Congress wants long distance trains and trains in there district but does complains that Amtrak is losing money on those routes. The trains are a lifeline to the middle of this country and flying to/from small airports is expensive even with Essential Air subsdies. Congress should fund Amtrak by a “Purchase of Service Contract” which would state whatr exactly Amtrak will do for USDOT and Congress. I would even go as far as to put some routes out for open bid under Purchase of Service contracts that the Host Railroad could operate like BNSF does on some its commuter lines in Minnipolis and Chicago using its own crews. I believe that Amtrak as it stands now if we look at the annual billion and half or so money that they get from Congress as a social contract instead of a handout actualy makes a small profit. We need to agree that trains/transit like water and garbarge pick up is a essentiol public service.
It would literally take an Act of Congress to amend the Rail Passenger Service Act to set up such an arrangement. When you look at what happened with the “Hoosier State”, I doubt that you’ll find too many bidders to provide service under a purchase of service contract.
ATK is not an essential public service. It is a welfare program.
In reality it is time to change Congress’s relationship to the American Public. The reality is that every dollar Congress authorizes to be spent is for a Welfare Program for whomever the recipents are.
I would agree with if you were to say LD services are not essential.
Since the Constitution has established this country as a Federal Republic with the Houses of Congress representing the people (not just citizens), how would you change that relationship.
Overturning the Citizens United decision would help reduce the obscene spending on corporate welfare, IMO, as well as reaffirm the “one person, one vote” principle.
I like the relationship that Via Rail has with the Crown Goverment of Canada better then what Amtrak has with Congress in the United States. As far as Amtrak being a “Welfare Program” we have to look at what benifits that each passenger each passenger in $$$ spent in the towns that they travel to. Sure VT looses money on passenger fare but more then makes up for that on money that the toursit spends at Killington Ski and local hotels. Same with Whitefish MT another great place to visit by train and no real airport.
Much prefer one person one vote as opposed to the one dollar ten votes system that Citizens United decision has created. The USA is a country of people not dollar bills.
If we open Intercity Passenger service to a public bid we could have Virgin Rail or the host railroads go back to running trains under a 5-10-20 year contracts
How many current Amtrak routes do you think Virgin or the freight railroads would be interested in operating?
Passenger trains work between city pairs in densely populated areas. Everywhere else, they’re as obsolete now as they were 50 years ago.
If there were buyers and money to be made, Amtrak would’ve been sold off like Conrail.
Let us look at the UK. They privatized. The first problem came from the private track and ROW operator. Deferred maintanance became the norm followed by a fatal derailment. UK Network rail took over but is getting twice the subsidity evey year of that originally planned to undo the deferred maintenance.
Now we have the UK East coast train operators going under causing a march back to nationalization. Also all the private operators increased fares way above amount of inflation that may have helped cause a reduction in passengers traveling. Some UK fares are almost 4 times as much for the same type of service on the continent.
Private operators of any present Amtrak ? All they will do is soak the passengers for evey dollar possible and then the private top dogs will get their bonus and leave.
We supporters of Amtrak need to worry alot about deferred maintenance, Look at what PC did to the NEC. Amtrak’s deferred work probably would only have needed half of what they are now spennding on deferred maintenance And now what is going to happen with the freight RRs also deferring maintenance of tracks for PSR’s almighty OR ?
PSR will bring a recreation of the 1970’s with even the ‘profitable’ carriers having their properties with BILLION$ in deferred maintenance.
The answer is obvious from your post, whether UK, EU, US or other nations/regions.
I disagree and actually the biggest mistake with the approach Amtrak took with trying to preserve the LD train was they tried to market it and design it as a service for everyone without regard to financial sustainability. The private model prior to Amtrak did the opposite. The private model had a very expensive First Class option, a less expensive middle class option in some markets when the market told them First Class was a little steep, and then they had their Coach Class and not only Coach Class by itself but you could buy Coach Class with a Parlor Car upgrade if I remember correctly. NONE of that price and market stratification carried over to Amtrak. Amtrak marketed the one size fits all model with very cheap dining car and snack car meals, a sleeper suppliment which was not a whole lot of price difference between the cheapest sleeper accomodation and the most expensive sleeper accomodation. Then you had the private railroad marketing programs which were far more extensive than the meager Amtrak vacations subsidiary, in my opinion and their advertising was better via the private railroads.
Granted the Private Railroads also had a passenger train boost financially from the mail contracts and the former REA. Amtraks attempt at continuing that via Amtrak Express was underfunded and poorly managed. Have you seen any attempt by Amtrak to modularize baggage handling via easier to manage and handle containerization of such?..nope. Much innovation in the baggage cars besides the minor revenue improvement of carrying bikes?..Nope. I mean you would think they would move to improve revenue collection with the baggage car at a minimum
Amtrak is aka as the National Passenger Corperation which was created by Congress to save what was left of the nations passenger service after the management of Penn Central wrecked the nations passenger and freight railroad system.
Since the United States of America is more then the East and West coasts and there is 31 states that are in the countrys heartland Amtrak and Congress has a moral and legal obligation to serve those constituents with rail passenger service that many citizens consider essential and a lifeline to 500 stations.
If Amtrak is not needed in the heartland and only needed in the high population Megaloplises of the east and west coasts then have those states create a regional multistate authority and fund the service via their own internal revenues.
My recollectionis that Amtrak Express was killed when the freight railroads complained to Congress about a subsidized entity competing with their private freight business.
[quote user=“MidlandMike”]
My recollectionis that Amtrak Express was killed when the freight railroads complained to Congress about a subsidized entity competing with their private freight business.
That was also what I thought. It’s only natural that a freight railway wouldn’t like a taxpayer funded railway running freight over its private track at obsolete rates established back when Nixon was President.
The actual reasons I’ve always seen for abandonment of the MHC service was that it vastly ruined real-world operation of the trains as passenger trains, for not that much actual bottom-line revenue. If you have to dwell while people dig around in the car, or need a switch engine and crew to detach or add it to a consist, or have to use road power jerking forward and back to spot one… you get the picture.
Now had the thing been outsourced for traffic generation, handling and loading/unloading, it might have worked… I know that I proposed an alternative using COFC for some M&E to be attached to certain Amtrak trains, including the late '70s version of the Owl, but this would have involved special handling equipment and good, modern cars like the MHCs were cheaper with more prospective uses then.
Thinking about the sheer amount and type of small-load business now being shucked by “PSR” railroad management now, I easily see a market for ‘enough MHC capability to use multiple-locomotive consists to full efficiency’ – but again, keeping Amtrak out of operating responsibility for much more than moving the cars in trains.
That wasn’t the reason although it wasn’t for lack of trying. The court ruled that mail and express had historically been considered part of the passenger business so it came within Amtrak’s legal mandate. David Gunn decided to end the mail and express business since it didn’t generate much positive revenue above its costs and had a negative effect on passenger operations.