Volume 4 Number 28
- So very many misguided people and organizations constantly repeat just one refrain about Amtrak: “Give Amtrak enough money and everything will be fine.” Such ignorant drivel.
The fight for Amtrak and the future of passenger rail in America goes far beyond propping up a company - really, a child of government masquerading as a quasi-private corporation - that for its entire existence has been rife with bad management making bad decisions, political compromises that haven’t satisfied anyone, and a demoralized workforce that often not only doesn’t understand customer/passenger service, but seems to work in the opposite direction. Sure, just give all of this mess more money and every problem will be solved. Uh, huh.
Amtrak suffers from a nearly non-functioning skeletal national system, poor equipment maintenance, and a constant attitude that any problem can hold on long enough for next year’s batch of free federal money to come flowing into Amtrak’s coughing coffers.
Amtrak has often operated with no tangible credit facilities in the national money market, and it has often suffered through long periods where even locomotive fuel suppliers have gone unpaid, and then cutting off service. During certain periods, even company cell telephone service has been cut off for unpaid bills. Much of that financial silliness seems to be gone now, departing with former regimes that had no clear understanding of the real world.
- Who are the people who can fix Amtrak? There are lots of choices of fixers, but the great majority of them share one common denominator: they probably haven’t spend much, if any, time riding an Amtrak train outside of the Northeast Corridor, and have no real, clear understanding either of what Amtrak does, what it is capable of doing, and what can be accomplished with a little vision and some goal-oriented managers.
One longtime Capitol Hill insider, when posed with the question, “… taking just a ballpark educated guess, out of a total of 100% of elected officials on Capitol Hill, plus relevant staff who advise on Amtrak and/or freight rail matters, and the relevant folks at DOT and FRA, what percentage of these people have probably ridden an Amtrak train outside of the NEC?” responded by saying, “I would guess except for the top cadre at FRA, it approaches zero (unless the person in question is from a corridor area like Chicago or California). Single digits at best.”
What this response indicates, is the ignorant refrain “just give Amtrak more money and everything will be fine” has no real meaning to Amtrak’s bankers and owners (Congress and the United States Department of Transportation). Amtrak coming hat in hand every year to ask for more money just means another request, another political compromise.
Add the constant drumbeat that Wondertrain Acela is Amtrak’s flagship route, and future of the company, and not only does tunnel vision come into play, but a completely skewed view of Amtrak emerges that has no relationship to the rest of the country outside of the Northeast.
Keep in mind, since Acela is an “invented here” program for Amtrak, and previous disastrous stewards of Amtrak literally bet the farm (and came perilously to losing it; far more than many people understand) on Acela’s success, much of Amtrak management still adheres to the discredited theory that Acela and its ilk will eventually make the company stronger, instead of weaker by the day because of the financial drain which is caused by Acela and the necessary infrastructure to keep Acela running.
Adding to all of this are allegedly important national writers and other misguided opinion makers hawking their personal dreams of high speed rail and how it will save the environment and have other miraculous outcomes, and you have a very confused group in Washington trying to understand passenger rail and what is good for it and what isn’t good for it. The reality is, until America again has a mature conventional passenger rail system which is robust and self-sustaining, then no investment in any type of high speed rail will be attractive to any realist with a checkbook, even he public’s checkbook.
- How do we cut through all of this noise and misinformation, and help decision makers come to real conclusions about Amtrak and the future of passenger rail?
First, we demand accountability. Any project, be it public or private, if it can’t stand the transparency of accountability is just a rathole for someone else’s money.
Second, we take a long, serious look at history, and figure out what worked, and what didn’t, not using the rose colored glasses of nostalgia, but the real facts of public passenger appeal, needs met, and practicality. In the process, we come to the realization the era of the complete future of transportation relying on the jet airplane and multilane expressways is coming to an end, and a new generation of Americans, now in their 20s and 30s, who had no idea passenger trains were every privately operated, want to explore all travel options, beyond small airplane seats and steel cocoons barreling down highways.
Third, we seriously educate the decision makers, be they Amtrak’s internal planners and board of directors, Capitol Hill staffers and their bosses, US DOT and Federal Railroad Administration managers and staff, and various national opinion makers, which all of those groups just mentioned relay on for valid information. In the process, we also educate the news media so they will write stories beyond “Amtrak, the beleaguered national passenger railroad, will chug down the track for another year because it has received a new federal subsidy.” All of these people must have more than a rudimentary understanding of passenger rail, and how it works, beyond selling coach seats on the Northeast Corridor.
Fourth, we seriously engage the host freight railroads in a discussion which will have an outcome that will include: a) meeting the needs of the freight railroads to service their money making customers, and b) meeting the needs of Amtrak to run a full schedule of trains ANYWHERE in the country that can reasonably support passenger rail service and not disrupt the critical function of delivering freight by rail in this country.
Fifth, we start to educate state and local government about the potential and importance of passenger rail as part of our domestic transportation network. Once state and local highway and transportation planners come to the realization passenger rail is not only beneficial, but desirable for the public, then that group will become some of passenger rail’s strongest supporters.
Sixth, the travel and tourism industry must be re-engaged to sell passenger rail travel as a desirable, money-making concept. Many of today’s travel agents, meeting planners, and other travel and leisure industry leaders not only don’t understand Amtrak, but they have been rebuffed by Amtrak to be full partners in selling Amtrak seats and accommodations. Hotels that willingly offer 24 hour a day pickup and drop off service for guests at airports, won’t even consider picking up a guest at an Amtrak station, simply because they not only don’t understand who Amtrak passenger are, but they probably don’t even know Amtrak serves their city or town.
- There are, of course, a number of other things to be done, but the list above serves as a good starting point. Until at least the education level of people in Washington holding the purse strings improves, Amtrak will never be regarded as anything beyond yet another federal program which needs to be funded every year along with thousands of other federal programs, each which receives about 10 minutes of overall attention before the next item is considered.
Amtrak, and the United States of America deserve better than what now exists in the form of passenger rail. One single company, often with a skewed vision and horrendous management has poorly framed the future of passenger rail, and worried more about how many employees work in a dining car than creating any new trains to meet pent up demand. We can - and, must - do better.
- Speaking of dining cars, an enterprising URPA associate recently ran across the web page for the Canadian National Algoma Central passenger train, and made this report.
Contrast the following to the “We’ll open when it suits us and serve you as we please” performance of Amtrak food service cars, where available. This is from the web page for the CN “Algoma Central” Agawa Canyon Tour Train. Their opening time is one hour before departure of the train.
Meal Service
Full meal service is available and depending on size of train, there will be one or two dining cars located in middle of train consist.
Continuous service is available from 7:00 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. and includes breakfast, hot and cold lunches, picnic box lunches, cold drinks, coffee, tea as well as beer, wine and mixed drinks (alcoholic beverages are available after 11:00 a.m. Personal alcohol is prohibited by law).
Breakfast Service: Seating is available at 7:00 a.m. on a first come basis. Once Tour Train departs depot, and in order to accommodate breakfast rush, passengers will be called to dining cars randomly by Coach Number. Please listen for P.A. announcements.
Lunch Service: Service will be available immediately after last breakfast seating and seating is come as you please.
Cafe Car Service: For your convenience Cafe Cars (dependent on train size) will be located near both ends of train. Service includes hot and cold beverages, light lunches and snacks.
- Last week, we spoke of trolleys and transit in TWA. Distinguished former Amtrak board member Paul M. Weyrich, now the Chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, wrote one of his organization’s daily columns this week about the resurgence of trolleys.
Free Congress Foundation Commentary
Oregon Iron Works — Let the Revival of Streetcars Begin!
By Paul M. Weyrich
July 03, 2007
There was a small victory for America last week. It went unnoticed. Still, it is important and has a great future. What am I referring to? The Oregon Iron Works, a company known mainly for defense contracts, won a contract to build streetcars for the new line in Portland. The line would travel toward the business district, in the direction of Mount Hood. It would consist of a few cars but represents the first order of new streetcars in America since the 1952 order of new PCC cars for San Francisco, built by the St. Louis Car Company.
President Conference Committee (PCC) is an effort to develop a modern streetcar. The first streetcar rolled off the assembly for a Brooklyn line in the mid-1930s. Currently, the PCC operates in four cities, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia and Kenosha. A single car operates in other cities.
As late as 1970 the United States had three American streetcar builders for subway, commuter rail and streetcars. All were closed. The era of electric rail in America was over. Wrong. Whereas there were only seven cities with streetcars today there are more than twenty. The number of cities with subway systems has grown from five to twelve. Several systems have placed orders for new commuter rail cars and several other cities are considering modern streetcars. Unfortunately, all orders have gone to Italy, Germany, Japan and other foreign nations.
Congress, following the demise of the United States railcar companies, passed a “Buy American” Bill. Fifty percent of railcars built by foreign firms must have half the parts manufactured within the United States.
This has been a thorn for American transit officials because they could not place their orders with American firms. It is not that rail cars built within America were a problem — indeed some of the cars built as early as the 1950s are still operating. It is that the prospects for new orders have been few and far between.
It could not be known that just a few years later the revival of electric railways and diesel commuter rail cars was to begin. The revival began in Edmonton, Alberta but Edmonton had to turn to Germany for its first set of railcars.
When the rail revival hit America in San Diego in 1981, again German made railcars whisked passengers from the Santa Fe station in downtown San Diego to the Mexican Border at San Ysidro. City after city implemented so-called light rail service: Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Jersey City, Buffalo and so on. There are modern lines in Portland, Seattle, Tacoma and Washington, D.C. All orders have been placed in the Czech Republic.
Another dozen cities such as St. Louis and Minneapolis are considering modern streetcars. These cities use what is often referred as Heritage streetcar lines. In other words, older streetcars. The first cities to have such lines, Detroit and Seattle turned to England and Australia for their fleets. The United States has a manufacturer of replica Heritage streetcars. Charlotte, Little Rock and Tampa have American built Heritage cars. Gomaco Trolley Company of Iowa completes such orders.
But Gomaco must turn to Milan, Italy for electrical components. Some cities such as Memphis, have entire fleets which consist of three lines of foreign-built cars.
The majority of cities considering streetcars would choose a modern streetcar. That is the significance of the Oregon Iron Works contract. These cities will now have an American company which might bid on orders for new cars. There are light rail systems yet to be built, such as, Norfolk, Virginia, which might turn to Oregon iron, as a light rail car is just a souped-up streetcar. We need an American company to build subway and commuter rail cars.
It is hard to imagine any other business which all but died has come back as strongly as rail in America. Here is a toast to Oregon Iron Works. May the Portland contract be just the beginning!
Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.