Railway Age OpEd on New Operating Plan

[roc]

Here’s the title and lede as proffered by Railway Age

Deciphering the Amtrak Puzzle

CEO Richard Anderson’s announced strategy to reposition Amtrak’s train operations is a puzzle. It appears incapable of working. He proposes to end most long-distance services in favor of higher frequency corridor services connecting nearby urban areas. Yet, much better opportunities exist that are easier to exploit and promise much higher returns on invested capital.

Railway Age

[Paul1705]

I read this editorial but I responded to it on the wrong thread (regarding the Viewliner II production).

One of the things I wrote was:

"There seems to be a demand for long-haul trains with sleepers, and that requires dining. But does that justify government funding? Or could it eventually be expanded to a point where profit comes in that helps the corridor trains? I've never seen that really penciled out and it seems unlikely, but it's conceivable. (Does ''profit" cover long-distance capital needs in this scenario?)

Or should it be like the Rocky Mountaineer or American Cruise lines - not a public operation but not really a transportation service either? The latter has nice river boats but I doubt they are ever used for point-to-point travel."

So Andrew Selden hasn't solved the puzzle: after all of these years, what is Amtrak's purpose?

1. If it's a public-oriented government operation, then shorter, more frequent service might make sense. But Selden is correct in saying that is very expensive; probably it would also be politically difficult to give some areas a lot of service and others none.

2. If the non-corridor network could somehow make a profit, should it cross-subsidize the the corridors? A nice idea, but as I mentioned, I've never seen that as a realistic plan.

3. There seems to be little point in turning the network into a cruise operation if it still needs public funding. If it could make a profit, then should it be spun off as a private corporation?

4. Selden's ideas would probably increase ridership (how much?) but they would still require subsidies.

[electricron]

Amtrak lacks enough hubs for a national network of regional rail spoke and hubs system to work. Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City are its' hubs today with any meaningful regional trains. Missing are regional hubs in at least Texas, Florida, Deep South, and Great Plains. These hubs will have to have sufficient maintenance facilities and coach yards available to maintain their equipment. The only maintenance facilities with a coach yard Amtrak uses in these other regions are in Miami, which geographically would not make a great hub city within the center of a network of regional trains. It's more located at an end of a spoke than at a hub.
Therefore with the lack of maintenance hubs nationally, I do not think it would be easy for Amtrak to switch from a long distance national system to a national spoke and hubs regional system.

[rcthompson04]

Therefore with the lack of maintenance hubs nationally, I do not think it would be easy for Amtrak to switch from a long distance national system to a national spoke and hubs regional system.

Is a hub and spoke system really viable or even what makes sense everywhere? A major expansion in Texas would likely require a point to point triangle system with Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Austin would be served as a through stop from Dallas to San Antonio. Maybe one of the cities would be a maintenance base.

It is arguable that the Northeast Corridor doesn't really operate on a hub and spoke basis. You have several "hubs".

[mtuandrew]

Along with what Ron and Mr. Thompson said about lacking hubs in the Deep and Mid-South, Amtrak could build out hubs in New Orleans, Fort Worth, and St. Louis. In fact New Orleans is already a hub since it terminates three trains and will soon(?) turn a fourth, the Mobile dinky. A NOL-DAL-FTW train via Shreveport would even more fully split those terminal costs.

[electricron]

Therefore with the lack of maintenance hubs nationally, I do not think it would be easy for Amtrak to switch from a long distance national system to a national spoke and hubs regional system.

Is a hub and spoke system really viable or even what makes sense everywhere? A major expansion in Texas would likely require a point to point triangle system with Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Austin would be served as a through stop from Dallas to San Antonio. Maybe one of the cities would be a maintenance base.

It is arguable that the Northeast Corridor doesn't really operate on a hub and spoke basis. You have several "hubs".

Whether the NEC has one or several hubs, the point remains that it has them!
Texas, the South, and others mentioned by me or someone else, do not have viable hubs.
As I repeat, without them a regional train system is not going to work.

[west point]

The total number of RR cars now serving the so called cut up LD routes will need twice as many pieces of rolling stock. Worse still connecting those cut up routes would have a very much higher out of service equipment or major maintenance bases at each of the hubs. Then still how would Amtrak ferry equipment from / to locations not capable of servicing without paying high ferry fees to Beech / Wilmington / etc. ? mu

[Tadman]

I skimmed the article and it's a non-starter. Any article that sets out to convince us of the viability of the long distance train is going to be premised on a some "grey area" numbers and this one is no different.

This passage: "The short corridors Amtrak already operates, outside of California, are Amtrak’s smallest, commercially-weakest segments (with the lowest annual output, load factors and market shares in their respective corridors), and the segments least capable of organic growth" is basically an assertion of opinion as fact. I'd like to see how this person thinks the corridors outside of NEC and California are least capable of organic growth. Trains like the Palmetto and Wolverine are reasonable success stories. On the other hand, trains like the Sunset are not.

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Trains like the Palmetto and Wolverine are reasonable success stories.

The Palmetto is nothing more than a glorified NER. Before they allowed NEC traffic, the train was around 200,000 passengers a year. A little less than half of its traffic now doesn't go further south than DC. Of its top ten city pairs for ridership, only one is outside of the NEC. The top six city pairs for revenue are all exclusively NEC which is pathetic considering they travel much fewer miles. The train travels 4 times as long as it needs to and only gains twice the benefit, all on America's dime. The Palmetto would be like the LSL terminating eastbound in Albany instead of New York or Boston. Either go to Florida or it's a waste of money and resources.

https://www.railpassengers.org/site/ass ... 457/48.pdf

[Tadman]

Either go to Florida or it's a waste of money and resources.

https://www.railpassengers.org/site/ass ... 457/48.pdf

This theory has been disproven. Once you go to Florida, you get sleepers, you get diners, you get another crew or two... A day train becomes a big dollar train.

[mtuandrew]

Once SEHSR rebuilds the Petersburg-Raleigh segment and cuts off two hours between the NEC and the South, we can talk about a day train NYP-JAX. Maybe even NYP-ORL.

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Either go to Florida or it's a waste of money and resources.

https://www.railpassengers.org/site/ass ... 457/48.pdf

This theory has been disproven. Once you go to Florida, you get sleepers, you get diners, you get another crew or two... A day train becomes a big dollar train.

You're judging trains strictly by costs without regards to ridership and revenue. You introduce Florida, you add a lot of cost but you add a lot of demand. A train that goes down to Savannah has a lot of cost but little demand. To me that's worse. If you cut the Cardinal at Huntington, WV, it could be run as a "day train" but it would be even more worthless than it is now without Cincinnati and Indianapolis (it would be even more "Byrd Crap" than it is now). If all you care about is costs, the Palmetto should just be a regional between NYP and WAS, the rest of the train is worthless.

[Alex M]

Keep in mind one point: the Palmetto, along with Auto Train, are the two LD trains that come the closest to breaking even. We need more Palmetto type trains, not less.

[mtuandrew]

Keep in mind one point: the Palmetto, along with Auto Train, are the two LD trains that come the closest to breaking even. We need more Palmetto type trains, not less.

I bet we’d see a jump in operating revenue if the Adirondack was extended to Washington, for instance. And touching on Philly AF’s assertions about the Cardinal, with the discontinuation of the Hoosier State Amtrak now has the equipment to run a quad-weekly day regional train to West Virginia - it would be subsidized by the NEC revenue, probably more so than the Cardinal. Seems like such would be of interest to Virginia and to the White Sulphur Springs resort at least, though I don’t expect the State of West Virginia would fund it. (They’ve been steadily cutting their contribution to the MARC Martinsburg train.)

[rcthompson04]

I bet we’d see a jump in operating revenue if the Adirondack was extended to Washington, for instance. And touching on Philly AF’s assertions about the Cardinal, with the discontinuation of the Hoosier State Amtrak now has the equipment to run a quad-weekly day regional train to West Virginia - it would be subsidized by the NEC revenue, probably more so than the Cardinal. Seems like such would be of interest to Virginia and to the White Sulphur Springs resort at least, though I don’t expect the State of West Virginia would fund it. (They’ve been steadily cutting their contribution to the MARC Martinsburg train.)

At what point would NEC trains start losing a material number of passengers if runs like the Adirondack and some of the Empire Service started running south of NYP. One or two more would not dent the current passenger numbers, but you would think extending more would hurt the existing runs.