user 29618
Train Attendant
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- 38
Trains in rural areas
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jis
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People who follow my posts know that I am not one to defend Amtrak's or even the US or State government's indefensible policies. All I can do is explain why things are the way they are.
The fact of the matter is, actually very little public facility gets built, maintained and operated in a state without the active participation of the state. Even the much maligned highways and airports do not just spring up because the Feds came up with a bunch of bucks while the state did not want it. The problem that we have is there are several states that have shirked from stepping upto the plate for passenger rail. Just shouting that this is crazy is not going to fix this problem. It will take a long slog to fix this. Fortunately there are many rural areas that are starting to step upto the plate and trying to twist the arms of their state governments to make use of potential funding available from the feds and some are succeeding. And well there are many other possible places where either there is no vocal support or there is active opposition. And there is Amtrak's own follies.
Anyhow this thread is more about arguing about the core question of whether it is appropriate to spend money on serving rural areas by passenger rail. If people cannot even agree that it is then it will be that much harder to get funding allocated and local political support in place to do so. And without that, all the federal fund and the best Amtrak management will eventually not succeed. That is my point. It is not my point that the current Amtrak management is doing all that is necessary and still failing. That is demonstrably not the case.
The point is it is demonstrably not the case.
The fact of the matter is, actually very little public facility gets built, maintained and operated in a state without the active participation of the state. Even the much maligned highways and airports do not just spring up because the Feds came up with a bunch of bucks while the state did not want it. The problem that we have is there are several states that have shirked from stepping upto the plate for passenger rail. Just shouting that this is crazy is not going to fix this problem. It will take a long slog to fix this. Fortunately there are many rural areas that are starting to step upto the plate and trying to twist the arms of their state governments to make use of potential funding available from the feds and some are succeeding. And well there are many other possible places where either there is no vocal support or there is active opposition. And there is Amtrak's own follies.
Anyhow this thread is more about arguing about the core question of whether it is appropriate to spend money on serving rural areas by passenger rail. If people cannot even agree that it is then it will be that much harder to get funding allocated and local political support in place to do so. And without that, all the federal fund and the best Amtrak management will eventually not succeed. That is my point. It is not my point that the current Amtrak management is doing all that is necessary and still failing. That is demonstrably not the case.
If just repeating that Mantra were enough to get trains everywhere we would be a happy place already
The point is it is demonstrably not the case.
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neroden
Engineer
Yep. Actually, except for military pork, practically everything is a state-federal partnership, and even the military pork doesn't go to states which don't want it.
States which shirk their partnership role get nothing. There are even states which have shirked their share of funding for (a) removal of lead, (b) cleanup of abandoned coal mines, (c) capping of abandoned oil wells, etc., and guess what? In those states, far, far less of this environmental cleanup gets done than in the states which provide their 10% or 20% match. It's pervasive.
I look for their public transit trip planner online, unless I have a friend/family at the destination. Taking transit is easy in most cities.
I live in Eastern Washington, near the Idaho border, and even though it takes less than half the time for me to drive to Seattle vs. taking Amtrak, I take Amtrak. I refuse to drive in Seattle. I'm sufficiently familiar with Seattle's public transit system to get around just fine. On the other hand, Spokane is 55 miles north of my town and I always drive there. I could take the bus there, as there are four Amtrak Thruway buses that serve my town daily (two northbound and two southbound) but I want to go come and go from there on my terms and not be tied to a bus schedule.
If your goal is a large pickup or delivery you have little choice.
But for other purposes, large cities are often very easy to get around in. Walking, public transport, taxi, Uber. All that usually costs way less than the parking fees at downtown hotels. I’ve gotten around great in NY, Chicago, Seattle, LA, SF, DC, Boston, New Orleans. These of course are huge cities.
And if my trip is about visiting one place in a city (i.e. a downtown convention center) I’ve also done great in cities like Charlotte, Greenville, Charlottesville, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, etc.
And if I have to be a bunch of places to visit in a large metro area - I punt and rent a car or drive. But it’s my least favorite option.
I was once staying in the Loop in Chicago and needed to have a car to be able to access some outlying areas that I couldn't get to by transit (at least not on the schedule I needed.) Car rental was somewhere between $50 and $100/day. A garage pass with in and out privileges was $50 a day. On the basis of numerous trips to Chicago, at least, I have plenty of mobility with transit and Uber/taxi. That one trip where I had to rent the car sure stopped my complaining about taxi fares! All of this is in addition to the hassle of having to actually drive in Chicago traffic, which isn't the worst in the world, but it pretty bad.
SanDiegan
Service Attendant
Except the NEC does not "make money" ...
George Harris
Engineer
Given their traffic density and high fares, that is their own fault. They should figure out how to operate more economically and efficiently. Getting rid of all those trying to protect their own little turf would be a good start. I remember first seeing the NEC in the Washington-Baltimore segment in the early and mid 70's and my first thought was, "wow! It's 1920." Working on some of the engineering relating to some NEC improvements in the late 70's early 80's did not really change that impression. What it did was get me acquainted with several people in various positions who were more interested in protection of their own little turf segment than making things happen that were for the benefit of the whole. There are several examples I will not state that still bug me, now 40+ years later.
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I always wanted a stop at Chemult, OR while traveling on the Coast Starlight. Are there exciting things to see and do Chemult? I'm going to spend a few days in Bend, OR and Sisters, OR this summer. There is a bus from the Klamath Falls stop, on the Starlight, to Chemult, Sunriver, and Bend. I don't like long bus rides or long auto drives. Instead I will be flying to Seattle and taking a 1 hour flight to Bend on Alaska Airlines, Funny, but there apparently isn't a direct flight from Portland to Bend. but I may be wrong.
I do concur about how much we lost with the demise of the Pioneer. Eastern Oregon stops at Pendleton, La Grande, Baker City, and Ontario. Also stops in southern Idaho and Wyoming.
I have to really agree that Amtrak provides a huge service when the route includes a lot of small towns.
One unavoidable problem can be the arrival and departure times from such small towns. I always wanted to visit Dodge City, Kansas but I'm not too keen with arrival times are 5:19 AM, westbound, and 11:47 PM, eastbound.
Another one; Dunsmuir, Calif which is a Coast Starlight station stop. Northbound it gets into Dunsmuir at 4:58 AM, southbound it gets in at 12:45 AM, Dunsmuir provides a great jumping off place for recreational activities in the Mt. Shasta area and other spots in far northern Calif. I always wanted to visit the "Railroad Park Resort", in Dunsmuir, for an overnight in a caboose.
https://is.gd/SerAXs
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LOL, there is nothing to Chemult except a truck stop and a Deschutes National Forest ranger district office (with associated housing). I am disappointed that the Bend bus now connects at the K Falls station, adding an extra two hours to the bus ride. They just blow by on the highway, stopping only at the truck stop. If you board there, you are on your own to get across with your luggage to the train station (in plenty of snow if it's winter), and wait in the unheated shelter. If you get off there northbound, and the train is late, the bus will not be waiting for you.
For my money, if I have to head south I will probably make the drive down to Chemult and leave my car there (on short trips) or take the cross-Cascades bus as a separate item from the train trip, stay with friends in Eugene, and board there (for longer trips). I have always previously missed the scenic Willamette Pass section of the trip by boarding at Chemult southbound or Albany northbound, because of the Bend connection.
The sad thing about the change in the Bend bus service is that the stop at Chemult was specifically added to make that bus connection. As I described in another post, the Chemult stop began as an effort to get a stop added at Crescent Lake. The bus operation would have used an obscure piece of the state highway system from Crescent Lake over to US97 north of Chemult. It was concluded that as the link was a low priority for plowing that the bus operation would not work at Crescent Lake.
The purpose in adding a Crescent Lake stop was to generate winter ridership on the Coast Starlight. It might have even been a seasonal stop. The Chemult<>Bend bus connection was developing in parallel.
I am not quite as rural as Oregon Pioneer. next month I will be parking at Chemult to take the southbound CS to Sacramento. I spend a few hours in Sacramento before taking the bus out to the Sacramento airport(SMF). I'll fly to Chicago (via Las Vegas). I'll ride the El from Ohare to the Clinton stop and walk about 3 blocks to Chicago Union station. I'll check my bags and have a few hours to kill before getting on the Cap Limited to Pittsburgh. In PGH I switch to the Pennsylvanian. It has been many years since I went around the Horseshoe Curve. Arriving in Harrisburg between 1-2PM I have a rental car reserved for a trip north to the very rural area where I grew up. I will be attending my 55th high school reunion over Memorial Day weekend.
The trip back will be just the reverse. HAR-PGH-CHI flying from Ohare to Sacramento (via Las Vegas). I hope I can sleep on the CS at least as far as Dunsmuir.
BTW, the USFS ranger station in Chemult is with the Winema NF. The beautiful new FS Ranger station in Crescent where I live is in the Deschutes NF.
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Too bad one can't rely on a bus connection at Chemult. As a possibility, this summer, I was thinking of getting off the Starlight in Eugene, staying overnight in Eugene, then taking a "Pacific Crest" bus from the Eugene Amtrak station to Bend. However, a 3 hr bus ride isn't something I would like to experience.
https://is.gd/ptBTvM
I can get a direct flight, on Alaska Airlines, from Santa Rosa to Seattle. Then, just a 1 hr plane flight to Bend.
I see, Oregon Pioneer, that you are near Seneca, OR. Looks like you are in a pretty remote area of Oregon. I was wondering if you've ever had problems with cell phone service access. The last time I was on the Starlight, I couldn't make any cell phone contacts between Klamath Falls and Eugene. Probably because of the travel through the lower Cascades.
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LOL, lack of cell service is a fact of life here in eastern Oregon. The roads are so lightly traveled that only a few of the major highways have continuous cell service (notably US 20, both 26 and 395 and near-town only), and there is none at all where I live because of the mountains. I live in what is probably the biggest blank spot on the national map of cell service. I have a cell phone, but I only use it on trips or my weekly runs to town. It is VERY handy on Amtrak, and the breaks in service do not bother me at all because I am used to that.
Back to Chemult: I know that running the bus all the way to K Falls picks up a few extra customers who would prefer the more reliable schedule that a bus provides over a long distance train. But I do hope the change is not the prelude to abandoning the Chemult stop completely.
Amtrak (and others) spent a fortune replacing the old Amshack that was in Chemult. The timber "waiting room" in my profile picture gets very little use. Everyone who wants to go to LaPine, Sunriver and Bend for winter sports and summer tourism stops at Chemult and rides the bus north. Twice I have driven to KFS to start a trip. KFS station has limited parking and you have to get a parking permit to put on your dash by showing your ticket. Only advantage to going to KFS is the ability to check bags to your destination that has checked baggage service.
Amtrak has trouble trying to find someone reliable to plow snow in the lot in Chemult.
Amtrak has trouble trying to find someone reliable to plow snow in the lot in Chemult.
In the case of Illinois the Saluki runs to Carbondale one trip per day. They were running two day trains and might be again but last I heard due to the pandemic only the one was running. Also the same route is the City of New Orleans, but where I live it comes in at 4:20 Am and returns at 12. 20 Am if your lucky. So that train is not very handy if you live farther from Chicago. However the Saluki carries huge loads of College Students from both Carbondale and the Champaign Stations. Often it is sold out during active student days. The business class car also is hard to get a reserved seat in while the price of it has increased a great deal. Some trips over a hundred students board at Champaign to go to Chicago. I an close to Centralia, about 8 miles to the station. I don't fly anymore but if I wanted to St. Louis is almost two hours to the airport and who knows how long to check though security to fly. Then you land far from the downtown which if I am going to Chicago is where I want to be. Parking a car cost far more than a bus or taxi once your there so no need to take one with you if your main goal is shopping or some major museums which are located near down town. One issue I have with the local trains is the fares have increased a whole lot over the past few years and the service isn't really much better. The cars are often filthy on the outsides and sometime in them, the windows usually look like no one ever washed them. Hopefully when the new cars on on the line that will get fixed, but as it has been for years on most trains, there seems to be no supervised inspections of the condition of the cars, just run them and people have to accept it. The days of sparkling cars and windows left a long time ago, I doubt it will ever come back.
No. Amtrak has already been splitting up and pitting against each other its business units. Northeast, Midwest, California, long distance. Just makes it easier to give preference to the NEC and force the states to pay for everything else. It's the *National* Railroad Passenger Corporation.
Devil's Advocate
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Should we just keep doing the same thing we've already done for decades while hoping for a better result? The funding can remain combined for defensive poison pill reasons but maybe the planning and operations should be separated to reflect the problems and solutions unique to each situation.
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jis
Permanent Way Inspector
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Actually it is Congress that provides funding in two buckets NEC and National. So it is not clear to me what we are arguing about regarding Amtrak splitting something. Amtrak has been organized into three buckets since 2008 or so - namely NEC, State Supported and Long Distance. And all the pitting against each other now is mostly done by Congress as far as funding and receiving execution reports back from Amtrak goes. Amtrak is in no position to change that unilaterally without running afoul of Cognress AFAICT.
Operationally there is very good reason to view these segments separately as their needs are very different. But that does not mean they should be viewed as separate P&L centers, though the nature of the politics usually devolves into such.
Operationally there is very good reason to view these segments separately as their needs are very different. But that does not mean they should be viewed as separate P&L centers, though the nature of the politics usually devolves into such.
Matthew H Fish
Lead Service Attendant
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- May 28, 2019
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One problem here is that I think there are two different definitions of "rural" and two very different reasons that people would use transit. "Rural" is a hard word to define, and lately it has been more of a cultural badge than a geographical description.
I've lived in places like Montana, and sometimes I would talk to people from Indiana, and they would say something like "I lived in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere---only 10,000 people, an hour outside of Indianapolis". In most of the Great Basin, Rocky Mountains or Great Plains, a county with 30-50,000 people is going to be an "urban" county. For example, it is 1100 miles by car between Fargo and Spokane, and in that distance, the largest county someone passes through is Yellowstone, home of Billings, population 160,000 people. That would be, for example, the 19th largest county in Ohio. It is really hard to explain what the Great Basin is like until you have been there. Between Lakeview, OR and Pendleton, OR, someone can drive 335 miles and pass through one town large enough to have a supermarket. (Although @oregon pioneer might correct me on that).
Compared to that, areas like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and the like don't have extremely isolated rural areas. They have rural areas that still have high enough populations, and high enough population densities, and that are close enough to major urban areas that they can support travel. Maybe not for daily commuting, but for things like weekly shopping trips or medical/etc appointments.
So you have two very different rationales for rural transportation, depending on what type of rural it is.
In areas like the Montana Highline on the Empire Builder, or the California Zephyr, along with tourism, people there often don't have any other means of transit.
In areas like downstate service in Illinois (or corridor service in Michigan, Wisconsin or Missouri), those areas have high enough population densities that for practical purposes, they can be considered almost exurban. They are all at least within an hour of a small metro, so they can sustain commuting.
(Incidentally, if anyone is interested, the USDA actually has a definition of "Frontier and Remote", which is any area that is more than an hour from a metropolitan area of at least 50,000 people. Areas like that are more than 50% of the US' land area, but account for about 8% of the population. Significantly, none or almost none of such "rural" states as Ohio,Indiana, or North Carolina have such territory.)
I've lived in places like Montana, and sometimes I would talk to people from Indiana, and they would say something like "I lived in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere---only 10,000 people, an hour outside of Indianapolis". In most of the Great Basin, Rocky Mountains or Great Plains, a county with 30-50,000 people is going to be an "urban" county. For example, it is 1100 miles by car between Fargo and Spokane, and in that distance, the largest county someone passes through is Yellowstone, home of Billings, population 160,000 people. That would be, for example, the 19th largest county in Ohio. It is really hard to explain what the Great Basin is like until you have been there. Between Lakeview, OR and Pendleton, OR, someone can drive 335 miles and pass through one town large enough to have a supermarket. (Although @oregon pioneer might correct me on that).
Compared to that, areas like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and the like don't have extremely isolated rural areas. They have rural areas that still have high enough populations, and high enough population densities, and that are close enough to major urban areas that they can support travel. Maybe not for daily commuting, but for things like weekly shopping trips or medical/etc appointments.
So you have two very different rationales for rural transportation, depending on what type of rural it is.
In areas like the Montana Highline on the Empire Builder, or the California Zephyr, along with tourism, people there often don't have any other means of transit.
In areas like downstate service in Illinois (or corridor service in Michigan, Wisconsin or Missouri), those areas have high enough population densities that for practical purposes, they can be considered almost exurban. They are all at least within an hour of a small metro, so they can sustain commuting.
(Incidentally, if anyone is interested, the USDA actually has a definition of "Frontier and Remote", which is any area that is more than an hour from a metropolitan area of at least 50,000 people. Areas like that are more than 50% of the US' land area, but account for about 8% of the population. Significantly, none or almost none of such "rural" states as Ohio,Indiana, or North Carolina have such territory.)
tricia
Conductor
You're wrong about North Carolina. A large chunk of western NC, west and north from Asheville, fits the bill. My own home is about an hour from Asheville; other places in our county are farther. It takes roughly an hour and a half to drive across Madison County, northish to southish, with a total county population of about 20K. There are a dozen counties to the west of here that are more remote.
Exvalley
Conductor
- Joined
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Here is a (slightly dated) map if anyone is interested. My town qualifies as a "Frontier and Remote" area.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/51020/52626_farcodesmaps.pdf?v=9372.8
Matthew H Fish
Lead Service Attendant
- Joined
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I simplified what I said about North Carolina, but I am not wrong. About 74,000 people in North Carolina live in FAR areas. This is about 0.8% of the population. From looking at the map, that is mostly in a few areas on the Atlantic, and one small area in the western part of the state (around Murphy).
Since you mentioned Madison County, I looked it up. It has a population density of 46 people per square mile. For comparison against some counties on Amtrak's long distance routes in the western states, Elko County, Nevada has a density of 2.8 people per square mile. Humboldt County (Winnemucca) has a density of 1.8 people per square miles. In Oregon, Klamath County (Klamath Falls and Chemult) is relatively populous with 11. Phillips County, Montana (Malta) is 0.8. Hill County, Montana (Havre) is 5.6. Coconino County, Arizona (Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon) is 7.8.
So I am not wrong--- objectively, we can look at population densities, and its pretty easy to show that even the more rural parts of the Eastern US usually have high population densities compared to areas like the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin.
