Passenger Trains > Richard Anderson interview with Skift

https://skift.com/2019/09/07/skift-global-forum-preview-amtrak-ceo-wants-to-bring-airline-nimbleness-to-the-rails/

IMHO, Richard has delivered a lot of improvements at Amtrak.

Posted from iPhone

Wants to wack 1/3 to 2/3 of the existing long distance trains operating today but will preserve the national network "because that's the law". What would he do without the law?

Those poor airline trained headquarters Amtrak and Congress members.
They simply cannot understand that LD trains are also very functional local and regional "short haul" services.
Nobody would go into business to offer passenger service to many of the small city and town stops along the LD routes but those residents make good use of the LD trains for their short haul trips.
Someone in Minot, ND, is not in the market for a ticket from Chicago to Seattle but may got to/from St. Paul or Spokane.  So why is a LD train not a regional train and accounted for as such?

Didn't PRIIA require separate accounting and financial reporting for long distance, under 750 miles, and the NEC?

What ever became of that?

Posted from Android

As i see it, the only way to save LD trains as we know them, is to have someone else operating the Amtk "Train cruise" division.  Anderson has no desire to run LD trains, but will keep as few as possible on as required/demanded by congress. 

As for running them as subsidized "essential service", that would kinda mean running them like the Canadian essential service trains...bare bones operation..boxed meals, no sightseer lounge, minimal sleeper service....

Can it be essential service, and a "land cruise" train?  IDK.   You would be trying to cater ppl at both ends of the economic spectrum at the same time...

Raisballestties hit it on the head for remove cities, that also should be considered as part of the "National" system.  They pay taxes  too!.
.

The LD trains serve as a Regional (corridor) and can also provide the rail cruise asspect of the business.  the Two can be done onthe same train.  Combine Regional and high-ed service can work together and add to the bottom line.

GN1969 Wrote:
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> https://skift.com/2019/09/07/skift-global-forum-pr
> eview-amtrak-ceo-wants-to-bring-airline-nimbleness
> -to-the-rails/
>
> IMHO, Richard has delivered a lot of improvements
> at Amtrak.
>
> Posted from iPhone

I will not get into a discussion about this.  However just to say we are all entitled to one's opinion!

Would a long distance train run by a non union crew be OK? Or, one that stops in Podunk and disperses passengers and crew to local hotels for the night?

They gather after breakfast and go on another 500 miles the next day.

Combine BrightLine and Via Skeena, and that's what you have...

Posted from Android

He’s out of touch big time.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Didn't PRIIA require separate accounting and
> financial reporting for long distance, under 750
> miles, and the NEC?
>
> What ever became of that?
>
> Posted from Android

That is how the accounts are broken up in their reporting these days. They also are required to notify Congress before they mone any money among any of the separate accounts.

mt-king Wrote:
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> Wants to wack 1/3 to 2/3 of the existing long
> distance trains operating today but will preserve
> the national network "because that's the law".
> What would he do without the law?

There would also be no Amtrak without the same law. So the point is moot IMHO.

GN1969 Wrote:
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> IMHO, Richard has delivered a lot of improvements
> at Amtrak.

Can you list those improvements? Specific examples, I can deal with, even if I might disagree. Safety improvements he takes credit for in the article doesn't count, because ANY CEO should have been doing it.

cchan006 Wrote:
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> Can you list those improvements? Specific
> examples, I can deal with, even if I might
> disagree. Safety improvements he takes credit for
> in the article doesn't count, because ANY CEO
> should have been doing it.

I'd like to see which corridors that he has planned or started in the past two years. Virgin Trains has him beat during his tenure. Another case of "all hat, no cattle"?

A lot of hot air. I'm sure the freight carriers take him very seriously (snort!). Very excited and all so willing to cooperate.

GN1969 Wrote:

> IMHO, Richard has delivered a lot of improvements
> at Amtrak.
>
> Posted from iPhone

You call the so called contemporary dining on the Capitol and the Lake Shore, charging private car owners and arm and a leg on running their cars on Amtrak trains, threatening on splitting the Chief last year, the cancelations of trains during winter because of a little snow, and whatever else there is top it improvements? You must be smoking something really bad!

I would have hoped that he would have developed or put some new corridor trains on the schedule by now. The Valley Explorer and the additional Virginia, California, and North Carolina (still a work in process) frequencies have largely been driven by the States - not Amtrak.  

jp1822 Wrote:
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> I would have hoped that he would have developed or
> put some new corridor trains on the schedule by
> now. The Valley Explorer and the additional
> Virginia, California, and North Carolina (still a
> work in process) frequencies have largely been
> driven by the States - not Amtrak.  

Yep! And if he has any thoughts about the current law being an impediment to corridor development, he has had time to study the issues and ask for changes in the law.

Yeah, only reason why he wants changes is so he can continue dismantling Amtrak!

If that's Anderson in the photo on the Skift site, he looks somewhat like TO's very own Andersonb109.   Maybe they are related after all.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Would a long distance train run by a non union
> crew be OK? Or, one that stops in Podunk and

Obviously not.

> disperses passengers and crew to local hotels for
> the night?
>
> They gather after breakfast and go on another 500
> miles the next day.

What is the point? The whole advantage of train tavel is moving through the night.  No one would travel that way.