Trump proposes cutting long distance support

BandA wrote:So....a 7% increase...that'll keep Amtrak slightly ahead of inflation?
Is $1.5B for the 5 months May-Sep or is it an annualized figure?

The $1.5 billion is the funding total for the fiscal year 2017. Even if there is only 5 months left to go in the fiscal year, I think that does not make much difference as I believe the funds do not have to all spent or even allocated in this fiscal year beyond going into a US DOT account.

The breakdown is $328 million for the NEC, $1.167 billion for the national network. $50 million of the total provided to Amtrak is to be spent on bringing stations and facilities to ADA compliance. In short, a $105 million increase over FY2016. What happens for FY2018 is, of course, TBD.

Here is a link to a House committee webpage with what is supposed to the final appropriations bill. Expected to be voted on and passed soon. Excerpts from the Division K PDF (warning legislative bill text):

NORTHEAST CORRIDOR GRANTS TO THE NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION
The agreement provides $328,000,000 to allow the Secretary to make grants for activities associated with the Northeast Corridor (NEC), defined as the main line between Boston, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and the facilities and services used to operate and maintain the line. In addition, the agreement directs all operating profits related to the NEC to be assigned and used on the NEC, as required by section 24317(c)(l)(C) of title 49, United States Code. Amtrak projects a fiscal year 2017 net operating profit of $397,400,000 on the NEC, yielding a total funding level of $725,400,000 for the NEC.

The agreement allows Amtrak to undertake new capital projects and encourages Amtrak to prioritize strategic rail infrastructure improvements at critical points in the rail network that would improve current services or create new capacity.

The agreement allows Amtrak to transfer funding between the NEC and the National Network consistent with requirements under section 24317(f) and (g) of title 49, United States Code and requires Amtrak to report the amount of any transfer, the purpose, and effect on services consistent with section 24317(g)(2) of title 49, United States Code.

The agreement allows the Secretary to retain up to one-half of one percent of the total provided to Amtrak for project management and oversight costs and requires not less than $50,000,000 to bring Amtrak-served facilities and stations into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It also allows up to $5,000,000 of the Northeast Corridor Grants to fund the Northeast Corridor Commission expenses.

NATIONAL NETWORK GRANTS TO THE NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION
The agreement provides $1,167,000,000 to allow the Secretary to make grants for activities associated with the National Network. National Network Grants provide operating and capital funding for expenses of Amtrak's entire network, including long-distance routes that operate on the NEC. The agreement also provides that the Secretary may retain up to an additional $2,000,000 to fund expenses associated with the state supported route committee.

Other stuff:

The agreement directs Amtrak and FRA to submit a detailed congressional budget justification consistent with the structure authorized in P.L. 114-94, to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations for fiscal year 2018. The agreement also directs FRA to coordinate with Amtrak to complete the feasibility study on establishing service at airports that are adjacent to the mainline of the Northeast Corridor no later than 60 days after enactment of this Act, and directs Amtrak to provide a report no later than 120 days after enactment of this Act comparing actual food and beverage savings for fiscal year 2016 with projections.

Why they even bother with these 60 and 120 day deadlines, I don't know, because Amtrak is not going to meet them. Make them 12 month deadlines or something that is plausible.

TIGER grant program survives for FY2017.

The agreement provides $500,000,000 for capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure, commonly known as the "TIGER" program, to remain available until September 30, 2020. The agreement does not include funding for planning or design Activities.

Tadman wrote:For some reason the gallery car gets no love. I have no idea why, when it was a CNW and CB&Q design built by Budd and PS, with a mostly lightweight streamliner profile. It kept the legacy builders in business for 20 years after they should've called it a day. The gallery is the last streamliner in production so to speak.

Another factor to consider... N-S cars run about 5% lighter than the Bombardier cars are, and I suspect have less drag with the continuous roofline. That adds up over a couple hundred trips a day.

BandA wrote:Is $1.5B for the 5 months May-Sep or is it an annualized figure?

Annual number. The 90% of the FY16 appropriation, which was the limit of the various CRs, applies against the FY17 number.

So, for the remaining five months, there's probably $750M to be spent.

Huh? It has bipartisan support. It should be smooth smailing.

H Street Landlord wrote:Huh? It has bipartisan support. It should be smooth smailing.

Lots of things should have been smooth sailing, but this is the year of challenges to all sorts of unexpected things. Perhaps President Xi's lessons to Trump on Korea also included lessons on the Chinese-American debt structure and the consequences to both economies should the United States attempt a fully-balanced budget at this juncture.

afiggatt wrote:The $1.5 billion is the funding total for the fiscal year 2017.

I assume Amtrak has already received part of this money through "continuing resolutions" How much were they expecting (Amtrak budget) to receive?[/quote]

Other stuff:
The agreement directs Amtrak and FRA to submit a detailed congressional budget justification consistent with the structure authorized in P.L. 114-94, to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations for fiscal year 2018. The agreement also directs FRA to coordinate with Amtrak to complete

What does the FRA bring to the table? Why not just contract with Amtrak

the feasibility study on establishing service at airports that are adjacent to the mainline of the Northeast Corridor no later than 60 days after enactment of this Act,

This seems very specific; Which airport(s) are they talking about? Shouldn't airport service be the domain of local transit agencies?

and directs Amtrak to provide a report no later than 120 days after enactment of this Act comparing actual food and beverage savings for fiscal year 2016 with projections.

Why they even bother with these 60 and 120 day deadlines, I don't know, because Amtrak is not going to meet them. Make them 12 month deadlines or something that is plausible.

They should be able to pull together a report on foodservice stats within four months - all the data is already collected.

BandA wrote:This seems very specific; Which airport(s) are they talking about? Shouldn't airport service be the domain of local transit agencies?

Sounds like BWI, PHL, EWR and PVD to me.

Probably not DCA, LGA, or BOS, even though LGA desperately needs rail connections. I'd guess it also doesn't apply to CGS (College Park), MTN (Martin State, MD), PNE (Philadelphia Northeast), PCT (Princeton) or OWD (Norwood, MA), or the military airfields at Aberdeen and Quonset Point.

Not sure about ILG (New Castle), TTM (Trenton-Mercer), HPN (Westchester County), HVN (Tweed-New Haven), BDL (Bradley-Hartford), CEF (Westover-Springfield, MA), or GON (New London.) These regional airports could use rail connections to become more relevant as relievers.

Mr. Stephens, hate to say it, but the provision regarding airport access is simply a "consultant pig-out".

If airlines have avoided Stewart AFB (KSWF) like the plague, some of the others will suffer the same fate. However, some of the cheapo foreign flagged airlines are willing to go in there. I was sent there on TDY, and trust me, they have runways that handled B-52's, so I think Norwegian Air's B-789's could squeeze in there. For passengers though, if Big Apple is destination, "you're on your own" discounting passenger service over the West Shore, which would certainly ruffle Chessie's fur.

I've flown out of KILG on a DC-9-30; it could handle that and could also apparently handle "Amtrak Joe's" C-32 (B-753) as AF2. But that airport is "not exactly" next to the NEC - try 10 miles away.

KTTN has cheapo discounter Frontier flying in there, so they have runways to handle B-738's. But still, it's perimeter is "not exactly" along the NEC, as is KPVD, KEWR, and KBWI.

KGON can certainly handle the "Pfizer Air Force"; what else, I know not.

I thought there was an existing transfer service from Windsor Locks station to KBDL. What further is there to consult about?

So let's not make too much of this provision within the Spending Bill.

More or less what I expect, Mr. Norman, a little extra money for Congresscritters to spread around in the states listed. Perhaps they will include airports along the Keystone and Springfield Corridors, I'm not sure how literally to read that proviso, but regardless I doubt anyone will actually use the plans to create a feasible transportation mode where there was not one.

"Windsor Locks Station" is exceedingly charitable. It's a bus shelter on a concrete slab, admittedly one having a lovely view of the Great Tidal River.

I've never seen a bus meeting the train at WNL. There is a bus from BDL to the train station in Hartford, which is also the bus station. What BDL needs is an actual train station in Windsor Locks with heat and shelter for several dozen people, with bathrooms and vending machines. In addition to a station structure, money is needed to run a shuttle bus service. This may happen when the Hartford Line starts up in 2018. BDL serves about 900,000 passengers per year.

In contrast, PVD serves a whopping 3,650,000 passengers per year, half of them on Southwest. MBTA trains already stop there. There have already been discussions about having Amtrak Regionals stop at the airport, but that would require adding one more track, one more platform, and catenary to both platform tracks. Perhaps this is a destination for those federal monies.

Sounds like an earmark for PVD that is trying to sound location-neutral but the fix is in.

Just trying to get my Kiwi head around this. Amtrak has been allocated $ 1.5 billion for the year 09/16 to 09/17 ??? I presume they have been on continuing resolutions up until now?

Gilbert B Norman wrote:If airlines have avoided Stewart AFB (KSWF) like the plague, some of the others will suffer the same fate. However, some of the cheapo foreign flagged airlines are willing to go in there. I was sent there on TDY, and trust me, they have runways that handled B-52's, so I think Norwegian Air's B-789's could squeeze in there. For passengers though, if Big Apple is destination, "you're on your own" discounting passenger service over the West Shore, which would certainly ruffle Chessie's fur.

I'm pretty sure PANYNJ is running direct shuttle busses between SWF and the PABT.

I wonder if some of this might be to establish "thruway" dedicated express bus service to near-corridor airports?

David Benton wrote:Just trying to get my Kiwi head around this. Amtrak has been allocated $ 1.5 billion for the year 09/16 to 09/17 ??? I presume they have been on continuing resolutions up until now?

Welcome to America, home of the free, land of the continuing resolution.

David Benton wrote:Just trying to get my Kiwi head around this. Amtrak has been allocated $ 1.5 billion for the year 09/16 to 09/17 ??? I presume they have been on continuing resolutions up until now?

No, Dave. The annual number is $1.5B, from 1 Oct 16 to 30 Sep 17. The continuing resolutions allow Amtrak to draw against that subsidy at a rate not to exceed IIRC 90% of the FY16 appropriation pro rata. In other words, if Amtrak drew $5M per day in FY16, they could draw no more than $4.5M in FY17.

So, Amtrak has probably about 1/2 of the $1.5 B to spend for the remainder of the FY.

Make more sense?

I interpret $1.5b as "the Boardman Deal", which resulted in a net increase in Amtrak funding of about $0.4b (from $1.1b -ish), which doubled the funds available for NEC capital projects.

Under the old deal, Amtrak might have gotten $.4b for NEC capital projects and $.7b for operating losses, but since the "National Network" had operating losses of $1.1b, Amtrak had to transfer $.4b from the NEC Operations to National Network Operations to fully cover the National Network's operating losses.

Now Congress directly appropriates all $1.1b of the operating needs of the National Network, allowing Amtrak to re-invest the $.4b in NEC above-the-rail operating profits alongside Congress' "usual" .4b in capital investment into a total of nearly $.8b in investments into NEC infrastructure

Due to rounding the above explanation doesn't quite match the law, but now you can understand what you're reading when it describes the NEC being able to re-invest in its own capital projects:

The agreement provides $328,000,000 to allow the Secretary to make grants for activities associated with the Northeast Corridor (NEC), defined as the main line between Boston, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, and the facilities and services used to operate and maintain the line. In addition, the agreement directs all operating profits related to the NEC to be assigned and used on the NEC, as required by section 24317(c)(l)(C) of title 49, United States Code. Amtrak projects a fiscal year 2017 net operating profit of $397,400,000 on the NEC, yielding a total funding level of $725,400,000 for the NEC.

and what you're reading when ALL National Network Losses are being directly covered by appropriation (rather than partly by transfer from NEC operating surplus):

NATIONAL NETWORK GRANTS TO THE NATIONAL RAILROAD PASSENGER CORPORATION
The agreement provides $1,167,000,000 to allow the Secretary to make grants for activities associated with the National Network. National Network Grants provide operating and capital funding for expenses of Amtrak's entire network, including long-distance routes that operate on the NEC. The agreement also provides that the Secretary may retain up to an additional $2,000,000 to fund expenses associated with the state supported route committee.