Someone tells it like it is for a change

AMTWKR wrote:

george matthews wrote:
I have taken the overnight train from Vienna to Amsterdam, which goes through three countries with two different electrical systems and arrived exactly on time. That is what I expect in a rail system.

That's equivalent to a trip from West Palm Beach to Pensacola! Matter of fact, ALL of Europe could pretty much fit into the Southeast U.S.! And from Vienna to Amsterdam, do the trains there not run on their OWN tracks without freight interference? If you can't get a train from West PAlm Beach to Pensacola on its own tracks and be on time, it SHOULD be shutdown.

BTW, good morning board and Happy New Year!

The right way to get trains running on time is not a secret. It is to have a timetable in which each train, whether freight or passenger, has a slot. In Britain the operator of the train has to pay for that slot. If the track owner, Network Rail, does not facilitate the train running to time, the operating company gets its money back - or a part of it.

The Vienna to Amsterdam trip is not equivalent to any journey in the US as there are numerous junctions and interconnections with other lines, all of which have to be coordinated. On the whole system there is a much more intensive service of trains, both passenger and freight, than on any line I have seen in the US. It seems to me that the much simpler US network would be far easier to organise so that all the trains ran to time. The reason it is not done is presumably systemic in that there is no neutral organisation to share out slots. That must be a political problem caused by the belief that a railway company is a private organisation that needs no state supervision. As the lines are said to be overcrowded pressure for slots should also raise the capital to build more space.

I have the impression that the Canadians can do it.

CNJ wrote

2nd trick op wrote:
Amtrak was created at a time when a substantial portion of the public had never held a driver's license...and never would. That generation has passed from the scene. The "baby boomers" who followed them are also now past their prime years of earning and influence.


I question the validity of your statement Mr 2nd trick.

Do you mean to imply that in 1971 a majority of the "driving-eligible" population did not hold drivers licenses?

No, but at the time of Amtrak's inception, a substantial number of people over the age of 50 had never obtained a driver's license. This was particularly true of single women. The closing of the gender gap and the passing of the current generation diminished, in part, the rationale by which Amtrak long-distance was justified.

Sorry for joining this thread so late, but if I were a first-time traveler, I would draw the EXACT SAME comic.

Forget all your railfan ideologies for a moment.

The average traveler looks at a timetable, sees what route they would like to go on (probably because of scenery along the way), and books it. They see the train will arrive in Los Angeles at 9:00PM. Then they plan their vacation around them being in LA at 9:00PM. When the train clunks in finally at 3 AM, they WILL be livid, and not care whose fault it is!

I take the Surfliners regularly to college. Not only because I like riding trains and they are a great alternative to Southern California freeways, but because they are punctual. I ride them because I expect we will arrive into Los Angeles at 2:40PM, plus or minus 10 minutes, so I can catch my connecting Metrolink train to college. If the train clunks in 1 hour late, I get just as frustrated as the next guy-because I have commitments. I planned on the train arriving at 2:40PM, and expect them to keep that time. Would you board a plane that was scheduled to arrive in Chicago at 6PM, only to arrive at 3 AM? I don't think so.

What's the point of Amtrak publishing schedules, if "everyone in the know" is aware that the train will arrive 4, 5, 6+ hours late? They are only fooling first-time travelers, and putting them off train travel indefinetly.

Currently, distances over 100 mph are not "intercity". Plenty of "extreme commuters" on the highways that travel such distances each way daily.

Please find me one labor market in the country where the number of people who commute over 90 miles one way to work is more than 2% of the population of working age. Then look at what the average commute length is. This distance is an extreme outlier, and generally speaking, a tiny fraction of commuters.

Here's a good place to start: www.factfinder.census.gov
Good luck.

I think you don't understand political football, here. Like I said, withdrawal of LD trains will not mean that politicians will suddenly start spending on these "corridors". Get rid of those trains, and they will be replaced with nothing. (Sorry for repeating myself.) There is no "political détente" prohibiting spending on intercity rail "corridors".

We're stuck, because I also don't believe you understand the political football at all, which is better described as horse trading. The trade of eliminating highly subsidized LD trains will attract some moderates to support more spending on lower-subsidy per passenger corridor services. Neither side would agree to this without the concession from the other, so the scenario you describe is not part of the political compromise.

I've heard this from the staffs of my own Senators.

The trade of eliminating highly subsidized LD trains will attract some moderates to support more spending on lower-subsidy per passenger corridor services

I insist that such would have happened already with the prior round of long-distance train cuts. It hasn't happened. It will never happen. All that cutting LD trains will do is make rail service disappear.

If you can, find me any "corridor" where when Amtrak LD service was cut, it was replaced with any rail service.

Please find me one labor market in the country where the number of people who commute over 90 miles one way to work is more than 2% of the population of working age. Then look at what the average commute length is. This distance is an extreme outlier, and generally speaking, a tiny fraction of commuters

The NY metro area attracts commuters from such distances daily. They use buses and rail. They travel from places like the eastern tip of Long Island, the coasts of Connecticut, Orange County in New York, and (quite notably) the Pocono Mountain region of Pennsylvania (which has no rail service as yet), as well as many other regions radiating outwards from NYC. Far greater than two percent of the total. (The term "extreme commuting" did not come into parlance in vain.)

It's clear we disagree on the political calculus, so let's drop that.

But you continue to be completely wrong on your assessment of american travel habits.

New York is a hyper-outlier in terms of commuting in about every attribute of urban travel experience in the US, and in many ways, the world. Out beyond the five boroughs, there are super-commuters from the Poconos, yes. This doesn't happen elsewhere in the country on any significant scale.

Please examine the Census data from 2003:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ctpp/jtw/jtw2.htm

You will see that travel times to work break down as follows:

1. % Less Than 15 Minutes ----28.44%
2. % 15 - 29 Minutes------------34.93%
3. % 30 - 39 Minutes------------15.26%
4. % 40 - 59 Minutes------------10.39%
5. % 60 Minutes or More--------7.72%
6. % At Home--------------------3.2%


If you assume that everyone in this table is capable of traveling their entire commute at 60 mph (impossible in most urban areas), then less than 8% of all commuters, TOPS, travel more than 60 miles one way to work.

Of course, if you assume that most people average travel speeds of 35-45 mph in metro areas, or 20-30 mph in heavily congested metros, there are plenty of people who commute 60 minutes or more but only travel 20-25 miles. So again, there's not a commuter market for rail stations 100 miles apart. Maybe you get a little of that in Wash-NYC, but it's only because New York is one of the three most dynamic cities in the world. It's got nothing to do with travel patterns of most of America, and has little implication on how corridors develop elsewhere.

If you're going to rely on the Federal Highway Administration for your info, you're in for some outdated, highly error-prone, and dare I say biased numbers.

Notwithstanding, when it comes to Amtrak, and "corridors", the intent is not necessarily to attract commuters, correct? There are other kinds of traveler, quite obviously. So far, all of the "corridor" proposals I've seen (probably NCDOT excluded) have been feeding frenzies for consultants and nothing more.

Irish Chieftain wrote:If you're going to rely on the Federal Highway Administration for your info, you're in for some outdated, highly error-prone, and dare I say biased numbers.

Notwithstanding, when it comes to Amtrak, and "corridors", the intent is not necessarily to attract commuters, correct? There are other kinds of traveler, quite obviously. So far, all of the "corridor" proposals I've seen (probably NCDOT excluded) have been feeding frenzies for consultants and nothing more.

It's Census Data on a FHWA website. While I have a lot of problems with FHWA biases, simple stats like these are not among them, especially coming from a reliable source like the Census. If you check out the Texas A&M Urban Mobility Study, you'll find that these travel times make sense. I also administer a survey of 28,000 commuters in my area, and this mirrors our survey results pretty well.

On the corridors question, yes I agree with you! The point is not really to attract commuters. The point is to attract intercity trips of 100-500 miles that would otherwise be taken by car or a short plane flight, because trips within this distance are where rail can be most time-competitive. For example, if you've got to take a 40-minute flight (Raleigh to Washington) and you've got to get to the airport 1.5 hours early for security, etc, and then transfer to ground transport for another 30 minutes to get into the heart of DC, then you're looking at about a 4-hour trip plus the indignities of air travel.

If the SEHSR could attain 4-hour travel times from Raleigh to Washington with reliable on-time performance, then it would do well in this market.

With the in-state NCRR trains, the line is bookended by the State Capital (Raleigh) and the second-largest financial industry center in the US outside of New York (Charlotte). These two cities generate significant amounts of in-state business travel because of their respective roles. The end-to-end travel time is now 3:09 and will likely drop to 3:04 in the spring of this year. If NC could add more departures on this line for the Piedmont (a midday roundtrip is speculated for 2007), then if you're a business traveler, the opportunity to work en route becomes a real plus to driving, not to mention avoiding the hideous rush hour traffic in the major metro areas.

Irish Chieftain wrote:

The trade of eliminating highly subsidized LD trains will attract some moderates to support more spending on lower-subsidy per passenger corridor services

I insist that such would have happened already with the prior round of long-distance train cuts. It hasn't happened. It will never happen. All that cutting LD trains will do is make rail service disappear.

I concur. As a paid observer of the federal legislative horse trading on energy during the past few years, there is not even an unwritten rule that rail funds siphoned from long distance will be used for other forms of rail or even transportation per se. To the extent that it the horse trade remains at all related, it could likely be in the form of other transportation such as highway projects or improvements to general aviation airports.

For the referenced security delays at airports making rail potentially competitive, there has been a distinct trend in the last couple of years for non-airline air charter operations out of smaller airports gaining passengers avoiding the legthy delays. (a passenger charters a seat, not the whole plane, thus making it economic to fill an 8 or 10 seat plane.) There are also a fair number of general aviation airports that have a small terminal with maybe a flight every other hour or so using commuter class aircraft by an airline affiliate. There is a TSA check, Xray, etc. but the whole process takes only a few minutes. No need to get there more than 20-30 minutes before the flight. This is a very real competition with 200-400 mile rail corridors. Amtrak's Empire Service for one is reportedly feeling the affects of such services.