Here in the South, we take our railroads as seriously as anyone along the Northeast Corridor, we just do it with our own money instead of constant raids on the federal treasury.

It has often been said there are only two types of Americans – those from the South, and those not fortunate enough to be from the South. It was one and a half Southerners which saved the railroad industry in 1980, when Georgian and then-President Jimmy Carter signed the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, named after Congressman Harley O. Staggers, (Democrat, West Virginia) who was chairman of the powerful House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee.

Congressman Staggers may claim to be half of a Southerner, as he was from West Virginia, or, the Breakaway Counties as many true Virginians refer to the counties which were maliciously torn from the loving bosom of Virginia in 1863 during the unpleasantness of the Late War of the 1860s.

United States Secretary of War Edwin Stanton of the Lincoln administration was an instigator of the indignity of the Breakaway Counties forming a new state because he feared Washington, D.C.’s lifeline to the West, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which ran through the northern part of what today is West Virginia, would fall into the hands of gallant Confederate forces. To ensure the B&O would remain in Union hands and Washington would not become isolated (he also feared Southern sympathizers in Maryland), Secretary Stanton manipulated events to form West Virginia, a state formed because of a railroad. Much of today’s present route of Amtrak’s Capitol Limited runs on those same former B&O tracks, now CSX tracks.

It’s ironic that just a year before, in 1979, the Carter administration gutted much of Amtrak’s long distance system, eliminating such trains as the National Limited, Floridian (Amtrak’s only direct Chicago-Florida service) North Coast Hiawatha, and others.

President Carter and Chairman Staggers’s elimination of much of the unnecessary federal regulation of the railroad industry by the creation of the Staggers Act saved the railroad industry as we know it today from extinction. The post war years of the late 1940s and 50s were good to the railroads because of a booming national economy, gearing up to serve a suddenly wealthy and war-starved populace which wanted everything “now.”

By the 1960s and 70s, reality was setting in, railroads had contracted merger fever, and fewer and fewer railroads survived and both logical and illogical combinations came to be.

Two combinations still pondered today are the basis of today’s CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway.

CSX is a result of the initial merger of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which had near-parallel routes from Richmond, Virginia south into Florida, and southwest to Atlanta, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama. Nearly simultaneously, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which used to call itself “George Washington’s Railroad” since some of the survey work done in his early days eventually benefitted the C&O, was busy taking over the B&O and other regional railroads.

Norfolk Southern is a result of the initial combination of the Southern Railway System and the Norfolk & Western Railway. The N&W was mostly a stepchild railroad of the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad (the Standard Railroad of the World as the Pennsy liked to style itself) and served Virginia with a mainline to Cincinnati, Ohio, with lots of lines branching out to Maryland and North Carolina. The much larger Southern, headquartered in Washington, D.C., was a more far-flung railroad which served Virginia southward to Northeast Florida, but had lines west to New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis, with equally strong north/south service between Chattanooga, Tennessee and Cincinnati.

Even today, some historians are wondering why a more strategic combination wasn’t created, such as the Seaboard, with a strong system throughout Florida, pairing with the Southern instead of the Coast Line (or vice versa) and the remaining road picking up the N&W, which was primarily known as a coal hauling railroad.

While today there is a healthy competition in the South between CSX and NS, one cannot help but wonder, “what if?”.

All which brings us to today and South by Southeast, a project of Armstrong Atlantic State University, part of the University System of Georgia in Savannah, Georgia.

Armstrong Atlantic State University offers a College of Education, College of Science and Technology, College of Liberal Arts, and College of Health Professions, none of which would be classified as powerhouses in the academic world of transportation.

The school (www.armstrong.edu) says this about itself on its web site:

Situated on the Atlantic coast in beautiful Savannah, Georgia, Armstrong Atlantic State University is a dynamic public university known for excellent arts and sciences along with outstanding professional programs. With approximately 7,600 students, Armstrong is small enough to foster a genuine sense of community and large enough to offer more than 100 academic programs that prepare our graduates for success in their careers and leadership in their communities. Armstrong is part of the University System of Georgia.

And, then, there is South by Southeast: A Passenger Rail Feasibility Study. From the South by Southeast web site page (www.armstrong.edu/Initiatives/passenger_rail_study/train_about) we have this:

South by Southeast is an organization set up to link universities and their corresponding communities in an effort to address the American social need of an appropriately strong public transportation system. University systems are well positioned to study and advance civil projects for the greater social good. They have dedicated, motivated and educated faculty within a broad range of disciplines and areas of interest and students eager to make meaningful contributions to their communities.The purpose of this website is to help organize interested faculty, students and community members in advancing public transportation in Georgia.

Under Projects you will find a list of potential research topics that we believe to be the starting points for developing a viable passenger rail line linking Savannah, Macon and Atlanta. It is our intention that each project should provide the researchers with a conclusion that offers a meaningful contribution to the advancement of Georgia’s public transportation as well as other initiatives taking place across the nation. We plan to post regular updates of ongoing research and the conclusions of completed projects in this section. We also encourage researchers to publish any work associated with these topics in other academic and professional journals that will be acknowledged here.

Scholars and community members should also feel free to visit us on Facebook to identify other research projects, or make comments useful to our goal of improved public transportation and economic development in Georgia.

In short, they want to recreate the route of the Nancy Hanks, famously of the Central of Georgia Railway, which operated as a “Diesel powered coach streamliner” between Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah on just a hair under a six hour schedule.

What are we experiencing, here? Something that is all good.

We have a university taking leadership, committing its various resources, engaging faculty, students, and outsiders to study the return of a named passenger train within state boundaries.

Note: They are NOT doing this in cooperation with Amtrak, but, on their own volition.

Interestingly, they are publicly seeking private project sponsors for various parts of their endeavors.

There is nothing about this project not to like.

Here’s the fun part: a restored Atlanta-Macon-Savannah link will create an incredible new city pair matrix for the Amtrak long distance system, linking Florida service trains with the Crescent.

Examples: with new links in Savannah and Atlanta, passengers could, by using Florida service trains, at long last travel between Atlanta and Florida.

When the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad was still delivering trains from Chicago to Florida via Atlanta and Waycross, Georgia to Jacksonville for pickup by the Florida East Coast Railway, the Atlanta-Jacksonville running time was about eight hours. If a new Nancy Hanks can still make Atlanta-Macon-Savannah in six hours, plus the current two hours and 20 minutes between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida, that schedule isn’t much different in running time than schedules were in 1956.

The possibilities here are many; the excitement of a group of academics taking the bull by the horns and creating these possibilities is outstanding.

Who else in the country will take up a similar cause?

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Crain’s Chicago Business is reporting a deal has been reached in Washington for funding of Amtrak (among other things) for the remainder of the year.

Gone is any money for high speed rail; $100 million had been proposed by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, but that has disappeared. Senator Durbin says he will look for replacement money in other government accounts.

Crain’s also says the House and Senate conference committee has approved $1.438 billion in fiscal 2012 for Amtrak, down from $1.5 billion is fiscal 2011. The cuts are from operations and not capital spending. In the process the conference rejected a proposal from House Republicans which would have prevented Amtrak from using any federal funds to help states pay for state-supported routes. Before there is an alleged national panic, if you do the math, you’re talking about a difference of $62,000,000 out of nearly one and a half billion dollars, an amount easily dealt with in any overall budget.

Allegedly, that proposal of not having any state supported routes paid for with federal funds would have caused a shutdown of nearly all state supported routes, but, by rational analysis that would not have happened. Since the state contracts are supposed to make up any difference between ticket revenue and actual operating costs, how could there have been any state supported services being paid for by the federal subsidies, inquiring minds continue to want to know? Many feel this was yet another “woe is me” smoke screen by Amtrak and its enabling organizations.

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In other news, Amtrak on Monday, November 14^th put out another meaningless press release about how much market share it commands along the Northeast Corridor. Since the press release only contains ridership numbers and does not include load factor numbers, the only true measure of success for anything other than commuter trains and transit operations, the press release gave no pertinent or hard information.

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One bit of shocking international passenger rail news from the BBC came on Tuesday. The BBC is reporting alcohol could be banned on Scottish trains. Alcohol is already banned by ScotRail and the British Transport Police on certain specific services, such as travel to and from rugby and football games. The document making this suggestion, according to the BBC says, “One of the most distressing ways to spend a rail journey is to be subject to the bad behaviour of other passengers.

“This can be fueled by excessive drinking of alcohol”

It adds, “Consideration is being given to whether there should be a ban on the consumption of alcohol on all trains in Scotland and we welcome views.”

The BBC says a spokesman for the opposition Labour’s transport, Lewis Macdonald said the report was “jam-packed with crack pot ideas” that threatened to “reverse the growth in rail usage since devolution.”

Other measures being considered are raising fares and eliminating sleeper car services.

Gil Carmichael, former FRA Administrator during the Bush I years, and former Chairman of the Amtrak Reform Council, as well as the Founding Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver has started a new series of reports, entitled the Gil Carmichael Report, Investing in Interstate 2.0. The reports are free, informative, and a must read for anyone serious about the future of railroads in the United States. Contact the report distributor at geoff@jdmandassociates.com for your very own copy.

J. Craig Thorpe, noted Amtrak and railroad illustrator is available for all railroads, railroad-related companies, and organizations for his dramatic illustrations on a custom basis. Mr. Thorpe’s impressive gallery of work and contacts for engagement may be viewed on his web site, which is listed below.

Ah, the agony and tragedy which has befallen California, the golden state.

High speed rail blues have set in with the heavy thud of reality.

New cost projections and business plan have been unveiled, much to wailing and gnashing of teeth over the new projected costs.

When California voters, being California voters who often believe money grows on trees, approved a high speed rail project in a statewide referendum in 2008, just before the full impact of the Great Recession was being felt, the price tag was $33 billion.

Hey! Many people said, the feds are going to pay for a big chunk of this, and we all know that’s not real money out of our pockets, so let’s have a new, shiny, high speed rail system!

Oops! The new estimate – and, it’s still only an estimate, just like the initial projections of Boston’s infamous Big Dig were – is now $98 billion, triple the initial estimate.

That’s all before the first shovel of dirt has been turned, and none of the lawsuits against the project trying to stop it or reroute it away from various NIMBYs are settled.

So, the California public seems to be wisely turning against this turkey and are having second thoughts. Just about every newspaper in California except the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle are editorializing against proceeding, wisely so.

Ken Orski, in his usual good work, has a full essay on the subject in his always informative Innovation NewsBriefs, Volume 22, Number 31, dated November 13, 2011. You can access all of Mr. Orski’s work at http://www.innobriefs.com to read more. Keep in mind, once you start reading his work, you will want to follow every word.

Here in warm, sunny Florida, our beleaguered Governor Rick Scott looks like a genius for killing Florida’s proposed high speed starter system between Orlando and Tampa to the southwest. Everything the governor predicted could come true with Florida high speed rail has already come true in California.

One other California high speed rail project not many are talking about in this process is the DesertXpress, a private company hoping to use public money loans to build a high speed rail system from Victorville, California, in the middle of the desert, to Las Vegas, Nevada.

The business plan calls for convincing Southern California drivers to drive east to Victorville, going through the worst of the heavy traffic between Southern California and Las Vegas, park their cars in Victorville, and then board a high speed train to whisk them to Las Vegas. Of the five hour drive between Southern California and Las Vegas on heavily traveled I-15, the worst of the traffic is between the Los Angeles area and Victorville, From Victorville into Las Vegas, it’s all open road at high speed.

No one has explained why the founders of the DesertXpress seem to believe drivers will abandon their automobiles after the worst part of the trip and then spend money to travel on a high speed train the easiest part of the trip.

The DesertXpress plan calls for an eventual connection to the rest of California’s proposed high speed system after it is built. Now that the California system is in jeopardy, you have to really wonder why anyone would continue to promote the DesertXpress. It easily could become another desert white elephant; a curiosity for future historians to wonder why it ever got as far as it did before it fell over and died from the weight of illogical choices.

If the main California system goes away and the DesertXpress system slows as a result, that makes life easier for other conventional rail projects now being planned for Southern California to Las Vegas.

Andrew Selden had this thought about the $6 billion California wants to start spending on high speed rail: “Imagine what you could do with $6 billion for the conventional passenger rail system in California; it could become the strongest in the country.”

Indeed, it could.

Two decades ago, there was a great debate in Southern California over the beginning of Metrolink. Tens of millions of dollars were spent acquiring private railroad right of way in and around Los Angeles and environs. Plans were drawn and implemented to upgrade the infrastructure into some of the finest in the world for passenger rail. It’s a beautiful system, and a sight to behold because public dollars were wisely spent on a not-too-ambitious system which built upon existing infrastructure and merely made things better and smoother running.

Metrolink continues to be a great success today, and created a template for other cities and regions to follow.

Reports have come that Ross Rowland has put his Greenbrier Express project on hold. The plan calls for service from major northeastern cities to the swank Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. The Greenbrier Express was expected to have a regular schedule, but not a daily schedule.

The cited cause for the suspension of the project, according to a story in The Mercury newspaper of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where the car refurbishment work was being done for the Greenbrier Express, is over-regulation by the federal government. Mr. Rowland said the Federal Railroad Administration has too high of standards for crash-worthiness if the cars were in an accident.

According to the story, the project isn’t dead, but is being reevaluated.

Many of you are familiar with Mr. Rowland as a former member of the Amtrak Board of Directors, and as the creator of the American Freedom Train. He was also involved in a project to attempt to bring steam locomotives back to mainline railroading.

Is all of this doom and gloom for private passenger service? Nah, it’s just a natural shaking out of projects, some of which never should have been started in the first place.

There are still enough other projects around the country in the works which will keep things going.

As long as we’re talking about surprising turns of events in the past few days, we have to include the change of direction Chairman John Mica of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has taken about change of ownership of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.

Chairman Mica had correctly said everyone would be better off if the NEC was not under Amtrak ownership, but ownership of another agency of the federal government and then the operations put out to bid.

The usual firestorm erupted from the New Jersey cabal of politicians and their cohorts who all believe Amtrak must be the owner and operator of the NEC so all of the local transit agencies who use the NEC daily (and, more than Amtrak) can continue to have sweetheart deals regarding the cost of infrastructure and maintenance and suck the economic life out of Amtrak in the process.

Mr. Mica said there was little support in Congress outside of his committee to do the deal, so he changed course, and is now supporting Amtrak ownership of the NEC and hopes to steer even more money to the NEC to upgrade it to what he calls true high speed rail.

Depending on who the next and/or continuing occupant of the White House is may ultimately decide this for good.

Gil Carmichael, former FRA Administrator during the Bush I years, and former Chairman of the Amtrak Reform Council, as well as the Founding Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver has started a new series of reports, entitled the Gil Carmichael Report, Investing in Interstate 2.0. The reports are free, informative, and a must read for anyone serious about the future of railroads in the United States. Contact the report distributor at geoff@jdmandassociates.com for your very own copy.

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J. Craig Thorpe, noted Amtrak and railroad illustrator is available for all railroads, railroad-related companies, and organizations for his dramatic illustrations on a custom basis. Mr. Thorpe’s impressive gallery of work and contacts for engagement may be viewed on his web site, which is listed below.

“Vice President – Passenger Services” is a title which may be returning to the corporate roster at Florida East Coast Railway. Yet another major railroad is more than flirting with the idea of operating passenger trains; this time, South Florida commuter services for Tri-Rail between West Palm Beach and Miami, and possibly northward along the Florida coast above West Palm Beach.

The Palm Beach Post reported in today’s editions officials with the FEC and the Florida Department of Transportation have been talking in secret – so secret, even members of the Tri-Rail board of directors were unaware of the talks.

Tri-Rail, currently operated under contract by Veolia Transportation between West Palm Beach and Miami, is routed over former Seaboard Air Line Railroad/CSX tracks which run parallel to the FEC tracks, but to the west in suburban areas parallel to mega-laned Interstate 95. The FEC tracks were the original railroad tracks in South Florida, opening South Florida for development early in the 20^th Century. In those pre-historic, pre-air conditioning days, the vast majority of development in Florida was along the coasts, taking advantage of refreshing ocean breezes for relief from the broiling heat. The Seaboard didn’t arrive until the 1920s during the Florida Land Boom.

If Tri-Rail abandoned the former CSX suburban area tracks in favor of FEC’s tracks which go directly through a number of downtown cities such as West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, it is likely the federal government would demand repayment of a $275 million federal grant which paid for adding a second set of tracks in 2006. A longtime proposal on the table has been for maintaining the current former CSX trackage, but adding the FEC trackage and simultaneously expanding Tri-Rail northward on the FEC to reach coastal counties north of Palm Beach County and areas such as the town of Jupiter. The expanded system would form an upside down “Y” in shape, with West Palm Beach being the only interchange between the two legs of the system.

The Palm Beach Post story says it is likely legislation will be introduced in the next session of the Florida legislature when it meets in early 2012 to allow private firms to bid on the entire operation of Tri-Rail, perhaps completely usurping the current structure. As part of the awarding of the bid to run an expanded system, the winning company would have to agree to operate the system at a price below the current taxpayer contribution.

The cost of operating Tri-Rail has been in the news the past three years on two fronts. There has never been a dedicated source of state funding for Tri-Rail; the system has been operating on a combination of contributions from the federal government, state government, and three local county governments which host the system. Farebox revenue is only about $11 million a year. Contributions from the three counties total $13 million, the State of Florida kicks in $30 million a year, and the balance comes from the federal treasury. Typically for a mass transit/commuter system, farebox revenues are a low contributor to operating costs. Numerous attempts to fund Tri-Rail through a local $2.00 tax on rental vehicles in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties have repeatedly failed.

The second thing shoving Tri-Rail in the spotlight has been the attempt by Florida Governor Rick Scott to use Tri-Rail as an example of everything wrong about passenger rail commuter systems, citing the cost of Tri-Rail as an excuse not to go forward with Central Florida’s SunRail system. That argument eventually failed, and SunRail is now in a development phase, with the system scheduled to be up and running at the end of 2013.

Can one, single, proven, private operator run an expanded Tri-Rail better than a governmental-run system? Tri-Rail says it already has privatized 80% of its operations by bringing in Veolia Transportation to run the system for a seven year, $64 million contract, and Bombardier Transportation to take care of rolling stock maintenance, also on a seven year contract, for $90 million. Tri-Rail itself is overseen by the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, a governmental body.

The FEC is part of RailAmerica, owned by Fortress Investment Group, which manages $44 billion in investments. The FEC, which runs 351 miles down the Florida coast from Jacksonville to Miami via St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Titusville, Cocoa, Melbourne, and Stuart, has struggled with profitability during the past months. Overall, however, it is part of a rock-solid entity which counts its money in billions, not millions. Even before being acquired by RailAmerica, the FEC for decades has been considered to be a well-run and profitable railroad with good operating ratios and savvy management. It interchanges in Jacksonville with both Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation.

Politics in Florida for years have skewed towards privatizing as many state functions as possible, and the possible privatization of the operation of Tri-Rail fits the mold Governor Rick Scott is trying to use for many areas of public entities. The governor, elected in November 2010, had never held political office before his election and holds very few political allegiances, even within his own Republican Party. He has constantly confounded politicians and voters of both parties in Florida with his autocratic style of governing and outward disdain for the news media and public opinion since his inauguration in January of this year.

FEC tracks are the only tracks available northward from West Palm Beach for future Tri-Rail expansion into the heavily populated coastal area. CSX tracks north from West Palm Beach take a sharp westward turn, skirting the north short of Lake Okeechobee, and then head up the middle of the state. The Palm Beach Post article says if Tri-Rail expands to the FEC, plans call for the FEC to add two new tracks to its existing 100 foot wide right-of-way to accommodate Tri-Rail operations. The FEC is currently expanding its South Florida footprint through enhanced intermodal and yard facilities to accommodate expected larger freight loads from the wider ships which will be transiting the soon-to-be-completed, newly enlarged, Panama Canal.

An interesting note is both Veolia Transportation, current contract holder and operator of Tri-Rail, and RailAmerica, the parent company of the FEC, are members of the Association of Independent Passenger Rail Operators, the Washington-based lobbying group formed to promote private operation of passenger trains.

Would, perhaps, the FEC, recognizing the professional body of knowledge held and used by Veolia, simply subcontract the actual operations to Veolia, as Veolia now operates the existing part of Tri-Rail, and the FEC find its profits elsewhere? There have been no passenger rail operations over the FEC since before Amtrak Day on May 1, 1971, and, as professional as the management of the FEC and RailAmerica is constantly shown, it’s doubtful a completely new area of expertise would be ramped up from scratch.

The Palm Beach Post article pointedly refers to the huge opportunities in real estate profits the FEC would accrue by running new Tri-Rail trains down its tracks. A lucrative part of the FEC before its purchase by RailAmerica was its real estate operations, often tied directly to railroad right of way. That real estate has been transferred in most part to another part of RailAmerica, but is still in the corporate family. It’s a given real estate values boom around commuter rail stations, and FEC/RailAmerica/Fortress could make several new fortunes exploiting real estate along the commuter rail route.

When railroads think globally, often passenger rail can fit into an overall investment/planning strategy which fully exploits all facets of the business, as the FEC is demonstrating with this exercise.

The hostility of the past demonstrated by freight railroaders not wanting any interference in the operations of freight trains and hotshot intermodal trains is being tamed by a new generation of senior railroad managers focused on making profits from every possible source as opposed to protecting the freight railroad franchise at any cost. While the freight railroaders are still extracting a high and specific price for operating passenger trains on their right of way, including restrictions on high speed passenger trains, they are not ignoring the potential profits of passenger trains while balancing the benefits against the headaches.

And, one final note. The proposed expansion of Amtrak up and down the FEC is not a dead issue. The State of Florida has committed the requisite millions of dollars to make this expansion happen; the hold-up is the federal government share. Considering these crisis economic times, it may be a while before that much-needed expansion takes place. Perhaps, when a more robust economy returns to Florida, that state may be able to fund all of the FEC expansion, without help from the federal government. Of course, at that point, it may be an all-FEC passenger operation, with interchange and connections in Jacksonville with Amtrak.

Gil Carmichael, former FRA Administrator during the Bush I years, and former Chairman of the Amtrak Reform Council, as well as the Founding Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver has started a new series of reports, entitled the Gil Carmichael Report, Investing in Interstate 2.0. The reports are free, informative, and a must read for anyone serious about the future of railroads in the United States. Contact the report distributor at geoff@jdmandassociates.com for your very own copy.

J. Craig Thorpe, noted Amtrak and railroad illustrator is available for all railroads, railroad-related companies, and organizations for his dramatic illustrations on a custom basis. Mr. Thorpe’s impressive gallery of work and contacts for engagement may be viewed on his web site, which is listed below.

What were those allegedly crazy guys at the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida doing in 1970 running all of those long, passenger-filled trains every day of the week?

Didn’t they know passenger trains were doomed money losers, and objects of scorn and ridicule throughout the railroad world?

Didn’t they know allegedly infallible David P. Morgan, famed scribe of Trains Magazine had already published in April 1959 his article, Who shot the passenger train? and had officially pronounced the passenger rail business dead and gone for all of the wrong reasons?

Didn’t they know the junk science created by the late Robert R. Young during his days at the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and the New York Central Railroad had proclaimed passenger were only good for short, daylight runs?

What were these guys thinking? (And, all guys it was; after all, this was 1970.)

What else was going on at this point?

In 1956, just 14 years prior, Congress created the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, and by 1970, the system was nearing full service.

December 20, 1957 marked the introduction of the Boeing 707 jet airliner; Pan American World Airways had the first Boeing 707 passenger flight the next year in October 1958, inaugurating the then glamourous world of jet travel.

In 1966, the Post Office Department (the postal system did not become a separate operating company instead of a cabinet department until during the Nixon administration, which would not take office until January 20, 1969) started moving the mails also by truck and airplane, beginning a phasing out of moving mail primarily by trains.

Penn Central Transportation Company, successor to the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad, began merged operations on February 1, 1968.

On December 31, 1968, the Pullman Company ceased all sleeping car operations, and sleeping cars were then operated by the individual railroads which chose to continue the premium service.

On January 1, 1969, the heavy and oppressive hand of the Interstate Commerce Commission forced the PennCentral to absorb the former New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, commonly known as the New Haven, into its system, creating a giant crippled railroad in the Northeast which served a constantly dwindling industrial base and set it up for failure and bankruptcy sooner than later.

In 1969, thanks to NASA, man landed on the moon, fulfilling a destiny promise of the late President John F. Kennedy.

In 1970, Congress passed, and President Richard Nixon signed into law, the Rail Passenger Services Act, creating the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, which for a short time was known as Railpax, but ultimately became known as Amtrak.

Amtrak would not commence operations until May 1, 1971.

The railroad industry-saving Staggers Act would not appear until 1980.

So, here we are in 1970, and SCL is running all sorts of trains to and from Florida, and appears to be doing so willingly.

Seaboard Coast Line changed its passenger timetables twice a year, to accommodate at the time the still high winter season for snowbird tourists and what at that time was still the slower summer season in Florida, which was not fully air conditioned in what now seems those primitive times. Walt Disney World Resort’s Magic Kingdom near Orlando, Florida would not open for visitors until October 1, 1971, four months after Amtrak commenced operations.

In 1970, Miami/Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale in South Florida on the Gold Coast were the principal tourist destinations, and the Tampa Bay area on the west coast of Florida was primarily an industrial center and a retirement area. Silver Springs in Ocala in the central part of Florida was also still a popular tourist destination.

All of these areas were served by the Seaboard Coast Line. To Miami from New York City, the Seaboard ran the Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Florida Special, City of Miami, and the South Wind, both of those last two trains handed off by the Illinois Central and PennCentral, which originated them in Chicago.

For Florida’s west coast, the Champion provided service from New York City to Tampa, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg, with separate sections operating down to Naples and Venice. A west coast section of the Silver Star also found its way to Tampa and St. Petersburg, as did west coast sections of both the City of Miami and South Wind.

These were not end-of-private-passenger-train-era consists, but, full, long consists with usually more sleeping cars than coaches, full diners, full lounge cars (full lounges for coach passengers, and half sleeping car/half lounges for sleeping car passengers), plus baggage and crew dormitory cars.

Some of these trains were as long as 14 to 18 cars, some as short as 10 to 11 cars, which were long trains by today’s standards.

A typical consist of the Silver Meteor was five sleeping cars, an economy sleeper, a diner, three coaches, and an observation lounge car, plus a baggage/dormitory car.

On the seasonal, exclusive Florida Special, passengers could choose from six sleepers, a diner for sleeping car passengers only, three coaches, a diner for coach passengers, and what SCL called a recreation car. A baggage/dormitory car was on the front end. An ad for the Florida Special in SCL’s December 1970 timetable proclaimed “The Champagne Train Rides Again!” and extolled the virtues of the train such as “… you’ll enjoy a candlelight dinner with free champagne [one can only presume domestic champagne; this was for coach passengers]. The menu includes such delicacies as roast beef au jus, and charbroiled steaks. En route, you’ll see a Florida fashion show featuring our attractive hostesses. Watch a good movie, or your favorite TV shows. Play bingo. Join in an old-fashioned sing-along. Or even call home. Yes – there’s a telephone aboard.”

Seaboard Coast Line was still operating four other passenger trains, too, a truncated coach and baggage cars Palmland from New York City to Columbia, South Carolina, and the by then misnamed Gulf Coast Special from New York City to Jacksonville, Florida and the Everglades also from New York to Jacksonville. The Gulf Wind, ancient predecessor to the missing Amtrak Sunset Limited between Jacksonville and New Orleans was still operating every day with sleepers, coaches, and a diner.

By 1970, the passenger service on the Florida East Coast Railway was principally gone, after the company’s crippling union strike in 1963 that lasted until 1977. The FEC had a large fleet of stainless steel, streamlined passenger cars it provided as part of the equipment pools for the former Miami-bound trains of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. After the strike began in 1963, ACL would reroute its Florida trains over the rival tracks of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad south of Auburndale, Florida until the 1967 merger of the SAL and ACL, when the tracks became SCL tracks.

Once the FEC stopped operating passenger trains, it sold almost all of its passenger equipment to other railroads, with some of it ending up in Canada, too. Both the Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line bought former FEC equipment and integrated it easily into existing rolling stock rosters.

So, in 1970, a decade before the Staggers Acts of 1980, a year before the commencement of Amtrak, SCL was not only running passenger trains, it was running them with gusto.

SCL was (and still is, with its successor company, CSX Transportation) a for-profit company, with its stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It had two legal obligations: make the highest lawful return on investment for its stockholders, and it must run passenger trains over its system until the Interstate Commerce Commission determined through its byzantine regulatory system those trains no longer served the public good or a public purpose, and could be discontinued.

The ICC never dictated those trains had to be up to 18 cars long and use white linen tablecloths in the dining cars. The ICC never dictated those trains had to carry more sleeping cars than coaches. The ICC only said SCL had to run trains. It left the details up to the free market and the financial stewards of the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad.

So, why all of those long, long, full service trains between New York City and Florida and Chicago and Florida?

Maybe, because there was a passenger demand for those trains and they made a profit?

Maybe, because the folks who were denizens of the 15^th floor of the SCL headquarters building in Jacksonville who had the large suite of offices in the southwest side of the building with “President’s Office” on the door to the suite thought it was a good idea to make money by fully utilizing existing assets?

Keep in mind in 1970, while things may have seemed cheap compared to today, they weren’t by any stretch of the imagination.

Onboard services union crews were at full complement – one car attendant for every car, which translated to a single coach attendant for 44 passengers. Dining cars were at full staff, and Seaboard’s best trains carried passenger service agents as well as nurses, too in addition to the train and engine crews.

The T&E union crews were still operating under arcane steam era rules; a work day for T&E crews was only 100 miles, so there were numerous T&E crew changes through the route. The E-unit and F-unit diesel locomotives were much less powerful than those of today; and it took a string of three to five locomotives, each with a boiler to generate mechanical steam heat for the passenger cars, to pull the trains at speed over jointed rail. There was no head-end power for the train; each car produced its own by generators powered by turning wheels feeding batteries.

Technology of the day wasn’t much advanced beyond World War II era technology. There were computers in use at SCL, but only in a special department using huge tape drives and punch cards which took up entire sections of the headquarters building. There were no desktop computers.

Communications for the trains was by radio, but the radios resembled huge bricks hung on a belt compared to today’s pint-sized communicators.

The most common piece of technology at the railroad was a manual typewriter (some electric typewriters were spread around, but mostly used by secretaries to senior executives), and there was the “company telephone system,” which was separate from the Bell System. The company system in some places was barely a step up from the crudest of telephonic devices seen in old black and white movies.

Passenger train reservations were made by company telephone and manual teletype, as well as received by commercial teletypes such as Western Union. Only the earliest facsimile transmission machines were very narrowly in use, but not in the railroad passenger departments. FedEx wasn’t yet invented. Train manifests were typed by hand. Photocopiers were in abundance in 1970, but a lot of carbon paper was still in use and sold by the case at office supply stores (all of which were local independents; this was decades before of Office Depot). There were no computer printed tickets for passengers.

Every aspect of Seaboard Coast Line passenger train operations required lots of expensive employees.

On Amtrak Day – May 1, 1971, America’s passenger rail system, nine years before the Staggers Act of 1980 which ended most of the oppressive, heavy-handed federal regulation of the nation’s railroads, was mostly reduced to trunk line services, primarily long distance trains.

The mail and express locals such as the Palmland, Everglades, and Gulf Coast Special went away, along with the vast majority of the feeder lines. The milk runs which helped so much in the 19^th Century became history two thirds of the way through the 20^th Century.

Just the trunk lines were left; just the lines with the greatest potential to make money.

The Southern Railway, one of the predecessors to today’s Norfolk Southern Railway created in 1982, chose not to join Amtrak, and continued running four routes including the Southern Crescent between New York City and New Orleans until joining Amtrak in 1979.

The Denver and Rio Grande Western stayed out of Amtrak, too, and kept running what was then called the Rio Grande Zephyr, and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad kept two trains running for five years. Three other railroads continued to operate relatively short distance trains well below former service levels.

Why is it important to know this history? If you’re an exec with the member companies of the Association of Independent Passenger Rail Operators [www.passengerrail.org] you already know this history, plus a lot more.

There are people this very day plotting the return of the glory of the passenger train, and not just commuter trains. These people and companies, such as train operators, railroads, and equipment suppliers know there is money to be made in passenger rail.

People know the glamour era of passenger travel by jet airplane is over and gone. Flying is now more of a chore than joy, especially if you don’t fit in a 17-inch wide coach seat. While the private passenger vehicle – be it automobile, sports utility vehicle or pickup truck – is still the most convenient way to travel, that doesn’t suit every traveler and every taste. People know choice matters, and passenger trains are a logical choice at a competitive cost to build and run.

In the world of 1970 when Seaboard Coast Line was running passenger trains, those operations were archaic and expensive. Railroading of any type is still a hazardous business and requires big investments, but is much more efficient and technologically advanced.

We are beyond the era when there is a belief only government can operate passenger rail and a red headed step child feeding from the public treasury.

Two important groups have changed: those owning and operating trunk line railroads, and new generations of Americans who have never ridden on a train, much less thought about a train as a viable alternative. They have no preconceived notion of aging equipment, steam heat in passenger cars, and quaint, ramshackle passenger stations in small towns across America.

Railroad executives have a mandate to maximize return on investment, and many are quietly looking at hosting passenger trains – mostly, non-Amtrak passenger trains because they want them to be successful – as a way of fully utilizing assets. Republicans in the United States House of Representatives are helping, and, if the Republicans take the United States Senate in 2012, things will move along more quickly.

Just because the current Amtrak authorization only allows certain changes to be made doesn’t mean a new Congress can’t amend and change the Amtrak law regarding every type of passenger rail. Nothing is written in stone, no matter how much the New Jersey cabal in Congress thinks it may be.

Knowing the past always helps predicting the future. By 2050, historians will look back at the 40+ years of the Amtrak era which began in 1971 as the aberration in passenger rail in the United States. They will note Amtrak was a placeholder with chronic problems – mostly brought on by itself – and then note the new golden age of passenger railroading which took its rightful place as a full player in America’s domestic transportation network, thanks to the free market system and private enterprise.

Gil Carmichael, former FRA Administrator during the Bush I years, and former Chairman of the Amtrak Reform Council, as well as the Founding Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver has started a new series of reports, entitled the Gil Carmichael Report, Investing in Interstate 2.0. The reports are free, informative, and a must read for anyone serious about the future of railroads in the United States. Contact the report distributor at geoff@jdmandassociates.com for your very own copy.

This week we look first at Amtrak’s slow pace, then at continued nationwide wrong-think surrounding Amtrak’s new venture into high speed rail; and we wrap up with a guest commentary by our Andrew C. Selden.

“In the unlikely event of a cabin depressurization, oxygen masks will appear overhead. Reach up and pull the mask closest to you, fully extending the plastic tubing, fasten the straps, and begin breathing normally…  If you are seated next to a small child or someone needing assistance, secure your own mask first, then assist the child.”

– Airplane safety announcement

Consider a dramatization of the above starring Amtrak’s Joseph Boardman as the passenger, and network expansion as the child. Faced with the upcoming depressurization of its system through aging equipment, Amtrak is now in the process of securing its own mask with an equipment order.  This is no little feat, but Congress still holds the strings. The mask isn’t even on yet, and as the air drains away, what are the prospects for the little form in the next seat?

Readers of This Week have had plenty to say about Amtrak’s progress, or lack thereof. Charles McMillan wrote:

I just finished reading your March 31st issue and I have just visited the two universities in Montana, Meeting with Faculty/Students/Staff and interested local citizens who want to see the restoration of the North Coast Hiawatha reinstated. In fact the consensus is to pretty much take the bull by the horns and get America back to the forefront of technology and world leadership in all areas of Science and Business. They are very adamant about this!

Their desire for Amtrak to get off of this NEC mentality and get a nation wide rail passenger system in place is unparalleled. They are disgusted with Joe Boardman and the  attitude of the present board of directors in this regard, because they see no real growth on the part of Amtrak in the form of expanding routes around the country. They keep asking “how much growth in ridership can Amtrak realize just by operating their present routes without adding more trains,coaches or service”? “Can’t they (Amtrak) see that expansion is the key to real growth.”  These are some of the thoughts of the general public and our Univesity system students.

We are continuing to garner support for this N.C.H. train all across the northwest including Minnesota.

Jerry Sullivan echoes a sentiment of frustration at,

Amtrak’s absolute refusal to restore the Sunset, or even a connecting train, to Florida.  The only train I rode regularly was the Sunset prior to August 2005, and I have not been on a train since, except for excursions.  Amtrak has become irrelevant; although I despise flying, Southwest Airlines is now my forced choice until Amtrak gets off their backside on the Sunset issue.

Until last year’s flawed Gulf Coast report is revisited and corrected, and until enough new — not just replacement — equipment is available, probably nothing will happen. Amtrak may be the only company whose product is desperately wanted by everyone but refuses to offer more of it.

As to markets and expansion, Christopher Parker noted, in reference to the speed comparison table:

[At that time,] top speeds were held by limiteds that were mostly overnight sleepers, a market [ceded] to the airlines… You should be comparing today’s trains to the stopping [all-stop local] trains of old.  The other factor is we live in a more open and safety conscious world – routine disregard of speed limits is impossible now, as are top speeds over 79mph without automatic train-stop.

I wonder if railroads had the regulative freedom to run very fast if the fate of the passenger train would have turned out differently.  Speed makes a huge difference in staying competitive.  With some exceptions (IC), today’s top speeds aren’t much different.

True, after a number of accidents fifty years ago, legislation was passed that did limit train speeds.  Modern safety devices warrant revisiting those speeds, as does the pending implementation of Positive Train Control, along with satellite, GPS, wireless technology, and computer control. There must be an equilibrium point of higher speeds versus construction and maintenance costs.  How to implement a mixing of relatively high speed passenger trains in an era of double-stack containers and long unit coal trains is no easy task, but a worthwhile one. Mr. Parker suggests, that with good track and “cheap technology to detect open switches, dark territory should be good for 70-79 mph.”

And while railroads no longer have the monopoly on business travel, but European experience suggests there is plenty of market here for a slogan like “we are your rolling hotel.”  A businessman at a conference in Phoenix could have a late dinner, board the midnight sleeper, and be in downtown Los Angeles by morning in plenty of time for a 9am meeting.  Mr. Parker responds, “Let’s start by getting sleepers back on the [Washington-Boston] Night Owl or whatever they call it now.” Could not be repeated across the country?

Amtrak’s newest focus is on high speed rail.  As yet they have little involvement in most of the pending projects, so let us see the fine mess they are getting into.

Over the last few weeks we have compared Wisconsin’s pragmatic expansion approach to Florida’s Bullet Train That Doesn’t Connect (Daniel Carleton, 23 March 2010).  We will look at Colorado’s venture into high speed rail in a moment, but first consider the California high speed project, which started some years ago along the lines of the Florida fiasco. Each refinement, we are pleased to report, generally tended toward a more logical approach. Maglev was eliminated in favor of compatible steel-wheel technology, permitting shared rights-of-way and stations. Nevertheless, room for improvement still exists in the “Plays well with others” department:

In a letter dated 23 March 2010, the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) ask the California High Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) to please revisit and consider “a rational shared use option in the Anaheim to Los Angeles segment of the CAHSRA project… In November of 2009, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued its first High Speed Passenger Rail Safety Strategy which provides a strategy for the development of shared use corridors. We believe this safety strategy has direct applicability to” the L.A.-Anaheim corridor and they point out that “reports prepared by the CAHSRA staff and consultants did not contemplate any discussion of the rationalization of passenger services in the Anaheim to Los Angeles segment… [part of] the second busiest passenger rail corridor in the nation… we would like to make these services more coordinated and integrated.”

One could well read this as a formal, polite way of saying, “You’re doing it wrong,” and one does wish that high speed trains, where they are built in this country, integrate with local trains and transit as well as they do in Germany, for example.  In Germany they have even figured out how to run a streetcar into a regular train station, where you might see one on the platform alongside an ICE high-speed train.  If the Germans can master the engineering and those safety features to give easy cross-platform transfers, why can’t we?

Meanwhile at the northern end of that California corridor, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on April 3rd that Caltrain, facing “plummeting sales tax revenues and shrinking ridership” could be forced “to eliminate its midday, night and weekend service, and return to its roots as a commuter-only railroad.” Yet an article there the previous day noted of the new High Speed project, “New numbers put the price of the Anaheim-to-San Francisco segment alone at $42.6 billion.”

Why are we spending millions on high-speed rail studies to the detriment of existing services? Why are we further planning new trains that will hurt, instead of complement, the few successful ones we have spent decades building? Cannot even railroad people work together or has too many years of fighting the highway lobby fractured the passenger train industry?

Colorado is poised to make the same mistake. Railway Track and Structures on March 30th reported,

A study of possible high-speed, intercity rail for Colorado has found that lines between Fort Collins and Pueblo and between Denver International Airport and Eagle County have the best “operating and cost-benefit results” of the options evaluated… The full system carries a $21.1-billion price tag, but Harry Dale, chairman of the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority, which produced the study, said the rail system would probably be built in phases…

The feasibility study… took 18 months to complete and cost $1.4 million… “It might be 10 to 20 years before we actually build anything,” [Dale] said…

The study identifies a $3.32-billion rail segment from DIA to downtown Denver and then south to Colorado Springs as a likely first phase [,which Dale said] would not compete directly with [the] Regional Transportation District”s planned East Corridor commuter train that will link the airport and Denver’s Union Station.

“This [HSR] is not meant to be fare-subsidized,” Dale said of the proposed high-speed rail system. “Average speeds must be superior to travel by car, or nobody will ride. There have got to be time savings to make it worthwhile.”

Does it not matter that almost every new well-planned light-rail and regional-rail system in the West has met, exceeded, or far exceeded ridership expectations? Why spend money planning a second “high speed” system paralleling a regional train we haven’t even built yet?  Why do we keep having to fight the superfast fallacy? Frequency, dependability, and the matrix of connections are what attract people to trains — not high speeds.  Dr. Adrian Herzog’s Matrix Theory, despite being proven repeatedly, continues to be ignored.

— William Lindley, Scottsdale, Ariz.

p.s., Mr. Selden’s guest commentary follows.

Why Joseph Boardman Can’t Succeed

By Andrew Selden

Joe Boardman is a fine fellow, and an experienced rail administrator, but his tenure is doomed to be another failure as CEO of Amtrak, for the simple reason that his strategy for the company is to pour ever more capital and effort into the exact same business strategies and plans that have failed the company consistently for four decades. This is evidenced by Amtrak’s latest strategic “plan” released late this winter.

“Amtrak Planning” has come to be as much of an oxymoron as “Amtrak Accounting.” Key elements of the latest plan:

• Upgrade interiors and add WiFi on Acela trains, with leather seats, new tray tables and improved at-seat power outlets.
• NEC infrastructure enhancements such as a new Niantic River drawbridge in Connecticut, new power supply equipment for New York – Washington, new switches at Chicago Union Station, new car shops at Los Angeles, station renovation at Wilmington, Delaware, fire safety improvements in the Hudson River tunnels, car renovation at Beech Grove, NEC track and wire maintenance, etc.
• Study its “poorest performing long-distance routes” to identify possible changes. These routes include the Sunset Limited, Eagle, Cardinal, Capitol Limited and California Zephyr. (No mention of chronically underperforming short routes.)
• Expand state-funded short corridors.
• Install PTC on Amtrak-owned track.
• Increase security.
• Replace large parts of the company’s locomotive and car fleet.

Now, this all sounds wonderful, and many observers leapt on the last item as proof that “Amtrak was home free and the Age of Aquarius was upon us.” No one paused to ask, “With the U.S. trillions of dollars in debt and piling on new debt just as fast as we can sell bonds to the Chinese, how is Amtrak going to pay for all this?”

Even worse, no one seemed to notice that Amtrak’s plans were nothing more than a reshuffle of the same tired 40-year-old business plan that has put Amtrak into a financial black hole. (Amtrak’s net loss worsened again last year, proving once again that the billions “invested” so far into the NEC, Acela, and all the other infrastructure projects has produced a negative rate of return on investment.) No one asked: “Based on 40 years of consistent failure and steadily worsening financial results, why should we continue pouring billions of new dollars of federal support down the same old black hole?”

This ultimately is why Mr. Boardman cannot succeed: recycling failed business strategies is not “planning.” Doubling the bet on a losing position is a poor strategy.

When Amtrak released its wish list of new engines and rolling stock in March, it took independent analysis by URPA professionals to point out that the “new fleet” strategy reflected a net shrinkage of lift capacity in the national system.

But, there may be a growing awareness inside Amtrak that they are missing out in their long distance markets. At an Amtrak conference in Chicago in March, some interesting ideas were surfaced. A URPA attendee reported:

“Amtrak made official their intent to restructure the Sunset and Texas Eagle routes by operating a daily Los Angeles-San Antonio-Chicago train with a connecting San Antonio-New Orleans train. Amtrak has divided their 15 long-distance trains into three groups of five. The five worst performers – including the Sunset and Eagle – will be addressed this year, the middle five in 2011, and the five best – such as the Empire Builder and Southwest Chief – will be tweaked beginning in 2010. The undesirability of tri-weekly service on any route was noted.

“Amtrak seems to be grasping – and willing to emphasize publicly – the importance of their long distance trains. One of the slides in a presentation : ‘Long Distance Trains are Fundamental to Amtrak’s Mission and Future.’ The slide’s charts showed that long distance trains provided 15 percent of Amtrak’s riders, but 24 percent of revenue, and 39 percent of Amtrak’s train miles but 46 percent of passenger miles.”

As promising as this is, it still fails to reflect any understanding of how explosive growth could be if Amtrak were to address two simple questions:

1. What would long distance ridership, passenger miles and revenue be if Amtrak actually added capacity to existing trains, especially in peak periods? Long distance capacity and available seat miles have been flat, if not down, for two decades. Since these trains run nearly full much of the year, no growth is even possible without added capacity.
2. What would long distance ridership, passenger miles and revenue be if Amtrak better interconnected its routes, so that its trains could serve hundreds of new origin-destination city pairs? Examples: extend a Missouri state corridor train to Omaha, to connect St. Louis, Kansas City and intermediate points to the Central Transcontinental Corridor – Denver, Salt Lake City, Reno, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area; or, drop a coach and sleeper from the Chief, at Barstow, to run over Tehachapi Pass to Bakersfield, connecting to a San Joaquin, linking the entire Southwest Transcontinental Corridor to the Central Valley and the San Francisco Bay area.

Even if one assumes that these new services perform no better than the known performance of the existing trains, these small increases in operations, by opening up many hundreds of new long distance city pairs, will triple output, and revenue. Now there is a capacity issue, and a growth strategy, all in one.