Lambert 1 Dylan Lambert Mr. Grimshaw U.

S History II 21 May 2012 The Passenger Train and Amtrak The passenger train; one of Americas longtime institutions that has proven time and time again that it simply wont die (unlike some Wall St. banks). This means one must wonder if the passenger train needed some sort of salvation considering the widespread development of the interstate highway network, and increasing popularity of the automobile. Since the inception of the railroad as a means of transportation in the early 1800s, passenger trains were in place to move people from point A to point B. Some of the most prestigious passenger trains were to come about in the early 1900s. Trains like the Twentieth Century Limited, Southwest Limited, Knickerbocker, Yankee Clipper, Empire Builder, and the Merchants Limited were all established to provide luxurious travel to patrons for the price of a sleeping car ticket. These days were not to last forever as by the eve of World War II automobile traffic and an improved road network had eaten away at passenger trains, seeing smaller branch lines and lesser main line trains canceled, curtailed, or combined with existing services. The streamlining innovation helped draw ridership while developing more durable equipment, but it didnt stem the decline. Simply put, Amtraks formation was necessary to prevent the decline in passenger rail and increase ridership on a national level. It was the formation of the National Railway Passenger Corporation, or Amtrak as it is more commonly known, that stopped the decline. One would imagine that the passenger train would increase in popularity (and thanks to Amtrak it has) but Congress has proven to be a

Lambert 2 impediment for increasing Amtraks subsidy and developing a better passenger rail network. Ever since its inception Amtrak has been used as a political football, usually having its funding cut before any other government program, and this leads to a constant fear that Amtrak will be forced to significantly curtail service. Because of funding problems, Amtrak is left to cover 85% of its costs, and that is a system-wide scale. Individual routes that Amtrak operates, such as the Pacific Surfliner, attract significant ridership and reach marginal levels of profitability; yet these routes arent enough to cover the system-wide problem of covering maintenance costs and purchasing new equipment to retire the oldest assets in the Amtrak fleet (some of the dining cars and sleepers were built in the 1950s and were transferred to Amtrak at birth). Is all this political football even worth the time and trouble when Congress should be able to agree on something so incredibly simple so it can focus on more prudent measures, such as our military and the economy? Amtraks story is one of survival against all odds. As said by Joseph Vranich in his book Derailed: What went wrong and what to do about Americas Passenger Trains, on some days, riding Amtrak can be great; on other days, a disaster (Vranich 1). This can only serve to highlight the problems faced by Amtrak day in and day out. Finances, mechanical failures and politics are a constant impediment to the job that Amtrak is sent to do. But when did the motions begin which had the seemingly inevitable outcome of the formation of Amtrak on May 1, 1971? In hindsight, we can trace the fractures that led to Amtraks creation going back to the 1930s. The nation was recovering from the Great Depression, and the automobile made serious inroads into the passenger traffic of the railroads, both large and small. In the case of some small shortlines, passenger service was discontinued to maintain profitability. Furthermore, although the decline in ridership was detrimental to many of the smaller railroads and their passenger

Lambert 3 operations, the larger conglomerates were working to draw new ridership through innovation and technological advancement. But where was this ridership supposed to come from? Only a revolution in passenger train operations would draw such ridership that the railroads envisioned. That answer came in the form of streamliners. Newer, lighter materials made the heavyweight cars of the era, so called because of how the all-steel construction contributed to the weight, were made redundant by lighter alloys like aluminum and stainless steel. The first railroad to invest heavily in stainless steel was the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad; despite its initial high cost, stainless steel has no other life expectancy than long, thus the Burlington expected that use of stainless steel and its associated costs would be offset by lower maintenance and a carbodys increased longevity (Schafer and Welsh 12). The minds at the CB&Q were correct in their assumption, for stainless steel is the preferred material for use in Amtraks passenger cars because of the lower maintenance costs (which is nearly none, as stainless steel is impervious to corrosion). Some cars in Amtraks are nearing 60 years old, and the only reason they have been utilized for such an extensive period of time is due in part to the carbodies being in excellent condition. With streamliners being the main passenger trains operating in inter-city service, we could gain a look at what pattern that Amtraks long distance trains would follow far before its birth. Original streamliners were nothing like what we see today; they were fixed consists that required heavy equipment, like that found in a repair shop, to alter the train consists (Schafer and Welsh 11). The name of the game quickly became a balance between flexibility and costeffectiveness, as by the 1950s, when the streamliner reached maturity, the automobile was exploding in popularity. Arguably the ultimate virtue of the auto- its flexibility- would prove stiff competition for the passenger train, which through the 1920s remained a stalwart operation

Lambert 4 (Schafer and Welsh 10), and such flexibility was indeed an issue to passenger rail. But there was a second component; the freedom of going wherever you wanted whenever you wanted. Its that freedom that many Americans flock to, even to this day where we see young adults going out of their ways to gain a car because of that very freedom it offers. Fast forward some more, into the 1960s, and there had been a dramatic drop in passenger train operations. In 1944, near the end of World War II, passenger trains held 74% of the intercity trade; this would fall to 48% by 1949 and 29% by 1960 (Frailey 5). Such decline made maintaining passenger trains at a profitable level nearly impossible. The old adage, a snowballs chance in hell easily applies here. The real reason the passenger trains survived through the 1960s was the United States Postal Service. Yes, the Post Office, which seems near to total collapse, once relied on railroads for moving and sorting massive amounts of mail on the nationwide network. Loss of that traffic normally meant the end to passenger operations on a given railroad. In the case of the Kansas City Southern, mail revenues supported their passenger operations. To make the operations appealing to the public, Kansas City Southern maintained a respectable passenger network, with two trains in each way, in an area with sparse population, and all of this under William Deramus Jr. and his notorious public-be-damned attitude (Frailey 11). But why bother keeping the passenger trains appealing? It was simple; Deramus gladly spent money to make money (Frailey 16). This spend money to make money attitude of the management at Kansas City Southern is further enhanced by the purchase of 5 new coaches from American Car and Foundry, and 4 used tavern-observation cars from the New York Central for $25,250 each (Frailey 12). That public appeal would see itself pay off with increases in ridership, which were

Lambert 5 mostly supplemental to the postal traffic carried by many of the passenger trains still running by the 1960s. But the United States Postal Service proved to be the undoing of the passenger trains on Kansas City Southern. On December 4, 1967 Kansas City Southern told the ICC it had every intention of quitting the passenger business after all. The reason was all too familiar. The Postal Service had informed KCS it would end RPO and storage mail contracts, taking away more than $800,000 in revenue and some $650,000 in profits that had sustained the trains (Frailey 18). Clearly, even with a loyal clientele, the reason the passenger trains on KCS (and on nearly every other railroad at the time) was the profits provided by RPO and storage mail contracts. Without a reason to justify the expenses of the passenger trains, many railroads killed them off as a costsaving measure. In the case of Union Pacific, it managed to maintain its passenger network by combining all its trains at key locations and setting off cars for other routes, the managed to focus their network while growing their train, nicknamed the City of Everywhere, to a gargantuan length of 55 cars (Frailey 23). So other ways to keep the passenger trains running and ensuring they made some money still existed. Such concepts seem foreign these days, and that is partly due to the existence of Amtrak and its heavily simplified network. Now, let us fit Amtrak into this formula. While it began operations on May 1, 1971, the idea of Amtrak (or some sort of government involvement in the operations of passenger trains) went back nearly a decade. On May 20, 1962, Sen. Claiborne Pell (Dem. Rhode Island) gave a speech that now, almost 50 years later, is remembered as the first effective call to arms for a revolution in passenger rail (Phillips 23). Clearly, Senator Pell had enough foresight to recognize the importance that passenger rail would have in the national transportation network. Anyone who drives knows that at peak times, stretches of highway in urban areas are essentially

Lambert 6 paralyzed because of lacking capacity. There have also been realizations that some Amtrak services dont offer enough capacity for the growing ridership. Take the Capital Limited for example; with through coaches and sleepers (through in this case means cars that are removed from one train at certain predetermined points and connected to other trains, which means passengers wouldnt have to switch trains) connecting with the Pennsylvanian, Amtrak estimates that it could attract a further 20,000 new riders to the Capital Limited (Johnston 8). While that kind of ridership increase in the course of a year is seemingly small, that is 20,000 more riders who support Amtrak by using its passenger services. Considering Congress doesnt look to make up its mind anytime soon regarding Amtrak, those new riders would be a needed asset. Amtrak deserves credit for keeping passenger trains around long enough for a renewed debate on their existence (Craghead 4). Surviving against sometimes formidable government pressure is no accomplishment to be taken lightly. But within that opposition lays a question about reliability. Reliability encompasses a one simple factor; on-time performance. So, how does Amtrak stack up in the on-time performance categories? Lets look at some of Amtraks best and worst preformers;

Route

On-time percentage

Capitol Corridor Missouri River Runner San Joauquin Pennsylvanian

93.2% 91.1% 90.7% 90.1%

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Coast Starlight Hiawatha Service Sunset Limited (Johnston 18)

89.9% 89.5% 87.8%

These trains range from corridors (smaller intercity routes, like Boston-Portland, ME) to long distance services (overnight trains like the Sunset Limited and Coast Starlight). While we may wish that all of Amtraks routes operated with this kind of efficiency, we must remember that these trains use infrastructure owned by private concerns, so freight traffic can prove a difficult obstacle in maintaining on-time performance.

Route

On-time percentage

Carolinian Cardinal California Zephyr Michigan Trains (all Michigan services) Palmetto Capital Limited Texas Eagle

48.9% 51.4% 52.6% 61.2% 64.3% 68.4% 69.7%

Lambert 8 (Johnston 18) Even though these are Amtraks worst performers, none of the routes served fall below 45% on-time performance. But what is the determining factor of Amtraks on-time performance? The formula is simple; Trains traveling fewer than 250 miles have a 10 minute window on the scheduled time, trains traveling between 251-350 miles have 15 minutes, trains traveling 351450 miles have 20 minutes, trains traveling between 451-550 miles have 50 minutes, and trains traveling more than 551 miles have a 30 minute cushion (Johnston 19). To better compare these statistics, there is a bar graph on page 13 of this paper that illustrates the percentages illustrated in the two tables, along with a key designating which number on the lower half of the chart represents a given train. So, generally Amtrak has a mixed bag of routes with different performances. But on-time performance isnt just a result of scheduling issues and congested railways. One needs to account the equipment that is being used. Riders have and will be drawn to rail by the amenities it offers (Solomon 7). So the coaches that they ride in can be looked at as the main face of those amenities, and then to draw even more ridership, the product must be of good quality (Solomon 36). Therein lays the greatest reason for service improvements, increased dependability (Nice 21). As a result, Amtrak has in recent years placed orders for new sleeping cars, coaches, dining cars and baggage cars so service can be expanded on some routes to a daily offering, but that wont be a possibility until 2012, when those new cars are delivered (Johnston 8). That improved service can be used to increase timings for many of the trains in Amtraks eastern region of operations. Better timings and service quality translates into ridership increase and consistent patronage which further develops into more income that is vastly needed by Amtrak. However, trains that are oft on-time are doomed to be trapped in a cycle of decline, as delay is murderous

Lambert 9 to public support (Frailey 13). Some believe this is a sign of the worst; Amtraks on-time performance has never been, nor will it ever be, at the point where passengers can expect European-like dependability (Vranich 8). In some cases this may hold true, but I go back to the fact that, for the most part, Amtrak runs its individual routes between 45% and 95% at schedule. One must also note that only one of Amtraks trains, the Carolinian, runs on-time less than 50% of the time. That can be considered both a problem and an accomplishment; trains not running to schedule tend to perform below expectations, while managing an on-time rating of 48.9% is no easy feat, and improvement to the timings should be much easier considering how close the Carolinian runs to the upper half of the rating scale. Over the years, Amtraks finances have varied over such a wide spectrum that one must note what the changing climate entails. By 1995, Amtraks funding had varied from anywhere between $1 Billion to $20 Million in 1986 during the Regan Administration (Nice 27). Essentially, Amtrak has been the kickball of Congress. The politics of begging for money each year, facing the consequent backlash when members of both the House and Senate try to initiate sever cuts to Amtraks operating subsidies. This hasnt really been an effective strategy since the Reagan years for the following rationale One political force that might affect the distribution of service is interparty competition. In a competitive political environment, votes are valuable. Consequently, members of Congress may feel greater pressure to support programs that may earn the gratitude of voters (Nice 34). One can only surmise that if Amtrak is important to the voters, then if a candidate wants to gain (or maintain) his/her public office, it would be best to follow the will of his constituents and support such popular programs, which could include anything from Social Security, FEMA, and most importantly, Amtrak.

Lambert 10 State support should also be touched on, considering some of the great successes experienced by those partnerships. When the Amtrak system was created, the states were given an additional opportunity to participate in transportation policymaking. The law creating Amtrak provided that states could obtain additional passenger rail service if officials in those states were willing to help pay the costs of the additional service (Nice 47). Those state subsidies are known to vary widely, depending on if the state is willing to support a higher degree of service. In 1985, for example, the largest state subsidy was less than $4 Million; in 1996, three states spent less than $200,000 on their subsidy programs. In an era of multibillion dollar state budgets, even less affluent states may be able to afford modest subsidies of rail passenger service (Nice 48). But the state demographics are also known to play a role as well. Rural States tend to be more oriented towards highway building and to spend more on road and highway programs. As a result, fewer dollars are likely to remain for nonhighway transportation programs (Nice 49). So, then if rural states spend less on Amtrak subsidies, then more developed states must spend more on their subsidy for Amtrak, right? Case in point Amtrak California. Funded in part by the State of California, Amtrak California is more than just a brand name; the equipment is all owned by the state, and staffed by Amtrak employees (Lawrence 33). The service has been incredibly successful, as between February 2010 and January 2011, the Capitol Corridor (one of three routes operated by Amtrak California) saw 1.62 Million riders, with 130,860 using the service in January alone (Lawrence 33). Then there is the Pacific Surfliner, yet another service (but having a completely separate image); in 2010 it saw 2.6 Million riders, giving it the second largest ridership rate for any Amtrak route (Lawrence 34). The kind of ridership the Pacific Surfliner sees is indicative of Amtraks cemented status in the national transportation agenda. The same statute is proven through some of Amtraks

Lambert 11 largest passenger facilities, most prudently shown through the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. 30th Street Station was originally built in the 1920s for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and took 5 years and cost $60 Million to build (Keefe 47). There are three companies that call at 30th Street; Amtrak, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (or SEPTA) and NJ Transit (Keefe 50). The original designers even took into account the commuter traffic, and to make sure that the long distance trains werent impeded two levels were constructed for the different trains; the lower serving long distance trains that called in Philadelphia and the upper level serving the many commuter trains that operated out of 30th Street (Keefe 47). That foresightedness has proven most valuable, as 580 trains call at 30th Street serving (on average) 20,000 each day (Keefe 46). If one was to do the math that would be 7.3 Million passengers and 211,700 trains each year. If that many people are accessing Amtrak service through one location each year, then clearly the demand for Amtrak and passenger rail in general is large enough to justify the primary mission behind Amtraks creation; preventing decline in the passenger rail sector and grow ridership. In accordance with those increases, Amtrak increases train miles by adding more service to existing services on a given route or forming new services entirely on completely different routes (Nice 73). Now the paper comes back to the question; Amtraks formation necessary to prevent the decline in passenger rail and increase ridership on a national level. Amtrak was only meant to last for 20 years, and looking now it becomes clear that Amtrak has lasted twice as long as intended at its formation (Katz 6). Existing for 40 years instead of the originally expected 20 indicates that Amtrak managed to develop a loyal following in Congress and develop a repertoire with the American people. The verdict of many Americans is clear; we needed, and still need Amtrak to preserve and develop passenger rail in the United States. Has Amtraks job been easy?

Lambert 12 Not at all! Supporters like Senator Pell had to fight for Amtraks creation. Those in the public who wanted to save the passenger train said so when they participated in the largest mass mailing to Congressional representatives in US history (Phillips 28). Even attempts to kill Amtrak before it could start operations on May 1, 1971 failed when a flurry of bills and legislation was introduced and failed to pass through either house (Phillips 31). Even today Amtrak has people like Brian Solomon who speak up and educate the public on the importance of passenger rail. The faith that Solomon has in Amtrak, and all forms of rail transport, is fueled by the history his family has with passenger trains (Solomon 7). The regular funding crisis hasnt stopped Amtrak; shortly after beginning operation Amtrak needed an increased government subsidy, and this served to prove that Amtrak was underfunded from the start (Solomon 40). Its periodic funding crisiss are like professional wrestling they are predictable fights with predictable results, but spectators find it interesting anyway (Solomon 43). To visualize how successful Amtrak has been in attracting riders, one only needs to walk to a station served by it to see anywhere between one person to a small mob. If those souls were drawn to Amtrak because of things like the amenities, lower costs or even the novelty of traveling by train, Amtrak has clearly succeeded and proven its existence necessary to the American people.

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120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 On Time Preformance, measured on a scale of 0 to 100 Percent Amtrak Route Preformance

Key to Amtrak Route Percentages: 1- Capitol Corridor 2- Missouri River Runner 3- San Joaquin 4- Pennsylvanian 5- Coast Starlight 6- Hiawatha Service 7- Sunset Limited 8- Carolinian 9- Cardinal 10- California Zephyr 11- Michigan Trans (all Michigan services) 12- Palmetto 13- Capitol Limited 14- Texas Eagle (Johnston 8).

Lambert 14 Works Cited Barringer IV, John W. Disbanding the Tribe Classic Trains Summer 2011 60-63. Craghead, Alexander Amtrak: Against All Odds Railfan and Railroad Magazine May 2011 4. Frailey, Fred W. Twilight of the Great Trains Waukesha: Kalmbach Publishing Company, 1998 Goldberg, Bruce Growing up with Amtrak Classic Trains Summer 2011 50-59 Ingles, J. David Ride em while you can Classic Trains Summer 2011 32-43. Johnston, Bob Amtraks New On-Time Report Card Trains Magazine March 2011 18-19. Johnston, Bob Amtraks Improvement Wish List Trains Magazine January 2011 20-21. Katz, Curtis L. Amtrak turns 40 Railfan and Railroad Magazine May 2011 6. Keefe, Kevin P. Americas Finest Railroad Station Trains Magazine March 2011 45-53. Lawrence, Elrond Amtrak California Railfan and Railroad magazine May 2011 33-35. McCommons, James Waiting on a Train The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2009 Nice, David C. Amtrak The History and Politics of a National Railroad Boulder: Lynne River Publishers Inc, 1998

Lambert 15 Phillips, Don Will someone get serious about passenger rail? Trains Magazine September 2011 11. Phillips, Don The Road to Rescue Classic Trains Summer 2011 23-31 Porterfield, James D. Happy 40th, My Friend Railfan and Railroad Magazine May 2011 7-8. Schafer, Mike and Joe Welsh Streamliners History of a Railroad Icon St. Paul: MBI Publishing Company, 2002 Solomon, Brian Amtrak MBI Railroad Color History St. Paul: MBI Publishing Company, 2004 Solomon, Brian The Northeast Corridor Railfan and Railroad Magazine May 2011 36-41. Vernon, Wes Amtrak Volpes Warning to Reistrup Railfan and Railroad Magazine May 2011 16-18. Vranich, Joeseph Derailed What went wrong and what to do about Americas Passenger Trains New York: St. Martins Press, 1997 Wilner, Frank N. The Amtrak Story Omaha: Simmons-Boardman Books Inc, 1994