Senator Manchin vs Richard Anderson/Steve Gardner

[Anderson]

The legislative rider here is best thought of as a punishment to Amtrak for Richard Anderson being a complete incompetent.

Incompetents get micromanaged. It is their fate.

If Anderson had had any common sense whatsoever, and had retained station agents at (for example) Cincinnati, he could have continued Boardman & Moorman's practice of quietly retiring station agents at low-usage stations. Because he's proven that he's a moron who doesn't understand the business he's running, Congressmen feel the need to slap chains on him.

Coscia should simply fire Anderson, but until he does, we will see more micromanagement from Congress.

But Cincinnati is a low-usage station. Just 11,144 passed through CIN in FY2017. That means of the last 37 stations to lose staffing since 2015, CIN ranks as #19 in ridership. It is hardly a bustling terminal. I don't want to see any staffed stations go away, but it certainly falls right in the middle of the pack. On a recent conference call, Anderson said the closure metric was 40 or fewer passengers per day or 14,600 per year.

Yes, but CIN also has less hours in use (I think it's functionally a 3-day-a-week station), so at least in theory it should only require a single person to staff.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

The legislative rider here is best thought of as a punishment to Amtrak for Richard Anderson being a complete incompetent.

Incompetents get micromanaged. It is their fate.

If Anderson had had any common sense whatsoever, and had retained station agents at (for example) Cincinnati, he could have continued Boardman & Moorman's practice of quietly retiring station agents at low-usage stations. Because he's proven that he's a moron who doesn't understand the business he's running, Congressmen feel the need to slap chains on him.

Coscia should simply fire Anderson, but until he does, we will see more micromanagement from Congress.

But Cincinnati is a low-usage station. Just 11,144 passed through CIN in FY2017. That means of the last 37 stations to lose staffing since 2015, CIN ranks as #19 in ridership. It is hardly a bustling terminal. I don't want to see any staffed stations go away, but it certainly falls right in the middle of the pack. On a recent conference call, Anderson said the closure metric was 40 or fewer passengers per day or 14,600 per year.

Yes, but CIN also has less hours in use (I think it's functionally a 3-day-a-week station), so at least in theory it should only require a single person to staff.

If you count days of service, CIN serves way more than 40 passengers a day (40 * 3 * 52 = 6,240). Of course if you use that metric so does Charleston. Technically Cincinnati and Charleston should only need the agent 3x/day so you can justify them keeping their agents (not sure how many other Cardinal and Sunset Limited ticket agents are on the hit list). But that would seem like a criteria based on performance rather than "one per state" and it still keeps Charleston open.

 

[CCC1007]

The legislative rider here is best thought of as a punishment to Amtrak for Richard Anderson being a complete incompetent.

Incompetents get micromanaged. It is their fate.

If Anderson had had any common sense whatsoever, and had retained station agents at (for example) Cincinnati, he could have continued Boardman & Moorman's practice of quietly retiring station agents at low-usage stations. Because he's proven that he's a moron who doesn't understand the business he's running, Congressmen feel the need to slap chains on him.

Coscia should simply fire Anderson, but until he does, we will see more micromanagement from Congress.

But Cincinnati is a low-usage station. Just 11,144 passed through CIN in FY2017. That means of the last 37 stations to lose staffing since 2015, CIN ranks as #19 in ridership. It is hardly a bustling terminal. I don't want to see any staffed stations go away, but it certainly falls right in the middle of the pack. On a recent conference call, Anderson said the closure metric was 40 or fewer passengers per day or 14,600 per year.

It was just the most eye opening and would get the most attention of those in the main stream media. Certainly the media in Cincinnati would notice as opposed to the local TV stations/newspapers in Shelby, MT (do they even have any?) and you have 2-3 million potential people noticing.

No TV or Newspaper, but the Great Falls market picked up the story. That is likely due to loosing staff at both of the nearest stations.

 

[Dakota 400]

If the Cardinal's schedule was more guest friendly, the train's patronage would increase in my opinion. The CIN station is one of the most beautiful stations to use. It location to I-75 through the city is guest friendly. Long term parking is still a concern at the station, I think, however.

 

[Thirdrail7]

You assume Manchin cares about Amtrak at all. He cares about West Virginia. He worded it carefully to try to get enough other Senators to care even though basically this is just to save Charleston. There may be a couple of other stations in the country that this applies to.

So, in other words, he cares about the people of his home state. He's advocating for them. He's representing them. Well, isn't that what he was elected to do? Maybe we should send him to PA and Ohio. He could put in language about running a train from PGH to CHI.

If the other Senators had half a brain they would've just told Manchin to go screw himself. It's not like Manchin's the Senate Majority Leader like Byrd was.

They still may be able to do that....but then, places like your state and the rest of the NEC may lose funding for their services as well.

So not only does Amtrak have to waste money to fund Byrd Crap, they have to waste money for ticket agents to sell maybe 20 tickets a day 3 days a week for Byrd Crap. If the Charleston station is that important to West Virginia, why doesn't West Virginia pay for it? Amtrak will never be able to expand service if they have to cater to every little demand of every irrelevant state's wishes.

West Virginia pays for with their contribution to the federal taxes that subsidizes Amtrak. Amtrak will also never be able to expand as long as they spend billions on the NEC and Keystone corridor. You should be nice to W. VA. A cab car was wrecked on your Keystone Line last week. If you play ball with the ticket agents i nthe rest of the country, they may vote for funding new equipment for your line. Additionally, your catenary poles on the western end of the Keystone corridor are approaching 90 years old and need replacing. Some of the eastern poles that haven't been replaced are 105 years old and in need of upgrades.

I don't see PA ponying up the money for it.

Tread lightly, Philly Fan or you may find out the true meaning of irrelevant state's wishes.

 

[PRR 60]

...

West Virginia pays for with their contribution to the federal taxes that subsidizes Amtrak. Amtrak will also never be able to expand as long as they spend billions on the NEC and Keystone corridor. You should be nice to W. VA. A cab car was wrecked on your Keystone Line last week. If you play ball with the ticket agents i nthe rest of the country, they may vote for funding new equipment for your line. Additionally, your catenary poles on the western end of the Keystone corridor are approaching 90 years old and need replacing. Some of the eastern poles that haven't been replaced are 105 years old and in need of upgrades.

I don't see PA ponying up the money for it.

Tread lightly, Philly Fan or you may find out the true meaning of irrelevant state's wishes.

The west of Paoli cat poles are 80 years old (1939) and do not need wholesale replacement. Most of the NEC structures are older by a couple of years. The NEC poles Amtrak is leaving in service as part of the NJ ET upgrade are about six years older than the Harrisburg poles. Amtrak thinks those are still serviceable, and knowing those structures reasonably well, I agree. There are lots of other Amtrak ET needs more pressing than the Paoli-Harrisburg poles. The pipe structures east of Paoli are the problem children of the ET people (under collar and inside-out corrosion), and plans are to replace them as part of the Paoli transmission project (assuming that ever happens). That will leave really old and decrepit pipe-type cat structures between Philly and Wilmington and on SEPTA's Chestnut Hill West bunch.

Pennsylvania has "ponied up" lots of money for the Keystone Corridor - paying 50% share of Keystone upgrade project that started in 2006 including track and tie renewal, interlocking replacement, station reconstruction, signals, and ET upgrades. All that has resulted in a 110mph corridor, something that would not have happened without the state contribution (in excess of $70 million for the first phase alone). PennDOT is still a funding partner of the ongoing Keystone Corridor improvements. All that suggests that Pennsylvania's support of the Keystone Corridor has not been "irrelevant." I have a suspicion you know that.

 

[Thirdrail7]

The west of Paoli cat poles are 80 years old (1939) and do not need wholesale replacement. Most of the NEC structures are older by a couple of years. The NEC poles Amtrak is leaving in service as part of the NJ ET upgrade are about six years older than the Harrisburg poles. Amtrak thinks those are still serviceable, and knowing those structures reasonably well, I agree. There are lots of other Amtrak ET needs more pressing than the Paoli-Harrisburg poles. The pipe structures east of Paoli are the problem children of the ET people (under collar and inside-out corrosion), and plans are to replace them as part of the Paoli transmission project (assuming that ever happens). That will leave really old and decrepit pipe-type cat structures between Philly and Wilmington and on SEPTA's Chestnut Hill West bunch.

at.

II'm not sure why you think that. ET has made mention that the bases of the poles, and a lot of the components and the poles themselves are rotting away and deteriorating. This goes back to the David Gunn years. In a lot of cases, Not much has changed except there are sporadic reinforcements and replacement of the poles. It has been determined that it is better to wait for pole replacement instead of doing patchwork. Indeed, there is a pole (not base) replacement in Maryland underway. This INCLUDES the Keystone line. Additionally, a great deal of the poles in NJ are in such sad shape, the company (I can't remember if it is JCP&L or PSE&G) that pays for their lines to run from Metuchen to roughly Adams expressed concern and were making arrangements not to use them since they know they need replacement and they didn't want the costs.

As it is 2018, they may not be exactly 90 years old but they are still approaching 90 years old...with no full scale replacement on the horizon, even though there have been concerns about them for years.

But hey, I'm not on the poles. I can only go by what the people that are on them report when projects and outages are discussed. They're probably exaggerating the need.

Pennsylvania has "ponied up" lots of money for the Keystone Corridor - paying 50% share of Keystone upgrade project that started in 2006 including track and tie renewal, interlocking replacement, station reconstruction, signals, and ET upgrades. All that has resulted in a 110mph corridor, something that would not have happened without the state contribution (in excess of $70 million for the first phase alone). PennDOT is still a funding partner of the ongoing Keystone Corridor improvements. All that suggests that Pennsylvania's support of the Keystone Corridor has not been "irrelevant." I have a suspicion you know that.

If they ponied up 50% to pay for the millions and millions of dollars (that could have supported the Cardinal and many other trains) it took to shave roughly 15 minutes off the trip between PHL-HAR, who paid for the rest? Do you think PA, would have paid 100%? Will they fund 100% of the future improvements in their state? They didn't in the past.

As I stated, without support from the rest of the country (via Amtrak), the state that let their long distance train go because they didn't want to fund it, barely funds SEPTA, had to battle a few years ago to fund their state supported train (in stark contrast to VA, MA, CT, VT to name a few) and along with Amtrak, would have continued to allow the Keystone line to languish. Without the rest of the the country, the Keystone line would still still be as it was...complete with the miles and miles of stick rail that is was famous for. I also firmly believe that if the rest of the senators told Pennsylvania(or any of the NEC states besides NY) to pay the FULL costs of their service, not only would the line not improve, it would get get worse as PA balked at supporting the full costs of the 110mph service.

But, I have a sneaky suspicion you know that.

What you may not have known, is if PA didn't pony up, they were going to turn the Keystone Line into another version of the Springfield line: Single track west of Paoli with passing sidings.

 

[JRR]

The legislative rider here is best thought of as a punishment to Amtrak for Richard Anderson being a complete incompetent.

Incompetents get micromanaged. It is their fate.

If Anderson had had any common sense whatsoever, and had retained station agents at (for example) Cincinnati, he could have continued Boardman & Moorman's practice of quietly retiring station agents at low-usage stations. Because he's proven that he's a moron who doesn't understand the business he's running, Congressmen feel the need to slap chains on him.

Coscia should simply fire Anderson, but until he does, we will see more micromanagement from Congress.

But Cincinnati is a low-usage station. Just 11,144 passed through CIN in FY2017. That means of the last 37 stations to lose staffing since 2015, CIN ranks as #19 in ridership. It is hardly a bustling terminal. I don't want to see any staffed stations go away, but it certainly falls right in the middle of the pack. On a recent conference call, Anderson said the closure metric was 40 or fewer passengers per day or 14,600 per year.

I’d like to go to Cincinnati by train (I’m driving from Boca this week) but the 3 times a week and hours of arrival/ departure make it totally impracticable!

Put those restrictions/conditions on any city and see what ridership you get.

While in college I rode the train to Chicago and back all the time, and this is replaced by bus service now.

 

[Karl1459]

It seems to me that Senator Manchin is being very conservative rather than liberal as a democrat should be, in the sense that his proposal avoids change (keep the status quo). (Yes, it creates an unfunded mandate which is a very liberal democrat thing, as well as a republican thing... but don't let facts get in the way of a good story).

If Sen M wishes to mandate Amtrak employee warm body stations agents, then Congress should fund them as a separate budget line item with Amtrak only being charged the value (as opposed to cost) of their service.

At the same time Amtrak needs to explore, and have the freedom from legacy union contracts and congressional mandates, alternate ways to provide human staffing. What comes to mind is contracting. For example the Izaac Walton Inn in Essex Montana could easily have their desk clerk act as an Amtrak agent... even be a baggage clerk as they meet the train with their van anyway. Sandpoint, in theory, might have the Best Western Inn do a similar service. Or allow local government (State, County, City, etc) to be the agent, and then the government provides the employees (which could be volunteers to the government as far as anyone should care).

One mandate that should happen, is that a person boarding at an unstaffed station, should be able to pay for pre-reserved tickets on the train without penalty and be assisted with any reasonable (enter definition debate here) baggage.

As to charter and PV moves, Congress needs to make rules that apply to the entire system contingent on funding availability for equipment and manpower to enable that, and any costs not recovered from fees need to be a budget line item separate from general Amtrak support.

 

[cpotisch]

It seems to me that Senator Manchin is being very conservative rather than liberal as a democrat should be, in the sense that his proposal avoids change (keep the status quo). (Yes, it creates an unfunded mandate which is a very liberal democrat thing, as well as a republican thing... but don't let facts get in the way of a good story).

I disagree that democrats inherently push for change. While I am very liberal, I feel like Democrats often just push for a more liberal status quo (if that makes sense), rather than true change and advancement. This isn't the Lounge, so I'm not going to get into politics here, but I just feel like a Democrat Senator who doesn't want to change things up isn't anything new.

 

[bms]

Manchin is not really a liberal, he's one of the few centrists left in the Senate. He doesn't really vote along party lines.

 

[tricia]

Manchin is not really a liberal, he's one of the few centrists left in the Senate. He doesn't really vote along party lines.

Manchin has a long history of doing what's best for Manchin. Looking for ideological consistency in him is a fool's errand.

 

[Dakota 400]

Karl1459's assertion that a Democrat must be a political liberal vs a conservative is historically inaccurate.

For many years, the United States Senate had many members from the Southern states who were conservative Democrats. Reportedly, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he said that his Party would loose the "solid South" in the future. LBJ was correct. The "solid South" is more conservative Republican than it was in 1964.

If Senator Manchin is trying to be a moderate in our polarized Congress, he is the type of statesman that this Nation lacks at this time.

 

[tricia]

Karl1459's assertion that a Democrat must be a political liberal vs a conservative is historically inaccurate.

For many years, the United States Senate had many members from the Southern states who were conservative Democrats. Reportedly, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he said that his Party would loose the "solid South" in the future. LBJ was correct. The "solid South" is more conservative Republican than it was in 1964.

If Senator Manchin is trying to be a moderate in our polarized Congress, he is the type of statesman that this Nation lacks at this time.

Looking for a statesman in Joe Manchin is certainly a fool's errand--he's all about what's best for Joe Manchin, with little or nothing left over for the rest of us. Sorry to sound so negative (several times in this thread), but over the better part of a decade I watched him lie, often for no good reason, to good people in West Virginia when I was writing about efforts to end strip mining there.

 

[cpotisch]

For many years, the United States Senate had many members from the Southern states who were conservative Democrats.

Well, up until the mid to late 1900s, the Democratic Party was conservative and the Republican Party was liberal. The two parties gradually switched over, but for 150+ years, conservative Democrats were the norm.