Candidate Positions on Amtrak/HSR

Tommy Meehan wrote:It's another hearing held by Congressman Mica (R-FL) and I don't think a lot of positives are going to come out of it. Plus I don't really see a connection between the hearing and the topic of this thread (candidate's positions on HSR and Amtrak).


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i dont think Mica is looking for any positives . the sole reason for his hearings are to bash Amtrak . the hearings would be good if they actually were looking for ways to make Amtrak more efficent , rather than just trying to point out the $ 17 steaks .

David Benton wrote:

Tommy Meehan wrote:It's another hearing held by Congressman Mica (R-FL) and I don't think a lot of positives are going to come out of it. Plus I don't really see a connection between the hearing and the topic of this thread (candidate's positions on HSR and Amtrak).


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i dont think Mica is looking for any positives . the sole reason for his hearings are to bash Amtrak . the hearings would be good if they actually were looking for ways to make Amtrak more efficent , rather than just trying to point out the $ 17 steaks .

Perhaps the title should be Amtrak and Politics; I'll let Tad and Greg decide. But in any case Mica is a house candidate, and I've mentioned he's "fare" game Tommy! And he's a well-known Amtrak gadfly, as is McCain and many others.

Jeff Smith wrote: Perhaps the title should be Amtrak and Politics; I'll let Tad and Greg decide. But in any case Mica is a house candidate, and I've mentioned he's "fare" game

Congressman Mica's latest hearing was held Thursday ( http://transportation.house.gov/hearing ... ewsID=1726 ). Mica has been insisting we should let private interests takeover Amtrak and the construction of high speed rail lines. But how serious is he? He has not given any details or specifics as to how we do it so his comments sometimes sound like he's just stating general policy objectives. That he has no real plan.

At the hearing there was some interesting testimony regarding privatization of passenger rail as has been mentioned recently in this thread.

Joseph Boardman Amtrak's CEO told the committee that there are a number of places where commuter rail is operated by private for-profit companies, including in the United States, but most receive some form of government subsidy. Boardman said there are only two countries who have tried to privatize inter-city rail passenger services to any great extent. Great Britain and Japan.

Japan privatized but only after the government built most of the high speed lines. It also gave the private operators a "huge one-time infusion of funding to subsidize future losses."

In Great Britain the government issued a report last year that concluded the "objectives of privatization [were] not achieved." That in 2010-2011 the government's share of the costs had risen to 50%, at a cost of over $7 billion. (http://www.jrtr.net/jrtr34/f16_mat.html / http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2012 ... vestments/ )

Boardman added that no country has succeeded in building a high speed rail system with private funding. In Great Britain and Taiwan the governments had to bail out at great expense the private entities created to develop high speed lines. In Australia, Argentina and Brazil planned privately-funded HSR systems were dropped "after it became apparent that the anticipated private funding would not be forthcoming."

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In regards to private (or at least, contract if the operator is state-owned) operation of HSR: http://www.albawaba.com/business/saudi- ... way-443260

Bombardier Transportation, the rail equipment division of the Canadian firm, Bombardier Inc., has signed a $367 million deal with Spanish-based Talgo SA to develop a high-speed railway system for Saudi Arabia by supplying parts for 36 trains.

Intercity passenger train manufacturer Talgo, a member of al-Shoula consortium, was recently contracted by the Saudi Railways Organization to build and run a 450 kilometer high-speed rail line connecting Mecca and Madina.

Bombardier has previously taken part in developing four different generations of the TGV in France, as well as the ICE trains in Germany and the Netherlands.

The world's largest train maker said the deal is likely to include propulsion and control packages and high-speed bogies.

What is a "bogie"?

Jeff Smith wrote:In regards to private (or at least, contract if the operator is state-owned) operation of HSR: http://www.albawaba.com/business/saudi- ... way-443260

Bombardier Transportation, the rail equipment division of the Canadian firm, Bombardier Inc., has signed a $367 million deal with Spanish-based Talgo SA to develop a high-speed railway system for Saudi Arabia by supplying parts for 36 trains.

Intercity passenger train manufacturer Talgo, a member of al-Shoula consortium, was recently contracted by the Saudi Railways Organization to build and run a 450 kilometer high-speed rail line connecting Mecca and Madina.

Bombardier has previously taken part in developing four different generations of the TGV in France, as well as the ICE trains in Germany and the Netherlands.

The world's largest train maker said the deal is likely to include propulsion and control packages and high-speed bogies.

What is a "bogie"?

The non US word for trucks.

Intercity passenger train manufacturer Talgo, a member of al-Shoula consortium, was recently contracted by the Saudi Railways Organization to build and run a 450 kilometer high-speed rail line connecting Mecca and Madina.

Saudi Railways Organization is state-owned.

According to an article from Reuters News Service several months ago, al-Shoula the construction syndicate awarded the contract, is partially backed by the Spanish Government:

(Reuters) - A Spanish-Saudi consortium which will build a high-speed railway linking the holy cities of Mecca and Medina said on Monday it had obtained a 3.04 billion riyal ($811 million) loan facility needed to start the project.

The loan was syndicated through Spanish banks BBVA , Banesto, Banco De Sabadell and CaixaBank as well as Spanish operations of Credit Agricole and Deutsche Bank.

Terms of the deal, which involves the support of state-backed Spanish credit insurer CESCE and ICO, a financial agency owned by the Spanish state, were not disclosed.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/ ... IK20120702

Again I just take this as further evidence when Romney says Amtrak "should get out of the way" and let the private sector build our HSR network, like Congressman Mica, he's only talking theory, there's no 'plan.'

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morris&essex4ever wrote:

Jeff Smith wrote:In regards to private (or at least, contract if the operator is state-owned) operation of HSR: http://www.albawaba.com/business/saudi- ... way-443260

Bombardier Transportation, the rail equipment division of the Canadian firm, Bombardier Inc., has signed a $367 million deal with Spanish-based Talgo SA to develop a high-speed railway system for Saudi Arabia by supplying parts for 36 trains.

Intercity passenger train manufacturer Talgo, a member of al-Shoula consortium, was recently contracted by the Saudi Railways Organization to build and run a 450 kilometer high-speed rail line connecting Mecca and Madina.

Bombardier has previously taken part in developing four different generations of the TGV in France, as well as the ICE trains in Germany and the Netherlands.

The world's largest train maker said the deal is likely to include propulsion and control packages and high-speed bogies.

What is a "bogie"?

The non US word for trucks.

yes , pretty much the rest of the world has different terminolgy to the USA .
Truck =bogie
Tie = sleeper
car = carriage
engine = locomotive
switch = points
siding = passing loop

After 20 pages it seems I'm a bit late to the political "punching bag " topic... well heres one that just ran across my desk
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-2 ... nt-to.html
As usual the stories begin to fly that the Republicans can privatize Amtrak, I ask " At what cost ? "

Nice link Buddah.

“If they’re going to go around talking about privatization,” David Gunn said, “they damn well better do a little homework.”

Amen!

He's baaaaaaaack:

Progressive Railroading

Mica to introduce legislation to end Amtrak 'monopoly'

U.S. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the immediate past chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, announced yesterday that he would introduce legislation to end Amtrak's "sole monopoly over passenger-rail service."

In a speech that continued his longtime criticisms of Amtrak, Mica told the U.S. High Speed Rail Association that his bill wouldn't end Amtrak, but would "allow open competition" to intercity passenger and high-speed rail service, according to a statement issued after his speech.

"Since 1971, Amtrak has run a costly monopoly with Soviet-style operations," said Mica.

I must be confused...I did not think that there was anything prohibiting a private company from establishing passenger rail service. Here in Maine, for example, I thought that the reason Pan Am did not run passenger trains from Portland north to Augusta/Bangor/Lewiston was because it might not generate any profits, even though they already own the tracks. Are there private companies out there that are ready to pony up to buy land, lay track, buy cars and locomotives, etc to establish intercity railroad passenger service? IIRC, when the Downeaster was established, it was put out to bid, and AMTRAK won the bid, and I think two other companies ( Guilford being one) submitted bids to run the service.

I think what Congressman Mica's doing is, proposing legislation that would enable Amtrak to sell its existing routes and/or operating rights to private carriers. For that they probably do need legislative approval plus a process whereby they can accomplish same.

mr. mick wrote:...Are there private companies out there that are ready to pony up to buy land, lay track, buy cars and locomotives, etc to establish intercity railroad passenger service? ...

That's the $64,000 question that Congressman Mica never answers or explains. If you look at the link Jeff pasted, and then read the comments under the article, you'll see that the notion private carriers would be interested in operating passenger service is questionable. And the people posting on Progressive Railroading are probably people from the industry.

Another way of looking at this, from Amtrak's perspective is, why would you want to strip Amtrak of a service like Acela that has produced hundreds of millions of dollars in income and mandate they keep operating the money-losing routes? Wouldn't it be smarter to allow Amtrak to keep the money-makers in order to support the money-losers?

So from that perspective it sounds like Mica's long-range goal is to kill Amtrak. And I'm sure it is, although he goes back and forth, in November 2011 he said he had learned quite a bit during his hearings, adding-

“If there wasn’t an Amtrak, we’d have to create an Amtrak,” Mica said twice today. “It just needs reform.”Link, click here

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Note also that President Obama devoted a few sentences to high-speed rail in the State of the Union speech last night, which was something of a surprise to me given its setbacks in his last term. Joe Biden looked like he got a little teary when Obama mentioned it I didn't hear specific mention of Amtrak, on the other hand - maybe one of you did.

mtuandrew wrote:Note also that President Obama devoted a few sentences to high-speed rail in the State of the Union speech last night, which was something of a surprise to me given its setbacks in his last term. Joe Biden looked like he got a little teary when Obama mentioned it I didn't hear specific mention of Amtrak, on the other hand - maybe one of you did.

No meantion of Amtrak, but he did mention Siemens, which is making the new locomotives for the NEC and certainly looks poised to manufacture the Acela II Trainsets.