Too bad Regan chickened out. Hope Bush kills the beast.
Amtrack serves no role in saving fuel. In fact it runs up fuel bill due to being the cause of freight train delay and using rail capacity it does not pay for.
Actually a national passenger rail system and homeland security have a lot in common from a political perspective. Consider Kay Hutchinson’s comments(a Republican) about supporting Amtrak, but ONLY if it’s a national system. Homeland Security was supposed to protect the most vulnerable targets, but by the time the politicians got done scaring the public and dividing up the pork, small towns in Iowa are better prepared than large northeastern cities. Terrorists want to kill LOTS of people, not derail a Hazmat tankcar in the middle of nowhere. And if there were a tax-supported national high speed rail system, Montana wheat farmers would probably want the same frequency of service as the NEC.
Besides GWB who cannot run again I would suspect your post is right on. Out there in the hinterlands I think there is very little support for A/trak. The majority of voters I thinks consider A/trak just another government boondoggle. [:o)][8D]
I think the whole hornets nest stirred up by the Bush Admin surrounding Amtrak is political. Here’s why:
For what we get, Amtrak costs a lot.
There are some conservatives and others who think killing Amtrak would be wise and put an end to wasteful spending. They are a minority of those in power now. These same folk generally believe that a “free market” generally produces goods and services most efficiently. Amtrak is currently the antithesis of this.
The Bush admin knows that killing Amtrak is not politically feasible. The national network just has too many supporters in Congress whose want to keep their trains in order to keep voter support back home.
So, how do you make both sides happy? You “reform” Amtrak. If you can bake in some “free market” ideas and keep the national network supporters happy, you can declare victory and walk away - whether or not it the net subsidy is more or less in the end.
But, you say, “He zeroed out Amtrak in his budget!” Well, it appears to me that it was a way to get everyones attention. Then he sends Mineta out with a half-baked plan with the promise of funding if Amtrak is reformed and, voila, everyone IS paying attention. Even Amtrak’s board has come out with a reform plan.
If Bush had put, say, $1.2 B in his budget, it is likely that it would have been passed and Amtrak status-quo would have limped along for another year.
What’s really interesting now is that most of the budget proposals for Amtrak to surface from Congress have been for what Amtrak has asked for ($1.8B) or more ($2.0B) and the Bush admin hasn’t said “boo” about it. If they were really intent on killing Amtrak and thought they could do it, they would be saying rather loudly that it’s too much money - but they have been silent so far.
If they do this right, we could wind up with better train service and a more efficient Amtrak plus a reliable funding source for intercity rail expansion. It looks
If public transportation is a right and has to be subsidized, then the Montana wheat farmer has a right to the same quality of subsidized service as the New York stockbroker.
Amtrak is the National Steel and Wire of the Rail Passenger world. For some reason, they’re holding onto what worked a long time ago, and ignoring reality. The result is an operation that appeals to railfans, but basically makes everyone else shake their heads.
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Chris,
I ride the CZ to Grand Junction from time to time. Last time, last spring, the thing was packed. I was the only railfan aboard. No one was shaking their heads.
I worked Amtrak jobs a lot during the '70s. From Milwauke to Chicago or the Twin Cities. I was the only railfan aboard.
I’ve had similar experiences on the CZ going east and west. But, in the grander picture, it still means very little to the transportation industry. 1 train a day each direction? How many flights take off and land at DIA every day? How many people travel on I-70? How many of those could you convince that Amtrak is not a waste of taxpayer money?
I still stand by my observation that Amtrak is a dinosaur, and while I would hate to see it go, I can’t see spending the $1.8 Billion they requested to keep it alive.
Additionally, thinking about it. If there is a profit to be made on Amtrak on routes like the CZ, this is Amtrak’s golden oppurtunity to abandon the status quo, and focus on routes like that.
And should Amtrak fail to do so, and there is an oppurtunity for profit, there will be private interests that will see the oppurtunity. Maybe not as passenger rail as we know it today, but in some form, the Phoenix will arise out of its ashes.
Well, Chris Stop spend on Airlines too 16 Billion a year and 35 Billion on Highways Too, Also 381 Billion on the Wars and aid to these other Country every costing Us 80 to 200 Billion in aid every Year, that a waste of are money, not Amtrak we need a fair transportion for Amtrak,Airplanes, and Highways. We need More Amtrak not Less, Amtrak should bring Back Train like 25&26, 35&36, 60&61,and 40&41 that bring back another 4 millionpeople to Amtrak.[:D]
I won’t touch war spending, because my comments are based around the transportation industry mainly. As for the billions being spent on the airline and highway portions of the transportation market, I still feel that its much more critical to the well being of the economy. If we lived in a true laissez-faire (sp?) capitalist country, there wouldn’t be any government spending anywhere. Of course, we don’t live in that hypothetical realm, so what do we have?
We have people that more or less want to either have speed, or freedom to their travels. Speed in North America means airline travel. So we need airlines. Freedom means automotive travel, so we need highways. Transcontinental Rail Service (Amtrak) is neither fast or personal. A cut to the spending here would yield little net effect to the economy. In fact, as has been pointed out, it could be beneficial to the railroads biggest concern, freight. And freight railroading is important to the economy. Freeing the freight railroads of the Amtrak albatross would be a good move in the overall economy picture, at least to me.
As always, its just my opinion. It’s kind of an interesting discussion. It’s an issue that I’ve struggled with myself for quite some time. I really enjoy traveling by train, and not just because I’m a railfan. To me, rail passengers are much more convivial. And the freedom to sleep, eat, talk, watch scenery go by in a comfortable environment can’t be beat.
One train a day doth not a passenger service make. Three trains a day, with a variety of services and stops does. And that’s the whole problem. To fund the thing meakly with the status quo will not serve any purpose. Properly funded it could resume a position of importance.
The question in the first place is “What does President Bush not understand about Amtrak.” My answer, as it has been in other threads, is that railroading, and passenger trains in particular, went out of fashion, more than neccesity. As things turned from the mid 60s when passenger trains were a known commodity, to the late 60s when they were fading, into the Brady Bunch Era of Amtrak, where interest acctually increased, the subject has never been given a realist view, of its potentials, to the American public.
Right now I’m afraid the uninitiated American’s view of passenger railroading has to do with slow-rolling dinner trains, poorly done theme restaurants, and um-pah bands. So it’s easy to label this medium of transportation as a “dinosaur.” What would Bush know from a passenger train? He’s probably never ridden or even seen one outside of the NEC. He really is your average American when it comes to this topic.
The people who do know how important Amtrak service is is the elderly, especially those that have a hard time walking long distances… Airports are a hassle, with very long concourses, one could drain the battery on their mover before reaching the plane…and when they do get to the plane how do they store it?
This is where trains come in… And as the average American is getting older, the trains will eventually win… HSR trains are the future…
Not a right, but desired by the majority. Is that good enough? Of course, the majority could decide to rob the minority. Some would say that’s what’s been going on for years (not just the Amtrak subsidy)
How much would it cost, though to run three trains a day on all of the routes? Let’s say it happened, and Amtrak got a blank check to become a national carrier like you are envisioning. There’s a few problems.
How long would it take to convince the public to ride of these three trains a day? There’s a reason why rail passenger service died in the 50’s-60’s. Now we’re going to convince an American Public even more dependent on trains and planes that they should be riding trains? Save for Thanksgiving and Christmas, your three trains a day would be empty on all but a couple routes.
So why not ditch everything buth those routes? Since the blank check was given by the whole of the Amer
Chris,
If a store is only open one hour a day, it won’t sell enough product to make costs or profit. If it’s open 3 hours a day it moves enough product to maybe break eevn. If it’s open 24 hours it moves a lot of product.
One train a day, 3/4 train of customers. 3 trains a day, 3 trains full of passengers. Hourly service, NEC. The place becomes a standard fixture of transportation.
Years ago there were 5 round trips by rail, Chicago to Seattle. Now there’s only 1. But the population has increased. You can’t tell me that a well run passenger service, with many departures won’t start to cover its costs to a point. Add to that the fact that railroad work rules have changed creating better economies. A ticket agent open 8 hours for 2 trains is inefficient. Open for 3 trains is better.
There has been mention that the car has replaced the train, and which one is more modern. There were cars before passenger trains for centuries. We just called them wagons and pulled them with horses on lousey roads. That all got improved to where we are today iin the realm of automobiles. So do we say that an Amtrak train, not as refined as streamliners from the 50s is the state of the art, thereby halting all efforts to improve the product? They managed that overseas.
As for America being too far flung in the wild west and there is no need for the service I must ask then why was an Interstate Highway run out there? I don’t think that was benevolence for the citizenry of Mandan, ND. No. It was so you could drive all the way to the coast.
I was just at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport the other day to fetch my brother arriving from France. What a monster that airport is. I’m getting older, and I don’t have the energy it takes to put in a 9 hour day driving the Interstate. I live far enough away from any airport to make air travel easy. Besides I don’t think much of casting myself off into the blue yonder on a firey fusalage.
Everyone that I’ve ever spoken with on an Amtrak long distance train says the s
I don’t know. While to you the idea of round the clock trains sounds modern, to me it just seems like trying to regain the 1940’s. Converting Amtrak as it is now to a 24 hour a day operation would take a LOT of initial investment, and the end result that it would yield the kind of interest you say it would would be very risky.
If you were to propose it to a private corporation, I think you would have a very hard time selling it to potential investors. I don’t see why the government would or should be the investor to take such a risk.
Maybe it should happen. The same kind of thing happened with Conrail, and look what a success that worked out to be. Conrail had deregulation on its side, though. I’m not sure what the hidden ace would be for a resurected Amtrak would be. Maybe there is a passenger base that would flock to it. I still think that the vast majority of American would much rather be in a plane, or in their cars, though.
And lets not forget Gomer the Motor Homer. Gomer is the #1 potential market, if you asked me. If Amtrak could offer the conveniences of a motor home at a decent rate to places like the national parks and other scenic wonders (and rails do travel near these oftentimes) I think Amtrak could potentially make a killing. Especially with gas prices as they are. I can’t imagine what it costs to fuel one of those monsters right now. If Amtrak could sway those types away, and take away some of those noisy, ugly, big, pain in the neck RV’s, and give me my campgrounds back, you would never hear me say a nasty word about them again! [;)][:P]
There’s other markets that I think could flurish, too. The penultimate, that will never happen in today’s world, but would still be really cool is a steam passenger train. Can you imagine traveling behind a real live steam locomotive across the country? Amtrak wouldn’t be able to sell tickets fast enough. Of course, with insurance on steam excursions what they are, and the lack of supporting infrastructure fo
I’m not saying “round-the-clock” service is the answer, but a logical frequency is.
I once said in frustration, in the seventies,“Instead of running an airline burlesque show, they (Amtrak) should get a few steam engines and paint the coches green and give a real train ride.” It sure would get attention. Just think of 100mph trains between Milwaukee and Chicago behind MR 261. The tourism bureaus would love it.