Amtrak 2014 Budget Request

[Nathanael]

You should try reading the Performance Improvement Plans. Plenty of LD service expansion discussion in them.

I would call that "service improvement" rather than "service expansion" -- I think of expansion as being to new places. But yes, Amtrak has been showing a real intent to make the existing connections nicer, more reliable, more frequent, and on better schedules.

 

[gmushial]

You should try reading the Performance Improvement Plans. Plenty of LD service expansion discussion in them.

I would call that "service improvement" rather than "service expansion" -- I think of expansion as being to new places. But yes, Amtrak has been showing a real intent to make the existing connections nicer, more reliable, more frequent, and on better schedules.

In the reports there is a mention of a new line (Desert Wind??) from LA, thru Vegas up to Denver...

 

[Anderson]

The Desert Wind would be a restored line. On the one hand, the report estimates a net loss associated with running the route (on the order of $15m); on the other, if Amtrak had the equipment and money this might become a plausible addition before too long, presuming cooperation with UP.

 

[Train Rider]

The other thing I would add to the list would be upgrading the tracks through Madison, WI, and then sending the Builder through Madison -- though I would have to figure out some way of getting the funding past WI State Legislature members of a certain party.

Upgrading the tracks to Madison simply to send the EB that way is a huge waste of money when balanced against other priorities. The price tag comes from completely rebuilding the Wisconsin Southern line from Watertown to Madison (approx. 40 miles). Those tracks haven't been rebuilt since the 1930s and are rated at 5 mph -- they are basically used to haul ballast from quarries along the route. There are significant sections through wetlands where one track is literally 4 inches higher than the other. I am not familiar with the condition of the section of track from Madison to Portage (40 miles -- Canadian Pacific) where it would rejoin the CP main line.

A reroute would also add about 30 miles to the current route between Milwaukee and Portage. it would also take the EB off the main CP line at Watertown for 80 miles and then have it rejoin it before the big railyard in Portage, which I suspect would be a scheduling hassle. The #7 does pretty well from CHI to MSP most of the time -- arriving around 10:30. Potentially adding 45-60 minutes to that section of the route will have a negative impact on those far more passengers who take the train to MSP from places other than Madison, WI.

Edited for clarity.

 

[RR Realist]

Again, none of the listed items in Ryan's provided link have made it off the paper they may or more likely weren't even printed on:

1) Gulf Coast Service hasn't come back since Katrina in 2005. That's eight years ago this August, folks. It's dead. Regardless of what piece of paper you read, Amtrak clearly has no intention of bringing this back, or else it wouldn't have taken this long nor would it have waited for your silly little PRIIA 'report' (if you can call it that) to be written in the first place.

2) Pioneer? Where to begin? Should we start with the fact that Amtrak hired some know-nothing consulting firm with very little railroad experience nor much knowledge of what infrastructure was actually in place when this train was running? UP said it needed to double track all over the place, and install CTC to replace TWC, and a host of other pie-in-the-sky items to facilitate a five-car Amtrak Pioneer. The consultant did not question a thing (what, the UP would take advantage of government money to improve their bottom line???) And, how about the shoddy accounting Amtrak did with the CZ and Desert Wind back in the day: while the Pioneer and Desert Wind were full and occasionally more than full, Amtrak shifted the lousy performance numbers from the CZ to the Pioneer and Desert Wind. 15 years later, and the CZ numbers still disappoint between GSC and RNO.

3) Anything new in Pennsylvania? Other than the state of PA being stuck with the bill for the Pennsylvanian? And the possibility of losing that train too? Nope. Nothing new in PA. BTW, nobody mentions in that report the idea of saving the Pennsylvanian by making it more than 750 miles by running it to CHI as a reinstated Broadway Limited. Why? Because Amtrak couldn't shift the responsibility off to the state of PA that way.

4) Has anyone here seen a North Coast Hiawatha since the late 1970's? Amtrak studied it about three years ago...where is it?

5) Does anyone here remember not too long ago when Boardman okey-doked anyone holding their breath about a daily Sunset Limited/Texas Seagull? The UP said in exchange for modifying the schedule to resemble the SP-era Sunset Limited, there would be no entertainment of the idea to run the train more than the tri-weekly (Try-Weakly???) schedule it's been suffocating itself on for 40 plus years.

6) Same for the Cardinal. Lots of talk about running daily. Very little action. With talk of replacing the existing single-level fleet with the 130-car Viewliner, it is doubtful this will ever happen due to the usual 'equipment shortage' excuse we have been hearing since the beginning of Amtrak time.

The rest of the reports Ryan has linked for us concern themselves chiefly with duping Amtrak's existing ridership into smiling more, thus boosting CSI (Customer Service Index) scores, which isn't altogether a bad thing if the smiles are earned honestly without padding the hell out of schedules to make trains seem to run on time, etc. If OBS and Conductors actually did their jobs with respect to customer service, these scores would improve, but this is a different discussion from service expansion.

So, do my points seem valid yet? If recent history is any guide, we aren't likely to see Amtrak's route map grow much any time soon.

 

[Ryan]

Now you're moving the goalposts. Your original point was "There really is no 'Amtrak-led' service expansion plan". "Service expansion" can take many forms that don't involve trains running on routes that they don't travel today.

Track upgrades are in process on the BBRR in VA that will support a daily Cardinal.

The Cardinal had gained a baggage car.

Through cars from the Pennsy to the Cap are in progress, although it's been a while since I've heard an update on the switch addition in PGH.

The passengers on the Cap certainly enjoy having a real dining car back.

As far as your revised definition of "service expansion", you just talked about the plans yourself. They're there, and if Amtrak is ever given the money to execute them, you'll see the trains.

 

[jis]

So, do my points seem valid yet? If recent history is any guide, we aren't likely to see Amtrak's route map grow much any time soon.

The cynic in me says that Amtrak is doing exactly what it is being instructed to do by its creator and paymaster. The message is pretty clear: Maintain LD as is until we can figure put a way to pare it down, keep running and improving the corridors using state help wherever possible. Why would anyone expect Amtrak to do anything different? Want to fix Amtrak? Start by fixing Congress, i.e. electing a bunch that is more favorable to LD trains. My guess is that short to medium haul corridors will survive no matter what Congress does, and will even cause Congress to act differently because they strongly affect the lives of many more than does the LD network. It is just a question of numbers. And it is not just about the NEC. Remember that total ridership of short haul service (Amtrak and others taken together) way out numbers long haul service.

 

[Anderson]

I'll chime in on the Cardinal. My understanding is that there's a capacity jam in West Virginia. VA has done its share on the upgrades to the BBRR, WV hasn't. So it's a good question as to what they're going to do. And before anyone asks, my understanding is that VA has looked at everything that could be done with the Cardinal over the years, and this is still the best alternative on the table.

Moving on, the main issue in a lot of cases is equipment. Amtrak probably needs about another 50-75 sleepers, some more diners, and probably more coaches. Whether they're single-level or bilevel is beside the point (since you could probably flip the Cap and CONO to single-level if all you could get was single-level equipment without any functional issues.

More trains and/or longer trains won't happen without more equipment. What form that equipment takes is an open question (frankly, I'm inclined towards single-level cars since you can sell that as being able to augment service on the east coast as well as out west), but to make lots of these options happen Amtrak needs more cars.

Let me put this in perspective: Restoring the North Coast Hiawatha would require six sets. Assuming "nothing special" and no splits in the train, that would be six sets of two sleepers, a transdorm, a cafe, a diner, three coaches, and a baggage car. That's six sets of nine cars, or 54 cars plus spares and plus locomotives. I'm sure you can see how this bill adds up very quickly.

So, let's assume that Amtrak wanted to do something like this. The most efficient way to do this would be to do larger orders that could also augment other trains (i.e. get your 12 sleepers amid an order of 30-40 that also lets you augment the Chief, Zephyr, etc.), with the added train being taken care of amid the order. An order on the scale of the Viewliner II order (130 cars) could easily consist of 50 sleepers, 50 coaches, and 30 food service/lounge cars. Mind you, it would cost somewhere between $400-500 million, but it would be a reasonable order that would take care of a lot of medium-term capacity issues and likely improve cost recovery on the affected trains by at least 5-10 points.

 

[gmushial]

Anderson -

One can't argue with the notion of a larger order keeps the unit cost down... but sometimes getting that chunk of change is harder to get than one fifth of that at a time. I'm wondering if one couldn't place the larger order, but intentionally spread it out over several years... where one starts new lines, restarts old lines, but instead of 7 days a week, one starts with a couple times a week... and let the riding public get used to it being in their lexicon of possibles... also, that way if there is a real resistance to it, or the ridership doesn't match the projections, one can reassign the new cars to existing lines, and wait for the next possible to come along.

I've been told in no uncertain terms that the software world is not the same as the railroad world... but when we offer a new service, we tend to commit just enough to it to provide the service to the first couple thousand users... and if looks like it's going to have legs, scramble to have the infrastructure in place for the next tens of thousands... but if the first couple thousand start feeling like that's all there's going to be, then we start looking at quietly unplugging, or at least deciding if it's going to be cost effective to provide for so few... seems that one might approach new/old-new lines the same way - get one's toes wet, and if it really looks like it's going to make sense, then commit the heavy guns to it, but only then.

 

[Anderson]

The problem with an approach like that is that something along those lines was tried back in the 90s, and it was a bust: A bunch of LD trains were cut to 3-4x weekly to save on costs and equipment, and ridership crashed hard. Per-train ridership dropped noticeably, on top of the lost ridership from the reduced frequencies.

The reason is that a lot of people won't tend to consider a transportation option that doesn't at least run daily (not the least because less-than-daily usually means you've got at least one time per week where no train runs for two days). Mind you, a train that runs 6x weekly can work (either cutting Saturday or a midweek day), but that also tends not to save on equipment, while a "weekends only" train can get a tourist travel base...but it's not going to get beyond that for the most part (i.e the Cape Cod service MBTA instituted isn't going to get a commuter base until it runs daily). It's certainly not going to be a big winner on the LD front.

 

[afigg]

3) Anything new in Pennsylvania? Other than the state of PA being stuck with the bill for the Pennsylvanian? And the possibility of losing that train too? Nope. Nothing new in PA. BTW, nobody mentions in that report the idea of saving the Pennsylvanian by making it more than 750 miles by running it to CHI as a reinstated Broadway Limited. Why? Because Amtrak couldn't shift the responsibility off to the state of PA that way.
4) Has anyone here seen a North Coast Hiawatha since the late 1970's? Amtrak studied it about three years ago...where is it?

5) Does anyone here remember not too long ago when Boardman okey-doked anyone holding their breath about a daily Sunset Limited/Texas Seagull? The UP said in exchange for modifying the schedule to resemble the SP-era Sunset Limited, there would be no entertainment of the idea to run the train more than the tri-weekly (Try-Weakly???) schedule it's been suffocating itself on for 40 plus years.

3. Despite the last minute collapse of the transportation funding and gas tax increase in the PA legislature prior to passing the budget, Penn DOT has announced that it will provide the agreed $3.8 million for the Pennsylvanian for the year. Both the PA Senate and House passed bills increasing the state gas tax and various fees to boost transportation funding, but in different amounts & different allocations for SEPTA. The deals fell apart, as I follow it, because the gas tax and transportation funding bills got entangled with deals for PA to shut down the state owned liquor stores. The PA legislature is expected to try again in September.

Shifting the Pennsylvanian costs to the LD network with pass-through cars to the Capitol Limited was reportedly an option (and was discussed here), but if Amtrak can get $3.8 million in subsidy from PA, take the money.

4. For Amtrak to restore/add western LD trains, they need Congress to provide the funding. When the Republicans took control of the House in the 2010 mid-terms, Amtrak's funding outlook changed for the worse and the HSIPR program was zeroed from the FY2011 budget. I think some of the discussed LD trains will eventually get restored - in 10 years or more, but it will take a change in the political climate and the loss of almost to all commercial air service to many of the more remote cities/regions on the western LD train routes.

5. The agreement with UP on Sunset Limited schedule change in return for not seeking daily service is only in effect for 2 years from the implementation of the schedule change. By that time, UP will have completed more of the double tracking between LA and El Paso, if not almost all of it. Amtrak may take another run at UP and a daily SL in mid to late 2014. UP may have signed the agreement to make the request go away for a couple of years, figuring that Romney/Republican Nominee could be elected and Amtrak might have to drop the SL entirely. That did not happen, so we will see if the Amtrak board & Boardman is willing to go to the mat for a daily SL after the agreement expires.

 

[afigg]

I'll chime in on the Cardinal. My understanding is that there's a capacity jam in West Virginia. VA has done its share on the upgrades to the BBRR, WV hasn't. So it's a good question as to what they're going to do. And before anyone asks, my understanding is that VA has looked at everything that could be done with the Cardinal over the years, and this is still the best alternative on the table.
Moving on, the main issue in a lot of cases is equipment. Amtrak probably needs about another 50-75 sleepers, some more diners, and probably more coaches. Whether they're single-level or bilevel is beside the point (since you could probably flip the Cap and CONO to single-level if all you could get was single-level equipment without any functional issues.

VA has been providing funds for Buckingham Branch RR upgrades, but we don't know how much has been spent so far. The VA DRPT FY2014 budget has a total of $101.4 million for rail investments with $7.3 million going to the Shortline Program, the lion's share of that to BBRR track and signal projects, including $2.45 million for the first year of the North Mountain Siding project. The six year budget has the higher levels of funding for the BBRR divisions the Cardinal uses through FY2015.
Those funds are in effect annual installments going into project accounts which may have not started on the construction spending yet. We should keep in mind that the BBRR improvement projects may be ongoing though 2016 or 2017 - or later. My point is that I would describe VA as doing its share with track maintenance and siding projects for the BBRR, not as having done it. All we can say about the prospects of a daily Cardinal is that, if the Viewliner II schedule does not slip further, that by sometime in 2015, Amtrak should have enough bag-dorms, sleepers and diners for a daily Cardinal. Whether or when CSX and BBRR will be agreeable to a daily Cardinal is another question.

The interesting part of the FY2014 Six year plan is that VA DRPT has $54 million not committed to any track projects in the FY2014 budget, $52 million in FY2015 for passenger rail. The budget has $95.8 million through FY17 for the Roanoke extension and $80 million through FY18 for 2 more daily trains to Norfolk, so these funds are in addition to those 2 projects. So Virginia has some decent amounts of money to spend on other expansion and track projects in the next few years.

 

[Ryan]

One can't argue with the notion of a larger order keeps the unit cost down... but sometimes getting that chunk of change is harder to get than one fifth of that at a time. I'm wondering if one couldn't place the larger order, but intentionally spread it out over several years...

Since you loved the Performance Improvement Plans so much, check out Amtrak's fleet strategy plan. Should be in the same place. They're attempting to do something like that (but the uncertainty of capital funding from Uncle Sam makes that a difficult proposition).

 

[Anderson]

The Fleet Strategy Plan is a mess. No real way around that...it's focused on fleet replacement rather than even secular growth, from what I can tell, and it doesn't seriously discuss shorter-term demand needs, let alone propose solutions to them (even piggybacking on some sort of commuter car order to deal with capacity issues on the NEC, for example).

Edit: To explain: Vis-a-vis FY03, Amtrak had about one million more passengers on the LD trains and 2.2 million more on the NE Regionals directly...and another 800,000 down in VA that got "split off" later. They had a million more on the Acelas. Though the presence of the Metroliners and the Clockers muddles things a little bit here, there wasn't a big shift between '05 and '06, when both brands were dropped.

So, between the Regionals, the LD trains, and the Acelas, Amtrak added a million passengers, and was able to at most augment the Regionals with a couple of Clocker/Metroliner car reassignments while the LD trains have gotten bupkis. Even the "short corridors" haven't gotten new cars since the California Car order back around 2001. Mind you, there was room for load factor improvement there, but it's hard to keep growing when you're incessantly constrained on the capacity front, and I'd point out as well that the IL/MI/MO/CA order can't help out back east.

Right now, IMHO, Amtrak should be looking for funds for 100-200 new single-level coaches over the next few years, in addition to another round of sleepers and diners (to allow at least some shifting of routes to single-level from bilevel trains, allowing those cars to be cascaded onto the Western LD trains). It doesn't matter so much where they're aimed; if they're LD coaches, it would allow some Amfleets to be moved from LD service to either long corridor service (with seat rearrangements) or NEC service; if they're corridor-aimed coaches, you could arguably cascade Amfleets (again, with seat rearrangements) the other way.

The point is that Amtrak is beginning to push capacity limits in a lot of places.  We're looking at ten-car Regionals; do we have the equipment for eleven or twelve car Regionals in a few years? Can we add another million riders per year on the NEC? If so, where are the limits on current equipment? If ridership grows at 2%/yr, we'll be at nine million riders by FY18; at 3% we'll be there by FY16. Adding in Virginia trains, those targets for nine million become targets for ten million instead. On the Acelas, the load factor is even more dire...from what I see, we're approaching 75% of theoretical capacity in some months (that is, assuming each seat can be used once south of NYP and once north of NYP; I noted that we were close to this bar one November), which suggests a certain amount of full-to-capacity trains near rush hours.

Edit: Straightened out borked code.