Phew....It's not just me.

Always a good read, Fred Frailey talks about Amtrak and their political masters - John Mica in particular in his latest blog post.

Fred Frailey's Trains blog: "The Tragedy of John Mica"

Of note:

"There are a lot of things wrong with Amtrak, some of them of its own doing. It’s almost impossible to get anything done, so hidebound (and scared) are its managers. The reorganization that (Amtrak) President Joe Boardman wants is almost two years in the making and still not finished. Onboard employees are unsupervised and bad habits are proliferating, particularly on the long distance trains. And...food service on Amtrak trains loses too much money."

"Amtrak needs critics...What it needs are critics, particularly in Congress, who want to make it better and are willing to pick nits or even pick fights with Amtrak to make it better"

The most notable critic of late is Congressman John Mica, but he just wastes everyone's time grandstanding.  Fred concludes: 

"Like I said at the start, the man is not stupid. He just wants us to think he is."

So, there's the problem statement.  What's the solution?  Fred says:

"It (Section 210 into the Passenger Rail Investment & Improvement Act in 2008 ) instructed Amtrak to examine each of its 15 long distance routes and come up with ways to shrink the deficits. Many good ideas came forth, but very few were adopted; like I said, it's very hard to accomplish anything at Amtrak today. If anything begs for an Inspector General's report, it is Amtrak's refusal to take Section 210 seriously."

(A typical Amtrak update report is here)

Railfans tend to fall into two categories when it comes to Amtrak.  Some think Amtrak should just be killed.  They are a proven failure and in the way of profitable freight trains and innovative market financed High Speed Rail.  The other group think Amtrak is highly functional organization whose only problem inconsistent and chronically short funding.

Both groups have a bit of truth in their reasoning, but are missing the whole picture.  Amtrak, is not a highly functional organization.  A good chunk of the blame goes to their political masters who routinely whip-saw them and cut them off at the knees with funding.  However, Amtrak has been a great "enabler" of this behavior and in my opinion, have lost sight of what they are really supposed to be doing.  They are largely dysfunctional and because they have a "good excuse" just perpetuate the status quo.  This has gone on so long they don't even realize it.  It's just "how things are".

The "let the market build high speed rail crowd" has a point.  As long as Amtrak owns the passenger rail franchise in the US we don't get solutions driven by market forces.  We get what ever Amtrak thinks up on their own plus whatever Congress dictates.  Exhibit A is Acela.  It's a success just about every way you'd care to measure it, yet the trainsets are too heavy, overpowered, overpriced, too wide to take full advantage of their tilt mechanism, and rely on Amtrak's clunky, home-grown, backward-focused,  ACSES signal system.  But, don't be fooled!  Removing Amtrak would not have allowed a better version of HSR to occur in the Northeast Corridor.  There would have been zilch.  Nearly every attempt at privatized, profitable rail service in the world engages in a clever game of "hide the subsidy".  The rail operator may turn a profit because the the government owner of the track leases it out at below full cost.

Passenger rail is a useful tool in providing overall mobility in the US.  But, like it or not, the path forward is straight through Amtrak.  If we want better trains, we need a better Amtrak.  As advocates, we need to demand accountability from Congress AND Amtrak. ...and we need to start right now.

The Good, the Bad, the Bumpy: Random Observations from Weekend Trip to Philadelphia

I just spend the weekend in Philadelphia (South Jersey, to be exact) and found the cheapest way - and best use of my time - was to fly to BWI from Atlanta and then take Amtrak to 30th St.  This included and overnight stay at BWI, which just goes to show how expensive flying in and out of Phila is these days....

I also had to piece the trip together myself. Too bad the Amtrak and airline schedules aren't integrated.

Here are some random observations:

1. It is really pretty easy to get between the airport and the train station.  The shuttle bus runs frequently, is well marked and the trip is short.

2. BWI rail station is a tiny and is a dump - considering the number of people using it on a Friday morning - it could use some upgrading.  How about a joint MARC/Amtrak/BWI project?

3. The BWI station staff were very good.  I saw an agent go out of his way to give a 3 yr old girl a paper Amtrak hat and coloring book.  Just fabulous to watch happen!

4. I spent an hour and a half down at the end of the platform taking pix before my train came.  Not a single hassle. 

Lots of action.  Amtrak's Cardinal "splits the uprights" as MARC commuter trains make their station stops.

5. The center track has 1983 140 RE rail (rolled in June of 1983, so it's exactly 30 years old) - the old PC standard that Amtrak adopted.  It must have been put down with the early 80s NECIP that put the bulk of the concrete ties in place.  The other two tracks had newer 136# rail (which is NS's std).  For comparison, NJT and CR use 132 RE rail.

Dead tree along ROW. A service disruption waiting to happen?

6. The ride quality has gotten much worse in since the 1980s and 90s when I last rode this part of the corridor.  

The interlockings, which were always rough, were even worse and there were some other bad spots as well.  A lot of the route was pretty good, though, just not "rock steady" like it was 20 years ago.

7. The Amfleet coaches are just as good as they always were.  The "peel and stick" interiors were nice and clean, the seats comfortable, and the ride nice and quiet.  

8. The Crescent came through while I was waiting at BWI.  It had the ex-NYC Hickory Creek observation car on the rear end.  Had put my camera away by then...  It was cool to see it though.

9. The free WiFi worked pretty well.  

Connection was good while I was on the train with about 1000 of my close personal friends.

10. The e-ticketing feature of the Amtrak phone app worked great!  No paper - they scan your phone screen (just like Starbucks) . 

On my return train on Sunday evening, I'd say about 1/3 of the riders were paperless.  Another cool thing Amtrak did was to offer an "upsell" when you go to display your ticket - really easy to spend a bit more to upgrade to business class (I didn't - but I thought about it). Also, the conductor's hand-held looked like a modified iPhone - nice and small and easy to use.  Off the shelf technology.  Smart.

11. 30th St Station is still the best train station in the US.  It just is.  It's big.  It's full of people using intercity trains.  It has massive art-deco coolness.  I like just being in the building.

Mixture of Art-Deco and neo-Classical?  Works for me!

Bas-relief art work saved from Philadelphia Broad St. Station.  Now in waiting room space in 30th St.

Memorial to PRR employees lost during WWII - powerful image.

It's pretty, but how useful will it be in an E-ticketing world?

12.  Amtrak has some kiosks up in 30th St selling the story of their proposed NEC upgrade.  That's good PR. 

13. Acelas and HHP8 locomotives are neat looking. 

HHP8 hauls Carolinian through BWI at track speed.

The Acelas have a goofy paint job, but the train sets look nice.  

Acela decelerates for BWI stop

  

 The HHP8s look good in Amtrak paint - less so in MARC paint.   

MARC HHP8 pushes toward DC

MARC's new diesels look pretty good.

14.  The on-board employees on both trains I'd give an A or B.  They've come a long way from the days of the Penn Central "charm school".  Amtrak did this.  Good for them.

15. I also spent an hour at Berlin, NJ.  One of the original stations on the Camden and Atlantic RR is still there - back from when the town was called "Long-a-Coming". 

Built in 1856 - oldest left in NJ?  Wikipedia say so.

It serves as a good prop for photographing the NJT Atlantic City trains.

Train headed for Philadelphia.  Next stop, Lindenwold.

Standard consist for AC trains is a Conrail Juniata shop built GP40PH-2B and four coaches.  Looks like the cab car is almost always a new Comet V.  I wonder if this a PTC related development? 

AC bound train pushes past original milepost.  "16 M TO C" translates 16 miles to Camden

Never send a pipeline to do a train's job

Got this email from my local Rep. saying "Thousands of potential jobs sit on the sidelines and we continue to rely on oil from the Middle East" because we haven't approved construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Baloney, I say.  Keystone XL pipeline?  Bah!  Who needs it?

There has been much braying and trumpeting going on in good old Washington DC lately about how, when and if the Keystone XL Pipeline gets built.

If you listen to the trumpeting, you'd think all of western civilization hangs in the balance.  If we could just build this pipeline, unemployment would be solved and then all that Canadian and North Dakotan oil would flow downhill to our refineries and we could tell the Middle Eastern oil producers what they can do with their oil! (Sell it to China and India, perhaps?  That's where it's going now, anyway.  Most of our oil comes from our hemisphere.  Only 13% comes from the middle east.  Check it out! where does our oil come from?)

If you listen to the braying, you'd think we (and our food animals) would be all eating, not only genetically modified corn, but well lubricated corn, as well - that all of Nebraska would become just one big oil puddle if the thing sprung a leak. (example here: The pipeline is the root of all evil)

But, from both of them you get the idea that no pipeline = no oil.

So, I'll let you in on a secret.  We don't need the Keystone XL pipeline.  

I'm not talking about solar or wind or biomass or natural gas or coal or even conservation.

I'm talking about a way to get all that oil to where it needs to go without building a pipeline from anywhere to anywhere - RIGHT NOW!

Trains are moving the oil.

Well, you say, "how much oil? Trains can't possibly move as much oil as a pipeline."

Well, you would be wrong.  Trains can move ALL the oil.

Here are some facts.

The Keystone XL pipeline is designed to handle 830,000 barrels a day.  That sounds like a lot, until you find out that one single train can carry 89,000 barrels of oil. (for the detail oriented:  A barrel is 42 gallons.  A tank car can hold 30,000 gallons.  A train can have 125 cars.  Do the math!)  So, the Keystone pipeline can be replaced by nine trains a day.  Is that a lot?  Not really.

Consider that railroads run 100 coal trains a day out of the Powder River in Wyoming.  50 years ago, that number was near zero.  The track and equipment to reach that total was put in place in a span of a decade or two.  So, can railroads rise to the challenge of moving crude oil.  Certainly, they've proven  more than that in recent past history with coal.

This coal train is on the last 50 miles of it's 1700 mile trip.  One of approximately 100 coal trains a day to operate out of the Power River Basin in Wyoming.

In fact, they've already proven it this year.  Right now, railroad are carrying more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day to east coast refineries - a longer haul than the planned 1200 mile pipeline.

Here's another fact to consider - the value of the oil in transit.

The 3 foot diameter pipeline holds ~ 1.25 barrels per linear foot.  In order to get 830,000 barrels a day out of the end, the goo has to flow at 5 mph.  Oil trains can average about 20 mph terminal to terminal, so trains only tie up 1/4 of the inventory that would be tied up in transit in a pipeline.  How much is that inventory worth?  At 20 mph for 1200 miles, it would take about 23, 125 car train sets to handle 830k barrels per day.  At $100 a barrel, that's $2B in oil on the move.  For the pipeline, it would be four times that - $8B!  That's a lot of money to have laying around doing nothing!

So, if RRs can do it all and do it faster, why all the interest in the pipeline?

Cost.

It's not about national security or jobs or stifled energy production.  None of that.

It's just transportation cost.

Pumping the goo through a three foot pipe at 5 mph uses quite a bit less energy than a train of tank cars moving 40-50 mph.  Energy isn't cheap.  Also, every train needs a fresh, two man crew every couple hundred miles.  Not so for the pipeline.  The difference might be a few cents per gallon in price at the pump for us.

Also, to some extent, safety.  Railroads run though the middle of towns because those towns grew up along the rail lines when it was the only way to get around.  An oil train derailment in a town could be a mess.  A new oil pipeline can avoid towns.  Even though railroads have a generally excellent safety record, pipelines are a bit safer, inherently.

Sum these up and the balance tilts toward the pipeline by a nose.

...as long as you have a lot of product,

...going from A to B,

...for a long time.

That someone is willing to build it for profit tells me the economics are likely there.  So, the way being clear, let them.

But, is the pipeline the "ultimate answer to life the universe and everything"?  No. (42 is the answer) We could live without it.

Easily.  So why all the fuss?

But, our friends in Washington need something to do. Trumpeters and brayers, how about this? www.fixthedebt.org/‎