Passenger Trains > Any update on Amtrak funding in the new budget?

Anyone heard how Amtrak made out in the budget? Are we losing LDTs?

Not Official, but I doubt that any long distance trains will be cut because they serve many Red State towns that have little else in travel options.

'But for some reason the "Know It Alls" in DC always target tem every year!

"The Hill" has a summary of winners and losers in the new budget, and notes that infrastructure is a big winner. Billions are earmarked to local and regional projects. No specific word on whether Amtrak got tomahawked.

The Florida delegation gained approval of a huge improvement on Lake Okeechobee as the 27 reps and two senators stood together (for once).

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/373168-winners-and-losers-from-the-overnight-shutdown


Edited to add: The Trump administration's proposed budget is expected to be released on Monday or Tuesday. The budget is usually chopped up by Congress, but it gives an outline of what the administration wants



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/18 18:21 by Lackawanna484.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Edited to add: The Trump administration's
> proposed budget is expected to be released on
> Monday or Tuesday. The budget is usually chopped
> up by Congress, but it gives an outline of what
> the administration wants


Any administration's budget submission is nothing but a dream sheet. The administration proposes, the Congress disposes.

No one takes any White House budget request (no matter the occupant) seriously, and has not for many, many years. Washington watchers have even given up using "dead on arrival" to describe a budget submission, as none are anything but DOA.

Art House

What was just passed is the budget for the current year, overdue since Sept. 30, 2017, along with an increase in the debt ceiling and spending targets for the future. It’s a bit like going out to dinner and then deciding on how much dinner should cost after you get home.

My info is about 9 months old now, but when I and Mike Morrison visited the offices of the Oregon congressional delegation in May, the staffers were unanimous in testifying that there was no appetite in congress to follow the lead of the Usual Suspects in congress who inflate the importance of the infinitesimal Amtrak budget on deficit spending and try to get it sharply cut or eliminated. Amtrak is popular and cheap, and employs a lot of people.

An advantage that Amtrak has is that some kinds of "incremental" economies, that is whittling and chiseling, aren't workable: running the "Empire Builder" only between Seattle and Whitefish, between Fargo and Minot, and between St Paul and Chicago would save nothing, indeed would increase certain costs. Doubtless such lunacies have been proposed, and some of Mercer Management's recommendations didn't fall far short—three or four times weekly trains are significantly less ridden than dailies.

A more serious danger is the more or less well-meaning types who go along with perennial demands that Amtrak eliminate loss on food and beverage service, that is, demands that Amtrak achieve a goal that the private passenger operators were never able to. I guess it SOUNDS sort of reasonable, to people who don't know the facts (or know history), or wonder if simply contracting with MacDonald's for food service with minimum wage teenagers as servers wouldn't do the trick.

I don't think there is much danger in eliminating food totally. If you want transportation you provide the conveyance. Witness Spirit and Southwest Airlines and most other domestic air carriers. Granted the flying travel time is drastically less but people who want to get from A to B on the train will bring what they need on board. And, if LD trains are mainly for people traveling shorter distances within a long route in the first place, then cutting diners shouldn't kill the patronage. Those who go end to end maybe, but other than train enthusiasts and others looking for a cruise, so to speak, who may quit riding I'd think basic transportation at a good price for those who can't or refuse to fly, would still be attractive. I always fly at the front of the plane but I seldom if ever eat anything, never use the entertainment system but only want space and a flat bed if an overnighter. What I'm saying is, provide transportation and forget the frills and see what happens. Of course Amtrak will probably continue to use accounting tricks to show how the LDTs lose all the money that the Corridors make.

utwazoo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't think there is much danger in eliminating
> food totally. If you want transportation you
> provide the conveyance. Witness Spirit and
> Southwest Airlines and most other domestic air
> carriers. Granted the flying travel time is
> drastically less but people who want to get from A
> to B on the train will bring what they need on
> board. And, if LD trains are mainly for people
> traveling shorter distances within a long route in
> the first place, then cutting diners shouldn't
> kill the patronage. Those who go end to end
> maybe, but other than train enthusiasts and others
> looking for a cruise, so to speak, who may quit
> riding I'd think basic transportation at a good
> price for those who can't or refuse to fly, would
> still be attractive. I always fly at the front of
> the plane but I seldom if ever eat anything, never
> use the entertainment system but only want space
> and a flat bed if an overnighter. What I'm
> saying is, provide transportation and forget the
> frills and see what happens. Of course Amtrak
> will probably continue to use accounting tricks to
> show how the LDTs lose all the money that the
> Corridors make.

Some sort of food service must remain on the LD trains because in those flyover Red States a "short-haul" trip to the next wide-place in the railroad might be 1,2 even 3 hundred miles away. No food = no passengers in that case. The LD trains are not commuter trains by definition. Most folks I have met on the LD $leepers are retired or nearly-so and are not rail enthusiasts. They are looking for an alternative to the hassle of flying and want to see the country (maybe for the first time) since they have the time on the way to their "grand kids".

I'm surprised that Amtrak has not installed vending machines for at least some applications, such as ALB-NYP. With the improvement in vending machine technology, it should be possible to have reliable machines even with the constant movement.

I agree with railwaybaron but then Amtrak LDTs are an excursion service and not transportation. If we want a useful integrated passenger rail network we need basic transportation that is frequent and connecting most cities. Having recently traveled quite a bit in Italy on both HSR and connecting trains, there were no diners and obviously no sleepers, But whatever city pair one looked at, there were trains about every half hour and most all were packed. That's a rail transport system, not just a train here or there for old folks to take a ride on. I think Amtrak is nearing a day of reckoning when large capital investment will be required for new transets. And here Congress, no matter which party controls it, may balk at such investment. Same goes for VIA, they can't rebuild old equipment forever. And the Canadian ain't exactly cheap now.

Gasoline in central Italy is about $6.50 per gallon. Tolls are steep on the AutoStrada. Rome to Milan would be about $50.

US Drivers would go crazy...

Posted from Android

Let me see if I have this right. Congress just passed and Trump signed a budget that will INCREASE the deficit by a TRILLION dollars!
Everybody got their piece of pork. And there are still some who are worried that Amtrak will get cut? Not likely! Believe me, I have more stake in Amtrak's continuation than most, and I am not worried that the LD trains will suffer. Same ol' story, year after year. Rand Paul is the only man in congress with moral courage.

Norm

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar

reindeerflame Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm surprised that Amtrak has not installed
> vending machines for at least some applications,
> such as ALB-NYP. With the improvement in vending
> machine technology, it should be possible to have
> reliable machines even with the constant movement.


Tried it in the late 90s. Machines died in about a week.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

aronco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Let me see if I have this right. Congress just
> passed and Trump signed a budget that will
> INCREASE the deficit by a TRILLION dollars!
> Everybody got their piece of pork. And there are
> still some who are worried that Amtrak will get
> cut? Not likely! Believe me, I have more stake
> in Amtrak's continuation than most, and I am not
> worried that the LD trains will suffer. Same ol'
> story, year after year. Rand Paul is the only man
> in congress with moral courage.
>
> Norm

I’m happy to let the grandchildren deal with deficits — let’s consume now. As long as there are willing borrowers, let’s go ahead and borrow. I expect the likes of Rand Paul and other fools to start working on Social Security perhaps a month before it starts having to reduce benefits around 2035. Why do today that which can be put off until tomorrow, or 2035.

utwazoo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree with railwaybaron but then Amtrak LDTs are
> an excursion service and not transportation.

Listen, buddy, I travel by train. Travel. Routinely long and short distances. If there were no Amtrak, I wouldn't travel, to family and events. I'm not afraid of flying, I don't have health issues, but flying is gawdawful, not just the machines but the whole airport experience. True, first class (which I understand is the same as business class mostly) is perhaps actually tolerable. I've never tried it. Maybe I'll have to. Costly, yes or no. A couple of years ago I compared travel from Oregon to Virginia and back in sleepers (where appropriate) to flying first class one way, it was about the same. And apart from the inevitable snags connected with surface transportation (blizzards, floods, grade crossing accidents) far less enjoyable.

I don't know where this idea of "excursions" comes from. Sure, there are people my age in the dining car, though they, just like me, can't be trying to relive the golden age of train travel (when they were kids if not toddlers) , but the people who eat in the diners are of all ages.

People who belittle LD train travelers as "nostalgic" or "excursion travelers" should be clear about who exactly is nostalgic, and for what. I suspect that Amtrak itself is guilty for trying to sell train travel (especially in sleepers) as a sort of luxurious cruise. With the first-time customers objecting, when shown to their commodious roomette, "My closets are bigger than this!" Perfectly true. And much banging and jerking, and many challenges, some of them health threatening, especially for people who don't know the proper way for getting out of an upper berth. Most of whom, if they survive, will never take another overnight train, and not because of "never again!" travel nightmare, but just because it wasn't the bliss they hoped for.

Those of us who TRAVEL by train, aren't expecting bliss, just a better way to get there than by means of all alternatives.

So much to say, so little time.

> Rand Paul is the only man in congress with moral courage.


I'd be slightly more inclined to believe that whopper if Rand didn't vote for the deficit inducing Tax bill and Budget bill.

Brian

badgerexpat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> utwazoo Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I agree with railwaybaron but then Amtrak LDTs
> are
> > an excursion service and not transportation.
.
>
> I don't know where this idea of "excursions" comes
> from. Sure, there are people my age in the dining
> car, though they, just like me, can't be trying to
> relive the golden age of train travel (when they
> were kids if not toddlers) , but the people who
> eat in the diners are of all ages.
>

> Those of us who TRAVEL by train, aren't expecting
> bliss, just a better way to get there than by
> means of all alternatives.
>
> So much to say, so little time.

I use LDT's a couple times a year, and I only consider them to be more "excursion" than "transportation" because they so rarely run on time. If you are fine getting to your destination somewhere within a few hours of the advertised arrival, it is a great way to travel. If you are on a tight schedule and need to be somewhere, then Amtrak is not an option. So in that way LDT's resemble an excursion.

When I am catching an 0400 departure, I have to keep checking the train status through the night so I know when to head to the station so I don't have to sit for hours in an uncomfortable plastic chair in a waiting room that makes the local ER look like the Taj Mahal. Even worse is an unstaffed station, just stand around hoping the train shows up soon. And then take an 11+ hour trip and add an hour or three makes the trip unreliable. I do it for convenience and I am usually not pressed for time, but still find it irritating to run so late. So I do not fault those who actually have to be somewhere and will not take the train and choose to fly instead.

Cole42 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> When I am catching an 0400 departure, I have to
> keep checking the train status through the night
> so I know when to head to the station so I don't
> have to sit for hours in an uncomfortable plastic
> chair in a waiting room that makes the local ER
> look like the Taj Mahal. Even worse is an
> unstaffed station, just stand around hoping the
> train shows up soon. And then take an 11+ hour
> trip and add an hour or three makes the trip
> unreliable. I do it for convenience and I am
> usually not pressed for time, but still find it
> irritating to run so late. So I do not fault
> those who actually have to be somewhere and will
> not take the train and choose to fly instead.

True enough, but not everyone has the option of flying (or even taking to a well-plowed Interstate). I had breakfast on the Zephyr several years ago with a guy who'd gotten on the train in the middle of the night in Nebraska, and naturally I commiserated with him about the inconvenience of the skeletal Amtrak system. He wasn't having it: if he were to fly where he was going, he'd still have to get up in the middle of the night, and then drive for hours. Catching the train, no matter how dicey—having breakfast in comfort and safety, etc.—was way better.

When I flew to Wisconsin for a job interview in pre-Amtrak days, through various difficulties I wound up in Chicago having missed one connection after another with a ticket on a flight that might or might not land in Madison, weather permitting; if not, it would fly on to Minneapolis. If it got to Madison, I would be only about eight hours late. Fifty-fifty chance of landing in Madison, airlinespeak for "probably not" (I'd had a couple of those already), and then, since I opted not to take that chance, the airline said it had no further responsibility for me. (Footnote: the plane actually had engine trouble and returned to Chicago. With my luggage.) Meantime, I took to Greyhound, and arrived at my destination a matter of 14 hours late, and at two in the morning.

Two days later, having gotten my stuff back, I boarded a plane for Newark. It landed in Washington. I think the airline gave me some money for a taxi; Union Station was a dreary dump in those days, but in the fullness of time I boarded a train, the Benjamin Franklin as I remember it, which took me right to my destination in Connecticut. Very much more convenient than landing in Newark. Was it on time? Probably not, not in those days, but whatever inconvenience was involved (none, as I remember) it was a fraction of what I'd been treated to aeronautically. You're welcome to it.

I suppose flight delays are less common than Amtrak delays, but when they happen they tend to be quite something, shutting down whole systems, like when Hartfield lost electricity recently. If you have something with a real deadline, like a wedding, funeral, or court appearance, NO mode of transportation should be counted on to get you where you want to go "just in time", not even driving.

reindeerflame Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I’m happy to let the grandchildren deal with
> deficits — let’s consume now. As long as
> there are willing borrowers, let’s go ahead and
> borrow. I expect the likes of Rand Paul and other
> fools to start working on Social Security perhaps
> a month before it starts having to reduce benefits
> around 2035. Why do today that which can be put
> off until tomorrow, or 2035.

Troll?

Or let me guess, you are all for electricty only provided by coal fired power plants everywhere, get rid of the EPA, so forth and so on.