Joe Boardman to Retire

[tommylicious]

does he have a fat retirement package?

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Mr Boardman has done an excellent job with the resources he has had. Excellent service, THANK YOU.

My observations of Mr Boardman's tenure is that he has shown true leadership, the standard for customer service has improved dramatically (though still far from optimal), and I think from things I have read that he is directly responsible for these improvements.

That said, Amtrak has an elephant's worth of challenges. As the joke goes: "Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time." And he has taken several bites. Customer service is one. Major progress on capital improvements in the NE Corridor. Above rail profitability in the NE Corridor are a few.

It is easy to gripe that the first bite was not the one we wanted, shudda started on the trunk first, not the front leg, or the rear leg, or the etc etc etc... Mr Boardman could have easily focused on LD trains... and had equal failures with LD and the NE Corridor. Would we be happier with that? Instead he focused on making the NE Corridor become a critical player in the transportation equation... with the incremental successes of the Downeaster and Virgina services piggybacking along.

Running Amtrak is not a 40 hour a week job. Mr Boardman deserves to be able to step back and do some things on his personal bucket list, be it trains, planes, automobiles, a personal farm, or whatever. I wish him well.

Overall an excellent record of solid accomplishment. And even if he'd been mediocre overall, emphasizing that he has been very good, not mediocre, he's done a truly great job at avoiding drama, especially avoiding the wasteful churn of Presidents we saw before he landed there.

It will not be easy to find someone as good as he has been.

 

[neroden]

So far as I can tell many long distance routes have pockets of strong support here and there. The problem is that many if not most of these same routes also pass through areas that couldn't care less if the train survives and several pass through areas that openly detest their existence.

Coast Starlight: strong support in all three statesEB: strong support in every state. Contested in Wisconsin, but strong support despite opposition

CZ: mildly positive in CA, strong support in NV, neutral in UT, strong support in CO, mildly positive in Nebraska, strong support in Iowa

SWC: absurdly strong support in AZ, NM, CO, KS -- I wouldn't have believed it before it happened -- also MO

TE: strong support in Texas (yes, really), also Illinois, Missouri

LSL: strong support in NY and Chicago, moderate support in Massachusetts, highly contested in Ohio but strong support despite opposition, Indiana doesn't care, support from Michigan...

CL: strong support in Chicago, DC, West Virginia, western Maryland, highly contested in Ohio but strong support despite opposition

Cardinal: strong support in Kentucky (!), West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio (!!!), moderate support in Indiana

Star/Meteor/Palmetto: strong support in VA, NC, and especially FL -- moderate support in SC (!!!), not sure about GA

Crescent: strong support in NC, moderate in Louisiana, moderate-to-strong in MS, not sure about GA

CONO: support in Illinois and in Tennessee, weak support in Louisiana, apathy in MS

Sunset Limited: nobody seems to care, not CA, not AZ, not NM, not TX.

So for the NY-Chicago trains, the "support gap" is basically Ohio and Indiana. There is a lot of support in Ohio despite a hostile governor and gerrymandered legislature. And even Indiana seems to rouse enough support to stop cuts. The subsidies before overhead allocation are peanuts. And there's basically no overhead to remove by cancelling the trains (Chicago's still operating, the Empire Corridor is still operating, the Pennsylvanian is still operating, MARC is still operating, Beech Grove is still operating.)

For the NY-Florida trains -- apart from the fact that they're significantly profitable before overhead -- the "support gap" is basically just Georgia. Even with a hostile legislature, NC has been unwilling to allow any service cuts on any of the routes through NC.

There is no support gap on the Empire Builder. Denver will be unwilling to lose its train to Chicago. Reno will be unwilling to lose its train to California. I would have said that there was a support gap on the Southwest Chief, but recent events have proven me wrong.

 

[neroden]

Shutting down the NEC would be easier, politically, due to a remarkable lack of support from New Jersey.

Could you elaborate a bit on what got you started on that rant, providing the facts that got you going? Just curious.

Chris Christie, the last decade of unfunding of NJT, the looting of NJ rail funding for roads,...

The NEC will be protected by support from NY and PA, but NJ has been actively counterproductive for a startlingly long time.

 

[jis]

And who do you suppose paid for, just an example, the high speed universal crossovers at say County interlocking even during Chris Christie's time. Your claim that the NEC will be easier to shut down than the LD network, NJ support or otherwise, is utter BS and you either know it or are ignorant, I believe it to be the former.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

So far as I can tell many long distance routes have pockets of strong support here and there. The problem is that many if not most of these same routes also pass through areas that couldn't care less if the train survives and several pass through areas that openly detest their existence.

Coast Starlight: strong support in all three statesEB: strong support in every state. Contested in Wisconsin, but strong support despite opposition

CZ: mildly positive in CA, strong support in NV, neutral in UT, strong support in CO, mildly positive in Nebraska, strong support in Iowa

SWC: absurdly strong support in AZ, NM, CO, KS -- I wouldn't have believed it before it happened -- also MO

TE: strong support in Texas (yes, really), also Illinois, Missouri

LSL: strong support in NY and Chicago, moderate support in Massachusetts, highly contested in Ohio but strong support despite opposition, Indiana doesn't care, support from Michigan...

CL: strong support in Chicago, DC, West Virginia, western Maryland, highly contested in Ohio but strong support despite opposition

Cardinal: strong support in Kentucky (!), West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio (!!!), moderate support in Indiana

Star/Meteor/Palmetto: strong support in VA, NC, and especially FL -- moderate support in SC (!!!), not sure about GA

Crescent: strong support in NC, moderate in Louisiana, moderate-to-strong in MS, not sure about GA

CONO: support in Illinois and in Tennessee, weak support in Louisiana, apathy in MS

Sunset Limited: nobody seems to care, not CA, not AZ, not NM, not TX.

So for the NY-Chicago trains, the "support gap" is basically Ohio and Indiana. There is a lot of support in Ohio despite a hostile governor and gerrymandered legislature. And even Indiana seems to rouse enough support to stop cuts. The subsidies before overhead allocation are peanuts. And there's basically no overhead to remove by cancelling the trains (Chicago's still operating, the Empire Corridor is still operating, the Pennsylvanian is still operating, MARC is still operating, Beech Grove is still operating.)

For the NY-Florida trains -- apart from the fact that they're significantly profitable before overhead -- the "support gap" is basically just Georgia. Even with a hostile legislature, NC has been unwilling to allow any service cuts on any of the routes through NC.

There is no support gap on the Empire Builder. Denver will be unwilling to lose its train to Chicago. Reno will be unwilling to lose its train to California. I would have said that there was a support gap on the Southwest Chief, but recent events have proven me wrong.

This list shows you how much of a LD presence PA has. Some states are lucky geographically. Despite Ohio's and Indiana's lack of support for trains, it's almost impossible to get from Chicago to the NEC without going through them (although the Cardinal just barely serves Ohio). Same with South Carolina and Georgia. But apparently they can just touch Pennsylvania and go around it.

I wonder how many of these states would be as supportive if Amtrak sent them a bill. It would be nice if PA got a free train between PGH and PHL like we used to and not have to pay for it.

 

[keelhauled]

This list shows you how much of a LD presence PA has. Some states are lucky geographically. Despite Ohio's and Indiana's lack of support for trains, it's almost impossible to get from Chicago to the NEC without going through them (although the Cardinal just barely serves Ohio). Same with South Carolina and Georgia. But apparently they can just touch Pennsylvania and go around it.

I wonder how many of these states would be as supportive if Amtrak sent them a bill. It would be nice if PA got a free train between PGH and PHL like we used to and not have to pay for it.

 

[tonys96]

So far as I can tell many long distance routes have pockets of strong support here and there. The problem is that many if not most of these same routes also pass through areas that couldn't care less if the train survives and several pass through areas that openly detest their existence.

TE: strong support in Texas (yes, really), also Illinois, Missouri

Wha-What??? Both of the Senators from Texas are far from Amtrak supporters, in fact reps from both have personally told me at political gatherings that the senators would gladly cut the system completely, if given that as a realistic option. And, I know of exactly zero GOP congresscritter from Texas who supports the Amtrak system........

 

[Ryan]

I nominate this guy. Trains on Sodor run awesome.

 

[Thirdrail7]

And who do you suppose paid for, just an example, the high speed universal crossovers at say County interlocking even during Chris Christie's time. Your claim that the NEC will be easier to shut down than the LD network, NJ support or otherwise, is utter BS and you either know it or are ignorant, I believe it to be the former.

I'll leave the rest of your statement for Neroden but Chris Christie had zilch to do with the reconfiguration of County. That project (which someone in this thread had something to do with) was drawn, funded and prioritized long before he came into play. it just took a little longer for Amtrak to execute since the SES was very busy during this time.

 

[jis]

I know. Chris Christie is not the issue, though he could theoretically have blocked committed funds if he was crazy enough. The claim that NJ does not support NEC is the claim that I was questioning. Could NJ do more in an ideal world? Of course. But as far as the NEC spine goes, NJ does, and rightfully as it should, way more than PA or DE spends on it. And with the new charge allocation it will pay another cool $100 million or thereabouts more per year.

 

[Thirdrail7]

He's actually been rotated through several departments. That's traditional grooming for running the company. He has a pretty good record in operations, and in negotiations with the states, and in fights with the freight railroads. He's serious about deferred maintenance and committed to the long-distance trains. He is bullish on passenger rail.

Negotations with the states are arguably the most important thing at the moment.

Also, he seems to actually understand and care about the business -- he's not an "cut off your nose to save costs" bean-counter like E Hunter Harrison. He seems to actually recognize the real structure of Amtrak's costs, the importance of economies of scale, the deferred maintenance issues, the value of good service for customer loyalty, etc. He's apparently earned the respect and loyalty of the employees. Rare for someone with a finance background.

----

Looking at it holistically, I think Boardman needs to retire for health reasons and wants to put the company in safe hands before he does so -- hands which he trusts. We'll see if he can get his preferred candidate (who he has not named publicly) approved by the Board, but I bet he does. So I'm betting on an insider.

Stadtler's record in operations. Meh. I am not a fan. Beancounter over safety.

As for Joe Boardman's health, I don't know where that comes from. Some people know when it is time to retire and not hang on. I think he is one who knows. The Amtrak board will pick a successor based on politics.

DJ Statler? As CEO of Amtrak??? Operations???? Here is a comment from the Peanut Gallery!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJpXI37JYEI

 

[WoodyinNYC]

So far as I can tell many long distance routes have pockets of strong support here and there. ...

Coast Starlight: strong support in all three statesEB: strong support in every state. Contested in Wisconsin, but strong support despite opposition

CZ: mildly positive in CA, strong support in NV, neutral in UT, strong support in CO, mildly positive in Nebraska, strong support in Iowa

SWC: absurdly strong support in AZ, NM, CO, KS -- I wouldn't have believed it before it happened -- also MO

TE: strong support in Texas (yes, really), also Illinois, Missouri

LSL: strong support in NY and Chicago, moderate support in Massachusetts, highly contested in Ohio but strong support despite opposition, Indiana doesn't care, support from Michigan...

CL: strong support in Chicago, DC, West Virginia, western Maryland, highly contested in Ohio but strong support despite opposition

Cardinal: strong support in Kentucky (!), West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio (!!!), moderate support in Indiana

Star/Meteor/Palmetto: strong support in VA, NC, and especially FL -- moderate support in SC (!!!), not sure about GA

Crescent: strong support in NC, moderate in Louisiana, moderate-to-strong in MS, not sure about GA

CONO: support in Illinois and in Tennessee, weak support in Louisiana, apathy in MS

Sunset Limited: nobody seems to care, not CA, not AZ, not NM, not TX.

So for the NY-Chicago trains, the "support gap" is basically Ohio and Indiana. There is a lot of support in Ohio despite a hostile governor and gerrymandered legislature. And even Indiana seems to rouse enough support to stop cuts. The subsidies before overhead allocation are peanuts. And there's basically no overhead to remove by cancelling the trains (Chicago's still operating, the Empire Corridor is still operating, the Pennsylvanian is still operating, MARC is still operating, Beech Grove is still operating.)

For the NY-Florida trains -- apart from the fact that they're significantly profitable before overhead -- the "support gap" is basically just Georgia. Even with a hostile legislature, NC has been unwilling to allow any service cuts on any of the routes through NC.

There is no support gap on the Empire Builder. Denver will be unwilling to lose its train to Chicago. Reno will be unwilling to lose its train to California. I would have said that there was a support gap on the Southwest Chief, but recent events have proven me wrong.

All this "support" -- how much is that in dollars?

I read Schumer's press release as telling us that he is desperate. So his plan is to use any money he can get to build the Hudson Tunnels. That would include, if it came down to it, taking money that now supports the Western LD trains.

In that case, the Amtrak "supporters" would have to come up with $400 to replace the Acela surplus that would be paying for the work on the tunnels. Who's gonna get that kind of money thru Congress if even Schumer himself can't do it?

For Amtrak's supporters, the defensive position -- let's not cut anything -- is almost easy.

But asking for more money -- more capital for new coaches etc, or more subsidy to replace funds diverted to the Hudson Tunnels and Gateway project -- would be very, very hard to do.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

For Amtrak's supporters, the defensive position -- let's not cut anything -- is almost easy.

But asking for more money -- more capital for new coaches etc, or more subsidy to replace funds diverted to the Hudson Tunnels and Gateway project -- would be very, very hard to do.

Are the Viewliner 2's already paid for though?

 

[jis]

No, they are pay as you go, i.e. as they are received, more or less.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

But asking for more money -- more capital for new coaches etc -- would be very, very hard to do.

Are the Viewliner 2's already paid for though?

The 130 Viewliners are small potatoes. Now 70 bag cars in hand, 60 diners, sleepers, and bag-dorms to go.

The active Amtrak fleet, including shop counts but not locomotives or the Acela or Cascades train sets, totaled 1,553 cars in the 2012 Fleet Strategy (update up to you, LOL). Of those, 308 bi-levels and 825 single-level cars. (The document included the 130 CAF Viewliners in the 825, in classic case of counting of unhatched eggs!)

So about 695 new cars still needed to replace the aging single-level fleet.

That's not counting anyone's dreams of a daily Cardinal (or a daily bi-level Sunset), or a new Pennsylvanian or Broadway Ltd running Phiily-CHI. Just not enuff equipment for that until someone starts delivering new cars. The 695 wouldn't even get enuff cars to add another coach to all the trains that are selling out or close to it.

Of course, the fleet is mainly in two parts: the single-level cars for the East, and bi-levels for the West. So you'd need two multi-Billion orders.

Or as a stop gap for the West, if you could get any extra single level cars, then maybe squeeze out a few Superliners by converting one of the bi-level routes (the Capitol Ltd or the City of New Orleans, seem likely candidates). Then send its liberated cars out West to add a coach and/or a sleeper to one or more LD lines that could easily sell the space.

As far as I can tell, none of the recent Congressional spewing actually even mentions buying 100s of new cars, not soon, not ever.

The haters' plan is not to try to kill Amtrak while it is still popular. The plan is to starve it of funds for new equipment, let it rust away and decay, and then kill it. Pretty good plan they have, no?

 

[Anderson]

But asking for more money -- more capital for new coaches etc -- would be very, very hard to do.

Are the Viewliner 2's already paid for though?

The 130 Viewliners are small potatoes. Now 70 bag cars in hand, 60 diners, sleepers, and bag-dorms to go.

The active Amtrak fleet, including shop counts but not locomotives or the Acela or Cascades train sets, totaled 1,553 cars in the 2012 Fleet Strategy (update up to you, LOL). Of those, 308 bi-levels and 825 single-level cars. (The document included the 130 CAF Viewliners in the 825, in classic case of counting of unhatched eggs!)

So about 695 new cars still needed to replace the aging single-level fleet.

That's not counting anyone's dreams of a daily Cardinal (or a daily bi-level Sunset), or a new Pennsylvanian or Broadway Ltd running Phiily-CHI. Just not enuff equipment for that until someone starts delivering new cars. The 695 wouldn't even get enuff cars to add another coach to all the trains that are selling out or close to it.

Of course, the fleet is mainly in two parts: the single-level cars for the East, and bi-levels for the West. So you'd need two multi-Billion orders.

Or as a stop gap for the West, if you could get any extra single level cars, then maybe squeeze out a few Superliners by converting one of the bi-level routes (the Capitol Ltd or the City of New Orleans, seem likely candidates). Then send its liberated cars out West to add a coach and/or a sleeper to one or more LD lines that could easily sell the space.

As far as I can tell, none of the recent Congressional spewing actually even mentions buying 100s of new cars, not soon, not ever.

The haters' plan is not to try to kill Amtrak while it is still popular. The plan is to starve it of funds for new equipment, let it rust away and decay, and then kill it. Pretty good plan they have, no?

Probably not going to work. The main issue is that, screwups on the part of suppliers notwithstanding, there's a decent amount of displacement of old equipment slated with the N-S order. It is also very likely that Virginia (and/or North Carolina) will be putting in an order at some point to handle their trains...which gives Amtrak a lot of foreseeable slack with coach space (and cafes). Bear in mind that as far as I can tell, there's no compelling reason to dump the Amfleets...Amtrak has enough of them to keep a good ecosystem of parts orders going for quite some time.

The hangup is sleepers, really...and with the benefit of years of discussions my suspicion is that the Superliners were a tactical hit but a strategic problem (they helped save the LD trains but also rifted the fleet in a highly undesirable way).

One move I'd like to see would be Amtrak moving to, at some point, re-equip the Auto Train with new equipment sets (bump capacity and partly restore cut amenities) and cascade those Superliners out into the rest of the fleet. The periodic re-equipping of "flagship trains" (Auto Train for the Superliners, Meteor and LSL for the Viewliners) ought to give Amtrak a back-door way to handle the fleet.

 

[erierail]

I agree Boardman did a good keeping Amtrak whole and even getting new equipment. He deserve his retirement package like all CEO's. Just the way of the world.

 

[neroden]

Wha-What??? Both of the Senators from Texas are far from Amtrak supporters, in fact reps from both have personally told me at political gatherings that the senators would gladly cut the system completely, if given that as a realistic option. And, I know of exactly zero GOP congresscritter from Texas who supports the Amtrak system........

The Texas Eagle *only exists due to local support in Texas*, and Texas has put money into it in the past. There have been a lot of route cancellations in Texas; the Eagle was specifically kept alive solely due to local support. Whatever Texas Senators think, Texas state legislators and mayors and city councils -- from San Antonio through Austin through Fort Worth and Dallas -- are going to keep it alive.

There's an active organization supporting *just* the Texas Eagle. Established by the "Texas Eagle Mayors' Coalition". http://tempo-rail.org/

 

[neroden]

And who do you suppose paid for, just an example, the high speed universal crossovers at say County interlocking even during Chris Christie's time.

I looked that up and it appears to have been the federal government. Are you absolutely sure it wasn't federal funds, because it looks like it was federal funds being pushed through NJT.
Yeah, I know the NEC will keep operating *despite* New Jersey, but the lack of support from New Jersey for train service is problematic. And frankly *bizarre* given how dependent the state is on train service; how could they elect a train-hater? Familiarity breeds contempt or what? In New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, we generally assume that train-haters were elected by the portion of the state which doesn't have service. In California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and DC, it's now impossible to elect a train-hater. But what's going on in New Jersey?

----

The LD network can't be shut down, politically speaking. If it could have been, they would have done it in:

-- 1971 with the removal of private passenger rail service (pretty successful),

-- 1979 "Carter Cuts" (pretty successful),

-- 1997 (really a very successful attempt: taking most routes less than daily, AND running out of cash, with flatlined ridership -- with the Gingrich caucus in charge of the House of Representatives, too),

-- 2001 (attempt to run Amtrak out of money averted by Penn Station mortgage),

-- 2005 (routes lost due to new requirements removing old cars from service)

The 1997 attack was the closest the haters will ever get. It was very close to succeeding. Since then, ridership is way up, revenue is way up, state and local government support is way up, and there seems little chance of a CEO as damaging as Thomas Downs. A second attempt at the 1997 tactics would fail, and none of the other tactics worked as well as the 1997 tactics. (Also, gas prices will never be as low again as they were in 1997, and air travel will not be as convenient as it was then unless the security nonsense gets relaxed.)

 

[tonys96]

Wha-What??? Both of the Senators from Texas are far from Amtrak supporters, in fact reps from both have personally told me at political gatherings that the senators would gladly cut the system completely, if given that as a realistic option. And, I know of exactly zero GOP congresscritter from Texas who supports the Amtrak system........

The Texas Eagle *only exists due to local support in Texas*, and Texas has put money into it in the past. There have been a lot of route cancellations in Texas; the Eagle was specifically kept alive solely due to local support. Whatever Texas Senators think, Texas state legislators and mayors and city councils -- from San Antonio through Austin through Fort Worth and Dallas -- are going to keep it alive.

There's an active organization supporting *just* the Texas Eagle. Established by the "Texas Eagle Mayors' Coalition". http://tempo-rail.org/

RE: The Texas Eagle *only exists due to local support in Texas*--------Citation needed.

The past is just that. Past. It is certainly a new day in Austin, Texas, and I feel pretty safe in saying that if the Feds asked Texas for money for the Eagle, it would be a difficult hill to climb. And cities/counties are hard pressed themselves....

The days of Kay Bailey Hutchison being a calming force to assist Amtrak are over......in fact, I do not expect to see any NEW $$$$ going from Texas toward the HF......what has been committed will continue to flow, but I would not hold my breath waiting to see any significant new $$$$....capped at 2.5 mil, IIRC.

IMHO, TEMPO is nothing more than a way for small town elected officials to get three out of town trips paid for by taxpayers each year.....and for mid level staffers to do the same.....have not seen any policy or projects come from that group that were implemented in quite a long time.....

If you think Texas Mayors or local elected officials have any major clout at the state capital, I have that elusive bridge to sell to you, my friend.......

 

[tonys96]

I do not believe the Eagle is on any "chopping block", though......as of today.....in Austin, one must always remember that tomorrow is a new day, every day! Mercifully the Texas Legislature in only in session once every two years, and it will be 2017 before they convene again. We are thankful for that small miracle! :wub:

 

[Bob Dylan]

As a resident of Austin and a friend of Tony, who is a long time elected local official in the Metroplex, I totally agree with his opinion on the current know nothings ruling Texas!

 

[Palmland]

Amtrak needs two leaders. Maybe both a CEO, who would negotiate all the politics involved (like Amtrak Joe) and a President who would spend all his time making the railroad run better- in all departments. My vote: recently retired Wick Moorman. Of course he would be crazy to want to take it on!

 

[jis]

Just for your entertainment from Trains Magazine :

Hunter Harrison for President (of Amtrak)

I am just waiting for a certain someone to throw an apoplectic fit here.