Passenger Trains > Boardman: Anticipate reduced funding

Special employee advisory
October 27, 2011
Message from Joe Boardman

> Next week, the Senate is expected to resume debate on appropriations bills, including funding for Amtrak for this fiscal year. The latest
> best estimate from the Senate is about $1.48 billion for Amtrak, which would translate to a decrease in operating funding from last
> year, and would be significantly less than the $2.2 billion we’d requested for this fiscal year.
>
> Once the Senate approves the appropriations bill, it will go to the House for debate. While we don’t know what the outcome will be, we do
> know that a House subcommittee had previously recommended a much lower number. We will need to make our capital program a priority for
> the future success of Amtrak. It should be clear to all of us that for now uncertain economic conditions will not allow Congress to be
> our sole funding solution.
>
> Using the Strategic Plan we released earlier this month as our roadmap, we must shift our focus to strengthening the bottom line.
> The plan — which everyone should read — aligns organizational efforts, prioritizes resource allocation, and measures performance
> against goals and strategies to put us in a stronger financial and strategic position.
>
> The truth of our finances will require difficult decisions in the weeks and months ahead. You’ll be hearing more about what this means
> next week, so please keep an eye out for more information. Our focus must be on the safety and service that our passengers and state
> partners expect.
>
> Uncertainty about federal funding support and budget cuts are not new to Amtrak, and over the past 40 years we’ve learned to live with
> that kind of ambiguity. In the past, we’ve often halted or put off capital investments when federal funding fell short, which put us two
> steps back and left us in a perpetual state of mere survival.
>
> But we have a great future and we cannot abandon our investments or our plans. We don’t have that luxury, and our customers expect us to
> get better while some of our detractors expect us to fold our tent. We will not do that. We need to create an organization and a culture
> that can manage the ambiguity that comes from the annually changing government support. We will not lose sight of the Amtrak our
> customers need us to be. We will continue to make the investments that will yield a more efficient and reliable Amtrak.
>
> We will allocate our resources to continue long-lacking capital investments that have become critical for us in serving our
> customers, such as the next-generation reservation system and eTicketing; fulfilling our mandatory requirements for stations under
> the Americans with Disabilities Act; and proceeding with the acquisition of new equipment for our aging fleet.
>
> I know that there have been rumors about our budget, and that can be distracting. But I ask you to stay focused on our customers. At a
> time of record ridership, delivering safe, reliable and customer-friendly service is the best antidote to the Amtrak funding
> debate.
>
> Thank you for your support.
>
> Sincerely,
> Joe Boardman
> President and CEO

Good message.

Creating and expanding a customer focused culture is a great idea. Just about every successful organization starts with that point.

If the cuts are really severe, we might see train-offs again, as we did when we lost the Lone Star and North Coast Hi. What a pity this will be because, whatever trains get cut, they will be trains with rising ridership, revenue and popularity. It's hard to find an Amtrak train that doesn't fit this category.

One of Boardman's statements is confusing to me. I don't understand what he means by: "It should be clear to all of us for now uncertain economic conditions will not allow Congress to be our sole funding solutions."

Can anyone advise what this statement means in plain English.

Joe

My translation:

"We don't have as many friends in congress as we used to, this might turn out really bad this time."

floridajoe2001 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If the cuts are really severe, we might see
> train-offs again, as we did when we lost the Lone
> Star and North Coast Hi. What a pity this will be
> because, whatever trains get cut, they will be
> trains with rising ridership, revenue and
> popularity. It's hard to find an Amtrak train
> that doesn't fit this category.
>
> One of Boardman's statements is confusing to me.
> I don't understand what he means by: "It should be
> clear to all of us for now uncertain economic
> conditions will not allow Congress to be our sole
> funding solutions."
>

= "we need to become more efficient, generate more income from ticket revenue and state support, and make better use of our resources such as real estate. We need to work smarter, and be prepared to do more with less."


Good luck with that. When Amtrak brought Subway sandwich vendors into the Empire Service trains, unknown parties tipped their sandwich boxes, locked gates used for access, and otherwise harassed the kids. Subway lasted a week on Amtrak?


> Can anyone advise what this statement means in
> plain English.
>
> Joe

The part that I don't like:

> Using the Strategic Plan we released earlier this month as our roadmap, we must shift our focus to strengthening the bottom line.
> The plan — which everyone should read — aligns organizational efforts, prioritizes resource allocation, and measures performance
> against goals and strategies to put us in a stronger financial and strategic position.


Sounds like bureaucratese...and make no mistake, Boardman is a bureaucrat, not a railroader...for "dump the long distance network."

Recently there appears to have been an increase in the number of stories in the mass media that quote the subsidy per passenger
on the Sunset Limited. Back a couple or three years ago, it was Amtrak itself that FED those numbers to the media. I do not put it
beyond them to be doing it again so they can reallocate their resources and continue to play with the Northeastern Lionel electric train set.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/11 17:10 by GenePoon.

If they needs to cut 2 LD trains from the System I know which ones need to go First, to Save the Another LD trains and to Save the LD systems.

railcity Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If they needs to cut 2 LD trains from the System I
> know which ones need to go First, to Save the
> Another LD trains and to Save the LD systems.


which do you suggest?

and, do you suggest dumping the whole train, or keeping some segments as separate trains, or dumping the sleepers and having the train "overnight" en route, etc?

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> railcity Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > If they needs to cut 2 LD trains from the System
> I
> > know which ones need to go First, to Save the
> > Another LD trains and to Save the LD systems.
>
>
> which do you suggest?
>
> and, do you suggest dumping the whole train, or
> keeping some segments as separate trains, or
> dumping the sleepers and having the train
> "overnight" en route, etc?

If need to cut 2 trains to save the LD trains, Sunset and Cardinal needs to go first to save the another trains.

Amtrak could do some horse trading too with Congress Sale that Money Pit Called the NEC and save the whole LD train system?

railcity Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Amtrak could do some horse trading too with
> Congress Sale that Money Pit Called the NEC and
> save the whole LD train system?

One what basis can you make the claim that the NEC is a money pit? Amtrak's NEC serves the most densely populated and developed region in the country and attracts a high number of riders. Amtrak's biggest piece of infrastructure is the NEC and that's why Amtrak puts so many resources into it.

Yes, I definitely want to see more trains and better trains in other parts of the country. However, I have seen or read suggests that the amount of money spent on the NEC compared to the rest of the system is a poor allocation of resources.

Guess this means the end of the Coast Starlight Pacific Parlour Car

I don't think Boardman would cut long distance trains as he needs the votes from the states these trains pass through. These trains run through lightly populated western states and once the trains are gone there is little incentive for these elected officials to go in Amtrak's favor. Maybe raise the fairbox recovery requirement for 403b trains to require the states to pay a bigger share for these services.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Making government agencies scratch for and fully value every dollar they struggle to get is a very good thing...

webmaster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't think Boardman would cut long distance
> trains as he needs the votes from the states these
> trains pass through. These trains run through
> lightly populated western states and once the
> trains are gone there is little incentive for
> these elected officials to go in Amtrak's favor.
> Maybe raise the fairbox recovery requirement for
> 403b trains to require the states to pay a bigger
> share for these services.

I don't blame Boardman for starting to break the news to the troops, but we really don't know yet how big of a whacking Amtrak is going to take this year. If it's a really big one, that changes all. If the whacking is small, maybe there is some hope. However Boardman has already said all long distance trains lose money. I don't see how he avoids not dropping some of them, and just let the chips fall where they may politically. The old coalition is gone, or otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Seems real clear to me. If the " Super Committee" fails to reach a deal ( that looks increasingly likely) and the automatic cuts go into effect Amtrak's allocation will take a huge cut and the only way it will be able to deal with it is to eliminate all the LDT's. There's no other way to make the numbers work unless you believe it's politically feasible to get rid of the NEC.

The next few months will be very interesting.

IMHO, Ross Rowland

and so begins the ritual of which every President of Amtrak has to go into the glass case on the wall behind his desk and carefully pull the knee pads out and put them on for his graceful but humbling congressional testimonial speech for needed allocation funding to keep the system somewhat viable ...

and if he doesn't get that allocation needed to keep the system as is ... he'll try to keep the system in tact by reducing train trips and services and maintenance and so will begin the decline of all the money that was instituted to try to upgrade the system ...

ok on another note that all you people don't realize ... when an employee/employees hear news like this ... it travels through the company like wildfire ... it has a tendency to really wear on one's psyche not knowing what the outcome is going to be ... people start to worry about their jobs and will they be the ones to go ... it resonates through the whole company and i'm saying this just as a reminder if you get service employees who aren't all warm and fuzzy about working for a company which has to rely on OPM Other Peoples Money to survive as a company EVERY YEAR ... most do their best under the stress of job security ... others don't take it so well and wear it on their sleeves

my own personal story back in the mid 80's ... when you get hired at Amtrak the first thing you think of is the Amtrak has been around for a while i hope to be working here a long time hopefully till i retire ... so when Reagan was loud mouthing about cutting Amtrak funding things got a little tense ... prior to that we were looking for house but when i heard news like that i got somewhat panicked and decided not make the move and decided to stay in the phone booth were living in at the time ... i had been with company going on 10 years but that lasted 5 more years of hearing Amtrak needs to have it's funding cut ... it works on your mind year after year not knowing what to do with big financial decisions and if you're going to be unemployed looking for work with a family and those times weren't as bad as they are now but it seemed it to me at the time



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/11 09:16 by Out_Of_Service.

Well, if Joe Boardman needs to cut, *where* he cuts is pretty clear. We go through the same discussion endlessly on TO: the NEC is a "money pit", "save the LD trains". A decade ago, when I ran Amtrak numbers by route, two-thirds of Amtrak riders began or ended their journeys on the NEC, and most of the rest rode corridor trains around Chicago or on the West Coast. LD ridership accounted for only about 20% of Amtrak's ridership of (at the time) around 25 million. From what I've read, most of the growth to 30 million has been in the corridors, so I'd expect the LDs to account for an even smaller percentage today.

Also, the costs of the LDs are nearly 100% variable, whereas the NEC has high fixed costs that are spread over a large number of trains (both commuter and Amtrak). Given that situation, the cuts *will* fall on the LD trains.

This shows the deeply confused thinking we Americans have gotten ourselves into. Don't you find it bizarre to be discussing cutting Amtrak at the time when it is producing the best numbers in it's history.

In my view, Amtrak is a Government success story; not a failure. Why cut a success? I view passenger rail in the same light as the Interstate System. Both programs have been embraced by the American public with relish; both are popular with expanding use; both need more funding--not less. The only difference is that Amtrak has an 85% farebox recovery rate; wheras the Interstate System is pure cost.

I just can't see how cutting a popular program like Amtrak, which Americans have embraced, and utilize in ever-growing numbers, will benefit America or help turn this declining Nation around. If we truly can't afford a "small potato" thing like the Amtrak budget, then our decline is much more serious than we thought.

Joe

I have to agree with Joe. We shouldn't be talking about cuts. Any cuts. We should be talking about expanding. We should take the approach the Amtrak is not part of the problem but part of the solution.

Once again all I can say is that if you want to keep and expand passenger service than join NARP. (www.narprail.org) and get ready to write letters, e-mails and phone calls to DC.

John Webb
Trinidad, CA