I want to say one more thing about

“I’m always suspicious of Amtrak forecasts where the default position is, ‘No, it will cost too much, and we will have to special order the new cars at a custom-made price.’”

But it’s true. The proposed change will cost more money and will require rolling stock Amtrak doesn’t have. It doesn’t matter what the change is. But for definiteness, look at URPA v. Amtrak on the Palmetto. Amtrak knows, if not to the penny, certainly to the nearest ten dollars, how much such an extension will cost. They know what extra crew will need to be hired and how much they’d have to pay them; they know how much the host railroad will charge for trackage; they know how much extra diesel fuel their locomotives will consume; they know how much more frequently their rolling stock will go into maintenance. URPA makes a wild-assed guess. On ridership, Amtrak has a ridership model. We can criticize their model — I have. But URPA has a wild-assed guess. Just as with global warming, if we have to choose between the guy with the model and the guy with some vain hope, we’ll go with the guy with the model every time.

Alon,

Re: “Amtrak refuses to admit the LD routes are money sinks.”

I also read Robert Cruikshank’s CAHSR blog. I’ve seen Alon comment there, too. There’s a frequent commenter who works for Amtrak. I think he’s a customer service guy in San Francisco. He remarked the other day that there wasn’t a European rail system ran a 2,000 mile long train route. My reaction, I suspect Alon’s, too, was that no European system would be that dumb. But I didn’t say so. All the management books tell you that you should get your workforce to internalize the goals of the organization. Here’s an Amtrak guy proud of the California Zephyr, proud of being a part of an organization which operates such a train. His management has done something right. But that mentality runs up the organization, too. I suspect that Joe Boardman is, to some extent, proud of running an organization which operates the California Zephyr, even as, with some other part of his mind, he realizes it’s a lead weight tied to his feet.

The Pennsyvinia Railroad used to have a four track mainline from Philli to Pittsburg that was ripped down to two tracks so if we restored two sets of tracks we could have a set of passanger only tracks on it and chargo only tracks.

Every long distance route except the Auto Train brings in less money than its FRA defined costs. FRA defined costs are what would double if Amtrak ran a second frequency. FRA defined costs are what would increase if Amtrak extended a route. There’s no reason to believe that a second frequency would bring in more money than the first — the law of diminishing returns would set in. There’s no reason to believe that the stretch that Amtrak isn’t servicing today would bring in more money relative to the costs of servicing it than the stretch that Amtrak is servicing. (And if I have to either believe Amtrak or URPA, I’ll go with Amtrak every time.)

Yes. Long distance trains are corridors set end to end or overlapping. But they’re lousy corridors. They’re corridors with few and small cities set too far apart. Add to that that long distance trains are much more subject to delay than corridor trains, so are less likely to attract riders. So they’re the wrong modality running along the wrong corridors.

How much do they lose? In FY2009, the 15 long distance trains lost $558.8M. Amtrak had a total loss on running trains of $776.3M. That is, they were responsible for 72% of Amtrak’s operational losses. By comparison Amtrak’s debt service that FY was $108.8M.

By contrast to, say, the subsidies to “essential air services,” these losses are relatively small. But they are very damaging both to Amtrak and to the notion of rail service in general. They enable the attack line that Amtrak passengers are subsidized $50 per ticket.

But I’m surprised to think that we have many real world tests of Amtrak adding frequencies to LD trains or of extending routes. I can see that adding routes costs more money and require more rolling stock. But are there many examples in Amtrak’s history of adding frequencies or routes?

btw Your friends at URPA raised a big stink over the Palmetto ending at Savannah, instead of extending to the much larger metro of Jacksonville, with a promised connection to the Sunset Limited or it successors. URPA claimed Amtrak’s traffic forecasts for that extension estimated additional riders to/from Jacksonville and intermediate points to/from Savannah, but did not add any revenue for passengers coming from or going beyond points north of Savannah! Whether that is true or not, I’m always suspicious of Amtrak forecasts where the default position is, ‘No, it will cost too much, and we will have to special order the new cars at a custom-made price.’

And how much do the LD routes lose anyway? I had a notion that the total was $300 or $400 million — compared to debt service in the same range. Another comparable is the Highway Trust Fund, roughly 100 times as much each year, so I have a hunch that repaving alone costs much more than subsidizing the LD trains.

Nathanael makes the point that LD trains NYC-Chi are really attractive corridors set end to end. But actually, ALL the LD trains are corridors set end to end, some not strong corridors, and many served only in the dark. Amtrak’s ridership figures for the LD lines shows that usually only 10 or 15% of the passengers ride end to end, e.g. New Orleans to L.A. But even that route has corridors, N’awlins to Lafayette overlapped by N’awlins-Houston, Houston-San Antonio, Tucson-Phoenix (potentially), Palm Springs-L.A. Sure, San Antonio-El Paso takes a full day to pass through rugged West Texas scenery and then El Paso-Tucson is desert emptiness again. But with 3 trains a week, and stops in the gloom of night, not even Houston-San Antonio can generate corridor traffic.

Government can be remarkably competent, in countries that don’t let private consultants run everything.

You really have to climb down out of your ivory tower some time, get on the subway at 4:30 in the afternoon and see what it’s like at rush hour. Get off at Times Square and walk down. Observe the pedestrians walking in the automobile lanes on 7th Ave because there’s no room for them on the sidewalk. Experience the pure joy of using one of the entrances. Or even better, try to get of the station at 5:15. Get on an express to Ronkonkama or Dover and stand until you are almost there.

…concessions.. those pesky passengers again, eating, drinking, buying newspapers, magazines etc. Impertinent to unreasonably expect that they might be able to do that while, I know this might seem outrageous, in the station.