Amtrak may have competition...

[DPWIU7]

All valid points, but what people outside the industry don't know compared to someone who works for Amtrak do know is this:

As long as their is a democrat in office, Amtrak is safe. Democrats are for blue collared jobs, union work, and the middle class (which is 95% of the employees that work for the company.

Two, the freight railroads have the rights to who will operate on their railroad, and who won't. They sure as hell aren't going to let some scab company run trains on their railroad. Also, Amtrak has exclusive rights with every railroad to operate trains on their railroad.

Thirdly, let them come. Because what will happen is they will need Amtrak employee's who are already qualified on the territory to operate the trains. Then after a certain period of time, the scab company will go belly up because they don't have the funds to keep the work, and Amtrak will under bid everyone and keep the work.

Lastly, if this were to happen, which I don't see happening any time soon, it will take months almost years to get it going. There is so much litigation that has go on, cars and engines to be built, employees to hire, and everything else.

Amtrak is a monopoly, but so are most of the utility company's, that doesn't change who's going to supply you power and heat now does it.

Also not to mention, if you actually look at the numbers, Amtrak is profitable on short-hauls, and not so much on long-hauls. I can see them cutting down service, but ending it completely, won't happen.

Oh, and I have numbers to prove my facts, I'm just don't have them in front of me right now.

 

[RRSignal]

All valid points, but what people outside the industry don't know compared to someone who works for Amtrak do know is this:

As long as their is a democrat in office, Amtrak is safe. Democrats are for blue collared jobs, union work, and the middle class (which is 95% of the employees that work for the company.

They're for big government, wasteful spending, manipulating and dividing the public, and incompetence. Witness Amtrak as it currently exists.

Also not to mention, if you actually look at the numbers, Amtrak is profitable on short-hauls, and not so much on long-hauls. I can see them cutting down service, but ending it completely, won't happen.

Which is really what needs to be done. We can have the few profitable corridors and keep them running at their current level of service. We can even privatize them, if we want. Regardless, as long as Amtrak or Amcorp or whatever it is or becomes isn't a massive drain on the taxpayer, then all is good.

 

[RRSignal]

I find this interesting. It comes down to whether a free market ever operated in transportation. Prior to Amtrak private operators ran the passenger services usually at a loss. The big problem in sorting all this out is that sometimes private operators chose to operate this service at a loss and designed it that way. This comes back to life before staggers and the business model of operating as a monopoly. Under that premise was designed the concept of cross subsidization. The best way to understand this is that to stimulate traffic in say manufactured products you might charge a lower rate on raw materials. The difference being made up on the transportation of finished goods. This model does not work in a competitive environment however; When railroads were first being built there was a need to get people into their service area. Offering cheap passenger train service enticed people to live near a railroad and stay there creating traffic opportunities for the railroad.

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Unfortunately, we are stuck in a situation where certain urban areas are dependent on this form of transportation and can not now function without it. Do you actually believe that New York City could operate without its subway system? New York is to densely packed to move everybody through the city by private automobile it would be like trying to pour a bucket of water into a glass.

The United States is in a mess in transportation. Integrated efficient systems have not been properly planned and built and co-ordination between modes to make the most effective use of the infrastructure we have just hasn't been happening. There are no easy answers to this problem.

Howard

I was thinking this morning about how, if HSR was to be built, how expensive it would be to do the job right. I mean, build as straight a route as possible between cities. Looking at the Philly-New York segment, for example, to build a truly straight line between these cities would cost staggering amounts of money in land acquisition costs alone because it would cut through so much prime real estate, including Princeton/West Windsor, NJ, and Bucks County, PA. It even worse in Connecticut: It wouldn't be possible to build a direct route from NYC-Boston, or even to New Haven; any realignment would have north to around Scarsdale (ultra-expensive area) and make a right turn toward New Haven in order. Real estate prices in Connecticut, like New Jersey, are insane, and any straight realignment is likely to cut through wealthy suburbs instead of old run-down downtowns.

It might be a different story in the Camden and Amboy, Philadelphia and Trenton, etc. did the job right 150+ years ago and built a straight-as-an-arrow route.

 

[amtrak2041864]

I was thinking this morning about how, if HSR was to be built, how expensive it would be to do the job right. I mean, build as straight a route as possible between cities. Looking at the Philly-New York segment, for example, to build a truly straight line between these cities would cost staggering amounts of money in land acquisition costs alone because it would cut through so much prime real estate, including Princeton/West Windsor, NJ, and Bucks County, PA. It even worse in Connecticut: It wouldn't be possible to build a direct route from NYC-Boston, or even to New Haven; any realignment would have north to around Scarsdale (ultra-expensive area) and make a right turn toward New Haven in order. Real estate prices in Connecticut, like New Jersey, are insane, and any straight realignment is likely to cut through wealthy suburbs instead of old run-down downtowns.

It might be a different story in the Camden and Amboy, Philadelphia and Trenton, etc. did the job right 150+ years ago and built a straight-as-an-arrow route.

Have to love the Pennsylvania railroad but I think if Amtrak gets its story straight and fix up the NEC it can become an 189mph route. Also those 160mph are to become 189mph zones but Acelas cannot travel that fast, so we must hope Amtrak buys new trainsets. And if those trainsets out perform the Acela travel times can be alot lower. To about 5 hours 30mins but or 5 hours. And if the new trainsets are engineered properly the New York to New Haven can have an average of 80mph. Since the Acelas cannot past 70 on their run since the width of the train is 4 inches to large. And FRA requires trains to past at 10 inches apart but with the tilt along this section it is to close or under 10 inches. That is why speeds are so low along this section is so slow (the tilt is not used over this section). And with a new trainset, the speeds my be increased.

 

[1940gerns]

on a recent trip on amtrak empire builder chicago to seattle i was told freight was first now ,we had to stop and wait several times until the freight past ,they were building additional to eleaviate the problem so i was told by the train stewart