New Amtrak Policy likely to end special excursions and steam charters

Just a heads up for those that like to see big steam on class 1 freight networks.

For many years, steam excursions and other chartered non-scheduled passenger trains were able to operate over class I owned tracks by purchasing insurance under Amtrak. Now Amtrak has changed their policy to discontinue non-Amtrak excursions, which will make it more difficult for excursions to access freight owned tracks.

Steam railroads that own their own tracks will obviously not be affected.

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wir...o-stop-operating-special-trains-charter-moves

I heard about this yesterday

With multiple/continual derailments/collisions, costly insurance, and security issues, it appears that the "fun & games" of railfan railroad operation has finally come to an end. The US has become totally paranoid and emasculated, starting with airlines, cruise ships, and other means of transportation, and even movie theatres, now scan their patrons for metallic objects, making them empty their pockets of cellphones, keys, change, and even making passengers remove their shoes for inspection. Charlton Heston is turning over in his grave, as guns will soon be totally outlawed, due to copycat criminal idiots and terrorists "going out in one final blaze of glory", "shooting and blowing up the joints". And we are on a 39 minute warning of worldwide nuclear warhead extinction ... It was fun while it lasted :wave:

Amtrak will continue to run its self into ground, and be sold off, and then the steamers come back, Amtrak can blame others for their own lack of putting money back into the railroad all they want...,, perhaps its the long cars ? Shorten them up amtrak, you clearly don't have the radius capability? heh

As for all the other stuff... humans...eh?

The only option you have is place your computer next to your model railroad, load trainz on the pc, and a few trains on the model railroad.

Increase the throttle on both, and the rest of the world.... meh who cares.

TINE said:

Amtrak will continue to run its self into ground, and be sold off, and then the steamers come back, Amtrak can blame others for their own lack of putting money back into the railroad all they want...,, perhaps its the long cars ? Shorten them up amtrak, you clearly don't have the radius capability? heh

As for all the other stuff... humans...eh?

The only option you have is place your computer next to your model railroad, load trainz on the pc, and a few trains on the model railroad.

Increase the throttle on both, and the rest of the world.... meh who cares.

Click to expand...

What people don't seem to understand is that Amtrak hasn't been given a fair shake from the start. Congress set it up like Consolidated Rail, and expected it to make money. Passenger rail doesn't make money. But it still provides a necessary service to people around the globe who can't afford/don't want to fly or drive. When Amtrak is given a shot, they've done well. Look at the Michigan Line. First place outside of the NEC to have 110 MPH speeds. It's Amtrak owned and operated, and it's a shining example that it can work, if it is allowed to.

If Congress wants Amtrak to get better at what it does, then give them the money to actually succeed and purcahse new equipment or repair current stuff. P42s, especially in Michigan, are run every single day with little to no downtime. Eventually it takes its toll. Soon, Amtrak will HAVE to buy new stuff to replace the 20 year old P42s and even older Amfleets and Superliners and they aren't going to be able to because Congress keeps cutting funding.

Cutting funding doesn't solve problems. It creates new ones, especially in the transportation industry.

As for the excursions:

At the moment, I agree with this course of action. Excursions are an operational distraction from what Amtrak is supposed to do. Focus on revamping the long-distance trains to make them more appealing to the average person and let the individual states handle the corridor stuff for now. Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri are already doing that by purchasing the new corridor equipment. California has been doing it for awhile, along with I believe North Carolina. It allows Amtrak to reroute more money towards the much-needed overhaul of the LD fleet while not having to cut services and spend even more money on excursion trains.

TINE said:

Amtrak will continue to run its self into ground, and be sold off, and then the steamers come back, Amtrak can blame others for their own lack of putting money back into the railroad all they want...,, perhaps its the long cars ? Shorten them up amtrak, you clearly don't have the radius capability? heh

Click to expand...

This makes no sense.