City of New Orleans train in jeopardy.

[Larry H.]

The City Of New Orleans passes though our small town in Illinois. It has been consistently downgraded in quality of service and number of cars.

I would have to wonder why the Government decided to take over the Rail Passenger Service in the 70's if they had no intention to maintain a decent sized working system. The first things they did was cut the service to many points though out the nations western and middle states. That set up a situation that as some have said about Mexico, a plan that was all most guaranteed to fail. Only the most devoted rail passenger is willing to spend good money to go a day out of your way simply to have to return all that distance a few hundred miles away to get where your wanting to go. Air lines that only served a very limited number of major cities would be in the same boat. Its simply no way to run a railroad as the old saying goes.

 

[tommylicious]

We refuse to ride the CONO without real dining car food not the gas station microwave stuff they peddle.

 

[Gemuser]

Canada and Australia are large peer countries. Both countries have corridors, but are down to one or two high-cost weekly long distance trains. Probably the future of Amtrak if there is bipartisan support of NEC liberals and the Tea Party to reduce costs.

Australia has a lot of non corridor long distance trains within the east coast states. Out side the eastern states you are mainly correct although there are some eg Perth-Kalgoorlie,

 

[RSG]

I would have to wonder why the Government decided to take over the Rail Passenger Service in the 70's if they had no intention to maintain a decent sized working system.

That's just it---they didn't plan it that way. They took it over in order to wind 'er down and get rid of the antiquated notion of passenger rail service once and for all. Amtrak wasn't expected (nor did President Nixon go allong with the creation) to last more than a couple of years. Well, 46 years [in about two weeks] later, here we are and it's still going and everyone is still fighting for funding to continue it as a going concern.

Its simply no way to run a railroad as the old saying goes.

It's not, but try getting the people who provide the funding to agree it should be funded in a way that would permit a better way of running a railroad.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I would have to wonder why the Government decided to take over the Rail Passenger Service in the 70's if they had no intention to maintain a decent sized working system.

That's just it---they didn't plan it that way. They took it over in order to wind 'er down and get rid of the antiquated notion of passenger rail service once and for all. Amtrak wasn't expected (nor did President Nixon go allong with the creation) to last more than a couple of years. Well, 46 years [in about two weeks] later, here we are and it's still going and everyone is still fighting for funding to continue it as a going concern.

Its simply no way to run a railroad as the old saying goes.

It's not, but try getting the people who provide the funding to agree it should be funded in a way that would permit a better way of running a railroad.

I can't say the government is doing everything right but a lot of train fans (me included) are thinking of running Amtrak like we would and to benefit Amtrak the most. Congress has many more obligations to think about in addition to Amtrak and even in addition to transportation. It isn't as easy to expect them to do what's best for Amtrak when they have so many different responsibilities and dividing up spending a "fixed" amount of money between those responsibilities. Most of us (me included) should say we would do this to benefit Amtrak but we don't have to worry about allocating money to education, health care, economic growth, defense, etc. I'm not saying Congress is perfect and I have criticized them before. But I do get it that Congress doesn't have our view as Amtrak being vital.

On the other hand many of us overestimate Amtrak and have to realize not everyone thinks it is as important. I'd be shocked if anyone on this board has never taken an Amtrak train (or were planning on). I'd guess most of us have been on at least one LD train and spent a lot of time on one (not just taking the City of New Orleans between Chicago and Champaign, IL, which is as far as I've ever traveled on it). Not everyone in Congress is as big a fan as we are and they might not understand how important it is, especially if they've never been on an Amtrak train before.

One of Pennsylvania's senators, Bob Casey, Jr., grew up in Scranton, PA. Just like me, he probably had never heard of Amtrak in high school until he went to college because Amtrak doesn't go anywhere near Scranton. You don't get the same attachment with Amtrak until you've been on a train. Interestingly, I emailed Casey about my usual crusade and "he" (or someone who wrote for him) said he wanted to see Amtrak's subsidy risen to $1.9 billion. But maybe someone else's senator might have never been on Amtrak or had any association with Amtrak. Not everyone is Amtrak Joe (ironically he was also born in Scranton but moved to Delaware before high school). Amtrak is "important" to me because I'm afraid of flying and if Amtrak doesn't go to California or Chicago or Florida it's harder for me to get there. I find it hard to believe any Senator or House member is afraid to fly (especially those from Western states who probably have to travel back and forth several times in their term) and they would hop on a plane to get from Philly or Washington to any of these places.

Again, I'm not saying Congress is right but I can understand if they aren't treating Amtrak as a top priority with so many other problems in the country.

 

[Larry H.]

You have a realistic approach for sure and I agree with most of the observations. What I think doesn't really count. But all the things that government spends its money on aren't exactly high priority. Every time the administrations add thousands of new workers usually in order to create new employees to govern over us they are taking on way more pension cost, vacation cost, paper work, buildings, insurance, computers, utility bills, ect. That is just what happens when we decide to regulate or expand some agency. Multiplied by many departments and you quickly can see where a lot of money goes that isn't exactly something we have to have, and in some cases they simply make our lives worse. Government likes to govern which wasn't really its purpose. Then there are endless studies and grants for all kinds of odd subjects. Again something the government waste its money on. (or I should say ours). Now we pay for people who are here questionably with our money. I don't mean this to be political in nature, but rather a few thoughts on wether we really would have the money if we spent what we get better.

 

[railiner]

Which industrialized countries, if any, on the planet do not have a national passenger train service?

There also aren't many countries with the square miles the US has.

Can I introduce you to Russia? 7-10 days between Moscow and Vladivostok and multiple trains running? And an extensive network linking virtually if not all every major city?

Do you suppose that might be as a result of the proportion of Russian's that own auto's?

 

[Lonestar648]

When Nixon signed the law that created Amtrak, he was told that it would be gone by the time he left office. Funny thing happened, more and more people rode Amtrak forcing the continuation and growth. Now over 30M people ride a year which means some politicians in the House are concerned about reducing funding, they prefer status quo so everyone is happy.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

When Nixon signed the law that created Amtrak, he was told that it would be gone by the time he left office. Funny thing happened, more and more people rode Amtrak forcing the continuation and growth. Now over 30M people ride a year which means some politicians in the House are concerned about reducing funding, they prefer status quo so everyone is happy.

Keep in mind that 30 million "passengers" is in no way equal to 30 million people. It's probably closer to three million than thirty million.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

When Nixon signed the law that created Amtrak, he was told that it would be gone by the time he left office. Funny thing happened, more and more people rode Amtrak forcing the continuation and growth. Now over 30M people ride a year which means some politicians in the House are concerned about reducing funding, they prefer status quo so everyone is happy.

Keep in mind that 30 million "passengers" is in no way equal to 30 million people. It's probably closer to three million than thirty million.

Indeed. Given that almost no one is going one way, you have to assume, at the absolute most, 15 million people. Which is still crazy.

Just for a thinky thought:

My station ALX had 187,000 passengers in 2015. That's 512 people a day, but if we assume every trip was a round trip, that's 256 people coming and going. There's 155,810 Alexandrians, meaning that 0.16% of the population has used that station in a given day.

You can point out ALX has WAS sitting right down the Metro from there, so that's picking up people, but it also has a huge variety of daily trains. If you look at a place like Pittsburgh and its four trains a day, you've got 145,000/year...or 198 people a day arriving or departing. Out of a metro area of 2.4 million.

 

[Gemuser]

Which industrialized countries, if any, on the planet do not have a national passenger train service?

There also aren't many countries with the square miles the US has.

Can I introduce you to Russia? 7-10 days between Moscow and Vladivostok and multiple trains running? And an extensive network linking virtually if not all every major city?

Do you suppose that might be as a result of the proportion of Russian's that own auto's?

Actually I doubt that is the most significant reason. Although I don't have actual figures there are plenty of cars in the big cities and towns BUT the Russian/Soviet state, post WWII, decided to build long distance railways rather than highways because it was cheaper, especially in maintenance, in the Russian climate, basically because of the flexibility of the track and roadbed compared to that of a road. AFAIK there is still no major long distance east-west or north-south paved highway in Russia because of that factor.

 

[jis]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_federal_highways

 

[Alexandria Nick]

Which industrialized countries, if any, on the planet do not have a national passenger train service?

There also aren't many countries with the square miles the US has.

Can I introduce you to Russia? 7-10 days between Moscow and Vladivostok and multiple trains running? And an extensive network linking virtually if not all every major city?

Do you suppose that might be as a result of the proportion of Russian's that own auto's?

Actually I doubt that is the most significant reason. Although I don't have actual figures there are plenty of cars in the big cities and towns BUT the Russian/Soviet state, post WWII, decided to build long distance railways rather than highways because it was cheaper, especially in maintenance, in the Russian climate, basically because of the flexibility of the track and roadbed compared to that of a road. AFAIK there is still no major long distance east-west or north-south paved highway in Russia because of that factor.

The cars to humans ratio in Russia is 0.29, whereas it is 0.8 in the US. Places like Poland, Slovakia, and Lithuania are up around 0.5. Russia doesn't have a whole mess of a cars, really. They're one of the lowest for the big industrial countries.

 

[me_little_me]

Actually I doubt that is the most significant reason. Although I don't have actual figures there are plenty of cars in the big cities and towns BUT the Russian/Soviet state, post WWII, decided to build long distance railways rather than highways because it was cheaper, especially in maintenance, in the Russian climate, basically because of the flexibility of the track and roadbed compared to that of a road. AFAIK there is still no major long distance east-west or north-south paved highway in Russia because of that factor.

It also enabled them to better control their people, where they went and who was going and why.