Is Amtrak allowed to have "Commuter Rail" service?

[BCL]

Several commuter agencies contract with Amtrak for operating personnel, such as CalTrain and Metrolink, but that is different than Amtrak running it themselves.

It's been a while since Amtrak lost the Caltrain contract. I talked to several former Caltrain conductors who were working on Capitol Corridor, and they said their primary concern was that they wouldn't have had the "national seniority" of Amtrak if they had stayed. They were all offered jobs with the new service provider, but it would have been tricky had they lost their contract. But with Amtrak they could stay in the Bay Area and be eligible for other Amtrak jobs if anything had changed.

 

[BCL]

All Amtrak trains, whether corridor service or cross-country trips, have certain things in common. You need to buy tickets ahead of time, for a specific passenger.

Not all the time. If there's no ticket office or automated ticketing equipment at the station, one can still buy on the train. I've done it exactly once, and the conductor was pissed that I was wasting his time.

I think it's still possible to use multi-ride tickets on some routes for multiple passengers, where the passenger named on the ticket has to be present. OK - I looked it up and it only works for the Pacific Surfliner. It also looks like there's a new rule that only allows a monthly ticket to be used twice per calendar day.

https://www.amtrak.com/multi-ride​

Multi-Ride Passes Are Not Transferable​

Multi-Ride Passes may only be used by the passenger whose name is on the pass.​

On the Pacific Surfliner only, more than one person may use a ten-ride pass at one time. The person named on the pass must be one of the passengers traveling and all passengers must travel together.​

 

[toddinde]

I didn't know where else to ask this, and this might seem like a silly question, but I was wondering how much of the type of service that Amtrak has is required by regulation.
All Amtrak trains, whether corridor service or cross-country trips, have certain things in common. You need to buy tickets ahead of time, for a specific passenger. The trains have amenities like bathrooms and dining cars. But are these things required by regulations?
This might seem like a silly question, but is there a federal regulation that says how far a train has to travel before it is required to have a bathroom? Caltrain and Sounder trains apparently have them. But obviously BART does not.
If Amtrak wanted to, could it run corridor service trains without bathrooms or dining cars. And also without the need for a specific ticket, where people could board through contactless cards? This might seem like a theoretical question, but I am wondering if Amtrak could run a commuter rail train without a dining car or bathroom between, say, Portland and Salem Oregon.

The Amtrak law exempted commuter service so railroads continued to have responsibility for it, but nothing prevents Amtrak from operating commuter service, and they have. The Chicago to Valparaiso trains were an example, and I’m sure there are others. Amtrak has been the contracted operator on other commuter service as well.

 

[rookzie]

The fact that PATH is an interstate system is only coincidental with the fact that the rail entity originally was the “H&M (Hudson & Manhattan) Railroad”, opened for service in 1908. Thing is, plenty of historically built rapid transit systems of the time were called the ‘whatever railroad’ (such as the elevated trains predating the subway) but were considered as urban rapid transit operations.

The Port Authority of NY & NJ took over operations of the H&M in receivership in 1962, and renamed it as “PATH” shortly thereafter. Although PATH has long operated as a rapid transit system, legally it’s designated as a commuter railroad under the FRA, although for all practical purposes its physical attributes are not unlike those of HRT (heavy rail transit), in both present-day facilities and rolling stock. With the former H&M though, it was historically certificated as a railroad, and remains as a railroad under the Port Authority ownership.

PATH and the NEC share the Dock Bridge at Newark (the Passaic River crossing) ─ the west-most of the “twin” spans (three tracks) being used exclusively for Amtrak NEC and NJT (New Jersey Transit) commuter services. The east span, however, actually is a set of two additional side-by-side spans conjoined within the same pair of towers, but which operate independently (as counterweighted vertical-lifts) within the same tower structure. Two tracks are dedicated to PATH service, with a third track for shared use by Amtrak and NJT. That PATH shares the now-Amtrak-owned Dock Bridge with the NEC is partly the reason (but not the sole reason) that all PATH train operators must therefore be licensed railroad engineers, and as such, FRA inspections are required. These personnel, specifically under PATH-proper ─ but not the Port Authority itself ─ pay into railroad retirement, as opposed to paying into social security. These employees would stand to become no longer eligible for railroad retirement benefits, should PATH lose its “railroad” status.

But its official status as a railroad notwithstanding, PATH is a commuter railroad which looks and performs visually as rapid transit. It just doesn’t have the appearance of a commuter railroad as does ─ say ─ the LIRR. As far as interstate operation is concerned, the Port Authority controls the rights to all (existing or potential) water crossings between NY and NJ within a jurisdictional boundary extending 25 miles of the Statue of Liberty. As an entity it also owns the PATH railway tunnels beneath the Hudson River (“Hudson Tubes”), but Amtrak owns the North River Tunnels, reserved for the NEC and shares with NJT. The Port Authority joint venture between NY and NJ was first such agency in the United States, created under a provision in the U.S. Constitution permitting interstate compacts.

For this reason that PATH inherently has become an actual fully shared asset between the two states, even though originally it was a private operation. Unlike with NJT and the MTA's MetroNorth and MetroNorth and the CTDOT, PATH has no operational contracts for running its equipment on non-owned track (except of course along the Dock Bridge and its approaches).

 

[Willbridge]

Regarding Amtrak running commuter service on its own, rather than as a contractor, I recall that at some point routes under 75 miles were excluded. The mileage was amended to not impact the NYP<>PHL Clockers territory and it inadvertently (?) also saved CHI<>MKE. There have been trains since with shorter routes that were subsets of longer routes, such as Albany<>Schenectady.

When Amtrak said that it could not take over the orphaned Chicago<>Valparaiso 44-mile route. an exception was amended into a 1979 Amtrak appropriation bill ordering it to take over that commuter service,

Had the Bureau of Transportation Statistics standard been used, rather than a gerrymandered rule, Amtrak would be running a lot of commuter trains:

Long-Distance Travel. Long-distance trips in the 2001 NHTS are defined as trips of 50 miles or more from home to the farthest destination traveled.

A couple of weeks ago I was surveyed by Amtrak and one of the qualifying questions asked how many trips of over 75 miles I had made in a recent period.

 

[Qapla]

There has been talk/speculation/hope that Amtrak would add some sort of intrastate route between Jacksonville-Orlando-Tampa that would either include Miami or allow for connection to Miami on the train(s) that already run from Tampa to Miami.

Considering the distance from Jacksonville to Tampa is nearly as far as the distance from NYC to WDC (only about 26 miles different) - would that make such a train "commuter" since it is all in a single state or "regional" or some other designation?

 

[cirdan]

To some extent that is true, but the counter argument is that filling up capacity with shorts and thus preventing longer distance passengers from being able to use the service on the whole reduces revenues, not enhance them. Even if they are allowed, inventories have to be carefully managed, and if unable to do that it is better to deny service to shorts on LD trains. So I think considering them "stupid" is a bit over the top.

If there really was so much potential here that long distance passengers would be at risk of being permanently and continuously displaced by short haul riders, then it would seem to me that Amtrak is walking away from a solid source of easy revenue that could be covered by adding an additional car or something like that.

Whereas in real-world-land I think there is nowhere near that much demand and we are dealing with a lame excuse for inactivity.

 

[jis]

If there really was so much potential here that long distance passengers would be at risk of being permanently and continuously displaced by short haul riders, then it would seem to me that Amtrak is walking away from a solid source of easy revenue that could be covered by adding an additional car or something like that.

As soon as said additional car is found

 

[thully]

Amtrak used to run commuter service in Michigan inherited from Penn Central from 1975-1984 - the Michigan Executive. Basically a short Michigan Service run that went from Jackson to Detroit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Executive

 

[cirdan]

As soon as said additional car is found

Another alternative might be to only open the system for short haul bookings a few days beforehand, by which time most people planning longer trips will presumably have already made their bookings.

 

[user 14106]

I doubt there's any limitations on intercity service length. Amtrak operates the New Haven - Springfield line which is only 62 miles - it's considered an intercity service although its fares are low priced for commuters (subsidized by CTDOT) and CTDOT of course operates additional trains under the CTrail banner to make it more usable for commuters so it looks a lot like a commuter rail service (though I believe even the CTrail is considered an intercity service because the work to expand the line and launch the service was funded by the Obama era HSIPR program). Federal wise the main difference between Intercity and Commuter rail is how it is funded. Commuter rail programs have to be sponsored by regional metropolitan transit agencies and have to meet strict requirements to receive funding from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and have to meet specific definitions of commuter rail service to qualify for FTA funding. Intercity rail is fully under the auspices of the Federal Railroad Administration and grants for intercity rail projects come from that agency. FRA does also regulate commuter rail operationally and safety wise - but much of the funding for commuter rail projects comes from the FTA. Essentially in a nut shell - if it meets the definitions to qualify as transit as defined by the FTA its commuter rail. Intercity rail is not transit - that's basically the difference. If state sponsored rail service doesn't qualify as transit it's under the auspices of PRIIA.

 

[blueman271]

There has been talk/speculation/hope that Amtrak would add some sort of intrastate route between Jacksonville-Orlando-Tampa that would either include Miami or allow for connection to Miami on the train(s) that already run from Tampa to Miami.

Considering the distance from Jacksonville to Tampa is nearly as far as the distance from NYC to WDC (only about 26 miles different) - would that make such a train "commuter" since it is all in a single state or "regional" or some other designation?

I left Florida twenty years ago and there was talk/speculation/hope that Amtrak would start intrastate service back then. The plan was to either start a standalone train down the FEC from Jacksonville to Miami or reroute one of the Silvers down that line. Personally, I don’t think Amtrak will ever bring back intrastate Florida service and Brightline is the best bet for eventually connect the states population centers.

 

[zephyr17]

I left Florida twenty years ago and there was talk/speculation/hope that Amtrak would start intrastate service back then. The plan was to either start a standalone train down the FEC from Jacksonville to Miami or reroute one of the Silvers down that line. Personally, I don’t think Amtrak will ever bring back intrastate Florida service and Brightline is the best bet for eventually connect the states population centers.

It is not something Amtrak itself can decide to do on its own. It is banned by law (PRIIA of 2008) from running services less than 750 miles using their Federal National Network subsidy.

If the State of Florida decided they wanted intrastate corridor service and were willing to pay for it, they could get Amtrak to operate state supported trains like many states, such as California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Washington, Oregon, and other states do. They have to foot the entire bill for such service.

Somehow, I doubt that is in the cards for Florida's state government.

 

[user 31218]

It is not something Amtrak itself can decide to do on its own. It is banned by law (PRIIA of 2008) from running services less than 750 miles using their Federal National Network subsidy.

I have question regarding this and other future Amtrak expansions.

Since Amtrak now enjoys bi partisan support (or the very least more than its been in the past) why doesn’t Amtrak work on replacing or adjusting the PRIIA law? It seems like Amtrak could very well get a yearly increase in federal subsidies

Gardner wants to expand corridor service to so many new areas of the country and it seems to me the quickest way to do that is to get rid of that law.
Florida, Ohio, Arizona, etc are not rushing to Amtrak begging for new service.

 

[Willbridge]

I have question regarding this and other future Amtrak expansions.

Since Amtrak now enjoys bi partisan support (or the very least more than its been in the past) why doesn’t Amtrak work on replacing or adjusting the PRIIA law? It seems like Amtrak could very well get a yearly increase in federal subsidies

Gardner wants to expand corridor service to so many new areas of the country and it seems to me the quickest way to do that is to get rid of that law.
Florida, Ohio, Arizona, etc are not rushing to Amtrak begging for new service.

In the beginning, the states sponsored trains on a matching basis with Amtrak. This had some good points, encouraging inclusion of rail passengers in state transportation plans and imposing some cost discipline on Amtrak. At Oregon DOT in the first years of Amtrak we developed the idea that a rail and bus network would follow the pattern of the highway funding (Interstate, Federal Primary, Federal Secondary).

100% federal funding of regional trains would lead to a lot of political routes and lack of interest by state agencies.

 

[railiner]

100% federal funding of regional trains would lead to a lot of political routes and lack of interest by state agencies.

Like this one?

https://dbpedia.org/page/West_Virginian_(Amtrak_train)

 

[jis]

The good old Harley's Hornet!