New Interview; Mr. Anderson/NPR

[gokeefe]

You actively hacked away at the system, failed to address the needs of the host, and then say "well, no one wants to ride long distance"

I agree that this has happened but I feel that it has been over a period of decades under multiple CEOs and not just Anderson.

With regards to fares I think it's notable that they are charging more and not losing ridership. However, perhaps they could be gaining more ...

[PC1100]

ThirdRail7, mtuandrew, David Benton, and JoeG, you're all right on point in my opinion. These are the things that need to be looked at and this is my problem with Anderson, that he seems to have no concept of any of this. His desire seems to be to make Amtrak into a series of disconnected glorified commuter railroads, not a national system which it most certainly is. I've seen posts on this forum which argue it's not a truly national system because it doesn't reach more places, but the only reason it doesn't reach more places is because of lack of investment, which Anderson's "plan" will only make worse.

Another thing I take tremendous issue with is this whole "old rich people on a sighteeing adventure" nonsense. That's what it is, pure and utter nonsense. I've ridden these trains and I've met people from all walks of life. They're all from different places, going different places. Young, middle aged, old, retired, working, you name it. These stories are from the 2010s, not the 1970s or the 1940s. College students using the Southwest Chief from school in Ilinois to home in New Mexico, who said they used it everytime when making the trip; a college age camp counselor traveling from Glacier National Park to the Twin Cities on the Empire Builder, who said she rode the train for this purpose for each trip; a retiree who had just moved out of LA to retirement in Arizona, making one last trip back to LA to finish up some stuff; a young couple traveling from Tuscaloosa to New Orleans on the Crescent for a weekend getaway; a guy traveling home with his mother from Birmingham to NY....I can go ON and ON and ON. I could write a ton just on the train which the defeatists write off as useless but is still the oldest continuously operated name train in the U.S...the Sunset. Lots of stories from that one alone. And you know what tied them all together? These people were all using the train for a PURPOSE nowhere near the point of a joyride. For others it was a vacation, and even then, they werent always old....like a woman in her 20's from LA who I met on the Sunset on her last leg of an LA-Seattle-Chicago-New Orleans-LA adventure. She wasn't a nostalgic old rich train buff that Anderson thinks is the only group that rides his long distance trains. That's what bothers me about this guy. Many of these people I met in the supposedly "elitist" dining cars. They were just people going somewhere, got hungry, and wanted a real meal, not some microwave dinner. Most of these people knew NOTHING about trains nor the history of the railroads. They weren't "nostalgic." They were there because the point is, the national passenger railroad network is still relevant in 2019.

[JoeG]

I understand that NS got Amtrak or Virginia or both to pay for track improvements for the Roanoke service. This has me scratching my head. An extra track fora single daily round trip? More likely, NS saw a chance for some free improvements and Amtrak caved. The solution may be complicated, but maybe it involves paying host railroads more for use of their tracks.
Especially with the implementation of PSR, with fewer and longer trains, track capacity should be freed up. And with most of the Class Is going to minimize operating ratios rather than maximize income, even more track capacity should be freed. The decline of coal is also in there. In the latest Trains there is a column on this topic, showing UPs reduction in freight trains in the last couple of years.

[gokeefe]

It wasn't Amtrak's decision to make. Virginia as the state sponsoring agency for the service had to decide if this was an investment they wanted to make. It is entirely standard practice for host railroads to require additional passing sidings in order to accommodate additional passenger service.

[east point]

The problems with the Crescent south of Atlanta is that the sidings are not long enough for the PSR length trains Often Crescents have to pull into a siding behind a short train to let over length trains to pass then back out of siding and pass the shorter train many time that takes about 40 minutes when you look at the delays station to station.

[gokeefe]

That is the kind of operational practice that really fuels Amtrak's drive to establish performance standards for host railroads.

[troffey]

What do people make of the idea in the Downeaster thread that Amtrak recently advanced the idea of a Richmond-Maine train? If real, it sounds to me like a "new LD" in a sense, and may suggest that Anderson sees value in the network aspect of LD service in specific contexts, the most important of which, I would postulate, is the existence of the corridor as subliminal advertising. The problem for Amtrak is that in most places, even those with a daily train, Amtrak doesn't even come to mind for most people.

At this time, track layouts and conditions in Boston don't support this. There's no track in passenger revenue service that connects the North and SOuth networks out of Boston.

[eolesen]

Gotta laugh at all y'all who think Amtrak's management has anything to do with the fact that less than 1% of intercity travelers use rail. Baby Boomers on down grew up and lived in a car/air culture, and now account for 95% of all trips, if not more. It's time to stop living 70 years in the past.

[ryanch]

What do people make of the idea in the Downeaster thread that Amtrak recently advanced the idea of a Richmond-Maine train? If real, it sounds to me like a "new LD" in a sense, and may suggest that Anderson sees value in the network aspect of LD service in specific contexts, the most important of which, I would postulate, is the existence of the corridor as subliminal advertising. The problem for Amtrak is that in most places, even those with a daily train, Amtrak doesn't even come to mind for most people.

At this time, track layouts and conditions in Boston don't support this. There's no track in passenger revenue service that connects the North and SOuth networks out of Boston.

It's possible that Anderson didn't really mean one-seat passage from Maine to parts of the corridor. And also possible he meant in the very long run via a North-South station connection.

But my sense is that if he meant one-seat passage, he meant via Lowell and Worcester. Boston-Maine is already well provided for, and the area from New London to Providence isn't big enough to worry about losing, if you can connect Maine with New York, Philly and DC.

[NRGeep]

Anderson may have meant that folks "can fly" between North and South Stations...

[Tadman]

Gotta laugh at all y'all who think Amtrak's management has anything to do with the fact that less than 1% of intercity travelers use rail. Baby Boomers on down grew up and lived in a car/air culture, and now account for 95% of all trips, if not more. It's time to stop living 70 years in the past.

Agreed. My parents are in their late 60's and think I'm utterly nuts for riding the trains. To them, the trains were the South Bend, Indiana, offerings of 1960 or 1970, which was erratic Penn Central or decrepit South Shore. And the CTA was a great place to get mugged when you went into town. To their parents, the train was something that carried you to war with Japan. Why give it that "off to war" feeling when you could drive in your own car?

The regulatory climate of 1950-1980 pushed riders away from passenger trains, and it's going to take a few more generations before they come back with blind trust.

[ThirdRail7]

Gotta laugh at all y'all who think Amtrak's management has anything to do with the fact that less than 1% of intercity travelers use rail. Baby Boomers on down grew up and lived in a car/air culture, and now account for 95% of all trips, if not more. It's time to stop living 70 years in the past.

Agreed. My parents are in their late 60's and think I'm utterly nuts for riding the trains. To them, the trains were the South Bend, Indiana, offerings of 1960 or 1970, which was erratic Penn Central or decrepit South Shore. And the CTA was a great place to get mugged when you went into town. To their parents, the train was something that carried you to war with Japan. Why give it that "off to war" feeling when you could drive in your own car?

The regulatory climate of 1950-1980 pushed riders away from passenger trains, and it's going to take a few more generations before they come back with blind trust.

Gotta laugh at y'all who ignore the fact that passenger rail is not a thing of the past. If it is, then what is old is what's new. It is easy to see this when you look at the last decade or so that has passed.

Consider that Amtrak has returned passenger service to Roanoke for the first time in 38 years, returned passenger service to Norfolk for the first time in 35 years. Additionally, service to upper Mass was expanded and added train to towns that hadn't seen multiple frequencies since the 1960's.

Groundwork is being laid to expand service to Burlington, VT, which is a town that last had passenger service since the 1950s. Plans are being made to operate trains to the Catskills, for the first time in decades. Additional trips have been added to the Cascades, the Downeaster, and Norfolk.

So, it seems like there are plenty of people that not only want to "live 70 years" in the past, but they are embracing and financing it. The baby Boomers also grabbed their kiddies and wandered out to houses in the suburbs. Well, a lot of the cities have come back and some people shun the expenses of houses and vehicles. Yet, they still want to be linked to other areas.

This is a market that should be nurtured.

However, your eyes won't believe what your mind won't conceive.

[gokeefe]

The regulatory climate of 1950-1980 pushed riders away from passenger trains, and it's going to take a few more generations before they come back with blind trust.

I have it on good report that at the end the Maine Central and the Boston and Maine both left a lot to be desired from their quality of service. That being said ...

The "generations before they come back" idea hasn't held true at all on the Downeaster which is experiencing ridership levels last seen between Boston and Portland sometime in the early 50s (and maybe a good bit before that). I would note the "blind trust" caveat and would say that the Downeaster has managed to recover nicely after dips in ridership due to trackwork. Not only is the ridership strong but the demand is resilient as well.

Hardly the kind of thing one would say about railroad passenger levels from the late 1950s and 1960s ...

[east point]

We ignore the fact that only 1 % of passengers ride Amtrak because of the level of service is very reduced due to lack of equipment and routes. Now what is the % of persons in the high traffic areas of NoCAl, SoCAL, NEC ? To broad brush the whole USA as being 1% is disingenuous.

[JoeG]

Even in the relatively well served Northeast, trains frequently sell out. Keystone Service trains frequently sell out, as do Empire Service trains. Someday I hope Amtrak will have the management and resources to resume adding cars to trains when needed, just as railroads did in the century-plus history of passenger rail pre-Amtrak. The ability to add cars at low cost is a feature only trains have, but Amtrak refuses or is unable to do this.