Railroad Forums
Moderator: AlexC
Dcell wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 3:56 pmJim Florio is smiling at your idea to let Amtrak run commuter train service. His Amtrak Commuter proposal was stillborn in 1982. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/05/busi ... mtrak.htmlThey ran MBCR until 2003 and SLE to date. Is MARC Penn Line still an AMTK operation?
rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:23 pm Would it be better to contract the Regional Rail side of the enterprise to Amtrak?Amtrak seems less likely to cancel due to manpower issues. I think it would be a good move to contract out regional rail operations so the state can stipulate service quality issues. Amtrak should have an advantage in shared crewbases, joint ticketing, etc but it wouldnt be wise to give the bid to them without negotiating
Suburban Station wrote: ↑Sat Dec 28, 2019 1:14 pmAgree. I see the biggest benefit would be contractual performance benchmarks where there is no recourse if Amtrak causes SEPTA issues.rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:23 pm Would it be better to contract the Regional Rail side of the enterprise to Amtrak?Amtrak seems less likely to cancel due to manpower issues. I think it would be a good move to contract out regional rail operations so the state can stipulate service quality issues. Amtrak should have an advantage in shared crewbases, joint ticketing, etc but it wouldnt be wise to give the bid to them without negotiating
rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 28, 2019 4:05 pmThere is no recourse if septa doesnt perform well either, they get their money no later how well or poor the service is runSuburban Station wrote: ↑Sat Dec 28, 2019 1:14 pmAgree. I see the biggest benefit would be contractual performance benchmarks where there is no recourse if Amtrak causes SEPTA issues.rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:23 pm Would it be better to contract the Regional Rail side of the enterprise to Amtrak?Amtrak seems less likely to cancel due to manpower issues. I think it would be a good move to contract out regional rail operations so the state can stipulate service quality issues. Amtrak should have an advantage in shared crewbases, joint ticketing, etc but it wouldnt be wise to give the bid to them without negotiating
Suburban Station wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:26 pmCorrect. If the service is contracted out to Amtrak, Amtrak has to perform and cannot blame SEPTA.rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 28, 2019 4:05 pmThere is no recourse if septa doesnt perform well either, they get their money no later how well or poor the service is runSuburban Station wrote: ↑Sat Dec 28, 2019 1:14 pmAgree. I see the biggest benefit would be contractual performance benchmarks where there is no recourse if Amtrak causes SEPTA issues.rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 2:23 pm Would it be better to contract the Regional Rail side of the enterprise to Amtrak?Amtrak seems less likely to cancel due to manpower issues. I think it would be a good move to contract out regional rail operations so the state can stipulate service quality issues. Amtrak should have an advantage in shared crewbases, joint ticketing, etc but it wouldnt be wise to give the bid to them without negotiating
rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 1:11 pm Correct. If the service is contracted out to Amtrak, Amtrak has to perform and cannot blame SEPTA.and vice versa...there is no recourse when SEPTA causes delays to Amtrak. and there is no recourse for passengers when SEPTA fails to hire and train enough engineers or arbitrarily changes the schedules without thought as to what it might do to ridership.
