America Doesn't Need Amtrak: It s a northeast thing.

National Review Online ^ | June 26, 2002 | Patrick Ruffini

[xsysmgr]

As a frequent rail customer who depends on Amtrak, I am outraged.

And if I had a congressman or senator who would listen, I'd tell them to act in the best interests of Amtrak customers and taxpayers — and shut the railroad down before writing it yet another blank check.

Listen to any zealous Amtrak partisan, and they will tell you that the company, burdened by a lack of adequate federal support and careening towards bankruptcy, stands at Armageddon. That's a fitting place for it because, in its present form, Amtrak needs to perish.

The problem begins and ends on Capitol Hill. Amtrak and Congress have long maintained a mutually exploitative relationship. The train operator commenced highly unprofitable train service to the home states of key committee chairmen and board members; it got munificent subsidies in return. Amtrak never needed a business plan to achieve anything even closely resembling profitability. The railroad was being kept alive by a political protection racket.

However odious these abuses, we shouldn't think of Amtrak as a straightforward example of good intentions gone horribly awry. Amtrak's problems stem from its very origins, when it was conceived as a national rail network servicing every corner of the continental United States. This has always been an impractical goal that ignores fundamental realities about geography and the American economy.

A salient distinction is often made between Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service, which is (just barely) profitable, and its national long-distance services, the source of its embarrassing losses. Indeed, there are very good reasons why Amtrak succeeds in the Northeast and fails everywhere else. Trains are economically viable only over short distances in densely populated regions. Currently, Amtrak has a fee structure in the Northeast that is competitive with that of the airlines. A roundtrip Metroliner ticket from Washington, D.C. to Penn Station in New York will run you $256. A typical midweek flight from Reagan National Airport to LaGuardia costs $206. Factoring in cab rides to and from the airport, along with the time needed to go through security, and taking the train almost makes sense. The economics of the Northeast Corridor are such that trains actually command more market-share than airline shuttles from New York to Washington.

This is a remarkable and anomalous achievement in a country that has voted with its feet against train travel, taking 660 million trips in airplanes to 22.5 million trips on Amtrak. In the lightly populated five-sixths of the nation that live outside the Boston-Washington corridor, long distances, cheap gasoline, and deregulated airlines conspire to make train travel irrelevant. Traveling from Chicago to San Antonio by Amtrak, your 3:30 p.m. train would get you to your destination by 11:45 p.m. — the next day. Given this delay, Amtrak must charge less for a seat than an airline would, and it does ($260 vs. $337) — but Amtrak's operating cost for its long-haul Texas Eagle train is triple its break-even level — with $2.37 in net losses for every $1 in revenue. When Amtrak proposed cutting the line, which served just 148,578 passengers in fiscal year 2001, Congress howled its disapproval and refused.

Even now, Amtrak's apologists in Congress stand against reform. A bill sponsored by Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D, S.C.), favorably reported out of the Commerce Committee on a 20-3 vote, would quadruple Amtrak's subsidy to $4.6 billion over the next five years, without forcing any fundamental changes. Hollings and Sen. Joe Biden (D, Del.) are trying to push this new Amtrak funding by conflating it with post-9/11 security concerns — hence Hollings's "National Defense Rail Act." In fact, only a fraction of the funds would be set aside for new security measures.

The legislation also provides "seed money" for the greatest boondoggle yet — high-speed rail, an initiative which would come with a total price tag of at least $100 billion according to the Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt. Here again, simple geography dooms the whole enterprise from start to finish. Our continent is too vast, our travel options too varied, for trains, even fast ones, ever to be viable. We should quit trying to impose the idiosyncratic travel patterns of the Northeastern U.S. and Europe on the entire country. America doesn't need an Amtrak.

Senators Hollings and Biden, along with their allies in the transport-workers unions, argue that subsidies should continue indefinitely, reasoning that no other railroad in the world is asked to operate at a profit. The train Biden rides to work every morning is proof to the contrary. Northeast Corridor service runs at a slight profit, and there's every reason to expect it can do even better. Airlines charging similar prices are expected to run comparable routes at a profit without operating subsidies, in the face of what one would think are much higher fuel and personnel costs. An Acela train can pack in four times as many passengers as a Boeing 737 — and doesn't require 52,000 lbs. of jet fuel.

It's an old Washington cliché that privatization and service cutbacks require "painful choices." But if Amtrak were wiped off the map in all but a few metropolises, it's doubtful most Americans would even notice. Overnight, Amtrak could be transformed into a profitable company, saving taxpayers $1.2 billion in annual subsidy payments. The only thing that's "painful" about Amtrak is keeping the white elephant of long-distance train travel in existence.

— Patrick Ruffini is a writer living in Washington, D.C.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

The sparsely populated states in the West don't need all those fancy roads.

West Virginia doesn't need any Navy facilities either!!

[anniegetyourgun]

The last person I heard equating "national security" with Amtrak was Sen. Clinton - yesterday. That's a laughable and uninformed position. Think.

[Huck]

Americans don't need hydroelectric power, and certainly don't need to send water from the Colorado River all the way the LA. It's a southwest thing.

[Raymond Hendrix]

We need an alternative to air transport. Many people do not want to fly now and there will likely be a market in the future for rail travel. It is foolish to shut it down now.

[Piquaboy]

Chuckie Schumer and Hillary ride these trains all the time. We should support them even if only for these two.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Trains are neat. But I don't want to cover your fair.

[tdadams]

I can't argue with anything in this article. Amtrak has always seemed very silly to me. The trains in Europe are great, but the geography is sufficiently different to where the trains are a good idea there. They're not a good idea in America.

That said, I think rail service in America's big cities would be a worthwhile investment. The metro rail in Washington D.C. is a model for easy and efficient metro rail service. And that's saying a lot for a city that can't make anything easy or efficient.

[Alberta's Child]

Airlines charging similar prices are expected to run comparable routes at a profit without operating subsidies, in the face of what one would think are much higher fuel and personnel costs.

When you compare the $200 million that Amtrak is seeking to the $20 billion bailout of the airline industry last year (which would have been needed regardless of 9/11, by the way), I'd say the airline industry is very heavily subsidized. And when you consider that the airline generally operates using "second-generation" hardware that was originally developed for military purposes, the amount of indirect subsidy grows even larger.

I think Amtrak needs to make a substantial amount of changes, in the same way that Conrail went through a period of major consolidation (hence the name, "Consolidated Rail Corporation") before it was sold off to CSX and Norfolk Southern in the last few years. Passenger rail actually has some great potential in this country, particularly when you consider how time-consuming and unbearable air travel has become.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Trains are economically viable only over short distances in densely populated regions."

BULL-BLEEP!! Now tell me about all those "light rail" systems in the major metro areas that cost BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars to put in, and run at a loss from day one--NEVER meeting the projections of ridership initially assumed and NEVER having the predicted impact on reducing traffic on metro roads.

Simply put--rail is good for carrying freight. Leave the passengers to airlines and road transit (including buses--which can ACTUALLY go wherever needed, not just where they happen to lay down track). A flexible system will ALWAYS outperform a rigid one, as the flexible system can adjust CHEAPLY AND EASILY to accomodate changed demand, which rail simply cannot do.

[redbaiter]

Fleecing the taxpayer year after year because 'we need rail service' is piling insult upon injury. Let the railroad compete for customers like everyone else.

[Wonder Warthog]

"We need an alternative to air transport. Many people do not want to fly now and there will likely be a market in the future for rail travel. It is foolish to shut it down now."

Take the bus! AFAIK, the national bus lines have ALWAYS been private companies, never having received ANY federal subsidization.

[Willie Green]

The legislation also provides "seed money" for the greatest boondoggle yet — high-speed rail, an initiative which would come with a total price tag of at least $100 billion according to the Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt. Here again, simple geography dooms the whole enterprise from start to finish. Our continent is too vast, our travel options too varied, for trains, even fast ones, ever to be viable.

Mr. Ruffini is apparrently unfamiliar with the Federal Railroad Administration's proposal for High-Speed Ground Transportation. This initiative abandons the antiquated, transcontinental railroad model for the more economicly sensible connection of regional cities in our nation's most densely populated areas.

And contrary to Mr. Ruffini's own East Coast myopic bias, the rest of the nation isn't some vast, unpopulated region that can't support modern, high-speed mass transportation.

What is High Speed Ground Transportation?

High-speed ground transportation (HSGT)-- a family of technologies ranging from upgraded existing railroads to magnetically levitated vehicles-- is a passenger transportation option that can best link cities lying about 100-500 miles apart. Common in Europe ( http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/home.htm) and Japan (http://www.japanrail.com),HSGT in the United States already exists in the Northeast Corridor (http://www.amtrak.com/news/pr/atk9936.html) between New York and Washington, D.C. and will soon serve travelers between New York and Boston. 

HSGT is self-guided intercity passenger ground transportation that is time competitive with air and/or auto on a door-to-door basis for trips in the approximate range of 100 to 500 miles. This is market-based, not a speed based definition. It recognizes that the opportunities and requirements for HSGT differ markedly among different pairs of cities. High-speed ground transportation (HSGT) is a family of technologies ranging from upgraded steel-wheel-on-rail railroads to magnetically levitated vehicles.

The Federal Railroad Administration has designated a variety of high density transportation corridors within our nation for development of HSGT:

.

For more information, please visit the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA’s) High Speed Ground Transportation Website

[gugen]

As a former regular Amtrak rider, I support keeping it around. I could've taken a bus for much cheaper on my trips home from college. But a bus doesn't have outlets for my laptop, nor does it have the SPACE passenger car coach seats do. I'm 6'4" and I don't FIT in a bus! My knees come up to my neck. More than once I've considered taking a long trip by train, if only to enjoy the romance of rail travel. I'd be sad to see it go before I have the chance. That said, should the government bail it out? I don't know. But like someone said, 200 million compared to 20 billion doesn't seem like much, does it? I wonder how much Acela cost the company to purchase and run, as well as how necessary high speed rail actually was.

Sean

Sean

[2banana]

There should be a report on the rail road unions and the outrageous benefits they get (on the backs of the taxpayer)

[Sam Cree]

"Trains are economically viable only over short distances in densely populated regions. "

I always wonder if they'd be profitable without the conditions set by big labor, if Amtrak wages actually matched what the jobs were worth.

[LibertyGirl77]

Why would they not connect the Northeast/D.C.-Pittsburgh lines with the Ohio-Chicago lines? Is it just a matter of terrain?

[DETAILER]

act in the best interests of Amtrak customers and taxpayers — and shut the railroad down before writing it yet another blank check.

I have to agree. My tax dollars are going to try to keep afloat an obviously failing company? That's just wrong.

I've never even seen an Amtrack train in these parts, and we all seem to get along just fine without them. If you don't want to fly, or drive, then either stay home, or get on a bus. They're cheap, and ususally don't have a lot of people on them, I've taken the bus several times and had the seat next to me empty, and plenty of space overhead to put my junk. And the bus will drop you at just about any little unkown ghost town along the side of the highway.

[NMC EXP]

"I always wonder if they'd be profitable without the conditions set by big labor, if Amtrak wages actually matched what the jobs were worth."

---

I would very much like to see the period and variable costs of Amtrak's passenger service.

The direct labor cost in man hours per passenger mile, especially in short run commuter routes must be low.

If a train has a crew of two and is moving 100 people, $10 per hr vs $20 per hr is not a factor.

I wonder what is other than the fact that it is not a private enterprise?

Regards

J.R.