Good old days complaint

[Dep]

You make a very good point and I concede to your local knowledge. Reading the article revealed that the $32 figure is an average with the actual figures ranging from a PROFIT of $41 per passenger (on the Acela Express) to a LOSS of $462 per passenger (on the Sunset Limited). The fact that the "high speed" service between Boston and Washington is actually making a profit, while the equivalent Northeast Regional service is making a loss of $5 per passenger, is a good sign for the future of high speed rail in the US. While I was there I also noted that the existing track from Chicago to St Louis (I believe) was being upgraded for a high speed service.

The article also stated that the problem with the profit/loss method of assessing the worth of rail services is that you cannot just take the services in isolation. Removing the loss making services is very likely to badly affect the profitable services as they are all part of an interdependent network.

I know of no commuter, regional or long distance passenger (ignoring the specialist tourist services) anywhere in the world that makes a profit on its rail operations alone. All are subsidised by governments or other commercial operations. Japan's much praised Bullet Trains, for example, have never made a cent on their rail operations but the railway company is making profits from land deals and activities associated with the operations of the railways such as shopping malls next to stations, etc.



Yes, I did have a chuckle over the fact that high speed rail in Europe, Japan and China operates on its own dedicated tracks while the Acela Express shared its paths with freight, regional and commuter services. The two trips that I took ran without any delays which is probably a tribute to the traffic controllers on the NE corridor.



I can't speak for England (perhaps my next overseas trip) but here in Australia air travel is becoming more expensive and regional air services are slowly disappearing. Regional train services are either just "hanging on" or slowly dying in the eastern states but have disappeared completely just about everywhere else - so the choice is between the car or your feet.

I have been hearing a great deal about the safety record of your domestic US airlines - the one I flew on from Philadelphia to Scranton and then to Chicago was a frequent guest star on the TV show "Air Crash Investigation". It did not do my confidence any favours when they announced that my flight from Philadelphia to Scranton was delayed indefinitely because the aircraft was "in the maintenance hanger".

Here in Australia a major budget airline was recently grounded (and is still out of service) because its pilots flew too low on two separate landing approaches plus it was unable to find all its maintenance paper work.

Peter ware

Hi Pete,
Good points and thanks for posting them. Amtrak is fortunate in having backers within the House and Senate that push for subsidies for them. Especially in the East Coast area. We are getting many of the same horror stories here in the states about airline pilots as well as ground crews. Plus the TSA idiots and the way they search people and the fact that tons of valuables are stolen from baggage on a daily basis because the baggage can't be locked by the owner is really turning people off to air travel. Of course, that is the whole intent of the terrorists.
Plus the same story of air travel prices going up while service is going down is hurting the airlines. However, this society is still an "immediate gratification" society and taking a train vacation to California from New York doesn't sit well when it takes you 3-4 days just to get to California. People don't care about what they see along the way, which is a shame. All they care about is getting from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time. And THAT is what killed passenger train travel in the USA. While you will have small areas like the Northeast Corridor that depend on trains for commuter travel, long distance train travel just isn't in the cards for most folks.

 

[JCitron]

Which reminds me John , have you been out to Hodgie's Ice Cream

on Hwy 110 in Amesbury yet this summer? I'm pretty sure you know this, but Hodgie's has THE BEST icecream in the WORLD !! They make their own ice cream and give you more in a single scoop than most places give you with a triple scoop. One half "kiddie cone" was enough for me but I found out the hard way when we fist moved there.

My first Trainz project was the textile mill yard in Amesbury MA and the Amesbury Chamber of Commerce provided me with references to find 60 year old train maps of the area to assist with my project, which at that time was being designed as tool to help teach local history for Amesbury Public Schools.

What I found interesting too was that their was a public trolley system that went along HWY 110 in the Merrimack Valley area and even went over the Chain Bridge (USA's first ever suspension bridge), over the Merrimack River from Aimsbury to West Newbury (HWY 113). Those were the good old days.

Here in Colorado, the BNSF line runs close to I -25 in North Central Colorado, crosses over into an interesting wye before the Wyoming border. The UP line that runs along I -85 in eastern Colorado runs a close parallel to the BNSF line before reaching Cheyenne.
I 25 was was constructed during the good old days when Ike was president. I know local business were hurt along Hwy 287 after interstate traffic was diverted to I-25. Recently, a friend of mine owned a restaurant in Berthoud, Colorado that had a big percentage of their business cut off when Hwy 287 was diverted away, so through traffic would no longer go through Berthoud. He couldn't afford to stay open after that. Before his restaurant closed, we used to sit on the patio and watch the BNSF trains go past about a half block away, through town and past the grain silos. Sad it's no longer there.

Yes, I went to Hodgie's last weekend now that you mention it. Awesome as usual.

You can still see the old trolley ROW as it crossed near 110 and 150 in Amesbury. There's a string of power lines there, and the obvious raised rail grade is still visible today.

The old tracks that ran across the Chain Link Bridge were in place up until the mid to late 1960s. I remember seeing the tracks in the road up to the bridge, then they were tarred over. I could never figure out how they connected to anything back then, but knowing the area now, they must've come in from 113 (Storey Avenue) and possible Merrimack Street on the Newburyport side. This is an interesting area I would like to model some day when I get a chance, or possibly include it in my mega-route I'm working on now.

I know I-25 very well. I've been on it across Colorado and Wyoming. It's too bad about your friend's restaurant. That would have been a nice place to stop. Sadly there are many places like that out west. We were on the back roads out there, and went through Kicking Horse Pass. You'd think this was a big town, but in reality there's nothing there. The railroad is still there, but nothing else, perhaps a few houses and a gas station. The interstate, which is miles away took any local traffic away from the towns.

That was great use of Trainz. Have you done anything more like that since?

John

 

[pware]

Hi Pete,
However, this society is still an "immediate gratification" society and taking a train vacation to California from New York doesn't sit well when it takes you 3-4 days just to get to California. People don't care about what they see along the way, which is a shame. All they care about is getting from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time. And THAT is what killed passenger train travel in the USA. While you will have small areas like the Northeast Corridor that depend on trains for commuter travel, long distance train travel just isn't in the cards for most folks.

My two long distance train trips in May, Vancouver to Toronto on the Canadian and Chicago to San Francisco on the California Zephyr, were taken because I wanted to see as much as I could of Canada and the USA from the ground level. I didn't care about the time they took (4 days for the Canada crossing and 3 for the USA crossing). I met many people on both trips who expressed exactly the same opinion - they were there for the journey, not just the destination.

I have also travelled by train across Australia, taking both the East-West Indian-Pacific and the North-South Ghan.

Peter Ware

 

[martinvk]

My two long distance train trips in May, Vancouver to Toronto on the Canadian and Chicago to San Francisco on the California Zephyr, were taken because I wanted to see as much as I could of Canada and the USA from the ground level....

Peter Ware

I envy you your trip. Some day I hope to be able to do the same thing, as long as they continue those trains until I'm able to go. Was it a non-stop trip or did you get out and look around once in a while along the way? Was there a lot of planning or just a go with the flow trip?

 

[Dep]

I envy you your trip. Some day I hope to be able to do the same thing, as long as they continue those trains until I'm able to go. Was it a non-stop trip or did you get out and look around once in a while along the way? Was there a lot of planning or just a go with the flow trip?

X2. I would love to take a train to actually SEE the sights along the way.

Dep

 

[JimDep]

YWe were on the back roads out there, and went through Kicking Horse Pass. You'd think this was a big town, but in reality there's nothing there. The railroad is still there, but nothing else, perhaps a few houses and a gas station. The interstate, which is miles away took any local traffic away from the towns.

That was great use of Trainz. Have you done anything more like that since?

John

Hey John
That Kicking Horse Pass area looks really interesting. I just viewed some UTUBE videos and enjoyed the scenery and read up on some history. That's a place I know I'd enjoy visiting.

Glad to hear you are a Hodgies customer. Another good time to go there is around Columbus Day when they are getting ready to shut down for the winter. They have clearance sales for all their ice cream left over ! Hodgies, Corona's (on 110 between Merrimac and Amesbury) and Crossroads Pizza (we'd go there for the seafood) in Amesbury are all worth moving there for.
I'm getting home sick again.

I abandoned the mill yard project once it started to look like we'd be returning to the mid west. I began the North Central Colorado project in New England to get a jump on it before the move. Once here and getting settled in to the school district here, I presented my project to the school board after learning there was grant money for creative educational ideas. This was four years ago, and I wrote up a grant proposal to use this project as an education tool to help teach local history with a focus on the sugar beet industry and accommodating rail service. Sugar beets were the big cash crop here from the eary 1900's through the 1970's. Lots of the native folks here have or had relatives that either worked for the Great Western Sugar Beet factories or the railroad. That personal touch also helped sell the project and also including structural landmarks that are still standing (barely). For this area, those were the good old days as steam engines were still in service through 1983 for the local sugar beet short lines. Steam engine driven passenger service even made a short lived comeback at that time until the insurance demands made it unaffordable to continue.

Anyway, I had enough of the project done to put together a Power Point presentation. I was surprised that the gatekeepers of the school funds would even consider something like this, but they did. They seemed intrigued with the idea of local history being taught in a video game format (what a shock, eh?). Having sold the plan and getting support was a big incentive but I had a debilitating accident in the fall of 2008 requiring several subsequent surgeries and recovery time over the next couple years. This blew any chance of meeting the deadlines in my proposal. Over the last couple years the school budget funds have nose-dived so there is no money for anything but the basics.

I feel fortunate that I did get to experience this area back in the 1980's before the last of the sugar beet campaigns shut down. This area had a very unique agricultural atmosphere 25 years ago that is getting buried a little more every year. During the time we lived in Massachusetts, this area doubled in size and lost much of its character due to the modernization of the generic architecture. Thank God the remains of the sugar beet factory hasn't been torn down yet allowing me to get the pictures necessary to continue.

 

[pware]

I envy you your trip. Some day I hope to be able to do the same thing, as long as they continue those trains until I'm able to go. Was it a non-stop trip or did you get out and look around once in a while along the way? Was there a lot of planning or just a go with the flow trip?

I started making bookings about 6 months before the trip. Some bookings took a lot longer to organise than others. The trans-Canada trip I made in three sections. I took the Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Jasper with an overnight hotel stop at Kamloops - there is no sleeping accommodation on the train. I had 4 nights in Jasper (by far one of the highlights of the trip) then non-stop to Toronto on the Canadian (Canada has an awful lot of trees!!!). The Chicago to San Francisco trip was also non-stop but I was able to see the Mississippi in flood and witnessed some of the massive storms raging across the mid-west plains of "Tornado Alley", plus a snow storm crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains.

It is a trip that I will always remember.

Peter Ware