The battle that will determine the future of American passenger rail

Can't really see why the freight railroads can't accommodate a couple of additional passenger trains on their freight lines. The number of trains they run fluctuates with business demand. OTOH, they get stuck with additional liability if there is an accident - - - witness the lawyer vampire bats swooping down on BNSF for the recent MO collision/derailment.

So the class 1's don't want to delay their trains? Without timetables, how does anyone know if they are on time?

I'm sure many of us have sat on an Amtrak while freight passes by.

I don't see how expanding rail service for passengers negatively impacts the RR's.

@RSJB18 posted:

So the class 1's don't want to delay their trains? Without timetables, how does anyone know if they are on time?

I'm sure many of us have sat on an Amtrak while freight passes by.

I don't see how expanding rail service for passengers negatively impacts the RR's.

Well I do.

If tracks are at capacity, then train movements will be slower. 

That gulf coast line, i dont remember seeing a passing siding.its all single track for miles. Who will pay for the sidings needed to continue track speed?

If Amtrak uses the line, that means more locos need ptc. Who will pay for that?

If Amtrak were really serious about expanding their service over the years, they could have seized some tracks destined for trails and used those for passenger service.  That would have kept them out of the way of the freight trains and given them a path to success.  Of course, they would have to pay to maintain those tracks, further deepening the debt black hole.

George

Good article and thanks for posting, Bruce. The wife and I have been on lots of Amtrak trains out west. I think the best solution would be for Amtrak to own its own dedicated trackage for passenger service, like in other countries where the national railroad owns and operates them. But I don’t see that happening in America. Our country is just too large.

@Bruce Brown posted:

Washington Post article. Sorry this is behind a paywall:

If you hit the refresh in your browser and immediately select refresh again (to cancel said refresh) you should be able to view the article

Bryce

@mark s posted:

OTOH, they get stuck with additional liability if there is an accident - - - witness the lawyer vampire bats swooping down on BNSF for the recent MO collision/derailment.

Which lawyers were swooping?  I counted one law firm, and it was arguing that the accident was BNSF's fault.  Isn't this what we would expect?

There don't appear to be any other firms or attorneys lining up behind them, unless perhaps I missed something?

That might change, of course, if victims and families of victims who were on the train start filing lawsuits.

However, is a massive shift in liability going to happen because of this one accident, or after any one accident for that matter?  No.  Legal costs don't usually jump.  Instead they creep up and strangle you slowly.

Mike

Thanks for posting the article it is a VERY good summary of where this issue is today.  The next paragraph is from that Washington Post Article:

"Outside its busy Northeast Corridor, Amtrak mostly operates on tracks owned by private railroads. Under federal law, it pays the companies to use the tracks — a sum that, according to Amtrak, totaled $135 million last fiscal year. The arrangement dates to 1970, when Congress created Amtrak, relieving private railroads from their obligation at the time to provide intercity passenger rail service."

This "sparring" has been going on since then.  The key phrase is:

"relieving private railroads from their obligation at the time to provide intercity passenger rail service."

Who was the Obligation to?  It was the laws imposed by the Federal Government (FTC) that mandated the Railroads could not simple abandon Passenger Service as they saw fit.  So the federal government agreed "to relieve this obligation" if the RR's handed over their Passenger Equipment to Amtrak and would allow Amtrak to use their Infrastructure (Tracks, Signaling, Stations, Etc.) for Bargain basement rates.  I don't want to do the research it, but I am sure if I were to compare the $135M paid to RR's, versus what it cost Amtrak to maintain its "owned Trackage" last year, on a per mile basis, you would see who is getting the short end of the stick.  Trust me on this one, it isn't Amtrak.

So heck yes the 2 sides don't play nice, they never have, and never will.

Just my 2 cents on this - Jim

I’m sure the current mess with PSR, where trains are clogging up yards and “dying on time” away from their home terminals due to said clogged yards is not helping matters. Presumably on the operational side of things, it’s hard to be accommodating to Amtrak under those circumstances. I’m sure many dispatchers are already at wits end without adding to the workload.

Amtrak replaces the obligation of public service to carry passengers for Class 1 Railroads. But the bill set it up to be a “self supporting company”  in order to get it passed. The  fear was that the unprofitable passenger services would drive more roads into bankruptcy, and the feeling was that Amtrak would likely die in a few years and could easily be written off. Fortunately that didn’t happen, largely because Amtrak is a vital link to the Eastern states and to rural America. Much like the Post Office, we need to see it for what it is: an absolutely essential public service. Especially since long distance rail travel is the only viable option to travel cross country if we don’t all want to fry any worse than we already are.

Frankly speaking, the worst decision with regulating railroads was probably disbanding the USRA, we should have simply carried on completely nationalization from that starting point. Unfortunately we replaced it with the old ICC system, a quintessentially American mess. As it is, the current mess is probably best resolved by nationalizing the rail network and instead of traditional railroads having rail operators who solely run the trains. It would not be ideal but it would be a marked improvement, for one allowing Amtrak to run where it pleases and allowing for infrastructure improvements no private company would invest in but also allowing operators trackage rights to be suspended if their service is poor.

Has there been anything that the government has touched that they haven't messed up?

Trains offer a way to move people and goods in an efficient manner that produces less carbon dioxide than other forms of transport. I suppose there are other alternatives but for the moment they are either still in development or impractical. I think we should do our utmost to preserve our planet for future generations to enjoy and because I happen to live here. If you think my position on that violates the TOS, then take it up with moderation.

@Ray Lombardo posted:

Call me old fashioned:   . . .  Don’t let the eye catching paint schemes on your O gauge models blind you to this basic reality.

As much as I want to see passenger trains in use, and as much as I want to see AMTRAK succeed on its own merits (and I even more want to see as many as possible of the semis on the highways riding on the rails, which will do far more to reduce pollution), this reply sums up exactly the situation in regard to such proposals.

The political posturing that claims to "determine the future" is "a chasing after the wind":  vain, vain, vain.  All too typical of EVERY political stripe.

I had to delete several political statements thus this thread is now closed.