Replying to Lawmaker Wants To Put Amtrak Service Up For Bid

Bad ideas in the railroad world seem to have a cycle of between 30 and 40 years. Why? Because the people that got burned by them in their previous incarnation have retired and the younger guys don't know what is about to happen.

It's not just the railroading world -- a lot of bad ideas come back in the Defense Industry, particularly the shipbuilding industry for warships. Everyone seems to get it into their head that a short, fat planing hull works; or that a multi-hull warship would be great!!! every 18-20 years.

I've seen some studies on there being a similar tendency within the stock market, too (the late 1920s, late 1960s, and late 1990s/mid 2000s all had a lot in common). On a similar note, I've seen much shorter cycles in student organizations at colleges...I was in the William and Mary College Republicans for nearly a decade (they let me in when I was in 8th grade, and I stayed at least marginally involved until I graduated), and I saw a boom-bust cycle run about 4-5 years. It's tied to institutional memory getting cycled out...something about not learning from history (and that coming about from lacking people on staff who were there).

To solve this problem, hire elves.


RCrierie,
The biggest problem I see with what you suggest is that a lot of those routes don't make money. You've got a couple of regional routes with higher CR numbers, but once you get outside the Northeast Regional/Acela routes (note that LYH-WAS and NPN-WAS fall in here) nothing turns a regular profit. This is not to say that a privatized entity might not be able to, in the present environment, push a couple of those routes into the black with higher fares...but without a reasonable guarantee, you'd be handing the private sector control of something they by and large don't want to have there. Now, if you gave the RR's tax incentives to run passenger operations (and/or subsidized losses up to a certain point), you might be able to make something work in some areas...but the big problem is that the passenger operations will get shoved aside the minute they need those tracks for freight shipping.

As to financing, outside of an economic boom I can't see banks putting money into something that hasn't turned a profit in the US in a long time. In your example, Eastern Airlines might have been in trouble, but you had a bunch of lines that were profitable as well...the industry wasn't all in the red. With passenger rail, you might be able to get some kind of loan at an awful rate without government backing...but I suspect that would involve going to people whose names end in vowels.

Bad ideas in the railroad world seem to have a cycle of between 30 and 40 years. Why? Because the people that got burned by them in their previous incarnation have retired and the younger guys don't know what is about to happen.

It's not just the railroading world -- a lot of bad ideas come back in the Defense Industry, particularly the shipbuilding industry for warships. Everyone seems to get it into their head that a short, fat planing hull works; or that a multi-hull warship would be great!!! every 18-20 years.

I think Amtrak has to privatize completely in order to be workable.

In the 1980s, Frank Borman (of Apollo 8 fame) was able to get loans worth quite a lot today (I would have to check his autobiography with Robert Serling for details) to buy 20+ Airbus A300s -- and this was with an airline (Eastern) which was losing money / in a poor financial position.

Sure, the loans and other budgetary items that Amtrak gets from the Federal government for rolling stock are far cheaper than any loan possible in the private sector; but they limit Amtrak to the whims of whoever controls the US Government at the time.

Since Joe Biden is VPOTUS, Amtrak's been riding relatively high with new government support/funding, etc.

But what happens when Slow Joe is no longer VPOTUS? We go back to the way things were.

Same thing with High Speed Rail. HSR is "sexy" to the politicians; but makes little business sense due to the enormous costs you need to sink into it.

Going private would give Amtrak a lot more options regarding their future fleet status, instead of having to chase whatever the politicans think at any one moment -- and instead focus on long term fleet renewal, allowing existing routes to have capacity added back to them.

Ideally, in my IDEAL WORLD [tm]; the freight railroads would get megabuck tax breaks or writeoffs if they offered passenger/commuter rail service over their lines at an acceptable level of service, whether through "in house" or contracted out.

Outside the NEC, Amtrak could operate similarly to how the Pullman company worked in the good old days -- offer the freight railroads a turnkey solution for passenger rail; instead of the RRs having to keep all that experience and rolling stock "in house".

Naturally, the contracted out trains would be in the freight railroads' "fallen flags" colors.

Your right i don't , i think outside the box. I'm part of a growing movement of Modern Rail Fanners , Rail planners ,and your Rail Employees who want Change. Our system is the laughing stock of the entire planet , part of the problem is politicians but the other problem is the older employees who don't want change and fight it. The older Employees are just as bad as some of the Anti-Rail politicians....

"Thinking outside the box" is a cliche, an extremely tired one. Thinking must be done within the box defined as the possible. Thinking must also be done understanding many complicated and detailed things that may not be obvious. John Mica is, and has always been, anti-rail. I am automatically wary of any idea he has concerning changes to the system, since I tend to assume his intentions are not benign to the overall system.

Well said, GML.

Have had some very interesting discussions concerning ways of doing things and what should be done, and am finding that it is the old guys that are more likely to be willing to give something new and different a shot. Also, it tends to be the old guys that recognize the likelyhood that the current latest and best and gone as far as we can go with something is truly as good as it gets is most likely wrong. Why? Because we have seen latest and best change several times over the years. Also, we been around the block a few times and have learned that ideas that deny the basic laws of physics and economics won't work no matter how good they sound, and have also seen the "revealed wisdom" on quite a few things proven false. Also, because a lot of know that new, shiney, and promoted as the greatest and best idea to ever come down the road does not make it so.

It is also worth noting that the phrase, "those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is very true in all areas. Bad ideas in the railroad world seem to have a cycle of between 30 and 40 years. Why? Because the people that got burned by them in their previous incarnation have retired and the younger guys don't know what is about to happen.

Having said that, it is also very important to know why something was a failure. It could be a problem in detail, not in concept. If so, that may be fixable. If it is a problem in concept, regardless of how good it looks, walk away.

Some problems are much more complex than they appear. Some problems are much simpler than they appear. It takes a certain amount of wisdom to know which is which.

When the Japanese opened their first Shinkansen line in 1964, the revealed wisdom was that a speed on rails in the range of about 110 to 130 mph was about as fast as it was practical to run. That is why they originally designed for about 210 km/h. That was regarded as "pushing the envelope" at that time. At this point, 220 mph is not truly pushing the envelope of the reasonably possible.

I am totally unimpressed with the current with the current panic on "global warming" Why? Because 40 years ago the panic was "global cooling" including such dire predictions as massive extinctions and a drop in average temperature by the turn of the century, that being the year 2000, folks, the average temperature on this planet would drop 11 degrees F. Did not happen. Why should we expect the current run of predictions, many from the same organizations, to be any more accurate?

Yes, we should reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, yes we should be looking toward geothermal and other practical alternative energy sources, but not because the plant is heating up but because the easy and cheap to get oil and gas is gone and for much of it we are sending massive amounts of money to the most irratonal and repressive governments on this plant to get the fuel we use.

As it is, if the reason being used to justify reduced fuel usage is discredited, it will in the minds of many also indicate that there is not need to be concerned about fuel consumption.

*sigh* Change for the sake of change tends to be two things: Expensive and incompetent. At best, some versions of reworking Amtrak services might get a bunch of new rolling stock (if you load it into the bid deal as a requirement)...but even that is unlikely.

I won't disagree with there being a case that can be made for reworking parts of the system. If you take the whole "megaregion" idea that a lot of folks are enamored with, I think you can make a good case for a short-haul passenger rail network at 110-125 MPH within each region combined with overnight or day-long trains connecting regions to one another. That is...well, at a slower speed, that's what we used to in effect have (along with a lot of other rail service). Five of the eastern ones (NEC, parts of Piedmont-Atlantic, Florida, Texas Triangle, and the Great Lakes) are possibly doable, and you can probably throw in the Front Range if you can tighten up the CZ's timetable by an hour or two. The western ones are too far off from these to really be workable (ABQ-LAX is too small of a market, and Denver is too damn far out to make work even with a pretty good HSR line going through flyover country), but with the eastern ones...I think you could work off of hubs in Orlando, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Dallas (and possibly some secondary hubs).

The rub is that this would involve Congress getting some idea of "the vision thing" with rail...something that they just don't have on a sustained basis.

That, and you'll have the case of Western Senators not agreeing with Eastern Senators. Sure, HSR would work east of I-35 and in some booming regions on the West Coast, but the geographical inequality wouldn't go over well politically.
Think about it like this. What if the EU was actually a real country back in the 1970s and had a senate like here in the US? France probably won't be able to build their first HSR line because some other senator from Iceland didn't think it represented his consistutates and that the EU would never be able to build an HSR line from Moscow to Reykjavik, cause it'd cost too much and people would rather fly the distance? France can't build their HSR line, the Western Europe HSR system is never built, passenger rail in Europe declines to several skeletal routes, most Europeans fly or drive between cities, etc.

Sounds like what's happening over here in America, right? People thinking America isn't dense enough for HSR because they either live in a western state or the countryside, that HSR from NYC to LA won't work, they elect leaders with those views, etc etc.

I'll avoid the "dense enough" jokes for now...

The answer, plain and simple, is not pretty...but to use your EU example, I'd throw in a fancy RR-to-nowhere running from Berlin through Warsaw and then up the Baltic Coast, and I'd make sure that you had some sort of line to rope the Benelux folks in. You'd need a bit of sausage-making to take place, but that's politics.

In the case of the US, I'd drag Nevada onboard with a line into Las Vegas, and I'd push the lines west with some shorter links into Nebraska and Kansas (Omaha, Topeka, and Wichita leap to mind as places I'd plug in)...and then your opposition would be limited to a batch of "flyover country" Senators you could logroll with something (maybe cut them a good deal on highway funding or something like that). Yes, you hang ornaments on the tree (or put some presents under it with another bill)...such is life. We've done it for long enough on highway bills, after all.

Of course, another outcome to the Europe scenario is that France comes up with some taxes to sneak in through the back door, builds their line, and rolls their eyes when Iceland complains. Oddly enough, your scenario makes a strong argument for pushing things more to the state level...which would be fine if urban areas generally conformed to national boundaries. The NE Regional runs through nine states and the Acela through eight. Without a national organization, I don't think you'd even have that much.

Your right i don't , i think outside the box. I'm part of a growing movement of Modern Rail Fanners , Rail planners ,and your Rail Employees who want Change. Our system is the laughing stock of the entire planet , part of the problem is politicians but the other problem is the older employees who don't want change and fight it. The older Employees are just as bad as some of the Anti-Rail politicians....

"Thinking outside the box" is a cliche, an extremely tired one. Thinking must be done within the box defined as the possible. Thinking must also be done understanding many complicated and detailed things that may not be obvious. John Mica is, and has always been, anti-rail. I am automatically wary of any idea he has concerning changes to the system, since I tend to assume his intentions are not benign to the overall system.

I am not an older employee, Nexis. I'm 26 years old, and a rail advocate who has a very real reason for wanting improved transportation in this country- I am slowly going blind, and within the next few decades, will need to depend on the mass transit infrastructure this country has to offer. I do more than sit around on internet forums pontificating on the absurd.

I know many, and know of practically all influential people in my state regarding rail. I have spent my time reading into and understanding not just what people want to do, but the political waters that have to be navigated in order to do them. If you think public opinion is a major deciding factor in what gets done in New Jersey, you have another think coming. The system is a mares nest of corrupt politicians, political patrons, and large organizations that want the best legislators money can buy to further their interests.

Politicians in New Jersey (and elsewhere) care first about getting reelected, second about lining their pockets solidly when doing it, third about making sure their friends are taken care of, and fourth, to a small extent, what their voters want. If you think your ideas are plausible, you need a padded cell.

*sigh* Change for the sake of change tends to be two things: Expensive and incompetent. At best, some versions of reworking Amtrak services might get a bunch of new rolling stock (if you load it into the bid deal as a requirement)...but even that is unlikely.

I won't disagree with there being a case that can be made for reworking parts of the system. If you take the whole "megaregion" idea that a lot of folks are enamored with, I think you can make a good case for a short-haul passenger rail network at 110-125 MPH within each region combined with overnight or day-long trains connecting regions to one another. That is...well, at a slower speed, that's what we used to in effect have (along with a lot of other rail service). Five of the eastern ones (NEC, parts of Piedmont-Atlantic, Florida, Texas Triangle, and the Great Lakes) are possibly doable, and you can probably throw in the Front Range if you can tighten up the CZ's timetable by an hour or two. The western ones are too far off from these to really be workable (ABQ-LAX is too small of a market, and Denver is too damn far out to make work even with a pretty good HSR line going through flyover country), but with the eastern ones...I think you could work off of hubs in Orlando, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Dallas (and possibly some secondary hubs).

The rub is that this would involve Congress getting some idea of "the vision thing" with rail...something that they just don't have on a sustained basis.

That, and you'll have the case of Western Senators not agreeing with Eastern Senators. Sure, HSR would work east of I-35 and in some booming regions on the West Coast, but the geographical inequality wouldn't go over well politically.
Think about it like this. What if the EU was actually a real country back in the 1970s and had a senate like here in the US? France probably won't be able to build their first HSR line because some other senator from Iceland didn't think it represented his consistutates and that the EU would never be able to build an HSR line from Moscow to Reykjavik, cause it'd cost too much and people would rather fly the distance? France can't build their HSR line, the Western Europe HSR system is never built, passenger rail in Europe declines to several skeletal routes, most Europeans fly or drive between cities, etc.

Sounds like what's happening over here in America, right? People thinking America isn't dense enough for HSR because they either live in a western state or the countryside, that HSR from NYC to LA won't work, they elect leaders with those views, etc etc.

*sigh* Change for the sake of change tends to be two things: Expensive and incompetent. At best, some versions of reworking Amtrak services might get a bunch of new rolling stock (if you load it into the bid deal as a requirement)...but even that is unlikely.

I won't disagree with there being a case that can be made for reworking parts of the system. If you take the whole "megaregion" idea that a lot of folks are enamored with, I think you can make a good case for a short-haul passenger rail network at 110-125 MPH within each region combined with overnight or day-long trains connecting regions to one another. That is...well, at a slower speed, that's what we used to in effect have (along with a lot of other rail service). Five of the eastern ones (NEC, parts of Piedmont-Atlantic, Florida, Texas Triangle, and the Great Lakes) are possibly doable, and you can probably throw in the Front Range if you can tighten up the CZ's timetable by an hour or two. The western ones are too far off from these to really be workable (ABQ-LAX is too small of a market, and Denver is too damn far out to make work even with a pretty good HSR line going through flyover country), but with the eastern ones...I think you could work off of hubs in Orlando, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Dallas (and possibly some secondary hubs).

The rub is that this would involve Congress getting some idea of "the vision thing" with rail...something that they just don't have on a sustained basis.

Your right i don't , i think outside the box. I'm part of a growing movement of Modern Rail Fanners , Rail planners ,and your Rail Employees who want Change. Our system is the laughing stock of the entire planet , part of the problem is politicians but the other problem is the older employees who don't want change and fight it. The older Employees are just as bad as some of the Anti-Rail politicians....

Change for the sake of change is worse that the status quo.

Unless you can demonstrate that the changes that you propose are realistic and would actually help the situation you're just wasting everyone's time.

I think the NE Division of Amtrak could survive and become very profitable for a company , if the FRA got rid of the weight regs , Horn rules , and Freight sharing rules. They need to get into the 21st century , and accept the fact that lighter trains are no more dangerous then heavier trains. PTC should be mandatory for all NE Railroads.... I think SNCF , or JR East could run and expand Amtrak NE into the 21st century.

Why do I read your posts? I haven't bought stock in Bayer recently. The problems surrounding Amtrak are so complex, I doubt you can list them in a book less than an inch thick. No silver bullet exists. People could write tomes about Amtrak's problems and how to solve them- and have.

Nexis, I think it would be safe to say that you do not work in the railroad industry, at least not in North America.

He doesn't work in reality. But more so, Nexis seems to not listen to anything those of us with knowledge and experience say... so what's the point of arguing with him

Wouldn't not reading the article be an "exhibition in ignorance" itself?

Not automatically. I am in the glove and safety industry and probably know enough about hand, ear, eye, face, arm, fall and visibility protection that you'd need to take a week long course just to understand some of the things I could tell you I know about the industry and its products. You wouldn't need to know that information- ever- so if the New York Times writes and article on the subject, it is going to be dumbed down (and generally inaccurate) so that its readers can understand it without a crash course in the finer details of what they are talking about.

George is in the rail industry. Him reading an article about the rail industry in a national newspaper would be like me reading about gloves in one. He gets his knowledge about the trade from the trade, just like I do with mine. Reading any article outside of our trade for that purpose is only useful for understanding what the public perspective on it is. That article just continues to confirm that the public and politicians are woefully lacking of knowledge in the mechanics of running a railroad passenger service. Since it illustrates nothing industry insiders and well-informed advocates don't already know, reading it is a waste of time.

Not reading something because it quickly becomes obvious that it is an exposition of ignorance, or because you know the nature and mindset of the author is not ignorance, it is avoidace of wasting time.

Amen.74

Your right i don't , i think outside the box. I'm part of a growing movement of Modern Rail Fanners , Rail planners ,and your Rail Employees who want Change. Our system is the laughing stock of the entire planet , part of the problem is politicians but the other problem is the older employees who don't want change and fight it. The older Employees are just as bad as some of the Anti-Rail politicians....