Consider the source.
Also consider that Amtrak has long been subsidizing local transportation entities with low user fees in the NEC and various terminals, such as CUS and Union Station in DC.
“What goes around, comes around.”
How do you know that Amtrak has been subsidizing local transportation entities with low user fees …?
To conclude Amtrak is subsidizing local users of its infrastructure, one would need access to Amtrak’s books and, furthermore, be able to determine a fair market price for use of the assets, which would be difficult given the small number of current and potential users.
This has been discussed before. Amtrak officers have mentioned this in the past. There are other sources of info besides what you suggest.
They are. Reliable second hand inside info - a few years old. There was a working group formed to fix it, but it went nowhere, as far as I know (which might be just my ignorance).
There were tough issues, such as, “are all train slots of equal value?” If NJT is consuming the prime rush hour slots, should they be of higher value and cost more? If NJT only needs class 4 track, should they have to pay pro-rata for class 6 (or 7)? Is it Amtrak’s fault NJT only needs class 4 and MARC needs class 6? If an NJT train is on the track longer due to lower speed and stops, should they have to pay by time or mileage? Traction power, share of dispatching costs, shared station cost, signalling, Etc, etc, etc.
It’s really just the flip side of the “LD trains are subsidizing the NEC G&A” argument - which is why Wick probably didn’t want to get into the weeds with Don Phillips during an interview a while back. In then end, it really doesn’t matter that much and is just a distrction from doing actual things that could improve the product.
OK, show me the verfiable numbers. He said, she said, reliable sources said, are not verifiable independently and, therefore, are suspect. There is no way for an outsider to verify the claims.
As I read the link - Amtrak is trying to outflank the commuter agencies by trying to say that CUT and WUS are not ‘railroads’ as defined by the Amtrak authorization. Railroads have a different negotiating stance and regulations than does Amtrak.
If we followed your dicta, nothing could be discussed without the books. Since we won’t have them, why conclude that these remarks from Amtrak (which they base on verifiable numbers) are false when they are more likely true?
Hammers only see nails. Accountants only see the books.
Correct. But true none the less.
OK, so who at Amtrak made the statement that the rents it charges other uses of its infrastructure are not set properly. Was it the Vice President of Operations or a clerk? If you don’t have the numbers, you have no way to verify the assertion.
In the corporate world where I worked for more than 42 years, if I made a statement or referred to an anonymous source and could not support it with verifiable references, I would have been gone.
You can save the cute statements for someone who might care. They are meaningless. You don’t know anything about me or my education or experiences, etc. Nothing!
See post above from Oltmann, a generally reliable source. If you feel the need to “verify” ask him.
[quote user=“PJS1”]
charlie hebdo
OK, show me the verfiable numbers. He said, she said, reliable sources said, are not verifiable independently and, therefore, are suspect. There is no way for an outsider to verify the claims.If we followed your dicta, nothing could be discussed without the books. Since we won’t have them, why conclude that these remarks from Amtrak (which they base on verifiable numbers) are false when they are more likely true?
Hammers only see nails. Accountants only see the books.
OK, so who at Amtrak made the statement that the rents it charges other uses of its infrastructure are not set properly. Was it the Vice President of Operations or a clerk? If you don’t have the numbers, you have no way to verify the assertion.
In the corporate world where I worked for more than 42 years, if I made a statement or referred to an anonymous source and could not support it with verifiable references, I would have been gone.
You can save the cute statements for someone who might care. They are meaningless. You don’t know anything about me or my education or experiences, etc.
In the following document on above linked website the cost allocation is described:
http://nec-commission.com/app/uploads/2018/04/2018-03-08_Cost-Allocation-Policy_v07.00_Cmsn-Amended-2018-Mar-08-Clean.pdf
It starts at page 16.
Regards, Volker
More or less a set of guiding principles. Apparently there is no agreement on how to actually do the cost sharing…
You are right, but on page 16 is described how cost allocation was handled before:
Quote from above link page 16: The ICC determined that the appropriate compensation standard was based on avoidable, or incremental, costs. An avoidable cost standard is premised on a dominant user and a minority user (or users) and assigns to the minority user only those costs that could be directly avoided “but for” the existence of the minority user.
Reason was that ICC saw Amtrak as the dominant user. That changed in the past, therefore the new attempt.
Regards, Volker
Also see pg. 37, Table 3.