Anderson possible changes: Dismantling LD, Corridor, Etc.

The old ATSF personnel are probably rolling in their graves.

I found articles for some of the other locations, too.

So on A-Day, +47 years, we get this blog post: http://blog.amtrak.com/2018/05/amtrak-c ... nniversary" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Make of it what you will...

Today marks 47 years of Amtrak and there is a lot to celebrate! As we look ahead to 47 more years, we are committed to continually improving your Amtrak experience and making Amtrak the preferred choice of the 21st century for business and leisure travel.

“While we celebrate our history, we have a keen eye on the future and are making necessary changes to provide our customers with an unparalleled travel experience,” said Amtrak President & CEO Richard Anderson. “Many customers have already noticed these improvements, and can look forward to several more upgrades that are on the way.”

Some of our improvements underway include:

Refreshed trains: Refurbishing the interiors of more than 450 coaches for trains serving the Northeast and Midwest – all by the end of this summer.
New fares: Restructured fare discounts and expanded the use of targeted and flexible sales.
Upgraded connectivity: Enhancing Wi-Fi on Northeast Corridor trains and at select stations.
On-time service: Improving on-time performance on the NEC, updating charter and private train guidelines to minimize impact on operations, and re-doubling our work with freight railroads hosting Amtrak on their lines.
Improving schedules: Working with our state partners, Amtrak is providing you with more flexibility and options for travel on the Piedmont, Pacific Surfliner and San Joaquin services.
Seat assignments: Introducing assigned seating on select routes to improve the boarding process and allow customers to select their preferred seat before traveling.
Improved facilities: Rehabilitating and improving the passenger areas of major stations and increasing staff on board trains to keep busy NEC trains clean.
Expanded communications: Offering real-time and frequent information via social media, specifically @AmtrakNEC.
Enhanced connectivity: Added Thruway connections and will continue to expand to more cities this summer. Amtrak is also working toward providing seamless ticketing for mass transit services and ride providers to make “last mile” connections.
Maximizing mobility options: In the last year, nearly 50,000 small pets and more than 55,000 bikes have traveled with customers, with additional options coming soon.
New onboard experience options: Starting in June, Amtrak will offer contemporary and fresh dining choices and amenities for sleeping car customers on the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited.
These immediate changes are happening in advance of more long-term upgrades such as: buying modern train equipment, including Acela trainsets; ongoing Concourse Management Strategy studies of New York Penn Station and; further development of stations in Chicago Washington, D.C., Baltimore-Penn, Philadelphia 30th Street, and the new Moynihan Train Hall in New York.

We are thankful for your decades of loyalty and hope to see you on the rails sometime soon!

Best response ever:

Tadman wrote:

ebtmikado wrote:Let's face it! Anderson has to go. NOW! Before he destroys the whole thing.

Destroys what whole thing? A skeleton national network, some operating less than once/day, holding less than 1% of the travel market? This thing of ours was toast the day President Eisenhower signed the Interstate highway act.

Anything left after that was ruined by the 707.

Anything left after that was ruined by A-day.

Anything left after that was ruined by the Carter cuts.

Anything left after that was ruined by the Clinton cuts.

Anything left after that was ruined by Southwest.

Anything left after that was ruined by Megabus.

Just what are we fighting for? A diner for the crew to ride around in and count fares? Perhaps it's time to think about a new model, one that might bring more trains per day to medium-corridor routes. We always lament how far in front of us Japan, Germany, and France are. Now we have an opportunity to move the game pieces and all we do is groan about the diners.

Other tidbits...

SouthernRailway wrote:For my own knowledge:

What is Amtrak's rationale for providing only cold meals for lunch and dinner, and not heating them? Cafe cars, the Acela and airplanes all have ovens to heat up pre-prepared meals. Why wouldn't Amtrak do that for sleeping car passengers?

I can't imagine that anyone at Amtrak thinks that cold meals only are appetizing.

Maybe there's an exemption for sanitary certifications on cold food vs. heated? Keeping a food prep area certified costs time and money...

Matt Johnson wrote:Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to kill the few attempts at serious investment in high speed rail in the United States. I don't buy for a second that sacrificing the long distance network will result in any additional corridor services. Smoke and mirrors. I imagine that working on the Amtrak long distance routes right now must feel something like being on the Ford Mondeo/Fusion design team. If your leadership doesn't believe in the product and the mission, you have the wrong leadership.

Yeah, nice attempt at blame-shifting and hating on Republicans...

The fact is that the few attempts at high speed rail have pretty much killed themselves. They were a solution in need of a problem that didn't exist.

Heck, after being seven years delayed, they can't figure out how to finish what they started in California... That was sold as a $33B project, and the costs are now approaching $100B for just the truncated version that doesn't go to either Sacramento or San Diego. It's probably going to wind up being the most spectacular public works failure in US history.

^^^

THIS:

Let us count the ways:

Sen. Mario Rubio is now joining his fellow Republican state legislators in blocking the Brightline expansion.

Republican congressmen (including Jeff Denham) have long used every legal/legislative effort to block the California high speed project.

Gov. Kaisch killed the Ohio 3-C project.

Gov. Scott Walker killed the Milwaukee-Madison project.

Gov. Scott killed the Orlando-Tampa project.

And unrelated, former Cong. Mica is the reason behind the current "kill the diner" efforts.

So, yeah, there's lots of reasons to see Republicans as anti-rail.

Nah, we're not anti-rail. We're just against spending where it's not justified.

What I know of all those plans with the exception of Brightline is that they were all pork projects that didn't have the ridership to support them if/once built.

Interesting that you don't recognize how Gov. Walker has signed off on larger investments in freight rail for Wisconsin, which has far more benefits for the failed MKE-MSN train. WisDOT now owns the former UP lines to Reedsburg and Oregon that they used to lease from the UP, and there's been a lot of investment on lines in Plymouth and up along the ELS. That's all resulting in jobs.

Justification is in they eye of the beholder. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

ryanov wrote:Justification is in they eye of the beholder. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

A boondoogle to some is a blessing to others. If your district and state isn't getting a share of the program, it's pork barrel spending ---- but if you are getting a share, it's an investment for the future.


"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
Abraham Lincoln

Change the word "fool" to "please" and you'll have my motto.

It should be important to note that the NEC runs mostlly through "blue" states while much of Amtrak's long distance trains runs through "red" states - often in the middle of the night when hardly anyone is awake to see them - much less ride them.

For some reason , you guys have made me think of this Monty Python sketch.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvPbj9NX0zc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

eolesen wrote:Nah, we're not anti-rail. We're just against spending where it's not justified.

What I know of all those plans with the exception of Brightline is that they were all pork projects that didn't have the ridership to support them if/once built.

Interesting that you don't recognize how Gov. Walker has signed off on larger investments in freight rail for Wisconsin, which has far more benefits for the failed MKE-MSN train. WisDOT now owns the former UP lines to Reedsburg and Oregon that they used to lease from the UP, and there's been a lot of investment on lines in Plymouth and up along the ELS. That's all resulting in jobs.

These are all important points. As a pragmatic businessman, I thought it was just nuts to buy a special Talgo train requiring an entirely new shop for service to Madison. Somehow these government projects have all kinds of garbage added to them and they become a hot mess. It's interesting to me how Brightline has a simple model and they're sticking to it. It's a private company that knows what they want and they're getting it. I'd like to see more of this model in places like the Michigan corridor or San Diegans.

I think the word "justified" is a bit subjective, but I'm always willing to take a long-shot bet in the context of profit versus civic development. A great example of this is Conway Scenic. The owners aren't getting filthy rich, but it has spawned an entire tourism economic engine in a once sleepy part of the country.

Tadman wrote: These are all important points. As a pragmatic businessman, I thought it was just nuts to buy a special Talgo train requiring an entirely new shop for service to Madison. Somehow these government projects have all kinds of garbage added to them and they become a hot mess. It's interesting to me how Brightline has a simple model and they're sticking to it. It's a private company that knows what they want and they're getting it. I'd like to see more of this model in places like the Michigan corridor or San Diegans.

I'm amazed that Brightline has gotten this far, but I'll become a true believer if/when they become more than a commuter operation and complete Phase II to Orlando. But I was surprised that they opted for fancy new custom designed trainsets instead of going with, say, the North Carolina Piedmont approach of refurbing old rolling stock. So to me it doesn't seem that much different than going with Talgo equipment.

The defining difference between Brightline and the Talgo's --- non-articulated trainsets.

Brightline can bad-order a single car or locomotive, remove it, and bring it into the shop for repair. They could also operate in single locomotive mode if they had a way to turn the locomotive.

Try doing that with a Talgo...

eolesen wrote:Nah, we're not anti-rail. We're just against spending where it's not justified.

What I know of all those plans with the exception of Brightline is that they were all pork projects that didn't have the ridership to support them if/once built.

Interesting that you don't recognize how Gov. Walker has signed off on larger investments in freight rail for Wisconsin, which has far more benefits for the failed MKE-MSN train. WisDOT now owns the former UP lines to Reedsburg and Oregon that they used to lease from the UP, and there's been a lot of investment on lines in Plymouth and up along the ELS. That's all resulting in jobs.

I didn't realize the discussion included freight short lines and regionals. I guess that just confirms that Walker believes in socialism for capitalists.

eolesen wrote:Nah, we're not anti-rail. We're just against spending where it's not justified.

What I know of all those plans with the exception of Brightline is that they were all pork projects that didn't have the ridership to support them if/once built.

Interesting that you don't recognize how Gov. Walker has signed off on larger investments in freight rail for Wisconsin, which has far more benefits for the failed MKE-MSN train. WisDOT now owns the former UP lines to Reedsburg and Oregon that they used to lease from the UP, and there's been a lot of investment on lines in Plymouth and up along the ELS. That's all resulting in jobs.

Sorry, but I'm a former lifelong Republican and was very active in the GOP for decades, including by working for Presidential campaigns, as the president of my local GOP young professional organization, and serving (in an appointed position) in government.

Republicans hate trains.

The argument is, "we favor the free market in transportation."

But Republicans will spend slews of tax dollars on highways and airports.

The argument is, "Amtrak should be privatized, and then we'd support it."

But Brightline is private and Mark Meadows, Rubio, etc. are all attacking it.

Etc., etc., etc.