MGibson:A long time ago it was quite common for Americans to take trains to travel long and even relatively short distances.
Right in the immediate by-God present it is quite common for Americans to take trains to travel long and even relatively short distances. Just because you don’t do it doesn’t mean nobody else does.
Yup, modern air and road travel are wonderful things, but they are a long, long way from making rail travel obsolete. We still find it very useful to have a mode of surface transportation with a dedicated route and fixed schedule, with the consequent ability to avoid traffic jams dependent on the number of people who choose to drive at any given time. Trains also use a lot less parking space and (unless you have > 4 people per car) energy, as well as generating a lot less pollution, per passenger mile than automobiles do.
Most Americans do prefer cars over trains.
Says who? Most Americans drive more than they take the train, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean that all of them would always prefer to drive; most Americans don’t have convenient trains to take if they wanted to. Also, once you’ve already committed to the expense of owning a car, the marginal cost of making additional trips in it is usually a good deal less than the fare for comparable train trips. In high population density regions where there are lots of convenient trains, however, as John noted, a hell of a lot of people—most of them car owners for whom it would even be cheaper to drive—choose to ride them.
I highly recommend a long-distance trip on Amtrak. It is one of the kewelest ways to travel and a far more beautiful way to see the USA than hitting the highway. It is also not as expensive as you might think if a) you’re travelling with someone else you can share a sleeper with and b) if you think of it as part of your vacation. The sleepers sleep two (or 3) and once you pay for the sleeper the additional passenger(s) pay a much smaller fare that mainly covers their meals. If you get a sleeper all of your meals in the dining car are included and the food is pretty good. I am a train freak and have been on several trains outside the US. Amtrak’s servers are totally impressive; unlike on some European trains they serve the entire meal while the train is moving (fast!). It’s fun, kids love it, and it’s kinda–sap alert–romantic.
(And in case you didn’t realize it there are things you can get up to in a sleeper that you’d never consider doing at 30,000 feet ;).
Just for the sake of comparison, this link will give you simple cost-benefit analysis of the highway system. There are several other pertinent things other contained in reports, but this seemed most vital.
I too have heard the explanation that a stopped train is “waiting for another train” or “waiting for the tracks to clear.”
But one of two things is happening: someone has given priority to “another train”, probably a freight train, or they’re lying. Travelling at a crawl for many minutes, then slowly drawing to a complete stop for an indefinite period is a clear message given passengers by the railroad: “We don’t value your business.” Given all the overhead of putting together a freight train, loading the cars, unloading cars, unassemblying the train, 30 or 40 minutes in a siding, I bet, would have barely noticable effects on freight customers. 40 minutes to me, a passenger is highly irritating. And maybe I just haven’t ridden Amtrak recently enough, but I never remember those prolonged delays being someplace where there’s fantastic scenery. Marshes, yes. Flat, uncultivated brown grassland, yes.
Track conditions in some parts of the country can’t support the high speed passenger trains - so they are forced to go slow
Freight trains have priority over passenger trains on most of the US rail system. The freights don’t WANT the passenger trains there - it screws up the dispatching. Often they will put an Amtrak train ‘in the hole’ for three or four freights to pass. This may be on a CROSSING track, so the Amtrak passengers never SEE the delay - so they just assume that ‘someone is lying’
A freight train breaks a knuckle coupler on the main line or an air hose separates. Train stops - the crew has to WALK the length of the train to find the problem, then fix it, then walk BACK to the locomotive and get going again. Guess what? Once again, the Amtrak following behind has to stop - and the passengers will not see what the problem is.
Just remember, if you’re anywhere but the North East Corridor (which Amtrak DOES own) you are in freight territory - so if you are delayed, ask the conductor whose rails you are currently on, and then be sure to send THEM a copy of your complaints, as well.
This is what puzzles me. I would gladly use the train to go from the west coast to the east coast, but I’m not gonna when it cost so much less to fly, and in a fraction of the time.
Would it make sense for them to lower the fares if it meant increased ridership? It kinda seems like they’re pricing themselves out of that market.
Ok, here’s a plan: we buy TGV, build restaurants in the sidings, and bring back the Harvey Girls.
More seriously, what hope does passenger service have on existing track when freight has priority? Seems like it wouldn’t make much difference how much money Amtrak got, under the status quo.
Here’s a site with the latest news, by the way…it doesn’t sound like too much progress yet… Amtrak News Releases
As an aside, the American Orient Express , a land cruise company, has pretty much done just that. Of course, they cater to people with a bit of expendable income, and who don’t CARE how long it takes to get there - so Seattle to LA takes 8 days. Their fares run from $2,590 for a Vintage Pullman to $4,990 for the Presidential Suite.
“More seriously, what hope does passenger service have on existing track when freight has priority? Seems like it wouldn’t make much difference how much money Amtrak got, under the status quo.”
That may be true, but it may not, either. Amtrak has never had the money to pay the freight railways what they (the freights) consider fair compensation for sidelining their (the freights’) trains. The present system is akin to that old joke about Communist labor: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”
But if Amtrak had enough SERIOUS money to sweeten the pot for the freights, with payments increasing as on-time rates increased and payments cut as delays increased, the freight railways’ tune MIGHT change.
To give an example, Union Pacific has a bad reputation among those who “follow” Amtrak for sidelining and delaying Amtrak trains. But the same Union Pacific operates commuter trains in Chicago under contract for Metra, including one VERY freight-heavy route. Those commuter trains are just as reliable as those operated by Metra itself on its own tracks.
Would the same thing happen if Amtrak had the money to pay the freight railways more? Nobody can be sure. Arguably, there’s a difference between sidelining freights for commuter trains over a three-track route less than 50 miles long and sidelining freights for passenger trains over a two-track or even one-track route 1500 miles long. But Amtrak right now doesn’t have the money to try it, so it’s moot for the moment. If it had the money, IMHO it would be worth a try – UP’s performance really couldn’t be much WORSE than it is.
If Amtrak owns the rails, Amtrak has priority. Most of the rails that Amtrak uses is owned by the freight companies, so Amtrak has to demure to freight. Amtrak needs more money to build their own rails.
These sites have statistics on Amtrak, the first from about twenty years ago and the second from the year 2000 information: 1972-1981 2000
I know statistics don’t really say much by themselves, but there are a few trends showing here (like that the delays are less and less due to Amtrak but to the freights displacing them). And the ridership has been going somewhat consistently up.
I’m not so great with finances. Do these stats make Amtrak seem like a good investment?
Sorry for the English in my earlier post. You would never know it was my first language.
Here’s an excerpt from an informative interview with an advocate for more public investment in railroads:
*"TP.com: Why don’t Americans get behind train travel? Why don’t we see a national commitment from taxpayers?
Repass: Well, that’s a very good question because the majority of taxpayers are behind train travel. Every time a poll is taken, 70 to 80 percent say they favor a national system. But there’s a disconnect between what the public wants and what the Congress responds to. The Congress responds to lobbyists and to interest groups that have lots of money and are well organized. The highway and the airline lobbies are terrifically organized. I had an executive of one lobbying outfit brag to me one day he could have every member of Congress telephoned twice in five minutes. That’s 1,000 phone calls in five minutes if you add up the number of people in Congress on any issue that he chose to tell his lobbying arm to attack. Now that’s enormous power. That was a fellow who was spending $30 million a year on lobbying. And that’s because the highway industry, for example, is one-seventh of the national economy. You take anything that’s is one-seventh of the national economy and take even a small percentage of that and dedicate it to lobbying, and you can out-shout anybody else, including the majority of the American people. It’s a real problem that we want to fundamentally face as a democracy because it’s not what’s right that wins, it’s who’s got the money. That’s a real challenge to a democracy, and I think we have that challenge. We’re going through this crisis with Amtrak now because that’s the fact of the matter: the rail systems just don’t have a lot of money and they can’t spend as much as the highway lobby on getting Congress’s attention. So the American people are going to have to be the ones who speak up and stand up and do something about this."*
Amtrak does not just cost $500 million per year to operate, because that number does not factor in their accumulating debt. Amtrak is currently 4 billion dollars in debt. Amtrak has leveraged almost all of its assets in an attempt to stay alive.
And Amtrak refuses to open its books to scrutiny as other public corporations have to. That should be a major warning alarm to everyone. In an age when we’re discovering that ‘creative accounting’ has caused a number of corporations to seriously mislead the public, to have a huge organization like Amtrak refuse to open the books should be simply intolerable.
I’m in favor or a rail system, even a somewhat-subsidized rail system. But Amtrak appears to be seriously screwed up. Let it go into receivership. This will force its books to be opened, and the public can scrutinize them. If, as I suspect, it’s going to be in much worse shape than we think, then maybe the government has a role to pull it out of trouble. But privatize it. Let someone else run it. Fix the subsidy at a specific amount, and force them to operate within it.
If you really want Amtrak to survive, you have a vested interest in making sure that it’s being run responsibly.
Depending on how Amtrak’s accounting books turn out, I may be siding with Sam Stone on this. (Hey, it’s happened occasionally!)
The thing that tantalizes me is not that railroads are “obviously” better off in the private sector, but that changing from a government bureaucracy to a private one (or vice versa) would have a comprehensive and staggering impact on “old boy” and “not invented here” syndromes. The very notion of an auditor from a private corporation questioning the practices of a government organization fills me with evil glee. I want to watch.
When I consider those dirty, unaesthetic passenger cars creeping down the tracks, I suddenly realize it’s time for reform.
"The very notion of an auditor from a private corporation questioning the practices of a government organization fills me with evil glee. "
I think the CFO of WorldCom might be available for the job.
I’d be willing to put up some more money for a good experiment line, but they’d have to bring in new manager, perhaps from the freight and airline companies.
spooje, you seriously expect Sam to base a post on fact?
Of course public transport has to be subsidized by the public. That’s true for roads and airports, which get a lot of money without real debate. The only difference, really, is that Amtrak is a government entity running on mostly privately-owned rights of way, not the reverse. Maybe there’s a principle to be staunchly defended in the difference, but I don’t see it. Incidentally, that’s the main reason for service delays - the hopelessly-managed government entity has to give way to the efficient, free-enterprise rail owner.
Passenger rail is constantly a target of the Republicans in Congress because their own constituents don’t depend on it or even care about it - the Northeast and West Coast are Democratic strongholds, so if ya can’t get their votes, ya might as screw 'em, right?
