NARP submits brief to Supreme Court in PRIIA case

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CHamilton

CHamilton

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Coalition Files “Friend of Court” Brief Defending Passenger Rights
Confronts Increasingly Serious Delays Afflicting America’s National Train Network

Washington, D.C.—The National Association of Railroad Passengers, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, All Aboard Ohio, and Virginians for High Speed Rail have filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that could prove pivotal in eliminating delays that are leaving passengers stopped on the track and stranded at the station.

The brief argues for the reversal of a judgment issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals - D.C. Circuit. That judgment struck down a provision of the 2008 rail reauthorization bill that instructed the Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak—consulting with the Surface Transportation Board, freight railroads, states, rail labor, and rail passenger organizations—to develop metrics and minimum standards for measuring Amtrak passenger train performance and service quality. A decision in this case has taken on new urgency, following the U.S. House’s introduction of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2014 (H.R. 5449), which sidesteps the serious on-time performance issues afflicting train passengers across the U.S. and crippling rail growth just at the moment when Americans are embracing rail travel in record numbers.

The amicus, or friend-of-the-court brief, lays out an argument structured around two central facts:

I.) “The court of appeals based its decision on two separate grounds: (1) an erroneous finding that Amtrak is a private entity and (2) a complete disregard of the factors indicating sufficient governmental control over the development and implementation of the metrics and standards.”...

II.) “As a matter of public policy, the decision by the court of appeals, which invalidates Amtrak’s on-time performance measures, thwarts the intent of Congress and threatens the future of passenger rail service in the United States.”
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Even the brief stumbles in its presentation. The performance metrics should not be Amtrak's but should be of the FRA. That is the primary issue at hand. Amtrak may have an advisory role but certainly should not have the power to veto.Just IMHO of course.

I agree with George. This position is utterly wrong headed and won't help anything. For once I find myself in the odd position where I am hoping that the part of the court that I love to hate, does what it is expected to do. Sigh....
 
George Harris said:
Yes, by ll means let's do things to make the railroad companies even less enthusiastic about hosting Amtrak.
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They don't have to run Amtrak if they don't want to. They are free to give up their licenses and hand the railroad over to the government.

Running a railroad is a privilege, not a right. It comes with certain obligations. Railroad execs are not feudal lords; we do not have to beg for scraps from them. They operate by special permission of the government, *provided* that they keep up their side of the bargain -- and they had better start understanding that.
 
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neroden said:
George Harris said:
Yes, by ll means let's do things to make the railroad companies even less enthusiastic about hosting Amtrak.
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They don't have to run Amtrak if they don't want to. They are free to give up their licenses and hand the railroad over to the government.

Running a railroad is a privilege, not a right. It comes with certain obligations. Railroad execs are not feudal lords; we do not have to beg for scraps from them. They operate by special permission of the government, *provided* that they keep up their side of the bargain -- and they had better start understanding that.
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However, they do have particular rights and arbitrarily infringing upon them is reasonable cause for complaint.
 
Paulus said:
neroden said:
George Harris said:
Yes, by ll means let's do things to make the railroad companies even less enthusiastic about hosting Amtrak.
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They don't have to run Amtrak if they don't want to. They are free to give up their licenses and hand the railroad over to the government.

Running a railroad is a privilege, not a right. It comes with certain obligations. Railroad execs are not feudal lords; we do not have to beg for scraps from them. They operate by special permission of the government, *provided* that they keep up their side of the bargain -- and they had better start understanding that.
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However, they do have particular rights and arbitrarily infringing upon them is reasonable cause for complaint.
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True.

And they have particular obligations, and not living up to them most certainly is reasonable cause to complain.
 
Seriously, it is *not asking much* to ask the railroads to run a few trains a day on time, or close to on time. In most countries it wouldn't be considered to be asking *anything* -- this is just *assumed* to be part of the basic public service agreement made when getting a license to operate a railroad -- but we have poorly operated railroads for various historical reasons.

It is worth understanding that most railroads, historically, were not given permission to build or operate their lines until they agreed to run passenger trains. Times changed, and they were allowed to abrogate a large number of those agreements (often to the anger and disgust of the states & localities with whom they originally signed the agreements); it's really not asking much to ask them to keep moving the very few remaining trains competently.
 
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Outside corridors, Amtrak timekeeping always goes to rot when the economy is doing well. BNSF, CSX, NS, and UP set their capacities to a baseline when the economy is about 50-50. In 2009 and 2010 when the economy stunk, freight traffic dropped off considerably and Amtrak trains tended to do better. Now the economy is above the median, and the pendulum has swung to bad timekeeping. It's not just Amtrak. Freight customers are complaining that their own delivery times have fallen off. Well, that's the reality of running a railroad. If the four major railroads added so much capacity that they would accommodate the economy at full-tilt, the railroads would be economically inefficient at other times -- and when railroads have to compete with trucks and barges for business, that does matter.
 
xyzzy said:
If the four major railroads added so much capacity that they would accommodate the economy at full-tilt, the railroads would be economically inefficient at other times -- and when railroads have to compete with trucks and barges for business, that does matter.
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Well, there is another alternative, which apparently all other major railroads in the world have figured out. That is to no accept loads beyond what can be reasonably carried. Manage demand that is put on the system. The fact is that many US railroads are irresponsibly greedy landing themselves into these messes repeatedly. They really don;t care much about whether they meet their part of any service level agreements that they sign off on, and hope they can get away with it. Effective monopolies granted to them by we the people has this as an inevitable consequence. Another case of too big to bring to heal.
 
jis said:
xyzzy said:
If the four major railroads added so much capacity that they would accommodate the economy at full-tilt, the railroads would be economically inefficient at other times -- and when railroads have to compete with trucks and barges for business, that does matter.
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Well, there is another alternative, which apparently all other major railroads in the world have figured out. That is to no accept loads beyond what can be reasonably carried. Manage demand that is put on the system. The fact is that many US railroads are irresponsibly greedy landing themselves into these messes repeatedly. They really don;t care much about whether they meet their part of any service level agreements that they sign off on, and hope they can get away with it. Effective monopolies granted to them by we the people has this as an inevitable consequence. Another case of too big to bring to heal.
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I believe a search of "interstate commerce common carrier obligations" would lead to the fact that railroads do not have the authority to deny service to customers. They can attempt to regulate demand/capacity issues by adjusting tariffs, but even that must be within reason, with "reason" being ultimately defined by the STB. Basically, if a customer desires to builds a rail terminal facility on BNSF or any other railroad, the railroad must accommodate that terminal and handle the business. If that causes capacity issues, then that is the railroad's problem to correct, but denying service is not an option.
 
Well, so that is a mighty silly law. Either you have the resources in place to provide a service or you don't. If you don't then no amount of law writing is going to change that. Even the nationalized railroads do not place such burdens on their nationalized operations, over which supposedly the government has complete control.

So what is one supposed to do when it is known that you don't have the capacity to carry the offered load? Just take it in and park it? Well guess what? :p
 
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xyzzy said:
Outside corridors, Amtrak timekeeping always goes to rot when the economy is doing well. BNSF, CSX, NS, and UP set their capacities to a baseline when the economy is about 50-50. In 2009 and 2010 when the economy stunk, freight traffic dropped off considerably and Amtrak trains tended to do better. Now the economy is above the median,
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Actually, it is NOT above the median. We're still in depressed-economy territory -- the lower half of the business cycle.
What's happening is that there's been a secular shift from road to rail, because gasoline (& diesel) prices are persistently high. (Also a shift from pipeline to rail due to the existing pipelines being in the wrong places for the currently-producing oil fields.)

The Class Is didn't just set their capacity for the average point on the business cycle -- they also set their capacity based on the assumption that the rail *percentage* of traffic was going to stay roughly constant. And that was a HUGE mistake, and a forseeable mistake (I knew better in 2008, when the big gas price spike hit). As a result, the railroads are clogging up *even* when the economy is still well below average -- they would do even worse in a booming economy.
 
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PRR 60 said:
denying service is not an option.
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Denying service permanently is not an option, but they can certainly say "We'll accept your traffic for loading 2 months from now, don't bother to have your trucks show up until then." They do that sort of thing already.
That would give them enough time to build the necessary extra capacity.
 
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jis said:
Well, so that is a mighty silly law. Either you have the resources in place to provide a service or you don;t. If you don;t then no amount of law writing is going to change that. Even the nationalized railroads do not place such burdens on their nationalized operations, over which supposedly the government has complete control.

So what is one supposed to do when it is known that you don't have the capacity to carry the offered load? Just take it in and park it? Well guess what? :p
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I believe Canada has attempted to mandate something similar recently - requiring CN and CP to increase grain shipments by a certain percentage, even though both railroads claimed to be essentially at or near capacity. Maybe the Canadian federal government has figured out how to "write" capacity/resources into place. :giggle:
 
I believe Canada is telling CP and CN, fairly explicitly, to cut other service to make room for grain.

CN and CP really dislike carrying grain in Canada because it's fully regulated (a bit like the pre-Staggers situation in the US) and their profits are explicitly capped. It's the price of doing business as a railroad in Canada though.
 
neroden said:
I believe Canada is telling CP and CN, fairly explicitly, to cut other service to make room for grain.

CN and CP really dislike carrying grain in Canada because it's fully regulated (a bit like the pre-Staggers situation in the US) and their profits are explicitly capped. It's the price of doing business as a railroad in Canada though.
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Ah, OK. I stand corrected.
 
jis said:
So what is one supposed to do when it is known that you don't have the capacity to carry the offered load? Just take it in and park it? Well guess what? :p
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A common carrier can fulfill its reasonable committments under contract before respoding to reasonable requests for common carrier service. What is "reasonable"? That's what lawyers get paid to argue. In practice it means that when there's a bumper crop in North Dakota the crop sits for weeks or months waiting for shipment. When I was a kid back in the 60s there would be grain piled on streets waiting for elevator room, much less a grain car. Oops, I guess that it's a story that never gets old.
 
neroden said:
Actually, it is NOT above the median. We're still in depressed-economy territory -- the lower half of the business cycle.
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Not where I live. Happy times are here again. Maybe where you live.
 
It's not just rail with capacity issues:

http://gcaptain.com/record-harvest-seen-pushing-u-s-river-transportation-system-to-near-breaking-point/

CHICAGO, Sept 25 (Reuters) – With a record U.S. harvest just coming in, the river transportation system that is at the heart of the nation’s farm economy is overstrained by rising demand for shipping capacity, a low barge inventory, and a dilapidated lock system.

The pressure is building on an inland waterways network that is just one flood, drought or mechanical breakdown from calamity after decades of neglect, industry sources say.

Looming bumper corn and soybean crops are bringing to light issues that have built for years and which have been exacerbated by new entrants to the marketplace for river logistics, such as producers of crude oil from the nation’s shale boom.

Rail congestion and truck shortages are shifting more cargo to the creaking infrastructure for floating heartland goods to market.
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Eric S said:
jis said:
Well, so that is a mighty silly law. Either you have the resources in place to provide a service or you don;t. If you don;t then no amount of law writing is going to change that. Even the nationalized railroads do not place such burdens on their nationalized operations, over which supposedly the government has complete control.

So what is one supposed to do when it is known that you don't have the capacity to carry the offered load? Just take it in and park it? Well guess what? :p
Click to expand...
I believe Canada has attempted to mandate something similar recently - requiring CN and CP to increase grain shipments by a certain percentage, even though both railroads claimed to be essentially at or near capacity. Maybe the Canadian federal government has figured out how to "write" capacity/resources into place. :giggle:
Click to expand...
Where there's a will, there's a way, and the prospect of being hanged penalized focuses the mind wonderfully. :p
 
But as long as the legal penalties are smaller than what the companies are willing to spend on political donations, and the gains from such are even vaster, the power of legal penalties is considerably reduced. Afterall, if one can buy off politicians and judges, as happens in some countries...... fortunately i don't think we are there yet, but are moving towards it.

This is the cynic side of me speaking. ;)
 
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