Extending Amtrak ownership of the routes it serves

goodnightjohnwayne wrote:

Otto Vondrak wrote:There is no way in the foreseeable future that Amtrak would purchase more of the routes it runs on, and make the freight railroads the tenant.

There might be limited instances of trackage being purchased outright by Amtrak but I would generally agree with your statement.

The only trackage that Amtrak would buy is if the choice was buy it or have it abandoned. If there is any freight use I don't see Amtrak buying it.

The trackage now owned by Amtrak was transferred at the inauguration of Conrail. Illinois might some day buy the Chicago-St. Louis, MIchigan might buy the Kalamazoo-Detroit line from NS which has been trying to get rid of it, and Wisconsin might end up owning part of the line to Madison. A proposal for a south of the lake connector between Chicago and Porter, Ind., largely using abandoned or downgraded NS routes is possible. It's kind of doubtful that any long distance routes would ever come under Amtrak's ownership. It's just not practical.

matawanaberdeen wrote:I wanted them to build a whole new set of tracks fully owned by Amtrak so they are totally independent of the freight RR's. Your right neither situation will ever happen. The Gov't will give Amtrak just enough money to limp along and then bitch that Amtrak can't turn a profit and get off the Gov't dole. just for the record I do not not care that Amtrak gets federal money. The nation has to have a national passenger service. every other industrialized nation has Gov't aided nation rail service. Plus trust me the airlines get MUCH more money than Amtrak does,its just hidden. JC

Is that a question or are you testifying?

We can discuss your idea all day long, but it resides in the realm of impossible to fund and even more impossible to implement.

Yeah I'm realizing its impossible now. Interesting discussion though. JC

matawanaberdeen wrote:I wanted them to build a whole new set of tracks fully owned by Amtrak so they are totally independent of the freight RR's.

That would be nice ... but it is hard to be totally independent of freight railroads when there are so many crossings. The only way to stay independent is to have completely separate alignments away from the needs of freight roads. Otherwise there will always be an industry on the wrong side of the tracks that will need a track crossing the passenger line(s) to be served.

matawanaberdeen wrote:The nation has to have a national passenger service. every other industrialized nation has Gov't aided nation rail service. Plus trust me the airlines get MUCH more money than Amtrak does,its just hidden.

I thought we were a world leader? We shouldn't do anything just because "everybody else is doing it". If the long distance lines were profitable there would have been no Amtrak. Private ownership would make it work. But they are not profitable.

Funding helps airlines but much more of the system is public. Airports are not built by an individual company to serve only their customers, the sky is managed by the FAA. It would be like having some level of government owning every rail terminal and running dispatching in government centers. That reality is NEEDED in air service where nobody owns a single air corridor and airports are public. (Private airports are possible but I doubt we will ever see one for a commercial airline.) There is too much use of publicly shared area NOT to have the government take over control - and fund it.

We are a world leader but I still say we have to have a national passenger rail system. Public transportation such as bus and rail is one way Gov't funds go to the greater good of the public. Here in NJ NJT is greatly needed and even needs to expand. JC

rohr turbo wrote:I think about this question often as well. Here's my crazy idea:

Through much of the LD network, I assume the ROW is quite a bit wider than the existing tracks. So why not propose that the freight lines grant Amtrak a 100-year no-cost lease to one track's width of the property adjacent to the existing track(s). Amtrak would have to fund laying rail. But without the property acquisition and major grading costs, this is much more economical.

Why would the freight lines agree to this? For one, the Amtrak interference to their operations would be significantly reduced. Second, this land is sitting unused, so it's no skin off their back.

This is essentially the Empire Corridor third track plan, and the South of the Lake Reroute (Chicago-Porter, IN) plan. It's also not so far off the California HSR plan. The two catches:
(1) The freight companies want to reserve space for future expansion;
(2) Amtrak has no money. The plans therefore are mostly for state ownership.

The freight railways are going to become tenants on a number of tracks. Being the tenant of a government agency relieves them of property taxes. Except on major mainlines where control is important to them, it's generally advantageous (though UP doesn't seem to be able to admit it).

goodnightjohnwayne wrote:New Mexico's Rail Runner Express is a very odd example. Basically, it really isn't as much a commuter service, as a heavily subsidized intercity service running commuter equipment, with ridiculously low, give-away fares. It is entirely fitting that they artificially boosted initial ridership by charging no fares at all.

The whole thing strikes me as a little odd, to say the least.

No, it's a commuter service. You just have no sense as to how many people commute from Albequerque to Santa Fe. And the fact that there are so many such commuters -- *that* is a little odd.

I'll agree, Raillrunner is a commuter rail service now.

But possible future extensions to El Paso and Denver wouldn't be.

electricron wrote:I'll agree, Raillrunner is a commuter rail service now.

But possible future extensions to El Paso and Denver wouldn't be.

No, they wouldn't be. They'd also be branded differently and priced differently.

The State of New Mexico basically bought the line from the Colorado border to Lamy, NM as a speculative purchase, not really for RailRunner, even though the purchase funding was done along with the rest of the RailRunner project; the documentation says, essentially, "BNSF is offering it for cheap, we might want it, let's grab it."

They actually bought the line from Belen, NM to Trinidad, CO: http://www.stb.dot.gov/decisions/readin ... enDocument
This isn't the first case of a state owning a railroad outside the state - Georgia owns the Western and Atlantic Railroad into Chattanooga, TN. It also happens with highways; for example the New York State DOT owns pieces of NY 17 and I-684 in adjacent states.

Why would a railroad want to go over Raton when it can save at least 1300 feet in vertical climb by taking the Belen cutoff? BNSF was well shed of dumping the historic Santa Fe route, there are better paths through the mountains now. Diesels don't need water.

Amtrak should consider negotiating with BNSF to move 3/4 off the historic line.

Considering the freight traffic on the Belen cutoff, why would Amtrak want to run on such a busy line?

Eric

I remember reading somewhere that they want to keep running over Raton to get closer to Denver (for bus connections). It also certainly makes sense with respect to freight interference; it's not clear that the cutoff would actually be faster despite the higher theoretical speeds. Maybe once they finish with Abo Canyon? A Belen-Denver train might work then, or reviving the Desert Wind might make it redundant.

Let's not forget that the Raton route is certainly more scenic than the main freight line. There's all those Boy Scouts who ride every summer and the Belen route would require a backup move to serve Albuquerque. If speed was the essence of long-distance train travel, then the California Zephyr would operate through Wyoming, not the scenic way through Colorado.