RAILPAX Version 2.0

I thought I would put to all of you a question wrapped in a recollection.
Back in Dec. of 1975 (When I was all of 11 yrs.-old) my Granddad and I rode Amtrak's Silver Star to Miami.
It was the most exciting trip of my lifetime up to then, and needless to say, at that age I was wound tighter than a spring.
All night long I traipsed through every car from one end to the other - back and forth.
Finally, I managed to annoy some passengers sleeping in those upper/lower berths with the curtains. Even then I was astonished that such a seeming relic from the 19th Century was still an everyday travel option.
At this time an SCL conductor (yes, he had an actual SCL conductor's uniform w/vest, watch, cap, etc.) kindly collared me and took me to one of the baggage cars where off duty train crew hung out smoking cigarettes, playing cards, etc.
He was a nice old guy that would be around 100 yrs.-old today.
He answered all of my questions about his career loving every minute of it probably. He got me an apple juice!
That was, until I asked him about Amtrak.
I could see his face cloud immediately. It was clear he did not approve of the government's handling of rail travel. So, I asked him why.
In his opinion, where the Feds messed up was by forming a new quasi-'company' with new branding, etc.
He couldn't understand why the gov't. simply didn't reimburse the original railroads for the losses incurred from running passenger trains the way they always had (albeit with much fewer routes like today) while maintaining their corporate images and service standards. He said that when guys like him all retired and railroads shut down their passenger divisions, that the 'craft' of passenger railroading would be lost forever. I'm afraid I have to agree at this later date (at least in the USA).
In a nutshell: Let the people who have the experience, infrastructure, and knowledge to run passengers over their road do it with the gov't. making it worth their while as long as the American People want it. I know, I know - it sounds too much like 'corporate welfare' today but from the American Taxpayer's POV it would've probably been a better deal financially AND would give RR's incentive to maintain schedules and keep a positive public image.
I know there are disasterous examples of this philosophy - Commuter operations in PA, NJ, NY, MA - but with RR's like BN, ATSF, SCL, UP, IC, DRGW they would have probably warmed to this option.
Any thoughts?

Mr. Nacho, while I will ignore inaccuracies in your material such as reference to open-section sleeping cars as Amtrak has never operated any of such in revenue service during its history, allow me to direct attention to your underlying thought of 'why couldn't the railroads just do it?".

Immediately after A-Day, it was a case of just that where Amtrak simply had entered into Purchase of Service Agreements with the roads holding operating agreements, but the plan , if in fact Amtrak was to continue to operate a national system - and that was deemed not likely for much longer than five years after A-Day, was that Amtrak would be a fully operational railroad employing all persons and crafts needed to operate passenger trains other than those needed to maintain tracks and control train movements where Amtrak operates on rights-of-way owned by various railroads, i.e. essentially everywhere away from the Northeast Corridor. This is simply how government does things. Cases in point; one would think that the Internal Revenue Service operations could largely be contracted out to the private sector (save enforcement), but they're not. Same applies to administration of Medicare, which actually once WAS contracted out to private administrators but now is government controlled (Railroad Retirement Medicare is still administered by a private contractor). While the hospitality outlets located within National Parks are contracted out, the actual operation and administration of the Parks are government.

I'm sure there are numerous other exceptions where the Federal Government has contracted out operations and administration of activities, but they still are just that - exceptions.

Now if somehow the operation of passenger trains could arise to the same emotional and passionate level as does the delivery of health care (well, away from this and other boards populated by railfans), things might have turned out differently, but then to the populace at large, passenger trains are not health care.

Now regarding your thought that passenger train operations should be returned to the private sector railroad industry as they hold the expertise to operate such, that is simply a no-go. The railroads no longer have the institutional expertise to operate a passenger train; they started to wind down that institutional expertise on A-Day. That expertise today is simply in the hands of Amtrak and the commuter rail agencies, and simply "its too late now to turn back".

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Mr. Nacho, while I will ignore inaccuracies in your material such as reference to open-section sleeping cars as Amtrak has never operated any of such in revenue service during its history, ...

Mr. Norman, you may be in error here. Amtrak acquired and operated a number of lighweight sleeping cars with open sections. Six roomettes, four double bedrooms and six sections was the primary configuration of those cars. SILVER GLADIOLA and SILVER IRIS are two car names that come immediately to mind, as I have been inside both cars. I agree the sections were usually assigned to crew use, which I will assume is also your assessment; however, I believe a rate was published in early Amtrak tariffs, so revenue passengers may have paid to ride in an upper or lower section during Amtrak's first decade, such as on train upgrade from coach to a section when roomettes were sold out. If any readers paid for upper or lower section accomodations on Amtrak from 1971 thru the late 1970s, please let us know.

Some Florida and other Amtrak trains in the 1970s had Baggage - Dormitory Cars, which looked like a combine on the outside. Did they have curtains for the employee accommodations? The original author did say he went through every car of the train, and then was escorted to the baggage section.

Mr. Deasy, I am of course aware that Amtrak did acquire Budd ex-CB&Q "Silver-(flower)", they also acquired PS 5-1-4-4 "Florida--" from SCL. There is also the possibility that when the roads cancelled their passenger tariffs on A Day Eve and Amtrak assumed them without modification, that Amtrak did have tariff authority to sell a Berth to the public.

But nothing has ever come to my attention that they had; as you note the Sections in such cars were intended for crew-Dormitory. Also there were open sections within various Dormitory cars Amtrak acquired. Therefore, I was careful to avoid refuting that Mr. Nacho observed open Sections on his little tour where few revenue passengers get to go, but I believe I was correct in minimizing any reference to open Section cars being regularly used as line space.

Sometimes, we must remember we are addressing events from our first hand experience that occured likely before half the membership here was even born.

Back in 1971, the railroads were anxious to get out of the passenger train business. With a few exceptions, they were on a tear to downgrade service to make it impossible for anyone to want to ride a train. ONe of the reasons railroads ran some first class passenger trains was to impress their freight clients. By the 1970's just about all business travel (including the railroads themselves) had moved to the airplanes, both commercial and private, so there was no one left to impress. The purpose of a business is to make as much money as possible. A money-losing portion of that business is shut down or sold off. Comments that today's railroads would run passenger trains under their own names (with government subsidy) in a snappy fashion is just misplaced nostalgia. Passenger expertise has passed to Amtrak, the commuter authorities, private car owners and some oddities such as the Alaska Railroad (a government-owned business).

In the ‘70s Amtrak leased CPR “Chateau” Sleepers which have Open-Section accommodations.....the same cars still in use today on VIA. They were used on the Montrealer and ran through between Montreal and Miami on the Florida trains south of Washington. The “Chateau” sleepers were also used by Amtrak between New York and Chicago.

......I was in a Chateau Roomette once between New York and Montreal but don’t recall if the Sections were in revenue service.

Someone ask Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, and Marilynn Monroe.

I'd be curious, besides the Silver Service to Florida, where else these coaches may have ridden. I rode the (nee Southern) Crescent in April, 1979 a short two months after Southern finally ceded the route to Amtrak. I'm sure if these had existed, the Army would have booked me in one of those berths.

One of the problems with the idea of simply subsidizing a dozen or more railroads in their losses is that in a low usage environment, each of those railroads lost out on economies of scale and of planning that a single passenger railroad made possible. Amtrak as a unit can compete with airlines and with driving (though only with the help of a substantial subsidy). But the individual railroads could not have done so without a subsidy that was simply massive - far beyond what anyone would have committed. In another thread, there is talk of why Amtrak hasn't yet allowed printing of tickets at home. The answer, no doubt, is in the cost of providing equipment to conductors that could certify home-printed tickets to avoid counterfeiting. Amtrak is going to get this done, not really all that long after some airlines. (Remember that in most cases, airlines are using the same gate multiple times/day, whereas many Amtrak stations; likewise if you look at the train as the appropriate unit - many Amtrak trains have one run of 120 or so pax/day, whereas a plane that got only 120 pax/day would quickly be retired, unless it was flying a long route with average price per passenger in the mid-3 figures; so it's no surprise that they were able to adopt expensive ticket-reading technology earlier than Amtrak) I can't imagine a dozen railroads, some Class I's and some not, each trying to do that for their individual passenger services. It wouldn't be worth it. I can't imagine trying to plan for adding service on the Lincoln routing, if the providing railroad had to negotiate with its freight competitor for track rights on part of the route. I can't imagine the difficulty of providing crew "extra boards" at dozens of sites around the country in a setting where each railroad had to maintain their own back-up staff, since it's difficult enough today. I can't imagine the difficulty of getting five or six railroads to cooperate on cleaning and maintaining equipment in Chicago, rather than the single maintenance facility for the many Amtrak cars from multiple routes on multiple railroads that terminate there today.

I'd also note that privatization is often not a good answer. I admit that in many cases, government is not as efficient as the private sector. However, that lack of efficiency is often compounded when it comes to government relations with private companies. Government defense contracts, among many others, are often tremendous boondoggles - because contractors get rich and then channel their riches into political support of politicians who support those inefficient contracts and overlook cost-overruns. A corresponding factor is the ability of government unions to assert employee interests that are distinct from the public interest. I'd suggest that one of the surprising, counter-intuitive results of current efforts to limit collective bargaining rights for public employees may be that it becomes easier to fire public employees (really the key issue - not salaries), at which point, I'd guess many people will acknowledge that public provision of services is more efficient than public-paid, privately-provided service.

I'd also argue that what we're seeing in Illinois and Virginia is that Amtrak actually isn't sized correctly even yet to achieve the economies of scale it could achieve. That in many settings, two/day is more cost effective than one/day.

Finally, I"d suggest that that most of the experience you talk about as being "lost" resided not so much in the aggregate groupings of employees at the different passenger railroads in existence in 1970 (though collective knowledge is important), but rather in individuals. Most of those individuals simply changed uniform on A-Day, so their knowledge resided at Amtrak thereafter.

Nacho66 wrote:He couldn't understand why the gov't. simply didn't reimburse the original railroads for the losses incurred from running passenger trains the way they always had (albeit with much fewer routes like today) while maintaining their corporate images and service standards. ?

Sounds like what the government did with GM and Chrysler, by injecting equity to the companies (getting equity warrants) and subsidizing the firms in a tough part of the business cycle. It has worked so far (notwithstanding the PR nightmare from the companies) but will work only because demand for their cars will eventually pick up, the demand for passanger rail will not rebound like the rebound for GM and Chrysler, hence why it was important for the government to (no pun intended) sit in the drivers seat.

We are forming a new company with its own legacy, just with the southwest chief instead of the super chief and acela instead of metroliner.

ryanch wrote: Amtrak as a unit can compete with airlines and with driving (though only with the help of a substantial subsidy). But the individual railroads could not have done so without a subsidy that was simply massive - far beyond what anyone would have committed.

Why do people feel the need to point out that Amtrak is only able to compete with airlines and passenger travel with a large subsidy?
[rant]
As if Airlines (via the air port) or the highway system were not highly subsidized. The TSA ( http://www.tsa.gov/ notice the .GOV) has agreed to pay LAX-ONT $256,000,000 on their bomb scanners and that's only two airports (which are usually owned by the local Gov't and pay no property taxes a subsidy in and of it self) imagine how quick the passenger airlines would go out of business if the Gov't stopped funding airports ?

The gov't bailed out the auto industry, gives billions in tax breaks to keep gas prices low ( a subsidy by any other name is still a subsidy) and profits high, They have only recently ( in the past 10-20 years) started paying off the original bonds used to construct the many highways and by ways which are now in need of a major rebuild funded by borrowed money from China ( who has all our money but thats another story) and yes I know some ARRA money has gone to rail. Of the $48.1 billion earmarked for transportation $200 million is going to the FAA $1.1 billion is going to "air port improvements" and 1.3 billion is going to Amtrak, so how is Amtrak any more ( i suspect is far less but am to lazy to look) subsidised then any other form of transportation ? [/rant]

Well, I'm not going to play the "who is subsidized more?" game, any more than to make two points:

1) Amtrak really doesn't carry many people, so the subsidy per passenger mile is much higher than any reasonable calculation of subsidies to air travel
2) Most major airports are net moneymakers for the governments or agencies that operate them -- except for paying no taxes, there are no subsidies. Take a look at your next airline ticket, and you'll "passenger facility charges" that pay for a lot of stuff at the airports, including TSA security.

I'd rather talk about open-section sleepers and the early days of Amtrak. I never rode in one, or can recall seeing one, but I'll take Mr. Deasy's word that a few were in operation on Amtrak.

Amtrak, as Mr. Norman notes, at first simply contracted with the railroads to run the trains. Then, as the years passed, Amtrak began to buy new equipment (first the Amfleet, then the Superliners), took over Penn Central's Beech Grove shop to maintain them. took over the on-board staff, and finally began taking over train crews. The last railroad crews of which I'm aware were on CSX and operated the "Cardinal". With only tri-weekly service, it apparently was tough to work out the logistics of assuring there would be an available Amtrak crew at each crew change point.

I rode a number of Amtrak trains in the 1970s. The "Super Chief" of August 1971 was still an ATSF operation, with six warbonnet F units out of LAX, an all-ATSF consist, and menus in the dining car that looked about like those the ATSF had used. The same was true of the "Silver Service" trains on SCL. The crews still baked fresh bran and corn muffins and served little oval bowls of grits at breakfast.

That era didn't last long. FIrst Amtrak scrambled up the equipment, and then they began taking over the on-board service, and THEN they painted everything purple.

Nacho66 wrote:I thought I would put to all of you a question wrapped in a recollection.
Back in Dec. of 1975 (When I was all of 11 yrs.-old) my Granddad and I rode Amtrak's Silver Star to Miami.
It was the most exciting trip of my lifetime up to then, and needless to say, at that age I was wound tighter than a spring.
All night long I traipsed through every car from one end to the other - back and forth.
Finally, I managed to annoy some passengers sleeping in those upper/lower berths with the curtains. Even then I was astonished that such a seeming relic from the 19th Century was still an everyday travel option.
At this time an SCL conductor (yes, he had an actual SCL conductor's uniform w/vest, watch, cap, etc.) kindly collared me and took me to one of the baggage cars where off duty train crew hung out smoking cigarettes, playing cards, etc.
He was a nice old guy that would be around 100 yrs.-old today.
He answered all of my questions about his career loving every minute of it probably. He got me an apple juice!
That was, until I asked him about Amtrak.
I could see his face cloud immediately. It was clear he did not approve of the government's handling of rail travel. So, I asked him why.
In his opinion, where the Feds messed up was by forming a new quasi-'company' with new branding, etc.
He couldn't understand why the gov't. simply didn't reimburse the original railroads for the losses incurred from running passenger trains the way they always had (albeit with much fewer routes like today) while maintaining their corporate images and service standards. He said that when guys like him all retired and railroads shut down their passenger divisions, that the 'craft' of passenger railroading would be lost forever. I'm afraid I have to agree at this later date (at least in the USA).
In a nutshell: Let the people who have the experience, infrastructure, and knowledge to run passengers over their road do it with the gov't. making it worth their while as long as the American People want it. I know, I know - it sounds too much like 'corporate welfare' today but from the American Taxpayer's POV it would've probably been a better deal financially AND would give RR's incentive to maintain schedules and keep a positive public image.
I know there are disasterous examples of this philosophy - Commuter operations in PA, NJ, NY, MA - but with RR's like BN, ATSF, SCL, UP, IC, DRGW they would have probably warmed to this option.
Any thoughts?

In the same era, Canada tried passenger rail subsidies before forming VIA Rail at the end of the 1970s.

You have to remember that Amtrak was formed in the wake of the collapse of Penn Central, when the future was very uncertain for railroading in the Northeastern states. To be sure, not every railroad was bound to go bankrupt, but with very few exceptions, passenger rail had become a burden to private sector railroads.

I should point out that subsidies were offered in the commuter rail sector, where many operations were kept in private sector hands until the formation of public commuter rail authorities in the 70s, early 80, and even as late as the early 90s.

In the end, just keep in mind that the Penn Central bankruptcy was the triggering event for the formation of Amtrak, and that many railroads outside of the northeast even considered staying out of Amtrak.

hi55us wrote:

Nacho66 wrote:He couldn't understand why the gov't. simply didn't reimburse the original railroads for the losses incurred from running passenger trains the way they always had (albeit with much fewer routes like today) while maintaining their corporate images and service standards. ?

Sounds like what the government did with GM and Chrysler, by injecting equity to the companies (getting equity warrants) and subsidizing the firms in a tough part of the business cycle. It has worked so far (notwithstanding the PR nightmare from the companies) but will work only because demand for their cars will eventually pick up, the demand for passanger rail will not rebound like the rebound for GM and Chrysler, hence why it was important for the government to (no pun intended) sit in the drivers seat.

Actually, there was no correlation between the sudden, largely unexpected bankruptcy of Penn Central the long, slow and very predictable decline of GM and Chrysler. Similarly, the government had a degree of responsibility in collapse of Penn Central, especially since the regulators forced the NYC and PRR to combine with the money losing NH. In contrast, GM and Chrysler didn't suffer from excessive regulation, and even managed on occasion have safety and fuel economy regulations rolled back, while a 25% tariff protected their vital light truck market.

In the end, it's too soon to declare victory with GM and Chrysler. It's worth remembering that when the Government created Conrail, it took years for the business to turn around, and it only was accomplished through labor concessions. In contrast, it's pretty much business as usual for the UAW at GM and Chrysler. In contrast, the railroad unions eventually accepted the reduction of train crews from 5 to only 2 men, a move which not only made Conrail selfsupporting, but made the entire freight railroad sector profitable.

ryanch wrote:One of the problems with the idea of simply subsidizing a dozen or more railroads in their losses is that in a low usage environment, each of those railroads lost out on economies of scale and of planning that a single passenger railroad made possible.

What "economies of scale?" I have a hard time seeing the "economies of scale" in a nationwide network, that outside of a couple of corridors, is composed largely of once daily, and even three-a-week, long distance trains. Even the corridors are increasingly equipped with different types of rolling stock due to state funding. If anything, Amtrak lacks "economies of scale."

ryanch wrote: Amtrak as a unit can compete with airlines and with driving (though only with the help of a substantial subsidy). But the individual railroads could not have done so without a subsidy that was simply massive - far beyond what anyone would have committed.

Amtrak only competes directly with airlines in the Northeast. As far as what has been accomplished on the NE Corridor, there is no doubt that if PRR trackage improvements had been fully and adequately funded at the time of the original Metroliner order, a pattern of service similar to that achieved from the early to mid 80s would have been possible in the late 60s and early 70s. It all came down to funding for track improvements.

ryanch wrote: In another thread, there is talk of why Amtrak hasn't yet allowed printing of tickets at home. The answer, no doubt, is in the cost of providing equipment to conductors that could certify home-printed tickets to avoid counterfeiting.

Nonsense. The sort of barcode scanners required for online ticketing are compact, cheap and are in use at every retail store in North America. The cost of equipping a Conductor with a barcode scanner would probably than a single weeks wages for a union employee.

Amtrak only competes directly with airlines in the Northeast. As far as what has been accomplished on the NE Corridor, there is no doubt that if PRR trackage improvements had been fully and adequately funded at the time of the original Metroliner order, a pattern of service similar to that achieved from the early to mid 80s would have been possible in the late 60s and early 70s. It all came down to funding for track improvements.

ryanch wrote:I can't imagine the difficulty of providing crew "extra boards" at dozens of sites around the country in a setting where each railroad had to maintain their own back-up staff, since it's difficult enough today.

Amtrak typically has far fewer workers on the "extra board" than the predecessor railroads of yesteryear. Basically, high fixed benefit costs preclude the use of temporary workers, and there's no surplus rolling stock, so Amtrak lacks the flexibility of predecessor railroads.

ryanch wrote: I can't imagine the difficulty of getting five or six railroads to cooperate on cleaning and maintaining equipment in Chicago, rather than the single maintenance facility for the many Amtrak cars from multiple routes on multiple railroads that terminate there today.

Why should "cleaning and maintaining equipment" be the function of railroad employees? I'd argue that contract labor should be used, which would eliminate fixed benefit costs.

ryanch wrote:I'd also note that privatization is often not a good answer. I admit that in many cases, government is not as efficient as the private sector. However, that lack of efficiency is often compounded when it comes to government relations with private companies. Government defense contracts, among many others, are often tremendous boondoggles - because contractors get rich and then channel their riches into political support of politicians who support those inefficient contracts and overlook cost-overruns.

Privatization only works if the government is willing to let an enterprise fail. During the Reagan administration, Conrail was allowed to "sink or swim," and fortunately, Conrail was able to swim. Of course, it isn't possible for passenger rail to be selfsustaining.

ryanch wrote:Finally, I"d suggest that that most of the experience you talk about as being "lost" resided not so much in the aggregate groupings of employees at the different passenger railroads in existence in 1970 (though collective knowledge is important), but rather in individuals. Most of those individuals simply changed uniform on A-Day, so their knowledge resided at Amtrak thereafter.

I don't think that you understand that passenger jobs were reserved for the workers with the greatest seniority. In other words, becoming a passenger conductor was an aspirational job for men working in freight. The predecessor railroads had a larger, more flexible pool of workers and could do things that now seem to be impossible for Amtrak. Yes, skills were gradually lost, and probably can't be reclaimed. Amtrak isn't very good at switching in route, or running trains in sections, or increasing capacity during holidays.