To all those who have suggested that the frt RRs “take back” Amtrak, your idea might not be as looney as some of us (myself included) have suggested.
Here’s a nicely detailed proposal:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=306091
However, in order for something to work, you need motive, opportunity and ability. Conjuring up a motive for the frt RRs to run decent service is probably tha hardest nut to crack.
Obviously, not too many people remember why Amtrak was formed in the first place, including the currrent regime in Washington. Passenger service as operated by the individual railroads had been losing money for years, and the discontinuance process was slow and painful. Amtrak was established to relieve the railroads of these losses while maintaining some service.
It should be remembered that so-called pro-passenger railroads such as Santa Fe and Seaboard Coast Line were also losing buckets of money on their passenger service.
If you read the proposal carefully, you’ll see that the funding to cover losses would come from “public-private” partnerships. It is implied that they would be a Federal subsidy - that conservatives would find palatable.
I fully agree with this gentleman. The railroads in this country could not maintain passenger service and yet compete with the interstate highway system and the idea of everyone in the country having at least one car or more. Any way you’d look at it, it was a money losing proposition. And I seriously doubt that the seven major freight carriers in North America would ever consider resuming passenger service. And let us not kid ourselves into thinking that they would.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816
Many comuter train services are run by Class one railroads, they are passenger trains too. Comuter rains could eveolve to intercity trains in denser populated parts of the US. like LA to SanDiago or Chicago to Milwaukee etc. Anyways for passenger train service to be effective you need population density wich there realy isn’t enough of in most of the US.
Perhaps this could be more accurately stated ‘commuter train services are operated by Class I…’ which is quite true: under contract to an public commuter transport authority, which pays the bills and collects the fares. And enjoys, invariably, a huge public subsidy.
commmuter trains are run by Class I’s when they are subsidized by local commuter authorities. Amtrak does that also. In some cases there are even independent operators such as in Boston. Freight does run on the Northeast Corridor and freight railroads to pay Amtrak reasonable and appropriate fees for the use of the mostly passenger tracks. This includes the Providence and Worcester, Conrail, and Guilford on former New Haven lines, including some use of Metro North trackage, and at last report Norfolk Southern south of Philadelphia. All these freight trains are diesel powered, at least at the present time.
Does this mean that the railroad beanery’s will all be taken over by Subway? Just think how it will change the eating habits of the crews and how much potential weight will come off, does this mean lighter engines for faster trains?
I don’t see any conceivable way that freight railroads can handle efficient passenger service. It’s hard enough to keep high priority UPS trains on schedule let alone throwing passenger service into the mix. And as mentioned before the profit margin dips so far into the red that it’s just not worth it.
What really needs to be done, which would just cost an immense ammount of money that no government or private company will want to fund, is to built a seperate high speed, high capacity network for passenger service only. Model after France and Japan. But, those countries are much more densely populated than the US. I know that certain corridors could sustain high speed passenger service, but cross-country service isn’t very feasible. Unless there was a very good routing plan that could limit cross country lines to just a few with a mid-nation terminus like St. Louis or Kansas City. This is simply my own [2c], but if we could get an administration that was serious about investing in our own country and not pouring money and valuable American lives into an endless war machine we might get somewhere.
A god test of this will be if Metra eventually decides to go ahead with extending UP-North line to Milwaukee, its been bantered around abit more lately.
A Metra revival of the old Kate Shelly would be nice too.
Did anybody actually bother to read the proposal? [banghead] Or, are you all just reacting to the title? If it’s the latter, then I hereby banish you to a life of CNN and FOX news! No meat for you![:D]
First, for this to work, there’s absolutely no chance that the frt RRs would be made anything less than whole. While no mechanism is for funding is explicitly described, it is implied that there would be a Federal subsidy to operate. The market would govern routes and frequencies.
You’d have to build some sort of incentive in so that the RR’s would strive to provide good service. Otherwise, you’d just have a bunch of dirtly, late trains. Maybe the subsidy would be fully allocated cost for “base level” service. % Ticket revenue would go toward that with RR keeping the remaining % as pure profit - maybe 2/3 - 1/3 split. (RRs need about 25% margins to maintain reasonable return on equity). Additional service above “base level” on same route could be funded based on variable costs.
By giving the RR’s a fair profit on the service and a cut of the revenues on top of that, it would make it lucrative line of business to be in and would attract investment.
Sure we want a freight company like UP to do this, they might park it on a siding for two-weeks.
In the Chicago area, Metra’s trains are operated variously by the freight operator under a purchase of service contract, by Metra with its own crews through trackage rights or by Metra directly over its own tracks. I’m sure that transit authorities elsewhere have similar arrangements.
At any rate, most transit authorities are limited by their authorizing statute as to where they can operate so it would be unlikely for them to take over short intercity runs such as Chicago-Milwaukee (Metra) or Los Angeles-San Diego (Metrolink or Coaster).
What stops them from doing it now?
One of the problems with having the freight railroads operate intercity passenger as an integeral part of their business is the matter of defining just how much money would be required to make them “whole”. The simple illustration is that if operating a passenger train means that all the capacity for the route of that train is used and there is no room for additional freight business the issue of oppurtunity cost comes into play. Assume, for example that the passenger train makes $10,000 profit per trip, including government support, and the business that can’t be handled because of the passenger train would earn $15,000, there is a $5,000 loss of profit tp the company. Should the government grant cover that additional $5,000?
Jay
Hope its got a fully stocked Subway onboard [;)][:D]
I can just hear it:
“How was the vacation Earl”
“Didnt make it, spend two weeks on siding in the middle of nowhere. Dam UP cops wouldnt let us get off 'cause they said we’d be trespassing on RR property!..the sandwiches were good though…”
[;)][(-D][:-,]
I think the passengers would get a little “stale”.[:0][;)]
Actually, the proposal sounds rather interesting. A breath of fresh air. The railroads have had a 35 year vacation, and been allowed to consolidate and become profitable. The burden to any class I is not that unreasonable, especially if the government picks up the difference. The only problem I see is, there is no incentive to keep costs down and service levels up, especially if Uncle Sam has his wallet wide open.
[2c]
Been holding my tounge on this subject for a while.[}:)]
Some sort of government subsidy will always be needed to have a passenger railroad. I feel it would probably be best for US passenger rail if the government got out of the business. Politics and red tape are just as guilty of putting Amtrak in its position as anything else.
The most efficient way to run US passenger rail is to hand it back to the railroads and start handing out the carrots. Freight rail will not take it back unless there is something in it for them.
Not that PR is really high on freight railroads list I think running passenger rail would help. Think of stepping onto the California Zepher with a BNSF Genisis on the point, it’s not AMtrak getting them to were they need to be, it’s BNSF (or UP, or etc.)
I just have a feeling that US passenger rail is coming to point. Will it be good or bad after that point, I have no idea.
SRC
Yup.
Sort of.
You can do a line capacity analysis with and with out the passenger train(s) and see what the impact on service is. If there is negative impact, then figure what the capital expense is to bring service levels back up. Not impossible to do and not all “smoke and mirrors” either.
Added capacity usually means added or lengthened sidings. In an emerging corridor, it might mean adding an addtional track.
Alternately, you can figure out the the value of the revenue you’d have to blow away in order to keep service levels up. If that’s less than the capital expense, then maybe that’d be an alternative. This is much trickier to figure and I think the frt RRs would perfer the added capacity.
I think you could do this by letting them keep a % of ticket revenue - say 1/3, over and above full cost. Better service = higher sustainable ticket price + more riders = more $$ for the frt RR. As long as the overall margin was = or better to other traffic, you’d see the frt RR try REALLY hard to provide what the public wants.
The basic subsidy would have to be based on an agreed upon formula to fully allocate real costs. The RR would then be "made whole + his current avg margin.