Flynn may be in but Anderson is staying on until the end of the year. Gardner also not a lover of LD trains and he is still there too. Does anyone know if Flynn has made any public statements as to his intentions on LD train service? .
Congress did NOT say that Amtrak had to serve sugar and microwaved "McAwful Muffins" for breakfast. They did not say Amtrak had to limit its lunch and dinner menus to 3 different meals combined for both lunch and dinner for months on end. They did not prohibit Amtrak from allowing pre-ordered alternate choices. They did not prohibit Amtrak from using convection ovens instead of microwaves. They did not order that all but one of the diner employees be removed from the train. They did not order Amtrak to force passengers to order and pick up their food at the counter then bus their own tables. They did not order Amtrak to run out of items part way through a one-night trip.
If something like VIA's Canadian is what is meant by an experiential train, I'd much rather have what we have now. While the Canadian is likely a very enjoyable trip and I hope to ride it some day, at this point it has basically no transportation value. Coach fares are twice that on Amtrak, trains only run twice a week, and schedules are extremely unreliable. Amtrak is intended to be a transportation provider, not a museum or attraction. I happen to use Amtrak often just for the enjoyment of the ride as do many members here, but I don't think there's a very strong argument that Amtrak's LD network should be preserved for that reason alone. Instead, the system should be designed to transport as many people as possible as well as provide essential service to rural areas. Dining cars and other amenities are nice, but they should be designed to increase profit/decrease losses like they would anywhere else.
Its Washington Patty! Who you know is much more important than what you know!
I don't think Anderson was pitching corridors with the intent that his/Amtrak's efforts fail.
Part of his plan on corridors was, part of the budget and legislative request Amtrak sent to Congress still IS, a fund for Federal funding of start-up corridors. IMHO, $300 million seems a bit modest for the purpose, but it seems to me the idea is to break the ideological deadlock of state legislatures unwilling to vote state funding for passenger rail by getting new services going with federal funds and cooperation from the state DOT but little or no state funding. The initial funding will run the service only for a few years, but an operating service would have a constituency (riders, town governments and chambers of commerce in towns with service, etc.) by then. Several new services could be started from even the modest $300 million per year if new services cost, say, $10-50 million each for capital and a few years of operation.
Your points are well taken. I believe many short haul corridors will develop on their own. Miami to Orlando and Houston to Dallas are two examples. Amtrak’s biggest bang for the buck is building up the long distance routes. Two frequencies a day on most routes with more robust connecting services creates any number of corridors for a limited number of terminal maintenance facilities. In addition, a new product line which would include overnight trains in certain markets; Richmond-Washington-NYC-Boston, Washington-NYC-Montreal and Toronto; LA-SFO-Sacramento, along the lines of Britain’s Caledonian Sleeper and Europe’s resurgent night trains. These two concepts would not cost huge amounts of money in comparison to developing corridors, but would give you much the same juice for the squeeze. Meanwhile, this more robust national system can assist in the impetus for corridor development by states, the private sector, or public/private partnerships. Amtrak may even earn some revenue contracting maintenance, reservations, or shop services at Beach Grove or Bear. Relatively modest public money could leverage a lot of gain.
I did not miss the point. I agreed. It’s a Federal program and needs to be federally funded. I am not talking about piecemeal improvements to the national system, but a focused, systematic expansion of Amtrak in a responsible and cost effective way. Introducing a new product line in certain markets makes sense. No, states are not reliable partners. They might assist in certain corridors, and that’s great. If a state wants or needs something, then they can help support it and move the process along. But the Amtrak system is a national system, and should be funded and supported as such. Just like we don’t have state by state air traffic control or interstate highways, we shouldn’t have a state by state rail system.
So an agenda that fails to achieve its goal ceases to be an agenda at all? Going by Anderson's own words and actions his goal was to promote more corridor trains while removing long distance service from areas of lower traffic and higher operational cost with little regard for how these changes might affect the rest of the network. Congress took Anderson at his word when he threatened permanent bus bridges and I saw no evidence that his threats were a secret ploy to strengthen anything.
Great idea! Let the airlines and states fund intra-state flights. Or just make flights of less than 700 miles have their FAA and other costs funded by the states. Same things with roads. After all, it's only fair.
The federal government still funds the lion's share of highway improvements. By your own logic, widening a 10 mile stretch of highway should get $0 federal dollars. Currently it gets anywhere from 40% to 90% of its cost covered by the federal government. I'm saying the in state Amtrak services should be funded the same way. Fair is fair and local highway projects are considered federal concerns when widening a highway in my neck of the woods has virtually no direct impact on the economy of the country as a whole.
