Discussion: Efficacy of Long Distance Trains

icgsteve wrote:For the railroads doing it right means in part meeting the needs of the nation and all of its people.

The question I ask is "Do long distance trains REALLY meet the needs of the nation and all of its people even if you eliminate freight/passenger train operational conflicts?" To me, the answer is no, mainly because other modes of transportation meet those needs better than long distance passenger trains do for most people.

CHIP72 wrote:To me, the answer is no, mainly because other modes of transportation meet those needs better than long distance passenger trains do for most people.

I submit that this is only true because America has no energy or transportation plans, thus has fuel prices and infrastructure that do not make rational sense. The rest of the world has decided that passenger rail meets the needs of the nations and of individuals much of the time and is pricing-taxing other transportation accordingly and investing in rail accordingly. America is very out of step with the rest of the wisdom of the world on this, so we need to ask hard question about how this has happened. I can roll with the theory of "America exceptionalism" to some extent, but the theory that I have heard trotted out that passenger rail may make sense in the rest of the world does not in America is ridiculous. We are not that special. Are we right and the rest of the world wrong? Maybe, but I seriously doubt it.

I think this is more of what we see a lot of, America without direction, full of itself, and unprepared for the future. I am an American, I love America, but we have serious problems to deal with, rail and transportation overall being just the tip of the iceberg.


MODERATOR'S NOTE: Edited 11/02/06 @ 1:43 AM

While discussion of a possible nationalization of rail infrastructure to place same on a "parity" with that of highway, inland waterway, and air transport, bears relevance to the topic, my intent was to address what role, if any, will the Long Distance train have in 21st century passenger railroading. I thank Mr.Chip for redirecting the discussion towards that objective.

Even if I personally question the place of a mode of transport having a miniscule portion of the transportation market and for which there are alternatives, namely air and highway, in any such, the fact remains that the LD's, as I have often noted here at other posts yet is quite relevant to this topic as well, are the catalyst for ensuring Federal level-funding for what really counts - and that of course is the Northeast Corrdior. In order to enjoy the wide popular support Amtrak has, there must "be a little ray of sunshine' or other economic benefit spread about sufficient legislative districts to ensure the majority it has enjoyed over its thirty six year lifetime.

The LD's are very efficient carriers of such largesse.

Further, it can be said that having a national system enables the "institutions" needed to run a passenger train, which cannot reasonably be expected to be maintained by a Class I, e.g. how often has a UP Road Foreman at North Platte, NE even seen one, has his BNSF counterpart at Gillete, WY ever?, to be "in place" lest a local jurisdiction choose to fund and commence a service under Section 403(b) of RPSA '70.

But I still return to my basic premise that because LD's operate on a schedule and in the process often "buck the flow" of freight traffic and deprive the road's of needed maintenance "windows', they cause an unreasonable burden to the econoimic and efficient movement of freight traffic and accordingly I really have to question their continued place ('efficacy' seems to be a synonym for such) in the passenger transportation "picture'.

Once again allow me to reiterate, I RIDE 'EM, and have "more positives than negatives" regarding my on-board travel experiences.

Gil, this is exactly what I have been talking about. Because the mission of the railroad is to serve the nation as well as serve the financial desires of its owners, it is irrelevant whether or not passenger trains get in the way of freight or cost on the bottom line. If the people want to move by train then moving passengers must be done, and it is going to cost whatever it is going to cost. Your thrust assumes that the only master is the owners of the corporation. What the shippers want counts, what the people who need transportation want counts. The behavior of the railroads only in part is influenced by markets and the capitalist system, it is also influenced by the will of the people and of shippers which is directed through our government. Railroads must serve both masters, the nation as awhole and those particular people who own the corporation, who may or may not be American. If the shippers and the people demand a service then the railroad must provide it, even if it costs the owners of the company potential profits. So it does not matter if LD trains get in the way and cost potential profits, it only matters if the people demand this service. The question to be asked is should America invest in and promote LD trains. I think that the answer is yes, and if the people overall agree with me then the railroads are just going to have to suck it up and figure out a way to get the job done, or get eliminated for failing to do their job.

So to redirect the question back to where you claim you want to go, lets all forget what is in the railroads best interests, what they want. The railroads represent a very slim sliver of the interests of the people and of the economy. Should the nation upgrade passenger rail, taking into account all of the social, economic, and environment issues that are connected to the question? For me this is a no brainer, but I am always up for the debate.

Let's take the question of passenger trains getting in the way of freight trains, and causing cost or inconvenience for the MOW folks. It is just as valid to say that the freights are getting in the way of the passenger trains, because the rail corps must serve the needs of the shippers and the needs of the traveling public alike. The fact that the railroads make money from one and not the other matters not at all. The solution then is that there must be more capacity. Who will provide this? I personally think that the railroads should, as they are the ones who cut capacity. This nation already paid for all of the rail capacity that we need, the problem is the managements sold a lot of it for scrap and handed out the cash. Their mistake, now they should put it back. If they go broke doing it I am fine with that.

Why not decide that freight is more important that passenger movement and kick passenger trains off of the property in order to avoid some of the capital costs of capacity? Simple, because we need the passenger trains now and we will need them more in the future. We can't afford the roads we have now, much less new ones. Planes run on one fuel only, and the price for it will go up and fast. LD busses were always low class and always will be so let's not go there. So if we are all going to be able to get around as our nation grows towards 400 million souls, and do so in a way that can be affordable and does not choke the planet with pollution trains seem to be it. Trains can go anywhere, they can go fast, they sip energy, if we electrify the rail lines as most of the world has we can get the energy from many sources and we can switch energy sources just as fast as it takes to build an few generating plants. Or maybe we just go green and figure out solar or maybe we find a nuclear source that we can live with. One thing for sure, using electricity generated from many sources sure would make our national foreign policy look different than it does today. If no one cartel could shut down our economy we would options that we don't have today.

Another big thing about train travel is it is just so freaking civilized and democratic. Rubbing shoulders with people we otherwise would never talk to is good for us. Sitting back and watching the country slide by while shipping on our favorite bev is such a good opportunity to reflect on what it means to be a human and what it means to be an American. How many minutes a day do we have that we can make no stress? Not that many. Train travel is a character and soul building experience. We are not just going from one place to another, we are becoming better people as we take our journey. Is that going to happen in the car? Not likely unless we are listening to motivational tapes. Is that going to happen in the air-give me a break-air travel is a soul deadening experience, which will only get worse as aviation fuel prices go up.

I don't care what anyone cares most about, be it economics, humanity, following logic, personal growth, enjoying life, creating a better life for our kids, saving the planet......it does not matter- passenger trains look good from any angle.

What is to say, however, that long-distance intercity transportation trumps freight transportation on the mainline railroads? Certainly, freight movement in itself is a significant public interest, as experienced in my home state of Oregon and my neighboring state of Washington - both statse that have made it clear that freight movement needs to be addressed. Washington has even largely stopped new passenger rail funding, and shifted it to freight rail funding - i.e. purchasing shortline railroads, purchasing freight car fleets, and upgrading freight railroad tracks and yards, and improving access for freight shippers to the railroads.

Mr. Norman has a good point that I believe has been all but side-stepped in the four pages of discussion - what is the role of the intercity long distance passenger train? Take a heavy mainline railroad - are we going to prioritize one eight-car, 70% loaded passenger train - over 50 fully loaded freight trains carrying coal for power plants, automobiles, steel, produce, grain, lumber, and manufactured goods? If the railroad were carrying 100 passenger trains, I'd say passengers have a bit of a priority, but the fact is and remains, only 3 million some passengers rode an Amtrak intercity train in FY2005. That's a statistically insignificant number of intercity travellers.

The railroads have zero obligation to haul passengers; their obligation was absolved through RPRA and Staggers. Their mandated obligation to allow Amtrak trains on their tracks expired several years ago. If we are to demand that the railroads have a vested public interest in hauling passengers, why don't we expect the same of every common carrier trucking company to also run busses for passenger transport? The same would be true for cargo airlines, including no less than UPS Airlines and FedEx Express.

Just because we like something makes no mandate of our government to insist that a private property owner (the railroads) made concessions to our demands unless there is a clear public safety concern. If we want to argue that there is a energy crisis looming that we need to resolve, we need to resolve that problem internally and not force an external entity (the railroads) to concede to our demands, because we (private individuals) cannot hold ourselves accountable and use restraint with regards to our own personal energy usage. Nor must we insist that the only solution is by rail, because unlike icgsteve's post,

icgsteve wrote:Trains can go anywhere, they can go fast, they sip energy, if we electrify the rail lines as most of the world has we can get the energy from many sources and we can switch energy sources just as fast as it takes to build an few generating plants.

The fact is that trains cannot go anywhere, nor can they go fast. In my neck of the woods, there is a large debate over a railroad line that is six miles long between two suburbs in Portland, and whether we should spend government dollars to support a "wine train" in the hopes of further development as a commuter rail corridor; however the line is both steep and curvy, and would have a top speed no higher than 30 MPH. Likewise, our country is mired in a poor energy policy that shuns many effective modes of power generation, yet requires the construction of generating plants that produce only small amounts of electricity (i.e. wind farms) and cannot realistically provide for our current energy needs - much less our future needs.

We all know rail has a place, but we are spending hundreds of millions on a mode of transport that has extremely little utility. What will make or break this form of transport is warm bodies in seats - and after 36 years, the warm bodies are still missing. $300M a year would go a long ways towards resolve local transportation issues that would make significant strides into reducing congestion, pollution and energy consumption. People who choose to live in remote areas must accept that with remoteness comes lack of choices that may be abundant in more populated areas, such as access to multiple modes of transport. And the ability and/or need to travel is a privilege, not a right, nor is such guaranteed to be provided by any government or document.

Well, it may be true that an LD train does get in the way of a freight train from time to time. But since 1971, Amtrak has the legal right to run their trains on the host's roads and on occasion, be in the way. True?

Different types of freight trains also run at different speeds so the idea of different trains running at different speeds on the same track isn't unusual. The trick is to have enough passing tracks and high speed turn-outs to maintain the velocity of the system. So, again, we get back to how to re-build an inadequate and ageing infrastructure to serve the needs of our nation. I believe that the wisest path is for the railroads to partner with the communities they serve to build a system that works to the advantage of all. But I don't have any easy solutions to creating rail mobility, except to spend lots of money, as wisely as possible.

Nationalize the infrastructure? Create a Freightrak to follow up on the great success of Amtrak? Hmmm....

I tend to wonder how much there is an actual mainline capacity issue on the investor owned railroad ROWs or just an issue of trains reaching terminals and having no room to move to the yard. Recall that along with the many downsizing measures taken against mainline sidings quite a few yards were taken out for various reasons.

While Mr. Halstead continues to argue that railroad freight transportation should be an issue that stands on its own merits I have to say that nobody cares in the larger public except when a crossing is blocked. In many cases Amtrak is the only exposure the larger public has to the issues surrounding the equitable treatment of investor owned railroad ROWs. It also seems that the lower quality of Amtrak service is a disencentive for the freight railroads to support Amtrak.

When I did a summer Co-op with Union Pacific in the North Little Rock transportation department I seemed to get a general feedback that the train was not comfortable enough overnight to St. Louis or Chicago and hence it was somewhat discounted by the white collar types in the office. At this time the Eagle would pop by the window around 8 some AM when we were having "the" call-in meeting. Perhaps this is why I think Amtrak should invest in a fleet of comfortable all-bedroom sleepers. I am fully convinced that they could pay their way marginally as they could earn over twice the cost of capital, maintenance, and labor at the rates Amtrak charges for bedrooms.

VPayne wrote:While Mr. Halstead continues to argue that railroad freight transportation should be an issue that stands on its own merits I have to say that nobody cares in the larger public except when a crossing is blocked. In many cases Amtrak is the only exposure the larger public has to the issues surrounding the equitable treatment of investor owned railroad ROWs.

If that is the case:

In 2004, there were 215,694,000 legal residents of the United States who were eligible to vote.

In 2004, 122,295,345 votes were tallied for President of the United States.

In FY 2006, Amtrak served 24.3 million passengers - that's including the NEC and state corridor services. If we want to talk LD trains - 3.7 million riders. That's 1.7% of the voting age population - on a purely statistical basis (see below).

That meant that Amtrak's total exposure to the public reached 11.3% of the total voting-age population - and that assumed that each Amtrak passenger only rode one time, and one direction (which is obiviously false, so that the actual number of distinct passengers is much lower; Amtrak's passenger count also includes Americans who are too young to vote, as well as non-Americans (i.e. tourists, foreign nationals, resident aliens - all of whom are ineligible to vote.)

Meanwhile, a statistical 88.7% of Americans derived their only exposure to Amtrak by way of watching an Amtrak train block the same grade crossing, advertising, photography, or other media use.

Meanwhile, Oregon and Washington voters both approved ballot measures specifically calling for highway spending on the premise of FREIGHT movement, not passenger movement. In general passenger transportation measures do very poorly on the ballot; one such measure would have had the State of Oregon pick up the tab for a Portland area light-rail line, with an equal amount of funding divided up amongst the rest of the state for highway improvements. FAILED. I think the majority of voters are smart enough to discern the difference between freight and passenger transportation and that one is not necessarily the same as another.

How do you differentiate highway spending freight vs passenger:) Perhaps some of the people just voted for a highway measure. Still the question remains would the investor owned railroads have been given the time of day in congress during the Staggers Act era if it were not for the exposure that Amtrak brings. Would capacity issues mostly caused by freight movement on railroads be given congressional hearings without Amtrak.
You are also using a light rail transit example as a proxy for Amtrak, which does have quite wide support within the general population per the multiple polls posted here by another gentleman just a few weeks ago.

CHIP72 wrote:The question I ask is "Do long distance trains REALLY meet the needs of the nation and all of its people even if you eliminate freight/passenger train operational conflicts?" To me, the answer is no, mainly because other modes of transportation meet those needs better than long distance passenger trains do for most people.

This question has been kicked around her many times. One thing you need to remember is that not everyone has access to alternate "modes of transportation".

The fact is that trains cannot go anywhere, nor can they go fast

Hmm, I think that Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea and even China might dispute that.

wigwagfan wrote: The railroads have zero obligation to haul passengers; their obligation was absolved through RPRA and Staggers. Their mandated obligation to allow Amtrak trains on their tracks expired several years ago. If we are to demand that the railroads have a vested public interest in hauling passengers, why don't we expect the same of every common carrier trucking company to also run busses for passenger transport?

Actually, the railroads have an imperative to haul passengers if they wish to be hauled, and if there is not currently a legal obligation to do this then then the country will create the obligation. The American people have three branches of Government with which to impose its will upon the railroads. I don't believe that it is true that there is not currently a legal obligation to move passengers. The law was changed a few years back, but the obligation was not eliminated. Congress made a law that states that Amtrak is no longer the one and only agency that is allowed to move intercity passengers, they did nothing to cancel the obligation to carry Amtrak that was created upon Amtrak's creation. The railroad stockholders of Amtrak are under the same obligation to Amtrak that they have always been under. I never have read the law, but my understanding is that it says that the railroads must now also work with other agencies or companies that may in the future wish to move intercity passengers over their networks. I don't believe that the railroads are obligated to give other carriers the same preferred rates that Amtrak gets by nature of the stockholder agreement.

The difference between the railroads and trucking companies or airlines is obvious; railroads are the infrastructure that while under private ownership currently is none the less a national asset, obligated to serve the needs of the nation. Trucking companies and airlines are users of infrastructure, namely the roads and the airspace, which are also national transportation assets obligated to serve the nation. The difference is that the roads and the airspace are under public ownership and/or stewardship, while the railroads are under private stewardship. Railroads are the anomaly in the national transportation network, and one has to wonder why when it is clear that private ownership is no longer working are they allowed to remain in the hands of private concerns. It would seem to be logical and reasonable to move the railroads under public ownership or stewardship as all other transportation infrastructure is. I would argue that American always had private ownership of the railroads but that full regulation placed the railroads unders government stewardship. I would further argue that private stewardship has been a complete failure, and that we need to return the railroads to public stewardship or else go to public ownership. Railroads and their allies arguing that they have no obligation to serve the nations passenger movement needs is more proof that current ownership is untenable. My choice would be to not spend a lot of time arguing with them, that we should move right to getting rid of them.

ICSteve, there is a 'seventysomething" fellow I know with whom you would get on just great.

He believes that there should be more long distance trains, not less than "two a day' over any LD route and preferably more. "Hell Gil, get out one of your 60's vintage "Q" time tables; they had five a day past here (Mt. Pleasant IA). If they can't run that many today, the freight should be embargoed so they can".

This gentleman and his wife have been my friends for some 40 years, God willing they will still be for a long time to cime.

...........wonder if i should speak up? Besides Mr. Norman, and maybe a small few more of you, really have no clue on how things work on a railroad. 95% of the posts as far as i can tell, have really nothing to do with the title of of this subject. Good last post there GBN, the UP BNSF one.

A little redirection here and some info to think about. Adding another mainline to handle traffic (passenger and freight) is really expensive to build, inspect and maintain. Compair our main (UP) to some small short line branch.

LD's do gum up the works, adding speed to them only makes it worse. On the rail your only as fast as the guy ahead of you. Making the jump to light speed (79) and your sure to catch someones flasher. How ya gonna clear the 10 or 15 trains that are ahead of you? (remember the hold times and how much it costs? wheres the velocity now?) Efficiently on LD's isnt what needs work, down grading those trains to follow the biggest dogs out there. "You'll get there when you get there" Take that schedule and throw it out the window. If its not gonna be a joyride trip on that train, fly or drive.

Edited by a Moderator, 11-3-06