This Week at Amtrak 2006-10-12
Volume 3 Number 41
- When you think of Amtrak, in what context do you think of Amtrak? To you, is Amtrak your local commuter carrier in the Northeast or in California? Is Amtrak your provider of long distance train service when you go to visit your grandchildren? Is Amtrak your substitute for an interstate highway for a short business trip?Amtrak is many things to many people. One common thread is that Amtrak often does not live up to people’s expectations.Those of us who are old (and perhaps wise, too) enough to remember private passenger rail service, depending on the era we remember, recall trains full of well-dressed travelers, Pullman dining cars with gleaming silver and china, and full meals freshly prepared.
Those of us who have traveled abroad, know of other state-run passenger railroads; some, such as VIA Rail Canada, which provide a morally admirable level of consistent service, and others, such as in Europe that provide something between routine and exceptional service, but almost always punctual, with clean and well maintained equipment.
Because private railroads in the United States lost a war for passengers in the mid 20th Century with Detroit and interstate highways, Amtrak was euphemistically formed as a replacement. A mindset was erroneously formed by many that because of this, passenger railroads MUST be a child of government. These same well-intentioned but ill-informed people point their collective fingers at Europe and Japan and say “Aha! Their passenger railroads are government owned, too, so that must be the correct model to follow.”
The United States was the only major industrialized nation in the world to emerge from World War II with its internal infrastructure unscathed. Private enterprise was the basis of this country’s wealth and power, and government assistance wasn’t needed to help rebuild war torn railroad infrastructure as in most of the rest of the world. The reality is, it was American foreign aid which rebuilt the railroads of the world after WW II. Here at home, a number of factors were coming into play which made for a fascinating time to be a railroader.
Physical plants were being rebuilt and upgraded after the rigors of war time traffic. New equipment was being developed to carry larger and longer loads. Necessary highways and roads were being built that made expensive and lightly used railroad branch lines unnecessary. American railroads after WW II began the long and correct journey from serving every small town and burg to becoming streamlined trunk railroads which concentrate on what railroads do best: hauling heavy traffic over long distances efficiently and cheaply. Since the early days of steam and wagons placed on steel wheels, nothing has come along that has accomplished what the railroad can do as efficiently and for less cost.
All of this brings us to the 21st Century. Dozens of American main line railroads have been consolidated into seven Class I railroads, two of which are Canadian owned. Corporate fist fights between competing railroads have evolved into occasional snits which are mostly resolved either in courts or by regulatory bodies.
For the most part, government has mercifully gotten out of the railroad regulation business (as compared to the first three quarters of the 20th Century). Railroad unions, once the titans of the organized labor world, are shadows of themselves, as are the ranks of unionized employees.
Progress has been made everywhere in the North American railroad world … except at Amtrak.
Amtrak, in 2006, is still a Washington political football, and a highly monitored child of government. It can’t even fire a misbehaving CEO without someone calling Congressional hearings.
While all of the private freight railroads, and most of the government controlled regional commuter railroads continue to grow and prosper, Amtrak is able to do nothing to add to its route structure and service levels without a state government coughing up funds to pay for localized trains.
Even something as mundane and necessary as restoring the Sunset Limited east of New Orleans can’t seem to happen until some politico probably lights a fire under Amtrak.
Amtrak has a new president and chief executive officer, who, as of today, has been working for a month and a day. Already, some impatient people on the Left Coast are wondering why he hasn’t said anything new and exciting and is continuing to spout the company line.
What can a new CEO do in just a month? Has his staff even finished gathering all of the information he has probably requested so he can start making decisions? Has he even had a chance to fully evaluate his staff so he knows who he is going to keep, and who is shown the door?
Amtrak is woefully behind the times in terms of passenger railroads of the world, and freight railroads in North America. Amtrak’s under-sized board of directors (the Senate still has not acted on the new nominees, lo these many weeks since their nominations) has taken a greater interest in the well-being of a national system than any other previous board.
There is a chief steward of Amtrak who owes nothing to the Northeast Corridor, and gratefully knows little about transit and commuter operations.
Patience is the order of the day. There is a lot to do. Everyone knows Amtrak cannot continue as it is today, and has been for the past 35 years.
Amtrak has great potential, and is full of assets. Someone has to have the will to catalog those assets and determine how best to use them, without constantly relying on someone from Congress or the United States Department of Transportation telling them how to allegedly run a successful passenger railroad.
We’re all waiting, some of us more patiently than others.
- Wondering what new Amtrak President Alex Kummant is facing as he enters his second month of service? Here’s a narrative that points out so very many wrong things about the way Amtrak does business.
This goes back to last Saturday [October 7th], but it’s taken this long to ferret out some details.
At around 6:00 P.M. on October 7th, Amtrak Wolverine Train 352 (7), originating in Chicago, with NPCU AMTK 90222 and AMTK 128 [locomotives] struck a trespasser three miles west of Jackson Michigan. Track speed is 75 mph and the train was operating at 70-75 mph. The trespasser was on the right-of-way outside of a grade crossing and was dead at the scene.
Train 352 was held at the location 2 hours and 53 minutes for investigation of the incident.
Train 355, coming in the opposite direction and headed for Chicago, was held at Jackson, then released and held short of the location for open track. But its final arrival into Chicago was over six hours late. What happened?
The Chicago engineer on Train 352 usually works to Battle Creek, Michigan, then works back home on Train 355. But (1) the coroner was going to hold Train 352 for the investigation anyway, and (2) the engineer on Train 352 requested relief [as is often the correct choice when a fatality occurs]; so there was no engineer to take over 355, and even if the engineer hadn’t requested relief, the delay to both trains would mean that even had the swap been made right there, he would run out on Hours of Service before reaching Chicago (the normal run is 10 hours and this wasn’t exactly a “normal” day).
Amtrak’s crew caller in far-off Wilmington, Delaware apparently thought otherwise, estimating that after all was done, Train 355 would just barely squeak into Chicago before the engineer’s time ran out. Then somebody changed his mind for him, and a frantic call went out for a relief engineer.
All MIGHT have gone well, but the crew van which is supposed to take the engineer to the train couldn’t be located, and the engineer has to try and bum a ride from a manager instead. That doesn’t work and the van finally shows up just as Train 355 stops and is held at Porter; its power had cab signals not in a STATE OF GOOD REPAIR so it wasn’t allowed to run at normal speed. With 355 running so late, its engineer’s hours would have run out prior to reaching Hammond, Indiana, leaving the train blocking a main track on Norfolk Southern’s busy line; so NS did not allow it onto their property.
Meanwhile the crew van finally gets underway. The van driver claims he has no money and the van doesn’t have EZ-Pass, and thus can’t use the toll road, so he goes by the Dan Ryan Expressway, which on weekend nights has only one lane open, with the resulting multi-mile traffic jam. It took 1 hour and 37 minutes for the relief engineer to get to the train.
OOPS! The crew caller forgot: the conductor, who came on at Pontiac, Michigan, now has 15 minutes less time to go on his Hours of Service than the trip to Chicago will take, even under the best circumstances. The train gets underway anyway and reaches Hammond with some further delays due to heavy freight traffic. When the train reaches Hammond, there is still no relief conductor.
Train 355’s crew contacts Amtrak and advises that the conductor will run out on Hours before reaching Chicago Union Station … in fact, before leaving Norfolk Southern territory. Amtrak tells them to proceed; when the conductor’s time runs out, the engineer is to continue by himself on the authority of Amtrak management.
What’s wrong here? IT’S NOT AMTRAK’S RAILROAD! When Norfolk Southern hears this, their dispatcher makes no bones about it: “NOT ON MY WATCH, NOT ON MY RAILROAD!” The signals stay red and Train 355 sits and waits most of another hour, until a yard conductor was sent out to the train to take over. Train 355 (7) finally arrived in Chicago at approximately 4:00 A.M. on October 8th. It was due in Chicago at 9:54 P.M.
And, that’s what happens when a major railroad, such as Amtrak, tries to save a few bucks of the budget by not having enough extra board employees to cover contingency situations.
Does everyone reading this know, or have known, someone who always seems on the verge of crisis? Someone who the least little incident causes a major disruption in their lives because they live from paycheck to paycheck, with never any savings, an old car, and no ability to get ahead?
That is the situation Amtrak has placed itself because of a host of poor business decisions through the years, and the disastrous policies instituted by the Transit Trio of bad chief executive officers of Tom Downs, George Warrington, and David Gunn.
When Amtrak stopped under the Transit Trio’s tenure behaving like a responsible railroad, and started acting like a transit organization that only focused on short corridors, is when Amtrak got into deep hot water.
Time and again, it has been proven that Amtrak’s future is in money-making long distance trains which are cheap to run and have the highest earning potential versus short corridor trains. (For further details, see the URPA website at http://www.unitedrail.org.)
When Amtrak realizes what resources are important to invest in (such as adequate crews), and what is required for good passenger satisfaction, then horror stories like the one above will stop.
Until then, Amtrak is going to be like the poor soul we all know that just can’t seem to get ahead and every little incident is a crisis.