http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/06/29/national/w134339D48.DTL
The House voted to restore Amtrak’s budget to last year’s $1.2 Billion. The Senate must agree but I think this keeps Amtrak alive another year.
While the funding will keep Amtrak limping along (maybe) it doesn’t do much for bring the NEC up to a state of good order or keep the fleet, especially the sleeper fleet, in good shape.
There is stronger support in the Senate and they may try to add up to another $600K to bring the funding up to the level requested. So the final amount won’t be certain until after the House/Senate Conferences on the spending bills.
Stay tuned.
Jay
At least not the majority of the politicians aren’t as foolish and short-sighted as I had thought. Glad to be wrong.
Very little will when push comes to shove to kill Amtrak but no will either to fund Amtrak to what it really needs.
Gary
No guts no glory. We’re throwing good money down the drain if we don’t provide Amtrak with enough funds to at least purchase some new sleepers, Viewliners and Superliners, and some new diners especially for the Viewliners… Amtrak might do with the coaches on the east coast, but new diners and more Viewliner sleepers is a must…And it wouldn’t hurt to get some new lounge cars either…
They should have kept the screamers and not gottenj those mud missles[:p]
…I hadn’t heard of the House vote…That’s incouraging. Wi***he system could get some improvements but at least this vote is a step in a direction of keeping some sort of service up and running. I too hope some money for Capital expendures is forth coming.
Gee, I guess I got to try that line on my wife. The wheezing 25-year-old grass cutting tractor I got from my dad needs a $600 dollar clutch repair, a Wal-Mart cheapo new one is about $900, a Husqvarna from the implement place is $2400, but the implement guy is trying to sell me this really nice New Holland with a Diesel and 4-wheel hydrostatic drive that will come in around $13,000 with accessories as a proper replacement for what I have right now. Guess which option my wife supports? “Honey, we are throwing good money down the drain if I don’t get that Diesel with the 4-wheel pedal-controlled hydrostatic drive.”
Economics is about choices. Yes, all modes of transportation get subsidy, yes Amtrak is only getting a tiny piece of the pie, yes, there are a lot of highway projects that are pork-barrel boondogles. But 3 billion on the Acela project is money that could have bought a lot of ViewLiners, diners, and Superliners.
The Acela has the appearances of a boondogle, especially when the substitute for the Acela takes only a 10-15 minute hit out of a 3 hour NY-DC run.
It is the old half-full half-empty deal. One can moan about getting only 1.2 billion in subsidy when the need is 1.8 billion, or one could say, “gee, a 1.2 billion dollar Federal grant to run the system another year – what would be an effective use of that amount of money?”
The reason business-as-usual with Amtrak concerns me is that I believe that the long-term need for passenger rail transportation far exceeds what Amtrak is providing. I see Amtrak on the scale of a pilot or demonstration project of how rail can serve transportation needs. Instead of complaining that Amtrak needs to be supported at the level of 10 billion o
Really interesting observation, Paul!
Paul Milenkovic
I could buy into your arguement if Amtrak was being run by a bunch of yahoos. However, I am not going to let it pass. After 45 years as participant and observer of the business scene, I can assure that Amtrak Chairman Laney and CEO Dave Gunn and the Amtrak Management team NOW in place are as smart, honest and forthright as any business people I have ever known.
You are right that economics is about choices. However I submit to you this question. Which is the better choice, spending $600 on the 25 year old machine that may die on you before the summer is over or $900 for the Wal-Mart machine that should be good for maybe 5 years? If you only have $600 and Wal- Mart says they won’t extend a dime of credit to you, I guess you don’t really have any choice.
That is precisely the spot that where Amtrak is at. You say that the Acela trains are a boondogle. Dave Gunn will be the first to agree that the management of the design and production of the Acela was very poor, and the result was a machine with terrible mechanical problems. Even with that, one has to conceed that it was the right idea. First, the Acela operation is the only significant Amtrak business that actually produces an operating profit. And, if the 15 minutes doesn’t make a difference, why has there been such a dramatic drop in ridership on the NEC since the Acelas have been out of service?
You speak of changing focus, using the billion to do one thing right, the demonstration project. The problem is that Amtrak has various legal restrictions and requirements that won’t allow them to eliminate anything that they now do, without financial penalties. In the illustration of personal choices, the options are among riding mowers. There is a further option of downgrading to a regular lawn mower. That is not the kind of choice that is available to Amtrak.
In case you haven’t seen it the Board and Gunn did submit a plan to Congress for a change of strategy that included
Jay, I really wi***hat every member of Congress and the Senate could read your comment.
Jay, in addition to what Dave suggested…how about SENDING a copy to them…All of the members of Congress…White House too.
OK. Various labels are assigned to the President and Members of Congress: foolish and shortsighted (or perhaps only partially foolish and shortsighted because they came up with 1.2 billion instead of the full 1.8 billion), ideologues etc. It is suggested that the 100’s of billions used to “spread democracy” represent some kind of waste that could be used to fully fund Amtrak and other worthwhile projects and that we all need to send copies of those remarks to members of Congress.
Before discounting national security as a social concern, consider that if you want to snail-mail anything to Congress for the impact value of a personal letter you can’t. Well, you can, but that letter will get delayed for weeks while someone determines if it is safe. There is the matter of those anthrax attacks back in the Fall of 2001, and for all of the billions we spend on Homeland Security and the FBI, we haven’t really figured out who was doing that. Was it folks from the places we are trying to spread democracy doing this in retaliation for our meddling? Was it some home-grown right-wing guy pretending to be an overseas guy? No one knows.
When the Trade Center towers were brought down, I heard it estimated that the economy took a trillion dollar hit. It is not just the direct costs of the loss of life and property but the whole climate of worry that takes its toll. The U.S. economy is a 10 trillion a year undertaking, so 10 percent of that in the form of lost economic growth over 4 years is not an unreasonable estimate.
So to spend 100’s of billions of dollars trying to fix something that cost us a trillion dollars is not completely out of line. Should some of those 100’s of billions be spent on energy independence instead of only on war? You bet! Shouldn’t Amtrak get a lot more money because rail is the most energy-efficient passenger transportation mode? If you are talking about what Amtrak could be saving in energy, by all means. If you are talking about what Amtrak is doing
I thought Paul made some very good points about funding and choices.
I am a former civilian USAF historian who worked with the military space program and also a railfan so I take a bit of umbrage at the later reply concerning that the missile defense system was a total waste of money. This is not the place to discuss that in depth but that system is yet another choice like Paul was talking about.
My Air Force colleagues–and these were officers invovled in the R&D of such systems–always told me that the most effective ABM system would require space based weaponry. But the political will to deploy “weapons” in space from both Clinton and Bush is not there so the less effective ground-based interceptor system was chosen even though it is proven to be not as effective.
Likewise, Paul makes a good point. The Acelas may look sexy but that’s a lot of money that could have gone to such things as “trivial” as repainting those Phase IV Superliner cars that are flaking back into Phase III.
As a Californian, it bothers me that the focus on Amtrak, almost from day one, has been on the NEC. Yes the NEC can make money and is heavily travelled. But Amtrak is a national system and long distance routes should not be sacrificed or slighted for the benefit of the East Coast.
I have ridden trains all over Europe and I am in love with Virgin Trains’ Bombardier-built Voyagers and Super Voyagers in Britain. I’d llove to see something like that here all over the country. But I am also realistic to know that won’t happen here any time soon (if ever). Instead, the much less sexier Amtrak California trains are doing a great job and while not the Orient Express, impress the h*ll out of me.
So yes Paul, you are right. Choices, management decisions, political will, and priorities–make a difference whether it’s the Shuttle, ABMs, or Acelas.
…Wasn’t suggesting to use snail mail…use this communication right here…the computer…With one mailing it can be directed to all Congresspeople.
Have any of you actually traveled any distance by train.
Its always more expensive, takes longer and is more uncomfortable than flying.
I am a train fan, but after one trip to Florida and back by train I next time flew.
This is obsolete technology for anthing bt 4 hours ofr less travel between cities.
The real waste is in the fuel cell Hydrogen nonsense. That money should be going toward an electric economy. Do you know that most of the terrorist suicide types in Iraq are Saudis? Bush’s big mistake is he still thinks we can win in Iraq while still claiming the Saudis to be our friends (with their theology and social system inspiring the terrorists and their private millionaires helping to fund them) and keep sending them money for cheap gasoline. The USA needs energy indpendence now, and that can happen with railway electrication, all cars hybrid or otherwise using energy recovery braking (flywheels are one other alternative), ditto trucks and buses, and real solid research on nuclear power and batteries. A stong Amtrak with about two billion a year would be logical part of such stratergy. Right now we are funding the very forces being opposed in Iraq.
Fuel cell Hydrogen technology was originally invented for pollution control, not energy efficiency. It takes a lot more energy to make the Hydrogen than you get from it and the electricity is far more efficiently used directly.
Now that is worth writing or emailing the Congress and Senate and President about. And I have.
…So reasonable people can agree that this {war}, was a boondoggle and reasonable folks can agree that Acela is the same…So where are we…right where we are now…No body ready to step up to the plate and figure out how to do these things…With the present adminstration just wanting to “0” out the funding…How is that solving the problem…It just promotes arguments and we remain where we are…and have been for some time. In the meantime our {Amtrak}, system continues to deteriorate into a disgrace.
Save The Passenger Trains.
SAVE AMTRAK!!! It is important that this service continues because it is such a vital service to the people of the United States whether they realize it or not. It is a great way of transportation. It is also a great way to see parts of the country that normally can’t be seen by a car or an airplane.
To lose this service would be very bad for this country.