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Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

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Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#11

Post by stonogo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #2

Why doesn't Amtrak simply pay UP adequately to get priority? UP is prioritizing freight because it pays better. Fix that.

Because the federal government already ordered freight carriers to prioritize Amtrak. This has been on the books for nearly fifty years; over a decade ago deliverables were defined to establish target metrics for this. Sunset Ltd. has not been meeting these requirements and Amtrak is asking for this to be investigated. The rules are already in place.

Since Amtrak is a quasi-public corporation, asking Amtrak to pay commercial lines for preference is equivalent to directing public funds into private pockets for the use of federally-subsidized rails. That's a recipe for grift.

If the rules already in place can be freely ignored by private companies, there's no way Amtrak can ever be taken seriously as a transportation solution. Since it's already policy that it should be a serious contender, it makes sense to enforce the rules trying to further that goal.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#12

Post by [deleted] »

jeffbee wrote: post #9
toomuchtodo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, nationalize the rail lines and make UP pay for access. Privatization of critical infrastructure, historically, leads to poor outcomes with profits getting siphoned off in the process. Rail workers aren’t getting sick days and trains are longer (leading to delays) because of investors squeezing rail infra and those who operate it. Why allow it to continue? The whole “privatizing profits socializing loss…

You don't even need to nationalize it. It makes perfect sense for the federal government, or even a large state like California, to simply buy it on the open market, as a hostile takeover. The UPRR is dirt cheap compared to how much it is costing society for the UPRR to exist. We're talking low tens of billions. If the Obama administration had funded a takeover of the UPRR ten years ago it would have slashed the futu…

[deleted]

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#13

Post by noahtallen »

jrockway wrote: post #6
SoftTalker wrote: post #2

Why doesn't Amtrak simply pay UP adequately to get priority? UP is prioritizing freight because it pays better. Fix that.

Here's a brief history of railroads in the US: 1) The federal government gave railroads massive amounts of land completely free of charge. 2) The federal government applied some regulations, including around transporting passengers. The automobile and plane hadn't been invented yet, so it wasn't that oppressive to railroads. Passengers were making them money. 3) The world changed and passenger service became massivel…

Completely agreed, and to expand even further:

1. It’s not like the delays are minor. On the line from Portland to Seattle, it’s common for the train be delayed for multiple hours by freight. In what world can a transit service be considered a viable option when even boarding is 2 hours late? Freight is having a really massive negative impact.

2. Massive amounts of land is surprisingly even an understatement! Union Pacific railroad alone was given 12 MILLION acres in this grant: https://www.loc.gov/item/75690778/.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#14

Post by Aloha »

jrockway wrote: post #6
SoftTalker wrote: post #2

Why doesn't Amtrak simply pay UP adequately to get priority? UP is prioritizing freight because it pays better. Fix that.

Here's a brief history of railroads in the US: 1) The federal government gave railroads massive amounts of land completely free of charge. 2) The federal government applied some regulations, including around transporting passengers. The automobile and plane hadn't been invented yet, so it wasn't that oppressive to railroads. Passengers were making them money. 3) The world changed and passenger service became massivel…

Between usurious property tax at the state level, and the machinations of the former ICC, whatever value that the Railroads got for that land has largely if not completely paid back in public goods. Furthermore those landholdings are largely long gone too.

Consider how long railroads were required to offer service that was unprofitable, underutilized, or forced to price itself in an uncompetitive way - all in the name of the public good.

While I think both BNSF and UP (as well as CSX and NS) have an obligation to make sure Amtrak can run on time an under a reasonable schedule. Also, if the railroads dont like it, the alternative is being forced to resume operating the passenger trains they were operating in 1971, and continue to operate that or a similar network in scale and size for at least 10 years without subsidy.

The interesting thing about Amtrak is, if USPS had continued to route first class mail by train, Amtrak might not exist, it was the removal of the indirect subsidy - which turned passenger trains from a break even proposition, which helped generate goodwill for the company to a solid money loser - at a time when the railroads were least able to afford such things. So in exchange the feds agreed to directly subsidize passenger rail via Amtrak, and the railroads were removed of obligation to run passenger trains. This is the obligation at question in this case.

In any case, I dont think they owe the public something anymore because of those land grants. The debt to us from that has been long paid off.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#15

Post by pengaru »

SoftTalker wrote: post #2

Why doesn't Amtrak simply pay UP adequately to get priority? UP is prioritizing freight because it pays better. Fix that.

> Why doesn't Amtrak simply pay UP adequately to get priority? UP is prioritizing freight because it pays better. Fix that.

Is it really that simple?

Freight trains are _long_, Amtrak passenger trains are relatively short. It's far easier to sideline an Amtrak train to let a multi-mile-long freight train pass than it is to sideline that same freight train for Amtrak to pass.

It's not my area of expertise at all, but I assume there aren't huge quantities of such long parallel rails scattered throughout the network for freight trains to move over and wait.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#16

Post by bmc7505 »

As a frequent Amtrak passenger, I can attest to the unpunctuality of the Union Pacific and other freight operators. On several occasions we have been delayed by a passing freight train that was an hour or more behind schedule, causing us to miss our scheduled connection. During one such occasion, while traveling on the Coast Starlight from Eugene this summer, I was treated very rudely by the conductor, who kicked me out of the dining car despite having a reservation. Precision scheduled railroading is anything but precise.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#17

Post by nopenopenopeno »

bmc7505 wrote: post #16

As a frequent Amtrak passenger, I can attest to the unpunctuality of the Union Pacific and other freight operators. On several occasions we have been delayed by a passing freight train that was an hour or more behind schedule, causing us to miss our scheduled connection. During one such occasion, while traveling on the Coast Starlight from Eugene this summer, I was treated very rudely by the conductor, who kicked me…

The real problem here is that freight trains have so much priority in the US, unlike every other major country in the world.

It doesn't matter how many or what kinds of trains we have. This sort of policy will always makes trains an unreliable and therefore impractical mode of transportation.

And this is a major reason for the US leading the world in carbon consumption per capita.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#18

Post by IIAOPSW »

woodruffw wrote: post #7

The history of the US's Western freight lines is fascinating (and frustrating): we've allowed these massive companies (UP, BNSF) to extract rent for well over a century, in exchange for having laid down the original lines (which, mind you, were also paid for in land and bonds[1]). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts

Its long and complicated. Amtrak exists in the first place because once upon a time these freight operators were also the passenger operators. While today they look like "extracting rent", once upon a time they were forced by regulation to carry the burden of passenger service. The situation with Amtrak was basically the government agreeing to take over that before it killed the companies, but Amtrak would retain certain rights to demand the use of rail lines which an otherwise private operator might not be able to successfully negotiate over.

But its more complicated than that even. Because passenger rail was dying in the first place due to the massive subsidy the government gave to competing modes of transit in the form of the interstate highway act and later the subsidized construction of airports. So yeah, Railroads were supported by the government to begin with, but live by the subsidy die by the subsidy.

So really the history of railroads isn't at all a clear cut line between private and public interest. The current "massive companies" are a shadow of what they once were. Pennsylvania RR used to have a higher annual revenue than the Federal Government itself. New York Central wasn't far behind. By the 50s, these titans were in such decline they were forced to merge into "Penn Central". By the 60s, Penn Central was dead. Could you imagine Amazon having to merge with Walmart to survive by the 2030s, and going bankrupt anyway by the 2040s? This was more extreme than that.

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#19

Post by AnimalMuppet »

woodruffw wrote: post #7

The history of the US's Western freight lines is fascinating (and frustrating): we've allowed these massive companies (UP, BNSF) to extract rent for well over a century, in exchange for having laid down the original lines (which, mind you, were also paid for in land and bonds[1]). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts

Extract rent? Seriously? They sell transportation. They face competition from the highway system, which is provided at public expense. Nothing about this looks like rent (even in the economic sense).

Re: Amtrak asks fed regulators to investigate Union Pacific handling of Sunset Ltd

#20

Post by woodruffw »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #18
woodruffw wrote: post #7

The history of the US's Western freight lines is fascinating (and frustrating): we've allowed these massive companies (UP, BNSF) to extract rent for well over a century, in exchange for having laid down the original lines (which, mind you, were also paid for in land and bonds[1]). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts

Its long and complicated. Amtrak exists in the first place because once upon a time these freight operators were also the passenger operators. While today they look like "extracting rent", once upon a time they were forced by regulation to carry the burden of passenger service. The situation with Amtrak was basically the government agreeing to take over that before it killed the companies, but Amtrak would retain cer…

This is all important context, and I thank you for including it.

I agree it's not as clear cut as "public versus private." But there's a recurring theme here: public money enabling private growth, followed by public money softening private decline. Railroads are just one instantiation of this pattern: it shows up in agriculture, industrial manufacturing, medical and materials research, &c.

At some point, it should make us stop and think about why we're transferring public money to private institutions and also paying for their mistakes, rather than just having the public institutions do the work themselves. One wonders what the US's rail infrastructure would look like had the US Government bought (and continued to operate) it outright, rather than merely socializing the losses in passenger sales.

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