TxDOT puts out feelers to replace Amtrak running the daily Heartland F

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cirdan

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(Austin) - The Texas Department of Transportation may be looking for a new passenger rail operator to replace Amtrak, the national rail provider than runs the daily Heartland Flyer service between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.

TxDOT has posted a Request for Information (RFI) and is looking for interested parties to run the popular service, citing Amtrak's projected large scale increase in costs for 2015

read more ...

http://www.texasrailadvocates.org/viewIt.asp?ati=3&a=1749
 
Of all the possible homes mentioned for the orphan Talgos, this is one I never thought of. Two sets would be perfect for the Heartland Flyer. Of course, someone would still have to figure out how to maintain them. Details, details.
 
My fear is that the HF will become a Megabus. Both Texas senators hate Amtrak. The AG, who will likely be next governor dislikes subsiding anything except air travel. he even wants to cut road funds, in favor of more toll roads. The HF lost a great ally when Kay Bailey Hutchison retired.

I do not see the HF existing in three years. Sad.
 
As Texas (and Oklahoma etc) are expected to pick up the tab, they need to perform "due diligence" to assure their taxpayers that money is being spent the most effectively. Reevaulating all modes is a valid part of that including who is going to use the services. For me, using rail as a major link is a option, air or car is preferable to bus.

What should not be lost is the "seamless" one ticket transfer from the Amtrak system to any new service. Interconnectivity is critical to the success of a national rail system was often an achillies heel of the pre-Amtrak days when one might have to find transportation between the A&B station to the C&D station to make transfers in the same city. This is also an area Amtrak should be concerned with in areas such as Boston north/south, Stockton ATSF/SP.

A potential issue is the ramifications of replacing rail with bus, if bus is less capable of transporting disabled patrons.

As to "other modes" is there any word on the status of the new teleporters, and what effect the dilithium crystal ore shipments might have on the Empire Builder?
 
What would make perfect sense would be to combine it with the proposed Easter Flyer and run through from Ft Worth to Tulsa, with the Oklahoma to Tulsa section replacing one of the planned trips for the Eastern Flyer?: -

https://www.easternflyer.com/

They could even introduce a second r/t between Ft Worth and Oklahoma and really try to provide a service.
 
What should not be lost is the "seamless" one ticket transfer from the Amtrak system to any new service. Interconnectivity is critical to the success of a national rail system was often an achillies heel of the pre-Amtrak days when one might have to find transportation between the A&B station to the C&D station to make transfers in the same city. This is also an area Amtrak should be concerned with in areas such as Boston north/south, Stockton ATSF/SP.
What about the countless pre-exisiting services which are begging for a one-ticket transfer system to be introduced? All major commuter networks which share stations with Amtrak should be included in Amtraks booking system for connections into and out of Amtrak travel.
 
I wish them luck. They won't get any better offers, though. And furthermore, TxDOT doesn't really have the option of changing the operator on its own; they need OKDOT's agreement, and everyone knows Oklahoma is the driving force behind the Heartland Flyer.

It is true that Texas continues to have a fair number of elected officials who are pretty hostile to passenger trains. But the underlying population distribution and dynamics in Texas are *massively* in favor of passenger trains, and I think this is reflected in many elected officials, who you might not expect to support passenger rail based on their other attitudes, but who often do. This is not like the dynamics in Indiana, which I described in a post which got deleted or moved; in Indiana, the population is evenly distributed throughout rural areas. In Texas, the population is concentrated in megacities, for whom rail is much more valuable, with the rural areas being truly empty.
 
The portion of PRIAA that requires states to fund lines will be the biggest long-term Challenge for Amtrak... but not for passenger rail.

It will now be incumbent on Amtrak to put up a fight if they wish to keep running these services for the states. While I believe that it would be better to have a interconnected national railway system... Amtrak needs to change. They need to be more customer focused, those customers being not only the passengers but also the states.

But passenger rail is not dead, far from it. A quick look at the commuter rail operations in this country show you that it is completely possible for a government agency to contract with private operator and operate a good service. Amtrak will need to find a way to show that they can do a better job than a private operator at a comparable cost.

But so far... these contracts have mostly been chump change (Hoosier State, Heartland Flyer) but the true 800 pound gorilla in the room is California. The Pacific Surfliner is Amtrak's second busiest corridor, the Capitol Corridor the third and the San Joaquin the fifth. Together they generate 5.6 million riders... 1/3 of the traffic on all of the state supported routes. In the next few months all of the routes will move from being controlled by the state down to local agencies (the Capitol Corridor is already controlled by a local agency). These new operating agencies are all going to be much more demanding than Caltrans has been and will expect more from Amtrak in terms of services and on time performance.

I expect these corridors will closely watch what happens to their closest peer, the Cascades. That is of course if WA and OR decide to dump Amtrak.

Stay tuned. It's a very interesting time for public transportation in this country!
 
I don't want the Heartland Flyer to go away, expanding it to serve Witchita to connect with the SWC,and even more frequent service than the current one train a day is best, but the current Political Climate makes this impossible!

Look for Amtrak to continue running the current Train between FTW and OKC when the smoke clears!
 
If the Heartland Flyer is converted into a "luxury bus" service... I think the wheelchair issue is something that can be overcome... but the decrease in capacity is another story.

Greyhound has about 50 seats on a bus, while the standard Heartland Flyer trainset has about 210 seats. You'd have to run 4 buses a day to get that capacity. The good part about that is you would get more frequency on the corridor.

But it depends on your definition of "luxury".

A normal bus has 55 seats, a Greyhound with "more legroom" has 50 seats, the Vonlane bus between Dallas and Austin (which I would consider a "luxury bus") has just 22 seats.
 
What should not be lost is the "seamless" one ticket transfer from the Amtrak system to any new service. Interconnectivity is critical to the success of a national rail system was often an achillies heel of the pre-Amtrak days when one might have to find transportation between the A&B station to the C&D station to make transfers in the same city. This is also an area Amtrak should be concerned with in areas such as Boston north/south, Stockton ATSF/SP.
What about the countless pre-exisiting services which are begging for a one-ticket transfer system to be introduced? All major commuter networks which share stations with Amtrak should be included in Amtraks booking system for connections into and out of Amtrak travel.
Absolutely. A first step would be to at least get a unified timetable enquiry system running spanning all modes (Amtrak, commuter and light rail, buses, etc). I know Google maps does something like this but it's still a bit quirky and incomplete.
 
For those of us with very long legs, I find a change to bus transportation a very strong negative choice. If the train goes, its back to the car for us. I believe many other people who ride trains would find a "bustitution" as a final straw. The idea of extending the Heartland Flyer to Wichita to connect with the SWC would make a lot of sense and would probably do well with those who want a quicker connection to and from California.
 
Never gonna happen. Those in power in Texas don't want to leave; they're extremely dependent on trade with the rest of the US. Remember, this is the state which tried to force its way into the Union when it wasn't wanted...
 
When Texas secedes from the Union I am going to hold a going away party make New Years seem like a Methodist funeral.
 
Texas will never be able to secede no matter how many moronic narcissists we elect. Partly because the federal government wouldn't allow it and partly because larger businesses currently based here wouldn't want to risk their future on a disastrous outcome. Even if Texas was somehow allowed to secede we'd eventually find ourselves under Mexican control. Seeing a bunch of mostly white secessionists being ruled by Mexico would have a ring of divine retribution, but in all honestly there's no path forward that ends with Texas being left alone as its own country.
 
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Listen to we Texans that actually aren't members of the lunatic fringe, its never gonna happen! Texas will be a Blue State by 2020 and all the haters and kooks can move to Mississippi, Alabama or South Carolina where this kind of moronic day dreaming is considered the norm!
 
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Unless of course they choose to gerrymander all the blue areas of Texas and donate them to New Mexico and then secede the "moth eaten" (a term used by Mohammad Ali Jinnah to describe what he got for Pakistan at the partition of India) rump :p Then they can try to manage all the nutty Texas Taliban there. :lol:

But not to worry nothing of the sort will actually happen. Texas business interests are not that stupid as to allow something like that to happen.
 
I wish them luck. They won't get any better offers, though. And furthermore, TxDOT doesn't really have the option of changing the operator on its own; they need OKDOT's agreement, and everyone knows Oklahoma is the driving force behind the Heartland Flyer.
Yeah, but the politicians in OK aren't something I would count on for rational thought.

Texas will never be able to secede no matter how many moronic narcissists we elect. Partly because the federal government wouldn't allow it and partly because larger businesses currently based here wouldn't want to risk their future on a disastrous outcome.
Yep. TX gets $1.32 from the Feds for every $1.00 in tax revenue they send off. They can't afford to leave.
 
One diabolical fact of American politics is that the more a state receives from the federal government, the more they hate the federal government!
Also known as " Biteing the hand that feeds you!"

My old Sociology prof used to say that everyone dislikes those to whom they owe money! Rings true to me!
 
Getting back to the topic, we will be seeing more and more states putting their rail services up for bid. The states will be looking for better service and better prices than Amtrak has been offering. Whether other companies will actually be able to operate these services is another question. The freight railroads will have to agree to have someone else operate on their property and their opinions have generally "it's better to deal with the devil we know rather than the devil we don't know." As far as bus service replacing rail service, this is like the process used in deciding whether a new transit line should be built as rail, bus or not at all. It's due diligence. I wouldn't worry about that in most instances.
 
Privitization means most passenger rail services in the U.S. will get shut down because of profit reasons. There are not a single private non-proft org that can single-handedly run this behemoth known as Amtrak.
 
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