Phase IIIb

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CCC1007 said:
Devil's Advocate said:
Thirdrail7 said:
Devil said:
Thirdrail7 said:
Devil said:
I wonder how much they'd save by simply not running all these specials, not changing the livery, and simply sending Boardman on his way.
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Mr. Boardman and the livery aside, the specials are likely to operate. Most railroads operate them to inspect their territory or drum up business and/or support for their operation.
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How many railroads routinely operate their own inspection specials on class one foreign territory? What is the point of trying to drum up additional financial losses when you're supposedly trying to balance the budget? If Boardman wants to run a premature victory lap on his way out then maybe he should ride what he's actually selling instead of selling something no actual customer will ever ride.
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Umm. BNSF, CSX ,Conrail (Shared Assets), UP, and NS to my direct knowledge. Not only have they run them on their own territories, they've run them on other territories.
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So BNSF, CSX, UP, and NS are routinely operating their own hardware inspection specials on foreign class one trackage hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their nearest home territory? Because it almost sounds like you're trying to sell a "has it ever happened anywhere at anytime" type of answer to a "does it happen regularly in a similar manner" type of question. There are third party commercial maintenance services and regulatory inspection cars that operate on most if not all class one mainlines, but I am not referring to those.

jis said:
Besides, this particular operation of the NOL - JAX inspection train was requested among others by a Republican Senator, a Republican and at least one Democrat Congressperson (one who was on the train with the Senator) and a whole host of Mayors and a few County officials along the route. It would be somewhat foolish IMHO to turn them down.
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Does anyone really believe that a new or revived NOL-JAX train is going to be funded to anywhere near a net neutral level? If not then Mr Boardman is simply drumming up even more debt that the rest of the staff will be tasked with erasing after he's gone. If Mr. Boardman had gone to bat and won some substantial operating concessions from congress then by all means take your newly invigorated show on the road and enjoy it. Instead Mr. Boardman ended up making unrealistic promises that are virtually guaranteed to fail and set the stage for even harsher attacks in the future.
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Yep, every year they send officer specials to events like the super bowl, and when there is an election year, they also show up for the party conventions.
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Good point. I had not considered Superbowl™ trains and political glad handing. Still wondering how they how they would manage to survive if all they ever brought back was more debt, but I probably should have anticipated that response before asking.

jis said:
It seems to me that you live in an alternate reality where Mr. Boardman has made any promises to anyone. The only thing that he has said repeatedly is that unless there is full funding from the Feds, the state's involved or someone else there will be no train, much to the chagrin of some starry eyed train enthusiasts. Could you identify which promise he has made to whom exactly? I talked to the people involved day before from the cities and counties, at Jacksonville. I did not get the sense that anyone thought any promise had been made. All seem to be quite aware that it is upto them to find the funding or there will be no train. Could you share your sources that suggest someone thinks they will get a train for free? Even those that think the Feds should fund the train understand that Amtrak is not the Feds.
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Boardman promised the food and beverage losses would come to an end in five years with much of that time already spent and only a couple years left to work with. According to your reality this was an simple and easy ploy that has no bearing on anything because Amtrak's growing number of detractors will simply "forget" about any promises made the moment Boardman is gone. His successor will simply disavow any knowledge of such a promise and will be free to start another round of lies that won't reach fruition until just after retirement. Which honestly makes this whole thing sound more like a getaway than a victory lap, but once AU's hive mind has decided what is real there is little if any chance to counter it.
 
CCC1007 said:
Devil's Advocate said:
Thirdrail7 said:
Devil said:
Thirdrail7 said:
Devil said:
I wonder how much they'd save by simply not running all these specials, not changing the livery, and simply sending Boardman on his way.
Click to expand...
Mr. Boardman and the livery aside, the specials are likely to operate. Most railroads operate them to inspect their territory or drum up business and/or support for their operation.
Click to expand...
How many railroads routinely operate their own inspection specials on class one foreign territory? What is the point of trying to drum up additional financial losses when you're supposedly trying to balance the budget? If Boardman wants to run a premature victory lap on his way out then maybe he should ride what he's actually selling instead of selling something no actual customer will ever ride.
Click to expand...
Umm. BNSF, CSX ,Conrail (Shared Assets), UP, and NS to my direct knowledge. Not only have they run them on their own territories, they've run them on other territories.
Click to expand...
So BNSF, CSX, UP, and NS are routinely operating their own hardware inspection specials on foreign class one trackage hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their nearest home territory? Because it almost sounds like you're trying to sell a "has it ever happened anywhere at anytime" type of answer to a "does it happen regularly in a similar manner" type of question. There are third party commercial maintenance services and regulatory inspection cars that operate on most if not all class one mainlines, but I am not referring to those.

jis said:
Besides, this particular operation of the NOL - JAX inspection train was requested among others by a Republican Senator, a Republican and at least one Democrat Congressperson (one who was on the train with the Senator) and a whole host of Mayors and a few County officials along the route. It would be somewhat foolish IMHO to turn them down.
Click to expand...
Does anyone really believe that a new or revived NOL-JAX train is going to be funded to anywhere near a net neutral level? If not then Mr Boardman is simply drumming up even more debt that the rest of the staff will be tasked with erasing after he's gone. If Mr. Boardman had gone to bat and won some substantial operating concessions from congress then by all means take your newly invigorated show on the road and enjoy it. Instead Mr. Boardman ended up making unrealistic promises that are virtually guaranteed to fail and set the stage for even harsher attacks in the future.
Click to expand...
Yep, every year they send officer specials to events like the super bowl, and when there is an election year, they also show up for the party conventions.
Click to expand...

Yes, DA. This is routine. BNSF has their OCS on the east coast multiple times a year. This has been occurring for at least a decade and they have little east coast presence. I can almost mark my calendar that UP will traverse eastern routes even though they have little east coast presence. NS has little action in New England, yet their OCS shows up in Boston. Shared Assets takes some sort of state of the operation joyride over their territory and for the heck of it, operate on NS as well.

As for net neutral, do we have five net neutral passenger operations that own their own territory and receive no subsidy in the United States? Perhaps, but support has to be drummed up and if the people that may want you to provide a service want a trip to see if it is worthwhile to pursue, then there is nothing wrong with making a presentation.

Again, these types of trip have led to funding for Amtrak and has also allowed freight operators to lobby support for their operations.
 
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Devil's Advocate said:
jis said:
It seems to me that you live in an alternate reality where Mr. Boardman has made any promises to anyone. The only thing that he has said repeatedly is that unless there is full funding from the Feds, the state's involved or someone else there will be no train, much to the chagrin of some starry eyed train enthusiasts. Could you identify which promise he has made to whom exactly? I talked to the people involved day before from the cities and counties, at Jacksonville. I did not get the sense that anyone thought any promise had been made. All seem to be quite aware that it is upto them to find the funding or there will be no train. Could you share your sources that suggest someone thinks they will get a train for free? Even those that think the Feds should fund the train understand that Amtrak is not the Feds.
Click to expand...
Boardman promised the food and beverage losses would come to an end in five years with much of that time already spent and only a couple years left to work with. According to your reality this was an simple and easy ploy that has no bearing on anything because Amtrak's growing number of detractors will simply "forget" about any promises made the moment Boardman is gone. His successor will simply disavow any knowledge of such a promise and will be free to start another round of lies that won't reach fruition until just after retirement. Which honestly makes this whole thing sound more like a getaway than a victory lap, but once AU's hive mind has decided what is real there is little if any chance to counter it.
Click to expand...
I was talking of the justification for running the special which has precious little to do with F&B subsidies. Apparently that is no longer a point of contention since the subject seems to have changed.

As far as F&B subsidy goes, the fact that it is currently the law of the land was not exactly preventable by whatever Boardman said or not. The reality is Amtrak will fail to meet that goal and the law will be adjusted to align with reality. That is closer to reality than your bloviation. This has happened in the past with Amtrak, with oodles of defense budget line items, with attempt to legislate the value of pi to be exactly equal to three etc. The fact that you don't like it does not make it unreal.
 
My more detailed point to point reply was apparently eaten by the forum software.

In any case I do not see the Sunset East coming back. Which means I do not see these types of specials as beneficial to Amtrak's budget or to Boardman's future image. It feels more like a money wasting tease to me. Boardman gets to play the role of adamant supporter while strangling the budget elsewhere and various politicians get to take credit for helping to support a train that's never coming back. The fans along the way get to play the role of future passengers who will use the service regularly, even though it's doubtful most of them would keep buying tickets beyond the first few few joyrides.

The current mandate is never going to be practical enough for Amtrak to thrive at the national level. Adding more long distance trains only adds to the debt burden that Amtrak must carry on its back. If Amtrak wants to run support generating specials then I believe they should be focused on areas that have the will and the money to build up a budget neutral service. It makes no sense to see Amtrak spending time and money trying to revive one of the slowest and poorest performing routes.

I would like to believe that if we just generated enough new support the rules for Amtrak would change, but I sincerely doubt that's ever going to happen. Even the most pro-Amtrak administration since Amtrak's creation wasn't able to change the fundamentally flawed rules Amtrak must operate under now and forever. Until these rules change any expansion has to be cost neutral or it risks hastening Amtrak's demise.

That's my view anyway. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Amtrak is stronger today than ever before, and running specials anywhere and everywhere they're welcome is just good business sense. However, in a election year where even the pretense of compromise is equated with tyranny, and partisan ideology trumps any semblance of reason, I sincerely doubt that the worst is behind us. If anything the the worst threat to Amtrak's existence seems to be just around the corner. Perhaps Amtrak will be ready for it, but it sure doesn't seem like it at the moment.
 
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Devil's Advocate said:
That's my view anyway. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Amtrak is stronger today than ever before, and running specials anywhere and everywhere they're welcome is just good business sense. However, in a election year where even the pretense of compromise is equated with tyranny, and partisan ideology trumps any semblance of reason, I sincerely doubt that the worst is behind us. If anything the the worst threat to Amtrak's existence seems to be just around the corner. Perhaps Amtrak will be ready for it, but it sure doesn't seem like it at the moment.
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We're in a political realignment period, which is confusing a lot of people. Support for passenger rail in general and Amtrak in particular is on the rise permanently, and Amtrak actually is stronger than it has been in its entire history, both by ridership and financially. (The upward trend in ridership started in 1995 after being flat for at least 15 years. This was amidst the Downs administration, so it's an underlying secular trend, certainly not management competence!)

I'm no optimist. The United States government is probably in the most dangerous unstable position it's ever been in, with structural deadlock problems quite possibly leading to the collapse of the system (every other US-style President / Congress system in the world has collapsed -- parliamentary systems do better). The threat of world war is probably higher than it's been in 30 years. The general economic situation of high inequality threatens to return the world to the Dark Ages of aristocracy. The world environmental situation is nothing short of catastrophic. But passenger rail is a bright spot.

Actually, passenger rail seems to do better in periods of high economic inequality, much to my chagrin. Also worth noting: individual departments have a tendency to survive governmental collapse (just ask Russian Railways, which has survived essentially intact from the Tsars through today).
 
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Any sightings of 172's repaint? Should have pulled into the Windy City today.
 
lo2e said:
KnightRail said:
Any sightings of 172's repaint? Should have pulled into the Windy City today.
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Apparently I missed the news that it was getting a repaint. Do you have a link on where you saw that?
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It wasn't on the news but it was supposedly repainted while in the shops. It is currently in MKE service. If someone can eyeball and post a picture, we'll know if this is true.
 
Thirdrail7 said:
lo2e said:
KnightRail said:
Any sightings of 172's repaint? Should have pulled into the Windy City today.
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Apparently I missed the news that it was getting a repaint. Do you have a link on where you saw that?
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It wasn't on the news but it was supposedly repainted while in the shops. It is currently in MKE service. If someone can eyeball and post a picture, we'll know if this is true.
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If it stayed in Phase V or is now III should help paint the picture if III is going fleet wide or not. Could even be the new Operation Lifesaver paint scheme P42 mentioned on the inside cover of the official 2016 callander?
 
It was on the Cardinal on Thursday and can confirm it's in fresh Phase V. Also, Superliners are still coming out of BG with Phase IVb. However, I wouldn't say Phase III is out of the possibility for the whole fleet yet. It might just be a slow transition. Remember when Phase IV came out in 1993, they were still repainting engines into Phase III for a while afterwards and new Genesis engines were delivered in Phase III in 1996. Also, Viewliners took forever to be repainted into full Phase IVb after it was introduced in 2002.

Screen Shot 2016-02-26 at 11.11.06 PM.png
 
TommyBNSF said:
It was on the Cardinal on Thursday and can confirm it's in fresh Phase V. Also, Superliners are still coming out of BG with Phase IVb. However, I wouldn't say Phase III is out of the possibility for the whole fleet yet. It might just be a slow transition. Remember when Phase IV came out in 1993, they were still repainting engines into Phase III for a while afterwards and new Genesis engines were delivered in Phase III in 1996. Also, Viewliners took forever to be repainted into full Phase IVb after it was introduced in 2002.
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Interesting seeing that 704 came out in III, 172 in V, and 710 went west and should be there now strongly believed to be getting III. Sounds like we will have to wait and see what the next few show up with. Thanks for posting and sharing the image.
 
KnightRail said:
TommyBNSF said:
It was on the Cardinal on Thursday and can confirm it's in fresh Phase V. Also, Superliners are still coming out of BG with Phase IVb. However, I wouldn't say Phase III is out of the possibility for the whole fleet yet. It might just be a slow transition. Remember when Phase IV came out in 1993, they were still repainting engines into Phase III for a while afterwards and new Genesis engines were delivered in Phase III in 1996. Also, Viewliners took forever to be repainted into full Phase IVb after it was introduced in 2002.
Click to expand...
Interesting seeing that 704 came out in III, 172 in V, and 710 went west and should be there now strongly believed to be getting III. Sounds like we will have to wait and see what the next few show up with. Thanks for posting and sharing the image.
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710 isn't really indicative to what happens to the general fleet, since NY state is paying for Phase III. As you indicated, we'll just have to see what rolls out of the facility.
 
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IIIb is gorgeous. I really hope they replace all the Phase IV and Phase V stuff with it. (Except the Acelas; they can just retire those in their current paint scheme.)
 
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