BNSFboy
Train Attendant
What do you think would happen if Amtrak service was to go back to the Class 1 railroads they used to belong to?
Class 1 Passenger Service
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Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
If they earn money, the privates would love them. If they lose money, then no matter the ridership, they'll get axed.
Devil's Advocate
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I think we'd probably end up like Mexico. Enjoy it while it lasts.
BNSFboy
Train Attendant
BNSF and maybe UP might keep one or two. I think they will be much more dedicated to them if they are there own trains.
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
But you know businessmen, they'll drop anything that dosen't earn money strategically. The only pax train left in Mexico is the Copper Canyon express/local, and that's because it does not have much access from other modes of transport.
BNSFboy
Train Attendant
True, however if they can also can have the passenger cars on the front and then have very high priority freight behind the passenger cars it could be profitable.
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
Yes, it could be, but you would have to have streamlined freight cars and the company would probably earn more money without the pax. It's worth a try though.
BNSFboy
Train Attendant
79 MPH should be good for passenger cars and a couple of double stacks or auto racks.
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
I thought that pure freight trains run at 59 mph. Don't know about combo freight/pax though.
edit: error, spell check does not work.
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Stacks run at 70
George Harris
Engineer
There is quite a lot of 70 mph freight territory out there.
59 mph goes back to the same ICC decision that gave us 79 mph. It works this way: A line without automatic block signals or some other form of automatic control system is not allowed to run passenger trains at speeds of 60 mph or faster or freight trains at speeds of 50 mph or faster.
The 79 mph rule is based on lines with signals but without some form of automatic train control, automatic train stop, or cab signals can not run trains at speeds of 80 mph or faster. I think that rule is all trains, that is both freight and passenger.
There rules are entirey separate from and unrelated to the FRA track classes.
What it says is that no matter how good your track is, if you do not have signals your speed limits can be no more than 59P/49F. This is the maximum speed limit and the reason for it on the line that was used by the Sunset East between Flomaton AL and Tallahassee FL. I do not know the actual numbers, but this would also be the ceiling on any speed limit set on the line used by the Vermont train north of White River Jct.
By the way, if a line has a 70 mph speed limit for freight, that means the track class defined by the FRA has to be good enough that a passenger train speed limit of 90 mph coud be set. However, without the required signal and train control system in place, 79 mph is the maximum no matter how good the track.
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Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
Some nice information. Looks like combo freight/pax trains will be possible, but I would not expect UP to operate them unless they find a way to make money. That may not actually be impossible if UP owns the track themselves.
The reason Amtrak was formed in 1971 was because the Class I railroads wanted out of the passenger train business. The post WWII streamlined cars were getting old and the Class I's did not want to have to fund capital improvements necessary to operate good passenger trains. Amtrak tried hauling freight in the Warrington era. That drove away passengers because of delays and caused Amtrak to lose more money. There might be some high density areas such as Miami to Orlando where a private railroad would make money such as the proposed FEC trains. If Amtrak were disbanded by Congress the US would end up like Mexico except for a few places like the NEC and other state supported corridors.
Ryan
Court Jester
This.
Or put another way, the same thing that would have happened in the early 1970's had Amtrak not been created.
Unless you can point to some reason that hauling passengers has suddenly become profitable and every passenger railroad in the world is doing it wrong.
jis
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Exactly! I would like to see some real worked out numbers that would justify a freight railroad to take on passenger service when in the same slot they could earn umpteen times more running a freight train. Just warm and fuzzy "I feel so" really does not cut as a cogent argument unless it is coming from the CEO of one of the big 6. Even if a passenger segment is attached to a freight train what would be the economic benefit of taking on the extra headache of a passenger crew, insurance and necessity to run to a timetable or pay for taking care of misconnects etc.?
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BNSFboy
Train Attendant
The only reason rail passenger service was getting so bad was because the advent of air travel and better cars. Now gas is getting expensive and air travel is through the roof making passenger rail pick up popularity again, so it could actually be profitable and more enticing to freight haulers to have passenger trains if Amtrak were to disappear.
VentureForth
Engineer
Where I live on the CSX Mainline, the speeds are 59 Freight/70 Autotrain/79 Passenger
Ryan
Court Jester
If the passenger railroads think they can turn a profit now, what's stopping them from starting their own passenger service?
I don't think they could earn a worthwhile profit, for the reasons others have well stated. Then there is the matter of law....when the railroads 'joined' Amtrak, not only were they relieved of the obligation to operate passenger trains on their own, but Amtrak was given the right of exclusive operation of said trains over those roads.
That law might have gone away sometime over the years...not exactly sure....
There was way more than competition from Airlines and highways that led to Amtrak. The Class Is started downgrading passenger trains as early as 1950. It was about the same time that European countries and Japan started upgrading theirs. By 1970, except for a few, service was so bad, only die hard passengers were left. As Ryan stated, if Amtrak hadn't started, the US passenger trains would have followed those in Mexico.
Depended on the railroad. AT&SF, UP, SCL ran passenger trains with great service right up until the end, particularly Santa Fe. They did train-offs when they could, but what remained was superb. SP, PC, not so much.
The railroads initially upgraded their trains after WW II and did not see their investment pay off. People voted with their feet and did forsake rail for airlines and particularly highways. The trend was becoming clear in the early 1950s, well before the major downgrades in service took place. The business traveler, the backbone of the Pullman trade, was the first to leave. The reductions in service were really in response to the weakening demand for rail passenger service. There is no question about that. Once the trend became clear, some railroads downgraded more aggressively in an attempt to drive off the remaining passengers, but the trend away from rail travel had already irrevocably begun. So the RRs that did it, like the SP, were just helping it along.
No question that all LDs would have been gone in a very few years if they remained with the RRs. Probably by 1975. Of course, politically, Amtrak itself was just intended to be a fig leaf to cover ultimate abandonment. No one expected it to last. The first Gas Crisis in 1973/74 brought people back to the trains, particularly in the NEC, and saved it. If the RRs had foreseen Amtrak would still be here in 2012, it is a real possibility they would not have joined and stuck with their own service, knowing the losses would force the ICC's hand and allow abandonment of the remaining trains within a few years, then they would be done with it and not have Amtrak to deal with consuming track capacity.
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VentureForth
Engineer
The class 1's will run passenger trains as soon as they make money. Maybe. I don't know what the formation of Amtrak required and if it allows a participating railroad to run their own passenger train.
FEC is a Class 1 ready to pioneer into pax rail after a 50 year hiatus. Well, I think FEC is Class 1. They will be after their trackage overhaul. But they quit pax before Amtrak, so I'm sure they are immune to any participant laws.
FEC is a Class 1 ready to pioneer into pax rail after a 50 year hiatus. Well, I think FEC is Class 1. They will be after their trackage overhaul. But they quit pax before Amtrak, so I'm sure they are immune to any participant laws.
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Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
I must disagree about the ATSF. People who took their trains post-1967 found the service quite horrible, commenting that most LD and nearly all SD trains had no sleepers or diners and just a cafe serving cold cuts. I got this from a book about passenger trains. They say that Amtrak's SWC by the 1980s were already better than ATSF pax trains 1967-1971. I forgot what exact trains they talked about but probably not the Super Chief.
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