This Week At Amtrak 2005-04-19
Vol. 2, No. 8 - April 19, 2005
- There is again crisis in the land, but only if you’re an Amtrak senior manager or sycophant Amtrak apologist and cultist.
Yes, that never ending source of discussion, Amtrak’s Acela program, has run into yet more mechanical/design problems, this time regarding the safety of brakes. As a result, all of the Acela trainsets have been taken out of service for inspection, repair, and parts replacement.
There are some amusing aspects to this. The northeast press seems to be treating this as a crisis of biblical proportions, calling this Amtrak’s flagship service, wondering what the mechanical problems will do regarding the politics of Amtrak, and openly speculating if commerce will come grinding to a halt with this interruption in a vital transportation link. Oh, please. May we have a reality check?
Acela is not Amtrak’s flagship service if you’re anywhere south of Washington, D.C. and west of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. To the rest of the country (or, the real world as many refer to it), this story is a major yawn.
Press reports say that Acela hauls about 9,000 passengers a day (10,000 on Fridays). This represents a 49% load factor on the Acela trains on an average basis, which is low. The other available services in the northeast, the Metroliner trains and the northeast regional trains, each have load factors of 36% and 44%, respectively. Metroliner and regional trains run about 15 minutes slower than an Acela train. There are over 70 departures a day on the Northeast Corridor; Acela represents just 15 south of New York and 11 between New York and Boston. Where is the crisis? For Metroliner and northeast regional equipment, Amtrak allocates 454 coaches and food service cars, of which 372 are required for daily service. There are 96 active NEC locomotives, for a needed daily pool of 75. There are 20 Acela trainsets. So, again, where is the crisis? Is Amtrak unable (or unwilling) to reacquaint Acela customers to the assorted rigors of conventional train travel?
Let’s look at some Acela history. Acela is primarily the product of George Warrington and his Amtrak board of directors. Mr. Warrington, as you may recall, was the second of the Transit Trio of Tom Downs, Mr. Warrington, and David Gunn. In the late 1990s, as Acela was painfully being developed, Mr. Warrington and his board pretty much pinned the hopes of the entire future of the company and train travel in general in the United States on Acela.
So far, Acela has never been considered a roaring success, even when Amtrak “adjusts” its books to make Acela trains allegedly profitable while Metroliners and northeast regional trains soak up the red ink on the identical routes.
Amtrak and Bombardier, an otherwise respected rail car building company, began an ill-starred partnership to develop an entirely new type of trainset to be known as Acela. Never mind that many “off the shelf” products (including some of those of Bombardier) would have done nicely and at much less cost. No, Mr. Warrington and his board were determined to have things their own way.
Regrettably, this theme carried through the entire development and building process, and Amtrak is paying the price for that today. As the creation of Acela was apace, many senior Amtrak design and engineering people involved with the process came to the unpleasant realization that Acela would not - and could not - work the way the designs were forced on them. They would protest, using hard facts and inconvenient evidence like the laws of physics to prove their point. “Never mind,” said Amtrak senior management. “This is what we want, and this is what we’re going to have.” So, orders were signed overriding the engineers, Bombardier built things the way it was told instead of the way it knew better, and the result is Acela, a nightmare in the laws of physics. Many of these same engineers saved personal copies of memos in case of later lawsuits and possible other problems. They knew they were right, but had no power to do anything about it.
This brings us to the victims of this untimely piece. Who pays the price for the hubris and arrogance of the Warrington era? Current Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn, along with the current Amtrak board and current Amtrak management are the corporate victims here. They inherited a royal mess, and have had to deal with it under trying circumstances. The traveling public and the American taxpayer are the other victims, given 20 trainsets that will probably never see their full service life, at a cost of billions of dollars.
Today’s Amtrak has its reputation stained by the multitude of Acela problems. Bombardier, a well-respected industrial giant has had its reputation stained by the multitude of Acela problems. No one has been left unscathed. When some of these problems first surfaced, Bombardier wisely took an aggressive position and filed suit against Amtrak. Amtrak apologists and cultists were horrified that this mean, uncaring company was attacking their sacred Amtrak. Amtrak put up a brave front for a while, but reality set in, and the lawsuit was settled to everyone’s satisfaction (unless you a sycophant Amtrak apologist and cultist, and then you’ll never be satisfied with anything except the Holy Grail of Amtrak infallibility).
So, here we are with another Acela problem. It’s time to think about something different. Amtrak needs to get over its inferiority complex, and promote Amtrak service in the northeast, not some bizarre made-up brand that apparently will never perform to specifications or provide reliable service.
- Many readers will remember last year when Amtrak promised service improvements with the truncating of the Palmetto, and the elimination of the Three Rivers trains. The Palmetto’s southern terminus was moved from Miami, Florida to Savannah, Georgia. Here’s how well that “service improvement” performed in March of this year. In March of 2004, when the Palmetto was still running the full route length, it carried 20,449 passengers. In March of 2005, using the shorter route, it carried an “improvement” of 11,921 passengers, or a loss of 41.7% of its ridership (8,528 less passengers). It also saw a 49.9% decrease in revenues. All of this for just one month; wait until a full year’s worth adds up.
Somehow, carrying less passengers and making less revenues is an improvement. Would someone please explain this?
- Here is correspondence from one of Amtrak’s best chefs on the East Coast trains. This gentlemen in a long time employee, has worked as a chef, steward, and in a myriad of other jobs. He’s often on call for special projects, and he has the ability to whip up perfect food from almost nothing. He’s often been an innovator. Here is his message:
"The [train] has been very busy my last few trips. I make a point to walk through the train several times during the meal period to invite people to the Dining Car. It seems to work. I think seeing a Chef in jacket, apron, side towel, and [chef's hat], takes away the microwave issue. My Steward and I fought hard to get our second waiter back. A cost cutting move that came up. I challenged them to look at our crew’s sales and what we do. That made a difference.
"I hope the [train] will still keep running. The ridership is there, and the market potential is there, especially now that [the endpoint city] is growing in cruise traffic. Gas in California, and Chicago has reached 3.00 a gallon. Many of the unofficial stations masters that come out to see the train, let the passengers know when our crew is traveling and cooking. … I really hate to see what I do fold, because I love cooking, and I love trains."
- OK, for everyone who missed it the first time, here is a repeat lesson about the difference between transit and intercity passenger trains. One wag ventured the opinion that at least both transit and intercity passenger rail hauled people, and it was better to have someone from transit running Amtrak than someone who was accustomed to managing a railroad that hauled coal.
Well, look at it this way. A cardiac surgeon and a neurosurgeon are both doctors, and they both operate on people. So, can’t they easily swap jobs for a day and operate on each other’s patients? Hardly.
It’s the same thing with transit and intercity passenger rail. Transit is inherently part of government, has different financial goals, difference customer service goals, and different methods of running trains than intercity passenger railroads. While there are a few transit managers able to make the leap from transit to intercity passenger rail, that pool of talent is not large.
Transit for the sake of transit is a good industry. A well run transit system is a thing of beauty and efficiency. However, to try and take the values and goals of transit and transfer them to intercity rail, which has a completely different set of values and goals, only breeds disaster. Unfortunately, this has been proven too many times at Amtrak. Amtrak needs intercity passenger rail leadership, not transferred transit leadership that thinks any hard coach seat is just a salable as a sleeping car room.