not something that would go down well politically in a rather left-liberal part of the country. At the most, the public owners of the NEC, whoever they are, might contract with a private operator like some of the commuter agencies do, but what private operator is waiting to take over operating the service? Not Brightline. They're basically a real estate company, and I don't think they're prepared to start buying overpriced brownfield northeast metropolitan real estate wholesale. I guess one of the foreign national railroads like SNCF or DB or JR might have the expertise to run the thing, but imagine the politics over that! 

And, remember, the NEC is the one place in the country where passenger rail is a significant part of the transportation system. The last thing that the civic or business leaders in this part of the country would want would be for the NEC to stop operating. Also, both Washington and Wall Street movers and shakers ride the service and thousands of their employees use it to commute to work (*) or travel for business, so whoever ends up running the NEC is going to be on the hot seat to make sure it runs well. That kind of leaves out any of the Class 1 railroads, who apparently can't even run their freight operations properly.

(*) And don't think that "COVID changed everything" and nobody is going to be commuting or traveling for business anymore. Once the pandemic dies down, most people will be going back to the office. I can't blame them, Zoom meetings are horrible. No, once this is over, people will be commuting again, and in the NEC, they will want to have decent train service, whoever operates it.


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## railiner (Jun 13, 2021)

allanorn said:


> unless for some reason the US Federal Government decides to mandate that the railroads resume passenger service.


Rest assured...THAT is never going to happen...


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 14, 2021)

If I had the money I would definitely pick up one or two of the routes and probably run it better than Amtrak has. First thing I would do is interline the LSL and SM to save on consists and send the crew from MIA on to Chicago. It would be no different than the Western trains with two nights on the road. And you would end up saving a crew in the process. First thing I would want to do is cut my avoidable costs as low as I can with better scheduling which means that 945 Departure from Chicago will have to go and move earlier. And that 3:15 Departure on the Meteor will move way back probably to seven. Turn the Meteor into the Carolinas to Florida train to be an equivalent to the Palmetto with the NEC being evening departures. Not super hard to improve that one set of services.


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## McIntyre2K7 (Jun 14, 2021)

Call me crazy here (I've been drinking sorry for spelling) but I could actually see service expanding is Amtrak goes away. You go to a Spoke and Hub Model (In the EAST and Midwest) while keeping a few LD trains. 

Hubs:
NYC
DC
Atlanta
St Louis
New Orleans 
Denver



New Routes (Intercity Express Services stopping at major cities only):

Southeast :
Miami/Orlando/Jacksonville/Atlanta
Atlanta/Birmingham/New Orleans 
Atlanta/Chattanooga/Nashville/Louisville
Atlanta/Charlotte/Raleigh/DC
Atlanta/Charlotte/Greensboro/Charlottesville/DC
New Orleans/Memphis/St Louis
Memphis/Nashville

Midwest:
St Louis/Louisville/Cincinnati/Columbus/Pittsburgh/Philadelphia/DC 
St Louis/Louisville/Cincinnati/Cleveland/Buffalo
St Louis/Chicago/Detroit/Toronto
Green Bay/Milwaukee/Chicago/St Louis


West:
Denver/Vegas/LA
Denver/Salt Lake City/San Francisco
Cheyenne/Fort Collins/Denver/Albuquerque/El Paso
Denver/Salt Lake/ Boise/Portland/Seattle
Denver/Wichita/Oklahoma City/ Ft. Worth 


This would suck for the smaller towns as the train would not stop in those locations.


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## Cal (Jun 14, 2021)

McIntyre2K7 said:


> West:
> Denver/Vegas/LA
> Denver/Salt Lake City/San Francisco
> Cheyenne/Fort Collins/Denver/Albuquerque/El Paso
> ...


Just gonna cut the rail link between the two biggest cities in California? 

And nothing for the Bay Area or the Pacific Northwest where rail travel is supported...


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## McIntyre2K7 (Jun 14, 2021)

Cal said:


> Just gonna cut the rail link between the two biggest cities in California?
> 
> And nothing for the Bay Area or the Pacific Northwest where rail travel is supported...



Yes. All state sponsored services would remain. I should have put that in my post. I knew I forgot something.


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## cirdan (Jun 14, 2021)

railiner said:


> Rest assured...THAT is never going to happen...



who knows?

The airlines, the auto manufacturers, the banks and many others have at some point required huge bailouts. And they got them because the fallout of letting them fail would have been larger (or so it was claimed) than the costs of bailing them out.

Suppose in some years or decades one or several big railroads hit the wall badly and ask for massive bailouts. A smart government might at that point say, sure we can let you have money, but we want to attach some conditions ...


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## jis (Jun 14, 2021)

I would be very surprised if NEC the infrastructure is ever privatized. There is very little in the way of a viable business case to make it work without massive public funding. Some NEC trains may be operated by private Train Operating Companies (TOC) British style. I doubt any of the Commuter services will get privatized and they account for a major proportion of the traffic on the NEC.


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## west point (Jun 14, 2021)

jis said:


> Some NEC trains may be operated by private Train Operating Companies (TOC) British style. I doubt any of the Commuter services will get privatized and they account for a major proportion of the traffic on the NEC.



Yeah the British style has been such a success ??? Network rail taking over most of the operations.


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## railiner (Jun 14, 2021)

cirdan said:


> who knows?
> 
> The airlines, the auto manufacturers, the banks and many others have at some point required huge bailouts. And they got them because the fallout of letting them fail would have been larger (or so it was claimed) than the costs of bailing them out.
> 
> Suppose in some years or decades one or several big railroads hit the wall badly and ask for massive bailouts. A smart government might at that point say, sure we can let you have money, but we want to attach some conditions ...


Remember Conrail? That’s how the government would bail out private railroads. And when they brought them back to profitability, they sold them back to private ownership. As for passenger trains, even under government ownership, CR got rid of what passenger trains they still had left.
So, no….private railroads will not run passenger trains if Amtrak fails.


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## neroden (Jun 14, 2021)

The worldwide trend is decisive: privatization of public services is a failure, everyone knows it, Reagan/Thatcher ideology has been rejected by the masses, and government operations are the future of public services. If Amtrak failed, the question would be *what government services* would replace it.

If Amtrak failed it would indicate federal government failure (perfectly likely given the stupid filibuster and the malapportioned Senate and the corrupted Supreme Court and so on). So we'd end up with a lot more state-run operations, and probably consortia of states. Michigan to Illinois would still operate. Michigan might finally bite the bullet and buy the right-of-way through Indiana -- there is plenty of precedent for one state owning land in another state. Or Indiana might politically shift enough to get over its anti-rail politics; I was surprised, frankly, when the West Lake Corridor was approved.


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## jis (Jun 14, 2021)

railiner said:


> CR got rid of what passenger trains they still had left.
> So, no….private railroads will not run passenger trains if Amtrak fails.


Actually CR did not have to get rid of anything since the enabling legislation did it for them. Other than that, what you say is on the mark.


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## railiner (Jun 14, 2021)

jis said:


> Actually CR did not have to get rid of anything since the enabling legislation did it for them. Other than that, what you say is on the mark.


Conrail did run several commuter trains from their beginning in 1976, until as late as 1983 in several area's, which either ended, or were picked up by other operator's....


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## cirdan (Jun 15, 2021)

railiner said:


> Remember Conrail? That’s how the government would bail out private railroads. And when they brought them back to profitability, they sold them back to private ownership. As for passenger trains, even under government ownership, CR got rid of what passenger trains they still had left.
> So, no….private railroads will not run passenger trains if Amtrak fails.



But that was in an age that passenger trains were considered to be on their way out. Somewhere in the same category as telegrams and stagecoaches.

I think there has already been a shift in attitudes since and give it another decade or two and I believe that shift will be far bigger.


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## jis (Jun 15, 2021)

railiner said:


> Conrail did run several commuter trains from their beginning in 1976, until as late as 1983 in several area's, which either ended, or were picked up by other operator's....


I moved my rather elaborate response to a more appropriate forum instead of derailing the discussion here. Here is where the response can be found:





__





History of Commuter Rail Service Divestiture by Conrail


I posted this originally in response to a post elsewhere, but later came to the conclusion that rightfully it belongs here, so here goes... Conrail did run several commuter trains from their beginning in 1976, until as late as 1983 in several area's, which either ended, or were picked up by...




www.amtraktrains.com


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## MARC Rider (Jun 15, 2021)

cirdan said:


> But that was in an age that passenger trains were considered to be on their way out. Somewhere in the same category as telegrams and stagecoaches.


But they still have stagecoaches, they just call them "intercity buses" (sometimes they even call them "coaches"), and the only difference is that they're powered by diesel engines instead of horses. And that they're air-conditioned.

And they still have telegrams, they just call them "email."


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## Tlcooper93 (Jun 16, 2021)

cirdan said:


> But that was in an age that passenger trains were considered to be on their way out. Somewhere in the same category as telegrams and stagecoaches.
> 
> I think there has already been a shift in attitudes since and give it another decade or two and I believe that shift will be far bigger.



I wholeheartedly agree. Public attitude (especially on the coasts) has shifted in a major way.

There are many reasons for this. I think they are, but not limited to, people traveling and seeing other countries, the current traffic crisis, environmental issues, general distaste toward air travel, and Amtrak being run at least well enough to survive and expand service in the right places.

As time goes on, I think the general attitude towards rail will continue to shift favorably. There are still a few holdouts (that dumb Cato institute article), but I think they’re running out of fuel for their arguments.

I think it’s extremely unlikely that Amtrak will fail, given the general bipartisan support for at least keeping the company on life-support. Hopefully, the post-pandemic boom, the current administration, and general upswing in rail advocacy will help propel Amtrak to a different level.


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## cirdan (Jun 16, 2021)

Tlcooper93 said:


> I wholeheartedly agree. Public attitude (especially on the coasts) has shifted in a major way.
> 
> There are many reasons for this. I think they are, but not limited to, people traveling and seeing other countries, the current traffic crisis, environmental issues, general distaste toward air travel, and Amtrak being run at least well enough to survive and expand service in the right places.
> 
> ...



i agree . But in my view it’s not just about blaming the Cato institute or anybody like that . They are part of the problem of course, but not the whole of the problem . I think Amtrak can also itself be its own worse enemy . In the handling of catering for example. Or in the toleration of staff who are less than fully customer focused . And in many cases the problem can be traced all the way to the top levels of management who either don’t care or are serving some other purpose . Many people who are making their first train journey are not seeing train travel in the best possible light .

some of the things the Cato Institute say are either true or almost true . And many of them could be avoided without it costing a fortune .


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## allanorn (Jun 16, 2021)

I apologize for being unintentionally vague on what privatization would look like for the NEC.


MARC Rider said:


> Why should the NEC become privatized?



Your second paragraph contains the answer (edited):


> ... the NEC is the one place in the country where passenger rail is a significant part of the transportation system. Also, both Washington and Wall Street movers and shakers ride the service and thousands of their employees use it to commute to work or travel for business,



That seems like a captive audience situation where the alternatives are, at best, not great. Someone, somewhere would take a look at the math and determine if some sort of NEC operation could pencil out some profit extraction.

Now, do I believe Amtrak would just sell the whole NEC (rolling stock, land, bridges, tunnels, etc) to one person or group? That's *very* unlikely. That would either take some crazy dealing by the Feds, someone who has Berkshire Hathaway, Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk money, or both. (If Elon Musk bought the entire NEC as-is... well, all bets are off about what the NEC would look like.) More likely, the privatization model would look like what the UK attempted before their latest report abandoning the scheme.

The land, non-rail infrastructure (bridges, tunnels), and stations would return to the individual states "in the public interest" to keep commuter rail running. I don't think that would change much, except perhaps how infrastructure projects get funded later on. Some rejiggering of Federal money to/from the states would likely happen in exchange for the land transfer, so the states aren't completely holding the long-term financial bag for Amtrak's collapse.

The operations/rail infrastructure side (e.g. track maintenance, signals, overhead wire work, dispatch) would probably go to an organization similar to Network Rail in the UK. I could see the Feds running this part for a while and just charging the states the cost of doing business, handing it off to a "joint powers board" corporation owned by the states to run it, or handing it over to Conrail Shared Assets. Handing this off to a single Class I would be ... scary, which is why Conrail Shared Assets exists today.

The rolling stock and actual above-rail operations would likely be the fully privatized bit, and the thing people associate as privatization. Whether or not it's open access (like Regiojet/Flixtrain) or if it's one operator like Arriva/DB being contracted to run the NEC on behalf of the states is another matter, determined by legislation.


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## allanorn (Jun 16, 2021)

railiner said:


> Rest assured...THAT is never going to happen...



I would guess that is the case, but I mentioned it only in case there was some clever legislation when creating Amtrak or there was another contractual agreement in place when Amtrak took over for a Class I.


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## jis (Jun 16, 2021)

allanorn said:


> I would guess that is the case, but I mentioned it only in case there was some clever legislation when creating Amtrak or there was another contractual agreement in place when Amtrak took over for a Class I.


There was not.


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## west point (Jun 17, 2021)

The 8M # gorilla is the $80B needed to get the NEC in a state of good repair. I cannot believe NY state (MNRR), CT State and MA state (RI state line to BOS ) are going to let their portions of the NEC they own get away; are you going to believe that ? So you have 4 owners not just the one Amtrak. Almost forgot you also have LIRR owns Harold CP. That makes 5 owners.

EDIT CSX might also get its pound of flesh as it leases Albany line to Amtrak.
EDIT #2 - Do not forget all the stations that are owned by various agencies . Probably some other facilities as well which would all end up states trying to get property taxes like our class 1s now suffer from.


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## jis (Jun 18, 2021)

west point said:


> The 8M # gorilla is the $80B needed to get the NEC in a state of good repair. I cannot believe NY state (MNRR), CT State and MA state (RI state line to BOS ) are going to let their portions of the NEC they own get away; are you going to believe that ? So you have 4 owners not just the one Amtrak. Almost forgot you also have LIRR owns Harold CP. That makes 5 owners.
> 
> EDIT CSX might also get its pound of flesh as it leases Albany line to Amtrak.
> EDIT #2 - Do not forget all the stations that are owned by various agencies . Probably some other facilities as well which would all end up states trying to get property taxes like our class 1s now suffer from.


Where did you hear that LIRR owns Harold?


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## west point (Jun 18, 2021)

Hasn't there been several posts that LIRR dispatches Harold ? It controls LIRR on toward Jamaica. Isn't the ESA part of the Amtrak separation from Harold so that Amtrak can dispatch from NYP to continue onto Gate CP without dealing with Harold ?


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## jis (Jun 18, 2021)

west point said:


> Hasn't there been several posts that LIRR dispatches Harold ? It controls LIRR on toward Jamaica. Isn't the ESA part of the Amtrak separation from Harold so that Amtrak can dispatch from NYP to continue onto Gate CP without dealing with Harold ?


No. Those posts would be wrong. Harold is controlled out of PSCC, as is the new Plaza interlocking on the ESA.

How Amtrak trains are routed has not much to do with what control center controls Harold. All of Harold is Amtrak property and under Amtrak ACSES, not the LIRR one. Actually even the new crossovers at Woodside are also controlled out of PSCC even though the track there is owned by LIRR.

It is also true that PSCC is jointly operated by Amtrak and LIRR with an NJT liaison observer present.


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## AFriendly (Jun 19, 2021)

neroden said:


> The worldwide trend is decisive: privatization of public services is a failure, everyone knows it, Reagan/Thatcher ideology has been rejected by the masses, and government operations are the future of public services. If Amtrak failed, the question would be *what government services* would replace it.



Agreed. Fashions come and fashions go, the name "Amtrak," or perhaps even some of the concept, may change or even disappear, but the core NRPC function (and network map) will always mostly be there. 

I could see a UK-style franchising of routes to private operators, with heavy federal subsidies of course, with the same result eventually (failure).


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## VentureForth (Jul 13, 2021)

What would happen if Amtrak failed? A few dozen people would be temporarily inconvenienced.


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## Bostontoallpoints (Jul 26, 2021)

What would happen if Amtrak failed? I think states that wanted to keep rail service would take over operation of regional trains. A private operator could operate New York to D.C. at profit depending on the sale price. Maybe Boston to NYC. too, not sure. The Northeast corridor really depends on business travelers returning back to precovid numbers. I'm not sure if business travel will ever return to those numbers again. That would definately hurt Acela but the regional trains would operate with normal passenger loads. Right now commuter trains in the U.S. are operating with very light passenger loads and significantly reduced schedules. If these business people can work from home and not commute into their office why would they need to travel long distances for a meeting? I think there is still a future for long distance train travel as an option. Commuter train travel on the otherhand might see some changes.


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