The current IRS standard mileage rate for business use of a vehicle is 58.5 cents per mile. Thus, they estimate that a 300 mile auto trip costs about $175.50. That doesn't include tolls and parking.
Lawmakers want Amtrak line from Atlanta to Nashville
- Thread starter iliketrains
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Many people do this without even thinking about it -- they only compare out-of-pocket expenses ( like gas ), as the other expenses are really, really, easy to ignore.
Absolutely. The best promotion on the PDX<>SEA Pool line in the late '50's and early '60's was the headline "Costs less than a tank of gas." Long lines of day coaches were filled with that message.
A Denver church near the Federal Blvd. interchange on transcontinental I-70 found that it had a calling to rescue people who just hopped into their pre-owned auto to drive from Chicago or St. Louis to California. They needed help with food and car repairs. A couple of auto shops did work at a discount for people who were screened and aided by the church deacons. It was a surprise for these motorists to be confronted with reality.
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The FRA SE and Midwest Regional Plans are quite interesting. They propose Atlanta being a stop on a Florida to Chicago high-speed which would attract enough riders for hourly service. Atlanta should have both an Airport and a downtown station, as well as one in Cobb County, all on dedicated passenger tracks. The Crescent should be on the high-speed line to Charlotte and a new high-speed line to Birmingham or Montgomery and go through the downtown station.
Metra Electric Rider
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I know I've mentioned this before, but several years ago we had a poster here (I think who was a newbie and only made like one post iirc, too lazy to search this morning) who claimed/purported that they were a railroad employee for one of the railroads on an Atlanta-Tennessee route and they had been told that Amtrak would be using their tracks - of course, they never responded to queries or came back as far as I could tell, but I wonder if there has been some negotiation on something already (or it was purely gossip mongering).
crescent2
Conductor
I live in Georgia and would absolutely love such a rail line. Even if the trip took significantly longer than driving I'd much rather use the train to get to Chattanooga or Nashville. And it does seem a bit absurd that a city the size of Atlanta is only served by one long distance train. However, this seems like pie in the sky to me. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic but I doubt it.
Unless they've recently changed, Georgia's politicians have never been that interested in expanding passenger rail service, and finding a good location for a new station in Atlanta is a huge problem. Plus the geography in north Georgia is hilly and a higher speed line would be very, very costly. And where is all this magic money supposed to come from? Our nation is already hopelessly in debt.
I just don't see it happening during my lifetime. Amtrak has never reinstated the Sunset Limited east of New Orleans. I think we'll be lucky to keep all the trains we currently have, other than those in the NE Corridor.
Unless they've recently changed, Georgia's politicians have never been that interested in expanding passenger rail service, and finding a good location for a new station in Atlanta is a huge problem. Plus the geography in north Georgia is hilly and a higher speed line would be very, very costly. And where is all this magic money supposed to come from? Our nation is already hopelessly in debt.
I just don't see it happening during my lifetime. Amtrak has never reinstated the Sunset Limited east of New Orleans. I think we'll be lucky to keep all the trains we currently have, other than those in the NE Corridor.
user 29618
Train Attendant
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Taxi service to the nearest Amtrak station is currently $110 one-way.
If I drive, it costs me $40 worth of gas.
I guess it is impossible to get people to understand that not everyone can actually use Amtrak except in the same way we might use a cruise ship - for a pleasure trip.
Devil's Advocate
⠀⠀⠀
Where I live it costs $45 to reach the nearest Amtrak station by taxi. Luckily I saved that $45 by spending $25,000 to purchase a car along with another $25,000 to purchase a car's life worth of gasoline, maintenance, insurance, & infractions. Now I'm ($49,955) ahead of the game thanks to my savvy financial tactics.
MisterUptempo
Lead Service Attendant
Where I live it costs $45 to reach the nearest Amtrak station by taxi. Luckily I saved that $45 by spending $25,000 to purchase a car along with another $25,000 to purchase a car's life worth of gasoline, maintenance, insurance, & infractions. Now I'm ($49,955) ahead of the game thanks to my savvy financial tactics.
This a good explainer video when discussing the real cost of driving-
CityNerd is great!!!
Charles785
Service Attendant
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And speaking about Nashville, I was reminded about Nashville today when I heard that Dean Martin song, Little Ole Wine Drinker Me. You see, he was sitting in a bar in Chicago with a broken heart and a woman on his mind. He came to Chicago from Nashville where his baby had left for Florida on a train
Of course I was wondering what train that could have been, and what would have been the last year that his baby could have left Nashville on a train bound for Florida.
Of course I was wondering what train that could have been, and what would have been the last year that his baby could have left Nashville on a train bound for Florida.
The one on the left side of the page...1979
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19790729&item=0041
Charles785
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Thank you, Railiner
I guess that's also the same time we lost the Lone Star.
Some kind of a route from Chicago to Florida seems to make a whole lot of sense. Of course that Floridian route provided some high population locales including Indianapolis that remains woefully underserved, and of course Louisville and Nashville.
I guess that's also the same time we lost the Lone Star.
Some kind of a route from Chicago to Florida seems to make a whole lot of sense. Of course that Floridian route provided some high population locales including Indianapolis that remains woefully underserved, and of course Louisville and Nashville.
Actually, I think most on this forum are very aware of the fact that this country’s transportation system vastly favors cars to all else. Even the current gas situation doubled won’t change that.
For all people outside of the NEC, parts of California and a few select metro areas, trains make absolutely no sense, and one has to go out of their way to make it feasible.
We all want to change that, but it will certainly mean utterly reworking this country and it’s policies.
west point
Engineer
Nashville to Florida had another way which required a connection. The NC&SL at one time had 2 trains Nashville - ATL. Then passengers connected to ACL at Union station or could take a short ride to Terminal station and ride SOU RR trains to Florida. 2 or more by way of Waycross and one by Brunswick and ACL track rights to JAX.
Now about Chattanooga. Drive time except from 2300 - 0500 at CHA will not be the advertized. Have to drive to Nashville at least 4 times a year and Chatttanooga is heartbreak. Traffic on I-24 of about from I - 75 to other side of Mount Eagle is crazy. I-24 at CHA was one of first built in Tn and is still only 2 lanes except some 3 lanes in downtown CHA have been added just recently in past year or so.
Mount Eagle is a steep grade that is a brake smoker even for some autos. Do not drive left lane which has runaway ramps. Have seen 2 trucks on one ramp together. That secton of I-24 is about 60 miles and has more than once taken over 2 - 1/2 hours. Granted at least there are Tn welcome centers both ways that increased the 2 - 1/2 even more. BTW US-41 was a mistake the one time detoured on it after receiving bad traffic notice on I-24. The mountain rannge NE <> SW only has one break which has Tennessee river, I-24 and CSX ( NC&SL ) share. NS has trackage right from SOU RR days. A direct RR route over the ridge north of CHA would require a HrSR slope probably 4% or a tunnel maybe more than ~ 5 - 8 miles long.
Now about Chattanooga. Drive time except from 2300 - 0500 at CHA will not be the advertized. Have to drive to Nashville at least 4 times a year and Chatttanooga is heartbreak. Traffic on I-24 of about from I - 75 to other side of Mount Eagle is crazy. I-24 at CHA was one of first built in Tn and is still only 2 lanes except some 3 lanes in downtown CHA have been added just recently in past year or so.
Mount Eagle is a steep grade that is a brake smoker even for some autos. Do not drive left lane which has runaway ramps. Have seen 2 trucks on one ramp together. That secton of I-24 is about 60 miles and has more than once taken over 2 - 1/2 hours. Granted at least there are Tn welcome centers both ways that increased the 2 - 1/2 even more. BTW US-41 was a mistake the one time detoured on it after receiving bad traffic notice on I-24. The mountain rannge NE <> SW only has one break which has Tennessee river, I-24 and CSX ( NC&SL ) share. NS has trackage right from SOU RR days. A direct RR route over the ridge north of CHA would require a HrSR slope probably 4% or a tunnel maybe more than ~ 5 - 8 miles long.
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Excellent summary. We drive to/from Florida virtually every year and now use I-65 to avoid the very section you're describing. A couple of accidents and/or inclement weather can cost hours of driving time and it has been that way for years.
A 4% grade, while not a problem for a modern passenger train as shown below, would be useless for freight and unlikely to be constructed in today's reality. If a tunnel was ever under consideration it would have been built when the cost of doing so wasn't prohibitive.
A 4% grade, while not a problem for a modern passenger train as shown below, would be useless for freight and unlikely to be constructed in today's reality. If a tunnel was ever under consideration it would have been built when the cost of doing so wasn't prohibitive.
33Nicolas
Train Attendant
We're still waiting for the Savannah-Atlanta passenger line to go through. I can't wait to take the train in between cities than drive 4:30 to 6 hours to Atlanta.
Does anyone have any news there?
Does anyone have any news there?
Unfortunately, I really haven't seen any evidence that Georgia is interested in funding such a train.
ascii42
Train Attendant
As someone who lives near Macon, it would make me very happy, but...
...yeah.
Somehow all these legislators drive to Atlanta and apparently say "yes, this is good. This is how things should be" instead of supporting trains.
The counties from Atlanta to Macon made a submission to the Corridor Identification Program. I think that's the latest I've heard anything about it.
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It's hard for people to reasonably mentally allocate (for example) insurance and car repairs/maintenance, let alone depreciation, over their driven mileage. Gas is easy to connect the dots on. I also suspect that the IRS table is somewhat generous to avoid folks opting to go with actual mileage (since that'd be a pain to audit). But think of it like this:
-You buy a new car. Let's say that car costs $30,000. The car has an expected life of 200,000 miles (not absurd these days). So, that's 3,000,000 cents ($30k*100) over 200,000 miles, or $0.15/mile.
-You pay $1200/yr for car insurance. You drive the car 15,000 miles. That's 120,000 cents over 15,000 miles...so, $0.08/mile.
Maintenance and so on are a bit more of a crapshoot, but this adds $0.23/mile to whatever your fuel consumption is. If you're getting (say) 25-30 MPG, that's another $0.10/mile these days...but that varies quite a bit depending on where you are (it can go up close to about $0.15/mile in some places like CA). And this isn't getting into the mess that diesel has been as of late.
So we're now at $0.33/mile for a lower-range car. If you move into something more expensive, it isn't hard to double the cost of the car (as well as ding the fuel economy) with an SUV. A $60,000 car would bring the depreciation cost per mile up to $0.30, bringing this tally up to $0.48-0.50/mile...which is close enough to that $0.585/mile that the IRS has used for most folks not to quibble.
The Carter cuts. There are a few things to blame for them, but Amtrak's losses in the late 1970s were massive. Like, I think operating losses were creeping up on $1bn/yr in the late 70s. There were a few reasons for this, but one of the biggest was that Amtrak was short of equipment (the Superliners hadn't been delivered yet, and there was only so much equipment from the pre-Amtrak operations that Amtrak really wanted...some of it was a mess). A metric of X passenger-miles per train-mile was used as the main measuring stick at the time (IIRC it was something like 200), but some of the trains that were cut never had enough equipment to really let them make that bar despite frequently selling out on some segments.
I'm going to be interested to see what happens with some of these county/city-induced routes. If there's a way they don't have to fork over an absurd amount of money to operate the trains, it seems possible that we might see one or two come together if the Feds basically pay for the startup capex. But I'll also agree that it's a bit of a long shot.
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
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Under the Infrastructure Bill the Frds will pay for operations for a few years in progressively reducing proportions.
I feel like this could be useful - though if ridership is lousy, it might not help, if you can patch together operational costs for the first 2-3 years you might be able to get some of these states "stuck" with a train or two.
[The snarl is going to be what happens if the state refuses to step in and there's a lot of capex already out the door.]
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
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Administator
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I have not looked at it closely, but it is possible that there is a state commitment for some period sitting in there somewhere too.
Incidentally SunRail was started using a similar method between the State DOT and CFRCC. In the near future the entire responsibility for SunRail will be transferred from FDOT to CFRCC including all ongoing FTA and other funding streams. CFRCC apparently is planning to contract out the management of SunRail to a new subsidiary of Lynx, and they will continue with the existing operation (Alstom), track and signal maintenance (Wabtec and Herzog??) and equipment heavy maintenance (Amtrak) contracts as is. Something similar will need to be built into each state sponsored service relative to Federal funding timeline.
George Harris
Engineer
There were three trains between Nashville and Atlanta up until at least the early 1960's, and one lasted until Amtrak. Up until its demise in the early 1950's there was also the every third day Dixie Flagler, Chicago to Florida.
Now, back to Monteagle, and yes, it is Monteagle, one word, not Mount Eagle. Quite a few years ago I played with a routing on this line on USGS topo maps but they have long since disappeared in multiple moves. However, the lengths and grades mentioned here did not ring any bells in my memory, so I did some looking on Google maps and others that have topo. Firstly, the idea of climbing up to Monteagle with a HSR is simply a non-starter. Yes, there was a railroad through there once, but it was a very steep branch out of Cowan TN.
Monteagle itself is per Wiki at an elevation of 1926 feet. A tunnel with a length of around 3.5 miles with a north end elevation of about 1100 feet and a south end elevation of about 1010 feet could pass this altogether. This is setting it at a grade of 0.5%. The south portal would be into the same valley followed by I-24 all the way to its mouth near the Tennessee River. By following the west side of the valley wall with cuts and fills and possibly a few short tunnels, this could be done with a grade not exceeding 1.1%. How much earthwork and tunnel work would depend upon the desired speed. Without getting too far down in the weeds, I think a 100+ mph alignment would be achievable, and a 60 to 80 mph alignment relatively easy.
After getting to the bottom of the hill and crossing the Tennessee River, you could either more or less follow the alignment of I-24 and the existing railroad across Racoon Mountain, which I believe to have about a 1.4 % grade on the railroad. Again, probably several short tunnels and quite a bit of earthwork. Alternatively, you could stay level following the Tennessee River with a couple of long tunnels to keep it relatively straight.
west point
Engineer
do not forget that the Nashville - CHA route also goes thru Alabama as well. About 24 miles. The town of Stevenson, Al is where the line turns toward Nashville. It may have been some trains stop there as Setevenson was where SOU RR's track rights on the NC&SL ended and SOU used all its own trackage to Memphis. Applies to today by NS.
It would be a hoot if Gov Ivey got involved. The RR station is still there as a museum. Have no idea if station still has helper crews kept there for climb to CHA or to Mounteagle.
It would be a hoot if Gov Ivey got involved. The RR station is still there as a museum. Have no idea if station still has helper crews kept there for climb to CHA or to Mounteagle.
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