Posted on 10/22/2005 5:00:58 PM PDT by Publius
It is time to “TTX” Amtrak – to sell Amtrak back to the freight railroads much as TTX is owned by the major carriers using its pooled freight cars.
The manner in which Amtrak has been financed and operated since its creation in 1970 is no way to run a railroad. Amtrak's annual trek to Capitol Hill and ensuing begging mission – habitually impeded by conservatives anxious to kill it – begets barely sufficient funds to achieve mediocrity and discourages the best and brightest from seeking employment.
Alas, the electorate won't permit Amtrak to die; conservatives won't permit Amtrak to prosper.
The Bush administration proposes dismantling Amtrak and permitting forced access to freight rail tracks by perhaps a dozen “who-knows-whom” entities. This is neither an efficient nor safe solution to the reality that rail passenger service is here to stay. Instead, let's integrate rail freight and passenger service by transferring ownership and control back to the freight railroads.
But wasn't it the freight railroads that unloaded passenger rail service because it was such a drag on already perpetual revenue inadequacy? Yes, but that was a different era. What has changed is that Congress now permits rail passenger service to be operated more like a business and provides (albeit insufficient) subsidies. And privately owned freight railroads no longer reject accepting subsidies as they did 35 years ago. As Association of American Railroads President Ed Hamberger wrote recently, “Public/ private partnerships create better value for taxpayers and provide public benefits that otherwise would not be obtained.”
At Railway Age's 2004 Passenger Trains on Freight Railroads conference, Norfolk Southern Chairman David Goode said, “Five years ago, I was 'Dr. No,' but today I know it makes business sense (for passenger trains to run on freight railroad tracks). Will passenger trains be run by Norfolk Southern? That's a stretch, but even to mention it shows a big leap in the thinking.”
Goode stresses that “certain rock-hard commitments are essential. For example, no reduction in capacity for freight rail, fair value for use of the tracks, and liability protection, to name a few.” Hamberger similarly says, “Public/private partnerships must be voluntary on both sides – for government, to protect the public interest; and for railroads, to protect the interest of their employees, shareholders, and service to their customers.”
Interest-based bargaining, whereby the feds, states, localities, and freight railroads each work to satisfy the other's needs, can accomplish the task. Provisionally, government might have a say in passenger routes, but eventually they would be determined by the marketplace.
Here are the gains produced by TTXing Amtrak:
As former TTX President Ray Burton said, “Railroading is a complex business.” Indeed, it should be left to those who do it best-and that includes operating the nation's intercity rail passenger network, whose time has come again.
Frank N. Wilner, an economist, is author of The Amtrak Story and three other books on railroad economics and labor, and is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Law, Logistics & Policy. A former AAR public affairs officer and a chief of staff at the Surface Transportation Board, he is now public relations director for the UTU. The views expressed are his entirely.
There has been little progress in this area, and the bills introduced in Congress, such as Lott-Lautenberg, don’t go nearly far enough in terms of innovation. Everybody in Congress appears to be thinking inside his own little box.
A month ago I attended a conference on private sector initiatives for Amtrak’s long distance trains at the Sam Rayburn House Building in DC where I made a presentation for a privatization experiment on one train. While my presentation went over like lead balloon, I learned enough from the other presenters to fix up the concept to give it greater viability.
The UTU is certainly trying to preserve the jobs of its members, but it’s unusual to see creative thinking coming from a union. They understand that it’s five minutes before midnight for Amtrak.
Ping.
That's basically what's happening. The UAW offered concessions to GM; once GM was about 1 quarter from bankruptcy.
The UTU is at least smart enough to understand that they can't be paid if there is no demand for their service.
I would love to see the passenger/commuter train come back to rural Missouri. Our rural parts have suffered greatly since people have to commute to gainful employment to pay their taxes and mortgages in order to raise their kids in decent areas.
If they would just come up with a fuel-efficient engine and maybe municipalities each buy a passenger car. Keep the costs down to regular riders and keep our own auto insurance down.
I always said that Missouri would rue the day they tore up the train tracks to build an enviro wacko bike trail.
The trail is nice but generates very little revenue and costs a fortune to maintain.
I thought that Amtrak would never have been necessary if the freight railroads wanted anything to do with passengers anymore, and feel that passenger trains on their lines just get in the way of their freights. Am I wrong here? Let me know...
I'm old enough to remember all the feather bedding that the UNIONS demanded from the railroads. That does not excuse the Companies from ruining a great way to see the country. My wife and I have taken the trans Canada trip and it was superb. The US railroads never kept up the track good enough for high speed rail service they put all the prfits in their pockets instead, and then whined for subsidies.
There is a way today to make a profit on passenger rail, but that will require subidies from those entities who want and need that rail service. (There is a paradigm for minimizing those subsidies, but a lot of that stuff is proprietary, so I have to careful what I post.)
The Class I's, by the way, have no problem running corridor service passenger rail if they are paid for it, and BNSF actually uses Amtrak as a profit center. So there is hope.
Why would a sound business model need subsidies?
Nonetheless, I've got to ask: Aside from the NE corridor, what market is there for long-haul passenger service?
Why is there any need at all to keep Amtrak operating, in any form?
Passenger trains have different requirements from freight. While there are times when it may make sense to share a line between passenger and freight service, such arrangements are often problematic.
Unless a freight line happens to go somewhere that a direct road doesn't, or unless a particular route has a very high demand, a bus service is apt to provide better efficiency than a train service using freight rails. A passenger train on a dedicated passenger right-of-way may provide better service (which may or may not be worth the cost), but passenger service on shared rights-of-way is often not very good.
One thing that would be neat if it could be done efficiently and practically (though it probably never will be) would be if cars could be *quickly* loaded onto train cars (or even trucks) which could take the cars near their final destination. Given that a train or even truck carrying a bunch of cars uses much less fuel than would those cars individually, this could lead to increased efficiency. Unfortunately, I don't see much way to avoid having the time and expense of loading/unloading/operating these vehicles exceed the cost of simply driving. The only way I can see that something like this might be useful would be if a bunch of people pooled in for a private scheduled service, and the transporting vehicle included a passenger compartment where people could work during their trip. Of course, people who could afford that could probably just as well afford to simply rent a limo.
Not exactly true. The freight railroads were unwilling to accept subsidies because that would give government the opportunity to force them to accept Open Access, which would permit any railroad to operate on the tracks of any other railroad. This year the Norfolk Southern became the first railroad to openly accept federal money to crown-mine some tunnels so that they can run double-stack container trains through them.
Wall Street, whose time horizons never exceed the next five quarters, has been adamant on the railroads not spending too much money restoring the phyiscal plant they tore out in the Sixties. When Bob Krebs of BNSF tried to spend a lot of money on capital expenditures to increase his railroad's capacity, Wall Street forced him out. What Wall Street would like is for the railroads to just go away and have that freight hauled by truck on our heavily subsidized highway system.
Actually, I thought there were some passenger rail companies that were profitable. The tickets are very expensive, but the quality of service is unparalleled by any other non-oceanic mode of travel. The idea is that rather than paring service to the point that people will use the train as a means of getting from point A to point B, the companies enhance the service so that people enjoy the trip itself, rather than the fact that they eventually get to their destination.
Gil Carmichael, FRA head during the Elder Bush administration, came up with a design where passenger cars could also haul standard airline containers. He once said that it might be the destiny of UPS or FedEx to run America's passenger trains to thus also haul their cargo. (I'm getting into propriety territory here, so I need to stop.)
You are entirely correct, IMHO.
This article assumes that the Class I's want a passenger service back.
Don't think so.
Ummm....roll the tape back to replay the 1940 - 1970's era and watch what the Class 1's did - jettison the passenger trains.
Why, you ask?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
NOT PROFITABLE.
So the government forces the Class 1's to let Amtrak use their right of way. Now that makes sense, doesn't it?
Regional and rural rail transportation would be nice, but then reality butts in with that $$$ thing again.
Instead, let's integrate rail freight and passenger service by transferring ownership and control back to the freight railroads.
I think you need to ask the Class 1's if they even want it. My guess would be "no friggin' way".
What has changed is that Congress now permits rail passenger service to be operated more like a business and provides (albeit insufficient) subsidies.
Did someone say "free enterprise" or "supply and demand" -?
There are only a few markets where light rail passenger service could sustain itself - Lower Mexico Cali and the NE corridor.
This author is wishing for the "glory days" of passenger trains - "Build it and they will come!"
Right.
LVM
Because there are people like me who do not fly. Also some people like to take the time and enjoy the country and be able to streatch out and move around. Although our last trip back home from Sacramento was awful as there were so many freight trains that the Amtrak had to keep pulling of to the side rail. We were supposed to go to Portland and make our connection there to the Tri-Cities, but we were behind time about 2 hours and so they unloaded us at Klamath Falls, Oregon and bussed us on the rest of the way to the Tri-Cities.
Trains stop at small towns not hooked up for reasonable air service, and they do it more efficiently fuel-wise than buses or private autos. Try getting into and out of places like Shelby, Montana in any mode of public transportation other than rail and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Why anyone in their right mind would want to buy Amtrak?
"Amtrak represents just .007 percent of all daily commuter work trips and just 0.4 percent of all passengers making intercity trips.
Amtrak's typical riders are not low-income Americans. Only 13 percent have incomes below $20,000.
Amtrak has virtually no impact on reducing traffic congestion, pollution, or energy use. Even a doubling of train ridership would reduce energy consumption and traffic congestion by less than 0.1 percent.
Amtrak is by far the most highly subsidized form of intercity transportation. The average taxpayer subsidy per Amtrak rider is $100, or 40 percent of the total per-passenger cost. On some of the long-distance routes, such as New York to Los Angeles, the taxpayer subsidy per passenger exceeds $1,000. It would be cheaper for taxpayers to close down expensive lines and purchase discount round-trip airfare for all the Amtrak riders."
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-266.html
For high-volume high-consolidation routes, trains can be more fuel-efficient than buses. But that only happens if a train replaces several buses. If there are enough people wanting to travel at the same time to fill up three buses, a train might make sense. If there are enough people who want to travel throughout each day to fill up three buses, using four buses spaced throughout the day will probably result in better service than one train.
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