An Amtrak train, Pere Maquette, in St. Joseph Michigan (Photo courtesy of Amtrak)
More people are riding the nation’s
passenger train service, Amtrak. It’s to the
point that Amtrak doesn’t have enough train
cars in some areas and the trains are sold out.
Lester Graham reports Amtrak has some other
issues to deal with before it can get on the
right track:
Transcript
More people are riding the nation’s
passenger train service, Amtrak. It’s to the
point that Amtrak doesn’t have enough train
cars in some areas and the trains are sold out.
Lester Graham reports Amtrak has some other
issues to deal with before it can get on the
right track:
Amtrak is seeing more passengers. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari says on some of
its busier routes, ridership is up double-digits.
“We’re seeing increases of 20% with no additional capacity. Those are just people who
are taking the train who hadn’t taken it before or who had changed their travel plans to on
a day when the train isn’t sold out, because we have a lot of days now where the train is
selling out.”
That’s because the train is handy – especially on those shorter trips, such as New York
to Washington, Los Angeles to San Diego, or Detroit to Chicago.
Last year Amtrak had more than 26-million passengers. This year it looks like it’ll get
about 27-million. Now, to put that into perspective, 761 million people flew on an
airplane in the U.S. last year.
But, Magliari says most of Amtrak’s competition isn’t the airlines.
“Most of our competition is the automobile and we believe the largest single reason for
some of the increases we’ve had this year is people trying to avoid the higher cost of
driving their own cars and trucks.”
And Amtrak would love to buy some more trains to serve those passengers. But the
railways are already crowded. The same reason Amtrak is getting more passengers –
higher fuel prices – is also the reason a lot of freight is being switched from trucks to
trains.
Jonathan Levine is an Urban and Regional Planning expert at the University of
Michigan. He says, for much of the nation, more freight train traffic is causing Amtrak
some problems.
“The scheduled service is really quite good if and when the trains follow the schedules.
But, those of us who’ve taken those trips know that the probability of having a delay is
rather significant. And it happens because of congestion on the rail lines.”
Amtrak is supposed to get top priority on the railroad. But the freight railroads own a lot
of the tracks. The dispatchers work them. They control the switches. And in this day
of just-in-time deliveries, it’s hard for those railroads to side-track a freight train for
Amtrak to speed by.
Mark Magliari with Amtrak says they’re working on that problem.
“About 70% of our operations—that’s about everything outside the East Coast—is on
somebody else’s railroad. And we’ve seen progress in a lot of these relationships with
the host railroads, making improvements in how they handle us.”
And judging from the increase in ridership, train passengers don’t see it as any different
than an airplane being delayed. And at least it’s a comfortable seat with plenty of room
to walk around, unlike a crowded plane sitting on the tarmac.
Mark Westerfield uses Amtrak. He also works for one of those freight train companies.
We caught up with him at Union Station in Chicago. He thinks the problems can be
worked out for Amtrak, they need to be worked out.
“It needs to be expanded. It needs to be increased. And, I think, I’m very optimistic
about the fate of Amtrak with the price of fuel, the price of gasoline, the congestion at
airports, the security at airports, the fact that a lot of the traveling public is getting older,
as I am, and less willing to be cramped into MD-80s and aging 737’s. I think it’s got a
great future. I really do. It’s gonna require a lot of capital investment.”
Getting that capital investment means getting more support from Congress and state
legislatures. Some members of Congress make a lot of noise about funding Amtrak.
They make is sound as though it’s the only government supported transportation
system out there. The fact is, airports get tons of money from the government. With
rising fuel prices and more ridership on Amtrak, government money for the train might
get a little better traction with Congress in the future.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.