America’s foremost passenger rail policy institute

March 15th, 2010

Amtrak Superliner train at sunsetAmtrak is now saying the right things. Will they start doing the right things?

Promise of Amtrak’s first truly optimistic intercity service expansion in years, along the Western end of the Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle routes,  rescued generally dim prospects in the preceding months of 2009, which were punctuated by three lackluster, unimaginative and pessimistic proposals for expanding services.  The picture has brightened further in the first quarter of 2010.

This March 6th, 2010, Amtrak and Trains Magazine co-sponsored a “Dialog for Progress” Town Hall Meeting at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. Amtrak recognized the need to reach out directly to the “railfan” and advocacy communities, its strongest supporters, showing how stimulus funds are already being used to repair cars and locomotives at Beech Grove. One of the slides in a presentation devoted to long distance trains was titled “Long Distance Trains are Fundamental to Amtrak’s Mission and Future”.  The slide included pie charts that showed that, while long distance trains provided 15 percent of Amtrak’s riders, they accounted for 24 percent of Amtrak’s revenue.  Long distance trains account for 39 percent of Amtrak’s train miles but 46 percent of passenger miles; moreover, long distance ridership and on-time performance have been steadily improving. Emphasis on passenger miles instead of mere headcount passengers is a positive development. Amtrak’s new positive overall attitudes, building on the experience of some of their longtime employees, could well represent the beginnings of the reversal of the tides of the company’s fortunes.

Until recently, Amtrak’s generally let the mantle for American passenger rail expansion pass by default to the states, which are from Florida to Minnesota to Oregon, and from Wisconsin to New Mexico to California, building new regional services and incremental passenger rail systems.

Despite the Obama administration’s much-ballyhooed now $10.5 billion plans for passenger trains in America, Amtrak seems ill-poised to capture much of that for itself, based on its past and recent performance, and as the states, short-line railroads, and even foreign passenger rail companies have applied for new and imaginative solutions. Before the Chicago meeting, Amtrak’s long-awaited upcoming passenger equipment order seemed stalled, with the current fleet being barely adequate to maintain current services; we now await word of how, or whether, system expansions will result from any upcoming larger fleet.

There have been several recent departures, from former Amtrak president Alex Kummant at the end of 2008 to that of former Inspector General Fred Weiderhold. Interim President and CEO Joseph Boardman’s tenure started with a positive impression in November of 2008, and although soured by the reports on the East end of the Sunset Limited/Gulf Coast, Pioneer, and North Coast Hiawatha routes, ended 2009 on a slight uptick with the Western end Sunset Route increase to daily service — but a question-mark remains until a permanent occupant of his position is named.

2010 looks to be a continued year of change, and United Rail Passenger Alliance is looking forward to remaining your guide. All of our hopes are that, one day, America will have a robust and healthy national passenger rail system contributing to the overall vibrancy of our domestic transportation network in every state.

In Depth:

URPA Background and information

Travel by passenger train in North America is an essential part of our domestic transportation network.

As every mode of transportation has its strengths, so, too, does passenger rail. Passenger trains work well for long, medium, and short distances of travel, both on a national and regional basis.

Regional passenger trains, transit systems, and national network passenger trains should not be in competition with each other for regional or federal funding or focus. Passenger rail travel should be guided by a national policy that meets the needs of all Americans in all parts of the country. Passenger rail travel in Arizona is equally important as passenger rail travel in Delaware, and it is a way to travel that serves customers from every economic and educational strata.

Because passenger rail travel has viable and unique benefits that cannot be found elsewhere in our domestic transportation network, there must be a resurgence in passenger train travel in our nation. This is a proven technology that is over a century and a half old, is economical, environmentally friendly, and has a firm infrastructure in place.

Passenger trains are just now entering a new Golden Age of Rail Travel. Not for over half of a century have so many opportunities for good, reliable passenger train service been available now, or within grasp in the near future.

The only requirement for a new Golden Age of Rail Travel to spring forth is a new pioneer with the vision, foresight, and strong leadership resources to pull together all of the necessary elements.

The United Rail Passenger Alliance is dedicated to the viability of a new Golden Age of Rail Travel. You are invited to investigate our plans and join us in the attainable quest for more trains to more places more often in a robust and viable national passenger rail network.

From Today to Tomorrow

There was a time, not too long ago, when railroads made money on passenger trains… both long-distance and short-distance.

How did this work? Passengers are fundamentally just like freight: The long hauls are where the money is made; the short hauls are done for customer convenience and as feeders, and paid for by the profits from the long hauls.

The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System and the sucker punch of the Boeing 707 jet airliner, coming in quick succession in the 1950s and 1960s, were too much for the railroads of their day. The railroads were insufficiently glamorous and not fast enough for a society suddenly hooked on speed, the race for Space, and rockets to the moon.

And while taxpayer-funded airports and highways began to cover the nation, government taxation and regulation of the railroads strangled every effort to revive passenger trains, and even freight trains. Entrenched railroad management and unions seemed more interested in fighting each other than doing much about their failing industry. The result was a massive wave of railroad bankruptcies and abandonments through the 1970s, with passenger trains being an early near-fatality.

It is perhaps a testament to the innate efficiencies of the steel wheel on steel rails that freight trains revived in the 1980s. The Staggers Rail Act of 1980, by initiating deregulation of the railroads, was a watershed that led to positive corporate attitudes. Today, the chief problem facing the large railroads is a lack of capacity to handle their existing and growing traffic. The seeds of a poor-to-nonexistent national transportation policy in the 1950s grew into the rail abandonments that have given flower to the problems of the railroads today.

And now, finally the tables have turned for passenger rail as well; it is once again viable. It’s just that America’s sole provider of passenger rail is not viable. It is stuck with a corporate mindset and junk-science business plan that dooms it, like the freight railroads of the 1960s, to financial ruin.

This is where we stand now. This website and our weekly newsletter explain how passenger rail can get unstuck.

An Introduction to Matrix Theory for Passenger Trains