Republicans say they will destroy Amtrak.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Interesting BBC article, especially this part:

Quote:

The plan would split Amtrak into operating and maintenance companies and open both to competition from outside contractors.

I like this idea. Have Amtrak face the private sector. After all, they have a monopoly on running service between cities.

The maintainance company would be seperate and be the one that gets state funding for upkeep on the railroad network... if they do a good job.

That sounds familiar from somewhere And didn't it work fantastically

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, yes, you keep *****ing about British Rail. Hell, if they can't make a profit with the low fares they have, then it would make sense to raise them right? And also to get rid of unprofitable rail lines.

We aren't as dependant on rail as Europe is. If you live in rural areas, get in your car, damn it!

[Az]

that means selling a kidney of a couple of family member here, Imran.

[Imran Siddiqui]

To get a car? It ain't nearly that bad in the states .

[Provost Harrison]

That is the cost of purchasing a rail ticket. Rail travel is prohibitively expensive for the most part and thus people avoid using it, especially with it's poor reputation...it needs heavy investment and no amount of passing the buck is going to fix it, it needs hard cash spending. These ideas sound very nice in theory, but in practice, there is no short cut.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Why? Let the rail die if it can't turn a buck.

Let people avoid it. If it gets that bad then there will be a market for rail transportation.

[Provost Harrison]

Do that...say goodbye to your rail system...it won't fix itself...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Amtrak sucks. You spend more time in buses then you do in the train. The government should just privitize it. If it fails, then too bad.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Do that...say goodbye to your rail system

Fine with me .

The rail systems that make money (in the cities and in the Bos-NY-DC corridor, etc.) will survive.

[chequita guevara]

Cars are inexpensive in the US and they are subsidized by the state in that the roads are maintained by the state. Licenses also aren't as expensive here as they are in Europe, so any idiot with five hundred bucks can get a car.

If we had, for example, the same stringent requirements of driver training and vehical maintenance that Germany had, for example, there would be many fewer cars on the road.

Theben, Bunnygrrl, and I used to take the train down to Indy from Chicago rather frequently to visit Dad. Then they cut the train and replaced it with bus service. After that, we just started renting a car.

[Odin]

Stupid republicans.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Kidicious
The market has already shown that rail can't compete against air travel. That's why the private companies went bankrupt. I don't see how Amtrak could possibly make profit.

But if I wanted to take the train from SF back to Atlanta, it would be slightly cheaper and only take 4 days

[:) Smiley]

Amtrak loses money because the US Govt operates it as a transportation company, while it could in fact make money as a tourism company.

Amtrak ought to be split, with the urban routes being privatized into competitive companies, and the long distance routes being run by the National Park Service.

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Interesting BBC article, especially this part:

Quote:

The plan would split Amtrak into operating and maintenance companies and open both to competition from outside contractors.

I like this idea. Have Amtrak face the private sector. After all, they have a monopoly on running service between cities.

The maintainance company would be seperate and be the one that gets state funding for upkeep on the railroad network... if they do a good job.

I like the idea of privatizing the maintaince but the idea of breaking the national carrier into 50 small and uncoordinated little carriers without dealing with the much needed under laying problems will mean we will have 50 backrupt state carriers instead of one backrupt national carrier.

[Felch]

If Amtrak is so great it should pay for itself. McDonalds sucks, but they don't need federal subsidies.

[Oerdin]

Felch: So you don't think there is a compelling national interest in having a national railway netwrok? You also think it was fair of Congress to make it illegal for Amtrak to make money and then get mad at Amtrak for not making money?

[Imran Siddiqui]

So you don't think there is a compelling national interest in having a national railway netwrok?

No matter what Felch says, no, I don't think there is a compelling national interest in a national railway network .

[rev]

From the original article:

During the 1970's and 1980's Congress provided a subsidy to Amtrak in recognition that Congress's mandate that all rail lines continue to be oppurated, including the money losing lines, and so Amtrak continued to exist. ... The Republicans did not repeal the congressional mandate that Amtrak continue to maintain and oppurate unprofitable rail lines since this would have offended representatives from rural states.

There's the problem.

How can you expect a public utility to turn corporation-level profits if it can't be run like a corporation?

Either let Amtrak choose to run certain lines that will make them a profit, or don't expect them to.

[Oerdin]

Rev: My point exactly.

Free there hands and let them compete but don't hog tie them and then whine about them not running fast enough.

[Adam Smith]

A couple years ago I helped write a study of Amtrak's long-term viability. I don't have a link handy, but here's what I can tell you off the top of my head.

First, some background. Unlike Europe, Oerdin,the vast majority of the US railroad system is privately owned and handles mostly freight. Something like 98 percent of revenue comes from freight, and these companies are able to turn a profit. There is no particular need to nationalize the system for the sake of the two percent of traffic involving passengers.

Second, Amtrak has much higher costs than it needs to. Some of these are the result of being forced to maintain unprofitable routes. On one particular long-distance route, the train picked up or dropped off an average of six (count 'em) passengers per day on the almost 600 miles between Denver and Salt Lake City. That's just plain nuts.

However, many of Amtrak's costs are much higher than they need to be. Part of this is due to absurd labor contracts. Under the infamous New York Dock conditions, anybody who is laid off gets six years severance pay. This has obviously kept Amtrak from getting down to an efficient sized labor force. Another good example is the launch of the new Acela train between Washington and Boston. Amtrak insisted on a new technology when an acceptable off the shelf technology was available. This drove up costs and greatly delayed introduction. Moreover, while it is nice to have a shiny new toy that can run 150 miles per hour, Amtrak failed to consider all the other costs that go with introduction of the new train. For example, Amtrak failed to install new cross overs, so the faster trains can only pass slower ones about once every 20 miles. This greatly reduces the effective speed of the new trains. In sum, a consultant found that Amtrak could have gotten 80 percent of the speed gains for about 20 percent of the cost.

Third, Amtrak's financial position is much worse than it looks. This is because Amtrak gets several hidden subsidies which do not appear anywhere on its books. The US Department of Transportation pays Railroad Retirement (i.e. Social Security) for all Amtrak workers. This amounts to something like 16 percent of total labor costs. Second, states and localities pay for essentially all the stations and terminal improvements. Third, Kidicious, the rates Amtrak pays to freight railroads for the use of their tracks are effectively frozen at 1956 levels. Costs have obviously increased since then.

Lastly, splitting US railroads into maintenance and operating companies would be a bad idea. Its true that British Rail had substantial underinvestment, but they created a lot of new problems by splitting up. IIRC, Railtrak gets paid by the train, which led to incentives to run lots of trains with few passengers. There were also problems coordinating maintenance windows and operations between the track company and various operating entities.

[Adam Smith]

So what to do?

First, automobile transportation does not pay its full social cost. (e.g., pollution, congestion, etc.). Resources for the Future recently calculated that a 58 cent per gallon increase in the gas tax was necessary to cover this shortfall. Politically I am not holding my breath, but this would be a good start for Amtrak and a lot of other issues.

Second, Amtrak needs to drop its long-distance routes. These are losers, plain and simple. Bus service should be an adequate replacement.

Third, poor cost control means that Amtrak wont make it even if they drop their long-distance routes. It therefore needs to be broken up into a number of regional entities which are a bit more accountable to the local states which provide money. The idea is to focus each entity on a set of commuter and short-distance routes which generally do not involve overnight trains. Examples include:

Northeast Corridor (Washington to Boston)
Southeast Region (Richmond to Atlanta)
Midwest Region (Chicago to Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Cleveland)
California (San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Diego areas)
Pacific Northwest (Portland, Seattle, Vancouver BC)
Texas (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, if they ever get their act together)
Florida (Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, if they ever get their act together)

By getting out of the existing legal structure, getting more accountability to funding entities, and cutting long-distance trains, this might actually have a shot at succeeding.

[CerberusIV]

Do US domestic airlines pay their actual costs? I ask because one of the current environmentalist issues in europe is that aviation fuel is not taxed on a comparable basis to diesel and gasoline. If aviation fuel was taxed the cost of air travel would rise substantially.

[Kidicious]

Thanx for the good info AS

[Arrian]

AS.

[chequita guevara]

I wuld like to argue with one point made by AS.

Busses are NOT an adequate replacement for trains. Busses suck, big time. They are overcrowded, with tiny bathrooms, and filled with questionable people. We were even forced to submit to police inspection of our bags in Macon, GA. The only advantage to busses is the extremely low cost of travel, but you pay a price in time and physical discomfort if not outright pain (though it wasn't as bad as driving a Geo Metro, which must be the most painful form of transportation I've ever experienced).

The seats in trains are bigger and have more room to recline. The aisles are bigger, the bathrooms are bigger, there are smoking cars (or were) for those who smoke, and you can purchase food and drink on the train (albeit exensive and of poor qualty).

I much prefer the train to the bus, and if it were not for the fact that train travel is more expensive from Jacksonville to Chicago than air travel, I'd happily use it. Sure, it takes an extra day, but you get to see and enjoy so much more of the country.

[Oerdin]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Quote:

So you don't think there is a compelling national interest in having a national railway netwrok?

No matter what Felch says, no, I don't think there is a compelling national interest in a national railway network .

Imran: Fair enough, however, you didn't answer the other question. Clearly Congress sabataged Amtrak so wouldn't you agree it is hypocritical in the extreme for Congress to get mad about Amtrak not being profitable. Don't you also feel Congress should try repealing the outlawing of cutting unprofitable routes before we go through with Bush's plan to liquidate Amtrak?

[Sava]

wtfZ! I wish the airline industry would die, but noooooo the government keeps giving them fat bailouts. What a shame, train is the best way to travel.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
Part of this is due to absurd labor contracts. Under the infamous New York Dock conditions, anybody who is laid off gets six years severance pay.

Please tell me that you are kidding.

[Oerdin]

Being a government entity I have no doubt absurd labor contracts exist and are a big part of the problem. That just makes it more imparitive to inject competetion into the system to help keep costs down. My plan provides for this competetion but the President's doesn't. Bush's plan basically calls for Amtrak to be broken up into a bunch of unprofitable pieces who will all just die or at best will limp along unable to afford to create higher speed routes.

Having nationally owned rail lines (like nationally owned road ways and airports) with privately owned service providers will create better service and cheaper service. I don't see another plan out there which will accomplish those two things.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Oerdin


At the very least Congress should repeal the "Amtrak may never stop oppurating any rail line" statute and then see if they are profitable or not.

Then you get someone from South Dakota wondering why part of their money is going to improve track from DC to NY when they don't even operate in their state. I think the idea of regional areas may solve that. But why should South Dakota pay money to get people to work in DC?