Why do Amtrak trains have to be so slow?

[tomfuller]

I have traveled many thousands of miles on many of the Amtrak LD routes. I always travel in coach. Several of my trips have been on Rail Passes.

My first rail trip was on a North America Rail Pass which sadly no longer exists.

The latest train I was ever on was the ViaRail Canadian. I slept on the floor of the Winnipeg station waiting for the train which showed up 16 hours late.

In Western Ontario there was an early snowstorm which took down wires to the signals. When this happens all trains stop or slow to about 10 mph.

I saw trhe signals get snowed in in Southern Oregon so we had to proceed slowly from K-Falls to Chemult.

There are many other reasons why the train dispatchers give orders to the engineers to go slower than the posted speed limit.

I have on occasion had the GPS working when trains are slightly exceeding the speed limit.

I have been on at least 3 Amtrak trains that arrived at my station more than 30 minutes early. These are usually on overnight trips when there is no freight traffic.

I still advocate for an earlier Empire Builder between MSP and SPK. If you had the shorter all coach EB "light" that left MSP at the same time as the regular EB left Chicago, I believe it could become profitable or at least break even.

Having the EB "light" leave SPK about 7 PM instead of the current 1:30AM would lure more passengers with destinations from MSP west.

 

[Nathanael]

Overnight lodging in a sleeper compartment in a train is faster and more convenient than taking a long, unpleasant series of cattle-car plane flights with connections in cattle-pen airports, staggering off ill and sore, and sleeping for 8 hours before taking a long trip from the airport to downtown. The same is true for most people who can sleep comfortably on a train.

It is a very specific niche: on in the evening, off in the morning. Upstate NY to Chicago, for instance, fits the niche. The plane options almost all involve changing planes. The nonstops are extremely expensive -- actually costing more than sleeper compartments -- and are already more than 2 hours in the air alone. The options involving changing planes are still expensive (though often cheaper than train travel), but are miserable affairs lasting over 4 hours -- and mostly land you in O'Hare, an hour away from Chicago. You'll probably have to stay overnight in Chicago if you do that. The train starts to look extremely attractive.

Taking a "on in the evening, off in the morning" train IS what you do if you're in a hurry, if your alternative is a 4-6 hour air trip, changing planes somewhere, plus a trip from O'Hare to downtown Chicago, plus a hotel room in Chicago.

For some reason, people who talk about "long distance trains" frequently confuse two different sorts of "long-distance train travel". I think it is important to keep them distinct. The "on in the evening, off in the morning" niche is quite attractive to a lot of people, at least when you don't have downtown airports and direct flights. On the other hand, the "double overnight" itineraries like Chicago-LA are never going to be attractive to time-sensitive passengers. There's a reason Amtrak can (and does) charge *more* for a NY-Chicago sleeper than for a Chicago-LA sleeper, even though the latter runs twice as far and certainly costs more to operate.

LA-Tucson "on in the evening, off in the morning" would be quite successful because it fits the niche, though not as perfectly as upstate NY-Chicago (since Tucson-LA has several cheap direct flights and the LA airport is better located than O'Hare).

 

[Trogdor]

Convenience of airport location is dependent, of course, on where your ultimate destination is, but as one who has routinely flown out of both LAX and O'Hare, and traveled to/from downtown in both cities, I don't see how anyone could make the argument that Los Angeles's airport is "better located than O'Hare." Not to mention the convenience of the Blue Line, which is 45 minutes from downtown (regardless of how congested the highways are; unlike LAX, which has no good local transit option). Also, when traffic isn't too bad (depends on time of day and day of week), road-based transport from O'Hare to downtown can be quicker than that.

Of course, someone "in a hurry" to get from Buffalo to Chicago would take a Southwest nonstop to Midway airport (30 minutes to downtown by train).

Of course, those "in a hurry" are less likely to be concerned about the relative cost of a sleeper vs. a plane ticket (and those "in a hurry" aren't going to take the five-hour connecting itinerary anyway).

Not sure how this turned into such a debate, since the point I made a long time ago was that taking out stops on a long distance train to make the trip faster is rarely going to generate higher ridership due to the shortened schedule. If the Lake Shore Limited took 11 hours to travel from Rochester to Chicago, it wouldn't really sell significantly more tickets than the 11h45 schedule it has now. Likewise, a 10 hour Tucson-Los Angeles schedule wouldn't suddenly see an increase in ridership just because the schedule went to 9.5 hours.

The time-sensitive folks already have a much faster option.

 

[Guest]

The UK sleeper services are just as slow as long-distance Amtrak trains, at least according to the timetable. In some cases they are slower. London Euston to Glasgow Central is timetabled at 55 mph, Edinburgh 53 mph, Aberdeen 51 mph, Inverness 51 mph and Fort William 45 mph. The London Paddington to Penzance sleeper is timetabled at 38 mph, slower than the Cardinal. Part of the reason is the age of the rolling stock, part of the reason is avoiding the need to set off at 2 am and/or arrive at 4 am.

Having said that, the Chicago to New York and Washington services really need speeding up to achieve a maximum 12 hour journey time to New York and 10 hours to Washington. Even this is far from ideal (eastbound, it would mean an a 1900 departure for an 0800 arrival), and 9.5 hours to New York (dep 2030, arr 0700) and 8 hours to Washington (dep 2200, arr 0700) would be much more useful.

 

[TimePeace]

And if time is indeed the major, or only, consideration, then there is no tough decision: fly. If you can stand it.

 

[chakk]

Austin to Los Angeles on Interstate Highway 10 is 1,379 miles. Austin to Los Angeles via Amtrak is 1505 miles.

 

[VentureForth]

19 Hrs vs 35 Hrs. Let's add Greyhound which CAN'T make the trip in 19 hours. Even the Express books 34 hours. What's the point?

 

[tricia]

To me, the bigger issue with Amtrak long-distance trains is frequency of service. We need to have more trains between major city pairs, particularly when the trip can be made overnight (8-14 hours). That "fall asleep in city A, wake up in city B" model is the biggest selling point of train travel for me.

Me too, on that last point. As for the first, others on this forum have noted that running all or most of the LD lines twice a day, at roughly 12-hr intervals, would vastly improve Amtrak's usability for passengers at stations nearly everywhere.

 

[tricia]

Basically, someone who is in a hurry to get from Tucson to Los Angeles won't be taking the train

I agree that not many people would take the train from Tuscon to Los Angeles

That's funny, I took the train to Los Angeles a lot when I lived in Tucson. Back then, it was an overnight run both ways, which was extremely convenient: sleep, shower, get dressed, have breakfast, and be ready to go early in the morning at your destination. *That* is the real strength of long-distance train travel: it combines lodging and transportation. No other mode of transportation can compete with this. I honestly don't understand why people are having such a difficult time grasping this concept.

Just took the train from LA to Tucson myself earlier this month--not sure how many of us left the train there (since it's also a smoke stop), but I for sure wasn't the only one.

 

[Phil S]

The first few posts explained the majority of the problem very well. But there's a major piece of history that also has to be taken into account. The result of this history is that US railroads are for the most part privately owned and operated. Yes, in a few areas the road itself is owned and operated by Amtrak, and in a few areas by state gov't - NC and NM come to mind (also MI?). And there is an increasing tendency for gov't to buy out the private company and run and maintain the road itself. But the vast majority of the roads are still privately owned.

Contrast this with virtually every other country in the world, where the rail-road (infrastructure) is gov't owned and private companies pay to run trains on that road. The Eurozone is undergoing a revolution in rail operation, the whole point of which is to open access to all the gov't owned railroads to any and all train operators. So far, it's working beautifully. Operators, both freight and passenger, are competing with each other and, as best I can tell, prices are going down while service is going up. This is the way we do highways (with a few exceptions) and air routes and waterways in the US but not how we do railroads. And until this changes, we're stuck with slow infrequent passenger service no matter how much money we throw at it.

Yes, gov't can build brand-new high-speed lines. Buy the land, and build the track, and then either run or franchise the operations or just possibly allow multiple companies to compete, though this becomes harder and harder as speeds increase and the necessary technology gets more complicated. But, as others keep saying, HSR really only makes sense along the densely populated corridors, which still leaves a huge part of the country in need of much better passenger rail. And even in the corridors, it would be insane to build HSR w/o building on existing freight corridors. No, freight and HSR can’t share track but they can certainly share right-of-way and often the land adjoining the existing r-o-w’s would be cheaply acquired.

I’m not saying this will ever happen in the US – climate change may preclude any possibility of this before we come to our senses and start the process. I’m only saying it’s a necessary step if we ever are to have passenger rail like the rest of the developed world.

Flame away!

 

[VentureForth]

One day when our fossil fuels are gone, and we aren't able to fly airplanes using solar power, we'll have to learn to provide a substantial infrastructure capable of ferrying hundreds of thousands of individuals across the country at hundreds of miles per hour.

WellTrained, you're essentially correct. However, government will be hard pressed to fund any sort of National publically owned rail system while airlines continue to have the power to lobby against such a change.

The problems are that state government are thinking SO BIG that the goals are unattainable. California's HSR, Texas' mega-super highway and rail project - well intentioned but scoped beyond practicallity.

Public vs Private has always been a ping pong match. The British and Japanese have privatized their rail lines. Worked incredible wonders in Japan; not so much in the UK. India Rail is extremely efficient providing very affordable travel to the masses and comfortable long distance travel all while paying a living wage (for India) and managing to turn a profit.

The US is very unique in that there are huge population centers separated by huge vast expanses. This makes the economic business model very difficult to make.

 

[dlagrua]

What bothers me is that Amtrak trains are slower today than they were back in the 1930's. On the initial record breaking run of the Burlington Zephyr in 1934 the railroad was able to travel from Denver to Chicago in 13 hours. It was known as the "dawn to dusk" run. True that was a special publicity stunt but 77 years later we should be able to do better. Today with more modern equipment, Amtrak takes 20 hours to travel exactly the same distance.

Here is a look back



If you want to tour that train today it has been restored and now is on permanent exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

 

[VentureForth]

Another pesky interruption is the fact that the train has to slow down, speed up, stop, discharge passengers and take on passengers along the way. All while dancing with the Freights.

 

[VentureForth]

What bothers me is that Amtrak trains are slower today than they were back in the 1930's. On the initial record breaking run of the Burlington Zephyr in 1934 the railroad was able to travel from Denver to Chicago in 13 hours. It was known as the "dawn to dusk" run. True that was a special publicity stunt but 77 years later we should be able to do better. Today with more modern equipment, Amtrak takes 20 hours to travel exactly the same distance.

So, let's continue with the comparisons. According to Wiki,

The Burlington's contemporary passenger trains plied the same distance in around 25 hours.

As for the preparations required, still something you won't see today:

The railroad spared no expense in planning the operations. All other trains along the Zephyr's route were diverted to sidings and the turnouts were spiked into the proper alignment for the Zephyr's run. Track and maintenance of way workers checked every single spike and bolt along the train's route to ensure that there would not be any problems, and temporary speed signs were installed along the route to warn the Zephyr's crew of curves that would be dangerous at high speeds. On the day of the dash, every road grade crossing was manned by a flagman to stop automobile traffic ahead of the train and to ensure that the crossing was clear.

So, yes, context is everything. It would take that level of effort again, and I'm certain that the modern equipment used would have no problem matching that speed under those conditions.

 

[xyzzy]

Passenger train speeds took a hit in 1947 when the ICC imposed the so-called 49/59/69/79 rule. Speeds were further reduced when railroads had to cut expenses and discontinued their all-stops locals, requiring their fastest trains to make more station stops. And finally, it didn't make economic sense to maintain lots of track to FRA Class IV or V standards just for freight.

One fundamental difference between the US and Europe -- and I'm in Europe as I write this -- is the proportion of freight that moves by rail versus truck. You can ride the railways often in the UK, for example, without seeing a single goods train more often than once in a blue moon. Even at night. Or, the ones you do see have 30 cars or less. That's not how the US economy works. The raison d'être of railroads in the US is, and for the most part always has been, freight. In Europe for the most part it's passengers, although there are exceptions.

 

[TimePeace]

[SIZE=14.399999618530273px] [/SIZE]

One fundamental difference between the US and Europe -- and I'm in Europe as I write this -- is the proportion of freight that moves by rail versus truck. You can ride the railways often in the UK, for example, without seeing a single goods train more often than once in a blue moon. Even at night. Or, the ones you do see have 30 cars or less. That's not how the US economy works. The raison d'être of railroads in the US is, and for the most part always has been, freight. In Europe for the most part it's passengers, although there are exceptions.

That is a very good point. I recently heard a radio piece which made the point that, while we are always hearing how superior the passenger rail services in other countries are to those in the US (and they are) - the US freight rail system is by far the largest in the world.

 

[chakk]

What bothers me is that Amtrak trains are slower today than they were back in the 1930's. On the initial record breaking run of the Burlington Zephyr in 1934 the railroad was able to travel from Denver to Chicago in 13 hours. It was known as the "dawn to dusk" run. True that was a special publicity stunt but 77 years later we should be able to do better. Today with more modern equipment, Amtrak takes 20 hours to travel exactly the same distance.Here is a look back

Nice video, especially with United Airlines' adopted theme song (Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue") as accompaniment. And now United flies 9 planes per day from Denver to Chicago in 2 hours -- each of which can carry more people than the 3-car Burlington Zephyr of 1034.

 

[Phil S]

I tried to reply to some of the especially interesting posts and the forum program ate what i wrote, left me with nothing. Apparently there are hot keys that simply throw away whatever one has written, and I hit the hot keys inadvertently because I'm a 2-finger typist. Sure wish we could get rid of those features/bugs. I'll try again tomorrow.

 

[xyzzy]

[SIZE=14.399999618530273px] [/SIZE]

One fundamental difference between the US and Europe -- and I'm in Europe as I write this -- is the proportion of freight that moves by rail versus truck. You can ride the railways often in the UK, for example, without seeing a single goods train more often than once in a blue moon. Even at night. Or, the ones you do see have 30 cars or less. That's not how the US economy works. The raison d'être of railroads in the US is, and for the most part always has been, freight. In Europe for the most part it's passengers, although there are exceptions.

That is a very good point. I recently heard a radio piece which made the point that, while we are always hearing how superior the passenger rail services in other countries are to those in the US (and they are) - the US freight rail system is by far the largest in the world.

Wikipedia has the numbers for freight by rail. The top three by ton-kilometer are China, US, and Russia -- all the same order of magnitude. Then there is a huge gap to #4, which is India. Canada (#5) moves more freight by rail than the entire European Union (#6). There are many ways to slice and dice the statistics, but generally speaking the results are the same.

 

[Mike O'Connor]

I just checked on train service from San Antonio. Now I live in Chicago and we have great service between here and Milwaukee, approximately the same distance. And I actually live in a suburb north of chicago, with a stop on that route. So my rail time is 60 min flat. It's 90 min. from Chicago. But the times for the trip to Austin from SA is 2hours plus and the return trip is over 3 hours as listed. That is ridiculous. The departure times are perfect for day trip, 7am from San Antonio and 6:30 pm return. But the travel times are egregious.

 

[SarahZ]

I just checked on train service from San Antonio. Now I live in Chicago and we have great service between here and Milwaukee, approximately the same distance. And I actually live in a suburb north of chicago, with a stop on that route. So my rail time is 60 min flat. It's 90 min. from Chicago. But the times for the trip to Austin from SA is 2hours plus and the return trip is over 3 hours as listed. That is ridiculous. The departure times are perfect for day trip, 7am from San Antonio and 6:30 pm return. But the travel times are egregious.

Unfortunately, the train can't go 75-80 mph on the interstate like a vehicle. Amtrak trains are subject to freight schedules, track issues, and speed zones, and sometimes the route isn't direct. Additionally, unlike a car, the train stops in San Marcos to pick up and discharge passengers, which adds time.

The schedule is sometimes padded to allow for delays, so while the timetable may say three hours, it may be closer to 2.5 hours. It's still longer than driving, and I sympathize, but until we have a dedicated passenger rail service with its own tracks and the ability for high-speed rail, the train will sometimes take longer than driving.

 

[Train Rider]

I just checked on train service from San Antonio. Now I live in Chicago and we have great service between here and Milwaukee, approximately the same distance. And I actually live in a suburb north of chicago, with a stop on that route. So my rail time is 60 min flat. It's 90 min. from Chicago. But the times for the trip to Austin from SA is 2hours plus and the return trip is over 3 hours as listed. That is ridiculous. The departure times are perfect for day trip, 7am from San Antonio and 6:30 pm return. But the travel times are egregious.

I live in Milwaukee and ride the Hiawatha. The Hiawatha is fast because its on a double-track system and because WisDOT and IDOT pay for it. TE between SAS and Austin is a long-distance train with minimal support from TxDOT.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I just checked on train service from San Antonio. Now I live in Chicago and we have great service between here and Milwaukee, approximately the same distance. And I actually live in a suburb north of chicago, with a stop on that route. So my rail time is 60 min flat. It's 90 min. from Chicago. But the times for the trip to Austin from SA is 2hours plus and the return trip is over 3 hours as listed. That is ridiculous. The departure times are perfect for day trip, 7am from San Antonio and 6:30 pm return. But the travel times are egregious.

Unfortunately, the train can't go 75-80 mph on the interstate like a vehicle. Amtrak trains are subject to freight schedules, track issues, and speed zones, and sometimes the route isn't direct. Additionally, unlike a car, the train stops in San Marcos to pick up and discharge passengers, which adds time. The schedule is sometimes padded to allow for delays, so while the timetable may say three hours, it may be closer to 2.5 hours. It's still longer than driving, and I sympathize, but until we have a dedicated passenger rail service with its own tracks and the ability for high-speed rail, the train will sometimes take longer than driving.

I can beat the Texas Eagle between Austin and San Antonio traveling at 59MPH, including a stop in San Marcos for the same duration as the train typically stops. There is no explanation or metaphor that can make the Texas Eagle's schedule look reasonable in 2013. Even a convoy of full sized school buses can outpace it. New customers are right to be shocked and amazed that Amtrak has zero chance of outpacing a car or bus. You can't make Amtrak more relevant by reducing the speed and adding more padding, but that's exactly what we've been doing for most of Amtrak's existance. Thanks to millions of retiring babyboomers Amtrak's slow and meandering trains are actually doing fairly well, but when those retirees are gone Amtrak's national network will follow them into history.

 

[Train Rider]

I just checked on train service from San Antonio. Now I live in Chicago and we have great service between here and Milwaukee, approximately the same distance. And I actually live in a suburb north of chicago, with a stop on that route. So my rail time is 60 min flat. It's 90 min. from Chicago. But the times for the trip to Austin from SA is 2hours plus and the return trip is over 3 hours as listed. That is ridiculous. The departure times are perfect for day trip, 7am from San Antonio and 6:30 pm return. But the travel times are egregious.

Unfortunately, the train can't go 75-80 mph on the interstate like a vehicle. Amtrak trains are subject to freight schedules, track issues, and speed zones, and sometimes the route isn't direct. Additionally, unlike a car, the train stops in San Marcos to pick up and discharge passengers, which adds time. The schedule is sometimes padded to allow for delays, so while the timetable may say three hours, it may be closer to 2.5 hours. It's still longer than driving, and I sympathize, but until we have a dedicated passenger rail service with its own tracks and the ability for high-speed rail, the train will sometimes take longer than driving.

I can beat the Texas Eagle between Austin and San Antonio traveling at 59MPH, including a stop in San Marcos for the same duration as the train typically stops. There is no explanation or metaphor that can make the Texas Eagle's schedule look reasonable in 2013. Even a convoy of full sized school buses can outpace it. New customers are right to be shocked and amazed that Amtrak has zero chance of outpacing a car or bus. You can't make Amtrak more relevant by reducing the speed and adding more padding, but that's exactly what we've been doing for most of Amtrak's existance. Thanks to millions of retiring babyboomers Amtrak's slow and meandering trains are actually doing fairly well, but when those retirees are gone Amtrak's national network will follow them into history.

I rode the TE in February during the bustitution period between Longview and Fort Worth. We left FW an hour late and were 15 minutes early into San Antonio. Plenty of padding along that stretch.

 

[DET63]

The first few posts explained the majority of the problem very well. But there's a major piece of history that also has to be taken into account. The result of this history is that US railroads are for the most part privately owned and operated. Yes, in a few areas the road itself is owned and operated by Amtrak, and in a few areas by state gov't - NC and NM come to mind (also MI?). And there is an increasing tendency for gov't to buy out the private company and run and maintain the road itself. But the vast majority of the roads are still privately owned.
Contrast this with virtually every other country in the world, where the rail-road (infrastructure) is gov't owned and private companies pay to run trains on that road. The Eurozone is undergoing a revolution in rail operation, the whole point of which is to open access to all the gov't owned railroads to any and all train operators. So far, it's working beautifully. Operators, both freight and passenger, are competing with each other and, as best I can tell, prices are going down while service is going up. This is the way we do highways (with a few exceptions) and air routes and waterways in the US but not how we do railroads. And until this changes, we're stuck with slow infrequent passenger service no matter how much money we throw at it.

Yes, gov't can build brand-new high-speed lines. Buy the land, and build the track, and then either run or franchise the operations or just possibly allow multiple companies to compete, though this becomes harder and harder as speeds increase and the necessary technology gets more complicated. But, as others keep saying, HSR really only makes sense along the densely populated corridors, which still leaves a huge part of the country in need of much better passenger rail. And even in the corridors, it would be insane to build HSR w/o building on existing freight corridors. No, freight and HSR can’t share track but they can certainly share right-of-way and often the land adjoining the existing r-o-w’s would be cheaply acquired.

I’m not saying this will ever happen in the US – climate change may preclude any possibility of this before we come to our senses and start the process. I’m only saying it’s a necessary step if we ever are to have passenger rail like the rest of the developed world.

Flame away!

Government ownership = socialism. Socialism = the first giant step on the road to communism.

Yes, many people think this way, and it's hard to tell them they're wrong.