Comments on: PRIIA-Mandated Amtrak Studies Promote New Long-Distance Corridor Service

By: Jared Kuykendall

Jared Kuykendall — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:22:58 +0000

I really do wish that Amtrak would restart the North Coast Hiawatha route through southern Montana. I live in Missoula just across the street from the former train station. The train stopped coming here in 1979. I can remember as a young child coming to Missoula to pick up my grandmother on the train, as well as a trip I took as a young kid with my grandmother, sister and brothers to Yellowstone National Park. That was probably the most fun part of my life. I would love to be able to ride the train again someday before I get ancient and leave this earth myself. However, the only way that will ever happen is if Amtrak restarts the North Coast Hiawatha route through Montana. Please keep your fingers crossed for that happening.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:18:01 +0000

Hey, I hate air travel, too. On certain airlines, like Turkish, I wouldn’t be able to breathe well due to either cabin pressurization or high CO2 concentrations. So I’d try to take a train to Buffalo, which, at 8 hours, is still tolerable. But I wouldn’t even dream of going to San Francisco on anything other than a plane. They may charge for meals, but no, water is free (which it isn’t on Amtrak), and so are bathrooms, and the whole process takes 6 hours instead of 3 days.

But we’re both in the minority. Air travel has gotten inconvenient for everyone over the last 8 years, but Amtrak’s LD services haven’t shown much growth from it; most of Amtrak’s ridership increase has been on short-distance services. For most people, the main alternative to air is driving and the second alternative is buses.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:58:11 +0000

“Until oil prices go up to the thousands of dollars per barrel, there’s no reason to take a 46-hour Empire Builder instead of a 4-hour flight.”

As long as the TSA randomly prohibits innocent people from flying without explanation or ability to challenge (no-fly list), and submits everyone else to demeaning rituals for no good reason (take off your shoes! put your toothpaste in this size container only!), and airlines nickel-and-dime customers (“Water? That’s extra. Bathrooms? That’s extra. Leg room? Not available.”), there will be a substantial market of people who will do practically anything to avoid taking a flight.

I would have agreed with you ten years ago. I may agree with you again if the current insanity of the airlines ever goes away. But right now, I would take a 46-hour train — in coach! — rather than a 4-hour flight, and not because I like long train trips — because I *HATE US AIRPLANE TRAVEL* today.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:54:46 +0000

“My reference to rent-seeking is about the regulatory regime associated with Amtrak: FRA compliance, rules restricting investment in short-distance corridors, special train control standards that keep out foreign consultants, political preference for local planning. All of those conspire to keep expertise out.”

Yep, that’s rent-seeking, I agree. From what I can tell it is not rent-seeking *by* Amtrak, however. The motivations for those rules seem to come from, among other places, (a) the freights, who definitely rent-seek; (b) American industries who produce stuff for trains, wanting to get contracts in preference to foreigners; (c) certain states, wanting to exact pork for their state as the cost of running trains elsewhere.

Amtrak itself seems to actually oppose all of that.

By: Ocean Railroader

Ocean Railroader — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:16:58 +0000

I think that anyone who is going to use a 48 hour long train ride such as this will most likely be doing this for the fun of riding it. If enough people start using it for the idea of fun travel then having it would make sense then. Somehow that is how I could picture myself using this rail line. But I would wonder would it go to any good national parks or atractions along it’s route?

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:30:19 +0000

Until oil prices go up to the thousands of dollars per barrel, there’s no reason to take a 46-hour Empire Builder instead of a 4-hour flight.

By: Mike Orr

Mike Orr — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:42:52 +0000

The long-distance trains aren’t just “to provide service to rural areas”. They’re to provide cross-country transportation. As the price of gas goes up with diminshing oil reserves, the cost of air travel will get prohibitive and auto travel will be close behind. We need to build up a passenger rail infrastructure, and putting slow Amtrak trains on these corridors would be a good first step. Better tracks and high speed rail can come later. The existence of a popular slow line is the best way to make a faster line politically feasable.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:37:22 +0000

For-profit railroads ran day trains and night trains only on routes that were short enough for the day train not to require an overnight stop. The Denver Zephyr ran multiple times a day; the California Zephyr didn’t.

My reference to rent-seeking is about the regulatory regime associated with Amtrak: FRA compliance, rules restricting investment in short-distance corridors, special train control standards that keep out foreign consultants, political preference for local planning. All of those conspire to keep expertise out.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:44:25 +0000

“Just stop seeking rent and start running like a normal railroad.”

I’m not sure what planet you’ve been living on, Alon, but my study of railroad history shows *continuous* attempts by railroads to get political bonanzas, dating right back to Stephenson.

It’s not “rent-seeking” by the way — that’s a technical economic term, and you’re misusing it. When the freight railroads demand immense amounts of money for tracks they aren’t actually using, *that* is rent-seeking.

It refers, specifically, to trying to get government (or someone) o give you exclusive rights to something solely so that you can charge someone else to use those rights — when the alternative is that *anyone* would have been able to do whatever it was, with no exclusivity. Famous examples of rent-seeking include the whole of copyright and patent law, but especially term extensions; land “enclosure” laws turning public land into private; exclusive “franchises”; et cetera. This is not the situation you were describing.

A theoretical example of Amtrak *actually* rent-seeking would be if it fought to prevent other passenger operators from getting the same legal rights of access to railroads which it has.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:27:08 +0000

FYI, Billings and Bismarck although “small” by NYC standards are not really small towns. The North Coast Hiawatha route actually reaches *larger* cities than the Empire Builder. I would, personally, support two frequencies on the North Coast Hiawatha route and none on the Empire Builder route — it would likely do better– but one on each is probably more politically achievable.