To my surprise, Amtrak has never been profitable.
This is weird. I'd think trains are perfect for America. From the prices I hear, air travel is very expensive in the US (one of the few things where Europe is cheaper), and traveling long in a car is just agony (at least to me). It's just too cramped. So trains really should be successful.
Alex added:
I have seldom seen Amtrak beat road for speed.
My reliable commute by car used to be between 50 and 200 minutes for 38 miles.
To accomplish the same by Amtrak/bus bridge used to take 90 minutes, but the worst derailment we had added another 3 hours to that, and even something simple like Union Pacific failing to set the switch (points) to bring us to the platform cost us an hour at my station.
Over a longer distance, say Oakland to Santa Barbara, this is easily a 6 hour drive, and a 12 hour train ride.
If Amtrak sux, that could be seen as just a different symptom of America's attitude to trains. Some countries, like France and Japan, have wonderful and speedy train systems.
Maybe it is America's love of being A Rugged Individualist. A car is an expression of that.
Don informs:
As I understand it, its a population density thing. There are less people per square mile in most of America than in most of Europe, and in rural places (and we have a lot of those) our roads mostly have less traffic, making cars faster and more practical than the rail.
It's not universal, though: for short trips through very dense areas like the areas around New York, Washington DC, or Atlanta, the local trains are much better than driving.
Also, the roads go to many more places over here than the trains can manage - Were I to walk to the nearest train station from my home, it'd probably take about two hours. This mindset is: "If I'm going to have to take a taxi or drive to the train station, I might as well just drive to where I'm going in the first place."
Ah yes, that makes sense. I always forget how friggin' big America is. "Overpopulated planet" my ass. :)
8 comments:
Amtrak is famous (even infamous) for its very poor management...
Perhaps the railway business is more difficult than it appears? Even Richard Branson has had problems here.
I think it really depends on how much of a hurry you are in to get there. It may be faster than a car, but much slower than by plane. I think for those (including myself) that have limited time for vacation, we'd want to use as much of that time as possible for visiting and not for getting there.
I have seldom seen Amtrak beat road for speed.
My reliable commute by car used to be between 50 and 200 minutes for 38 miles.
To accomplish the same by Amtrak/bus bridge used to take 90 minutes, but the worst derailment we had added another 3 hours to that, and even something simple like Union Pacific failing to set the switch (points) to bring us to the platform cost us an hour at my station.
Over a longer distance, say Oakland to Santa Barbara, this is easily a 6 hour drive, and a 12 hour train ride.
I had a friend ride the San Diego to Oregon train, she said it was already 3 hours late in Oakland, and was 12 hours late at the destination.
I can see some instances where Amtrak is faster, Oakland to San Jose in commute times. Other train services are okay, CalTrain San Jose to San Francisco beats the freeway at peak times. ACE (Altamont Commuter Express) beats road from Stockton/Tracy to San Jose.
I switched to using Amtrack at $2.80 per gallon (27mpg US), that was when the $11 road v's $11 rail made sense, even though it cost me 2 hours daily, they became reading and movie time instead of driving and dishwashing.
I can see why Amtrak has trouble getting passengers now. I can even see how it had troubles in the past.
I still think one of the main causes of the problems are the track owners, in our area UP, they prefer freight, and the passenger trains get shunted to let freight through.
If it happens, the Sacramento to LA train will compete with flight in time. It will effectively by downtown to downtown, and that beats getting out to the airports. Kinda like NY to DC where trains make sense.
As I understand it, its a population density thing. There are less people per square mile in most of America than in most of Europe, and in rural places (and we have a lot of those) our roads mostly have less traffic, making cars faster and more practical than the rail.
It's not universal, though: for short trips through very dense areas like the areas around New York, Washington DC, or Atlanta, the local trains are much better than driving.
Also, the roads go to many more places over here than the trains can manage - Were I to walk to the nearest train station from my home, it'd probably take about two hours. This mindset is: "If I'm going to have to take a taxi or drive to the train station, I might as well just drive to where I'm going in the first place."
If you consider the general "free help" that the passenger airline industry gets -- tax breaks to come into town, large free plots of land outside of town, extra incentives to build larger airports -- which the passenger train industry generally does NOT get in the USA, I think it's generally pretty clear why airlines are preferred by most average travelers. The train's cost is roughly equal to the plane's, all other things being equal, for a given passenger; but the time is as much as quadrupled for an average trip -- as long as you don't count driving WAY out of town to the airport, waiting in long security lines, etc., when comparing the train to the plane.
I've always preferred European-style train travel because you can get up and walk around, meet people, relax, change seats (though often they preclude this stuff on Amtrak in an effort to more remind their passengers of the "preferable" airplane experience). I think most Americans think of the train as either (a) a very very slow inefficient hold-over that ought to be immediately replaced by planes everywhere (because they're under-informed about rail's benefits) or (b) a fanciful way to spend a vacation, kind of like Hercule Poirot would do.
That's too bad, since it's so much more efficient in terms of energy usage, land expenditure, all that "ecological" stuff. And it's easier on the traveler. And it's more likely to run on time. And it requires fewer connections (train stations are downtown; airports are a cab, subway, and bus ride from the nearest rental car agency). Taken "as a whole," the train would work better for any populated area (Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Newark, New York, Providence, Boston) but in our subsidized "fixed" economy where Senators give free money to airlines so they can "more fairly" (read: less fairly) compete (read: beat out the trains), few Americans have actually ever lived in a time when trains were FREE to compete equally.
Amtrak is an inefficient organization because it has two goals. 1. Compete with airplanes on an entirely non-level playing field without actually pointing out to Congressmen and the American public that the field is not level (that would just anger the Congressmen, on whom they depend for their survival). 2. Provide a government service that, because it is nationalized, is not allowed to compete.
It's kind of the same reason that the Postal Service does such a bad job competing for the market of delivering packages. They're hampered with red tape where UPS and Fed-Ex are not. I wouldn't want to defend a given individual in the USPS -- what inept idiots! -- but as a construct, a generalized concept, frankly I think it makes a LOT more sense to have things which are essential infrastructure to an economy (package delivery, like safe roads or binding respect for contracts) actually runs at a low cost with high service, and even at a deficit. I think trains (and planes, over longer distances) ought to be allowed to do the same. Instead, we chant our laissez-faire mantra even where the free market doesn't exist (planes are subsidized unreasonably, and have competitive business entities within the sector; trains are not and are extremely over-regulated, nationalized) and where competition is to the detriment of the consumer and the overall existence of the service.
Ever wondered why, when Reaganomics started to require that the USPS be "competitive" on a "business model," their service level went FURTHER DOWN? And now, they're BRILLIANT at delivering grocery store flyers, junk mail, and unwanted solicitations for Viagra; but STILL they can't keep the price of a stamp down or get a letter across the country in two days. When they were forced to "compete," all they did was (what any intelligent manager would do) change their mandate and find those few small sub-sectors in their field where there was a cash cow. They don't actually do USPS's job very well; but they're very good at turning a profit at things which the USPS never used to do at all. And yet they're still inept at their original task, the thing which "competition" was supposed to improve; and they're still run poorly, like a government bureaucracy. By forcing competition on them, all we did was further hamper them from being a viable useful service. So what ARE our tax dollars FOR, then?
The USA is full of talk talk talk about "competitiveness" but then we generally fail to enable it, or we end up with a type of competition which neither benefits the consumer nor brings improvement to the bottom line and viability of the organization. Airlines versus trains is one example; postal services are another.
Urban density is a major thing.
FI's view of European rail v's Amtrak seems like he has not commuted by train in the UK and not done long haul by Amtrak in the US.
Commuting 7 miles from Didsbury to Manchester UK we used to have 3 car EMU trains with a pair of doors (one each side) per 10 seats. These things were high density busses. Indeed the replacements for less busy commute routes were Sprinter which had bus like seating and even bus like doors. So you got on the train, sat down and did the Guardian crossword, or some such.
In the US, getting on Amtrak, you basically get a seat, then you are free to move about the train, to the diner, though hanging out in the diner after you are done is unacceptable, as is plugging in you laptop to a power point other than at a seat. Nothing nicer than sitting down with a beer and nachos after a bad day at the office.
Now on Turkey day, and around "the holidays" (since we can't say Christmas anymore), if you get a seat, then do hold onto it.
Have you noticed how many UK airports now have a good rail link? Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester are on mainline tracks. The Tube has been extended to Heathrow, and they have a high speed link called the Heathrow Express.
Locally airports are not out in the boonies, as FI implies. San Jose airport is nearly downtown, has bus bridges to Caltrain, and the lightrail connect to it too.
San Francisco airport is also still in a Metro area, and BART, the local mass tranisit system has direct connect to it. Caltrain is one stop along the BART line, but otherwise well connected.
Oakland Intl is also in a major metro area and link to BART and AMTRAK with a short bus bridge.
As for SoCal, San Diego airport is in the harbour, and, though LAX is a little off from the city, all the airports there are in the heart of it all.
I didn't say UK. I said Europe. :)
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