How much are Class I and II railroads paid by Amtrak?

Do any of you harping on "opportunity cost" have any evidence the private freight railroads are telling shippers, "NO, we refuse to accept your carload shipment because Amtrak has tied up the line." ???

Do you have any proof they're not?.....

Making holes for the Lincoln Services probably constrains UPRR from running 8-12 daytine operations they'd otherwise be free to schedule. There's only so much you can push to overnight hours when Amtrak isn't running.

Without Amtrak, operations could be more spread out. Having more operations during the day would also huge quality of life impacts on employees.

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If Amtrak as a reason not to provide a freight customer service was accepted by a customer, it's most likely accepted by a customer who would have taken any justification to show they did their due diligence, but are sticking with trucking anyway (or not relocating to a rail served property on that line if the customer was looking for a new site). We'd certainly have heard about Amtrak as interference in the STB hearings about poor freight service if UP was telling existing customers they couldn't handle a load because of Amtrak.

rohr turbo wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 11:41 pm

eolesen wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 12:46 am Then there's the lost opportunity cost of having to accommodate Amtrak on a daily basis.

Do any of you harping on "opportunity cost" have any evidence the private freight railroads are telling shippers, "NO, we refuse to accept your carload shipment because Amtrak has tied up the line." ???

Yes.

When you look at metrics such as average speed and delays on a given railroad line, and Amtrak delays are in the measure of hours, and average speeds are dropping, that is evidence that said route is at a capacity constraint.

It's also worth thinking about how a 79mph train affects a route outside the Amtrak-owned NEC. If you have a double track route with a raft of freights in either direction runnign about 40-50mph, either Amtrak has to run 50 as well, or they have to weave in/out of the opposing main, causing opposing traffic to slow down, not speed up. Then what happens to the opposing Amtrak on that opposing main?

This is not impossible, as there are intermodals running 50-60mph, but the customers like Hunt and Schneider pay a significant premium for that slot.

> Or how about the practice of having a, say, Southbound passenger pull into a siding behind a freight, wait for the northbound traffic, freight or passenger, to clear, then back out of that siding to run around the SB freight.

That hasn't happened on any of my five 2023 trips. I've traveled round trip to Carlinville, round trip to Spfld. and one-way from Normal. It's possible that it still happens or that it's more common in the Alton-Carlinville segment, but I'm not really convinced it's a thing any more, given the number of miles of 2nd main, all of which have entrances at both ends.

There's also a weird twin premise* - blaming Amtrak for delays while also pretending that 150 miles of 2nd main was a costly unneeded pony that UP would rather do without It's one or the other, (if either is true) because there's no way UP is losing 5-8 freights/day to 5 Amtrak trains, that could've plausibly run on a largely single-track railway without Amtrak. And if you think pulling Amtrak back out of a one-way siding is costly, imagine backing your 150-car freight. I believe the added overnight capacity from 150 miles of 2nd track more than makes up for lost daytime slots.

I should probably note that Tadman may have been speaking more generally about capacity constraints, and not about the situation on the Illinois UP route, where the state paid UP for massive additional capacity.

eolesen wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 2:07 am

Do any of you harping on "opportunity cost" have any evidence the private freight railroads are telling shippers, "NO, we refuse to accept your carload shipment because Amtrak has tied up the line." ???

Do you have any proof they're not?.....

Making holes for the Lincoln Services probably constrains UPRR from running 8-12 daytine operations they'd otherwise be free to schedule. There's only so much you can push to overnight hours when Amtrak isn't running.

Without Amtrak, operations could be more spread out. Having more operations during the day would also huge quality of life impacts on employees.

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Do you really think the any railroad gives a F@#$ about quality of life of its employees, please. We have had this discussion in the past. They really do not, if that was the case the railroad would be a 9 to 5 job with weekends and holidays off. LOL. Sure if Amtrak wasn't there they "could" run more trains but would they? Would those trains make enough money to cover the cost of running them? Or would they just have more fluidity to move the turds they already have.

Tadman wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 9:16 am

rohr turbo wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 11:41 pm

eolesen wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 12:46 am Then there's the lost opportunity cost of having to accommodate Amtrak on a daily basis.

Do any of you harping on "opportunity cost" have any evidence the private freight railroads are telling shippers, "NO, we refuse to accept your carload shipment because Amtrak has tied up the line." ???

Yes.

When you look at metrics such as average speed and delays on a given railroad line, and Amtrak delays are in the measure of hours, and average speeds are dropping, that is evidence that said route is at a capacity constraint.

It's also worth thinking about how a 79mph train affects a route outside the Amtrak-owned NEC. If you have a double track route with a raft of freights in either direction runnign about 40-50mph, either Amtrak has to run 50 as well, or they have to weave in/out of the opposing main, causing opposing traffic to slow down, not speed up. Then what happens to the opposing Amtrak on that opposing main?

This is not impossible, as there are intermodals running 50-60mph, but the customers like Hunt and Schneider pay a significant premium for that slot.

Funny, back in the day Conrail ran their van trains at 70mph Amtrak runs 70 to 79mph on the Mohawk a double track mainline never heard anyone complain about us getting in the way of TVLA . Why? Because dispatchers could dispatch they knew the territory it was not just a bunch of lights on a screen. As an example back then the dispatchers worked out of Selkirk and they were expected to make re fam trips over the territories they were qualified on once year I believe. Now they work out of Jacksonville and if you want the trip it is a all expense trip paid by you for a part of your job.

David Benton wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 1:00 pm Sounds more like making excuses for railroads poor operating practices.
Talk of multitudes of trains while ignoring they are spread out over 100's of miles.

Operating practices so poor that they're printing millions of dollars in profits every year.

And that is what theyre supposed to be doing. The railroads are owned by stockholders.

Those stockholders are often institutional investors.

Those institutional investors are pension funds, insurance premiums, and other funds that are the vast sum of the collective wealth of the working and middle class in developed nations.

So yes, regardless of the trackage rights costs for a passenger train and if they are or are not market rate, we can rethink how the private freight railroads operate and really teach them a lesson about how to prioritize Amtrak.

Who wants to sacrifice their 401k or pension? Their life insurance? Their kid's college fund? Because that's who the evil profit-hungry stockholders and shippers are. Your 401k and college funds.

And here's the worst part: Usually when you think you're teaching the management/executive class a lesson and really putting the screws to them, they quietly disengage and move on to another more lucrative venture.

Tadman wrote: ↑Mon Dec 25, 2023 7:55 pm

David Benton wrote: ↑Fri Dec 22, 2023 1:00 pm Sounds more like making excuses for railroads poor operating practices.
Talk of multitudes of trains while ignoring they are spread out over 100's of miles.

And that is what theyre supposed to be doing. The railroads are owned by stockholders.

Those stockholders are often institutional investors.

True but there’s also laws and ethics. Should they be able to do anything or engage in any business practice regardless of ethics and morality so long as it benefits shareholders? I don’t think most who are critical of how some railroads have aggressively implemented PSR are advocating socialism or seizing of private property by the government. Merely some reasonable but not overly burdensome regulations to ensure safety, avoid incidents like what happened at East Palestine, and ensure they are following the law when it comes to passenger trains - within the confines of the law and reasonable regulations businesses obviously have the right to operate as they wish in the way that most benefits shareholders. I reject however the notion that any regulation whatsoever that impacts a company’s ability to achieve the operating ratios that it desires constitutes a taking. We all know about institutional shareholders and I fully understand the importance of the market in retirement funds and pensions. But in any industry or trade there can be excess. There does seem to be a fixation by some more aggressive buy and sell investors in the market with pumping up short term gains to make a quick return with little consideration to anything else and sometimes these are the people making the decisions at the large investment firms. But fixation on short term gains if divorced from any other consideration can lead to risk for these same institutional shareholders. If four years down the road the cuts lead to a massive multi billion dollar lawsuit or fine due to an accident that also isn’t good for those long term institutional investors. Capitalism is obviously the greatest economic system in the world but there always needs to be rules of the road. It can’t just be a free for all.

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 8:00 am True but there’s also laws and ethics. Should they be able to do anything or engage in any business practice regardless of ethics and morality so long as it benefits shareholders?

Obviously not, and we have laws and regulations that are constantly evolving with the input of all stakeholders. This may come as a shock to most of us here, but I sit on a couple consensus committees that make industry regs for my industry, one of which is incorporated in federal regs by OSHA 1910.6.

I've mentioned this before, but there are laws requiring passenger train priority. There are virtually no penalties attached to that law. This is a law that was written, passed, and signed by federal elected officials in the congress and white house. If they wanted to put a stiff penalty for late trains in the amendment, they would've. There are laws and penalties against delaying the mail:

" unlawfully ... delays, or opens any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years"

The legislative intent is clear: The body of elected officials, for the last fifty years, do not consider this a problem of any magnitude. They do consider the superficial operation of Amtrak west-of-corridor service important enough to continue funding and re-equipping every ten years or so to the tune of billions of dollars.

So the choice is do you (a) lobby your elected officials to change their mind after fifty years of inaction on penalties or (b) do we throw another billion or two in the pot and run the trains on time, or (c) do something different altogether?

There does seem to be a fixation by some more aggressive buy and sell investors in the market with pumping up short term gains to make a quick return with little consideration to anything else and sometimes these are the people making the decisions at the large investment firms.

There is that fixation and it's a shame. Buffet bought BNSF because he thought it was a sound enough property to remove the yoke of quarterly reporting. I think the last ten years of "PSR will make our dreams come true" will burn out at some point as the dreams aren't coming true. It worked at CN because CN was a bloated former crown company that needed slimming.

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 8:00 am True but there’s also laws and ethics. Should they be able to do anything or engage in any business practice regardless of ethics and morality so long as it benefits shareholders?

The
FRA
NTSB
SEC
are the keepers of morality for the railroad business.

Welcome to consequences of Justice Douglas’ 1947 decision.

If it's not illegal, it's legal.

Regarding Mr. Lord's immediate as quoted by Col. Perkowski, railroads, away from the Northeast, are investor owned entities, which at this time, are providing adequate returns to those investors that they have attracted the attention of the various "raiders" out there (there is always the all too real chance that, when Uncle Warren leaves the scene, BH will become another of such).Now so far as service goes, even back in regulated days (i.e. "my day" in the industry), anyone care to ask the grain elevator operator in Postville, IA how "lovingly" he was served?

Now it appears there is an awakening within the industry that "The Gospel According to Saint Elwood", or otherwise PSR, was, in many a case, "a bridge to far". As heavy industries, such as maritime, motor vehicles, and even agriculture, become more concentrated with mergers, their marketplace "clout" means they have choices, and this means the industry must move their operations in a manner so as to accommodate these shippers. Again as I've noted at other topics, why is it that any of these shippers (I've mainly noted maritime) want to have access to two, or more in markets where "The Canadiens" also serve, roads?

The only thing holding any road to hosting Amtrak trains on their ROW's is the bilateral contract that each has with Amtrak. As we well know, save the bits and pieces that those us around here with railroad in our CV's, are hidden from any Freedom of Information "prying".

So the "whining" over at other sites more geared to advocacy than are we around here, any such nonsense that the roads have a "social obligation" to adjust their operations so as to accommodate whatever trains Amtrak chooses to run, is simply nonsense.

As someone with real experience in getting F'd to a hard wood finish by Chessie. I get it. On a previous assignment long ago in a land far away, I followed a van train Q112 I think was the symbol from Syracuse to Hoffmans every Sunday night whether I was late or on time. Did not matter if there was a space to get me around him, there hardly ever was. I did not like it but I understood their ballfield their rules.
However when one gets stuck behind a 50mph junk job, 40mph coal train or even better a train with their FRED not working and restricted to 30mph and you don't pass anything for 120 miles one begins to wonder. So I ask the Mr Norman, The Col., and eolesen how would crossing a train over to get around an issue in the above situation cause so much confusion and delay on a double track railroad??? I have my own ideas and answers some are directly from the "kittys mouth".

Railjunkie wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 9:49 am how would crossing a train over to get around an issue in the above situation cause so much confusion and delay on a double track railroad???

It shouldn't. That's why you have passing sidings and crossovers.

And I'm sure those problems didn't happen before PSR, right?...