AmeriStarRail Privitizing Amtrak Service

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https://www.progressiverailroading....roposes-privatizing-Amtrak-NEC-service--62879
I can see expanding the service lines, but Amtrak can do some of that on their own.

Private funding seems pretty optimistic.

Why would Amtrak want to participate in a service that competes with their own?

And why add another layer of corporate management, even though it is a private company?

Running everything at top speed seems like a good idea, but they are going to need their own set of Acela-type trains to do it.

jb
 
"For the first time, all passengers including senior citizens, students and families will have affordable, equal access to high-speed rail service in America which is funded by all taxpayers," the company's proposal states.

I'm confused. What am I missing here??
 
They are proposing to run all their trains at Acela speeds. And within each train there would be different classes which provide different levels of amenities: first-class ...

Not sure what the taxpayer's reference refers to.

jb
 
Give me all the taxpayer funding I ask for and I'll promise high speed rail to every major city and regional rail to all minor ones. You fund it. I keep the profits since you have to fund the profits too!

Hey, I'll even donate $1 of every fare to charity (provided you taxpayers fund that also). Or I'll do a Ben & Jerry thing - charge high higher prices and donate some of that excess to charity so the idiots who pay the high prices thing I'm wonderful.
 
I mean I wouldn't mind another operator coming in and removing the NEC from Amtrak to be honest. Then they would have to forced to work on the national network. The problem we have is the management is mostly from the NEC and they tend to forget about the rest of the country. While we try and figure out which day we can go to our destination and choreograph connections, they get multiple daily trains. It isn't fair. So let them lose the NEC.
 
I mean I wouldn't mind another operator coming in and removing the NEC from Amtrak to be honest. Then they would have to forced to work on the national network. The problem we have is the management is mostly from the NEC and they tend to forget about the rest of the country. While we try and figure out which day we can go to our destination and choreograph connections, they get multiple daily trains. It isn't fair. So let them lose the NEC.
Unless you consider NEC to be not part of the nation, I don't see how an outfit that only runs trains everywhere else other than the NEC can be considered to be a legitimate national network.

The NEC infrastructure should be separated from Amtrak into an outfit funded by a combination of federal and state resources, and Amtrak should be restored to being a train operating company as it was before the NEC infrastructure was foisted upon it.

This AmeriStarRail appears to be mostly another another taxpayer fleecing scheme which should be avoided. Just IMHO of course.
 
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This sounds like a propsal similar to what they have in Italy where they have the state run Trenitalia service and privately owned Italo. Italo basically cherry picks the most popular and profitable routes and competes with Trenatlia's flagship Frecciarossa service. It's as if someone came up and competed with just the Acela and paid amtrak a fee to operate on its rails.

I could see it working, given the lackluster customer service and onboard product Amtrak is offering. Amtrak also might like it since they own a lot of the track and could charge to use it.
 
The NEC infrastructure should be separated from Amtrak into an outfit funded by a combination of federal and state resources, and Amtrak should be restored to being a train operating company as it was before the NEC infrastructure was foisted upon it.
That's basically what Amtrak started out being, until 1976. They only employed the On Board Services employees on the trains. It was when Amtrak inherited the NEC, that it became a "real railroad", with railroad credibility, and later took over train and engine crews, nationally. For a long time, the Northeast Corridor was an almost autonomous subsidiary of Amtrak,. There is a story that W G Claytor, newly appointed Amtrak president, was riding a train between Washington and New York. He was talking to various employees, and when he asked one old timer how he liked working for Amtrak, the employee retorted that he didn't work for Amtrak, that he worked for the Northeast Corridor Region...
Supposedly, Claytor was so upset with that comment, that when he got back to HQ in Washington, he set about 'busting up' the NEC heirarchy, and reorganized it to be more integrated with the national system, and redeployed management everywhere.
 
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