Private Rail Service on the NEC - Is it Possible?

[jis]

Was MBTA ever directly/departmentally operated? I may well be mistaken but I thought that MBTA has always contracted with some other entity, be it B&M, Amtrak, Keolis, etc, to operate their Commuter Rail services.

You are correct. MBTA Commuter Rail was never run departmentally. It was run by B&M then Guilford followed by Amtrak, then MBCR and finally currently Keolis.

I suppose it is just NY MTA (LIRR and MNRR), NJTRO and SEPTA RO that are run departmentally, except for MNRR West of Hudson service which is operated under contract by NJT RO.

 

[Eric S]

And then there's Metra, which is a combination of both approaches.

 

[railiner]

Not likely to save much, if any, money. The transportation product is essentially the same. The personnel, training, and equipment needs are essentially the same. Maintenance is (or should be) about the same. If the service standards are the same (food, etc.), then the costs for those will be about the same. what increases is the cost of adding an extra layer of overheard to cover the Contracting company's expenses and profit margin.

Tom

That could well be the case but it still does not specifically answer why many states contract out the operation of regional rail to private contractors. If it doesn't save money then why is it being done? I am not a proponent of using private contractors to run and operate the NEC. Amtrak runs efficiently and on schedule the majority of the time. I just wonder why many states do it?

Why??

A good question...but close scrutiny should be applied to any time politicians award government contracts to private parties for obvious reason...

Why? A cynic might suggest its's simply a means of politicians lining the pockets of Contractor friends and,indirectly, their own. Personally, I would never suggest such an outrageous thing.

Tom

 

[dlagrua]

By bringing an excellent and intelligent analysis of the private vs government vs combo approach being discussed here ; I have found this topic to be very interesting. Jis raised some very good points. This discussion is important as it may relate to possible future changes with Amtrak or state commuter lines. Whatever changes lie ahead, it is hoped that the American people will be presented with a cost effective solution that will result in improved service, but sadly, more often than not, political cronyism usually prevails.

 

[west point]

Cynic ? You bet I am.

Yes a private operator can make a profit on the NEC. All the US government has to do is allow access only charges and USA the upgrades and ROW maintenance that is desperately needed. Also all the now Amtrak overhead and reservations costs be covered by the USA. Give the NEC rolling stock to a private operator and when the equipment wears out the private operator can declare bankruptcy and sock the USA the costs of new rolling stock.

 

[jis]

It all depends on how the legal framework is setup. In UK there has been very few cases of a franchise being dumped and the Rail Regulators have been able to re-franchise those to someone else. In general it is the franchisees that have been ordering new rolling stock to meet their franchise obligations. But the framework in the US at present is uniquely screwed up, which is causing Amtrak to not work all that well and likely will not work much better with other franchisees either.

 

[bretton88]

Isn't this basically what the house has been proposing? To have USDOT take over the NEC and then charge track access fees to operators like they do in Europe? My biggest concern with such a proposal is while is helps consolidate access to the corridor, is the problem SNCF is running up against, the government is starting to charge exorbitant track access charges.

 

[jis]

The actual cost of maintenance is not going to magically become less. The Federal Government will have to make a political decision of how much it will fund out of general funds and how much from user fees. It will have to be some reasonable mix of the two. Currently it gives a grant of about $300 million per year give or take for NEC maintenance and upkeep, separate from any one time capital improvement grants. This is to cover for both Amtrak's usage and shortfall in usage fees collected from Commuter Agencies. It is believed that the fees paid by Commuter Agencies are already slated to go up somewhat dramatically. So irrespective of what else happens the feds have to make a political decision on how they will handle this.

 

[Palmland]

I wonder if part of the answer as to how a private contractor can manage a service more effectively than Amtrak has to do with overhead costs. As Amtrak has grown over the years, so has their Washington HQ staff. If that cost is allocated to a train's operation, the cost might be inflated. A leaner private contractor could take advantage of that with their lower overhead costs. A private operator might also be more inclined to increase the top line, revenue, through more effective marketing. For whatever reason Amtrak seems reluctant to do that, although what they do does seem to be more oriented to the NEC rather than LD trains.