Progressive Railroading Dec 2019 Article

[DSS&A]

Stephen Gardner and Anderson discuss current and near future Amtrak plans and state upcoming 2020 bad changes to long distance trains (for people who ride and support them) in this article.

https://www.progressiverailroading....50-The-railroad-faces-its-next-chapter--59244

 

[dlagrua]

This is just the same old crap being repeated time and time again. If it keeps going like this Anderson and Gardner will kill the long distance routes by cutting the few amenities that are left and continuing to raise the fares sky high. Then they can say "see no one rides these trains anymore" . Hope that the RPA can relay this message to congress.

 

[andytiedye]

He figures that if we can be forced to fly instead of taking the train, we'll probably go first class, maybe even on Delta (fat chance!!).

 

[frequentflyer]

And yet no comment on this most important paragraph.

"Amtrak execs point out that the railroad owns most track along the NEC, which gives it more control over operations. But, they argue, the OTP problem is driven primarily by delays caused by host freight railroads that own most of the lines on which Amtrak operates. Amtrak leaders have long complained that the host railroads often ignore federal law that requires freight railroads to give preference to passenger trains operating on the hosts’ rail lines. (Last month, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois introduced a bill that would allow Amtrak to take the freight railroads to court to enforce the law.)"

 

[nti1094]

I’m sorry but the only possible area of growth and the only place Amtrak has a chance to shine is long distance. When you consider that Brightline has reached the ridership level of the San Joaquins and it is only half built, and that high speed authorities or private companies are cherry picking the best of these possible “corridor” services they might expand to, they are left with little. Service would have to be faster than driving, frequent enough to provide many options, and reliable enough to trust for any real meaningful ridership growth. This high bar for service isn’t there for long distance.

And it’s a little dishonest to only quote ridership like that. A better metric that is more accepted in transport industry is passenger miles. Notice they don’t say a thing about that. It’s because the long distance network has a huge share of that total. Fewer people but traveling much longer distances.

 

[nti1094]

And yet no comment on this most important paragraph.

"Amtrak execs point out that the railroad owns most track along the NEC, which gives it more control over operations. But, they argue, the OTP problem is driven primarily by delays caused by host freight railroads that own most of the lines on which Amtrak operates. Amtrak leaders have long complained that the host railroads often ignore federal law that requires freight railroads to give preference to passenger trains operating on the hosts’ rail lines. (Last month, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois introduced a bill that would allow Amtrak to take the freight railroads to court to enforce the law.)"

Ok... I think Amtrak owned and dispatched lines having sub-80 percent on-time rates is abysmal and shows if anything they are totally incompetent and can’t be trusted to run “America’s Railroad.” The state of CA managed to work with the Union Pacific to get the Capitols in the mid 90 percent range consistently. They should rate themselves and report it along with the report cards they give the other hosts. They would not exactly be a great role model to the other hosts!

 

[Anderson]

I’m sorry but the only possible area of growth and the only place Amtrak has a chance to shine is long distance. When you consider that Brightline has reached the ridership level of the San Joaquins and it is only half built, and that high speed authorities or private companies are cherry picking the best of these possible “corridor” services they might expand to, they are left with little. Service would have to be faster than driving, frequent enough to provide many options, and reliable enough to trust for any real meaningful ridership growth. This high bar for service isn’t there for long distance.

And it’s a little dishonest to only quote ridership like that. A better metric that is more accepted in transport industry is passenger miles. Notice they don’t say a thing about that. It’s because the long distance network has a huge share of that total. Fewer people but traveling much longer distances.

Brightline also has over twice the frequencies of the San Joaquins (I count 17 trains/day...roughly hourly service with one or two mini-gaps and an extra rush hour train...for Brightline versus 7/day for the San Joaquins). The circumstances of both routes Brightline is working up are also unique (Florida featured a railroad that was cooperative in pooling dispatching control and 200 miles of route that was at least already built plus a workable expressway ROW to go the rest of the distance and an expressway ROW to get to Tampa if they want to go forward with that; LA-Vegas featured, IIRC, a completed EIS that was submitted for federal funding a few years previously but rejected). Replicating either situation is going to be nearly impossible.

Elsewhere, Amtrak has room to "shine", but they've almost gone out of their way to tick off their partners:
-Virginia's DRPT wasn't informed when Richmond Staples Mill went from 24/7 to closing overnight. They found out when I initiated a call to them.
--There was also the charming incident where they tried to throw VRE out of Union Station when they lost the contract.
-New York had the "black box accounting" incident, where Amtrak essentially tried to submit an invoice for "services rendered" and had to be told "nice try" by the state.
-The relationship with Connecticut has been fraught. Amtrak didn't lose the bid for the Hartford Line because CT loved them...
-...and the same can be said for the saga of the Hoosier State, where Indiana had previously asked for food service and been blown off. Amtrak didn't even take the possibility of Indiana going with an external vendor seriously until the eleventh hour (which led to that circus of Boardman showing up and saying "Hey, Indiana just has to let us know what they want for service" when...well, IN had let them know and been ignored).
-There's also that mysterious mess in the 90s where the Surfliners went from showing a profit to gushing losses because the "costs" skyrocketed.

And so on and so forth.

The bottom line is that Amtrak has had plenty of situations where they could probably have done better in collaboration with the state/local folks. In a number of cases, they've chosen not to engage constructively, for various and sundry reasons...but which basically come back to a parochial mindset that probably resembles Ma Bell.

 

[MARC Rider]

You really can't compare Brightline and the San Joaquins. Brightline runs in an urban corridor similar to that of the NEC, and I think has hourly trains. The San Joaquins connect small cities in the Central Valley with the Bay Area and only has 4 or 5 departures in a day.

Miami-Palm Beach is a major megalopolis (at least until rising sea level sweeps it away), and Orlando-Tampa is another one. Bakersfield and Fresno, not so much. Even if service were improved, I'm not sure the Bakersfield/Fresno - Sacramento/Bay Area market has the potential of the NEC or Brightline, even if it is large enough to support some corridor service.

 

[neroden]

A startling number of Amtrak's bad relations with the states relate to Amtrak's bogus accounting. Several of the others amount to illegal retaliation for changing vendors. The rest are just lack of communication.

I feel like the first problem, the accounting, is the largest self inflicted wound, since it also causes them to be incapable of making good business decisions -- they lack the necessary data.

 

[JRR]

A startling number of Amtrak's bad relations with the states relate to Amtrak's bogus accounting. Several of the others amount to illegal retaliation for changing vendors. The rest are just lack of communication.

I feel like the first problem, the accounting, is the largest self inflicted wound, since it also causes them to be incapable of making good business decisions -- they lack the necessary data.

Amen to your accounting comments!

 

[NES28]

Brightline frequencies and distances are much more analogous to Surfliner and Capitol Corridor than San Joaquin service.

 

[BBoy]

Just a thought.....

Would there be a benefit of adding a business class car (amfleet) on AMTK # 91 and # 92 since there is no dining car service? Much the same operation as AMTK # 51 and # 50.

 

[Anderson]

@BBoy That's honestly not a bad idea, especially given the corridor-ish nature of much of the ridership (MIA-TPA-ORL and RGH-RVR-WAS-NYP). The problem is going to be finding four cars to do the job.