Franchising to Come!

[Avia]

FYI - Amtrak-legal in April will issue RFP's (Request for Proposals) for other providers to operate current trains. The April 2006 RFP is where Amtrak will provide an engineer and a conductor only. The second RFP to be issued in the summer with be without a engineer or conductor. These RFP's will be presented to each States that may elect to seek competitive bids on their subsidized service.

Knowing that, I expect Amtrak to look to sell the NEC/Acela passenger rail services to private equity parties to raise cash and clean-up the balance sheet. The NEC rail infrastructure will be transfered to a DOT/FRA "Authority".

None of these actions will require Congressional approval.

 

[AmtrakFan]

Do you think anyone would want to do this at all? It would require a big amount of Liabilitiy. I am not surprised that Amtrak is trying this though.

 

[trainboy325]

The franchising being sought is something similar to what the United Kingdom had a few years back. Amtrak is hoping to get someone like Virgin to run the Acelas and other corridor related trains.

Eventually, the entire system (which doesn't include long-distance trains) will be available for bid and hopefully companies will want to seek a relationship directly with the States or the proposed NEC Authority versus with NRPC. The whole idea is to get rid of NRPC and take "railroading" out of Amtrak which includes all the issues described in the Railway Labor Act.

At this point, I don't know if this will hurt or help the current Amtrak. As of now, the "publicly held" Amtrak is doing no better than the privately held operators of the British Railway System. I think it will be interesting who, if anyone, makes a bid and if the prices quoted will be much higher than the cost Amtrak already spends in-house. :unsure:

 

[RailFanNebraska]

*sigh* ... what is the point of competition ... look at it this way, who are they competing with? ... are we going to run more than more train on say the california zephyr route ... dont even start on the kind of delays that would happen ... this is just going to hell in a hand basket soo fast :angry:

 

[AmtrakWPK]

It's all part of the PLAN. Outside accountants will be able to look closely at the Amtrak books - nobody is going to buy any part of this particular pig "in a poke". An outside company would ONLY bid if it truly thought it could make a profit. So only a route that is making a profit (or close to it) will be bid on. And so Amtrak will lose ALL routes that actually are in the black or close to it, therefore making the routes that remain look that much WORSE, and therefore giving the administration and Congress that much MORE ammunition to close the entire remaining system, aince on a per-passenger-mile basis it will look that much worse. And the argument that "But, it's a nationwide system - the nation can't afford to lose it as a national resource" would also go by the wayside since portions of it will already be in third-party hands. And then the parts that ended up in third-party hands will go bankrupt because they will lose the business from the interconnecting routes that have then been shut down, and the ENTIRE system will then have been demolished, and the administration will be toasting it's own success.

 

[Guest_Amtrak_flyer]

Keep writing the letters to Congress and tout train travel as much as you can. The elections are right around the corner, even now Amtrak does have strong friends in Congress.

I dont know how you guys feel about NARP, but in my opinion they can and should be doing alot more. In my correspondences with them they seem to have alot more FAITH in the current Amtrak board then is warrented. To a major extent its up to us now to keep the fight going. Write those letters and make the calls. When the elections come get out and vote!