Five key things Amtrak should seek to do...

1) Obtain authority to do as Conrail did ... go private.

2) Run its own super-premium passenger tours, using Heritage equipment, a la AOE. (If you don't think folks would kill for a NY-whereever for the BCS Championship, the Super Bowl, or the Kentucky Derby, especially if there are tickets as part of the package ...)

3) At the other end of the service spectrum, expand mail and express operations. Do them the way AT&SF, UP, NP, GN, et al once did ... lots of M/E cars operating on razor thin profit margins. A rider coach. From my experience, a Superliner car reconfigured to 40 seats, 6 berth sections, and a lower lounge with one attendant probably would be all that's needed.

4) Note I said EXPAND M/E. Make it a two tier system. Tier One is sealed equipment West Coast-Chicago or West Coast-East Coast. Tier Two works the cities along the way.

5) Relook routings Nationwide, but especially west of the Mississippi. Go where passengers want/need to go! Would a LA-LV-SLC-Seattle run for M/E make sense??? What about combining routes for the SW Chief ... SF to Albuquerque; up to Denver, across to KC, SL, and up to Chicago? Someone REALLY oughta look at Southwest Airlines passenger-miles density maps. Make the trains go where the passengers need to go.

OK, it's unrealistic. Thanks. I'll step back off the soapbox now.

John

it just seems like amtrak is in this never ending spiral that will ultimately end with its liquidation and demise.

My question thus becomes, do we have a back up plan? Do we have an idea of a "whats next" should amtrak ever cease to be? Or do we just finaly say that it cant be done and go our separate ways?

I'd rather drive myself to Atlanta this august if Amtrak goes kaput. IM holding out for them tho, I want to take a long train ride!

quote:

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Originally posted by Kent Loudon:
In order of preference:
1. Ride charters, such as American Orient Express.
2. Fly.
3. Drive.
4. Take a bus.
5. Stay home.

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Go back and look at the rail passenger business situation 1968-1970 (passage of NRPA)...

As a fast review:

- Railroads fully regulated by ICC.
- Railroads operating using bad business and manpower practices ... because of a multitude of reasons, regulatory and contractual.
- Passenger operations losing money, but accounting practices do not yet include "goodwill"
- Loss of Postal contracts!!! Remember, the Passenger Traffic Departments handled:
-- People
-- Express perishables.
-- Express non-perishables.
-- Mail
- Declining express. I can remember being sidetracked ... even tho our train was in the "superior" direction of travel ... for freight. Who wants to ship using your line if you don't make your delivery times?

All that above was the historical environment of the 1970 law.

Bottom line: Pure passenger operations are a hard way to make money. Look at airlines post 9/11. Amtrak will need a full suite of mail and express runs to get the revenue flow. If you've not seen the NRHS Spring 02 issue covering Pennsy's M/E traffic just before the merger, I suggest you look at it. Lots of First Class movements, but virtually no passenger space.

Even with the advantage of deregulation, even with the advantage of a different labor environment, the start-up costs to replace the Passenger Traffic infrastructure of 40 years ago are beyond reach. Commissaries, coach yards, equipment ... they do not exist anymore. As we speak, the remnant of the Kansas City Terminal is building over the space once given to the west coach yards at Union Station. NOT EVEN THE LAND IS AVAILABLE NOW!

Do not be deluded. If the BOD of Union Pacific Corporation asked me, a stockholder, to ratify a business decsion to bring back scheduled passenger operations in the same way they ran the Cities streamliners in the 1960s, my first questions would be "Show me the business model!?" and "Where does the capital infrastructure development come from?"

If Amtrak goes, scheduled intercity passenger service will be in the same category as covered wagons and Civil War role playing units: Historical re-enactment only.

Sadly, John

John

quote:

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Originally posted by StonewallJones:
But where do we go if it fails? I mean come on, if amtrak doesnt pull itself up and get it together, in all likelihood they will be liquidated.
{snip}
My question thus becomes, do we have a back up plan? Do we have an idea of a "whats next" should amtrak ever cease to be? Or do we just finaly say that it cant be done and go our separate ways?

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