Long-Distance Train Schedule Performance

[CSXfoamer1997]

Why do long distance trains have such terrible on-time performance? It's ONE OF the main reasons that long-distance ridership is decreasing.

Also, what can Amtrak, as well as freight carriers do, in order to improve on-time performance if willing to do so?

 

[CCC1007]

The primary reason is freight train interference. Amtrak tends to travel between 10 and 30 MPH faster than most freight trains. There is also the fact that many miles that are traveled by the long distance trains are single tracked with controlled passing sidings to facilitate bidirectional traffic.

 

[afigg]

Why do long distance trains have such terrible on-time performance? It's ONE OF the main reasons that long-distance ridership is decreasing.

Also, what can Amtrak, as well as freight carriers do, in order to improve on-time performance if willing to do so?

Actually, the overall on-time performance for the LD trains has improved considerably over the past year compared to previous years. You obviously were not on this forum during the NS meltdown several years ago when the CL and LSL routinely arrived at CHI many hours late or the severe Empire Builder delays due to freight traffic related to the Bakken oil boom overloading the capacity of the route.

A dropoff in freight train traffic in recent months has helped the OTP for the LD trains and many of the corridor trains. Summer track work season is starting up which will result in delays and likely a sharp falloff in OTP for some of the train routes until Fall.

What can be done to improve the OTP of the LD trains? Money and more corridor services on the LD routes paying for track and signal upgrades.

 

[zephyr17]

You have asked a much more complicated question than you know. When Amtrak was created, railroads generally had a lot of excess capacity and giving Amtrak access to that capacity at low rates was not a big deal, especially when offset against getting out from under passenger train losses. Since then Staggers deregulation increased traffic and railroads generally trimmed excess capacity, reducing duplicate routes and lots of single tracking, like IC. So track space is more valuable than it was. Amtrak, with higher speeds, also takes up more of that valuable track capacity than most freight trains.

Some railroads historically have been better hosts for Amtrak. BNSF usually is a good host, the Bakken oil boom and the resulting capacity overload an unfortunate exception. UP, at least since the MopUp merger when the MoPac management team generally took charge, has been somewhat hostile. The bottom line is Amtrak does not add to the freight railroads' bottom line, Amtrak reimbursement pretty much offsets the costs incurred by handling Amtrak and not much more. The incentive payments are kind of peanuts in the freight railroads scheme of things, and doesn't really offset Amtrak getting in the way of the money trains. Some railroads are more gracious about it, and BNSF's position has generally been get Amtrak over the road and out of the way, plus BNSF management has also considered handling Amtrak well proves you are running a fluid railroad. UP, not so much.

There is also the statutory right Amtrak has over freight trains, which Amtrak has occasionally gone to court about, slapping UP not too long ago. But Amtrak has usually only pulled that trigger as a last resort, as they have to maintain a working relationship with the host railroads. But UP has been much better since then, too.

When market rates have been paid for track access, the OTP issue usually gets solved. CalTrans access to UP's CalP line for the Capitol Corridor service is a case in point. CalTrans negotiated its own agreement at much higher rates than the regular Amtrak trackage rights agreement and those trains run on time. They also paid for improvements like putting the second main back on the Yolo Causeway. Simply paying for track improvements alone sometimes doesn't get the job done, though. Once it is done, it is the railroad's property and they do what they want with it. Oregon paid for a second main (or long passing track) near Oregon City and UP promptly stuffed it with OOS freight cars for years. It is back available now, though.

So the bottom line, the way to improve OTP is $$$$ to the host railroads, with a tough contract backing it up.

 

[neroden]

The primary reason is freight train interference.

This is caused by bad dispatching (which is not legal) by scofflaw Class I railroads.
And the secondary reason is slow orders. This is caused by undermaintenance by the Class I railroads. (Which is legal.)

The LD trains have actually had much much better on time performance lately. This is largely because there's been a downturn in freight traffic; with less freight traffic, the Class Is are less tempted to illegally dispatch their freights ahead of Amtrak.

A tertiary reason is construction projects, which affected the Empire Builder for several years. And then there are actual, inherent sources of delay. There are situations where there's a bottleneck where no amount of competent dispatching or maintenance can make the trains run on time, and more tracks need to be built, or a grade separation needs to be built, or something. The most significant such point is in the approach to Chicago from the East. Or there's the situation between Everett and Seattle on the Empire Builder, where recurrent mudslides shut the line down, and something has to be done about them to improve OTP.

With dispatching, it is very much a matter of *management attitude*.

On the whole, BNSF has been very cooperative, though they can be quite recalcitrant when it comes to single-track lines (which is understandable).

For decades, UP was extremely obnoxious, but they've been quite cooperative lately. Someone must have changed jobs!

NS is usually extremely cooperative, but did something exceptionally stupid in fall of 2014 (ordering their dispatchers to obey an incompetent automated computer system) and took months to admit they'd screwed up.

CN has been extremely uncooperative to the point of criminality, though this seems to have changed somewhat since Hunter Harrison left.

CP used to be quite bad about dispatching, but oddly has gotten quite a lot better lately, even though they acquired Hunter Harrison.

CSX has been consistently uncooperative and obnoxious, and it has nothing to do with how much they're paid; they're just jerks about it no matter how much they're paid. Not clear why.

With maintenance, every one of the roads will refuse to do maintenance which is needed only for Amtrak and not for their freights, unless the state or Amtrak pays for it. Which is reasonable enough.

The long-term solution is for a government to buy the tracks, maintain them, and lease freight rights back to the freight operator. This eliminates dispatching problems and undermaintenance problems, pretty consistently, leaving only the construction-zone and more fundamental sources of delay. There are several tracks which have this status already.

 

[Fred Wis.]

Wow. I learned some interesting things from the above reply's. Thanks. I do question the idea of government buying, and maintaining tracks in a more efficient way than a private company. I have rarely seen a government agency run as efficiently as most private businesses, but do acknowledge there are times it is neccesary.

 

[Eric S]

Opposition to government ownership of tracks/rights-of-way often seems to be more about ideology rather than practicality. Interestingly this does not extend to road rights-of-way, though

 

[JoeBas]

Opposition to government ownership of tracks/rights-of-way often seems to be more about ideology rather than practicality. Interestingly this does not extend to road rights-of-way, though

In fact, with roads it's the exact opposite. Some private consortium from Spain wanted to build a private toll road here in Texas a few years back - get the state to grab the land for them, they build the road, charge the tolls & keep the vig. You wouldn't believe the holy hell that was raised...

 

[Manny T]

Are things done differently In Europe, in terms of track ownership and rights of way, where passenger trains seem to run more on time, or is it just a question of shorter distances (generally) there? Passenger travel seems to be more reliable there.

 

[CCC1007]

In Europe, a state owned company usually owns the tracks and stations, and the trains are run by a state owned company, sometimes the same that owns the tracks. The European countries are slowly changing their policies to have more open access to the tracks.

 

[ScouseAndy]

In Europe, a state owned company usually owns the tracks and stations, and the trains are run by a state owned company, sometimes the same that owns the tracks. The European countries are slowly changing their policies to have more open access to the tracks.

The UK once privatised the Rail networks and it was handed over to a company called Rail Track, however on the 17th October 2000 a train derailed at 115mph and killed 4 (the modern design of the coaches was the only reason why more didn't die) due to cost cutting and lack of maintance, virtually over night the whole network was brought down to a maximum speed of 50mph and hugh wraths of lines closed completely due to poor standards in track maintenance. Railtrack was fined and lost their licence to run the nations rail infrastructure and it was brought back into public hands.

I doubt we will ever see it go back in to private ownership but we now have a situation where any company can pay access fees to runs trains over British tracks and we don't have nationalised train operating companies. many services are operated by other European State owned train companies and the British tax payer pays them a subsidy to run our trains and all profits they make then get reinvested in their own countries rail networks. Its a total rubbish system where the only loser is the British tax payer.

 

[CCC1007]

I probably should clarify that this is what usually happens, in that it can be boiled down to this Level. There are multiple systems in use for both track ownership and train operation, so almost every country is different from the others.

 

[CCC1007]

Oops, double post...

 

[Alex M.]

For those who simply advocate the government take over the tracks, where will this money come from? With 19 trillion dollars in debt and growing, The US doesn't have the money, unless we con the Chinese to buy them, which they may end up doing anyway.

 

[trainviews]

Wow. I learned some interesting things from the above reply's. Thanks. I do question the idea of government buying, and maintaining tracks in a more efficient way than a private company. I have rarely seen a government agency run as efficiently as most private businesses, but do acknowledge there are times it is neccesary.

In this case it is not so much a question of who maintains the tracks most efficiently, but more to whose priorities they are maintained and dispatched. The private freight rr's of course maintain the tracks to their own needs and that can often be to a lower standard than desireable for passenger traffic, resulting in slow and uncomfortable rides. The same thing can be true for the dispatching resulting in delays for passenger trains.

So it is more a question of whether you want tracks prioritized for freight (privately owned) or for passengers (public). At least on some corridors with relatively little freight traffic and several passenger trains a day, state ownership makes good sense, or might even be the only way to keep the passenger train running.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

The primary reason is freight train interference.

This is caused by bad dispatching (which is not legal) by scofflaw Class I railroads.
And the secondary reason is slow orders. This is caused by undermaintenance by the Class I railroads. (Which is legal.)

The LD trains have actually had much much better on time performance lately. This is largely because there's been a downturn in freight traffic; with less freight traffic, the Class Is are less tempted to illegally dispatch their freights ahead of Amtrak.

A tertiary reason is construction projects, which affected the Empire Builder for several years. And then there are actual, inherent sources of delay. There are situations where there's a bottleneck where no amount of competent dispatching or maintenance can make the trains run on time, and more tracks need to be built, or a grade separation needs to be built, or something. The most significant such point is in the approach to Chicago from the East. Or there's the situation between Everett and Seattle on the Empire Builder, where recurrent mudslides shut the line down, and something has to be done about them to improve OTP.

With dispatching, it is very much a matter of *management attitude*.

On the whole, BNSF has been very cooperative, though they can be quite recalcitrant when it comes to single-track lines (which is understandable).

For decades, UP was extremely obnoxious, but they've been quite cooperative lately. Someone must have changed jobs!

NS is usually extremely cooperative, but did something exceptionally stupid in fall of 2014 (ordering their dispatchers to obey an incompetent automated computer system) and took months to admit they'd screwed up.

CN has been extremely uncooperative to the point of criminality, though this seems to have changed somewhat since Hunter Harrison left.

CP used to be quite bad about dispatching, but oddly has gotten quite a lot better lately, even though they acquired Hunter Harrison.

CSX has been consistently uncooperative and obnoxious, and it has nothing to do with how much they're paid; they're just jerks about it no matter how much they're paid. Not clear why.

With maintenance, every one of the roads will refuse to do maintenance which is needed only for Amtrak and not for their freights, unless the state or Amtrak pays for it. Which is reasonable enough.

The long-term solution is for a government to buy the tracks, maintain them, and lease freight rights back to the freight operator. This eliminates dispatching problems and undermaintenance problems, pretty consistently, leaving only the construction-zone and more fundamental sources of delay. There are several tracks which have this status already.

Amtrak has singled out the six primary host freight railroads (click "View Ranking" in the upper right corner).

https://www.amtrak.com/historical-on-time-performance

CN is the worst with CSX and NS right behind (bad news for East of the Mississippi).

 

[neroden]

For those who simply advocate the government take over the tracks, where will this money come from? With 19 trillion dollars in debt and growing, The US doesn't have the money, unless we con the Chinese to buy them, which they may end up doing anyway.

This is nonsense. The US prints its own money. US govenrment "debt" is just a fantasy, an accounting convention; we could turn it to zero overnight with basically no economic effects, although rich people would be annoyed at the loss of their interest payments on their T-bonds. It's surprising how many people fall for this debt scare scam, promoted by Pete Peterson -- it's a scam which is used as an excuse to sell public property off to profiteering billionaires. Don't fall for it.

Anyway, the US wastes 1 trillion per year in order to provide the military (which loses every war it gets into) with tanks and airplanes and battleships which the generals don't even want. Bluntly, we have plenty of money at the federal level.

The state level is more complicated, but states like NY can definitely afford to buy the tracks. I'm not sure we can afford the amount of money which goes out in the form of corruption through bogus contracts with no results to show for them, thanks to our appallingly corupt state legislature, but that's another matter. Even Michigan which has genuine budget problems didn't have much trouble figuring out how to fund the one-time purchase of the tracks.

 

[neroden]

Wow. I learned some interesting things from the above reply's. Thanks. I do question the idea of government buying, and maintaining tracks in a more efficient way than a private company.

Well, they contract out maintenance -- they don't do it directly. The point is that the government can require that the tracks be maintained to proper passenger standards. The private freight haulers, trying to juice their profits for Wall Street, have an incentive to "cheat" and undermaintain the tracks until derailments start happening. And they have a *record* of doing this, particularly at CSX.

I have rarely seen a government agency run as efficiently as most private businesses, but do acknowledge there are times it is neccesary.

Social Security Administration is more efficient than any private pension system. Medicare and Medicaid are both more efficient than any private health insurer, by a *lot*.
This is mostly because, unlike the private operations, they do not have *perverse incentives*. They can run with very small staffs and simply focus on transferring the money properly and avoiding getting cheated.

The government operations which have trouble running efficiently are the ones which do the work directly, like the Army. The ones which mainly act as intermediaries and fnancial overseers (like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare) are often far more efficient than private middlemen, thanks to not needing to extract their own layer of profit.

Government-owned roads and railways have similar characteristics. It's often a good idea to contract out the actual maintenance and repair and upgrade work -- put it out to bid -- but it's always a good idea for the government to own the underlying road or railroad.

 

[Ryan]

^^^ Nathaniel for President!

 

[dlagrua]

If you examine the present passenger rail system, except for the NE corridor, you have private railroad tracks being rented out to a government owned passenger rail system. This brings about an incompatible working relationship. What would seem to make sense is to turn the passenger rail business back to the private RR's, subsidize them (for less than Amtraks budget) set standards, conduct oversight and save the taxpayer money. Unfortunately ALL government programs are in reality, broke right now so its obvious that approach is not working.

 

[Bob Dylan]

The Last thing the Class Is want is to run passenger trains! They'd rather that Amtrak just went away and that the Government gave them the money that goes to Amtrak!

 

[Palmetto]

The Last thing the Class Is want is to run passenger trains! They'd rather that Amtrak just went away and that the Government gave them the money that goes to Amtrak!

Which is why the NRPC was created in the first place. Some people in government need a history lesson in passenger rail.

 

[zephyr17]

If you examine the present passenger rail system, except for the NE corridor, you have private railroad tracks being rented out to a government owned passenger rail system. This brings about an incompatible working relationship. What would seem to make sense is to turn the passenger rail business back to the private RR's, subsidize them (for less than Amtraks budget) set standards, conduct oversight and save the taxpayer money. Unfortunately ALL government programs are in reality, broke right now so its obvious that approach is not working.

Essentially that was the first alternative that was proposed when Congress started to look into saving passenger rail in the late 1960's. The proposal for quasi-government corporation taking over the trains (NRPC) gained more traction and won out.

 

[Eric S]

It's also, essentially, how VIA Rail started - with the Canadian federal government covering most of the losses from passenger service on CN and CP. And that eventually morphed into VIA Rail being a separate entity. (Yes, that's an over-simplification.)

 

[jis]

If you examine the present passenger rail system, except for the NE corridor, you have private railroad tracks being rented out to a government owned passenger rail system. This brings about an incompatible working relationship. What would seem to make sense is to turn the passenger rail business back to the private RR's, subsidize them (for less than Amtraks budget) set standards, conduct oversight and save the taxpayer money. Unfortunately ALL government programs are in reality, broke right now so its obvious that approach is not working.

There is one fatally flawed, or at least completely unfounded in reality assumption which makes this proposal faulty. And that is that the level of subsidy needed will be any less than it is today. Where the heck do you get that idea from? Wishful thinking?

Lest we forget and rewrite history... OBS and T&E was brought inhouse into Amtrak as a cost reduction measure, and not much has changed since then.