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The Hoosier - whoops
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by palmland: [QB] As many know, the Hoosier operation was put out for bids earlier this year. The intent was to have someone other than Amtrak operate it in order to improve the service and, I assume, justify Indiana's funding for its continued operation. The contract was awarded to the Corridor Capital group who intended to provide on board services and marketing but let Amtrak T&E operate the train. According to an [URL=http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/observation-tower/archive/2014/10/03/lessons-from-indiana-s-experiment-with-intercity-passenger-train-competition.aspx]article[/URL] in one of the Trains.com blogs, looks like Amtrak may continue to run it. Excerpts from that blog: *********** The main hurdles these firms face in competing with Amtrak are access and liability. Amtrak enjoys a right to access host railroads’ tracks while paying the host only enough to cover the avoidable cost of accommodating passenger trains, rather than these trains’ fully-allocated portion of all the host’s costs. This right extends from the freight railroads’ prior obligation to provide passenger service as common carriers, an obligation they agreed in 1970 to turn over to Amtrak. The national passenger carrier also benefits from a statutory cap on its liability for damages resulting from accidents involving its trains on freight railroads’ tracks that other operators, including existing commuter rail operators, do not enjoy......... The firm’s proposal stated that it would use Amtrak as a subcontractor to provide the locomotives and train & engine crews that would carry CC’s cars, as a way to take advantage of Amtrak’s access rights and liability protection. But CC had never approached Amtrak about this, and it is clear, based on Wednesday’s news, that Amtrak would have rejected this approach...... But hopefully it will serve as a cautionary lesson to other states so that they will undertake more thorough competitive bidding processes that also involve the host railroads and Amtrak, to the extent that its equipment, personnel, facilities and access and liability benefits are required. ********* Apparently Amtrak never agreed, until last week, to even talk with CC about the transition and the issues listed above. Appears CC did not do their due diligence. Now it may be too late. But at least it did stir the dinosaur. Last week Amtrak announced they "would immediately be adding on-board WiFi, Business Class seating, and food & beverage service (via a snack cart) to the Hoosier State" [/QB][/QUOTE]
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