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  • In 1970/1971, why was Amtrak created instead of subsidizing private railroads?

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

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 #1610890  by Nightjet
 
If I am understanding correctly, in 1970 and 1971, when Amtrak was created, an alternative that was considered was subsidizing private railroads to run their own passenger trains, and creating Amtrak was more supported by Democrats and subsidizing private railroads was more supported by Republicans.

Did private railroads favor one approach or the other? Or did they not care? How close did the US come to simply subsidizing private railroads to run their own passenger trains?
 #1610891  by eolesen
 
Professor Norman had a second row seat to some of that debate, so looking forward to his commentary.

My understanding is the railroads wanted to unload their common carrier obligations to provide passenger service entirely. A subsidy option wouldn't have done that. It would have simply absorbed some of the costs. It would have also hampered any ability to trim their systems once Staggers happened.
 #1610898  by Gilbert B Norman
 
From Hampton Inn Casselton; Indianapolis---

During the early days, the railroads simply held "turnkey" purchase of service agreements with Amtrak. Beyond a minimal amount of signage, it was essentially business as usual.

I wasn't there; but the very first Amtrak train was a NY-Phila train that left Penn at 1201A Sat May 1. If one were to ask any of the "3-D (Drunk, Dazed, Doped) passengers "hey you are on the first Amtrak train", they'd probably say "what's Amtrak"?
 #1610979  by ctclark1
 
Gilbert B Norman wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 8:24 pm During the early days, the railroads simply held "turnkey" purchase of service agreements with Amtrak.
So, what I'm reading is that it was basically "subsidized" until Amtrak actually got its feet under it and could hire its own crews/purchase its own equipment?
 #1610984  by conductorchris
 
Things I have read have suggested that there was a sentiment that freight railroads had screwed passenger trains up and were not to be trusted with the job. I imagine Penn Central (the largest passenger carrier and the closest to the center of power and decision-making in Washington/New York) was primarily responsible for this mood. What I have read suggests that simply subsidizing the freight carriers was never seriously considered because the goal by the planners was to improve upon the situation.
 #1610999  by amtrakowitz
 
Nightjet wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 4:33 pm If I am understanding correctly, in 1970 and 1971, when Amtrak was created, an alternative that was considered was subsidizing private railroads to run their own passenger trains, and creating Amtrak was more supported by Democrats and subsidizing private railroads was more supported by Republicans.

Did private railroads favor one approach or the other? Or did they not care? How close did the US come to simply subsidizing private railroads to run their own passenger trains?
The premise is a false dichotomy. Private railroads were already being subsidized in many cases. The third option, removing punitive taxation and deregulating railroads so that they could rebuild both passenger and freight business (both were under siege by the aforementioned taxation/regulation regimen) and perhaps even restart the many private-sector high-speed passenger initiatives that taxation and regulation killed was never engaged in by the federal government back then. Nixon never even entertained the notion, signing Amtrak into law.

But perhaps that might be a subject for a different forum?
 #1611000  by eolesen
 
conductorchris wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 5:08 pm Things I have read have suggested that there was a sentiment that freight railroads had screwed passenger trains up and were not to be trusted with the job.
That may have been a regional sentiment in the Northeast.... I've always heard that the C&O, SRY, BN, DRGW, ATSF and UPRR were still running a decent quality product at the time.
 #1611003  by John_Perkowski
 
eolesen wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:26 pm
That may have been a regional sentiment in the Northeast.... I've always heard that the C&O, SRY, BN, DRGW, ATSF and UPRR were still running a decent quality product at the time.
Take a look at Kratville, UNION PACIFIC STREAMLINERS (Kratville Publications, 1975). The short version is ALL the Class Ones wanted out of the passenger business. The losses were deep from the passenger traffic departments.

The debate in Chicago, Omaha, Atlanta etc was could they hold out through the mandatory operation period without having a shareholder rebellion.
 #1611005  by ExCon90
 
The difference was that the passenger losses of the Class Ones listed above were a much smaller proportion of total revenue than those of PRR, NYC, and NH, and the losses experienced by those other roads were not as apparent to many observers but were just as real. In my personal experience the ATSF and UP kept up their characteristic high standards until the end, since the losses could be borne for a while longer, but for another five years? ATSF (as pointed out in an earlier post) might have been stuck with a choice of either paying who knows how much for access to CUS or having to somehow take over the C&WI and Dearborn Station on its own.

A question just occurred to me: what did happen to the C&WI after 5/1/71? Surely the approach routes continued to be used by the freight railroads. I assume it did well from "adaptive re-use" of Dearborn Station and its approaches.
 #1611013  by Gilbert B Norman
 
ExCon90 wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 12:01 am A question just occurred to me: what did happen to the C&WI after 5/1/71? Surely the approach routes continued to be used by the freight railroads. I assume it did well from "adaptive re-use" of Dearborn Station and its approaches.
Mr. ExCon, on A-day, the Norfolk and Western still had a Wabash Orland Park to "Dearborn Station" (OK; nobody jump me in that this train was Mo-Fr and A-Day was a Sa; thank you). They built a shack immediately to the West of the closed station structure.

Here's more on the C&WI. They themselves had a commuter train (former ERIE "Stillwell" Coaches) Dearborn Sta-Dolton that I only observed but never rode. It was long gone by A-Day.
 #1611015  by eolesen
 
C&WI survived until it was essentially unwound in the early 90's. The short story is UP took over the southbound segment that connected to the C&EI (which UP already owned by way of the MP) and NS taking the southeasterly Indiana leg.

There's a little more nuance to the actual parceling out that started in 1967 to 1994, including the NS commuter service and today's SWS on Metra, but that's essentially where it is today.
 #1611026  by sextant
 
Because THEY wanted Amtrak to be competitive with the Airlines and use the same National travel agent ticket system known as SABRE . Before Amtrak taking a train was a clusterfudge of epic proportions with your local Station agent pouring over Official Guides and fare matrix books. Some railroads still took pride in their trains like Santa Fe and Southern and others like the Pennsy intentionally ran trains with heat in the summer and AC in the winter to drive away passengers. With Amtrak you have one labor force one central reservation system and one equipment buying power hence the boredom oh having all the trains look alike
 #1611033  by eolesen
 
sextant wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 2:42 pm Because THEY wanted Amtrak to be competitive with the Airlines and use the same National travel agent ticket system known as SABRE
Yeah, not buying that line of argument.

First of all, SABRE was still owned by American Airlines in 1971, and the airlines hadn't been deregulated for another ten years. Thus, they had little to no incentive to allow Amtrak to be listed along with airline flights.

The bigger issue is that from an IT standpoint, Amtrak wasn't even capable of participating in airline CRS's until Arrow was launched in 1983. Twelve years. Hardly a timeframe for wanting to be competitive, eh?
 #1611104  by electricron
 
The largest source for Federal subsidies to the railroads during the 1950s and early 1960s came from USPS contracts shipping mail everywhere. When those postal contracts ended, so did the passenger trains along those routes.

When a major organization of the Federal government realizes passenger trains were not capable of providing an appropriate fast mail service, they found something else to full fill it needs.