Recently Posted on Trains Forums re: Megantic Oil Tanker Derailment

The idea of posting a security guard at the location of the stopped train was the first thing that came to mind when I heard about this runaway.  But there are just so many different versions coming out right now, that it is hard to understand exactly what happened.  Bottom line:  The railroad is the source of the disaster, if not the cause, and will get blamed for any damage done to life and property.

Even with the "fire on the locomotive" scenario that seems to be emerging, it appears that somebody had to have uncoupled the tank cars from the locomotives. If so, and at that point, an appropriate number of cars' handbrakes should have been set.

And . . . YES . . . on my railroad, the crew would have had to be sure the entire train was secure from ALL hazards before packing it in for the night.

mistertrains@gmail.com

. . . blogging at railroadpassengers.blogspot.com

While this has mostly nothing to do with Passenger Rail, it kinda sorta does when you think about how many routes today that are hosting passengers are also hosting oil tank trains.  With the uptick in this kind of business, safety must be at the top of everyone's list.

General content ©2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Trainsforming America

Despite the appearance of, ugh, politicians in the trailer, this may be a worthwhile film.



You may also want to visit the website.

 Or read this article.

Look for my future posts.

Any commentary © 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com.  No copyright is claimed or intended for content to which this blog post is linked.

Fighting Dogs and Cats

I've read with interest and not a little horror about Amtrak possibly allowing passengers to travel with their pets.  Congress would have to authorize this, and there is apparently a move afoot for Amtrak to designate at least one car in each train where passengers could travel with their pets.

First, let me note that I am extremely allergic to cats and some dogs.  I mean life and death allergic.  I have never been around other mammalia that much that I have learned of, or developed an allergy to, any others.  So perhaps I would also be allergic to hamsters.  So you know that I am coming from the position of having a deep love for passenger rail travel on the one hand and an urgent need not to be embalmed on the other.

I find so many societal things wrong with pets in certain places, including supermarkets, restaurants and, yes, public transportation, that I will not list them all.  Just let me say that, from a societal standpoint, I believe that the need to take pets everywhere evidences a narcissism that borders on neurosis and a degradation, if not a total rift, in the social fabric.  (I exclude from this criticism all people who need service animals, though even that definition suffers from the pressures of a liberal interpretation for almost everything.  Service chicken?  Come on!)

But the biggest thing wrong with pets on Amtrak is cost to the American taxpayer.  Knowing railroad operations as I do, I guarantee increased costs to Amtrak (which is cost to us) as; (a) maintaining a pool of designated pet cars in the proper place, time and order, (b) cleaning and deodorizing cars, (c) policing the situation such that riders obey the "pet rules," and (d) paying for alternate transportation in case of breakdown and emergency for passengers, like me, who absolutely cannot ride in the same air supply as dog or cat dander.

As far as the cars are concerned - and I've seen this in hotels - they won't ever be exclusively used for no-dogs-allowed.  In a pinch, a car used yesterday for pet friendly service will be shunted onto a train that needs a car for just regular non-pet passengers.  Once a pet has slept on a bed, I guarantee you that it's dander will remain in the bedding until the bedding is sterilized or burned!

And given the sorry state of society today, are you going to arm conductors to enforce a pet moving from car to car or settling down in the galley waiting for food scraps?  You may have to!

Until or unless Amtrak has such a large pool of cars that it can afford to pick another "clean of pets" car from the unused stock of cars to account for emergencies or just increased ridership, this whole pets on Amtrak thing is a bad, bad, BAD, idea!  (ALLERGISTS PLEASE COMMENT!)

©2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Why Are We All Excited?

Those of us who would see Passenger Rail grow and prosper in America have been burned before.

I can understand mainstream media getting excited.  There is too much news media and not enough content, so every gurgle that issues from the mind or mouth of a politician gets reported.  In the fashion of the "new journalism," the enthusiasm of the journalist, or the disdain, shows through on the page, or in the TV news article.

But I think those reporting in such specialized areas as Passenger Rail should learn to hold their water.  Let's face it.  Bigger Amtrak budgets don't always result in better Passenger Rail service.  When and if they do is the time to get excited.  I would much rather hear about the successes resulting from the use of funding than about projected funding that may or may not materialize.

If all of the excited speculation of the past decade had resulted in solid passenger rail service, we would be riding HSR trains on dedicated rights of way from Chicago to Detroit and from Los Angeles to San Francisco, we would have Amtrak service that made money, and we would be light-rail commuting in a dozen small cities that are barely able to keep bus service solvent.

So let's not get too excited!

For another view on what is and is not possible and probable in passenger rail, please see RailwayAge guest blog [here].

©2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com 

National Train Day

All about Amtrak and trains.  See also [press release] and [NM info].

Letter to Republican Elites from a Conservative Rail Enthusiast

Dear Republican Elites:

Passenger trains are not archaic dinosaurs that eat up public money that can be better used to cut the debt.  They are public conveniences, nay even necessities, that eat up public money in order to make the economy and our lives better.  Stop treating them as something to be cut from budgets or sold off to whatever idiot wants to buy them from Amtrak.  They are the most fuel efficient mode of mass transportation of human beings on the planet.  They are part of a comprehensive transportation policy that includes highways, buses, air and waterways.

Limited and constitutional government envisioned by conservatives does not automatically mean the curtailment of all public subsidy for transportation modes.  If it did, we would all be going back to horses, wagons, and private toll roads on private lands.  Limited and economical government does mean that public funds should not be used by the government to favor one mode of transportation to the exclusion of another, except for the purposes of national defense.

The Obama regime appears to have gotten passenger rail and high-speed rail right for all the wrong reasons. When stimulus money was rolled out, it didn't go to transportation as part of a comprehensive plan.  The regime wanted money to go to an industry that it perceived did or would employ labor union members who would vote Democratic.  The right reasons?  America needs more than one mode of transportation for people and their belongings that can meet the need to travel long distances in short times.  Airlines have met this need for years, but are becoming more inconvenient due to their vulnerability to attack, hijack, and conversion (to flying weapons) by any person or group of nefarious bent.  In fact, a comprehensive transportation plan for the rest of this century should envision a third mode, possibly high-speed commercial highways that are independent of rail and air travel.  I hate to say it, but with the advent of computerization, rail doesn't have to be the only so-called self-guiding mode out there.

Sequestration has made it clear that the Washington Elites, whether on the left or right, are only going to cut those things that will hurt the general public the most.  So it would not surprise me if Amtrak and commuter rail funding dries up.  It doesn't have to be that way.  Though the DOT is one of the leanest in Washington, it is still a bureaucracy.  If it's a government-run entity, there is still plenty of fat to be trimmed before we really need to curtail trains and transport, or let highway bridges crumble into rivers.

Lets wake up and get a clue.  Despite what liberals might profess, conservative does not have to equate with 'stupid.'

© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Contingency Plans

The recent near disaster on board the cruise ship Carnival Triumph got me thinking about transportation policy.  (The cruise was neither a Triumph nor a Carnival.)  In previous posts, I've discussed transportation policy as a government function.  For many, many years, federal and state governments have decided what transportation projects get the nod and what ones don't.  However, every major transportation company (Southwest Airlines or Union Pacific, for two examples) should have its own transportation policy.  I'm sure that most actually do.  What the near disaster makes me ask about policy is, "What are your disaster contingencies?"

Nowadays, disasters come in all shapes and sizes, and are mostly defined by the media.  A good definition seems to be anything that puts a great number of lives, or a great dollar amount of property at risk.  For the purposes of this discussion, I would like to suggest that a good definition of disaster is a major disruption in the scheduling, forwarding, and delivering of freight and passengers.

I'll get back to the Carnival Triumph in a minute, though only tangentially.  This is, after all, a railroad-focused blog.  But I would like to take these transportation policy risks from the bottom (of the river) up and demonstrate how our neglect of redundancy in transportation policy puts America at risk.

A river barge hits a bridge.  It may be a highway bridge, a railroad bridge, or (call the environmentalists) a pipeline bridge.  It could be a bridge that carries all three.  River traffic is disrupted for days, maybe weeks, while spilled fuel is cleaned up.  Do we have alternate waterways?  You know we do not.  The likelihood that there is any other mode of transportation capable of moving the barge commodities safely during the outage is small.  Probably the railroad can reroute trains, truckers and travelers can drive another highway, and there may even be a redundant pipeline.

An Amtrak train is wrecked.  I mean thoroughly wrecked.  God forbid it results in loss of life, but in any case there is major loss of passenger equipment.  Amtrak schedules have to be fixed, equipment has to be borrowed from other routes.  A general degradation of the entire system occurs.  There's just not enough passenger equipment, inspected for safety and in good repair, that Amtrak can just field another trainset.  No redundancy.

A giant cruise ship is crippled.  There apparently aren't enough other cruise ships not already on their schedules to send one to offload passengers from the crippled ship from an environment that will become sheer hell for most of them before the crippled ship gets towed to port.  Or maybe there's no mechanism to get them onto another ship.  I don't know.  It seems like there should be.  We have enough engineering students in America to make this happen.

Airlines are grounded due to a terrorist threat.  Or, alternately, the air traffic control system suffers a major glitch and has to be shut down.  Do we have a contingency plan?  Can all those thousands of passengers count on the railroads to put on more trains?  No.  Can they all take a bus?  I think not.  How about driving?  Major traffic jams in major metro areas.

For passenger rail, there should be long-term plans for new tracks, trains, and modern signaling systems to make it all work.  Years ago, these plans should have been implemented so that, today, we would be on our way to true HSR and true independence of passenger rail from the freight system.  Nobody foresaw that Amtrak would be having record years, nor did they see that at the same time as there is record demand for passenger rail there would be record freight delivery by rail.  I don't know why not.  Rail has for as long as I can remember been the most efficient and energy friendly way to move freight and passengers in terms of energy used per passenger-mile or per ton-mile.  Yet it is still thought of as a dinosaur.  That's because government has become the curator of a museum instead of the owner of a modern transportation system.

Privatize Amtrak?  Now may be the time.  Build more rail right of way?  Yes.  Let the NIMBYs be damned!  Plan for the future?  Definitely.  Stop making risk a dirty word?  Most important of all.  And let's stop building things with projected useful life, and start building things to last!  We could surely better handle "disaster" if we did.

Rant over.

© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

US Transportation Policy is No Policy At All

Those of you who have followed this blog or visit often enough to get my political drift know that I am a strong believer in a comprehensive United States transportation policy that includes passenger rail.  I'm going to link to two recent reports that are - or will be - interesting reading, because they both address how our "no policy" approach has put the US behind much of the rest of the world when it comes to transportation.

The [first report] is from a bipartisan organization called Building America's Future.  Before you get into the report and read the statistics that should scare the pants off any user of transportation (freight or passenger), consider its source and understand that the chair-persons for this organization are on the liberal side.  So take some of it with a grain of salt in that there may be a tendency to slant in the direction of higher subsidies for all modes, not just for high-speed rail and freight rail.  In my opinion, the report is on the money in its criticism of how we handle transportation policy and where this will lead us in the not-too-distant future.  Frankly, if we can't move goods and people around fast, in high volume, and in an energy-efficient manner, the United States will continue to fall behind other countries.  Additionally, the solution, I think, is not just in subsidy or government money, but in general tax and business policies, and an easing of regulations, that will help private enterprise get this accomplished.  Even though the report's slant may be liberal, mine is definitely conservative.

The [second report] hasn't really come out yet.  The link is to an article on the Amercian Society of Civil Engineers site that describes the expected March 19 report in generalities.  Nevertheless, the conclusion is the same:  The United States needs a comprehensive transportation policy that includes all modes, and needs to spend a lot more money on infrastructure for all modes.  Again, the slant is probably liberal, as one would expect from a highly commercialized academic society, but the need can be met by applying conservative political principles.

Bottom line:  It would be an extremely bad idea to continue treating rail, and passenger rail in particular, as an anachronism or as a second cousin to so-called "modern" modes like air and highway.  My opinion is that it would also be an extremely bad idea to demand that government fund all of the needed improvements, as liberal political influences would have it.  It would also be an extremely bad idea for government to dump modes that it currently subsidizes - Amtrak, for example - with no backup plan, as conservatives would have it.  Limit taxes on transportation modes and their profits, dump unnecessary regulation, and promote general business prosperity, and the rest of the plan will take care of itself.  AS LONG AS WE HAVE A PLAN!

© 2013 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Amtrak Advertising

I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't share this one with everybody.  Click [here] to see it.

What About Amtrak?

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about how the economy is going to change Amtrak.  Will it be for better or for worse, and what can we who love passenger trains do to make it better?  I don't think there's any question that Amtrak will change, as it has for as long as there has been an Amtrak.

In my humble opinion, the economy is not going to get radically better for the next year.  It may not get radically worse, but I see nothing on the horizon that spells boom times.  So two things are a sure bet for Amtrak:  1.  There will be less federal funding.  2.  There will be higher fares for everyone.

Let's take number 2 first, because it's a good thing, as old jailbird Martha Stewart used to say.  Higher fares without an increase in incremental costs; i.e., same old schedule, no increase in frequency, but Amtrak charges the traveler more to get from Point A to Point B; means Amtrak gets closer to being profitable.  However, it also means that Passenger Rail, in general, gets closer to being profitable.  Enter private enterprise.  Say what you will about the capitalist system.  As much as the current regime in Washington would like to regulate big business out of existence, trends in investment are coming back strong in favor of rail - both freight and passenger.  If the transportation-consuming public gets used to paying more to ride the rails, the same way it got used to paying over $3 per gallon of gas, then watch out for more investment in privately operated Passenger Rail.  As I said, "A good  thing!"

On to number 1.  In the humble opinion of this rail fanatic, Amtrak, at this point in it's federally-funded life, may not survive a drastic cut in federal funds.  Even in a gradually increasing economy, the states that would have to pick up the bulk of the shortfall in federal funding to keep many - if not all - services are cash-strapped and have other agendas.  Being politically conservative my self, I've never understood the incredible shortsightedness of politicians who ignore the enormous public benefits of comprehensive transportation policy that includes all modes.  Both ends and the middle of the political spectrum seem to be self-destructive in their zeal to show constituencies their so-called principled approach to government.  Hogwash!  Common sense and historical perspective tell us that Passenger Rail was never the real albatross around the neck of railroad private enterprise, but government intransigence was!

Would the demise of Amtrak be desirable?  In short:  A resounding NO!  There's not a railroad out there that is prepared to take over the route structure and offer the level of service - such as it is - that is today's Amtrak.  (A tip of the New Years hat to all of Amtrak's dedicated employees!)  Once it's gone, it's going to be that much harder to get something back, in any form.  Better for the politicians to recognize Amtrak's value as part of a comprehensive transportation policy that may include fares covering ever more of costs until such time as Amtrak becomes another Conrail.  It won't happen, you say?  Why not?  There was a time not so long ago that I wrote in this blog that Passenger Rail would never be profitable.  I don't see it that way any more.

Disclaimer:  I write this on 12/31/2012, and the Fiscal Cliff - who I sometimes imagine as some myopic accountant living in a 3-story walk-up in Queens - has yet to be addressed.  I don't think any deal that happens after I post this will change what I have written above.

Happy New Year!

+Amtrak
#PassengerRail

© 2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

There's Always Somebody

At the risk of using a bit of awkward English in my title, I couldn't find better words to express a phenomenon that we see in America that happens every time a business or organization appears to be down for the count.

In the case of Passenger Rail, it's taken long enough.  Virtually from the inception of Amtrak, I have hoped for somebody who can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, and who might just put Passenger Rail in America back on the right track.  (I'm just full of them - these railroad cliche metaphors.)  I'd even gotten to the point where, about when I started this blog, I was willing to state as a conclusive fact that nobody will ever make money running passenger trains.

I hope two ventures prove me wrong.  The first is that made by FEC (aka Florida East Coast Industries) to run passenger trains from south Florida to Orlando.  See All Aboard Florida.  These guys have scads of money to spend, and aren't going to do it without the hope of making more in the process.

The second is the reanimation of the rail route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in the new and improved format of HSR.  XpressWest and Las Vegas Railway Express, Inc. have competing visions of what this service could or should be.  Given the enormous investment needed for a brand new HSR route for most of the way, I'd sat that LVRE's incremental, one-at-a-time train-on approach is the most likely to succeed.  XpressWest may require a huge capital infusion from government to get theirs off the drawing board.

But in either case, the American optimist is quite alive and well and looking at ways that, even in our down economy, Passenger Rail could make some money for some and provide a huge dose of transportation service and pleasure for many.

I am Mister Trains.

©2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Vacation is Good For The Soul

This post is a little about Passenger Rail and a lot about what you can learn by simply taking a vacation once in a while.  Okay, I'll admit that the vacation was rail oriented, but that doesn't matter.  Railroads are everywhere, and you will encounter them even if your vacation plans don't include any.  If you are a "traveler" or a "vacationer," that's okay, too.  If you keep your eyes open, you'll start to enjoy railroads.

Now to this vacation just completed:  The objective of the vacation was to travel from our home in Albuquerque, NM, to see UP 844 in Ogden, UT.  The special Union Pacific train has been traveling a lot this year, celebrating the 150th anniversary of UP and doing public relations with shippers and employees and just making friends.  And boy does UP know how to make friends.

First, UP is safety conscious above all else.  Their steam crew courteously keeps the unaware and the innocent from getting hurt.  They make friends while doing it.  They do not order people around, but they do make sure that everyone that gets near this big steam engine and its train is safe.  Second, UP is generous.  Sure, they want to sell souvenirs in the gift shop, but they gave away a helluva lot of stuff, and they did it willingly and freely.  Third, if you have never seen UP's train, to see what passenger railroading once was and could be again, you've got to get a look at it.  Granted, UP will not give public tours of the whole train, but the outside speaks of the opulence and grace within.  Fourth, for the tree-huggers among you, they run the steam locomotive on biodiesel.  UP is environmentally conscious.

Aside for those of you who have ever been tempted to protest a new rail line due to how ugly it might be:  A trip up Route 6 over Soldier Summit with the old Denver & Rio Grande (now UP) reminds one how beautiful a railroad snaking through the mountains can and will always be.  The highway paralleling the railroad is far uglier and takes up far more of the limited area between high canyon walls.

On the way up to Ogden, we decided to "surface road" it through Salt Lake City and the large metro area that appears to run from Provo all the way up to Ogden and beyond.  We got to see the latest in light rail systems in Utah Transportation Authority's TRAX system, which is expanding quickly.  And, right up the way from where UP parked the steam loco, FrontRunner, which reminds me of Albuquerque's RailRunner Express, made its northern terminal stop.

I hope I've given some of you reason to believe that rail, and Passenger Rail in particular, is on its way to new and better things.

©2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

How Long Would It Take Today?

This is an instructive game to play, and the title of a tabular piece in the most recent (August 2012) issue of Trains Magazine written by Fred W. Frailey.

As a game, it can really bring home the impact of government regulation and intervention in all sorts of things.  In the case of Mr. Frailey's piece, its about building a transcontinental railroad, and is written on the 150th anniversary of the Union Pacific Railroad.  Mr. Frailey posits that, instead of the 7 years that it took (1862-1869) to build the Union Pacific, today it would take from August 1, 2012 until May 2069, about 57 years.

Tongue in cheek, he throws in all the possibilities:  Federal court intervention, ten years for an environmental study, EPA intervention, both Democrat and Republican intransigence, environmental activist intervention, endangered species, and forest fires.  In this scenario, it takes until 2057 just to break ground.  You know what, although this piece reeks of sarcasm, I think it is closer to the truth than not.

As a matter of fact, this kind of thing reminds me so much of what goes on in New Mexico, and in Albuquerque in particular, that I am doing this same post on my political barb blog, Turn Right At Albuquerque.

©2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Losing Interest - Gaining Riders

The view count for this blog is going down, and that's my fault.  It's not that I'm losing interest, per se, it's that I'm finding it harder and harder, in this economy, to write content that has no realistic chance to produce income.  Sure there's Google advertising, but that's not generating enough to buy a loaf of bread, even at the ridiculously low price of bread.

That's not what's happening to Passenger Rail.

In a Murphy's Law kind of way, the transportation industry has perversely decided - contrary to my old mantra of "You Can't Make a Profit on Passenger Rail" - that it may be possible to build and run privately operated passenger rail service.

Most recently, Trains Magazine is reporting that Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) is serious about running a privately operated rail passenger service from Orlando to Miami, Florida, and this at speeds of up to 110 mph and including running on 40 miles of proposed new track from Orlando to Cocoa.  FEC is a privately held company, but it is held by Fortress, an investment company with lots and lots of capital.

This tells me that Capital (big C) is not losing interest.  Maybe thinking, "If money can be made investing in freight rail, why not passenger?"

I'm going to make a serious effort to not lose interest and keep this blog going.  But what with two novels I'm working on, others I'm trying to sell, and the need to keep working at a full-time day job past retirement age, time is limited.  You can help:  Look for my novels on amazon.com, lulu.com, and barnesandnoble.com.  Or just link to https://sites.google.com/site/charlesaturek/.  Thanks.

©2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com 

Expecting Too Much

Continuing thoughts about what will and what will not work on the subject of privatizing Passenger Rail in the United States.

I think most of the rest of the list of what will not work comes down to expecting too much.

There are many special interest groups, and even those on the same side don't agree.  For example:  Some environmentalists like trains because they are the most energy efficient way to move people and goods - pound for pound.  Environmentalists - and I guarantee this - will also throw up unreasonable restrictions on building new HSR routes or adding trains to existing rail routes because it will in some way harm the environment.  If the costs of meeting these unreasonable restrictions get too high, no private enterprise is going to want any of it.

Random thought:  How did the original developers of railroads in North America get started and make money? They didn't - not always.  But what they did to was start with a forward-thinking idea and get backers interested in the project.  People put in their capital and they got what they got.  It was not always good, but we moved forward.

Now for differences between then and now:  To get backers today, you have to go to a bank, or an investment house, and you have the SEC looking over your shoulder.  To build, you have to jump through hoops with federal, state and local government.  If you want to build a widget factory, you can't just get the money and build it.  You have to get permits and environmental studies, and, God forbid the land you bought had anything spilled on it by a prior owner.  It'll be years before that mess is unraveled.  If you want to hire men to help you build widgets, you can't just hire them.  You have to make sure you have workers comp first, and insurance, and a benefits package in place, and you don't want to piss off any unions.  You'll have to account for fairness, too.  You will have to be fair to all groups and sub-groups of groups, and every color and creed under the rainbow, ad infinitum.  You also should have a good lawyer, because when you do piss somebody off, they won't just call you out on the streets of Dodge for a gunfight, they will sue your butt through more courts than Wimbledon.

Get the picture?  All this takes money.  So when you do raise the capital for your passenger railroad, you better raise ten times as much as you need for the trains and tracks, because you will have to grease the wheels of more than just your trains.

I'm starting to think I was right the first time.  Passenger Rail will never be profitable without government subsidy.  Unless we change things.

©2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Privatized Passenger Rail - Possible or Pipe Dream?

I've said lots in this blog about how Passenger Rail will never make a profit on its own.  It is always going to need a subsidy.  I have also pointed out that there are other modes of transportation business, and other businesses in general, that are subsidized by the government in various ways that are not as overt as, for example, Amtrak.

So I started thinking about this question:  Under what circumstances would privatized Passenger Rail work and not work?

The first thing you have to do is define "privatized."  For my thought experiment, "privatized" does not mean take what you have now and throw it into the hands of private enterprise and try to make it work.  "Privatized" does, however, allow for the possibility of private enterprise buying existing assets for the purpose of running passenger trains under new and/or different business plans.  Okay now, we've already started the list of what will and will not work.  So let's step back and start with the rest of what will not work.

What Will Not Work - Item 1:  If you didn't get my drift from the last paragraph, let me spell it out.  Do not take an existing Passenger Rail service - Amtrak or Chicago's Metra, for examples - throw it's system into the hands of private enterprise by some means - sale or lease contract, for other examples - and demand that service continue as is while the private operator struggles to run what was already a losing proposition while, at the same time, trying to make changes that will bring the system into profitability.

What Will Not Work - Item 2:  Do not expect freight railroads to jump in and start operating Passenger Rail of a robust nature using existing freight rail infrastructure.  The freight railroads are in the business of moving goods and commodities.  Sure, they'll take a look at a proposal that throws money their way, but their hearts will not be in it.  We who love Passenger Rail will rue the day we try this one.

What Will Not Work - Item 3:  Do not wait until private investors get all goo-goo-eyed over High Speed Rail. At least not in our venue (USA and/or North America).  The HSR project now underway on "The Continent" involves lots and lots of investor's money and that's just for trains and routes over infrastructure that already exists or has already been approved and passed environmental muster.  (Perhaps a key to what will work.)  With the stranglehold that greens have over is, don't expect to see anything get approved economically unless it is by fiat.  And the Fiatster In Chief does not like corporations and investors making a profit.

More next time.

©2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Hope?

I don't have much hope for Amtrak.

Before you all get in my face about not supporting Passenger Rail, let me add this:  I never had much hope for Amtrak.

So things haven't changed.  The fact that Amtrak has managed to struggle into its fifth decade proves that I am just a little bit wrong, and also a little bit right.  For any government-created entity to struggle that long while coping with the daily - and I do mean daily - political battles is a massively high-scoring achievement.  Then there are the idiots that run Amtrak.

No, I'm not talking about Amtrak's board, or its management!  I'm talking about Congress and We The People.  Come on folks!  Is this how you'd run a business if it was all your own to run?

There have been times when my hope for Amtrak flickers brighter than now.  And there have been times when I thought it was doomsday for sure.  The Reagan administration was one of the latter.  While I admire Reagan conservatism, I deplore the tendency of conservatives to look at every government subsidy as anathema.  Reagan scared me as far as Passenger Rail was concerned.  He had the guts and the wherewithal and the character to accomplish whatever he wanted.  Subsidizing Amtrak wasn't one of those "whatevers."

But I have never felt so hopeless as today, when it appears that the lip-service to HSR has all been paid out and the next Congress will most certainly cut Amtrak money again, and when there's (sometimes reasoned sometimes not) argument that Amtrak should be broken up and the profitable parts kept and sold to the highest bidder.  (Read "profitable" as not losing as much money as the other parts.)

Don't get me wrong, because I do realize I'm all over the map here.  It would have made a lot more sense to break up Amtrak during boom times rather than on the (very slow) recovery side - and I'm not convinced of that yet - of a major economic recession.

But it's not all gloom.  No matter how dark the days, Amtrak always seems to survive.  And as long as there are tracks, there will be other - I hope better - Passenger Rail projects out there.  If I had the money, (I don't - the recession has crapped on my finances) I would invest in Passenger Rail, but probably not in any part of Amtrak as it exists today.

So I guess I should have opened with:  I have hope, but not much for Amtrak.

©2012 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

The Devil Is In The Details

One of the biggest problems with any kind of changes (whether upgrades, downgrades, or innovations) in our Passenger Rail system - we're talking North America here - is the complexity of our system.  I'm not talking about the rail network, nor am I talking about engineering.  I'm talking about all of the ways that we go about financing and managing passenger rail.

For most of you who are interested in this subject, it's not necessary to go through a comprehensive list.  Let me just list a few.
1.  Private enterprise and private enterprise with public funding.  Example:  ARR
2.  Public funding, public oversight, private operators.  Narrow gauge in the west, NM Railrunner
3.  Public funding, public oversight, public operators.  Chicago Metra
4.  Public funding, state ownership, private operator.  California
The list goes on.

The point that I'm getting around to making is that entrenched complexity is hard to overcome.  There is an inertia to it.

Now, life must go on, and it would be a disaster to shut down, say, a commuter railroad, even for a week, to reorganize it.  So how do we get from where we are to where we need to be?

One idea is a reset button.  It's not as far fetched as you think, and it's been proposed for more than just passenger rail.  A reset button law could solve a mortgage crisis, for instance.  A reset button law could erase the political establishment that some blame for the decline of America.  A reset button law could erase years of bad law and the results of unnecessary litigation that imposes costs on everything we do.

The trouble is, first we have to decide on what the default state of things should be.  Now, in government in The United State of America, we have The Constitution.  That's the default state, and everything else in government is window dressing.

Back to Passenger Rail.  Default state could be defined as X number of routes serving Y number of population centers with a total population of Z, a defined train frequency, and defined services.  What does it take to have that, and would any private enterprise be willing to run it?  On a specific date, press the reset button and Amtrak goes away.  There's more to it than that, of course, but you get the idea.

This is not a new idea.  In the Judeo-Christian Bible, Deuteronomy prescribes the seven-year cycle of forgiveness and even the "default state" in which the debtor is to begin the next cycle.

Just thinking, but the devil is in the details.

©2011 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Serious Business - Proposition 5

The longer we wait, the longer it will take to get things right.  Am I talking about Passenger Rail?  You bet!

As I write this, Amtrak is probably going to finish the year with its first reduction in ridership in a long time.  That is in part due to the weather.  No joke, it's not the fault of a politician or bureaucrat.  It's also in part because Amtrak, like other railroads, has to take time out to upgrade and maintain.  Upgrades will help in the long run, but not in the short.  The reason is that there simply are no alternate routes for Amtrak trains.  Some have to be shut down, others converted to bus routes until the trackwork or storm cleanup is done.

The United States no longer has enough alternate rail routes to just re-route a passenger train without having serious impact on freight deliveries.  Those spare routes that are out there are just too unsafe to run an Amtrak train.  For the first time in history, freight rail is challenging the laws that established Amtrak and Amtrak's right to use their private rail systems.  I don't know if they will succeed, because many politicians with demagogue it and point to the fat-cat railroads as just bad public-private partners.

I dislike this description of how government wants to involve private enterprise in something it can't get right on its own.  I have used the term, but it's like the term privatize.  It's a bad way to characterize a situation where the credit goes to the government and anything bad is the fault of the private part of the equation.  When you come down to it, all industry is a public-private partnership.  But the public part of the partnership should only have three jobs:  1.  Provide protection of individual property rights though a stable system of government and national defense where business can be assured that it's ownership of property will not be challenged or usurped by the government or challenged by an enemy.  2. Provide a stable economy and monetary system where commerce can proceed without fear that the government will, by caprice, devalue investments made by private parties who expect a reasonable return on their investments.  3.  Where an industry is deemed a necessity to maintaining the other two situations, provide the monetary means to assure that the private side will not have to take all the risk to keep the government stable.

So we need more passenger route miles, and we need them right away, or Amtrak will just erode more.  If these route miles come from private investment, then, as in 3. above, the government should be willing to step in and provide some capital.  However, as I have said before, it shouldn't be off the table to just dissolve Amtrak and structure something else - something better.  Amtrak, after all, has pissed off enough commuter agencies that is is losing their contracts to private enterprise.  That is good, because the competitors for those operating contracts are private enterprise.

Where is the money for that federal funding going to come from?  From all of us.  But there are other ways than through taxes.  Deregulation of industry could raise almost as much tax money as would significant increases in taxes on high income entities.  Deregulation of freight rail has turned it into an industrial powerhouse.

Again, I ask the question.  Do we have the political will?

©2011 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com

Serious Business - Proposition 4

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts about how America might go about getting private enterprise back in the Passenger Rail business.

Proposition 4 is that bankers and venture capitalists are going to have to be willing to take more risk with less guarantee that government will back them up.

Hold on, you say?  This is supposed to be a blog about Passenger Rail and not about the sorry state of the banking system.  Well, the two overlap.

Proposition 4 probably applies to a lot of businesses, particularly heavy industries and heavily capitalized ones. Railroading is both.  America has gotten itself bunged up in an economic situation that has no way out without risk.  And this risk is going to have to be on the part of private enterprise and government both.  As a country, we have to be willing to believe that government bailouts of businesses -particularly financial ones - simply postpones the inevitable, and that the term "too big to fail" should not be a part of our vocabulary.

Now, from my point of view, government regulation and public policy drove the financial industry to ruin when institutions were forced to lend money to home buyers who had no hope of paying it back.  This house of cards had to fall.  No, I don't care who's to blame, but I do care who's to blame for our current situation.  Now we have a situation where the lending institutions are gun shy, and the government has just slapped on more regulations.  This is probably good for the single-family home market.  It will keep home prices reasonable for years.  But it's not good for the business community, and not for heavy industry.  Heavy industry runs on capital.  If the capital is not out there, heavy industry does nothing but stagnate.

I think Passenger Rail could return to the private sector if lending institutions were willing to forgo the promise of government bailout along with the regulations that come with it.  I think that, as time goes on, institutions with money to lend will see the upturn in demand for Passenger Rail, the astute management of the rail industry in general, and with God's grace the lifting of onerous regulation, and then see in Passenger Rail an opportunity to make a lot of money.  This will do a lot for the country and a lot to lift Passenger Rail out of the doldrums of Amtrak.

The only question is:  Do we have the political will to accomplish this?

By next time, I'll decide if there is a Proposition 5.

© 2011 - C. A. Turek - mistertrains@gmail.com