The Pennsylvanian Lives!

henryj said:

Paulus said:

The NEC can financially support itself without the long distance network and I did not suggest having the LD network fall apart. I said that it should receive less priority than the NEC and preferentially ought to be converted to a coach+cafe service.

And it's the attributes that EMUs bring with them that should win votes, especially their far superior acceleration, which means trip time reductions. A campaign of "Every train an Acela" does have the potential for political gain, especially if Amtrak is able to do studies and show that it would lead to increased ridership and revenues.

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Of course that is fantasy as it certainly cannot support itself. It is funded by Congress with tax money from all 50 states and by sloughing off it's overhead to the LD and State supported trains. On the other hand, if that position prevails, that is that the LD trains be converted to coach+cafe service, in other words rail based Greyhounds, then I would maintain that the NEC be supported by the states in which it runs as it is clearly under the 750 mile limit. It serves no one outside the northeast so why should we support it.

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I certainly have no objection to the various states supporting the Northeast Corridor; it would allow for better integration of the various non-spine services if nothing else. However,the idea that overhead from the NEC is simply "sloughed off" onto the long distance and corridor services is nothing more than foamer fantasy objecting to paying the actual costs of a glorified excursion train which is what sleeper service is. It certainly is not the "geographic equality" and rural to urban connecting service which Amtrak states as the rationale for long distance trains.

Paulus said:

henryj said:

Paulus said:

The NEC can financially support itself without the long distance network and I did not suggest having the LD network fall apart. I said that it should receive less priority than the NEC and preferentially ought to be converted to a coach+cafe service.

And it's the attributes that EMUs bring with them that should win votes, especially their far superior acceleration, which means trip time reductions. A campaign of "Every train an Acela" does have the potential for political gain, especially if Amtrak is able to do studies and show that it would lead to increased ridership and revenues.

Click to expand...

Of course that is fantasy as it certainly cannot support itself. It is funded by Congress with tax money from all 50 states and by sloughing off it's overhead to the LD and State supported trains. On the other hand, if that position prevails, that is that the LD trains be converted to coach+cafe service, in other words rail based Greyhounds, then I would maintain that the NEC be supported by the states in which it runs as it is clearly under the 750 mile limit. It serves no one outside the northeast so why should we support it.

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I certainly have no objection to the various states supporting the Northeast Corridor; it would allow for better integration of the various non-spine services if nothing else. However,the idea that overhead from the NEC is simply "sloughed off" onto the long distance and corridor services is nothing more than foamer fantasy objecting to paying the actual costs of a glorified excursion train which is what sleeper service is. It certainly is not the "geographic equality" and rural to urban connecting service which Amtrak states as the rationale for long distance trains.

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Then lets just spin off the NEC to a private company and set up the LD trains as a separate entity and see what happens. lol.

According to David Gunn the NEC is a harsh mess on trying to get an agreement on a fair allocation of costs and Amtrak is currently underwriting costs of the state commuter trains, so spinning off the NEC as an independent entity will be a bit a Herculean task.

Incidentally, from FY2004, indirect costs accounted for 16% of total long distance train costs (142.7/890.7M), 17.5% of state supported train costs (71.8/416M), 20.3% of other short distance train costs (37.5/184.3M), and 29.2% of Northeast Corridor train costs (200.1/684.2M). That doesn't strike me as "sloughing off" on the LD trains at all. Indeed, at a glance, the indirect costs for the Northeast Regional come near to matching those of the entire long distance train network for every year I've the information for.

One must remember that the charter of Amtrak is to provide a National Passenger Rail System (hence its official name NRPC). not just run a few corridors. Until that charter of Amtrak is changed one of its primary roles is to run the LD trains whether one or more of us like it or not. While I think there is a certain amount of partisan fantasy involved in both Henry's and Paulus's positions (and of course everyone should have a right to such), for instance I do not believe in Henry's pet "sloughing off theory" and I also do not believe in Paulus's "LD trains be damned theory". I think it is unproductive to bicker about such things. We have to figure out a way to work together to preserve both the LD system and the NEC and other corridors, given the limited resources available to us. Amtrak has managed to survive through all these years because of the existence of a very fragile coalition. People who do not understand the simple facts of this political reality and insist on building partisan castles in the sky ignoring such, IMHO are quite worthy of being ignored by those that seriously work on preseving a national passenger rail system in the US.

According to PRIIA inspired formulae, starting next year the Commuter agencies using the NEC will be paying higher fees, supposedly covering the actual cost of their operation more adequately. In return they will milk Amtrak for all it is worth in exchange for capital infusion for maintenance of the infrsatructure from non-Amtrak sources. It should be interesting to see how that plays out.

Part of the problem in figuring out what those costs actually are is the fact that on the NEC Infrastructure and Operations is not cleanly separated even now, and Amtrak has considerable leeway to play numbers games to its convenience. The only way to fix this is to operate the Insfrastructure part and the Operations part as two separate units that have to operate at arms length accounting for all service provided/consumed between them. unfortunately that is not the case today, and the numbers spewed out by Amtrak is often based on more shaky grounds than is desirable. It is this sort of lack of transparency that causes the Henry style conspiracy theories to thrive, but unfortunately it has been difficult to get the real numbers from Amtrak.

jis said:

One must remember that the charter of Amtrak is to provide a National Passenger Rail System

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Bingo. This, right here, is the sole reason for the existence of Amtrak and the foundation for every passenger rail system in the United States today.

NEC be damned. There is more to a National Passenger Rail System than just the NEC. It really aggravates me when Amtrak is summed up with this one, singular route. Crack open your eyes, people! Only a fraction (and a minority one, comparatively,) of the population lives on the NEC-served Eastern Seaboard. It is important, yes, but it is NOT the sole purpose of Amtrak. Nor should it EVER be. The LD systems are vital, IMHO, and I shall do my part as educator and citizen to prove this fact as long as I am able. I utilize them. So do millions of other passengers, and growing. And the many other corridor programs are becoming even more important as each year passes. I foresee a time when the NEC is no longer King (boy, will that be a day of serious denial!) and is relegated to "just another route" status. Actually, I welcome it. Not being vindictive here, just summing up that the world is bigger out of the fish bowl. One cannot survive without the other. Be glad we have what we do, and then realize that providing service to the greater good costs money. This includes sleepers. Vital for LD, multi-day trains to provide.

Blackwolf said:

I foresee a time when the NEC is no longer King (boy, will that be a day of serious denial!) and is relegated to "just another route" status.

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I don't think this is possible. The NEC will always have a disproportionately enormous section of the population and economy in a staggeringly small area.

jis said:

According to PRIIA inspired formulae, starting next year the Commuter agencies using the NEC will be paying higher fees, supposedly covering the actual cost of their operation more adequately. In return they will milk Amtrak for all it is worth in exchange for capital infusion for maintenance of the infrsatructure from non-Amtrak sources. It should be interesting to see how that plays out.
Part of the problem in figuring out what those costs actually are is the fact that on the NEC Infrastructure and Operations is not cleanly separated even now, and Amtrak has considerable leeway to play numbers games to its convenience. The only way to fix this is to operate the Insfrastructure part and the Operations part as two separate units that have to operate at arms length accounting for all service provided/consumed between them. unfortunately that is not the case today, and the numbers spewed out by Amtrak is often based on more shaky grounds than is desirable. It is this sort of lack of transparency that causes the Henry style conspiracy theories to thrive, but unfortunately it has been difficult to get the real numbers from Amtrak.

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How does the system employed in the UK compare as a possible model for this separation.....the government owning the railway, and private carrier's owning and operating the trains?

Alexandria Nick said:

Blackwolf said:

I foresee a time when the NEC is no longer King (boy, will that be a day of serious denial!) and is relegated to "just another route" status.

Click to expand...

I don't think this is possible. The NEC will always have a disproportionately enormous section of the population and economy in a staggeringly small area.

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I too support a National System, as Amtrak was originally created for.

That said.....if the worst case happens, and Amtrak is eliminated, the long distance trains will be gone, but the NEC will live on in some way or another....perhaps a consortium owned jointly by the various commuter agencies that now operate on different portions of it. They would still run their own portion, but share in a new authority running thru trains over the entire corridor.. Caltrans would probably do similar, and perhaps Chicago's RTA might take over some routes there. Also New York State on the Empire Corridor, and perhaps a few others. Long distance trains might survive as excursion's like the one between Vancouver and Calgary in Canada...

Anyway, let's hope we never get to that point, and we put our regional biases aside, and work together to save Amtrak as it is.....to quote a tag line used by the PRR back in it's hayday...."Serving the Nation".......

I can see such a situation, but only if Amtrak were to get a long-term hold on the CAHSR contracts and a few others. Even then, though, it would likely still be in the top very-small-number of lines (I can only see three other lines/systems that would have a shot at racking up that kind of ridership: CAHSR, SEHSR, and MIA-ORL-TPA; everything else would be a collection of lines or a main line and some feeders). But if that happens, then there's a good chance that the situation "on the ground" is driving NEC ridership far, far higher than it is now, too, and a lot of VA and SEHSR traffic is spilling onto the NEC (as well as Keystone, Empire, and New England traffic as well).

Paulus said:

AlanB said:

Amtrak couldn't even get Congress to pay for the new Viewliners and the ACS-64's; they had to get creative and borrow money to make that happen. No way they were getting 400 new EMU's out of Congress. And it's that increased revenue, along with hefty loans from the FRA, that allowed Amtrak to buy the Viewliners and the ACS-64 locos. Again, they weren't going to be able to do much more. In fact, at present with the sequestration and the continued hostility in the House towards Amtrak, I think it unlikely that Amtrak will even be able to exercise any of the options on the Viewliner's, much less all of them.

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It really depends on the case that you make. Viewliners and ACS-64 are more of the same, EMUs allow for a significantly better service which is more likely to win votes. In any event, using the increased revenues for loans on EMUs would have been a significantly better choice than using them on the ACS-64 or Viewliners in my opinion. Look at it from the stance of opportunity costs: the $764 million spent on ACS-64 and Viewliners could have bought 32 brand new state of the art 125mph capable EMU sets.

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It's highly likely the Acela 2 (or whatever they will call it) will be an emu.

However, you can't run a railroad like the NEC completely without locomotives as there are the various trains running to destinations outside the NEC (and outside the Keystone Corridor) and that requires changing engines. You can of course have a diesel engine pulling an emu (in France for a while they had a diesel pulling a TGV somewhere in Brittany and in the UK they did something similar with some Holyhead trains), but that's a lot of extra dead weight and realyl only makes sense when the diesel section of thes ervice is short compared to the electric section.

So I think that locomotives and cars are not going toi fade into history just yet and nor should they.

Of course you could argue, Amtrak is getting rather more ACS-64s than they need for these services, but on the other hand they are getting a single type rather than two, and this gives them flexibility to adapt in the future as service patterns change. You could compare this to Switzerland, where about 130 or so new high-speed capable Re460 locomotives were bought in the 1990s and many of these are now parts of semi-fixed consists with cab cars that have the same cab / front-end shape as the locomotives. So despite the transition from traditional locomotives and cars to semi-fixed consists, these newer locomotives were not a lost investment. Or look at Germany even where DB Regio has over recent years bought considerable numbers of engines and cab cars rather than EMUs, despite operating them as semi-fixed consists from day one.

Here is a little piece of coal for the firebox:

Bud Shuster's view on the future of the Pennsylvanian, according to Politico's Morning Transportation report from yesterday:

With Amtrak service through T&I Chairman Bill Shuster's district on to Pittsburgh preserved by a deal between Pennsylvania and the railroad, the next step in the chairman's view is to get those speeds up. The problem is less about the existing route needing subsidies, he recently told MT, but instead improving the viability of the route by making it quicker than driving. "We learned the lessons from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. How do you do it? You increase the speed, you get the time down to travel." He said driving from the state capital to Philly can take more than three hours, while the Keystone can do it in about 90 minutes. That's why when he goes to Philly, he drives to Harrisburg then takes the train into Center City - because right now service from points west of Harrisburg isn't frequent or fast enough to make the trip faster.

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The Davy Crockett said:

Good grief, Keith Laing :excl: Somebody needs a geography lesson :excl:
From this article in The Hill:

Amtrak has considered eliminating portions of the Pennsylvanian line, which runs from New York City to Harrisburg, Pa., with stops in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

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:blink: :blink: :blink:
And Mr. Laing, the author, probably thinks those are the only stops between New York and Harrisburg. :giggle:

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You mean we went through Pittsburgh on our trip to Harrisburg during the gathering. How'd I miss that? Oh, maybe it was when Penny was leading the yoga class. :giggle:

Alexandria Nick said:

Blackwolf said:

I foresee a time when the NEC is no longer King (boy, will that be a day of serious denial!) and is relegated to "just another route" status.

Click to expand...

I don't think this is possible. The NEC will always have a disproportionately enormous section of the population and economy in a staggeringly small area.

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Even that will change over time. The fastest growing cities today are no longer on the NEC, and at some point the percentage share of the economy and population attached to the NEC will similarly decrease, even if in absolute numbers the NEC will continue to grow or remain stable.

AmtrakBlue said:

The Davy Crockett said:

Good grief, Keith Laing :excl: Somebody needs a geography lesson :excl:

From this article in The Hill:

Amtrak has considered eliminating portions of the Pennsylvanian line, which runs from New York City to Harrisburg, Pa., with stops in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Click to expand...

:blink: :blink: :blink:
And Mr. Laing, the author, probably thinks those are the only stops between New York and Harrisburg. :giggle:

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You mean we went through Pittsburgh on our trip to Harrisburg during the gathering. How'd I miss that? Oh, maybe it was when Penny was leading the yoga class. :giggle:

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I think it was when we where all in the cafe car drinking heavily, but my memory is a wee bit hazy... :blush: Thing is, I do remember the_traveler buying the first three rounds with his AGR credit card "for the points"

:giggle:

Paulus said:

According to David Gunn the NEC is a harsh mess on trying to get an agreement on a fair allocation of costs and Amtrak is currently underwriting costs of the state commuter trains, so spinning off the NEC as an independent entity will be a bit a Herculean task.
Incidentally, from FY2004, indirect costs accounted for 16% of total long distance train costs (142.7/890.7M), 17.5% of state supported train costs (71.8/416M), 20.3% of other short distance train costs (37.5/184.3M), and 29.2% of Northeast Corridor train costs (200.1/684.2M). That doesn't strike me as "sloughing off" on the LD trains at all. Indeed, at a glance, the indirect costs for the Northeast Regional come near to matching those of the entire long distance train network for every year I've the information for.

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LD trains don't have any 'overhead'. They run on freight railroad tracks, usually only one train a day, no heavy security presence, no burden on the reservation system, no need for layers of management, no massive infrastructure to maintain, very few stations or agents, so even 16% is a high number. The lions share of overhead is dedicated to running the NEC where Amtrak owns and maintains the track. It's well known fact that Amtrak's accounting system is insufficient and outdated. I have done plenty of cost studies on these LD trains and they pretty much cover their operating costs. And they certainly don't lose 600 million dollars a year.

What were we discussing again?

henryj said:

LD trains don't have any 'overhead'. They run on freight railroad tracks, usually only one train a day, no heavy security presence, no burden on the reservation system, no need for layers of management, no massive infrastructure to maintain, very few stations or agents, so even 16% is a high number.

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What? I think you don't understand what overhead is. Do the LD trains run without maintenance shops, management, sales & marketing dept, ticket agents, human resource dept, accounting, financial, acquisition dept, training, engineering support, security staff, train stations, etc? No, they don't. The LD trains also likely take up a significant portion of the staff hours for the phone reservation system because sleepers, overnight trips, connecting trips are more complicated than a simple go on-line and buy a WAS to NYP corridor ticket. I'm not attacking LD trains, but the idea that LD trains have no overhead costs does not help the argument for LD trains.

This thread is getting waaaaay off-topic from the Pennsylvanian. Here we have news that Chairman Shuster is in favor of improvements to the Keystone West corridor and people want to argue aboutt EMUs, the NEC, Viewliners, ACS-64s, LD trains? :huh:

afigg said:

henryj said:

LD trains don't have any 'overhead'. They run on freight railroad tracks, usually only one train a day, no heavy security presence, no burden on the reservation system, no need for layers of management, no massive infrastructure to maintain, very few stations or agents, so even 16% is a high number.

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What? I think you don't understand what overhead is.

This thread is getting waaaaay off-topic from the Pennsylvanian.

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I fully understand overhead and costs. I am a CPA. I agree, this is waaaaaay off-topic.

NW cannonball said:

Apologies - my edit of my response turned into pages of utter html nonsense.
Probably "my-side error"

Reminding everyone that there are no "diesels" on any railroad in North America.

It's diesel-electric - the issue is the source of the power for the driver motors -

"Diesel" means "electric motors powered by a portable generator on wheels as part of the locomotive" like diesel-electric

"Electric" means "power for the electric motors that drive the train comes form a third rail or overhead wires"

Pedantic - but important.

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Not true and probably not real important, either. I believe all the Budd RDCs, including the ones rebuilt for the Trinity Railway Express, as well as Colorado Rail Car DMUs are direct drive or transmission driven diesel units - NOT Diesel-Electric.

Blanket statements are pointless.

AmtrakBlue said:

The Davy Crockett said:

Good grief, Keith Laing :excl: Somebody needs a geography lesson :excl:
From this article in The Hill:

Amtrak has considered eliminating portions of the Pennsylvanian line, which runs from New York City to Harrisburg, Pa., with stops in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Click to expand...

:blink: :blink: :blink:
And Mr. Laing, the author, probably thinks those are the only stops between New York and Harrisburg. :giggle:

Click to expand...

You mean we went through Pittsburgh on our trip to Harrisburg during the gathering. How'd I miss that? Oh, maybe it was when Penny was leading the yoga class. :giggle:

Click to expand...

I think we must have mistaken Pittsburgh for Three Mile Island...

VentureForth said:

NW cannonball said:

Apologies - my edit of my response turned into pages of utter html nonsense.
Probably "my-side error"

Reminding everyone that there are no "diesels" on any railroad in North America.

It's diesel-electric - the issue is the source of the power for the driver motors -

"Diesel" means "electric motors powered by a portable generator on wheels as part of the locomotive" like diesel-electric

"Electric" means "power for the electric motors that drive the train comes form a third rail or overhead wires"

Pedantic - but important.

Click to expand...

Not true and probably not real important, either. I believe all the Budd RDCs, including the ones rebuilt for the Trinity Railway Express, as well as Colorado Rail Car DMUs are direct drive or transmission driven diesel units - NOT Diesel-Electric.

Blanket statements are pointless.

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If transmission determines what type of engine it is and not the source of the motive power, then I suppose everything is mechanical at the end of the day, since no matter what, at the axle two wheels engage mechanically with each other and the driving wheel mechanically engages with the rail (well except for those pesky LIM drives ) no matter what the source of the power. No diesel, no electric nothing.... it is all mechanical

VentureForth said:

Blanket statements are pointless.

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Actually, there were a number of very pointed blanket statements in this thread:

sleeping car blankets and sheets

railiner said:

Alexandria Nick said:

Blackwolf said:

I foresee a time when the NEC is no longer King (boy, will that be a day of serious denial!) and is relegated to "just another route" status.

Click to expand...

I don't think this is possible. The NEC will always have a disproportionately enormous section of the population and economy in a staggeringly small area.

Click to expand...

I too support a National System, as Amtrak was originally created for.

That said.....if the worst case happens, and Amtrak is eliminated, the long distance trains will be gone, but the NEC will live on in some way or another....perhaps a consortium owned jointly by the various commuter agencies that now operate on different portions of it. They would still run their own portion, but share in a new authority running thru trains over the entire corridor.. Caltrans would probably do similar, and perhaps Chicago's RTA might take over some routes there. Also New York State on the Empire Corridor, and perhaps a few others. Long distance trains might survive as excursion's like the one between Vancouver and Calgary in Canada...

Anyway, let's hope we never get to that point, and we put our regional biases aside, and work together to save Amtrak as it is.....to quote a tag line used by the PRR back in it's hayday...."Serving the Nation".......

Click to expand...

God help us if that ever happened, SEPTA would probably take over the Keystone service.. Imagine 2-2,5 hours from Lancaster to Philadelphia? Bleh...

The Davy Crockett said:

Here is a little piece of coal for the firebox:

Bud Shuster's view on the future of the Pennsylvanian, according to Politico's Morning Transportation report from yesterday:

"We learned the lessons from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. How do you do it? You increase the speed, you get the time down to travel." He said driving from the state capital to Philly can take more than three hours, while the Keystone can do it in about 90 minutes.

Click to expand...

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It takes three hours to drive from Harrisburg to Philadelphia only if you try. The Keystone is faster than driving, but not that much faster.

DivMiler said:

The Davy Crockett said:

Here is a little piece of coal for the firebox:

Bud Shuster's view on the future of the Pennsylvanian, according to Politico's Morning Transportation report from yesterday:

"We learned the lessons from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. How do you do it? You increase the speed, you get the time down to travel." He said driving from the state capital to Philly can take more than three hours, while the Keystone can do it in about 90 minutes.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

It takes three hours to drive from Harrisburg to Philadelphia only if you try. The Keystone is faster than driving, but not that much faster.

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It depends where you're going in Philly and what time you're going - and if you run into an accident on the turnpike. Variables. Three hours does seem a bit excessive, though I can imagine during the biggest rush hours to get from downtown Harrisburg to downtown Philadelphia it might take that long.