5 ms·

Bidding Adieu to Amtrak?

14 points by georgecmu 15y ago

mkr-hn 15y ago
Private interests don't have the greatest record when it comes to public transportation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda... We should always be skeptical of the motives of people who propose selling public services to private companies.
JshWright 15y ago
I say go for it... it can't get much worse... For 4 years, my wife was travelling from Rochester to Syracuse and back every few weeks while she was in school. This is ~100 miles, with no intermediate stops. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a train, right? After half a dozen attempts, she finally gave up trying to take the train... It was expensive, unreliable, and slow. What if I wanted to take the train down to NYC for the weekend? It's $80 for a train down on Friday afternoon, and there aren't any trains back on Sunday. Megabus, on the other hand, is $80 round trip (without using any of the readily available promo codes to bring it down even further), and the scheduled trip time is an hour shorter. Despite being someone who _wants_ to take the train (I find it a very comfortable way to travel), I can't find a single scenario in which it makes sense for me to do so.
- georgefox 15y ago
  > For 4 years, my wife was travelling from Rochester to Syracuse and back every few weeks while she was in school. This is ~100 miles, with no intermediate stops. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a train, right? As I understand, no. There's too much traffic (mostly freight) between Albany and Buffalo for the two tracks that are owned by CSX and shared with Amtrak. As a result, things can move pretty slowly along there. They've been talking about adding track for a little while now, but I'm sure funding is a big issue. My experience with trains upstate has been lousy west of Albany, but south of Albany, I've only seen and heard good things. That said, there are generally more cost-effective ways to travel, like the discount bus services and often, sadly, just driving.
  - Derbasti 15y ago
    In Europe, train traffic is passengers-first in daytime and freight-first at night. But then, distances and rail networks are better suited for passenger transportation in Europe than in the US.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- mousa 15y ago
  I used to ride the Raleigh-Charlotte route often and regular riders would show up 2 hours late because they knew that's when it would get there from D.C.
jackolas 15y ago
This comes on the heels of a private rail ownership caused derailment, http://www.wcax.com/story/14843332/amtrak-vermonter-derailment http://www.wcax.com/story/14843332/amtrak-vermonter-derailme...
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
melling 15y ago
Commercial high-speed rail is almost 50 years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen I really don't understand why the US hasn't built at least one route in that time.
- bonzoesc 15y ago
  In the areas it makes sense, nobody has the political will to say "this new dedicated high-speed right-of-way is going in your backyard whether you like it or not."
  - melling 15y ago
    The problem doesn't get any easier to solve. 50 years ago there were less than 200 million Americans. Now there are over 300 million people. In other words, a lot more backyards. If we wait 20-30 more years? The places were it makes the most sense are exactly the densely populated areas of the North East and in California. People need to start thinking about what's best for the country instead of themselves.
    - edw 15y ago
      I hope that you will realize that, when I say this that I am not being a cynic: Your suggestion that people start thinking about what's what for the country instead of themselves is naive in the extreme. It's quite possible that the people who would need to sacrifice in order to serve the common good are already among the less well off. Who has railroad track in their back yards now? Who is going to have more railroad track in their back yards after we build more track, presumably near the existing track. From a property value perspective, there's no right side of the tracks when you're a hundred feet from the tracks. And who is going to benefit from enhanced rail service in the Northeast Corridor? Well, indirectly, all of us, but more directly, it's going to be rich people and upper middle class people who are shuttling between Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and DC. (Baltimore too, I suppose.) Someone (taxpayers, railroad companies?) really should compensate the people who will be getting screwed when new track gets laid, especially given that the immediate beneficiaries are not going to be the people who are in the crappy position of being asked to set aside their own interests and take one for the team. More generally, it's not clear to me what "what's best for the country" means. That's what the political process exists to figure out. If the result of the political process isn't what you'd prefer, feel free to call it "unjust," but short of becoming a dictator and deciding what's best for people, the political process is going to be an unsatisfying experience for pretty much everyone.
Duff 15y ago
Rail is the US is a nightmare. It impossible for a private entity profitably operate passenger transit because the government subsidizes road transit to the tune of trillions of dollars.
- kevinburke 15y ago
  On a per passenger mile basis, the government subsidizes rail much more than it subsidizes highway use.
  - Duff 15y ago
    Does that statistic include: - Freight traffic - State and municipal costs, including law enforcement. (Ex, New York employs over 40,000 state and municipal workers dedicated to roadways, not including contractors) - Health impact. (Exhaust has significant health effects and associated costs. See http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/eode/comm-air-survey-report.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/eode/comm-air-surv...) - Direct and indirect government support of various auto-related industries. The costs are more than just laying down blacktop.
- blendergasket 15y ago
  Somewhat of a different case, but urban light rail networks were actively destroyed by car companies who didn't want the competion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda... It would seem monied interests want to keep us in cars sucking oil instead of whizzing along tracks. I see this as being a big impediment to the creation of viable nationwide rail networks.
  - lliiffee 15y ago
    This is true, but note that streetcars also got shut down in cities where the car companies didn't play these games.
    - mkr-hn 15y ago
georgieporgie 15y ago
In a place with oodles of people treading distances that aren't plane-worthy, why aren't trains doing better? I can't speak for others, but I sat on an Amtrak train for about 30 continuous hours last fall, and it was probably the worst mass-transit experience I've ever had. At least riding a packed, loud bus across Thailand -- jostled awake regularly in the night as the lead-footed driver braked to avoid a head-on collision while passing mid-curve -- was exciting. I'm glad they can intelligently accommodate bicycles (unlike, say, CalTrain), and the local station had a very friendly staff, but everything else about Amtrak appalled me.
- ryanklee 15y ago
  These are all problems with the current implementation -- not problems with trains themselves. Trains are wonderful; amtrak is rotten.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    Absolutely, and I love riding the train in Japan! I'm just saying that the reason ridership has been stagnant is probably because Amtrak itself kind of sucks. I would be all for privatization (which I'm normally not for), since they've done such a miserable job on all fronts.
- jackowayed 15y ago
  What's wrong caltrain's handling of bikes? How would you handle bikes on a commuter train that only stops for a minute?
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    All they did was pull most of the seats out of the first floor of a single car, and provide some bungie cords. You have to watch your bike at all times, since there's nothing preventing another rider from walking off with it, and you'll have other riders moving your bike to reach their own. There are rules (e.g. no trailers) which are not posted. The staff fully expect every rider to visit the website beforehand to make sure they conform to all rules. I expect vertical bike racks, clearly posted rules at every station, and helpful staff. Amtrak has a dedicated bike car on some of their lines, which is much better. You hand your bike over at the bike car and they'll have it out for you at your destination stop. They're faster, safer, and more trustworthy with my bike than random rider x.
protomyth 15y ago
My big problem with these type of articles is the worry about oversight. I do wonder what kind of oversight a federally run program actually has. The TSA has federal oversight, yet it is a model for doing it wrong. You can get away with serious customer service breeches in the government because the possible recourses are so few and costly. Look at the Department of Interior "oversight" of grazing land owned by Native Americans. Heck, on a current affairs note, read up on the Army Corps of Engineers. Private companies have problems, but the government hasn't proved itself any better. If rail cannot make it in that corridor, how can it work anywhere else? Heck, would the people of the area be better served by just paving the rails over and making them private bus routes?
nowarninglabel 15y ago
I've taken Amtrak across the country twice, via the Texas Star and the California Zephyr routes, and I did quite enjoy those trips. However, I bought my tickets way ahead of time for cheap, brought my own food, and did it because I wanted to see the country. I'd recommend everyone give it a try just once, it is certainly much better than my Greyhound experiences. That said, there are glaring problems in the system. In El Paso, they forced everyone off the train and onto cramped shuttle buses all the way till San Antonio, less comfortable than Greyhound buses, asides the lack of crack smoke that is. And why? For track maintenance. Yet, they didn't inform anyone ahead of time that this was going to happen. This is in addition to the numerous stops of hours at a time where we would just sit, and of course not be informed why we were just sitting. In each case that I could determine, it would be because we were waiting on a freight train to pass. Amtrak has three major problems. One, they play second priority to freight rail, and thus trips become inconveniently long. Two, they are horribly mismanaged, which leads to the conductors not knowing what is going on. Three, the employees I have met at Amtrak have generally sucked in terms of customer service. I'm not surprised given they are working a dead-end job with poor management, but it's certainly one place that unionized, government subsidized labor hasn't led to stellar results.
Derbasti 15y ago
Maintaining a rail network is pretty expensive compared to other transportation infrastructure. They work well in Europe since there are many population clusters at relatively short intervals. Maybe the population topography of the US is less well-suited for passenger trains than in Europe?
wazoox 15y ago
Just notice one important point : in Europe, cargo train is moribund. Virtually everything is moved around by millions of trucks. In the US, it's the other way around, most stuff is moved across the continent by train. They need to be very careful not to sacrifice it for high speed passenger rail.
- awarzzkktsyfj 15y ago
  http://www.economist.com/node/16636101 http://www.economist.com/node/16636101 ... outside Germany and Switzerland, Europe’s freight rail services are a fragmented, lossmaking mess. Repeated attempts to remove the technical and bureaucratic hurdles at national frontiers have come to nothing.
karzeem 15y ago
I think I missed the part of the article where they discussed a good reason not to privatize Amtrak. If government subsidy made it better than private sector alternatives, that would be something. But the argument here is what, that we should preserve a system that even with heavy subsidies can't manage to do better than the variety of profitable alternatives? Who does that help? It sounds like a decisive lose-lose. The only argument in favor of preserving the status quo is to protect the jobs of Amtrak workers. But if that's the concern, it would actually be cheaper to let the market lay some of them off and just cut a giant, multi-year severance check to each of the affected workers.
anghyflawn 15y ago
Europe is going to a model where the infrastructure is owned by some arm of the government (quangos like Railtrack in the UK or national rail administrations), because the initial outlay on infrastructure is too big to make private investment or even private-public partnerships profitable for the private actors everywhere except the most densely populated areas. It seems to me that the scheme is somewhat similar here? I don't know whether it would work in the US though.

14 points by georgecmu 15y ago

Private interests don't have the greatest record when it comes to public transportation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda... We should always be skeptical of the motives of people who propose selling public services to private companies.

JshWright 15y ago

I say go for it... it can't get much worse... For 4 years, my wife was travelling from Rochester to Syracuse and back every few weeks while she was in school. This is ~100 miles, with no intermediate stops. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a train, right? After half a dozen attempts, she finally gave up trying to take the train... It was expensive, unreliable, and slow. What if I wanted to take the train down to NYC for the weekend? It's $80 for a train down on Friday afternoon, and there aren't any trains back on Sunday. Megabus, on the other hand, is $80 round trip (without using any of the readily available promo codes to bring it down even further), and the scheduled trip time is an hour shorter. Despite being someone who _wants_ to take the train (I find it a very comfortable way to travel), I can't find a single scenario in which it makes sense for me to do so.

georgefox 15y ago
> For 4 years, my wife was travelling from Rochester to Syracuse and back every few weeks while she was in school. This is ~100 miles, with no intermediate stops. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a train, right? As I understand, no. There's too much traffic (mostly freight) between Albany and Buffalo for the two tracks that are owned by CSX and shared with Amtrak. As a result, things can move pretty slowly along there. They've been talking about adding track for a little while now, but I'm sure funding is a big issue. My experience with trains upstate has been lousy west of Albany, but south of Albany, I've only seen and heard good things. That said, there are generally more cost-effective ways to travel, like the discount bus services and often, sadly, just driving.
- Derbasti 15y ago
  In Europe, train traffic is passengers-first in daytime and freight-first at night. But then, distances and rail networks are better suited for passenger transportation in Europe than in the US.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
mousa 15y ago
I used to ride the Raleigh-Charlotte route often and regular riders would show up 2 hours late because they knew that's when it would get there from D.C.

jackolas 15y ago

This comes on the heels of a private rail ownership caused derailment, http://www.wcax.com/story/14843332/amtrak-vermonter-derailment http://www.wcax.com/story/14843332/amtrak-vermonter-derailme...

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

melling 15y ago

Commercial high-speed rail is almost 50 years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen I really don't understand why the US hasn't built at least one route in that time.

bonzoesc 15y ago
In the areas it makes sense, nobody has the political will to say "this new dedicated high-speed right-of-way is going in your backyard whether you like it or not."
- melling 15y ago
  The problem doesn't get any easier to solve. 50 years ago there were less than 200 million Americans. Now there are over 300 million people. In other words, a lot more backyards. If we wait 20-30 more years? The places were it makes the most sense are exactly the densely populated areas of the North East and in California. People need to start thinking about what's best for the country instead of themselves.
  - edw 15y ago
    I hope that you will realize that, when I say this that I am not being a cynic: Your suggestion that people start thinking about what's what for the country instead of themselves is naive in the extreme. It's quite possible that the people who would need to sacrifice in order to serve the common good are already among the less well off. Who has railroad track in their back yards now? Who is going to have more railroad track in their back yards after we build more track, presumably near the existing track. From a property value perspective, there's no right side of the tracks when you're a hundred feet from the tracks. And who is going to benefit from enhanced rail service in the Northeast Corridor? Well, indirectly, all of us, but more directly, it's going to be rich people and upper middle class people who are shuttling between Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and DC. (Baltimore too, I suppose.) Someone (taxpayers, railroad companies?) really should compensate the people who will be getting screwed when new track gets laid, especially given that the immediate beneficiaries are not going to be the people who are in the crappy position of being asked to set aside their own interests and take one for the team. More generally, it's not clear to me what "what's best for the country" means. That's what the political process exists to figure out. If the result of the political process isn't what you'd prefer, feel free to call it "unjust," but short of becoming a dictator and deciding what's best for people, the political process is going to be an unsatisfying experience for pretty much everyone.

Duff 15y ago

Rail is the US is a nightmare. It impossible for a private entity profitably operate passenger transit because the government subsidizes road transit to the tune of trillions of dollars.

kevinburke 15y ago
On a per passenger mile basis, the government subsidizes rail much more than it subsidizes highway use.
- Duff 15y ago
  Does that statistic include: - Freight traffic - State and municipal costs, including law enforcement. (Ex, New York employs over 40,000 state and municipal workers dedicated to roadways, not including contractors) - Health impact. (Exhaust has significant health effects and associated costs. See http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/eode/comm-air-survey-report.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/eode/comm-air-surv...) - Direct and indirect government support of various auto-related industries. The costs are more than just laying down blacktop.
blendergasket 15y ago
Somewhat of a different case, but urban light rail networks were actively destroyed by car companies who didn't want the competion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda... It would seem monied interests want to keep us in cars sucking oil instead of whizzing along tracks. I see this as being a big impediment to the creation of viable nationwide rail networks.
- lliiffee 15y ago
  This is true, but note that streetcars also got shut down in cities where the car companies didn't play these games.
  - mkr-hn 15y ago

georgieporgie 15y ago

In a place with oodles of people treading distances that aren't plane-worthy, why aren't trains doing better? I can't speak for others, but I sat on an Amtrak train for about 30 continuous hours last fall, and it was probably the worst mass-transit experience I've ever had. At least riding a packed, loud bus across Thailand -- jostled awake regularly in the night as the lead-footed driver braked to avoid a head-on collision while passing mid-curve -- was exciting. I'm glad they can intelligently accommodate bicycles (unlike, say, CalTrain), and the local station had a very friendly staff, but everything else about Amtrak appalled me.

ryanklee 15y ago
These are all problems with the current implementation -- not problems with trains themselves. Trains are wonderful; amtrak is rotten.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  Absolutely, and I love riding the train in Japan! I'm just saying that the reason ridership has been stagnant is probably because Amtrak itself kind of sucks. I would be all for privatization (which I'm normally not for), since they've done such a miserable job on all fronts.
jackowayed 15y ago
What's wrong caltrain's handling of bikes? How would you handle bikes on a commuter train that only stops for a minute?
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  All they did was pull most of the seats out of the first floor of a single car, and provide some bungie cords. You have to watch your bike at all times, since there's nothing preventing another rider from walking off with it, and you'll have other riders moving your bike to reach their own. There are rules (e.g. no trailers) which are not posted. The staff fully expect every rider to visit the website beforehand to make sure they conform to all rules. I expect vertical bike racks, clearly posted rules at every station, and helpful staff. Amtrak has a dedicated bike car on some of their lines, which is much better. You hand your bike over at the bike car and they'll have it out for you at your destination stop. They're faster, safer, and more trustworthy with my bike than random rider x.

protomyth 15y ago

My big problem with these type of articles is the worry about oversight. I do wonder what kind of oversight a federally run program actually has. The TSA has federal oversight, yet it is a model for doing it wrong. You can get away with serious customer service breeches in the government because the possible recourses are so few and costly. Look at the Department of Interior "oversight" of grazing land owned by Native Americans. Heck, on a current affairs note, read up on the Army Corps of Engineers. Private companies have problems, but the government hasn't proved itself any better. If rail cannot make it in that corridor, how can it work anywhere else? Heck, would the people of the area be better served by just paving the rails over and making them private bus routes?

nowarninglabel 15y ago

I've taken Amtrak across the country twice, via the Texas Star and the California Zephyr routes, and I did quite enjoy those trips. However, I bought my tickets way ahead of time for cheap, brought my own food, and did it because I wanted to see the country. I'd recommend everyone give it a try just once, it is certainly much better than my Greyhound experiences. That said, there are glaring problems in the system. In El Paso, they forced everyone off the train and onto cramped shuttle buses all the way till San Antonio, less comfortable than Greyhound buses, asides the lack of crack smoke that is. And why? For track maintenance. Yet, they didn't inform anyone ahead of time that this was going to happen. This is in addition to the numerous stops of hours at a time where we would just sit, and of course not be informed why we were just sitting. In each case that I could determine, it would be because we were waiting on a freight train to pass. Amtrak has three major problems. One, they play second priority to freight rail, and thus trips become inconveniently long. Two, they are horribly mismanaged, which leads to the conductors not knowing what is going on. Three, the employees I have met at Amtrak have generally sucked in terms of customer service. I'm not surprised given they are working a dead-end job with poor management, but it's certainly one place that unionized, government subsidized labor hasn't led to stellar results.

Derbasti 15y ago

Maintaining a rail network is pretty expensive compared to other transportation infrastructure. They work well in Europe since there are many population clusters at relatively short intervals. Maybe the population topography of the US is less well-suited for passenger trains than in Europe?

wazoox 15y ago

Just notice one important point : in Europe, cargo train is moribund. Virtually everything is moved around by millions of trucks. In the US, it's the other way around, most stuff is moved across the continent by train. They need to be very careful not to sacrifice it for high speed passenger rail.

awarzzkktsyfj 15y ago
http://www.economist.com/node/16636101 http://www.economist.com/node/16636101 ... outside Germany and Switzerland, Europe’s freight rail services are a fragmented, lossmaking mess. Repeated attempts to remove the technical and bureaucratic hurdles at national frontiers have come to nothing.

karzeem 15y ago

I think I missed the part of the article where they discussed a good reason not to privatize Amtrak. If government subsidy made it better than private sector alternatives, that would be something. But the argument here is what, that we should preserve a system that even with heavy subsidies can't manage to do better than the variety of profitable alternatives? Who does that help? It sounds like a decisive lose-lose. The only argument in favor of preserving the status quo is to protect the jobs of Amtrak workers. But if that's the concern, it would actually be cheaper to let the market lay some of them off and just cut a giant, multi-year severance check to each of the affected workers.

anghyflawn 15y ago

Europe is going to a model where the infrastructure is owned by some arm of the government (quangos like Railtrack in the UK or national rail administrations), because the initial outlay on infrastructure is too big to make private investment or even private-public partnerships profitable for the private actors everywhere except the most densely populated areas. It seems to me that the scheme is somewhat similar here? I don't know whether it would work in the US though.