
Bidding Adieu to Amtrak? - georgecmu
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/amtrak-privatize-john-mica-bill-shuster
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JshWright
I say go for it... it can't get much worse...

For 4 years, my wife was travelling from Rochester to Syracuse and back every
few weeks while she was in school. This is ~100 miles, with no intermediate
stops. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a train, right?

After half a dozen attempts, she finally gave up trying to take the train...
It was expensive, unreliable, and slow.

What if I wanted to take the train down to NYC for the weekend? It's $80 for a
train down on Friday afternoon, and there aren't any trains back on Sunday.
Megabus, on the other hand, is $80 round trip (without using any of the
readily available promo codes to bring it down even further), and the
scheduled trip time is an hour shorter.

Despite being someone who _wants_ to take the train (I find it a very
comfortable way to travel), I can't find a single scenario in which it makes
sense for me to do so.

~~~
georgefox
_> For 4 years, my wife was travelling from Rochester to Syracuse and back
every few weeks while she was in school. This is ~100 miles, with no
intermediate stops. Pretty much a best-case scenario for a train, right?_

As I understand, no. There's too much traffic (mostly freight) between Albany
and Buffalo for the two tracks that are owned by CSX and shared with Amtrak.
As a result, things can move pretty slowly along there. They've been talking
about adding track for a little while now, but I'm sure funding is a big
issue.

My experience with trains upstate has been lousy west of Albany, but south of
Albany, I've only seen and heard good things. That said, there are generally
more cost-effective ways to travel, like the discount bus services and often,
sadly, just driving.

~~~
Derbasti
In Europe, train traffic is passengers-first in daytime and freight-first at
night. But then, distances and rail networks are better suited for passenger
transportation in Europe than in the US.

------
mkr-hn
Private interests don't have the greatest record when it comes to public
transportation:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal)

We should always be skeptical of the motives of people who propose selling
public services to private companies.

------
nowarninglabel
I've taken Amtrak across the country twice, via the Texas Star and the
California Zephyr routes, and I did quite enjoy those trips. However, I bought
my tickets way ahead of time for cheap, brought my own food, and did it
because I wanted to see the country. I'd recommend everyone give it a try just
once, it is certainly much better than my Greyhound experiences.

That said, there are glaring problems in the system. In El Paso, they forced
everyone off the train and onto cramped shuttle buses all the way till San
Antonio, less comfortable than Greyhound buses, asides the lack of crack smoke
that is. And why? For track maintenance. Yet, they didn't inform anyone ahead
of time that this was going to happen. This is in addition to the numerous
stops of hours at a time where we would just sit, and of course not be
informed why we were just sitting. In each case that I could determine, it
would be because we were waiting on a freight train to pass. Amtrak has three
major problems. One, they play second priority to freight rail, and thus trips
become inconveniently long. Two, they are horribly mismanaged, which leads to
the conductors not knowing what is going on. Three, the employees I have met
at Amtrak have generally sucked in terms of customer service. I'm not
surprised given they are working a dead-end job with poor management, but it's
certainly one place that unionized, government subsidized labor hasn't led to
stellar results.

------
melling
Commercial high-speed rail is almost 50 years old.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen>

I really don't understand why the US hasn't built at least one route in that
time.

~~~
bonzoesc
In the areas it makes sense, nobody has the political will to say "this new
dedicated high-speed right-of-way is going in your backyard whether you like
it or not."

~~~
melling
The problem doesn't get any easier to solve. 50 years ago there were less than
200 million Americans. Now there are over 300 million people. In other words,
a lot more backyards. If we wait 20-30 more years?

The places were it makes the most sense are exactly the densely populated
areas of the North East and in California. People need to start thinking about
what's best for the country instead of themselves.

~~~
edw
I hope that you will realize that, when I say this that I am not being a
cynic: Your suggestion that people start thinking about what's what for the
country instead of themselves is naive in the extreme.

It's quite possible that the people who would need to sacrifice in order to
serve the common good are already among the less well off. Who has railroad
track in their back yards now? Who is going to have more railroad track in
their back yards after we build more track, presumably near the existing
track. From a property value perspective, there's no _right_ side of the
tracks when you're a hundred feet from the tracks.

And who is going to benefit from enhanced rail service in the Northeast
Corridor? Well, indirectly, all of us, but more directly, it's going to be
rich people and upper middle class people who are shuttling between Boston,
NYC, Philadelphia, and DC. (Baltimore too, I suppose.)

Someone (taxpayers, railroad companies?) really should compensate the people
who will be getting screwed when new track gets laid, especially given that
the immediate beneficiaries are _not_ going to be the people who are in the
crappy position of being asked to set aside their own interests and take one
for the team.

More generally, it's not clear to me what "what's best for the country" means.
That's what the political process exists to figure out. If the result of the
political process isn't what you'd prefer, feel free to call it "unjust," but
short of becoming a dictator and deciding what's best for people, the
political process is going to be an unsatisfying experience for pretty much
everyone.

------
wazoox
Just notice one important point : in Europe, cargo train is moribund.
Virtually everything is moved around by millions of trucks. In the US, it's
the other way around, most stuff is moved across the continent by train. They
need to be very careful not to sacrifice it for high speed passenger rail.

~~~
awarzzkktsyfj
<http://www.economist.com/node/16636101> ... outside Germany and Switzerland,
Europe’s freight rail services are a fragmented, lossmaking mess. Repeated
attempts to remove the technical and bureaucratic hurdles at national
frontiers have come to nothing.

------
Duff
Rail is the US is a nightmare. It impossible for a private entity profitably
operate passenger transit because the government subsidizes road transit to
the tune of trillions of dollars.

~~~
blendergasket
Somewhat of a different case, but urban light rail networks were actively
destroyed by car companies who didn't want the competion.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal)

It would seem monied interests want to keep us in cars sucking oil instead of
whizzing along tracks. I see this as being a big impediment to the creation of
viable nationwide rail networks.

~~~
lliiffee
This is true, but note that streetcars _also_ got shut down in cities where
the car companies didn't play these games.

~~~
mkr-hn
The common use of street cars probably kept prices on maintenance (and
upgrades) down. A smaller town or city wouldn't be able to afford them once
prices went too high.

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protomyth
My big problem with these type of articles is the worry about oversight. I do
wonder what kind of oversight a federally run program actually has. The TSA
has federal oversight, yet it is a model for doing it wrong. You can get away
with serious customer service breeches in the government because the possible
recourses are so few and costly. Look at the Department of Interior
"oversight" of grazing land owned by Native Americans. Heck, on a current
affairs note, read up on the Army Corps of Engineers.

Private companies have problems, but the government hasn't proved itself any
better. If rail cannot make it in that corridor, how can it work anywhere
else? Heck, would the people of the area be better served by just paving the
rails over and making them private bus routes?

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karzeem
I think I missed the part of the article where they discussed a good reason
not to privatize Amtrak. If government subsidy made it better than private
sector alternatives, that would be something. But the argument here is what,
that we should preserve a system that even with heavy subsidies can't manage
to do better than the variety of profitable alternatives? Who does that help?
It sounds like a decisive lose-lose.

The only argument in favor of preserving the status quo is to protect the jobs
of Amtrak workers. But if that's the concern, it would actually be cheaper to
let the market lay some of them off and just cut a giant, multi-year severance
check to each of the affected workers.

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jackolas
This comes on the heels of a private rail ownership caused derailment,
[http://www.wcax.com/story/14843332/amtrak-vermonter-
derailme...](http://www.wcax.com/story/14843332/amtrak-vermonter-derailment)

------
anghyflawn
Europe is going to a model where the infrastructure is owned by some arm of
the government (quangos like Railtrack in the UK or national rail
administrations), because the initial outlay on infrastructure is too big to
make private investment or even private-public partnerships profitable for the
private actors everywhere except the most densely populated areas. It seems to
me that the scheme is somewhat similar here? I don't know whether it would
work in the US though.

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Derbasti
Maintaining a rail network is pretty expensive compared to other
transportation infrastructure. They work well in Europe since there are many
population clusters at relatively short intervals. Maybe the population
topography of the US is less well-suited for passenger trains than in Europe?

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georgieporgie
_In a place with oodles of people treading distances that aren't plane-worthy,
why aren't trains doing better?_

I can't speak for others, but I sat on an Amtrak train for about 30 continuous
hours last fall, and it was probably the worst mass-transit experience I've
ever had. At least riding a packed, loud bus across Thailand -- jostled awake
regularly in the night as the lead-footed driver braked to avoid a head-on
collision while passing mid-curve -- was exciting.

I'm glad they can intelligently accommodate bicycles (unlike, say, CalTrain),
and the local station had a very friendly staff, but everything else about
Amtrak appalled me.

~~~
ryanklee
These are all problems with the current implementation -- not problems with
trains themselves.

Trains are wonderful; amtrak is rotten.

~~~
georgieporgie
Absolutely, and I _love_ riding the train in Japan! I'm just saying that the
reason ridership has been stagnant is probably because Amtrak itself kind of
sucks.

I would be all for privatization (which I'm normally not for), since they've
done such a miserable job on all fronts.

