Auto Trains for Everyone?

[Devil's Advocate]

If you're willing and able to pay the car fee then why does Amtrak care if you bring an actual car with you or not? I guess if enough folks traveled without cars it might screw up the weight distribution a little, but would that really be enough to prevent the train from running? It's not like there's going to be a lot of folks willing to pay a car fee for empty space. If it were me I'd save all the money it would take to ride the AT and spend it on a vacation to Europe or something instead.

 

[Ryan]

The money it takes to ride the Auto Train would hardly be enough to get you to and from Europe, let alone do anything there.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The money it takes to ride the Auto Train would hardly be enough to get you to and from Europe, let alone do anything there.

That would depend on where you're starting from.

$150 One way flight from San Antonio to Washington D.C.

$200 One way car rental from Washington D.C. to Orlando.

$250 Auto Train ticket and car fee.

$150 One way flight from Orlando to San Antonio.

$100 Gas & miscellaneous.

----

$850

These are pretty low estimates I'm using here and they assume I can get flights and traffic that align well with the Auto Train's schedule. If not we may have to add hotel stays at one or both ends of the trip. I can easily fly to London and back for that much. Maybe not in the middle of the summer at late notice, but still easily doable on a shoulder season ticket. Under the right circumstances can add a hotel stay for a song and there are plenty of things to do in Europe that don't require a huge expenditure.

 

[AlanB]

If you're willing and able to pay the car fee then why does Amtrak care if you bring an actual car with you or not? I guess if enough folks traveled without cars it might screw up the weight distribution a little, but would that really be enough to prevent the train from running? It's not like there's going to be a lot of folks willing to pay a car fee for empty space. If it were me I'd save all the money it would take to ride the AT and spend it on a vacation to Europe or something instead.

1) The AT often sells out, so why complicate things.

2) Amtrak offers 2 other trains that can accomplish the same thing, getting you between DC & Florida and without a car.

3) There is no public transit at either station.

So the only people that might even want to consider such an idea would be railfans. Not only are there not enough to make it worth the effort; it would also play into the hands of those who say that Amtrak is nothing but a big expensive toy for railfans.

 

[railiner]

If you're willing and able to pay the car fee then why does Amtrak care if you bring an actual car with you or not? I guess if enough folks traveled without cars it might screw up the weight distribution a little, but would that really be enough to prevent the train from running? It's not like there's going to be a lot of folks willing to pay a car fee for empty space. If it were me I'd save all the money it would take to ride the AT and spend it on a vacation to Europe or something instead.

1) The AT often sells out, so why complicate things.

2) Amtrak offers 2 other trains that can accomplish the same thing, getting you between DC & Florida and without a car.

3) There is no public transit at either station.

So the only people that might even want to consider such an idea would be railfans. Not only are there not enough to make it worth the effort; it would also play into the hands of those who say that Amtrak is nothing but a big expensive toy for railfans.

Too bad there isn't a forum for those that wish to 'hook-up' with those traveling on the Auto Train, that would be willing to allow you to be included in their booking, especially if you would pay a portion of the auto fee.......(Hint to administrator...)

 

[Devil's Advocate]

1) The AT often sells out, so why complicate things.

Only on a system as backward as Amtrak does providing less service somehow equal more work. :lol:

2) Amtrak offers 2 other trains that can accomplish the same thing, getting you between DC & Florida and without a car.

Do they serve the same stations? Do they let you smoke? Are the meals and service at a similar level? Do they provide similar schedules? Are the on-time performances similar? If not then maybe we shouldn't call them the same thing.

3) There is no public transit at either station.

I would presume hundreds of other possible city pairs can make the exact same claim yet everywhere else Amtrak seems to have no problem with picking you up or dropping you off in the middle of nowhere, even in the middle of the night.

So the only people that might even want to consider such an idea would be railfans.

Or smokers. Or maybe folks whose car broke down or something. Makes me wonder if Amtrak is just as anal with the reverse scenario (car but no passenger) as it sounds like they could sell a few extra carriers worth of rental cars twice a year if they played their cards right.

Not only are there not enough to make it worth the effort; it would also play into the hands of those who say that Amtrak is nothing but a big expensive toy for railfans.

I really doubt that the future of Amtrak will be decided (or even impacted by) the ability to ride the Auto Train without a car. Full stop.

 

[rrdude]

"Or smokers. Or maybe folks whose car broke down or something. Makes me wonder if Amtrak is just as anal with the reverse scenario (car but no passenger) as it sounds like they could sell a few extra carriers worth of rental cars twice a year if they played their cards right."

They already DO take cars without passengers. You just can't book directly with Amtrak, you must go thru a car-relocation service. Don't know the details, but virtually every trip I've been on on the AT, I've seen car carriers either loading or unloading. Last month, we saw Amtrak employees drive cars off the Amtrak Auto Racks, at least a dozen cars, and park them far away from the passengers who were waiting to retrieve their autos. I actually asked a rep about it, and he told me they normally take cars like this on a regular basis, as space permits. But remember, all they have to do is KNOW about needing space for more cars, and an the appropriate number of Auto Racks, and they are done.

 

[Ryan]

Come on, don't let pesky things like facts get in the way of some good Amtrak bashing!

 

[Devil's Advocate]

"Or smokers. Or maybe folks whose car broke down or something. Makes me WONDER IF Amtrak is just as anal with the reverse scenario (car but no passenger) as it sounds like they could sell a few extra carriers worth of rental cars twice a year if they played their cards right."

They already DO take cars without passengers. You just can't book directly with Amtrak, you must go thru a car-relocation service.

That's excellent news!

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

A thought on the "Add 1-2 auto racks to other routes":

How many cars does one auto rack carry? I think I heard it was 20, but I'm not sure-- still, you'd need more than a couple people bringing cars along to pay for the haulage. You'd need to consistently keep those auto racks filled like the real AT.

 

[GlobalistPotato]

A thought on the "Add 1-2 auto racks to other routes":

How many cars does one auto rack carry? I think I heard it was 20, but I'm not sure-- still, you'd need more than a couple people bringing cars along to pay for the haulage. You'd need to consistently keep those auto racks filled like the real AT.

Oh no, not the express freight venture again!

 

[VrmlBasic]

How many cars does one auto rack carry? I think I heard it was 20, but I'm not sure-- still, you'd need more than a couple people bringing cars along to pay for the haulage. You'd need to consistently keep those auto racks filled like the real AT.

The OP of the idea of appending auto racks to any given train said that doing so would not affect the price an "average" (no car on said rack) passenger has to pay to ride the train. That is not possible; as you mention Amtrak needs to pay for the hauling. Amtrak can't count on every slot being filled every time, and so they'll have to hedge and distribute the cost amongst the normal passengers (or discontinue the service).

Likewise, the cost of acquiring these car racks will be passed onto the normal passengers.

The cost of building the "small loading stations" for the cars will also be passed on. I also don't see how Amtrak could feasibly build these stations, at least not anywhere convenient. Loading and unloading cars also takes time, and freight trains already keep amtrak confined to a ridiculously brief schedule. The existing routes might not have that kind of time.

How about we get Amtrak to spend its pitifully small allotment of cash on realistic improvements to its service, instead of advocating pipe dreams which will only further "bankrupt" Amtrak? Like train maintenance, as Amtrak has far too many engine fires and dead locomotives, even in the Northeast Region, which is its dominion. Or track improvement, especially on the track that it owns in the Northeast Region. Get the Acela up to that 125 mph for more of the trip. Failing that, maybe they could buy that tiny part of rail in the region which is not owned by Amtrak?

On a tangent, how is there still 10 mph rated track in America?! Ridiculous. I understand that Amtrak doesn't own those pieces of rail, but how could the freight companies afford such inefficiencies?

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

A thought on the "Add 1-2 auto racks to other routes":

How many cars does one auto rack carry? I think I heard it was 20, but I'm not sure-- still, you'd need more than a couple people bringing cars along to pay for the haulage. You'd need to consistently keep those auto racks filled like the real AT.

Oh no, not the express freight venture again!

Yah, I got that gut feeling that said to me... We learned from this mistake awhile ago.

 

[user 1215]

Hey, so long as we're beating that dead horse, let's add some stuffing. One thing that is often overlooked in these repeat conversations is that the distance of the Autotrain is paramount in keeping things running smoothly. There is a reason why the terminals are in Lorton and Sanford and not DC and Orlando. One, as mentioned already, is real estate. The other is scheduling. The current schedule allows for there to be two trainsets...only. There is plenty of buffer during turnaround for a train to receive scheduled maintenance and to account for the occasional delay. If you make the trip much longer, you would almost certainly have to add another trainset to guarantee an on time departure from the other end should one train suffer a substantial delay. The current schedule allows for significant delays to be watered down over a couple of days, returning to normal naturally.

SO, that's why Louisville, KY was chosen as opposed to Chicago. You let people drive about a days worth, then instead of staying in a hotel, board the Autotrain and when you get up the next morning, you're 800 miles closer to your destination.

Sanford and Lorton are merely the business end of a funnel, collecting travellers from a widespread fan of origins, consolidating them, then dispersing them at the other end.

 

[Ispolkom]

On a tangent, how is there still 10 mph rated track in America?! Ridiculous. I understand that Amtrak doesn't own those pieces of rail, but how could the freight companies afford such inefficiencies?

Grain doesn't care how fast it moves, and it generally doesn't move fast. If you only use a branch line to bring out the harvest in the fall, and basically don't use the track the most of the rest of the year (many BNSF branch lines in North Dakota, for instance), it's rational to not maintain the line above a minimal standard. Looking at old timetables, traffic never moved fast on those lines. The same is true of much of the old Soo lines, now owned by CP and others.

I'm sure that there are other cases where 10 mph track works just fine. Remember, a railroad is in the business of making money, not setting speed records.

 

[Gratt]

On a tangent, how is there still 10 mph rated track in America?! Ridiculous. I understand that Amtrak doesn't own those pieces of rail, but how could the freight companies afford such inefficiencies?

Grain doesn't care how fast it moves, and it generally doesn't move fast. If you only use a branch line to bring out the harvest in the fall, and basically don't use the track the most of the rest of the year (many BNSF branch lines in North Dakota, for instance), it's rational to not maintain the line above a minimal standard. Looking at old timetables, traffic never moved fast on those lines. The same is true of much of the old Soo lines, now owned by CP and others.

I'm sure that there are other cases where 10 mph track works just fine. Remember, a railroad is in the business of making money, not setting speed records.

That makes sense but there are other costs with a really slow train, for one you have to pay the crew more for the extra hours, for another I imagine the locomotives do not run very efficiently at that speed. In addition or turn arround speed is also very slow, meaning your holding up equipment for longer Also if you keep the lowest standard of care for the track you greatly increase your chance of accidents and derailments due to poor track conditions.

I wonder if they ever do a cost benefit analysis of these things? In my experience many companies balk at what looks like larger upfront costs because they worry about their quarter earnings report more than they worry about far larger costs spread put over a few years.

 

[RobertB]

I wonder if they ever do a cost benefit analysis of these things? In my experience many companies balk at what looks like larger upfront costs because they worry about their quarter earnings report more than they worry about far larger costs spread put over a few years.

That's supposed to be the benefit of Warren Buffet buying out BNSF, right? As part of a conglomerate, it's supposed to be a bit more isolated from the three-month p/l cycle, and more able to make long-term infrastructure plans. In theory, at least.

 

[George Harris]

On a tangent, how is there still 10 mph rated track in America?! Ridiculous. I understand that Amtrak doesn't own those pieces of rail, but how could the freight companies afford such inefficiencies?

It is more of an issue of the traffic not being sufficient to support the maintenance cost of running faster. Simply put, if you only move a few cars a week, counting all costs, train crew, car and engine maintenance costs, ownership or rental costs of the rolling stock, track materials, maintenance labor, etc., it is cheaper to move them slowly than it is to maintain the track sufficiently to be able to run faster. There is a break point in traffic above which it becomes reasonable to maintain the track for a higer speed, or more aptly to a higher FRA classification that permits the higher speed.

It is not rediculous. It is economic reality. Much as I like to see good quality beautifully maintained track, reality says that if a track carries very little traffic, the money is better spent somewhere else.

 

[Kevin L.]

Much as I like to see good quality beautifully maintained track, reality says that if a track carries very little traffic, the money is better spent somewhere else.

Yes, and then due to a lake flooding your company is forced to increase traffic over that poorly maintained & sub-par track, then that money would have been better spent on getting said track up to spec.

There is a break point in traffic above which it becomes reasonable to maintain the track for a higer speed

Alright, but can that speed indeed be 10 mph? Such a slow speed holds up other trains on the line, & causes a mass to deacclerate & accelerate, which wastes energy. Also, is 10 mph an efficient speed for a train? Like an automobile, going below a certain speed is actually less efficient on all fronts than going faster.

or more aptly to a higher FRA classification that permits the higher speed.

Which is myopic BS the government instated eons ago and refuses to rescind, and ironically hampers its own railroad venture (Amtrak).

Trying to cap technology with hard numeric limits has always been foolhardy, and the government shouldn't be in the practice of doing such, as it has never worked.

 

[Ispolkom]

Yes, and then due to a lake flooding your company is forced to increase traffic over that poorly maintained & sub-par track, then that money would have been better spent on getting said track up to spec.

Where has that happened? In North Dakota, the rising level of Devil's Lake closed a branch line. If the Empire Builder is running on the Surrey Cutoff now, it's running on better-maintained track than when it was on the Devil's Lake sub.

Alright, but can that speed indeed be 10 mph? Such a slow speed holds up other trains on the line, & causes a mass to deacclerate & accelerate, which wastes energy. Also, is 10 mph an efficient speed for a train? Like an automobile, going below a certain speed is actually less efficient on all fronts than going faster.

It might not be the most efficient speed, but it's the most efficient speed given the FRA track classification system. BNSF (or any other railroad) has to figure what will give the best return on investment. Would track improvements on a branch line pay for themselves in greater turnover of grain cars, decreased fuel and labor expenses, etc.? I imagine that the railroad has crunched those numbers carefully, and if they haven't improved the track, it's because the answer is no. Remember that they have a captive market, since it's cost-prohibitive to ship grain by truck, and there aren't any other railroads to offer competition. In any case, on slow branch lines, there usually isn't any other traffic to hold up. That is, after all, why they are slow.

I know little about locomotive efficiency, but it seems plausible that it takes less energy to accelerate a cut of grain cars to 9 mph than to 19 mph, even if 9 mph is not the most efficient speed at which to run the locomotive.

 

[Kevin L.]

I know little about locomotive efficiency, but it seems plausible that it takes less energy to accelerate a cut of grain cars to 9 mph than to 19 mph, even if 9 mph is not the most efficient speed at which to run the locomotive.

The most efficient thing should be to not have to accelerate at all. Unless the train is going to go 10 mph for the hundreds if not thousands of miles that it will travel, the train will have to accelerate to deal with this one bit of crappy track. Sure it should take less energy to go from 0 to 9 than from 0 to 19, but if 9 mph is less efficient to run at for long distances than 19, the train will take a loss on efficiency. Accelerating your car from 0 mph to 1 mph is much easier than from 0 mph to 40 mph, but 40 is a much more efficient speed than 1 if held constant for a long trip.

The train is cruising along at speed, and then as the train approaches this piece of execrable track, the engineers have to jam on the brakes, ride the rail at 10 mph, and then waste fuel accelerating back to whatever normal speed for that train is. Acceleration is very detrimental to fuel economy, the lower mpgs of a car which tailgates and weaves between traffic, braking and accelerating to gain a few car lengths as compared to a comparable car driven constantly at the speed of traffic helps show this.

Would track improvements on a branch line pay for themselves in greater turnover of grain cars, decreased fuel and labor expenses, etc.? I imagine that the railroad has crunched those numbers carefully, and if they haven't improved the track, it's because the answer is no

The answer to your questions is clearly "yes". When trains can move faster, more of them can move through a route in a given amount of time. Less acceleration equates to better fuel economy, and even a constant 10 mph may be less efficient than whatever speed the train normally would run at. When trains complete their routes faster, the crew is on them for less time, so that cuts down on labor expenses.

I'm not willing to jump on board the "people who should know more than I aren't doing the common-sense solution, ergo that solution is wrong" bandwagon, as corporations have a tragic recent history of putting short-term profits above long-term profitability...and common sense.

Remember that they have a captive market, since it's cost-prohibitive to ship grain by truck, and there aren't any other railroads to offer competition.

Yes, they do pretty much have such a hold on their market. However, instead of exploiting that advantages of that hold to maintain the status quo, perhaps they could invest to make even more money down the road. If improving the rail allows them to charge the same amount to customers, but cost the railroad company less per train, then the company wins. However, the company would have to incur the short-term large expense of track improvement, and they're not going to do that. Corporate boards as a whole need to get some glasses as they all seem to suffer from extreme myopia.

Sometimes I wonder if Jim Taggart does exist, and that he really is a railroad CEO, because it seems like it.

 

[Ispolkom]

Would track improvements on a branch line pay for themselves in greater turnover of grain cars, decreased fuel and labor expenses, etc.? I imagine that the railroad has crunched those numbers carefully, and if they haven't improved the track, it's because the answer is no

The answer to your questions is clearly "yes". When trains can move faster, more of them can move through a route in a given amount of time. Less acceleration equates to better fuel economy, and even a constant 10 mph may be less efficient than whatever speed the train normally would run at. When trains complete their routes faster, the crew is on them for less time, so that cuts down on labor expenses.

You're mistaken. There isn't more traffic to run on a branch line, so there isn't any need to move the train faster. Go 9 mph on the branch, attach more power if you need to when you reach the main line, where there actually are other trains. Improving track won't improve business because there isn't more business. There isn't more land to farm, so you aren't going to get more crops to ship.

Diesel and crew costs aren't so expensive, compared to maintenance of way. The latter is so expensive, that BNSF is abandoning parts of branches, forcing grain shippers to use larger, more central elevators from which unit trains can be sent. I don't think the Grenora subdivision, for instance, goes all the way to Grenora. It makes sense. Instead of paying to maintain track, you have farmers truck their grain on taxpayer-paid roads to central elevators, from which your shipping costs are less.

Well-run railroads don't waste money where there isn't a good return on investment. If there is more traffic (say an ethanol plant opens up, or oil shipping), it makes sense to upgrade the branch, but often those facilities are put on the main line, like the oil shipping facility at Stanley, or the inter-model port at Minot.

The choice (and in the Midwest we've seen this hundreds of times) isn't between Class 1 branch lines and Class 3 branch lines. It's between Class 1 branch lines and no railroad.

 

[rrdude]

The choice (and in the Midwest we've seen this hundreds of times) isn't between Class 1 branch lines and Class 3 branch lines. It's between Class 1 branch lines and no railroad.

Perfect answer.