Amtrak had a very similar privately owned passenger competitor from December 1,1971 to late April 1981 in the form of the auto train corporation. Who could forget those colorful white red and purple cars with matching u36 b locomotives. Running daily from lorton va to Sanford fl. In 1974 the service was expanded from Louisville ky to Sanford. At one point a-t was combined with Amtrak’s Floridian to reduced losses. What killed the auto train corp? The Louisville train lost money and nothing could save it. It was short lived but a big financial drain on the company. Three costly accidents involving crack axles on the car carriers and a broken axle on a locomotive. Rising operating cost and insurance premiums coupled with super low air line fares pushed a-t into bankruptcy and its colorfull trains ceased operations in April 1981. A-t was a public corporation that offered 700000 shares at 10 bucks a share in July 1971. I still have my two. In Sanford fl and lorton you could watch a fleet of Baldwin vo-1000 ( at 621-623 ) built in the mid 1940’s and 624 a 1946 alco s-2 make up the long trains
Operating crews were provided by the host railroads the rf&p and the scl on the lorton runs and the l&n and scl on the Louisville line. The train carried dome coaches and dome Lounges and conventional sleepers and diners and a movie buffet car. In 1977 it became the official sponsor of the Walt Disney world railroad.
long live the original auto train corporation!!!
Amtrak first privately held and not so successful competitor.
Auto-Train was woefully undercapitalized (not unlike many interurbans) and may not have lasted much longer than it did even if it never operated its Louisville-Florida train. John G. Kneiling wrote a piece about its operation and noted that lease financing for its locomotives was no problem but it had to use capital to purchase the passenger and auto-carrying cars.
Duly noted, but thier amtemped expansion into the mid west while being undercapitalized was a poor choice. They offered this service on Friday Saturday and Sunday only. A-t should have concentrated on thier core business.
Comparing a-t to an interurban operation I am not sure is fair. The market for this kind of operation was thier. Interurbans as a whole could not compete with comptemporay steam railroads or the automobile. Interurbans died because thier market disappeared.
A-t had a good business plan, loyal customer base and offered excellent customer service.
My point is this ,Amtrak has had a private competition and its very difficult to be successful in the market place. Even thou a-t lasted more than a decade.
It’s interesting to debate if they were truly an Amtrak competitor. Other than running on a host railroad and using 2nd hand passenger cars they were very different. They served a very different market – those traveling with their automobiles and those without. This was of course reflected in Amtrak’s stations located at the center of cities vs. Auto Train’s near interstate highways. If I didn’t have a car it would be difficult to travel on AT.
Amtrak has an advantage that no private, investor owned corporation has had. It can cover its losses through the taxpayers.
In FY13 the Auto Train lost $32 million before depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous charges. Moreover, if Amtrak had paid the fully allocated cost of hosting the Auto Train, the loss probably would have been greater.
One can make a creditable argument that intercity passenger trains fill a vital social need and should be supported by taxpayer funds. How one can make this argument for a train that is designed to haul well heeled Northeasterns and their personal vehicles to Florida to escape the winter snow and ice is beyond me.
If you don’t have a car or a motocycle, you may not travel on Auto Train. To quote from “Auto Train Travel Tips and Requirements,” “Only passengers with four-tire, two-axle vehicles or motorcycles may travel on Auto Train.” “Three wheeled motorcycles and motorcycles with side cars must purchase two motorcycle spaces.” I have a question about the last–What if your motorcycle has no money? Does it not get to go with you? Is it permissible for you to purchase the space for it?
Agree. They were getting by by running the last miles off nearly fully depreciated equipment. Doubtful they were generating enough cash to cover equipment replacment.
Your 100% correct they could not generate enough capital to purchase new equipment. To my point it was and still is difficult to be an effective competitor of Amtrak. You need very deep pockets and little expectations of return on investment.
In regards to being a direct competitor of Amtrak, a-t provided an option to rail travelers in the entire northeast, an option that many rail passenger’s took then and still do today.
Auto trains passenger car fleet came from the best remaining cars in operation at the time. Union Pacific dome coaches, atsf full length domes and sleepers. Thier dome fleet was in high demand when the company ceased operations. Many went on to have third and fourth careers.
I don’t know Johnny may be your motor cycle can borrow the money. It took Amtrak a while to figure out the motor cycle thing as well. I travel back north last spring and I can tell you thier were quite a few bikes on the train on that trip so they got the money from some place. Lol
By this logic, no LD train would carry anything except coaches – like a bus. In which case, why should taxpayers bankroll LD passenger trains at all, instead of – if they’re needed – more buses, which are a lot cheaper to run?
Or is this sam1’s point? If so, it goes back to an argument – the government has no business running LD passenger trains – that, after 40-some years, is well-worn indeed.
One can reasonably come to the conclusion that Auto-Train complemented rather than competed with Amtrak. A-T was going after a market that had never really been pursued except a short-lived Chicago-Washington service by B&O. It should be noted that Amtrak never made a really serious attempt to go after that market prior to A-T’s demise.
That point of view was developed a while back by the GAO (https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/CR-2005-068.pdf). They started with the assumption that LD trains were a social necessity and went from there to figure out what the cost and revenue would be.
Amtrak operated sleepers and diners don’t cover their incremental cost to operate.
Perhaps the hospitality industry would do a better job with this business.
For political rather than economic reasons, the long distance trains are likely to be with us for the foreseeable future. There may be some modifications of the current schedules, but I don’t see any dramatic changes.
If I were in charge, I would make the following changes to the long distance trains. I would eliminate the full service dining cars and room sleeping cars.
An expanded food service, preferably offered by a contr
Long distance train travelers are a tiny fraction of the traveling public, but within that fraction, a large group are passengers who wouldl not travel by train, many not travel at all, without the private rooma ccomidations.
It is important to remember that at one time in this nation there was real passenger train competition. Even into the early 1960’s passengers has their choice of railroads on many routes. On all of these routes there was not one dime of sudsidy paid. We all know how the story ends with the creation of Amtrak. In Wisconsin while the Burlington, Milwaukee Road and C&NW all competed with each other, the taxpayers were paying for the building of of Interstate 94 and the Federal Government was paying for North Central Airlines to fly into cities like LaCrosse and Eau Claire with their DC-3’s; saying that these were mail subsidies. The Hiawathas, the Zephyrs, and the 400 all operated dining and lounge cars on their trains. All three railroads operated Chicago commuter trains too.
President Eisenhower wanted the interstate highway system built to connect American cities and to bypass them but not enter them just as the German Autobahns were. The interstates were not planned as commuter corridors or for the trucking industry to access American cities. The American taxpayer loves their cars and their airplanes. In the 1950’s many airports to major US cities didn’t have freeways built near them. Still, the unsubidized American passenger train took a hit. It is amazing that railroads were operating passenger trains at all much less trains with diners, Vista Domes and lounge cars in 1960.
No entitiy either government owned or private, can operate can operate passenger service without a subsidy from the taxpayer. We only have to look what happened in Britain. Maggie Thatcher was in no hurry to de-nationalize British Railways and when John Major finally did; the private owner concept of Railtrack didn’t work and the tracks and infrastructure were re-nationalized with private operating companies running the trains. Sadly, and I understand that this goes contrary to American beliefs about free enterprise, that American passenger trains and the Federal, state and local governments
What is wrong with sam1’s suggestion: "In place of the room sleeping cars I would offer business class accommodations with seating pods similar to those found on overseas commercial flights. " ?
If people won’t travel because they do not like those accomodations, then that is their choice. I fail to see why the public should subsidize accomodations based on some personal whims.
I think you’re both right – but the problem for Dave is that the number of people who are going to ‘insist’ on the private-room accommodations is far, far too small to pay even the marginal cost of providing those accommodations across the LD system, or in all probability for even one currently-composed LD train.
I thoroughly agree with Schlimm that the ‘seating pod’ arrangement, or some similar arrangement, ought to be tried in as many places as it might be thought workable (or ‘acceptable’ to enough of the potential riding public). In particular, I’d like to see some variant of this system applied to NEC trains – even during the day. A great many travelers from Asia or Europe may be jetlagged on arrival, or want to ma