Good News Railfans!
May 13, 2013 12:51 PM   Subscribe

Beginning later this year, Amtrak will begin replacing its 30-year-old fleet of locomotives on the Northeast Corridor and Keystone Corridor with brand new trains.

The Cities Sprinter is based on Siemens Mobility's EuroSprinter and Made In America thanks to the Department of Transportation's Buy America act. The locomotives are expected to cost $466 million, with new energy-efficient technology and regenerative braking saving about $300 million over 20 years in electricity costs.
posted by backseatpilot (59 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Related: F40PH Meme
posted by wcfields at 12:55 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is great and all, but for the train route in my neck of the woods, the Downeaster, the speeds this engine could bring (and the speeds that would make it a much more attractive offer) are impossible, mainly due to private ownership of the rails.

I really would like to get to Boston in an hour, though.
posted by selfnoise at 1:01 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


My state's asshole governor refused the high speed rail funds, so it still takes me 4 hours by train to get to Chicago. The proposed high speed line that we could have had would have reduced the time to about 2 hours.

*sigh*
posted by MissySedai at 1:03 PM on May 13, 2013


I fucking love trains. I hope this lowers the cost or speed of travel on them.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:06 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


I wonder if this means they upgraded the pneumatics, so Amtrak locomotives won't be so annoying at the platform - "Tsss! TZAK! TZAK! Tssssss!"
posted by Slap*Happy at 1:06 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm guessing this wouldn't affect service south of DC too much, since they switch to Diesel. Still, probably not bad news...
posted by Vhanudux at 1:09 PM on May 13, 2013


I feel like Charlie Brown squinting and hesitating as Amtak kneels and stands the football on end....
posted by Diablevert at 1:15 PM on May 13, 2013 [8 favorites]


I can't wait for the view of Secaucus from one while we wait for the broken down NJ Transit train in front of us to get pushed to the platform in Newark.
posted by otto42 at 1:16 PM on May 13, 2013 [7 favorites]


I'm pretty excited for all of the expected improvements on the Northeast Corridor. In addition to the new locomotives, ConnDOT is working on replacing the pre-WWII catenary wiring that's preventing a lot of the speed increases available on these and the Acela. It's pretty cool to see ridership hit yet another record last year, and I hope it keeps pace.

Totally unrelated train story: we were in Baltimore a couple years ago for Christmas when there was that big blizzard right over the holidays. We had taken the train down from Boston and were scheduled to return home right in the thick of the storm. After some confusion, someone got on the PA and announced "ANYONE GOING PAST NEW YORK CITY GET ON THE NEXT TRAIN, IT'S THE LAST ONE GOING BEYOND PENN STATION."

So, we got on, none of the conductors knew what the hell to do with all these random people not scheduled for their train, and it was crowded as hell. The train broke down twice in Connecticut and had to be pushed part of the way. However, it was still the only method of transportation that arrived in Boston that night - highways were backed up and shut down, and all the flights were canceled.

That train was supposed to arrive at South Station at about 9:00, I think. We finally pulled in at about 3:30 in the morning. Subways and buses were all shut down, and cabs were few and far between because it was well past last call. Somehow got a cab and made it home eventually. Still, we made it!
posted by backseatpilot at 1:17 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]


“The new Amtrak locomotives will help power the economic future of the Northeast region

What? No! I don't want the rail to do anything but take me from Point A to Point B in a reliable, efficient, and (and this is the part where Amtrak falls down big-time) inexpensive manner. As long as a train ticket continues to be more expensive than a plane ticket for the same route, no one's powering squat. For comparison, even driving in Europe on a 200-km trip is more expensive than taking the train unless I've got four people in the car. In the USA? I don't know that Amtrak has ever been cheaper than driving, and I do the math each time.
posted by 1adam12 at 1:18 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]


Brand new slow trains! AWESOME!
posted by Renoroc at 1:18 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


Brand new slow trains!

...that can pull 18 cars at 125 mph!
posted by backseatpilot at 1:20 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]


Cities Sprinter just doesn't feel like a proper verb agreement (am I crazy?). City Sprinter?

Always fun to see American rail proceed along the slow road of advancement, tho'.
posted by Atreides at 1:21 PM on May 13, 2013


I love traveling by train, but living in the sticks makes it so frustrating. No matter how many shiny new engines Amtrak gets, my options are still basically "Get somebody to drive me an hour to the nearest station because there's no long term parking there, and better not miss it because there's only one train a day" or "Get somebody to drive me half an hour to the commuter rail station so I can ride that for another hour (stopping every couple of miles) to the city and take the train from there"

It absolutely kills me to know that there used to be a station right here in town! 5 minutes away! where you could get on a train multiple times a day and go wherever. And presumably for appreciably less than the cost of a plane ticket.
posted by usonian at 1:21 PM on May 13, 2013 [7 favorites]


It absolutely kills me to know that there used to be a station right here in town! 5 minutes away! where you could get on a train multiple times a day and go wherever. And presumably for appreciably less than the cost of a plane ticket.

You mean go wherever the train goes, so really nothing has changed. The commuter rail goes to the hub station several times a day, where you presumably have your pick of trains to other destinations...same as airlines really.
posted by Gungho at 1:27 PM on May 13, 2013


I am a bit surprised they unveiled the new engines today, instead of finding a way to rush it by two days and unveiling it on National Train Day, aka That Holiday Amtrak Totally Made Up.
posted by ckape at 1:32 PM on May 13, 2013


backseatpilot: "Brand new slow trains!

...that can pull 18 cars at 125 mph!
"

Not through Western Pennsylvania. It's still going to take 5.5 hours to go the 200 miles from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg. That's if you don't get stuck behind a freight train.
posted by octothorpe at 1:37 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Riding the train through PA is ridiculous. Coming from NYC, the train stops in Philly to switch from electric to diesel. Then, it's a long, slow trip through cow country. The Wired article says, "110 mph on the Keystone Corridor between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa." I'm not sure much of the track could handle a train that could go fast. Plus, I'm pretty sure the track is shared with freight. There's lots of stopping and starting. Are they retrofitting the whole line for electric?

New train cars would be nice. Ones where the heat and/or the AC works and where the toilets aren't permanently backed up. I spent a lot of time riding the train between NYC and Harrisburg, PA and it was never fast and I'm not sure that had anything to do with old engines.
posted by backwords at 1:37 PM on May 13, 2013


No matter how many shiny new engines Amtrak gets, my options are still basically "Get somebody to drive me an hour to the nearest station because there's no long term parking there, and better not miss it because there's only one train a day" or "Get somebody to drive me half an hour to the commuter rail station so I can ride that for another hour (stopping every couple of miles) to the city and take the train from there".

This is my problem visiting my parents - they're out on Cape Cod, so my only option is "take the train to Rhode Island and then get my parents to come cross a state line and pick me up and drive me back in the car another hour still". They keep on talking about some kind of local commuter train that would go from Boston out through the Cape, but the only such extant train now only runs in the summer every third Tuesday or something, which doesn't help me on, say, Thanksgiving.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:42 PM on May 13, 2013


You mean go wherever the train goes, so really nothing has changed.
What's changed is that getting a train involves non-trivial travel by car before you even get to a train station (whether it's a hub or not,) which along with the "one train a day, too bad if you needed to get there before 5:00 PM" factor defeats the whole usefulness of it as a mode of transportation.
posted by usonian at 1:44 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


@backwords, according to Wikipedia, the segment of the Keystone Corridor from Philadelphia to Harrisburg is owned by Amtrak and is electrified. West of Harrisburg, the tracks are, indeed, privately owned by the rail freight carrier Norfolk Southern.
posted by scalespace at 1:45 PM on May 13, 2013


I recently traveled from Pittsburgh to Chicago and back on the Amtrak Capitol Limited and it was a very nice experience, although somewhat expensive. It's an overnight train and I was traveling with my wife and a toddler so we upgraded to the sleeper car and it was preferable to air travel, in my opinion. I think Amtrak tickets are graded out in cost, so if you buy early and on a less popular day you can get a cheaper ticket. On the way out we traveled overnight Thursday and it ended up being much cheaper than coming back on Sunday night.

The only issue I had was with the timing getting on and off the train (get on at Pittsburgh at midnight and arrive back at 4am), but if you take the train from DC to Chicago and back it works out rather nicely (I think you leave maybe 8pm and arrive back maybe 8 or 9 am?) If you upgrade to the sleeper car, your meals in the dining car are included and we met some friendly people from other countries over dinner and breakfast.

I typically find air travel kind of stressful and traveling by train was the opposite in many ways. I can't really talk too much about other routes, but I would certainly say that anyone traveling from DC to Chicago or vice versa should consider trying the train.
posted by jefeweiss at 1:45 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]


Hey PrincessCallipygos, not a train, but the Plymouth and Brockton bus serves Hyannis, Orleans, Provincetown and other Outer Cape towns from Logan Airport, downtown Boston and Plymouth. Visit website for schedule and fares. The train does run to the Cape, but as you mentioned only on the weekends.
posted by Gungho at 1:50 PM on May 13, 2013


Those who are interested in electric railroading may find this very large PDF interesting. It is Pennsylvania Railroad Publication ET-1, an overview of the "Eastern Region" (now southern part of the Northeast Corridor) electric traction system. They are from this archive.

I think very little of what is on that diagram has actually changed, at least in terms of the fundamentals.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:51 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


They keep on talking about some kind of local commuter train that would go from Boston out through the Cape, but the only such extant train now only runs in the summer every third Tuesday or something

The CapeFLYER will be running daily between Boston and Hyannis summer weekends beginning May 24th. And this is only a pilot program. If it proves to be popular, I'm sure they will expand it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:51 PM on May 13, 2013


Ugh yes considering this is mostly a rebadged EuroSprinter, CitySprinter would have been a more sensible name. "Cities Sprinter" sounds like some German design team got to name it with no oversight, like I'd expect to play CitiessprinterSimulator 2013. Badass locomotive though.
posted by jake at 1:51 PM on May 13, 2013


I think Amtrak tickets are graded out in cost, so if you buy early and on a less popular day you can get a cheaper ticket.

Yep, the earlier you buy them, the less expensive they are, and if you have AAA, you get 10% off, too! It works out to about $10 more than Greyhound or MegaBus (no, I will not stay up till all hours when they release MegaBus tickets to try to snag $1 seat any more, I'm too old and tired for that), but I'd happily pay even more because it is so comfortable. Plus, booze and food if I want it!

I typically take the Lakeshore Limited between Toledo and Chicago, but sometimes take the Capitol Limited home if scheduling requires. It's a peaceful ride, and in the past few years the On Time rate has improved immensely.
posted by MissySedai at 1:59 PM on May 13, 2013


in the past few years the On Time rate has improved immensely.

This is worth repeating. You can see the on-time performance for various Amtrak trains here.

For the Acela Express, arguably Amtrak's flagship, OTP over the last 12 mos has been 88% (cheaper NE Regional trains only down to 86%), which is better than the average for US air carriers. (Only Hawaiian Airlines is better, though Delta is very close at 86.2%.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:08 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'd love it if someone could explain why it costs fifteen bucks to take the megabus from Philly to NYC in 2 hours, and like a hundred bucks to go by Amtrak in 1 hour 30 minutes.
posted by lazaruslong at 2:26 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


Trains are a recent thing for me. I routinely use Amtrak to get from DC to BWI because it's $15 as opposed to $100 for a cab.

Plane tickets might be equal to or cheaper, but for the cost of my TIME - time spent in the terminal, going through security, etc...there's nothing better. Anywhere in the NE corridor I'll take the train if possible.
posted by Thistledown at 2:36 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


Re: Meaninglessness of OTP.

"NJ TRANSIT’s Rail division made tremendous improvements in 2012 that resulted in a record calendar year OTP of 96.4 percent, breaking the previous record of 96.2 percent set in 1995..."

I believe OTP as defined by NJ Transit includes arriving on time at your final destination on the train that picked you up in the middle of the Meadowlands after the original train you got on broke down in the Meadowlands.

Whereas you may have spent four hours staring at the phragmites in your original train, once you got on to train number two, the clock restarts for the 700 yard, 3 minute pull to the Secaucus Transfer Station, which was named after Senator Lautenberg (D), who died in 1993 but continues to serve the people of New Jersey in the US Senate to this day.
posted by otto42 at 2:41 PM on May 13, 2013


I don't care about the locomotives. I care about the passenger cars. Specifically, the cars on the long-distance overnight runs, say the Southwest Chief, which is still using cars from the 1960s. They're so out of date and decrepit I'm surprised they're still able to use 'em.

I've done the Southwest Chief run several times in the past few years, and each time I ran into all sorts of problems with the sleepers. The compartments are small, cramped, things like the faucet handles would fall off when you tried to turn the water on or off (and that is, if there was any water at all), they were incredibly loud and squeaky all night long, with frequent power outages . . .on and on.

Compare that to say the Australian cross-country line, with its plasma TVs in each stateroom . . . the US is soooooo far behind the rest of the world. Is it Amtrak's ineptitude or just many decades of bribing lawmakers by the auto/airline/oil lobby? Both probably.
posted by brianstorms at 2:57 PM on May 13, 2013


This was actually an incredibly stupid purchasing decision on behalf of Amtrak. Amtrak should have purchased identical ALP46 locomotives as currently owned and opporated by NJT. These are fully able to run on the complete Northeast Corridor at 125 mph. Instead Amtrak needs to go through the whole procedure of introducing new rolling stock (anyone remember the Accela?). Amtrak would have had lower costs, shorter delivery times and reduced risk. They would have avoided the growing pains of new rolling stock and could have even shared maintenance facilities and spare parts.
posted by jazh at 3:02 PM on May 13, 2013


Brand new slow trains!

Not because the engines are slow, but because the tracks are bad. Just as a fancy new sportster struggles on a cracked highway with potholes and crappy tarmac, train speed is mostly limited by track conditions. Trains which do 110-120 kph in Quebec on the CN lines, have to slow down to 60 kph in northern Maine, slower even in some spots.

It isn't the train, but the rails and roadbed.
posted by bonehead at 3:04 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]


Plane tickets might be equal to or cheaper, but for the cost of my TIME - time spent in the terminal, going through security, etc...there's nothing better.

Even if a plane to Chicago were cheaper (and it's not - it's about $300 round trip, I rarely pay much more than $75ish for the train), by the time I deal with getting to the airport, etc., a train leaving at the time I left for the airport would still only arrive a little later than a plane. Sure, time in the air is a smidge over an hour, but by the time I spend an hour traveling to the airport (or more if traffic on 75 is bad), get there an hour and a half before my flight to get through security...pass.

If my trip is going to take me 4 hours, I might as well have more left in my wallet, and be comfortable and ungroped. The sum of security at my local Amtrak station is showing ID to pick up tickets, and occasionally a TSA agent shows up with a bouncy, happy dog who wants to wag his tail and be cheerful at everyone. The agent always encourages everyone to pet the dog and that seems to put everyone at ease rather than on edge. No groping, just puppy snuggles!
posted by MissySedai at 3:04 PM on May 13, 2013


The complete line to Harrisburg will be electrified at some time. I guess they plan other track improvements for 125 mph (but I don't know this).
posted by jazh at 3:08 PM on May 13, 2013


Listen to that horn!!

That is all I can think of when I hear news about trains.
posted by msbrauer at 3:09 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


One other note...I still dig the train because I am almost 40 years old and had my first real train ride LAST YEAR.

I was on the Acela to Newark from DC...at some point the guy comes on the PA and says we're doing about 130mph. I'm sitting there with my laptop open, in a big comfy seat, drinking a beer and seeing this rolling countryside go by.

130mph on the couch. That's what it felt like.
posted by Thistledown at 3:11 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]



What? No! I don't want the rail to do anything but take me from Point A to Point B in a reliable, efficient, and (and this is the part where Amtrak falls down big-time) inexpensive manner. As long as a train ticket continues to be more expensive than a plane ticket for the same route, no one's powering squat.


I worked in a Boston hedge fund near Back Bay station, whose CEO said of Boston: "all of the advantages of living in New York, and none of the disadvantages of living in New York, thanks to the Acela."

And it's not just the finance sector. The "innovation district" by the seaport is fueled in no small part by its proximity to South Station, which means it's easy to get to Manhattan and make the rounds for capital.

Amtrak is fueling the economy around here.
posted by ocschwar at 3:14 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'd love it if someone could explain why it costs fifteen bucks to take the megabus from Philly to NYC in 2 hours, and like a hundred bucks to go by Amtrak in 1 hour 30 minutes.

Because Megabus doesn't really care if you live or die along the way (because they already got paid) and offer only the barest level of amenities?
posted by davros42 at 3:20 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is very selfish, but looking at what interested me most on Metafilter's front page right now, I realize that if the U.S. could get better trains and gay marriage all around, I would probably just quit bitching about everything else.

(I'm already apparently getting Daft Punk's album for free and a S.H.I.E.L.D. tv series.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:38 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]


I'm a huge train fan - I take it whenever I'm in Europe, and for as much traffic as I can in the Northeast. But those stupid freight rail rights make it essentially useless for longer trips. I used to go a lot from New York to Ottawa, and I took the train a few times (I'd take the bus for the last leg). We were once nine hours late, and Amtrak just completely abandoned us in an empty, closed terminal in Montreal, the train employees literally running away from passengers who were asking very reasonable questions like, "What were we supposed to do considering it was the depths of a Canadian winter and we had no place to go?"

New rolling stock is good, but until they fix those stupid, stupid, STUPID freight rights that force a train of a thousand people to wait hours for a train full of freight that could not only be a few hours with no real-world consequences at all, but whose owners don't even feel the need to tell the truth about when the train is coming so a thousand people lose a couple of hours of their life just waiting.

This happened to me when I was more right-wing than now, but I suddenly realized that everyone in the passenger system was suffering huge losses in time and money just to save the freight owners the bother of scheduling - and I suddenly understood why nationalization could be the best solution to a real-world issue.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:48 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]


brianstorms: "I don't care about the locomotives. I care about the passenger cars. Specifically, the cars on the long-distance overnight runs, say the Southwest Chief, which is still using cars from the 1960s. They're so out of date and decrepit I'm surprised they're still able to use 'em."

Those are probably the Amfleet II cars, which were made in the early 1980s, and are refurbished in small batches on a more or less continuous basis. If anything, the state of Amtrak's fleet of coaches is an indictment on American manufacturing, given that we can't manage to put a nice interior in any of our trains. It's not terribly surprising that Amtrak's trains have the fit and finish of a 1980s Chevy, given that they were basically built by the same industry.

On the other hand, the frames and shells that the Amfleet and Metroliner coaches were built upon have a reputation for being completely un-killable. Even though Amtrak's interior livery is in desperate need of a major overhaul, the cars themselves still have plenty of mileage left on them. The fact that nearly the entire fleet is certified to 125mph is also actually pretty good by international standards. Amtrak's going to retire these cars from the NEC in a few years, but you can bet that they'll stick around in some form for at least a few decades.

(Speaking of unkillable, Amtrak actually does still have a bit of equipment leftover from the 1950s, although those cars are generally only used for baggage, plus a small handful of dining cars. Their replacements are under construction, and should be in service later this year.)

You can read Amtrak's entire fleet strategy on their website. Amtrak basically recognizes that the railcars that it's allowed to buy are total crap. FRA regulations make it impossible for Amtrak to buy *any* equipment off-the-shelf, because America's railroad safety standards are drastically different from those in the rest of the world*. Any US railcars are basically custom-built, seemingly with a shoestring design budget.

Right now, we need to buy train cars from overseas, because US railroads tend to order huge batches of cars all at once, and then order nothing for the following 30 years. Given that there are only a handful of rail systems in the US, it's pretty difficult to sustain a business (or that kind of manufacturing capacity) to cater to that market. Amtrak's costs are also raised (and the quality is lowered) because it's also often required to jump through loopholes to comply with "Buy America" requirements.

Basically, Amtrak really wants to be able to buy trains from domestic manufacturers. Amtrak's aiming to reboot this portion of the manufacturing sector by trying to guarantee a constant stream of orders based around a single base design. The current fleet plan alludes to this, and I'm kind of hopeful that Amtrak is serious about their goals to improve the quality and decrease the costs of the products that it buys.

*I'm not a policy wonk in this area, but the upshot seems to be that some of these standards make sense -- American passenger trains run alongside freight more often than passenger trains tend to do elsewhere in the world. On the other hand, some of the other standards are stupid, such as the ones that stress crashworthiness rather than crash-avoidance, and base those crashworthiness ratings almost solely on the train's weight, which has led to absurdities such as Amtrak being required to convert old locomotives to operate as cabs, and lug concrete weights around everywhere. This is the primary reason why we can't buy stuff from the international market, and also why we haven't been able to buy EMUs or DMUs in several decades. There's good hope that we can relax some of these safety standards, given that recent developments in railcar design have drastically improved safety in a crash.
posted by schmod at 3:49 PM on May 13, 2013 [10 favorites]


The electrified NE lines may be different, but elsewhere on shared tracks, freight trains always have the right of way over Amtrak. That is why service is so unreliable and habitually late. Congress views Amtrak as some sort of gift to freeloaders, sort of rolling stock welfare, when the real purpose of rail is to move freight and make money for big contributors. I'm sure Amtrak's new profitability galls them no end...
posted by jim in austin at 3:56 PM on May 13, 2013


lupus_yonderboy: "New rolling stock is good, but until they fix those stupid, stupid, STUPID freight rights that force a train of a thousand people to wait hours for a train full of freight that could not only be a few hours with no real-world consequences at all, but whose owners don't even feel the need to tell the truth about when the train is coming so a thousand people lose a couple of hours of their life just waiting.

This happened to me when I was more right-wing than now, but I suddenly realized that everyone in the passenger system was suffering huge losses in time and money just to save the freight owners the bother of scheduling - and I suddenly understood why nationalization could be the best solution to a real-world issue.
"

1) We're never ever ever going to repeat the Conrail experiment again. Once things stabilized, privatization of freight rail has actually worked fairly well in the US, and has flourished under private ownership (and I consider myself very far-left). We ship more stuff by freight rail than almost any other place in the world. Go take a look at how many trucks are on the road in Europe compared to the US. Discouraging freight is a bad idea.

2) Amtrak's route network is a hodgepodge of routes that it inherited from its privately-owned predecessors. In many cases, these routes were created out of several old routes, with seemingly little consideration given to geography, or the configuration of the tracks. In places where Amtrak's been able to work with freight railroads (and had the funding to do so), they've been able to reconfigure the tracks and switches to allow their trains to run much more effectively alongside the freight trains. They've recently had a *ton* of success doing this in Virginia, where their trains now run with an on-time performance rate that almost matches the NEC. As a result, ridership has climbed to the point where Amtrak's Virginia services actually turn a profit (which the state's been using to fund opening and improving additional Amtrak corridors). We're not going to build a HSR system by doing this, but it's bringing a reasonably-fast (and profitable!) rail service to locations that formally had none. This doesn't get nearly as much attention as it deserves.

I believe that the Vermonter will also receive a few desperately-needed upgrades that should shave off a lot of travel time (the train's current route is completely insane).

3) The scheduling problem is real, and needs to be fixed, with fines for freight railroads who don't comply.
posted by schmod at 4:02 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]


Has anyone shared this news with Pete Bagge?
posted by JDC8 at 4:06 PM on May 13, 2013


The Southwest Chief is all Superliners, the first of which were delivered in the late 70s, as an improvement of the 50s-era El Capitan cars that were inherited from Santa Fe. A few El Capitan cars are still used as parlors on the Coast Starlight, but the rest of them have been retired.
posted by ckape at 4:39 PM on May 13, 2013


I like trains.
posted by Decani at 4:47 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


I was rather surprised to turn to Attachment 1 of that Amtrak Fleet Strategy and see 35 Turboliners still listed in the Amtrak pool.
posted by ckape at 5:03 PM on May 13, 2013


This seems like the place to recall this.
posted by pjern at 5:08 PM on May 13, 2013


Potomac Avenue: "I fucking love trains. I hope this lowers the cost or speed of travel on them."

In short, it won't.

The NEC actually turns a very healthy profit for Amtrak, thanks to the large number of business travelers who use it, and are willing to pay a premium for the service. While Amtrak's not a for-profit enterprise, it's unlikely that they'll do us any favors by cutting fares -- they need the money to prop up the insanely-unprofitable long-distance routes that they're required to operate elsewhere around the country.

Capacity is constrained at New York City, so it's unlikely that they'll be able to add any more trains to increase supply and lower ticket prices. The ACS-64 can pull longer/heavier trains, so the slight bump in capacity there might help things a bit (but probably not much).
posted by schmod at 5:31 PM on May 13, 2013


lazaruslong: "I'd love it if someone could explain why it costs fifteen bucks to take the megabus from Philly to NYC in 2 hours, and like a hundred bucks to go by Amtrak in 1 hour 30 minutes."

If you book far enough ahead and/or on a less popular train on a Regional (not an Acela) train, you should be able to get a $36 fare for NYP-PHL; the fare structure operates on a somewhat similar structure to MegaBus, actually, with the first seats to get booked being less expensive than later seats.

(And for people who prefer riding trains, don't mind the added time, and want to cut costs further, there's the option of taking NJ Transit from Penn Station to Trenton, NJ and then taking SEPTA's Trenton Line into Center City Philadelphia, which typically takes 2-2.5 hours and currently costs $24.25. While riding Amtrak is certainly faster and nicer, I've taken this route a number of times, usually when traveling on short notice and Amtrak fares are much higher, and found it generally adequate.)

But to directly answer your question: the higher bucket fares exist because the market will bear them and, as schmod mentions, they make the Northeast Corridor profitable enough to help subsidize routes in other parts of the country.
posted by beryllium at 7:10 PM on May 13, 2013


Megabus also has much of their right of way (roadways and the interstate highways) provided to them free of charge, which is a big advantage over having to maintain thousands of miles of rails and bridges and tunnels.
posted by akgerber at 8:21 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]


I'd love it if someone could explain why it costs fifteen bucks to take the megabus from Philly to NYC in 2 hours, and like a hundred bucks to go by Amtrak in 1 hour 30 minutes.

Because you are paying for the underlying infrastructure that the buses use -- the Interstate Highway system -- via your Federal taxes, whether you take the bus or not, whether you like it or not. But Amtrak has to pay for the infrastructure that its trains run on out of its operating budget and a comparatively minuscule Federal subsidy which is constantly in danger of being eliminated.

If the bus companies were required to include the total cost of operating a bus line from Philadelphia to NYC, including maintaining their own highway-maintenance division and all of its associated employees, etc., it sure as hell wouldn't cost $15. Yet that's what you're seeing in an Amtrak ticket price, effectively.

That's the unfortunate way that we handicap rail in the US. It's amazing, given the unequal starting conditions, that rail manages to come close to competing at all, whether for passenger or for freight operation. In the case of freight it's only even possible because the inherent efficiencies of rail transportation are enough to counteract all the hidden subsidies under some conditions (trips >500 mi. basically).

Given the stacked deck, it's amazing that we have a rail industry at all.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:34 PM on May 13, 2013 [9 favorites]


Not to play devil's advocate, but the private freight carriers all get plenty of money from the government. While it's true that it's still a drop in the bucket compared to highway funding, freight carriers aren't exactly the Taggarts....

(From an economic development perspective, I suppose you could make an argument against freight trains, as they require far less labor to operate than trucks, and accordingly also don't require a whole lot of infrastructure along their route.)
posted by schmod at 10:28 PM on May 13, 2013


I'd love it if someone could explain why it costs fifteen bucks to take the megabus from Philly to NYC in 2 hours, and like a hundred bucks to go by Amtrak in 1 hour 30 minutes.

Sure. The number of train slots to go between New York and Trenton is a limited quantity; the rails are very crowded, and Amtrak can, with current infrastructure, only run so many trains per day. They don't have any more rolling stock (obviously they are buying more now although a previous purchase a couple of years ago was cancelled), so they can't run longer trains. I suppose they could cram a few more seats in, but that's their key selling point.

So the supply is, in the short run at least, fixed. If Amtrak can fill their trains (which they do, more or less) at the hundred buck price, why would they charge fifty bucks? It wouldn't transport any more people, it would just cost more. And the revenue can go to help pay for the other runs they do that are for more political and equity reasons.

As an argument by example, you can see Talentless Joe and His Very Loud Band playing at the local dive bar for a five buck cover, or even the price of a beer. When Prince comes to town, he can charge hundreds of dollars for a night of music because there are only so many seats for the show, and people are willing to pay that price. This is part of being a (commercial) success in the music industry. Yet somehow, in Amtrak's case, the fact that a service is full while charging a premium over competitors is held as some sort of strike against it, rather than evidence of the invisible hand of the market indicating quality. I'm sure it's entirely unconnected to Amtrak being a government agency that's beating the pants off the privately owned air and bus lines.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:24 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


GungHo and RonButNotStupid - I've been hearing about trains that run only in summer on the weekends and "potentially could go year-round" for several years now. I've learned to be a bit dubious. But I'll keep my eye on them...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:12 AM on May 14, 2013


Also just throwing it out there: Not that trains aren't ever delayed, and not that a bus always is, but my experience, having taken Bolt/Megabus, Amtrak, and NJTrans/Septa each a few times between Philly and NYC at various times of the day and days of the week, is that you can feel a lot better about the certainty of Amtrak's 1:30 and NJTrans/Septa's 2:25 than you can a bus' 2:00. It's just another factor to consider in planning: If you absolutely need to be there in under 3 hours, I would recommend a train option. If anywhere from 2-6 hours will suffice, you're probably good on the bus.
posted by SpiffyRob at 8:59 AM on May 14, 2013


This is neat, but like everybody else already said, not addressing any of amtrak's actual problems. Given that we need economic stimulus in this country, we need to reduce carbon emissions, and building out rail capacity and improving existing lines is a solid way to do both, it's a real shame that that's completely impossible politically right now.

Ugh. At least those vermonter improvements look like they're actually going to happen, that'll be nice.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 9:21 AM on May 14, 2013


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