Richard Anderson - Bloomberg article

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Interesting how he actually said outright that the sunset limited is his next target. There are probably ways in which he could get some of his changes through on this route especially if he tempted daily service for parts of this route. The question is where would a corridor make sense here?
 
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Interesting how he actually said outright that the sunset limited is his next target. There are probably ways in which he could get some of his changes through on this route especially if he tempted daily service for parts of this route. The question is where would a corridor make sense here?
Houston/San Antonio comes to mind...
 
It is shades of 1967-71 all over again. The Sunset was on the SP's hit list and now it appears to be on Amtrak's.

Something I have not seen mentioned is that once some of the other long distance trains are converted to luxury experiential trains, how many of us will be able to afford to ride them and will they cease to provide any normal non-experiential transportation along their routes?
 
Or is the status quo of the Western trains Anderson’s view of luxury (experimental) now. Compared to the east coast trains they are..

Who knows, but unfortunately I expect more downgrades and little to no upgrades while he’s at the helm.
 
Any reasonable corridor on the Sunset route would be less than 750 miles. Even with the PRIIA reauthorization approaching, do we really think that Anderson would give that up? State funding of corridor service is helping Amtrak "break even."
 
Isn't the SL the LD train that looses the most money, mainly because its triweekly? Not surprised its next on the hit list. UP will happily give Amtrak daily HOU-NOL, and LAX-PHX if it gets it off the rest of the line.
 
I’m all for adding some corridor city pairs on the Sunset route. LAX-PSP-PHX-TUC, HOU-NOL, etc but as most of us have said before in one form or another keep the long distance train (Sunset Limited) as the framework for the corridor to build upon. In this case it actually makes a lot of sense being only a 3 day a week train. The corridors would add daily service on the more heavily used segments of the route and the 3 day a week Sunset could fill in the dots for through passengers or passengers traveling to rural cities along the route.

The corridors could be single level equipment from new orders or Amfleet/Horizon they wouldn’t have to be compatible with the Super-liner Sunset. Once we loose city pairs they are gone. I expect a fight over the partial train off if that’s what he proposes.
 
This confirms my belief that someone (Gardner?) is making Anderson look like a fool. Anderson says "look at our financials..." as if the financials were genuine. We have a detailed White Paper showing that the route cost allocations are bogus, and everyone who has been around Amtrak for a while knows they're bogus.

Imcluding all of the state governments who pay Amtrak for service, most of whom are quite unhappy about the bogus unauditable accounting.

Mr. Anderson still seems to believe the cost allocations are real. How can we get it through his thick head that HE needs to see genuine, avoidable cost accounting in order to make sane decisions? As long as he bases his decisions on the phony allocated costs, he will look like an idiot and try to do stupid stuff.

Ideas for getting this one simple point through his head would be welcomed.
 
This confirms my belief that someone (Gardner?) is making Anderson look like a fool. Anderson says "look at our financials..." as if the financials were genuine. We have a detailed White Paper showing that the route cost allocations are bogus, and everyone who has been around Amtrak for a while knows they're bogus.

Imcluding all of the state governments who pay Amtrak for service, most of whom are quite unhappy about the bogus unauditable accounting.

Mr. Anderson still seems to believe the cost allocations are real. How can we get it through his thick head that HE needs to see genuine, avoidable cost accounting in order to make sane decisions? As long as he bases his decisions on the phony allocated costs, he will look like an idiot and try to do stupid stuff.

Ideas for getting this one simple point through his head would be welcomed.
The divisions of the costs may be baloney, but the net operating situation is fairly objective. It's sort-of like how you can mess around with profits and losses but cash flow is a lot harder to fake (which is part of why EBITDA is a thing).

One thing I'm thinking might be worth asking for at reauthorization is that if an Amtrak executive says that Amtrak "doesn't plan to" reduce frequencies, etc. on a given (National Network, non-state supported) route before Congress then Amtrak is so bound and can't even so much as issue a train-off notice for twelve months (let alone hack the train out).
 
I only see him getting a shot at doing this in Congress if he does it in such a way that all stations along the route maintain service. For example if he did an LAX - TUC and HOU - NOL corridor with daily (or more than daily service) and some type of minimal service (maybe a single thrice weekly train) to bridge the gap. That would get it more to his liking and would cut the traditional amenities out but then he could say he’s not dropping any stations. He could also still call it a single long distance corridor which might get him around PRIIA rules regarding state support. He failed with the Chief because he proposed a bus bridge and cut off rail service to several stops. But if he did it in such a way that every stop maintained some form of rail service he might find some more receptive folks on Capitol Hill. The big elephant in the room though is PRIIA itself. Unless Anderson breaks up these long distance routes into slimmer routes that still operate at 750 miles or do it in a way where he can call all these broken up pieces a single long distance corridor he’s either going to have to get congress to change PRIIA to allow Amtrak to setup shorter distance corridors without state support or get these states on board with these corridors. Do Louisiana. Texas, Arizona, and California really want to pay for these corridors he wants?

Several of Amtrak’s most important corridors (the Surfiner and Empire corridor come to mind) have huge expenses and operate at a pretty hefty loss but these states are willing to pay for them. But it is still a taxpayer subsidy even though Amtrak calls it revenue. The better performing corridors financially have service frequency that is more in line with demand from a business perspective. But if your look California and you want to run a major corridor with almost NEC like service frequency to get as many cars off the road as possible it’s most likely going to cost a lot - most markets don’t have the ridership potential the NEC does and don’t forget that the NEC has its capital expenses removed from the numbers and in reality costs more than any other part of the railroad.
 
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I think that Houston-San Antonio is probably the only city pair on the Sunset Route that are both large enough AND close enough, to sustain a multi schedule corridor...
 
I think that Houston-San Antonio is probably the only city pair on the Sunset Route that are both large enough AND close enough, to sustain a multi schedule corridor...
It's difficult to make a rational case for HOS-SAS as a multi-schedule corridor over these slow freight tracks. It would make a lot more sense as part of a new network that could compete favorably with flights and cars. That being said, even the privately funded high speed project has declined to make any such a move, possibly because we've banned new passenger rail from building on or over any public property.

Isn't the SL the LD train that looses the most money, mainly because its triweekly? Not surprised its next on the hit list. UP will happily give Amtrak daily HOU-NOL, and LAX-PHX if it gets it off the rest of the line.
I think the Sunset Limited deserves a chance to compete on equal footing before we declare it an unrecoverable failure. For instance, giving it daily service with daylight calling times at major cities.
 
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Quoting Anderson:
“Part of the problem is that the people that are the big supporters of long distance are all emotional about it. This is not an emotionally based decision. They should be reading our financials.”

You know what, I agree, we should read Amtrak's financials.

So share them.

End the speculation (and emotional responses, I guess) by embracing financial transparency and bringing everything out into the daylight.

But, because as the executive director of the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority pointed out on Capitol Hill just a few days ago... Amtrak won't even share their financials with their state customers who are paying Amtrak to operate services.

Maybe Congress can force financial transparency on Amtrak as part of their funding and reauthorization?

I won't hold my breath...
 
LA - Palm Springs.
LA - Tucson.

Speaking of Palm Springs, it slightly amazes me with all the extra service Amtrak California(and what CalTrans helps to support), that there isn't an extra scheduled train earlier in the day running east from LA to Palm Springs. And ditto with a later in the morning westbound train(vs. the Sunset Limited's schedule), from Palm Springs to LA. I guess what I'm thinking here is in a way like the Heartland Flyer, where at least there is one scheduled train daily in each direction.

And for the love of god, the Sunset Limited REALLY needs to be a daily train, and not just only 3 times a week! Shame on both Southern Pacific(back when they ran this train just before 1971), and also Amtrak for never upgrading this train beyond 3 days a week.
 
Speaking of Palm Springs, it slightly amazes me with all the extra service Amtrak California(and what CalTrans helps to support), that there isn't an extra scheduled train earlier in the day running east from LA to Palm Springs. And ditto with a later in the morning westbound train(vs. the Sunset Limited's schedule), from Palm Springs to LA. I guess what I'm thinking here is in a way like the Heartland Flyer, where at least there is one scheduled train daily in each direction.

And for the love of god, the Sunset Limited REALLY needs to be a daily train, and not just only 3 times a week! Shame on both Southern Pacific(back when they ran this train just before 1971), and also Amtrak for never upgrading this train beyond 3 days a week.
The plan is still to make the Texas Eagle a Daily Train from CHI-LAX with a Stub Train from SAS-NOL but between UPs Extortion Demands and the current LD Hating Amtrak Management this is Blowing in the Wind.
 
The plan is still to make the Texas Eagle a Daily Train from CHI-LAX with a Stub Train from SAS-NOL but between UPs Extortion Demands and the current LD Hating Amtrak Management this is Blowing in the Wind.
This August I had to change at San Antonio on the LAX-OKC segment of my Southwestern Circle trip. Reason was LAX-CHI coach sold out. Had a seat to myself on Train 2 AND an opportunity to stand around and watch the awkward operation in San Antonio.
 
Hmmmm, being that Anderson comes from an airline background, is he attempting to turn Amtrak into a "hub and spoke" system like the airlines have? Back in the day, more flights were nonstop and now trips with at least one stop are the norm. What I mean is that if the LD routes are converted into corridor services, would the segments represent "spokes" and major cities represent "hubs"?

Rail travel and air travel can't (and shouldn't) be treated the same way. They are apples and oranges.
 
Amtrak is already a hub and spoke system. There is nothing to turn about it.

The LD trains are inter hub links. He is simply trying to reduce the number of inter-hub links to claim success of some sort in adding a limited number of spokes maybe, if that. It is totally idiotic and has nothing to do with airline hub and spoke.
 
Back in the day, more flights were nonstop and now trips with at least one stop are the norm.
Nearly every flight is a nonstop flight from someone's perspective. Where I live we recently fielded more nonstop routes than anytime in the history of commercial aviation at my hometown airport, which dates back to the 1950's.
 
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