What was responsible for the failure of Amtrak’s Express and Mail initiative in the 90’s and 00’s? With the tougher climate for moving packages and mail currently, what is preventing Amtrak from reinstating such a service? Isn’t the possibility for making a bit more revenue greater now than it was back then?
There were several factors. Among them were the fact the additional revenue barely covered the additional costs, handling mail and express was not always conducive to existing passenger schedules, I’m sure that other members of the forums could point out additional reasons.
The trains don’t run often enough or to enough destinations to make either mail or package service work.
One train a day is not useful transportation, and some of their routes don’t even run THAT often.
It also messed up passenger service a lot. Amtrak trains were often held outside of the stations for long periods of time in order for a switcher to remove or add the express cars. It was not only time consuming but I assume a rather costly procedure.
There were entire trains scheduled around mail and express. Many moved at night with a coach or two attached. Did some even carry passengers at all?
The whole infrastructure that used to handle mail and express by rail, how much is left? What would it take to rebuild? There is money in express, but is worth the cost to re-enter, including running more trains on tight schedules?
Express in 21st Century Railroading is spelled UPS…and railroads are heavily involved in the operation of UPS’s logistics network.
Yes, there’s money to be made moving express. At the railroad headquarters they generally refer to it as “The UPS Contract”. (UPS and FedEx are today’s express companies. The Federal Government having forced the original express companies, such as American Express and Well Fargo, from the field.)
Amtrak can’t realistically establish a nationwide distribution system to compete. (They’d be the third guy in and have no real advantage.) And no one could/should expect the railroads to allow diversion of their UPS revenue to Amtrak.
IIRC, (American) Railway Express (Agency) was a consolidation of seven predecessors in WWI into one privately held (by the railroads) corporation. It went into bankruptcy in 1975.
It would be very hard for Amtrak to compete with trucks (short haul) and FedEx and UPS in hauling the mail longer distances. The USPS/FEDEX contract had just been in effect a few months before 9/11 and Commercial Airlines hauled the long haul Priority Mail, and when they were restricted basically from anything, but letter mail, that meant it had to be truck, rail or Cargo Planes. Before the Postal Contract, I don’t remember FedEx using their planes much in the Daytime. They usually left airports around the country for their hubs late in the evening and returned the next morning and set there all day.
Now some of the fleet of FedEx is used in the day to fly Postal Mail as well as their own 2 or 3 day products to their hubs, sorted and sent back out that afternoon. Then their planes are available for the night run.
George
I remember reading at the time that the Class 1 freight railroads on whose lines much of Amtrak’s long distance service operates on were very unhappy with the competition to UPS and FEDEX (major customers of all the big freight carriers) using their tracks essentially for free… They (understandably)complained loudly to Congress and the White House. At one point Amtrak was talking about a whole new series of long distance “mixed” trains with the consists made up mostly of express cars and roadrailers…
Don’t confuse mail delivery with parcel delivery or freight delivery. Freight was delivered slowly by less than carload lots; Railway Express was a quicker delivery system for things that were neither freight or mail; United Parcel Service could dliver only parcels as the US Post Office could deliver only letters. As times changed, railroads lost the railway postal service and eliminate passenger services (or used it as an excuse). Only a few bulk mail trains continued and since these trains were under the passenger department, Amtrak inherited them. (Conrail inherited several NY-CHI TV mail trains from PC but I’m not sure if they were freight or passenger deparment.) Under different leaderships Amtrak tried some package express, bulk mail, etc. but decided to get out of the business in favor of just handling people. Some have argued it was UPS/FEDEX et al who pushed for that, others that it was the railroads themselves who hosted passenger trains and cried foul that Amtrak was “taking business away”.
The various freight roads did challenge Amtrak’s mail and express initiative and lost. A court ruling stated that mail and express were historically part of the passenger service so Amtrak was following a reasonable precedent.
OK, I’d like to correct the record here.
First, the Post Office was delivering “Parcels” before there was a United Parcel Service. The PO established “Parcel Post” on January 1, 1913 and after that date handled both letters and packages. Their parcel service was subsidized (That’s a bad thing since the government has to divert the money for the subsidy from other economic activity.) This subsidized service drove the established private parcel (or express) companies such as Wells Fargo and American Express from the business and led to the establishment of the consolidated Railway Express circa 1918. Since Railway Express took over a loosing business it was never all that lucrative for the railroads. Unfortunately for the railroads, REA was set up under a 50 year contract and they were stuck with it for 50 years.
When the 50
The key word is “virtually” no bulk mail trains. Amtrak inherited a pair of trains operating on the NEC. One of the two operated until just a few years ago.
Under the United States Post Office no one other than the United States Post Office could deliver message mail: letters, bills, other correspondence. This limited what United Parcel and others could do to just packages…yes UPS started as a retail package delivery service The whole structure of message and parcel delivery changed with zip codes, the United States Postal Service, allowing message delivery by other than USPS, and changes to other delivery services like Railway Express/REX and even Grayhound Package Express!
Railroads certainly did use the loss of hauling first class mail for eliminating rail service. Often that US mail contract was why the train(s) ran. As soon as the contract was gone it was easy to show enough of a loss to justify getting rid of the train. Railroads relied on the mail contracts rather than marketing to maintain a lot of the passenger service.
In reality there was grumbling amongst the railroads that by Amtrak passenger trains tacking on bulk mail baggage cars and trailvans Amtrak became more like a freight train service. There was a mail train from NYP to D.C. nightly but Conrail took the bulk mail via TV trains west to Pittsburgh and Chicago. Flying Tiger became Fed Ex and several other delivery companies arrived on the scene and the competition was on and the movement of letters and packages has not been the same since…
I am not sure I agree with Frailey’s comments that railroads needed to get out of the passenger business in order to survive but believe more they wanted to because it was easier to survive without passenger trains with the cost of running them applied against airline and bus subsidized modes. It was a “dump the load (of people movement) on the government and let them take care of it.” And it was probably the right attitude to assume at the time. What is too often overlooked in the debate of freight vs. passenger or no passenger vs passenger
Parcel Post was established during the Progressive Era as a reaction to the popular belief that the express companies were gouging the public. It’s not that different from the political atmosphere that led to the Granger laws and the eventual establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Big government generally came about as a reaction to the excesses of big business.
As I recall things, Amtrak did not inherit any mail trains on the NEC. They initiated such service, which is now gone, but it was not an “inheritance”.
Penn Central operated mail trains 191 and 194 (no passengers) overnight between New York and Washington until March 31, 1976. The next day, Amtrak took over their operation and they became Amtrak’s only non-passenger trains. These runs were also known for including the last RPO’s in the United States in their consists.
Actually, nos. 191 and 194 were inherited by Conrail. On or sometime after April 1, 1976, Conrail subcontracted their operation to Amtrak. Both trains were the last regularly scheduled Railway Post Office operations in the U.S., a service which lasted until June 1977.