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It remains to be seen if this will actually pass. If it does it should be sufficient to fund new locomotives along with much needed new equipment. Maybe even a Viewliner lounge car!
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The same way the stimulus and government health care will be paid. 1) Raise everyone's taxes (under the guise of "tax the rich"), and 2) Put our children, their children, and their children---all in debt, even though they have not been born yet.
Amtrak has yet to prove to me that they can be responsible with large sums of money. Whenever I hear of Amtrak being granted huge sums of money, I get nervous. I wouldn't feel that way if they had a proven track record of fiscal responsibility and leadership.
Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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Mr. Andy Smith, even if the passenger train advocacy community considers Roger Lewis, the first Amtrak CEO serving from A-Day and into 1974, to have been ineffective in that role, possibly you will consider him a level headed guy, as during a House Committee Hearing, circa 1972 the following exchange, with words to the effect of, reportedly occurred:
Q: (addressing Mr. Lewis) Sir, if we gave you a Billion (1972) Dollars, what kind of railroad would you give the American people?
A: Sir (Mr. Lewis' response), that would represent more funds than we could sensibly commit.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Amtrak's next single-level equipment order will be for second-order Viewliner diners (for which they ran out of money the first time around), baggage dorms (remember those???) to remove crew habitation from existing sleeper rooms which cannot be sold to the public) and 20 or so more sleeping cars. Ever since the mail came off, when is the last time you saw a heritage baggage car filled up? Having an entire car devoted to baggage is carrying excess weight and a waste of space. Combining the above two reasons will yield a baggage dorm, which not only puts checked baggage on the other side of the crew space where it can be secure, but also allows better use of existing sleeper space. An additional 20 Viewliner sleepers could restore sleeping car service on the overnight Nameless Regional train, add capacity where it sells out (snowbird runs, summer Lakeshore NY section, et cetera) and go a long, long way toward restoring the Cardinal to daily operation. If this means bumping the Amfleet IIs from some of their current assignments, so be it. Viewliner diners would remove the existing strain on the Heritage cars. Honestly, folks, those things are amazing, but they also date to the Eisenhower administration. They must have a hundred million miles on them each. Sanitary food preparation and cleanup requires 170-degree water. Coffee makers, ovens, heat lamps, griddles and microwaves require a solid electrical system. And finally, some of the Heritage cars are suffering from structural issues. Ever notice how there are half as many baggage cars on the road now compared with ten years ago? This equipment would allow Amtrak to de-stagnate and actually grow to meet projected demand. If you're afraid of the price tag, keep in mind steel is a heck of a lot more expensive than it was five years ago, and many supporting industries (like steel fabrication of large rail vehicles, wheel and coupler manufacturing, and interior parts sourcing) have outsourced or just shut down.
The only Viewliner diner (8400) is at Beech Grove as we speak. It was towed behind the Cardinal last spring with its hand-painted Amtrak logo (in an attempt to match phase 4 paint) and no electrical system. Many components in Viewliner sleepers are shared with the Superliner II fleet. You can't do that with diners. Or you can, but you have to invent how to do it first. Who's people know how to do that? Amtrak's people. You can't hire an electrician off the street or out of the union hall and tell them to design a heavy-duty 480 VAC system that will alternate from Miami Florida in the August to Buffalo, New York in February. On top of that, it has to last twenty years of low-frequency vibration and supply power spikes before replacement.
I take issue with the view that Amtrak is a monetary black hole. This year with increased subsidy, and stimulus funding on top of that, I've seen more upgraded engines and completely refurbished rolling stock come out of Beech Grove, Bear and Wilmington than in the past three years combined. They're fixing things, not just stickering the new stripes and emblem over the old map-cracked paint. They're replacing the electrical cabinets and wiring on Amfleet I cars because the old wiring didn't work and was a safety hazard. They're adding bolsters, push-pull capacity, and collision reinforcement to older cars, specifically Amfleet. They're repairing cars that were lightly to moderately damaged so they can again generate revenue for the company. The past four fiscal years, I saw about fifteen Amfleet IIs per year come out of overhaul, allowing the existing fleet to dwindle- three coaches on the Lakeshore? This year I've seen about fifty come through. This means the toilets might actually work, the doors may actually open, and they may even have some semblance of interior temperature regulation. This is not a waste of money to me. If private companies are going to stop employing Americans in skilled trades, how do you expect these people to provide for their families? Why do you think they started living off multiple credit cards to begin with?
Does anyone know if the Chicago yard and terminal work has been completed in time for the winter?
Roger Lewis was a Pan American Airline executive picked by President Nixon to oversee the gradual shutdown and elimination of America's intercity passenger rail system. The original system was supposed to be self-sufficient by 1974 or shut down, a Nixonian way of quietly killing it to make the problem go away. Lewis was more obsessed with micromanaging the number of magazines on the waiting room coffee tables at headquarters than he was about running trains and moving people around.
Excuse me, I need to go photograph a real dining car on the Lakeshore, which is on time.
Posts: 391 | From: Schenectady | Registered: Jan 2002
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I have to take exception to Speaker Pelosi's webpage casting Wall Street as the root of all evil, as lest we forget that the dramatic recovery of the financial markets this past year and the resulting recovery of the institutions that power these markets, have made this legislation possible with the return of monies loaned under the TARP program.
Meanwhile, I'm sure Glenn, Rush, Sarah, and Sean are all "warming up in the bullpen'. (PS; wonder which talk show Sara will end up on; somehow I think she will become a co-host with Hannity).
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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The House bill was passed last night, in time for Ms. Pelosi to jet off to Copenhagen.
The process for ordering new Viewliners is supposed to be the subject of a January announcement. However, to the best of my knowledge, nothing is occuring regarding Superliner compatible equipment. This is disturbing, Amtrak is obviously capacity restrained on the western routes.
Posts: 41 | From: South Dakota | Registered: Sep 2008
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As Andrea Seabrook on NPR said "You could smell the jet fumes on the House floor as folks wanted to get out of DC."
Posts: 1404 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:I have to take exception to Speaker Pelosi's webpage casting Wall Street as the root of all evil
She's merely repeating propaganda out of the European Union. Remember, the bankers over there are calling for an end to not only Wall Street, but the entire "Anglo-Saxon capitalist model". (The European Union is actually forcing Germany's Soziale Marktwirtschaft on the whole continent, including my home country, via treaty, in a repeat of one of Bismarck's methods.)
Posts: 566 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by smitty195: The same way the stimulus and government health care will be paid. 1) Raise everyone's taxes (under the guise of "tax the rich"), and 2) Put our children, their children, and their children---all in debt, even though they have not been born yet.
Amtrak has yet to prove to me that they can be responsible with large sums of money. Whenever I hear of Amtrak being granted huge sums of money, I get nervous. I wouldn't feel that way if they had a proven track record of fiscal responsibility and leadership.
Amtrak has not proven itself to be responsible with large sums of money because in its 40 year history it has never had a large sum of money. The wealth of Buffet, Gates an Woods would have funded AMTRAk for about 25% of its 40 year history.
Posts: 110 | From: Kansas City, Missouri | Registered: Mar 2008
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The wealth of Buffet, Gates an Woods would have funded AMTRAk for about 25% of its 40 year history. Or possibly a lot longer, if they were able not only to fund it but to make it operate better by way of direct private ownership and control.
P.S. Not to disavow government-run enterprise, e.g. the highly successful European passenger trains
Posts: 144 | Registered: Sep 2005
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While Amtrak and Congress continue to dither about funding for new equipment, it's nice to see that North Carolina continues to make real progress.
I think this says something about how much more effective states are than the federal bureaucracy in getting something concrete done:
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Mr Buffet invested in the Rails but it was in a Frieght Line.
Would he invest in Amtrak (if it went public) doupt it. As he said about the next time he thinks about investing in an airline, shoot him. (he did invest in NetJets a few years back though)
As far as the Jobs for Main Street Act. Why is Tibet on this page? (We all know why, and thats another problem)
I am glad NC is building a rail line for NC. In CT we are finnally getting new cars for the New Haven Line, these cars come from Japan. The maintenence shop is being held up because its budget was to big and no one could figure out how they came up with the original figure.
As in another post why are these projects always focusing over new cars and trying to bring back the 20th Century Limited. Its the tracks that need to be updated and double tracked. After all building super highways allowed car companys to build more cars. Course the problem is that the Government now competes with itself.
Posts: 516 | From: New Haven, CT USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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