Seems rather frequent…
Amtrak’s apathy toward its long distance trains is well founded. Any objective assessment of the numbers associated with them shows that they lose heaps of money whilst serving a very small segment of the travelling public. Had Amtrak been able to shed the long distance trains when it was formed, it could have devoted its energies to enhancing or developing the relatively short, high density corridors where passenger rail makes sense.
The prime market for Auto Train is the New York variety Snow Bird…The retired crowd that still wants to maintain a Northern home for the months without a snow shovel in it and a Southern home for those months that do have snow shovels in them. The retired crowd has more than it’s share of chronic health issues from a wide variety of disease opportunities. Those that choose Auto Train have generally acknowledged to themselves that they don’t have the endurance and desire for a 14-16 hour or more automobile trips, generally because of less than robust health.
Considering 200-300 passengers, most in the over 65 age range with some form of health issues for 14 trips per week and 2 or 3 passenger emergencies a week is not that much of a stretch.
Auto-Train had a huge repair problem when cracks were forming in the “new” auto carriers. Do those figure into the financials? Furthermore, even if they were warranty fixes, Amtrak has opted to pay for labor to get things fixed faster (like the bum concrete ties on the NEC).
Like Amtrak, I detest long-distance trains that require sleeping. Corridor trains are the practical solution. I’m still puzzled by this obsession with keeping trains that require more than a 12 or 14 hour sitting.
Medical emergencies aboard Auto Train does not surprise me…“medical emergency” and “medical attention” are the most common reasons listed for train delays on the MTA, LIRR,and NJT delay reports after signal and equipment problems and “congestion”. So, several times a week on A-T is not surprising.
Back to the top: Auto Train Company did try for NJ to FL service but congestion on the Corridor, high expense of real estate in NJ, and other cost factors literally drove them south to Lorton, VA. Even today I doubt there is room even on CSX from the Hudson Waterfront south to even think about real estate there. But now you got me thinking…as times have changed, etc, etc. There are some spots near Belle Meade on the CSX, nee RDG, like abandoned industrial complexes and government grounds (abandoned: vacant,unused, wondering what they can bring in since there is no industry in the NE, no tax income anyway, decaying, eyesore, land) that would be an easy hour out of NYC, PHL, all of Northern Jersey and the extreme north east of PA by car… well…needs some marketing thought and sharp pencils in the hands of CSX…
Henry**: You are correct. It appears to me that the demand for Auto Train service will grow with gasoline prices rising and transit times for the end points to be reduced. Once equipment is available (when?) there probably will be a splitting of the passenger cars and auto carriers first into separate trains (due to present CSX restriction of 50 cars). Then when Amtrak finds that enough automobiles originate from north of one of your examples above then Amtrak may acquire the property and develop it for a separate auto train.**
However I suspect that CSX will have to be paid to add additional double track RICHMOND - Florence and the Virginia ave tunnel clearance in WASH will have to be raised for the auto carriers. I am not familiar enough of the route north of WASH to know if there are other clearance problems but we know the NEC doesn’t have it yet!
Whether we admit it or not, Amtrak is a political creature and this goes a long way in explaining why the long-distance trains are still operating. The Texas Eagle is probably the most recent example of such a political move. Another factor is the advocacy community, many of whom seem to believe that the immediate postwar period (1946-1955 or so) was some sort of “Golden Era” of passenger trains and want to maintain a level of service and amenities from that period. The 707 and DC-8 were introduced in 1958 and revolutionized commercial aviation, a factor that went a long way in taking passengers off the long-haul trains and trans-Atlantic liners.
A couple of comments.
Since the economic performance of the Autotrain is not nearly as bad as the rest of the LD fleet, it would seem reasonable to look into Autotrain service on other routes as a means of stanching the flow of red ink.
The devil is in the details - routes and markets.
Where there are good markets, say near mid-west to FL, the existing routes stink. You can’t deliver the trip speed you need to sell the service.
Where there are good routes, say some or all of the western trans-con routes, e.g. Chicago to Denver, there just isn’t the market. (Comared to I-95, there is NOBODY on I-70 in Kansas.
The existing train would do better if the northern terminal allow one to avoid the worst driving on the route, namely I-95 north of DC. Yuck. The problem, once again, is routes, particularly getting from Alexandria to north of Baltimore.
Maybe then find a way west to Hagerstown or Gettysburg then south. DC may be everything to politico’s but not for railroads.
Would you prefer to travel from A to B by day, spend the night at B and repeat the process until you reach your destination? It would take four days instead of the current two days to go from Chicago or New Orleans to the West Coast.
My wife and I enjoy traveling by train, and we accept Amtrak as the company that provides passenger service. My wife does wish that bedroom berths were parallel to the window; she greatly enjoyed going from Vancouver to Moncton in drawing rooms last year (VIA 1 between Toronto and Montréal), sleeping in the lower by the window.
That’s the rub. There’s no good route that does this. There is a nice ridge that runs between Hagerstown and the good route south of DC with no good route over it. The B&O takes you thru DC, NS has a lousy route between Hagerstown and Manassas. Going south, staying west of the ridge takes you too far west in a hurry before you find good way back east.
No. From your point A to final destination, I would prefer to fly, instead. I’m sorry but you may have missed my point.
My point is that you queried an obsession with long distance trains. There are people who prefer to travel in civilized comfort and not be subjected to the many inconveniences that abound with travel by air. To my wife and me, air travel is necessary if you have to be there yesterday. We have both flown on business and to attend a funeral, but when we travel for pleasure we travel by rail. We enjoy seeing the the country at eye level. We also enjoy meeting and talking with other travelers, especially while eating in the diner.
I couldn’t agree with you more. When you need to get there in a hurry planes are great, but life doesn’t always have to be about doing stuff in a hurry. Amtrak without a doubt is a far more pleasurable way to travel than being crammed into a small aluminum tube for a few hours. Yeah it takes longer but so what?
For starters, I agree that taking the train is a nice way to travel. I love all those things you cited.
The “so what” isn’t the time but the subsidy. I’m sure there are a fair amount of folks who would prefer to take an civilized, spacious, ocean liner to Europe instead of flying, but there is no regular service because the cost of running an ocean liner are so much greater than airline service that nobody’s in the market. Perhaps an “Amtrak of the Seas” would be able to provide service with a 50 cents on the dollar subsidy. Should we do that, too?
I think the trick to keeping the LD trains around is to improve their performance. I kind of doubt there is enough improvement to be had to bring the subsidies in line with that of other modes.
At the start of Amtrak, the supposition was that LD routes would be pared down and corridor services would be expanded so that the corridors’ above the rails operating surplus could cross subsidize the few remaining LD trains. That never happened - for a variety of reasons.
“So what” is correct when you are enjoying yourself. Train trips are to be enjoyed, and I don’t remember one that I did not enjoy to some extent, even when there were problems. Most were enjoyable start to finish, including meals. There have been enjoyable plane trips but only a small percentage. Driving was a mixed bag depending on how pressed for time I was, nature of stopover places, and traffic woes.
If we gave the airlines 50 cents on the dollar subsidy to increase the seat pitch and width to Amtrak standards, and put in a lounge and provide fresh grilled meals on real china, wouldn’t that make flying more enjoyable? Should we do “Amtrak of the skies”?
Except that you’re forgetting that no matter what subsidy you’re give to the airlines you’re still going to have all the security bs to deal with at the checkpoints, you’re still going to have to stay seated for good portions of the flight, and you’re still not going to have as much freedom as you would on the train. Not to mention the view from planes pretty much sucks because 1) you don’t see much through that “porthole” called a window (unless you’re in the cockpit, which there it’s amazing) and 2) assuming you’re not in a cloud there’s not much to see from 30,000 feet because everything is so small.
Flying can be very pleasurable, don’t get me wrong, but pleasurable flying is general aviation and private jets. If you’ve ever flown general aviation yes that you will fall in love with. Commercial flying, just because of the nature of it, will never be as pleasurable as taking a train ride.
And, similarly, an LD train will never make air trip times. My point is, that the LD train can only be what it is because of the huge direct subsidy it gets. Similar subsidies for air travel could similarly improve the experience - but we don’t provide a similar subsidy. Why don’t we, if that’s what we Americans value?
Long distance trains through the 40’s were necessary, it was our lifestyle. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System and the jet plane changed our lifestyle and the long distance train no longer fit. In most instances. The problem I have with supporting Amtrak and the passenger train is people who are trying to turn the clock back instead of ahead. HSR? Could be. A five day journey across country in a Pullman Car? Probably not. But. What if it were practical to schedule long distance trains so that they were marketable either as a fast intercity service on some segments? Or more liesurly sight seeing? Or an overnight alternative to rushing to get to a hotel to get some sleep and take on the next day’s business? What is long distance? Burnswick, ME to NYC or Washington, DC or Miami? Or is it NYC to Chicago or CHicago to LA or SF or Seattle? Or should a long distance train work as the lifeline in areas where there are no good roads and airfields? Lets look at what services are needed, how they have to be designed, and what it would take to market them in a realistic way. Auto Train? Would that also be a good ride through the Rockies or is it just to get to and from Florida? We can’t be stuck with the status quo, we can’t drag up the past and use it as the present or the future, we must look at what the future needs and how to address it with rail service and not force feed railservice on the future.