Why did Amtrak scrap every P30CH and almost every SDP40F?

[sethmcs]

You make it sound as if they are being prevented from doing so.....the class 1 railroads don't do passenger service because they lose money on it. The government doesn't subsidize Amtrak because they want to control it....they do it because if they didn't, it wouldn't exist.

I don't believe that is entirely true. There are profitable passenger routes that exist on every 1 class one railroad in the country. The problem is the railroads can't determine 1) the rate 2) the schedule. The government interfers through the surface tranporation board that determines rate and schedule. Government interference caused the bankrupcy of Penn Central by imposing unprofitable rates and schedules on PC. If the gov't wants to run the show they should pay of it.

 

[Sourdough]

I don't believe that is entirely true. There are profitable passenger routes that exist on every 1 class one railroad in the country. The problem is the railroads can't determine 1) the rate 2) the schedule. The government interferes through the surface tranporation board that determines rate and schedule. Government interference caused the bankruptcy of Penn Central by imposing unprofitable rates and schedules on PC. If the gov't wants to run the show they should pay of it.

How are they profitable if the gov't is interfering and causing them to go bankrupt?....sounds like a contradiction to me...

 

[crman123]

I don't believe that is entirely true. There are profitable passenger routes that exist on every 1 class one railroad in the country. The problem is the railroads can't determine 1) the rate 2) the schedule. The government interfers through the surface tranporation board that determines rate and schedule. Government interference caused the bankrupcy of Penn Central by imposing unprofitable rates and schedules on PC. If the gov't wants to run the show they should pay of it.

Penn Central went bankrupt because it was a merger of two COMPETITOR railways into one giant system, many tracks paralleling each other, and the fact that most of it was poorly maintained which lead to VERY high capital expenditures. Combine that with low revenue from freight haulage due to the advent and growing popularity truck transport. Conrail was only able to be profitable in that region more than a decade after the fall of Penn Central. Penn Central entered receivership and due to Government "interference," Conrail was created to keep the whole system from total collapse, I hardly think that they are the ones to blame, talk to the PC management first.

 

[perry_weekley]

I don't believe that is entirely true. There are profitable passenger routes that exist on every 1 class one railroad in the country. The problem is the railroads can't determine 1) the rate 2) the schedule. The government interfers through the surface tranporation board that determines rate and schedule. Government interference caused the bankrupcy of Penn Central by imposing unprofitable rates and schedules on PC. If the gov't wants to run the show they should pay of it.

Amtrak is halfway in the red but since the use or cars and airplanes are suddenly limited due to the rise of fuel prices Amtrak is starting to stand on it's own two legs again.

I read about Amtrak's survival off high gas prices on MSNBC, I believe.

Also on there it said that the company's low money has always made trouble so that they can't get the newest of new equipment meaning the oh so old Genisis series and Acela.

 

[mjolnir]

I don't believe that is entirely true. There are profitable passenger routes that exist on every 1 class one railroad in the country.

I doubt that. In the exteme, there is no profitable passenger route on KCS, and it is definitely a class I.

The problem is the railroads can't determine 1) the rate 2) the schedule.

Again, this is not true. Amtrak has the authority to set its own rates and schedule. There is presently no private railroad passenger service in the U.S. The real issue with the profitability of railroad passenger service is the competition from the private automobile, and from the airlines. Both receive very large "hidden" subsidies, since all airports (with one exception that I can think of--Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, TX, which has no passenger service) are operated by governmental units, and almost almost all highways are built and maintained with substantial governmental subsidies.l

The government interfers through the surface tranporation board that determines rate and schedule. Government interference caused the bankrupcy of Penn Central by imposing unprofitable rates and schedules on PC. If the gov't wants to run the show they should pay of it.

This was more true when Penn Central was formed; at that time, the ICC did have authority to regulate rates, though generally not schedule, but at that time the government regulated most other transportation rates, too. In fact rail rates were deregulated before the airline and trucking rates were. The bankruptcy of the PC was caused by a number of factors, some of them the result of bad management decisions, some of them the result of population shifts. In theory, it could have been prevented. In practice, it was probably inevitable.

ns

 

[sethmcs]

How are they profitable if the gov't is interfering and causing them to go bankrupt?....sounds like a contradiction to me...

No contradiction. let the railroad decide what passenger service to provide and when to provide it and lets see.