No more charter trains

[Mackensen]

Perhaps this is less about money than it is about distractions.

Consider this: What business is Amtrak in?

1. For-profit corridor transport
2. State-supported corridor transport
3. Long distance railroad transport
4. Commuter trains for cities
5. LTL package transport
6. Rolling stock design, procurement, and IP ownership
7. Real estate
8. Food service
9. Special stuff - PV's, Fall Excursion, Steam

Perhaps this is less about money than it is about a cultural focus on the core business toward the top of that list. My biggest gripes with those services are focus-related issues. Service is not consistent. Procedure is horribly inconsistent. Training is even worse as we saw in the recent Cascades accident. Maintenance is erratic with HVAC problems and intense noise and rattles in first class accommodations.

Given that non-NEC special moves were shown to be massively profitable (but small in nominal dollars), I think this isn't so much about money as it is distractions. Anderson is sending the right message, the message that the core business must run like a safe and well-oiled machine before they're going to consider running specials and steamers. If this is the case, it is a big step in the right direction.

Anecdotally, this is consistent with other things I've observed over the past year:

• A consistent branding initiative, including the websites, dining car menus, and timetables. That speaks to a good deal of internal coordination.
• New food items in the dining cars, with an increase in price. As I mentioned in the Cardinal thread, the meals I had in January were genuinely good.
• A more responsive social media posture. Amtrak has been much more proactive over the last couple months about tweeting out delays and the reasons for those delays.
• The new report card for host railroad delays. It's rare for Amtrak to publicly point the finger like that.
• Anderson's very public pro-safety stance before Congress. I doubt Amtrak will actually cancel a train over PTC; the purpose here was to get Congress' attention then quietly walk it back. Mission accomplished.
• Consistent stories in newspapers about Amtrak's liability issue as it pertains to the host railroads. You can be sure Amtrak cooperated with those stories.
• Delaying the proposed Rockland extension of the Downeaster. It was never practical and would just tie up scarce resources.

We won't know for a while what this all adds up to, and there's a good deal happening behind the scenes that we don't know about. However, I think we have evidence to support Tadman's hypothesis. I see Amtrak pushing hard to be taken seriously as a transportation provider. Do charter trains fit into this plan? Possibly, but not right now. The alternative is that this all groundwork for some secret plan to destroy Amtrak once and for all, I suppose, but I doubt it.

[Dick H]

I see the possibility that the Great Dome operation on the Downeaster, Adirondack and Hoosier State
may become a casualty of Anderson's slash and burn policy of anything and everything out of the
"ordinary" operation, While NNEPRA foots the bill for the movement of the car to Maine and all
other costs while on the property, does New York do the same for the Adirondack and Indiana for
the Hoosier State? Does the dome run on any other Amtrak train, other than as an equipment
move? Anderson reminds me of EPA Secretary Pruiit. Let's get a look at Anderson's expense account.

[rwk]

Squires and Anderson just killed the mainline excursion business in the east. NS is also no longer willing to host excursions like 611. Maybe some western trips will still operate like 844 from Denver because Amtrak is not involved with UP’s special operations. Maybe 261 will still run its Duluth excursion this summer and it seems the E8 excursion from Philly to Altoona next month is still operating. Are the Amtrak private car trips by VMT still operating? Going forward all mainline steam excursions and rare mileage excursions on class 1 freight railroads are going to be a rare treat. I can predict that BNSF and Metra will be the only major railroads willing to host excursions by outside parties, and UP their 844 and diesel excursions. There are several tourist lines in the eastern US that offer long excursions. And western US, like Grand Canyon and Cumbres & Toltec.

[mtuandrew]

Anyone have contacts at G&W, Buckingham Branch, or AC&W?

[Tadman]

Anecdotally, this is consistent with other things I've observed over the past year:

• A consistent branding initiative, including the websites, dining car menus, and timetables. That speaks to a good deal of internal coordination.

This is important. I really scratched my head when the Boardman posse started painting all the new Viewliners in Phase III. Then they started that "Amtrak America" branding. WTF was all that? It made little sense and I was just astounded that the brass had so little to do that they came up with a marginally useful sub-brand related to a throwback striping scheme. Then you have a rash of accidents, some of which were very revealing.

You mean to tell me the group that was messing around with stripes was lax on safety?

Which leads to another interesting point: Don Phillips would not stop lambasting Boardman and I got really tired of it. His work became unreadable. He was at least partially right, but he was unreadable. The dark underside of the Boardman administration was a serious lack of policy, consistency, and reliability.

Edit: Per friendly suggestion from another member, I would like to amend my comments in order to make this a bit more on-topic. All of the above is my commentary about focusing on the core function of the railroad and showing how distraction like stripes and sub-brands lead to a failure to execute on the core priorities, that is running passenger trains safely and efficiently.

[rwk]

Pretty soon only the very rich will be able to ride on mainline excursions, wait, Bennett Levin's E8's aren't running anymore after the May excursion, which is $1,000 a ticket. I think there were 10 left. But if Amtrak bans everything then the mainline excursion market in the US will be almost dead. Funny that groups are running many mainline steam excursions on mainlines in the UK this year. Our country is a joke. All railfans just got kicked to the curb by Amtrak. Canada isn't any better, CP no longer runs its steam locomotive but there are luxury excursions in old pullman cars pulled by CP F units, and the Rocky Mountaineer, but very expensive. I'll be glad when 2102 gets finished because then I will have a large operating steam locomotive near me.

[Arlington]

I find it unproductive to judge countries on the basis of their leisure experiences, whether rail excursions, jousting tournaments, dog shows, royal weddings, or battle reinactments.

[blockline4180]

Can we counter all the doom and gloom with this? ?
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states ... ce-trains/

Amtrak Asked to Continue Charter, Special Service Trains
A West Virginia congressman says a decision by Amtrak to end charter and special service trains would hurt the state's tourism industry.
April 2, 2018, at 2:13 a.m.

Yeah much may not come out of it, but its a start cause I'm sure this guy has gotten an earful or he would not have addressed it.
Don't give up yet!

[Suburban Station]

This is the legal Dept and the Insurance carrier saying it's NO longer worth the risk to operate Charter services for ANY reason.
The Caycee wreck on CSX,and the charter run wreck to Greenbrier resort as the reasons to do this.

I don't know if it's the legal department but I agree this is about risk and accidents. The same reason they cancelled the downeaster extension test this year. I think the half sentence about fully allocated costs is a distraction

[Arlington]

West Virginia welcome to develop a State Supported route system, and fund it from the millions in tourism that it thiks are at stake. Or any other state with foliage pretty much has state routes already.

If you think the economics are smokescreen for the liability, offering to make seasonal specials into State trains would be a good way to call a bluff.

[Backshophoss]

Figure on some sort of action from AARPCO protesting the changes,that Va congress critter might rally the other critters about the shutdown
of charter operations.
Wonder whatever was NARP plans to do??

[Greg Moore]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, while it's a great idea to say "let private operators figure it out" or "let states run them" but my understanding is two issues are insurance and access.
I seem to recall a discussion talking about how most insurance companies won't insure private charter operators on Class 1 railroads (it may be too the Class 1 railroads are trying to raise that barrier).
The second is, access. Is it still true only Amtrak has guaranteed access to certain lines on the Class 1s, i.e. a state or private charter can ask, but have no recourse if the railroad says no, while Amtrak can argue for access?

Anyway, this combined with other changes (such as eliminating the student discount) are making Anderson a least favorite in my book.

[ryanov]

It's further sort of a ridiculous notion that some private company or a state would have the money or ability to run such a train like the Autumn Express. Amtrak has equipment and it runs on a weekend. What sort of company that doesn't otherwise do this would purchase equipment to use once a year? There are things you can do when your primary business is already running trains. Transit companies are charging a couple to a few of dollars per ticket for most of there services and are intended to lose money (NJTransit can't even seem to hire enough engineers to run their regular trains, let alone excursions), so it's just not the same sort of thing, and they basically don't run outside of the state anyway. Seems to me that the only reasonable operator for such a thing would be freight railroads, and they'd again, what, buy passenger equipment just for this? Unlikely.

[Greg Moore]

we're talking two trains that use regular revenue equipment. It doesn't change the amount of equipment Amtrak needs to own at all.

They advanced by about 600 car miles the time when those 12 cars may have to be replaced./quote]
In other words..maybe a day or less of life.

Let's see, they're over 40 years old, will probably be around for another 10... , so over 18,000 days of live.

And if it raises revenue, I don't see that as a loss.

[mtuandrew]

Sadly ironic that this month's Trains features an article on the planning and pitfalls of mainline steam excursions. Amtrak may only provide backup power, but it's a slap in the face of outfits like 765, 611, and 265 who otherwise have their game together.