Why Amtrak is worth continuing and improving

Trains Magazine Passenger
21

It is very difficult to compare subsidies: what to count, what to leave out, how to make comparisons in levels of service and point to point totals. Air travel should include airport development, the FAA, subsidies and tax breaks to manufactureres, huge security costs, construction of roads and transit to airports, etc. Arguably it should include the 8 pounds of climate changing CO2 emitted per pound of fuel burnt and the protection cost and risks of importing all that foreign oil.

My original point was that the world is running out of cheap oil and the dependability of supply lines is decreasing. Air travel bloomed in an age of $10 a barrel oil, at $100 a barrel it starts to have real problems and at $150 may be non viable. So arguing over the exact subsidy split may be besides the point - either we have an alternative way to travel at reasonable speed using domestic energy or we don’t. Given that there is no time advantage under 500 miles (and a considerable nuisance cost) we would be well advised to invest in our corridor trains and discourage short flights. It should be a national security priority.

The discussion of downtown depots should include the fact that trains can stop at suburban stations on both sides, planes can’t. Parking at these locations is far cheaper than downtown or airport. The important thing is to have that integrated transportation system that is sustainable well into the high cost energy future.

22

Exactly! Lets scrap all that has been calculated and said, set up guidlines or whatever, for all costs of all transportation modes, and apply equally.

23

henry6: I don’t understand why you can’t see how important it is for Amtrak to scrap long distance rail if it is “worth continuing and improving?” Forget about accounting for true costs, etc. of other modes. LD rail will never come close to covering its OE It will not represent a viable transportation alternative to air even if it were HSR. And to the individual, unless gas prices triple, it will not be cheaper out of pocket.

For its 40th anniversary, Amtrak needs to refocus on the under 500 mile (better under 300 mile) corridors where it is competitive with only a slight top speed and shorter station dwell times. Otherwise, the LD portion will continue to weigh down the corridors that are providing a real transportation service.

24

I believe in AMtrak, yes. But I believe our entire transportation system and philosophy has to be scrapped and started anew with all costs, benefits, needs, etc. be taken into consideration. Set what we have at a given value of say, zero, and build anew from here. Amtrak needs what? Compare that with what the highway needs and the waterways and the airlines…not on what has been but that all are worth zero at this point. Then take into consideration what it would cost each person to foot the bill. Include that person’s car and all his expenses for that car; include the trucker and all his expenses for his truck; included the airplane and all the expenses for that airplane; include the cost of a train and all expenses for that train… Then add up the cost of a highway and its expenses; then add up he cost of airport and airlanes; then add up the cost of track and operation. Then add up the value expected from each mode at that price and figure out which is best. You get what I mean. Let’s stop throwing figures around which are not inclusive of all costs nor reflective of total costs necessarily. Lets zero everything out and start over. IF a long distance train is in balanced of the total number, so be it; if not, apply what is. You’re talking about a long distance train, but what is your definition? Where does it serve, who does it served, how does it serve? Are you talking points A to Z only or are you talking instead of point C-W, G to Y, F-M, or vice versa; are talking about moving mass numbers of people or just a handfull here and there enroute; are you talking quick transit or liesurly tourist transit? Would a bus fill the bill better? Or an airplane? Or a boat for that matter? We have to stop the fighting among the various forms and advocates of modes and figure out a way to make all the modes work together in service and cost.

25

henry6" You are needlessly obfuscating the issue. To see what works and makes sense to invest in, look at distances of a corridor and population centers served. Anything over 300-400 miles (4-5 hours) is too far. What is a long distance train? Not hard, look at monthly Amtrak performance reports and they are listed with lots of figures. You want names of trains to d/c? Cal Zephyr, Capital Limited, Cardinal, Crescent Limited, Sunset limited, Empire Builder, Lake Shore Limited, Southwest Chief, maybe others? The amount of traffic they carry compared to air on those routes is negligible. And their operating expenses are much higher per passenger mile than the corridor routes. The only point for any transportation service is to serve a large number of people. If it doesn’t/can’t, it ceases to have a good reason to continue to exist. There are limited funds. That is a reality. If Amtrak is to continue, it needs to focus where it currently serves or could serve a useful function. If it continues the status quo as it has for 40 years, we risk losing everything beyond the NEC.

26

My issue is this: we in America are fighiting over modes of transportation and monies to be allotted to help each, whether or not and how much subsidy each receives, he actual costs of providing and using each, etc. Therefore we spend much time analyzing , talking about, quantifying, qualifying, denying, and otherwise argueing over which is best, which gets the most, which gets the least, which should get more, which should get less. We argue big business and private enterprise against government bonds, construction, loans, grants, earmarks, and whatever else. We are at apoint where we must stop this rhetoric and get to work. Set the value of each system at zero or a million dollars, doesn’t matter as long as all are considered equal as we begin anew. Yes, Amtrak is good and maybe long distant trains are good for some reason. But the issue isn’t the value of Amtrak or its long distance or even corrridor trains, but the economic and environmental needs and benefits of each mode of transportation working as a network rather than desparate and sacred institutions.

27

Way too complicated. It is not necessary to look at everything nor is it possible to “set the value of each system at zero or a million dollars, doesn’t matter as long as all are considered equal as we begin anew” The issue is passenger rail and Amtrak. Start there and determine what is worthwhile and improve that portion. Discontinue the rest.

28

I do not see how you can say we should not be considering the value of Amtrak, but rather, only consider the value of the need for Amtrak. They are the same thing.

29

I think the Logic Limited departed some time ago.

30

Gentlemen:

What does AMTRAK have for long distance trains? -=- 5 western long distance trains and 7 eastern long distance trains and the auto train.

IMHO it appears that the trains that provide the necessary seats come closer to meeting no subsidity goals.

Many have noted that Auto Train’s 20 passenger car trains come close to meeting operating costs. My question is can these 12 LD trains come close to meeting operating costs if they were given the necessary available seats?

  1. Take Sleepers first. Sleeper service seems to sell out no matter how many berths are provided for each train (including Auto Train). The extra berths provided at Thanksgiving and Christmas came from placing almost all cars on the road and out of maintenance. I would like someone here take both single level and bi level cars and compare revenue of sleepers and coaches. I have a feeling the numbers will be close?

  2. Dinning cars next. When the abortative use of “lite” diners was tried everyone here noted the great decrease in passenger satisfaction and riership.

  3. Lounge cars next. Same as #2.

  4. Although I agree with you posters saying we need to have more service over the routes the addition f another train on any route has many cost disadvantages. listed are some of the disadantages.

A. One operating crew vs 2 operating crews. May need an assistant conductor for the longer trains.

B. Track time. – The costs to operate an additional train on host RRs is very high. Train length does not seem to add to host RR costs.

C. additional locos needed on long trains would be an additional cost but the failure of one unit would not delay a train as much.

D. The problem of east coast trains into NYP’s 14 car limit needs to be addressed.

E. Empty demand to on some legs needs addressing by maybe adding/removing cars. ex: ATL - New Orleans; Orlando - Miami; NYP - WASH; Memphis - New Orleans? Adding

31

I wrote this as part of a discussion on a email list that I belong to. For the record, i’m a conservative, but I do believe we are going to need more trains in the future. - Warren

The biggest problem I have with zeroing out Amtrak is that once passenger trains stop running, they won’t be coming back. The railroads already don’t want the trains that are on their rails, and sure don’t want any more. If Amtrak ceased to exist, it would be a huge battle that the government may not win (if it wants to win) to get passenger trains back on the rails. If it was privatized, ticket prices would go up dramatically (think sleeping car prices in coach) as the private operator would try to recover costs and make money. That would mean fewer passengers, leading to increased losses, and the private operation and the trains it runs ending.

The American people, with the assistance of the Government by building roads, made a decision to have primarily a motor vehicle driven transportation policy. I really believe that is going to come back to haunt us rather soon. Fuel prices are very close to being over $3.00 for every grade of gasoline and diesel. The day is coming soon when $5 a gallon is going to be the normal (or lowest) price for fuel, and folks won’t be able to afford to drive to work or on vacation. We’re going to have a great road network that we can’t afford to drive on and can’t afford to maintain. We’re a mobile society and when that day comes, we’re going to need passenger rail transpo

32

For those who keep saying there is little or no subsidy of air travel, this is from this morning’s paper:

WASHINGTON — A program that subsidizes air service to small airports, often in remote communities, is shaping up as an early test in the new Congress of conservatives’ zeal for shrinking the federal government.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has proposed an amendment to an aviation bill pending before the Senate in order to eliminate the $200 million annual essential air service program. The program pays airlines to provide scheduled service to about 150 communities, from Muscle Shoals, Ala., to Pelican, Alaska.

In the House, the Republican Study Committee – a group of conservative lawmakers – has also proposed killing the program.

Subsidies per airline passenger as of June 1, 2010, ranged as high as $5,223 in Ely, Nev., to as low as $9.21 in Thief River Falls, Minn., according to Transportation Department data for the lower 48 states.

33

The improvement that will have to be made for High-Speed Rail Travel is a dedicated line for Passenger that is elevated, trenched, or tunneled to keep the tracks free of people on foot, automobiles, and animals. There are too many collisions on rail lines at the current speeds. They will increase the collisions greatly if they use the same tracks in the same place.

Andrew

34

I agree that air travel is far more subsidized than many realize. However, if the GOP is willing to cut the small $200 mil. for the EAS program, doesn’t that make it more likely that they will drastically cut or eliminate Amtrak’s $2.2 bil. federal subsidy?

35

Yes, I do. I never doubted that they would. On the other hand, people want the deficits reduced but they don’t want their own favorite project touched. I believe that time will show that every cut the new legislature makes will alienate another segment of voters.

36

Politicians, GOP included, are very calculating. They will cut programs that benefit voters and regions that are not likely to vote for them in 2012. In the case of Amtrak, the only portions of its route structure that are heavily used are in the Northeast and to a lesser degree, in Midwestern states like Illinois that the GOP does not count on winning. The long distance routes do serve areas in which the GOP is strong, but since the ridership is so small, it has no impact on outcome.

37

C’mon people. If you are pointing out “Look, Essential Air Services gets 200 mil”, you are setting us up for “OK, Amtrak gets 200 mil.” Bad move politically to even bring this up.

The other bad thing to bring up about those bad, bad Republicans wanting to stick it to the liberal opposition where it hurts, the reason Essential Air Services gets 200 mil and Amtrak gets its 1500 mil is that those levels of funding are considered “modem line noise” in the 3 million mil (3 tril) or whatever it has grown to Federal budget.

Look, when we are put in the corner with our backs to the wall over arguments that the proposed rail projects (Madison-Milwaukee) are not cost effective, our fallback position from inside the advocacy bunker is always, “But what Amtrak gets is such a pittance compared to all of the money (wasted) elsewhere in the budget” and we keen “Why are they picking on us?”

In a way, that was the argument behind the Vision Report, that you could probably increase Amtrak 10-fold to about the 10-15 billion/year range and have the Amtrak budget fit within the cracks, but increasing it to the 30-40 billion/year range to bring it to a full par with what they do in Europe would put it even with the highway budget. There are many in the advocacy community who believe that passenger rail should be funded at the same level of the highway budget, out of some sense of fairness or equity or the Europeans do it or if highways get X dollars why don’t we get the same. But that level of funding would attract significant scrutiny and you couldn’t say we are the poor step child getting budget crumbs.

But when there is a major budget crunch, everything gets scrutinized, even the “line noise” expenditures, and one has pretty much lost the argument on rail that the argument for rail is that it is such a minor expenditure. The reason it is such a minor expenditure is that we could never get more support for it when times were good.

38

Your argument can be equally applied to the act of vilifying opponents by associating them with a fictitious adversarial organization called the “Advocacy Community” as if individual opinions do not exist.

39

There is one argument in favor of high Amtrak (or transit) subsidies that I had heard from someone in our local advocacy group, and it goes something like this.

Automobile is actually a high cost mode of transportation. In intercity travel, a modern auto should get 30 MPG that works out to about 10 cents/mile, the cost of the auto plus major repairs over 200,000 miles is about $30000 or 15 cents a mile, lets throw in another 5 cents a mile for un(gas tax) funded road work and 5 cents for insurance, etc, we are talking about 35 cents/mile. IRS allows much more, but consider 35 cents/mile as a baseline for auto operations.

I think there is a good reason to believe that train operating expenses are in the 30-40 cents/mile range. In places where the fares are that high (NEC), Amtrak breaks even on the above-the-contact-patch expenses. On long-distances runs where the fares per mile are lower, not so much.

Airlines, for their packed-in full flights, I saw a number mentioned around here of a 10 cent/mile operating cost.

If you are comparing autos and Amtrak, you could say they are in rough round numbers about equal cost. The reason Amtrak “needs” the big subsidy is that people only figure their gas when comparing a car trip to Amtrak, but by subsidizing Amtrak, you are only leveling the playing field against people not putting a cents/mile meter on the dash of their car.

Yes, but, if you are comparing Amtrak to air, airlines by far “blow away” Amtrak at the expense of offering a more rapid trip, but with the patdown, the cramped seats, the crowds. Perhaps in some short-haul corridors where planes are charging 30-40 cents/mile or more and Amtrak can charge that amount and break even (the low cost of planes may be biased towards longer trips), Amtrak can break even.

Then the argument “Know the cost of everything and the value of nothing” gets wheeled out if its carbarn. You see, the lower cost airline travel is so miserable, you

40

Where am I villifying anyone? Simply say, "I part company with what your consider to be the mainstream position because of . . . " or “I support what you consider to bet the mainstream advocacy position and here is why.”

Villifying?

I am suggesting that if you or anyone you know decides to lay into Essential Air Services, that is probably on a tactical level a bad move, if you want to keep Amtrak around (the thread is still Why Amtrak is worth continuing and improving), and I am villifying people?