Passenger Rail at a Shippers Conference

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Trains' Newswire today had an interesting recap of the Midwest Association of Rail Shippers meeting where there was some discussion about passenger rail. This is a few of the comments.

LOMBARD, Ill. — The Midwest Association of Rail Shippers Winter Meeting is by no means focused on passenger railroading, but there were some notable comments about Amtrak over the course of the two-day event.

“I wasn’t even close to the rail industry in 1970 or 1980,” Oberman said (STB Chairman), “but on the one hand, Congress said, you know, we’re going to do passenger service ourselves. On the other hand, we’re going to pass Staggers [the Staggers Act, a significant step in deregulation] and we’re going to encourage railroads to consolidate, rationalize, and allow them to remove double- and triple-tracking and so forth. But we’re still going to make them run Amtrak on time. So there were a lot of federal policies which didn’t seem to be talking to one another.”

Oberman noted that the “excruciatingly detailed” Gulf Coast hearings — over Amtrak’s efforts to start service between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala. — displayed the kind of infrastructure deficiencies that make passenger service an issue, and said there would need to be a commitment to address that problem.

“But we also have, for the first time in Amtrak’s history, a $66 billion pot of money aimed at providing to do that. So I think there is reason to be optimistic, if the railroads and Amtrak work together to expand infrastructure as needed where passenger service expansion should happen.”
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*Another view on Amtrak came from Paul Fenton, CEO of shortline operator Patriot Rail, whose resume also includes a stint as CEO of Southern California commuter rail operator Metrolink, as well as time as CEO at short line company OmniTRAX, and stints with Class I railroads Canadian National, Kansas City Southern, and Santa Fe. Fenton’s belief is that Amtrak should operate at a top speed equal to that of intermodal freight trains, rather than the current 79 mph that is the maximum for most passenger trains on host freight railroads.“You realize how hard it is to run a high-density network when you have a train that doesn’t fit your slots?” Fenton said. “

“I don’t think very many people who ride Amtrak across the country are doing it to get there as fast as they can. So we slow it down 10 mph, is it really going to make a difference? Fit the network, first of all. That would change the game a lot.”
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Henry Posner III, chairman of Railroad Development Corp. — which has freight and passenger interests in Europe — was asked, based on those experiences, how focusing on passengers can constrain freight operations.

“There needs to be an environment where they can coexist,” Posner said, “but you have to decide what the core business is. In North America, that’s freight.” He suggested that one way to get a good result for both sides is to have separate companies focusing on each aspect: “If you get a company whose sole focus is on passenger service, you’re more likely to get a good result.”

In North America, he said, such private sector companies do exist. “Herzog is a pure private-sector company, as is Brightline, and in both cases, they don’t have a freight business to rely on, and they’re still in business, so they must be doing something. In my view, Brightline is a real-estate company with a train in the basement, which by the way is the Japanese model.”

Herzog — probably better known for construction and maintenance — is a contract operator for operations including Caltrain, Florida’s TriRail, New Mexico Rail Runner, and Trinity Railway Express and TEXRail in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. “You can argue they run an intercity service because they operate the commuter train between Dallas and Fort Worth,” Posner said.

(Herzog is doing the construction work for the SunRail extension.)
 
As far as passenger services, Brightline seems to be the one who has it together. Before I moved out of south Florida, Brightline was being totally dismissed and badmouthed left and right, that it would never work or survive, and that they would clog up the existing rails, interfere with pleasure boating, angering the Coast Guard (bridges) and have crashes, you name it. Now, watching them the last few years, as they progress - they seem to be the one to emulate as having their act together very completely. New stations, new tracking, big Orlando terminal, etc. They are certainly doing something right.
 
As far as passenger services, Brightline seems to be the one who has it together. Before I moved out of south Florida, Brightline was being totally dismissed and badmouthed left and right, that it would never work or survive, and that they would clog up the existing rails, interfere with pleasure boating, angering the Coast Guard (bridges) and have crashes, you name it. Now, watching them the last few years, as they progress - they seem to be the one to emulate as having their act together very completely. New stations, new tracking, big Orlando terminal, etc. They are certainly doing something right.
Yes, and ironically a lot of the technical brains behind it was imported from Amtrak NEC - many who worked on making Acela a reality, and NJT! The marketing and hospitality brains comes from the group led by the CEO Patrick Goddard who comes from the hospitality industry.
 
Yes, and ironically a lot of the technical brains behind it was imported from Amtrak NEC - many who worked on making Acela a reality, and NJT! The marketing and hospitality brains comes from the group led by the CEO Patrick Goddard who comes from the hospitality industry.
Also, Gene Skoropowski was involved - his prior experience was with the Capitol Corridor, which notably also operates under the same sort of situation on UP tracks in CA.
 
............ny OmniTRAX, and stints with Class I railroads Canadian National, Kansas City Southern, and Santa Fe. Fenton’s belief is that Amtrak should operate at a top speed equal to that of intermodal freight trains, rather than the current 79 mph that is the maximum for most passenger trains on host freight railroads.“You realize how hard it is to run a high-density network when you have a train that doesn’t fit your slots?” Fenton said. “
That was something that C. B. Hall and I had raised in response to the 2009 Pioneer "study" - one of the big ticket generators was extending passing sidings so that 79 mph passenger trains could overtake 70 mph intermodal trains. As public input was stifled, it wasn't like the ICC days when staff could be cross-examined, so we never found out if that was considered. We pictured keeping the speed limit at 79 mph, but writing the schedule for 70 mph. That would be somewhat like the Trans-Siberian Railway's operation, where trains frequently arrive early at intermediate stations if they have a clear track.
 
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