Railroads Roar Ahead

[CmdrWilkens]

Wait, I thought the 2"B" situation is more common, where freight profits cover any losses from passengers and even generate a sizeable net profit? No?

Yeah sorry if I wasn't clear. The second situation in general (freight is profitable but passenger isn't) does exist pretty much everywhere. The subsets are really on a locaiton by location basis. Depending upon the current level of passenger service and the level of government investment.

Situations like the Cardinal were cases where the losses from the passenger line were much higher than any freight profits over the same line because: A) Freight rates were fixed and couldn't be adjusted to allow for greater profits over that segment and B) The operating losses were offset against essentially zero government investment which means the railroad absorbed 100% of the passenger losses but by law had to continue service.

If you have too many line segments like that with almost no ability to increase freight revenue or reduce passenger costs then you are going to bankrupt railroads.

So going back a bit the 2nd overall situation (freight profitable passenger not) is the case hwoever the subsections (A,B, and C) are really dependent upon which individual line you are talking about and where they operate. I can't speak to which is or was the most common.

[MKSheppard]

It can only be pouring money down a hole if you expect it to be profitable. Why should the subsidied corporations have that expectation? Why the fuck can't you simply address this fundamental thing which I've been asking, again and again?

What the hell do you think I've been talking about for this entire goddamn thread? All you've been doing is throwing up strawman after strawman and general asshattery, like a retarded dwarf.

Subisidies, especially to legislators, must be affordable, and have a point to them. You keep missing the point of subsidized transportation services -- they don't have to be 100% profitable to work -- they don't need to be a fucking sinkhole of money.

Amtrak's January FY08 report (beginning with page 69) breaks down each route's financial performance. Also earlier in the report there is ridership for each line, and I've gone and crunched the numbers:



You can see how Senator Byrd's beloved Cardinal only carries 6,790 people, takes in $2.3 million revenue, and costs a mighty $7 million to run, resulting in a net loss of $4.7 million. In effect, Amtrak loses $692.19 for each passenger it carries on "Route 18 - Cardinal" because Byrd has put in a ryder meaning they cannot cut back service on that line to more economical levels - such as once a week, which is more economical than running a full service train three times a week on a route which only nets 6,790 passengers.

In fact, if we terminate all routes which lose more than $100 per passenger (I'm looking at you Senator Byrd), it results in a much more affordable financial picture for Amtrak:



In which the profitable NEC routes subsidize the marginally profitable trains; turning around a system that loses on average of $21.38 for each passenger it carries into a system that takes in $71.50 for each passenger.

[SirNitram]

Once again you just repeat yourself, Sheppard. 'It's not profitable. It must be profitable'. There have been no 'strawmen', no matter how hard you wish it, you incompetent little munchkin. I will word it out precisely, since you can't get it through your head when explained normally.

Amtrak is a peice of transportation infrastructure. Infrastructure is rarely going to make money back. The highway system, another piece of transportation infrastructure, certainly doesn't. As I brought up in the very first post, attempts to privatize and profitize transport infrastructure tends to end badly.

You conjure up two requirements to meet, and I'll do so easily. 1) It must be an affordable subsidy. I will demonstrate Amtrak's 2008 request for funding(Both basic and with the strategic investment) is reasonable in comparison to contracts handed out for little or no results, and in comparison to infrastructure maintenence. 2) It must serve a purpose. This will be easy.

2008's projected amount required for Amtrak is 1.53B, with 150M additional for future work. The highway system receives ~60B a year. Amtrak, compared to the other piece of people-moving, is a bargain so far. Now to compare to other subsidies. 29B to JPMorgan to give them Bear Stearns. 'Nuff said.

Next, purpose. Easy: Let people move around without a car. You can whine that cars were less expensive(Hence the whole needing the subsidy thing in the first place), but they'll rapidly continue not to be, simply as the price of fuel continues to rise. Thus people can still move around. They include Senators and federal employees. How do I know? Been on the trains and seen 'em.

In short, Amtrak meets your two requirements easily. As time goes on, it will only become more true. What will I be accused of now, though?

[Tribun]

It's hard for me to wrap my brain around the concept that passenger traffic is not profitable. In Germany politicians complain the the railway service makes too much profit with passenger traffic (but they don't do anything against it). I think you need to have a critical mass, before passenger transportation turns into a profitable business.

[The Grim Squeaker]

It's hard for me to wrap my brain around the concept that passenger traffic is not profitable. In Germany politicians complain the the railway service makes too much profit with passenger traffic (but they don't do anything against it). I think you need to have a critical mass, before passenger transportation turns into a profitable business.

It's a vicious cycle, in the way that public transport becomes more efficient and offers better service, times & speeds the more people use it.
Now, if you have a situation where many people use cars, then public transport weakens by comparison, as there are less people in the system, putting higher costs on each passenger and causing a slimming down of bus routes.

However, if you find it taking hours ot get anywhere by bus, or the bus only passes by your town once a day at 0530AM, then you might as well buy a car. Once you have that, you probably won't use a bus even when you might use it otherwise.
And now the bus has even less passengers, which forces more cost-cutting and so on and so forth.

On the other hand, you can have large, well funded railways or undergrounds such as in London & NY where it's easier to get anywhere by these systems, to the point where they can gouge on pricing and still remain a better alternative (With the congestion charges).

My view on it is as such: Oyster card for the win. Railways rule. Fucking village where I live with no public transport whatsoever, and where every family has at least one car due to necessity, meaning there probably will never be a bus stop here.

[SirNitram]

It's hard for me to wrap my brain around the concept that passenger traffic is not profitable. In Germany politicians complain the the railway service makes too much profit with passenger traffic (but they don't do anything against it). I think you need to have a critical mass, before passenger transportation turns into a profitable business.

Nah. It's land area. There's too much in the US for passenger rail to have been competing against cars. That will change as cars become a luxury item, though.

[CmdrWilkens]

You conjure up two requirements to meet, and I'll do so easily. 1) It must be an affordable subsidy. I will demonstrate Amtrak's 2008 request for funding(Both basic and with the strategic investment) is reasonable in comparison to contracts handed out for little or no results, and in comparison to infrastructure maintenence. 2) It must serve a purpose. This will be easy.

2008's projected amount required for Amtrak is 1.53B, with 150M additional for future work. The highway system receives ~60B a year. Amtrak, compared to the other piece of people-moving, is a bargain so far. Now to compare to other subsidies. 29B to JPMorgan to give them Bear Stearns. 'Nuff said.

Hmm lets look at that number. I don't have 08 numbers but I do have some 2000 numbers of interest. In that year there were 2,547,044,000,000 passenger-miles driven by passenger-car against 5,498,000,000 passenger miles by Amtrak. If we were to apply your realtive numbers that means that we spend $.023 per passenger-mile (car-only) on roads. Conversely we spend $.305 per passenger-mile for Amtrak.

Now as a return on investment that's pretty crappy. Oh yes and the $67Bn which is the last number I've seen for the FY08 DOT budget INCLUDES the 1.6Bn for Amtrak (along with 9.4 Bn for Transit). Only $42Bn is marked for highway spending so that lowers the per-passenger mile cost even more.