Yup just threw it out thier…not likely that a regional system based on state funding would suceed. Certainly the long distance trains would disappear.
Summary here:
IMHO is it pretty Amtrak friendly. Has some things Boardman has wanted. Is politically palatable for both sides and pushes Amtrak to improve.
CHICAGO (February 12, 2015) - Statement of Richard Harnish, Executive Director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association (MHSRA), in response to today’s House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure markup of the Passenger Rail Reform & Investment Act of 2015 (H.R. 749).
“The bill proposed by the House T&I Committee, which has similar low rates of funding as previous years, will not provide the national rail network our economy needs to thrive in the 21st century.”
“This bill would authorize Amtrak and other intercity passenger rail service for the next five years at a piddling $1.8 billion per year. That means another five years of declining service when the system should be rapidly expanding.”
“The Federal Railroad Administration has established that $5 billion per year is the minimum required to grow the system. The American Public Transportation Association has sho
If ATK can not live on $1.8 BILLION per year, remember it was supposed to be self supporting according to the original advocates, then zero it out put everyone out of their misery, make a small contribution to reducing the deficit, and reducing the scope of an ever more intrusive Federal government.
Mac
Considering most of the time in the past couple of decades when the Rs controlled the house, the authorization for Amtrak came out at ZERO, (and was later restored to some level in conference), this is a step up.
LD trains funded at pretty much status quo.
Some capital for NEC on top of operational surplus.
Tens of billions of low interest rate loan money available for the first time.
Does it built HSR coast to coast? No. Does it build out HSR corridors with Fed money. No. Those things just ain’t happening - for decades. The budget deficit is still way to large and the national debt is dangerously high. First things first.
You want some cheese with that whine?
Hey states! You want it? Step up!
Yeah I agree. I am not happy with Amtrak funding either but even less happy at a projected $20 Trillion Debt that seems to have decreasing concern in Congress as time goes on. On a net worth basis we still have approx $169 Trillion to go before we hit 100% debt to net worth. Still we are way past the 50% in debt point and I for one would feel a lot more comfortable dropping that back down to around 20%. On a GDP and Cash Flow basis our debt is way to high and we can see the result geopolitically around the world of how this is starting to threaten our security directly.
Returning to financial strength as a country is more important to me than ongoing Amtrak subsidies with a rapidly increasing National Debt.
By any measure, the debt has been cut greatly. The deficit is a lower percentage of GNP than in years. The dollar and US economy are stronger than any other in the world. Where was all the Chicken Little and doomsday whining from the right when Reagan and the Bushes were running it up with inflated defense budgets and unfunded pointless wars? Seems to me that for a large number of posters on the passenger forum, their only interest, if any, is in preserving nostalgia, not expanding Amtrak, much less creating a modern passenger rail system.
The first sentance is TOTALY UNTRUE. The debt, the total of annual deficits and surplusses, is growing year by year and the current President has run several of the largest annual deficits in history.
Think of the debt as a lake and the deficit the annual inflow to the lake. As the annual deficit is a measure of this year’s contribution to the lake. If we ever had a surplus, that would tend to drain the lake.
Mac
Yes. My error. Coffee in hand, I meant to say the reverse. The deficit has been cut greatly and the debt as a percentage of GNP is lower than in years.
An example of outrageous spending on one project is the unwanted V-22 Osprey: “By 2008, $27 billion had been spent on the program and another $27.2 billion was required to complete planned production numbers, with maintenance costs very high.”
That one wasteful spending project alone could have covered Amtrak’s current budgeted amount (that some find so excessive) for many years.
Red herring. Yes, it’s true they ran a lot of deficit spending and ran up the debt.
But, that doesn’t make it okay to continue the same bad behavior. All the more reason to work harder to fix the debt.
Is it really reasonable to greatly expand passenger rail spending when the rest of the budget is getting squeezed? Is this a top priority for most people?
My understanding is that in having asked that actions should have been taken to rescue their daughter Kayla Mueller, her family may have had a different take on the Marine Corps V-22 Osprey aircraft being a wasteful expenditure for a transportation mode.
Ms. Mueller’s situation was complicated, but you could also say that the justification for the V-22 is also more complicated than a simple, blanket dismissal that it is “unwanted”, “wasteful”, and the money “better spent on Amtrak”, were there even a choice.
My understanding is also that Ms. Mueller was a civilian aid worker. So as to whether there is a question whether our country should be involved in military interventions in every corner of the world, are people also raising the question whether our people, as civilians and purely to offer people experiencing the worst sort of privation, put themselves at risk by going to every corner of the world? Where as an American citizen you are at risk being taken hostage simply for being an American?
It is also claimed by her hostage takers that Ms. Mueller perished in a Coalition bombing raid against the hostage takers. But again, the situation is complicated. Were this to not have happened, this group has a record of taking the lives of the hostages they have taken.
The family had asked the Administration to trade their daughter for a prisoner held by the U.S., and the response was “we don’t do such trades”, although we indeed did such a trade for an American soldier held in Afghanistan, but again, the situation involving Sgt Bergdahl was also . . . complicated.
The family was also holding out hope for a rescue attempt. That too is complicated. If I had a son or a daughter held overseas, I would want them to be rescued, but I also know that someone else’s son or daughter in the United States Army, Marines, Navy, or Air Force may perish in the rescue operations, and that seems
+1
I believe that most of us think there are benefits to passenger rail.
“It’s not as big a waste as XYZ” is not a benefit.
“The Jones accross the pond have them and I’m jealous” is not a benefit.
We the people of these United States do not need one state against another. Do not Balkanize us. The worse Balkanization in the US was the Civil war.
Believe that some items are for the US. Communications, transportation, commerce, defense, dealing with other countrys, equal protection in all states, etc.
I agree. But, the reality here is new stuff is going to have to start with the states. The Feds won’t open the spending spigot even a crack until the state(s) ante up.
Amtrak could drive the change. But, we all know the status quo is a challenge for them.
So, that’s how it is even if it isn’t how we’d like it.
Well I don’t want to go too far off topic but as a FYI, I agree on the Osprey was before it’s time but, IMO…thats the Marines and their toys and how they do business. Check out the new proposed Army Helo, better capabilities than the Osprey, less moving parts, cheaper to build. Now one may ask why the Army is paying for designs independent of the Marines and I think that is a good question as well. Point is though, they corrected most of the issues with the Osprey and they have a follow-on platform now that is cheaper to build.
Another ironic item is the Osprey saved lives in Afghanistan and Iraq as it could cover a lot larger area and faster than any other VTOL transport aircraft on a tank of fuel without having to land. So not too shabby there. The utimate compliment to the Osprey is the Army is going to largely copy it’s design with a proposed future replacement for the Blackhawk but make it cheaper to build by reducing the moving parts.
A lot of these program costs also have DoD R&D rolled into them. A good portion of that R&D makes it into the civi
Branches of the military did not want the Osprey. It was available, in any case, to rescue her, if anyone knew where she was being held. Thus your point about Ms Mueller is a red herring and/or quite tangential. My point in using the Osprey as one example (there are many others one coud raise) is not that two wrongs make a right, but to put the relatively small, status quo amount Amtrak gets in context: $1+ bil. vs $54 bil. when we have posters who obfuscate by saying we cannot “waste money on Amtrak when we have deficit spending” etc. I am a major critic of mismanagement at Amtrak,with such inane choices as to purchase anachronistic new baggage cars or spend a penny on equipment for LD services. But it seems that most posters do not want any modern rail passenger service in the US, such as HSR and others, when the passenger forum is clearly stated to be for that purpose: “The place to discuss Amtrak, the future of passenger rail, and high speed proposals.”
Well your also talking two entirely different business approaches here. Military’s purchase strategy is to leap ahead and a good portion of the time that takes you to the bleeding edge of technology. It’s a deliberate strategy on the military’s part to maintain a definitive technological edge.
Amtraks strategy is and always has been incrementalism with purchasing. Not to necessarily leap ahead but to go with what is proven so you don’t get your head chopped off if it doesn’t work. Hence, not a lot of innovation or trend setting areas at Amtrak and you have to generally drag them kicking and screaming to new business methods. It can be frustrating but thats their approach. In regards to LD vs HSR trains. Amtrak is quasi-governmental corporation has to keep at least one foot in the political realm. Cancel all the LD trains and you cancel a large bastion of support for Amtrak. Your going to force a regional system where say voters in Idaho refuse to pay for Amtrak because the Empire Builder was cancelled. Would you vote for Amtrak if there were no trains within the state borders of Illinois?
On the baggage car purchases. Thats been covered for a while. Amtrak is attempting to standardize as much as possible to keep costs down. Useful life of most passenger equipment is 40-50 years, especially at the upper speed limits. I don’t subscribe to the view that you can continuously rebuild forever nor would I want to ride in rail passenger car over 75 years old or have one in my train. So on that basis it makes sense to me why they bought new baggage cars.
Others far more knowledgable than either of us onlookers have questioned the baggage (basically non-revenue or tiny revenue) car purchase as well rather than purchasing zero new coaches, which would serve far more LD customers and generate far more revenue.
Out of curiosity – I used to work in them – I’ve stuck my head into a lot of Amtrak baggage cars on my trips. They rarely have much of anything in them. I can hardly believe Amtrak couldn’t make other arrangements for its handful of checked baggage; it seems OK with rooming crew in revenue sleeper space.
Also, this year it has even trimmed sleepers and coaches from its winter consists to save the cost of pulling empty beds and seats around. If that savings is so important, are we to believe it couldn’t do without those mostly empty baggage cars?
And please don’t give me bicycles and skis. If these are a regular item on certain runs, go ahead and run a baggage car. I doubt if that trade ever called for 75 of them (or however many Amtrak bought new). Remains are better left to the airlines, who have practiced on live passengers.
(Yeah, I’m bitter; I had to fly last week.)