Thank you,
Very interesting article.
Gabe
Thank you,
Very interesting article.
Gabe
It wouldn’t be the first time this happened. The day after the NYC did their jet propelled Budd car stunt in Ohio, they petitioned the ICC to drop all their long distance trains stating the future of passenger rail travel was high speed corridors.
In all fairness to NYC and their jet-propelled RDC, I believe it was more serious than a stunt. I don’t think they were ever serious about pulling the drive trains out of RDCs and sticking jet engines on the roof. From what I have read, the idea was to get a rail car going around 160 MPH by whatever means and collect some data as to what kind of forces it put on the track and whether truck hunting was a problem, and the jet engines were a “quick-and-dirty” solution to get the speed for the test.
Along similar lines, the US Department of Transportation procurred a 4 car set of Budd Silverliner MU cars, put tall gearing on the traction motors, and ran them past 150 MPH. That test, probably encouraged by the data from the jet-powered RDC, was the impetus for the DOT-sponsored Metroliner service, which was meant to be a demonstration of a potential revival of rail travel. There were to be three parts to the demonstration – the NY-DC Metroliner using electric MU cars, the NY-Boston Turbo Train, using turbine power and passive banking on the non-completely electrified line, and a DC-Florida auto train service where passengers would ride inside their autos inside specially built auto carriers with passenger trucks. Only the first two parts of the demonstration were implemented. And as a demonstration, the Metroliner was not supposed to be the last word on the NEC, but it was meant to be a partnership between US-DOT and PRR to show what was possible.
What is interesting is the Budd Silverliner was tried-and-true technology from commuter service derived from the Budd Pioneer III – this was a one-of coach car of conventional 85 foot length, Budd stainless steel construction, but it was ultra light weight (something like 65,000 lb) and it had exotic trucks (inside roller bearing, outside disk brake, something akin to the truck on a PCC street car). The Silverliners backed off on the ultra light weight but they had the inside roller bearing trucks (known as “Pioneer III” in the industry and
The original Metroliner was problematic in at least two respects. I rode it on business between Washington and New York, and yes, the ride was harsh. I don’t know if the harsh ride was due to the condition of the track, the suspension system, or a combination of both. According to what I heard subjective ride quality data from Japan was used to set the ride quality criteria. Apparently the data involved a younger age group in Japan who would be more tolerant of a harsher ride than older people.
The second problem was reliability. I rode one train set where the a/c didn’t work. On another trip the engineer couldn’t raise the pantographs just before the train was scheduled to leave Washingto. Fortunately a spare train set was just across the platform. On another trip the lights flickered every time the train crossed a switch (turnout).
This is 20/20 hindsight, but It seems to me the Metroliner train sets were not adequately evaluated.
As part of the Northeast Corridor demonstration project, in 1967, the Afternoon Congressional with its original Budd-built cars and hauled by a GG 1 was speeded up so that the Washington - New York trip only took 3 1/4 hours instead of 3 hours 35 minutes. Even then both my wife and I thought the ride was rough.
I worked with a guy who worked at the Collinwood test lab when they did the Budd car stunt. Maybe “stunt” is a bit harsh, but that the NYC did no follow-on work and that it was timed to coincide with the train-off filings and that the last test run was called off by the top brass is pretty telling.
I’ve always thought of the original Metroliners as “The train that saved Amtrak”. The whole project, which consisted of 60 some cars and some welded rail cost less than $100M at the time. They were rough riding and trouble prone, but they were modern, clean and damn fast! And, business travellers actually rode them in great numbers which gave Amtrak a “monied” constituency. Even President Nixon rode them, once! Without the Metroliners, Amtrak passenger trains might have just faded away.
I disagree. While not up to TGV standards, Acela and the NEC is successfull and not hurting for riders, the rest of Amtrak is the problem and has been since 1971 despite different political parties being in power, numerous administrators, operating plans, studies, consultants, ad-nauseum. A half-baked version of Amtrak may serve to prevent development of HSR. Why build a HSR system and how do you cost-justify it when we already have passenger service? Also what private Investors would ever take the risk if the result has to compete against Amtrak?
IMO passenger trains have to go faster than cars(door to door). A fundamental problem with the current Amtrak operating model is how do you run reliably scheduled service on congested freight railroads which are unscheduled, have lots of single track, and where a single mishap delays everything by 4+ hours? How much speed differential can even the best freight railroads handle and how much would they be willing to invest for ROW improvements that aren’t needed for their own trains?
Both the French and Japanese rail systems had serious problems that led to the development of HSR. Both of their HSR systems started small and grew gradually. The U.S. freight railroads seem to have bought into being the “low cost producer” rather than “adding value”. To attract riders off airplanes and out of cars, passenger service has to be more than a second-class way to get from point A to point B, which is what Amtrak outside of a few corridors really amounts to. The U.S has historically not addressed problems until they reach crisis proportions. Kill Amtrak, dump the corridors on the States, and maybe something will happen. The wheel probably wouldn’t have been invented if ancient man had to cost-justify it against the sledge.
For the foreseeable future, I think you will sooner get the public–much less investors–to put their money in Winter-only Ice Cream shops in Nome Alaska than they will high speed rail.
My point isn’t that high-speed rail doesn’t have advantages; my point is that it is a non-starter because no one is willing to pay for it and it detracts from projects than could be done.
Gabe
I think that Amtrak is a basis to build on. Get the money to get the equipment in decent shape and the service up to par. Your statement about Amtrak being a failure is contrary to the increases in numbers of riders. There are communities that depend on Amtrak as their only public transit connection to the outside world. During winter, for some it is the only connection, public or private. To abandon such communities right now is downright cruel.
The ridership arguement is really shaky. Amtrak has grown less than the population and the economy, so you have to be really careful using gross ridership. You have to look at specific markets, revenue, etc. to determine success. Gross ridership alone makes it look like a failure. For example, you could look at NY to Albany comparing the 1970s to now. Amtrak ticket prices and ridership have outpaced economic growth, so that’s a win. The Silver Service may be capacity constrained, so no growth is possible. The Sunset, well, um…uh…there’s a reason this is McCain’s favorite whipping boy, and he may not be too far off base, there.
Now, that there are communities that depend on Amtrak for public transport - that’s a pretty good arguement. The downside of this one, is that the train service might look like a “subsidy” to those towns. And, what about similar towns that have no train or bus service? Is it fair that only some get train service?
The “all weather” arguement is, sadly, no longer true. Some of Amtrak’s host RRs shut down whenever bad weather is forecast, much less occurs. I won’t name names, but their initials are CSX.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Paul Milenkovic
In all fairness to NYC and their jet-propelled RDC, I believe it was more serious than a stunt. I don’t think they were ever serious about pulling the drive trains out of RDCs and sticking jet engines on the roof. From what I have read, the idea was to get a rail car going around 160 MPH by whatever means and collect some data as to what kind of forces it put on the track and whether truck hunting was a problem, and the jet engines were a “quick-and-dirty” solution to get the speed for the test.
Along similar lines, the US Department of Transportation procurred a 4 car set of Budd Silverliner MU cars, put tall gearing on the traction motors, and ran them past 150 MPH. That test, probably encouraged by the data from the jet-powered RDC, was the impetus for the DOT-sponsored Metroliner service, which was meant to be a demonstration of a potential revival of rail travel. There were to be three parts to the demonstration – the NY-DC Metroliner using electric MU cars, the NY-Boston Turbo Train, using turbine power and passive banking on the non-completely electrified line, and a DC-Florida auto train service where passengers would ride inside their autos inside specially built auto carriers with passenger trucks. Only the first two parts of the demonstration were implemented. And as a demonstration, the Metroliner was not supposed to be the last word on the NEC, but it was meant to be a partnership between US-DOT and PRR to show what was possible.
What is interesting is the Budd Silverliner was tried-and-true technology from commuter service derived from the Budd Pioneer III – this was a one-of coach car of conventional 85 foot length, Budd stainless steel construction, but it was ultra light weight (something like 65,000 lb) and it had exotic trucks (inside roller bearing, outside disk brake, something akin to the truck on a PCC street car). The Silverliners backed off on the ultra light weight but they had the in
Before the economy tanked, there were a few private projects talked about for Texas & Florida. In addition, politicians and people from Amtrak keep talking about selling the NEC. I presume they must have someone in mind. Wasn’t there a German company behind one of the projects?
My point is you’ll never have HSR as long as there’s an Amtrak. Many Conservatives aren’t against paseenger rail - they’re quite willing to fund heavy commuter rail projects. But they are against social welfare programs and as long as Amtrak looks like a duck.
One of the functions of the very long distance Western trains is as a kind of “land cruise ship.” While it may fall under the category of “Amtrak for railfans”, railfan would have to be expanded beyond us rabid maniacs who chase trains in our cars to people who just plain like rail travel for seeing the great expanse of the U.S. and organize vacations around this activity.
I guess “land cruise ship” is a non-PC reason for Amtrak because why are we spending tax subsidies so a bunch of retired people who don’t care that they are 4 hours delayed behind some freight train can putter around the country, but hey, we have National Parks which combine recreation with preservation of national heritage. If Amtrak can draw foreign tourists to spend their hard currency on now cheap American dollars and see this great land of ours, perhaps their is some social interest in that.
Last time I mentioned “land cruise ship” and got someone worked up that I wasn’t advancing the right argument in support of the long distance trains, I was told the argument about the long distance trains serving all of those small communities along the way, and how much of the Interstate traffic is end-to-end and how much of it is shorter hops along the route anyway.
Someone tell me, does the argument that the Empire Builder is the life line to small communities in Montana hold water? The train is only once a day, and for a lot of those communities that once a day is at 2 AM – do a lot of people board the train at that hour?
And with the freight-train interference or whatever reason the Empire Builder can be multiple hours late, does that train really get any “corridor” traffic along the corridors on its route. My wife travels a lot on business and had asked if I would drive her to Columbus to take the train to Minneapolis. I said "yes, if you want the railfan experience of taking the Empire Builder, by all means, but it is only once a day and it goes only at these hours (not regarded as conven
There is no sane reason why the Empire Builder runs the schedule that it does, nor the route that it goes, other than to arrive at Glacier National Park in time to watch the sunrise. That seems to be the sole reason for it’s existence, as the official Glacier National Park Land Cruise.
It leaves Seattle in the evening, so it does not serve the towns of Washington and Idaho at a decent hour. It hits the towns of Eastern Montana and North Dakota in the middle of the night. It bypasses the larger population areas of Montana along the I-90 corridor. Only the towns of North Central Montana have the option of decent boarding times.
It has been mentioned in TRAINS and elsewhere that the Empire Builder would do better to leave Seattle in the morning, at least on a every other day schedule, so that Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho stops can occur at decent hours. It has also been suggested that the Empire Builder reroute along the I-90 corridor through Montana, perhaps again splitting at Billings into a northern route along the I-94 corridor through North Dakota and a southern route into Wyoming and Colorado, or into Nebraska.
For Paul
One reason why the Acela Express or Metroliner dominates the Washington - New York travel is it is the fastest way to get there door - to - door. It is often more convenient than flying between those cities, and as you pointed out it offers frequent and reliable service.
Notice the NY turboliners story is similar to the Acela story… Amtrak leased the new Acela trainsets after winning approval to upgrade the NEC tracks from our Congress… However, Congress never did fund the tracks upgrades to match the speed capabilities of the new trainsets, up to 160 mph… Now it appears Amtrak put the cart before the horse, but in fact, a willy-nilly Congress did…
As for the long distance hotel trains, more than half of the riders are actually traveling a distance longer than the train goes… More than half of the riders entering Chicago on a train leave Chicago on another train…
Actually, since most of Amtrak’s employees are based in Chicago, the trains are scheduled to enter Chicago in the mornings and early afternoons so that they can leave in the late afternoons and evenings…Shift changes basically…
Therefore the Empire Builder time schedule is based for Chicago, as are all the other trains… But yes, there are a lot of stops scheduled in the middle of the night… not necessarily the best time to increase ridership along the routes…
The only solution to stopping this practice of untimely stops is to either increase the number of trains daily, frequency, or to increase the speed of the trains significantly to get the frequency increase with the same number of trains… And when I say significantly, I mean triple or quadruple their speeds…HSR…
I thougt the Amtrak long distance service into and out of Chicago was arranged for daylight connections. That is, all arrive in the AM so passengers can connect to PM departures of these daily trains.
West of the Mississippi, it gets hard to play “connect the dots” with multiple train frequency between population centers spanned by overnight long haul trains. In the east, it’s a bit easier.
If you consider NY/Phila/Hburg/Pburg/Cleveland/ Toledo/Chicago as a route, you might arrange service with multiple train frequency such that there were departures available from each city at convenient times. For example, you might have a 6AM and a 9AM departure from Cleveland in each direction. You might also have a 6AM dept from Pittsburgh while the 6AM from Cleveland functions as your 9AM from Pittsburgh. Then you’d do similar with PM departures. Finally, you’d bridge the hole in the schedules with an overnight NY-Chic train.
If you layered on other corridor like route such as Cleve/Cols/Cincy and Cleve/Buffalo/Albany/NY-Boston, it starts to become a network.
But, I don’t think we even get the chance to play this game as long as the notion of Amtrak being the provider of “subsidized senior citizen Land Cruises” is floating around out there and has some credence to it. You may not have to take Amtrak apart to kill this notion, but you do have to do something to give life to the idea that Amtrak has been “fixed”.
The biggest problem with dismembering Amtrak is you’ll lose some institutional knowledge. An example of this was when the NEC went to Amtrak, along with the people to run it. Conrail lost the institutional knowledge of operating on the NEC with speed control. Consequently, diesels ran on the NEC w/o speed control and …
I also think it’s doubtful… The Euro style of rail travel has one major thing going for it, and that’s the distances. America is too big. No matter how fast they go, it would never be fast enough. And the mindset in Europe and Japan is totally different… Especially Japan. As much as I hate to say it, I think urban commuter lines are the best bet for most American passenger rail transport. Any idea of some sort of grand high speed rail system on a large scale is just pie in the sky in my opinion. At least at this point. If (god forbid) this country ever gets to the level of congestion hat a country like Japan has, then maybe people would start going for it.
Dave
Los Angeles, CA
-DPD Productions - Home of the TrainTenna RR Monitoring Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/
I don’t think America is too big, and there is a market for good long distance train service. But the point about some towns being subsidized by having Amtrak service while others don’t even have a bus connection is well taken. The auto-oil-highway boys had their way so it was positively un-American not to own a car, and indeed in many places you are second class citizen if you don’t drive. I think this is wrong. I also don’t think George Bush can “democratize Iraq” unless an energy policy has teeth and fuel cell won’t do the job and if it did it would take 15 years anyway. So I think the USA needs a national public transportation system. Not to move people out of their cars, but simply to prove to the world that we could if we had to do so. Such a system would be based on a Robust Amtrak (basically what we have with a few restoration and everything in good repair) and then the best possible hybrid technology comfortable bus extensions so there is a national system available. I’d let Grayhound and Trailways and the regionals like Peter Pan do the bus expansion rather than start a new operation from scratch, but all would work together with common ticketing with Amtrak.
The Empire Builder doesn’t need any fixin. It’s doing well and is one of Amtrak’s most successful LD trains, despite the fact that it doesn’t serve any large population base between the Twin Cities and the West Coast.
Amtrak at one time did have a train serving the I-90 route of Billings. Unfortunately, the White House in 1979 - i.e. POLIT