Taking hard line on freight trains that delay Amtrak

[Zeb]

by Angela Greiling Keane - Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Freight railroads that cause delays for Amtrak passenger trains using their tracks could be fined under new authority for a U.S. rail oversight board, an official said yesterday at a hearing in Washington.

The Surface Transportation Board, the regulator of some rail rates, is gaining power to ensure Amtrak trains are punctual under a law passed in October. Chairman Charles Nottingham said the law allows it to levy fines to help meet that goal.

Officials want the service, which runs on freight-rail tracks in most parts of the United States, to be on time in 80 percent of trips. Freight-train hindrances and so-called slow orders, where carriers reduce speeds on sections of track, were the main causes of Amtrak delays last year, Amtrak chief operating officer William Crosbie said.

"On-time performance of our trains is highly variable," Crosbie told the board at the hearing to discuss the new authority. "We want to make it very clear that the on-time performance of our trains is the linchpin of our success."

Amtrak runs 71 percent of its train miles on other railroad lines. The Washington-based carrier owns its track on the Northeast Corridor, from Washington to Boston.

On time for Northeast Corridor trains, which compete with airlines for passengers, means arriving within 10 minutes of schedule, Crosbie said. On long-distance routes, an Amtrak train is considered on time if it arrives within 30 minutes.

Since the fiscal year started Oct. 1, the on-time rate systemwide for Amtrak has been about 77 percent, according to Cliff Black, a spokesman. The pace was 81 percent in the Northeast and less than 70 percent for long-distance trains.

"For Amtrak, this is vitally important to us," Crosbie said. "Every day that goes by where on-time performance is poor is money to us."

Determining who is to blame for delays may be difficult, said Mark Yachmetz, associate administrator for railroad development at the Federal Railroad Administration.

"It's not going to be one simple, easy cause," Yachmetz said. "It's going to be balancing a number of factors that may be assignable to more than one party."

[Hog&Tow]

no wonder the dispatcher nearly had a heart attack when he told me to clear up for Amtrak & I replied "we are expired on the hours of service sir, on your main line".

[nsguy]

H'mmm, someone is finally figuring out a way to fund Amtrak with $$$ from the record earning RR's and not the taxpayers. Wait, I'm a taxpayer and a railroader! This is gonna cost me some bucks no matter how you look at it!

[SuperChief]

Originally Posted by nsguy

H'mmm, someone is finally figuring out a way to fund Amtrak with $$$ from the record earning RR's and not the taxpayers. Wait, I'm a taxpayer and a railroader! This is gonna cost me some bucks no matter how you look at it!

Just another 'perk' of being a Railroader..lol

[RichmondVA]

How much do the railroads make that lease their sections to amtrak to use? If they start fining the freight rr's, then the freight rr's can just up the lease to compensate. What is amtrak gonna do, make their own tracks? I doubt it.

[blizzard07]

Freight railroading is dangerous enough without these fragile passenger trains zipping around. There is simply not enough trackage for the volume of freight and it is projected to get much heavier. In the long run Amtrak is going to have to get it's own trackage or go away.
Blizz

[Jim Rockford]

Originally Posted by blizzard07

Freight railroading is dangerous enough without these fragile passenger trains zipping around. There is simply not enough trackage for the volume of freight and it is projected to get much heavier. In the long run Amtrak is going to have to get it's own trackage or go away.
Blizz

hell it might as well. everyday the north bound amtraks come through the yard with maybe 10 people on board, people love driving there own car, that is why car pooling and mass transit (AKA city buses) for people other than bums don't work.

[MuddyAxles]

Originally Posted by nsguy

H'mmm, someone is finally figuring out a way to fund Amtrak with $$$ from the record earning RR's and not the taxpayers. Wait, I'm a taxpayer and a railroader! This is gonna cost me some bucks no matter how you look at it!

Sure is...no way 'round it!

[MuddyAxles]

Originally Posted by blizzard07

Freight railroading is dangerous enough without these fragile passenger trains zipping around. There is simply not enough trackage for the volume of freight and it is projected to get much heavier. In the long run Amtrak is going to have to get it's own trackage or go away.
Blizz

Amtrak can't go away. Obviously, Congress starved it for decades, barely alloting enough money to continue the status quo. The railroads abused it for just as long, and guess what? Summbidge, ridership just keeps going up...with old equipment in most places, full trains on some routes, lousy schedules, less and less food service, just keeps growing, especially since gas prices went up and airline security measures become more and more invasive.

Some of the other "oldtimers" may have to correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the only reason the gov't allowed the railroads to end passenger service was if they permitted passenger trains to use their tracks (everywhere that Amtrak does not own the tracks). Railroad are considered common carriers which brings with it a bunch of responsibilities along with the government sanctioned franchise to operate.


Recently I read that, included in the original "agreement", if that's what they called it, there were rules established protecting passenger train priority over freight trains and I believe there were fines laid out.

Regardless, I remember reading that during the summer maintenance blitzes that everyone was running...I think in summer of '07...there was some meeting of high-muckety-muck railroad and government officials and the representatives from CSX and UP (the two worst culprits) were reportedly taken aside and told to either "fix" the problem or official measures would have to be taken, which could include fines and sanctions, as the article said. And things got better for a while.


Like everything these guys do, there's a huge knee-jerk reaction, heads are rolling and there's hell to pay...for about six and one-half minutes...then they're off on some tangent or other...or playing golf somewhere. Amtrak did start showing better on-time arrival stats for a while and here we are with problems again.

I do agree that there is little room today for passenger trains on "our" tracks; but not because they should go away. Our employers have forgotten what it takes to accommodate trains that must meet strict schedules for acceptable success. If schedules cannot be met, any passenger system is doomed to failure.


Also, freight trains are longer and heavier than in the days of mixed service ROW's. Higher speed passenger trains need a different track structure than freight...high-seed turnouts and super-elevated curves and cab signals.

This has been a pet subject of mine for a long time. The passenger business has changed. People don't particularly need to go "downtown" anymore. Stations need lots of vehicular parking space. Convenient availability of other modes of transportation is extremely important for many passengers.

Different modes of transportation need to cooperate, blend schedules, offer ticketing and route advice/planning for each other, and share facilities. These are transportation services that have been available for decades in other countries. We lag far behind here in the U.S.

Another area we suffer in is speed. Speed for surface transportation relates directly to competitiveness. Many travelers making intermediate length trips would actually arrive at their final destination earlier by rail than by air if our average train speeds simply doubled.

To double average speed (cut trip length in half) would require ROW separation from freight trains, imho. I just don't see how 130-150 mph trains could run side-by-side with us even if all the track and signaling problems were magically solved.

Even though there are numerous abandoned ROW's around, there would still be thousands of NIMBYs and environmentalists working to kill any kind of aggressive plans to build a national passenger rail system which is goofy because those people moved by rail would consume a fraction of the energy and produce a fraction of the pollution...something environmentalists should want, but they'd still fight it).

None of the above assumes funding could be found to build the thing and run it for even the first year. Oh, and in case you are wondering, there is not a single passenger system in the world that completely pays for itself from ticket revenues.

The only way the railroads afforded to run passenger service years ago: there was little competition from airlines and automobiles and they moved ALL the domestic mail for the Post Office (there was some air mail later on) and express freight, as in the Railway Express Agency...the business taken over by UPS and others.

Summary: We'll piss around with a little of this and a little of that, there never will be a national system & just as much money will be spent on a bunch of failures, imho.

[BadOrderKing]

I still believe that if passenger rail service had a glimer of hope in turning a real profit, KCS would be putting people on the "Belle" and not letting it sit in the yard full of expensive toys for the execs.