Amtrak And DOGE

west point wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2024 6:32 pm Then there also has been complaints the Telsa's tires are wearing out rather quickly.

That has to due with the high torque from the electric motors less than the weight.

Streetcars and Trains handle the torque better

There is actually an interesting parallel to trackage rights costs.

Whether it is road or rail, you have the capital cost to build the tracks which is loaned by a bank, then amortized out over (30?) years and paid back in equal amounts. If you have heavy coal trains or dump trucks on roads, they damage the road, either shortening the life or causing repairs. But even if you don't have a lot of wear, you have "access costs". Essentially in that case, if it costs $1m to build a mile of road or track and you run a million wheels over it, that's a dollar per wheel mile that you have to earn back to have a viable financial concept.

We see a lot of guys advocating for Amtrak to have their own tracks west of Harrisburg and what bugs me is that right now, Amtrak is not paying their $1/wheel mile. They get a deal that says $0.57 or something. And there is that big kerfufle about should they ever pay market rates, legalese, etc... But if Amtrak doesn't want to pay the full $1/wheel mile, how are they ever going to find the $1,000,000 to build their own track???

Here's an interesting exercise for DOGE to consider: Would Amtrak become a more useful entity (and perhaps earn more of an operating profit) if they paid the class 1's market rates for trackage rights on a couple of corridors? In other words, if you paid the host full price for the wheel miles, would the host be more inclined to run the trains on time and allow more frequencies, leading to exponentially better ridership and revenue?

Tadman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2024 9:55 am If Amtrak doesn't want to pay the full $1/wheel mile, how are they ever going to find the $1,000,000 to build their own track???

Those are apples and oranges; the first is an operating expense, but the second is a capital investment.

And where did the $1 per wheel/mile come from? Given that almost all the traffic on that line is very long NS freight trains, it's hard to imagine that one eight-car Pennsylvanian run in each direction per day adds that much additional wear and tear.

The $1 per wheel mile is an arbitrary example, it's not based in fact. All I'm saying is that there is a cost to allow the trains to access the track in order to recoup the costs of building and maintaining the existing route. Disregard my nominal $1 because that's all it is - a nominal example.

As for the difference between operating and capital expense, they are indeed different, you are absolutley correct. But if congress and Amtrak management aren't interested (or can't) find the money to pay market rates for operating costs, which by my estimation might be $300m/year* additional for the entire system ($643m total), what makes us think they will find the money to build/buy their own tracks?

The long distance hosted system is about 23,000 miles and it costs milions per mile to build or buy, and probably hundreds of thousands per mile to maintain yearly to 79mph. So that $642m is now $2.3 BILLION. Yearly. Amtrak's annual revenue is only $3 billion. You could defray that by hosting some freights, but they seem (a) fairly content to use their own system; (b) not to want to use Amtrak as a host, note the freight traffic on NEC has declined big time since 1976. Most freight uses CSX to Jersey or down the west shore.




*See the FY 2023 annual report where "train operations" are $342m/year. This is the most likely line item for trackage rights so I'm guessing perhaps double is the real trackage rights market rate.

Maybe Amtrak could use the 2 billion dollars in track improvement money CSX, NS, CP, CN, et al, demand before they let Amtrak add a train to the line they own. Just sayin'.

WashingtonPark wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2024 3:53 pm Maybe Amtrak could use the 2 billion dollars in track improvement money CSX, NS, CP, CN, et al, demand before they let Amtrak add a train to the line they own. Just sayin'.

Do you know how much money Amtrak wishes to spend on capital improvements for the near future?
Your $2 Billion is just a drop in an ocean of capital expenditures.
FY (in $ millions)
2019 1,610.7 actual
2020 1,942.1 actual
2021 2.207.1 actual
2022 2,256.8 actual
2023 2,963.1 actual
2024 5,546.9 plan
2025 8,383.9 5 year plan
2026 7.978.3 5 year plan
2027 7,038.2 5 year plan
2028 6,582.9 5 year plan
Source of data https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/proj ... 120123.pdf

Capitol improvement money they shouldn't be spending on other company's railroads if you want Amtrak to start paying what others pay in trackage rights fees. How many billions does JBH pay to NS for track improvements to add a train?

That's a silly question; they're already paying them to haul the freight with their equipment.

If they want to run above the designated freight speeds on track they don't own, then indeed those capital costs are their responsibility.

A huge chunk of that spike in CapEx is NEC bridge projects, no? That's once every 50-100 year spending, not routine plant re-investment.

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WashingtonPark wrote:Capitol improvement money they shouldn't be spending on other company's railroads if you want Amtrak to start paying what others pay in trackage rights fees. How many billions does JBH pay to NS for track improvements to add a train?

I'd be OK with that if trackage fees were at a market rate. And despite the "prove it" crowd, it's clear from Amtrak's financial reports they're not paying a commercial rate close to what the JBH's and Amazon are paying to move containers owned by those shippers.

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It was said that History Doesn't Repeat Itself But Sometimes It Ryhmes....

No one recalls the Grace Commission or Simpson-Bowles so all Old Ideas are New Again...

[url][https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the- ... ommentsurl]Krugman Eviscerates Dipshits On Government Efficiency:


Pretty sure Amtrak will be safe from these two morons.

eolesen wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2024 11:57 am A huge chunk of that spike in CapEx is NEC bridge projects, no? That's once every 50-100 year spending, not routine plant re-investment.

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The big uptick is yes Amtrak's share of NEC projects and payments for fleet procurement. Also Chicago Hub and some of the big station projects. There are couple projects in there on BNSF rails that Amtrak was awarded one of which is for the Empire Builder and the other for the Southwest Chief - both to deal with chokepoints. This doesn't cover all of the money going into the NEC projects either as some of that is also coming from the FTA through New Jersey Transit, etc.

eustis22 wrote:It was said that History Doesn't Repeat Itself But Sometimes It Ryhmes....

No one recalls the Grace Commission or Simpson-Bowles so all Old Ideas are New Again...

[url][https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the- ... ommentsurl]Krugman Eviscerates Dipshits On Government Efficiency:


Pretty sure Amtrak will be safe from these two morons.

Well.... there's a long and growing line of former politicians who've assumed Trump does things just like everyone else, and been proven wrong.

And both those "morons" also have a net worth that we'll never see, so they must have done something right along the way.

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Putting my own opinions, biases, and believes to one side, it's honestly hard to predict what will happen with Amtrak and the big infrastructure projects specifically because Trump's GOP is in many ways different than the party even during the Obama years and Trump himself is kind of unpredictable. He's fiscally conservative, but has also voiced support for infrastructure, protecting US construction and manufacturing jobs, and is more populist and protectionist than say George W. Bush (who was a free trade proponent and would never have backed tariffs on China.) If someone asked me to predict if he will go after all the Biden spending bills from a fiscally conservative debt reduction perspective or keep the stuff he likes and build the infrastructure that he wants to build where he wants to build it (as come January evaluating and awarding of any infrastructure projects is up to his administration) I honestly am not sure - I think it could go either way. Maybe even a little bit of both.

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2024 3:16 pm Putting my own opinions, biases, and believes to one side, it's honestly hard to predict what will happen with Amtrak and the big infrastructure projects specifically because Trump's GOP is in many ways different than the party even during the Obama years and Trump himself is kind of unpredictable. He's fiscally conservative, but has also voiced support for infrastructure, protecting US construction and manufacturing jobs, and is more populist and protectionist than say George W. Bush (who was a free trade proponent and would never have backed tariffs on China.) If someone asked me to predict if he will go after all the Biden spending bills from a fiscally conservative debt reduction perspective or keep the stuff he likes and build the infrastructure that he wants to build where he wants to build it (as come January evaluating and awarding of any infrastructure projects is up to his administration) I honestly am not sure - I think it could go either way. Maybe even a little bit of both.

...I have to doubt that when it took getting him out of office to even get Gateway to "build NOW" phases.