Hi everybody.
John, there was much discussion in another thread recently regarding investment in the British rail industry. As you undoubtedly realise as you contributed so well towards the thread the argument within the UK is not whether there should be a large-scale rail investment, but how and where that investment should be spent within the various counties and national assemblies. Within the foregoing I am sure I speak for many Europeans in saying that we find it rather confusing exactly how the United States rail industry operates and is financed.
As an example, it would appear to many Europeans that the US north-east corridor would be a prime candidate for high-speed rail. Surely Boston, New York, Washington and Philadelphia could have a very high user rate HST system equivalent to any TVR system running in France or Germany. Perhaps services between these major cities are better than most Europeans envisage.
However, if not is it that, is it that
(1) There is not the demand for such a system within the commuting population.
(2) Federal and local authorities are not prepared to bring forward the finance for such a system.
(3) it is still generally felt within the United States that the car and road transport are superior to rail.
(4) The state system of governance makes it virtually impossible to coordinate federal finance for large-scale infrastructure projects such as high-speed rail.
I hope US forum members do not find the above questions naïve but I am sure that many Brits and other Europeans would love to witness America as being in the forefront railway passenger revival as anyone can only imagine what a boost that would give to railway development throughout the world. Perhaps it is already happening or is planned to happen. So, could our friends of across the pond updates us in easy to understand terms exactly what is the position with passenger railroad development in the United States.
Could be a whole new lease of life to this thread
Bill
These are not naïve, and yes I do remember responding to the other thread.
I'll answer your questions here in the order posted.
(1) There is not the demand for such a system within the commuting population.
With the cost of fuel going up and airline security checks, delays, and general annoyance, the short run, and the 800 mile run on the NEC (counting the new extension to New Brunswick, Maine to Washington DC), makes sense and more and more people are now opting for the more convenient train. The Downeaster, which is the Boston to New Brunswick Amtrak service, is usually sold out. Much of this is travelers from Portland heading to Boston daily, but also includes many people in between heading to Boston now as well. They find it less expensive with fuel cost and parking in the city which runs over $38 per day at some locations, while a weekly Amtrak run might be only $100 if that. The advantages too of riding the train include WiFi and a lunch or brunch, or in some cases a breakfast, which no one gets on an airline anymore unless they ride first class. With the cost competitive to airlines, with the convenience of going city-center to city center, this becomes a no-brainer as they say, and many people opt for the Amtrak service on the NEC. As has been mentioned above, taking a flight to New York, is maybe an hour at the most. Sounds good so far.. However, you have to be there an hour before, pay for the trip to the airport since it's cheaper than parking, hassle through the airport check-in service, deal with a delay of some sort, and get bumped due to weather problems, only to still have to pay for an expensive taxi to downtown New York City. The trip, which might have been an hour is now over 3-1/2, counting the taxi in traffic, while the ticker is going, and there's still the chance something could go wrong.
I actually experienced this a couple of years ago in Oklahoma City while heading to Chicago. My flight was scheduled for 9:00 am from OKC to Chicago O'Hare as part of a return trip and was only the first leg on the long journey back to Boston. My flight was delayed due to some technical difficulty which changed each time the customer service agent lied to us. We finally left at 5:00 pm, when they could get another crew for our plane. Our flight, supposedly, was canceled due to weather in the end, however, other flights in between few to the same destination, thus, the clerk got caught in his lie, he then yelled at a young woman when she questioned his story.
I arrived at O'Hare, long after my 11:00 flight had left, and it was more like 20:30 hours on arrival. The actual flight is only 2 hours, but we had to wait in queue before we could take off so our actual take-off was close to 18:00 hours! I then had to see customer service an book a new flight. The airline was going to charge and penalize us for missing the Boston connection, and that's when I went off the handle and started complaining. I got a manager to hear me out and told them in no certain terms were we, meaning all Boston passengers who missed our connection due to their fault, have to pay a penalty. They manager conceded, supposedly the dumb airline clerk had a misunderstanding, so we were allowed to grab and empty seat on the many flights to Boston. I eventually left around 22:00 hours, and arrived at home, just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, completely drained, exhausted, and mad.
The commuter service is also expanding in my region as well. There have not only been an increased frequency of MBTA trains, there has also been an extension of some of the lines, and reopening of others. This is all adding more people on the already crowded commuter trains, and taking them off the roads.
(2) Federal and local authorities are not prepared to bring forward the finance for such a system.
The federal government has been pushing for increased rail infrastructure, and through the organizations such as GoRail and NARP, there has been many campaigns sponsoring and recognizing the benefits for rail service. This has put both the commuter rail and Amtrak on the map again, so to speak. The problem is our rail passenger service is at the whim of the political party in control at the time just like a sailboat being blown about by the wind. We have certain individuals, who are well oiled by the oil and trucking industry that will do what they can to eliminate funding for rail improvements and public transit. With the big push in popularity again with railroads and rail travel, this problem has subsided in some of places such as the Northeast, but still there are big problems elsewhere, so the NEC, however, is quite immune from this due to its high-profile and active participation by many northeastern regional states.
(3) it is still generally felt within the United States that the car and road transport are superior to rail.
For some areas yes. The NEC, however, is really, really crowded. It can take hours to get from even the outlying areas in and around Boston into the city for example. I live up in Haverhill, named after Haverhill, England. We're about 45 miles from downtown Boston. The trip can take anywhere from 50 minutes to 3-hours if there's a sniff of a snowflake on the ground, or someone has car problems. The train takes an easy 55 minutes and is 99% on-time even with track work. Other cities, such as New York City, have gone as far as to raise high tolls, taxes, and fees which are used to discourage car drivers from driving into Manhattan. This does cut out some but not all traffic since the city is very crowded. The roads, however, are still really crowded. On a road trip to Reading, PA with my dad a few years ago, we got stuck crossing over the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York State. We hit the bridge at rush hour, and the traffic moved so slowly, we kidded about getting out and walking while we let the car roll ahead, or perhaps pushing the car with our feet while we had the gear in neutral. Eventually, after passing by whatever was not there anymore, the road opened up, but we sat there for about 2 hours at least. Imagine doing that every day! No way! The thing is at least I turned the car off, but others did not including some big trucks and buses.
(4) The state system of governance makes it virtually impossible to coordinate federal finance for large-scale infrastructure projects such as high-speed rail.
This does cause problems, especially in those areas that don't benefit from rail service. As we discussed in the other thread, there are places out in the middle of the USA that have almost no large cities at all, making a justification for any HST service impossible. When I say this, I am not kidding. There are many towns with a population of only 2500 farmers and mostly cattle ranchers. These areas are so rural that even the railroads ripped up their tracks decades ago. Having said this, many regional corridors are forming anyway. These run north-south it seems just like the NEC. The Midwest Corridor is Chicago-St. Louis, Kansas City, Dallas-Fort Worth area. California has it's coastal route which then extends up to the populous Pacific Northwest in and around Portland Oregon and Seattle, Washington. The rest of the country is pretty bare except for a few threads across the south, the middle, and far north which see service such as the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle, which runs on the former Great Northern Railroad, or today's BNSF.
I hope I answered your questions, Bill, and feel free to post more.
Links:
http://www.narprail.org/ Passenger and transit.
http://gorail.org/ the freight railroad advocacy
