Beginning with Amtrak’s FY13 Monthly Performance Reports (MPR), which includes FY12 comparative data, an all-stations on-time performance report has been included together with the end-point performance report. Now we can see how well the trains do on average at stations between the end-points. The all-stations report appears to be the mean of an array of averages, which is not a very precise statistic, but it is interesting.
In FY13 the end point on-time performance for the system was 82.3 per cent whilst the all-stations figure was 79.6 per cent. In FY12 the comparative numbers were 83 and 80.1.
For the Acela the median end-point on-time percentage for FY12 and FY13 was 87.5, and the all-stations number was 90.6. The numbers for the Northeast regional trains were 85.4 and 84. The results may suggest that the Acela had trouble with the last lap or two.
The short distance trains had a median end-point percentage of 82.0 and an all-stations percentage of 84.2. The best performing short distance trains were the Capitols, with a median end-point on-time performance record of 94.6 per cent and an all-stations on-time performance record of 95.7 per cent. The worst performing train in this category was the Pere Marquette, which had a median end-point on-time performance percentage of 50.6 per cent and an all-stations median of 54.0 per cent.
The long distance trains underperformed the system. The median end-point on-time performance for them was 71.3 per cent, whilst the median all-stations on-time performance record was 54.7 per cent. This suggests that the long distance trains improve their performance during the last several laps of their run, thanks in part to heavily padded schedules. This is certainly the case for Number 21, which gets 3 hours and 25 minutes to run from Austin to San Antonio vs. 2.5 hours for its counterpart, Number 22, to get from San Antonio to Austin.
SAM brings up some important points that can be obscured. The class 1s are being overwhelmed in many locations with too much traffic for their present infrastructure. The all stations stats have concerned me as well. There are many station to station segments that appear to delay a train almost constantly.
These delays may be the death of LD trains as the intermediate station passengers cannot depend on a train being close to on time. IMHO present congestion is not going to get better. Other routes may actually get worse on presently fluid segments ?
What many persons have not noted is the federal report anticipating almost double traffic from 2010 to 2040. Cannot find report for link but some one should be able to find the report.
If you open a pizza parlor you have to make pizza the customer will buy so you have to devote yourself to being good at what you do and provide great pizza and service and not just good pizza and service. IF a railroad lays down track and says they are open for business as a common carrier and solicit business. Any customer who you agree to do business with expects you to live up to the agreement no matter what the price is. So, if you agree to run a passenger train on such and such a schedule for $XXX then you run that schedule. Period. IF you don’t want to hold to the contract, then say so and stop charging for service you are not delivering. OR renegotiate the contract. And if you are the buyer and the railroad refuses to provide the contracted services at the contracted price, hold back paying the bill until you are getting what you’re paying for or stop using the service. IF the public raises hell, tell them that the railroad could not provide the needed services and schedules. If the pizza is not what you want to pay for, don’t buy the pizza. No, it’s not that simple but you gotta start thinking strongly about your product and your customers.
According to Amtrak, a train is considered “late” if it arrives at its end-point terminal more than 10 minutes after its scheduled arrival time for trips up to 250 miles; 15 minutes for trips 251-350 miles; 20 minutes for trips 351-450 miles; 25 minutes for trips 451-550 miles; and 30 minutes for trips of 551 or more miles. These tolerances are based on former ICC rules. The exception is that all Acela trips, regardless of run length, are considered late if they arrive at their end-point terminal more than 10 minutes after their scheduled arrival time.
The statistics presented above would really be dismal, especially for the long distance trains, if the metrics did not have these additional wiggle rooms built into them.
At least Amtrak is doing a good job of notifying passengers that their train is running late. On my last five trips, Amtrak has sent me a text message telling me that the train is late, as well as when it is expected to arrive at my departure station.
Running passenger service on someone else’s track is like trying to run a pizza restaurant using another restaurant’s oven. It just doesn’t work. If Amtrak must run LD trains (hopefully as a separate budget and operation like the EAS for planes), they had best pay what it really costs the hosts plus some extras as incentives. The other options best not be mentioned here.
Someone else’s track is the pizza parlor…they have to provide the service their customer pays them for. Amtrak being the customer pays them money with the agreement they run the trains for Amtrak on the agreed upon schedule. If they cannot provide that schedule they should not be paid and even have the trains removed. The public should be notified that such and such freight railroad cannot or will not provide the services being paid for and is to blame for no passenger train. Paying the cost isn’t the issue. The issue is that the railroad agreed to provide a service and a given price. IF the price isn’t enough, then renegotiate don’t obstruct. If you were to order a pizza with mushrooms at $10 but the pizza maker decides that with mushrooms the price is too low, he does not withhold the mushrooms on your order but changes the price for the next pizza.
Amtrak’s payment to the freight railroads to host its trains declined from $136.5 million in 2010 to $110 million in 2012. Or from approximately 5.06 cents per train mile to 4.04 cents per train mile! I have not pulled the 2013 numbers. Some of the reduction may have been due to withheld performance incentives.
Negotiating with the federal government can be a tough nut to crack. If the freight carrier does not like the terms of the agreement, i.e. Amtrak will not pay the full cost of hosting its trains, etc., it cannot just tell Amtrak to shove it.
Thank you Sam. On the “Grow America Act” thread I demonstrated that it costs BNSF $36.84 per train mile on a system average basis to provide and maintain the fixed plant. These figures indicate that the US Govt is paying the rails not more than 2% of the costs they are incurring to support ATK. On the $110 million ATK does pay and 2% the railroads and their freight customers, are subsidizing ATK to the tune of $5.5 billion per year.
This is what the NITL should be up in arms about, rather than penny-anty fuel surcharges.
That is the ongoing burden the railroads agreed to assume to avoid running the passenger trains themselves. You are asking them to reneg on their agreement. Apparently, they still consider this tremendous subsidy to be far less than the losses they would face if they were running a decent skelatal long distance passenger network themselves.
I think in advocating for passenger trains we need to move forward from the mode of thinking about this.
Back in the day when railroads had their own “Railroads” Dow Jones Stock Average, maybe, just maybe, it was reasonable to regard railroads as money-spinning monopolies and require of them to fulfil social duties.
But even in the 60’s during the ICC Train-off Hearings where folks who like passenger trains spoke of the obligation to run passenger trains, there was the view that the railroads “made all their money on freight” and were treating “passengers as an inconvenience.” David P Morgan’s Trains Magazine was trying to correct that perception inasmuch as the railroad enterprise was tenuous even in freight carriage.
I have asked this question, but it was another Forum participant offering the proposition that maybe, just maybe, there may be more social benefit, especially on long-distance lines, of letting the freight railroads be freight railroads by maximizing the diversion of truck traffic from the highways (no offense to our OTR Forum participants, but given demand, I think there will always be jobs for drivers). Of course the folks 'round here would have none of this because of all of the inherent goodness provided by passenger trains, especially long-distance passenger trains.
We can invoke how the freight railroads were “discharged of their obligation to run passenger trains” by accepting Amtrak on their lines and why the freight railroads should continue to run
What is missing here is that if one signs a contract to do something and fails to comply, he is in default, and will have to face the consequences. Such is the case of the railroads who were relieved of the burden of the expense of passenger train and agreed to the terms of the National Passenger Rail Corporation act. Even though the act and times have changed railroads should be aware–or fear-- that they could be forced into their original common carrier status should they ruin or work to thwart Amtrak. The US businesses, politicians, and citizens are in a dream world of a private enterprise only system and denying a socialistic aid when in reality the two systems exist side by side and in conjunction. When one’s nose gets out of joint one cries foul from the other side not realizing there really isn’t another side.
This line of “they agreed to ATK in 1970” is somewhere between weak and false.
While it is true that the carriers did not raise a stink about having to host ATK at the time, their choice was to be relieved of operating losses now, or absorb them for several years and then take their chances with future train-off petitions.
That is the same moral choice you face looking down the barrel of a .45 when the armed robber says "Give me your money and I will not shoot you. The prudent person will give up his money, but that does not insure that he will not shoot you anyway.
Your moral position is the victim of armed robbery did not report it in 1970, so it is OK to keep robbing him.
Must challenge the assumption that a passenger train maintenance cost is the same for an Amtrak train vs. a freight train. 1. Only the axel loads of an Amtrak loco are near the axel load of a freight loco. 2. Axel loads of a passenger car is much less than a loaded freight car in fact how much more is a passenger car compared to tare weight of freight car ? 3. Total axel count of passenger trains are less than any freight except some very short local freights. 4. Additional CPs for passenger compared to freights does add to the passenger train costs. The need to have more CPs just for additional freights and their max allowed speeds may mitigate the necessity of more CPs for passenger trains ? 5. Need for PTC on passenger routes that would not be needed for present freight traffic ? 6. extra super elevation for passenger trains is a cost. 7. There may be some costs for additional dispatch costs.
The railroads were not looking down the barrel of a gun in 1970 but were holding the gun and the public who used trains were looking down the barrel. The freight railroads got what they wanted, what the demanded, by agreeing to what was proposed. They were the one’s who had the choice. They all could have been like the EL and dropped passenger services before the required dates so they wouldn’t have had to participate in the National Passenger Railroad at all. The freight railroads negotiated the deal and then failed to adhere to their own terms. But, that being said, they later agreed to contracts and services which they have also ignored, stiffed the American public if you will. If they don’t want to operate by the terms of the agreements then they shouldn’t sign the contacts and take the heat from the American public instead. My point is that if they have no intention of honoring the agreements, then they shouldn’t sign them. And if Amtrak can’t run passenger trains because of railroad’s attitudes and ignoring of agreements and terms, then let the railroads be forced to face the music from government and public alike. Then renegotiate and live up to the terms.
Go ahead and keep saying this. The railroads were “holding a gun” when they were on a “glide path to bankruptcy” – on not just their passenger trains, but also on their freight operations?
There is a whole lot of “ought to do” and “ought to be.” The railroads “ought to adhere to their contracts.” Congress ought to do more to support Amtrak. The people ought to be willing to pay more in taxes to support it. People ought to take the train when they have other choices.
I suppose there are a lot of things you can have people do by ordering them and directing them. But will they have any enthusiasm for it? You can make people serve you, bu
One item that the RRs 1965 - Amtrak day was the many unnecessary crew members on trains. Since the RRs of that era used avoidable costs to justify train offs the reductions in # of passenger trains may have been significantly slowed ? Compare crew members on trains today both those with diners and overnight and NEC operations. NOTE: early Amtrak days also had this large overhead of crew costs due to using crews from operating RRs. How long before most trains operated by Amtrak ?
Really? As Paul and Sam and others point out, Amtrak throwing a hissy fit and telling the freight lines “Run our trains at 10 cents on the dollar (if that) or else we’ll tell mommy” is unlikely to get better performance. De minimus, Amtrak should pay the full cost for the LD services to the hosts. And separate out the LD sector for subsidized funding, as something akin to EAS. Maybe then you just might give the freights the incentive to give more priority. Amtrak has tried your approach for over 40 years. Aint workin’.
Paul and others, I have been in advertising sales for the past 25 of my 50 years in broadcasting and I have seen both advertising buyers and broadcast managers and owners deny terms of the contracts they themselves wrote and signed. And all of you prove that to be the norm: signed contracts and agreements can be ignored, abandoned, and denied if either party wants to ignore them. It is an attitude picked up during the late 70’s and early 80’s among businesses. So Amtrak has a “hissy fit” because a Class One railroad fails to fulfill their side of the bargain or agreement. What if you purchased something and the supplier decided not to give you what you paid for, what you thought you were purchasing? If the railroads don’t want to supply the product and service they agreed to at the price they agreed to they should renegotiate or throw Amtrak off the property. IF it violates the Amtrak law, such as it is, then the railroad will pay the penalty of law or public outrage or both. And Amtrak has the right to point out that it was not Amtrak but the railroad in question that caused the bad service or lack of service. If all of you don’t like or want Amtrak, long distance trains or any such services, implore your Congressman to repeal the act that created Amtrak and not to further fund Amtrak.
It is much more than maintenance. Roughly 2/3 of the cost is for the very provision of the way. Maintenance is about 1/3.
The most important issue is the capacity that ATK consumes. Depending on the speed differential vs. freight trains, people who know this much better than I say ATK uses about two freight slots for each passenger train. That seems reasonable.
The other issue I did not address is the cost of freight train delay due to ATK. This is very real, highly variable day to day, and would require a shadow trains dispatching program to calculate.
ATK is a real and substantial burden on the freight carriers. I was not kidding about saying that the NITL should be up in arms about the fact that they are paying higher freight charges than the should so the freight carriers can support ATK.
It would be nice for ATK supporters to at least acknowledge the fact.
Your post of 1:27 PM suggesting that the carriers could have got out of the passenger business like the EL manage to do is entirely fact free. The whole point is that the carriers who still were running passenger trains in the late 1960’s could NOT get out of running them. The obvious solution was to exit the business. The ICC would not let them. Look at the history. Do you really think that the freight carriers would not have objected to ATK if they could simply exit a loosing line of business like any other business in America could?
Your claim is basically that the carriers were too stupid to get out of a loosing business. The fact is the Government would not let them.