Tag Archives: Amtrak

What to do About Passenger Rail

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With Amtrak’s perpetual crisis being the hot topic of discussion these days, I thought I’d chime in with my own ideas on how to improve passenger rail service in the US. It’s easy to make political barbs about the situation (something I’ve done quite often), but it rings hollow without some constructive ideas for improvements as well. So here it goes.

First, here’s a few presumptions that I’m proceeding from:

  • Nationwide passenger rail is a crucial component of the public infrastructure, no less important than the highways, airports, or subways.
  • Amtrak, in its present form, will never achieve self-sufficiency.
  • An antiquated and congested infrastructure is a major factor in rail travel’s problems (both passenger rail and freight).
  • The freight railroads have no interest in taking over passenger rail operations.
  • High-speed passenger rail will be competitive with the airlines for distances of less than about 500 miles.
  • Long-distance passenger trains, with improvements, will be competitive with driving for distances greater than about 500 miles.

Infrastructure
First of all, I’d suggest that all major railroad ROW’s be taken over by eminent domain and operated by the government. Similar to the highway system, tracks would be regulated and maintained by a combination of state and federal governments. Dispatching would be operated by some agency such as the FRA, similar to how the FAA regulates the airlines. Additionally, the infrastructure and signaling would be upgraded to a consistent set of national standards.

Amtrak and the freight railroad companies would continue to own and operate their own rolling stock, but would no longer be restricted to their own trackage. The railroads would pay a fee to operate in certain “slots”, much like how the airlines operate with a finite amount of airspace. The government would have to spend a substantial amount of money upfront to acquire the ROW’s, but I suspect the freight railroads would be happy to free themselves from having to pay for maintenance and property taxes. They’d probably let their ROW’s go for fire sale prices in return for being able to continue using them. Additional funds could be raised by issuing bonds and increasing taxes on gasoline and airline tickets.

Long-distance passenger rail
First of all, I think it’s a crucial part of our national transportation network. September 11th and its aftermath was proof of this. There is a proven demand for long-distance passenger trains despite all of Amtrak’s woes, and it is a viable alternative to the gridlocked highways and airports. Additionally, it serves many rural areas that have few other options. Most people on the Empire Builder aren’t going from Chicago to Seattle; they’re going from somplace like Fargo, North Dakota to Wolf Point, Montana.

With significant upgrades made to the infrastructure (including, ideally, electrification of major lines), passenger trains would be able to operate with minimal interference. Also, with freight railroads now operate over any tracks they choose, redundant ROW’s could be consolidated and/or dedicated for passenger use. Ideally, long-distance trains using coaches based on the successful Surfliner design could operate at up to 110 MPH and with much less interference from freight trains.

Amtrak may still not be totally self-sufficient under these circumstances, but freed from having to maintain and pay property taxes on the infrastructure, I suspect other carriers may be more likely to enter the passenger rail business and Amtrak could be spun off as a private company. If not, then Amtrak should receive adequate financial support to continue these operations.

Like the airlines, I think there could be a market for multiple rail carriers if they receive the proper incentives. There could be low-cost carriers that specialize in cheap, no-frills rail travel (i.e. Southwest Airlines), in addtion to luxury “land cruise” lines that spare no expense. The bottom line: Allow these to flourish if there’s a market demand for them, but don’t allow Amtrak to die if there isn’t.

Regardless of what happens in the rail industry, it goes without saying that Amtrak management and labor will need to do their part to increase their own accountability and efficiency, even if Amtrak continues as a quasi-governmental agency indefinitely. At the very least, it would give the company some much-needed credibility. I’m not an MBA major, so I’ll let other people figure out how to accomplish that.

High-speed regional rail
In addition to traditional long-haul passenger trains, we need a viable network of 200+ MPH high-speed trains operating on heavily-used corridors (NEC, California) and connecting major cities within a given region (Midwest, Texas, Southeast). These trains would use separate ROW’s for the high-speed portions of their journeys between stops, and could use shared ROW’s at slower speeds near terminals. These dedicated ROW’s could be newly-constructed along mainline freight ROW’s or, in certain cases, along the medians of interstate highways. In other cases, these high-speed ROW’s could be upgraded freight tracks made redundant by government ownership.

These dedicated ROW’s would be held to stringent federal standards, much like how interstate highways are held to certain design standards. These standards would include track grades and construction, grade crossings (preferably, all high-speed lines would be completely grade-separated much like the interstate highways), cab signaling, and electrification.

The high-speed trains themselves could be operated by Amtrak, regional authorities, or even private companies if the market allows, but the FRA should establish some nationwide standards for high-speed rail modeled after the successful systems in France and Japan. I’m not saying the trains should be turned into tin cans, but I don’t think we’ll ever have a true high-speed system based on 1800’s technology. There can be a happy middle ground that incorporates the proactive safety systems found on the TGV with the reactive crashworthiness standards of the FRA; the two approaches don’t need to be mutually-exclusive. However, the FRA will need to learn to think outside the box when developing these standards, and be open to newer technologies that cut down on weight but not on safety.

Articulation is a good example of this: The railcars are articulated on French TGV trains, which makes the trains much stiffer than their US counterparts, and keeps the cars inline and upright during a derailment, in addition to cutting down weight by eliminating extra trucks. There’s nothing about this that would preclude trains from being built to FRA crashworthiness standards. Even the slower-speed long-distance trains (the Surfliner-based coaches) could be articulated, cutting down on weight, increasing stability at higher speeds, and increasing interior space on the lower levels of the coaches. This would involve a sacrifice in some flexibility in making up consists, but I think this could be overcome with good planning and regular maintenance.

Conslusion
Of course, this would take considerable political willpower, a lot of money, and some real leadership. Unfortunately, I don’t see any of these things coming from the current climate in Washington. However, I don’t think this is impossible. Over the past 50-some-odd years this country has built a nationwide superhighway system as well as a world-class airport system, so there’s no reason we can’t also have a world-class rail system. I think there could be a large degree of puplic support for such a project, as it combines the best features of the public and private sectors. However, I think public support for passenger rail is largely untapped, as it’s not exactly a hot-button issue in most areas. This is where some leadership and advocacy need to come in.

(originally posted on the SubTalk forum at nycsubway.org)

Amtrak / DC Metro Trip Report

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Hope everybody is having a great holiday season. As promised, here is the lowdown on my rail trip to Raleigh, NC and back.

I checked in at Chicago Union Station and boarded the Capitol Limited (train 30) without any significant delays or problems. I got myself a nice coach-class window seat in the coach just behind the cafe/observation car, which itself was just behind the dining car. For those of you East Coast people who have never been out west on Amtrak’s Superliners, I highly reccomend it. I had forgotten how roomy and spacious these cars are; in many ways it’s almost like a hotel on rails. The Amtrak employees at both Union Station and on board the Capitol Limited were very courteous and helpful.

We left Union Station on time, after which we promptly sat in the yard for over an hour while they hooked up the freight boxes and did whatever else it is they do.

Once we got moving, hoeever, we had no further delays, were moving along at around 75-80 MPH most of the way until we got into the mountains. The overnight portion of the trip was through northern Indiana and Ohio, which is generally incredibly boring country, so you’re not missing much by sleeping through it. As for myself, I just couldn’t seem to make myself comfortable enough to sleep in my coach seat, so I ended up spending most of my time in the observation lounge. As boring as it is, there’s something very relaxing and peaceful about watching the sleepy little farming towns pass by in the darkness. I remember finding that same peace while taking the Cardinal down to Cincinnati and back some years ago, and it’s difficult to find on the Metra or CTA trains.

Somewhere in Indiana, I had a very nice prime rib dinner and cheesecake in the dining car.

Approaching Cleveland, we ran alongside one of that city’s rapid transit lines (I’m not sure which one) for a few miles before entering downtown. It was the dead of night, so there weren’t any trains running, but we passed a few of the stations. For the most part, they were very spartan and had very short raised platforms.

In downtown Cleveland itself, there is a light rail line adjacent to the Amtrak station, but the nearest station was a couple blocks away. The Amtrak station itself is small and utilitarian, nothing at all to write home about. Cleveland was as gritty and industrial as I remember it being from driving through on a couple occasions, sort of like a little miniature Chicago. Leaving Cleveland, I decided to get some sleep and found a nice, quiet corner of the observation lounge to lay down in.

After a few hours of shut-eye, I woke up and saw that we were travelling alongside a large river in a deep valley, and the area was beginning to look rather industrial and built-up. We must be approaching Pittsburg, I figured. We maintained a healthy speed almost right into downtown, and passed under several impressive bridges along the way.

The coolest thing about Pittsburg is the terrian. So much different than pancake-flat Chicago, you see entire neighborhoods of Pittsburg strung high along a ridge or nestled deep within a valley, with streets and highways skirting along steep hillsides. It reminded me a lot of my original hometown of Cincinnati, another river city about the same size as Pittsburg, and with equally steep hills. Downtown Pittsburg looked very compact and urban, laced with expressway ramps and railroad tracks. Near the Pittsburg Amtrak station, I spied a trolley loop, but no trolleys.

Leaving downtown Pittsburg, we soon passed through a long tunnel and emerged in a steep-sided valley peppered with residential neighborhoods and what appreared to be a large college campus. Anybody know what college this was? It has a very tall gothic-looking tower at the top of the hill, so it’s pretty hard to miss.

Soon afterwards, daylight began to appear in the sky, and I had a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash browns in the dining car. These were arguably the best hash browns I’ve ever had.

The rest of the journey between here and suburban Washington was through the mountains of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. We followed the old B&O tracks most of the way, and most of the old signals were still there. I don’t know much about mainline railroad history or operations, but I could tell these signals were fairly unique. A few of them, however, have been replaced by modern standard-issue signals.

The tracks mostly follow alongside a river, and going into the mountains, you can see how the river gradually becomes smaller and smaller, with more small rapids. Once past Cumberland Gap, however, the reverse is true: the water flows east, and the mild rapids give way to wider and calmer waters. The railroad itself is an impressive engineering feat, given how many cuts, bridges, and tunnels it uses. At no time, however, did the grade seem exceptionally steep. At one point, we crossed over a bridge which led smack into a long tunnel, which itself spilled us directly onto another bridge across the same river.

Our first hint that we were entering the Washington metropolitan area was the appearance of MARC stations along the route. Soon enough, we passed Washington Metro’s Shady Grove yard, and followed the Metro ROW for several stops. While very clean and modern, the trains and stations looked a bit more dated than I was expecting; the above-ground Metro stations remind me of 1970’s shopping mall architecture. (The below-ground stations, however, still look fresh and modern, as I would later see.)

We eventually pulled into Washington Union Station, right on schedule. To our right was a train of bi-level MARC coaches, which are very nice looking, and to our left was my Holy Grail: two Acela Express trainsets. Once I had stepped off the Amtrak train, I attempted to walk over and get a couple pictures of the AE trainsets. However, a snotty prick of an Amtrak security goon chased me away. (I wasn’t even on the Acela platforms.) Hell of a welcome to our nation’s capital. I got off a couple shots anyway, despite the rent-a-cop cursing at me, before I ducked into the station itself with the rest of the crowd. I had a couple hours to kill before my Silver Star train would depart for NC, so I grabbed some lunch downstairs before heading out and doing some exploring.

Union Station itself is everything I had been told it was: an excellent restoration of a beautiful old train station. The shops and restaurants are nice, and overall it’s a very classy place. Am I correct that the main shopping arcade / food court area was once the outdoor portion of the train shed? I noticed vestibules between that space and the main hall that match the main entry doors up front, so I assume that huge space was originally a covered outdoor space at the head of the train platforms.

Finally, the Metro. I put a few dollars into a machine and grabbed a farecard, and took a Rohr Red Line train to Metro Center, where I trasferred to a Breda Blue Line train to the Smithsonian stop. My first impressions:

  • As I alluded to earlier, the underground stations are architectural masterpieces. They looked good when new, they look good today, and they will continue to look good when DC Metro is as old as the IRT now is. The flooring and signage looks a bit dated, but that’s small potatoes. I point out with no small measure of pride that the entire DC Metro system was designed by a Chicago architect, Harry Weese. (Weese himself died a couple years ago, but his firm still continues work for WMATA.)
  • Like the above-ground stations, the rolling stock looks mostly modern but is beginning to look somewhat dated. Also, 25 years of wear and tear are beginning to show. But overall, the cars look and sound good, run nice and fast, and are comfortable to ride in. I’m sure they’ll look a lot better when they get their well-deserved overhaul soon.
  • I thought the signage and wayfinding, while better than Chicago’s, could still be potentially confusing to tourists and newcomers. New York and London seem to have the clearest and easiest signage systems; I was easily able to navigate both complicated systems upon my first visit to each city.
  • Being the lazy slob I am, I’m always in favor of escalators in subway stations. However, this assumes the escalators are working. More often than not, the escalators were either inoperational or under repair, sometimes leaving only a single escalator for arriving and departing passengers. This must be a nightmare during rush hours. The escalators are nice, but I think there should always be at least one stairway to serve as a backup.
  • The differences between the Breda and Rohr cars are fairly subtle, but obvious enough that I could tell them apart after only a couple trips. The Rohr cars have different weatherstripping around the windows, different lights down by the floor at the doors, and stainless steel grab bars on the seat backs, as opposed to brown rubber-coated grab bars.
  • The automated female “doors opening” and “doors closing” voice sounds a bit sultry. I’m surprised the Religious Right hasn’t raised hell about it. (Hey, they’ve bitched much louder about more pointless things.)
  • As cool and modern as the DC Metro is, it still seemed to lack the character of London’s Tube, Chicago’s L, or the NYC subway. I guess maybe it seemed a litte too clean and sanitized. Also, while I appreciate the WMATA’s reasons for keeping the stations a uniform design, it seems a bit monotonous. A little variety, a.k.a. London’s new Jubilee Line extension, would spice things up a lot.
  • Now that I’ve ridden the Washington Metro, I’m proud to say that I’ve now ridden every major subway system in the country!! (I haven’t yet ridden Baltimore or Los Angeles Metro, but they hardly count as major.)

Getting off at Smithsonian, I walked down the Mall past the Washington Monument and to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. I’m far too young to have served in Vietnam, and I don’t know too many Vietnam vets. My father was in the Navy during that era, but served at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. But for some reason, I’ve always felt drawn to The Wall, and going there felt sort of like a pilgrimage for me. The names, I knew there would be thousands of them. But I didn’t fully appreciate just how many there were until I got there and saw how big the wall is. What really struck me, though, was how the light plays differently on the granite surface. From some angles it’s a deep black granite. From other angles, the reflection is so strong it’s like looking into a mirror. Subtle and yet incredibly powerful, the wall is another masterpiece of modern architecture. Naturally, my thoughts led to the WTC site and what sort of memorial could possibly do justice to such a tragedy. My own ideas on a WTC memorial probably aren’t much better than the next person’s, but I think the Vietnam memorial, in its stark yet powerful simplicity, can show us a possible direction.

From there I walked up 23rd Street to the Foggy Bottom-GWU station. The surrounding neighborhood along the way reminded me a lot of Boston. From the station, I boarded a Breda Blue Line train back to Metro Center, where I transferred to a Breda Red Line train to Union Station. Arriving at Union Station, I walked around for a few minutes before heading over to the Amtrak gates to wait for the Silver Star to leave. The same security goon who chased me away from the Acela trains eyed me suspiciously through a set of doors. I almost gave him the finger, but didn’t want to risk missing my train on account of being interrogated by a bunch of Amtrak security goons in some gulag in the bowels of Union Station.

Finally, the Silver Star (train 91) began boarding. The gate agent barked orders to the customers in line, and we eventually headed downstairs and boarded the train. In contrast to my previous train of spacious Superliners, this train of worn-out Amfleet coaches felt very much like a Greyhound bus on rails. The train was crowded and dirty, and the air was stuffy. The cafe car was filled with cigarette smoke, and the employees seemed a bit harried. To top it off, the scenery through Virginia and North Carolina was even more boring than Indiana and Ohio. While the train ride from Chicago to DC was a pleasure, on this trip I found myself counting down the hours until arrival in Raleigh. I had dinner along the way, a fillet of red snapper, which was very good. The PA system on the train wasn’t working, so I was afraid to doze off in fear of missing my stop. This must be what the Amtrak-haters think of when they villify Amtrak, I remember thinking. Mercifully, the train went pretty fast the entire way down, we arrived in Raleigh on time at around 10:25 PM on Christmas Eve.

Raleigh in general, and my parents’ suburb of Knightdale in particular, was the same as it always is, with the addition of a few more strip malls. I spent the next four days in awkward conversation with my parents, being chewed on by the family dog, being ignored by the family cat, and occasionally venturing out with my mom on errands to the grocery store or to Wal-Mart. Oh, joy.

Raliegh is in the process of building a second expressway loop around the city, part of which will almost run through my parents’ back yard. My father is convninced that this will solve all their traffic ills. I also had to feign interest as my father pointed out all the strip malls being built in the area, as if that’s progress. Seemed like he was trying to convince me that they don’t really live in a semi-rural backwater, but sometimes it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. (My parents are from Cincinnati orginally, and moved to NC from the Chicago suburbs about four years ago.) To his credit, he’s strongly in favor of a proposed commuter rail system they’re apparently planning down there, and my parents are talking about maybe moving back to Cincinnati after they retire. So maybe there’s hope for them after all.

All that said, I generally had a nice time down there. Seems I need trips like this once a year to remind myself why I moved out into my own apartment, but it was nice having some actual home-cooked meals for a few days and being “home” with the family even though I consider my home Chicago.

Saturday morning at 5:00 AM, we arrived at the Amtrak station in Reliegh to check in my bag and board the Silver Star (train 92) back to Washington. The train, which originates in Miami, was a half-hour late getting to Raleigh, and the return trip was essentially a carbon copy of the ride down. The major differences: The dining car was nicer, but we often crept along the tracks at slow speed or stopped altogether for extended periods for no apparent reason. Also, the sun eventually came up, so I was able to see outside for at least part of the journey. We eventually arrived at Union Station at around 1:00 PM, about 90 minutes late, which seriously cut into the time I was hoping to use to explore more of Washington.

After grabbing a bite to eat at the Sbarro eatery at Union Station, I got back on the Metro. Destination: DuPont Circle. The escalators there are certainly impressive, but painfully slow compared to what I got used to in London. I went up to the surface, looked around a bit, and headed back down. My next stop would be Judiciary Square, where I stopped at the National Building Museum to look around a bit. I bought a cool coffee table book, Metro at 25, which has a lot of interesting info and some cool photos of the Washington Metro system. And it was only $10. There was also a moving photo exhibit of the World Trade Center on display at the museum, and I stopped to pay my respects before going back down into the subway. From here, I went to Metro Center to seek out the Sales Office where I hoped to pick up a Metro coffee mug or something like that, but found it closed. I grumbled my way back downstairs, and caught a Breda Blue Line train to the Pentagon. The Pentagon Metro station itself is very cool, reminding me of the Porter Square stop on the MBTA Red Line. After a little nervous hesitation, I headed upstairs to see the Pentagon itself and the damaged section. I didn’t see the damaged area itself, but some construction cranes belied its location. Also, the bus stop shelter up at street level has a very nice architectural design. I snapped a couple photos and headed back down to the subway.

I grabbed a Breda Yellow Line train to Gallery Place-Chinatown, where I transferred to a Rohr Red Line train back to Union Station. One more round of being barked at by Amtrak gate personel before boarding my train, and I was back on board the Capitol Limited (train 29) bound for Chicago. The ride itself was relaxed and uneventful, similar to the ride down. The train in both directions was booked solid, but the Superliners don’t seem nearly as cramped and crowded as the Amfleet coaches. 17 hours on a Superliner is vastly preferable to 6 hours on an Amfleet. Again, the Capitol Limited crew was very nice and helpful. I had another meal of prime rib along the way, and while not quite as good as the prime rib I had on the way down, it certainly beat the mac & cheese that I’m used to having for dinner.

Darkness soon overcame us shortly after leaving Washington, but with a bright full moon and a fresh coat of snow on the ground, we could easily see outside the train once they dimmed the lights on the coaches. The mountains and villages took on a different look in the moonlit darkness, and every so often the train would round a curve and allow me to see the two Genesis locomotives casting a bright ray of light on the tracks ahead. The only sound was the steady rythm of the wheels against the rails, punctuated every so often by the lonely cry of the distant horn was we approached a grade crossing. I was in heaven.

I stayed awake until we got past Pittsburg, and then got some sleep. I was dead tired before even boarding the train, so I slept much better than I did on the way down. I woke up a few hours later somewhere in the middle of Indiana. It was still dark out, but the dining car was open for breakfast. I had a very good breakfast of a ham and cheese omlette with some hash browns (also very good). Not too long thereafter, I found the passing landscape looking familiar was we passed the massive steel mills of northern Indiana and made our way into Chicago. For part of the way we travelled alongside the Chicago Skyway, which is undergoing a massive reconstruction, before turning north and heading up through Bridgeport past Comiskey Park and into the Union Station yards. We pulled onto the westbound BNSF tracks where they disconnected the freight boxes from our train, and after a short wait we backed into Union Station itself.

As we got off the train, we were greeted with an icy blast of wind and temperatures in the teens. I had planned on taking the CTA Red Line home, but as tired as I was and with these temperatures, I sprung for a taxi once I had picked up my bag. For the next several hours, while sitting at my computer and checking my e-mail, my body still felt like it was bouncing along the rails.

Some concluding remarks about my Amtrak journey:

  • While the Silver Star was tedious and boring, I was very impressed with the Capitol Limited. Maybe it was the scenerey or the spacious Superliner coaches, but the Capitol Limited just seemed a lot nicer. Some people argue that long-distance trains have no reason for being, but I think the ride on the Capitol Limited is living proof to the contrary.
  • The Amtrak personel at Chicago Union Station and on board the Capitol Limited were very courteous and helpful. The personel on the Silver Star seemed nice but harried and overworked, and the personel at Washington Union Station seemed like just plain assholes.
  • It’s a shame the Superliners can’t fit into some parts of the East Coast, as I think they would be a vast improvement over the Amfleet coaches.
  • Despite my generally negative experiences on the Silver Star, my trip overall was vastly preferable to flying. How many people fly because they enjoy they actually enjoy being stuffed into tin cans? On flights, people are generally bitchy, high-strung, and usually just grunt at each other. On the train, people are more relaxed and actually feel comfortable talking to each other.
  • I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This country needs a decent high-speed rail network. The advatanges of high-speed rail for distances of 600 miles or less are already a given. But based on my experiences aboard the Capitol Limited, I believe a strong case could be made for high-speed rail for distances of at least 1000 miles, if the right ammenities are offered on board. Maybe it’s just the effects of 9/11, but a surprisingly large percentage of people on the Capitol Limited were travelling all the way between DC and Chicago.
  • Chicago Union Station has a lot of room for improvement compared to Washington Union Station. It’s okay, but in some respects it’s like a slightly dressed-up version of NYC Penn. We could do much better than that.

Okay, that’s about all I have to say right now… I’m sure I’ve left something out, but I’ll probably add it later.

(originally posted on the SubTalk forum at nycsubway.org)