The future of Amtrak and the long distance trains

[NE933]

Amtrak is NOT a gift from Congress. Enough of us have cast our votes that we want the taxes we pay to help pay for trains to take us anyplace we wish to go, just in the same way I want our government to make sure the water I get from the tap is safe and clean.

A gift is something that is freely given without struggle or pleading; every dime Amtrak gets from Congress is paid for with hard work and careworn faces.

It is up to Amtrak, and us, to ensure the money is wisely spent on things that will ensure there will be a network of fast ontime trains, with appropriate accomodations, to carry ticketed passengers where they need to go or leave from.

 

[Ryan]

Actually, really affordable airfares happened after the Airline Deregulation Act 1978. That was way after the proverbial goose of the railroads, and passenger railroads in general was cooked.

Valid point. For aviation, I was thinking less of the infrastructure and more the government spending on military aviation that allowed companies like Boeing to exist and be profitable enough to turn out civilian airliners. The steady flow of military-trained aviators into airliner cockpits was also a huge benefit to the industry.

While not direct subsidies, they were certainly of great benefit to the industry.

 

[SarahZ]

By the way, I'm also waiting for a citation that most people on the western long distance trains use it as a land cruise instead of transportation. Because that's not my experience, and most of the PIPs show that the vast majority of people are not going from endpoint to endpoint on the western long distance trains.

Oh, and as but one example, here's an article talking about the life of people "commuting" to Williston every few weeks to work in the oil fields. Note the method of transportation they're using on their commute.

You guys have it your way. I live in Houston. We have one LD train three times a week. I don't see anything changing on LD trains other than less amenities and more cost cutting with the current Amtrak management. You can site all the PIP;s you want and make all the foamer points you want. Nothing is going to change.

So, you'd rather ignore actual, factual citations and believe what you want, based on your limited viewpoint from Houston? This has come up with you before, and I'll say it again:

Houston =/= the rest of the U.S.

 

[Ryan]

Never let so called "facts" get in the way of a sincerely held opinion.

 

[SanAntonioClyde]

Highway trust fund received $9.7 billion from general fund last year, aviation receive around $4+ billion! yet rail is the only conservative topic on their agenda. I believe one function of government is to promote commerce and mobility; our history reflects this role. Rail travel deserves a place across the nation and not just on our two coasts.

 

[VentureForth]

Amtrak got an appropriation of $16.71 BILLION in 2008? How did we miss that?

HR 2095

Vote to concur with House amendments and pass a bill that authorizes $16.71 billion in appropriations for Amtrak and railroad safety measures.

Highlights:

•Authorizes appropriations for Amtrak for the next five years, including $5.32 billion for capital grants, $2.95 billion for operation grants, and $1.9 billion for intercity passenger rail services (Div. B).

•Authorizes $1.5 billion over the next ten years for capital and preventive maintenance projects for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Div. B, Sec. 601).

•Provides $1.63 billion for rail safety programs (Div. A).

•Allocates $18 million for 2009-2013 to design, develop, and construct the Facility for Underground Rail Station and Tunnel in Colorado to test and evaluate above-ground and underground rail tunnels to prevent accidents, mitigate and remediate the consequences of any such accidents, and to provide a realistic scenario for training emergency responders (Div. A, Sec 3).

•Limits the consecutive workday of train employees to twelve hours and requires ten hours off before resuming duty (Div. A, Sec. 108).

•Requires providers of intercity commuter rail passenger transportation to develop a plan to implement a positive train control system, which is a system designed to prevent various types of train accidents, by December 31, 2015 (Div. A, Sec. 104).

So, yes $16 Bil. However, only $10 Bil was directly to Amtrak over 5 years.

 

[VentureForth]

Highway trust fund received $9.7 billion from general fund last year, aviation receive around $4+ billion! yet rail is the only conservative topic on their agenda. I believe one function of government is to promote commerce and mobility; our history reflects this role. Rail travel deserves a place across the nation and not just on our two coasts.

And I am a huge advocate of toll roads to pay for their own maintenance. If I don't want to pay for a toll road, I'll find an alternative path if the added time and gas makes sense vs paying up.

We can also moan and groan all day about how Greyhound and the airlines reap benefits from government subsidies. The point there, though is that WE, the taxpayers paid for airports, air traffic control, highways, etc. The railroads are still mostly owned by private corporations.

Interestingly, whereas the government has developed the highway infrastructure and air infrastructure, as a private citizen, I am generally allowed to enjoy driving on the highway and as a commercial pilot, I'm entitled to flying in our national airspace without additional taxes (toll roads, excepted). I cannot buy a Hi-Rail and go riding on any railroad owned by Amtrak or true government entity.

 

[Ryan]

How exactly do you think that those alternative routes are built and maintained?

I'm not moaning and groaning about the subsidies air and roads get. They're awesome and we should spend more on them. Having nice things is cool.

But we should also extend that same amount of support to rail, instead of treating it like the ******* stepchild that we do.

 

[tonys96]

One thing left out of this discussion in the "common carrier" status of rail companies. In exchange for right of way across America the rail companies were required to provide a service to all Americans. Part of that was passenger service, which the rail companies handed off to Amtrak in the early 1970s.

IMHO, that social contract is still valid and should be complied with.

 

[VentureForth]

I'm not moaning and groaning about the subsidies air and roads get. They're awesome and we should spend more on them. Having nice things is cool.

Didn't say you did. Others have. But if I get to allocate where MY taxes go, I'd put 97c of every dollar for transport into roads, 2c into trains, and 1c into air based on my usage. Like it or not, though, it's the representative government that allocates funding for the benefit of the most. If we could allocate our taxes where we wanted them to go, we'd likely lose our military and be invaded by Ukraine.

 

[jis]

Amtrak got an appropriation of $16.71 BILLION in 2008? How did we miss that?

... elided for the sake of brevity....

So, yes $16 Bil. However, only $10 Bil was directly to Amtrak over 5 years.

It's an Authorization, not Appropriation. There is a huge difference. Authorization does not provide any real money. The money has to be Appropriated as part of annual budget process for it to be actually spendable. H.R. 2095 (110th): Railroad Safety Enhancement Act of 2008 cannot "appropriate" money from years 2009 to 2013 budget years. It can only "authorize" such. You have to dig through the individual year appropriations bills to see what was actually appropriated, and thus was actually money that Amtrak could spend according to the language in the authorization bill
Read the actual text in the bill if it interests you.... https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr2095/text

Digging into said bill here are the Amtrak authorizations:

(a) Operating grants

There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary for the use of Amtrak for operating costs the following amounts:

(1) For fiscal year 2009, $530,000,000.

(2) For fiscal year 2010, $580,000,000.

(3) For fiscal year 2011, $592,000,000.

(4) For fiscal year 2012, $616,000,000.

(5) For fiscal year 2013, $631,000,000.

Just as an example for FY 2012 only $466 million was appropriated, not the authorized $616 million. The amount for 2013 is even lower, though the authorization is higher.

If we look at the Capital grants authorization we find:

(c ) Capital grants

There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary for the use of Amtrak for capital projects (as defined in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of section 24401(2) of title 49, United States Code) to bring the Northeast Corridor (as defined in section 24102 of such title) to a state-of-good-repair and for capital expenses of the national rail passenger transportation system the following amounts:

(1) For fiscal year 2009, $715,000,000.

(2) For fiscal year 2010, $975,000,000.

(3) For fiscal year 2011, $1,025,000,000.

(4) For fiscal year 2012, $1,275,000,000.

(5) For fiscal year 2013, $1,325,000,000.

Again for FY 2012 only $657 million was appropriated from the authorization of $1.275 billion. In FY 2013 Amtrak is asking for $1.435 billion which is more than the authorization, but in effect they are asking for a smaller amount for operations thus keeping the total within the join authorization for capital and operations. I think they will be lucky to get 2/3rds of what they are asking for. They will probably get less.

So see what I means when I say that just because something has been authorized does not mean Amtrak gets all the money authorized?

So bottom line is beware of the phrase "authorized to appropriate". That indicates that you have exactly $0 in hand to spend. And that is why Congress Critters and Senators blithely vote away on Authorization Bills knowing full well that when comes to appropriation time, they may have no intention to appropriate anything close to what appears in the authorization bill. So in general how someone votes on an authorization bill is a much weaker predictor of what they really wish to see happen than how they vote on a appropriation bill. Still it is better to have a friendly vote on an authorization bill than an unfriendly one.

 

[Eric S]

EDIT: Never mind. Jis beat me to it (distinction between authorization and appropriation bills).

 

[Ryan]

I'm not moaning and groaning about the subsidies air and roads get. They're awesome and we should spend more on them. Having nice things is cool.

Didn't say you did. Others have.

Who?

Did they look like this?

 

[VentureForth]

Oh brother. And back down into the sewers we swim.

 

[neroden]

In order to fix this country’s myriad problems, we must first understand what those problems are. The biggest problem with this country, though, ultimately, is that most of its problems are of great benefit to a select few people, and those people hold a great degree of power. It is in that group’s best interest to obfuscate all problems as carefully as possible, and that group also controls the means to do so.

When I said almost everything you read in media is inaccurate, I meant it. Media is not just stupid about reporting the honest facts about railroading and Amtrak; you just notice it because you happen to know enough about the subject to tell when someone is wrong. I find media is wrong in every subject I know enough about to judge them on; I am not particularly special and my areas of expertise are not all obscure- ipso facto, media is wrong almost always.

I'm just going to say -- this is spot on. "Me too". I've noticed that in any area where I have even a little bit of expertise, I can see susbstantial inaccuracies in "general interest" media reporting (as opposed to specialist publications with small circulation). If there's some vested interest which makes money off confusing the issue (and there often is), then there are *gross* inaccuracies, and with a consistent tilt to them.

An impressively small amount of tax (any objections to this statement better be backed up with sources showing me what developed countries have substantially lower tax rates!).

I really should dig up the data again, but I've read long and well-sourced papers which argue that the US has unusually high taxes *on the working poor*, due to the tax structure: an unusual number of government services come with substantial flat fees in the US, and flat fees are the most regressive form of taxation. In many countries you don't have to pay a large filing fee just to get your day in court, but in the US you do. This doesn't change the general point about low taxation of course, as this is made up for by extremely low tax rates on the idle rich. Um... or does it change the point? You decide.
Anyway... the relevance of this to Amtrak is this. This situation, where a lot of the taxes are highly regressive, creates, for any given service (from housing to transportation to communications) a large political lobby which complains that they're being priced out of that service. And they have a point: they are being systematically priced out. The trouble is, the typical proposed solutions aren't holistic: they involve saddling the providers of the housing/transportation/communications with a deficit, rather than solving this at the level of the legislature's fundamental economic choices about taxes and spending and monetary policy (and minimum wages and protectionism vs. free trade and so on and so forth), which would deal with the housing, transportation, and communications problems simultaneously.

Amtrak is one of the agencies stuck with this: a certain lobby demands lower fares and complains "what is Amtrak worth if I can't afford it". Their problem, however, is not really with Amtrak. Their problem is with government policy which has made them poor in the first place. They don't need lower Amtrak prices; they need higher take-home pay. Anyway.

 

[neroden]

If we could allocate our taxes where we wanted them to go, we'd likely lose our military and be invaded by Ukraine.

Um... that seems unlikely. We could shrink our military to the size of Russia's -- clearly large enough to avoid being invaded by anyone -- and save, oh, roughly 90% of our military budget.
Anyway, if we could allocate our own tax money, I'd spend 0% of it on Interstates. Other roads, useful; Interstates, not useful.

 

[tonys96]

Oh brother. And back down into the sewers we swim.

Ditto.

 

[Ryan]

Oh brother. And back down into the sewers we swim.

I take that to mean you're not going to be forthcoming with backing up your statement that "other people" are calling for an end to subsidies for roads and aviation?

You can bemoan a return "into the sewers" and try to throw another pissing contest, or you can engage in thoughtful debate and back up your statments. Your choice.

 

[mfastx]

I know many of us enjoy the LD trains, but a much more effective rail network would be corridor service with hubs in major cities and many trains per day with dedicated tracks. LD trains exist because it's the best Amtrak can do since they have no capital funding for their own rail and higher quality/more rolling stock.

For most of the developed world, LD trains are an excursion type deal, most people don't consider them as an option to get from point A to point B.

 

[The Whistler]

The Green Manned Lion makes some really good points and I believe that most all have been addressed here. As a political independent I can relate to positions on the left and on the right, but if you examine political positions all of them are self serving. Add in the propaganda by the big business corporate media and we are told nightly what to think, how to feel and what we should believe in. I am equally distrustful of both political parties and this is how it works. .

If Amtrak serves a town in a district, the politician who represents that district most probably supports passenger rail. If you look at states that have no passenger rail service, the politicians there are anti-rail. It all comes down to a position that works best for the politician. Unfortunately the public interest is secondary, if a concern at all..

 

[jis]

As Tip O'Neill said: "All politics is local". There is even a Wiki page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_politics_is_local

If we could allocate our taxes where we wanted them to go, we'd likely lose our military and be invaded by Ukraine.

Um... that seems unlikely. We could shrink our military to the size of Russia's -- clearly large enough to avoid being invaded by anyone -- and save, oh, roughly 90% of our military budget.

Specially considering that Ukraine hardly has the capability to run over Moldova next door which has no armed forces to talk about either.

This is a huge country. I just don't see generic one of a kind trains serving all these different markets. We are not Europe or Japan.

Really?
US land area: 3.794 million sq miles

Europe land area: 3.931 million sq miles

If you look at what the air transport and road transport experience is like, we are actually amazingly similar to Europe. It is more than likely that our rail service, the part that survives, will progressively evolve to look more and more like the European one too.

 

[amamba]

Regardless of how the 'foamers' on here think, an LD train is a cruise train catering to vacationers. Yes it does provide basic transportation to some coach passengers and the elderly and those afraid to fly.

[citation needed]

This doesn't square with all of the people that I've met and talked to over the course of my trips. The vast majority of them were using the train to get from point A to point B. Given that I was talking to them in the diner, most of them were sleeper passengers, and of all ages. Also the vast majority of them weren't traveling endpoint to endpoint, so your comments about the 2 days to make the trip aren't relevant.

So then Ryan, you support running Spartan coach like trains rather than luxury type long distance trains.? I fail to see your point so far. What do you think the LD trains should look like? Couchettes instead of sleepers? Automats in place of diners? I don't know what you mean by the VAST majority. I have ridden plenty of trains, particularly the western LD trains. I am not looking for a yesteryear experience, just a nice trip. If I wanted a bus ride I can take Greyhound. If I want to be stuffed into a too small seat and body searched I can fly. Do you want a series of fast coach trains spaced end to end to cross the country? The LSL could be just that. Why have sleepers at all. The Europeans have replaced most sleeper trains with high speed trains. But you have to change trains multiple times to make a long trip. No through service. Is that what you want here? I think your point is to just take the opposite view no matter what it is. I too have ridden these LD trains and talked to passengers on board. Yes they are also going to intermediate points. Some are even using them for real transportation. But the western trains are still cruise trains. If you make them something else then they lose all their value. You live in the East. Eastern and Western LD trains are two different animals and serve different clientele. And even in your territory the trains are vastly different from one market to another. This is a huge country. I just don't see generic one of a kind trains serving all these different markets. We are not Europe or Japan.

What luxury long distance trains currently operate?

Because I just got back from a 5 day cross country trip on the CS, CZ & LSL and those were not luxury trains. I would - gasp - call them spartan already. Eating in the dining car is not a luxury experience to me at all.

Eating at a place like this is a luxury experience: http://le-bernardin.com/

ETA: I'm not advocating that we need that on the train. Frankly I am happy with the dining car. But it is what it is, and I go into it with tempered expectations. Anyone searching for a land-cruise and has been on a real cruise - even a lower quality one - would not call them comparable at all.

 

[andersone]

hence the platitude "all politics are local" and ain't that the truth

 

[neroden]

A point we need to consider is the greatly aging ridership on the Long Distance Trains. It is aging,

Citation needed. I say the ridership isn't aging -- I say it's getting younger! The ridership is rising continuously among the under-30s.
The work I've seen indicates that there is a continuous drop in ridership by age bracket until you get to the children of the 1970s, and then ridership starts going up again as you get younger.

One of my single focal points as a transit advocate in New Jersey is trying to figure out ways to fight the fact that the advocacy is aging into the grave.

Now, THAT's true. The advocates are aging out. Youth are in different advocacy groups -- usually pushing for local train service. Or even for *sidewalks*. (Gotta start with the basics.)
But the younger people ARE taking the trains from Chicago to Cleveland, upstate NY, Boston, NYC, Pittsburgh, DC, New Orleans, Little Rock, Dallas, Kansas City, Denver, California, Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, and Seattle. Which are referred to as "long distance trains" for whatever reason. (And I can come up with similar examples not starting in Chicago.)

There may be some weird demographic effects. Certain *states* are becoming aged. Florida -- the most aged state -- seems to have particularly undeveloped youth support for train service. (A number of the other "oldest states" are in the Northeast, and accordingly have substantially more support for train service than average for the country.)

http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/26/real_estate/americas_oldest_states/

I wouldn't be hopeful about West Virginia.

In addition, some of the states with the most young people have essentially no Amtrak service for them to take.

Utah: Salt Lake City built a light rail system with six branches, an intercity "commuter" railroad running 88 miles, and a streetcar line, all in the last 15 years. They obviously want passenger rail service. But the one-a-day, middle-of-the-night, slower-than-driving California Zephyr isn't the service they want. (I'm not sure if a viable service can be established from Salt Lake to anywhere outside Utah, but I think the only reasonable possibility would be Salt Lake to Denver via Wyoming -- which of course isn't regularly served.)

Texas: Again, Texas has built a *lot* of passenger rail recently, though not quite as fast as Utah. The Texas Eagle is getting a lot of ridership considering its situation, and apparently the ridership just keeps growing, but it's extremely slow and unreliable. (And often cancelled!) The demand is present in Texas; it's the supply which is missing. Texas demographics mean Texas is going to hit a political sea-change point sooner rather than later, but I'm not sure exactly when.

Obama’s health care rollout and effectiveness, and especially popularity, has been a disaster. This has removed whats left of Obama’s basic power base, and increased the polarity of non-liberals against the democrat point of view.

You're read the politics wrong here. I've spent years following this.
Obama's powerbase effectively doesn't matter because he isn't running for re-election. It's not the same as the Democratic Party powerbase. (Which seems to be falling apart independently... see below...)

Right-wingers didn't change their views on Obama due to ACA... more the other way around, from what the polls said. They changed their views on ACA (aka Romneycare) because Obama supported it.

The political pattern I've seen is this:

- the Republican Party is going more and more doctrinaire and adding more and more things where they say "You must support/oppose this particular thing fanatically or we will cast you out, heretic". As a result, people are abandoning it in droves, from all political wings of the party.

- the Democratic Party is seizing parts of the former territory of the Republican Party -- the "corporate welfare" and "military industrial complex" positions. This is causing frustrated left-wingers to abandon *it*.

- so the percentage of the population identifying as independents increases every year

- but because of Duverger's Law, the two-party duopoly creaks onward and will continue to do so until there is an even larger critical mass of independents. At which point US politics will suddenly get even more unstable than it is now. Our first-past-the-post election system is very problematic because it does not handle more than two parties well.

- Personally I advocate approval voting, which is simple and comprehensible and eliminates the "spoiler" problem.

 

[neroden]

I know many of us enjoy the LD trains, but a much more effective rail network would be corridor service with hubs in major cities and many trains per day with dedicated tracks. LD trains exist because it's the best Amtrak can do since they have no capital funding for their own rail and higher quality/more rolling stock.

For most of the developed world, LD trains are an excursion type deal, most people don't consider them as an option to get from point A to point B.

Utter, arrant nonsense from someone who hasn't researched the trains in India, Russia, China, or even Western Europe.

Trains running the length of the LSL, Silver Service, CONO, Crescent, etc. are quite common and are used for real transportation.