I had at least some hope that Anderson might just be a good thing. Amtrak certainly needed some help. I am forced to think otherwise based on what I have seen so far. He has demonstrated an almost complete lack of understanding of what rail travel can be and everything is based on his airline experience in which he seems to assume that if it worked at Delta the same thing will work at Amtrak because Delta "made money (an iffy concept if the true costs were allocated). They are two different things. For example: There is nothing wrong with pre-prepared food and limiting food expenses. I have had some horrible meals on the City of New Orleans (pre Anderson) so there was plenty of room for improvement. I have had fine meals on Thalys in Europe, all cold, which were delicious and nicely served. It can be done, but it isn't because he doesn't even know enough to check what others are doing. The current first class food is no worth of first class on an airline. Or the "end point" issue. If I get on the Crescent in New Orleans and go to Baltimore, I am not at his idea of an endpoint, but they are my endpoints. He doesn't understand that trains stop at more than one station: duh. I doubt that he has ridden long distance, eaten the food or talked to the customers and employees. Why? Because he doesn't care. Does it really have to be long distance versus corridor? Why not both? The man is arrogant.
Hell, if you want to go from upstate NY to Chicago, count your choices: 1 LD train.
This highlights a generalized cognitive disconnect. People see "Multiple trains from A to C" and forget that they all serve a different B. Case in point "There are three trains from New York to Chicago" ignores the heavy lack of overlap on the routes.
I believe you are flat out wrong about the PIPs. The recommendations were on the whole profitable and certainly did not require significant funding. The choice to not implement them was purest sabotage, designed to require more Congressional subsidy.
I respectfully disagree with much of what you are saying, and I would commend to your attention to some of the work of Andrew Seldon in this area. The long distance network is as skeletal as it can be. It cannot absorb any more cuts. The long distance train is a model of efficiency. It serves equally the person traveling 70 miles or 1,000 miles. It serves an infinite number of enroute corridors, yet achieved economies of scale with maintenance facilities only in major terminals. Corridors are incredibly expensive to develop. Look at the NEC with around $30 billion in deferred maintenance. The long distance trains achieve incredible market penetration. If 5,000 people board annually in a town of 10,000, that’s an incredible market share. The economic impact on these towns is also incredible. Please see the study from the Trent Lott Institute That bears this out. The national network costs us roughly $500 million a year. That is a rounding error in the US budget. For that, we get a national rail system including yards, terminals, and service to towns and cities nationally. You ask how to grow Amtrak? Partner with the freight railroads to fund capacity improvements that would allow you to do things like extend the Heartland Flyer to connect with the Chief. Add a Denver-Pueblo connection to the Chief opening up Denver-Albuquerque-LA possibilities. Run the Sunset Limited daily through Phoenix. Add a section of the Texas Eagle to run through Midland and Odessa to connect to the Sunset in El Paso. That would be a second two night Chicago - LA train. Run the Sunset through Phoenix again. Add capacity to existing long distance trains so there are more seats and sleepers in peak seasons. Get a standard single level car so equipment can be moved to other routes during seasonal fluctuations. Add a second daily frequency on many, if not all, long distance routes. I do agree that there is a historical fixation on Chicago which is probably not warranted since the growth in the country is in the south and west. Not taking anything away from Chicago, but to really grow the system, it needs to grow in the south and west. Finally, we need to stop with the nonsense that it’s either the corridors or the long distance trains. We can and must develop both. But there is no place for dismantling any long distance trains on such a skeletal system. Nor should developed traffic patterns that go back many decades be disrupted. Adding is the way to experiment.
You’re right! I think a rail infrastructure funding program to dissect where the railroads have issues that, if addressed, would improve reliability and allow Amtrak to add service is a great way to go. You create good jobs, you add passenger mobility, you improve the movement of freight by rail which has a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions and on congestion and wear and tear on highways. There is a severe shortage of qualified truck drivers anyway. It’s an all around win.
I don't think so. As a professional investor, I see a management team who is thinking of Amtrak as a private vehicle for their own personal idiosycratic tastes, and no interest in efficient use of funds -- NOT as a business. (Happens all too often in the corporate world.)
Amtrak's had enough to fund what's already operating for years, and has had excess to fund improvements. How do you think we got the Viewliner II order? (Admittedly that should not have gone to Talgo... but that's another matter)
Indeed, there are worse airlines, and SW's fans are a diehard lot. And good on 'em! Oddly enough, I never really saw that much of a savings unless I cold book wayyyy out. Maybe I didn't look hard enough. And it was a pain in the gluteus maximus for me to get to Love Field when DFW was only 3 miles away.
