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CHamilton

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Train Wars: The Passengers Strike Back

As you probably read in NARP's blog post yesterday, the House attached several anti-passenger train amendments onto the House transportation funding bill at the last second. NARP needs your help to let the House know America’s passengers are paying attention. We’re also asking you to help us turn back these awful amendments in the Senate.

The amendments in question would cut the lowest-performing long distance route—the Sunset Limited—and eliminate food and beverage on long distance trains. Certain members of Congress just don’t get it: you can’t cut your way to a functioning transportation system. It’s not working for roads, it’s not working for air travel, and it’s not working for trains....

Trains are in an especially precarious position: after decades of underinvestment the system is already so skeletal that further reductions will make it unworkable. As we know from the past: the savings from cutting a train from the network are overwhelmed by overhead costs spread across a fewer number of passengers. If Congress kills the Sunset, there will be an immediate effect on the network; the Texas Eagle will bring in less revenue with the loss of the through-cars to Los Angeles, and the Crescent and City of New Orleans will see their revenues fall through the loss of connecting passengers, and their costs rise when they become the sole occupants of the New Orleans terminal. If food is cut, there’s no telling how many Amtrak customers will be scared away. The House is trying hard to make Amtrak less efficient with these cuts.

Keep in mind, the House is spending precious time running Amtrak through the wringer for millions while they work to find $100 BILLION with which to subsidize the Highway Trust Fund, which is set to go bankrupt in August.

NARP needs your help! There are two steps America’s passengers must take to undo this damage:
  • Let the House know that you’re paying attention, and you’re angry that these Amtrak-killing provisions were passed. (Better still, call your Representative today)
  • The Senate is taking up the transportation spending bill next week. Click here to ask them to turn back any anti-train amendments (or better still, call your Senators)

Together, train passengers can build a truly world-class passenger rail system to keep America moving!
 
If Congress kills the Sunset, there will be an immediate effect on the network; the Texas Eagle will bring in less revenue with the loss of the through-cars to Los Angeles, and the Crescent and City of New Orleans will see their revenues fall through the loss of connecting passengers, and their costs rise when they become the sole occupants of the New Orleans terminal.
Serious questions: How many Texas Eagle through car passengers would be affected (and what is the associated loss in expense as the through cars are eliminated)? Further, just how many transfers are there between the Sunset Limited and the Crescent (Amtrak.com does not show a valid booking of a transfer between the Sunset Limited and the City of New Orleans)? It's an overnight hotel stay at one's own expense and there are only 27,783 boardings or alightings of the Sunset Limited in New Orleans anyhow; I find it doubtful that such transfers would amount to anything more than a rounding error in the revenues for the affected trains.

If food is cut, there’s no telling how many Amtrak customers will be scared away.
If there's no telling, then it may very well be be none of them. Why hasn't NARP done market research to see what the effect might be upon long distance train ridership? Food and beverage service has been under attack for more than 30 years, they've had plenty of time and plenty of fundraising opportunity to sponsor a study which would let them go "Hey, getting rid of dining car service on the long distance trains would cut ridership by X% and revenue by Y%."
 
I will tell my congress critters what I think:

Dear Sir:

Your collection of your salary is a fraud constituted on the American people. Please remit yourself to prison.

Sincerely,

GML
 
Why hasn't NARP done market research to see what the effect might be upon long distance train ridership?
Because Amtrak *already* did that research and concluded that cutting dining car service would hurt the bottom line substantially. Many years ago. This hasn't changed. I suppose I could try to dig up the references.
Dining car service could be replaced by introduction of an alternative method of food service delivery of comparable quality. Which I'd support, but isn't being done. They could try pre-ordering for meals, which they haven't, or implementing point of sale, which they haven't. Unfortunately one of the best candidates for such alternative service -- fresh meals shipped on at stations -- does not work due to the trains not running on time, which really is the core problem for Amtrak.
 
I'm fortunate enough to have my Rep on the House Budget Committee (and Ways and Means) and he's a strong supporter of Amtrak! The Texas Delegation has strong Support in Districts where Amtrak runs but Texas' two Senators, hopeless!
 
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Why hasn't NARP done market research to see what the effect might be upon long distance train ridership?
Because Amtrak *already* did that research and concluded that cutting dining car service would hurt the bottom line substantially. Many years ago. This hasn't changed. I suppose I could try to dig up the references.
Please do.
 
For what it is worth: I too am a NARP member along with assorted other rail-support groups. I must confess to becoming quite weary of communicating with Congressional staffers and the like who take the information but you just know they haven't a clue regarding the subject matter. No, I am not giving up, but feel like throwing up when it comes to things Congressional.
 
One of the dangers of allowing the "lowest-performing" route to die is that there will always be a lowest-performing route.

So, this year they kill the Sunset, next year they kill the Cardinal, then the next year the Eagle, then the Lake Shore, etc.
 
Pfui. The Sunset is the worst performing train by a vast margin.
You're not actually disputing anything. You're just performing your usual function as a perpetually disinterested self appointed advisor who hates seeing others take action. What are you even doing in here? You obviously don't take any of this seriously. Go find a topic you care enough about to post something worthwhile and spend your time in there.
 
No, I'm arguing that the slippery slope argument disregards the nature of the statistics.
 
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No, I'm arguing that the slippery slope argument disregards the nature of the statistics.
And I argue that your dismissal of it disregards the nature of Washington politics. If anyone thinks that the antis will be satisfied when the Sunset goes away, they obviously haven't been paying attention.
 
At NARP's "Day on the Hill" last month, I asked both staffers, and the two elected officials I briefly met, if "letters and phone calls" really do any good.

Now, they could have been feeding me a line of BS, but each office/official adamantly stated that they "pay attention" to how many letters, emails, and especially phone messages that they get on every topic. Fact is, they have staff that do almost nothing else than compile these stats for them, on a daily basis.

A couple of them mentioned that the only thing that really doesn't weigh heavy is the sort of "Email petition" that web users simply add their name too.

US Snail Mail personal letters get read, by someone, and a select few are passed on to the elected officials. I came away with the impression that phone calls and individual emails, were far more "important" than I would have thought.

Of course, HUGE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS get their attention too. Are you listening Kawasaki? CAF? Bombardier? Siemens? :giggle:
 
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From my understanding of these offices, what generally happens is that every call, letter, or not-copied email that they get generates a "tick" on a chart. Those "tick marks" do count and are taken into account, but that's really what a call or email gets you: An entry on a tick sheet.
 
Why hasn't NARP done market research to see what the effect might be upon long distance train ridership?
Because Amtrak *already* did that research and concluded that cutting dining car service would hurt the bottom line substantially. Many years ago. This hasn't changed. I suppose I could try to dig up the references.
Please do.
Most of the references, including all of the ones with detailed information, were from testimony from before everything was put on the web as a matter of course, so it's not going to be easy to find them.

However, the most recent is testimony of Thomas Hall in 2013:

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/62/218/Amtrak-Customer%20Service%20Chief-Hall-House-Oversight%20Govt%20Reform-Nov-14-2013,0.pdf

Studies have shown that elimination of the food and beverage services on Amtrak trains would cost more in terms of revenue than is spent on the existing service.
 
Yeah, I'm a little frustrated at not being able to find the studies from the 1990s, which actually had pretty clear results, but I'm not surprised -- a lot of stuff from the 1990s isn't on the web. I'm sure those are the studies Mr. Hall is referring to.

The bottom line is, you don't need service exactly like the current dining cars, but people demand real meals and they have to be substantially higher quality than the current "cafe cars".

People WILL stop riding if they can't get suitable food. Fact. Removing said food is a revenue-killer.

I was very curious about the results of the "buffet service" which was tried a couple of times, because on the whole people don't particularly care about having waiters. Apparently there were problems with it though.
 
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A good portion of the problem had to do with the fact that the average person is not competent at carrying cafeteria style trays of open food through moving trains.
 
Hopefully no-one will ask for the SP Inspired "Automat" Vending Machine Food Cars to be brought back!

I can envision a day when the airline style pre-prepared meals served off a cart and you will be able to order when you make your rez! Of course they'll just be snack type meals, nothing freshly prepared or cooked to order but economics will eventually require this or even contracting out food service!

Thank the Micro Managers in Congress when this happens!
 
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The Piedmont route is short, and short means lower standards for food.

Honestly, if we could just get the trains to run *on time*, we could use the Indian method of having fresh food pre-ordered, cooked at local restaurants, and brought on board at stops. I'm pretty sure that would be satisfactory to everyone, and it would probably even be considered an upgrade. (Probably would have been harder in the 1990s when cellphones were less common.)

But I don't see any way to make it work if the trains don't run on time. Dammit. Which gets me back to my usual hobbyhorse: OTP.
 
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