The Pennsylvanian Lives!

[afigg]

Just saw this story link on rr.net: Governor Corbett Announces Steps to Save Amtrak Service to Pittsburgh. Excerpt from the article:

Governor Tom Corbett announced today that he has reached an agreement with Amtrak on a new funding plan that will maintain rail passenger service between Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Philadelphia.
Under the revised agreement with Amtrak, Pennsylvania's contribution will be $3.8 million a year to maintain the service on the line known as the "Pennsylvanian,'' featuring one train a day in each direction between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. The through service continues to and from Philadelphia and New York City.

"I applaud Amtrak for its willingness to work with my administration on a funding plan that makes sense for Pennsylvania in these difficult economic times and maintains this passenger rail service that provides important connections for many towns in western Pennsylvania," Corbett said.

So Amtrak was able to get the subsidy amount down enough to provide Corbett with political cover to provide the subsidy. I thought there would be an agreement, although I expected it would take longer. Also helps to have the train named after the state.

If there is an agreement on the Pennsylvanian, the odds are good that the current levels of Keystone service will be funded as well.

So the Hoosier State is likely to be the only service cut by the lack of state subsidy.

 

[PRR 60]

Sounds pretty typical for Amtrak. They give a hard cost - take it or leave it. You say no They huff and puff. You still say no. Then, surprise! They come up with a new, much lower cost. Been there, done that.

Good work PennDOT for not paying Amtrak's list price. You just saved the PA taxpayers $1.8 million.

 

[leemell]

Just got a notice of it here on the Amtrak facebook page.

 

[PRR 60]

The closed "Pennsylvanian May End" topic is here.

 

[benjibear]

It surprises me it was worked out this early. Maybe he is trying to raise his popularity.

 

[Nathanael]

I suspect this is related to through-traffic. PRIIA says the states have to pick up full costs for short routes, but if Amtrak sends through cars from the Pennsy onto the Capitol Limited, that would be a long route, and then Amtrak is allowed to pay for part of it with federal money.

 

[Nathanael]

Sounds pretty typical for Amtrak. They give a hard cost - take it or leave it. You say no They huff and puff. You still say no. Then, surprise! They come up with a new, much lower cost. Been there, done that.
Good work PennDOT for not paying Amtrak's list price. You just saved the PA taxpayers $1.8 million.

FWIW, I think this was ONLY legally possible due to the through-cars plan. So it wouldn't work for most other routes.

The Hoosier State could only be saved by becoming part of a daily Cardinal. If that can be negotiated with CSX.

 

[afigg]

Sounds pretty typical for Amtrak. They give a hard cost - take it or leave it. You say no They huff and puff. You still say no. Then, surprise! They come up with a new, much lower cost. Been there, done that.
Good work PennDOT for not paying Amtrak's list price. You just saved the PA taxpayers $1.8 million.

I would not take such a simple view. The $5.6 million was probably based on FY12 numbers. Amtrak raised the fares or adjusted the bucket allotments to trim the operating loss; for the first 4 months of FY13, Pennsylvanian revenue is up +11.3% over the prior year. Start the public part of the process off with a high number, juggle the overhead and cost allocations a little, and let Penn DOT & Corbett look good by lowering the subsidy amount.

Now Amtrak will be getting $3.8 million from a state to run a train which they want to add run-through sleepers and coach cars on as part of the national LD train system. Helps to keep the official losses on the LD trains down. I call that a win. The run-through sleepers should help build a case for restoring a Three Rivers/Broadway Limited as a stand-alone LD train for the busy east coast to Chicago market which also would provide a second PHL-PGH frequency.

 

[fairviewroad]

Pretty amazing when you do the math that it will cost the state of Pennsylvania $5,200 every time the Pennsylvania

leaves Harrisburg going west or leaves Pittsburgh going east. I mean, you can certainly make the case that it is

a justified expenditure, or that it's just peanuts when you divide it out per taxpayers, but that's still a hefty chunk

of change.

 

[Barciur]

Is there any more details on the through-cars plan? Would it mean that the Pennsy would be a sleeper or would the train times be the same as they are now?

I still think that Pennsy would actually be nice as a sleeper coming out of NY to also server local traffic - mainly from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. Lots of traffic on the last Keystone, which departs Philadelphia at 10:59 PM. If you add one later, you can get some nice traffic as an extra from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, as a lot of people still go to things at night in Philadelphia and go back home.. shows etc. end by 11-midnight, too late for the Keystone, but not early enough for the first 5:35 keystone.

 

[afigg]

FWIW, I think this was ONLY legally possible due to the through-cars plan. So it wouldn't work for most other routes.
The Hoosier State could only be saved by becoming part of a daily Cardinal. If that can be negotiated with CSX.

The Buckingham Branch and the lack of long enough sidings on the BBRR are the more critical hold-ups for a daily Cardinal, although CSX through WV to IN is a question as well. But VA is providing short line preservation funds to fix up the BBRR which may change that situation in the future.
As for the run-through cars, maybe the revenue and access to the national LD subsidy is part of the state subsidy reduction. But with the CAF delivery delayed, it is likely that it would be well into calender year 2014 before run-through sleepers could be added. The Pennsylvanian is covering 70% of its total operating costs for the first 4 months of FY13 according to the January 2013 monthly report. That is a pretty good CR and enough to allow for some wiggle room.

 

[henryj]

A good example of just how much Amtrak loads these trains up with costs to make other services(NEC?) look good. A good example of 'never pay the asking price' when you deal with Amtrak. It's all smoke and mirrors. Now if only Oklahoma and Texas can get a deal for the Heartland Flyer. Clearly, on the Pennsylvanian Amtrak did not want to give up the route whether or not they plan to put run through cars to Chicago on the train. And, like I said on the other discussion, Amtrak stood to actually lose money if the train was discontinued as the only cost savings were the Harrisburg to Pitt trackage fees charged by NS.

 

[jis]

Is there any more details on the through-cars plan? Would it mean that the Pennsy would be a sleeper or would the train times be the same as they are now?
I still think that Pennsy would actually be nice as a sleeper coming out of NY to also server local traffic - mainly from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. Lots of traffic on the last Keystone, which departs Philadelphia at 10:59 PM. If you add one later, you can get some nice traffic as an extra from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, as a lot of people still go to things at night in Philadelphia and go back home.. shows etc. end by 11-midnight, too late for the Keystone, but not early enough for the first 5:35 keystone.

The Pennsylvanian will run exactly in the same timeslot with maybe a slight adjustment if that. There will be no singificant change in its schedule when the through cars are added.

 

[Amtrak Cajun]

Im glad to hear that the Pennsy will continue to run, that is great news.

 

[Paulus]

A good example of just how much Amtrak loads these trains up with costs to make other services(NEC?) look good. A good example of 'never pay the asking price' when you deal with Amtrak. It's all smoke and mirrors. Now if only Oklahoma and Texas can get a deal for the Heartland Flyer.

How? Amtrak's beholden to the same publicly available formula for the Pennsylvanian as all the other states and quite frankly, I find the foamer "IT'S ALL A NEC SUPPORTING PLOT!" to be incredibly annoying especially as you've already previously demonstrated yourself to have absolutely no supporting facts for your assertion.

 

[saxman]

To get the through cars onto the Pennsy, another switch has to be installed the PGH station. I'm not really sure where it's suppose to go, so maybe someone else can explain it. If I remember PGH correctly, there are two tracks. One is the through track that the Capitol Limited uses and the other is a dead-end track that the Pennsy is parked on over night.

 

[henryj]

A good example of just how much Amtrak loads these trains up with costs to make other services(NEC?) look good. A good example of 'never pay the asking price' when you deal with Amtrak. It's all smoke and mirrors. Now if only Oklahoma and Texas can get a deal for the Heartland Flyer.

How? Amtrak's beholden to the same publicly available formula for the Pennsylvanian as all the other states and quite frankly, I find the foamer "IT'S ALL A NEC SUPPORTING PLOT!" to be incredibly annoying especially as you've already previously demonstrated yourself to have absolutely no supporting facts for your assertion.

Actually I have done numerous cost studies on these trains using Amtrak's own numbers. In the case of the Pennsylvanian there is no savings from equipment or labor as the equipment and people will just be recycled to other areas. There are only two manned stations between Harrisburgh and Pitt and the Pitt station costs would just be absorbed by the Capitol. Amtrak already owns the track between NY and Harrisburgh so no savings there. And Amtrak stands to lose between $10 and 15 million in annual revenue. So the only 'real' cost savings are the trackage fees paid to NS between Harrisburgh and Pitt and two manned stations. PennDot was in the 'drivers seat' on this one and I believe they knew it.

 

[jis]

Here you go, straight from the Capitol Limited PIP Report.....

Pennsy is parked on Track 3. Transfer cars will be placed on Track 1A by Cap road power eastbound, and picked up from there by Cap road power westbound. Pennsy power will do the detaching/attaching to the Pennsy consist.

As an interim measure there is talk of somehow managing the maneuver even before the new switch is put in. I am not sure exactly what the plan is that is being considered.

 

[TML]

Not that surprising, given that this particular governor previously agreed to fund Pittsburgh's Port Authority in order to stave off major service cuts there.

This also means that I won't lose my direct rail link to my alma mater (Carnegie Mellon University) - this train was my direct connection between home and school during my college years, and I would certainly have felt more tired if I had to take the "long route" of transferring at WAS - not just because of the trip length, but also because the Capitol Limited's calling times at PGH are less convenient compared to those of the Pennsylvanian.

 

[henryj]

.Here is another view on 'real' costs of the train from someone on Train Orders:

"The Pennsylvanian does make money on operations. It has close to $10 million in revenue. Its existence also creates additional revenue on the Capitol Limited of around $5 million from through passengers. On the other hand, the money saved by not operating it is minimal, as most of its attributed costs are fixed costs to Amtrak that will not change if the train runs or not, they will just get reallocated.

Actual operating costs of the Pennsylvanian are somewhat over $5 million from crews, fuel, yard crews, commissary, station agents in Altoona and Johnstown, and host railroad payments. On the other hand, the other $10 million of its costs are really its share of fixed costs like the Pittsburgh station, track maintenance on the NEC, the Amtrak reservations system, and Boardman's salary. None of those costs would go away if the train did, they would just be reallocated to other trains.

Amtrak's primary problem is that it does not operate enough trains to cover its fixed charges of existing. If it operated more trains, revenue would increase faster than costs. But it would require capital investment Amtrak has never received, and which is not attractive enough to the private sector in terms of the return that could be earned, which is why the freight railroads exited the business. The private sector will not invest the very large amounts of money to create and expand a business to earn the small return that can be made on the direct operation of passenger trains."

 

[Alexandria Nick]

As an interim measure there is talk of somehow managing the maneuver even before the new switch is put in. I am not sure exactly what the plan is that is being considered.

Without a runaround, that's a tough one.

Unless you wanted to use the Pennsylvania's power to move a cut around, but that's probably expensive.

 

[Acela150]

I'm glad that Tom Corbett found a way to fund this with Amtrak. He doesn't have a high approval rating because of some of his stupidity. I think Corbett just gained voters by meeting with Amtrak on this.

 

[jis]

Well now that funding is secured for operation for at least another year, perhaps the pressure is off in instituting the run through this year to save the train. But I think the pressure is definitely on to get the switch in place ASAP, perhaps through this year's construction season. One can hope. So that the run through can be isntituted late this year or sometime next year, by which time even a few additional Viewliner IIs may become available.

Maybe the early Viewliner IIs will then run captive to Chicago on LSL(9), Cardinal(2), and the Penn/Cap (3), starting with the Card and the Penn/Cap.

 

[JayPea]

I think credit should be given where credit is due: to me! :lol: The announcement that the Pennsylvanian would be saved came almost immediately after I signed the petition to save it! I'm sure that had a lot to do with it! :lol:

Seriously, this is good news of course. Glad to see an agreement was made to fund it.

 

[Brystar41]

Finally yes it got resolved thank the lord and lets play the Song "We are the champions!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (i waves my hands and arms up in the air).

This is great that they resolved the issue about time i am very happy of this, hopefully they will expand the route by including more trains, and also Electfrication as well since electrifying the route will add more service for Amtrak and NS could take advantage of that?