Future of Amtrak???

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I personally think that if the AutoTrain were discontinued and its equipment were dispersed to other trains, they would provide a better financial return. Its revenue is huge, but so are its expenses. And its at 100% of capable capacity, so it can't really do any better.
 
Amtrak is on a mission to get Congress to cover it's LD loses, that is the loses it calculates, so why not load them up with overhead.
I look forward to reading your explanation of how Amtrak currently allocates their overhead contrasted with how you think the overhead should be allocated that informed this conclusion.
Unfortunately Ryan, this is a site full of opinions. Some we agree with and some we do not. You seem to disagree with my opinions completely and follow me around wanting citations and details. You will never get them from me. I spent a lot of time analyzing these trains and you can do the same. I am not here to serve you. Many many people express their opinions on here about everything Amtrak, from food service to SCA's to condition of the equipment, etc and on and on. They are not going to give you citations either. So good luck with your demands.
 
I personally think that if the AutoTrain were discontinued and its equipment were dispersed to other trains, they would provide a better financial return. Its revenue is huge, but so are its expenses. And its at 100% of capable capacity, so it can't really do any better.
Whereas they reach capacity many days of the year, they are hardly sold out on every single trip. In fact, for the next month or so, the Northbound train only has a couple of dates where the coach fare is higher than lowest bucket. Some fares as low as $240 (plus vehicle).

I would be interested to know how often they are sold out. If nothing else, a data point.

I wish I didn't live smack in the middle of its route. It would be a fun experience!
 
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The revenue stream from Auto Train in 2013 was over 75million. So far through June it's almost 62 million. So GML wants to give that up and disperse the equipment to other trains that earn much less. Dispersal of the equipment and discontinuance of the train will not save the costs Amtrak associates with this train. It will only save on the fees it pays CSX and the few operating employees that cannot be placed somewhere else. The overhead associated with the trains would just be allocated over the remaining field. No one is going to lay off any accountants, security, reservationists, It managers, or high level management, etc over these two trains.
 
I personally think that if the AutoTrain were discontinued and its equipment were dispersed to other trains, they would provide a better financial return.
Well, there are two problems with that.
First, I don't know what train you plan to put the autoracks on. :p (ba-dum-ching!)

Second, I can't think of a Superliner train where they'd be better allocated right now, in terms of profit maximization.

* All the other Superliner trains have relatively poor revenue and relatively high costs

* Almost all of the state-supported corridors are already going to get their own equipment soon enough

* The Coast Starlight, arguably the most capacity-constrained of the western trains, is long enough that it can't add more cars without adding more locomotives, which aren't available

* The Capitol Limited, unlike the various Viewliner trains in the East, doesn't seem to routinely sell out

* The City of New Orleans also doesn't seem to routinely sell out

* The Southwest Chief *also* doesn't seem to routinely sell out (maybe if it had a few bigger cities on the route...)

* The Empire Builder has such poor OTP right now and is losing so many riders that extra cars won't do much good to the bottom line (unlike the situation a year or two ago)

* The Sunset Limited can't really be improved or get enough added ridership to make it worth lengthening unless it goes daily...

* So, um, a car or two to the California Zephyr and Texas Eagle? OK, but we can probably do that with other cars (the CZ already runs one more car than it used to).

As Superliners get wrecked, and as (hopefully) the OTP of the Superliner routes improves, the calculation here may change, but at the moment, the Auto Train is probably a better allocation of equipment than of the alternatives. :-( Clearly, the real shortage is in single-level cars; if the Auto Train were running single-level cars, then it really would be worth reallocating them.
 
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Anyway, the financial picture for Amtrak seems to be improving year-over-year by leaps and bounds. Pretty much every service is doing better, the states are putting in more money, high-interest debt is being eliminated. Amtrak has access to short-term bank lines of credit now, which is a huge change. There's a lot of improvements paid for and under construction in the next few years (out to 2018), both track, stations, and rolling stock.

Politically, the anti-rail forces are on the retreat (finally). It'll take a few years to make them an irrelevance, but not very many.
 
I personally think that if the AutoTrain were discontinued and its equipment were dispersed to other trains, they would provide a better financial return. Its revenue is huge, but so are its expenses. And its at 100% of capable capacity, so it can't really do any better.
Seriously? The AutoTrain pulls in the most revenue of all the LD trains and has the highest revenue per passenger. It does so with only 2 consists for an efficient use of equipment. And it is close to breaking even. Amtrak has added capacity with an additional coach car. We will see over time if the extra revenue seats, cost trimming measures and ridership growth outside of the peak months will be enough to push the AT into the black including all the overhead.

It would be useful to Amtrak to have 1 LD train it can point to in the route performance reports as breaking even or running at a small surplus. That could provide political protection for time to improve the cost recovery ratio on the other LD trains.
 
Amtrak is on a mission to get Congress to cover it's LD loses, that is the loses it calculates, so why not load them up with overhead.
I look forward to reading your explanation of how Amtrak currently allocates their overhead contrasted with how you think the overhead should be allocated that informed this conclusion.
Unfortunately Ryan, this is a site full of opinions. Some we agree with and some we do not. You seem to disagree with my opinions completely and follow me around wanting citations and details. You will never get them from me. I spent a lot of time analyzing these trains and you can do the same. I am not here to serve you. Many many people express their opinions on here about everything Amtrak, from food service to SCA's to condition of the equipment, etc and on and on. They are not going to give you citations either. So good luck with your demands.
This site is full of opinions, and you are entitled to whatever fahrblundget opinions you happen to wish to hold. However, when you back up your opinions with supposed "facts" and "figuring", you have to expect to be jeered at when you refuse to produce such data. Most people give their silly opinions simply as silly opinions. They don't claim to have done work to support them. Either back up your supposedly backed up assertions, or quit kvetching about people laughing about the lack of said backup.
 
I spent a lot of time analyzing these trains
Then stand behind your work and share it for us to look at.

Or keep making wild claims unsubstantiated by data and continue to be the laughingstock you are today. I don't much care either way.

But until you do, I'm going to keep on believing Amtrak's numbers. If you want yours to be believed, you're going to have to do more than your current "trust me, my invisible numbers I refuse to share are better".
 
It is worth noting that *before overhead*, the Palmetto, Silver Meteor, and Auto Train were profitable in FY2012, and the LSL nearly so. Now, all routes are doing worse in 2014 than in 2013, but come 2017 we'll probably see all of the eastern "long distance" trains breaking even (or better) on direct costs, and heading towards covering their allocated overhead. Elimination of the Heritage cars and addition of extra sleeper space should give a boost; completion of various track & station projects should help as well, particularly in Florida and all along the LSL route. If the PIPs can be implemented that would help even more. And if Amtrak wins its STB case against CN (as it certainly should) things will go *much* better. If Amtrak's management can keep its eye on the ball, I can imagine a very bright future for the eastern "long distance" network.

At the state and local levels, the politics are overwhelmingly headed in the right direction, nationwide, with few exceptions. (Those exceptions include, GA, SC, WV, IN, and most of the Gulf Seaboard.) Even the major recent setbacks look to me to be temporary (FL, WI, IA, OH), and with the exception of Ohio, I think they're all a bit of a last gasp on the part of anti-rail, anti-infrastructure forces. (Ohio's problems will last longer due to gerrymandering.)

As for the transcons, well, I hope I can still get from Chicago to LA by train. I've stated my opinion before that the threatened SWC reroute would be a vast improvement.

The major recommendations of the PIPs really should be implemented. A critical pricing threshold has been achieved on many of these trains which means that added service is good for the bottom line. I'm not sure whether Amtrak management understands this.

I recalculated the estimates in the PIPs based on current revenue levels -- I can't estimate current staffing costs. I believe the daily TE/SL would now improve the bottom line, and so would the Pennsy/Cap through cars. The better departure time for the LSL was already expected to improve the bottom line, and it would do so even more now. The daily Cardinal would still have a cost to Amtrak's bottom line (due largely to the cost of the Hoosier State being pushed onto the localities), but it looks to me like it would be $2-$4 million per year based on the current revenue base -- substantially less than the cost of running the Hoosier State.

All of these improvements will, of course, be even more valuable if they can be leveraged off a higher revenue base, perhaps due to improved OTP, additional sleeper cars, improved stations, or whatever. My basic point is that these changes would *now* actually reduce Amtrak's total subsidy needs while massively increasing ridership (and therefore votes). I hope Amtrak's management is keeping its eye on the ball. A good time to implement the LSL/CL/Pennsy recommendations would be 2016, when Indiana Gateway and at least part of the NY construction work is done, enough new Viewliners are delivered, extra coaches are available from the replacement of the Midwest fleet, the EB delays on the Hi-Line are hopefully alleviate, and the cash crunch for lease buyouts has lifted. A good time to implement the daily Cardinal would be any time Buckingham Branch gets enough improvements to tolerate it. A good time to implement the daily TE/SL would be ASAP, since it actually releases equipment. Unfortunately the Crescent recommendations require a new Atlanta station so they can't be implemented in any reasonable amount of time.

(I spent way too long looking up numbers for this, but I was basically sick in bed all day, so what better to do...)
 
The participants on this thread have presented some very focused ideas and interesting information regarding what is needed to

help Amtrak improve the entire operation - including maintenance, service and future needs and more. The wealth of railroad knowledge shown by all is impressive.

We know that the government provides subsidies to drive the infrastructure of all transportation modes: Waterways and Merchant Marine and more; the servicing and protection of same by the Coast Guard and US Navy; support of the FAA, TSA and other agencies that benefit airlines; the support of highways and more. I don't mean to oversimplify the number of entities that obtain subsidies or funding, I am merely using these examples.

Amtrak provides a value of convenience and necessity to Americans just as other subsidized transport modes. The government seems to have no problem assuring that other modes have the needed resources. Why cant Amtrak be given a sum of money from gas taxes or some other sources? As I recall, the number being discussed at one point was as little as one cent would be needed from gas taxes, to be earmarked to boost Amtrak operations. I know that this is a basis for a good argument... However, can Amtrak supporters work together to identify a solution on how to convince the feds to allocate operational funds from gas taxes for example?

What are Amtrak's barriers to obtaining funds from gas taxes or other sources?

Does NARP have any recent ideas to encourage such support?

What can we as supporters on this forum do to encourage the consideration and securing of such funds?
 
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What are Amtrak's barriers to obtaining funds from gas taxes or other sources?
"Stop socialism! Privatize everything! Squawk! Squawk!"

That's pretty much it.
Well, or democracy could be to blame. Drivers do NOT want to pay

higher gas taxes. And as long as Congress is willing to tax other things

to subsidize cars, trucks, and highways, that's democracy in action.

(Not forgetting that all the other forms of government are worse.)
 
Democracy, or malapportionment?

I don't see voters in the high-population states voting for giant freeway expansions. I see them voting to *tear down* freeways, even.
 
Unfortunately democracy does present many surprises, some very unpleasant ones to, from time to time. One person's proper allocation is another person's malapportionment. That is why one has to vote to select in democracies. And the outcome is not always what one wants.

Speaking of giant freeway expansions look no further than Texas.
 
Unfortunately democracy does present many surprises, some very unpleasant ones to, from time to time. One person's proper allocation is another person's malapportionment.
This is arrant nonsense, jis. I suggest you don't talk about stuff you don't understand. I can teach you if you want to learn.
"One person one vote" is democracy.

A voter in Wyoming having 65 times the voting power of a voter in California (as in the US Senate) is malapportionment.

NY has malapportioned legislative districts: in the state senate, all the rural districts have 10% fewer voters than the ideal size and all the urban districts have 10% more than the ideal size. This was done deliberately.

Proper allocation is not a matter of opinion, it is a simple matter of mathematics.

There are certainly some people who are in favor of malapportionment. These people are fundamentally opposed to democracy -- they are anti-democratic by *definition*.
 
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Nathanael , I took Jis' comment, perhaps wrongly, as referring to money appropriations, not voting allocations.

Such as appropriating funds to Amtrak.
 
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Unfortunately democracy does present many surprises, some very unpleasant ones too, from time to time. One person's proper allocation is another person's malapportionment.
This is arrant nonsense, jis. I suggest you don't talk about stuff you don't understand. I can teach you if you want to learn.
I suggest that you consider getting off your arrogant high chair and consider the possibility that you sometimes misinterpret what your read. :p
Yeah. AmtrakBlue and RyanS's interpretation is what was intended. I was basically talking of the situations where a legitimate one person one vote decision making process produces an outcome that I fundamentally disagree with. Afterall the majority does not always produce the most desirable or the most rational outcome from all perspectives, and there is much evidence to support that. My simple observation had nothing to do with how seats and constituencies are allocated in the US, which is what seemed to have set you off on your unsolicited lecture that BTW, I have no disagreement with. Even in the most fair democratic elections bad things happen, including complete destruction of the democratic system, a favorite tactic used by the Leninists to some extent.
 
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