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November 01, 2007
Amtrakin'
Given how underfunded Amtrak is, it's not exactly weird that their service is so poor, but it is a shame. So it's good news that Congress is considering a significant boost in funding for the beleaguered rail system. It's true that America doesn't have the density to support a train infrastructure like that of Europe's, but parts of America certainly do, and in those areas, Amtrak just isn't funded well enough to be a competitive option. This, of course, creates a rough cycle in which a poor reputation drives away customers, which in turn increases fares and lowers service quality, which in turn harms the reputation, which in turn drives away customers, which...
In answer to this, some conservatives suggest Amtrak should be able to stand on its own two feet. But is that fair? Last year, Congress appropriated $40 billion in highway funding -- that goes to maintenance and new road construction. And a similar sum is appropriated every year. Amtrak received around a billion. In 2002, the nearest year for which I can find cross-statistics, Congress appropriated $14 billion for the FAA and air travel, $32 billion for highways, and $521 million for Amtrak. Between 1971 and 2001, Air and Highways received 62 times the funding Amtrak did. That the train system isn't as plush should not, under those circumstances, come as a surprise.
Also, see Ryan Avent for more on this topic.
November 1, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Why isn't Amtrak more like a toll road than a public road? Would it make sense to subsidize highways if they were operated as private toll roads?
Posted by: henry evans | Nov 1, 2007 9:35:48 AM
an infusion of funding into our rail system
would be wonderful!
most beautiful journey in america...
is the amtrak "southwest chief"
or the "empire builder",
across the northern and southwest routes
of america.
the trains are living legends,
tracking through time.
rolling through midnight whistlestops
and sharing breakfast and sunrises
with a wonderful cast of characters,
through historical,indescribable backcountry,
mountains, canyons and heartland.
california, arizona, new mexico, colorado,
kansas, missouri, indiana and illinois...
or, the northern route
through washington, oregon, idaho, montana,
north dakota, minnesota, wisconsin and illinois.
amtrak is a treasure.
Posted by: jacqueline | Nov 1, 2007 9:42:34 AM
Congress appropriated $40 billion in highway funding, and collected $40 billion in road fuel taxes. (EIA quickfacts.)
If AmTrak focused it's money on the areas where it is a reasonable option (DC-Boston and San Francisco--San Diego), it might make sense to subsidize those routes if needed. It makes no sense to subsidize the cross-country routes.
Posted by: SamChevre | Nov 1, 2007 9:53:28 AM
Well, the roads in the US were mostly built with public funds and need to be maintained as such. Railroads were built more by private concerns as I recall.
While train travel is a "treasure" as said above it isn't very efficient for most travelers so it is underutilized. I don't know if pouring money into it will increase ridership beyond its current threshold; unless you can make people see that getting there is part of the journey too.
Posted by: Texicans | Nov 1, 2007 10:02:01 AM
An excellent suggestion someone once proposed in a WashPost op-ed was to finance rail systems as we do highways and airports. That is, the government should own the rails, ie the infrastructure, and private companies provide the transport. That, to me, makes a lot of sense. Outside of the northeast corridor, Amtrak has no control over its schedules because the private operators of the rails can push it aside for their own priorities. that's why it's chronically late in other parts of the country.
Besides California and the northeast, there are plenty of other places that would benefit from better rail service: Birmingham to Atlanta, Minneapolis to Chicago to Indianapolis. Rural areas, like Mississippi, absolutely rely on Amtrak.
And given what happened on 9-11, you'd think our government officials would be eager to improve rail service.
Posted by: lou | Nov 1, 2007 10:10:42 AM
It would help Amtrack a lot if the railsystem would become independent from the company owning the rolling stock and providing the actual service. Decades of neglect have turned the rails into a state beyond repair,and its totally illusionary to run something like a modern rail service on them. In Europe, railway compaqnies had to rebuilt most of the tracks connecting cities from scratch, too. This is a multi-billion-dollar endeavor, but it will be an attractive alternative for flying,if finished. It's quite an ironic fact that Amtrack's engines are dewsigned for speeds of 150 mph and more, but that it's impossible to actually drive that fast most of the time. The explanation is,of course,that politicians wanted Amtrack trains to look like TGVs or ICEs, but shied away from the costs that it would have taken to really bring the system up to that standard. Let's hope this scrooge attitude will change soon.
Posted by: Gray | Nov 1, 2007 10:12:24 AM
Ok, look, this is the problem with Amtrak-- the same Republican party that is demanding that Amtrak "stand on its own" is full of people demanding pork for Amtrak to support little-used routes in the gulf coast and midwest area.
The problem is that the private concerns who own the rails have no interest and nothing to do with passenger service-- their main concern is freight. Thus, the rails are completely substandard when it comes to supporting passengers. The Boston-DC I-95 corridor is so snarled with traffic as to be almost unusable (particularly between NYC and DC). And when was the last time a major airport built a new runway?
There are a large number of opportunities to promote rail because it's at the point where it's pretty darn necessary.
it isn't very efficient for most travelers...
It doesn't have to be. It has to be efficient for the people who need to travel along our most congrested corridors. Personally, I've never taken a 3-day long rail trip through the midwest, and I couldn't care less about doing so. What I do know is that the technology exists to get me from DC to Boston by train in 4 hours, which would relieve congestion on our roads and airports, and that's a necessity.
Posted by: Tyro | Nov 1, 2007 10:19:10 AM
It makes no sense to subsidize the cross-country routes.
It does, but for different reasons. Consider the Australian cross-country network: it covers an even greater amount of fuck all than the east-west Amtrak routes. But it's an experience. And it's packaged as such, as one of the world's Great Railway Journeys.
A friend of mine took the train from New York to San Diego a few years ago, through Chicago, then down towards LA on the southwest route that jacqueline mentions, travelling through Dodge City among other places. He was blown away by it: time slows down, the sense of space reveals itself.
An investment that enabled Amtrak to market the cross-country routes in the right sort of way, not just to tourists but to domestic users, makes a lot of sense. Give the trains sleeper cabins and proper dining cars, arrange stops that provide guided tours in historic locations or on-off fares where you can take a few days out and pick up where you left off, provide a rolling audio track so that you can plug in headphones and be told what you're seeing out of the window.
(jacqueline: did you ever see Ludovic Kennedy's BBC programme on the northern cross-country route, made in 1980? I think you'd enjoy it.)
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Nov 1, 2007 10:24:35 AM
> Railroads were built more by private
> concerns as I recall.
You might try looking up "land grants", "eminent domain", and "Indian wars". The US railroads were built using possibly the largest public subsidies in the history of the world.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 10:26:49 AM
On another note, I suspect that the nature of the transcontinental rail system did a lot of long-term damage to rail's prospects. Because the system had to traverse long distances at a relatively slow pace, a sort of culture grew up around this (see the song "City of New Orleans"), and that became associated with the "romance" of rail travel.
Well, most people engage in travel because they need to get from point A to point B, and when advocates for rail were needed to push for faster, more efficient connections between cities within 200-400 miles, the only members of the "train lobby" around were people pining for the days of slow-moving scenic traips over purple mountains and amber waves of grain. And while southern senators were more than happy to earmark money to keep these sorts of trains running through their districts, the political will never materialized to start investing in rail when it came to building serious transportation infrastructure.
It would be as though the auto lobby was full of people who wanted the government to support more projects like the pre-Eisenhower Route 66 when it came to spending highway dollars.
Posted by: Tyro | Nov 1, 2007 10:30:42 AM
> Well, most people engage in travel because they
> need to get from point A to point B, and when
> advocates for rail were needed to push for faster,
> more efficient connections between cities within
> 200-400 miles, the only members of the "train lobby"
> around were people pining for the days of slow-moving
> scenic traips over purple mountains and amber waves of
> grain.
Have you ever read any of the history of the Pennsylvania Railroad or the New York Central? Timetable speeds of 80 mph between NYC and Chicago were not uncommon, with on-track speeds reaching 120 mph over some sections [Amtrak today is limited to 79 mph due to FRA track standards and freight railroad maintenance practices, although I have paced Amtrak trains in my car at 85 ;-) ]. The 1920s railroads were very good at what they did - they just couldn't make any money at it for a variety of historical, operational, and human factors reasons.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 10:37:11 AM
pseudonymous
no, i havent seen it, but i will surely look for it.
thank you. i enjoyed reading your comment.
when you mentioned dodge city...some years ago,my daughter and i were on the train and arrived late at night into dodge city on the fourth of july!
it was very exciting and actually opened a door of study for me into those early settlements, cowboy culture and the remarkable history of mining further into the west.
...anyone with the gift of some time, could sure benefit from one of those cross-country journeys.
Posted by: jacqueline | Nov 1, 2007 10:38:03 AM
Amtrak is horrible. I ride the train from Philadelphia to NY and they charge $60 for it now. If I'm willing to spend 45 mins longer (and that's counting the wait to change trains), I can take the same trip for $17 using SEPTA to Trenton, and then NJT to NY. That's over a factor of 3 difference in price!!! I'm glad you feel you can wax sentimental over Amtrak's long-distance train routes, since when you want to visit your folks you obviously don't have to ride the perennially-delayed NE corridor trains that subsidize the rest of that fantasy. And don't even get me started on the boondoggle that is "Acela Express."
Money isn't Amtrak's fundamental problem. The problems are wastefulness and inefficiency, and that America was built in such a sprawling way. The first problem could be fixed with some competition, perhaps, but why did the second happen? Well, one of the reasons is that price controls and regulation by the government strangled the rail business after WWI while subsidizing the construction of highways. It's impossible to read the Wikipedia page on Amtrak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Government_regulation_and_labor_issues
and come away without it shaking one's faith in the ability of government to successfully intervene in the private sector.
Posted by: HFS | Nov 1, 2007 10:41:36 AM
Yes, Cranky, I was aware that our train system today is, ironically, slower than what we had in yesteryear, but this sort of rapid, intercity travel isn't rarely on the mind of "rail fans" who seem to take much more interest in the prospect of a leisurely trip down the Missippi between Chicago and New Orleans. And then there are the sort saying, "well, I can't see why ANYONE would need a train to get from Kansas City to North Platte! Hardly anyone would use it, and you can just drive or fly!" Both these attitudes do nothing but damage prospects for rail. Me? I just want to get to Boston in a reasonable amount of time without having to waste time going to the airport.
Posted by: Tyro | Nov 1, 2007 10:43:24 AM
We should build out the infrastructure for rails for both freight and passenger services. These need to designed to allow each type of service to operate well. Then we can let various operators compete to run on the rails. This is somewhat like trucking which uses the highways.
We know that freight hauling by rail is competitive and if subsidized as the roads are would be huge. We can see this becuase trucking is forced to build trains on the roads with triple trailer trucks. This system is silly.
I would agree that a clear transportation road map and investment to build strong long haul freight rail and local region rail passenger service infrastructure is long over due.
Posted by: George | Nov 1, 2007 10:44:26 AM
I wish that they could find someway to reduce the passenger rail fares and increase the speed. I much prefer taking the train home to taken the bus, but the bus is generally half or two thirds of the price of taking the train and only a little slower. Unfortunately this would probably entail fighting the Amtrak employee's union and probably imperil the costly improvements to the tracks, trains, and service that would most benefit it.
Posted by: Paludicola | Nov 1, 2007 10:48:06 AM
> Both these attitudes do nothing but damage
> prospects for rail. Me? I just want to get
> to Boston in a reasonable amount of time
> without having to waste time going to the airport.
You can't really compare passenger train service east of the Mississippi (or even east of the Appalachians + {Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis}) with the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies - trains will never beat airplanes and seldom be competitive with cars in the Plains and Intermountain West.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 10:48:25 AM
since warren buffet bought norfolk southern and union pacific, and not too long ago, purchased a huge interest in burlington northern~santa fe, perhaps this might improve some of the shared trackage issues and other problems that amtrak and the freight companies have/share.
Posted by: jacqueline | Nov 1, 2007 10:52:04 AM
Cranky, my point is that pro-rail interest-groups tend to be overrun my people who feel some kind of nostalgia for the west-of-the-Missippi "rail culture," leading anti-rail people to point out, logically, that this is a boondoggle. While "Texican" has likely never had a need to travel between major cities, millions upon millions of us do so all the time, and you can't talk about this reality without someone from the peanut gallery starting to hum a few bars of "City of New Orleans," which only makes the endeavor more difficult.
I have no interest in rail nostalgia. I have an interest in (a) wanting to get from one place to another quickly (b) getting the highways less congested and,as an aside, (c) not having the US transportation infrastructure between major hubs appear so ghetto.
Posted by: Tyro | Nov 1, 2007 10:56:10 AM
> I have no interest in rail nostalgia. I have an
> interest in (a) wanting to get from one place to
> another quickly (b) getting the highways less congested
> and,as an aside, (c) not having the US transportation
> infrastructure between major hubs appear so ghetto.
Plenty of history (and nostalgia) in "Trains Magazine", but if you read the editorials, political columnists, and business articles from the last 5 years' issues you will find any amount of hard-headed thinking and reporting of other hard-headed thinkers on exactly these topics you desire. Problem is that an efficient passenger rail network doesn't serve the interests of the Cheney constituency, the Norquist constituency, the trucking companies, the freight railroads, or the suburban real-estate developers. With those forces arrayed against there is never going to be a rational passenger rail policy in this country.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 11:04:08 AM
Posted by: henry evans | Nov 1, 2007 9:35:48 AM
Why isn't Amtrak more like a toll road than a public road? Would it make sense to subsidize highways if they were operated as private toll roads?
What ever gave you the impression that Amtrak is anything like a public road in the first place?
In the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak is "like a public road", in the sense of all those public roads that we ask Greyhound to build and maintain in order to run Greyhound buses on. Outside the northeast corridor, Amtrak is "like a public road" in the sense of all those public roads where Greyhound has to pay a charge per mile per ton to use, and is denied access to if running behind schedule when there are freight trucks running the opposite direction.
Or, in other words, nowhere in the country is Amtrak like a publicly accesible transport service provider operating on a public road.
And, indeed, if we subsidized interstate passenger railway infrastructure like we subsidize interstate road and air transport infrastructure, then it would be entirely reasonable for states to get together to establish consortiums to operate passenger rail service for the economic benefits that they would provide.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 1, 2007 11:14:37 AM
> And, indeed, if we subsidized interstate passenger
> railway infrastructure like we subsidize interstate
> road and air transport infrastructure, then it would be
> entirely reasonable for states to get together to
> establish consortiums to operate passenger rail service
> for the economic benefits that they would provide.
Well, the State of Illinois (with some help from Missouri IIRC) is doing exactly that. That's not a good basis for a national policy though.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 11:17:59 AM
Posted by: Texicans | Nov 1, 2007 10:02:01 AM
Well, the roads in the US were mostly built with public funds and need to be maintained as such. Railroads were built more by private concerns as I recall.
So that is saying that the public policy should forever be biased in favor of road and air because public policy was established in the 1930's and 1940's with a bias toward road and air?
Indeed, in the heyday of railroad construction, the main trunk lines were heavily subsidized, in order to encourage the settlement and economic development of the then-frontier. It was the more lucrative urban and interurban trolleys that were established with little public subsidy.
While train travel is a "treasure" as said above it isn't very efficient for most travelers so it is underutilized. I don't know if pouring money into it will increase ridership beyond its current threshold; unless you can make people see that getting there is part of the journey too.
On the other hand, it isn't very efficient for many travelers for whom it would be efficient if funded on a level playing field with other federal investment in interstate transport.
That is, the "isn't very efficient" argument is taking the present, badly run system, starved of infrastructure investment that is provided in large amounts to competing transport systems, and treating it as if it showed what is possible in this country with our current population distribution.
There is a problem, of course, is that rail is more fuel efficient when operated effectively, while on the other hand a substantial proportion of the costs of the motor-road transport system are carried by general state and local taxes, and so a fuel tax for railroads will not yield enough to maintain the system.
However, a system that biases the United States in favor of systems with lower fuel-efficiency seems to be ignoring the national need to reduce our dependence on imported fuel.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 1, 2007 11:25:10 AM
Why subsidise Amtrak travel when the high-quality/low-cost bus market is just starting to thrive?
Posted by: Chris | Nov 1, 2007 11:28:42 AM
I'm a bit biased here because two of my grandparents and a bunch of cousins, uncles and aunts worked in the railroad business, so I don't appreciate the kicking-around Amtrak puts up with -- a bipartisan kicking-around, BTW.
That said, I agree with Ezra that there are parts of America where rail travel can and should be a competitive option for the airlines, because Lord knows they deserve some damn competition given that the planes are always full, the airports are always full, and all the majors still lose money despite the direct subsidies through the FAA, and the indirect subsidy of foreign policies aimed at keeping the cost of fuel low.
Simply put, I don't know of a single rail travel system on the planet that operates successfully -- whether measured financially or by customer satisfaction -- without government subsidy. The make-Amtrak-self-sustaining argument is simply disingenuous, and in my opinion, meant to kill it permanently.
At certain travel distances (say 400 one-way miles or less), with existing rail technologies, a case can be made that passenger rail travel can compete if subsidized just to the same proportion that the airlines are.
As an example, I offer my own experience from a 2-or-3-times annual trip to see relatives that my family of four would make from Ann Arbor to Chicago.
Scenario One: We drive. The minivan gets about 24 mpg on the highway fully loaded. 506 mi, door to door round trip, that's $58 in gas at $2.75 a gallon, plus a fast-food meal at around $25 for the four of us, once each way. That doesn't count depreciation and wear-and-tear on the vehicle. The IRS allows 48.5 cents per mile for business, 20 cents per mile for medical or moving. Total drive time, including meal stop, 4.5 hours each way. Total expenses: $108 immediately, but depending on what you consider a true accounting for the car, either $295 or $151. Plus, I have to do the work of driving, though everyone else is pretty comfortable for the ride.
Scenario Two: We fly. Timewise, it's a 40-minute drive to Detroit Metro. You have to arrive at least 1 hour early for security, baggage check and seat assignment, maybe 2, plus an extra 20 minutes to park the van in long-term and ride the shuttle up to the terminal. Flight time is 1 hour, 20 minutes each way. Our relatives meet us at Midway, and its another 40 minutes up to the north side if the traffic is light (a big assumption, if you know Chicago at all). Total cost for the cheapest 3 adult (the 15-year-old pays full price) and 1 child fare, $541, plus $24 for four days long-term parking, for $568. Time spent: call it 4 hours each way, assuming no delays, and being generous with the wait times. The meal is a bag of nuts and a drink, legroom is poor, and you usually can't get out of your seat -- and why would you? But, someone else does the "driving."
Scenario Three: We take the Wolverine on Amtrak. It's a 10-minute drive to the train station in Ann Arbor. We park for free in the Amtrak lot, and we can see our vehicle from the platform. No security (you get to keep your shoes and belt on the whole time), and you can prepurchase your ticket online and print it out. Baggage check is optional. The ride is scheduled at 4.5 hours each way. Our relatives meet us at Union Station, which is downtown, a 15-minute drive to the north side. The 15-year-old rates the child fare, so total fare for 2 adults and 2 kids is $258. You can buy a meal on the train, $5 for a burger and a Coke, but there are lots of options and the quality, in my experience, was at least as good as fast food, and usually better. So add, maybe $30 each way for the four of us (Total: $318). Total time spent is about 5 hours each way. The seats are big, legroom huge, you can slide the backs to face each other. You can get up and go to the Cafe car, where there are tables to eat, socialize, play cards, plug in your laptop, or just watch the scenery roll by.
I offer this comparison with the assumption of a best-case scenario, meaning no delays. My caveat here is that, while driving yourself, you can always get caught in a traffic jam, and flying, you can always get volume delays, bad weather, security snafus or get stuck in traffic driving to or from the airport. On the train, it's been my experience that delays are MUCH more likely, and are generally VERY long.
IMHO, this unreliability is why train travel remains uncompetitive, since, as my examples above show, cost-wise and time-wise, depending on where you travel, train travel is indeed competitive with driving and flying, even in the current environment of grudging government subsidies and inferior technology.
Consider:
I believe if three things were done, passenger rail would be a 100% viable travel alternative in many markets:
1) Serious investment in high-speed rail technology, which we have not done (Acella, while a step in the right direction, does NOT cut it as a world-class high-speed rail option), would only improve the time-factor for passenger rail travel.
2) As Ezra points out, increased federal and/or state/local subsidies for passenger rail, money that could be invested in serious marketing campaigns (like, say, the ones the airlines have), service improvements, and more frequent and convenient runs.
3) Reduced conflict with freight lines. This is a biggie -- not well publicized nor understood, even by me. As I understand it, freight trains have right of way ahead of passenger trains, and where they share track, you could sit in the station or on a siding waiting for freight traffic to clear. I've been told this is the greatest source of delays and unreliability. This would require either a legislative or corporate policy solution, or building dedicated passenger trackage. Again, money could go a long way to solving this problem, but some hard decision-making would be needed too, with no guarantees of success.
Posted by: Rick | Nov 1, 2007 11:32:35 AM
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 11:17:59 AM
And, indeed, if we subsidized interstate passenger railway infrastructure like we subsidize interstate road and air transport infrastructure, then it would be entirely reasonable for states to get together to establish consortiums to operate passenger rail service for the economic benefits that they would provide.Well, the State of Illinois (with some help from Missouri IIRC) is doing exactly that. That's not a good basis for a national policy though.
Why ever not? Given the combined national security problems and challenges to economic competitiveness from our dependence on imported fuel, and the massive free ride that we give to motor-road transport, a level playing field for funding rail infrastructure is a very modest proposal ... and yet, due to the technical efficiencies of rail transport, even that modest position would be sufficient to start an immediate boom in passenger rail for interurban transport between cities up to 300 miles apart.
And at the same time, the same "Express" grade rail corridors could be used for high speed freight rail - it is not, after all, the mixing of passenger and freight rail that causes trouble, but the mixing of low speed, medium speed, and express speed rail that causes problems.
And when the gross inadequacies of the heavily politicized national rail operator is taken into account, it would seem sensible for Amtrak to continue playing its role as emergency backstop, and for the actual expansion in passenger rail services to be pursued on a more decentralized basis.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 1, 2007 11:36:20 AM
rick...
excellent post.
Posted by: jacqueline | Nov 1, 2007 11:39:21 AM
> IMHO, this unreliability is why train travel remains
> uncompetitive, since, as my examples above show,
> cost-wise and time-wise, depending on where you travel,
> train travel is indeed competitive with driving and
> flying, even in the current environment of grudging
> government subsidies and inferior technology.
(I will assume here when you say "north side" you mean the north side of the city or the very-inner-ring suburbs such as Evanston).
The problem is - what happens when you arrive? We are now a nation of suburbanites not city dwellers. At your relatives' house you can take the El or even the bus to wherever you need to go in Chicago and have fun doing it - but that isn't the case in most of the country. Or you can borrow your relatives' car - but again that isn't a choice for most business and vacation travel. So you are now in downtown Kansas City with a bunch of appointments on the Kansas side and needing to be at your aunt's on the Missouri side for dinner - what do you do?
Cranky
PS I would vastly prefer the train in the situation you describe myself.
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 11:40:46 AM
Posted by: Rick | Nov 1, 2007 11:32:35 AM
Simply put, I don't know of a single rail travel system on the planet that operates successfully -- whether measured financially or by customer satisfaction -- without government subsidy.
... and to stress the main point ... neither arer there successful road or air transport systems that operate successfully, whether measured financially or by customer satisfaction, without government subsidy.
Of course, many of the government subsidies for our motor-road transport system are dispersed ... policing, public zoning mandates to provide set ratios of parking places per square foot, and a range of other financial costs of the system, in addition to non-financial external costs like pollution and exposure to foreign security risks from dependency on imported crude oil.
But spreading the costs of the system around do not, in fact, eliminate those costs, and the fact that I pay those costs even if I cycle commute to work means that drivers are not faced with the true cost-differential that is implied by their decision to drive.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 1, 2007 11:42:15 AM
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Nov 1, 2007 10:24:35 AM
An investment that enabled Amtrak to market the cross-country routes in the right sort of way, not just to tourists but to domestic users, makes a lot of sense. Give the trains sleeper cabins and proper dining cars, arrange stops that provide guided tours in historic locations or on-off fares where you can take a few days out and pick up where you left off, provide a rolling audio track so that you can plug in headphones and be told what you're seeing out of the window.
The reality, though, is that most of the transport provided on the cross-country routes are connections between stations within six hours of each other ... and the experience overseas is that it is two hour train journeys where trains can take over the majority of the market currently held by air, and with up to three hour train journeys where they can take over two fifths of the market.
However, because stopping at a station causes much less of an interruption to a train route than landing at an airport does for a plane route, the well designed train route will string together a number of these city pairs, with matching routes running in the opposite direction, rather than separate trains shuttling back and forth. And, yes, that creates an additional market for those looking on a train ride as a "cruise on land" ... and that is certainly a market that should be tapped, given the freedom to extend a train by a couple of sleeper cars if there is a market for it ... but that is an incremental market on top of the core market for interurban travel.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 1, 2007 11:49:01 AM
"Simply put, I don't know of a single rail travel system on the planet that operates successfully -- whether measured financially or by customer satisfaction -- without government subsidy."
We have several privately owned railroad companies in Germany now, operating on Deutsche Bundesbahn tracks they have to pay leasing rates for! I don't think they would frlourish if there wasn't any profit in this business.
Posted by: Gray | Nov 1, 2007 11:52:56 AM
> And, yes, that creates an additional market for
> those looking on a train ride as a "cruise on land"
Between RailCruise America and Amtrak itself (and the two Canadian equivalents whose names escape me at the moment) it is generally believed in the industry that that market is pretty well filled up. More-and-better supply might increase the market by 10-20%, but that isn't much.
Also, the Union Pacific in particular has been very aggressive about tearing up the connector tracks that allow the best "railcruises" - they tore up the key Denver-Seattle link (in Boise) one day when Amtrack left that route unscheduled for *24 hours* due to a publishing snafu.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 11:54:02 AM
One of the main reasons the long-distance runs still survive is that communities who lost bus service now have only Amtrak, and their representatives in Congress can get pretty fierce about it.
Amtrak was created to relieve the railroads of their obligations to provide passenger service- obligations that were incurred when the railroads used the right of eminent domain to obtain their right-of-ways, supported at the time by the public, in the public interest.
Amtrak also assumed the pension obligations (and labor contract seniority obligations) of the railroads, and these pension obligations have in fact formed the bulk of Amtrak financial shortfalls ever since.
In Seattle, the Port is building a third runway for Seatac. A full half of the traffic using this airport is local commuter flights that would be quicker journeys using city center-to-city center rail.
As for "rail cruising", anyone who fails to take advantage of the sleeper car service is missing a great deal. Compare the cost of a sleeper accomodation with the cost of a hotel and you'll see what I mean.
At the bottom line,this turns into a comment on the wimpiness of Democratic contenders. The Bushies made no secret of their intention to kill Amtrak, and a fightin' Dem would forthrightly assert an intention to rebuild Amtrak as one strategy to deal with $90 barrels of oil.
Because- who knew?- just stealing/i> the oil hasn't worked.
Posted by: serial catowner | Nov 1, 2007 12:17:23 PM
Right, Gray. I'm aware of the German lines. Other countries have similar arrangements. Point is, who are those leasing rates paid to? Who built the tracks and terminals? Do the leasing rates cover operational costs of maintenance and cap-ex 1-for-1, or does government take up some of the slack? The answer to these proves my original point.
And I love the German rail system, BTW.
Posted by: Rick | Nov 1, 2007 12:20:22 PM
Isn't the European rail model for the government to own, manage, and upkeep the infrastructure (i.e., rails) while the trains are run by public, private, or public / private partnership companies?
And in the U.S. we have the infrastructure owned, upkept, and charged by private companies, and the public transportation rail by a public company?
Isn't that a much less efficient setup?
Posted by: El Cid | Nov 1, 2007 12:24:54 PM
Ooops!
Cranky, hard to believe the market is filled, for two reasons:
Very hard to get sleeper reservations without scheduling several months in the future.
Second, a train ride with older people who did not appreciate several elementary school classes also riding the train emphasized to me that people of modest means who are retired really enjoy the Amtrak mode of travel.
Most of the Amtrak locos could easily pull ten more cars, so adding fleet until you were only booking at 90% capacity would make sense. For example, most hospitals turn a tidy profit with about 60% occupancy, so you should be able to make money with 90% occupancy of a sleeping car.
Posted by: serial catowner | Nov 1, 2007 12:28:11 PM
It would be wonderful to have truly high-speed rail travel in the high-density corridors in this country, but the two best examples (Japanese Shinkansen and French TGV) travel on purpose-built tracks that eliminate as many curves as possible and allow travel unimpeded by freight or commuters, and this is the key to running trains at 150+ with no delays. Even if Congress was willing to appropriate the money for the BOS-NYC-WAS corridor, I believe the effort would be held up for years by affluent NIMBY's in the Boston suburbs, Fairfield and Westchester Counties, Princeton, and the DC suburbs.
As far as freight goes, the freight railroads have to reduce the bottlenecks that increase run times and reduce reliability (and they've been investing in double tracks and signals to do this in recent years). As I see it, the biggest problem with rail freight that keeps them from competing for high-value shipments is their inability (under most circumstances) to guarantee delivery at a particular time without giving themselves a window of a couple of days around the most likely time. For most production or store-stocking processes, this just doesn't cut it.
Posted by: Don K | Nov 1, 2007 12:38:56 PM
> Even if Congress was willing to appropriate
> the money for the BOS-NYC-WAS corridor,
That's the one area where Amtrak does own most of its track, and most of it is certified for 125 mph. Of course the experience with getting Acela running hasn't been so great... To bad none of those old NYC or PRR guys are still around.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 12:41:30 PM
Open tags make me cry.
Posted by: Tyro | Nov 1, 2007 12:43:42 PM
Well, I tried to close the italics. Try, try again.
Regarding regional rail, in BC-Washington-Oregon we have The Cascade, a regional rail project from Vancouver BC to south of Portland, Oregon. One reason this can make sense is that the province and two states are generally more liberal and progressive than their nations as a whole.
It also makes sense because of the linkage of cities within a distance that is economically and temporally viable for rail travel. Business travellers can get value from a fast train from Seattle to Portland that they just can't get from a fast train from Seattle to Chicago.
"Fortunately", rising oil prices and AGW will force us to rethink some of the voodoo economics that built the freeways and airports. !
Posted by: serial catowner | Nov 1, 2007 12:48:39 PM
One thing to notice here is that the so-called conservatives don't really want to conserve anything at all. What they want to do is tear up all the old agreements and start over again on a playing field they built.
150 freight railroads that actually did compete with one another, after the public enacted laws forcing them to do so, have been reduced to about ten freight monopolies that tell the shipper what can be sent, rather than asking the market what traffic is available.
In the Amtrak arena the "conservative" agenda is a senseless frenzy of destruction, a now reflexive urge by rightwingers to destroy any alternative to the private automobile.
There is nothing "conservative" about efforts to tear up the agreements of the past and prevent any national planning for transportation. In fact, at the bottom, considering our history, these efforts are profoundly unAmerican. Making a public investment in transportation work as national policy is one of the deepest roots of our nation.
Posted by: serial catowner | Nov 1, 2007 1:04:19 PM
Posted by: Cranky Observer | Nov 1, 2007 11:54:02 AM
Between RailCruise America and Amtrak itself (and the two Canadian equivalents whose names escape me at the moment) it is generally believed in the industry that that market is pretty well filled up. More-and-better supply might increase the market by 10-20%, but that isn't much.
And given the fact that its a marginal market rather than the core transport task, what difference does it make whether that market can be grown by 5% or 20% or 50% ... it is straightforward to grow the core inter-urban passenger rail business of trips between one and three hours by multiples of current ridership, if rail infrastructure was placed on a level playing field with interstate road and air transport infrastructure ...
... and if those services can attract some extra revenue by adding a sleeper car or two at the back, its all gain and no pain.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 1, 2007 1:41:06 PM
Posted by: Chris | Nov 1, 2007 11:28:42 AM
Why subsidise Amtrak travel when the high-quality/low-cost bus market is just starting to thrive?
Then why subsidize those buses? That is, why subsidized the buses and the cars and the planes but not the trains?
Note that comparing Amtrak to "high quality buses" is a bit of apples and oranges. Amtrak should be compared to ordinary low quality interstate buses, and "high quality buses" should be compared to the rail services that could be provided on Express high speed rail (that is, 110mph) infrastructure.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 1, 2007 1:47:56 PM
Posted by: Rick | Nov 1, 2007 11:32:35 AM
3) Reduced conflict with freight lines. This is a biggie -- not well publicized nor understood, even by me. As I understand it, freight trains have right of way ahead of passenger trains, and where they share track, you could sit in the station or on a siding waiting for freight traffic to clear. I've been told this is the greatest source of delays and unreliability.
The passenger service has formal priority right now. However, one big part of focusing on low speed bulk commodity freight over the past fifty years has been the abandonment of two-way tracks, replaced by one-way track with the occasional siding where a train that wants to go the other way can wait for its turn to use the track.
So a passenger train can have formal priority, but there simply is no clear path available in the direction it needs to go ... and, in some cases, if it goes through, it will hold up a passenger train going the opposite direction. An increase in the number of sidings to physically allow freight trains to give way would substantially reduce the delays in the Amtrak system ... but what we really need is grade separated track, with low and medium speed freight on one set of track, and high speed freight and passenger on a second set of tracks. This would allow substantial improvements in quality of passenger service and help get a large number of semi trucks off the road.
This is the core of the CSX proposal for improving the main rail corridor between DC and Florida.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 1, 2007 1:55:06 PM
WE DON'T subsidize the busses. That's my point from the beginning of the thread. The gas tax takes in MORE than is spent on roads.
Posted by: SamChevre | Nov 1, 2007 2:00:46 PM
The reality, though, is that most of the transport provided on the cross-country routes are connections between stations within six hours of each other ... and the experience overseas is that it is two hour train journeys where trains can take over the majority of the market currently held by air, and with up to three hour train journeys where they can take over two fifths of the market.
However, because stopping at a station causes much less of an interruption to a train route than landing at an airport does for a plane route, the well designed train route will string together a number of these city pairs, with matching routes running in the opposite direction, rather than separate trains shuttling back and forth. And, yes, that creates an additional market for those looking on a train ride as a "cruise on land" ... and that is certainly a market that should be tapped, given the freedom to extend a train by a couple of sleeper cars if there is a market for it ... but that is an incremental market on top of the core market for interurban travel.
This is BS. It is true that long-distance trains stop at lots of stations-- indeed, that is part of what makes them so slow. But the market for travel between those stations is tiny. For instance, while it is true that Amtrak's Coast Starlight offers a decent way of getting from Chico, CA to Klamath Falls, OR and back, which you can't really do by bus or plane, the problem is, how many people are really traveling that route? Or any of the other routes from minor station to minor station, a few hours apart?
The reason the Coast Starlight is full of passengers is because of train nuts and idiots who think that planes are unsafe because they are up in the air. I don't particularly see the argument for subsidizing those folks-- and the subsidy is apparently enormous.
We do need high-speed rail. We need rail connections between cities that are less than 8 hours apart, because when you factor in waiting time and hassle at the airport and the time needed to get to and from there, that is when rail travel is competitive. We certainly need to reduce conflicts with freight lines-- indeed, one of the reasons that nobody ever takes the Coast Starlight from LA to Seattle when the trip has any importance is because it is always late due to freight conflicts.
But the cross-country and long-distance lines, if they can't survive without a subsidy, need to go away. If there are people in small towns who are left without transportation options, we can subsidize some bus lines at a far lower cost.
Posted by: Dilan Esper | Nov 1, 2007 2:47:44 PM
Bruce McF:
The federal subsidies paid for roads are paid by federal GAS TAXES which are paid by people USING THE ROADS. That is NOT A SUBSIDY anymore than taxing amtrack tickets $100 and spending that money on rail improvements would be a "subsidy".
Add in state gas taxes, auto property taxes and auto sales taxes and there is very little if any subsidy for roads; in fact, from all those sources the governments as a whole likely collect more revenue than they pay out.
And yes, capital letters do make things more true.
Posted by: Scott | Nov 1, 2007 2:50:44 PM
What Dilan Esper said.
Scott: we don't build highways as a reward for people who pay gasoline taxes. We build highways to get people from one part of the country to another. And using gasoline taxes to encourage passenger rail would be of great benefit to drivers who pay their gas taxes because they would arrive at their destinations faster since there would be less traffic. The point of public transportation infrastructure is to transport. Right now, we subsidize -- yes, subsidize -- highways because we favor them over other forms of transport with the revenues we get.
Posted by: Tyro | Nov 1, 2007 3:05:46 PM
given the fact that its a marginal market rather than the core transport task, what difference does it make whether that market can be grown by 5% or 20% or 50%
But it also re-establishes a degree of pride in the railway system, which has a certain value in re-acquainting people with the concept of rail travel, which is the Australian precedent.
The problem, which I recognise, is that it ties into the 'romance of the slow-rollin' rails', as opposed to 'trains: get you there fast without having to remove your shoes'. In which case, the appropriate forward-looking gesture is to sort the eff out of the northeast corridor first.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Nov 1, 2007 3:32:56 PM
> Railroads were built more by private
> concerns as I recall.
You might try looking up "land grants", "eminent domain", and "Indian wars".
And while you're at it, "Credit Mobilier".
(Just in case you thought Republican scandals were a modern innovation.)
Posted by: Thlayli | Nov 1, 2007 4:33:08 PM
It's still absurd that the government runs the trains and the private sector maintains the tracks. The incentives are completely out out of whack -- our government is reasonably good at maintaining infrastructure and not good at running businesses which compete with other options. Meanwhile, our businesses are reasonably good at running themselves and lousy at maintaining infrastructure. That's the real problem; instead of shoveling money at Amtrak, we should be buying up the rail lines and putting money into maintaining them.
Posted by: Kimmitt | Nov 1, 2007 5:41:15 PM
"Point is, who are those leasing rates paid to? Who built the tracks and terminals? Do the leasing rates cover operational costs of maintenance and cap-ex 1-for-1, or does government take up some of the slack?"
As I said, the leases go to Deutsche Bundesbahn, the national railroad. Tey build the tracks and infrastructure, too. Afaik, they recently put this whole business into an own division in order to get a clearer picture of the real costs. I haven't found detailed info on the lease business, so I don't know if the privates really pay market prices. However, the privates don't operate the high speed 'Intercity' connections, but slower Express lines for commuters, and those are subsidized by the states (under contractual conditions, no or lousy service = no money). Germany is mostly high density area, so putting money into the railway system instead of coping with constant congestions of the highways makes sense - its very difficult and expensive to built new highways in densely populated areas, of course. Sadly, the same is true for new railroad right-of-ways, and so some of the railroads couldn't be updated to straight-line high speed standards. The French with their large rural areas have an advantage in this regard.
Posted by: Gray | Nov 1, 2007 7:17:49 PM
I have to say, Amtrak should be put out of its misery. If it cannot earn the revenue necessary to support its own operations, then the government should not step in to help it. Slow-moving, long-distance train travel has seen its day pass, and our transportation dollars would be better spent elsewhere. Perhaps by killing off Amtrak, we can invest in high-speed bullet trains for popular routes instead. In any event, we have higher transportation priorities than slow-speed rail.
Posted by: The_Question | Nov 1, 2007 9:05:14 PM
This thread has seen repeated claims that highway user fees bring in more money than is actually spent on highways. Can anyone point to an actual source for this information? I tried "EIA quickfacts", which didn't lead me to info about taxes or expenditures.
The info that I did find is here:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11568&page=28
It indicates that in FY 2004, outlays for highways totaled $128 billion. In that same year, user fees totaled $100 billion. Both figures are in 2001 dollars, and "user fees" includes fuel tax revenue, tolls and "other user taxes and fees."
In addition to the $28 billion annual subsidy, the outlays also seem to ignore the cost of local roads. Presumably not every cul-de-sac is built with highway money.
Anyway, for those in the "roads aren't subsidized" camp, I'd like to see some actual numbers rather than all caps assertions.
Posted by: Danathan | Nov 1, 2007 10:08:33 PM
"I have to say, Amtrak should be put out of its misery. If it cannot earn the revenue necessary to support its own operations, then the government should not step in to help it."
Well, getting rid of the most energy efficient means of transport sure isn't the right way to cope with rising energy prices, highway and airway congestion and global warming. The very idea sounds totally idiotic to me.
|-(
Posted by: Gray | Nov 2, 2007 8:41:54 AM
Train transportation should be increased a lot to make sense.
I am visiting Germany now for an extended period. Many big airports, notably Frankfurt, the main hub, have train stations. Some of these trains are bullet trans. In main directions, you have a train every hour, so as soon as you get your luggage you just head to the station and take the first train.
A little comparison: Newark airport is blessed with Amtrak station and it would make a lot of sense to get there by train, rather than by changing planes or driving. So what does Amtrak do? Only few trains stop there. On the way to Europe, I can go to train station in Harrisburg and take Keystone Limited that runs every two hours or so, but on the way back, you often do not have any train available. And to central PA a train goes once or twice a day, so it is very rare that it can make a good connection.
One could make some kind of well-connected system: buses to Harrisburg where bus station and Amtrak are together, and trains to airports in Philadelphia and Newark, to eschew dangerous and expensive small planes. Baltimore-Washington also has an Amtrak station. But the different part of the possible system are anything but seemless.
A seemless system would offer train connection to airports with on-board security check. You start in, say, Greenich CT, South Bend IN or Harrisburgh PA and you are delivered to airport monorail stop in after-security area. Such a system would be attractive around all big airports in the country, saving time, traffic jams, energy-inefficient and often-cancelled small plane rides etc.
This is one example how trains could fit into heavily used and not soon-substituted system of air travel in a way that would help both. Airport connections could boost traffic to levels justifying investments. Big airports would have smaller traffic congestion and fewer flights (right now, time slots for starting and landing are a problem). With right organization, like on-train security checks, travelers would save a lot of time, and perchance, some money.
Investments in train capacity are not cheap, but if they decrease the need for investments in airport capacity and highway capacity, they may be competitive.
Posted by: piotr | Nov 3, 2007 1:46:45 PM
Posted by: Danathan | Nov 1, 2007 10:08:33 PM
It indicates that in FY 2004, outlays for highways totaled $128 billion. In that same year, user fees totaled $100 billion. Both figures are in 2001 dollars, and "user fees" includes fuel tax revenue, tolls and "other user taxes and fees."In addition to the $28 billion annual subsidy, the outlays also seem to ignore the cost of local roads. Presumably not every cul-de-sac is built with highway money.
Anyway, for those in the "roads aren't subsidized" camp, I'd like to see some actual numbers rather than all caps assertions.
And in addition to the federal highway subsidy, this ignores all other public spending and externalized costs of road transport.
Example: a zoning regulation requires a certain number of parking spaces per square foot. That goes into the expenses of employers ... with a tax subsidy that is not available to spending in support of spending to support transport needs of non-motorists ... it goes into the lease costs of stores at shopping malls. Everyone pays that alike, whether or not they drive. That removes paying for the of parking from the decision made by the majority of Americans whether or not to drive somewhere.
Further, on street parking in towns and cities and public parking lots are not funded by gas taxes ... they are funded out of general revenue.
Example: car transport creates more emergency room visits per passenger mile than buses or trains, and of course some of those visits are unfunded and unpaid, which is a cost that is shifted through the health system.
Example: car transport creates pollution, which creates real health and other costs, which are not paid for out of the highway fund ... as noted, the highway fund does not even cover the costs of highway construction.
Example: zoning, including both parking and street set-backs, in support of car transport increases the distance between retail shopping sites, increasing the cost per square foot of retail floor space of servicing those sites by bus or rail transport.
Example: public subsidies for sprawl in the form of funding for infrastructure in support of greenfield support infrastructure and constant-cost hook-up fees that cross-subsidize more expensive (per enclosed square foot) sprawl development at the expense of less expensive (per enclosed square foot) clustered concentrated development.
Example: every individual taking public transport in preference to driving, which mostly applies to rail, since fewer people take the bus who have the option to drive, reduces traffic congestion, which is a benefit to the road motor system that is funded by spending on public transport.
So we have a double lie ... first, that user fees cover highway construction and maintenance expenses, and second, that if user fees in fact did cover highway maintenance, there would be no subsidy.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Nov 3, 2007 3:11:09 PM
What Bruce McF said... &
Gas tax subsidies are going to subside, per mile traveled, as gas prices rise, and people get over their infatuation with operating their "private-sector fighting vehicle" (getting 16 mpg) and go to "high-tech lala-mobile" that gets 35mpg. Ideally, when 300+ mile-per-charge electrics are available, gas taxes become even less signifigant a highway funding source... ^..^
Posted by: herbert browne | Nov 6, 2007 1:09:57 AM
Point of information... while the Congress appropriates billions for the FAA each year, you have to remember that the taxes on air travel also bring IN billions a year.
That's just the taxes on the airfares, not to mention the airfares themselves, when you're talking revenue.
Amtrak, on the other hand, isn't even close when you compare what it brings in for revenues compared with aviation.
This doesn't mean rail isn't a good option; in fact, rail is an excellent option for much of the shorter-haul routes that people try to fly on right now.
But for anything over ~200 to 300 miles or so, rail just can't hold a candle when it comes to aviation. Carbon offset trading schemes and the cost of oil might change that, but for now, suggesting we invest in rail for the longer routes is just not realistic, IMO.
Posted by: Paul | Nov 6, 2007 10:27:35 PM
