Passenger Trains > LD cuts?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-trump-budget-cuts-chicago-transit-20170328-story.html

I am always intrigued by the transportation "experts" the local medai finds.

I'd think that the three day a week trains would be the most likely to go. 
The question is how do they make cuts ?
By ridership counts or out of pocket costs or by trying to maintain a core system of some level. 

Republican/Conservative opposition to Amtrak has always been purely ideological, not financial. Amtrak is a very, very small line item in the Federal Budget. It's the principle of subsidizing passenger trains that bothers them. Their most important value is personal freedom, and that is more in line with automobiles than it is with trains. They like individualism more than collectivism.  Nonetheless, over the years Amtrak has always had strong bipartisan support. This proposal is "dead on arrival."

UP951West Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd think that the three day a week trains would
> be the most likely to go. 
> The question is how do they make cuts ?
> By ridership counts or out of pocket costs or by
> trying to maintain a core system of some level. 

If they cut the Cardinal, that will leave a lot of rural communities with no transportation other than car....

The 1978 LD cuts were done by the the second worst President in my life time. A Democrat. Neither political party, even Amtrak Joe, haven't done them any favors. 

Two Southern Democrats gave us routes cuts: Carter and Clinton. But Dixiecrats don't much exist anymore.

As we've recently discussed at length the budget process for the new fiscal year has just begun and no one can predict at this stage what the final outcome will be. The biggest danger for Amtrak this time is that the Trump administration has proposed HUGE cuts in many places throughout the gov't. and thus there will be lots of horse trading to see who survives. Many of the programs slated for large cuts have far larger support groups than Amtrak and that may well bode poorly for Amtrak's operating subsidy.

   Obviously if the President's proposal to provide zero funding for Amtrak's operating subsidy should survive to become part of the final funding law then all the LDT's would disappear as of Oct. 1st.,2017 the start of the new fiscal year.

    Hopefully it won't come to that. Time will tell.

    Ross Rowland

Amtrak's accounting makes the impact of cuts difficult to compute.  For example, cut out the Cardinal, and the Chicago expenses and DC expenses aren't going way. You might lose a person or two, but the shops etc remain. And their costs are divided among fewer trains.  Same with the City of New Orleans or the Cardinal or the Crescent and New Orleans. You'd have to eliminate all three trains to close the New Orleans service facility.

Even then, the DC HQ staff won't be reduced much. There are jobs like HR / Labor Relations / Law / Police / Govt Relations which won't lose people.

Obviously if what survives the final number is insufficient to support all the LDT's then the tri weekly's would be the first to go I would think?? The immediate savings are the track usage charges, crew costs, fuel and maintenance etc. If the number is enough to support some but not all the current LDT's I would guess that the worst performing ( lowest revenue per operating mile) would get cut?? 

     We won't really know until sometime this spring/early summer when the results of all the horse trading surface.

    Probably a smart idea to make any LDT trips you've been considering before Sep't. 30th. if you can.

    Ross Rowland

FWIW- Proposed cuts to Public Broadxasting Service of $500 million are less than Amtrak subsidy.

Dachinghwa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> FWIW- Proposed cuts to Public Broadxasting Service
> of $500 million are less than Amtrak subsidy.

I called my local representative's office to complain about cuts to Amtrak, PBS, Meals on Wheels.  The intern said they had received a lot of calls on PBS / NPR, but few on Amtrak or Meals on Wheels.  Which is surprising, because Amtrak has stops in and on the border of our district.

The last time you rode LD how many young people did you see?  

Lost in all the noise is this: if the Amtrak LD trains are cut, the Northeast Corridor states better be ready to pony up the money to keep those trains running because they will lose any Congressional support for federal funding from the other 40+ states. Same with the federally subsidized Amtrak services serving only the West Coast. Much as I hate the highway lobby, they figured out way back in the 1920's that, if they intended to survive, they had to secure funding to build and maintain a national highway system that touched nearly every spot in the whole United States.  Whatever their other evils, and there were and are plenty, the highway lobby completely mastered the political game necessary to perpetuate and grow their bureaucracy.

The Northeast Corridor and West Coast states might control enough House seats to get their federal Amtrak subsidies funded by the House of Representatives, but, by my count, they would only control about 25 Senate seats out of 100.  I would sure hate to be hanging my hat on those odds to secure funding. I spent a fair amount of my career in public service, some at high level, and that is not a funding proposal in which I would place a lot of hope in succeeding.  So, the issue is not whether or not we have federal funding of long-distance passenger trains, it's whether or not we have federal funding for any passenger trains at all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/17 09:13 by WW.

PennPlat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The last time you rode LD how many young people
> did you see?  

Not a lot, and that's defining "young" as people under 40.  I have been on AutoTrain when school vacations are underway, and you see a fair number of kids and younger parents.  I believe kids ride free.

PennPlat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The last time you rode LD how many young people
> did you see?

The last time that I rode an Amtrak LD train, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of younger people that I did see riding the train.  That said, it's not surprising that the number of young people riding trains is not large.  First, many younger people simply do not have the time to ride trains--they often have little vacation time and often can only take 2-3 days of it at a time.  Second, we are well into the second and third generations of Americans who have an obsession with destinations, not journeys.  To them, a journey is just an inconvenience to endure to get to a destination, so getting there--and fast--is what matters, not going there.  That runs right along with the American attention span that seems to run about one hour, at maximum.  Third, trains have simply disappeared from most Americans' consciousness.  Many are now generations removed from having any familial or personal connection to railroads and trains.  So, riding a train never even enters their thought process.  With the exception of the ever-shrinking numbers of the Greatest Generation, almost no living Americans have any personal memory of when the US had a first-rate national passenger train system, and each succeeding generation is even farther from even that history.  Because of that, passenger trains are thought of as "archaic" in the United States, even though that is certainly not the case in most of the rest of the world. 

We just returned from a month long trip: Syracuse to Toronto, to Vancouver, to Portland, OR, to Emeryville, CA, to Denver, to Chicago, to Syracuse by Amtrak and VIA. The VIA segment was, of course, as always, vastly better than the Amtrak experience and even with 60 year old Budd equipment (which has been rebuilt and beautifully maintained) and short staffed (one chef with car attendants helping out in the dining car) we enjoyed probably some of the best meals to be found in very respected restaurants. Years ago, when VIA crews performed an amazing feat of improvisation to solve a turn around move, I asked the supervisor how they managed to do such an extraordinary job to which he responded: "It is all about attitude!"  In the US, we do not have a positive attitude toward passenger train travel and those who wish to maintain even the skeleton service provided by Amtrak must keep loading their congress people with hard numbers and strong opinions. By the way, while we are both over 70 years of age, and have always enjoyed the company of peers aboard Amtrak trains, we also see many young families traveling both for cost reasons and for the "wiggle factor" whereby kids can be much more fun to travel with when they can move around. 

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> PennPlat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The last time you rode LD how many young people
> > did you see?  
>
> Not a lot, and that's defining "young" as people
> under 40.  I have been on AutoTrain when school
> vacations are underway, and you see a fair number
> of kids and younger parents.  I believe kids ride
> free.

Perhaps they are not riding in the sleeper cars, but I notice and have seen a LOT of young families, singles, couples etc. riding aboard Amtrak. I can list nearly all the long distance trains plus corridor trains - especially around college breaks. 

That being said, I have NEVER travelled on the Auto Train. I'd be considered "young" according to definitions established around here. I would think the Auto Train demographic is geared toward older folks. I also HATE Florida - too hot any season. Likewise the Meteor has its share of older folks but I found the Star did not (the Star being almost two corridor trains in one). so the Auto Train and Meteor may have a shift to an older demographic, but I would not be as generous in saying that with the Meteor's coach passengers or it's passengers to/from NYP and South Carolina. The Palmetto is certainly picking up a great deal of traffic, and I think it is a younger crowd. 

With the all that being said, I think Amtrak has a general problem in marketing train travel to the younger generation. The problem is, they do NOT market to this demographic. Ridership increases seem to increase with word of mouth as opposed to an Amtrak add about what young people - families and what not - could get out of a long distance trip. I hate to drive, so I'll take the train any day if it can get me to where I want to go - or close and then I take a rental car. 

But it summer time on the Empire Builder and California Zephyr - there are a lot of young people aboard. Again, some may not be in sleeper, but if you are in the Portland sleeper, you will easily Jane a revelation. 

The State of New York and Vermont used to have reps with a table setup at NYP promoting rail travel for college students - for those schools close to a passenger rail station stop. My cousin had a boyfriend in Boston and she went to college in Washington DC. Both of them nearly went broke buying coach tickets to see each other. 

PennPlat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The last time you rode LD how many young people
> did you see?  

On the Empire Builder, lots, at least in the coaches. This is particularly true of the routes west of Spokane and east of St Paul. They are fewer in the sleepers, probably because of cost, but the sleepers are definitely well-patronized (and it goes without saying that occupants of the Familly Bedroom are commonly quite young). Also, the dining car demographics are not reflected in the coach population, though during peak times the demand for diner meals keeps the staff working long hours.

My conversation with the attendants confirms my assumption that a large percentage of sleeper patrons are first-timers, not people who travel by train because they think it's a good way to travel and therefore go by train as a rule (like me). That is, one hears the attendant going down the passageway explaining the features of the roomette over and over. I have no inside info on coach patrons, but I'd bet they are less often first timers. (I mention the Builder because other LD trains I often take are mostly overnight, so I have less feel for what's going on in the coaches. I did share a coach seat on the Lake Shore from Chicago to NYP a couple of years ago with a fellow who was a frequent traveler between CHI and Renssalaer. Most of the rest of the passengers in that coach were Boy Scouts, I think, plus a couple of Indian families.)

And it's important to remember that on a train like the Builder, only a small fraction of the passengers are traveling end-to-end. The percentage is a good deal higher in the sleepers, of course, in part I suppose because the expense of a sleeper is easier to rationalize if you're in for a 2,200 mile journey. I used to know a young man who worked extra board as an attendant on LD trains, and he said that coach duty was very much more demanding than working the sleepers, what with people getting on and off at every station. (There was naturally much less of that in the coach trip mentioned above on the Lake Shore.)

"almost no living Americans have any personal memory of when the US had a first-rate national passenger train system,"

Because Congress and their unconstitutional and unfair ICC-imposed regulatory structure stole it. Think of it that way--it's almost like they took the trains away the same way a thief might do to your car if you forget to lock it.

So, when you consider that history, why is it that the biggest supporters of passenger rail--people who post on boards like this and actually ride the trains--always want to depend on Congress to prop up the trains? Do you believe ICC-imposed accounting that said passenger rail loses money? Do you believe that just because Amtrak needs a subsidy that it must be that way for every train? It truly pains me to see people with ideas be unable to get them funded or moving because attitudes like those we see here are so pervasive that raising capital is nearly impossible (although if you're a tech guy who's never run a taxi service, you can raise billions for something that loses so much money, it makes Amtrak and Penn Central look profitable).

Heck, look at airplanes these days: their big new thing is using what we used to call "open sections" on passenger cars and calling them "sleeper seats." Now, I get that everyone here may not become the next Howard Simpson, but you can call your members of Congress and tell them that you want to see the private sector run the trains--and that present and future public policy should be friendly to that. How would it work?

1. Abridge the right of local public utilities commissions to impose or review passenger rail rates, even on intrastate trains.

2. Prohibit property taxation on any railroad lines that are used for daily-or-better passenger service (yes, I know state governments would howl, but that's fine because the money they lose in taxes, they will save in infrastructure investment). This would include yards, stations, and maintenance facilities that serve passenger rail (in addition to freight).

3. Define what constitutes negligence in passenger rail accidents and cap damage awards in situations that don't involve either host railroad or passenger operator negligence. Also, prohibit punitive damages except in the case of what would be defined as "willful negligence," a higher standard that would have to be met to trigger this. This provision would also apply to airlines in an effort to stimulate insurers to cover rail and air from the same pool and reduce the costs.

4. Exempt passenger rail locomotives and rolling stock, as well as dual-use locomotives from any form of personal property taxation. Montana, if I recall correctly, imposes such a tax on rolling stock. Personally, these taxes should be proscribed in every form, but this is a small place where it could be reasonably done.

5. The bill would begin with exempting passenger rail projects from environmental review knowing that some environmental review process would be required. Ultimately, it would be a streamlined process that enables these projects to move forward quickly and encourages state and local agencies to partner with private groups for commuter and regional projects they want to undertake--rather than look for federal cash.

6. Make the Section 45G Tax Credit permanent and amend it to reach $5,500 per-mile and applicable to any track that's used for daily-or-better passenger service. This, along with points 2 and 3 would make Class I carriers much more willing to host passenger trains, no matter who the operator is, and...

7. For my most controversial ask: abolish the PTC mandate and make any such technology subject to approvals which would require that it be proven that it can't be hacked or cause collisions like the 2009 WMATA Red Line crash. We underestimate how big a burden PTC will be to future services and I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see some current runs fall by the wayside thanks to its unfair cost.

There you have it--a much more realistic plan than asking a fickle Congress to give us the trains we want.