http://archive.azrail.org/amtrak90/index.htm

It might be time for the Brotherhoods to give some ground, at least allow some of the practices of the Auto Train to be adopted on the rest of the long-haul fleet. Locomotives and Conductors still do their traditional roles, but sleeper, diner, and coach attendents are cross-trained and can do different duties. It works good, but it is a seperate seniority pool(a legacy from Amtrak’s takeover of the service in the early 1980s), but maybe it is time to try it elsewhere. Although I did here there was one story a year or two ago that the EMpire Builder had a waiter get sick, and in addition to their regular duties, a coach and sleeper attendent both took over for the sick waiter, waiting tables in the diner.

Now where the Bush Administration tried to get craft consolidation, was in the maintenance department, and that is dangerous. You do not have a plumber change oil in a car(unless it is a plumber doing the change oil in his own car, himself), so why should you have engine mechanics working on fixing toilets in the coaches? That was where it was headed during the 8 years it took to negotiate a new contract. Even the Presidential Emergency Board appointed under the Railway Labor Act auspices saw that, and did not recomend those consolidations.

When Amtrak was formed, all the railroads had a choice- continue to honor their public contracts, or turn over their passenger business to Amtrak. Amtrak assumed the labor contracts, the pension obligations, and the regulatory mandates to provide service of the roads that turned over their passenger business and equipment.

Nobody showed worse judgment in handling the passenger business than the railroads themselves. They treated their passengers badly and an entire parallel industry of interurbans sprang up, taking half their passengers and providing better service. After WW I the railroads invested heavily in new passenger facilities while America turned to the automobile. After WW II the railroads again invested heavily in passenger trains while America turned to airliners. Boeing, Ford, and GM made fortunes using good judgment while the railroads lost fortunes using bad judgment. There is no reason to think that rail executives would be particularly good at managing the public interest in Amtrak.

But wait! What am I saying? Sometimes you don’t need to analyze for rightwing bias, or wonder why they don’t want to have anything to do with AARP or WashARP- sometimes you can just look at their website, where they say URPA is “a non-membership organization, which is solely supported by internal funding”. That’s right, there are no passengers in the association at all, which is funded by deep-pocket rightwingers! Pure astroturf, all the way.

Sometimes you can’t even make this stuff up, it just writes itself.

Now if extra Chicago-Carbondale-Memphis-Jackson-New Orleans frequencies are ever added, the old names should be added. Amtrak had some ideas pushed around 2000 for expansion but nothing ever happened except for two branch trains expected to be feeders for Mail and Express traffic, the Lake Country Limited and Kentucky Cardinal. Proposed extensions included a branch of the Crescent to Dallas/Fort Worth called the Crescent Star, bringing back service over the Florida East Coast(definately get ridership in February and whenever there is a space launch), and an extra train NYC-CHI via Philadelphia.

Amtrak could have been much different today if their had been a 5th holdout. The Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe was very close to not joining Amtrak, the decision was, they would have to operate what they still were running at the time for another 5 years. What they wanted was a compromise, operate what Amtrak was going to operate, themselves. On the Eve of Amtrak, they had two Chicago-Los Angeles trains(Super Chief/El Capitan and the Grand Canyon), 1 Los Angeles-Oakland train(San Francisco Chief), several San Diegans, a connection for the Super Chief from Denver to La Junta, Colorado, and the Texas Chief. Amtrak was only going to keep the San Diegans, the Super Chief/El Capitan, and Texas Chief.

http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/resources/list/C50/

One of the potential lines on their map is one I think is worth trying. Reviving, as best as possible, the Rock Island’s Twin Star Rocket which ran from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Minneapolis without running through Chicago. Unfortunately what is left of that Rock Island Route is either abandoned or not in good shape, so it would take a different routing, and their idea is to have part of it go into South Dakota.

Also, I notice NARP and others are fighting the new Trans Hudson Tunnel but I can see why. It was a bait and switch. It was sold as a way to upgrade capacity, but it will not be going into Penn Station, but to a new annex. The tunnel is supposed to help add capacity for both, and the trains should be able to get to all of Penn Station. Although maybe what is being pushed now, is the best they can do, as there are already many tunnels under Manhattan, and their are two big ones under construction right now, extending the The Tunnel to Nowhere to Grand Central Terminal for the LIRR, and the 2nd Ave Subway for the NYCTA. Both are projects delayed for many reasons. The ESA is one of my favorites, dating back to the PRR/New York Central rivalry, and it continues to this day under the MTA authority as well.(They still have the Third Rail incompatibility to get around).

Carper is currently West Central Region manager for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

http://www.macombjournal.com/news/x84118581/Carper-to-head-Amtrak-board

The actual association for rail passengers is the American Association of Rail Passengers, AARP, which is also affiliated with state and local associations like our own WashARP.

Looking at the link provided to URPA it becomes obvious that URPA is actually rightwing astroturf. For example, they think that under Bush managers were chosen because of their experience and expertise, while under Obama mangers will be chosen because of politics. And, did you know?, McCain isn’t against trains, he’s just against Amtrak.

Thanks for the link Bernie, it doesn’t tell me much about Obama or Boardman, but it tells me a lot about you.

And the situation with electric motive power has actually gotten better over the last few years. Used to be they didn’t have enough electrics to run the Philadelphia-Harrisburg line, but now that it’s been upgraded and the speed increased, they have to use electrics. Which I guess is why they have a shortage sometimes. But the good news is that the prospects for getting new electrics are good: they can just add an option to New Jersey Transit’s order of ALP-46As.

http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-11/1234416394237150.xml&coll=1

The Sunset Limited is a train that should be restored, Amtrak’s story continues to change, but I like the theory that it was Senator Lott wanted to relocate that CSX line as part of casino development that delays it. The tracks have been repaired, but it is probably rolling stock shortages and the bad timekeeping on the route that is delaying it. TriWeekly service did not help much. During the earlier years of the Sunset Limited’s extension, there was a 4 day a week service on the segment between New Orleans and Mobile, but it ended because one of the states along the route would not fund it. It would have come in handy post-Katrina, as the railroads were fast at work restoring their damaged infrastructure before the DOTs were. Saw photos of Norfolk Southern fishing the rails that were washed off their causeway into Lake Ponchartrain. A restored Gulf Coast Limited combined with the Sunset would have been essential service.

Ridership discouragement had been the order of the day in the later days of privately operated trains, and the Sunset Limited again was an example. They dropped the sleepers(Southern Pacific) but restored them when the ICC backed them into a corner on the schedule reduction. When it was a coach only train in the late 1960s, they even charged the coach passengers extra for the pillows!

Realistic people who believe in the business of passenger rail (as opposed to the welfare state concept of passenger rail as a public right) know it’s business as usual.

For some reason no rational person can figure out, the qualifications for the Amtrak Board of Directors has been modified to essentially include anyone who has recently been breathing.The gutting of the list of qualifications for board members means Amtrak will go back to being subject to the stewardship of a collection of political hacks whose only qualification for serving on the board was support of the people in power in Washington.

“Carper, mayor of Macomb, Ill., and a longtime Obama friend and political supporter, and Biden, son of the new vice president,”… Prophetic?

“Boardman said in an interview that shortly after leaving the top spot at the Federal Railroad Administration last Thanksgiving to take over Amtrak, he discovered that the passenger rail system is in worse shape than he thought,”… What rock did he crawl out from under?