Return of Daily LD Service

Volks, I've been around these parts for now twenty two years, including two distinct two year terms as the Moderator of this forum.

My position has never changed; I wholly concur with Mr. Red Wing - passenger trains are here to stay. However, I hold that passenger trains' role is to provide transportation in markets where there is sufficient volume to justify them. That means the Corridors; it does not mean the LD's which simply represent a taking of investor owned property without just compensation - and some miniscule amount of that property just happens to be mine.

The "transportation of last resort" in rural areas ("I'm in Sanderson and I don't drive; how do I get to my Doctor in San Antonio?) could just as easily be provided over public highways by bus. The experiential product, which incidentially is "uh not exactly" given away, nevertheless belongs to a different age. It was only intended to be an "ease the pain" stopgap lasting about five years. The Carter Cuts got the ball rolling. but well.....

I simply contend that the frequency reductions should have been picking up where the Carter Cuts left off - forty years later. But alas, it appears I'm evidently mistaken.

Trust me volks, I was in the railroad industry on A-Day - lowly Management Trainee - but there. Nobody ever envisioned that Long Distance trains would be around after five years.

As for myself, my most recent and likely final LD ride was Jan 26-20 (the day Kobe Bryant was killed) on #52 Auto Train. The experience was simply "meh", and not worth $915 to avoid 400 miles, and no time whatever, over driving.

I'm all in favor of Corridors. So far as the proposed NO-MOBILE one, I just want the sponsors to pay just compensation to Chessie, and apparently Topper as well, for the use of their facilities.

justalurker66 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 4:23 pm Mr Norman, do you like Amtrak or are you one of those who wish the system will fail?

Do you truly believe that failure to operate a train is automatic forfeiture of the slot? If so, how many trains need to be missed before the slot is forfeited?

This forum would be far less interesting if we were all super passenger rail fans just complaining endlessly about long distance OBS cuts all the time. While I do personally support the long distance network, I also find the diversity of view points on this board make it far more interesting than it would be if everyone agreed on everything. I often times don’t agree with Mr. Norman’s conclusions (and others who don’t share my view on long distance) he is nonetheless very knowledgeable on rail and the way things have come about (far more than I) and I always enjoy reading his posts. I think there’s room for all viewpoints.

i can't help but wonder what would be the case if Biden hadn't won the presidency. Likewise who was controlling both houses.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 7:07 pmI simply contend that the frequency reductions should have been picking up where the Carter Cuts left off - forty years later. But alas, it appears I'm evidently mistaken.

If there is public will to kill off Amtrak then it should be done through the appropriate process - Congressional action - not hoping that every setback (such as a pandemic or a recession) becomes fatal for the service.

While I appreciate your opinion and your willingness to express it, I'd say that there is no public will to kill the service. While the level of support does tend to fluctuate due to the administration's goals and the party in control of Congress, Amtrak still has public will on its side.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 7:07 pmTrust me volks, I was in the railroad industry on A-Day - lowly Management Trainee - but there. Nobody ever envisioned that Long Distance trains would be around after five years.

Were your "nobodys" working for freight roads who struggled to maintain passenger service, were happy to be rid of passenger service and expected the new management to fail as miserably as they had been doing? If your "nobodys" worked for Amtrak I assume that either you are mistaken or people with a greater vision decided that it was worth fulfilling the task of running a successful service instead of serving as liquidators.

Perhaps you no longer have any use for Amtrak but many people do. I'd rather remain positive. Setbacks can be overcome. Temporary service reductions need not be permanent ... especially where there is a Congressional mandate in place to restore the services reduced last October. The tribe has spoken. The public will has been heard. Amtrak is still needed after 50 years. I'm sorry if you are disappointed in that outcome.

justalurker66 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 10:21 pm Perhaps you no longer have any use for Amtrak but many people do. I'd rather remain positive. Setbacks can be overcome. Temporary service reductions need not be permanent ... especially where there is a Congressional mandate in place to restore the services reduced last October. The tribe has spoken. The public will has been heard. Amtrak is still needed after 50 years. I'm sorry if you are disappointed in that outcome.

I disagree, the public will has not been heard. The public that votes everyday with their own money. Less than 2% market share nationally with driving means more than 98% do not wish to ride trains. Yes, there are polls and studies that suggest people would rather ride up to 6 hours longer than driving, but those are polls and studies done by partisans. The real polls and studies are what you see on the planes, trains, and highways every day. We are not riding intercity trains in such numbers that Amtrak needs a nation wide quad track network of rail lines. Yet some 4 lane interstate highways are full and some corridors are now 6 lane interstate highways.

electricron wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 10:35 pmLess than 2% market share nationally with driving means more than 98% do not wish to ride trains.

Not quite. Comparing a service such as Amtrak with fixed endpoints with a service such as driving with multiple endpoints (including "last mile" service for Amtrak riders) does not give the results you claim. There are many reasons why Amtrak has a less than 2% market share. The "wish" to ride trains is mooted by the lack of availability of universal service between every endpoint. Amtrak does not meet 100% of the needs travelers wish for.

In other words, 98% of the population COULD wish that they could include a train on their travel itinerary, but the current Amtrak service does not meet their needs. Your claim is 98% do not wish to ride trains. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

98% + 2% appears to account for everybody, but the Federal Highway Administration says that in 2019, 7% of U.S. households did not have a car. The 100% being cited appears to be counting those who traveled by train and those who drove, but there are many other people out there. Some traveled by other means, and some didn't travel at all, but I don't believe that drivers are 98% of the travel market. And as justalurker66 pointed out, talking about the market share nationally means including large areas with little or no rail passenger service. If 93% of the people in those areas made all their trips by car (extrapolating from the national share of households without cars), it doesn't follow that all of the 93% did not wish to ride trains: for many millions of people in the U.S., traveling by train wasn't a choice.

Depends which lenght/purpose of journey. Hard to believe if your counting all the subway and bus trips in cities like NY, 98 % are going by car.
One study i saw concluded walking was the most common form of transport , but probably not in the USA. And maybe not recently as we as a whole seem to be blobbing out.

Statistical use does not represent DESIRE for a service that doesn't exist in a usable form.

A few years ago I was an engineer who could get called out at any time of the day or night to travel to one of several sites that needed attention. On the long drives to a remote location I would fantasize about other ways of getting to the destination. Being a fan of Star Trek the transporter came to mind. I thought it would be nice if I could just beam to a remote site in the matter of seconds, fix the problem and then return home. That option remains not possible but it was clear that the car I relied on for those emergency runs was the best option available. No public transportation of any kind to those remote sites. No buses or trains that would play any part in getting me from home base to where I needed to be at all - let alone in a reasonable amount of time. Forget the transporter, I would have settled for a flying car so I didn't have to deal with the roads, stoplights, stop signs, traffic, etc.

Back to reality, but the reality is that Amtrak is not in a position to satisfy the desire of everyone who would want to use the service. Many desired trips are as impossible as flying cars and transporter beams. Make those trips possible and ridership can increase,

Daily Amtrak service is not the answer to every journey that a person may wish to take. It may not be the answer to any of a particular individual's journey. But it remains an important service that people want to continue. And it is good (in my opinion) to see daily service return without needing court orders to reopen slots or any other hurdles to be crossed.

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 9:36 pm

justalurker66 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 4:23 pm Mr Norman, do you like Amtrak or are you one of those who wish the system will fail?

Do you truly believe that failure to operate a train is automatic forfeiture of the slot? If so, how many trains need to be missed before the slot is forfeited?

This forum would be far less interesting if we were all super passenger rail fans just complaining endlessly about long distance OBS cuts all the time. While I do personally support the long distance network, I also find the diversity of view points on this board make it far more interesting than it would be if everyone agreed on everything. I often times don’t agree with Mr. Norman’s conclusions (and others who don’t share my view on long distance) he is nonetheless very knowledgeable on rail and the way things have come about (far more than I) and I always enjoy reading his posts. I think there’s room for all viewpoints.

While it's nice to have an opposing view now and then, there's a fine line between opposing view and trolling. In my opinion his "copy and paste" replies tend to push the needle towards trolling.

I generally don't reply to his posts as I follow that old Internet rule of "Not feeding the ......" , well, you know. I'll leave it at that ....

electricron wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 10:35 pm

justalurker66 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 10:21 pm Perhaps you no longer have any use for Amtrak but many people do. I'd rather remain positive. Setbacks can be overcome. Temporary service reductions need not be permanent ... especially where there is a Congressional mandate in place to restore the services reduced last October. The tribe has spoken. The public will has been heard. Amtrak is still needed after 50 years. I'm sorry if you are disappointed in that outcome.

I disagree, the public will has not been heard. The public that votes everyday with their own money. Less than 2% market share nationally with driving means more than 98% do not wish to ride trains. Yes, there are polls and studies that suggest people would rather ride up to 6 hours longer than driving, but those are polls and studies done by partisans. The real polls and studies are what you see on the planes, trains, and highways every day. We are not riding intercity trains in such numbers that Amtrak needs a nation wide quad track network of rail lines. Yet some 4 lane interstate highways are full and some corridors are now 6 lane interstate highways.

Lets focus on your last line. The state of California runs a rather intensive service on the San Joaquin line between Oakland and Bakersfield. Looking at Google maps I see TWO major highways between these two points. One is Interstate 5 and the other being California route 99. While route 99 isn't an Interstate it looks, at least from my point of view, to be built to Interstate standards. Yet strangely enough the San Joaquin's are often held up as one of the bigger success stories of modern passenger rail in this country both in number of passengers carried and frequency of service. If you provide the service and the frequency people will show up and ride it. Way too much was cut in 1971 and we need to start to long process of "building it back".

RRspatch wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 11:35 pm Lets focus on your last line. The state of California runs a rather intensive service on the San Joaquin line between Oakland and Bakersfield. Looking at Google maps I see TWO major highways between these two points. One is Interstate 5 and the other being California route 99. While route 99 isn't an Interstate it looks, at least from my point of view, to be built to Interstate standards. Yet strangely enough the San Joaquin's are often held up as one of the bigger success stories of modern passenger rail in this country both in number of passengers carried and frequency of service. If you provide the service and the frequency people will show up and ride it. Way too much was cut in 1971 and we need to start to long process of "building it back".

Per https://railpassengers.org/site/assets/ ... 477/39.pdf
Pre-pandemic ridership was 1,059,174 in 2019. Longest segment of track is 315 miles (Bakersfield, CA - Oakland, CA)
Some math to calculate a daily average, 1,059,174 / 365 days = 2,902/day
Per https://dot.ca.gov/programs/traffic-ope ... 7/route-99
Data from 2017, AADT (Average Annual Daily Traffic)
Minimum 7500 at Kaufman Avenue in Tehama county
Maximum 235,300 at JCT. RTES. 50/51/5 in Sacramento county
Averaging the minimum and maximum, you could average all the data points if you wish but I will not; 235300 + 7500 / 2 = 121,400
Just CA 99 by itself averages 42 times more traffic than the San Joaquin trains, 121400 /2902 = 41.83.
No other highways included in the comparison - just CA 99. CADOT measuring traffic at specific points along the highway, not adding all the traffic up along the whole corridor like was done with the train. Many specific points averaged for the highway vs summing all the points for the trains
To be frank, if someone took the time to average all the data points available, the AADT will probably be closer to half around 61,000 - still 21 times what the train gets. Even at the lowest traffic count point, CA-99 is many times larger than all of the San Joaquins ridership.

I do not consider 1% at worse -5% at best market share for trains a successful data point. Which is why California is building a true HSR line parallel to CA 99. We deserve better, faster trains that can actually compete with driving.

I believe that on A-Day Eve, the ATSF "Golden Gates" Richmond-Bakersfield were "two a day". Obviously CTRANS sponsors, and Amtrak operates, a frequency much higher than that - and the ridership has responded accordingly.

While of course the nature and scope of the Agreements with BNSF and UP are within bilateral contracts between the parties and as such are not available for public inspection under FOIA, I think it a very safe assumption that the remuneration is considerably greater than that called for with the "bargain basement" rates provided under the Amended Agreements with the roads for the LD services.

I'm all in favor of the San Joaquin and Surfliner services; not so with the Coast Starlight (although a locally funded "replacement Coast Daylight" Surfliner extension serving San Francisco would be amenable). I'd be all in favor of an Angels-Meadows service, if some way could be found to traverse the San Gabriel Mountains without interfering with BNSF and UP traffic, but then, that appears to be a "tall order" - especially since a private initiative Brightline appears to have become stillborn.

Literalman wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 4:09 pm 98% + 2% appears to account for everybody, but the Federal Highway Administration says that in 2019, 7% of U.S. households did not have a car. The 100% being cited appears to be counting those who traveled by train and those who drove, but there are many other people out there. Some traveled by other means, and some didn't travel at all, but I don't believe that drivers are 98% of the travel market. And as justalurker66 pointed out, talking about the market share nationally means including large areas with little or no rail passenger service. If 93% of the people in those areas made all their trips by car (extrapolating from the national share of households without cars), it doesn't follow that all of the 93% did not wish to ride trains: for many millions of people in the U.S., traveling by train wasn't a choice.

Ah, but a large percentage of those households are in large cities where owning a car is impracticable. I have several friends living in several boroughs of New York City who do own a car, but do on occasion 3 or 4 times a year, rent a car to visit family or attend events with several hours or more of a drive away.

Observed 5(25) - first Zephyr of the restored frequencies.

2 P-42
V-Bagg
T-Dorm
2 Sleepers
Diner
Lounge
2 Coach

8 cars