Dear Mr. Anderson;

electricron wrote:Why should Hays help fund a train through Garden City is a great question Amtrak needs to answer if they really expect Kansas to fund the SW Chief track improvements.

Totally agree. The prevailing justification that long distance trains help people in remote areas have access to transportation does not hold water. What about folks in places like Hays, Kansas? They do what most rural people do, get in their truck and drive to their destination. People in Hays, Kansas, aren't looking to visit Chicago or LA, they want to visit Wichita, Lawrence, Tulsa, Omaha, Kansas City, Denver, etc... There's no way a guy in Hays is going to jump in his truck, drive to Garden City, ride a train all the way to Chicago and then backtrack to Denver on the CZ, just to avoid a five hour drive.

I'm sure there are going to be a bunch of folks that want to argue with me and insist on 2x/day with guaranteed same day connections in Chicago, full diner, etc... but y'all don't know Kansas people and I do. I lived there for three years. Most don't even know the train comes through. They thought I had a hole in my head when I told them I rode to Chicago on a train.

It's been almost 50 years since Amtrak started and, with its start, eliminated many passenger trains.So its natural that people in Kansas and most other places outside the Northeast would not think of trains as viable transportation options. They haven't been for many years.
We need an improved, rational and better funded rail system. That is, we can't expect the Class I's to subsidize passenger service. But Mr Anderson is not working to improve Amtrak or passenger service. He pre-emptively cancels trains days in advance of possible bad weather. He severely restricts private varnish, when these guys are willing and able to pay big bucks to run their trains. He prevented the New River train from running, and even prevented Amtrak from participating in a Santa train for disadvantaged kids.
Instead, he should be working on growing Amtrak, including getting adequate funding. Many of the unconscionable delays in Amtrak trains are caused by its trying to run a railroad perennially out of money. That is, there are no spare crews, no spare engines, no spare cars, so when anything goes wrong stuff just grinds to a halt. While he's at it, he should be working to make deals with the class I's to give Amtrak more priority. Of course this will cost money.
But Mr Anderson acts like his job is to slowly run Amtrak into the ground. Amtrak already has such a poisonous labor-management conflict culture that management refused to agree to something the airlines have long had--allow anonymous reports of problems by employees who spot safety problems, near-miss accidents, etc.

If possible bad weather is expected, Amtrak should do what other businesses do: They put up critical employees in hotels near where they are needed so they can function during weather problems. Mr Anderson would rather close up shop.
We need Amtrak run like a vital transportation service, not like it is run now. Words fail me as to what passenger service has become in this country. In maybe 2 generations we have regressed from having the world's best passenger service to having rail passenger service that wouldn't be tolerated in many third world countries.

Mr. Grossman, I hear you, but lest we forget, there are simply not "the boots on the ground" (@$1.25hr) and there weren't "Glen Lerner is the lawyer for you, call 222-2222" as there are today.

Back then "Center to Center All Weather Service"(NH) and "Your Trip Is Weatherproof"(DL&W) were much more "deliverable" than they are in today's environment.

I agree with the above assessment until we get to the weather thing. In 2019, we have brilliant internet connectivity and cell phones that can allow many of us to work at home in days of inclement weather when once all of us had to go in every day. We also do not have the men on the ground to facilitate moving trains in a driving snowstorm.

Overall the weather argument holds about as much water as the remote access argument. If the airlines and highways are shut down, and many folks can hold a teleconference or move their meeting a few days, why is it worth doubling the labor force to keep trains running through the worst weather? Let's assume for a minute that Passenger X gets through to NYP in the worst blizzard next winter. What does he find there? His local contact is probably stuck trying to get in from Connecticut, the restaurants are closed, the hotel is understaffed, and if the weather gets worse and his return train is cancelled, he's now stuck in a closed Manhattan for a few days until they dig out.

This happened to me last year. I flew to Boston for a meeting in a Snowmageddon. I was the last flight in. The meeting was a few hours north, and it was cancelled. Barely anybody could make it in. I would up eating beef jerkey from CVS for lunch and dinner one day because everything was closed. The meeting was conducted over a teleconference. It made no sense to go through that giant run-around for a meeting we all knew was going to be teleconference anyway.

The premise of Amtrak now is shared costs.

What makes the senators from kansas (sic) think the legislature will pay for their share of a KC-DEN service? Heck, the state won’t pay to achieve court mandated K-12 funding levels ...

I laugh at this idea ... derisively.

Sadly, I can't even disagree with Mr Norman or Col Perkowski. But almost everyone now understands that climate change is real. (I think even some "deniers" understand it but publicly deny for political purposes.) And, building more highway lanes to mitigate congestion usually doesn't work in really congested areas.
So, we have to make some changes in the way we live. We need to develop more public transit alternatives, including more commuter and long distance rail. It's probably finally time for a carbon tax, which may make public transportation more attractive as it raises the price of gas. But then we have to provide some public transportation alternatives. We have to get those Kansans thinking beyond the cabs of their trucks, and that won't happen unless viable alternatives are on the ground. So, expensive as it may be, we need to start building out some public transportation alternatives before the demand is there. People have had 2 generations of jumping in their trucks and forgetting about other alternatives. We have to provide some useful alternatives so the "jump in my truck" mindset can start to change.

I’m with you, Joe, and also it’s worthwhile to recognize that a truck (car, etc) will sometimes be the most efficient choice in terms of time and energy. Amtrak can help narrow that gap by strengthening its Lyft partnership and advocating for better local transit for the last mile, making its schedule more consistent even if more frequent or more routes aren’t options, and reducing the amount of fuel required per passenger.

Were I Mr. Anderson in this particular matrix, I’d forward that letter to both Topeka and to Secy Chao, but not to Omaha just yet. See what can be developed to link Hays to the national system for seven figures, not ten.

IF the climate change protagonists were willing to push governmental curtailment of domestic air travel around the world, rail would again be an essential transportation mode.

They aren’t. It won’t be.

JoeG wrote: So, we have to make some changes in the way we live.

We can decarbonize our electric grid severely in a decade or so by just building nuclear out on a large scale. Which is what France did in the 70's and China's doing now. France has one of the lowest carbon intensities of any electric grid in Europe, with some of the lowest electric rates. Only hydro heavy countries do better (and not by much on either scale.). The technology is there, it's proven, it works.

We need to develop more public transit alternatives, including more commuter and long distance rail.

Long distance is dead. It's not 1950s anymore. Short corridors might work, if they're fast enough. The NE's average speed is basically the bottom of what's workable.

It's probably finally time for a carbon tax, which may make public transportation more attractive as it raises the price of gas.

Ahhh yes, the great answer to everything - force people into modes of transport they don't want to be in because they suck. How about fixing rail transport so folks actually want to take it?

But then we have to provide some public transportation alternatives. We have to get those Kansans thinking beyond the cabs of their trucks, and that won't happen unless viable alternatives are on the ground.

The trouble is, the answer for 'viable' isn't what most railbuffs want to see - i.e. lightweight DMUs, railbuses, mainline electrification, and knocking sense into the FRA and Class Is, and probably in the long term - nationalization of the network to achieve those goals. i.e., what everyone else figured out years ago. It's insane to think that if we bring back the network of the 50's, it'll work this time. It didn't work back in the days of DC6s and cars that could barely get out of their own way.

So, expensive as it may be, we need to start building out some public transportation alternatives before the demand is there. People have had 2 generations of jumping in their trucks and forgetting about other alternatives. We have to provide some useful alternatives so the "jump in my truck" mindset can start to change.

Decarbonize the grid and get as many as possible into electric vehicles. But that means dumping coal (which would wipe out at least one big Class I), gas for peaking (and those evil pipelines to get it everywhere - it's insane we flare off gas in one part of the US and have shortages in another), nuclear (Oooo scary!!!!), that ugly catenary that always ruins the perfect shot, and realizing that electric cars will be the answer for a lot of people. Maybe hydrogen as an aviation fuel, though that may/may not work. Storage and energy density IIRC were the big issues (gas turbines pretty much burn anything).

Railbuff I may be, but I don't see any rejuvenation of rail passenger travel as creating a time warp back to the 1950s. (Even then train-offs were massive. In high school in 1960 I wrote an exam essay on the deplorable downgrading of passenger service.) DMUs and electrification have to happen. Full service diners, much as I used to love them, are obsolete. (A few years ago I posted here that I thought Amtrak steaks compared to Outback. The last time I ate in a diner I'd say the food compared to Dennys, at fine dining prices.) When the Silver Star dropped its diner and reduced sleeper prices, patronage soared. Maybe long distance service should be a series of connected corridors.
And, I agree that we have to scrap the rules requiring that passenger cars have to be built like main battle tanks. The rest of the developed world has fine safety records without the overbuilt hardware.

Amtrak's management seems incompetent and toxic. I would like to see Amtrak replaced, but I'm not sure by what.

The point of all this is to provide easier and cheaper train service. it should not take 20 years of repeated expensive consultant study to add a train. It should not cost 9,10, or 11 digit amounts to add some trackage and buy some rolling stock.

If we are to improve transportation it has to be multi modal and affordable. Planes won't and shouldn't be replaced by trains. Trains should be provided where they make sense.

One big problem is that heavy construction costs have risen much faster than general inflation. Now, you need about $30 to buy what $1 bought in 1900. But the Penn Station extension including the 4 East River tubes, the 2 Hudson tunnels, the initial electrification and the creation of Sunnyside Yard (not to say Penn Station itself) cost $100 million which by the regular inflation calculators is about $3 billion today. What would it actually cost? Who knows, but estimates just for Gateway seem to be in excess of $10 billion.

Unfortunately I'm kind of low on answers. I hope some can be found.

JoeG wrote:
Amtrak's management seems incompetent and toxic. I would like to see Amtrak replaced, but I'm not sure by what.

Amtrak's management, at Anderson's direction, is fully competent in their aims - destroy Amtrak, being toxic is a required manner in bringing about the end of Amtrak.

Nobody in their right mind denies the climate changes, as it has been for thousands of years. What some people have trouble with is being so sure that the change is primarily due to human activity that it justifies spending billions of dollars on attempts to counteract it, knowing all the time that countries with the worst record for pollution and hydrocarbon use (China and India) will just thumb their noses at these attempts thus dooming any worldwide effort. Billions of dollars that will then not be available for other humanitarian efforts such as providing clean water in developing countries and many other possible uses.

What this means for our rail network is that we can still justify efforts to increase availability of rail transportation to reduce congestion and improve air quality. We have to recognize though that a lot of people in "flyover country" are never going to have access to public transportation as the population density just isn't there. So increasing gas taxes just punishes those people as they do not have the alternatives that city dwellers do.

While I don’t often visit this forum, this topic caught my eye. My wife’s family was from Ellis, KS - just a few miles west of Hays. Her family was among the early settlers there in the late 1800’s when it was end of track for the KP. It became a division point with roundhouse, railroad YMCA and of course a busy depot. But, to paraphrase Johnny Cash, the UP don’t stop here anymore. Several years ago the UP did some significant trackwork on the line for its current role: a safety valve for the mainline across Nebraska, but primarily it’s home to 40 mph coal drags and unit grain trains.

As someone mentioned, the most likely option if you really wanted to ride the train to western Kansas is a renting a car (or truck) in Garden City and making the drive (which we did one year). So no, the heartland will not see passenger service or much less corridor service. The best they can hope for is to be on the path of one of Mr. Anderson’s experiential trains. Certainly that will be the case for the CZ while that reprieve is doubtful for the SWC - at least as we know it today.

I think the present management sees running traditional long distance routes with sleeper and diner services on the routes where there is the strongest market for overnight and experiential travelers. While the federal funding for the long distance routes has "essential transportation" as its justification, essential transportation does not require premium services to be offered. I think Anderson and company sees running "enhanced" versions of the present LD trains on select routes (hence his "Experiential train") where they think the market for experiential and general overnight trips is highest and I believe they see focusing sleeping and dining car services on those routes, and additionally would like to do an analyses of the best way to service the remaining routes (breaking routes up into shorter corridors, etc.) I think you could see sleeping/dining cars also end up on some shorter corridors that have overnight runs - Amtrak is considering putting sleeper car service back on the overnight NER - and if they aren't planning on putting V2 diners on to the Cardinal or Star, I could see a diner end up on those NERs as well.

As for the trains that would make the cut, it seems likely the CZ and the CS would be at the top of said list.

jonnhrr wrote: knowing all the time that countries with the worst record for pollution and hydrocarbon use (China and India) will just thumb their noses at these attempts thus dooming any worldwide effort. Billions of dollars that will then not be available for other humanitarian efforts such as providing clean water in developing countries and many other possible uses. .

I'm big time on board with this. I think the way to counteract that is with trade restrictions not based on economic rationale, which is often tricky or impossible vis-a-vis trade agreements and WTO, but based on environmental rationale. Why do we have an EPA that is very aggressive here when those factories just move to Asia where nobody cares and the pollution is awful?

This ties back to Amtrak because if there were tarriffs based on environmental concerns, you'd see more re-shoring, which results in better jobs for Americans (all those rustbelts towns where guys once made $30/hour in a factory, and now they're making $12/hr at Walmart). Better wealth creation results in more tax base to support concerns like Amtrak and more disposable income for sleeper car trips. Right now it's tough for the average person to advocate for Amtrak when fares are way above their means.