Amtrak Commuter ,Bombardiaer, Keolis,BNSF and Herzog are in the competitive buisness of commuter rail. In Chicago METRA puts out “purchase of service contracts” for bid every 10 years or so and companys can bid on those contracts to run trains. Preety much the same way other essentioal services are bid out like water and sewer repair. If the Federal Goverment can give up the idea of passenger trains making a profit and look at it as a essntial service like a national transit system perhaps this would work. Furthermore those bidding would have to give up on the idea of making a profit as well but look at the contract as providing a steady income from a long term contract with a small profit to balence out there books.
The only Metra routes that are operated under purchase of service contracts are the BNSF line to Aurora and the three lines out of North Western Station on UP. The BNSF operates the trains on its line and the UP operates the trains on their lines under these contracts. All other routes are operated directly by Metra’s own operating subsidiary. The trains on the Heritage (ex-Alton) line to Joliet operate on trackage rights and the other lines are owned and operated by Metra.
This is not a swipe at either political party so don’t assume it is and get the discussion blocked or removed. First tell me one thing the federal government has ever done that was: 1. under budget 2. worked the way intended 3. dhd any degree of efficiency 4. didn’t become a haven for political appointees and more management and regulations to ever succeed? Saving money and efficiency are not in the federal lexicon of ideas in my opinion.
That’s one way to do it. You’d have to bake in some pretty stringent performance measures into your contract. Contract operators only “lever” is to reduce cost - any way they can get away with it.
Another way would be to bid out the whole thing, including the revenue side. Have the operators bid on the “net”. That gives the operators incentive on the service side as well as the cost side.
A third way would be to bid out the bits and pieces. Sleepers to one outfit, food service to another. station operations, train operations, reservation system, etc. etc. with Amtrak just being a contract administrator.
The fourth way would be to have Amtrak benchmark against these would-be contractors and adopt best practices.
Any of these would help.
Hoover dam. But that was a while ago.
Passengers never did pay that much of the way. It was the head business that made it go.
Assume the government contract covers the passenger loses. Would there be express cars tacked on the back. There would of course need to service parameters penalties invokable.
Would freight railroads be interested? What problems would arise where two freight lines are involved with a long distance route end point to end point, e. g. California Zephyr. Express and true high speed rail may not mix well, if at all.
Make local communities largely responsible for passenger terminals just like airports.
There are not as many freight lines running between major points as there were. That would limit competition. What if the winning bid uses a route that does not go through a Congressional Committee Chairman’s District/State?
Odds are Amtrak as it has been for 40 years will go on as we know it.
Which is why my “option 4” is the best one to advocate.
No matter how one tries, one can rarely get all of the stuff in the contract that one would want. That ends up meaning contract mods, and those rarely come cheap.
One good thing that might come of it could be less congressional interference. Since any meddling would be negotiable, having a legislator try to influence service would almost automatically raise red flags.
For the government to get things to come in under budget would be quite simple. Just budget more money for them. Is that what you suggest the government should do?
The Federal Government calls putting services out to bid “privatizing.” It certainly would be possible to privatize Amtrak if Congress wanted to consider it. I’m sure there would be a lot of discussion. As far as I know no one in Congress proposes that. What has been proposed is that the Northeast Corridor be sold to private interests.
The C-141 Starlifter program.
Well, you asked…
Chuck, MSgt(ret) USAF
Newark Liberty Airport is not the responsibility of Newark or Elizabeth, New Jersey, which is where it is located. But it imposes an enormous burden on both cities. The airport itself takes a large block of land off of the tax rolls. Then the highways that service it take another big chunk o land off of the tax rolls. These are poor cities which cannot afford the financial burden but they have no choice.
The National Marketing system the same as would the ticketing system. The lines or regions would be bid compentitvly out to private operators to run on a purchase of service contract. Passengers might not know the diffrence. unless things go wrong
Privatizing Amtrak would be relatively easy, and it could probably be done within budget (as long as the estimates were properly computed). The key prerequisites are to have well-written contract requirements, enough potential offerors to provide competition, and decent contract administration (meaning enough people with the right knowledge checking the contractor’s performance to make sure the contractor does what he is supposed to do).
If, as is reported on this website, some freight railroads are hostile to Amtrak and cooperate only to the extent that the current law absolutely requires, privatization would enable them to erect barriers to the private company and diminish the government’s ability to enforce the law that requires them to cooperate. That would only weaken and diminish rail passenger service.