What if we reversed course and slowed Amtrak down?

[MikefromCrete]

On the idea of slowing the railroads down, there is always the possibility of doing a slow night train to complement daily Amtrak schedules. Pick city pairs that are between 300 and 800 miles apart and run slow trains that are primarily sleepers. It won't matter that they are only doing 50-60 mph at best because the train leaves between 7 pm and 9 pm and won't be scheduled to arriver until 8 am or, for the longer distance city pairs, 11 am or noon. Maybe have half the train attendants get off at a station 60 miles from the start and bus them home after the beds are turned down. Clean the cars during the day, turn them around, head back to the origin city.

Café car could serve your choice of different types of congee to make it similar to the Chinese T trains... ;-)

Yeah, won't happen, though. Even a slow train is too expensive for Amtrak to buy. And sleepers tend to be pretty manpower intensive.

The concept didn't work for VIA's Enterprise, which actually sat on a siding for several hours during its overnight run from Montreal to Toronto. Short distance night trains went away with the development of the passenger jet.

 

[tomfuller]

Does anyone remember my proposal for an Empire Builder Light? Westbound would leave MSP at the same time as the EB leaves CHI (1415).

The consist would be 1 engine, 1 baggage, 1 cafe car and 2 coach cars. The regular EB could have 1 or maybe 2 less coach cars leaving Chicago.

To help people in Chicago that want to go west earlier, have the #329 Hiawatha continue past MKE all the way to MSP.

The extended #329 would arrive in MSP about 1400 with a guaranteed connection to the EB Light.

At the west end (SPK) the EB Light would arrive about 8PM PT. The eastbound EB Light would leave SPK about 6AM and would have few stops since the regular EB would

be 4.5 hours ahead of it.

As for the Hiawatha in MSP, it would turn and be back to CHI about an hour behind the last Hiawatha in the schedule (2200).

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Does anyone remember my proposal for an Empire Builder Light? Westbound would leave MSP at the same time as the EB leaves CHI (1415).

The consist would be 1 engine, 1 baggage, 1 cafe car and 2 coach cars. The regular EB could have 1 or maybe 2 less coach cars leaving Chicago.

To help people in Chicago that want to go west earlier, have the #329 Hiawatha continue past MKE all the way to MSP.

The extended #329 would arrive in MSP about 1400 with a guaranteed connection to the EB Light.

At the west end (SPK) the EB Light would arrive about 8PM PT. The eastbound EB Light would leave SPK about 6AM and would have few stops since the regular EB would

be 4.5 hours ahead of it.

As for the Hiawatha in MSP, it would turn and be back to CHI about an hour behind the last Hiawatha in the schedule (2200).

Did not hear this before. So what you are proposing is a route from SEA/PDX to MSP without the MSP to CHI branch (the most popular branch of the EB)?

http://www.narprail.org/site/assets/files/1038/trains_2014.pdf

So let's run a train almost 2000 miles and a day and a half without any of the largest Amtrak markets (the largest would be SEA and MSP) and run through two states almost no one lives? That would be the biggest waste of money and resources I've ever seen. I can think of about 50 more useful routes for the money you'd need to make this run.

What's your next proposal, a second CZ only between Nevada and Iowa?

 

[erierail]

Their a simpler solution to all of this. Mandate it by law with provisions to punish outliers rail companies to run Amtrak at regular track speed. In the Early years of Amtrak hosts roads did a much better job at on time performance.

Over time rail capacity had been reduced as well as duplicate routes have been abandoned.

But how difficult us it today to get one passenger train like the lake shore over the road on the current over padded schedules.

 

[neroden]

The problem is just because something seems [is] reasonable does not make it realizable in the current environment.

I'm not going to argue with that!
We are ruled by crazy people.

Single-payer health care is utterly reasonable, to the point where pretty much every country in the world is doing it, including Mexico. But not in the US, nooooo.

The converse is true too: completely unreasonable things *are* realizable in the current environment. It is completely unreasonable to spend 500 billion dollars a year on a military which loses every war it gets involved in, but they've been doing it for *decades*.

Ironically, on my last visit to the UK armed with a Britrail Pass, everything that went wrong was with the nationalized part of the system.

The entire system you were on, including the "privatized" part, is nationalized; all the tracks are owned by Network Rail, which is a government agency (as of the most recent court ruling!). Privatizing Railtrack has been acknowledged to be an abject failure by *everyone*.

The privatized parts worked exceptionally well. One should not generalize from that, but nationalization is no panacea. At the end of the day how well or poorly something is managed is what matters most.

Of course good management is what matters. That also involves good *structural design of the organization*, however... and it's become apparent that having companies which think of themselves as "freight railroads" hosting passenger trains run by other operators is a bad structure. Having companies (government or private) which think of themselves as "passenger railroads" hosting freight operators seems to work better. Corporate culture thing, I guess...

 

[neroden]

Canada is moving towards re-nationalization? News to me. CN was DE-nationalized. CP is talking about taking over NS, doesn't sound like a company on the verge of being nationalized. VIA is talking about getting their own, dedicated tracks, but those would be new, not nationalized CN or CP.

Is there something you can cite?

I'm looking at the bulk purchases of track by GO, AMT, and VIA. Municipalization (or "provincialization"?!?) is a more accurate name for the trend than nationalization, but that just means a different level of government.

 

[niemi24s]

It is completely unreasonable to spend 500 billion dollars a year on a military which loses every war it gets involved in, but they've been doing it for *decades*.

I almost puked after reading this. You have shot your mouth off and managed to offend everyone who has ever served this country in the military. You should retract this statement with an apology then study up on how the chain of command works: it's the elected officials that get the military involved in these conflicts.

Your statement is disgusting. :angry2:

 

[Bob Dylan]

Original withdrawn by popular request!

I totally agree with neroden's and jis' post about the military/ industrial complex, corrupt leaders(Dylan's "Masters of War!") and why we have no money for needed infrastructure including rail!

 

[neroden]

I'm not saying it isn't the elected officials. It is quite definitely the elected officials. (Though it's also the "revolving door" generals and colonels who cash in by going to work for military contractors. And appointed officials.)

The elected officials are also the ones spending the 500 billion dollars per year. And it certainly ain't going to the troops. (The DoD has never passed an audit, and it's been "required" to be audited for at least 30 years. Where IS the money going? Who knows? Truckloads of cash were literally shipped to Iraq and "lost".) At this point, I don't even think the higher-ups are *trying* to win -- after researching the released internal discussions of the last several wars, I don't think they even have a *definition* of winning. At this point, I think it's just a scheme to funnel more money to the military contractors. Gotta blow up the old bombs so you can sell new bombs.

I know what you'd do if you were actually trying to win some of these wars: it starts with intensively teaching the local languages to every single solider, so that it's possible for the troops on the ground to actually know what's going on and communicate with the people they're supposed to be "liberating". The generals and colonels who advised this sort of thing were, of course, forced out in the GW Bush administration if not earlier.

We have had generations of kids joining the military out of ideals of service, and discovering that, like Smedley Butler said, "War is a Racket". Nearly everyone who has served in the military in the last 40 years was hoodwinked, with the exception of those who were in on the racket. I wish we could end the racket. It is our elected officials, and appointed officials, and some of our corrupt high-level officers, who are insulting those who tried to serve in the military, and who have been insulting them for decades.

So, bluntly, Niemi24s, your puking is misdirected.

For $500 billion a year, we could make this a great country. Or, we could kill and maim honorable people who wanted to serve their country, with no positive results. Which have our leaders chosen? The latter. Which is why I say we are ruled by crazy people.

Sorry about the off-topic rant. But the situation absolutely infuriates me. My father pointed me to the literature in the World War I period about the "merchants of death" -- allegations that weapons manufacturers liked to cause unnecessary, protracted wars so that they could sell more weapons -- and damn, it fits today so well.

 

[niemi24s]

Re the comment about the military: . . .

Are you actually defending Neroden's comment or just trying to obfuscate what he said?

I find it highly inflammatory and think it should be expunged - either by Neroden or a moderator. And please don't try to placate me with your disclaimer: Although I'm a military veteran too, up until a hundred or so years ago my ancestors had their hands full trying to keep the Russians at bay!

 

[neroden]

Why do people assume when I say the US military is losing all the wars it gets into (a provable fact since the end of the Korean War with a total of 3 arguable exceptions) that I'm somehow attacking the enlisted men?

Wars are lost by Presidents and Generals. Often due to getting into wars which should never have been gotten into. If I didn't make that clear, I apologize.

 

[jis]

Re the comment about the military: . . .

Are you actually defending Neroden's comment or just trying to obfuscate what he said?

I find it highly inflammatory and think it should be expunged - either by Neroden or a moderator. And please don't try to placate me with your disclaimer: Although I'm a military veteran too, up until a hundred or so years ago my ancestors had their hands full trying to keep the Russians at bay!

I think the problem is that while we have won many spectacular battles over the decades (Yugoslavia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.), we have often failed to achieve the overall objective (if we bothered to specifically define one) since the fall of the iron curtain. And even before that we found ourselves on the wrong side of history in local conflicts, where we were actually fighting against forces that were trying to shed their colonial shackles rather than for them (e.g. Iran, Viet Nam, Bangladesh). This we did overtly or covertly many times including the shameless support of South African apartheid. All this did not earn us much favorable points with those that were struggling to get free, and none of this was our military's fault. They always performed well (barring a few unfortunate incidents of gross misbehavior).

But the bottom line is, I have no clue what all this has to do with "reversing course on Amtrak" either. I suppose one could argue that we are so busy bankrupting ourselves fighting random windmills like Don Quixote, our infrastructure at home is going to pot, Amtrak being part of that. Again, none of that is the military's fault. It is the fault of the overall Military-Industrial Complex, and the odd value system that it has been trying to propagate in the name of democracy and freedom. Very 1984-esque and "Animal Farm"-ish, sadly. And those were supposed to be caricatures of things that we were supposed to be fighting against.

 

[jebr]

Let's veer this back on topic, please.

 

[Lonestar648]

The original topic is "What if we reversed course and slowed Amtrak down?".

 

[jis]

Ironically, on my last visit to the UK armed with a Britrail Pass, everything that went wrong was with the nationalized part of the system.

The entire system you were on, including the "privatized" part, is nationalized; all the tracks are owned by Network Rail, which is a government agency (as of the most recent court ruling!). Privatizing Railtrack has been acknowledged to be an abject failure by *everyone*.

My point was that it is the tracks and infrastructure that did not work too well. The trains and service provided on them by privatized TOCs worked fine.

Actually these days the nationalized RailTrack is acknowledged to be a walking disaster and a den of incompetence. The whole electrification plan for the Great Western is in shambles with costs now having tripled from the original estimate provided by RailTrack - the nationalized entity, and likely to take twice the original time that was planned. Apparently the nationalized RailTrack is carrying on with the established traditions of the privatized RailTrack. Afterall half the managers did not change in the musical chairs when the transition back to nationalized form happened. If you happen to subscribe to "Modern Railways" or "Today's Railways" this would be crystal clear.

 

[Lonestar648]

Both Privatization and Nationalized have huge area of waste. In big corporations, you have the committees formed, to create a committee, to select a team, to make a simple decision just so everyone is CYA. I experienced this first hand when I could have made the decision myself in 30 days or less, but instead had go through a 2+ year process to accomplish the same result.

There are benefits from being Private and there are benefits from being nationalized, actually, neither is perfect, and neither totally solves the problem. In the end, from a Pro/Con list, which is the lesser of two evils. The UK has it system and the US another, so what works for one country most likely will not work for another.

 

[Ryan]

Slower Amtrak is never the answer. More Amtrak almost always is. Run enough trains along the line to ensure that everyone has service at a decent hour if you can find the money, but work on keeping the average speed up so that trip times remain somewhat reasonable.

It is completely unreasonable to spend 500 billion dollars a year on a military which loses every war it gets involved in, but they've been doing it for *decades*.

I almost puked after reading this. You have shot your mouth off and managed to offend everyone who has ever served this country in the military. You should retract this statement with an apology then study up on how the chain of command works: it's the elected officials that get the military involved in these conflicts.
Your statement is disgusting. :angry2:

Speak for yourself. This Veteran thinks that Neroden got it 100% right. Permission granted to exercise a modicum of reading comprehension and realize that his comments weren't directed at the average soldier. You claim that he's offended everyone who has ever served is laughable, since there are now more of us vets that agree with him than not.

 

[neroden]

But the bottom line is, I have no clue what all this has to do with "reversing course on Amtrak" either. I suppose one could argue that we are so busy bankrupting ourselves fighting random windmills like Don Quixote, our infrastructure at home is going to pot, Amtrak being part of that.

That was what I was trying to say, perhaps ineptly.

Again, none of that is the military's fault. It is the fault of the overall Military-Industrial Complex, and the odd value system that it has been trying to propagate in the name of democracy and freedom. Very 1984-esque and "Animal Farm"-ish, sadly. And those were supposed to be caricatures of things that we were supposed to be fighting against.

 

[Paul CHI]

The concept of eliminating slow/stopped sectors is very sound. I used to teach high school math, and gave my students the following problem, which they invariably got wrong:

"You have a 1/2 mile track. The goal is to cover 2 laps with an average speed of 60 mph. The first lap is done at 30 mph. How fast do you have to travel on lap 2 to make your average speed 60 mph?"

 

[Ryan]

They all guess 90?

To average 60 MPH over a mile, you have to do it in one minute.

If you do the first lap at 30 MPH, you've taken your whole minute and thus cannot achieve an average speed of 60 MPH over the mile?

 

[niemi24s]

At the completion of the first lap, accelerate instantaneously to ∞mph for the last lap? :blink: