Passenger Trains > Article on the desperate shape of northeast corridor

From today's Philadelphia news:

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/transportation/Amtrak-CEO-power-problems-East-Coast-rail.html


 

Oh, boo-hoo. More Northeastern bellyaching. Note that when Amtrak goes into the begfest mode for the Northeast Corridor, all the propaganda about its being "profitable" ceases.

More like, "desperate article on the shape of the Northeast Corridor."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/17 06:07 by GenePoon.

The article was another desperate plea for safety, too!

Article leaves out fact that the Chester crash also involved drugs including both killed and the engineer.

Wick is also begging the crews to take off their cowboy hats in a recent memo that is attached...

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Yeah, I thought the NEC made money. lol.

GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh, boo-hoo. More Northeastern bellyaching. Note
> that when Amtrak goes into the begfest mode for
> the Northeast Corridor, all the propaganda about
> its being "profitable" ceases.
>
> More like, "desperate article on the shape of the
> Northeast Corridor."
Gene, I hate to have to tell you but the fact is the former Pennsylvania Railroad line does need money to survive. This piece of railroad is the only example of "high speed" in our country and yet it is being operated with many band-aids holding it together. Whether you or others on here disagree or not, this entire line carries the most passengers anywhere in the country and without it would be a critical situation as so many people depend on its complete operation, not just Amtrak but all the commuter railroads that operate on it daily. This Northeast Corridor needs a new tunnel here in the Baltimore area, new bridges between here and Wilmington, Delaware, and most of all it needs new catenary to be able to run at higher speeds. With the catenary being replaced all the polls holding up these wires need to be repainted. I could go on but let's be honest. Amtrak runs every year on a shoestring budget and has never been given money to upgrade this line as it should be. I'm not taking away from the rest of the passenger trains nation wide as they too need more funding. But I'd hate to see the Northeast Corridor shut down for a few days as this would be catastrophic with people trying to move about, especially in places like New York City and the other major cities that serve so many travelers. Airplanes cannot do it all, especially on very short runs.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

When they want capital money, they do not get into GAAP accounting silliness that the NEC makes money.

Okay, someone help me out here. . . .

From the article:

"About 700,000 people travel on some portion of the Northeast Corridor each workday. But the infrastructure on display is old.

The signaling systems and the catenary, the overhead wires that power electric trains, are, in places, about a century old and need an upgrade. This is not news to SEPTA passengers, who have experienced delays due to failures on Amtrak’s rail. Amtrak spends about $300 million a year on keeping the Northeast Corridor in good repair, but the need is between $700 million and $900 million."

So. . . 700,000 people per workday; 250 workdays a year; 175,000,000 ride the Northeast Corridor a year.

They spend $300 million a year; they need to spend $900 million a year.

Why not just raise prices $4 a ticket? That would provide an additional $700 million dollars a year, bringing their maintenance budget to a cool billion a year, or if you prefer, $900 million a year with $100 million a year dedicated to bonuses for the hard working execs.

ClubCar Wrote:
> Gene, I hate to have to tell you but the fact is
> the former Pennsylvania Railroad line does need
> money to survive. This piece of railroad is the
> only example of "high speed" in our country and
> yet it is being operated with many band-aids
> holding it together.
> John in White Marsh, Maryland

John, what you say is correct, and what Gene says is correct. Let's not turn on each other. I think we're all saying basically the same thing. I believe Gene is commenting on the "alternative facts" statements that Amtrak began making about 8 or 10 years ago that "The Northeast Corridor makes money." "The Lynchburg train makes money." It's become a mantra that almost anything associated with the Northeast Corridor "makes money." But, as we all understand, the infrastructure needs of the NEC are massive and expensive, every year. These are costs that outside-the-NEC trains don't have, that are incurred by freight railroads. Yes, NEC trains generate more revenue per passenger mile than off-NEC trains do, and they carry more passengers and perhaps they even cover their operating costs, but they come nowhere close to covering all the costs. Outside the NEC, operating ratios are worse but capital costs are much, much lower. Ever since Amtrak took over the NEC in 1976, the national trade-off has been that heavily populated northeastern states would subsidize the long-distance trains and some of the local trains in exchange for the rest of the country paying the infrastructure costs of the NEC. It's been Amtrak that seems to have driven a wedge into that political agreement, with its mantra of "The NEC makes money." The media repeats the mantra, and northeastern citizens want their "make money" revenue to remain in the northeast, and let other states pay for their own trains. What isn't said is that the rest of the country is paying for the Northeast's infrastructure, and that's the message that many of us have made repeatedly in recent years. Let's all work together to keep a national system, let's all work to support the state-supported trains, and let's also work to make the NEC the very best example of high-frequency, higher-speed railroading that the US has.

just wondering... what number is bigger... the number of NEC passengers or the number of passengers on the rest of the Amtrak system? I understand the NEC and its impact on our country's transportation, economic and govt. fronts but am tired of seeing the rest of the country treated as second class...

FY2016 (from September, 2016 monthly report)

Passenger boardings:

NEC - 11,909,847 (38%)
State-supported - 14,709,344 (47%)
Long distance - 4,655,599 (15%)

Ticket revenue:

NEC - $1,209,214,953 (55%)
State supported - $490,733,603 (22%)
Long distance - $492,260,807 (23%)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/17 17:47 by prr60.