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With “Wonderfully Affordable” Flights, Who Needs Trains?
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
“A national rail network in a country this spread out and with wonderfully affordable airline service simply doesn`t make sense.”
This quote, from a Jan. 17 Gannett News Service article, is from Robert Poole of The California-based Reason Foundation. Poole, a long-time Amtrak foe, would have us forget that the days of “affordable” airline service are numbered, because of energy supply issues, as well as global warming concerns.
As a harbinger of the future, the European press already has daily references to pricing strategies against cheap air fares, including by Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman in his Jan. 23 column: “Most of the proposed remedies for global warming involves things the right traditionally abhors…There are restrictions on individual liberty as the clamour grows to tax people out of their cars and off their cheap flights.”
But you don’t have to look to the distant future to question Poole’s statement. Right now, Amtrak serves many locations with no easy access to airports, or airports with “affordable” fares to the desired destination.
Case in point: an elderly friend who lives in Elyria prefers Amtrak for trips to the East Coast—in spite of bad train times in Elyria—because it is 10 minutes from her retirement home. And, even though Cleveland’s Hopkins Airport is a comfortable drive, she also does not like dealing with all the airport hubbub.
Long-timer observers may be interested to know that Mrs. Donald Pease, widow of the former Congressman and Amtrak board member, still uses Amtrak at Elyria.
—Ross Capon
Posted by NARP
Tags:Another Comment on Segmenting Trains
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Continuing our series from last week; another NARP member had the following to say…
Regarding your Blog on segmented trains: I have read references to a similar failed experiment by Greyhound; apparantly, long distance bus passengers prefer to travel through the night rather than take 5-7 days to cross the country… Amtrak leadership should be advised not to ‘reinvent’ the wheel on this one.
—Eric Schneider
Fairbanks, AK
Posted by NARP
Tags:Yet Another Reason Why the Train is Better!
Monday, January 22, 2007
A week ago today, I boarded Amtrak’s eastbound Capitol Limited to return from Chicago to Washington. About 11:00 that morning, it began snowing. While it never got quite to blizzard levels, it was a pretty steady snowfall.
Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of using Chicago’s O’Hare Airport knows what happens when it snows. You got it, everything screeches to a halt!
Just before boarding the Capitol Limited—and just for the fun of it—I checked the flight status page for O’Hare. Many flights were cancelled. The 11:20am flight to Charleston, South Carolina wasn’t scheduled to leave until at least 7:30pm.
Once onboard the train, I shared these stories with my dinner companions. While we were enjoying a full meal, speeding through Indiana at 79mph, many were stranded at the airport with no idea when they would be moving. The three of us agreed that we made the right choice! One of my dinner companions, in fact, used to be a member of the “jet set.” After one such night at O’Hare, he said, “never again” and began riding the Capitol Limited. He hasn’t flown since.
Contrary to what critics say, long distance trains are for a lot more than just leisure, or for the rich, or for those who don’t have anything better to do with their time. They’re for everyone, including business people and those who need to get somewhere. Its about freedom of choice…isn’t that one of the guiding principles of our democracy?
—Dave Johnson
Posted by NARP
Tags:S. 1516 now S. 294
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Senators Frank Lautenberg and Trent Lott re-introduced their Amtrak Reauthorization bill today. It is important for all rail advocates to note that S. 1516 is now S. 294. Be sure to use the correct bill number when contacting your elected officials!
Over on the full NARP webpage, we have information about S. 294 and quotes from both Senators at a news conference held at Union Station this afternoon. NARP also issued a news release applauding the legislation.
Urge your Senators to support S. 294!!
—Dave Johnson
Posted by NARP
Tags:Responding to Ronald Utt, Part II
Friday, January 12, 2007
Here’s more of my letter to the Business and Media Institute. Scroll down to read the first part in yesterday’s blog entry.
Perhaps Mr. Utt’s most egregiously erroneous assertions is the following:
Amtrak’s subsidies [are] “over the top” …taxpayers foot on average $400 for each passenger aboard the Sunset Limited rail line servicing California, while other popular rail services get subsidies averaging “hundreds per passenger.” Since long-distance rail is significantly slower and less convenient than an airline flight, Utt added, taxpayers are essentially paying for someone’s vacation when it comes to most long-distance train trips.
First, the standard measure for passenger service is passenger-miles (one passenger carried one mile), not merely passengers. Second, the federal cost per passenger-mile for passengers on long distance trains such as the Sunset Limited is very close to the passenger-mile cost for riders on corridor trains.
Specifically regarding the Sunset Limited:
The route of the Sunset Limited – from Los Angeles to New Orleans via Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio and Houston—traverses one of the fastest growing parts of this nation. Market logic would produce at least daily service throughout the route with multiple daily service on many portions of it. Yet the Sunset Limited operates only three days per week over extremely congested tracks owned by the Union Pacific Railroad. Despite its limited service frequency, the Sunset Limited exchanges hundreds of passengers annually with other Amtrak trains at Los Angeles, San Antonio and New Orleans. When (prior to Hurricane Katrina) the Sunset operated all the way to Orlando, Florida, Sunset Limited passengers also connected to and from other trains at Jacksonville, Florida.
The overwhelming majority of passengers traveling on the Sunset Limited (and other long distance train) do not ride the route from end to end. Train passengers more typically travel between small towns along the train routes, or between large cities and these small towns. Airlines or even intercity buses rarely serve the latter towns.
Amtrak’s admittedly substantial debt has not increased in over 4 ½ years; it has in fact fallen by more than $400 million in that period. Most of Amtrak’s debt can be traced directly to the failure of US policy makers to firmly decide what they want Amtrak to be and to do.
Federal law continues to mandate a National System of intercity rail passenger service. That law also mandates preservation and improvement of service in the Boston-Washington Northeast Corridor. But federal lawmakers have never provided more comprehensive direction regarding the type, level and scope of the mandated national service. Nor have either Congress or any president called upon Amtrak or any federal agency to draft a more comprehensive rail passenger service policy framework. (The Amtrak Reform Council was an ideologically driven farce that produced little that was constructive and nothing that was enacted.) On those very rare occasions when Amtrak management has attempted to offer such ideas, Congress has paid little attention during its usually highly distracted process of passing Amtrak’s portion of the federal budget.
This nation needs a truly national system of intercity rail passenger service, providing a dense network of daytime and overnight trains serving all major travel markets. Such a rail service network could replace many short-distance air services, reduce highway congestion and reduce national air pollution. Achievement of such a network is greatly inhibited by misdirected, factually flawed criticisms such as Mr. Utt’s.
—Howard Harding
NARP Board Member, Akron, Ohio
Posted by NARP
Tags:Responding to Ronald Utt, Part I
Thursday, January 11, 2007
On January 7, ABC`s “World News Sunday” concluded with a report by correspondent Bill Redeker in which he lamented that first class travel on this nation’s railways might “become a thing of the past,” thanks to repeatedly proposed federal budget cuts. In response, The Business and Media Institute distributed an article authored by Ken Shepard which complained “Redeker left Amtrak’s critics at the station, ignoring its massive costs to taxpayers who aren’t even riding the trains.” Ken Shepard then quoted extensively from Heritage Foundation transportation policy expert Ronald Utt.
I submitted the following rebuttal to Shepard’s article to The Business and Media Institute. The first part will appear today, the conclusion tomorrow.
Once again Ron Utt is utterly incorrect in his criticisms of US intercity rail passenger service. According to figures published by Amtrak in March 2006 on page 12 of its FY 2007 budget request, Amtrak’s annual federal costs are as follows:
According to Amtrak President Kummant, the federal cost for long distance train amounts to about the cost of one cup of coffee per US taxpayer per year—hardly an overwhelming burden.
Contrary to another of Mr. Utt’s assertions, there are zero private, for-profit, unsubsidized daily intercity rail passenger services in the US or Canada. Any such privately operated service operates less than daily and is targeted directly at relatively well-off vacationers, not at average citizens traveling for a variety of non-vacation purposes.
U.S. freight railroads desperately sought to shed passenger service operations because they could not operate such service at a profit, particularly following the advent of federally subsidized commercial airline service and the federally subsidized interstate highway system. In truth, Amtrak, commercial air service and the federally subsidized highway network each recover about 40 percent of their total costs from users via a combination of fares and user fees. The 60 percent balance is provided primarily by federal (and in the case of highways and airports), state and local government non-user fee funds.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Mr. Utt’s most ridiculous statement: per passenger subsidies.
—Howard Harding
NARP Board Member, Akron, Ohio
Posted by NARP
Tags:More thoughts on daylight trains
Friday, January 05, 2007
Ed Note—The December 20 blog entry by Bob Glover about segmenting overnight trains has generated several responses to the NARP office. We’ll share some of them with you, starting with comments from NARP Member David Peter Alan…
I was in New Brunswick, NJ last month to hear David Laney propose consecutive-day trains with overnight stops in between. Bob Glover’s analysis of the scenario is right on target; to me this sounds a bit like railroading in the 1830s, before locomotives had headlights.
There are two such operations in western Canada, and I rode one of them. One is the Rocky Mountaineer, an excursion train that goes from Vancouver to Jasper (which has service on VIA Rail at a much lower price) and Calgary (which has no VIA Rail service). Everyone stays overnight in Kamloops, the train makes no local stops, and the least expensive one-way ticket costs thousands of dollars.
The train I did ride was VIA Rail’s “Skeena.” It runs from Jasper, Alberta to Prince Rupert, B.C. with an overnight stop at Prince George, B.C. It runs three days a week, with a fourth frequency added in the summer. I rode it in May, 1999, just before “high season” started. The train consisted of one coach and a “Park” car (a dome-observation car built for CP Rail). There were snacks available for sale, but no meals. I grabbed a take-out lunch from a restaurant in Smithers while the train was being refueled. There were only about 20 people on board for most of the trip; only a few people rode between intermediate stops.
The round trip requires me to stay in hotels for three nights. In addition, the Skeena is scheduled to arrive in Jasper too late to connect with the transcontinental “Canadian” to Toronto, and a similar misconnect is also scheduled the other direction.
The mountains were beautiful, and the trip was quite an adventure. Unfortunately, it was the sort of trip that only the most dedicated railfan could enjoy. As rail transportation to actually move people from one place to another, it was absolutely useless. If this is David Laney’s vision for long-distance rail, he should experience VIA Rail’s Skeena before he says anything more on the subject.
—David Peter Alan
Posted by NARP
Tags:Texas Rail Conference; Special Rate for NARP Members!
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Too many freight trains. Not enough track. And no room for any real passenger rail expansion in Texas unless…
“Solving the Congestion Challenge”. That’s the theme of the 3rd Annual South Central High Speed Rail Corridor Conference to be held Thursday evening, January 25 and Friday, January 26, 2007 at the DFW International Airport Hyatt Regency Hotel. And as a special bonus, NARP members are entitled to a $15 discount on the registration fee! (must be received by January 15)
Hosted by Texas Rail Advocates, this conference hopes to energize the public and private sectors in Texas and the Southwest to move ahead with a study of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s South Central High Performance Rail Corridor.
Among the presenters will be Michael Behrens, Executive Director of the Texas Department of Transportation and John Horsley, the Executive Director, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Designated in 2000, the corridor has not received any attention from public and private entities until this past December when a conference call was held with Council of Governments, Municipal Planning Organizations, Railroads, State Transportation Officials and other stakeholders to determine the level of interest. Officials from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas participated in the conference call and all agreed that the time is right to move forward on the corridor. First up, a letter of understanding that the South Central Rail Corridor is a vital link in transportation policy and deserves to have a feasibility and engineering study.
Both Union Pacific and BNSF Railway officials will have presentations on public/private partnerships and Gene Skoropowski: Managing Director, Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority will speak on the success of passenger rail service in California.
Information on the conference can be found at the Texas Rail Adovcates homepage. A special website for the $15 discount registration fee can be found here.
Peter LeCody
TRA President and NARP Board Member
Posted by NARP
Tags:©2010 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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