On the one hand, yes these are some good points and privatization wouldn't solve Amtrak's big problems.
On the other hand, Amtrak has so many aggravatingly stupid and wasteful smaller problems - like paying a bunch of people to line people up in queues outside the platforms instead of just letting people walk onto the platforms - that I can't imagine a private company tolerating, that I can't help but dream of the idea.
Yep, Amtrak's protests that there's just *no way* to do seat assignments other than to have staff handwriting them on little cards just before boarding are *infuriating*.
I strongly agree with the idea of building from strength and concentrating investments where they are most helpful. It is mystifying why electrifying really short routes like the Hiawatha isn't more of a priority. I crunched the farebox recovery ratios and basically some of the short likes in the northeast are doing pretty well, including basically anything originating out of NYC or the metro NYC area (Empire Service). With battery electric EMUs being able to significantly reduce the amount of catenary that needs to be strung up that you could do two really specific interventions to make lines profitable:
1. Electrify enough of the Hiawatha/Empire Service/NEC to VA/Norfolk with electric power so that they can run battery-electric EMUs
2. Buy more battery-electric EMUs with more seats
3. Turn some of the loss leader routes into the black and generate more profit.
While the long distance routes are unhelpful I do wonder how far you could get with such a strategy, a lot of lines even with the post-covid damages to ridership are over 50-60% farebox recovery, new rolling stock that let you do faster service without increasing the speed of the rails (because the rolling stock accelerates faster) you'd be able to maybe add stops, abbreviate timetables, or run more trains daily.
When the railways adopted Centralized Traffic Control where a remote dispatcher authorizes train movements by trackside signal lights and two-way radios instead of telegraphed train orders, it became possible to operate trains in both directions on single track without head-on collisions from an engineer misinterpreting a train order transcribed by a telegrapher and handed up to him. This allowed many triple and quadrupled tracks to be removed. I don’t know that many double tracks have been removed. I do know that Canadian freight railroads have been increasing double track, especially in the mountains, not eliminating it. Very long trains all moving at close to the same speed reduces the need for passing and the frequency of meets.
CTC certainly made it unnecessary to double-track much existing single track, which in canyons and mountains and bridges and tunnels is very difficult to do.
In the pre-Amtrak and pre-VIA days when the railways ran their own passenger trains, they gave their Class 1 passenger trains priority over their freight trains for their own business reasons but those days are long gone. There is no way a railroad will stop a freight train with millions of dollars worth of cargo that has a schedule to keep, too, just to let the government’s money- losing collectivist passenger train squeeze by.
The economics of long-distance passenger trains in Canada are similarly depressing. Trouble is, there are hardly any places where “corridor” service makes sense, either.
More automation such as GoA4 would help a lot with this as well, the double directional traffic plus automation makes all of this easier to do in concert but it still requires a lot of investment.
If we were talking about building new rail with new rolling stock it would be a lot easier to do than trying to patchwork legacy systems to perform all of this.
On the one hand, yes these are some good points and privatization wouldn't solve Amtrak's big problems.
On the other hand, Amtrak has so many aggravatingly stupid and wasteful smaller problems - like paying a bunch of people to line people up in queues outside the platforms instead of just letting people walk onto the platforms - that I can't imagine a private company tolerating, that I can't help but dream of the idea.
I have received so much feedback—privately, from people who have to interact with Amtrak in some professional capacity—of this form:
"Your arguments are sound. Notwithstanding that, the way Amtrak conducts itself is infuriating and it needs SYSTEMIC CHANGE"
Apparently Amtrak is very good at irritating everyone around it!
Yep, Amtrak's protests that there's just *no way* to do seat assignments other than to have staff handwriting them on little cards just before boarding are *infuriating*.
I wrote here about some similar themes: https://substack.com/home/post/p-160158165?source=queue
I strongly agree with the idea of building from strength and concentrating investments where they are most helpful. It is mystifying why electrifying really short routes like the Hiawatha isn't more of a priority. I crunched the farebox recovery ratios and basically some of the short likes in the northeast are doing pretty well, including basically anything originating out of NYC or the metro NYC area (Empire Service). With battery electric EMUs being able to significantly reduce the amount of catenary that needs to be strung up that you could do two really specific interventions to make lines profitable:
1. Electrify enough of the Hiawatha/Empire Service/NEC to VA/Norfolk with electric power so that they can run battery-electric EMUs
2. Buy more battery-electric EMUs with more seats
3. Turn some of the loss leader routes into the black and generate more profit.
While the long distance routes are unhelpful I do wonder how far you could get with such a strategy, a lot of lines even with the post-covid damages to ridership are over 50-60% farebox recovery, new rolling stock that let you do faster service without increasing the speed of the rails (because the rolling stock accelerates faster) you'd be able to maybe add stops, abbreviate timetables, or run more trains daily.
When the railways adopted Centralized Traffic Control where a remote dispatcher authorizes train movements by trackside signal lights and two-way radios instead of telegraphed train orders, it became possible to operate trains in both directions on single track without head-on collisions from an engineer misinterpreting a train order transcribed by a telegrapher and handed up to him. This allowed many triple and quadrupled tracks to be removed. I don’t know that many double tracks have been removed. I do know that Canadian freight railroads have been increasing double track, especially in the mountains, not eliminating it. Very long trains all moving at close to the same speed reduces the need for passing and the frequency of meets.
CTC certainly made it unnecessary to double-track much existing single track, which in canyons and mountains and bridges and tunnels is very difficult to do.
In the pre-Amtrak and pre-VIA days when the railways ran their own passenger trains, they gave their Class 1 passenger trains priority over their freight trains for their own business reasons but those days are long gone. There is no way a railroad will stop a freight train with millions of dollars worth of cargo that has a schedule to keep, too, just to let the government’s money- losing collectivist passenger train squeeze by.
The economics of long-distance passenger trains in Canada are similarly depressing. Trouble is, there are hardly any places where “corridor” service makes sense, either.
Appreciated your analysis.
More automation such as GoA4 would help a lot with this as well, the double directional traffic plus automation makes all of this easier to do in concert but it still requires a lot of investment.
If we were talking about building new rail with new rolling stock it would be a lot easier to do than trying to patchwork legacy systems to perform all of this.