Update on Amtrak

[Daumantas]

So here's the latest:

As Congress is scrambling to do something about Amtrak's mandated liquidation (apparently all but the most stubborn highway-lobby-supported members have realized in the wake of September 11 that dumping all passenger trains ain't such a good idea), two proposals are being seen most frequently:

RIDE-21, being sponsored by a guy from Alaska (noted for its ample Amtrak service, of course), would make the states pay for rail improvements and then reimburse them, and even then only if the trains can go at least 125 mph. This is setting up rail improvements to fail for two reasons: 1) making the states pay would essentially recreate the condition of the highway system before the Interstates, when some individual states like Pennsylvania paid for turnpikes and others did not, leading to a disjointed system; and 2) requiring 125 mph speeds under federal safety rules would require massive grade separations (closing of grade crossings, building of over- and underpasses, etc.) because 125 mph trains are considered too fast for the good old X-shaped sign and crossing gates. And how many states can afford that?

RAIL-21 is a little more generous and would give Amtrak the money it needs to continue operating (about the same amount of money the airlines got after September 11), but with one big caveat: at least 25 cents on each dollar has to be spent outside of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor (DC-Phila-NY-Boston). Since this is what Amtrak should have been doing all along anyway, this probably isn't a bad idea. But it still leaves hanging the question of exactly WHAT other services Amtrak should concentrate on.

Worst of all in all this is that, once again, instead of developing a coherent transportation policy that makes best and most efficient use of ALL modes (highway, rail, air, etc.) when and where they are best suited, America will again let politics get in the way and end up with a patchwork highway-rail-air transportation system that wastes money, wastes fuel, pollutes more than necessary, and drives its users crazy.

 

[TickledToDeath]

Very true indeed...

...never the Twain(Train)shall meet.
Greed is the corruption of society and all that is within it.


TTD

 

[Shem the Penman]

Sounds good. Here in NYC, the Daily News, my paper of choice, has been beating the drum hard for the Amtrak breakup -- the argument being that the Northeast Corridor is the only part of Amtrak that's actually profitable, so folks in this area are paying high ticket prices to subsidize trains in the south and west that carry about three people per run between such grand metropolises East Nosepick and Dinkyville.

To me, it sounds no different from suggesting the postal service should become "profitable" by shutting down all the post offices in the country except the ones in major cities. It's nice to see there are alternate suggestions out there.

 

[Strelnikov]

I hear you. Unfortunately, outside the NE Corridor it's not only faster and more convenient, but also cheaper to fly. That's assuming that the train goes where you want to go, which isn't a given. (Try planning a train trip from Birmingham, AL to Niagara Falls.) Even Greyhound is a better choice most places - the trip I mentioned is about 30 hours by bus, every day, but 2-3 days by train, and only at times that the train schedules stack up right.

Do you have an answer? (Aside from more govt subsidies, that is.) I don't, and I LIKE trains and would travel that way if I could.

Strelnikov

 

[Daumantas]

In friendly rebuttal...

Of course, airplanes are "faster and more convenient," Strel - that's a technological fact. It's also true that driving is faster and more convenient than walking...unless there's a traffic jam, that is. That's the nub of the problem. Transportation usage in the United State is projected to grow by 50% over the next 25 years or so. The airlines and highways are already gridlocked, and they simply can't handle that increase in capacity. The whole transportation system runs the risk of coming increasingly to a standstill. And I'm sure no one here is soft-headed enough to think that there's going to be more new airports on the scale of Dallas-Fort Worth, or a successor to the Interstate highway system - any politician will tell you that those systems are DONE, and anyone who tries to suggest building more freeways and airports is likely to have his head handed to him.

No, rail is no panacea. The PROPER solution is the balance of transportation among the various modes - rail, air, highway, pogo stick, etc. - so that we don't have what we have now, where the highways and airlines are overburdened and the rails are under-utilized. The train will take you where it can, Strel - the particular trip you mentioned, Birmingham to Niagara Falls, never would have been convenient, even during the golden era of trains, simply because there was no direct route (I checked my railroad reference books, and you would have had to make at least one change, at Cincinnati, and probably more, to get from Birmingham to Niagara Falls. On the other hand, Birmingham to N'awlins for some beignets would have been a snap by train.)

Do I have an answer, other than government subsidies? No. The objection I make is to the notion that it's possible to find one. To do so is to try to get something for nothing.

Trust me on this, folks, because my knowledge of transportation issues rivals Strel's knowledge of things military (said Daumantas with utter humility ). Transportation in an industrial society is plagued by an insoluble dilemma:

1) There is little money to be made moving human buttocks from Point A to Point B.
2) Moving human buttocks from Point A to Point B is essential for the functioning of society.

There is NO transportation system that can exist without public subsidy of some sort. NONE. EVER. AIN'T...GONNA...HAPPEN. FORGET IT. None EVER have, and none EVER will. We have to have them, but they will NEVER pay for themselves. Airline profit margins are paper-thin and would evaporate in a second if the airlines didn't have access to public airports. No movement of significant numbers of buses - let alone private autos - would be conceivable without a publicly-purchased highway system. The highways cost considerably more than rail even now, and if we try to save a few short-term bucks by dumping rail, we'll end up spending a far greater fortune trying (in vain) to keep our Interstates functioning when that 50% growth margin hits. This is the epitome of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Instead of thinking of Amtrak as an entity that's supposed to make a profit, it helps to think of passenger rail more broadly as part of the transportation infrastructure as a whole. We will always have to invest public money in our transportation infrastructure, just like we'll always have to pay for cops, Marines and the Jefferson Memorial. If we want to pretend we can avoid doing this, then we might as well hand our country over to the bin Ladens of the world now rather than watch its slow decline as an economic power as our transportation system gradually clogs up, and up, and up...

 

[Strelnikov]

Even in the golden days of railroading, the roads made their profits on bulk shipments such as coal, grain, industrial chemicals, etc. Break-bulk (boxcar) shipping broke even, and passenger service typically lost money. That's why the roads were happy to foist passenger service off on AMTRAK in the '70's.

The existing rail routes make money now. Southern Railway used to run steam-engine excursions as a PR exercise, but now that they're Norfolk Southern, they've stopped. They say it interferes with service to their customers (i. e. Peabody Coal, Monsanto Chemical etc.)

So, what you're fighting is a public that doesen't care because they don't take the train anyway and don't want their taxes "wasted", and transportation companies who would just as soon not complicate their schedules by sharing their rails. There's no support for resuming rail service to places that have lost it. You're gonna have to make a better case for AMTRAK than anyone has so far, before you can turn the system around. Maybe gridlock is what it will take, to get people's attention.

Strelnikov

 

[Daumantas]

Unfortunately, you may be right...we may have to get to the point of gridlock before something happens. I just hope it doesn't come to that, because by then it will cost far more financially to start over from scratch.

Your analysis of the industry is correct. Railroads generally used to think of their passenger services, in their heyday, as something akin to public-relations spending. They were happy to hand them over to Amtrak in 1971 because their freight business was eroding so heavily and they couldn't afford the cost of private passenger service any longer. Amtrak's struggles with the railroads has historically been one of its biggest problems. (There are ways to solve that, though, that can make everyone reasonably content.)