Could Amtrak also haul frieght?

It is my understand that Amtrak hauls at least some packages on their various runs? Is there any reason they could not haul some larger freight items? Obviously they wouldn't want to haul any volatile chemicals or anything dangerous but certainly there are some larger items that could be hauled safely.

With all of the problems with funding it seems they need other ways to generate revenue.

Problems I see with this idea is logistics. The people train might not go where the freight needs to go. The other issue I see is the delays it would take to be loaded at their pickup point or off load those larger items once they get to their destination.Passengers might not want to put up with that on top off the regular delays there are in the system. I would imagine the things they do haul now is designed to be pretty quickly off loaded or loaded.

Has Amtrak ever looked into other ways revenue can be generated? Maybe getting other types of businesses?

Been there. Done that. It did make some routes profitable and it was responsible for more routes being added (Kentucky cardinal, three rivers, and the announced but never operated Crescent Star).

It delayed trains when switching cars on and off (similar to the private car issue), and also prohibited Amtrak from taking shorter passing sidings which meant longer waits for freight trains at passing sidings that could accommodate them.... Which meant much later trains in general.

There was also the issue with competing with the class I freights they were Paying to operate a passenger train on.

Amtrak has looked at it. Tried it, and been burned by it badly. Unlikely to happen again. It is not part of Amtrak's charter anyway.

crescent-zephyr said:

Been there. Done that. It did make some routes profitable and it was responsible for more routes being added (Kentucky cardinal, three rivers, and the announced but never operated Crescent Star).

It delayed trains when switching cars on and off (similar to the private car issue), and also prohibited Amtrak from taking shorter passing sidings which meant longer waits for freight trains at passing sidings that could accommodate them.... Which meant much later trains in general.

There was also the issue with competing with the class I freights they were Paying to operate a passenger train on.

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Yeah I knew but didn't consider the fact it was the freight's tracks. I could see where that would make things dicey. I guess Amtrak would really only be able to haul what the freight lines did not want to haul. Or the freight lines would sub contract out.

What did they haul? Did they have boxcars or flatbeds? Or just haul in their own baggage car type car?

They had a whole fleet of Boxcars which were called Material Handling Cars, and some of which had a sad habit of derailing when running empty at passenger train speeds too! They were all disposed off after Gunn terminated not only that business, but also any remaining Postal Business that Amtrak had. All that stayed around was the Package Express business carried in regular baggage cars, which is still around AFAIK.

Oh yeah, Amtrak also played around with Roadrailers for a while too.

If you do a google images search for "Amtrak express freight" you'll see some pictures of the old box cars.

They hauled "express freight" so they had box cars and refrigerator cars. The idea was certain customers would pay extra for faster delivery.

I wonder if CSX got worried that Tropicana would ditch them and go to Amtrak....

Amtrak had MHCs, boxcars, roadrailers, and refrigerated boxcars (they carried apples from Washington State).

I'd question the claim that it made some routes profitable. It did result in a couple of routes getting added/extended, and others making it to the proposed timetable stage, but the significant added costs probably ate up any extra revenue they got.

jis said:

They had a whole fleet of Boxcars which were called Material Handling Cars, and some of which had a sad habit of derailing when running empty at passenger train speeds too! They were all disposed off after Gunn terminated not only that business, but also any remaining Postal Business that Amtrak had. All that stayed around was the Package Express business carried in regular baggage cars, which is still around AFAIK.

Oh yeah, Amtrak also played around with Roadrailers for a while too.

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Don't know if it was Amtrak way back when but my dad worked on a postal car between Pittsburgh and Chicago.

spinnaker said:

jis said:

They had a whole fleet of Boxcars which were called Material Handling Cars, and some of which had a sad habit of derailing when running empty at passenger train speeds too! They were all disposed off after Gunn terminated not only that business, but also any remaining Postal Business that Amtrak had. All that stayed around was the Package Express business carried in regular baggage cars, which is still around AFAIK.

Oh yeah, Amtrak also played around with Roadrailers for a while too.

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Don't know if it was Amtrak way back when but my dad worked on a postal car between Pittsburgh and Chicago.

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Had to be prior to Amtrak...Amtrak never had Railway Post Office cars on any of its trains. The only mail Amtrak carried was "priority" (magazines and such), sacks in mail container's in regular baggage cars for a while.

Railway Post Offices basically ended in 1967, when the Post Office decided to remove first class mail from passenger trains. That helped kill off many passenger trains, and was a catalyst in the creation of Amtrak, a few years later.

The last surviving RPO ended in June of 1977, and was actually run on Amtrak owned rails, between New York and Washington, but it was operated as a Conrail train...

Do you mean a separate freight train or a mixed freight/passenger train. One thing to consider is the length of the stations and how long the train will be blocking crossing while standing in stations. Many stations have road crossing immediately before and/or after the station. There's a reason that the Auto Train does not make intermediate stops.

Don Newcomb said:

Do you mean a separate freight train or a mixed freight/passenger train. One thing to consider is the length of the stations and how long the train will be blocking crossing while standing in stations. Many stations have road crossing immediately before and/or after the station. There's a reason that the Auto Train does not make intermediate stops.

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Mixed. Just a few cars that is all.

jis said:

All that stayed around was the Package Express business carried in regular baggage cars, which is still around AFAIK.

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It is. Used it a couple months ago on the Meteor when they refused to check my bag for free. Was boarding in Delray, which is unmanned, so we couldn’t check the bag from there. Two different phone agents said we could check it at West Palm (which is manned) the day before for free. We get to West Palm, and the woman there tells us that since our ticket is out of Delray Beach, she can’t check the bag from WPB, and we have to pay $57 for it to be shipped through Amtrak Express on our train!
But yeah, Amtrak Express is fully operational and ready to ream any unsuspecting passenger who heeds the advice of Amtrak call agents.

Sounds about right.

I left a small toiletry bag on a train in California years ago. (It had a moderately priced electric razor in it.. so worth trying to get back) and sure enough it was found and delivered to the LA Union Station. LA told me they could send it free via Amtrak Express to the closest Amtrak Station, which for me is Atlanta GA. I went to pick it up and both of the ticket agents acted totally confused and perplexed that someone wanted to pick up a box. They acted even more surprised that the box was actually in the office and that it had come all the way from California.

One of the big problems with the express/freight program was that the freight railroads were mad that Amtrak was competing with them on their own tracks. So guess what, all of a sudden there were lots of delays to Amtrak trains. The actual adding and subtracting of freight/express cars from the trains also slowed Amtrak trains. That, plus the fact the whole scheme never apparently made any money doomed the whole operation. It will never return.

cpotisch said:

jis said:

All that stayed around was the Package Express business carried in regular baggage cars, which is still around AFAIK.

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It is. Used it a couple months ago on the Meteor when they refused to check my bag for free. Was boarding in Delray, which is unmanned, so we couldn’t check the bag from there. Two different phone agents said we could check it at West Palm (which is manned) the day before for free. We get to West Palm, and the woman there tells us that since our ticket is out of Delray Beach, she can’t check the bag from WPB, and we have to pay $57 for it to be shipped through Amtrak Express on our train!
But yeah, Amtrak Express is fully operational and ready to ream any unsuspecting passenger who heeds the advice of Amtrak call agents.

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I used it out of CUS in the summer of 2016 (I was flying to NYC and then catching the Meteor, and I didn't want to deal with a small crate of books I'd purchased at an SF convention when making my way from O'Hare to JFK to NYP, so I shipped them). Quite easy and convenient. FWIW, the station agent at KCY had never heard of it, so my books went with me from KCY to CHI and I handed them over there.

jis said:

They had a whole fleet of Boxcars which were called Material Handling Cars, and some of which had a sad habit of derailing when running empty at passenger train speeds too!

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MikefromCrete said:

One of the big problems with the express/freight program was that the freight railroads were mad that Amtrak was competing with them on their own tracks. So guess what, all of a sudden there were lots of delays to Amtrak trains. The actual adding and subtracting of freight/express cars from the trains also slowed Amtrak trains. That, plus the fact the whole scheme never apparently made any money doomed the whole operation. It will never return.

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Adding to the posts above, after a few MHC hopped the rails and the freight operators were insults by Amtrak's starter freight trains, not only did they refuse to operate them with any priority (claiming the freight violated the agreement), they slapped 60mph speed restrictions on the equipment.

Now, they never had a chance to maintain schedule. Oddly enough, NS really didn't care. I suppose it was because they weren't interested in the business anyway.

MikefromCrete said:

One of the big problems with the express/freight program was that the freight railroads were mad that Amtrak was competing with them on their own tracks. So guess what, all of a sudden there were lots of delays to Amtrak trains. The actual adding and subtracting of freight/express cars from the trains also slowed Amtrak trains. That, plus the fact the whole scheme never apparently made any money doomed the whole operation. It will never return.

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There was a brief period, when Amtrak operated its Train 13, "Fast Mail", between Boston and Washington via Springfield. It did not carry passengers at all, unlike its counter, Train 12.

When Conrail became aware of this, they refused to let Amtrak operate it on its rails from Boston to Springfield, unless it included at least one 'rider' coach. Amtrak did comply, and added a coach. Amtrak as an alternative, could have rerouted the train to its own NEC from Boston to New Haven, but continued it with the coach via Springfield for a while....

And, of course, all of the money spent on roadrailers, express-box cars, refrigerators cars, extra locomotives and the Lake Country Limited and other trains of its type could have been spent on new passenger equipment. The project was probably the worst episode in Amtrak history.

railiner said:

MikefromCrete said:

One of the big problems with the express/freight program was that the freight railroads were mad that Amtrak was competing with them on their own tracks. So guess what, all of a sudden there were lots of delays to Amtrak trains. The actual adding and subtracting of freight/express cars from the trains also slowed Amtrak trains. That, plus the fact the whole scheme never apparently made any money doomed the whole operation. It will never return.

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There was a brief period, when Amtrak operated its Train 13, "Fast Mail", between Boston and Washington via Springfield. It did not carry passengers at all, unlike its counter, Train 12.

When Conrail became aware of this, they refused to let Amtrak operate it on its rails from Boston to Springfield, unless it included at least one 'rider' coach. Amtrak did comply, and added a coach. Amtrak as an alternative, could have rerouted the train to its own NEC from Boston to New Haven, but continued it with the coach via Springfield for a while....

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The reason it went via the SPG is because of the huge mail facility there. You already had other trains with mails cars (such as 178) that served the Shore line. SPG had a ton of mail service.

Tried it, and been burned by it badly.

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Shoot, Amtrak burned themselves and even stepped on their dick. You don't take normal freight cars and trucks and try to fun them on high speed trains... you just don't do that. From the start the execution was flawed and it went down from there. Add to it UP's opposition (to a degree I understand their side of it) and you end up with one of the worse fiascos Amtrak has been involved with... if at least properly equipped (no, not enough cars to work with and stretched to the limit as far as locomotives were concerned) it might have had some hope of doing what was hoped, helping to fund operations, but as it was it was flawed from the start and no one but Amtrak was to blame.

Thirdrail7 said:

railiner said:

MikefromCrete said:

One of the big problems with the express/freight program was that the freight railroads were mad that Amtrak was competing with them on their own tracks. So guess what, all of a sudden there were lots of delays to Amtrak trains. The actual adding and subtracting of freight/express cars from the trains also slowed Amtrak trains. That, plus the fact the whole scheme never apparently made any money doomed the whole operation. It will never return.

Click to expand...

There was a brief period, when Amtrak operated its Train 13, "Fast Mail", between Boston and Washington via Springfield. It did not carry passengers at all, unlike its counter, Train 12.

When Conrail became aware of this, they refused to let Amtrak operate it on its rails from Boston to Springfield, unless it included at least one 'rider' coach. Amtrak did comply, and added a coach. Amtrak as an alternative, could have rerouted the train to its own NEC from Boston to New Haven, but continued it with the coach via Springfield for a while....

Click to expand...

The reason it went via the SPG is because of the huge mail facility there. You already had other trains with mails cars (such as 178) that served the Shore line. SPG had a ton of mail service.

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That explains it....thanks!

What they need to do is get into real estate like Japan rail does.

GiantsFan said:

What they need to do is get into real estate like Japan rail does.

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Like Penn Central? We know what happened to them....

Actually, Amtrak does manage its owned property reasonably well, leasing its right of way, and excess station space to other companies. I don't think their charter would permit them, to expand that into speculating on additional properties, nor do I believe that is advisable....

Penn Central dropped the railroad and turned itself into a real estate company [emoji57]

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