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Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: What puts the Empire Builder behind schedule
Bob Johnston–like Amtrak–is too quick to leave out a significant contributing factor in the meltdown of the Empire Builder route: malfeasance by Amtrak. He failed to mention chronic Amtrak locomotive breakdowns, the reason for BNSF’s requirement that Amtrak put three engines on 7 and 8 in winter. And he left out trains held for late connections at Chicago, and trains delayed leaving Chicago because of last minute bad ordered cars and mis-stocked dining cars, all controllable factors by Amtrak.
And the biggest one of all: why exactly is it that Amtrak has no reserve cars to put together ONE Superliner relief train? Bob omits any mention of Mr. Boardman’s steadfast refusal to invest in Amtrak’s largest and best-performing segment (by transportation output) in general or the Empire Builder in particular, by ordering new Superliners to replace and even supplement the 25 to 35-year old Superliners, while he replaces 20-year old Viewliners (which Amtrak didn’t maintain well) and 13-year old Acelas.
And this matters–the Empire Builder is Amtrak’s most successful single train, far and away the highest earning (at $67 million in FY’13), and producing the most transportation output of them all. In fact, the Empire Builder by itself produces two-thirds of the annual passenger miles of ALL of the Acelas combined. That is what is being lost here, largely to Amtrak neglect as much as to BNSF traffic congestion.
It sounds like the Empire Builder has degenerated into a theory of a train that increasingly looks like play acting. Whats the point? We cannot provide service so we will pretend this version cuts the mustard. Its so transparently dysfunctional as to be a joke they have played on themselves. A true “ghost train” Sounds like they cannot manage their way out of a paper bag.
I have not seen anything “official”, but it is my understanding that the Northern Transcon was tied up in knots for the past week or two. We’ve noticed a decrease in train volume on the Columbia River Sub, giving the impression that trains weren’t moving much of anywhere.
“Take two aspirin and call me in a week,” is what my doctor used to order. I tend to think that Joe Boardman is on John Mica’s payroll, not AMTRAK’s.
Wow, implying blame on the unions in Chicago, imagine that…
Selden is correct about car orders. RailPAC has exhorted Amtrak to avail themselves of a once in a lifetime opportunity to piggyback onto the state bi-level car order with a Superliner order. Experience has shown that it takes years to get a passenger car production line up and running. The best way to keep costs down is with a long run of the same or similar product. Without new cars the “Superliner” routes will gradually die off for want of rolling stock. Amtrak probably can’t wait for the track problems of the “Chief” to become sufficient reason to kill it off and reallocate the rolling stock. Which route will be next after that?
In the “Old Days”, I would see David Gunn (a fellow Nova Scotian) at my Amtrak Depot in Shelby (“Shelberia”, in the winter) a couple of times a year. He rode the trains and locomotives. Boardman ‘don’t do dat’.
Our “Empire Builder” service is horrible, time-keeping wise. Perhaps the unionist maintenance personnel, in Chicago, are to blame. Dunno, me. The kow-towing to the Canadians about draining Devil’s Lake is a DC problem. Canadian oil (Keystone XL pipeline), southbound, and ND water, northbound, might be a political trade-off. BNSF, Amtrak, and the State of North Dakota are doing their best to raise the tracks above the no-outlet lake. This is a very expensive project. I look forward to next fall, when the track work is done.
Mr Bell’s comment about the “profitability” of the NEC is disappointing. Don Phillips recently showed–in TRAINS–how it is emphatically not “profitable” using real world accounting. The problem is that Amtrak never associates with NEC revenues the $600-700,000,000 in annual fixed facility spending that is indispensible to NEC train operations. When the NEC is charged with all of its own costs, it is not only the smallest of Amtrak’s three divisions, it is also by a large margin the most heavily subsidized (both in the aggregate and per passenger-mile). All that is obvious on the face of Amtrak’s own data.
What is worse, is that the $50 billion ($100 billion in constant 2013 dollars) spent on the NEC since 1975 has achieved essentially nothing: the NEC’s market share for intercity travel is less than 2% and declining, the trains run nearly half empty (annual load factors are 52% according to Amtrak), and the Acela achieved a negative rate of return on invested capital because the financial results of operations in the NEC–using GAAP accounting–worsened steadily following the launch of Acela.
ANDREW C SELDEN , I think youll find the NE corridor is Amtrak’s most profitable route.
Amtrak is now getting the start of an order of new engines.
Viewliners do better on north south routes in my estimation, in the US.
They do need more spare Superliners, and some better planning…
Jeffry offers this astute diatribe on Southerners
“The people are most likely all southerners. Or at least they are trained to think like southerners. All the weather fantasy channel has to do is start talking about a 0.0001% chance of snow and it is instant panic time for these people. Somebody from Calumet, MI needs to teach them about real snow.”
I live in the South and grew up in the North and what this has to do with the Empire Builder eludes me as well as the ( once again) political swipe of “socialism” as if this had anything to do with operations management in logistics.
Another brilliant alternative to mass transit is his singing the praises of ATV’s…try driving one for hours on end since the whole subject matter revolves around a long distance train,
You cannot make this kind of blather up without a sort of dementia involved.
Is Amtrak bloated, or emaciated?
“Back in the day”, when the trains ran on time and the passenger train reigned supreme, passenger operations were supported by lots of organizational infrastructure up and down the line, all owned and coordinated by the same railroad company (plus Pullman). That, plus a greater volume of passenger traffic, made it practical to have extra cars, engines, operating crews, and maintenance resources available at many points.
In contrast, outside the NEC and a couple of other outposts, Amtrak operates as a guest of sorts and has to maintain its own skeleton operating infrastructure independent of the host railroads. With one or two trains a day each way on many routes it isn’t reasonable to have an Amtrak locomotive mechanic at every division point, for example, and it doesn’t have the option of tapping the railroad’s mechanic if there’s a problem.
It also has to compete with an unprecedented volume of freight trains running on schedules similar to or faster than the passenger schedules of yore. A couple of fast passenger trains were not a problem when freights were content to spend a lot of time on sidings while the passengers whizzed by, but expectations have changed: freight can no longer wait, and one track can accommodate only so many first-class trains.
In addition, Amtrak doesn’t have access to a pool of operating capital of a parent railroad corporation the way a railroad passenger department did. I haven’t heard a figure recently, but years ago Amtrak was said to have about 10% of the operating capital that an enterprise of its size is usually reckoned to require. No wonder there are too few spare cars and too many problems with deferred maintenance.
Back in the day the old timers used to run crack Northerns across the Dakotas and cold weather was to be expected. Part of the problem here has Amtrak being run by socialists. They are running it the same way as the rest of government. Too big and bloated. Time to downsize the operation to the point where the socialists are able to handle it. Part of the problem with Amtrak is inside the disaster. The people are most likely all southerners. Or at least they are trained to think like southerners. All the weather fantasy channel has to do is start talking about a 0.0001% chance of snow and it is instant panic time for these people. Somebody from Calumet, MI needs to teach them about real snow.
As for critical transportation, Amtrak isn’t it. This incident is proving how Amtrak is not even on the critical radar, despite those who seem to think running a train only when the sun shines counts as critical transportation. If Amtrak went away next week, almost nobody of consequence would notice, except a few railfans thinking Amtrak fits the description of a real railroad.
Now how exactly do people in places like North Dakota get around without Amtrak? They have these things called Ford F-Series pickup trucks with a battering ram device on the front called a snow plow, along with tire chains. If that doesn’t do it, throw some more heavy stuff in the box. Then there are the real snow plows which tend to be scarce south of I-70. Those devices keep the roads open for anybody without a blade on the front. Quite a few people own snowmobiles of assorted makes and types. Over the past 20 years or so, all wheel drive ATV type vehicles have proven they work quite well in snow and on ice. If all else fails, there is always the rusty Chevrolet. It will always go in cold, even if it refuses to go any other time of the year.
Aren’t there a lot of wrecked Superliners at Beach Grove that could be repaired? A few years ago Amtrak ran a Pioneer, Desert Wind, Sunset Limited to Florida, and Superliner Cardinal. Those cars have to be somewhere, unless they were scrapped.
Jeff goose I-70 is in kansas not north dakota. Morron
Joe Boardmann has blithely ignored the needs of the long distance trains out here in the west. As Paul Dyson stated the opportunity to tack on Superliner order to the “California” cars has been squandered. This must be the reason GWB installed Mr. Boardmann and that is to sabotage Amtrak. The popularity of the Empire Builder is an opportunity for Amtrak to shine; thanks to Boardmann this has been pissed away. Joe Boardmann, pull your head out of your rectum!
Keep trying Amtrak! And dear BNSF, let’s do better…
A manager will alwaysblame a union for their own incompetence. I don’t see unions on the “Board” or involved in planning and purchasing or scheduling, but if it goes wrong it is their fault. Then there is political-economic point of view of Boardman, is he really a trainman, or does he have another agenda. He could be just plain inexperieced,or maybe stupid.
Mike Price, Jeff never said I-70 was in North Dakota.
One of Amtrak’s shortcomings in the Twin Cities is the erratic time keeping of the Empire Builder during the winter months especially. Of course this is explainable because the train’s end city is Seattle and the train runs through the Rockies. The Twin Cities is too large a market for Amtrak to depend entirely on the Empire Builder for its service to Chicago. Is it too much to ask for a Twin Cities Chicago train? I value an on time departure more than a dining car. Megabus serves the Twin Cities now, it leaves on time too. Those who wish not to fly or not drive to Chicago now have a better alternative to Amtrak.