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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

#101

Post by Symbiote »

runarberg wrote: post #67
WillPostForFood wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

extremely high quality service Really? When's the last time you had to go do something at the post office? It is a nightmare. Dirty building with disinterested workers, and long slow lines. The bulk of the mail I receive is junk mail, and multiple times a week I get my neighbor's mail.

As somebody that moved from Europe to the USA, I can attest that the USPS is the best postal system I have ever encountered. The service level is far above anything I saw in Scandinavia by a long shot. In Iceland the Postal Service is declining really rapidly, so much so that there isn’t even a post office any more down town in the countries biggest city. Yet in the USA you can get a package delivered to your door in…

In Denmark I receive a letter roughly every 2 months.

It's not surprising that as volume has collapsed, prices have increased. However, I don't have any problem with the service, or with going to a kiosk or other shop to collect a parcel.

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

#102

Post by ThunderSizzle »

crote wrote: post #75
mlindner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. Amtrak has priority by law over freight in the US as long as they are on time. They don't get priority once they area late. What happens is that Amtrak becomes late and then they lose their slot and become further late.

The problem is that freight transporters are intentionally running trains which are longer than the sidings. Even if an Amtrak train has priority by law, it is - by design - impossible for the freight train to pull over. The result is that an on-time Amtrak train has to wait for a delayed freight train, because it is physically impossible to do anything else. This of course results in the Amtrak train now being late,…

> This of course results in the Amtrak train now being late, through no fault of its own.

I'm going to give the tried and true answer everyone receives (at airports at least): it doesn't matter why your late. It's your responsibility. You should've left earlier and predicted the future.

Amtrak should've already built their own rails and should be serving much more of the country. I dont know anyone who can even consider Amtrak for travel.

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

#103

Post by ThunderSizzle »

smadge wrote: post #95
bobthepanda wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly we need to build parallel rights of way anyways. The freight rails are slow and dilapidated. It would make more sense for passenger railways to be separated from freight railways entirely rather than to try and squeeze into inadequate trackage. We don’t try to unload air freight through passenger terminals or vice versa.

That makes sense on some corridors but I'm not sure about the economics of building 2000 miles of dedicated right of way for a train that runs 3 times a week. Maybe if price, reliability, and speed of the service improved to such a degree it could feasibly compete with air and highway travel between those cities.

Chicken and egg. Running 3 times a week slowly and expensively isn't going to increase ridership.

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

#104

Post by bobkazamakis »

jhghgfhgf wrote: post #99
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US federal government certainly is not known for providing high quality service at low cost, quite the opposite in fact. Medicare is a great example to the contrary. They provide healthcare to the sickest groups, and do so with roughly 3x less overhead than the private healthcare industry.

Medicare has a $768 billion budget per year. No US healthcare company comes close.

No other country pays more per capita for healthcare -- ofcourse it has a huge budget...

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

#105

Post by Symbiote »

Jochim wrote: post #100
stetrain wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can nationalize the infrastructure without nationalizing the operations upon it. Many other countries use a system where one government-related entity manages in the infrastructure, and many private companies can pay to operate rail services on that infrastructure. This would actually allow market competition instead of geographic monopolies.

We have something like this in the UK. It's a dogshit system that leads to service that is both awful and overpriced. The whole thing should be nationalised.

It's a good idea to nationalise passenger trains in Britain, but I'm not aware of anyone calling for freight trains to be nationalised.

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

#106

Post by dwighttk »

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…

> used to have a higher annual revenue than the Federal Government

I’d be interested to know how much of the switch was the company shrinking and how much was government revenue going up.

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

#107

Post by chiph »

pengaru wrote: post #15
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…

Yep. Amtrak runs the longest passenger train in the world in the Auto Train, traveling the Virginia to Orlando route. It's usually about 45 cars long, while a UP freight train can be 100 cars or more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjmkVy6UbY4

I agree that the freight companies need to invest in their tracks and right-of-way if they want to ship more. They need to double-track, electrify, and upgrade bridges & tunnels to handle double-stack container cars. India's dedicated freight corridors are a good example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGJJLwJK0PU

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

#108

Post by thatguy0900 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #48
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly we need to build parallel rights of way anyways. The freight rails are slow and dilapidated. It would make more sense for passenger railways to be separated from freight railways entirely rather than to try and squeeze into inadequate trackage. We don’t try to unload air freight through passenger terminals or vice versa.

The government frankly doesn't have it in it to do a project like that anymore. Can you imagine the outcry when they have to eminent domain some poor peoples property?

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

#109

Post by oxfeed65261 »

crote wrote: post #75
mlindner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true. Amtrak has priority by law over freight in the US as long as they are on time. They don't get priority once they area late. What happens is that Amtrak becomes late and then they lose their slot and become further late.

The problem is that freight transporters are intentionally running trains which are longer than the sidings. Even if an Amtrak train has priority by law, it is - by design - impossible for the freight train to pull over. The result is that an on-time Amtrak train has to wait for a delayed freight train, because it is physically impossible to do anything else. This of course results in the Amtrak train now being late,…

It is not impossible to deal with this. The Amtrak train could go onto the siding and then the freight train could back up, allowing the Amtrak train to reenter the main track ahead of the freight train.

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

#110

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

jhghgfhgf wrote: post #99
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US federal government certainly is not known for providing high quality service at low cost, quite the opposite in fact. Medicare is a great example to the contrary. They provide healthcare to the sickest groups, and do so with roughly 3x less overhead than the private healthcare industry.

Medicare has a $768 billion budget per year. No US healthcare company comes close.

that's because Medicare covers all the old people that actually need healthcare while all the private companies cover much younger and therefore healthier populations
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