[Why Can’t the Bush adminstration do the same with Amtrak as has been done with Via in Canada? It has been shown that more money is put into the budgget for air travel and the highways overall than has been the passenger situation.
Maybe we need to start a rumor that Amtrak is hiding Weapons of Mass Destruction.
You won’t happen to be that famous Grumpy that does all the BNSF wedgies?
The Bush Administration could call for lavish funding of Amtrak if it chose to. I mean, what’s another billion? Five days in Iraq?
Or pizza dilivery for president bush, and testing the pizza in a lab to make sure it doesn’t have poison in it [:p]
Perhaps Amtrak would do better without federal funding. Maybe it would make more of an effort (mainly through host road fines) to be on time more. If they had to EARN their cash instead of just getting it there might be better service, promotions etc to attract costumers.
I [soapbox] the people that are running amtrak deseved to be drug out to the street and shot because they dont know what the[censored] they are doing over there in washington.[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
Uh Oh! Better be careful, you may get placed on a No Train Ride List [;)]
“Perhaps Amtrak would do better without federal funding. Maybe it would make more of an effort (mainly through host road fines) to be on time more. If they had to EARN their cash instead of just getting it there might be better service, promotions etc to attract costumers.”
thats nonsense. amtrak doesnt get enough money as it is. if they had more money, their service would be better. have you ever seen any public transportation system that has actually made any money? how about we stop the funding to fix the highways or get rid of the city busses or subways in NY or Chicago. how in the heck would amtrak find a way to be “more on time” when the railroads they run over decide when they get the green light. one last thing, you should visit the amtrak site on their deals, you might find some good ones.
I believe it’s called Metra.
You’re saying the Chicago Metra system covers all their costs from the farebox?
That’s a good one.
Earth to Drumming Trainfan;
There is a reason why the railroads stopped passenger service. Passenger service isn’t profitable anymore that is why the governments of various levels had to take it over and use tax payer’s money to fund it.
Oh gee, where to begin!
Why can’t Amtrak be more like Via – Isn’t that one of the goals of the Bush Administration? Via took a huge hit in financing under a Conservative Party government. As to their long distance train, they 1) are still using F40’s and hand-me-down “Heritage” cars from Amtrak – no Superliners and P42’s for you! Next! 2) instead of running fixed consists and turning passengers (and fares) away, they run really long consists during summers, 3) they boosted fares, especially sleeper fares, a lot, and 4) they run a quality service to justify the fares. Using Via and Canada as the neighbor’s model child that is so much better than you is probably a bad choice of examples because Via got the thumb-screw treatment from a Conservative government and they did what they had to do to get by and their service is arguably better than Amtrak, and if you keep arguing Via, you might get Mr. Mineta riding a Canadian train asking why Amtrak can’t be like that.
As to the grumps about Amtrak getting crumbs compared to highways or the war in Iraq, I guess I am not privy to the war councils to know whether the war in Iraq is essential to our security or a grand mistake or worse, but I know a little bit about highways. If for whatever you pay in gas tax, an equal amount is kicked in from other sources to pay for highways, that indicates that auto travel is subsidized at a rate of 2 cents a mile. If you believe Amtrak’s cost accounting on their long-distance trains, their fares run a little bit above 10 cents a mile while the subsidy runs at 20 cents a mile.
So why do highways get so much money and Amtrak next to nothing? The simple answer is that Amtrak “does not scale” – if we substituted Amtrak for highways we would be spending not hundreds of billions but trillions in subsidy. Now part of the problem may be that Amtrak is starved for money and given enough funds they be on a “glide path” if not to profitability to at least a 2 cents a mile instead of a 20 cent a
It does in the Northeast corridor and in some emerging other corridors where its operations are as essential to the economy as the busiest commuter railroads, Elsewhere it promotes tourism, gives the handicapped and elderly access to the country, and does provide a winter lifeline for some small northern communities. I regard these other missions as essential to a civillized society, Mineta doesn’t.
Amtrak is promoting tourism, accomodating the elderly and disabled, and providing a winter lifeline for only small portions of the country and a small portion of that need. Do we scale it up so that everyone gets that benefit? Do we scale it up ten fold? Do we scale it up 100 fold? If we are spending 100 billion a year on Amtrak, subsidizing it at a 20 cent/mile rate while we subsidize cars at a 2 cent/mile rate, we are talking about a substantial chunk of the highway budget but getting only one tenth the impact. Are the accomodation aspects of Amtrak worth the 10-fold greater subsidy rates? Could accommodation to the elderly and disabled be provided at lower cost by subsidizing another mode (i.e. buses with lower seating density)?
There are critics of operations like Metra, complaining about their costs, low load factors, and supposed minimal impact on highway congestion. If you are talking about averages, Metra may not amount to more than a highway lane. If you are talking about morning rush hour, over a two hour period, one of the eight Metra lines may be running as many as 20 trains, each train may have as many as 11 cars, each car has 150 seats, and the trains are pretty much at capacity on the last leg of the journey to downtown where freeway congestion also reaches its peak. As many as 1600 people on a train and as many as 10 such trains an hour is what we are talking about.
Even on the routes Amtrak runs, outside of the NEC, for the most part, you are talking about 300 seats once a day, not 1600 seats 10 times an hour.
To those who say that Amtrak is at the mercy of the parents lines: (1) I read in a thread (I think its the one entitled “is there any honor?” correct me if I’m wrong) that says that Amtrak has the power to fine the freight roads $X for every minute they’re late. (2) In Chicago Metra is normally within a reasonable time of when they’re suposed to be in. Metra travels on the same RR’s that Amtrak does. I’m not saying that Amtrak will be on time 100%, thats impossible, but i think that they could be within a reasonable time.
Paul,
If Metra is the equivalent of a power plant built and used only for times when power use is at its peak, would it be smarter for Amtrak to think that way, too? Only in terms of peak travel times? Western national park trains in the summer, Florida and Arizona travel in the winter? Other major travel times and events? The subsidy would be economic in those circumstances?
WOW! That is so right! I never thought of that [bow] to tomtrain
SEE!This is the very reason our forum is slowly sliding downhill!
That was totally uncalled for! How firing them instead of brutally killing them???!?
tomtrain:
The analogy for a peaking power plant is maybe what we are looking for. If the electric rate is 10 cents a kwHr and a peaking plant delivers power for $1 a kwHr, that high cost may be a good deal if there is no other way to get the power.
As to seasonally adjusting the train consists to the market, my understanding is that Via does a lot more of that than Amtrak and maybe Via is a good model to emulate in that regard.
As to the subsidy issue, my belief is that rail proponents need to get a better handle on the marginal cost vs allocated cost issues, and this goes back to the days of the ICC and passenger train discontinuances. If long distance trains can make even a slender profit on some definition of marginal cost, that means one could have more trains without drastic increases in subsidy.
So here is the question. The accountants say Amtrak long distance trains require 20 cents of subsidy per passenger mile. What is the marginal subsidy per passenger mile? Would seasonal increases in train consists (dunno, using Heritage cars like in Canada although Canada probably snarfed up all of Amtrak’s Heritage cars) require increases in subsidy?
I am willing to buy into the argument that all modes of transportation are subsidized and that Amtrak privatization or “glide path’s to self-sustaining” are all pipe dreams. The question is, can we double Amtrak’s subsidy and get only double the service? If that is the case, then the 20 cents/mile subsidy is way too high to be moving around substantial parts of the American public and then Amtrak has to be justified as a means-tested form a transportation (accomodation for elderly, disabled, remote towns and then you have to ask if subsidizing bus service – so buses could better accomodate elderly and disabled passengers – is an alternative).
The whole point about rail transportation as opposed to highway modes is economies of scale: one train driver can move hundreds of people as opp