Increasing Revenue

[Guest]

..Say Amtrak comes into a ton of money (more formally known as an increase in revenue) from the presumed increased ridership resulting from high gas prices, greening minds... and understanding budgetary processes...

What issue facing Amtrak should subsequently get the greatest attention? Would it be replacing the aging equipment?

Marketing?

Decreasing debt? (Presuming there is debt... and at what rate of interest is it carried?)

If new equipment purchases were possible would the money go towards the passenger comfort or the engines?

If it were new engines how much re-training would engineers have to do to operate them? Are engineers (of any rail system) certified on different locomotives or is it more casual, like taking the volkswagen today versus GML's mercedes tomorrow?

..just wondering.

 

[AlanB]

I'd say replacing aging equipment, followed closely by retiring debt and Amtrak has a lot of debt. Not much point in advertising until the equipment is in better shape to hold onto those news passengers that advertising might bring in.

The age of Amtrak's engine fleet is that old, so replacing that right now isn't a priority. It will start to become more of a priority in about 5 or 6 years, but it isn't one now.

And no, you can't just plunk down an engineer in an engine that he/she hasn't been trained on. It's not like driving a Yugo one day and a Mercedes the next. This is one reason that when an Amtrak crew dies on the hours of service law, that Amtrak can't just call up say BNSF and say, "can you loan me an engineer today?" Odds are that BNSF doesn't have an engineer who not only is available for work, but also is trained on how to operate a P42.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

With the rolling stock, quantity is perhaps more of a problem than age at the moment. While there are some mothballed Amfleet I cars and mothballed P40 locomotives, Amtrak could easily fill more sleeping cars if they had them, and it would be good for Amtrak to have single level dining cars with real kitchens that are young enough to be usable. Amtrak might also be able to fill some more bi-level coaches if they had them. And if they had more bi-level dining cars and lounge cars, they could run more frequent service on the long distance routes (although that would also require negotiations with the freight railroads).

I think Amtrak also needs to be looking for funding to have its own track almost everywhere it goes, but that's not going to come from increases in ticket sales.

 

[Mike S.]

With the rolling stock, quantity is perhaps more of a problem than age at the moment. While there are some mothballed Amfleet I cars and mothballed P40 locomotives, Amtrak could easily fill more sleeping cars if they had them, and it would be good for Amtrak to have single level dining cars with real kitchens that are young enough to be usable. Amtrak might also be able to fill some more bi-level coaches if they had them. And if they had more bi-level dining cars and lounge cars, they could run more frequent service on the long distance routes (although that would also require negotiations with the freight railroads).
I think Amtrak also needs to be looking for funding to have its own track almost everywhere it goes, but that's not going to come from increases in ticket sales.

Maybe try to "buy" back some tracks from freight railroads in a bit of a role reversal.

 

[transit54]

Maybe try to "buy" back some tracks from freight railroads in a bit of a role reversal.

I doubt that would really make much sense, given that on most routes Amtrak only runs a handful of frequencies a day, if that. I actually think that the Amtrak/freight arrangement works out nicely in areas where there is adequate track capacity and Amtrak is properly given priority. In most areas, double track or a substantial number of sidings seems to be necessary.

In an absolutely ideal world, what I'd like to see Amtrak do is build dedicated high speed, long distance corridors on major routes. Then, local service and connecting service would be provided via freight tracks with conventional equipment. Localized commuter rail could also use the corridor between trains.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I think Vermont is an example of somewhere where the freight and passenger sharing works reasonably well, but I think there are only a handful of freight trains on any given track each day there. (I'm thinking in particular of the freight schedule mentioned in the Boston to Montreal corridor study that was done about a decade ago that I think I found on some Vermont state website.)

In addition to the question of whether there's enough capacity for all the trains to run on schedule, there are some subtle maintenance cost issues that have been mentioned on this forum a few times: high speed passenger track needs to be maintained to some fairly exacting standards, and running a lot of heavy freight trains over those carefully maintained tracks doesn't exactly make it easier to keep the high speed passenger tracks in good shape.

The current number of trips per day is kind of an imprecise metric: I think the Vermonter and the California Zephyr both have one trip per day in each direction. Ridership is a lot greater on the California Zephyr, and I think Amtrak ought to have high speed track dedicated to passenger service along the Zephyr's route (constructed with the idea that someday trains will run at 200 MPH where the right of way is straight enough and wide enough; perhaps for now they'll simply run at 110 MPH), and that 4-6 trips each day in each direction would be practical once that track exists. I'm not really sure that significant upgrades to the Vermonter would make anywhere near as much sense (though it may be possible to improve the speed on the Springfield to New Haven segment in ways that mostly benefit riders in Connecticut but would also make the trip faster for riders from Vermont).

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Actually, if Amtrak were given the money to buy up the second or third track land that a lot of the freights are not using when they tore up those tracks to save maintenance money, (with the result that they are in gridlock because of the huge increase in freight being carried), and then re-install those rails and charge the freight railroads a tonnage-mile charge for the privilege of using them, it would probably eventually pay for the money spent to do that, in addition to hugely improving OTP for Amtrak. In fact, if the re-installed rail was built to higher standards, including high-speed FRA grade crossing equipment and signalling equipment, those tracks could potentially allow something closer to the roughly 100+ mph top speed that the non-electrified Amtrak trains are capable of.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

If those tonnage mile fees really would cover the entire cost of track building, I have to wonder why the freight railroads haven't decided to borrow some money to do this themselves.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Several reasons I can think of, including the over-prevalence of accountants in business decisions. People don't like to spend money. Ok, so UP double tracks a single track mainline, right? At their own expense. Now fuel prices drop enough to make trucking a viable option again. The capacity advantages of the billions just spent are never realized. Its a risk.

Now lets say Amtrak spends those billions, lays that track, and offers to lease it based on tonne-mile usage, at a reasonable price. UP will only pay for what they use, the risk is zero. Thats worth something- a lot of something.