Comparing Amtrak to the USA National Park system is way over the top. The Parks & Monuments are for historical, recreational, and enjoyment purposes and are there for everyone to enjoy. I don’t know the attendance total for all the National Parks & Monuments [and some of them don’t have head counts due to their open boundaries] but I’d bet the total passengers on Amtrak long distance trains is insignificant compared to it.
You keep dwelling on Amtrak’s sleeper service. The average senior citizen in the US can’t aford to use it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a good number of us that can but I suspect that most of them are like me in that my savings using Southwest Air vs. Amtrak sleeper for a round trip pays for many nights in my tourist destination lodging.
Tell me exactly why long distance trains are not for everyone to enjoy? I don’t know of any discrimination as to who can or cannot buy a ticket.
And certainly a ride on any of them should provide recreation and enjoyment. If it does not, then there is undoubtadly and equipment, dispatching, or persnell problem, or a combination, which must be fixed.
A trip on a long distance train can give a geography lesson better than any book.
I accept the facts you present but not the direct insult of your last sentence.
Regarding your facts, you might win on cost comparisons of total Amtrak subsidy (including state payments) and total National Park budget ratioed to patronage and similarly with total of all municipal libary budgets. Possibly you do not.
Where you don’t win is that law-makers apparently represent the democratic wishes of most Americans to subsidize a train they just might use some day. And despite the continual shouting of people like you and the CATO Institute about wastefulness.
To compare riding on a train to the study of geography is absurd, and you should know that. For you to compare the social value of a subsidized land cruise with literacy is worse than absurd.
I don’t have any data (neither do you, BTW) but to confound Congressional voting to continue giving a budget for Amtrak as a whole with the specific wishes of the public to run LD trains (I won’t call them services) is simply a grossly erroroneous conclusion.
I believe strongly in fast, frequent, modern passenger rail service where it makes sense. Currently, that would be routes under ~500 miles/7 hrs., though the disatnces should become longer as the average speeds increase. Don’t equate my views with rightist lobby group like Cato. I share nothing in common with it except seeing LD route as a waste of passenger rail transportation resources.
You can read about thr Sahara desert in geography books, but seeing it first-hand completes the lesson. Similarly with the USA’s Southwest. And most people would rather complete that part of the lesson from inside an air-conditioned passenger-train car than while concentrating on driving safely, trying to look down from an airplane and seldom succeeding or from a bus.
It is not a waste of resources for the people that need the service. Theatres and concrt halls don’t earn income from handicapped access facilities and hard-of-hearing listening systems, and their expense is born by all patrons just for the 1% or 2% that use them.
If your definition of ‘geography’ is the backside of much of the towns and industrial areas of America. With much of the scenic ‘other’ often being passed at night.
Just for grins – what is the average amount of Federal subsidy per logged rider on LD trains? Would many of them rather have that money in their pocket instead of ‘helping’ get them the overpriced accommodations?
Perhaps our resident accountancy professional could calculate that? My guess - just for giggles - is that giving that amount to each passenger would allow them to fly in business class to their desired destination. Throw in a TSA-Pre so they can navigate airport security more easily, the needed cab/limo rides and a bottle of their favorite beverage and you’ve got one happy camper.
Whether the Crescent or the Sunset, so much for the idea that Amtrak provides vital transportation options for under served parts of the country. It is truly remarkable that some of the festest growing cities in the Southwest are so poorly served and the Crescent’s ontime performance is so pathetic that we have opted out of it as a choice for recent trips.
The average operating subsidy per long-distance passenger in FY17 was $106 based on total revenues or $113 based on ticket revenues. It would be slightly higher if depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous items were included, but Amtrak does not say what percentage of these items are allocable to the long-distance trains or any of its trains.
The average subsidy per passenger mile for the long-distance trains in FY17 was 19 cents on total revenues or 20 cents on ticket revenues.
Assuming 75 percent of Amtrak’s depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous expenses are allocable to the NEC, with the remainder split evenly between the long-distance and state supported trains, the average subsidy per passenger mile for the long-distance trains would have been 23 cents.
In FY17 the average operating subsidy per passenger mile for the Sunset Limited was 45 cents. So, a passenger riding from New Orleans to LAX would have received indirectly a subsidy of $897.75. From Benson, AZ to LAX the typical operating subsidy would have been $248.40. Benson is supposedly one of those communities that depends more heavily on Amtrak’s long-distance trains than the end points or larger intermediate communities.
According to Amtrak’s Service Line Plans FY18 – FY23, the cost recovery ratio for th
Crossing the Huey Long Bridge, entering or leaving New Orlealns helps teach Geography. Ditto crossing the Mississippi on the CZ, SWC. or TE. Dito going up the Hudson on Empire Service or LSL or ADarondak. And along Lake Champlain on the latter. The Barenness of the desert stretches seen in daylight on the SSL.
But most of all, there are people who need the service if their mobility is not to be impaired.
Amtrak went before Congress and testified they carry a lot of impaired people on their rural routes. I have to confess I have not seen any and I would pity anyone that gets stuck in the Amtrak lower level handicapped room as it typically smells like an open sewer. Though it is the largest room on the Superliner sleeping car. Just do not understand how Amtrak does not see that odor as an issue. Replace the worn rubber gaskets or use an automatic timed aeresol if you have to that neutralizes the smell but damn…do something about it.
This is interesting; I have ridden in a room H on the California Zephyr several times, and I never noticed such an odor. Is it a problem peculiar to the Sunset; are other trains afflicted with it?
A few commnents: my parents, who are near 90 decided to go to California. They flew out with my sister to help them. They took Amtrak back and used one of the lower level handicap accessible rooms. They HATED flying, and enjoyed their return trip.
I will not fly unless I have to get somewhere fast. My wife is handicapped and we travel by truck and travel trailer. Getting her through the flying process is hard on her and isn’t so easy for me either. We have not tried Amtrak for years, it rarely goes where we go.
All that said, Amtrak as it currently exists does not seem to be a well run operation and is not a good use of tax dollars, and I hate having to admit that. I think there is a place for rail based transportation, and a place for subsidizing transportation for those who need it, but we are not getting it done now.
I read somewhere based in Emeryville, CA Amtrak has a bathroom cleaning crew that rides along with the Zephyr. Don’t ask me why that is or why their only base is in Emeryville, CA. Another bizarre Amtrak factoid.
This is actually the Texas Eagle and the restroom smell is an issue when I ride it on the Holidays the last 2-3 times I have ridden it. Doesn’t matter which direction I ride. In this specific case on the Southbound run the Sleeper was delivered to the Texas Eagle in Chicago with dirty restrooms.
It had been an issue on a Northbound Texas Eagle train that originated in LA because they did not empty the retention tanks (wherever they do that prior to Dallas…my hypothesis is San Antonio). So yes one of the pitfalls of the Texas Eagle is the smelly restrooms, sometimes the restroom is clean other than the toilet bowl but that is enough to stink up the restroom and part of the downstairs.
Wow your really optimistic about government spending going away when the train is discontinued (heh-heh). Have some news for you though…the subsidy does not end when the passenger train is discontinued. In most cases they just move the subsidy over to a bus (see link below) to cover the rural area. Federal Bus subsidies to rural areas are increasing year over year.
The Federal Bus Subsidy does not necessarily fix the mobility issue because some people that can ride trains cannot ride buses because they are too fat, clausterphobic, etc. Not that I would ever argue for trains as a solution for mobility challenged individuals as I think that is rather expensive as a solution.
Though I do not agree with the opinion LD trains have seen their last days. Both liesure time as the result of automation AND retirements due to the baby boom retiring are increasing. Both those items have been a boon to the Cruise ship industry and for the Rocky Mountaineer in Western Canada. I think you could potentially launch similar service in some scenic routes of the United States with better accomodations, marketing and more ancillary packages than Amtrak offers. Throughout the civilized world there are private LD passenger rail operators even in some of Africa’s poorest countries, all you need to do is Google or maybe start a new thread on them. They all use the land cruise model though.