• FRA Long Distance Study

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

  by Tadman
 
Seconded. The FRA is coming up with proposals more "out there" than my satiric Pocatello-Duluth-Tucumcari-Pocatello with two full service diners concept. At least my concept negates the need to turn the consist!!!
  by RandallW
 
Gilbert B Norman wrote: Wed Jun 19, 2024 11:41 am What for the love of God, will it take to put a stop to this FRA nonsense (I know of one; but to note it would violate a long held tenet - that even I when I wore the tin star around here - upheld).
An act of Congress reverting the act of Congress that forces the FRA to study these routes, or a ruling by a court that Congress violated the Constitution by writing a law requiring the FRA to do this.
  by eolesen
 
Or just apply common sense? You don't need to pay a consultant $500K per route proposal to weed out the absurdity.

The problem is the people at the FRA handing out the checks know the people at the consultancies.
  by RandallW
 
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
attributed to Albert Einstein.

The purpose of the Corridor ID studies is to allow state transportation department determine, with a rigor required to base Federal spending decisions on, if (and how) a particular route can economically serve the interests of that state's transportation policies, and if the Federal government should assist that state because that route also serves Federal transportation policies.

For example, Texas's transportation policy specifically calls out a need to providing state transportation project funding assistance to rural counties that have the will (e.g., are willing to levying new taxes to cover bonds) but not the means (e.g., property values are declining due to lack of economic opportunity or climate change, negating the value of levying new taxes) to create transportation projects that improve the transportation availability and safety for that rural population with the goal of increasing economic opportunity in that county. This has the effect that relatively rich mostly urban areas subsidize relatively poor rural areas. Is it common sense that richer areas should subsidize poorer areas, or is it common sense that richer areas should exclusively use their riches to better themselves (I doubt we'd find agreement here)?

Another example is that Virginia's planning decisions for subsidizing intercity travel are centered around per-capita lack of access to local transportation, either private automobile or local public transport, overlaid on a map of major medical care facilities. Virginia's decisions mean that some cities of 100,000+ people get no intercity public transportation, while counties of less than 20K people are targeted for public intercity transportation and that public transportation in the state is more closely linked to getting people to Washington DC and points north (bus as well as train) than between cities in the state. Under Virginia's policy guidance, that is a correct decision, as it provides access to transportation where it is needed, and some people call that common sense while others claim it isn't.
  by STrRedWolf
 
eolesen wrote: Wed Jun 19, 2024 5:46 pm Or just apply common sense? You don't need to pay a consultant $500K per route proposal to weed out the absurdity.

The problem is the people at the FRA handing out the checks know the people at the consultancies.
Unfortunately, common sense isn't all that common, and there's little proof that there is any inside the Capitol Beltway.
  by Jeff Smith
 
I'm going to post this despite my better judgement: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6 ... nce-Routes

The Daily Kos is a political site on the left of the spectrum. However, when I took over the site, I relaxed my rules on discussing politics on the site so long as comments concerning politics relate to RAIL. In this article, there are politically extraneous asides and commentary that many of you may find abhorrent. DO. NOT. GO. THERE. In short, we don't need a discussion of foreign policy and spending priorities.

I actually do not see a need to go anywhere politically; there's plenty of rail content. Read and quote as you like but let's PLEASE try to keep it apolitical, or at least related to trains.
  by Jeff Smith
 
And on a less-political note: https://local12.com/amp/news/local/new- ... ress-funds
...
The proposal included two new Cincinnati stops, one on a new line that would connect Detroit through Nashville and end in New Orleans. The other would connect New York to Dallas-Fort Worth, again running through Cincinnati. This would be in addition to the Cardinal Line, not replacing it.

According to Ohio rail advocates, this would also be in addition to the proposed line connecting Cincinnati to Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland. That plan is still on the table as a corridor route as part of the proposed passenger rail expansion.
...
  by charlesriverbranch
 
I don't see any of it happening, unless some private entity with a lot of money to invest makes it happen. Congress isn't capable of getting any business done, and that's not going to change no matter who gets inaugurated next January. There aren't going to be any new Amtrak trains under the current political system, I think.

It's interesting to speculate on what might have been if railroads back in the 1950s and 1960s had pushed for subsidies, or perhaps some form of open access. Given the right financial incentives, the railroads might have run all manner of trains. But it's water under the bridge. That train left the station long ago, and trees have grown up where the tracks used to be.
  by eolesen
 
Jeff Smith wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2024 7:49 am I'm going to post this despite my better judgement: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6 ... nce-Routes

The Daily Kos is a political site on the left of the spectrum.
I stopped reading when I saw support for the North Coast Hiawatha, and no real acknowledgement of the lack of meaningful population along just about every route proposed west of the Mississippi.

Keep in mind that conversations in the Kos Community are probably a notch or two less credible than what we collectively write here.
  by Tadman
 
I stopped reading when I saw support for the North Coast Hiawatha
I'm not even going to bother. Until we have advanced regional corridors such as 6-8x Wolverines (or NOLA-Houston, ATL-CHS, etc...) I am against any long distance expansion or really even the continued operation of overnight trains. It makes little sense from a rider's perspective, nor from a financial or public policy perspective.
  by RandallW
 
If Amtrak didn't run the LD trains and only ran corridor trains, Virginia would not have started the Lynchburg trains (now extended to Roanoke) as the Cresent ensured the tracks were ready, North Carolina would not have started the Carolinian (which does operate over NC owned ROW that Amtrak had not used, but for most of its run in NC, operates over corridor-ready tracks maintained for the Silver Star and Cresent), Wisconsin would not have started to Borealis over the route of the Empire Builder, Washington and Oregon would not have started the Cascades over the route of the Coast Starlight...the list of corridor trains that got started because there was little capitol investment needed because they share most if not all of their route with Amtrak LD trains isn't inconsequential, and cancelling many of the LD trains running today would simply make the ROI on creating a new corridor train worse (and therefor less likely).
  by Tadman
 
I'm not sure I buy that argument but assume for a moment it holds water, and the LD trains really did allow for viable non-NEC corridors. Why area we still running LD trains? When it takes 9 hours (scheduled) for a New Orleans to Houston run, every other day, wishing and hoping that Union Pacific gives you priority, that's just not a serious transportation option. When the only options to Cleveland put you there in the wee hours of the morning, that's not a serious transportation option.

If the LD trains did pave the way, great. Then lets move on to more serious and viable transportation options such as corridorizing those routes. The Sunset could be NOLA-Houston, Houston-San Antonio, Tucson-Phoenix, and Phoenix-LA. 3x/day each way. Dump the 3/week fleabag dog of the current train and move on. Pay market rate trackage rights and get the priority we so crave (did you know that Amtrak's trackage rights payments are minimal compared to their payroll?).

It's a win for the riders, for public policy, for the politicians, and the environment, and the host railroad. What is holdign us back???

But instead we're studying a 20 meandering sloths of long distance trains.

Image
  by eolesen
 
Corridors would get more support from states... time of day matters as does frequency.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

  by Steamguy73
 
Tadman wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2024 9:59 pm I'm not sure I buy that argument but assume for a moment it holds water, and the LD trains really did allow for viable non-NEC corridors. Why area we still running LD trains? When it takes 9 hours (scheduled) for a New Orleans to Houston run, every other day, wishing and hoping that Union Pacific gives you priority, that's just not a serious transportation option. When the only options to Cleveland put you there in the wee hours of the morning, that's not a serious transportation option.

If the LD trains did pave the way, great. Then lets move on to more serious and viable transportation options such as corridorizing those routes. The Sunset could be NOLA-Houston, Houston-San Antonio, Tucson-Phoenix, and Phoenix-LA. 3x/day each way. Dump the 3/week fleabag dog of the current train and move on. Pay market rate trackage rights and get the priority we so crave (did you know that Amtrak's trackage rights payments are minimal compared to their payroll?).

It's a win for the riders, for public policy, for the politicians, and the environment, and the host railroad. What is holdign us back???

But instead we're studying a 20 meandering sloths of long distance trains.
You know the reasons: Politics, and in many places the impossibility of serious corridor trains.

Take the proposed reinstatement of the North Coast Hiawatha for instance, the route with the most grassroots support of any in the proposals (which I think could work despite low populations on much of the west end, because of the Empire Builder's ridership history and its close proximity to Yellowstone, but that's beside the point). You can't "corridorize" that route as you tried doing because of another user's stated issues with population. The western transcon routes, proposed or existing apart from the Sunset Limited, don't have this as a real option for the entire route for them because of the very rural space in between. You wouldn't have the ability to split the SW Chief or EB. Probably not the CZ.

They need to exist until you've got the wide selection of regional routes like many of us want, you included, because these routes can only actually happen based on what the states want. Yes, there is a real world where we have the entire eastern US (and some states west of Illinois) and pretty much all of the major population centers in that portion of the country connected by corridor trains with several daily frequencies at several terminals, but that's not our current reality as I'm sure you're more than aware.

What's better? Cleveland being served by two LDR trains in the middle of the night? Or none at all? Even if the existing circumstances are most certainly not particularly useful in terms of transit in many places, is it better to just not serve these places at all? I say no.

Yes, LDR's provide low returns and are the primary reason amtrak has always failed to make money. Yes they are slow, yes they are often delayed and have so many other issues. But for the time being, they still need to exist, even if it's just to not disenfranchise states whose only current service is the LDR's.
  by Tadman
 
Politics, and in many places the impossibility of serious corridor trains.
For years we've said this 400+51=18billion or something like that. Okay, let's accept that is right as well (it isn't either, but I will entertain it for now).

So we need to maintain service to ex-corridor states. Take the east coast trunk for example: Lakeshore, Capital, Pennsylvanian, Empire Service, 448/9.

Change that to two CHI-CLE day trains, two CLE-BUF and CLE-PIT day trains, two PIT-WAS, two PIT-PHL, replace the LSL in New York with another Empire frequency and a ALB-BOS connection.

Now you have a really meaningful network with alternatives and options for frequent travelers. If you pay market rate trackage rights, you also have a fair chance of timeliness.

Or we could keep running that joke of a long distance network - the one where less than 1pct of traveling public uses it.

I'm not saying it's irrelevant. Everybody is. Let's at least try to use the bones of the current network to make something viable and useful to normal people. Don't we ever get tired of losing?
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