This Week at Amtrak 2006-06-17
Volume 3 Number 26
- TWA was fortunate to hear from two former Amtrak high ranking managers and one railroad industry professional concerning last week’s presentation about the Empire Builder, the service failure of the Hoosier State, train no. 318, and Amtrak costs and the Northeast Corridor. Here is what our correspondents had to say.
- “The other important point that contributes to the Empire Builder’s continuing success is that it is one of the only long distance trains that has not been regularly ‘messed with’ by corporate. The GM has been allowed to run that train as he always has and make improvements to the service on a continuous basis.
“Most of the other long distance trains have had cars reduced and then added back again, food improved and then made worse, sleeping cars put on and off, fares fooled with etc. … Customers can not count on the train being there nor can they count on the type of service that will be offered. As we both know, over time that really affects ridership and revenue.”
- “The train 318 questions are clear and concise. A holiday weekend, and where was Amtrak management? Busses would have been tighter than a tick to find, but I find it interesting the bus gets ordered rather late, but did Amtrak get a round-trip out of the busses? Monday would have been a Thruway motorcoach. I heard from a couple people that were on the trip, and now chant the standard mantra, ‘never again.’ I just don’t think enough employees took The Dale Carnegie course that Amtrak offered. Most that did take the course, don’t work for the company any more … is there a connection?
“Enough the routine Mickey Mouse, let’s cut to the chase with the splendid ‘Numbers’ [by Andrew Selden] that is clear and concise for everyone to read and understand. The ‘intermediate stations’ ridership and revenue is right on target. Thank you for clarifying the myth that the entire traveling public is going between city-pairs on long and medium haul trains. The captive passengers on intermediate stations are usually driven away at the phone level, with end-point inventory ‘methods.’ The intermediate passengers are just like a taxi, the more ‘flag pulls’ you make in a day, the more $$$, but that isn’t the perceived ambience the marketing folks want on trains. The Amtrak marketing people remind me of rental buildings, where the procedure is to fill them up (with leases once or twice a year) and forget them. Amtrak does this on a daily basis instead of semi-annual or annually.
“Amtrak’s reservations inventory methods are a guaranteed ticket to the poorhouse. I also want to point out California short haul trains had high intermediate station ridership, especially on the Los Angeles - San Diego route. The northern California short hauls were starting to develop this pattern early on, but the mandatory all-reserved trains slowed this down.
“Simply said, the Empire Builder has no exclusive on being a money mule for intermediate stations riders and revenue, only one train excluded … Auto Train.
“Intermediate station inventory ought to be a sieve to capture this revenue, but for three decades it has been keeping a plug in the drain to stop the money from flowing, except whatever leaks through. I know you prefer bashing the NEC, but this sadistic practice is uniform all over the system.”
- Oops! One alert Midwest reader pointed out that here in the Jacksonville nerve center of URPA, we’re not completely on top of our Amtrak geography concerning the placement of train no. 318 when its locomotive engineer ran the red signal and the train was stopped for nearly seven hours. It seems that Dolton, where the train stopped, isn’t in Indiana as we reported, but still in Illinois (the train departed from Chicago, Illinois), and Dolton is not 30-40 miles from Chicago as reported, but only a short 16 miles, which makes the service failure even greater. Our apologies for the mistake of not properly identifying the location of Dolton, Illinois.
- Finally, this came from a railroad industry professional, vexed about the high count of Amtrak personnel working on the infrastructure of the Northeast Corridor:
“Your comments are right on point. Regarding the costs of the NEC, take a look into this: Several years ago I asked how many people are employed in Amtrak’s Engineering Department and was told it was about 225. Then, for comparison, I called a friend at the BNSF and asked how many people they had in their engineering department. It turned out to be almost the same number.
“I made these two phone calls because I had a suspicion the figures would be roughly the same, even though Amtrak’s Engineering Department looks after roughly 600 miles of route while BNSF’s looks after more than 32,000. Remember, the only actual railroad property Amtrak owns is about 400 miles of the 457-mile NEC, plus the 109 miles from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, plus 70 miles of ex-Michigan Central between Porter, Indiana, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, plus Chicago Union Station and about 4 miles of approach trackage. On all of the rest of Amtrak’s routes, engineering is the responsibility of host railroads.”
Why does Amtrak require 200-plus engineering employees to care for 600 miles of route while BNSF is able to use the same number to care for 53 times as much mileage?
Now, it’s true Amtrak’s property contains some expensive hardware the BNSF’s doesn’t - overhead catenary and power-distribution systems, tunnels under the East and Hudson Rivers, aging, high-maintenance subterranean tunnels at Baltimore, a mammoth electrified yard at Sunnyside, high-speed, high-maintenance track, and some big, expensive stations - Penn Station, Washington Union Station, Chicago Union Station, along with smaller stations at Newark, Baltimore, etc.; it’s also true most of Amtrak’s physical plant is multiple-tracked while most of BNSF’s is single.
Nevertheless, BNSF is not exactly a toy railroad. In addition to its huge route mileage and even greater track mileage (now being expanded by the double-tracking of the Transcon), its engineers have to maintain several very long subterranean tunnels - such as Cascade, Stevens and Stampede Pass, along with a myriad of shorter tunnels, all of them at high altitudes in remote locations requiring major logistical resources just to move materials to the tunnel locations for maintenance. The company also maintains moveable bridges over the Mississippi at Ft. Madison and Burlington, Iowa, to name just a few locations, plus fixed bridges of considerable complexity at locations such as Canyon Diablo between Flagstaff and Winslow and the Colorado River bridge at Needles. Its track along Puget Sound between Seattle and Everett sits right on the beach, which means it must represent a challenging drainage problem, while the same track sits at the foot of cliffs that are subject to sudden mudslides that can close the right of way at any time. Much of the Seattle-Portland main line is subject to the same vicissitudes. Between Savanna, Illinois and St. Paul the company operates a busy double-track mainline that sits directly on the Mississippi flood plain for 282 miles and requires constant attention to drainage in order to maintain a safe surface and alignment. In addition, BNSF maintains huge classification yards at Argentine, Kansas; Galesburg, Illinois; Los Angeles; Seattle and Minneapolis; all of which represent major engineering challenges, as well as a growing number of large intermodal ramps which, while less complex than retarder yards, nevertheless require careful engineering in order to maintain the pace required for intermodal operations. Thousands of miles of BNSF route are in mountains traversed by heavy-haul coal and grain trains, requiring constant attention to rail wear on curves and other engineering problems. The Powder River coal lines are a major engineering challenge. What BNSF’s engineers lack in challenges posed by speed is more than offset by challenges posed by weight and volume.
So how come BNSF can take care of all of this physical plant with 200+ engineers while Amtrak needs the same number to take care of a 600-mile railroad? How much of Amtrak’s huge NEC costs are generated by the Engineering Department, and how productively and effectively are the employees of that department employed? It would be useful [to know] whether Amtrak is deploying its engineering forces in a way that meets current industry-wide standards. It would also be useful [to] ascertain the extent to which NEC engineering cost are being redistributed elsewhere in the system.”
- Me! Me! Me! seems these days to be the mantra of denizens of New York City and the editorial board of its leading newspaper, The New York Times.While the Times has done some good reporting on the morning rush hour NEC blackout of late May, the newspaper’s editorial board has published an editorial griping about the lack of funding for the NEC infrastructure and how terrible the few hour blackout was for the harried citizens of the metropolis.
It should be noted Amtrak has not yet determined the cause of the now infamous blackout, but it has been pointed out by Amtrak spokesmen the blackout likely was not caused by any facility that dated back to original construction in the Hoover era or lack of maintenance to current facilities. Until we know more, the likely scenario is that something simply failed by happenstance more than lack of maintenance or neglect. That scenario, however, is inconvenient for The New York Times editorial page, which took yet another opportunity to ask why the rest of the country is not coughing up yet more money for the mostly sole benefit of New Yorkers.
The Greatest City in the World, as New York styles itself, also known as a hotbed breeding ground for liberals and socialists and their ilk, seems to think that Amtrak mostly exists for the convenience of New Yorkers, and any heathens living to the South or West of Manhattan Island should be grateful to contribute to the upkeep of New York City. This was also demonstrated recently when Homeland Security grants were announced for next year, and New Yorkers were outraged that other smaller cities, such as here in Jacksonville, were given money for security at what they considered the expense of New York.
- One organization continues to cause Amtrak more problems each week. The National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), under the public leadership of Ross Capon, its Executive Director, claims to be a friend of Amtrak. What is really happening is NARP is so out of step with politics in Washington that it and Mr. Capon are doing more to hurt Amtrak than help it.Once again, Mr. Capon and NARP sent out another of an endless series of action alerts for its membership to contact members of Congress to vote favorably on Amtrak’s budget. That’s fine. But, yet again, and continuously, the term “shutdown budget” was waved as a bloody shirt for any dollar amount proposed by the Bush Administration and any dollar less than what Amtrak asked for in its federal budget request.
It’s pleasantly notable this budget season that without the drama and histrionics of mercifully departed Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn as displayed the previous three years, Amtrak management is calmly, professionally, and competently working the budget process to ultimately a successful conclusion.
The budget process is not always a pretty picture to watch, but there is a right way and a wrong way to participate in the discussion. Current Amtrak management, led by Chairman of the Board David Laney and Acting President and CEO David Hughes are demonstrating success with their requests. NARP, always ready to scream for more of other people’s money, keeps using the “shutdown budget” mantra, which is not only a complete lie, but a totally idiotic statement.
Even though the original White House OMB request was for $900 million (not a trifling sum by anyone’s standards), that budget was enough to completely run the NEC and national long distance systems operations for the year, plus meet Amtrak’s other corporate obligations. What $900 million would not accomplish is to continue to do upgrade maintenance on the NEC, which in no way would required the railroad to shut down. Once again, for those in the back of the classroom who have been napping, NEC maintenance of way has absolutely nothing to do with running Amtrak in the rest of the country. Operating and capital budgets are separate in the real world, and $900 million adequately covers operating needs.
It’s highly likely Amtrak will come into FY 2007 with at least $1.14 billion, as approved by the House of Representatives this week, or possibly more, as the Senate is usually a bit more generous with Amtrak free federal monies. Whatever the case, none of the end result will be a “shutdown budget” as espoused by Mr. Capon and NARP.
If NARP has any hope of be part of the adult discussion on national transportation policy, it needs to seriously consider what statement are made on behalf of its membership, and what direction the organization hopes to take to avoid complete irrelevancy.