warrenwarner
Train Attendant
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2016/06/22-amtrak-lease-lines
Can someone please explain what is happening here? Is this good or bad?
Can someone please explain what is happening here? Is this good or bad?
There is a big difference operating a train for seven hours one way on track that is built for passenger use, with speeds capable of 125mph, versus fighting with freight lines on a trip that can take up to almost three days. With this startup you can attempt to run service with the one consist they're renting. What happens if a car or the loco is bad ordered? Train is cancelled or passengers are displaced because of a missing coach (assuming the train is sold out). Anyway, in the States all of the routes are a heck of a lot longer, and I wouldn't really think it's that easy to just go and rent a consist, because who has spare equipment laying around to rent out? And the only long distance train I can think of that can conceivably be run with one consist (if the schedule stays as is) is the Cardinal anyway, so you'd be talking about massive amounts of money necessary for start ups costs in the US.https://locomore.com/en/services.html
A low cost start up in Germany. Trains start in December this year. Four people with some crowd source funding. No 90% of Amtrak cost there.
The Palmetto is serviced in Hialeah? So it has to actually travel from Savannah all the way to Florida and back? I thought it was serviced in Savannah.Three routes to cherry pick. Sliver Metor, Sliver Star, and the (Sliver) Palmetto. Oops now you have a winner. Single overnight trains, use the same (general) stations.
You have one location to for service. Hialeah FL.
One location for a crew base.
Use Amtrak loss numbers, 90% of the cost left to operator a small tight running passenger railroad.
I didn't think it was specified that you could pick whatever routes you wanted. If that's true, then those would certainly be the three routes to take, because of sharing a lot of stations, like you mentioned. However, one crew base is not accurate. For OBS you could use NYP, but as far as T&E goes, they're only good for 12 hour shifts, so you would need multiple crew bases still, a commissary on each end, pay for use of the catenary on the NYP-WAS portion (diesels aren't allowed in the tunnels for Penn Station), so now you'd have to buy/lease dual-mode engines that can use electricity and diesel power. And from what I've heard, Amtrak charges quite a lot for the electricity supplied to trains, so you'd have to factor in that increase over what Amtrak already spends to fuel/power the trains.Three routes to cherry pick. Sliver Metor, Sliver Star, and the (Sliver) Palmetto. Oops now you have a winner. Single overnight trains, use the same (general) stations.
You have one location to for service. Hialeah FL.
One location for a crew base.
Use Amtrak loss numbers, 90% of the cost left to operator a small tight running passenger railroad.
Saying it's outright irrelevant severely reduces credibility as much as saying 100% that it is possible for this idea to work.But still, to say it is irrelevant outright merely reduces your credibility at least in my eyes. We actually do not know for sure whether it will eventually turn out to be relevant or not. That will depend on how things play out.
This particular scheme is probably not going to work, but I see it merely as a step in a direction. General experience elsewhere shows that initially there is an increase in subsidy when one attempts to privatize, but if done correctly the subsidy goes down on heavily used routes. It is also true that on sparsely used routes either you have to stop running trains or have to agree to fund them specially. This is done in places like Canada and India on clearly identified routes.
True this!If the only way a company can make money is to pay its employees less to do the same job, it doesn't deserve to exist. If you can do something better or more efficiently, or attract mor customers fine, removing more people from the tax paying middle class, to make a few more people rich, does nothing to help the country.
Neither. It is moot. There will be no qualified bidders.http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2016/06/22-amtrak-lease-lines
Can someone please explain what is happening here? Is this good or bad?
It's certainly not irrelevant, but Triley is on the right track. I would never deny that there is waste and inefficiency in Amtrak, just as there is waste and inefficiency in every organization I've been associated with throughout my life, be it the schools, various employers, the Church, the Boy Scouts, ad nauseum. There will also be waste and inefficiency in the organization that tries to replace Amtrak with only 90% of Amtrak's costs. It's almost inconceivable that such a venture could be profitable. Cutting pay would only reduce the new operator's ability to hire and retain competent, reliable staff.True this!If the only way a company can make money is to pay its employees less to do the same job, it doesn't deserve to exist. If you can do something better or more efficiently, or attract mor customers fine, removing more people from the tax paying middle class, to make a few more people rich, does nothing to help the country.
Can of worms.As it was stated before if their was money in passenger service then the railroads would have never abandoned it in the first places.
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