Two recent posts in Railway Age, one from Mr. Mulvey, a former STB Board member, and a second article in response from Mr. Weinman one of NRPC’s (Amtrak) first officers, both discuss the need to reform Amtrak’s management incentives so as to recognize the dragging effect that paying the full costs of infrastructure, mostly NEC infrastructure, can have on an operating company such as Amtrak.
“This requires a new transformational process, which generates a steady, reliable source of non-appropriated money for Amtrak’s infrastructure… AlRNet-21, is such a new process. It creates an “off-budget” funding stream that causes more than a billion dollars annually to be invested in Amtrak’s owned infrastructure… It eliminates the allocation of Amtrak’s NEC costs to non-NECtrains and, consequently, it increases Amtrak’s political viability and broadens its political support. AlRNet-21, by means of a stock spin-off, separates Amtrak into two federally owned entities:…”
Well presented…addressing the essential weaknesses of the Amtrak structure and being able to articulate solutions rationally might just garner support for a truly national passenger rail system properly funded. Thanks.
INDOT released many more documents from the Hoosier State bidding recently. At least one of the bidders is essentially showing a “above the rail” operating profit in their proposal letters, if the operation was increased to two round trips a day with conventional speeds and the amenities increased to support ridership. This for a line that has performed poorly under NRPC Accounting and the planning that stems from such a process.
This above the rail profitability proves the point of the two author’s above and is a better position financially than highways were a good portion of accident costs are absorbed off budget into the autopilot Federal funding programs and below the road spending is leveraged from taxes on the use of the locally funded network.
I firmly believe, that the Senior Senator from the State of New York’s courageous and principled opposition to an ill-conceived agreement, currently in the hands of Congress, will indeed prevent an arms race in the Middle East and possibly a disastrous regional war.
The monetary savings alone from the good Senator making his voice heard will pay for a new Trans-Hudson tube/tunnel many times over. It is on this basis that I ask that we put our partisan differences aside and stand with the man, on behalf of the loyal citizens of New York City, New York State, and New Jersey to give them whatever Northeast Corridor improvements they ask for.
It is the least a grateful country and a grateful world can offer as a gesture, and as such, it is an immense bargain.
Maybe the payment answer is to charge every person crossing into and out of NYC to NJ a fee of $2 - 3 . That will be all persons whether auto, ferry, bus, rail, helicopter. That might pay for the whole Gateway work from Newark - thru NYP.
To even understand that a system has a declining Average Cost curve one has to first understand (or represent) fixed (infrastructure) and variable (operational) costs exist to properly model the system.
As an example one of the proposers for the Hoosier State gets this and proposed they could double the frequency of the proposed service for less net cost to the state while hauling many times over the passengers.
That is true efficiency that grows an economy not complicating things to no avail.