by west point
We have to be very careful to watch out for firestorms before Jan 20th that will harm Amtrak.
Railroad Forums
Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman
BandA wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 6:08 pm How does Amtrak determine pay rates / zones? By surveying freight railroads?I would start by looking at the various contracts. For T&E and mechanical department folk, I suspect whatever their craft makes on a freight road, they make.
Maine cost of housing is dramatically lower than Greater Boston, perhaps 1/3. Maine income tax is higher than Massachusetts & progressive.
Alex M wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 2:02 pm I just noticed over on the trains web site that the Rocky Mountaineer plans to start a Denver CO to Moab UT seasonal tour train. It would be interesting if they decide to operate the ski train in winter.The history of private luxury rail since 1985 or so has not been what you’d call successful for the long haul.
John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:35 amI agree with you that M[iddle]O[f]A[nywhere]B[ut Salt Lake City] is not a well-known location for rail service, with the closest example being a Rio Grande/UP branch across the Colorado River. But then again, I can see why they chose the branch since it's right next to Arches National Park, a well-known tourist park in the state. Even if tourist services like this can be expensive or infrequent, I feel that these services have some potential if they can go between at least two major cities; for this case, I would suggest Denver to Salt Lake City so that passengers from both ends of the route can experience the stops in between and people could still use it for somewhat-frequent service between the two cities. This can also be accomplished by the Proposed (and private) Rocky Mountain Rail Authority which I believe is proposed to go between Denver and Grand Junction, but could achieve more ridership if it went to Salt Lake City so that it could transport people between the two largest cities in the region.
Let’s also consider Moab. Moab. Can you say Bum****, Egypt? It’s not exactly someplace easy to get to without a car.
John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:35 am The history of private luxury rail since 1985 has not been what you’d call successful for theYet the Rocky Mountaineer has had its own fanbase and draws travelers across the world.
long haul.
Alex M wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 2:02 pm I just noticed over on the trains web site that the Rocky Mountaineer plans to start a Denver CO to Moab UT seasonal tour train.Well. somebody put together a "slick coloring book" presentation:
Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:47 am Sorry 'bout that, Mr. Stephens.And you’re quite correct in that the Cane Creek Branch appears to have never hosted passenger service.
Note my present tense, but my source for the statement was a '69 Guide.
Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:21 amSo, in the Keystone/Harrisburg topic, there's been talk about Pennsylvania buying out Amtrak and operating Keystones themselves. Their motivation ostensibly is, to paraphrase: “keep PA money in PA”, and not subsidize Amtrak, but rather, their own service.So the idea here is really to create more layers of government control? No operator would be “private”; if that were the case, then the states ought to help the actual owners of the railroads to take back passenger operations and without onerous overregulation and/or taxation, or else it is state operation with a state-approved operator (already the European and Asian companies are leaving bad tastes in passengers’ mouths) over someone else’s railroad.
I posited that perhaps they should contract it out to a private operator, which shall form the basis of this discussion.
There have always been proposals to privatize Amtrak, or break it up. I’m going in a bit of a different direction here. Amtrak would become less of an operator, and more of a transportation agency overseeing rail operations and ROW ownership.
Which lines could you see being ideal for private operation, and which operators?
I'll start us off:What else ya got?
- Keystone. Duh.
- Empire NYS. I think this is a no-brainer, particularly ALB-NYP. Leave west of ALB to Long Distance.
- Chicago–Milwaukee
- Florida from Jacksonville south. The Florida trains are daylight schedule, right? Except perhaps the Star, which is only a few hours off.
- Sacramento to Oakland
- Charlotte to Atlanta