There were many North American passenger train innovations from 1901 to 2001. Which would you site for recognition as a success? Which would you site as hype? Why?
All Aboard the Silver Streak invites you to go back in time—to May 26, 1934—as a passenger on the Pioneer Zephyr. You won’t want to miss this record-breaking “ride” from Denver to Chicago. On your 20-minute guided tour, you will explore the baggage, smoking, passenger and observation compartments of the Pioneer Zephyr.
http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/pioneer-zephyr/
It is hard to deny success on this one.
Failure was every dollar invested in the business after the end of WW II.
Mac
Mac,
I don’t think it is as simple as all that.
First of all, for many years passenger service had not been as profitable as freight service. Railroads maintained and upgraded it because they believed that it was necessary to support their freight service.
They ran into problems when the ICC set rates and set them so low that the railroads simply could not earn a reasonable return on the money invested in them; yet the ICC remained rigid. The ICC also forced railroads to maintain passenger service where there was clearly no demand for it. Had railroads been able to operate themselves without the ICC things could well have been very different.
Finally, we have never gotten rid of our passenger trains. Profit or loss, we as a society are certainly better off with light weight trains that cost less to operate.
The ICC simply sat back while their policies caused our railroads to slowly bleed to death The Sherman Anti Trust Act contributed to the difficulties. And railroads did not always act in their own self interest. But for the Staggers act we would have simply lost our railroads, passenger and freight.
John
The RRs bet quite a bit of money on postwar streamliners thinking fast, sleak trains would win passenger’s discretionary travel money. Turned out to be a bad bet. Even roads that were super-aggressive like ACL with their upgrading to 100 mph service couldn’t compete with air and highway - even before jets and interstate highways.
The game changers were the trains that slowed the decline. Pioneer Zephyr, Budd RDC, Metroliner come to mind.
No…passenger trains…especially after 1920’s…did not make good profits for the railroads as first the automobile, truck and highways followed by airplanes took passengers away. And note that they took passengers away with government supported rights of way, terminals, and traffic controls. But in the name of integrity toward their charters and purpose, honoring of US Post Office Contracts, an understanding of public relations with their freight customers as well as the people in the communities they served, railroads tried their best to keep a good passenger service on track. Even some of the last to fold offered a class of service beyond which they needed but which they provided with pride. Many say that railroads deserted the public but the reality is that the public deserted the railroads then cried when passenger trains were gone. Amtrak was developed to run trains until the public got the message…the problem being that there are so many in the public today who want more than the running of trains but also the prevalence and reliability of service.
There is no denying the patient’s condition declined into becoming a ward of state. What equipment and therapy improved its condition?
New From End to End!
The Trail Blazer
All-Coach Streamline-New York-Chicago
http://prr.railfan.net/documents/TrailBlazer.html
Coach travel by many early 20th century accounts was described as a form of misery in motion. The concept of upgraded coach service was applied and received an upgrade. Reserved seating and faster scheduling was employed. Did it work that well for awhile?
By most accounts, road after road, it did work dramatically … for a while. Roads such as the Burlington, Rock Island and Union Pacific improved ridership hugely. But continued improvement to air travel and highways finally defeated their best efforts. The final coup was administered by the U.S. Postal Service, which had its own priorities to look after.
I would emphasize highways, Fred. The Eisenhower Interstate and Defense Highway System was free to users. Much of it was not needed for transportation but it was justified by the defense argument. It was and is an enormous subsidy given to both auto owners and the automobile industry. And yes, there was no way the railroads,who not only paid for their right of way but also pay taxes on it, could complete with government doling out a free highway system.
Surely, John. Improved highways came to gobble 90 percent of intercity travel. But jets took that invaluable business travel. (Think overnight sleepers.) I’m an old coot who remembers the lament of old coots from 50 years ago, business travelers – the fathers of my friends – whose companies wouldn’t let them take the train anymore. To me, loss of the business trade was the final nail from the purely passenger standpoint. The post office let the passenger trains stagger along for a while longer, but …
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a faithful Amtrak rider and will be until I croak or Mr. Mica prevails.
As Earl Swift has outlined in The Big Roads, the concept for the interstate highway system was on the drawing boards long before Eisenhower was president. He simply signed the act that made the system politically possible.
The interstate highways were not free to the users. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 created the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) to help pay for the interstate highways. Federal fuel taxes, license fees, excise taxes on heavy vehicles, etc. were (are) collected from motorists, deposited in the HTF, and used to pay 80 to 90 per cent of the cost of the interstate system, with 20 to 10 per cent contributed by the states. The percentage paid by the states changed over the years.
Beginning in the 1980s, if I remember correctly, approximately 22 per cent of the HTF monies have been transferred from the HTF to the Mass Transit Administration, used for other federal transport activities or transferred to the U.S. Treasury for deficit reduction. Users of the federal highway system have been subsidizing mass transit as well as other transport activities, i.e. bike lanes, rails to trails, etc.
According to Table 4, Net Federal Subsidies per Thousand Passenger-Miles by Mode: FY1990 - 2002, federal highway system users flowed back to the general fund 95 cents per thousand passenger miles of the f
Successes include:
electropneumatic braking
head end power
air-conditioning
AT&SF long distance bi-levels
Successes - Commuter double-deckers on C&NW, Q, Milw. Rd., RI, and IC.
Helped make the modern Chicago Loop possible.
The Union Pacific ‘City of Las Vegas’ Aerotrain was mildly popular but never carried a full passenger load. In September 1957, UP replaced the Aerotrain with a conventional passenger consist and returned the experimental train to General Motors.
The same shortcomings were reported everywhere - the train of the future rode like an old truck. The Aerotrain was a dismal failure - nobody wanted one. In 1957, both prototypes were finally sold at a heavily discounted price to the Rock Island Railroad for Chicago commuter service where slower operating speeds would hopefully produce a less-rough ride. Both Aerotrains were retired from service in 1966 - worn-out and unloved after only 10 years of service.
http://www.joesherlock.com/nwsltr24.html
Would the Aerotrain rate as the ultimate 20th Century failure?
Sam,
What you are saying might be right if there was one (Federal) owner of all roads. But remember, there are private (parking lots), Private land developers, city, county, and state owners each of which is contributing non-user revenue to the system. For example my neighborhood road has a Federal tax though it was paid for by my mortgage. The genius of the Federal HTF was that it was made to appear politically like the users paid for the Interstate when in fact it was merely a broad tax, a land tax essentially, with a proxy through fuel taxes.
New build intercity toll roads, even when benefiting from muni type bonds, charge $0.12/VM + a gas tax of $0.013/VM. So how is it that you pay your way on the rest of the interstate if you just pay gas tax? One “free” interstate project I am on will cover 5% of its capital and mill-pave costs alone, for a subsidy of $0.21/VM for an automobile but few are the wiser.
The HTF was a political construct and it had quite a bit of opposition in the day.
The U.S. Treasury, which covers the gap between what is collected in federal fuel taxes, license fees, excise taxes, etc., transfers monies to the HTF, which in turn transfers money to the Mass Transit Administration and other special interests. It gets its money from the taxpayers! Or it has to borrow money. It does not create money out of thin air. Only the Federal Reserve, through its Open Market Committee, can create money.
There are approximately 210 million motorists in the United States, most of whom pay some form of federal taxes. They are the largest block of taxpayers in the country, and they are paying for the nation’s roads. Amtrak’s problem is that it probably has fewer than 18 to 20 million customers. Oh, it claims 30 million riders, but many of its riders are repeat riders, ala my last paragraph, whereas motorists are not counted as repeats. The tax base for motorists is huge compar
Sam,
There is nothing I can add to V. Payne’s elegant explanation of the economics of our road system.
However, I want to say a few words in response to your statement that President Eisenhower “simply” signed the law that provides for the Eisenhower Interstate and Defense Highway System.
While he was in Europe then General Eisenhower saw the German Autobahns first hand, especially how useful they were to Germany in transporting war supplies. He came back to the US with a vision of a similar US system which in his eyes was needed for defense. It was the defense argument that carried the day and the defense argument that justified spending hugh amounts of money not connected with transportation. The passage of the law was far from simple. To my mind Eisenhower’s vision has had a lot of benefits for the US in many complex ways. However, once the law was passed political forces best described as being influenced by the ideas of Robert Moses led the law to be used to destroy urban neighborhoods and tear out the communities which were essential to both the fabric of life and the tax base of those communities. Simply stated, our highways have ripped out the heart, soul, guts and ability to support themselves of many of our cities. That part of them is an unmitigated disaster. But there is no simple explanation of why it came about nor any simple solution to the problems it has caused.
I don’t kid myself into believing that Amtrak or public transit in general can solve all the problems caused by inflicting interstate highways on our cities. However, if you look at what is happening around transit facilities now it is clear that passenger rail has created a few rays of hope in many places.
John
Sam,
You say motorists pay the costs of roads. Please answer a question. When Robert Moses was having apartment buildings torn down while people were still living in those buildings what motorist paid any cost at all for those people who were forced to flee for there lives? I just don’t see that any motorists paid anything; the costs were paid by the people whose homes were destroyed.
John
And I suspect that many of the people who have been dislocated by urban highways, which would be an small per cent of the population, were motorists. And tax payers!
For every person who was dislocated by an urban highway or school or airport, I suspect thousands of people have benefited from these projects. In progress there have always been and always will be losers. Hopefully, society will soften the impact of their dislocation.
I am re-reading Jill Jones Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station and its Tunnels. The project, which was funded by the Pennsylvania Railroad, resulted in the dislocation of thousands of people in and around the area that eventually was occupied by the station. How does this differ from other dislocations, except perhaps in time and scope? All those readers who believe that building Penn Station or the nation’s other railroad stations, which in many instances resulted in the dislocation of people, was a bad idea, please raise your hands.
History has little or nothing to do with framing the current problem. Passenger rail is a potential solution for the transport problem(s). Where is it likely to be an optimum solution? What should it look like? Who will pay for it? How will it be paid for?
I live in Georgetown, TX, which is approximately 30 miles north of Austin. It is located on I-35.
When we moved to TX nearly 40 years ago Georgetown had a population of approximately 5,000 souls. Today it is just shy of 50,000 people. One of the factors that has contributed to its growth is a good road system, i.e. I-35, TX 29, TX 195, and the recently opened TX130, which is a toll road being paid for by the users. Without these roadways it is unlikely that Georgetown would have grown to the extent that it has.
It is true, as has been argued by others, that highways don’t pay taxes. Moreover, they took some land off the tax rolls, although most of it in Texas was poor farm land that generated little in the way of property taxes. With the building of the highways came hundreds of businesses in and around Georgetown. These businesses pay more in taxes (income, sales, inventory, property, etc.) than ever could have been generated from the property that was used to construct the highways.