Amtrak's Lack of Vision

[Nathanael]

Well, in the case of an NCH, there's not much of a case to be made for ID subsidizing it...Sandpoint probably has a negligible impact on it either way, and the state barely has any route-miles in it. The other question would be whether Amtrak would be allowed to swallow some of the losses.

Let's assume (for the sake of argument) that the train would run a $25m direct operating loss. I think it is plausible that you could get WA, MT, and MN to talk with one another at the very least (as I'm assuming the train would run separately from the Builder CHI-MSP). I think you could see a situation where the three divvy up either all $25m among them, or where Amtrak eats a share of the direct losses.

And I do think it is possible that you could get ND on board with some support, even if it was "indirect" (i.e. the state pays for re-opening and manning a few stations or something like that).

The states which benefit most heavily from an NCH are North Dakota and Montana, basically, so it will only happen if those two states put money in. I would be impressed if you could get support from Washington, and Minnesota would be unlikely to provide more than moral support.

Minnesota is specifically trying to get a standalone train from St. Paul to Chicago which won't be subject to accumulated delays from crossing the contintent eastbound. Minnesota seems to be willing to do this without WI support. Until Minnesota gets that, Minnesota is not much interested in further service to the west; Minnesota would be more likely to try to extend the train within the state, to Duluth or something.

 

[Nathanael]

As I understand form other postings, the government runs Amtrak because no one else wanted to do it?

Correct. That was the situation in 1971.

I don't understand that at all.

All the trains were run by private companies at the time. The private railroad companies were heavily taxed. Under Eisenhower, the government had built an enormous system of free roads, and then had dumped enormous amounts of money into airports. Given this situation, passenger rail service was not profitable, and starting in the 1960s most of the railroads started discouraging it and trying to chase people away. Even before that, state roadway authorities were buying up railroads to convert them to expressways, which were delusionally imagined to be "the future" -- this happened in upstate NY, especially.
The political history of this is sad and sorry.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

I agree, multi state agreements are not easy.

Just using the example of the NCH shown above, even if Montana and Washington state agree on a subsidy, you also have to reach an agreement with both North Dakota and Idaho. If even if 1 of them says no, that would probably kill the proposal.

It all depends. NH saying No has not killed the Downeaster.

A commuter from New Hampshire claimed that

riders from his state were not taking a 'free ride'

at the expense of others. He said the operating

funds from the State of Maine subsidizes the

route from Portland to Boston (no subsidy from

Massachusetts, either, so far as I know). But

passengers from New Hampshire stops pay

more for their tickets than Maine passengers do,

even tho for Maine riders it's a much longer ride.

Or, in the worst case, if Idaho got ugly, get ugly back.

Who needs a stop at Sandpoint anyway? Skip it.

But it would be hard enuff to get 3 of 4, WA, MT, ND,

and WI, to pay their fair share.

=======================

We need some formula to let states help fund a

​new LD train that is mostly federal obey in the pot --

you know, the United states and all that. At least

to fund a three-year launch. Then if a new train

meets certain goals, ridership, fair box return,

whatever -- it would become part of the national

system and survive off Amtrak's puny subsidy.

But the current rules (corridor trains less <750 miles

get no help from the feds, new long distance trains

are almost verboten) is designed for stagnation,

failure, and death.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Minnesota is specifically trying to get a standalone train

from St. Paul to Chicago which won't be subject to

accumulated delays from crossing the continent eastbound.

Minnesota seems to be willing to do this without WI support.

Until Minnesota gets that, Minnesota is not much interested

in further service to the west; Minnesota would be more likely

to try to extend the train within the state, to Duluth or something.

Minnesota could do a lot for the Builder and

the revived NCH, which ought to be named

the Sacajawea.

Looking at the timetable, the Builder leaves

Chicago at 2:25 mid-afternoon. Arrives Winona,

MN at 7:50 p.m. and gets to St. Paul at 10:31 p.m.

That is 2 hrs 40 minutes to cover 110 miles in

Minnesota. Get that 110 miles section up to

110-mph track conditions and you could cut,

say, 40 minutes right there. Get to St. Paul at

about 9:50 p.m. instead of at 10:30. Worth it.

On the return, the EB Builder would leave St. Paul

at 7:50 a.m., arrive Winona 9:50 a.m. (the Builder

has a faster timetable EB on this segment so I'll

save it only 21 minutes here, not 40), arrive Chicago

at 3:34 or so, again mid-afternoon. But the FUN,

FUN, FUN part would be the change of speed

at the state line.

Once I rode Amsterdam to Hannover, and when

the train crossed the border, the German train

moved like it was supercharged. Coming back,

crossed into the Netherlands it was slow speed

and I was embarrassed for my Dutch friends.

So let Wisconsin opt out, and let their citizens

have that kind of cross-border experience. LOL.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

The states which benefit most heavily from an NCH are

North Dakota and Montana, basically, so it will only happen

if those two states put money in. I would be impressed

if you could get support from Washington, and Minnesota

would be unlikely to provide more than moral support.

Minnesota is specifically trying to get a standalone train

from St. Paul to Chicago which won't be subject to

accumulated delays from crossing the contintent eastbound.

Minnesota seems to be willing to do this without WI support.

Until Minnesota gets that, Minnesota is not much interested

in further service to the west; Minnesota would be more likely

to try to extend the train within the state, to Duluth or something.

Washington State could get interested in a route

Spokane-Pasco-Yakima-Ellensburg (Central

Washington U)-Stampede Pass-Auburn-Seattle.

(I know where they could get a couple of Talgo

trains at a good price.)

Minnesota could get interested in an upgraded route

thru St Cloud to Fargo. Across the state line from

Fargo is Moorhead, home of Minnesota State U.

Anyway, for its own political reasons (if you invest

state funds in the southeast part of the state, you

probably have to do something for the northwest

part, too), Minnesota might need to take it to Fargo.

But no matter how you chop it, if restarting the NCH

(aka Sacajawea) would cost $500 million investment,

no state is gonna pick up $100 million. The states

might pick up the tab on new locomotives and

railcars, but not gonna put multimillions into

upgrading the route.

Before the Stimulus, Washington was putting money

into little fixes along the Seattle-Portland corridors,

but it was dribbles of a few millions each year. Same

with NC, spending more than almost any other state,

but only on incremental projects.

What you would need to launch a revived NCH

(Sacajawea) would be a billion in Stimulus funds.

Well, still feels like a Recession to me, or the

Lesser Depression as some economists call it,

but sadly no one wants to Stimulate our semi-

conscious economy.

The average peak to peak between the dates

recessions begin is about 6 or 7 years. Our current

Lesser Depression kicked off Dec. 2007 (even if

most people didn't notice until Lehman Bros.

brought down the house). Well, let's see, Dec 2007,

plus 6 or 7 years, help me with the math fellas ...

I hope somebody in D.C., and lots of somebodies

in the states, have filing cabinets full of advanced

plans for "shovel-ready" railroad projects ready

for when we need 'em next.

 

[henryj]

Twin Star Rocket, or some successor, right?

Yes, it was the Twin Star Rocket. From the Lone Star state of Texas to the North Star State. It was overnight between KC and Ft Worth and carried a through sleeper and coach from MSP to KC for LA on the Golden State. It was discontinued in the mid 1960's. The current Heartland Flyer is operating on the route of the Texas Chief, later the Lone Star under Amtrak which ran from Chi to Houston. Using now days operating strategies the HF could connect with the SWC in KC for Chicago and then continue north on the TSR route to MSP. I think UP owns that track now.

 

[jphjaxfl]

As someone who has followed Amtrak closely from Day 1 and had over 20 years riding passenger trains prior to Amtrak, I would say future visions for Amtrak will be developed by State and Regional Transportation Authorities. The only way trains like the Pioneer and North Coast Hiawatha will ever come back is if the states form a coalition to help fund the train. Most of the addition of Long Distance trains to Amtrak occurred in the early 1970s when it hadn't been that long since regular passenger trains had run. Most of the routes that were restored had train service up until A-Day. There was a market and many areas that had passenger train service eliminated with the advent of Amtrak were very upset about. In the early 1970s, the Freight Railroads were not the behemoths with huge political clout that they are today. A good example was the restoration of the North Coast Hiawatha across southern Montana. Up until A-Day, there were still 4 daily passengers trains each way from The Twin Cities to Seattle and Portland - two each on the former Great Northern Route and two each on the more Southerly Northern Pacific Route. Due to weather and road conditions those trains all did relatively well. After May 1, 1971, only the Empire Builder survived. Passengers along the routes were extremely upset especially those in Montana who had a very strong Senator named Mike Mansfield. Also the Burlington Northern was a fledgling railroad consisting of the CB&Q, Great Northern, Northern Pacific and SP&S. How different the political climate was...Mike Mansfield was very upset about the lack of passenger train service in Southern Montana. Within less than a year, service was restored on a thrice weekly basis from the Twin Cities to Spokane running as a split section of the Empire Builder. Not long after that, it became an independent train and even ran daily at times until it was discontinued in 1979. Senator Robert Byrd and Congressman Harley Staggers used their political clout to increase service to West Virginia with Mountaineer and Shenandoah. Senator Frank Church was instrumental in restarting passenger service through Idaho with the Pioneer. Actually the last long distant route added was in the early 1990s when the Sunset Ltd was extended to Mobile, Jacksonville and Miami. We were all very surprised by that. The former Gulf Wind operated tri weekly along the route east of New Orleans to just before A-Day, but that was over 20 years til service was restored. Most of the those used to riding that route were long gone. I don't foresee new Long Distance passenger trains being restored or planned unless states or coalition of states are involved. I can't imagine a coalition of the states that would be needed to restore a Chicago to Florida direct passenger train ever happening even for something other than a passengers train.

 

[Anderson]

Well, in the case of an NCH, there's not much of a case to be made for ID subsidizing it...Sandpoint probably has a negligible impact on it either way, and the state barely has any route-miles in it. The other question would be whether Amtrak would be allowed to swallow some of the losses.

Let's assume (for the sake of argument) that the train would run a $25m direct operating loss. I think it is plausible that you could get WA, MT, and MN to talk with one another at the very least (as I'm assuming the train would run separately from the Builder CHI-MSP). I think you could see a situation where the three divvy up either all $25m among them, or where Amtrak eats a share of the direct losses.

And I do think it is possible that you could get ND on board with some support, even if it was "indirect" (i.e. the state pays for re-opening and manning a few stations or something like that).

The states which benefit most heavily from an NCH are North Dakota and Montana, basically, so it will only happen if those two states put money in. I would be impressed if you could get support from Washington, and Minnesota would be unlikely to provide more than moral support.

Minnesota is specifically trying to get a standalone train from St. Paul to Chicago which won't be subject to accumulated delays from crossing the contintent eastbound. Minnesota seems to be willing to do this without WI support. Until Minnesota gets that, Minnesota is not much interested in further service to the west; Minnesota would be more likely to try to extend the train within the state, to Duluth or something.

This plus a look at an old map (there's a building at William and Mary with an old map of the US from '92 which has both interstates and railroads with old reporting marks on it...MILW, SOU, CO, WP, etc. are indicated) made me wonder...in an ideal situation, could an NCH be run CHI-MSP by a different routing than the present one? You'd still share CHI, MSP, SPK, and SEA/PDX, but you could construct an almost entirely separate routing as well.

It's food for thought in more ways than one insofar as from what I can tell, PRIIA 209 mentioned endpoint cities for LD trains (which gives you a modest selection to work with) but made no mention of intermediate routings (and for good reason) or frequency counts.

 

[AlanB]

Wasn't UP's asking price of a single one-time schedule change of an existing route something like $750 Million?

No. That is not correct. Amtrak got the schedule change that they wanted without spending a dime. This is the current schedule that you're on record as hating.

The $750M was a number thrown out by UP after Amtrak made excessive demands for a daily Sunset Limited designed to shut down further negotiations.

 

[SanAntonioClyde]

The only vision Texas has is for roads, with a token thought for HSR.

 

[jis]

This plus a look at an old map (there's a building at William and Mary with an old map of the US from '92 which has both interstates and railroads with old reporting marks on it...MILW, SOU, CO, WP, etc. are indicated) made me wonder...in an ideal situation, could an NCH be run CHI-MSP by a different routing than the present one? You'd still share CHI, MSP, SPK, and SEA/PDX, but you could construct an almost entirely separate routing as well.

It's food for thought in more ways than one insofar as from what I can tell, PRIIA 209 mentioned endpoint cities for LD trains (which gives you a modest selection to work with) but made no mention of intermediate routings (and for good reason) or frequency counts.

The other plausible routing from CHI to MSP would be on BNSF via Aurora.
The common points between the current EB route and the hypothetical NCH route would be CHI, La Crosse - MSP, Fargo, Sandpoint - Spokane, Spokane - Pasco, SEA; assuming it goes to SEA. I doubt that both trains will get split at SPK. The NCH clone if split would probably have to split at Pasco anyway. This assumes that it runs on BNSF CHI - MSP, on the Breckenridge line MSP - Fargo, on BNSF/MRL from Fargo to Sandpoint (via Helena since the Homestake Pass Line via Butte is out of service), and then Pasco to SEA via Stampede Pass.

Of these AFAIK MN has not considered a pure BNSF routing seriously between CHI and MSP, Floods on the Devils Lake route has caused the EB to detour on the Breckenridge route from time to time, Montana has talked about possibly funding parts of a service on the southern MRL route. And Charlie is still looking for where Washington State has officially said anything in any published document, about restoring any service on the Stampede Pass route.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Saw something in CLE about yet another HSR plan to bring a train to Ohio, this one would run from Columbus to Lima to Indy and on to Chicago in under four hours. How such a train would manage that feat I have no clue. Something has to be said for advocates to be more pragmatic into their approach towards new/restored service.

Ohio's two main highways, 71 and 77 have been running at capacity around the metro areas for decades, they have expanded them as much as they can get away with, these last few years has seen ODOT say they can't expand them any more without running into brick walls with home displacement and environmental impact studies. Of course as Ohio's population is going down the traffic problem isn't as bad as it could be, however as more gas trucks clog up the roads we may see somebody revive the Tri-C plan before 2020, or else some other "Buckeye Service" enacted.

Personally I would love to see a CHI-MIA train make at least one day stop in Ohio, perhaps CIN or (heaven forbid) they run it through Columbus. But yes I think the most obvious gap is CHI-Florida with intermediate stops in Indy, CIN and ATL.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

As I understand form other postings, the government runs Amtrak because no one else wanted to do it?

Correct. That was the situation in 1971.

I don't understand that at all.

All the trains were run by private companies at the time. The private railroad companies were heavily taxed. Under Eisenhower, the government had built an enormous system of free roads, and then had dumped enormous amounts of money into airports. Given this situation, passenger rail service was not profitable, and starting in the 1960s most of the railroads started discouraging it and trying to chase people away. Even before that, state roadway authorities were buying up railroads to convert them to expressways, which were delusionally imagined to be "the future" -- this happened in upstate NY, especially.
The political history of this is sad and sorry.

You left out a key piece: it was unprofitable way before the 1950s too.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

You left out a key piece: it was unprofitable way before the 1950s too.

Passenger service was also a major way to advertise and spread good PR about the company, no doubt creating profits for their freight divisions. In this way it can be seen as profit neutral, justifying running it at a loss as long as it was a way to increase your bottom line in other areas.

 

[jis]

Is there any documented evidence that running passenger trains enhanced freight revenues? I have not seen any, but then I haven;t looked for it specifically either.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Here's something I've always been curious about... people balk at Amtrak's subsidy today but hasn't the government always subsidized the private rail industry? It's hard to imagine that large projects of yesteryear were funded solely through private sources. I also can't imagine that the modern Class I's aren't receiving some form of corporate welfare by getting governments to pay for certain things or by socializing losses during the merger craze. I don't know any specifics but it would seem a fact of life that just about every major private company/sector has received a buttload of tax dollars through massive lobbying efforts. I

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Is there any documented evidence that running passenger trains enhanced freight revenues? I have not seen any, but then I haven;t looked for it specifically either.

Not that I know of, but when you look back at the advertising from the era you can see how one might see those shining hi-levels as a way of promoting Santa Fe's speed and advanced technology back in the day. Also consider the major PR campaigns around new trains like the UP Zephyrs, those product roll outs create a lot of buzz about a company, much of it positive. Even if this doesn't effect the bottom line of the freight divisions it certainly had an impact on stock prices... So running new and fancier passenger trains at losses is also a way of increasing share prices. What may have been bad for the company in terms of numbers may have been great for those at the top of the share pile.

 

[jis]

Interesting!

 

[CHamilton]

Here's something I've always been curious about... people balk at Amtrak's subsidy today but hasn't the government always subsidized the private rail industry?

Yes. The history has been written about in many places, but The Great Railroad Revolution has a short explanation in Chapter 2. That book would be a good place to start.

 

[Nathanael]

You left out a key piece: it was unprofitable way before the 1950s too.

Yeah, since roughly the 1920s. There's some evidence that passenger railroad service was profitable up through roughly 1910... shortly before the subsidized roads network got started and cheap autos became widely available.
There's another complicated, but economically important, wrinkle. Branch line passenger service was *never* profitable. The profits came from the "trunk lines". So the managers at the time thought that cancelling branch line service made sense. However, whenever a branch line was removed, the ridership on the trunk line would drop, and reduce its profits....

It turns out that railroads have *network effects* and are most efficient as large, integrated networks... anyway, even a large, integrated network of passenger lines wasn't profitable after the roads started receiving free government money by the shovel-load.

Most railroad freight service stopped being profitable around the same time, and the reasons for this are actually largely similar. The unprofitability of freight service was exacerbated by government price controls, which weren't repealed until the 70s -- I'm not sure whether passenger service had the same price controls, come to think of it. Freight recovered faster.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

It turns out that railroads have *network effects* and are most efficient as large, integrated networks... anyway, even a large, integrated network of passenger lines wasn't profitable after the roads started receiving free government money by the shovel-load.

And this is perhaps the biggest reason behind Amtrak's growth over the last few years, selling points aside, they are finally bringing more people into the national network via subsidized state trains. The addition of any train with a connection to the rest of the Amtrak system will increase ridership on both the LD and local routes. Commuter rail has similar effects on Amtrak ridership.

So is Amtrak's vision to increase state trains so that they can funnel more people into/out of the LD network? In the words of one governor whose state has no Amtrak service (through no fault of her own); "You betchya!"

So with regards to Amtrak's vision they actually have a pretty easy hill to climb and a pretty steep hill to follow. On the one hand they already have the business and the market they need only to raise public awareness of its very existence to increase its ridership. On the other hand the increased ridership is going to produce an increased strain on a very stretched out system. So the key to Amtrak's success (and what should occupy the center of their field of vision) is three-fold:

1-Enhance the network through established corridors and new state-sponsored service

2-Increase capacity with new rolling stock

3-Raise brand awareness

Importantly rolling stock must come before/with raising awareness because without additional capacity the system will be unable to cope with increased demand. For the moment they seem to be managing (have any domestic airlines seen a 50% increase in ridership over the last decade or so?) however I would caution that this may not hold on forever.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

You left out a key piece: it was unprofitable way before the 1950s too.

Yeah, since roughly the 1920s. There's some evidence that passenger railroad service was profitable up through roughly 1910... shortly before the subsidized roads network got started and cheap autos became widely available.
There's another complicated, but economically important, wrinkle. Branch line passenger service was *never* profitable. The profits came from the "trunk lines". So the managers at the time thought that cancelling branch line service made sense. However, whenever a branch line was removed, the ridership on the trunk line would drop, and reduce its profits....

It turns out that railroads have *network effects* and are most efficient as large, integrated networks... anyway, even a large, integrated network of passenger lines wasn't profitable after the roads started receiving free government money by the shovel-load.

Most railroad freight service stopped being profitable around the same time, and the reasons for this are actually largely similar. The unprofitability of freight service was exacerbated by government price controls, which weren't repealed until the 70s -- I'm not sure whether passenger service had the same price controls, come to think of it. Freight recovered faster.

Passenger service did have regulated fares, but I don't know if that was at the state or federal level. The book Rails to Penn State, which I totally advise anyone interested in railroad history to read, speaks about it a few times. The book's about a 20+/- mile shortline that exclusively interchanged with the PRR in the middle of PA. It gives tons of insights into how branch line passenger service worked from the late 19th century to WWII, pre-Staggers freight handling, and the wars over rates and getting the big titan PRR to hold up its end of the bargain. I came away from that book realizing that the railroads main enemy from 1930 to 1980 wasn't trucks, it was themselves.

 

[Anderson]

It turns out that railroads have *network effects* and are most efficient as large, integrated networks... anyway, even a large, integrated network of passenger lines wasn't profitable after the roads started receiving free government money by the shovel-load.

And this is perhaps the biggest reason behind Amtrak's growth over the last few years, selling points aside, they are finally bringing more people into the national network via subsidized state trains. The addition of any train with a connection to the rest of the Amtrak system will increase ridership on both the LD and local routes. Commuter rail has similar effects on Amtrak ridership.

So is Amtrak's vision to increase state trains so that they can funnel more people into/out of the LD network? In the words of one governor whose state has no Amtrak service (through no fault of her own); "You betchya!"

So with regards to Amtrak's vision they actually have a pretty easy hill to climb and a pretty steep hill to follow. On the one hand they already have the business and the market they need only to raise public awareness of its very existence to increase its ridership. On the other hand the increased ridership is going to produce an increased strain on a very stretched out system. So the key to Amtrak's success (and what should occupy the center of their field of vision) is three-fold:

1-Enhance the network through established corridors and new state-sponsored service

2-Increase capacity with new rolling stock

3-Raise brand awareness

Importantly rolling stock must come before/with raising awareness because without additional capacity the system will be unable to cope with increased demand. For the moment they seem to be managing (have any domestic airlines seen a 50% increase in ridership over the last decade or so?) however I would caution that this may not hold on forever.

There are at least some workarounds on the rolling stock front. I'm not sure what is compatible with what, but some states may want to seriously look into springing for overhauled ex-commuter cars (think the ComArrows). That can at least fill in gaps in the short term (i.e. helping start up new services) without states quite getting stuck with the tab for multiple trainsets for a "startup" service.

In the longer term, yes, Amtrak does need to seriously look at one or more rolling stock orders...but (Viewliner IIs notwithstanding and the Multistate order not being an Amtrak order) I don't want to see "we want big, stable orders" used as an excuse not to send out for 100-200 cars in an order.

 

[jis]

All that they have to do is figure out how to add 100-200 to the production lines that are currently up and running, every other year or so.