IT IS NOT JUST THE LONG-DISTANCE TRAINS THAT ARE AT RISK.
CORRIDORS ARE ALSO IN AMTRAK’S CUT-BACK PLANS.
Perhaps we’ve all (myself certainly included) been so focused on Amtrak’s plans to cut the National Network routes to three times per week in 2021, that a parallel threat to the various corridor and regional services has been missed. This quote is from Trains Magazine’s Bob Johnston’s very astute Newswire story on the 2021 Amtrak Tri-weekly Service announcement. There was a direct promise to cut corridors (both NEC and Regional) included as well.
Amtrak spokeswoman Christina Leeds said in a statement, “We are still in the planning phase, so we can’t answer most of your questions at this time. Due to the long-term impact of COVID-19 on ridership, Amtrak has made the decision to operate with reduced capacity through FY21. We are planning 32% fewer frequencies on the NEC, 24% fewer for our state-supported service and plan to reduce most long-distance trains to three days per week, beginning Oct. 1, 2020. Our goal is to restore daily service on these routes as demand warrants, potentially by the summer of 2021. We will use specific and measurable metrics to guide our restoration of frequencies and service.”
It may well be appropriate that Amtrak plans to restructure the NEC. We know they are very slowly bringing back the ACELA EXPRESS service (understandably given its nearly exclusively business-focused clientele). But the situation with state-supported corridors is more interesting. These routes run solely because states request them, and pay for them–based
The new norm should be based on market demand. That is how a real business operates. Amtrak is supposed to be a business, although its critics seem to believe it is a welfare agency.
How do you know what discussions Amtrak management has had with state officials about any service adjustments for the remainder of this year or FY21?
Amtrak has not released its Monthly Performance Report for May 2020. What is the basis for the claim that long-distance revenues increased from April 2020 to May 2020? Moreover, revenues are only part of the accounting equation. Operating expenses as well as fixed charges need to be considered. The key question is the bottom-line impact?
I have written to management as well as my representatives in the House and Senate. I have told them the smart thing to do would be to kill the long-distance trains and redirect the ultimate savings into upgrading existing corridors or establishing new ones.
The national debt is $26.2 trillion; it is estimated to surpass $29 trillion by the end of the fiscal year. State and local government debt is another $3.1 trillion. The federal debt is 122 percent of GDP, which is approximately WWII levels; total government debt is 136 percent of GDP. Using debt financing to run little used trains, irrespective of the cause, is irresponsible.
At this point, would rather see an orderly shut down of the whole Amtrak system. Pay the employees their severance be it 6 years or what the contracts are. Let the states/regions set up what service they deem necessary. Get the Feds out of the people-hauling business. It’s got a lot more important issues to deal with.
I’ll up you one. Or maybe more! I don’t place a lot of trust government at any level. Some of the worst abuses occur at the state, county, and city level.
A significant portion of my career involved interacting with government regulators at the state, city, and county level. The ignorance that they displayed regarding what they supposedly were regulating was mind boggling.
I had to work many years with all levels of government in the USA as well as in foreign countries. The non-national levels in some of the foreign countries were the worse as too many of them woudn’t do anything without bribes and they were all very bureaucratic. The US Fed gov. could be maddening because its personnel practises reward those who don’t make mistakes so very few of its civilian employees showed any initiative. Many of the states were the same, particularly those that had unionized employees. Some of the states and many of the local governments simply had way too many incompetent employees. Some state and local governments actual weren’t too bad. They were generally the low or non-unionized ones who somehow avoided having too much incompetence and were, or located within, less populated states.
Again, I think my station restaurant scheme can make the LDs worth riding again and at least break even. Sleepers would have to have charges for their incremental costs and run only in those markets where travelers are willing to pay the price, but most LDs would have an upgraded coach class, a business class. And the broad manue restaurant food would be available to all passengers, not included in the ticket prices.
LDs have been a part of American civilization, and lots would be missing if they were ended.
Interestingly, the IG as per Food and Beverage Services, dated October 31, 2013, found that Amtrak could substantially reduce the cost of F&B by outsourcing it. It estimated that doing so would reduce labor costs by $51.4 to $60.5 million along with other savings.
The labor unions pushed back vigorously. If I remember correctly, Amtrak attempted to outsource F&B on the Empire Service trains between NYC and Albany, but the push back was so severe that it had to drop the effort after a few days.
As soon as Amtrak’s management proposes meaningful cost reduction strategies, at least for the NEC and so-called national network, the unions run to the Congress, where they are usually able to find support to block any meaningful steps to reduce costs.
Isn’t the food service on the Cascades and the Downeaster lines non-Amtrak?
Also P/O the problem on the overnight LD trains is that the staff has to be on the train for the duration of the trip. If the food service were contracted, could it be set up for the food to be rolled on to the train along with the serving people at meal times and then taken off after dinner. I remember a trip on the NYC’s Cincinnati-Chicago where the diner was added at Indianapolis to serve lunch enroute to Chicago. Obviously, the switching cost was considered to be less than the savings.
I think most of us would be amazed at the amount of office-holders, not all of course, but many, who’ve never been in out in the “real world” and have never held a “real job.” I think most would recognize what I mean by a real job without my going into specifics. Hell, we’ve got a young woman running for mayor of Rcihmond, 28 years old, who went straight from college into political staff positions for various local office holders and has no other work experience. What does she know of how the real world operates? What does she know about real people from all walks of life? I don’t expect her to beat the incumbent, but you see what I mean?
Trusting the federal government? Many of us who lived through those years lost it during Vietnam. But hey, sometimes you have to trust 'em on something. They don’t get it wrong all&
I believe that you are correct. But the Cascades and the Downeaster are state supported trains. The states contract with Amtrak to operate them.
The IG’s report focused on Amtrak’s trains. Acccording to the report, approximately 99 percent of the loss on F&B was incurred on the long-distance trains. This is the root cause of the problem.
Outside the NEC, Amtrak is trying to run a 21st Century railroad using 1950s ideas. A move to change Amtrak is met with opposition from unions and powerful Congressional office holders. The response to reform is that if we just spent more money, Amtrak would be a success.
The discussion of workers who have no real life experience reminds me of something school administrators have known: teacher colleges are often staffed and run by professional educators who have no real-world experience in actually teaching.
So I’ve heard, first hand, and that would include educational theorists.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been in a teachers lounge or workroom fixing a copier and overheard conversations that typically included this:
“They want us to do WHAT? WHO comes up with this shit? When was the last time they were in a classroom? Have they EVER been in a classroom? Why don’t they ask US before they promulgate these stupid directives?”
You hear a lot when you’re unobtrusive and blend well into the background, trust me.
It’s supposed to be a business as much as the United States Postal Service is a business, both are supported by subsidies.
As for this statement, you really should read what Warren Buffet has to say about the U.S. government and deficit spending. Just look up why Warren Buffet says the government will never default on debt. It might open your eyes some to the above garbage.
Warren Buffet’s expertise is investing in marketable securities. He is not an expert on national debt. Moreover, over the last decade Warren has lost of bit of his edge. His investments have done no better than the S&P500.
No one said the U.S. would default on its debt. But it can be a burden. Ultimately, it has to be serviced one way or the other.
After WWII the U.S. was able to work down the debt. From a high of approximately 122 percent of GDP at the WWII, it was able to reduce it to approximately 25 percent of GDP by 1975. How did it do it?
Although he is no longer with us, one of the best authorities on the subject was Martin Feldstein. He studied the issue extensively and found two major drivers contributed to the reduction of the debt from the end of WWII to 1975. The first was real growth in the economy. The other was monetization of the debt, which means inflation.
As John Maynard Keynes point out, inflation is like a thief that comes in the middle of the night and steals the wealth of its citizens without their knowing it.