Which train(s) would you cut?

[Tracktwentynine]

Second...California PUC? I'll probably recognize it once I see what the acronym stands for, but I'm missing it right now.

I'm guessing he means the California State Public Utilities Commission. Most states had one to govern public services. I could be wrong, though.

 

[Anderson]

Second...California PUC? I'll probably recognize it once I see what the acronym stands for, but I'm missing it right now.

I'm guessing he means the California State Public Utilities Commission. Most states had one to govern public services. I could be wrong, though.

Makes sense, and IIRC the Texas Railroad Commission had rather the opposite reputation of the relevant office in CA.

 

[RCrierie]

The train I'd like to see cut is the "train of thought" in Congress that Amtrak is not as worthy as the other modes of transportation that receieve $$ from the gov't.

The problem is Amtrak is ostensibly a private corporation and the RPSA of 1970 which created Amtrak required that Amtrak operate on a for-profit basis; yet Amtrak keeps requring regular cash infusions direct from the US Government to keep operating.

Meanwhile, airlines go bankrupt and get sold off; there's no 'Uncle Sugar' to save them usually.

Sobs at the loss of Eastern Airlines

Even those indirect airline subsidies you like to rail at still have a lot of self funding:

Link

Summary as of 1 January 2011:

FAA Taxes

7.5% Government Passenger Ticket Excise Tax

$3.70 Flight Segment Tax

Taxes on Commercial Jet Fuel

EPA Taxes

Taxes for the Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Trust Fund

Passenger Facility Charges

Up to $4.50 per passenger emplanement to fund airport improvements via the Passenger Facility Charges program.

DHS Taxes

$2.50 9/11 Fee -- this funds the TSA.

Aviation Security Infrastructure Fee -- this funds the TSA.

International Taxes

$5.00 APHIS Passenger Fee

$70.75 APHIS Aircraft Fee

(APHIS is the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which investigates with sniffer dogs and such to keep people from bringing in illegal plants or animals that could destroy our native ecosystems.)

$5.50 Customs User Fee

$7.00 Immigration User Fee

They did a study on that page of a sample round trip from Peoria (PIA) - Raleigh/Durham (RDU) via Chicago O'Hare (ORD); and the total cost per ticket in taxes was 20.2% of the total price.

You just don't see it normally, since the taxes are all included in the final price of the ticket sold to you; unlike normal shopping, where you buy an iPad for $499, and then at the counter, get hit by a $29.94~ sales tax (6% in Maryland) that's computed as a line item on your receipt.

And yes; the US Government subsidizes railroads.

One such example is the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing (RRIF) program; which has been available since the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) was passed on 9 June 1998.

So let's have something a bit more productive than constantly railing about those evil indirectly subsidized planes/buses.

 

[Anderson]

A point I'd like to make is that it's very interesting that the airlines "hide" the taxes charged...but they end up waving the fees around to at least some extent.

Also, on the airlines, I would note that passenger airlines tend to get displaced by other passenger airlines. Passenger rail gets replaced by "The Dog" if you're lucky. I'd rather like to see one or two major cities have the airlines basically have to vacate for want of traffic...there are a few midsize cities close to this (Roanoke, VA and Des Moines, IA leap to mind, and some of the smaller cities in various regions are seeing airline operations propped up that would make the Cardinal look like a model in profitability). I'd just like to, for once, see the airlines pull out and the city sell off the airport like they sold off so many train stations and let RoWs go.

 

[henryj]

Second...California PUC? I'll probably recognize it once I see what the acronym stands for, but I'm missing it right now.

I'm guessing he means the California State Public Utilities Commission. Most states had one to govern public services. I could be wrong, though.

Yes and it still exists. http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/puc/

There were several articles about the SP's confrontation with the Cal PUC in the SPH&TS magazines. I believe the actions of the Cal PUC led to legislation that allowed the ICC to override the obviously ridiculous decisions made by these state agencies, particularly California's. I assume they used the 'interference with interstate commerce' rule to accomplish this.

 

[jis]

A point I'd like to make is that it's very interesting that the airlines "hide" the taxes charged...but they end up waving the fees around to at least some extent.

I don't know that they hide anything. When they published fares without including the taxes and slapped the taxes on before selling the ticket people got upset. So the gummit asked them to publish the actual cost as fare and even fined some of them for not doing so. So they started publishing the whole ball of wax. But they carefully itemize the amounts if you look for it on your itinerary or receipt if you print one out. BTW, it is not just taxes from various government entities, there is the famous fuel surcharge these days too, and if you are going international, you get a half page long list of items that are tacked onto the base fare to arrive at an actual amount paid which is often more than double the base fare.

So why not charge a 5% ticket surcharge to build up a small war chest for state of good repair or such for railroad tickets?

 

[Ryan]

What would be different about just raising fares 5% across the board?

 

[jis]

What would be different about just raising fares 5% across the board?

Transparent allocation of the additional money to a specific fund to be spent for a specific purpose instead of it disappearing into the labyrinth that is Amtrak accounting.

Also potentially it could be across the board, not just Amtrak.

 

[Ziv]

Just a personal comment about reducing service to 3 days a week on any lines. I did a rather fun trip last month, 15 days, WAS to New Orleans to Deming, NM to LA to Portland to West Glacier to Chicago and home to WAS. The Sunset Limited's limited service ruined my best efforts to make the scheduling work right. I ended up in Glacier too late to do most of what I wanted, I only got one night in New Orleas, I ended up staying in NM when I really didn't want to, all because I didn't know enough to schedule my trip around the every other day aspect of the Sunset Limited. The train itself was pretty good other than the horrible track the first couple hours we were in Texas. I was really worried about some of the older passengers falling and hurting themselves.

What Amtrak needs is a dedicated stream of money. I know it isn't going to happen, but if they knew that for the next 10 years they were going to have 10% more money than they have now, they would probably spend most of it on booze, loose women and smoke, and what was left they would waste... But seriously if they did have 10% more per year, they could get the Sunset Limited back up to daily, I mean, look at the map! How in the world can we be talking about axing the SL?! Then get PTC in where ever possible and get the speeds up as high as possible, even though it won't work everywhere. Finally get more of the chokepoints eliminated/remedied. Whether it is Baltimore's slow section or areas that need to be double-tracked, or the last 3-5 miles outside of several stations (LA and NO come to mind) that seem to have speed limits of 15 mph needing to be improved to allow faster entry by the trains, but reasonably small changes could take hours off some of the LD routes. And wi-fi, I mean really Amtrak, it is 2011 and you still can't get wi-fi on most of the trains that actually works?

And yes, I know that Amtrak is going to be hard-pressed to defend what they have, let alone get more money. But one can hope.

 

[Anderson]

Ok, an unpleasant question, but is there some way that if the SWC is forced to reroute to Amarillo, the Sunset/Eagle combo could get sent to Amarillo? I don't like how that would look, but you'd at least have a cross-platform option to get from ATL/NOL/DAL/SAS to LAX without having to "back up" to CHI.

 

[jb64]

I did a rather fun trip last month, 15 days, WAS to New Orleans to Deming, NM to LA to Portland to West Glacier to Chicago and home to WAS.

Trip Report?

 

[George B]

Ok, an unpleasant question, but is there some way that if the SWC is forced to reroute to Amarillo, the Sunset/Eagle combo could get sent to Amarillo? I don't like how that would look, but you'd at least have a cross-platform option to get from ATL/NOL/DAL/SAS to LAX without having to "back up" to CHI.

Oh, the SWC running on the Trans-Con! I’m salivating at the thought. Don’t tease me like that.

 

[henryj]

Ok, an unpleasant question, but is there some way that if the SWC is forced to reroute to Amarillo, the Sunset/Eagle combo could get sent to Amarillo? I don't like how that would look, but you'd at least have a cross-platform option to get from ATL/NOL/DAL/SAS to LAX without having to "back up" to CHI.

LOL, I have heard of a lot of different ideas on the Sunset Ltd routing, but never through Amarillo. The most common idea was to route it up the UP(former MP/T&P) to Dallas and then out the Baird sub to El Paso. But to go way up into the panhandle to Amarillo would be ridiculous. What do you do with it then? You might as well hook it onto the SWC and go to LA that way, but then maybe that is the idea. Right now there is no way to get to Dallas from the Sunset Ltd other than to take the Eagle north out of SAS and then come back. I don't see how Chicago gets into the picture.

Before Amtrak the Santa Fe had a train from Houston through Lubbock and Clovis to LA called the California Special. The Burlington had connections to Dallas from Houston and then on to Amarillo and Colorado. You could go from Dallas to LA on the Santa Fe on the same California Special. It all connected in Brownwood.

 

[Anderson]

Ok, an unpleasant question, but is there some way that if the SWC is forced to reroute to Amarillo, the Sunset/Eagle combo could get sent to Amarillo? I don't like how that would look, but you'd at least have a cross-platform option to get from ATL/NOL/DAL/SAS to LAX without having to "back up" to CHI.

LOL, I have heard of a lot of different ideas on the Sunset Ltd routing, but never through Amarillo. The most common idea was to route it up the UP(former MP/T&P) to Dallas and then out the Baird sub to El Paso. But to go way up into the panhandle to Amarillo would be ridiculous. What do you do with it then? You might as well hook it onto the SWC and go to LA that way, but then maybe that is the idea. Right now there is no way to get to Dallas from the Sunset Ltd other than to take the Eagle north out of SAS and then come back. I don't see how Chicago gets into the picture.

Before Amtrak the Santa Fe had a train from Houston through Lubbock and Clovis to LA called the California Special. The Burlington had connections to Dallas from Houston and then on to Amarillo and Colorado. You could go from Dallas to LA on the Santa Fe on the same California Special. It all connected in Brownwood.

Henry,

That would actually be the idea: If you have to axe the "Sunset proper", at least preserve a Texas-California link of some kind.

Here's the thing: If the "through Sunset" goes bye-bye, the only way to get from NOL to LAX is via CHI (CONO to CHI, SWC to LAX). ATL gets even messier: Either you're going ATL-WAS-CHI-LAX or ATL-NOL-CHI-LAX. Dallas is a similar mess (you'd have a choice: MO River Runner or a bus bridge, take your pick). So running a link to the SWC would at least preserve network connectivity in the region.

Basically, I'd run the "Sunset" NOL-SAS-DAL (or Fort Worth)-Amarillo and have the Eagle meet it at DAL/FTW. Not an elegant solution, I know, but probably better than the alternative of totally killing that link in the chain.

Of course, looking at the California Special's routing, that basically sort of gets what I'm hoping for (SAS gets dumped, I believe, but you could always keep on UP's turf for that and then go BNSF from Dallas onwards). I suspect that UP might swallow this so they could ditch the Sunset past SAS.

Edit: Alright, I checked the CN/CP sections of the guide, and both trains were daily. Yep, I was wrong there.

 

[USrail21]

I would cut Auto Train, Empire Service, Carl Sandburg, Piedmont, and Saluki. Auto train runs between Lorton and Sanford. Who needs it? Just use VRE to Alexandria and take Silver Star or Meteor to DeLand. Then use a taxi. Also cut the others because they make the exact same stops as other routes. Saluki makes the same stops as Illini, Carl Sandburg same as Illinois Zephyr, Piedmont the same as Carolinian, and Empire Service the same as Maple Leaf. So those are unessersary routes needed to be cut.

 

[Trogdor]

I would cut Auto Train, Empire Service, Carl Sandburg, Piedmont, and Saluki. Auto train runs between Lorton and Sanford. Who needs it? Just use VRE to Alexandria and take Silver Star or Meteor to DeLand. Then use a taxi. Also cut the others because they make the exact same stops as other routes. Saluki makes the same stops as Illini, Carl Sandburg same as Illinois Zephyr, Piedmont the same as Carolinian, and Empire Service the same as Maple Leaf. So those are unessersary routes needed to be cut.

I think you forgot to include the [sarcasm] tag.

 

[Donctor]

You people keep making me look this up. LD trains lost $575 million FY2010. Silver Star 50, Card 17, SM 43, EB 62, CZ 56, SWC 62, CONO 24, TE 29, Sunset Ltd 39, CS 51, LSL 38, Crescent 44 and even Auto Train 22. It's an abysmal record. Using the Cardinal and the Sunset as an example, going three times a week should reduce the losses by at least a third. That's something like $150 million. It might be even more. Sure, per passenger losses will be higher, but that's not the problem. The problem is Amtrak has less money to lose overall. Your hottest western LD train, the EB lost a whopping 62 million. That's just unbelievable for a single train and it's unsustainable. Amtrak's fully allocated loss for the entire system was $755 million and most of that was LD trains. I don't want to see them all go in the trash bin and neither do any of you. So something has to give. Reducing frequencies keeps the network and the routes and reduces the overall losses. It's just plain math. Get through this crisis, think about how to run them more efficiently, figure out how to get some new equipment, and figure out how to stem these horrendous losses.

On the short distance front the big losers are Keystone 27, Empire, 26, Pacific Surfliners 31, Wolverines 19, Capitols, 16 and San Jouquins 11. Let the states foot more of these loses.

Do the loss calculations involve the overhead costs that Amtrak seems to redistribute at will?

 

[WICT106]

Going to service three times per week on the Long Distance trains will actually increase the losses, not reduce them. Reducing service will result in many potential passengers giving up, and not taking the train, because it won't run on the day or time when the passenger wishes to make a trip.

 

[Shawn Ryu]

Doesnt the State of California already foot bills for Capitol Corridor, Surfliner and San Joaquin?

 

[cirdan]

A point I'd like to make is that it's very interesting that the airlines "hide" the taxes charged...but they end up waving the fees around to at least some extent.

I don't know that they hide anything. When they published fares without including the taxes and slapped the taxes on before selling the ticket people got upset. So the gummit asked them to publish the actual cost as fare and even fined some of them for not doing so. So they started publishing the whole ball of wax. But they carefully itemize the amounts if you look for it on your itinerary or receipt if you print one out. BTW, it is not just taxes from various government entities, there is the famous fuel surcharge these days too, and if you are going international, you get a half page long list of items that are tacked onto the base fare to arrive at an actual amount paid which is often more than double the base fare.

And that practice is most annoying. When I buy groceries I don't get a detailed breakdown of costs, taxes and surcharges. I want to know what the product costs me and I'm not really interested in the provider's internal cost structures.

Why should trains or airlines be any different.

 

[Trogdor]

A point I'd like to make is that it's very interesting that the airlines "hide" the taxes charged...but they end up waving the fees around to at least some extent.

I don't know that they hide anything. When they published fares without including the taxes and slapped the taxes on before selling the ticket people got upset. So the gummit asked them to publish the actual cost as fare and even fined some of them for not doing so. So they started publishing the whole ball of wax. But they carefully itemize the amounts if you look for it on your itinerary or receipt if you print one out. BTW, it is not just taxes from various government entities, there is the famous fuel surcharge these days too, and if you are going international, you get a half page long list of items that are tacked onto the base fare to arrive at an actual amount paid which is often more than double the base fare.

And that practice is most annoying. When I buy groceries I don't get a detailed breakdown of costs, taxes and surcharges. I want to know what the product costs me and I'm not really interested in the provider's internal cost structures.

Why should trains or airlines be any different.

If that's the case, then you should prefer the airline (and Amtrak) way of doing things. When you go to an airline's website, they'll quote a price, and often, that's what you wind up paying. True, afterwards, they'll give you the page-long list of what all the components of the fare are, but you don't have to read that if you don't want to.

When you go to the store, you'll see a price. When you go to check out, you wind up paying that price plus x% in various taxes (and, in some areas, there are so many different sales tax rates depending on exactly which neighborhood of which county you're in, and what product you're buying, that it's damn near impossible to actually figure out what the tax rate is). So, you actually don't know how much you're paying until you get to the cash register.

 

[jis]

And that practice is most annoying. When I buy groceries I don't get a detailed breakdown of costs, taxes and surcharges. I want to know what the product costs me and I'm not really interested in the provider's internal cost structures.

Why should trains or airlines be any different.

I agree it is annoying. It is also annoying in Restaurants etc. I suspect it is because companies that operate in multiple states find it necessary to point out that their base price remains the same everywhere, but the actual price paid depends on what the local authorities tack on. Or it could also be something required by regulators. i don;t know for sure.

In Europe they seem to quote all prices with all taxes included.

 

[henryj]

You people keep making me look this up. LD trains lost $575 million FY2010. Silver Star 50, Card 17, SM 43, EB 62, CZ 56, SWC 62, CONO 24, TE 29, Sunset Ltd 39, CS 51, LSL 38, Crescent 44 and even Auto Train 22. It's an abysmal record. Using the Cardinal and the Sunset as an example, going three times a week should reduce the losses by at least a third. That's something like $150 million. It might be even more. Sure, per passenger losses will be higher, but that's not the problem. The problem is Amtrak has less money to lose overall. Your hottest western LD train, the EB lost a whopping 62 million. That's just unbelievable for a single train and it's unsustainable. Amtrak's fully allocated loss for the entire system was $755 million and most of that was LD trains. I don't want to see them all go in the trash bin and neither do any of you. So something has to give. Reducing frequencies keeps the network and the routes and reduces the overall losses. It's just plain math. Get through this crisis, think about how to run them more efficiently, figure out how to get some new equipment, and figure out how to stem these horrendous losses.

On the short distance front the big losers are Keystone 27, Empire, 26, Pacific Surfliners 31, Wolverines 19, Capitols, 16 and San Jouquins 11. Let the states foot more of these loses.

Do the loss calculations involve the overhead costs that Amtrak seems to redistribute at will?

Donctor, those numbers are the fully allocated costs from Amtrak Sept 2010 Performance Report, Section C, or the end of FY 2010. Numbers for 2011 seem to not be available as Amtrak has left those pages blank with this notation: "Due to a Financial System Conversion, this Data is Not Yet Available". You can interpret this as you please. To me it means they are playing with the numbers again.

The Senate Transportation funding bill has operating funds for Amtrak set at $544 million. That would be 200+ million short of Amtrak's 2010 loss if that is how they work it. $200 million is a lot of train cancellations, not just one which is why I proprosed the tri-weekly scheme. The bill has not been discussed nor voted on by the House which wants Amtrak's budget to be zero.

On the other hand, if you look at the financial results in section A then for 2010 Amtrak's operating loss was $1,233 but that includes depreciation of $593 which is a non-cash item. Below that Amtrak's clarifies by saying their Operating Support Requirement was $437 and they received $563 or a #125 million surplus. In FY 2011 those numbers are $1,251, $457 and 562 for a surplus of $105. So if 2012 operations were similar then the proposed $544 would be sufficient to operate the railroad as is.

I have no idea where the difference between the $755 loss shown in Section C and the operations requirement of $437 show in Section A comes from. Obviously Amtrak is getting some cash from other sources. Some of you Amtrak CPA's whould have to clarify this for us.

 

[henryj]

Doesnt the State of California already foot bills for Capitol Corridor, Surfliner and San Joaquin?

That is what I thought too, however the Amtrak FY2010 September report shows big losses for some of the state supported trains. Total loss for state supported and other short distance trains was $231 million. The Washington-Lynchburg train is the only one that show positive results of $2.1 million.

 

[cirdan]

Doesnt the State of California already foot bills for Capitol Corridor, Surfliner and San Joaquin?

That is what I thought too, however the Amtrak FY2010 September report shows big losses for some of the state supported trains. Total loss for state supported and other short distance trains was $231 million. The Washington-Lynchburg train is the only one that show positive results of $2.1 million.

Maybe the state support is capped at a certain level and any deficit beyond that is Amtrak's?