A Trouble With Amtrak

We need the long distance runs too.
Some will remember that was the only way to get across the country for a week or so after 9/11.

The long runs would also serve intercity traffic better if they ran more often.

We need more dedicated intercities too, but we should not cannibalize what few long-distance routes there are left.

Tracks are everywhere, so I thought it would take me where I wanted to go and quickly.

NOPE!

I couldn't believe the lack routes. So many of them are closed.

cross this country on an unbelievable number of routes. :(

airline collapses and skyrocketing gas prices: FEWER travel options and fewer train routes.

Why didn't I think of that?

increase train usage, by allocating routes where the use is most frequent. Possibly misguided.

Whenever I see another quarrel break out between advocates of short-haul trains and long-haul trains, I tend to get cynical. I start looking for right-wingers in the undergrowth.

As much as I think that Amtrak ought to have more frequent short-haul routes, a nationwide system of long-haul routes is the only way that Amtrak can politically survive. If it hadn't been for long-haul routes passing through states like Trent Lott's Mississippi and Robert Byrd's West Virginia, I doubt that Amtrak would have survived even in its starveling skeletonized form this long under the 12 years of Republican-controlled Congresses and these past seven-plus years of Boosh.

Right-wingers have as often or not been the instigators of these long-haul versus short haul quarrels. They have correctly reasoned that if there aren't any trains serving sparsely-populated red states, those states' representatives and Senators are going to vote AGAINST Amtrak appropriations. Sometimes those states get trains even when part of their delegates vote against Amtrak--look at Arizona, John McCain, and the Sunset Limited; sometimes they lose their trains entirely like Wyoming.

Part of the political problem is that visionaries see Americans as entirely living in big gleaming cities with fast, frequent commuter trains linking to its suburbs. While that is partially true, it isn't entirely true; there are still a lot of smaller towns and cities a long ways past the end of commuter rail service and they aren't well served by air or even by bus.

Amtrak's service stays small in part because the equipment inherited from private railroads aged past the point where it can be legally used and as the newer stuff gets damaged in accidents and doesn't get repaired. I've long suspected that Amtrak's long-term starvation is part of many right-wingers' "plan B" for getting rid of Amtrak--subject it to long term terminal starvation.

As the price of fossil fuels continues to climb, a lot of rural communities are going to find that they're going to lose a lot of their "essential air" connecting flights and bus companies may or may not step up to the plate to replace them. Those who want trains might start screaming for resuming trains terminated ten, fifteen, twenty, or even thirty or forty years ago.

What IS needed is more rail equipment. That WILL cost money. On the other hand, if the cars are well made, they can last for fifty years or more.

...rail. I heard the chair of Southwest Airlines advocate ending Amtrak in an interview on NPR's Marketplace.

My prediction is that some communities will be "economically lost" due to the price of petro. Their businesses won't be able to (afford to) fly their sales people. Their employees won't be able to afford to drive to work.

The Florida Keys are rather that way. Between the lack of affordable housing and high commuting costs, the businesses cannot get waiter, cooks, and maids. I foresee remote towns in America as being only suitable for retirement communities. "Nothing but the dead arrives back in my little town".

Actually, the private railroads had a lot more to do with the great decline of passenger rail service between the end of World War II and the creation of Amtrak in 1971. Private passenger rail service almost always lost money, even when the big-name trains like the Super Chief, the Broadway Limited, and the 20th Century Limited made money. Private railroads lost money on lightly-used secondary runs and often on commuter service.

The big killer for private railroads' passenger service was the automobile. I'd say it was motorists as well as truckers beating the drums for more highways that helped empty the trains.

On top of that, private passenger rail facilities were subject to heavy property taxes that competing bus and airline operators didn't have to deal with. Airlines may have to pay taxes on hangars and pay charges for gate use, but they don't have to pay property taxes on airport runway, any more than buses have to pay full rates for using public highways. That drove the expense-to-profit ratio for passenger rail even higher.

Add to that the loss of US mail carrying contracts and the decline of the old Railway Express Agency, and even passenger-friendly railroads like the old Santa Fe and the Seaboard Coast Line (A railroad, not an airline) gave up in despair.

I don't deny the effects of the highway lobby on Amtrak's stunted growth. Nor do I deny the more recent effects of Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher's anti-rail lobbying. Kelleher's efforts helped shoot down a Texas high-speed rail proposal several years ago. But those effects are overrated and more recent (Amtrak was created in 1971).

Incidentally, DU has another forum dealing more specifically with transportation and smart growth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=398

There is also at least one passenger rail advocacy group. Their website is www.narprail.org.

Now I have to get back to work :sigh:

One thing that has NOT been commented on is the sorts of rail equipment used by Amtrak. The sorts of equipment Amtrak uses and the vertical clearances on many of Amtrak's routes are VERY germaine to politically-inspired calls to have Amtrak redeploy its passenger cars. I'm a lay enthusiast; I will try not to be technical.

To begin with, Amtrak has a LOT of restricted clearances, places where they can't operate the bi-level long distance passenger cars typically used on their western routes. Geographically, that part of the US includes all of New England, Maryland, Delaware, most of New York, Pennsylvania, and probably West Virgina--plus Washington, DC. The bi-level cars can't be economically rebuilt into single-level cars.

Furthermore, most of Amtrak's long-distance bi-level cars used in the South and West aren't really that suited to commuter runs. Most bi-level commuter cars I've been on have at least two sets of stairs that allow for rapid boarding and exits. That doesn't make for short commuting times and brief station stops. Amtrak's long-distance cars have single sets of stairs and it takes a while to climb and get down them. Trust me; I've climbed those stairs myself.

Even where there are sufficient clearances for bi-level equipment past city limits, clearances at the end terminals will cause problems. While it may be possible to run bi-level cars in the Virginia suburbs, for example, there may not be sufficient clearance between the overhead catenary that powers the electric locomotives used on Amtrak's other routes and the tops of the western cars on the tracks around Washington Union Station.

Things are more complicated than what politicians, journalists, lawyers, and nesting bureaucrats (i.e. the ones who never get out into the field to check their assumptions against reality) may think. Even liberal arts majors with BAs in English can see some of the complications using first-person observation, a good sense of proportion, and a knack for estimating measurements.

I don't find it particularly difficult to exit or enter myself.

Bi-level trains also run on the Long Island Railroad on the Port Jefferson line.

I'm not too sure about the difference between the vertical clearances for the NJ Transit cars and Amtrak's Superliner bi-level cars. I believe that the latter are taller. Of course the NJ cars were designed for commuter runs, not for long-distance passenger trains; I don't doubt that boarding and exiting the NJ cars would be faster than boarding and exiting an Amtrak bi-level built for long-distance service.

I'm sure that if Amtrak's Superliners could squeak under enough Northeastern bridges and squeeze through enough Northeastern tunnels, they'd have made their way to Penn Station by now. They haven't, so I'm concluding that clearances prevent them from doing so.

I'm also of the opinion that we need more short-distance passenger trains AND more long-distance passenger trains. I'm also convinced that it's the Far Right as well as the highway lobby that's forcing this you-can-have-one-or-the-other-but-you-can't-have-both argument concerning passenger rail.

Just before Norfolk & Southern Railway took over Contrail, Contrail (With Assistance from the State of Pennsylvania) enlarged the Gallizin Tunnels on the old Pennsylvania Main line (The main Rail line between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) to permit double stack trailers. This provides more then enough head room for double stack trains. This is more to permit double stack fright than double track passenger cars, but both can be used.

On the Washington DC to Chicago line, Amtrak runs double stack passenger cars. On the Pittsburgh to Philadelphia line Amtrak runs single stack, but that has more to do with access into New York City then anything on the line between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

More on Gallizin Tunnels:
http://www.gallitzin.info/

Pre-Re-Construction Tunnel:


Post-Re-construction:


The Re-construction involved only one of the Three tunnels in Gallizin. The other tunnel beside it was closed down. The third tunnel in Gallizin is the called the "New" Portage Railway tunnel (It has been built as part of the "New Portage Railway" in 1854 to replace the original Portage railway, thus its name).

New Portage Railway Tunnel:


Just pointing out that today most of the east can take double stack trains, through some restrictions remain.