A new train hall for Amtrak in the Big Apple

After nearly three decades of stop and go, the James Farley Post Office was rechristened as Moynihan Train Hall to start out the year. It's basically a relocation for Amtrak outside of Trains #65-67, which will continue using Penn Station. Even though the pictures and stories talk about recovering some lost glory post-1963, I tend to agree with Vice, which said that it's "a temple to modern mediocrity." It is very much a reflection of passenger train policy that has dominated America since the 1950s. Nothing really great, just trying to keep up or doing the bare minimum. I stand by everything that I said in 2013 when I said that Madison Square Garden needed to move, and it looks like that plans are finally in place for that to happen.

The Metrolink Saga is Settled

After 10 months, the drama with the West Coast's largest commuter rail agency has been decided in the favor of...Amtrak. Yep, Amtrak for the first time in ages was able to keep a commuter rail contract outside of the Northeast. A document (scroll down to page 24) from an August Metrolink meeting provides clues.

One step closer

So as of yesterday, Stephen Gardner was promoted to Amtrak President--officially the number two position--but as far as anyone is concerned, he's going to be pulling the strings alongside Board Chair Tony Coscia while CEO Bill Flynn is just going along for the ride.

In any case, Amtrak is heading into its 50th anniversary the same way it entered its 10th and 25th: In peril. The coronavirus pandemic has really hit all modes of travel but the leadership went overboard by implementing a known failed strategy by reducing the Silver Meteor to quad-weekly and every other long distance route other than Auto Train to triweekly. The cynic in me says that this regime will now be empowered to get rid of some overnight trains once they fail to meet the company's unrealistic projections and possibly follow Via Rail's model for (most of) the rest. 

When I read stories like this, everything I said in 2013 stands. Amtrak has a management/institutional problem rather than a funding problem. At a time when European operators reversed course on cutting their overnight services, "America's Railroad" opted to cede certain markets to low priced and overnight bus providers. However, Capitol Hill, past White Houses and some state legislatures (*cough*Indiana*cough) share the blame for the shrinkage of the Amtrak system. 

As far as the incoming Biden administration goes, optimists in the passenger rail community may cite the former vice president's frequent patronage as a senator, but he'll have plenty on his plate--namely tackling the virus. Will Congress actually do anything to make sure passenger rail no longer resembles a third world nation's system? Unless it actually funds the system and allows EU-style bidding like Germany, I won't be holding my breath when it comes to a new reauthorization bill next year. 

Election 2020 and Rail

There's not much to report on the rail front given the severity of the pandemic. So, I'll leave it to the experts to break most of this stuff down.

The only thing I'll say is that it's a really good thing that Bay Area voters stepped up to save Caltrain. 

On the high speed rail front, ex-congressman David Valadao, an opponent of CAHSR, won back the seat he lost in 2018. This shouldn't have an impact on the project anytime soon but be on the lookout after the '22 midterms provided that traditional trends take place and the House flips, Valadao and likely House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could really raise trouble for high speed rail in the Golden State.

I'll discuss the election's impact on Amtrak in the following post.

A Rant About Amtrak Service Reductions

This week was the first of three in which Amtrak will make all of its remaining long distance trains outside of Auto Train triweekly. The criteria the company has in place will set these trains to miss the intended targets by June 30—and therefore fail. The horrendous online booking scheme says it all.

Everyone has to deal with the fact that Amtrak's current management simply doesn't care about the long distance system because There are severed connections all over the place among other things.

Even at previous low points, Amtrak at least kept portions of certain long distance routes daily before breaking them into less than daily segments. Consider these examples:

• Crescent daily to Atlanta
• Empire Builder daily to St. Paul
• Texas Eagle daily to St. Louis
• Some type of daily service between Chicago and Salt Lake City

However, with this pandemic the current management didn’t even have the courtesy to even do that outside of the Florida trains. After all, Stephen Gardner and Anthony Coscia have openly expressed their hostility to the overnight trains as did previous president Richard Anderson. When it comes to current president William Flynn, my initial reaction to him being named was justified because he’s going to go along with whatever Gardner and Coscia tell him. If the presidential election goes the way the polls are predicting, then, Gardner may very well get a chance to finish the job he, Anderson and Coscia started, with the overnight trains going away.

·       Amtrak was caught being dishonest about Florida, and this graph put together by RPA (fka NARP) and retweeted by All Aboard Ohio demonstrates just how much management is willing to sacrifice other parts of the country for its beloved Northeast Corridor.

 The rail community has to be very weary of Amtrak management’s pledge of these cuts being “temporary.” History is an indicator:

1. George Warrington was supposed to be a temporary president, but the Amtrak Board selected him over Andrew Selden in 1998. The result was Warrington nearly bankrupting the company after he bet the farm on Acela Express
2. Joseph Boardman was supposed to be a temporary president after the 2008 presidential election, but the Board removed the “temporary” tag at the beginning of 2010. Amtrak stagnated because the expansions that took place were done by the states, not Amtrak itself. The company didn’t show any interest in proactively operating any new routes—its interest was in trying to keep well-established HSR operators out of the country and trying to prevent its commuter competitors from entering the intercity market (the Tea Party wave made the former possible and Congress’s inaction was responsible for the latter)
3. A now ex-CFO went behind Boardman’s back to take the diners off #91 and #92 five years ago. A few months later, the alleged “experiment” was made permanent. The only reason why the diners were put back on the Silver Star was because the Anderson regime downgraded meal service on all long distance trains

MCS Virtual Tour

https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=nhQitTrsuMP&back=1

The Brightline-Virgin alliance is over

So, the partnership between Virgin and Brightline is over as of July 29. It is worth noting that Sir Richard Branson's had a horrible year: Virgin Trains exited the UK at the end of last year after it was stripped of its route over pension issues, and more recently, Virgin Atlantic filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy due to the fallout over COVID-19.

I don't know if this is about Fortress Investment Group wanting to distance itself from Virgin's troubles, a blowup between the two entities over the latter never investing in Brightline or something else, but this could be a blow to the New Passenger Paradigm.