Amtrak Shutting Down Several Route Sections 12/31/2018

Amtrak is facing the ultimate Hobson choice. Do we move long distance passenger trains to busy freight mainlines or do we move long distance passenger trains to less busy, almost no traffic at all, freight lines?
The Texas Eagle doesn’t has to be routed through Arkansas to connect Chicago with Texas. The California Zephyr doesn’t has to be routed through western Colorado to connect Chicago with northern California. The Southwest Chief doesn’t has to be routed through Raton Pass to connect Chicago with Southern California. The Cardinal doesn’t has to be routed through West Virginia to connect Chicago with Néw York City. There are alternate freight mainline routes available that the freight railroads will have to modernize with PTC.
Amtrak has kicked the can down the road for far too long. They knew a decade ago the freight railroads will not upgrade lines with low freight traffic, because it was the way the law was written with exemptions and pure common sense. They could have been planning the last decade to move their train routes, but they didn’t hoping somehow money could be extorted from either the states or the federal government or both to fund PTCing the least used freight lines they used. The extortion failed to do so in time, no additional sidings were built for passenger trains on the mainlines, and now Amtrak is recommending bus subsitutions over these exempted tracks. I believe they adopted the wrong solution moving forward a decade ago, and now the hens have come home to roost. They have nobody to blame but themselves!

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Volks, Unter Ministerinformation Magliari was quite quick to contradict Bob Johnston's report circulated at Newswire.

The "clarification" seems to put Amtrak's position regarding operations over non-PTC territory unchanged from that prior to the Newswire posting. All told, Mr. Johnston appears to have done the rail travel community a disservice - beyond the generation of posting activity prevalent at the several rail discussion sites.

I hope Trains Mag is not surprised when in the future they are not allowed inside access to Amtrak for future stories. A reporter has to keep his or her emotions in check when writing a news story close to their hearts.

frequentflyer wrote:I hope Trains Mag is not surprised when in the future they are not allowed inside access to Amtrak for future stories. A reporter has to keep his or her emotions in check when writing a news story close to their hearts.

This also sounds like a leak from a mid-senior official who predates Anderson, probably one who dislikes what Anderson is proposing. Whether it is the full or partial truth, or a falsehood, is only known at One Mass.

EDIT: also, precisely no one needs Amtrak to stay on one current route segment: La Junta - Trinidad. It could just as easily go via Pueblo - takes a little longer but catches a very large market. One less PTC-exempt route segment for Anderson to fret about.

Tadman wrote:
This. 110% this. PTC is Positively Total Crap.

Pretty much every industrialized country out there has some form of train protection, and has for decades. Hell, there's youtube videos of the stuff getting rolled out in some eastern bloc countries, which is on par with PTC. The Germans have had LZB for decades now, though it's not universal (PZB pretty much is, though and is far older). The US is pretty much the lone duck, along with the UK, who uses the "well, it's better than nothing" AWS.

The industry did it to itself. There had always been a steady stream of 'oopsies' and worse, and they did absolutely nothing to stop it. A crude system like the LIRR's ASC, combined with an inductive train stop was technology that existed back in the 50's. It could have been adopted at any time. The industry chose not to. Well, Congress got involved. Too bad, so sad. Just like every other industry that looked the other way...

Update on the incorrect Trains Magazine story that Amtrak would halt service on all non-PTC trackage. Of interest here, that would have eliminated Downeaster service between Brunswick and Boston! http://www.trainridersne.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Trains claimed service curtailment was Haverhill to Brunswick which of course turns into "Why bother?"

As someone who rides a lot of trains, I'm getting tired of the sheer inconvenience of these PTC installations. The number of hours I've lost to PTC installation in the last year or so, or the number of trips that became unpleasant/had to be scheduled at the wrong time, to me, is not worth the incremental increase in safety. When was the last time, for example, New Jersey Transit killed a passenger? 1996?

Now, of course, that's not the real choice -- I bet if funding were no obstacle, this could be done with far less inconvenience to passengers.

1) That person was not a passenger when they were killed and 2) I have heard, specifically, that it’s unlikely that PTC would have been installed in their terminal/yard limits. Presumably there’s a different technological solution, but it’s apparently not a given that PTC would have been expected to deal with such a crash.

Regarding this news from Trains, I say if Amtrak thinks it can blow smoke by kicking up a fuss about a crisis that doesn’t exist in order to make things happen, OK, great, so can Trains.

Nasadowsk wrote:

Tadman wrote:
This. 110% this. PTC is Positively Total Crap.

Pretty much every industrialized country out there has some form of train protection, and has for decades.

Mr. Nas, I have a lot of respect for your views, so please don't take this personally, but "every other nation" argument doesn't hold much water. There are lots of things every other nation's railroad has that we don't have. At the end of the day, the safety record of our railroad is defined by the casualty rate, which is a darn small blip on the radar compared to the economic impact and ton-miles/pax-miles numbers.

Another important thing to consider: PTC was spurred by Chatsworth. Chatsworth was caused by texting-and-driving a train engine. Today there is empirical evidence that texting/driving is worse than drunk driving, and many states have laws against it. Auto accidents cause 30,000+ deaths a year. If we're so concerned about safety, why not lower speed limits? Ban phones in autos? Require 75mph governors? The answer is, we're not concerned about safety, we're concerned about propaganda.

Final thought: If PTC were so amazing at presenting rail crashes, when do rail vehicle crash standards go away? There's no need for them if PTC works as presented.

At the end of the day, this is dating in middle school. Whole lotta talk, not a lot of action.

TRNE wrote:Update on the incorrect Trains Magazine story that Amtrak would halt service on all non-PTC trackage. Of interest here, that would have eliminated Downeaster service between Brunswick and Boston! http://www.trainridersne.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you think this watered down blanket statement from Amtrak is explicit confirmation that the Downeaster rail service is not in any kind of jeopardy then I would suggest you review a few situational circumstances and 'prepare for impact'. Has NNEPRA or TrainRiders NE actually heard someone from Amtrak say, "The Downeaster Service will not be shutdown" or "Is very low risk of shutting down"?

In any other administration, I'd be willing to air on the side of 'no way' but given their new leaderships directive to slash and burn Amtrak, I would not be surprised if this service gets the ax. In fact, I would NOT be going around saying 'all is fine, we are safe!' when in fact you should be making sure the public is readily aware that this is a real possibility and that they need to call their representatives immediately in case this gets ugly. Once again, plan for the worst (and start work with lawyers now for potential lawsuit, breach of conduct, and anything else that might stick).

Let's review statement:

"Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari tells Trains News Wire, "where PTC is not implemented and operational, it is expected that nearly all carriers will qualify for an alternative PTC implementation schedule under law."

What is a satisfactory alternative to PTC (hint, Amtrak will say there is none you have to have it or no-go on the train operations)?

"For those carriers and routes operating under an extension or under an FRA-approved exemption, Amtrak is performing risk analyses and developing strategies for enhancing safety on a route-by-route basis to ensure that there is a single level of safety across the Amtrak network."

This one is obvious, they are saying all routes must have PTC or we won't run them.

"For those very limited routes where a host may not achieve an alternative schedule by year’s end, Amtrak will suspend service and may seek alternative modes of service until such routes come into compliance."

The sunset clause-- if you don't have PTC or a satisfactory alternative (or schedule to achieve PTC) we won't run, period. NNEPRA has state no intention of upgrading Pan Am lines to PTC, so sounds pretty much like their mind is made up.

"NNEPRA and Amtrak have been conducting a risk assessment of the Downeaster route and, according to a knowledgeable source, preliminary results do not indicate any factors which would jeopardize the Downeaster Service."

This is what we call, building a house of cards on an analysis for obvious reasons. Nothing here is solid or factual, you're relying on an assumption based on an assumption that was re-assured from an unknown person who is 'knowledgeable'. How can you be knowledgeable in a situation that has no historical or situational precedence?

I'd actually say that to NOT prepare for a worst case scenario proves pretty clearly that NNEPRA/TrainRiders leadership are woefully incompetent in their role. Last time-- brace for impact.

For Raton Pass, ought not ATS + single track occupancy + slide detectors be enough to reach PTC levels of safety? For that matter, shouldn’t single-occupant rail, Track Warrants, and visual inspection on BBRR be enough? I’m not sure what PAR and VRS would need to accomplish.

Also, I wonder if there is some way for a CTC overlay to include a “dispatcher stop” option where a coded radio signal big-holes the air brakes on a non-responsive train. It isn’t PTC, but it provides a little more redundancy.

Y'all are forgetting the primary motive here, it's not actually PTC or really safety (so no actual alternative will be sufficient)-- those are just the excuses to cut the services (thus 'reducing' costs off the primary revenue generator of Amtrak, the NE Corridor).

CN9634 wrote:Y'all are forgetting the primary motive here, it's not actually PTC or really safety (so no actual alternative will be sufficient)-- those are just the excuses to cut the services (thus 'reducing' costs off the primary revenue generator of Amtrak, the NE Corridor).

Yes, but having proof of operational safety over a given discontinued route is central to a lawsuit compelling Amtrak to again operate over non-PTC segments. RPA (NARP) and affected states like Maine, Vermont, Kansas, and New Mexico should be planning such a suit.