# House Passes 2015 THUD ... $1.4 billion for Amtrak



## jis (Jun 11, 2014)

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/208908-house-passes-fourth-2015-appropriations-bill



> The bill, known as THUD, includes $15.7 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration and $1.4 billion for Amtrak. It would also provide $6.2 billion for Community Planning and Development programs, which would be $383 million less than the current spending level.


The number $1.4 billion is actually $1.39 billion and it is the same number as for 2014. Amtrak's request was for $1.62 billion.

The Senate Subcommittee handling thud has recommended a similar number to the Senate. The summary of the report says:



> _*Rail Investments:*_ $1.39 billion for Amtrak, which is consistent with the level of funding provided in fiscal year 2014. This level of funding will allow Amtrak to make investments in the state-of-good repair infrastructure projects and to operate a safe and reliable passenger rail network for the nation. The recommendation is $1 billion less than the budget request, which assumed the funding would be provided through new legislation authorizing surface transportation programs instead of the appropriations process.
> 
> _*Transit Investments:*_ $11.1 billion for transit programs, $310 million above the fiscal year 2014 enacted level and $6.6 billion below the request. The Presidents budget assumed passage of a surface transportation bill that would fund most transit programs rather than the appropriations process. The bill includes $8.6 billion for formula grants, $36.5 million for research and technical assistance, and $150 million to continue modernizing the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. In addition, it provides $2.163 billion for the transit capital investment grants, an increase of $221 million to help communities build new rail and bus rapid transit capacity in California, Maryland, North Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Texas and other states. These investments help communities find solutions to road congestion, support economic development, manage population growth, and reduce air pollution


Additionally there is $550 million for TIGER.

The Senate recommendation read in detail says the following:



> The Committee recommends $1,390,000,000 for the FRA to make grants to Amtrak. This amount is equal to the fiscal year 2014 enacted level. The administrations budget request would shift funding for Amtrak into a new $2,450,000,000 Current Passenger Rail Service program that would be supported by a new dedicated Rail
> 
> Account of the Transportation Trust Fund. Of the total amount recommended by the Committee, up to $350,000,000 may be used for operating grants, up to $149,000,000 may be used for debt service payments, and not less than $50,000,000 shall be used to bring stations into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Of the amounts available for capital, not less than $40,000,000 shall be used for the Gateway Program.


So Gateway gets $40 million allocated for its exclusive use, which is good news.

The House and Senate bills differ in details like grant for operations (House 340, Senate 350), etc. which will have to be ironed out in reconciliation.


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## afigg (Jun 11, 2014)

Ok, so the FY2015 appropriations for Amtrak will be very close to the FY2014 amounts. With such small differences between the House and Senate bills with regards to Amtrak funding, my guess is that the Senate amounts will be in the final reconciliation bill. I expect that the Senators from NY and NJ (and perhaps most of the NEC Senators) are not going to fold on making sure $40 million is set aside for NEC Gateway PE and NEPA.

The Administrations proposals for significantly increased transportation and infrastructure spending are being ignored, so FY2015 will be, as we discussed before, a kick the can down the potholed cratered road. But for all the concerns of a Republican controlled House gutting Amtrak funding, the House appropriations bill and the rejection of Congressman Broun's amendments, show that there is majority support to keep Amtrak running, even if they are not providing enough capital to acquire new rolling stock or for major NEC projects. Don't know what the status is of the Amtrak re-authorization bill, but since the House's is matching the FY14 appropriation amounts, the re-authorization may be mostly a reprise of the 2008 PRIIA act.

The question is what will happen with the NEC operating surplus and covering the operating losses for the LD trains? Does Boardman and Amtrak continue business as usual for FY2015 while waiting for the NEC Commission cost allocation formula and NEC cost sharing debates to play out?


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 11, 2014)

I think most of the current concern is over the next round of elections giving Republicans control over the Senate. I may be wrong but I see that as a potential tipping point from status quo to oh-no.


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## jis (Jun 11, 2014)

The Senate Committee Report actually mentions the Acela II acquisition and instructs Amtrak to use the currently underutilized RRIF facility.

NARP seems to think that LD trains are in jeopardy. I have no way of knowing whether they actually are or not. In any case whatever the NEC Commission comes up with does not affect FY2015. So whatever happens will be a Boardman decision, and frankly I don't see him jeopardizing LD trains when push comes to shove. Posturing is one thing. Actually being destructive is a different thing I think.

So the Politico article excerpted by Charlie below explains the Sunset in jeopardy and the food service issue. clearly. This would indicate that if Senate does not fix those, Boardman's hands would be quite tied.


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## Anderson (Jun 11, 2014)

Oh no! Someone mentioned Gateway...quick, hide that or we'll spend three weeks talking about the Hudson River!

Joking aside...Amtrak didn't quite get what they hoped for, but if they break even on appropriations for the next few years I would be quite happy.

As to the re-authorization bill...well, I have to ask: If Amtrak is continuing to get appropriations and can therefore keep operating, what /does/ the authorization bill do?


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## jis (Jun 11, 2014)

Anderson said:


> As to the re-authorization bill...well, I have to ask: If Amtrak is continuing to get appropriations and can therefore keep operating, what /does/ the authorization bill do?


That is sort of like asking: If the government can continue to operate based on continuing resolutions what does the appropriation bill do?  
The process is supposed to be that the authorization bill lays out a plan and then the appropriations happen according to that plan. The Senate Committee Report says that they are assuming that MAP-21 is extended as is to cover this period for the purposes of appropriation, whatever that might mean. Sometimes the process does not quite work out the way it is supposed to.


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## Eric S (Jun 11, 2014)

So how does this impact the Gateway Project?  OK, had to get that out of my system.

Now, for my actual comments:

I am frankly surprised to see the House numbers for Amtrak looking so similar to the Senate numbers at this point.

Did the House include any TIGER funding?


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 11, 2014)

Anderson said:


> . . .
> 
> As to the re-authorization bill...well, I have to ask: If Amtrak is continuing to get appropriations and can therefore keep operating, what /does/ the authorization bill do?


Amtrak wants to order 700 single level, and 500 bilevel new cars iirc. 

To get the best price, they need to contract with the supplier(s) 

for years at a time. The price for 100 cars being more per coach 

than the price for 700 of them. If new legislation sets up a solid

funding source, off they go. 

Without that long -term funding commitment, Amtrak might buy

new equipment in batches of 130    cars, or 50 or 70 or none

per budget. Much higher price per car, but only they'd only need to 

gather up a much smaller amount each time. 

If Congress chooses to be penny savers and dollar wasters it will

not surprise any of us. But committing long term funding would be better.


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## CHamilton (Jun 11, 2014)

> Amtrak changes: The House voted for several restrictions on Amtrak funds, but rejected another. Members approved a change from Pete Sessions to block funds for the route that loses the most money — the Sunset Limited that runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles. Another amendment from Reps. Phil Gingrey and John Mica to stop federal subsidies for Amtrak’s money-losing food and beverage service was approved on a voice vote. But on a 167-250 tally, members voted down another proposal from Sessions to eliminate money for any Amtrak route that costs twice what it takes in, which the Texas congressman framed it as a matter of eliminating money-losing routes from the passenger railroad.


http://www.politico.com/morningtransportation/


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## jis (Jun 11, 2014)

WoodyinNYC said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > . . .
> ...


An authorization bill is not sufficient for placing an order for anything. You need an appropriation for that. The only equipment acquisition that was even mentioned in this budget cycle was not given any funding and Amtrak was told to use the RRIF facility to fund that project.


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## jis (Jun 11, 2014)

Hope these are stripped out in conference. Or otherwise of course it is more continuing resolutions.

But just imagine what will happen if the Senate goes Republican in the next Congress.


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## Ryan (Jun 11, 2014)

I try not to.


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## Paulus (Jun 11, 2014)

Getting rid of the Sunset Limited, honestly, is a move for the better. Even with daily service it will never be a good route. Most of the long distance fleet would have been affected by the defeated amendment. With the caveat of only looking at ticket revenue, only the Auto Train, Palmetto, and Empire Builder would be safe based on 2013 cost recovery (Silver Meteor was right on at 50%; 2012 was better with the Meteor, Lake Shore Limited, and City of New Orleans joining the >50% team).


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## afigg (Jun 11, 2014)

CHamilton said:


> > Amtrak changes: The House voted for several restrictions on Amtrak funds, but rejected another. Members approved a change from Pete Sessions to block funds for the route that loses the most money — the Sunset Limited that runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles. Another amendment from Reps. Phil Gingrey and John Mica to stop federal subsidies for Amtrak’s money-losing food and beverage service was approved on a voice vote. But on a 167-250 tally, members voted down another proposal from Sessions to eliminate money for any Amtrak route that costs twice what it takes in, which the Texas congressman framed it as a matter of eliminating money-losing routes from the passenger railroad.


We will see if this gets stripped out in the reconcilation process. it is the poison pills inserted by opponents that present the risks. The Mica and Gringey amendment is the reason why Amtrak and Boardman are pressing to "eliminate" losses on food and beverage service in 5 years. Even if it proves technically impossible.

The issue for the kill the Sunset Limited House amendment is how many Senators in AZ, NM, TX, LA will fight to save the service? The wording of the amendment could be critical. If the amendment is still in the final bill that passes both the Senate & House, would it prevent Amtrak from extending the Texas Eagle under the TE name to LA? Yes, in those circumstances, service east of San Antonio goes away.


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## afigg (Jun 11, 2014)

Eric S said:


> Now, for my actual comments:
> 
> I am frankly surprised to see the House numbers for Amtrak looking so similar to the Senate numbers at this point.
> 
> Did the House include any TIGER funding?


The House original appropriations bill had only $100 million for TIGER grants, but also has language restricting the type of projects it can be used for. I gather the House bill language is tailored to block passenger rail projects from consideration.

My read is that a majority of the House members - the Dems and a plurality of the Republicans - will support $550 million for TIGER in FY15 w/o the tailored restrictions, but that many House Republicans, as is the case for many bills, are all intent on protecting their right flank prior to the fall election. Now doubly so in the aftermath of Majority Leader Cantor stunning primary loss yesterday. (which may put the 7th VA district into play in the November election as it now has 2 unknown college professors squaring off against each other.)

The House THUD bill, BTW, has a clause if I interpret correctly, limiting RRIF loans for FY2015 to no more than $5.6 billion total to any one state. I guess this is to block CA from applying for a > $5.6 billion RRIF loan in FY15, but I was not aware that CHSRA was likely to apply for RRIF loans anywhere that large in the near term.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 11, 2014)

jis said:


> Hope these are stripped out in conference. Or otherwise of course it is more continuing resolutions. But just imagine what will happen if the Senate goes Republican in the next Congress.


My guess is that Amtrak funding on the federal level is slashed to the point that most of the network becomes nearly impossible to maintain. The NEC and a handful of completely disconnected state funded routes will be all that survive. On the other hand I've been wrong before and Amtrak has already survived much longer than I originally anticipated.


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## Paulus (Jun 11, 2014)

afigg said:


> We will see if this gets stripped out in the reconcilation process. it is the poison pills inserted by opponents that present the risks. The Mica and Gringey amendment is the reason why Amtrak and Boardman are pressing to "eliminate" losses on food and beverage service in 5 years. Even if it proves technically impossible.
> 
> The issue for the kill the Sunset Limited House amendment is how many Senators in AZ, NM, TX, LA will fight to save the service? The wording of the amendment could be critical. If the amendment is still in the final bill that passes both the Senate & House, would it prevent Amtrak from extending the Texas Eagle under the TE name to LA? Yes, in those circumstances, service east of San Antonio goes away.


It apparently refers only to the route with the greatest financial loss, presumably on a per passenger or operating ratio basis.


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## neroden (Jun 11, 2014)

The food service poison pill is probably going to be stripped out by the Senate. They don't really want their Acela First Class food removed (which would happen under any honest accounting of a "no-subsidy" rule) and any number of rural states (ND, MT) don't want to make their trains unusable due to lack of food. It's also eminently mockable and I'm already seeing it mocked as the "bring your own lunch" amendment -- on right-wing websites.

Denham's anti-CAHSR amendment is going to be stripped out in conference. Ticking off the California state government is not going to be tolerated in the Senate, and Boxer and Feinstein are powerful.

The "kill the weakest" (measured by loss per rider) amendment might stick, simply because I don't see any Senatorial support specifically for the Sunset Limited. I'd still bet on it being thrown out in conference.


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## jis (Jun 11, 2014)

The Senate bill that has come out of the Committee does not have any of these amendments in it. See the Senate Committee Report at: http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2438 and http://beta.congress.gov/congressional-report/113th-congress/senate-report/182/1

I agree and think it is highly likely that all three will get knocked out in conference.


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## Eric S (Jun 11, 2014)

afigg said:


> Eric S said:
> 
> 
> > Did the House include any TIGER funding?
> ...


Yeah, I had forgotten about that. So, dramatically shrink the program and specifically prohibit it from being spent on passenger rail (and all rail transit, IIRC) - I really hope this portion of the House bill (as well as the anti-Amtrak amendments) gets stripped out in conference with the Senate. Otherwise, TIGER becomes just another road-funding program and may as well not exist.


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## neroden (Jun 11, 2014)

I think the House version of TIGER with the anti-passenger-rail provisions is DOA.

It's funny reading the Congressional record; Latham is completely abusing the point-of-order rules to kick out amendments he doesn't like and let in ones he does like. As a result, it's obvious that a number of House members are not taking this stage of the bill-writing too seriously and are planning to make another run at the bill in conference. (If they were taking it seriously, they'd be calling for recorded votes on the points of order, which you CAN force if you're serious.)


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## Anderson (Jun 11, 2014)

All I will say is "voice vote". The CAHSR amendment I can see...but that shouldn't be Amtrak money at this point in any case. I'd consider that one to be inconsequential. The F&B one is horrendously impractical and should get stripped out. The Sunset one has the best chance of sticking...but that has to do more with the fact that the Sunset's per-passenger subsidy is so far above every other route's that it isn't even funny (heck, the per-passenger-mile loss is on par with the Cardinal...and then aggravated by distance).

Edit: I have to sincerely wonder if there's a way we could get a daily Eagle to Los Angeles?


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## Paulus (Jun 11, 2014)

Anderson said:


> Edit: I have to sincerely wonder if there's a way we could get a daily Eagle to Los Angeles?


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## Anderson (Jun 11, 2014)

Hey, I ask under the "when is a route not a route" logic. If Amtrak could skirt an (incredibly stupid) axing of the SL by managing to only cut the SAS-NOL leg, it would limit the cities with cut rail service to...effectively just Houston.


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## Ryan (Jun 11, 2014)

Heck, cancel the Sunset Limited and immediately introduce the Sunrise Unlimited, a train whose schedule bears a striking resemblance to the now-cancelled Sunset Limited. h34r:


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## Paulus (Jun 11, 2014)

Anderson said:


> Hey, I ask under the "when is a route not a route" logic. If Amtrak could skirt an (incredibly stupid) axing of the SL by managing to only cut the SAS-NOL leg, it would limit the cities with cut rail service to...effectively just Houston.


It doesn't call out the Sunset by name, mere referring to the worst performing route.


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## neroden (Jun 12, 2014)

The amendment specifies the route which is worst-performing based on specific PAST years' performance, so we know which route it is, and it's the Sunset Limited.


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## Caesar La Rock (Jun 12, 2014)

You know, it wouldn't be the worst performing route if Congress did something to improve it. This is what happens when you ignore a problem, it doesn't go away. Trying to make it go away won't solve anything either, you're only making trains less available to places that need them. Then it becomes a headache to bring it back, especially if it's the only train that goes through the area.


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## edjbox (Jun 12, 2014)

anyone know when the Senate will go into conference? anything we can do to stop these amendments?


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## tonys96 (Jun 12, 2014)

I understand none can be spent on the SL, and none on food service. Is that correct?


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## Ryan (Jun 12, 2014)

That's what is in the House Bill. It still had to go to the conference committee, which is where this crap can be gotten rid of.

Here's the amendment text:



> Sec. 417. None of the funds made available by this Act
> 
> shall be used to support Amtrak's route with the highest
> 
> ...


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## tonys96 (Jun 12, 2014)

RyanS said:


> That's what is in the House Bill. It still had to go to the conference committee, which is where this crap can be gotten rid of.Here's the amendment text:
> 
> 
> 
> > Sec. 417. None of the funds made available by this Actshall be used to support Amtrak's route with the highestloss, measured by contributions/(Loss) per Rider, as based onthe National Railroad Passenger Corporation Fiscal Years2013-2017 Five Year Plan from May 2013.


Thanks. What about no money for F&B? I heard that was there too.......


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## Ryan (Jun 12, 2014)

The Sunset Limited was a Sessions amendment.

The food and beverage amendment was by Gingrey (GA) and (surprise!) Mica:



> Sec. 417. None of the funds made available by this Act may
> 
> be used in contravention of section 24305©(4) of title 49,
> 
> United States, Code.


Here's the relevant part of title 49:



> © Miscellaneous Authority.— Amtrak may—
> 
> (1) make and carry out appropriate agreements;
> 
> ...


According to Gingrey's remarks, this has been in there since 1981:



> The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
> 
> Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Chairwoman, I rise today to offer an
> 
> ...


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## Ryan (Jun 12, 2014)

More reading, if you like to dig into primary sources:

http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/4745/amendments

Edit: And here's the Senate bill. According to this, it hasn't gone up for a vote yet.

http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2438/all-actions/


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## afigg (Jun 12, 2014)

RyanS said:


> That's what is in the House Bill. It still had to go to the conference committee, which is where this crap can be gotten rid of.
> 
> Here's the amendment text:
> 
> ...


So the amendment is based on projections issued by Amtrak last year in the FY13 Five year plan. Odd thing for Sessions to pick put, but he probably had a staffer grab Amtrak documents and that is what the staffer selected. The biggest loss by rider in that FY13 projection is by far the Sunset Limited.
The amendment says that no funds go to support the route with the highest loss, effectively among the 15 LD trains in the tables in the Five Year plan. My interpretation is that if the amendment is not thrown out in the conference committee - I expect it will be, but that is not certain - nothing in that wording would prevent Amtrak from extending the Texas Eagle as the TE to Los Angeles and cutting back to 14 named LD trains. But that could be seen as defying the House and I suspect Boardman and the Amtrak board would avoid doing so.

If the TE is extended, Amtrak could ask TX and LA to support a corridor service between New Orleans and San Antonio, but the odds of a positive response in the near term given the politics of the 2 states are poor.


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## CHamilton (Jun 12, 2014)

The larger picture: is compromise out?



> Will Cantor's loss push congressional Republicans to balk on transportation compromise?
> 
> Cantor's loss makes this summer's looming congressional fight over transportation funding all the more unpredictable....
> 
> ...


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## Paulus (Jun 12, 2014)

Would someone mind explaining to me why Amtrak should fight to the death to keep the Sunset Limited?


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## Ryan (Jun 12, 2014)

The same reasons we should fight to save Amtrak as a whole?


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 12, 2014)

They shouldn't. If it's constituents don't want it, and they don't, there are other riders who would benefit from the Sunsets equipment being freed up.


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## CHamilton (Jun 12, 2014)

I don't have any inside information, but it appears that NARP is taking the position that these are just more attacks on the national system. Which makes sense to me. Take a bunch of "death by a thousand cuts" amendments, and add the "we will never compromise" mentality, and you get a classic domino theory situation: today the food and the Sunset, tomorrow ... what, sleepers and the Cardinal?


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## tonys96 (Jun 12, 2014)

CHamilton said:


> I don't have any inside information, but it appears that NARP is taking the position that these are just more attacks on the national system. Which makes sense to me. Take a bunch of "death by a thousand cuts" amendments, and add the "we will never compromise" mentality, and you get a classic domino theory situation: today the food and the Sunset, tomorrow ... what, sleepers and the Cardinal?


Exactly correct. There were many here who had no problems with the first round of amenity cuts......look where that is now headed. The same slippery slope is here with this. Cut lowest performer now, again cut lowest performer next year, and so on.....in 14 years there is no LD service at all.......


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## Paulus (Jun 12, 2014)

RyanS said:


> The same reasons we should fight to save Amtrak as a whole?


Amtrak as a whole is not threatened except perhaps by the insistence of various advocacy groups that it continue to run highly expensive long distance trains with minimal ridership or value as rural transportation. Heck, the Coachella Valley thruway bus, which requires a train connection (probably the reason it ends in Fullerton rather than LA), has at least 20% of the ridership of the entire Sunset Limited route. Why should Amtrak fight to retain the Subset Limited instead of offering to use its equipment for a state supported Coachella Valley rail corridor (which CA wants)?


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 12, 2014)

A short run Bus Route as a Substitute for the oldest continually operating LD Route in the US! You can't be serious!!!


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## tonys96 (Jun 12, 2014)

jimhudson said:


> A short run Bus Route as a Substitute for the oldest continually operating LD Route in the US! You can't be serious!!!


Unfortunately I believe he is..............


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## Paulus (Jun 12, 2014)

jimhudson said:


> A short run bus as a Substitute for the oldest continually operating LD Route in the US! For real????


No, a rail corridor from Los Angeles to Indio, currently served by the Sunset Limited at "How stupid do you think we are?" hours and by a Thruway service at rather more reasonable hours. As it is, the Sunset Limited is nothing more than a waste of money and equipment; so what if it is the longest continually running LD route? That's not a reason to keep it running.


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## tonys96 (Jun 12, 2014)

Paulus said:


> jimhudson said:
> 
> 
> > A short run bus as a Substitute for the oldest continually operating LD Route in the US! For real????
> ...


I don't think it is a waste to those who board along the route........


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## afigg (Jun 12, 2014)

Paulus said:


> Amtrak as a whole is not threatened except perhaps by the insistence of various advocacy groups that it continue to run highly expensive long distance trains with minimal ridership or value as rural transportation. Heck, the Coachella Valley thruway bus, which requires a train connection (probably the reason it ends in Fullerton rather than LA), has at least 20% of the ridership of the entire Sunset Limited route. Why should Amtrak fight to retain the Subset Limited instead of offering to use its equipment for a state supported Coachella Valley rail corridor (which CA wants)?


Interesting proposed corridor service to bring up. Would there be much support for a Coachella Valley corridor service if the Sunset Limited had been canceled decades ago? If there had been no train service for decades, would the local politicians and business leaders even be considering pushing for a corridor train service to LA? In the east, would the Lynchburg Regional service been added if there was no Crescent running over the route demonstrating that there was a demand for more train service in Lynchburg and Charlottesville?
The existence of the SL in the Coachella Valley is the foundation on which a Coachella Valley corridor service can build on. The LD trains have kept passenger train service alive to many communities, even as a 3 day a week service. if the SL goes away, 2 of the largest cities in the US, Houston and the Phoenix metro region, would have no intercity train service at all. And there would be a huge gap in passenger train service across the southern perimeter of the continental US.

Instead of more retreat, fight to keep what remains of the intercity passenger train system intact, as it far more difficult to restore service where there is none, than where there are still passenger trains running.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 12, 2014)

There will always be a worst performing route that folks like Paulus will hand over without a fight. After the Sunset it will be another route and another after that. If you keep lopping off the weakest route eventually you end up with no routes. I seriously doubt Amtrak will get stronger as the network fractures into isolated routes that can't connect to each other.


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## neroden (Jun 12, 2014)

The food service attack is idiotic and frankly if it doesn't get thrown out in committee, which it should, I would be inclined to respond by assigning a portion of coach ticket revenues to food service on every single train with service. People who don't buy food on the train still make the choice to ride because they know food is available if they need it.

It's interesting to see that the original version of the attack on food service was actually done by the Reagan administration.

I am not as concerned about the Sunset Limited. I would like to keep it, but really, anything less-than-daily is not doing anyone any favors and exists only as a placeholder for future improvements. In this case, the original sin is the actions of the ICC in permitting the route to go less-than-daily back before Amtrak. (In the case of the Cardinal, it's actually Amtrak's fault, as the Cardinal route *used to be daily* under Amtrak.) I would hope that Boardman would have the sense to promptly replace the SL with a daily Texas Eagle to LA and tell Congress "See, we didn't spend money on the Sunset Limited. This is a different, better, DAILY train."


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## Paulus (Jun 12, 2014)

afigg said:


> Paulus said:
> 
> 
> > Amtrak as a whole is not threatened except perhaps by the insistence of various advocacy groups that it continue to run highly expensive long distance trains with minimal ridership or value as rural transportation. Heck, the Coachella Valley thruway bus, which requires a train connection (probably the reason it ends in Fullerton rather than LA), has at least 20% of the ridership of the entire Sunset Limited route. Why should Amtrak fight to retain the Subset Limited instead of offering to use its equipment for a state supported Coachella Valley rail corridor (which CA wants)?
> ...


Probably, look at the continued support for some sort of passenger rail connection to Las Vegas (which brings to mind the question: Why did the Desert Wind die and the Sunset Limited live when the Wind had much better ridership and lower losses?). The Capitol Corridor was three decades after the last local train on the route (though with the Starlight going through in the middle of the night). Support for passenger rail service isn't based on the absolutely pathetic performance of the Sunset Limited in the region, but more of an evolving need for transportation along that route and "Hey, we have a rail line, let's use it!"



> The existence of the SL in the Coachella Valley is the foundation on which a Coachella Valley corridor service can build on. The LD trains have kept passenger train service alive to many communities, even as a 3 day a week service. if the SL goes away, 2 of the largest cities in the US, Houston and the Phoenix metro region, would have no intercity train service at all.


Yes, and? Let them fund their own corridor services if they want intercity rail service.



> And there would be a huge gap in passenger train service across the southern perimeter of the continental US.


I don't see a problem with this.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 12, 2014)

Cutting the Sunset Limited won't bring back the Desert Wind or any other route. If Amtrak is genuinely interested in saving money in the short term then the hardware currently used by the Sunset will end up sitting in a yard somewhere and the employees who worked that route will be let go.


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## Ryan (Jun 12, 2014)

Paulus said:


> > And there would be a huge gap in passenger train service across the southern perimeter of the continental US.
> 
> 
> I don't see a problem with this.


There's a whole laundry list of things you don't see at problems.

It amuses me to see people trying to use facts and logic to try and convince you of something you're ideologically opposed to.


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## neroden (Jun 12, 2014)

Actually, the hardware would probably go to lengthening the Auto Train, additional cut-off cars on the California Zephyr from Denver to Chicago, additional cut-off cars on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Minneapolis,... or, ideally, to an extended *daily* Texas Eagle.


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 12, 2014)

neroden said:


> Actually, the hardware would probably go to lengthening the Auto Train, additional cut-off cars on the California Zephyr from Denver to Chicago, additional cut-off cars on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Minneapolis,... or, ideally, to an extended *daily* Texas Eagle.


Chris is right on this one, while what you post sounds good it's not gonna happen with the current political climate and the current Amtrak management!


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 12, 2014)

neroden said:


> Actually, the hardware would probably go to lengthening the Auto Train, additional cut-off cars on the California Zephyr from Denver to Chicago, additional cut-off cars on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Minneapolis,... or, ideally, to an extended *daily* Texas Eagle.


How would they be able to extend the auto-train? I thought they had already reached the HEP cutoff. Are you saying they'll be removing dining cars now? As for the CZ that route also loses money and I doubt that adding more cars to Denver will make it more profitable. Maybe cutting the route in half and ending at Denver would have a chance to improve financial performance. The Empire Builder is living in its own perpetual tailspin that could suck up as many trains as you dare to throw at it, but probably won't get any closer to recouping losses for years to come. A daily Texas Eagle would be a very big and very expensive "FU" to congress and I seriously doubt Boardman has anywhere near the kind of support or chutzpah such an undertaking would require.


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## tonys96 (Jun 12, 2014)

Board an has zero chutzpah. He started these 'cuts' and expected to appease the naysayers. Instead, as it now shows, when he started negotiating with congressional terrorists, he gets his butt handed to him.......if he stood his ground to begin with, who knows?


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## Dog Rancher (Jun 12, 2014)

Just curious: at what point should Amtrak be forced to stand or fall on its own?

Because if Amtrak is paying $16 for a hamburger they sell for $9.50, its problems are unsolvable.

Sent from my iPad Air using Amtrak Forum


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## Ryan (Jun 12, 2014)

The same day that roads, airlines and other mass transit organizations are forced to stand or fall on their own.


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 12, 2014)

RyanS said:


> The same day that roads, airlines and other mass transit organizations are forced to stand or fall on their own.


Amen brother!


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 12, 2014)

Dog Rancher said:


> Just curious: at what point should Amtrak be forced to stand or fall on its own?
> 
> Because if Amtrak is paying $16 for a hamburger they sell for $9.50, its problems are unsolvable.
> 
> Sent from my iPad Air using Amtrak Forum


Lies, damned lies, and statistics. The labor and equipment maintenance for those Hamburgers make up the vast bulk of that price. The labor alone is probably in the $7-$10 range. I doubt they pay more than $5 for the burger and related materials.


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## jis (Jun 12, 2014)

Dog Rancher said:


> Just curious: at what point should Amtrak be forced to stand or fall on its own?
> 
> Because if Amtrak is paying $16 for a hamburger they sell for $9.50, its problems are unsolvable.


If Amtrak is selling Y additional fares of Z dollars (fares that they would not have got absent the availability of hamburgers), by selling X hamburgers for $9.50, and Y * Z is much greater than X * ($16 - $9.50), why is that a problem? It sounds more like a solution to me.
People are also using the toilets on the trains for free and the toilet business is a net cost sink, and the toilet business is certainly not Amtrak's primary business. So should toilet service be discontinued too?


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 12, 2014)

Jishnu, let's not talk about this crap any longer.


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 12, 2014)

And the House Cafeteria and the Senate Dining Room have Heavily subsidized Meals and Drink along with all the other Perks! Congress, Americas Welfare Class!


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## jis (Jun 12, 2014)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Jishnu, let's not talk about this crap any longer.


Yep. Nowhere to put said crap with toilets gone


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## Dog Rancher (Jun 12, 2014)

jis said:


> Dog Rancher said:
> 
> 
> > Just curious: at what point should Amtrak be forced to stand or fall on its own?
> ...


Are you seriously making the argument that people ride Amtrak because of the hamburgers?
That brings to mind "The Holy Grail": "Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"

Sent from my iPad Air using Amtrak Forum


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 12, 2014)

Anyone remember the Pay Toilets in the Train and Bus Stations back in the day??

A Dime got you stall time!


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## MrFSS (Jun 12, 2014)

Cooling Off Time!!


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## MrFSS (Jun 13, 2014)

I will open this important topic back for public comment.

However, if you have never read *THIS POST* or it has been a while since you have, please read it to refresh your memory.


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## Ryan (Jun 13, 2014)

Thanks, Tom.

In case anyone is too lazy to click through, here's the important bits:



> No political mentions, references, insinuations, or likenesses permitted in forum signatures, avatars, or user names. I don't care if the person or party SUPPORTS Amtrak with a given policy -- just forget about it.
> 
> Any post that expresses favor or preference for or against a specific politician, political candidate, or political party, or what they stand for, may be deleted at any staff member's discretion. The goal here is to protect the good-natured civility we all enjoy here on the forum. Common sense will dictate whether a post is likely to provoke other members. If we are lucky, the member will exercise such common sense before posting, and no intervention will be required.
> 
> ...


It looks like we have a whole thread (or had last night, at least) that violated that last one.


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## neroden (Jun 13, 2014)

It's good that the moderators here don't enforce that the way they do on some other websites; at least two that I know of allow disproven right-wing economic ideology to be spouted continuously, but censor any fact-based criticism of them.

There can be no meaningful, or indeed civil, discussion of passenger rail in the US without discussing politics, and indeed without discussing individual politicians (John Mica, for instance). Thankfully the moderators here appear to recognize this.


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## neroden (Jun 13, 2014)

Dog Rancher said:


> Are you seriously making the argument that people ride Amtrak because of the hamburgers?


First question from four or five different people who'd never ridden passenger trains when I explained that I was taking Amtrak: "Do they have those dining cars?". It made the difference between whether they considered taking the train or not. They then explained (each of them) that they disliked being on a bus or plane with nothing to eat except what they'd brought...

Seriously, it's the question I always get, and sometimes I get it asked even before "what's the schedule".


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## jis (Jun 13, 2014)

By the, FYI the anti-Sunset Limited amendment which was accepted on voice vote was later superseded y a broader motion which was defeated using recorded vote. So the anti-Sunset Limited amendment is gone.



> Amendment to HR 4745 (FY' 15 Transp. & HUD appropriation) to prohibit the use of funds to support any route whose costs exceed twice its revenues, based on Amtak's FY '13-''17 Five Year Plan of May 2013.
> Failed 250 - 167


As it was explained, this one being a broader amendment than the one accepted by voice vote, this result rules.


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## jimhudson (Jun 13, 2014)

Excellent news his, thanks for the update!

And neroden is spot on! The second question I get when I evangalize about Amtrak after " You mean there's still passenger trains that come through Austin?" is " And can you get food and something to drink when you ride them?"


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## Ryan (Jun 13, 2014)

jis said:


> By the, FYI the anti-Sunset Limited amendment which was accepted on voice vote was later superseded y a broader motion which was defeated using recorded vote. So the anti-Sunset Limited amendment is gone.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm not sure I buy that - I can't find any mention of this amendment superseding the other in the transcript:



> Amendment Offered by Mr. Sessions
> 
> Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
> 
> ...


It is good to see a Representative from Arizona stand up and speak against the amendment.


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## jis (Jun 13, 2014)

I was told that it would not be in the transcript since it flows from House Rules. But who knows?


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## Ryan (Jun 13, 2014)

Not me, obviously! 

That's great news if that's how it works!


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 13, 2014)

Second on the members from Iowa and Arizona standing up for Amtrak against the budget bullies!

And since we haven't mentioned him in awhile on AU Amtrak Joe is still Vice President and presides over the Senate where any of this kind of nonsense will be killed!


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## jis (Jun 13, 2014)

Well, again as was explained to me, never count your chicken until they all hatch. Conference is an unpredictable thing, and depending on what bigger axes are there to grind some minutia may drop through the cracks. I am sure NARP and Amtrak will be busy busy marshaling the Senate participants in the Conference when they are announced to make sure that these things don;t fall through the cracks. As a matter of fact, apparently even the total amount is not fully secure until it is in the conference report. So go figure.

It stands to reason that when both bodies come in with the same top line number it is less likely to change, but it is not impossible that such could happen.


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## crescent2 (Jun 13, 2014)

RyanS said:


> Thanks, Tom.
> 
> In case anyone is too lazy to click through, here's the important bits:
> 
> ...


There are political statements in this forum all the time. Fine with me, but they are quite common despite the quoted policy. "Staff member's discretion" seems to be the key.


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## the_traveler (Jun 13, 2014)

Just as an FYI: The "staff member's discretion" is not taken lightly by any of us. Yes we can delete, but it is much more likely that we discuss it with other staff members first before any deleting is done. It's not a "I'm against this poster/politician/idea/etc... so I'll delete it".


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## tonys96 (Jun 13, 2014)

the_traveler said:


> Just as an FYI: The "staff member's discretion" is not taken lightly by any of us. Yes we can delete, but it is much more likely that we discuss it with other staff members first before any deleting is done. It's not a "I'm against this poster/politician/idea/etc... so I'll delete it".


I have had posts deleted in the past, and after reflection, I think I would agree with the moderators that they should have been deleted, or modified....except once. 

All in all, a good policy policed by good people, IMHO.


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## jis (Jun 13, 2014)

RyanS said:


> Not me, obviously!
> 
> That's great news if that's how it works!


The guy who was telling me could equally be wrong. So we just don;t know for sure. In such cases always assume the worst. So until we hear definitively otherwise, I'd consider the Sunset amendment to be standing.


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## William (Jun 13, 2014)

I used to be an Amtrak hater, but after beginning to use it on a frequent basis (to go home from college on some weekends), I've realized that it is an important part of the infrastructure. I've taken several long distance trains in the last year (CZ, CL, and Cardinal), and have learned to appreciate those too.

How I see the situation of the underperformance of the long distance routes is pretty simple. I don't think that there will ever be a way to make these routes profitable. Perhaps they can break even, or at least have lessened loses, but I don't think that it is realistic to expect a miracle from these types of routes. The best thing that can be done for the LD trains is to try to make them as efficient as possible (without having to bring your own lunch or sleep in a box car), and to invest in non-LD routes (Acela, NR, etc) that are profitable, or come very close. It seems to me like it is much easier to improve the financial outcomes of shorter routes than longer ones. The money made on those routes can then be used to offset the losses of the LD routes (as Amtrak already tries to do).

In terms of the Sunset Limited, my opinions are a bit split. I definitely understand the rationale for keeping it, but at the same time, it really is the worse performing route in the entire system. According to the Brookings Institute, it barely breaks 100,000 riders a year, whereas most of the other LD trains each approach 500,000 a year. It also, proportionally, loses a lot more money. I think that everything possible should be done to keep it, but the option to eliminate it should be kept on the table, if only to satisfy some members of congress and hopefully take some of the political pressure off of Amtrak as a whole.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/01/amtrak-loses-a-ton-of-money-each-year-it-doesnt-have-to/

The other possible solution to the losses of the LD trains is to more effectively engage the states that have them within their borders. If Amtrak could get the state legislatures to at least provide a minimum support for these routes, it would boost the overall political viability of them. It would also open the door for future cooperation between Amtrak and the states for new short distance and corridor routes (which there definitely seems to be a demand for). This is especially true for states whose only service is provided by LD trains.

Let me know what you guys agree/disagree with. I'm always open to the opinions of others.


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## jis (Jun 13, 2014)

William, I generally agree with your position.


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 13, 2014)

Ditto for me!


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## Caesar La Rock (Jun 13, 2014)

I agree with your post William. Good points made.


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## tonys96 (Jun 13, 2014)

I could agree with William, in principle, but logisticaly this cannot and would not be feasible. As a for instance:

The Texas Eagle travels through many states, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. So, if Illinois, Missouri and Texas all agreed to toss in some extra $$$ (unlikely, but for this example, let's play "what if") and Arkansas simply refused......what would happen to the Eagle? Would it cease to exist? Look for a way to skip around Arkansas? Continue and let Arkansas get a "free" ride?

This same scenario exists on all of the LD routes. More than one state is involved.

William's proposal looks good on paper, and sounds good, but just would not work in the real world.

Just one guy's opinion...........


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## Anderson (Jun 13, 2014)

Well, do consider that the Sunset only runs 3x weekly, so a strict comparison with the other trains is not quite fair. The Cardinal is in the same boat.

The Sunset had just under 103k riders last year, which translates into roughly 240k riders for a daily train. Given the well-documented effects of less-than-daily trains in terms of losing riders through inconvenience (not being able to pick one's day of travel); I would peg ridership on a daily Sunset somewhere around 275k. A daily train would almost assuredly also add riders to the Texas Eagle (if only because you would have the through cars running daily as well). By the same token, a daily Cardinal would simply multiply out to 264k (vs. 113k now), but you'd probably end up somewhere in the 350k range due to an increase in ridership on the eastern end (assuming space was made available).

Trying to get states to kick in is a politically tricky proposition. PRIIA 209 was tough enough...I don't want to imagine the fight over trying to get, say, VA/NC/SC/GA/FL in on the Silvers (let alone the allocation formula fight there).

There are some exceptions (such as the three West Coast states plausibly kicking in for some share of service on the Coast Starlight), but those are the exception and not the rule.

Edit: One other point...most of the LD trains are running into capacity issues as much as anything. This is particularly the case on the sleeper side of things, but a lot of trains could do with additional capacity on both sleepers and coaches. The Meteor easily leaps to mind on this front, as does the LSL.


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## edjbox (Jun 13, 2014)

If politicians win and kill the sunset ltd, they won't be satisfied, they will ask for more cuts the next year because they're thirsty for amtraks blood. That's why we need to support existing service, because once it's gone it's hard to bring back.

Also can anyone confirm that the sunset ltd amendment is dead? Don't see anything on NARP


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## neroden (Jun 14, 2014)

jis said:


> Well, again as was explained to me, never count your chicken until they all hatch. Conference is an unpredictable thing, and depending on what bigger axes are there to grind some minutia may drop through the cracks. I am sure NARP and Amtrak will be busy busy marshaling the Senate participants in the Conference when they are announced to make sure that these things don;t fall through the cracks. As a matter of fact, apparently even the total amount is not fully secure until it is in the conference report. So go figure.


Yes, I can think of multiple historical examples of a bill having identical funding in both houses and suddenly changing in conference.


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## henryj (Jun 14, 2014)

We have been down the road of discontinuing a LD train to save the rest many times before and it only results in more trains off and the overhead being distributed to the other routes. Trains I can think of include the Pioneer, Desert Wind, Lone Star, National Limited, Broadway Limited and Floridian plus some others. The Sunset only posts those stats because it's a three times a week train and Amtrak refused to press for daily operation with the UP. It actually loses less money overall than many other LD trains. The figure that the politicians key on is the loss per passenger and that is just a result of Amtrak's cost allocation process.


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## Ziv (Jun 14, 2014)

William, I agree with you about the utility of the LD routes and the difficulty in expecting them to achieve profitability. One thing that would in many cases allow them to lose less money would be for them to have more cars, both coach and sleepers, on the routes that would support additional capacity. And the point of state support kind of falls into line with that.

It would be great if Montana could buy a pair of sleepers and paint a subdued but noticeable "Visit Glacier Park" logo on them with a picture of Lake McDonald or Sperry Chalet painted on them. Ditto for other states, all buying sleepers or coaches for the routes that run through their states in a one time purchase after making an agreement with Amtrak that that rolling stock would be used on the routes going through their states and IN ADDITION to the previous consist.

But, in the real world, I doubt the states could find the money and I also doubt Amtrak would want those kinds of limits to be placed on their ability to adjust the consist size. One can wish though.

One way to make each train cost less to run is to increase the amount of trains per day through each station, thereby decreasing the fixed cost per train. But it is questionable whether there is enough passenger demand to run another CZ or CS every day.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 14, 2014)

Excuse me, Henry, but it was UP who refused to enter into good faith negotiations.


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## Ryan (Jun 14, 2014)

I think the reality of the situation is far more complicated than both of you are claiming.


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## me_little_me (Jun 14, 2014)

Ziv said:


> It would be great if Montana could buy a pair of sleepers and paint a subdued but noticeable "Visit Glacier Park" logo on them with a picture of Lake McDonald or Sperry Chalet painted on them. Ditto for other states, all buying sleepers or coaches for the routes that run through their states in a one time purchase after making an agreement with Amtrak that that rolling stock would be used on the routes going through their states and IN ADDITION to the previous consist.


Why would a state want to limit their advertising to the one route? How often do you see states advertising in national magazines? I'd suggest that Montana would find it in their best interest and would love to have that car be seen around the country (assuming they think that paying for the car was a good idea).

Then again private companies might be willing to pony up the cash so you too could ride in the McDonalds Car or worse, the Ty-D-Bowl Car.



Anderson said:


> The Sunset had just under 103k riders last year, which translates into roughly 240k riders for a daily train.


You mean there were 239,998 additional passengers on our train last month? Wow! must have all been in coach.



tonys96 said:


> I could agree with William, in principle, but logisticaly this cannot and would not be feasible. As a for instance:
> 
> The Texas Eagle travels through many states, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. So, if Illinois, Missouri and Texas all agreed to toss in some extra $$$ (unlikely, but for this example, let's play "what if") and Arkansas simply refused......what would happen to the Eagle? Would it cease to exist? Look for a way to skip around Arkansas? Continue and let Arkansas get a "free" ride?
> 
> ...


Could minimize or just eliminate the stops in Arkansas is one possibility - or just charge a supplement to anyone going to/from those stations. Of course, that would cause additional problems and animosities. Amtrak needs to sell itself to state legislatures as they try to sell themselves to Congress.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 14, 2014)

RyanS said:


> I think the reality of the situation is far more complicated than both of you are claiming.


The reality was more complicated, and now it could be more promising.

When UP basically refused to take the daily train, it said to Amtrak,

You want it, you pay for the track. And suggested half a billion or so

in needed upgrades.

Since then, the UP itself has double-tracked most of its route thru

California, Arizona, and New Mexico. (East of El Paso the main line

freight route splits, one goes to Dallas, the other, less busy one

goes to San Antonio.)

Meanwhile Amtrak and UP agreed to adjust the _Sunset's_ schedule.

It got a faster trip time (saving 9 hours,iirc) that required one less se

_Coast Starlight_ in L.A., and better times on the segment L.A.-Tucson.

The _Sunset_'s now -surplus equipment was immediately reallocated

to other routes short of cars, or put into the pool like the locomotive.

Where is that equipment now? It got soaked up like stray raindrops

hitting the sand in the Sonoran Desert, because all of the Western trains

are desperately thirsty for equipment.

How Amtrak was supposed to get two iirc more train sets to offer daily

service involved messing with the _Texas Eagle_, aborting the _Sunset _at

San Antonio, running a kind of shuttle San Antonio-Houston-New Orleans.

I was never convinced.

On the other hand, the PRIIA study forecast that daily service would at

least double the total yearly passengers, to about 250,000. Of course,

Amtrak's forecasts seem to be low-balled. See the _Lynchburger_ for

the most notorious misunderestimate. (I believe low-ball forecasts of

ridership have become the standard now, because if initial ridership

fails to meet the forecast, the haters shout about the failure for the

rest of their lucrative careers.) So it could easily turn out to be more.

A daily train offers much more convenience to travelers, of course.

For some city pairs it allows same-day round-trips. More commonly

it allows trips that only require an overnight, instead of two-night or

three-night stays necessary with a train that does not run at all

four nights a week.

Meanwhile a 3-days-a-week train has very wasteful use of crew. While

they wait to work the train departing two days later, they must be housed

and paid "away pay" if I got the correct term. So putting the crews on

a regular schedule instead means that the additional labor costs of a

day train are low "compared with" one 3-days-a-week. (It also adds to

the difficulty for employees to be away from home for days at a time.)

With much of the route now double-tracked, the main thing Amtrak

might need to take the _Sunset_ daily would be more equipment. Isn't

that in the Fleet Renewal Plan for 2020 or so?


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## Eric S (Jun 14, 2014)

me_little_me said:


> Could minimize or just eliminate the stops in Arkansas is one possibility - or just charge a supplement to anyone going to/from those stations. Of course, that would cause additional problems and animosities. Amtrak needs to sell itself to state legislatures as they try to sell themselves to Congress.


Definitely a challenge when trying to rely on state funding for multistate trains. If we assume that all the other states (IL, MO, TX, perhaps all the way to CA) contributed "their" share, but AR decided not to, I would imagine that the train would still be better off financially by making the stops (or at least some of the stops, at least Little Rock if nothing else) in AR rather than running nonstop through AR. Sort of a free rider problem, I suppose. And, if AR receives service without contributing, why should MO (or another mid-route state, or potentially any individual state) contribute. It's hard to imagine many, perhaps any, long distance trains (or even corridor states involving _many_ states) existing without some degree of federal/national funding.

I suppose charging a supplemental fare/surcharge would be an option, but if you're already looking to maximize revenue (minimize loss), should you already be charging (roughly) as much as possible.

It seems that the more that states step up to support current and expanded corridor operations, that support should provide at least incidental benefits to long distance trains, and probably represents a much easier "sell" to the various states than actually getting ongoing operating support for long distance trains.


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## Paulus (Jun 14, 2014)

WoodyinNYC said:


> On the other hand, the PRIIA study forecast that daily service would at
> 
> least double the total yearly passengers, to about 250,000. Of course,
> 
> ...


It also said that total losses after avoidable costs on the Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle would rise by 16%. Given that, it's really not surprising that Amtrak isn't all that interested in going daily.


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## Ryan (Jun 14, 2014)

WoodyinNYC said:


> RyanS said:
> 
> 
> > I think the reality of the situation is far more complicated than both of you are claiming.
> ...


That's not the story I heard. It apparently started out much more amicable and good progress was being made, then things went south just before things wrapped up.



> Meanwhile Amtrak and UP agreed to adjust the _Sunset's_ schedule.
> 
> It got a faster trip time (saving 9 hours,iirc) that required one less se
> 
> ...


That's what was supposed to happen, but it didn't for quite some time. Maybe that's where they finally came up with the 6th set of Empire Builder equipment. But for a long time, the equipment just sat in NOL for longer between trips.


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## neroden (Jun 14, 2014)

Paulus said:


> WoodyinNYC said:
> 
> 
> > On the other hand, the PRIIA study forecast that daily service would at
> ...


That's a very funny way of looking at the numbers. It said that total bottom-line losses would rise by about $3 million dollars. After adjusting the ridership and revenue estimates for current ridership and ticket prices rather than 4-year-old numbers, that should come out to roughly "zero" ($0). (When you multiply ridership & revenue by roughly 7/3 to account for improved service, which seems to be close to what Amtrak did -- and it's a reasonable way to do it -- it matters how high ridership and revenue were to start with.) That's still a conservative estimate. Daily service is just that much more attractive than less-than-daily.

FWIW, the "new" Sunset Limited schedule is an approximation of the proposed "through" Texas Eagle schedule. Though the associated changes to the Texas Eagle schedule didn't happen.

The situation on the Cardinal is a little less clear now because a daily train would probably lose the Indiana subsidy for the Hoosier State. The PIP's estimates claimed it would cost $2.1 million net back then; adjusting for current ridership and ticket prices, that should be $1.8 million or less. That's with the existing consist. The increase in roomettes provided by Viewliner II dorm should add roughly $1.4 - 1.6 million to the revenue of the existing frequency. But more interestingly, it should improve the benefits from going daily by an additional $3.8 - $4.2 million (yes, really), making the daily Cardinal positive for the bottom line (at about $2.0 - 2.4 million ahead). Again, that's a conservative estimate.

The potential loss of a $4.1 million subsidy from Indiana would now counteract that, of course. But if Indiana drops the subsidy anyway, or if Indiana decides to make the Hoosier State a separate train on an entirely different schedule... then daily service becomes a clear winner for the bottom line.

As Amtrak says about the Cardinal:



> The fact that a 133 percent increase in frequency (plus elimination of the Chicago/Indianapolis Hoosier State) can be achieved with a 50 percent increase in equipment sets demonstrates the inherent inefficiency of the current tri-weekly service.


Tri-weekly is wasting money. The conservative estimate is that ridership & revenue will be multiplied by 7/3 if you go from tri-weekly to daily (proportional to the increase in frequencies); in fact, in the few examples I've been able to dig up, it seems to go up by even more than that.

This is simply considering bottom-line financial results. Obviously, the major benefit of daily service is massively increased ridership, making all those "loss per passenger" type numbers (which Congress likes to look at) much smaller. To put it another way: a daily Cardinal with the bag-dorm should have about the same impact on Amtrak's bottom line as the current three-a-week Cardinal without the bag-dorm does, but with nearly 2.5 times the ridership.

I don't know who came up with the idea of three-a-week service originally; I guess it dates back to the 19th century; but it's a terrible idea in the modern world.


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## Anderson (Jun 14, 2014)

My understanding on the UP-Amtrak negotiations is that things were running smoothly, there was an effective deal in place...and then someone at Amtrak got too clever by half at the end of the process, UP got furious, and we saw the after-effects of it. Even allowing for some misbehavior on both sides, my understanding is that Amtrak at least was not blameless in the failure of the negotiations.

As to equipment, IIRC the extra equipment in the plan came from ditching the sleeper east of SAS. That freed up enough sleepers to balance things out, while coaches are at least a slightly less desperate situation. I think the sets freed up in the schedule adjustment were also supposed to help there. As noted, you can throw a _lot_ of equipment into the western LD trains (or indeed the eastern ones) and watch as demand rises to meet the new supply.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 14, 2014)

I like Nathaneal's calculations. But by the following back-of-the-envelop method,

we can see why Paulus and the PRIIA study have concerns.

Keeping simple figures, the _Red Bird Ltd_. running 3 times a week, has been losing

$100 per day X 3 days = *$300 a week*.

By going daily, crew (and equipment) is more efficiently utilized, ridership doubles,

and now it is losing only $50 per day X 7 days = *$350 a week*.

Weekly or yearly losses on the _Red Bird Ltd._ would increase by about 16%.

Of course, there could be any number of ways to cut the _Red Bird's daily _loss

by more than half. So let's cut it by two-thirds. In my simplistic formula, cut

the loss to only $35 per day X 7 days = *$245 a week.*

In that case, total losses could be markedly reduced.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I agree that simply going daily is probably not enuff by itself to get positive

operating results for the _Cardinal,_ much less the _Sunset Ltd._ (It would move

the _Cardinal'_s dreadful loss per passenger, and share of costs covered by

the fare box in the same range as other long distance trains.)

But the 3-days-a-week trains going daily will need bag/dorms, sleepers, diners,

coaches, and good-looking equipment, not hand-me-downs. And with Wi-Fi

capability NYC-D.C.-Charlottesville and then Charleston-Huntington-Ashland and

then again Indianapolis-Chicago. Damn, the _Cardinal_ really needs its own dome car

for when it passes thru the National Park System's New River Gorge. (The desert

mountain scenery in the Southwest is worth looking at, as well.)

Importantly, the _Cardinal_ needs two daily _Hoosier State_ corridor trains running

Indianapolis-Lafayette-Chicago to allow easy same day go-and-return trips,

not to mention benefits to the _Cardinal_ the $250 million of track improvements

that would entail.

When looking for the trains where truly substantial improvement would be possible

with better frequencies, more equipment, real investment, and some tender love

and care, the daily _Cardinal_ ranks #1 as the most likely to see a major turn-around.


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## William (Jun 14, 2014)

WoodyinNYC said:


> I like Nathaneal's calculations. But by the following back-of-the-envelop method,
> 
> we can see why Paulus and the PRIIA study have concerns.
> 
> ...


The Cardinal is the LD train that I use most often (to go between CIN and ALX). At the very least, it needs to be brought up to daily status, and needs to be equipped with bag-dorms. The next priority for it would be the replacement of the diner-lites with actual dining cars. In terms of the dining cars, I wonder what the priority for assigning the new VL2s is. If the Cardinal is going to be among the last to get them, Amtrak could potentially use freed up heritage diners from other routes to fill the gap, especially because the Cardinal isn't exactly a hard route on equipment (due to its lower speeds). For me, the lower quality of the food, the expensive sleepers, and the tri-weekly schedule are the biggest obstacles to wanting to ride it. I'm willing to tolerate a late train (in fact, especially for 51, the later it is the better because I get to sleep longer  ) but if it's a late train that quite frankly sucks, I really have to think twice about it, especially since I can fly from DCA to CVG for the same cost, or sometimes even less.

It definitely has the potential to be a good route; the sleeping car almost always sells out, and I've even seen coach be completely sold out before. In terms of on-time performance, its biggest hurdle is between Chicago and Cincinnati. The max authorized speed through much of that segment is 60 MPH, and the train often runs at speeds lower than that. If that track can be improved, it would go a long way (it's somewhat hard to justify taking the Cardinal/Hoosier State if you're just going between the two mentioned points, or intermediate stations, when driving takes 2/3s, or even half the time).


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## Crescent ATN & TCL (Jun 14, 2014)

So we've pretty much summed up that less than daily is horrible business sense...... if I were running Amtrak it would be daily or dead. With equipment shortages as they are and cost to restore daily service being astronomical I would shift equipment to a train that can pull in more revenue unless someone is willing to foot the bill to go daily.


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## Crescent ATN & TCL (Jun 14, 2014)

I hate to say it but Raton is dead. The sunset is dead on 3x a week service. If the Sunset dies the southwest chief could use the cars for more CHI to LAX service. The cardinal can be saved with evasive action, daily service and more equipment. The east coast the Midwest and the NEC do great along with state contracts. Running 3,000 miles through sparsely populated desert and plains won't work.


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## Crescent ATN & TCL (Jun 14, 2014)

Amtrak can find money for capital but not subsidizing money losing operations. I've ridden almost every train in the system and frankly some can be sacrificed for the health of the company. Hate to say it but its the truth.


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 14, 2014)

Crescent ATN & TCL said:


> Amtrak can find money for capital but not subsidizing money losing operations. I've ridden almost every train in the system and frankly some can be sacrificed for the health of the company. Hate to say it but its the truth.


Be careful what you ask for.you might get it! Death by a thousands cuts is an old saying but it is true!

The folks who lived along the Sunset East, Broadway Ltd, Pioneer, Desert Wind,Lone Star, InernationalNational Ltd and North Coast Hiawatha Routes

Wouldn't agree with you just like most of us don't!


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## neroden (Jun 14, 2014)

WoodyinNYC said:


> When looking for the trains where truly substantial improvement would be possible
> 
> with better frequencies, more equipment, real investment, and some tender love
> 
> and care, the daily _Cardinal_ ranks #1 as the most likely to see a major turn-around.


If

(1) Indiana ran the Hoosier State as a separate daily train (allowing the Cardinal to find its own schedule and providing more frequencies per day from Chicago to Indianapolis)

(2) Indiana and Illinois improved the trackage from Indianapolis to Chicago to allow for (at least!) steady 60 mph running,

(3) Indiana and Ohio improved the trackage from Cincinnati to Indianapolis to allow for (at least!) steady 60 mph running,

(4) The Cardinal operated daily,

(5) with more sleeper space and perhaps another coach,

its financial numbers would probably look similar to those of the Capitol Limited.

Improving track west of Cincinnati to provide even better speeds such as 79 mph would be an even greater improvement, but even a steady 60 mph would provide tremendous improvement.


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## William (Jun 14, 2014)

neroden said:


> WoodyinNYC said:
> 
> 
> > When looking for the trains where truly substantial improvement would be possible
> ...


Separating the Cardinal and Hoosier state would be a good idea. If you look at the timetable for 51, you'll notice that it gets into Indy at 0457 and leaves at 0600. It has to wait in order to keep the same departure time as the Hoosier State. It seems to me that this would be pretty easy to do (they'd need a few extra locomotives and crews). The only obstacle would be whether CSX and NS have the capacity to add extra trains (I'm not sure how congested that particular line is). It would also be great if the Hoosier State could get a cafe car (five hour train w/o a cafe? Really?), but that's assuming the cost of the required labor is worth it, and whether extra cafe cars are available.

All of this seems moot though if the trackage can't be improved. I'm not even sure if the Indiana portion is CWR throughout. I believe that they've completed the upgrades of VA's Buckingham Branch, or are at least very close, so the Indiana portion of the route is what needs to be focused on. Indiana and Ohio have to be willing to provide funds. I could see Indiana cooperating, but not Ohio (the Governor of Ohio HATES passenger rail). Then again, since Ohio has a comparatively small amount of the route, this may not be a big issue.

Overall, the Cardinal's needs can be boiled down to this: Daily service, track improvements, an additional sleeper (or bag-dorm), and a proper diner. Once these things are done, I think that the Cardinal will cease to be the black sheep of the LD trains, and will be a lot more attractive to riders (me included  ).


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## neroden (Jun 14, 2014)

Crescent ATN & TCL said:


> I hate to say it but Raton is dead. The sunset is dead on 3x a week service. If the Sunset dies the southwest chief could use the cars for more CHI to LAX service.


If I were involved with Amtrak or Kansas, in the eventuality that the SW Chief switches to Amarillo/Wichita, I would do whatever I could to get the Heartland Flyer extended to Wichita to connect to the SW Chief (in both directions). According to the 2011 Heartland Flyer extension study, the SW Chief would pick up roughly $2.8 million in connecting revenue (with basically no extra costs). (This is apart from the costs which would be calculated for the Heartland Flyer extension and paid by the states.)
If the SW Chief were already stopping at Wichita, the extension would actually be cheaper than the previous estimates for proposed Heartland Flyer extension; further capital improvements near Newton would be unnecessary, saving $15 million in capital costs off previous estimates. The necessary operating subsidy for the states to pay would also be less than previously predicted, because it's a shorter trip and Wichita is a better place to change trains than Newton.

Anyway, the Heartland Flyer - SW Chief connection would provide DFW-LAX service, and it would actually be slightly faster than the Texas Eagle - Sunset Limited route is now. So if the Sunset Limited remains triweekly or is cancelled... well, I'm liking the idea of a through sleeper from LA to Fort Worth on the SW Chief. There's enough room for switching at Wichita. (Okay, maybe not for THAT MUCH switching.)

Actually, the Heartland Flyer - SW Chief connection would be faster than the Texas Eagle from Ft. Worth to Chicago, too (the Texas Eagle is sloooow), so a through sleeper in that direction might make sense as well. (A through car LA-Ft Worth requires 5 cars, a through car Chicago-Ft Worth requires 3, a car from Chicago-LA requires 5.)

The SW Chief reroute should be treated as an opportunity.


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## Railroad Bill (Jun 14, 2014)

William said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > WoodyinNYC said:
> ...


I, too, would like to see a daily scheduled Cardinal with the improvements you mention. Very little of this route is in Ohio. Most of the slow section seems to be north of Indianapolis, where the train seems to crawl to Chicago and back. If there could be additional roomette space and a regular diner service, I also agree this train could make more money for Amtrak.


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## William (Jun 18, 2014)

I'm taking the Cardinal from Cincinnati to Chicago today. I'm interested to see just how slow it goes between here and there. I'm also interested to see whether the rails are jointed or CWR. It's already 1.5 hours late. I wonder how much later it will become as it goes through Indiana. If anything interesting happens, or it has an unusual consist, I'll post it here.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 18, 2014)

William said:


> I'm taking the Cardinal from Cincinnati to Chicago today.


Keep this Indiana Dept of Highways study in mind as you look out the window:

http://www.in.gov/indot/files/Amtrak_CostBenefitAnalysis_2013.pdf

It lays out the options from do-nothing to adding two runs of the _Hoosier State_.

Nobody in the Indiana Dept of Highways gave a damn about the _Cardinal_,

so the positive contributions to the _Cardinal_ from better trip times, more

frequencies, better arrival and departure times, benefits from cost sharing,

efficiencies in advertising and marketing, etc were assigned a value of zero (0).

​Thus making another excellent example of how applying post-Confederacy

"States Rights" policies to passenger rail will not help Amtrak at all.

But a lot of interesting detail in that flawed study.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 18, 2014)

neroden said:


> Crescent ATN & TCL said:
> 
> 
> > I hate to say it but Raton is dead. The sunset is dead on 3x a week service. If the Sunset dies the southwest chief could use the cars for more CHI to LAX service.
> ...


As I recall that _Heartland Flyer_ extension study, it forgot to calculate any added value of connecting the _SW Chief_ passengers to the _Texas Eagle_ at Ft Worth. Maybe it wouldn't be $2.8 million (helluva figure for connections in Kansas made at 3 a.m. LOL), but there'd surely be some more passengers on the _Texas Eagle (_and even the _Sunset Ltd) _ from north of Oklahoma City if they could do it.


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## Anderson (Jun 18, 2014)

Woody,

Part of the problem is that at least in terms of revenue on the trains, the state gets no benefit from filling up the Cardinal, at least directly. This is not unlike the situation in VA, where the state gets no benefit from filling seats on the Meteor, Star, Palmetto, Crescent, or Cardinal even though it is quite likely that the state's Regionals help enable some round trips which involve an LD train.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 18, 2014)

WoodyinNYC said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > Crescent ATN & TCL said:
> ...





Anderson said:


> Woody,
> 
> Part of the problem is that at least in terms of revenue on the trains, the state gets no benefit from filling up the Cardinal, at least directly. This is not unlike the situation in VA, where the state gets no benefit from filling seats on the Meteor, Star, Palmetto, Crescent, or Cardinal even though it is quite likely that the state's Regionals help enable some round trips which involve an LD train.


We agree that's a problem. If Congress instructs each of the 50 states

to go its own way with corridor trains, and there's nobody supposed to be

looking out for the larger national interests, we could get short changed.

Well, thank goodness there's still some entities looking out for the larger

national interests. So in the real world, a state's short-sighted selfishness 

will hurt them. As long as the FRA and the US Dept of Transportation 

consider financial and operating benefits to Amtrak to be worthwhile, 

applications for TIGER grants, for example, like Indiana would need to 

upgrade the route of the Hoosier State, will be inferior because the study 

commissioned by the Dept of Highways omits the potential benefits to 

the _Cardinal_. 

If Virginia works up an application for federal funds to upgrade the route 

D.C.-Richmond-Petersburg, they'd be fools to omit the substantial benefit

to Amtrak's national system.

And if a number of passengers from north of Oklahoma City, from the

extended _Heartland Flyer _and from it's new _SW Chief_ connection at Wichita,

would connect with the _Texas Eagle_, Oklahoma's application would be

much stronger if they include that fact.


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## William (Jun 19, 2014)

Arrived into Chicago 1 hour late. The trackage seemed to be pretty mixed; I'd say 50/50 CWR vs. jointed (I'm going off how the ride felt, I didn't actually see the tracks we were on).

The train did a pretty good job maintaing 60MPH throughout, although there were points where it was going less than 20MPH.

Ideally, the entire line needs to be CWR, and needs to be upgraded to class four status. That will, of course, require state spending. I do believe that Indiana is willing to cooperate. It just depends on how it is sold, and whether the perceived benefits of faster service outweigh the costs to achieve a higher service level (I believe they do).

The other issue I see is that even if the track is upgraded, freight congestion can be very heavy in between IND and CHI. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I think that much of the line is only a single track. That would obviously need to change, but that would require even more spending.


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## Big Iron (Jun 19, 2014)

William said:


> I'm taking the Cardinal from Cincinnati to Chicago today. I'm interested to see just how slow it goes between here and there. I'm also interested to see whether the rails are jointed or CWR. It's already 1.5 hours late. I wonder how much later it will become as it goes through Indiana. If anything interesting happens, or it has an unusual consist, I'll post it here.


I last rode the Cardinal in 2009. At that time there was a decent stretch of track around Dyer that was jointed rail. Music to my ears. Although you are not heading East, there is/was a good stretch of jointed rail on the Buckingham Branch in VA.


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## William (Jun 19, 2014)

Big Iron said:


> William said:
> 
> 
> > I'm taking the Cardinal from Cincinnati to Chicago today. I'm interested to see just how slow it goes between here and there. I'm also interested to see whether the rails are jointed or CWR. It's already 1.5 hours late. I wonder how much later it will become as it goes through Indiana. If anything interesting happens, or it has an unusual consist, I'll post it here.
> ...


I've been that way several times on the Cardinal. I wouldn't exactly call it "good," haha. It was some of the roughest rail I've ever ridden on. I believe that BBR has almost completed their upgrades to CWR. I'll see whether this is true the next time I take a trip that way.


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## cirdan (Jun 20, 2014)

me_little_me said:


> Could minimize or just eliminate the stops in Arkansas is one possibility - or just charge a supplement to anyone going to/from those stations. Of course, that would cause additional problems and animosities. Amtrak needs to sell itself to state legislatures as they try to sell themselves to Congress.


In this hypothetiacl situation, cutting stops in Arkansas out of spite might hurt Amtrak as much as it hurts Arkansas.

I would say no, still stop in Arkansas, but let the states that chip in money sit around the table with Amtrak and be able to make demands to re-shape the service and timings to better suit their needs. Those who don't pay don't have a a voice.


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## Anderson (Jun 20, 2014)

WoodyinNYC said:


> WoodyinNYC said:
> 
> 
> > neroden said:
> ...


There's a difference between omitting benefits to the national system for internal considerations and doing so for an application for federal funding.

Edit: On the numbers for the Chief/Flyer, that really isn't a lot. If I'm not mistaken, that figure included a through sleeper (if not a coach as well); assuming you took the average fare per passenger on the Chief, that comes out to about 22k passengers; for the average LD passenger in general, that's 25k passengers. For the average Texas Eagle passenger (since the route is mirroring the Eagle in some ways), 32k passengers. If a through sleeper and coach are involved, 30-45 passengers/train is not a huge number.


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## afigg (Dec 8, 2014)

Resurrecting this thread because the FY2015 Omnibus appropriations bill is due to be released by the Senate and House committees today. The Continuing Resolution (CR) for FY2015 expires this Thursday, so the House and Senate have to pass the appropriations bill or another CR or the government shuts down on Friday.

With a massive omnibus bill, it will take days to figure out the basics of what is in it, if not months to turn up all the buried riders and special items stuffed into it. There is also a lot of last minute maneuvering on specifics and amendments, so nothing is set until the omnibus get passed by both houses. Poltico.com posted a story last night discussing some of what is expected to be in it: House-Senate negotiators near spending deal.

Amtrak gets mentioned: "Indeed, from Amtrak to Head Start and low-income fuel assistance, much of the domestic budget is flat." Which indicates that the Amtrak FY2015 total appropriations amount will be the same as FY2014, as expected. How the funding gets divided up between operating grant, capital grants, and the NEC, states, LD remains to be seen along with whether there are any poison pills for the LD trains left in.

The TIGER grant program will get $500 million for FY2015, down from $600 million for FY2014. This may be the last year of the TIGER grant program in its current form or funding level with the control of the Senate changing in January. The big issue for next spring is a new transportation reauthorization bill and the TIGER grant program could survive, but with the House Republicans changing it to favor road projects and restricting it from being used for passenger rail or things like bike and pedestrian trail projects. I hope the US DOT will select more passenger rail related grants with the FY15 awards than they did with the FY14 funds. Vermont, Maine for the Downeaster, MI could put TIGER grant money to good use for rail projects.


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## afigg (Dec 10, 2014)

The omnibus appropriations bill was posted last night, but has not passed the House and Senate yet. There is more last minute posturing and drama ahead. But Amtrak's part of it is set.

Amtrak will get the same total amount as in FY14, $1.39 billion. Which is as expected given the budget deal in January which set the total discretionary funding levels for FY15. The breakdown is $250 million for operating subsidy, reduced from $340 million in FY14. The funds are shifted to the capital and debt service grants at a total of $1.14 billion with the following provisions: no more than $175 million for debt service obligations, no less than $50 million for ADA compliance, and up to $50 million may be used for operating subsidy with the approval of the DOT Secretary.

Has the same provisions as before on producing the 5 year financial plan, comprehensive fleet plan, micromanagement constraints on overtime & discounts of > 50% for subsidized routes except for State supported routes. I assume the House poison pill that would have killed the Sunset Limited is not in the final bill, although it could be buried in it. The Amtrak Office of Inspector General receives $23,999,000 which is an odd amount. Must be a reason it was not rounded off to $24 million.

So enough to keep the lights on, but no large boost in capital spending for FY15. FY2016 with a major effort on a new transportation funding bill and the proposed PRRIA reauthorization bill will be a critical FY for the funding of the LD trains and the NEC.

There is indeed $500 million for FY2015 TIGER grants, down from $600 million in FY14. Similar provisions as before: No less than 20% is for projects in rural areas (hello VT, Maine, Southwest Chief), grants shall be between $10 and $200 million except for rural grants which have a minimum of $1 million. Passenger and Freight rail transportation projects are eligible.


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## wolfspirit (Dec 10, 2014)

(I haven't read the bill yet, so if it's really obvious, I apologize!)

So what happens if Amtrak has another banner year and posts a loss of $175 million. Does the rest of the $250 million operating subsidy get eaten by Congress, or does Amtrak get a fat stack of cash at the start of the fiscal year, which would leave the $75 million difference to get spent on stations/cars/hookers/whatever Amtrak wants?


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## jis (Dec 10, 2014)

Hopefully Amtrak gets to pay for the Viewliners with the leftovers. But who knows?


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## Blackwolf (Dec 10, 2014)

It certainly would help if no specific language on the subject was written anywhere. And, if leeway was on the side of Amtrak, any "surplus" was treated with very closely monitored diligence and spent wisely. If the funds were, for example, spent on non-revenue things like new/refurbished business cars (that passengers never get to step foot in) or a new set of office furniture at 60 Mass., then you can be rest assured language to the contrary would have a much higher likelihood of surfacing later on that unused monies must be returned to the Fed. I would hope Boardman and Co. were not that stupid and, as Jis stated, pay for the Viewliners (and/or some exercised options on more Viewliners or Diesel Fleet replacements.)


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## Anderson (Dec 10, 2014)

This is a good question that I don't think anyone quite knows the answer to...there are losses on individual routes that could "account for" the whole amount and then some, profits on other routes...so a lot of it probably depends on the exact phrasing of the law(s) in question.


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## wolfspirit (Dec 11, 2014)

Legalese portions copied from the funding bill:



> operating grants to the national railroad passenger corporation
> 
> To enable the Secretary of Transportation to make quarterly grants to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, in amounts based on the Secretary's assessment of the Corporation's seasonal cash flow requirements, for the operation of intercity passenger rail, as authorized by section 101 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (division B of Public Law 110–432), $250,000,000, to remain available until expended: _Provided_, That the amounts available under this paragraph shall be available for the Secretary to approve funding to cover operating losses for the Corporation only after receiving and reviewing a grant request for each specific train route: _Provided further,_That each such grant request shall be accompanied by a detailed financial analysis, revenue projection, and capital expenditure projection justifying the Federal support to the Secretary's satisfaction: _Provided further_, That not later than 60 days after enactment of this Act, the Corporation shall transmit, in electronic format, to the Secretary and the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations the annual budget, business plan, the 5-Year Financial Plan for fiscal year 2015 required under section 204 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 and the comprehensive fleet plan for all Amtrak rolling stock: _Provided further,_ That the budget, business plan and the 5-Year Financial Plan shall include annual information on the maintenance, refurbishment, replacement, and expansion for all Amtrak rolling stock consistent with the comprehensive fleet plan: _Provided further,_ That the Corporation shall provide monthly performance reports in an electronic format which shall describe the work completed to date, any changes to the business plan, and the reasons for such changes as well as progress against the milestones and target dates of the 2012 performance improvement plan: _Provided further,_ That the Corporation's budget, business plan, 5-Year Financial Plan, semiannual reports, monthly reports, comprehensive fleet plan and all supplemental reports or plans comply with requirements in Public Law 112–55: _Provided further,_ That none of the funds provided in this Act may be used to support any route on which Amtrak offers a discounted fare of more than 50 percent off the normal peak fare: _Provided further,_ That the preceding proviso does not apply to routes where the operating loss as a result of the discount is covered by a State and the State participates in the setting of fares.


(So that none of you have to try and find it in the bill)

I think that says that they apply for money for cover operating losses on particular routes, which would mean pick a few LD routes and you have your $250 million operating loss.

IANAL, so I could be wrong on that interpretation.


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## Anderson (Dec 11, 2014)

Blackwolf:
I agree on all counts. It at least sounds like Amtrak should be able to get a block of the funding to cover seasonal losses in Jan/Feb while retaining some control over surpluses from peak season(s). It also does sound like, should Amtrak wish to do so, they could do what was suggested and tender a few reports on some LD trains and use that to bag most or all of the amount.

As to the Viewliners...oh, we can all wish for that. I have little doubt that Amtrak could somehow manage to exercise every option available to them and put those cars to good use.


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## afigg (Dec 11, 2014)

wolfspirit said:


> I think that says that they apply for money for cover operating losses on particular routes, which would mean pick a few LD routes and you have your $250 million operating loss.
> 
> IANAL, so I could be wrong on that interpretation.


Thanks for posting that because I was going to pull out the text myself. Yes, we could be wrong on the interpretation because there is a 2008 PRIIA act and many other overlapping federal laws guiding what Amtrak can do with its federal funding. As background, in the September 2014 monthly report Route Performance Table:1. The Acelas and NE Regionals generated a hefty fully allocated operating surplus of $482 million. (Acela $308M, Regionals $176M)

2. The state supported corridor trains had a fully allocated operating loss of $85 million (from shared overhead)

3. The LD trains had a fully allocated operating loss of $530 million.

So, when Amtrak states that its total operating loss was only $133 million, that is because of the surplus from the NEC. A lot of people on the railroad forums don't appear to really grasp that fact. The simple interpretation is that for FY14 Amtrak can apply the $340 million in operating subsidy to cover the total loss for the state corridor trains and part of the losses for each LD train up to the $340 million amount. The NEC surplus is used to cover the remaining LD losses with $207 million leftover. Then it can allocate the $207 million to pay for the ACS-64 lease payments, Viewliner IIs, equipment overhauls, maintenance, and capital improvement projects. That said, I expect that this is way too simplified interpretation of how they can handle the NEC surplus and operating subsidies.

The danger is if in FY16 Congress requires that most of the NEC surplus be plowed back into the NEC without increasing the federal operating subsidy enough to cover the LD train losses, the western LD trains will be left very exposed w/o enough subsidy to run them. In FY15, there will be only $250 million for operating losses, so more of the NEC surplus will have to be tapped. But Amtrak is getting more in capital grants, so it may even out in the end.


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## neroden (Dec 11, 2014)

The way it's written is interesting. Suppose, for instance:

Train "A" makes an operating profit of $30 million

Train "B" requires an operating subsidy of $60 million

Then Amtrak is allowed to apply $60 million of its Congressional "operating" funding to train B, while taking the profit from train "A" and reinvesting it in capital expenses. (Also, Amtrak is explicitly allowed to keep any unused operating subsidy around from one year to the next.)

Worthy of note: Amtrak is still allowed to transfer funds "between business lines" in unlimited amounts, as far as I can tell.

2016 is another year. We'll see whether the Republicans in Congress push lunatic, shoot-self-in-foot policies when they actually have a chance of being enacted; often they only push them when they have no chance of being enacted, and back off when it starts to seem possible. Then again, sometimes they do keep pushing their shoot-self-in-foot policies.

----

FWIW, the long-distance trains had roughly $439.7 million in overhead loaded onto them as of 2012 (this may have changed, but it's unclear how or in what direction). So it's quite impossible for $250 million in operating subsidy to cover that overhead. It is obviously justifiable to transfer the entire "surplus" from the NEC ($482 million) to cover this overhead, since if the long-distance trains weren't running, most of the overhead would fall back on the NEC or the state-supported trains.

The overhead appears to be allocated in an arbitrary manner probably mostly based on train-miles, unrelated to actual sources of expense; loading overhead on the services which run further, more intensively, and more frequently, as opposed to the ones which sit in the yard a lot. So the long-distance and NEC services would be heavily loaded, while the state-supported services are probably getting a big break here.

If the NEC were a standalone business, it would lose money even before considering capital costs. It can't, by itself, cover the overhead which is arbitrarily allocated to the so-called "long-distance" and state-supported trains. The only solution is expansion, to leverage the same overhead over more services.

Fully allocated numbers are chimeras.

Of course if any one long-distance train were cancelled -- say, the Southwest Chief -- its allocated overhead ($38.8 million) would just end up being spread around the other trains, NEC, state-supported, and long-distance, and make all their financial performances look worse. Cancelling *all* the so-called long-distance trains would only have saved $151 million in 2012 unless overhead could be eliminated. And probably saved even less in 2014 (if overhead stayed constant, only $89.8 million). And that's without considering losses in connecting ticket revenue.

Compare this to Amtrak's net operating loss of $133 million and you see that cancelling trains does little good financially. The western trains are expensive to run (something like $100 million a year), but what's really expensive is the overhead of running a railroad (something like a billion a year).

The Auto Train, Silver Meteor, and Palmetto are already contributing profits to help cover overhead. My spreadsheet predicts that in 2016 the Star and LSL most likely will be too. But due to the kooky Congressional accounting, these five will need roughly $159 million dollars in "operating subsidy" to cover the overhead which has been arbitrarily ladled onto them.

Apparently most Congressmembers don't understand the simple concepts of overhead or fixed costs, so Boardman may find himself trying to explain the situation to them in 2015.


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## tommylicious (Dec 11, 2014)

it's all legacy pension costs.


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## Bob Dylan (Dec 11, 2014)

Excellent point about most Congress Critters not understanding budget matters and economics, most Americans would be astounded to know how many really ignorant people get elected to Congress!!

All they have time for after spending most of the day raising money for the next election is reading talking points that their staff gives them! ( and these are provided by their owners, the billionaires and corporations that buy our politicians!)

Idea: Members of Congress can serve 2 terms ( just like the President) be paid the National Minimum Wage,( watch it go up to $100 an hour) a per diem and housing allowance of the same amount paid to our service members,and No Federal Pension, they can invest in 401Ks and pay into Social Security and Medicare and buy health insurance just like most working Americans!

And Pigs can fly!!!


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## Anderson (Dec 11, 2014)

I fully expect Amtrak to start finding ways to migrate overhead to the NEC as a defensive measure. Overhead is fungible, and I suspect a good deal will work its way over to the NEC, particularly if any major capital projects start happening. Reallocating overhead should do the trick; after all, per Boardman's presentation, $250m/yr should cover the direct LD losses.

Likewise, I believe Amtrak might be able to find some workarounds to get capital funding into the LD columns (for example, "charging" LD trains for the use of their equipment and "paying" for the equipment use out of capital funding...which would in turn be offset by using free NEC funds to cover some of the physical plant stuff).


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## jis (Dec 11, 2014)

Anderson said:


> Likewise, I believe Amtrak might be able to find some workarounds to get capital funding into the LD columns (for example, "charging" LD trains for the use of their equipment and "paying" for the equipment use out of capital funding...which would in turn be offset by using free NEC funds to cover some of the physical plant stuff).


That would rise to the level of hanky-panky regularly practiced every year by the Garden State!


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## neroden (Dec 11, 2014)

Unfortunately a bunch of the overhead allocation rules are now carved in stone by the PRIIA agreements with the state governments. This limits Amtrak's ability to reallocate it.

If I'm right about the train-mile style of overhead allocation, then the best thing which could happen for the overhead would be for a whole lot more state-supported services to start up -- the new services would have overhead allocated to them, and away from the existing services. Running more trains on the NEC would have similar effects, transferring more overhead to the NEC.


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## Anderson (Dec 11, 2014)

jis said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > Likewise, I believe Amtrak might be able to find some workarounds to get capital funding into the LD columns (for example, "charging" LD trains for the use of their equipment and "paying" for the equipment use out of capital funding...which would in turn be offset by using free NEC funds to cover some of the physical plant stuff).
> ...


Shocking! Just shocking!

Nathanael: Yes, there are carved-in-stone agreements with the states (though by contrast, in most cases Amtrak is also getting significant payments in exchange for this); however, the main issue is NEC/LD reallocation...and there is a _lot_ of room to move things around there (there's already been some obvious shuffling within the NEC as far as I can tell....if you look at the 09-2013 and 09-2014 MPRs _for FY13's numbers_:

(1) Non-OPEB costs charged to the NEC increased by $2m.

(2) A bit over $11m was transferred from the Regionals to the Acela.

(3) OPEB/IG costs went up as well, though this seems to have been due to the added inclusion of the IG's office in the calculation.

One point of data is not a pattern, but I would be more surprised than not if I did _not_ see a similar pattern of loading additional overhead onto the Acela over time.


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## jis (Dec 11, 2014)

Anderson said:


> One point of data is not a pattern, _but I would be more surprised than not _to see a similar pattern of loading additional overhead onto the Acela over time.


I suspect that you perhaps wanted to say that you would _not be more surprised than not_? In other words if the pattern of loading additional costs onto Acelas came to pass, you would not be surprised, right?


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## Anderson (Dec 11, 2014)

jis said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > One point of data is not a pattern, _but I would be more surprised than not _to see a similar pattern of loading additional overhead onto the Acela over time.
> ...


I corrected it...good catch. I suspect the pattern of shifting overhead has been going on for a while.


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## afigg (Dec 11, 2014)

Anderson said:


> Nathanael: Yes, there are carved-in-stone agreements with the states (though by contrast, in most cases Amtrak is also getting significant payments in exchange for this); however, the main issue is NEC/LD reallocation...and there is a _lot_ of room to move things around there (there's already been some obvious shuffling within the NEC as far as I can tell....if you look at the 09-2013 and 09-2014 MPRs _for FY13's numbers_:
> 
> (1) Non-OPEB costs charged to the NEC increased by $2m.
> 
> ...


Rather than looking at the monthly reports and guessing on cost shuffling between the NEC and the other business lines, I suggest that one should read the combined FY14 budget FY15 Budget justification and FY13-18 Five Year Financial Plan. The FY14 budget specifies the budgeted allocation of direct and shared costs in detail for the NEC (table Exhibit 4-2), State supported corridors (Exhibit 5-2), and the LD trains (Exhibit 6-2). The following x-3 exhibit tables allocate the projected capital investments for each business line. There is a lot of information in that document.
After a day of considerable political drama, the House by a narrow margin has passed the FY15 appropriations which now goes to the Senate. So the FY15 operating subsidy will be $250 million. With that development, I would think that the plan to end the "cross-subsization of operating losses" in FY15 gets postponed until FY16. If Amtrak can do that. From page 38 of the FY14 budget document:



> While Amtraks FY2014 funding has been established by appropriation, beginning with FY2015 Amtraks operating results will not be presented in the legacy format. When shown by Business Line, Amtraks operating losses consist of net profit for the Northeast Corridor and Commercial Development Business Lines, and net losses in the State-Supported and Long-Distance Business Lines. As mentioned in Section 1 of this document, PRIIA 212 requires that adopted cost-sharing formulas ensure that there is no cross subsidization of commuter, intercity or freight rail transportation and that each service is assigned the costs incurred only for the benefit of that service and a proportionate share, based upon factors that reasonable reflect relative use, of cost incurred for the common benefit of more than one service. Furthermore, cost-sharing methods defined by PRIIA 212 govern the entirety of the Northeast Corridor, not only the portion owned by Amtrak. As a result, Amtrak will incur financial obligations to the other owners of NEC infrastructure. Because of this requirement, Amtrak will need to end cross-subsidization of operating losses. The net profits of the Northeast Corridor and Commercial Development Business Lines will be used to fund Amtraks obligations under PRIIA 212, repay loans specific to the NEC, and fund capital investment in those businesses, thereby supplementing Amtraks available capital. Amtraks FY2015 FY2018 projected operating losses, without cross-subsidization, are shown in Exhibit 3-2. FY2014 is shown with cross-subsidization continuing, in accordance with the FY2014 operating appropriation.


The FY15 budget should be posted sometime in later January or February; we'll see what it says then.


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## Anderson (Dec 12, 2014)

Does anyone know what Amtrak's obligations are to Metro-North or the MBTA? IIRC, those are the only two other "owners" unless station owners are counted (and even then, I think Amtrak owns, entirely or in large part, all of the major stations along the line).


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## afigg (Dec 12, 2014)

Anderson said:


> Does anyone know what Amtrak's obligations are to Metro-North or the MBTA? IIRC, those are the only two other "owners" unless station owners are counted (and even then, I think Amtrak owns, entirely or in large part, all of the major stations along the line).


The NEC Commission's charter is to develop a cost allocation formula for the NEC besides coordinating plans for the NEC. Amtrak's obligations and shared costs outlays presumably would be defined in a report from the Commission whenever the cost allocation formulas are agreed to.

For the major stations, South Station is owned by the MBTA. DC Union Station is owned by US DOT and operated by the Union Station Redevelopment Authority. NJ Transit owns the Newark NJ station. Amtrak owns the BAL, WIL, PHL, NYP, and Providence stations. So like the NEC tracks ROW, ownership of the major station assets is complicated.


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## jis (Dec 12, 2014)

afigg said:


> For the major stations, South Station is owned by the MBTA. DC Union Station is owned by US DOT and operated by the Union Station Redevelopment Authority. NJ Transit owns the Newark NJ station. Amtrak owns the BAL, WIL, PHL, NYP, and Providence stations. So like the NEC tracks ROW, ownership of the major station assets is complicated.


All stations on the NEC in NJ except Newark Airport, are owned by NJT. Newark Airport is owned by PANYNJ. So in addition to Newark Penn Station, other stations served by Amtrak in NJ such as Trenton, Metropark, New Brunswick and Princeton Jct., are owned by NJT, and Newark Airport by PANYNJ.
New Rochelle is owned by MNRR and City of New Rochelle. Stamford and New Haven are owned by the State of Connecticut.

New London station building is owned by New London Station LLC, and platform by Amtrak.

So yeah. It is all over the place.

But for stations to be used by the proposed Super-Express in the NEC Future proposal(WAS, PHL, NYP, BOS), except for BOS, they are all directly or indirectly Amtrak operated at present. Once you get to the next tier of service you start hitting stations that are not Amtrak operated at least at present.


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## Anderson (Dec 12, 2014)

I thought Amtrak owned something like 99.7% of either the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation or the Washington Terminal Company?


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## jis (Dec 12, 2014)

I believe it does. PRR60 knows the details. That's why I counted WAS as pretty much Amtrak.


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## afigg (Dec 12, 2014)

Anderson said:


> I thought Amtrak owned something like 99.7% of either the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation or the Washington Terminal Company?


On the Great American Station website, Washington Terminal Company is listed as owning the DC Union Station platforms and tracks. I figure that is the holding company owned or mostly by Amtrak. US DOT owns the station and parking garage.


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## Anderson (Dec 12, 2014)

That makes sense.

Sliding around to the report...well, I looked at the financial/business plan numbers for FY15-18 and I think I want to scream. The $145m or so that is deducted for infrastructure responsibilities, etc. is all well and good...I'm not going to dispute that. The "capital contribution" charge-off, however, seems to be yet another piece for the exhibit "Amtrak Accounting and Modern Art: A History". It frankly comes off as an "excuse charge", and while I have no doubt that Amtrak can come up with valid and deserving projects for it to go towards, absent a clear use it comes off as something of an accounting slush fund to make sure that nothing is crossing between lines...

...even though it stands that, seeing as Corporate Development is also expected to kick in $80m/yr, _something_ is going to end up crossing lines somehow.

Particularly considering that Amtrak has had better luck getting money for capital projects than operating funds, this seems to be complete and utter stupidity on a spectacular order if it was not done as a result of some forced mandate.

Edit: There's one possible saving grace: The LD trains still have a _lot_ of capital expenditures listed (totaling about $250-300m/yr). Other than the Viewliner IIs (which won't eat up that much), does anyone know what's going on here?


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## neroden (Dec 12, 2014)

> As mentioned in Section 1 of this document, PRIIA 212 requires that adopted cost-sharing formulas ensure that there is no cross subsidization of commuter, intercity or freight rail transportation and that each service is assigned the costs incurred only for the benefit of that service and *a proportionate share, based upon factors that reasonable reflect relative use,* of cost incurred for the common benefit of more than one service.


(Emphasis mine)
This vague phrase does allow for fairly massive reallocation of overhead. I'm quite sure that the central reservations system is used primarily by NEC and state corridor passengers, for example, and I'll bet it has been overallocated to the long-distance trains in the past. Same with the Quik-Trak machines, the staff at staffed stations which are shared between "long-distance" and "corridor" routes, the cost of the central maintenance shops, and so on.

The PRIIA 212 requirement is frankly absolute *gibberish* for stuff internal to Amtrak, because when you have shared overhead, it's completely impossible to avoid "cross subsidization". Every service is subsidizing every other service by virtue of sharing the overhead.

However, one effect of the "no cross subsidization" requirement, if it's actually implemented, should be to charge freight tenants a *LOT* more. The freight beats up the tracks and incurs a huge proportion of the track maintenance costs. Amtrak's current accounting system shows that Amtrak is losing a lot of money on hosting freight trains, which is visible every year in the numbers. (And that Amtrak is cross-subsidizing the commuter trains by a large amount too.) I'm not sure how Amtrak is going to be able to raise the prices for those non-Amtrak tenants, though, since there are probably easements and contracts which run for years into the future. This provision is likely to end up being a dead letter.


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## Anderson (Dec 12, 2014)

If you went strictly by ridership numbers, the LD trains would get about 1/6-1/7 of the reservation system. If you go by share of revenue for something, it's about 1/4. If you go by passenger miles, I don't recall but I think it would put a bit more towards the LD system...and I don't recall where train miles (or car miles) puts you. And on the other end, if you went by train frequencies I think LD would get about 10% of the overhead.


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## twa904 (Dec 12, 2014)

Shouldn't the allocation of cost for the res system be based on the number of passenger bookings for each type of train, LD, NEC, and State supported. Therefore, most of the cost would be against the NEC.


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## wolfspirit (Dec 12, 2014)

SEPTA shows a huge increase for the next FY for trackage rights, and they don't touch the expensive areas of the NEC (tunnels, etc.). I didn't poke at NJT's budget, but if SEPTA goes from $28 million in 2014 to $35 million in 2015, I would guess that other thansit agencies are having the same expense inrease (in percentage terms, at least).


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## neroden (Dec 13, 2014)

afigg said:


> Rather than looking at the monthly reports and guessing on cost shuffling between the NEC and the other business lines, I suggest that one should read the combined FY14 budget FY15 Budget justification and FY13-18 Five Year Financial Plan. The FY14 budget specifies the budgeted allocation of direct and shared costs in detail for the NEC (table Exhibit 4-2), State supported corridors (Exhibit 5-2), and the LD trains (Exhibit 6-2).


There's some very questionable allocations there. Everyone who said the LD trains were being assigned too much overhead is clearly correct.

* There is $37.5 million allocated to "MoW Support" for the long-distance trains, which have practically no right of way of their own to maintain. (Post Road Branch outside Albany, I suppose, but that cannot account for $37.5 million.) By contrast, the NEC only gets assigned $93 million, and the states (which actually have right-of-way to maintain) a mere $38 million. This is an obvious and gross misallocation.

* The LD business line is assigned $43 million for data processing services (IT), vs. $28 million for the state corridors and $25 million for the NEC, which seems obviously bogus to me.

* Likewise, the LD business line are assigned $81.2 million in "other general and administrative", vs. $64.7 million for the states and $50.3 million for the NEC, which is again obviously bogus.

* MoE Supervision Training and Overhead assigns *$114.4* million to the LD trains, versus $71.4 million to the states, and $49.9 million to the NEC. This is sort of plausible now given the wide variety of equipment (including Heritage cars) n the LD trains versus the uniform fleet on the NEC -- but it's completely unbelievable in 2018, when the Heritage cars will be gone and the state-supported fleet will be more motley than the LD fleet, and the plan continues to overload the LD division with this overhead in 2018.

There are others where I find the allocation suspicious ("Communication", "Police/Environmental and Safety"), etc., but these four, I simply don't believe at all.

At least $100 million in overhead should be reallocated away from the long-distance business line, arguably much more.

There are some reasons for this misallocation: according to the same document, the LD business line is currently assigned the job of operating major terminals outside the NEC (Chicago included), crew bases, service and inspection, etc. Clearly they are not charging the state corridor line enough for this.

It gets worse: in that document, Amtrak apparently proposes to increase the overhead artificially loaded onto the LD line by $71 million by 2018. So although the trains are projected to improve their *actual* performance by $34 million over the same period... yeah, not cool, Amtrak. My best guess there is that Amtrak didn't actually do any real projections for overhead allocation, and just used some arbitrary inflation percentage or something.

Looking at that document, it's actually even worse than I thought. While the long-distance trains were saddled with only $439.7 million in overhead in 2012, they have been artificially saddled with $507.7 million in overhead in 2014.

*The people who say that Amtrak is sandbagging the long-distance trains with bad accounting are correct.* This mostly hurts the eastern trains, since the western trains still require large yearly subsidies.

The 2014 overhead number (even though it was a budget estimate) allowed me to redo my spreadsheet on the long-distance trains. Assuming that this is the correct 2014 overhead number, and that the proportions allocated to each individual route have remained the same (again a dubious assumption), I find that the true profits (based on direct costs) of each route are:

Silver Star $4.8 million PROFIT
Cardinal ($2.8 million loss)
Silver Meteor $15.3 million PROFIT
Empire Builder $0.7 million PROFIT
Capitol Limited ($4.9 million loss)
California Zephyr ($16.4 million loss)
Southwest Chief ($16.9 million loss)
City of New Orleans ($6.8 million loss)
Texas Eagle ($8.1 million loss)
Sunset Limited ($16.3 million loss)
Coast Starlight ($9.4 million loss)
Lake Shore Limited $3.7 million PROFIT
Palmetto $7.2 million PROFIT
Crescent ($7.3 million loss)
Auto Train $35.5 million PROFIT
Let me make this clear again: cancelling Auto Train, LSL, Palmetto, Silver Meteor, or Silver Star would be *bad for Amtrak's bottom line*. They clearly make enough to cover all the avoidable costs which are listed in "shared costs". All of these make enough to cover their yard operations, easily. The Star/Meteor/Palmetto also clearly make enough to cover the cost of the stations shared only by them, so even cancelling all three of them would be *bad for Amtrak's bottom line*. (The LSL shares most of its stations with corridor trains, and can surely cover the cost of the other 9 stations shared with the Capitol Limited, since only 3 are staffed. The Auto Train has no shared stations.)
If cancelling a train is bad for the bottom line, that train is *profitable* by any sane standard.

Another way you know that the "fully allocated" numbers are bogus is that "NEC Special trains" are repeatedly listed as having a large cost per rider. Obviously Amtrak wouldn't run them at all if they weren't profitable, so they are profitable. This is just stupid overhead misallocation.

----

FWIW, I anticipate an improvement of about $2.4 million each for the Star, Meteor, and LSL when they get new Viewliner sleepers (a very rough guess); about $1 million for the Crescent and about $0.8 million for the Cardinal. I have no way to estimate the reduced maintenance cost from retiring the Heritage cars, but it should be substantial, and maybe it will also reduce the amount of MoE overhead allocated to these routes. Finally, a daily Cardinal should give a boost of roughly $6.5 million, which would make the *Cardinal profitable before overhead as well*.

On other points, it looks like a daily Sunset Limited would cost $14 million to run vs. $16.3 million currently for three-a-week -- it would likely do better financially than the SWC or the CZ. In short, daily service would be good for the bottom line. However, cancelling the Sunset Limited would also be good for the bottom line, so there's that.

Also, the Empire Builder appears to be doing much better financially than you'd expect (given the massive delays and crashing ridership and so forth). This is probably due to recovering substantial penalties from BNSF for the delays; it looks to me as if BNSF is actually *fully* compensating Amtrak for the lost revenue, and perhaps more. This might explain why CN is the one getting the STB complaints, while Amtrak is being very polite to BNSF... the delays on the Empire Builder may actually be good for Amtrak's bottom line, while the delays on CN are bad for it.

----

Regarding the capital projects allocated to the long distance business line, they're broken down by route on page 85, but the allocation is a complete head-scratcher. The largest amount is allocated to the Star ($131.1)/Meteor($135.7)/Palmetto($101.4), for a total of $368.5 million. The EB ($125.1), CZ ($126.4) and SWC ($113.3) also get large amounts. The least goes to the Cardinal, with $18.8 million, followed by the Crescent with $49.2 million. The LSL is allocated $77.2 million, the Coast Starlight $72.5 million. I don't get it at all.


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## neroden (Dec 13, 2014)

Anderson said:


> If you went strictly by ridership numbers, the LD trains would get about 1/6-1/7 of the reservation system. If you go by share of revenue for something, it's about 1/4. If you go by passenger miles, I don't recall but I think it would put a bit more towards the LD system...and I don't recall where train miles (or car miles) puts you. And on the other end, if you went by train frequencies I think LD would get about 10% of the overhead.


FWIW, Amtrak is supposed to allocate according to how much of the work of the allocated department is used by that line of business. Now, sleeper bookings may require more complicated IT work than other bookings, so I could imagine allocating a disproportionately high amount to the LD trains.

But the fact is that they're getting allocated 45% of Amtrak's IT costs, which is obviously wrong -- that's *way* too high. That needs to be reallocated back to the NEC and the state corrdors.

----

If Amtrak were being run like a business (yeah, we all know it isn't, thanks to Congressional micromanagement), top priorities for the long-distance division would be:

(1) make the Cardinal daily, converting a money-loser into a profitable train

(2) deploy new Viewliner sleeping cars for incremental profits

(3) implement efficient point-of-sale procedures in the dining cars for incremental profits; the dining cars are turning tables over more slowly than they were in the 1950s.

(4) implement WiFi on the long-distance trains for increased ticket prices & thus profits

(5) implement the Capitol Limited / Pennsylvanian through cars for incremental profits; in practice, the dominant ridership would soon be on the Pennsylvania side, and the DC section would shrink

(6) implement the PIP-proposed rescheduling of the Lake Shore Limited (& Capitol Limited), allowing LSL-Florida connections and generating incremental profits;

(7) Get the Texas Eagle onto TRE as soon as possible;

(8) evaluate restoration of a third NY-Florida train;

(9) convince Michigan to run a daily train from Chicago to Toledo via Dearborn, connecting to the LSL/CL (and generating substantial connecting revenue)

(10) Implement the daily Sunset Limited / Texas Eagle run-through plan. This was supposed to cost an additional $2.95 million/year back in 2009. If you use the substantially higher revenue base from 2013 (since 2014 was full of bustitutions), it should cost more like $0.75 million/year. In a few years, with continued revenue growth faster than cost growth, it should be positive for Amtrak's bottom line; the *hour* savings from switching to the TRE should help in this matter as well. This route now has bigger intermediate cities than the SW Chief, so daily Chicago-LA service on this route may have more growth potential and may have better operating results than the SW Chief. It also provides a 'safety' route in case the SW Chief can't be preserved.

(10) buy and deploy new Viewliner glasstop cafe/lounge/obs cars for incremental ridership & improved ticket prices. Since the Amfleet II cafes are generally considered deplorable, they are probably reducing people's willingness to pay; glasstops are a selling point. Convert the old cafes to overflow coaches.

(11) buy and deploy new Viewliner coaches for incremental ridership & profits

Micromanagement, misallocation of overhead, and mixing up the profitable Eastern and unprofitable Western trains, may prevent Amtrak from doing these things.


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## Anderson (Dec 13, 2014)

IIRC, the LSL reschedule still doesn't connect with the Meteor (it would have connected back in the 90s when the Meteor left at around 1900, but now that it leaves just after 1500 that's no bueno).

As far as I can tell:
(1), (2), and (3) are doable. (4) has a reliability problem on some routes (you could probably make it work on the Silvers and possibly the LSL; the Cap is going to lose service for much of Cleveland-Cumberland, while the Western trains probably can't hold a connection for much of the route and the result is likely going to just be irate passengers when the connections go down.

On (5), actually I think DC would retain most of its ridership...the Cap is, after all, the only legal daily connection to the Florida trains (the Cardinal requires a bus transfer, which is probably a turnoff, and there's a capacity issue there to boot).

On (6), see above about the connection. To get the LSL into NYP in time to reliably connect with the Meteor right now, you'd need it there by 1200-1300. Assuming that it would run as fast as the WB LSL (call it 19 hours plus one for the time difference), you'd be departing CHI at something like 1600-1700...which gets a bit tight with the current OTP out west.

On (7) and (8), I agree. With the third FL train, you can ditch the Savannah crew base and move that down to Miami, and an extension into FL should be good for a decent number of riders. You'd probably add at least some intrastate traffic aiming for that morning time into Miami, too.

(9) I don't hold out much hope for. Folks in MI want this, but the tracks stink. That said, it seems possible you might get this to happen sometime when MI adds a train.

(10) should happen; oddly, the issue here might well be the risk of a spike in ridership "crashing" both trains with a spike in demand that Amtrak can't cover.

(10-2) and (11) are ones I agree with strongly. I believe that on such an order, VA (among others...NC, PA, NY, CT, VT, MA, and ME are other candidates) would probably go in with Amtrak for some cars, so a base order of 100 coaches and some cafes could easily swell. There are lots of options for what you could do with a cafe-type order (including having some limited revenue space...several bedrooms in one end, for example...or coach/business class-type space), and you could probably embed another 10-25 sleepers and/or bag-dorms in such an order as well. It isn't just the LD trains that are slamming into capacity issues...the Regionals are also starting to get a bit out of hand in terms of demand and pricing, and being able to redeploy Amfleets to the state corridors around NYP would allow _those_ Amfleets to be redeployed on the NEC (adding a car or two to a bunch of Regionals, if not adding a few Regionals to the timetable near peak times).

On the NEC point, Amtrak seems to be under the illusion that they can divert everyone to the Acela...and frankly, that dog ain't gonna hunt. Some riders will spring for a $150 one-way ticket, but there are plenty of others who that prices out and Amtrak will simply divert to a bus service.


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## neroden (Dec 13, 2014)

Well (heh) when I said WiFi on the long-distance trains, I was actually thinking of standardizing the offering on the Empire Corridor, Richmond corridor, etc. The LSL acts as one of the Empire Service trains, effectively, so you see my point. Just getting WiFi on the LSL from Buffalo east, the Silver Service as far south as Raleigh, the Cardinal to Charlottesville, and the Crescent to Atlanta would be a big deal. The sections of the route without WiFi could be noted in the schedule.


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## Anderson (Dec 14, 2014)

neroden said:


> Well (heh) when I said WiFi on the long-distance trains, I was actually thinking of standardizing the offering on the Empire Corridor, Richmond corridor, etc. The LSL acts as one of the Empire Service trains, effectively, so you see my point. Just getting WiFi on the LSL from Buffalo east, the Silver Service as far south as Raleigh, the Cardinal to Charlottesville, and the Crescent to Atlanta would be a big deal. The sections of the route without WiFi could be noted in the schedule.


True. If you just shot for the LSL, Crescent, and Silvers overall that would also be a decent improvement (and likely a modest ridership driver as well). Honestly, just going for wifi-ing up the Viewliners and remaining Amfleets should do the trick...you'd probably need to note bad wifi service on a few segments, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Also, the Meteor, at least, parallels the Palmetto to SAV...and the Palmetto has wifi.


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## wolfspirit (Dec 14, 2014)

Anderson said:


> On the NEC point, Amtrak seems to be under the illusion that they can divert everyone to the Acela...and frankly, that dog ain't gonna hunt. Some riders will spring for a $150 one-way ticket, but there are plenty of others who that prices out and Amtrak will simply divert to a bus service.


Generally I see Acela's sold out before other NER trains (with the exception of Keystone #640, which holds the single best timeslot for a morning PHL -> NYP train). I'm not looking in the northern end of the NEC on a regular basis, but I don't see much evidence of that in the middle of the NEC. (Currently 2 trains sold out for tomorrow, 1 keystone, 1 Acela).

EDIT: I use the PHL->NYP trains on a regular basis, so those are the only ones that I have an idea of sold out status on a regular basis.


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## Anderson (Dec 14, 2014)

wolfspirit said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > On the NEC point, Amtrak seems to be under the illusion that they can divert everyone to the Acela...and frankly, that dog ain't gonna hunt. Some riders will spring for a $150 one-way ticket, but there are plenty of others who that prices out and Amtrak will simply divert to a bus service.
> ...


That's true, but the Acelas also have half of the capacity of a Regional (302 seats [260 BC, 42 FC] for the Acela, versus 494 to 638 (for 8-10 car Regionals, respectively).


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## afigg (Dec 15, 2014)

BTW, for the record, the US Senate passed the $1.1 trillion Omnibus appropriations bill, so it is headed to Obama for his signature. The FY15 funding of $1.39 billion total for Amtrak is set. Now we wait for the FY15 budget and FY15-FY19 Five Year Financial Plan to be posted to see what plans and revenue & cost allocations are changed from over the next 5 years from FY14.


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