Trump proposes cutting long distance support

R36 Combine Coach wrote: On a similar note, USPS is a non-subsidized (receiving no public appropriations) public service not intended for profit, but break-even based on total revenue (supposedly "revenue neutral"). Yet USPS still loses millions each year and quarter. And in an analogy to LD passenger service, USPS operates a Bypass Freight delivery program in Alaska, losing over $70 million a year delivering essential goods and supplies in pallets to rural villages at lower rates than Parcel Post, Priority Mail or private carrier. It began in 1972 and continues, with the support of late Sen. Ted Stevens over the years, citing an important lifeline and delivery network. Interesting read on this rather unknown program: 2011 USPS OIG report

Post Roads is included in the text of the US Constitution, There is no mention of trains or railroads within the US Constitution. Of course a railroad is a road, but is a passenger railroad not delivering mail a post road?

Here's a link discussing this vary point.....
...Article I, Section Eight, known as the Postal Clause, specifically authorizes Congress the enumerated power "to establish post offices and post roads." This was generally interpreted liberally, to include all public highways. U.S. Supreme Court justice Joseph Story defended the broad interpretation that had become dominant in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833). A law of 1838 designated all existing and future railroads as post roads.

Do not suggest Congress is out of bounds establishing the US Postal Serice by legislation, nor is it when funding roads. The Constitution specifically demanded those tasks onto Congress. And to add another point, the Constitution doesn't demandt that the Postal Service or roads must be profitable.

No where in the Constitution does it demand of Congress the task of running a railroad.

mtuandrew wrote:Amtrak is operated by the Federal government as a subsidized for-profit public service (I know it's a contradiction). By pruning Amtrak into disconnected route clusters it ceases to be national, opens the door to piecemeal privatization, and invites foreign-owned corporations to take money out of the US economy while also almost certainly increasing operational costs. I'd rather invest American money in an American (government-owned) corporation that keeps most of its income in America, even with its faults.

Yet, who is now the largest equipment supplier to Amtrak and to many rail transit agencies?

Siemens.

Where do Siemens' profits end up?

In Germany.

WSDOT is already looking at potentially privatizing the Cascades corridor, and on its new Siemens-made locomotives (you're welcome, German investors) the WSDOT logo is prominent while the Amtrak Cascades logo is a mere after-thought. ODOT might be out of the corridor by the end of this year.

So, I'm not seeing much difference between yesterday and tomorrow...the people might be different, but the story is the same.

CHTT1 wrote:

SouthernRailway wrote:I am so sick of this game: Amtrak cuts are proposed, the grassroots has to fight hard to save Amtrak, and then Amtrak survives.

We need to re-think Amtrak's funding structure so that we don't have to play this game nearly every year.

I propose giving tax credits to Class I railroads to run the LD network (as they have significant lobbying power, which Amtrak lacks, which would be a big help in this battle each time), but I'm open to other suggestions.

I don't care how many tax credits you hand out, the Big Seven have no interest in getting back into the passenger business. Do you think Hunter Harrison is sitting around Jacksonville thinking, "Yeah, we can some nice tax credits by running employee-heavy passenger trains? That will make my stock portfolio really blossom." I think not.

I would make the tax credits available to them even if they just host a regularly scheduled passenger train which should increase their willingness to host additional passenger trains since some of the payment comes from tax relief

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Now if the two most influential nationally circulated newspapers find that the proposed Amtrak cuts are only worthy of this tangential reference, that I really wouldn't lose too much sleep over the possibility of such.

OR... these proposed cuts are so widespread, and pervasive, and broad-reaching, that to try and list them all would require them to run out of ink?

If it were JUST a targeted cut of Amtrak, and there was little reaction, then I might by your "Nothing to see here" attitude. But the fact is that almost the ENTIRETY of the Non-Military budget was just lined up against the wall, with a gun pointed to it.

JoeBas wrote:OR... these proposed cuts are so widespread, and pervasive, and broad-reaching, that to try and list them all would require them to run out of ink?

If it were JUST a targeted cut of Amtrak, and there was little reaction, then I might by your "Nothing to see here" attitude. But the fact is that almost the ENTIRETY of the Non-Military budget was just lined up against the wall, with a gun pointed to it.

There's the winner. There are genuine major muscle groups (think NIH research) that Congress will fight for; Amtrak... hang the adios drumhead folks. Remember three facts:
- The 218 are majority R.
- The 51 are majority R.
- They each have far bigger fish to fry in the FY18 appropriation process.

Correct.

By throwing everything into the fireplace, a few favorites can be removed "we saved meals on wheels!" while others get lost in the fire.

If it was ONLY Amtrak, or ONLY PBS, or ONLY....well, you get the point. But they're all lost in the smoke behind other titans.

> because we finally have a president interested in investing in infrastructure;

Buwahahahaha!

John_Perkowski wrote:

JoeBas wrote:OR... these proposed cuts are so widespread, and pervasive, and broad-reaching, that to try and list them all would require them to run out of ink?

If it were JUST a targeted cut of Amtrak, and there was little reaction, then I might by your "Nothing to see here" attitude. But the fact is that almost the ENTIRETY of the Non-Military budget was just lined up against the wall, with a gun pointed to it.

- They each have far bigger fish to fry in the FY18 appropriation process.

Which is exactly why all the "sky is falling" concern over the long-distance trains is way premature. There are bigger issues (watch the news); The administration is simply not that concerned over a few hundred million for rail transportation. The budget proposal was driven by ideology; Any budget actually enacted will be more pragmatic.

Exactly. "The administration is not concerned..." Period. Going through the list of 62 programs being cut, many of them fall into the range of $100 million or so. None are really significant components of the federal budget. It seems like a few people sat down with a pencil and lined out budget items that they found insignificant (or didn't recognize). Nothing to be concerned about. Add it all up and, if what I read is correct, it amounts to 0.02% of the total budget.

east point wrote:Amtrak's crazy accounting putting a lot of fixed costs onto LD trains brings up a question. Will all those fixed costs now be on SD and NEC make every Amtrak train a money looser ?

Thats a very reasonable question. The component pieces of that question are

1. How much maintenance is saved by not having to fix trains that are literally run all day?
2. How many people in Washington and a few other cities are LD-only?
3. Would station costs in terminal cities go down if there are only corridor trains?
4. Could a major facility like Beech Grove get the boot?

mtuandrew wrote:

Tadman wrote:Let me float a trial here:

Instead of playing this BS game every few years, let's get in front of it.

Cancel all the LD trains as of 1/1/18.

In the mean time, set up a plan to triple down on corridor trains.

....

More practically, where do you draw the lines between regions?

I don't see that as being a hard question. You could draw borders by region - NEC, Midwest, West Coast. You could draw by route or route group, I.E. NEC, Michigan/Detroit, Saint Louis trains, San Diego trains... But I think you're a step ahead of the game.

If Amtrak were to completely corridorize, I.E. No trains over 750 miles, no sleeper or diner, five frequencies a day, would it turn an above-rail profit? You'd have excellent physical plant utilization. You'd have locomotives and cars home at night for better maintenance. You wouldn't have the LD profitability noose. One of these days I'd like to spend an hour with Amtrak's P&L and ridership reports and see what we could generate.

Tadman wrote:One of these days I'd like to spend an hour with Amtrak's P&L and ridership reports and see what we could generate.

Amtrak publishes "Monthly Performance Routes" which contain ridership data: https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/750/252/Am ... y-2017.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CHTT1 wrote:

SouthernRailway wrote:I am so sick of this game: Amtrak cuts are proposed, the grassroots has to fight hard to save Amtrak, and then Amtrak survives.

We need to re-think Amtrak's funding structure so that we don't have to play this game nearly every year.

I propose giving tax credits to Class I railroads to run the LD network (as they have significant lobbying power, which Amtrak lacks, which would be a big help in this battle each time), but I'm open to other suggestions.

I don't care how many tax credits you hand out, the Big Seven have no interest in getting back into the passenger business. Do you think Hunter Harrison is sitting around Jacksonville thinking, "Yeah, we can some nice tax credits by running employee-heavy passenger trains? That will make my stock portfolio really blossom." I think not.

If a law is passed mandating Class I's to get back into the passenger business, they would have to.

Anthony, last time I checked there is a "takings" clues within the Fifth Amendment for which would be a defense against any such law as proposed.

If somehow that came to pass, the institutional structure to operate and administer the operation.of such would have to be built from the ground up - just as Amtrak had to build theirs.

disclaimer: author holds long position UNP.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Anthony, ... there is a clause ... a defense against any such law as proposed.

... the institutional structure to operate and administer the operation of such would have to be built from the ground up ...

It wouldn't be quick or easy to dismantle the LD network either. It's possible that some of the haters would try to provoke a strike and break the unions. But I'm hoping the haters in Congress will "need more time" to make big changes, and postpone any bombardment into next year or later.

Fiscal Year 2018 should be full of positives for Amtrak. The big Stimulus projects will kick in later this year: The upgrades on the Cascades, the Billion worth of upgrades to make St Louis-Chicago run at 110 mph, and the time-saving work on the Piedmont Corridor Charlotte-Raleigh (all those routes are likely to add a frequency or two or three), as well as upgrades on the Wolverines route Kalamazoo-Detroit, around Albany, and on the Vermonter route. (Am I forgetting another one?)

I expect these high(er) speed routes to add another half million to Amtrak's passenger totals by the end of FY2018.

It's even possible that more units from the CAF order will join the fleet, as well as a bunch of the Charger diesel locomotives. Then we can hope for a more normal situation for Amtrak, with ridership growing, revenue increasing, farebox recovery edging up, on-time performance improving, etc.

With so much going right, why then would next year be the time to mess with Amtrak?