We hear from the UTU that the contract of Amtrak’s President Joseph Boardman has been extended to 2013, leaving only the Amtrak Board incomplete for the upcoming year.

The Board is now more populated than at any time since the Clinton administration, but one opening remains. Representation of the West has been less than sparse in recent decades, and somewhat surprisingly comes news that both Senators from the State of California, and 24 of its United States Representatives, noticed this fact and sent a letter to President B. H. Obama, calling for the lone open seat to be filled by a Californian:

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

July 7, 2010

President Barack H. Obama

Dear Mr. President:

We write you today to urge you to consider a qualified individual from California with a clear understanding of the unique California Amtrak system as you make nominations for the remaining vacancy to the Amtrak Board of Directors.  Currently, no states west of Texas are represented on the board.

The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 states that the President shall “try to provide adequate and balanced representation of the major geographic regions of the United States served by Amtrak” when nominating members to the board.  As it stands, no such balanced representation exists.  The lack of geographical diversity on the board is contrary to Amtrak’s authorizing language.

California has the highest Amtrak usage of any state in the country.  In 2009, one in five of Amtrak’s 27 million passengers rode in California.  Three of the top six most traveled routes in Amtrak’s system are in our state.  In addition, California’s Amtrak system has a unique and highly successful partnership with the State, and California is likely to be the first to integrate the needs of high speed rail and Amtrak.  We believe that with seven voting members appointed by the President, at least one individual with expertise in California’s passenger rail system is warranted.

The role of passenger rail is as vital to the West as it is historic.  We urge you to consider Amtrak’s significant presence in California by nominating a qualified Californian to the Board of Directors.  Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

(signatures by the following)

U.S. Senators:  Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer

Members of Congress:  Jane Harman, George Miller, John Garamendi, Henry Waxman, Linda Sanchez, Jackie Speier, Zoe Lofgren, Mike Honda, Adam Schiff, Lois Capps, Jim Costa, Judy Chu, Laura Richardson, Bob Filner, Diane Watson, Brian Bilbray, Ken Calvert, Jerry McNerney, Grace Napolitano, Mike Thompson, Gary Miller, Dennis Cardoza, Lucille Roybal-Allard, and Loretta Sanchez

It is a testament to the many who have created the California rail renaissance that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are increasingly taking notice.

Looking eastward, the anticipated Sunset Limited service changes have neither proceeded, nor failed to proceed. The town of Maricopa (in Pinal County, not Maricopa County which contains Phoenix) has protested against a schedule change, on the not unreasonable grounds of public safety. The poorly designed depot there has a platform far too short for the Sunset to stop, so the train will stop once to change crews, move a hundred feet or so, stop for the first sleeper, move again, stop for the coaches, and so on. This can take ten or even twenty minutes, during which time the train blocks the state highway and bisects the town, isolating new homes from the fire department and causing large traffic jams.

The Arizona Rail Passenger Association passed  a resolution in support of daily service, but something needs to be done about Maricopa. Something like finding a way for the train to directly serve America’s fifth largest city of Phoenix, perhaps.

Now to the eastern seaboard, where there is excitement in Virginia over a new train which has received state funding. The Commonwealth seeks to create an entirely new route between Norfolk, and Petersburg, just south of Richmond, and on into the Northeast Corridor to Boston. You can read the Executive Summary at the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation site.

Norfolk, the huge military and industrial hub, is part of southeast Virginia’s sprawling Hampton Roads region, which includes major population centers on two sides of the James River and the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Included are Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Hampton, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, and Newport News. Any of these cities by themselves are larger than most stops in the Amtrak system. Newport News has always had Amtrak service, including two daily trains today. But, it takes an Amtrak Thruway bus connection to make it across the bridge into Norfolk.

John Lee writes us,

There is much to like about this proposal, but one key flaw.

A piece of railroad track owned by Norfolk Southern, which hasn’t seen passenger service since the 1950s when it was the Norfolk & Western Railway, will again be hosting a daily passenger train. The train will originate in the City of Norfolk, which itself by any passenger rail carrier has not seen service since well before Amtrak.

Norfolk at one time was a major passenger rail hub, especially during World War II when the Navy and other military were the predominant force in the Hampton Roads area. Norfolk had a large, grand station, which included an office tower above the head house. Sadly, that structure, when only about 50 years old, was destroyed in the name of urban renewal for downtown Norfolk in the destructive years of the 1960s, as was the fate of the Pennsylvania Station in New York City.

In the 21st Century, Norfolk is building a new station for new service. But, the flaw in the service being commenced by Virginia and Amtrak is the train will begin in Norfolk, and after stopping about 10 miles out at Bower’s Hill, travel non-stop, first west and then north — right through the highly populated city of Suffolk — to Richmond, the state capital.

Suffolk, a city of 67,000, is eleven miles west of Bower’s Hill but (according to Google Maps) a twenty-five minute drive away. The train also will pass through Windsor (population 3,000), Wakefield (a town of about a thousand, the “Peanut Capital of the World” and home of the famous Virginia Diner), and Waverly (population 2,300) without stopping.

There is an incorrect expectation that potential Suffolk passengers will drive east to take a train west and north. Under the current plan, all the population in the five farm counties – about 100 miles worth – between Suffolk and Richmond which have no other means of transportation other than surface road transportation and a couple small airfields, are ignored.

The two trains to Newport News will continue to operate, and enjoy intermediate stop business at the tourism mecca of Colonial Williamsburg. Petersburg will continue to have service for the Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Palmetto, and Carolinean. But, it is again going to be a classic example of “you can’t get there from here” for Norfolk and the surrounding countryside.

Virginia officials are enthusiastic about spending $93 million of Commonwealth  monies to start this service, and it’s a good start. They proclaim a second frequency will soon come, after the first frequency shows its chops, as the new service on the westerly Norfolk Southern line between Lynchburg and the Northeast Corridor has shown. But, the Lynchburg service, which is showing a profit (no state subsidies required since ridership and revenue is much above projections), also has the second frequency provided by the Crescent. The new Norfolk service is only one frequency in the beginning.

As this plan goes forward, and, so far, most of the plan has been sound, will Virginia and Amtrak entertain modifying their plan to allow other areas to provide local stations? Suffolk certainly is large enough to warrant a station, and at least one of the other towns along the route should be considered for a truly regional service.

For decades, people serious about passenger rail have clamored for more than one station stop in major metropolitan areas. In Florida, the Central Florida/Orlando area has four Amtrak stops in less of the geographic area than the new Virginia service, and all of those stops produce good ridership. Yet, just down the track, in Tampa, that huge area, comparable to Hampton Roads, only has two stops, and the rest are serviced by Amtrak Thruway busses. Tampa could easily support at least one more metropolitan area stop in Plant City.

“Build it and they will come” is true to a certain extent. The new Norfolk to Richmond to Boston service is a good start, and it should enjoy decent ridership. But, what is being left on the table? If at least two more stops were added, which would only add to operating costs in a minuscule way (It does cost diesel fuel to stop and restart a train), how much more ridership and revenue would be gained?

This is a state subsidized train, which means Other People’s Money is being used to start the service and maintain the service. When using OPM, it is always best to look at all possible scenarios to make every dollar spent work as hard as possible to create revenue to repay that dollar as quickly as possible.

Next time, we intend to look at Republican U.S. Representative Mac Thornberry’s call to allegedly save $1.2 billion over a decade by axeing Amtrak’s first class service.

Positive news for commuter operations, and ponderings on the future of high speed and intercity operations. But let us begin with two brief preludes; first, a short poem, called a “Grook” by its author, Danish poet and philosopher Piet Hein.

Thoughts on a Station Platform

It ought to be plain
how little you gain
by getting excited
and vexed.
You’ll always be late
for the previous train,
and always in time
for the next.

A second lead-in: a note on why we are all here. Marcus Garnet, of Transport Action Atlantic in Canada, writes in a Progressive Railroading internet journal,

What is commonly overlooked, is that time spent on a full-service long-distance train is also available for other purposes, including overnight sleep, meals, work, meetings, socializing or simply the enjoyment of scenery. Overnight train travel serves a transportation function, but also offers a total experience, especially for those who are able to afford a bedroom. These passengers do not just travel on the train, they live on the train. Whether for tourists or traveling Canadians, this is a vital market distinction from other land transport modes.

Mr. Garnet sums up many of our feelings and motivations for being passenger train advocates. Yes, trains are a vital part of our national infrastructure, but we want trains because of what they do for us personally, what they do for our friends and families and neighbors, what they do for our economy and our ecology. Trains are special and we need many more of them.

One last item, from the Inbox: Reader Ole Amundsen wrote in regard to the referenced article on VIA Rail Ocean Train Service:

The comments around this exceptional piece of work seem to be getting at the heart-wood of the rail passenger conundrum in this country. My positions come from being 70 years of age, nurtured by an old school conservative view of individual responsibility, educated in business and economics, and experienced in national agendas…

When Amtrak was started, I was only interested in getting the Montrealer re-instated so I could avoid driving from my new home in Vermont to family in Connecticut. It is easy to look back and say Amtrak should have been done differently: it has performed the task of “place holder” for passenger rail but that is about it. Those were dark days for railroads, but we are now in a very different world: then I paid 16 cents a gallon for fuel oil to heat my drafty Vermont farm house! Today, we have 75 million boomers aging out; they control about 75% of the nations wealth, they love to travel, they are fit but getting more prone to medical situations, they have “done it all” and want to continue to have adventures, they enjoy creature comforts and are enjoying being grandparents. This is not a market block to be ignored, it is not solely a market for “luxury train travel;” it is a major component of the traveling public which does not opt for speed alone, but which prefers reasonable mode frequency, reasonable adherence to published schedules, reasonable and clean accommodations, reasonable food, accessible and accommodating equipment and a minimum of hassle…

My friend, the late Paul Weyrich, had all the conservative credentials a person could have; and he was a strong voice for passenger rail and trolley (“light rail”) as well as integration of inter- and intra-urban service. This problem, this opportunity, must be addressed without falling back on old reasons not to, and [there must be a way we can] come together with fresh ideas on how to really run the railroad.

Now, on to the news.

The San Mateo County Times reported on 27 May that

Caltrain officials have convinced federal safety authorities to allow quick European-style electric trains to zip from San Francisco to San Jose… common in Europe, the smaller electric trains… [had been considered] unsafe. But after three years of tests and research, Caltrain will become the first railroad in the nation to use the technology after being granted a waiver… [this] will essentially be a pilot operation for the trains, called electric multiple units. If successful, commuter railroads and planned high-speed rail networks throughout the nation would have access to cheaper, greener and faster trains…

Even with several restrictions, the advent of modern equipment used successfully and safely for years elsewhere around the globe is a huge step forward for the implementation of regional rail lines around and between American cities.

For those who saw the Ayn Rand quote last week as being “the politics of the past,” we turn to Paul Merrion‘s article in Chicago Business this June 10th, regarding high-speed rail (emphasis mine):

In a move that reportedly “stunned” the rail industry, the Federal Railroad Administration last month proposed stiff terms for the grant agreements that railroads must sign with states to get funding to upgrade their rail systems… Among other things, the FRA said railroads must be required to pay, without limit, for any further improvements or fixes needed to meet on-time performance goals set out in the grant agreements, or else pay back the federal grants.Even Boston-based non-profit, National Corridors Initiative Inc., a high-speed rail advocacy group, questioned whether that is feasible.“While the objective of these guidelines — to protect the taxpayer against the (mis)use of their money when federally assisted railroad projects are built — is a valid one, the prescriptive, punitive nature of the proposed FRA regulations are and will be non-starters for any normal businessperson who has to carefully assess projects for risks to his company, or face the wrath of his stockholders,” the group said in a statement on its Web site…

The FRA holds over the railroads, not just the billions in high-speed rail grants effectively controlled by Amtrak, but also the impending imposition of Positive Train Control (PTC), a worthwhile safety and capacity improvement but one that will cost billions and take years. It is still not certain how much of PTC the railroads are expected to shell out of their own pockets. Is the Obama administration seriously going to require the railroads to pay any price so Amtrak can operate its government-funded high speed trains?

In parallel developments, concerning the Gulf oil spill, “Obama said he had no interest in undermining the value of BP” (Reuters story, 12 June 2010), but meanwhile “U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday BP should be subjected to unlimited liability costs and should pay all damage claims” (Reuters story, 11 June 2010). How can one impose unlimited liability without undermining industry? What person or corporation in their right mind would continue operating under those conditions?

(Caution: Ayn Rand reference follows; the timid may avert their gaze.)

In Atlas Shrugged, Rand populates her dystopia with officials who do not understand how the world works. Rand’s bureaucrats have only ever ridden, as a Mr. Guthrie would put it, “their fathers’ magic carpet made of steel,” never seeing the engineering brain-power and the technical muscle-power behind a railway, imagining that trains function by magic, that oil pumps itself, that commerce and industry exist in a mythical land of everlasting continuation unaffected by taxes, regulation, and legislation. Rand posits a government whose popular and well-intentioned enactments “for the public good” strangle commerce and industry, slowly as a gentle flurry at first, finally escalating to a murderous avalanche.

Arthur Laffer explained in the Wall Street Journal one June 6th why this neverland of perpetual sameness does not exist:

People can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies… It has always amazed me how tax cuts don’t work until they take effect. Mr. Obama’s experience with deferred tax rate increases will be the reverse. The economy will collapse in 2011.

Dire predictions of impending doom aside, will the Obama administration, having already started down the dystopian road (One of the characters in Rand’s 1957 book asks, When they nationalized health care, did anyone ask what the doctors wanted?), truly enact scorched-earth policies in one economy sector after another?  If so, look for oil and rail executives to be among the first to relocate to Galt’s Gulch.

Back in the high speed arena,

Amtrak announced it is reorganizing and establishing a new department to pursue opportunities to develop new intercity high-speed rail service in select corridors around the country…

“Amtrak is the unparalleled leader in high-speed rail operations in America today and we intend to be major player in the development and operation of new corridors,” said President and CEO Joseph Boardman…

– Amtrak press release, 22 March 2010

Aside from the omission of a word (does Amtrak intend to be a major player, or the (only) major player?), does it not sound as if Amtrak might be jockeying for a near-monopoly in high speed rail? Will we see a resuscitation of the dead corpse of its former monopoly over all intercity trains, moved to HSR? Prior to the passage of S.738, the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997, U.S. Code: US Code, Title 49, section 24701(b) read (emphasis mine): “Except as provided in section 24306 of this title, a person may provide intercity rail passenger transportation over a route over which Amtrak provides scheduled intercity rail passenger transportation under a contract under section 401(a) of the Act only with the consent of Amtrak.”

The “monopoly clause” indeed prevented state agencies as well as private companies from even talking to railroads about running passenger trains. Would Amtrak have approved trains like New Mexico’s RailRunner? Doubtful. Certainly not in the short time it took from its announcement to the first cue for the “Meep-meep!” of the RailRunner departure door chimes.

That provision having been rescinded, will the liability issue now be how private operators are forced out of business?

Perhaps echoing liability concerns voiced frequently by North America’s Class I freight railroads, Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman has cited similar concerns “emerging as a significant obstacle to the improvement of existing passenger rail service and the development of new, including high speed and intercity corridor, passenger rail service in the United States.”

Boardman, in a five-page letter to four congressional leaders dated Feb. 26, says in part, “The core of the problem is the unwillingness or inability of a growing number of entities, including states and other public bodies, to enter into the kind of agreements for risk allocation … and/or to purchase insurance at all or at sufficient levels …”

“Moreover, the attitude from a number of private parties and state entities alike seems to be that Amtrak, in significant part because of its federal funding, should assume the greater share or risk of liability.” That, Boardman warned, could curtail or terminate state-supported services Amtrak currently provides…

– Railway Age, 2 March 2010

Airlines are feeling a similar pinch. According to Susan Stellin in the New York Times, this 7 June, reporting from the first meeting of the Future of Aviation Advisory Committee, air travel will look much different within half a decade. Small cities will continue to lose air service, or at best will have ever-fewer flights at ever-higher prices, while some large cities with aggregated volume will see volumes above today’s and low prices from further rate wars.

…Glenn Tilton, United’s chairman, stated it more bluntly: “There are clearly going to be winning cities and losing cities,” he said, addressing the fact that the industry cannot sustain service to destinations that don’t have the passengers to fill planes…

High speed trains have the same problem as airplanes: They just do not serve enough places. California’s governor Schwarzenegger has proposed running a “high speed lite” train before he leaves office. Here is what Noel Braymer of RailPAC has to say in a letter to the Los Angeles Times:

According to the letter signed by the Governor, it looks like there are plans to run rail service between Los Angeles and San Diego by November in about 2 hours.  It looks like the new train would only have 3 stops at Los Angeles, Anaheim and San Diego. Just dropping the six other intermediate stops would save 30 to 36 minutes on the current schedule of 2 hours 40 minutes.

Generally express trains are not successful. By skipping stops such trains also loses the business from those stations. Amtrak has tried several express trains and they have all failed. A local example of this was the San Diegan Metroliner which ran for about a year starting in September of 1984. It rarely carried more than a busload of passengers. It lost the traffic the other trains carried from the skipped stations. There was only one train a day leaving Los Angeles for San Diego in the morning and returning in the afternoon. Saving 10 minutes wasn’t worth the extra money for passengers if the return train ran at an inconvenient time. Another problem with the Metroliner was most cities with train stations lost a train to run this new train. Many of these cities had gone to great trouble to build new or rebuilt their stations and had not been consulted about this decision. These cities were not happy…

Precisely this same scenario is playing with the English Javelin trains, the California HSR project, the Florida HSR, and soon coming to a minor city near you whose airport terminal will lose scheduled flights.

Looking back to Mr. Garnet’s thoughts about the vital market distinction of rail, clearly the nation’s towns and smaller cities, the ones left without air service, and nowadays without even bus service or anything at all, are the market for regular passenger trains. Even fifty or a hundred years of mangled government transportation policy cannot hide the basic utility and need of trains over cars and airplanes. The difficulty will be to create something that works more like a free market, replacing today’s lack of choice or hope for too many towns and people.

The way forward involves tort reform, reasonable liability caps, and getting government back to governing, not operating, passenger trains.  The same prescription holds for the freight railroads, the oil industry, even our highway and airway systems. This involves the dreaded “C” word — Change — and nobody much likes change; not lawyers, not unions, not management, not stockholders, and certainly not government.

We had better get started quickly.

On the right coast, some good news for the passenger rail manufacturing industry, and a lesson in perseverance. Around 1974 when I was in fourth grade my parents took me to a public meeting about Washington Metro. Even then, I loved studying maps; and one of the “future extensions” was to Dulles Airport. A mere 35 years later, that line may have a chance to finally be built — which is quite quick, really, compared to Boston’s extension of its Red Line past Harvard (proposed in 1912, with the Cambridge segment completed in 1985). In any case, here’s is part of WMATA’s press release:

Metro’s Board of Directors approved a contract today (May 27) to have Kawasaki Rail Car, Inc., manufacture 428 new generation Metrorail cars known as the Series 7000 cars at a cost of $886 million. The cars will address Metro’s number one safety priority to replace its oldest rail cars (Series 1000).Of the 428 cars, 128 of the cars will enable the expansion of Metro service on the Dulles rail corridor and 300 of the cars will be used to replace Metro’s oldest rail cars (Series 1000), which will improve safety and reliability of Metro’s fleet. The Dulles rail cars will be funded by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority…
The delivery schedule calls for the cars to start arriving on Metro property in 2013, and undergo a rigorous, months-long inspection process. All 428 cars are scheduled to go into service by 2016…. Kawasaki Rail Car, Inc., will manufacture the new rail cars in Lincoln, NE…

Kawasaki has built single and double level commuter railcars, as well as NYCTA subway cars, partially at the Lincoln plant with final assembly at Yonkers, New York. At least one factory in America will be busy for awhile.

Now to the left coast, where Democratic Congresswoman Anna Eshoo ponders in the San Francisco Chronicle what will happen to Caltrain’s nearly forty thousand daily riders in California’s anemic budget, even as plans for high speed trains in the same corridor proceed, threatening Caltrain on a variety of levels:

For many months, the people of the 14th Congressional District have been worried – and justifiably so – about what high-speed rail could mean to their communities. Now comes word of financial difficulties that threaten the future of Caltrain, the spine of the Peninsula transportation system and the little train that could, and does so much, to serve us…

The High Speed Rail Authority has to hit the reset button, improve its reputation and assuage Peninsula residents, who have every reason to fear that this project will be a nightmare…  We need to see what high-speed rail will do for us, not only to us. In other words, we need high-speed rail on the Peninsula to be a betterment, not a detriment. One of the betterments we expect is an improved Caltrain, and that is something that can be done right now…

Perhaps California will look at England’s “Javelin” trains, the long-anticipated high-speed commuter trains that only recently replaced a large part of the usual fleet of electric trains between London and the southeast Kent coast.  The Evening Standard reports:

The 140mph hour Southeastern trains linking Kent to London were launched with great fanfare [in] December [2009]… [the fleet of] 29 Japanese Javelin trains were expected to be embraced by commuters as they cut an hour from the London-to-Dover route…

But [train operator] Southeastern has now halved the length of six of its trains because not enough people are using the services following complaints they are too expensive and uncomfortable. The fares cost a third more than those of conventional trains….

Commuters have complained the trains only take them to St Pancras and they then must cram on to “normal” Victoria or Cannon Street-bound services, which have been reduced to accommodate the Javelin trains.

Commuter John Cherry, from Chatham, said the new service had proved a “disaster” for many.

He said: “Passengers for Victoria lost their peak period services and now pack on the remaining reduced services or the Cannon Street services as people do not wish to go to St Pancras.”

Another traveller said passengers have “rebelled against being forced to use an even more expensive service with uncomfortable trains which terminate in a place no one wants to be…”

This is exactly what could happen in California if new high-speed trains bypass many existing stations and run to a new terminal that does not connect to BART and Muni properly. One could also maintain the same thing has happened with Acela from its inception.

Finally this week we look at the wonderful world of Amtrak-o-nomics. Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute wrote on June 1 of a “Developing scandal at Amtrak” –

I served on the Amtrak Reform Council ten years ago and was frustrated, ultimately, by the failure of the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress to press harder for changes to Amtrak that would have made that entity more transparent in its finances and more collaborative with the private sector…

The Bush folks knew we needed reform, but couldn’t deliver it, and wouldn’t fund the transition to a public-private partnership. The Obama people are prepared to spend plenty, but not to reform the system.

Now we are seeing the public beginning to a scandal of unknown proportions at Amtrak. It broke in the Washington Times today.

The scandal could be the grounds for a true new beginning in passenger rail. America needs rail, not just as an alternative choice to roads and airplanes in carrying freight, but also in carrying people on many inter-city corridors.

The article to which he refers is from the Washington Times via Mass Transit Magazine, and titled Amtrak ‘Misled’ Congress on Finance

When Amtrak assured Congress it was on a “glide path” to free itself of federal subsidies early last decade [2001], a handful of top executives secretly had reason to know better. In fact, the rail service was on the verge of bankruptcy.But Amtrak’s public assurances were based on far more than overly rosy financial projections… What authorities ultimately unraveled was that two former Amtrak officials, in fiscal 2001, either booked false or incorrect accounting entries in Amtrak’s monthly financial statements or failed to report the activities.

Mr. Chapman sees hope in this adversity, and perhaps there may be some; but let us remember that “Amtrak accounting,” like “military intelligence,” is at best a questionable subject.  If you have not recently read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, please hasten to your local library or bookstore for a copy. This tome of over a thousand pages is well worth the reading, or re-reading. Published in 1957, and focusing on American national politics and economic structure, it recounts the tale of a Dagny Taggart who struggles to keep her family’s transcontinental railroad afloat against a tide of socialism and nationalization, and a Hank Rearden who invents a revolutionary steel-replacing metal only to encounter the same destructive forces.

In the book, Wesley Mouch’s Steel Unification Board is proposed to lift the heavy restrictions previously imposed on Rearden, with a Plan explained by the government representative:

“Our Plan is really very simple,” said Tinky Holloway, “…every company will produce all it can, according to its ability [with all earnings collected and assembled by the government]; at the end of the year… [we will] distribute these earnings by totaling the nation’s steel output and dividing it by the number of open-hearth furnaces in existence… The preservation of its furnaces being the basic need, every company will be paid according to the number of furnaces it owns…”

Rearden, who heads the nation’s only remaining innovative steel-making plant, retorts:

“Well, let me see,” said Rearden. “Orren Boyle’s Associated Steel owns 60 open-hearth furnaces, one-third of them standing idle and the rest producing an average of 300 tons of steel per furnace per day. I own 20 open-hearth furnaces, working at capacity, producing 750 tons of Rearden Metal per furnace per day. So we own 80 ‘pooled’ furnaces with a ‘pooled’ output of 27,000 tons, which makes an average of 337.5 tons per furnace. Each day of the year, I, producing 15,000 tons, will be paid for 6,750 tons. Boyle, producing 12,000 tons, will be paid for 20,250 tons… Now how long do you expect me to last under your Plan?”

You may recognize here the accounting basis for Amtrak’s “Route Profitability System,” which derived from the federal Interstate Commerce Commission’s formulas for determining passenger train profits and losses.  Amtrak, in a 1997 National Association of Railroad Passengers meeting, admitted that revenues were pooled, and expenses were allocated to trains “subjectively” [sic].

In this as in every instance where Karl Marx’s “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” has been applied, the doom of failure is not far off.

Case in point: My apartment complex sends me a water bill each month. The total number of gallons used by the complex — for each apartment, plus the pool and irrigation — is added up, and divided by a formula involving the square footage of each unit and the number of registered occupants. This means that if I do my part and conserve water, I am punished because my parsimony is a microscopic fraction of the total, so I am charged effectively the same amount; yet if I squander water and let it run all day, my bill is again hardly unchanged. Clearly, then, the incentive is to waste water.

The manager of an Amtrak train is faced with the same quandry. Carry more passengers and you are allocated a much larger share of expenses, even though your revenues increase only slightly. Ideally you would carry zero passengers, because then your train would have zero expenses on an allocated basis.

Is it any wonder Amtrak has gone precisely no-where in its almost forty years of existence?

Please do read Atlas Shrugged, for we will be looking at it again quite soon.

Meanwhile: The moment someone says, “Don’t worry, I’m from the government, I’m here to help!” is the moment you should look for the exit.

National Train Day passed uneventfully in Phoenix. Union Station, the mission-style depot turned fortress, protected by its tall prickly steel fence painted cactus green, was immune to invasion by curious passers-by. No-one rode a train through the station, except one hobo who waved from the end platform of a covered hopper — all freight trains must now traverse the lone remaining passenger track, the bypass line having been removed a few years ago.

A man with a camera lurked in the shadow, afraid he might be asked for identity papers by Homeland Security, as a dry scrap of newsprint talking about transit cuts and tax hikes scudded across the broken concrete remnants of the platform.

Somewhere, Fred Harvey, whose ghost long ago departed the station’s mahogany-and-brass news-stand with its eight-by-four-foot lead-lined humidor still scented with the ever-fainter aroma of Havana tobacco, turned in his grave. Amtrak, the nationalized passenger railroad, deserted the station for America’s fifth largest city nearly fifteen years ago, with hope of its return having been repeatedly crushed.

Meanwhile at Dallas Union Station, Russ Jackson of the United Rail Passenger Alliance witnessed a healthy station in an upbeat city.  North Texas is booming with new and extended programs from streetcars, light rail, commuter rail, and Amtrak intercity rail.  Train Day in the Metroplex showcased all these, attracting people of all ages were to Dallas Union Station and to the Intermodal Transportation Center in Fort Worth:

On display at Dallas Union Station were the 1931 M-180 Doodlebug in Santa Fe colors that years ago worked the line to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and a heritage Pullman sleeping car, both now housed at the Museum of the American Railroad at nearby Fair Park.  That museum is now under orders from the city to vacate the property, as it is underfunded and the land is needed for other purposes.  The museum intends to move to nearby Frisco when funding is obtained.  The successful TRE commuter line, that runs from Dallas to Ft. Worth displayed a train set of a newly repainted F59PH locomotive and two bi-level Bombardier (UTDC)-built coaches.  Inside the historic station were staffed displays from the successful DART system, which is undergoing the same financial crises as in other cities, and the new under-construction Denton County “A- Train” commuter rail line, a model railroad club, music, face painting, etc., and the Texas Rail Advocates who were selling souvenir t-shirts and whistles.  Where was Amtrak?  They had a full staffed display table across from their ticket window, giving away packets of information including the timetables that would be out of date two days later.  The new ones “were in the back somewhere,” but would not be available until they go into effect.  And, Amtrak 821, the southbound Texas Eagle arrived in Dallas 30 minutes late with 3 coaches, Diner-Lounge, Dining Car, and two sleeping cars (one of which is the crew dorm as well). That day was not one of the thru trains that connects with the Sunset Limited, but everyone we talked to is anxiously awaiting news as to when daily service through the West to California will begin.  After loading and unloading, #821 quickly departed for Ft. Worth..

Thirty miles away in Ft. Worth Amtrak had several of their cars on display from the Heartland Flyer pool, and, like Dallas, had the packets and drawing tickets for travel on the Texas Eagle.  The BNSF had a locomotive on display and employees there to answer questions.  The Union Pacific displayed the newly painted 2010, the Boy Scouts of America commemorative locomotive, and North Texas Historic Transportation displayed their NTT interurban and had information about the proposed City of Ft. Worth Streetcar Circulator.  TRE trains came and went through the station, the southbound Heartland Flyer arrived, the northbound and southbound Eagles arrived and departed, there was music, face painting, and the Texas Rail Advocates were there as well.  Yes, there is a “rail presence” in the Metroplex, and while there is much to do and finances to do it are getting scarce, the foundation has been laid.

The Dallas station, despite its perfectly suited location, is crippled by having only three platform tracks, because city leaders who renovated the facility in the early 1980s believed Amtrak when it said that would be enough for any conceivable future needs. The station once had at least ten through tracks, an upper concourse perpendicular to the tracks with stairs to each level for quick and safe passenger flow, and a freight-and-baggage subway. DART’s trolleys now serve the station, which is good, but in a way that precludes restoring platforms that would be needed for Dallas to act as a proper hub for regional trains. A little engineering and a lot of hard work could rectify the situation but it’s yet another roadblock that could have been prevented. Vigilance today resolves tomorrow’s problems.

Keolis moves closer to taking Virginia trains from Amtrak

The Washington Post on 11 May reported that the company soon to “take over operation of Virginia Railway Express trains from Amtrak wrapped up its first month of nationwide recruitment efforts as it prepares for the June transition.” VRE’s press release says operation will begin July 1 of this year.

Keolis Rail Services America is a division of Keolis, “a significant operator of tramways as well as operating bus networks, funiculars, trolley buses and airport services” according to Wikipedia; Keolis is owned by a group that includes SNCF, the French railway.

Coast Starlight group pushes plan for better service

The Coast Starlight Communities Network (“a coalition of various interests with the goal of protecting and improving rail service between Washington, Oregon, and California”) has prepared a whitepaper describing the route, how trip times have increased by several hours since Amtrak’s founding, and what can be done to improve the train’s ambience and appeal, and expand the purpose of the train. A positive attitude like this is key to getting results.

We hear this week from our Bruce Richardson who wrote the following just before (according to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette), “Democrats on the state Controlling Board voted 4-3 along party lines to approve spending $25 million in federal stimulus money to complete final engineering and design work on” Ohio’s Three Cs corridor this Monday.  This is a wise investment, giving planners the opportunity to prove the plan’s worthiness: “Future support from GOP lawmakers on the panel will be crucial. State law requires a supermajority vote for capital improvements on passenger rail development…” reports the Journal Gazette, so lawmakers will have the opportunity to weigh the merits of the complete design before committing to construction.

This is a welcome development; Mr. Richardson explains why:

Oh, Ohio.

By Bruce Richardson

It’s a mad, mad, mad world in Ohio right now for rail fans, who for decades have been agitating for the creation of the Three Cs corridor. The rail fans are “this close” to having the Three Cs corridor recreated, tying Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati together in one passenger train run after the feds opened the treasury and doled out $400 million in free federal stimulus monies to create the route.

Currently, Cleveland has dreary nocturnal service in each direction courtesy of the Lake Shore Limited and the Capitol Limited. Cleveland has a metropolitan area population of 2.25 million, yet Amtrak passengers entraining and detraining only total 39,371 for fiscal year 2009. Cincinnati fares even worse, with only three days a week nocturnal service provided by the Cardinal. Cincinnati’s metropolitan area is almost as large as Cleveland, with an area population of 2.15 million souls. Hardly anybody notices the Cardinal in Cincinnati, with only 14,777 FY 2009 passengers entraining and detraining.

Columbus isn’t even on Amtrak’s map. The metropolitan area population is 1.77 million, not a small city.

The plan is to right this wrong by creating a four round-trips day train between the three cities and Dayton, with some extra stops along the way. Here’s the problem: Ohio’s governor wants to do this, Ohio’s Department of Transportation wants to do this, and the feds want to do this. But, the majority party in the Ohio state senate doesn’t want to do this, and some members of a state commission which ultimately have to sign off on this don’t want to do it, either.

The naysayers say thanks very much for the $400 million, but what about the small state matching money and funds for operating the trains? They are afraid Ohio will be in the same position as charity recipients are on that silly ABC Television reality show, Extreme Makeover Home Edition: Some goofy looking guy with bad hair who for whatever reason nobody can figure out has become a celebrity hands you a nice gift, but you can’t afford to keep it up or pay the taxes on it year after year. So, rail fans in Ohio are gritting their teeth, and can taste the new Three Cs corridor it’s so close. All of this comes down to convincing just less than a handful of people of the wonders of intrastate passenger train travel, and the Three Cs will be a reality.

The question must be asked: Has anyone educated these recalcitrant public servants about other state success stories? Have they quizzed their next door neighbors in Illinois about how successful those state trains are? Did they take a look at the country’s most important state, Virginia, and see how in just the first quarter of operations of the new Lynchburg train, the state paid no operating subsidy in the second month to Amtrak because ridership and revenue passenger miles were so successful? Did anyone consult with North Carolina, home to the country’s most enlightened state department of transportation on rail matters about how to run state-subsidized passenger trains successfully so the subsidies remain low or nonexistent? What about California, and its giant, successful state rail program?

All of this boils down to education and the proper presentation of facts. Most likely, Ohio politicians are relying on past Amtrak studies, such as last year’s Three Cs report, which predicted low ridership and high expenses, as Amtrak always does to prevent later finger pointing claiming the company was too optimistic. Instead of doing their own homework, they incorrectly relied on the work of someone else. Had they done their own homework they probably would have come up with a completely different set of numbers and been able to make far different decisions.

Another point of contention is the alleged speed of the proposed trains. The alleged forces of evil claim the overall speed is too slow for the money being spent. visions of high speed trains dance in their heads. Nobody told these folks about incrementalism, using relatively inexpensive conventional rail such as found in the Three Cs proposal as a building block and later feeder system for high speed rail.

The war in Ohio will continue until someone figures out a way to educate these politicians about the realities of passenger rail and the promise passenger rail holds for a balanced transportation system in the future. Until that day comes, Ohio will be a state of highways, not a state of transportation choices.