A big cost of providing dining car meal service is the dining car itself – its capital expense prorated as interest and amortization costs, and the maintenance of a passenger railroad car. Even if the food and service labor were contracted out and somehow made lower in cost, dining car meals are served in a very expensive venue.
That an airplane wins hands down in a direct operating cost comparison over a long-distance train was established 40 years ago in a comparison of a Boeing 727 with the Denver Zephyr and confirmed what was happening with the passenger train discontinuances in the pre-Amtrak era. This was a surprising result. One would accept that the 727 is much faster than the train, but that the 727 would be cheaper than a train was counterintuitive. The 727 was pound for pound much more expensive than a railroad car and it required a high-level of specialized maintenance to make it safe to fly. But the jet goes 10 times faster than the train and gets more passenger miles per dollar spent both on the jet as well as the crew to operate it.
The jet also packs a large number of seats into a tiny cabin, and people (or at least most people) tolerate that for the two hours or sor; the train passengers on an 18-hour trip hav come to expect low density coaches, individual-cabin sleeping cars and a separate dining car. Combined with the comparative slow speed of trains affecting the “number of cycles” you can get with the equipment, trains are expensive and hence require substantial operating subsidy in order to charge comparable fares to competing modes.
Care to show us your spreadsheets? That’s a blanket statement. (FTR, all TGVs have dining cars.)
More blanket statements. Conveniently left out are the facts that back during that time, airports were being directly subsidized (which means that the airlines did not have to worry about infrastructure costs; and the later trust funds still ameliorate direct infrastructure costs to a certain degree) and that the railroads, thanks to ICC over-regulation, were saddled with undue new and exorbitant cost requirements to make rail travel competitive speed-wise even over medium distances. (I notice that you didn’t compare the 727 with the PRR in the NY-Washington DC market. Somewhat conveniently, perhaps? nor did you cite any other comparison between jet power and electric rail power.)
Yes I will show my “spreadsheets” – it is all in the Inspector General Kenneth Mead Report, which is derived from the Amtrak RPS cost accounting numbers, but as soon as I mention Mead, no one wants to listen anymore because anyone critical of Amtrak, forget that, people get upset.
How about you show me your spreadsheets. Really, I am not saying this rhetorically or as a debating device or as a put down. Can anyone out there show me their spreadsheets that disprove Amtrak’s direct-operating cost numbers? URPA talks how they are inflated, but no one has any alternate hard numbers; I would really like to see such numbers, I really would, because as a rail fan I wish it were some other way.
And TGV gets government subsidy money.
Yes more blanket statements, quoting what was printed in back issues of Trains Magazine. I am talking direct operating cost. Back in the day as in this day it was thought trains were at a disadvantage because of unfair accounting for indirect costs, but the counter-intuitive thing is that trains lose on direct operating costs. As far as the elec
Please don’t play that game again. Nobody’s disputing that the status quo of Amtrak outside the NEC is being artificially held in peril; the dispute is over what to do about it. And frankly, Mead’s report declares that more money has to be put into Amtrak to build up the business to a competitive level.
That’s not the real issue. Nobody’s trying to disprove the costs incurred due to being forced to run at a 40-mph average speed, as well as being forced to limit service frequency.
No; SNCF gets government subsidy money because they operate far more trains than the TGV.
[quote]
[quote]
More blanket statements. Conveniently left out are the facts that back during that time, airports were being directly subsidized (which means that the airlines did not have to worry about infrastructure costs; and the later trust funds still ameliorate direct infrastructure costs to a certain degree) and that the railroads, thanks to ICC over-r
I don’t have a side of an argument, just an observation that the economic fundamentals of the passenger train business, as it were, don’t look good, given the rate of subsidy that Congress can realistically be expected to appropriate, and given the NARP model of fighting any reduction in service by Amtrak in the manner of fighting discontinuances in the pre-Amtrak days.
It is NARP’s position (and mine) that Amtrak would be better off financially with a larger network than a smaller one, hence their (and my) opposition to cutting routes.
We talked about economies of scale earlier. You don’t get that by selling less of your product while fixed costs stay fixed. But that’s how Congresscritters and government bureaucrats think. They see trains as costs to be avoided, not as sources of revenue. Under that theory cutting routes leads to fewer losses. Thus under years of such political pressure Amtrak has tried to cut its way to profitability, only to find the company losing more money than before the cuts. The reason why these cuts don’t work is because fewer and fewer trains have to support the same fixed plant.
So I see the problem being more political than economic. Maybe its time to reverse the process. Add a few carefully selected routes and see what happens. It has the merit of being the only thing that has not yet been tried.
Maybe it is because the subsidy rate is such that Amtrak routes on balance are a net cost than a source of revenue. There are also negative economies of scale: John Kneiling had long written about the fictitious discount store that loses money on every sale but makes it up on the volume.
Amtrak has a “fixed infrastructure” in terms of management overhead. It also has a fixed infrastructure in terms of locomotives and cars, and my understanding is that Amtrak does not have spare locomotives and cars apart from ones parked on the repair line at Beech Grove. As to Amtrak not having the money to refurbish more cars, that speaks to the cost, not only of buying rail cars but of keeping them in service long term, and of course, all of these issues can be solved by granting Amtrak more money.
That is also where marginal cost vs fully-allocated cost accounting makes a big difference. Even if you are operating at a loss and need subsidy money to make fully-allocated cost, if you are operating at a profit on marginal cost, it pays to expand your service.
Let’s say Amtrak is appropriated 1.2 billion in subsidy. Let’s say we could increase that subsidy from 1.2 to 1.8 billion, by 50 percent, but in the bargain double the number of revenue seats on trains. Lets say cutting Amtrak from 1.2 down to 1 billion would effectively mean shutting the whole thing down – all that money would pay for overhead and you would not be able to operate trains. Don’t you think Congress and the American people would say, “Hmm, we could spend a little bit more on Amtrak and get a whole lot more trains.”
There was mention about airline bankruptcies. For all of the subsidy money the airlines get, there is a certain “above the tarmack” cost that they have to meet from fares, they submit a business plan to their funding sources (banks, shareholders) that they can cover that portion of cost, and when they fail, they go bankrupt, b
I don’t believe Amtrak should add any new long distance routes, rather they should continue to try to bring those routes to break even status. It would seem to me if they could haul more passengers on short and medium range lines, there would be more passengers looking for space on the long distance trains. This would allow Amtrak to raise those fares higher.
The Rocky Mountaineer between Vancouver and Calgary is probably the only long distance train in North America that makes a profit. Can’t Amtrak run a similar service between Denver and Salt Lake City, parking overnight in Grand Junction ? The distances and geography involved are almost identical.
I’m guessing the California Zephyr is crowded between Denver and SLC, and thus ends up hauling empty equipment over most of its route. A second shorter sightseeing train could increase equipment utilization.
Is there any reason the connecting track in Ravenna, Ohio can’t be put back in, sending the Capitol Limited through Youngstown instead of Alliance ?
My limited experience with the CZ (one round trip per year in April/early May) is actually the other way 'round. The busier segments are Chicago/Denver, Denver/Winter Park/Glenwood Springs and again Reno/Oakland. The Glenwood Springs/Reno segment is pretty quiet. I did have a car attendant tell me once that the Reno traffic trails off in summer, which allows more through traffic from SLC and points east.
I think the popularity is tied to the schedule. Chicago/Denver works well for an overnight trip (both ways), Denver/Winter Park/Glenwood Springs is a good daytime trip either way, and Reno/Oakland also have arriavals & departures that make a good daytime trip. Salt Lake City and Omaha are middle of the night stops both ways, which limits their practicality for most people. Mind you, this is all based on scheduled times-not the usual, actual later times (and my memory-not the usual, actual correct times!).
Expanding serivce might be a candidate for a situation like this-can Salt Lake City and/or Omaha be connected to anyplace that people might want to go to at anytime they might want to?
Seems every 10 yrs or so, NARP comes up w/ proposals that just simply are not reality. I was a member for one or two yrs back around 1985 and wisely decided not to renew my membership. At that time the group had a proposal on adding several long distance trains. One I recall was to operate on the former TX Zephyr route Denver-Ft.Worth. Still 20 yrs later, there is not a demand to warrant psgr rail in that market. Stick to ideas that are workable and make sense. I am a Amtrk supporter but not to the extent where we have trains running all over the country half full.
NARP’s plan for expanded passenger rail service in the United States is an attempt to reinvent the 1950s. From this Texan’s point of view it is unrealistic.
Passenger trains can be a good option for high density corridors if they are quick, economical, dependable, and frequent. Only a tiny percentage of the population use the long distance trains, although NARP does not seem to get it. It spends a lot of time arguing for a national system.
The future for rail passenger service is in the country’s high density corridors. The Texas Triangle, which includes Dallas/Fort Worth to Houston and San Antonio, as well as intermediate cities, is a good candidate for rapid passenger rail. But it will not happen until the cost of driving or flying - time and money - makes both prohibitive and rail passenger service is competitive - cost, convenience, amenities, etc.
The highways and airways between the Texas Triangle’s major cities and cities in west Texas or south Texas, as an example, are no where near a saturation point. People will fly or drive between these cities for decades if not centuries to come. Hoping for passenger rail service between them is unrealistic.
When they are traveling for business, Texans want to jump on Southwest Airlines or one of the other carriers. It is all about time, and time is money. They are more than willing to put up with utilitarian accommodations. When they are off for a vacation, most Texans load up the SUV or pick-up truck and drive. If Amtrak discontinued the trains that serve Texas, most Texans would not even know that they were gone.
If NARP wants to see an increase in passenger rail service in the U.S., it should stop lobbying for a continuance of Amtrak as it stands. Instead, it should lobby for a fuel pricing structure that reflects the true cost of gasoline and aviation fuel. American
…and Amtrak seems to go along for the ride. They have had little reason to rock the boat. They have had exactly zero incentive to try to improve their efficiency much less try anything new. I will say that their new prez, Kummant, seems to understand that corridors are where Amtrak’s growth could be and is framing some discussion along those lines. I think Amtrak and Congress have so much political inertia that it will take a long steady pull to change the current course.
No, Congress is the one with “inertia” and is forcing Amtrak down with it. If Amtrak itself had “inertia”, the NEC would not have average speeds of between 78 and 87 mph, and the Porter-Kalamazoo (Amtrak-owned) segment of the Chicago-Detroit corridor would not be seeing any of the upgrades it has been seeing. Not to mention, no improvements would have happened to the Keystone Corridor no matter who funded them. If NARP have indeed staved off funding cuts to Amtrak (as they claim), they’ve done something almost herculean for a small lobbying group.
I’m still wondering what’s wrong with the system as NARP proposes.
Higher speeds on traditional corridors is yet a laudable goal. “High-density corridors” is a canard advanced by opponents of rail in this country—HSR in France consists of LGVs built through areas of very low population density, with the endpoints as the goal, not intermediate destinations.
Seems like 9/11 is quickly forgotten by some people. Not by me. People were scrambling to find domestic long-distance transportation options back then, while all planes were grounded. Thanks to the continued
I am not that skilled in debate, and I guess anything I have to say will be taken apart line-by-line. But arguing that Congress is not giving what the rail advocacy community is asking for constitutes a national embarrassment bothers me. Yes, an airline-reliant transportation system is vulnerable to a 9-11. A train-reliant transportation system is also vulnerable – the Spanish “9-11” involved a mass attack on trains. As to national embarrassment, I understand they either have a nation-wide rail/transit strike in France or the unions are planning one, but again, that is probably an apples-to-oranges comparison where the struggles waged by labor unions in France relate to the tortured history of their numbered Republics since the Revolution while the U.S. has had a different history of social upheavels.
We can be uniformly embarrased that the predominant mode of passenger transportation in the U.S. as well as in Europe is the private automobile. The predominant mode of common-carrier intercity transportation in Europe is rail, some of it high-speed rail, while the predominant mode of common-carrier transportation in the U.S. is air. The dominance of autos in two different cultures – one in which autos are highly taxed and inspected and where gas has always been expensive, another in which autos are regarded as a kind of divine birthright – this suggests that there is a great deal of popular appeal to private autos, one that remains strong even when there are vigorous public policies to discourage cars.
As to the common-carrier modes, that rail dominates in one culture and air in the other partly reflects differences in population density and distance between city centers, but also reflects policy choices on where to concentrate public funds.
There is not a person viewing or commenting on this forum who does not have a favorable opinion of passenger trains to some degree or
Paul, I don’t necessarily disagree with your points as far as they go, and I thank you for expressing them in a civilized manner, but I think you’re missing much of the picture.
I agree, NARP is far from perfect, but its still the most prominent rail advocacy group in the country. Their vision is often poorly presented in a “preaching to the choir” format, but they do offer a place to start the discussion. NARP’s vision is one of potential, not an outright demand.
Amtrak is also far from perfect, but right now it is all we’ve got and it does provide us with a foundation for something better.
Since this is what we have to work with at the moment, I suggest it is more productive to discuss ways to make them better rather than tear them down and be left with nothing.
Nobody expects that Congress or any other public agency is going to wave a magic wand and make it happen overnight. There are a lot of tough questions tough questions that need to be answered before any rail plan moves forward.
Let me list a few:
Taking into consideration all modes of transportation, and how they complement each other, and also considering the relative costs of each mode to handle increasing traffic, what do we want our passenger rail network to look like 20 years down the line?
Where are the riders and where do they want to go?
What sort of equipment and infrastructure will best serve the traveling public in answer to question #2?
What sort of management structure will best serve the system?
If we want more competition instead of the Amtrak monopoly, how do we handle rights of access to private tracks?
How do we handle funding of private tracks used for public transportation?
How do we keep freight and passenger traffic from undue interference with each other?
How do we pay for it? (I put this question last because the above questi
Excellent points, Mr Toy, but there is one little item that needs to be considered - an extension of your second point:
Where are the people, where do they want to go and what do they intend to do when they get there?
If a single person is traveling to a business meeting in a downtown building and will turn right around and return to their starting point, a train makes sense.
If they are actually a family of five (plus two dogs) traveling to Aunt Effie’s house in the suburbs a train doesn’t make sense at all. The family minivan or SUV is (much) less expensive, almost as fast and a LOT more flexible.
Vacation travelers, for the most part, are traveling in groups, going to places that are not good candidates for rail service and prefer their own vehicle to a rental.
Yet, the “all travelers” model favored by the NARP lumps everyone traveling from Alpha to Omega as “potential rail users.” They could be counted as potential lottery winners with equal validity.
NARP, IMHO, is trying desperately to reinvent the square wheel. Rail for rapid transit, and in busy corridors where city center to city center time is comparable to air, si! But rail as a viable way for a family to travel from Tucson to Las Vegas? You have got to be kidding.
Chuck, your question is the exact opposite of what most people ask. The majority of opinion that is opposed to long distance trains argues that they are ONLY suited to leisure travel and poorly suited to business travel.
I would never suggest that trains are the best way to travel in any situation (and neither does NARP, by the way). The decision to choose the train, car, boat or plane needs to be answered by individual travelers in regards to their own preferences, desires, budgets, and schedules. (That is actually NARP’s official position, as well as my own). So I would not presume to choose the best way for others to travel, even as a generality.
In order to determine an appropriate route network, it is not necessary to know why people might choose the train, and it is really none of our business what they do at their destination. We only need to know how many people would use it if it were available. The fact is that I have met people on long distance trains traveling for leisure, business, and the oft forgotten category of personal business (attending family events like weddings, trips to and from college, visiting/caring for elderly family members, that sort of thing).
I can’t find the data at hand, but people do track these things, not for justifying the existence of a train, but for targeting their marketing to those most likely to use the train. I recall reading that most of Amtrak’s long distance travelers are divided almost equally between the leisure and personal business categories, with commercial business travelers being a relatively small, but not insignificant, percentage.
True, I don’t see too many families on trains, and you may be right that they are priced out of that market. But families don’t constitute the whole of the traveling public. I most often see singles and couples, and we are many. For my wife and I the Coast Starlight is the most convenient and economical way to get from our house in C