Passenger rail in the US: yes or no?

Great Debates
1

As most of you know, Amtrak runs the national intercity passenger rail system. http://www.amtrak.com

While Amtrak has some problems (late trains, service less frequent than daily on two popular routes, shortage of sleeping and dining cars), it has consistently growing ridership and improving revenue. http://www.amtrak.com/news/archive/atns00102.html

Amtrak has some powerful enemies, however. It is seeking a $10 billion bond issue for 10 years from the Senate which it needs to make capital improvements including new engines and passenger cars. Senators McCain – chair of the Commerce Committee that controls transportation funding – and Gramm are fighting the bill tooth and nail, contending that Amtrak is an outdated waste of public money. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000926/pl/mccain_amtrak_2.html

The arguments against Amtrak and passenger rail, and my responses:

  1. Nobody takes the train. People fly or drive when they have to travel.

Response: It’s true that people aren’t going to ride trains in large numbers on long distance routes where air travel is much faster. But:

A) There are a lot of cities that are close together enough that trains traveling 110-125mph are competitive with not only driving but FLYING on a city center-city center basis.
*The Northeast
*California
*The Pacific Northwest (Vancouver - Seattle - Portland)
*The Midwest
*Central Texas (Dallas/Fort Worth - Austin - San Antonio - Houston)
*Florida

The first three already have working corridors (corridor = multiple daily trains at average speeds equal to or faster than driving) and the Midwest is working to build a corridor system. And the existing corridors have high ridership and are all planning to add trains to accomodate expected growth.

Yes, I just said that California has successful rail corridors. Three of them, in fact: the “car-crazy” state has gotten people to travel by train between Los Angeles and San Diego, between San Jose, Oakland and Sacramento, and between Oakland, Sacramento, and the cities of the San Joaquin Valley. The ridership on these lines is at record levels and grows constantly. http://www.amtrakcalifornia.com

This is a circular argument. We can’t have six trains a day at 100mph between Chicago and Saint Louis because few people ride the trains. But why would people ride the trains unless there are frequent departures and speeds faster than driving? The flipside of “if you build it, they will come” is that they won’t come if you haven’t built it!

B) There are a lot of small cities and towns, BETWEEN major cities, that have little or no air service. Planes can travel only from point A to point B, while trains can reasonably make several stops inbetween. In other words, though it’s true that people who have to travel Chicago to L.A. would almost always fly, a Chicago-L.A. train isn’t JUST a Chicago-L.A. train.
2) Amtrak receives millions of dollars from the Treasury in operating subsidies.

Response: So does every other mode of transportation!
*The highway system, from minor roads to superhighways, are only partially financed by the gas-tax “user fee”. The rest comes from local, state and the Federal treasuries. In other words, from general taxes.
*Aviation receives air traffic control and navigation services from the FAA. More importantly, airports are built predominantly with tax money, in the sum of hundreds of millions for the construction and expansion of major airports like Denver’s new field or Chicago’s proposed third airport. Only a portion of that money comes from user fees.
*Waterways are made clear for barge traffic – widened, dredged for depth, dammed and locked to increase water flow, etc. – by the Army Corps of Engineers.
*Public transit in every city. Even New York City, where the majority of households don’t own a car, has to receive tax money to keep its subways, commuter trains, and buses running.

Building highways and expanding airports involves swallowing up acres of existing land, thousands of them for brand-new major airports. The rail lines for improved rail service already exist, and little if any land would need to be bought to improve them.
*We’re not talking about dedicated tracks like the European high-speed trains. Speeds up to 125mph can be achieved safely on freight tracks with improvements to the signaling system and grade crossings (keeping cars and trucks out of the way of high-speed trains) and with tilting trains, already made by existing companies for sale in other countries.
*We’re also not talking about expensive electrification, like the existing Northeast Corridor. Diesel-powered tilting trains can acheive the same speeds (125 mph) as electric trains just as safely and comfortably.

2

I’d love to see the rail system improve. Given people’s growing dissatisfaction with airlines, I suspect that rail could become more widely used in situations where it is faster and/or more economical than driving. (Perhaps once faster rail lines are built and gas prices keep going up.)

Where are our mag-lev trains?!?!? :slight_smile:

3

Mag-lev trains are the trains of the future and most likely they will always keep that status.

However some sort of high speed rail system would suit the Northeast Corridor well. How was the Acela (or whatever it’s called) worked out up there?

Los Angeles and Las Vegas would probably benefit greatly from a high-speed rail connection. The airlines wouldn’t be hurt because it would be possible for tourists to fly into either city when making a trip. And you wouldn’t have to worry about driving across the Mojave Desert.

Instead you could just worry about derailing across the Mojave Desert.

4

Indeed! Perhaps Amtrak should use the $10 billion for maglev research. I’ve done quite a bit of study in this field and it is feasible, especially considering Amtrak has the available land.

5

A few years ago I would’ve said: Trains? Bah.

But now…

  • I’ve been to Europe a couple o’ times and have seen how nice a good rail system can be

  • I now work in a commuter train-related company (as a software engineer).

So, even though I’ve never even been on a train in the US (yet), I say: Go trains!

6

I love trains. But the biggest problem with them in America, IMO, is that they’re too darned expensive. In nearly every case, I can fly for just about the same price as taking the train–and get there in about 1/3 the time.

If train fares were cut in half, I’d do all my domestic travel via the rail system. As it is, why shou a lose a couple of days of vacation in transport when I can fly just as cheap?

7

I love trains. I used to take the Boston-New York train all the time as a student. It was cheap, and I didn’t have a car, anyway.

Problem: Trains are way too expensive. I don’t know what he prices are now, but trains used to be both more expensive and more time consuming than airplanes. How can you bgeat that combination? I agree that faster, more up-to-date trains are the solution. The problem is that, as I understand it, the rail companies don’t own the tracks (!!) Faster rail service demands that the tracks be upgraded. They’re fixing this now, I believe, but the last time my parents came to Boston via train they still had a delay in Connecticut because they change from one system to another in mid-route. America has poor train service because the powers that be let it go downhill, while Europe has always maintained theirs.

8

Huh. My wife just got back from a short business trip to Washington, DC. The god damn Delta SHUTTLE (hourly flights!) was backed up…she sat on the runway for two hours.

The Metroliner gets you from Penn Station (on 34th Street in Manhattan) to Union Station (a short walk from the Capitol) in just under three hours. No commute in from an airport. Downtown to downtown. Never a delay; if they say they’re leaving at noon, you push off smoothly and silently at noon. I always use it when I have to go to Washington.

If the airlines can’t keep a lousy shuttle flight on schedule, we’ve obviously got too many planes flying around. Damn straight we should be developing high-speed rail.

9

Why can’t Amtrak survive without the government’s help here? I realize that the government has bailed out struggling airline companies before, but according to the OP (and his cites), business is booming!

Why do we have to pay taxes for trains we have to pay to ride anyway?

Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions

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10

John Bredin: excellent summary of the problem.

I should add that Congress as a whole has never been much of a supporter of Amtrak; the company was created primarily as an emergency measure to prevent the wholesale abandonment of long-distance passenger service by the railroads. At that time (1969), many were speaking of nationalization as the only way out of the mess that railroads had gotten themselves into through decades of heavy regulation, deferred maintenance and an inability to make substantial changes to working practices.

Freight railroads in the USA are almost unique among transportation modes in being expected to self-fund the entire cost of their infrastructure, so they could perhaps be excused for wanting to rid themselves of passenger service, when by the '60’s most routes were hemorrhaging money.

European railway passenger service, particularly the French TGV system, makes Amtrak look pathetic, but as most European railways are state-owned, there is not the degree of conflict over route access, between freight and passenger operations, that there is here.

Most European railways also run at enormous losses, yet the citizenry does not seem overly upset about the subsidies paid to keep them in operation. And interestingly, of all the different units of SNCF, the French national railway, only the high-speed TGV operation regularly covers its operating costs. This shows that passenger rail services that are actually of value to the passengers will not necessarily be money sinks. I think that high speed rail between city pairs 300-500 miles apart could be a winner in the US, and has the potential for greater efficiency and less cost per passenger mile than either air or automobile transport for these distances (after the infrastructure is in place, that is).

If I had my druthers, US freight railways would be run like the Interstate Highway system; infrastructure subsidized by the government to the same degree as the highways, with trains operated by any company qualified to do so, over any route. This idea of ‘open access’ has so far been adopted mainly in the UK, and while not an unqualified success, appears to have given new life to what was a declining system (I wouldn’t be surprised to hear some vocal disagreement from UK-based Dopers, however). Open Access could also help reduce the conflicts between freight and passenger operations that prevent Amtrak from expanding services in some locations.

One final comment: Amtrak’s annual subsidy, for an admittedly undercapitalized system, has averaged around $500 million a year. Sounds big, but actually works out to about $2 per citizen per year. Seems like a bargain to me.

11

It continues to have lots of problems in construction (e.g., inadequate tracks).

12

Satan: *Why can’t Amtrak survive without the government’s help here? I realize that the government has bailed out struggling airline companies before, but according to the OP (and his cites), business is booming!

Why do we have to pay taxes for trains we have to pay to ride anyway? *

Why can’t the automobile and gasoline industries survive without the government’s help here? Why do we have to pay taxes to subsidize cars and fuel that we have to pay to purchase anyway?

13

Rail and air travel are both subsidized by the government, but in precisely opposite ways. For air travel, the government takes care of the infrastructure, airports and the routes between them (through the air traffic control centers). The airplanes themselves are owned and operated by private companies. With Amtrak, the government owns the company that runs the trains, but the tracks are owned by the private freight railroads. I don’t know what incentive they have to upgrade tracks that are already fine for their own needs.

I’d love to see train travel handled better in the U.S. I took a train from Munich to Stuttgart and it’s the only way to go. If the service was improved enough for people to start riding the trains from Chicago to Milwaukee (or Detroit, or Minneapolis…) maybe they wouldn’t need that third airport after all. But the airlines that fly between those cities now probably don’t want to see that happen.

I live in Boston but I haven’t had the chance to try the Acela yet. Last time I checked I found out it only ran on weekdays and my trips to New York are all weekend jaunts. I’m also not sure if it’s up to full operations or still in the trial/testing phase.

14

CalMeacham: “The problem is that, as I understand it, the rail companies don’t own the tracks (!!)”

Basically correct. Except for the Northeast Corridor, which Amtrak owns directly, Amtrak uses the tracks of the privately-owned freight rail companies. This is one of the main causes of Amtrak’s common late trains. While the FAA controls air traffic to the benefit of all planes equally, the freight company dispatches its own line, deciding which trains have to go into sidings or wait at signals so that other trains move ahead. Well, when a Union Pacific (for example) dispatcher is faced with two trains meeting, one of UP’s own trains and one of Amtrak’s, which one do you think will end up sitting in a siding? If you don’t know, just recall who’s paying the dispatcher’s salary.
Satan: “Why can’t Amtrak survive without the government’s help here? I realize that the government has bailed out struggling airline companies before, but according to the OP (and his cites), business is booming! … Why do we have to pay taxes for trains we have to pay to ride anyway?”

It has nothing to do with bail outs. Every annual Federal budget includes routine – not emergency or temporary – appropriations for highways, airports and air navigation, Corps of Engineers improvements to waterways, etc… Nobody asks airports or highways to justify their Federal financing in the way McCain, Gramm, and some others are demanding Amtrak justify its Federal financing. Yes, there are debates over particular highways and particular airfields. But the principle and general policy of 80% Federal funding for major highways and airports is not up for debate, while the idea of ANY Federal funding for Amtrak is being seriously debated and questioned. And as to taxes and fares, the fact that you pay airfare when you fly or bus fare if you ride the Grey Mutt (gods forbid!) doesn’t affect the Treasury outlays – read “taxes” – for highways and airports.

There’s also a severe disadvantage to rail (freight and passenger) imposed by government in the form of property taxation. Airfields, highways, canals, etc. are owned by public agencies or departments, and pay no property tax. Rail lines, being (except for the Northeast Corridor, as mentioned) privately owned, pays property tax. And since:

1)the property has had expensive improvements (grading, tracks, signals, etc.),

  1. the rail line covers a large area of land. It doesn’t, really, especially compared to something like an airport or even an Interstate. But a plot of land 250 miles long and 30 feet wide works out to 909 acres, or 1.42 square miles of taxable land, and

  2. the owners can’t simply relocate to another site like a regular business can if taxes get too high,

property tax assessors assign rail lines a high taxable value. And while Amtrak doesn’t own the tracks, it does have to pay the freight railways to use them. In other words, high property taxes are an expense passed on to Amtrak that isn’t passed on by the airports to United or by the highway department to Greyhound.

This is why hundreds of miles of rail lines were abandoned in the late 1950s - mid 1980s as rail freight was losing business to the Interstate-using trucking companies. The railways couldn’t afford to keep track “laying fallow” for a rainy day in the future, since property tax collectors saw rail lines in their jurisdiction as a cash cow to milk. Since then, the freight railways adapted with innovations like intermodal, and the business came back to a great degree. (Also, general prosperity has brought higher traffic to all modes.) But now the tracks are gone in many places, and there is rail congestion in parts of the country at busy times of the year like the grain harvests.

15

I was always under the impression that the reason rail service doesn’t, and probably will not, work in the US is that the country is too spread out. Trains have to travel too far between common points.

This is why train service does work for densely populated areas like the northeast. But until you get Kansas to look like the constant city that extends from Washington to New York, you aren’t going to get as much train usage there.

Train service just isn’t fast enough to replace airplanes between most cities. Thus, rail service will work fine for short routes like New York - Boston, etc. But I don’t think it will ever again become a major mode of transportation.

16

Let me declare my bias- I love trains and I love public transportation as a whole. I went to Europe and I loved the train system. You could get anywhere you wanted comfortably. I also take the San Jose- Sacramento train regularly, and find it a much more pleasent trip than greyhound (yep, I dont have a car, but even if I did I would rather not do the three hour drive). Oh, and I dont like cars.

Airplanes are also not so good (especially for mid-distance trips, like from San Jose to LA) because they take a lot of prep time (checking in, boarding etc.), They are often outside of the city center, which means expensive airport shuttle or rental cars, and are hard to relax in

 So of course I think Amtrak should get lots of funding. Rail transportation is a wonderful thing and ANYTHING we can do to break the "cars are god" mentality is good in my book. Cars are not a sustainable practice (now, you dont have to agree with me) but I think that rail travel is. More power to it!
17

i use trains all the time. for the northeast corridor there is nothing to beat it. ukelele ike’s point about downtown to downtown is right on the mark. it is a major pain getting from the airport to downtown. i took a flight to providence from philly 45 minutes in the air, 2 hours to get from the airport to where i wanted to go.

to see what a train can do, try the american orient express web site. i’m saving my money now for one of those trips. that is true train travel.

18

There were supposed to be two Acela lines in operation now: the Acela Regional and the Acela Express. The Acela Express, with a top speed of 150-or-so MPH, would stop only at major stations between Boston and Washington. The Acela Regional, top speed 105-or-so, would serve smaller stations. In theory, there were to be 2-3 Express runs per day in both directions, and all other runs would become Acela Regional.

Well, the Express locomotives are still in development, and the locomotive on the Regional run is basically the same electric loco they’ve always used south of New Haven, Conn. Used to be that the rail corridor was only rigged for electric rail from New Haven southwards–points north were served by diesel locos, and there was a joyous 20-min delay in New Haven while they switched engines.

Last year, they managed to electrify the entire NE corridor, but the Acela Regional is basically a Metroliner that goes to Boston: it goes really fast through the middle of nowhere, slows to a crawl around big cities, and has a great and overpriced cafe car. Amtrak claims that the trains are faster than the old ones, but I honestly think that it’s only faster because they eliminated the need for changing engines in New Haven. Hmph.

Amtrak sucks–the service is surly, the rates high, and the trains usually late and slow. Airline service may suffer similar problems, but at least I can get across the country in an afternoon instead of 3 days.
Akash
Glad to have left the NE Corridor for Chicagoland

19

Gasoline is subsidized? I always thought it was taxed. The automobile industry as well could easily survive without the government’s help, but has realized that it can get money from more people than just those who buy its cars. You have any cites to back up the assertion that the automobile and gasoline industries are kept afloat through government subsidies? It runs counter to everything I’ve heard.

You have any real reason that passenger rail should be run by the government rather than the privately? Or at least be expected to turn a profit like the postal service? It’s not like Amtrak has competition or lacks resources.

20

Hell, that’s all we’re asking for.

Decent, high-speed rail links between Portland, Maine, and Miami on the East Coast, and between San Diego and Seattle on the west. Maybe a hookup of Pittsburgh to Minneapolis in the Midwest, linking Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee.

There’ll be PLENTY of room for Topeka flights into LaGuardia once you clear out a lot of those silly little New York/Boston shuttle planes!