In 2004, a stalemate in federal support of Amtrak forced cutbacks in services and routes as well as resumption of deferred maintenance. In fiscal 2004 and 2005, Congress appropriated about $1.2 billion for Amtrak, $300 million more than President George W. Bush had requested. However, the company's board requested $1.8 billion through fiscal 2006, the majority of which (about $1.3 billion) would be used to bring infrastructure, rolling stock, and motive power back to a state of good repair. In Congressional testimony, the Department of Transportation's inspector-general confirmed that Amtrak would need at least $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion in fiscal 2006 and $2 billion in fiscal 2007 just to maintain the status quo. In 2006, Amtrak received just under $1.4 billion, with the condition that Amtrak would reduce (but not eliminate) food and sleeper service losses. Thus, dining service was simplified and now requires two fewer on-board service workers. Only Auto Train and Empire Builder services continue regular made-on-board meal service. In 2010 the Senate approved a bill to provide $1.96 billion to Amtrak, but cut the approval for high-speed rail to a $1 billion appropriation.

State governments have partially filled the breach left by reductions in federal aid. Several states have entered into operating partnerships with Amtrak, notably California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Oregon, Missouri, Washington, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Vermont, Maine, and New York, as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia, which provides some of the resources for the operation of the Cascades route.

With the dramatic rise in gasoline prices during 2007–2008, Amtrak has seen record ridership. Capping a steady five-year increase in ridership overall, regional lines saw 12% year-over-year growth in May 2008. In October 2007, the Senate passed S-294, Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act of 2007 (70–22) sponsored by Senators Frank Lautenberg and Trent Lott. Despite a veto threat by President Bush, a similar bill passed the House on June 11, 2008, with a veto-proof margin (311–104). The final bill, spurred on by the September 12 Metrolink collision in California and retitled Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, was signed into law by President Bush on October 16, 2008. The bill appropriates $2.6 billion a year in Amtrak funding through 2013.

Controversy

Proponents point out that the government heavily subsidizes the Interstate Highway System, the Federal Aviation Administration, many airports, among many aspects of passenger aviation. Massive government aid to those forms of travel was a primary factor in the decline of passenger service on privately owned railroads in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, Amtrak pays property taxes (through fees to host railroads) that highway users do not pay. Advocates therefore assert that Amtrak should only be expected to be as self-sufficient as those competing modes of transit.

Along these lines, in a June 2008 interview with Reuters, Amtrak President Alex Kummant made specific observations: $10 billion per year is transferred from the general fund to the Highway Trust Fund; $2.7 billion is granted to the FAA; $8 billion goes to "security and life safety for cruise ships." Overall, Kummant claims that Amtrak receives $40 in federal funds per passenger, while highways are subsidized at a rate of $500–$700 per automobile. Moreover, Amtrak provides all of its own security, while airport security is a separate federal subsidy. Kummant added: "Let's not even get into airport construction which is a miasma of state, federal and local tax breaks and tax refinancing and God knows what."

According to the United States Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, rail and mass transit are considerably more subsidized on a per passenger-mile basis by the federal government than other forms of transportation; the subsidy varies year to year, but exceeds $100 dollars (in 2000 dollars) per thousand passenger-miles, compared to subsidies around $10 per thousand passenger-miles for aviation (with general aviation subsidized considerably more per passenger-mile than commercial aviation), subsidies around $4 per thousand passenger-miles for intercity buses, and automobiles being a small net contributor through the gas tax and other user fees rather than being subsidized. On a total subsidy basis, aviation, with many more passenger-miles per year, is subsidized at a similar level to Amtrak. The analysis does not consider social costs and benefits, or difficult-to-quantify effects of some regulation, such as safety regulation.

Critics, such as the Cato Institute's Randal O'Toole, argue that gasoline taxes amount to user fees because people are taxed to the extent they use the roads. However, there is still a significant amount of road spending that is not covered by the gas tax. It covers little of the costs for local highways and in many states little of the cost for state highways. Taking these facts into account, though, O'Toole claims on page 2 of his report that "in 2006, Americans paid $93.6 billion in tolls, gas taxes, and other highway user fees. Of this amount, $19.3 billion was diverted to mass transit and other non-highway activities. At the same time, various governments—mainly local—spent $44.5 billion in property, sales, or other taxes on highways, roads, and streets. The net subsidy to highways was $25.1 billion, or about half a penny per passenger mile." O'Toole's road budget and passenger-mile numbers are disputed. In the same year, Amtrak receives direct subsidies of just over $1 billion, or 22 cents per passenger mile.

Labor issues

In recent times, efforts at reforming passenger rail have addressed labor issues. In 1997 Congress released Amtrak from a prohibition on contracting for labor outside of the corporation (and outside its unions), opening the door to privatization. Since that time, many of Amtrak's employees have been working without a contract. The most recent contract, signed in 1999, was mainly retroactive.

Still, though, the influence of unions is a strong force against change. Amtrak has 14 separate unions to negotiate with, because of the fragmentation of railroad unions by job. Plus, it has 24 separate contracts with those unions. This makes it difficult to make substantial changes, in contrast to a situation where one union negotiates with one employer. Former Amtrak president Kummant seems poised to follow a cooperative posture with Amtrak's trade unions. He has ruled out plans to privatize large parts of Amtrak's unionized workforce.

In late 2007 and early 2008, however, major labor issues came up, a result of a dispute between Amtrak and 16 unions over healthcare, specifically which employees healthcare should be available to. The dispute was not resolved quickly, and the situation escalated, to the point of President Bush declaring a Presidential Emergency Board to resolve the issues. It was not immediately successful, and a strike was threatened, to begin on January 30, 2008. In the middle of that month, however, it was announced that Amtrak and the unions had come to terms and January 30 passed without a strike. In late February it was announced that three more unions had worked out their differences, and as of that time it seems unlikely that any more issues will arise in the near future.

Amtrak operations and services

Amtrak is no longer required by law, but is encouraged, to operate a national route system. Amtrak has some presence in all of the 48 contiguous states except Wyoming and South Dakota. Service on the Northeast Corridor, between Boston, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., as well as between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is powered by overhead electric wires; for the rest of the system, diesel locomotives are used. Routes vary widely in frequency of service, from three trips weekly on the Sunset Limited (Los Angeles, California, to New Orleans, Louisiana), to weekday service several times per hour on the Northeast Corridor, (New York City to Washington, D.C.) Amtrak also operates a captive bus service, Thruway Motorcoach, which provides connections to train routes.

The most popular and heavily used services are those running on the Northeast Corridor (NEC), which include the Acela Express, and Northeast Regional. The NEC serves Boston, Massachusetts; New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, D.C.; and many communities between. The NEC services accounted for 10.0 million of Amtrak's 25.7 million passengers in fiscal year 2007.

Regional services in California, subsidized by the California Department of Transportation are the most popular services outside of the NEC and the only other services boasting over one million passengers per annum. The Pacific Surfliner, Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin services accounted for a combined 5.0 million passengers in fiscal year 2007.

Four of the six stations busiest by boardings are on Amtrak's NEC: New York (Penn Station) (first), Washington (Union Station) (second), Philadelphia (30th Street Station) (third), and Boston (South Station) (sixth). The other two of the top six are Chicago (Union Station) (fourth) and Los Angeles (Union Station) (fifth).

Many Amtrak trains have both names and numbers. Train routes are named to reflect the rich and complex history of the routes and the areas traversed by them. Each scheduled run of the route is assigned a number. Generally, even-numbered routes run northward and eastward, while odd-numbered routes run southward and westward. Some routes, such as the Pacific Surfliner, use the opposite numbering system, inherited from the previous operators of similar routes, such as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Many NEC trains only have numbers.

These are the 15 busiest routes in the Amtrak system, ordered by region followed by ridership:

West Coast

Midwest

East/Southeast

Northeast

Rail passenger efficiency versus other modes

It should be noted that on-time performance is calculated differently for airlines than for Amtrak. A plane is considered on-time if it arrives within 15 minutes of the schedule. Amtrak uses a sliding scale, with trips under considered late if they're more than 10 minutes behind schedule, up to 30 minutes for trips over in length.

Intermodal connections

Amtrak coordinates Thruway Motorcoach service to extend many of its routes, especially in California.

Gaps in service

Outside the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak is a niche player in passenger transportation. In 2003, Amtrak accounted for just 0.1% of U.S. intercity passenger miles (5,680,000,000 out of 5,280,860,000,000 total, of which private-automobile travel makes up the vast majority). In fiscal year 2004, Amtrak routes served over 25 million passengers, while, in calendar year 2004, commercial airlines served over 712 million passengers.

Initial Amtrak service cuts

Initially, Amtrak served 46 out of the 50 states. The states not served were:

Subsequent Amtrak service changes

However, even within some of the states in which Amtrak operates, service is nominal at best. Many trains operate along borders and/or away from major population areas, such as in Idaho and Kentucky. Many major cities in the Midwest, West, and South have two or fewer trains per day, such as Atlanta, Denver, Cincinnati, Houston, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis – Saint Paul.

Meanwhile, outside the Continental US:

Service changes due to freight railroads

The San Joaquin service from Los Angeles, through central California, to Sacramento and Oakland, is prohibited from operating on the track between Los Angeles and Bakersfield because the Tehachapi Pass line between the two cities, owned and operated by Union Pacific, is the busiest single freight route in the country and thus UP prohibits passenger train use (except when the Coast Starlight's route is being repaired). Passengers take an Amtrak motorcoach bus service between Los Angeles and Bakersfield. The 280 to route takes roughly nine hours.

Service reductions due to funding issues

Recent issues with freight railroads

Three intermediate stops along the route of the Empire Builder in North Dakota are on the chopping block due to complications arising from Devils Lake, also according to the August 2010 issue of Trains Magazine. Because Canada will not allow the waters of the lake to drain within its borders, the lake is slowly rising and threatens to submerge the BNSF right-of-way located near it. As a result, BNSF has ended freight service between Devils Lake and Churchs Ferry, handing the cost of maintenance over to Amtrak. North Dakota's Congressional delegation has declared that there will be no reroute, as suggested by BNSF, to go directly between Fargo, ND, and Minot, ND, and possibly serve New Rockford, ND; instead, they have declared that they will "find the necessary funding needed" in order to help Amtrak cover the maintenance costs.

Train speeds, frequency, and ridership: international comparisons

The causes of these differences are disputed. Some suggest that the longer distances between most US cities and the lower population density, as compared with Europe or Japan, are the primary causes. These people often also note that the US Northeast Corridor route has both higher population density and shorter inter-city distances than the rest of the US. These people also often note that many European Union countries have much higher gasoline taxes, which makes automobile travel much more expensive per-mile in the EU than in the US, thereby encouraging use of alternative modes of transport. Others believe that US passenger rail has received less governmental subsidy (federal and state) than it should have received. Many other perspectives about these differences exist.

Speed

Freight rail operators are required under federal law to give dispatching preference to Amtrak trains. Some freight railroads have been accused of violating or skirting these regulations, allegedly resulting in passenger trains waiting in sidings for an hour or longer while waiting for freight traffic to clear the track. The railroads' dispatching practices were investigated in 2008, resulting in stricter laws about train priority which had a dramatic impact. Amtrak's overall on-time performance went up from 74.7% in fiscal 2008 to 84.7% in 2009, with long-distance trains and others outside the Northeast Corridor seeing the greatest benefit. The Missouri River Runner jumped from a very poor 11% to 95%, becoming one of Amtrak's best performers. The Texas Eagle went from 22.4% to 96.7%, and the California Zephyr, with an abysmal 5% on-time record in 2008, went up to 78.3%. However, this improved performance also coincided with a general economic downturn, resulting in the lowest freight rail traffic volumes since at least 1988, meaning less freight traffic to impede passenger traffic.

Separately, a 1947 Interstate Commerce Commission order required, by year-end 1951, enhanced safety features for all trains traveling above a 79 mph limit. The infrastructure required for cab signaling, automatic train stop and other enhancements were uneconomical for freight railroads in most of the US. Crucially, outside the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak trains primarily use trackage rights to travel on freight railroad tracks. So this ICC safety rule effectively killed further development of US high-speed rail outside of the Northeast Corridor. In the Northeast Corridor the Pennsylvania Railroad and others already had installed cab signaling by 1947. By contrast, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia all operate trains at 100 mph (160 km/h) or higher using conventional lineside signalling.

As a result of that 1947 ICC order, few trains in the United States operate above outside of the Northeast Corridor. A notable exception is the Southwest Chief, which travels up to along various stretches of its Chicago–Los Angeles route. However, positive train control (PTC) signaling is required to be implemented by 2015 under the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008; PTC signaling is sufficient to remove the 79 mph limit. The Wolverine has already had some PTC signaling and other upgrades put in place to enable higher speeds. PTC has proven to be a much less expensive method to provide enhanced signaling than earlier technologies used in the United States.

In Britain, for example, the journey from London to Edinburgh is completed in around four and a half hours (an average speed of around per hour). In the USA, the journey on the Cardinal from New York to Charlottesville takes some seven hours, an average of just under per hour. Even the flagship Acela service between New York and Boston only averages, in its three and a half hour journey, around per hour, in large part due to the age of the trackage and catenary system, which has been undergoing renovation in stages since Acela's 2001 introduction. Also, some segments of track in the Northeast Corridor are too close together for the Acela carriages to safely tilt while also maintaining FRA-mandated minimum space between trains on parallel tracks.

Unlike Canada, the US, and most of the UK, the dedicated high-speed trains (e.g. Japan's Shinkansen, France's TGV) of China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain generally use special high-speed railroad tracks that were constructed for the sole use of high-speed passenger trains.

Train frequency

For usage of Amtrak trains/routes: see List of Amtrak routes

Ridership

For example, the route from Chicago to San Antonio (the Texas Eagle), taking in Fort Worth and other major cities and towns along its route, had a ridership in 2008 of just 251,518 passengers; while the relatively minor station of Lowestoft (population 55,000) in Suffolk, England had a patronage of over 410,000 for the same period. Some Amtrak routes (for example the Heartland Flyer with its ridership of only 80,892 per annum that Amtrak operates under contracts with the Government of Oklahoma and the Government of Texas) have minuscule ridership compared with European standards.

Guest rewards

Freight

Commuter services

Amtrak's Capitol Corridor, Pacific Surfliner (formerly San Diegan), and San Joaquin are funded mostly by the California Department of Transportation, Caltrans, rather than the US Federal Government.

Classes of service

First Class

Seats are larger than those of Business Class and come in a variety of seating modes (single, single with table, double, double with table and wheelchair accessible). First Class is located in separate cars from the other classes. First Class includes complimentary meal and beverage service along with free newspapers and hot towel service. First Class seats are set in a 1x2 configuration. There are two attendants per car.

First Class passengers have access to Amtrak ClubAcela lounges in Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Boston (lounges offer complementary drinks, personal ticketing service, lounge seating, conference areas, computer/internet access and televisions tuned to CNN). At the Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., ClubAcelas, passengers can board their train directly from the ClubAcela. In Philadelphia passengers use an elevator to access the train, while in Washington passengers leave through a side door leading to the train platform.

Sleeper Service

Sleeper car passengers have access to the entire train. Sleeper passengers also have access to the Club Acela lounges in stations along the Northeast Corridor and access to the Metropolitan Lounges in Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, Portland (Oregon), and Minneapolis/Saint Paul.

Business Class

Two different Business Class seat configurations exist:

Coach Class

Reserved Coach

All ticketed passengers are guaranteed a seat, although passengers are not assigned a specific seat before boarding. The lack of advance seat assignment is unlike Canada's Via Rail and many long distance train services in Europe. If the train is not sold out, passengers are usually permitted to purchase tickets on the day of departure, or in some cases aboard the train.

Unreserved Coach

Until 2005 certain Northeast Regional trains were unreserved, running alongside standard reserved trips. The hourly Clocker trains that ran from New York to Philadelphia until late 2005 were also unreserved. Currently the Pacific Surfliner, the Capitol Corridor, the Hiawatha, and the Keystone Service between Harrisburg and Philadelphia are the only trains to offer unreserved coach seating.

Trains and tracks

Most tracks on which Amtrak operates are owned by freight railroads, but Amtrak owns the rail track in most of the North East Corridor and a few other places.

Tracks not owned or leased by Amtrak

The arrangement has two notable impacts on Amtrak operations:

Tracks owned or leased by Amtrak

In several places, primarily in New England, Amtrak leases tracks, providing track maintenance and controlling train movements. Most often, these tracks are leased from state, regional, or local governments.

Northeast Corridor

The Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston via Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, New York and Providence is largely owned by Amtrak, working cooperatively with several state and regional commuter agencies. Amtrak's portion was acquired in 1976 as a result of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority operate the line between New Haven, Connecticut and New Rochelle, NY through the Metro-North Railroad, with ownership as follows:

Philadelphia to Harrisburg Main Line

This line runs from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As a result of an investment partnership with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, signal and track improvements were completed in October 2006 that allow all-electric service with a top speed of to run along the corridor. , Philadelphia to Harrisburg (Pennsylvanian and Keystone Service)

Empire Corridor

New Haven-Springfield Line

Other tracks

Amtrak also owns station and yard tracks in Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Oakland (Kirkham Street Yard), Orlando, Portland, Oregon, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

Amtrak leases station and yard tracks in Hialeah, near Miami, Florida, from the State of Florida.

Amtrak owns the Chicago Union Station Company (Chicago Union Station) and Penn Station Leasing (New York Penn Station). It has a 99.7% interest in the Washington Terminal Company (tracks around Washington Union Station) and 99% of 30th Street Limited (Philadelphia 30th Street Station). Also owned by Amtrak is Passenger Railroad Insurance.

Other infrastructure:

Amtrak Services (Quick Reference)

Motive power and rolling stock

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

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