Amtrak update

[mdvle]

8 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

Many of the Class 1's run high priority freight which must be reliable to meet customer deadlines, and I assume is timetabled rather than arranged ad-hoc.  How does the punctuality of those compare with Amtrak on the same routes?  

 

I would assume one of the issues (which is also faced on the UK network, seen in path requirements) is the differences of speed between the Amtrak trains and the freights.

 

A timetabled freight that is going at the same speed as all other freight traffic isn't going to cause the same problems as a faster Amtrak train.

[peach james]

Up here in Canada, the problem is far worse- witness Dibber25's comments on The Canadian, and if you watch  "The Platforum", the recent one with the two DS's went into some depth of the problems that are happening with the 10 000' long (yes, basically 2 miles...) freights up here and 8000' sidings.  

I'd like to take The Canadian again, not sure if it is going to happen or not.

James

[Mike Storey]

19 hours ago, dave1905 said:

Railroads are required to maintain their track to meet certain standards, they are under no obligation to improve facilities to grow the passenger service.  If Amtrak wants to add sidings, or lengthen sidings to reduce delays, they can certainly negotiate with the railroad for Amtrak to make improvements to increase their business.

 

One of the reasons railroads are slow to invent in physical plant improvements is shown by the coal train operations.  The UP and BNSF spent billions of dollars to build a huge infrastructure to support coal trains and over 5-10 year period about 50% of the coal train business melted away, leaving them with a HUGE infrastructure to handle a medium business volume.

 

Passenger rail has never been a profit center, even in the days before the interstate highways, it was a money loser,   

 and once again the solution provides no incentive to cooperate, only penalties for noncompliance.

 

At one point Amtrak wanted to use "unimpeded run time" as the standard against which performance was to be measured.  Unimpeded run time says what the schedule would be is Amtrak was the only train on the railroad (not even opposing Amtrak's) and there were no slow orders of any kind.  Obviously that creates a schedule which is entirely unachievable.  It also creates a Catch-22 situation where if you don't maintain the railroad you fail and if you slow down the railroad to maintain the track, you fail.

 

The Northeast Corridor that Amtrak owns and operates has less than 90% on time performance .  They can't even get 100% on time performance on lines THEY have control over.   When they can run at 100% on time on a multiple track, fully CTC, totally grade separated route, then talk to the freight railroads about running trains on single track, mixed service routes.

 

In 2019, nationwide, Amtrak caused delays were 30,000 hours and other railroad caused delay hours were 53,000 hours.  Yes the other railroad's were more, but over 1/3 the delay hours was self inflicted.

 

(delay hours taken from the US DOT statistics)

 

You take no account of the history nor the relative performance data.

 

90% right time performance on the NE Corridor is pretty good, when compared internationally, and particularly good when compared to the rest of the US railroad network. That you think Amtrak should hit 100% before they can have influence elsewhere, is not only unrealistic (outside Japan anyway) but also just a tad hypocritical, when taking into account the delays caused by and incurred across all freight operators.

 

You seem to forget that the present Freight Operators and Owners were largely created/ bailed out out of the massive failure of Penn Central, for which major subsidy was needed to keep the railroads going via the new ConRail, and a few others in smaller ways, plus they were relieved of the requirement to run passenger trains, which transferred to the newly created Amtrak, on the understanding that no Amtrak services would be impeded unduly by freight priorities. 

 

Several Acts and decisions later, with the abandonment of ConRail and greater and greater deregulation and encouragement to competition, the freight railroads are now being charged with anti-competitive behaviours and are demonstrably impeding Amtrak services due to both their massively increased freight operations and a lack of additional infrastructure.

 

Your suggestion that the unimpeded run time metric chosen by Amtrak is artificial, is laughable. Every operator bidding for paths on an open access railway starts with that - it is up to the infrastructure owner/operator to provide reasons for adding recovery time or reduced point-to-point timings, for whatever justifiable reason. Whether sheer lack of maintenance is "justifiable" would attract the attention of both the FRA and the ICC.

 

Your attitude clearly indicates, to me anyway, but perhaps not to others, judging from the "likes" you get, just why the US railroad system is in such a bleeding mess.

 

[mdvle]

21 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

You seem to forget that the present Freight Operators and Owners were largely created/ bailed out out of the massive failure of Penn Central, for which major subsidy was needed to keep the railroads going via the new ConRail, and a few others in smaller ways,

 

Um, so I'm by not means an expert on that aspect of the US railroad scene, but that really doesn't seem like any version of reality.

 

Penn Central was the merger of PRR, NYC, and NH.

 

Conrail was the government takeover of PC, Ann Arbor, EL, LV, CNJ, Reading and a bunch of other small operations.

 

In other words - the North-east US - which left a lot of other railroads untouched.

 

Both CSX and NS, who eventually split Conrail, remained private as did what eventually gave us UP, BNSF, KCS and of course CN/CP and their US operations/acquisitions since the Conrail era.

 

And even at that, one could make an argument that PC (and a bunch of other bankruptcy mergers) and eventually Conrail only happened because of continued government interference in the freight market that made those north-east railroads lose so much money - they never had the ability to do a Beeching and remove money losing lines or to set freight rates at reality levels until the mid70s/80s.

 

 

21 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

plus they were relieved of the requirement to run passenger trains, which transferred to the newly created Amtrak,

 

This did apply to all of the railroads that participated, but in fairness it yet again was merely the government getting out of the way - forcing companies to run money losing services never ends well.

 

21 minutes ago, Mike Storey said:

Your attitude clearly indicates, to me anyway, but perhaps not to others, judging from the "likes" you get, just why the US railroad system is in such a bleeding mess.

 

Depends on ones perspective.

 

You may not like the US railroad system, and it may not be optimal from many perspectives (like passenger operations), but calling it a mess given it remains quite profitable is a stretch.

 

2020 profits:

• BNSF - unknown (part of Berkshire Hathaway)
• CN - C$3.56b
• CP - C$244b
• CSX - $2.77b
• NS - $2b
• UP - $5.25b

 

[Mike Storey]

16 minutes ago, mdvle said:

 

Um, so I'm by not means an expert on that aspect of the US railroad scene, but that really doesn't seem like any version of reality.

 

Penn Central was the merger of PRR, NYC, and NH.

 

Conrail was the government takeover of PC, Ann Arbor, EL, LV, CNJ, Reading and a bunch of other small operations.

 

In other words - the North-east US - which left a lot of other railroads untouched.

 

Both CSX and NS, who eventually split Conrail, remained private as did what eventually gave us UP, BNSF, KCS and of course CN/CP and their US operations/acquisitions since the Conrail era.

 

And even at that, one could make an argument that PC (and a bunch of other bankruptcy mergers) and eventually Conrail only happened because of continued government interference in the freight market that made those north-east railroads lose so much money - they never had the ability to do a Beeching and remove money losing lines or to set freight rates at reality levels until the mid70s/80s.

 

 

 

This did apply to all of the railroads that participated, but in fairness it yet again was merely the government getting out of the way - forcing companies to run money losing services never ends well.

 

 

Depends on ones perspective.

 

You may not like the US railroad system, and it may not be optimal from many perspectives (like passenger operations), but calling it a mess given it remains quite profitable is a stretch.

 

2020 profits:

• BNSF - unknown (part of Berkshire Hathaway)
• CN - C$3.56b
• CP - C$244b
• CSX - $2.77b
• NS - $2b
• UP - $5.25b

 

 

It "remains" profitable for the very reasons I gave!!

 

That ConRail largely affected the NE, does not respect the reality of the situation at the time. Most profitable freight went through the NE then, in the 1970's, but the opening of the West Coast transit routes took place after that, and very profitable it has been, with triple deckers, mass new car and van transit, containers, chemicals, and a large proportion of processed petroleum products, and all the rest, having largely replaced coal movements outside the NE. The investment cited about coal has been replicated across North America, Europe, Australia and parts of Asia, and all (bar some continuation for exports to China) have never returned their capital to the extent expected. This is a raucous example to choose.

 

Basically, the debate is about private capital gain (free enterprise freight hauliers) v public transit needs (as increasingly dictated by environmental aspects). The free enters argue that road will nick their traffic if they are not allowed free rein, which, even if stretched to absurd levels of disbelief, does not hold water. US road hauliers are in an even greater disarray over vacancies than UK hauliers.

 

It is all about the protection of rail freight profits, and absolutely s0d all else.

 

PS - I was living in the US in the 70's, in New York, so remember all the debates well. There was HUGE resistance to subsidies for freight haulage then, let alone passenger ops, and the same b0ll0cks was put about with much the same reasoning (or lack of it).

Edited June 17, 2021 by Mike Storey

[Edwin_m]

4 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

I would assume one of the issues (which is also faced on the UK network, seen in path requirements) is the differences of speed between the Amtrak trains and the freights.

 

A timetabled freight that is going at the same speed as all other freight traffic isn't going to cause the same problems as a faster Amtrak train.

Actually pretty similar.  Most routes are limited by federal restriction to 79mph and freight will typically run at 70mph.  Amtrak may get up to the full speed on suitable routes, but will also make station calls, but the freight has no reason to stop other than crew changes every few hours.  

[dave1905]

20 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

Many of the Class 1's run high priority freight which must be reliable to meet customer deadlines, and I assume is timetabled rather than arranged ad-hoc.  How does the punctuality of those compare with Amtrak on the same routes?  

Modern US railroads don't have "timetables" per se.  They have "schedules" and operate them on a regular basis and measure performance against them, but they aren't "timetable schedules" in the traditional sense of US railroading.  US freight trains typically run at 50-60 mph and passenger trains typically run at 79 mph.  So there is a 20-30 mph differential in train max train speed.  Actually they perform the same to worse.

[dave1905]

On 16/06/2021 at 14:46, Mike Storey said:

However, all freight line owners (bar the Shorts I believe) have a legal obligation to facilitate the reasonable operation of passenger trains, and indeed, preference. Source Global Railway Review 30/04/21).

 

Also consider that "preference" is not exclusive right.  When Amtraks operate on a freight line that sees 60-90 freight trains a day, the freight road can't just magically make the freight trains disappear.  Preference means they have to be given the better trip, but not unimpeded.  They have to dodge and weave between the freights and preference doesn't mean they won't go into a siding to meet other trains.

[Edwin_m]

3 hours ago, dave1905 said:

Modern US railroads don't have "timetables" per se.  They have "schedules" and operate them on a regular basis and measure performance against them, but they aren't "timetable schedules" in the traditional sense of US railroading.  US freight trains typically run at 50-60 mph and passenger trains typically run at 79 mph.  So there is a 20-30 mph differential in train max train speed.  Actually they perform the same to worse.

So, whatever they are called, do the "schedules" plan the timings and meets of the freight trains and include Amtrak?  If so then these trains shouldn't be spending long times in sidings unless the plan is bad, something is disrupted, or the railroad doesn't have enough sidings to handle the traffic it is trying to carry.  

 

I've already mentioned the impact of Amtrak station stops on average speeds.  

[davknigh]

I can’t speak directly to the Amtrak situation but if is anything like the VIA experience there are two factors that come into play. First, since the days of Hunter Harrison the number of sidings has been dramatically reduced providing fewer opportunities  for meets and second, the length of freights has grown to the point that the passenger trains are the ones obliged to take the siding ‘cos the freights won’t fit. This is why, when it was regularly running, The Canadian could be up to a day late.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Edwin_m]

1 hour ago, davknigh said:

I can’t speak directly to the Amtrak situation but if is anything like the VIA experience there are two factors that come into play. First, since the days of Hunter Harrison the number of sidings has been dramatically reduced providing fewer opportunities  for meets and second, the length of freights has grown to the point that the passenger trains are the ones obliged to take the siding ‘cos the freights won’t fit. This is why, when it was regularly running, The Canadian could be up to a day late.

Both of those suggest there aren't enough sidings to run the service.  If a passenger has to take the siding to pass a long freight, then how do two long freight pass each other?  

 

[I'm assuming the "saw-by" is not a viable option for a modern operation.]

Edited June 18, 2021 by Edwin_m

[davknigh]

15 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

Both of those suggest there aren't enough sidings to run the service.  If a passenger has to take the siding to pass a long freight, then how do two long freight pass each other?  

 

[I'm assuming the "saw-by" is not a viable option for a modern operation.]

My bad, sloppy wording. There are long enough sidings for the freights to safely meet, just not enough for the faster passenger trains who end up sitting in sidings while freights hurtle by. On my last trip out to BC, admittedly in the ‘90s, the passenger train was always the one to go into the siding while the freight held the main, and timings have only become worse since then.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[The Lurker]

When we travelled on the Canadian a few years ago we were told (by train staff)  that the Canadian could stop and then get up to speed much more easily than the freight trains, so it was the Canadian that made way. Usually this was in a loop, but we did put back into a siding at one stage.

[Edwin_m]

8 minutes ago, davknigh said:

My bad, sloppy wording. There are long enough sidings for the freights to safely meet, just not enough for the faster passenger trains who end up sitting in sidings while freights hurtle by. On my last trip out to BC, admittedly in the ‘90s, the passenger train was always the one to go into the siding while the freight held the main, and timings have only become worse since then.

 

Cheers,

 

David

I assumed that was the case, but it still comes back to the railroad not having enough sidings to run the traffic it wants and needs to run.  It may be that the schedule works if nothing untoward happens, but a random problem "snowballs" into more widespread disruption because there isn't enough flexibility in the system.  The same applies to the railroad's own time-critical freight in the 23 or so hours of each day when there's no Amtrak/VIA service nearby.  

 

[mdvle]

6 hours ago, The Lurker said:

When we travelled on the Canadian a few years ago we were told (by train staff)  that the Canadian could stop and then get up to speed much more easily than the freight trains, so it was the Canadian that made way. Usually this was in a loop, but we did put back into a siding at one stage.

 

In North America a loop is called a siding, or a passing siding.

 

8 hours ago, davknigh said:

I can’t speak directly to the Amtrak situation but if is anything like the VIA experience there are two factors that come into play.

 

This is why, when it was regularly running, The Canadian could be up to a day late

 

Prior to the Covid / blockage shut downs the Canadian was running reasonably close to schedule - though in fairness that is because VIA in consultation with CN added a day to the schedule (which despite the absurdity worked out best for customers, who could better schedule/book post-train activities)

[mdvle]

15 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

So, whatever they are called, do the "schedules" plan the timings and meets of the freight trains and include Amtrak?  If so then these trains shouldn't be spending long times in sidings unless the plan is bad, something is disrupted, or the railroad doesn't have enough sidings to handle the traffic it is trying to carry. 

 

It is a complicated subject (that I don't fully understand because I'm not in the industry and haven't devoted the time to try and research it).

 

Anyone who does want to may want to research Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), which despite the name is about a lot more than just scheduling - including minimizing infrastructure (aka sidings, either existence of or length - like not making them longer) and running longer trains (less crews required, etc).

 

And the key point that anyone used to the European/UK system of railways is that the owner calls the shots - and in the case of the US/Canadian freight railroads that is Wall Street investors - and they really, really like the profits that PSR via Hunter Harrison delivered.

 

Some points PSR/Wall Street:

• BNSF is the exception, because they are no longer a publicly traded company - Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway) who owns BNSF is taking more of a wait and see approach if PSR works over the long term as well as the short term.
• yes, it really is Wall Street that matters - Bill Ackman/Pershing Square Capital pushed out the existing management of CP Rail in 2012 so they could eventually end up with Hunter Harrison who cut costs to make CP more profitable (key word "more").

 

[mdvle]

On 17/06/2021 at 15:31, Mike Storey said:

That ConRail largely affected the NE, does not respect the reality of the situation at the time. Most profitable freight went through the NE then, in the 1970's,

 

If the NE was full of profitable freight in the 1970s then Conrail wouldn't have happened - the point remains that the NE had too many railroads / too many track miles / too little profitable freight / to much government interference in setting rates.

 

On 17/06/2021 at 15:31, Mike Storey said:

but the opening of the West Coast transit routes took place after that, and very profitable it has been, with triple deckers, mass new car and van transit, containers, chemicals, and a large proportion of processed petroleum products, and all the rest, having largely replaced coal movements outside the NE.

 

Nonsense.

 

BNSF has big exposure to coal (16.8% of traffic, 2nd among US railroads behind CSX), and last I looked they weren't in the NE.

 

And the States with the highest coal consumption(*) were - in order - Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Pennsylvania - only 5th place is in the NE.

 

On 17/06/2021 at 15:31, Mike Storey said:

Basically, the debate is about private capital gain (free enterprise freight hauliers) v public transit needs (as increasingly dictated by environmental aspects). The free enters argue that road will nick their traffic if they are not allowed free rein, which, even if stretched to absurd levels of disbelief, does not hold water. US road hauliers are in an even greater disarray over vacancies than UK hauliers.

 

Yes, as I noted in another reply, there is a large Wall Street aspect to the situation.

 

But the other big aspect (getting to your environmental concerns) is the lack of effective last mile public transit.  People aren't going to take Amtrak if they end up needing to rent a car at their destination - they may as well either just drive or (if the distance is long enough - in which case Amtrak wasn't an option anyway) fly.

 

And solving that outside of the North-east Corridor (NEC) is a sum of money no politician is willing to contemplate.

 

On 17/06/2021 at 15:31, Mike Storey said:

It is all about the protection of rail freight profits, and absolutely s0d all else.

 

More than a bit misleading given the UK government's ongoing and long running obsession with the amount of money the Treasury is spending on the railways...

 

 

* - https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/which-states-are-largest-producers-and-consumers-coal

[Edwin_m]

The last mile issue is indeed a big problem in the US, outside the Northeast and a handful of places elsewhere, although it's more of a last 10-20 mile problem when considering access to long-distance rail.  Related is the lack of a culture of using public transport.  Most places haven't had a useful rail service in living memory and buses tend to be a basic service for those with no alternative, something the sort of person who might use rail probably wouldn't consider and affected also by racist attitudes in many places.   Federal and state administrations also tend to see spending on transit as a subsidy and spending on highways as an investment, far more so than in the UK.  If more cities could get all this sorted out then the benefits would far exceed better access to long-distance rail.  

 

However Canada has much better local transit overall, and VIA doesn't do noticeably better than Amtrak.  Good access to the stations won't help much if train journeys are still too long (in time) to be competitive with air, too slow to be competitive with car, or too unreliable.  This then leads them to a vicious circle of reductions in service frequency, which means that for many journeys there's only one train a day but a choice of several flights.  

Edited June 19, 2021 by Edwin_m

[Lovemymodelling]

I often watch the South West Chief through several of the virtual rail fan cam, one day this week the east bound train managed to be 19 hours late with the following days departure just 6 hours behind it, this must have been an infrastructure problem surely, I’ve looked about and not found the reason Amtrak put it out as an “operational issue” any one have any ideas? 
 

Just wondering is this just a North American issue, does the Australian Indian Pacific or Trans Siberian often run 5/6 hours late ? 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Lovemymodelling

[Mike Storey]

20 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

If the NE was full of profitable freight in the 1970s then Conrail wouldn't have happened - the point remains that the NE had too many railroads / too many track miles / too little profitable freight / to much government interference in setting rates.

 

 

Nonsense.

 

BNSF has big exposure to coal (16.8% of traffic, 2nd among US railroads behind CSX), and last I looked they weren't in the NE.

 

And the States with the highest coal consumption(*) were - in order - Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Pennsylvania - only 5th place is in the NE.

 

 

Yes, as I noted in another reply, there is a large Wall Street aspect to the situation.

 

But the other big aspect (getting to your environmental concerns) is the lack of effective last mile public transit.  People aren't going to take Amtrak if they end up needing to rent a car at their destination - they may as well either just drive or (if the distance is long enough - in which case Amtrak wasn't an option anyway) fly.

 

And solving that outside of the North-east Corridor (NEC) is a sum of money no politician is willing to contemplate.

 

 

More than a bit misleading given the UK government's ongoing and long running obsession with the amount of money the Treasury is spending on the railways...

 

 

* - https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/which-states-are-largest-producers-and-consumers-coal

 

Well, you have admitted you're no expert, and you are certainly well out of date with your stats.

 

The NE was profitable, but all the other obligations placed on PC as well as regulated rates, made for an impossible outcome. That explains the consequent subsidies to resurrect the freight and passenger rail systems in the 1970's and 80's. You don't even acknowledge that.

 

You do however make clear that the interest of Wall Street investors overrides everything else, and have highlighted the methodology (in another post) about how that was achieved. They clearly broke the law and, until now, there has been no sanction.

 

As for "last mile", France has bu88er all public transport outside Paris and some of the major conurbations, but its passenger train usage keeps ramping up (after a dip). The same argument would apply to flying anyway. Someone else has also made the point that if passenger journey times are restrained by increasing limitations due to freight owners, then there is no possibility to compete at any level.

 

As for the protection of rail freight profits, you will find that (bar a few million here and there on freight facilities grants) rail freight in the UK receives no subsidy whatsoever. Which is partly why it has done so badly (despite becoming profitable) because we all know HGV's are heavily, indirectly subsidised, as indeed are long distance road hauliers in the US.

 

I don't know why you continue to see things only from the freight operators' standpoint, but I guess there is a reason.

[dave1905]

On 18/06/2021 at 02:23, Edwin_m said:

So, whatever they are called, do the "schedules" plan the timings and meets of the freight trains and include Amtrak? 

 

Short answer is no.  The meets are not scheduled to that degree.  There is time in the schedule to allow for the meet and the schedules are typically set at the 70th to 80th percentile of run time.  The schedules are set such that 70-80 percent of the time trains will make their schedule.

[dave1905]

On 18/06/2021 at 11:07, Edwin_m said:

but it still comes back to the railroad not having enough sidings to run the traffic it wants and needs to run.  

There's where you are not understanding the relationship.  The railroad owns its track.  Amtrak is a tenant operating on trackage rights.  The railroad has all the sidings it wants or can afford to run IT'S business.

 

Amtrak is another railroad, Amtrak is not the railroad's "business".

 

Amtrak is its own railroad.  If Amtrak thinks that there aren't enough sidings, Amtrak can ante up the money to have the host railroad build more sidings.  I know of several places where Amtrak was unhappy with the service because of meets and finally came up with money to extend and upgrade sidings to make better meets.

[dave1905]

On 18/06/2021 at 18:25, mdvle said:

Anyone who does want to may want to research Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), which despite the name is about a lot more than just scheduling - including minimizing infrastructure (aka sidings, either existence of or length - like not making them longer) and running longer trains (less crews required, etc).

 

A lot of PSR is similar to what we were doing back in the 1970's and 1980's before Staggers. 

 

It really has very little to do with scheduling per se.  Its all about minimizing cost and maximizing utilization.  Of course technology is different from the 1980's, we didn't have DPU, we didn't have high strength drawbars, we didn't have as much CTC, we still had train orders, we didn't have AEI readers.  There were more railroads.  PSR is very suitable to a shrinking traffic base and with the contraction of coal followed by the COVID pandemic hitting the economy, its probably fits the business environment.

 

I don't particularly care for PSR, I think it isn't flexible enough because it minimizes resources so if there is a traffic surge, it will be more difficult to respond and I don't think it is customer responsive (of course the customers are always pissed off at the railroad so it doesn't matter whether it's PSR or the golden years of the 1990's or 2000's , they won't be happy.)  I didn't particularly car for how the railroads ran things in the 1980's either.

[dave1905]

3 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

The NE was profitable, but all the other obligations placed on PC as well as regulated rates, made for an impossible outcome.

 

 

 Well not really.  Even before the PC debacle most of the railroads in the NE were in horrible financial shape.  

 

The CNJ had been bouncing in and out of bankruptcy for the last several decades, the LV had 90% of its traffic on 10% of its route miles.  The NYO&W went belly up early.  The LNE, LHR were in death spirals.

 

The shift away from coal is what severely wounded most of the NE railroads.  Then the duplication of routes and excess infrastructure drained what little profit there was.  For example, I lived in Norristown, a county seat about 30 miles NE of Philadelphia.  There were, between all the railroads, about 7 main tracks all running more or less parallel between Phillie and Norristown.  Way, way, way over built.  When they were hauling 20 coal trains a day  and there was commuter service plus inter-city passenger service on two different railroads, 7 main tracks might have made sense in 1940.  But in 1980, not so much.

 

It wasn't until the government removed the commuter and passenger service and allowed the railroads to abandon obsolete and redundant lines, that it paired down to something profitable.  If you compare the railroads in the NE in 1970 to the map today, probably less than half the railroad mileage is still in service.  Roads like the LV and CNJ only exist as bits and pieces.

 

I don't know why you continue to see things only from the passenger operators' standpoint, but I guess there is a reason.

Edited June 20, 2021 by dave1905

[mdvle]

14 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

However Canada has much better local transit overall, and VIA doesn't do noticeably better than Amtrak.

 

VIA is chronically starved for funding and ignored by the Canadian Government until such time as it is pay up or the service dies.

 

VIA is only getting the new Siemens trains because otherwise service in the corridor would be cancelled due to a lack of operational equipment (Transport Canada has forbidden any buyers of LRC coaches to operate them in passenger service in Canada once they leave VIA service which is very telling).

 

The Renaissance (ex-Nightstar) and Budd equipment are all in bad shape and may last another 10 years if VIA is lucky - still no indication that replacement equipment will be provided or even if VIA has asked for any.

 

The core VIA service, the corridor, is running on trains from 1980 that were designed a decade earlier using a service method (getting on and off the train only through doors staffed by crew) from decades earlier - thus not an attractive service to the public.  (by contrast, when VIA finally gets it's new Siemens trains Amtrak will be on a second upgrade to the NEC with the 2nd generation of Acela, that offers modern/European style all door access).

 

The schedule is a joke - not because of time but because there are so few trains running in the core Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal triangle (the airlines typically offer something like hourly service.

 

Toronto - Ottawa has 10 trains a day, Toronto - Montreal has 7 (pre-Covid).

 

14 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

This then leads them to a vicious circle of reductions in service frequency, which means that for many journeys there's only one train a day but a choice of several flights.  

 

The lack of service is the result of a lack of equipment, which is because the government won't fund VIA adequately.

 

And that's without getting into city pairs that likely could support a service but don't have any, again due to a lack of funding.