May I suggest the Taj Boston next time you are in Boston. I have never had any complaints with my stays there.
The Union-Pearson train here in Toronto was originally marketed as a high-end train for business travelers; staff had spiffy uniforms, there was an at-seat magazine and it had an expensive one-way fare that still made people take limos. The fare was reduced to not much more than a TTC fare, the magazine was dropped, the subsidy increased and ridership exploded. Ridership is at the point of dropping the trains built for the service and using conventional GO-trains. On the good side, it may stop at more points on the way but that would only be after the whole thing is electrified.
Whether or not the railroads made money or not on the long distance trains is a question that will never be answered to anyone’s satisfaction, not at this point. Some rail historians say “Yes, they did,” others say “No, they didn’t.”
However, it is true that most had the philosophy of “Todays passenger could be tomorrows shipper,” so they did try for the best passenger experience possible, in the “Classic Era” anyway.
It hardly matters now. Kind of like medieval monks arguing over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
Commuter service is/was another thing entirely. It’s pretty much a given it was a money-loser, in the post-war era anyway.
Number One, absolutely correct.
Number Two? That’s another one no-one seems to know for sure. A lot of people argue that point. I’m not one of them. Only Amtrak knows for sure.
But if it is true, great!
Thanks for the recommendation. I will put it on “the list”.
Ed
The questions about Amtrak accounting involves allocation of fixed costs, not operational data, AFAIK.
And can we be sure that anyone at Amtrak can really figiured it out? How do you apportion fixed costs of RoW and electrification to commuter authorities using the tracks, regional trains, Acela, and the few long-distance trains also using the tracks? Are the Boston - Newport News or Norfolk trains regional expresses or long-distance? It is a very complicated issue, and some subjectivity is bound to interfere with a really fair opportionment.
The accounting numbers that matter are the above-the-rails (direct operating) costs and farebox revenue. Acela more than covers those direct costs and provides a subsidy to that financial black hole, aka, LD trains.
True, but LD’s have far less fixed costs.
In fact, the “sink-hole” of the LDT losses looks like just a rounding error, a small puddle, compared to the billions in the “sink-hole” of the NEC fixed costs:
The new NYCitiy Penn Station
Repair of Sandy-damaged East River and Hudson tunnels
Catenary replacement
Baltimore Tunnels repair
Partal Bridge
Shore Line Bridges
Baltimore - Washington third track
I’m sure other readers can add more.
You obviously don’t understand accounting or the need for infrastructure. Those items you tick off are essential to the lives of millions. LD trains wouldn’t be missed by more than a handful if they were all discontinued tomorrow. You are out of touch in both time and location.
Not by any means a handful. Businesses would close, for one thing.
The commuter who uses the NEC uses it about 500 times a year. The small store owner in a small town uses an LDT twice a year, his vacation. Both are American Citizens paying taxes. You obviously wish the second to subsidize the first without getting a chance of getting anything in return.
I am not conerned with accounting proceedures. i am concerned with what is fair for all USA Citizens. Most USA citizens don’t use Amtrak, either the NEC, State Supported Corridors, or the LDTs. But the LDTs are a step in the direction of giving people the opportunity to use Amtrak.
When you, Charlie, deny the grandfather the opportunity to visit his children and grandchildren, because he cannot fly or endure long auto trips, you not only hurt him but his family members as well.
Again, the subsidy for the LDTs is only equivalent to a rounding error in the huge costs needed each year for the NEC. I agree the huge costs for the NET are essential for the whole USA, even whole North American, economy. The LDT subsidy is needed for fairness. So the system remains national and not the country subsidizing only a specific area or specific population.
Let me explain fairness:
Actual story: A young man met his former teacher on a Brooklyn street. He asked the older man if he remembered him (the student). The former teacher replied, "At my age, my memory isn’t perfect, and I had many students, so forgive me for not remembering your name.’ The student: “You were an insiration for me, and I am studying to be a teacher, to follow in your footsteps.” Teacher: “What did I do to inspire you?” Student: "I was a thief. A ckassmate got a present of a beautiful pocket watch. I didn’t have a watch and needed one. So I stole it. But he found it was missing before the class ended, and complained to you. You had us all line up facing a wall with our eyes closed. Then you went through the pockets of all of us students and took the watch from my pocket, and conltinued to inspect the pockets of the other students. And then you returned the watch to its owner.
And afterward, you continued to treat me no differently than the other students."
Teacher: “Yes, that is true. I also closed my eyes while searching the pants pockets.”
Charlie, you are a cad.
But it goes beyond the grandfather and his family members. I start sniveling at the very thought that gramps might have to stay home and visit using Skype. And this kind of sadness can build and build until it saturates our entire country and goes out into the world.
Unacceptable.
I think the grandchildren should get their little butts on a Greyhound, and go see gramps, so as to relieve the poor guy of all those travel woes.
Then I won’t have to snivel anymore.
There are other benefits:
The grandkids’ parents can have a week off to enjoy what it was like before having kids.
The grandfather can be reminded of how glad he was when the last kid finally moved out, and he could do what he wanted at home.
And the grandkids will surely benefit by being exposed to a form of travel that is experienced by a vast multitude who are unable to pay for more expensive travel–a true learning experience.
Ed
They do. But they also want a return visit.
Too much to ask?
What would happen if suddenly, all transportation subsidies would end. Interstates would be self-supporting toll roads, commuter fairs and transit fares would be raised to cover actual cost of service and interest on the loans required for the repairs and improvements, etc. Devestation? Would people be able to cope?
On the other hand, are not some Swiss cantons planning or have done all transportation for citizens free?
And here it comes. When certain people don’t like what others say, they resort to ad hominem attacks.
I strongly suggest you check forum rules about name-calling and retract and apologize.
OK.
I’m sorry you don’t recognize a facetious statement when you see one.
I’m sorry that you don’t understand that I was using an obsolete term to emphasize that.
And I am especially sorry that, in making that facetious statement, I was attempting to negate what I thought was a bit of a harsh lecture tone on Dave’s part.
I shall try to remember, in the future, that certain things go right over your head.
Again, my humblest apologies. Oh, yes: As far as I know, you are not a cad.
Ed
That is not an honest apology when one uses a nasty term, even if somewhat out-date, not obsolete, and then attempts to weasel out by claiming he/she was being facetious (or fecetious, a misspelling, but suggestive of excrement). To top it, you add yet another insult by suggesting it was over my head, i.e., I was cognitively challenged.
But someone who can’t even summon a response as well-reasoned as Klepper’s post is not likely to give an actual apology. Sarcasm, unless really witty, is a form of passiive-aggressive behavior.
Why, yes. I DID mispell facetious, the first time. Good catch! I will correct that. And thank you.
If I had meant to insult you, I would have chosen a much different word than “cad”–one that was NOT obsolete.
I chose a word like that because, when I read the paragraph of Dave’s that I quoted, it came across as quite melodramatic. I thought you were making reasonable points, and that he resorted to emotion because he was running out of reason. His phrasing reminded me of something from Dickens with widows being thrown out in the snow. And so, I played along with him, and used an “insult” that was from Dickens’s time. Or thereabouts. You missed that. Hence my use of “over your head”. And I was, by being facetious**, pointing out that he was using emotion in what should be an argument using reason. Which you missed.
You seem to believe that I would just drop in in the middle of a discussion and “bash” you. For no reason at all. And THEN spend the rest of the post talking NOT about YOU. That just makes no sense.
And I am insulted that you have been so intent on taking offense.
My seconds will contact your seconds.*
Ed
Just so you know: THAT, too, is facetious*. You should try it some time. It’s fun.
**Spelled correctly!
I deny that I am running out of reason.
Do any of you believe that national support for the huge expenditures would consistantly exist, and I emphasize the word consistantly, even with specific administrations being opposed, huge expenditures for the NEC, if Amtrak were not a national system but just a bunch of disconnected corridors?
Would not the people of Colorado and New Mexico state plainly that if the NEC were so important, and their pet one train unimportant, let the East Coast States pay for NEC? (OK, Colorado has two pet trains.)
My Brooklyn street meeting story may not be that relevant, but I thought it was too good a story to not be shared with you, and this seemed an appropriate spot.
Skp that and the grandpa story, and you will see some perfectly good reasoning, even more contained in my Anderson letter on the meal-issue thread.
I strongly believe, and the reasons are clear in the Anderson letter, and have been stated many times, that the benefits to the USA as a whole are equal or better than the LDTs’ subsidies, as matched against the enormously greater real subsidies for the NEC matching the greater benefits of the NEC.
Subsidies are subsidies, whether fixed costs or above-the-rail variable costs.
But I agree with you, your use of the word “cad” was a criticism of what appeared to you as my “emotional appeal” and not a criticism of Charlie. And so I have taken your criticism seriouly in this response.
And agan, the typical corridor train sees repeat riders, while the typical LDT sees different rider each day, so the number of people served is not reflected in number of trips.