Amtrak taken to task on Fox last night

[WICT106]

Stories such as this, and the reach of the Fox News network, should serve to illustrate just how many anti-rail individuals there are in our nation. It should also serve to illustrate just how effective they are at getting the anti-Amtrak, or anti-passenger train message out. The reporter even had come up with neat numbers, and eye catching statistics, that are easy for those not as well-versed in the Politics of Passenger Railroading, to quote in their opposition to train service improvements. Amtrak could continue to carry more and more riders, but, for many folks, if they have never been aboard a train before and cannot imagine ever riding one, this and similar stories make the opposition even stronger. Get out there and ride trains, and show your support (especially to your Elected Officials) !

 

[amtrakwolverine]

Ryan, top Google News story:

"Power could be out for days"

Sorry about that

Doesn't help that in New York Con ed just went on strike.

 

[RRUserious]

Here's my confusion. Private business had the rails and didn't WANT them. We wouldn't have Amtrak if Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and other companies wanted to carry passengers. Don't Fox reporters even bother to research the subject? Or do they know all this and just pretend it never happened?

 

[E Runs]

http://www.inboundlo...he-right-track/

Just a very quick check on the internet and came up with the link above. Anyone that reads Railway Age knows that freight railroading is a growth industry and that Class I's spend billions annualy to grow and maintain their rights of way. To say that Amtrak's routes are poor due to lack of ROW investment is mostly false. To say Amtrak is treated like a red headed step child by the class I's is likely true but that is more of a dispatching issue than infrastucture. What's obvious in the article is that the Class I's are getting their subsidies as well, from local, state and federal sources.

Of course I can't dispute the the maintenance dollars ClassIs spend every year, it's significant. However the fact BNSF if just now getting around to installing automatic switches on the Ottumwa Sub, a continual choke point for the CZ, tells me they aren't all that interested in improving those ROWs for passenger service. From Trains.com: "This is a very focused investment targeted to improving on-time performance for a small number of passenger trains," says Richard Wessler, BNSF's director of passenger train operations. "If it weren't for Amtrak's need, BNSF wouldn't ask for the money, and certainly not from the federal government."

In a way I don't blame the Class Is for looking out for themselves first. They have to for all the reasons you enumerated in another post, the quote from Mr. Wessler just drives that fact home. They were relieved of the burden of passenger service in 1971 and have been lukewarm, if not hostile in some instances, to Amtrak's efforts. And again, if the UP wants to downgrade a stretch of track because they don't run freights over it anymore, I can understand their thinking. But it all just goes back to one of the major reasons, in my mind, of why Amtrak will always be behind the proverbial eight ball: they don't own their ROW.

 

[oldtimer]

Here's my confusion. Private business had the rails and didn't WANT them. We wouldn't have Amtrak if Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and other companies wanted to carry passengers. Don't Fox reporters even bother to research the subject? Or do they know all this and just pretend it never happened?

There are many reasons why their is so much discourse and polarity in America. First let's look at the overall source of information for this article:

Fox News is not news by their own admission in the court system, in a 1997 case in Florida : During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so.

Having worked at Amtrak with many recent immigrants for eastern Europe their view of Fox in particular and American news in general is that it is nothing but the same propaganda that they saw before they came to America. If they want to see news they watch the BBC or even RT news, they think that it is more fair and balanced than any American news source (or even Australian in Fox's case with a Saudi prince being a major shareholder).

 

[Hotblack Desiato]

Being sarcastic about the freight railroads as they see their freight as more important then amtrak. Freights travel slower then amtrak. Let amtrak over take it's not going to kill you to hold a freight for 3 or 4 minutes etc while amtrak takes over but instead they will hold amtrak for hours just to let 3 or 4 trains pass amtrak in the same direction. then cause amtrak missed its "window" they delay it more. That makes sense how?

Unless you've actually sat in a dispatch office watching the entire railroad move, you really can't make a judgment like that. On a railroad filled with freight trains traveling 40-50 mph, one passenger train traveling 79 mph takes up a hell of a lot more capacity than most people realize. It's not as simple a matter as just holding a freight for "3 or 4 minutes."

 

[Ryan]

OK, crashing at a friends place since we don't have any power - looking at the April Monthly Performance Report. Page E-1 breaks down delay minutes by cause, in April LD trains suffered 181,000 minutes of delay time. Of that, 36,000 minutes can be laid at the feet of Amtrak. 113,000 minutes can be laid at the feet of the railroads. Page E-3 has an excellent graph demonstrates that Freight Train interference is the leading cause of Amtrak delays. The second most common cause of delay minutes are slow orders. Both of these problems can be fixed by the host railroads making investments in their ROW to clear slow orders and increase capacity to reduce congestion.

All the data is there if you care to look.

Sorry, I edited my earlier post instead of adding the above in a new post.

 

[cirdan]

Imagine what UPs response would be if [say] First Group came to them wanting to run service on their lines, and how much a ticket on that might cost if UP let them...

Allow me to be the Devil's advocate here.

If First Group were to takle over the SL, they would sign some lock in-agreement with DOT, assuring them a minimum subsidy for a period of several years, thus forcing DOT to commit to that route for a certain time horizon, and giving DOT no space to worm out of making the payments. They would similarly get an armlock on UPRR and smother them in red tape if they caused unjustified delays.

That's a lot more than Amtrak has or gets.

But none of this would come for free.

If that's what libertarians want, fair enough, but don't let them pretend they're saving tax dollars.

 

[EB_OBS]

Here's my confusion. Private business had the rails and didn't WANT them. We wouldn't have Amtrak if Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and other companies wanted to carry passengers. Don't Fox reporters even bother to research the subject? Or do they know all this and just pretend it never happened?

Of course they know it. Just like the guy from the Post Office said, there isn't any private business that's going to buy the Post Office and continue to serve every location, every rural town that the Post Office currently serves. No private company is going to buy Amtrak and continue to run 90% of the LD trains.

I love how they put up $60 Billion in large font on the screen too, showing how much subsidy Amtrak has received. It's typical and hypocritical though to also fail to mention that's $60 Billion over 40 years. That makes a huge difference to reasonable people who are actually paying attention.

Last night was the first time I'd seen this week's show. He mentioned a Japanese passenger railroad making a profit. I'd sure like to see the proof of that.

 

[saxman]

I stumbled across another podcast with John Stossel, talking about transportation in general. This was recorded back in 2010, but it was pretty much the same. He invited the American Public Transportation Association's president, along with Randy O'Toole, and even had Glenn Beck on as a "transportation expert." They talked about how to get better transportation, and they pretty much trashed talked any type of rail transit and said the solution to gridlock was to....add more highways.

The APTA president did a really poor job at defending transit and HSR, and when he tried, O'Toole would toute back some silly myth that most of use know aren't true. Luckily, I didn't stick around to hear Glenn Beck.

Unfortunately these are the type of people we are dealing with sometimes and its our job to correct them as much as we can.

 

[dlagrua]

I find some of the arguments presented in this post amusing. While we cannot generalize we can to look at any politicans view (of any party) about their support for government owned businesses and the logic is simple. If that business is part of their state or district, the politican supports it, and if not, they oppose it. For instance the US Post Office serves many of the rural districts that have Republican congressman. Hence the post office receives strong GOP support there. Now if we look to the cities that are served by rail, (that the Democrats typically represent), there is strong support for Amtrak. Now if the GOP held those seats you can bet that they would be strong Amtrak supporters too. Its all part of a self serving partisan political game to gain votes to be re-elected. Its a system that wants to make you feel as though you have a choice. You don't. You have no choice!