Amtrak: Operating Deficit, Government Operation, etc.

Agreed, however, that's a logistics problem. The diners had/have a fiscal problem with their operating cost structure. It appears that the sleeping car passenger market is unable to bear the actual cost of full meal service.

If Amtrak's operating deficit is less than the government operating subsidy,can Amtrak use that money for capital expenditure? Sorry ,I know I have not used the correct terms , but I think most will get the gist of the question.

Maybe a good idea as far as making Amtrak profitable would be to split off the different regions of the country into different service providers like in Japan. there could be Amtrak Northeast, Amtrak Southeast, Amtrak Midwest, Amtrak South, Amtrak Southwest, and Amtrak Pacific. This would allow for separate management and focusing on problems more specifically. Also, this would mean that regions which function on an operating profit are separated from those who lose money which could be helpful as riders on the NEC won't be providing a subsidy to those riding the Empire Builder, allowing for easy improvements on infrastructure and capacity.

In my mind, dining car service was one of the very few remaining Amtrak perks

The dining car is one of the only reasons I could convince Mrs. FatNoah to take an overnight train. Without that, it's pretty much a no-go. We make an annual pilgrimage from Boston to Lakeland, FL to see the in-laws and end up on the Meteor because the Star no longer has a diner.

David Benton wrote:If Amtrak's operating deficit is less than the government operating subsidy,can Amtrak use that money for capital expenditure? Sorry ,I know I have not used the correct terms , but I think most will get the gist of the question.

No. The appropriation as written is specifically for operations. I don't know the exact mechanics but typically there would be a periodic (monthly or quarterly) draw of funds from the Treasury via USDOT. Any unused appropriation is void at the close of the fiscal year (or as otherwise specified by Congress).

You know, I think if this becomes a reality (operating deficits ending), how much of a factor are the dining cars?

By not using them as much, it appears to be saving money. If this gets you into a positive territory, I suppose that's great.
BUT, I know for one, I'm LESS likely to ride a train w/o a dining car.

i.e. I'm more than willing to ride the Silver Meteor over the Star, and if they end up removing the diner (or reducing it to the abomination that the LSL has now) I'll stop riding the Crescent (which I do usually once or twice a year, both as coach and sleeping car passenger).
I suppose if they can fill my berth with someone else, they come out ahead, but if they do start to lose passengers as a result, the idea of a loss-leader diner might be appealing.

At this point I've pretty much given up on the idea of taking the LSL westward again, which is a shame, since I really was planning a few trips around a decent diner.

By not using them as much, it appears to be saving money. If this gets you into a positive territory, I suppose that's great.
BUT, I know for one, I'm LESS likely to ride a train w/o a dining car.

I'm less likely, but will still do it. The value of the train is eroded, though. Per my previous comment, it basically means a sleeper is only an option when I'm solo and not traveling with the family.

At this point I've pretty much given up on the idea of taking the LSL westward again, which is a shame, since I really was planning a few trips around a decent diner.

Until this year, I took the LSL every other year for a "get together with friends" trip in the Chicagoland area. I've done the trip about 5 times now. For the last iteration, I ended up flying. I don't mind paying a premium for the sleeper and a reasonably good benefit (hot meals) but I just can't pay extra for the sleeper and a "continental" breakfast and no hot food options. Hell, the kids option is a turkey sandwich. That means traveling with the kiddo means bringing our own food or going to the lounge car to buy our own food. No thanks.

The Wall Street Journal has reviewed Mr. O'Toole's recent book "Romance of the Rails":

https://www.wsj.com/articles/romance-of ... 1548287880" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fair Use:

..In 2006, the city of Nashville, Tenn., built a new commuter-rail system—christened the Music City Star—for $41 million. At the time, the Regional Transportation Authority of Nashville called it “the most cost-effective commuter rail start-up in the nation.” When it comes to rails, though, no term is more fungible than “cost-effective,” as Randal O’Toole notes in his eye-opening “Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need.”

The Nashville train, which operated only on weekdays, took 50 to 55 minutes to complete a trip that a car could make in 35 minutes. Cost overruns ran to 25% beyond projections. Planners predicted 1,900 riders a day; a decade after the system opened, ridership hovered around 1,000. Operating costs were estimated at $3 million a year; by 2016, the author calculates, that number was $8 million. “It would have cost less,” Mr. O’Toole writes, “to buy every daily roundtrip rider a new Toyota Prius . . . every other year for the expected life of the train.” The train is still running and continues to struggle financially............“I write this book,” Mr. O’Toole says, “as a love letter to a dying friend.” But perhaps he is being too hasty. The so-called Green New Deal proposal, conjured in a rapture of utopian bliss and soon to be launched by the Democratic House, will cost, by one estimate, $700 billion to $1 trillion annually and includes funding for high-speed, zero-carbon rail. Senate Democrats, too, are floating a proposal that calls for $25 billion in mass-transit spending to build, or expand, subway and light-rail transit systems nationwide. Mr. O’Toole’s dying friend appears far from the end of the line

It appears that neither author nor reviewer is exceptionally happy that the passenger train is here to stay, but they both appear to be Kubler-Ross Phase 5 that such is the case.

hmm it's almost like the USA systematically attempted to dismantle train systems in favor of cars

ConstanceR46 wrote:hmm it's almost like the USA systematically attempted to dismantle train systems in favor of cars

Prior to 1950s, pre and until the end of World War II, most transit systems in the USA were private companies, trying to earn a profit from fares. After the war, more and more transit companies failed financially, and local governments took them over or replaced them with public agencies providing subsidies. Think of how Amtrak was formed, except at the local areas vs nationally.
Buses are still the cheapest way to expand and provide transit services in most of America. Even New York City has a huge bus service to supplement their huge subway and ferry systems.

It depends how you define cheapest. You might have to spend least money up front, but buses have other costs. The roads they run on are subsidised, they cause pollution and congestion, and they are less likely to get people out of their cars than light or heavy rail. On a busy route there’s no way you can get the same throughput of passengers as a heavy rail system. Basically, forsome routes they are better and for others not.

Very few routes in even fewer cities require the throughput of a heavy rail system.
Buses work alone or in association with other modes of transit just about everywhere.
You will see buses in NYC, Boston, and Chicago that have large heavy rail systems.

I keep reading that streets are subsidized as a reason to also subsidize trains. Golly, where do you expect cities to build water pipes, sewer pipes, electric lines, telephone lines, cable lines, and where and how do you expect the cities and their public utilities to get to them to maintain them? There has to be a public right-of-way somewhere - or we will all be living in the stone age.

Buses use it, and so does everything else running on the surface of our planet.

lpetrich wrote:

CHTT1 wrote:If Randall O'Toole "loves passenger trains," how come he's opposed every passenger train effort -- from transit to LD -- ever presented in the past 30 years or so? Strange sort of love.

He might respond that he likes passenger trains, but that he doesn't think that governments should be in the business of supporting them.

Indeed. There is a wonderful quote from Bastiat that runs along the lines of "Just because we don't want the government to do something, doesn't mean that we don't want it to happen."

There's a lot of hand-waving in this thread. Why should the government do something that loses money? The money has to come from taxpayers. Why is it better to take money from taxpayers than from riders of these trains? Because it makes the ticket too expensive? How is it less expensive to force everyone to pay for the rider's transportation? Maybe that's an argument for not running passenger trains, an argument which most freight railroads would cheer with a hearty "huzzah, huzzah, finally we're rid of them!" Remember: most railroads never wanted to carry passengers in the first place. Those which do, and are good at it, don't run any freight.

One can also say that about government military force and police forces and flat roads, that because they are desirable does not mean that governments ought to provide them.

Military forces, police forces, judicial systems, correctional systems, flat roads, and air-traffic-control systems are all money-losers that are nevertheless funded by governments, with all political parties and factions supporting their financing except for anarchists and hard-line libertarians. One can dispense with military and police forces by becoming a vigilante or hiring guards, but nobody seems to want to do that. One might even argue that if soldiers' and cops' services have value, then people will hire them as guards, and that we don't need governments to run military and police forces.

So one ought to ask what value something provides if it is not a moneymaker. The value that these items provide is considered a good justification. There is also the problem of enforcing paid access for roads. Does anyone want a toll booth on every block? Technology may provide a solution in the form of a transponder that one would put on one's vehicle, something like a RFID chip, but that has problems of its own.

For intercity passenger trains, one can justify them the way that one justifies urban-transit systems, that they are cheaper than building lots of roads and airports. Maybe not airports for urban systems, but certainly for intercity ones. On the subject of airports, I must ask which ones have been built by the airlines that serve them.

That argument can work for short-distance corridor trains like the Northeast Corridor ones, but not for long-distance trains.

For those, one can use the case of national monuments and national parks, and also state and city ones. That would work for trains that go by scenic areas, but that does not work for many long-distance trains.

The final argument seems to be the pork-barrel value of long-distance trains. Pork-barrel value is what caused the Interstate highways to be built inside cities, instead of being exclusively intercity. Pork barrel is a side effect of a region-based political system, where most national politicians serve single states or single districts in states.

Pork-barrel value has kept going Amtrak's rather sparse system of long-distance trains. These trains currently go to 46 of the 48 contiguous states.

Although I am hopelessly statist by libertarian standards, I don't see much reason in keeping long-distance trains going, at least more than the current token level of them. I prefer development of short-distance corridor trains, though some populated strip like the Atlantic coast can enable their combination to grow to long-distance length.

First projected date for breakeven ... "2021" ... From this CBS Report ...