I ran across a pair of columns last week that help illuminate why expanding rail passenger service in the United States is so challenging and happens so infrequently.
One piece was written by Jim Mathews, president of the Rail Passengers Association and appeared on that organization’s website.
The other was written by a Union Pacific vice president and appeared on the website of Railway Age although it originally appeared on the UP website.
Mathews was in part writing in response to a recent U.S. Surface Transportation Board decision that established a timeline in a case Amtrak brought seeking to prod CSX and Norfolk Southern into allowing intercity passenger service between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, to begin next year.
The proposed service has been in the works for five years and funding is in place for capital improvements and operating expenses.
But Amtrak and the host railroads – CSX in particular – have been unable to reach agreement on what infrastructure improvements are needed.
Mathews pointed out that CSX has demanded work that would cost 19.5 times what a Federal Railroad Administration study estimated was needed.
Mathews doesn’t think NS or CSX have been negotiating in good faith, saying there is ample data available to move ahead on the Gulf Coast service, including infrastructure improvements.
“What are CSX and N-S really after in their long-standing opposition to the Gulf Coast restoration?” Mathews asked, perhaps rhetorically.
He believes the host railroads are demanding study after study until they can finally get a result “that gives them cover to stop the restoration.”
There is likely some truth to that. It’s a strategy Class 1 railroads have used before to stymie new passenger service or expansion of existing service.
If you drag the process out long enough those wanting the service might get discouraged and go away.
A subset of that strategy is demanding expensive infrastructure work that is too costly for Amtrak or a transportation agency to afford. It is all a way of getting to “no” without saying it as such.
And that brings me to the column by Wes Lujan, assistant vice president of external relations at Union Pacific.
He begins by contending UP is not hostile to Amtrak and other entities seeking to use UP rails for expanded service on existing passenger routes or creating new service on freight-only routes.
Lujan argues that UP has worked with Amtrak and state agencies in California and Illinois on projects that enabled expanded and faster passenger service and will continue to do so.
But Lujan said Union Pacific is put off by how Amtrak and others are demanding access to UP rails by announcing those plans and then bringing political pressure on the railroad to agree to them.
He cited the Amtrak ConnectsUS plan announced earlier this year of 39 new routes to be implemented over the next 15 years at an estimated cost of $75 billion.
That plan, Lujan wrote, was created in conjunction with state transportation agencies but not in consultation with the railroads that would host those trains.
“Instead of a unilateral push to expand passenger service, it would be transformational if we faced these challenges collaboratively, as partners with passenger agencies and with a common understanding that the U.S. freight rail network is a dynamic system that moves the physical goods that drive the American economy,” Lujan wrote.
To boil down Lujan’s argument to its essence, if you want new or expanded passenger service be prepared to pay for it. That means funding infrastructure improvements “and (emphasis in original) provid[ing] more reasonable compensation for access to host railroads.”
I would not take everything that either Mathews or Lujan wrote at face value. At the same time each has shown how each side comes at rail passenger expansion from different perspectives that hinder the creation of the partnerships that Lujan espouses.
To have a partnership you need to have willing partners who are committed to working through their differences to reach an agreed upon end goal.
There must be some incentive for both parties to work toward that end goal, and it helps when there is more balance in the relationship than is typically the case when Amtrak or some agency wants new rail passenger service.
Mathews wants more of what Lujan opposes: Using political pressure and the power of government, specifically the STB, to force railroads to be more cooperative in allowing passenger rail expansion and seeing to it that those trains operate on time.
Host railroads, though, see little in it for them in allowing passenger trains to use their rails.
Their purpose is hauling freight, not passengers. It is not realistic to expect freight railroads to respond to every proposal for passenger trains on their rails with a response of “that’s a great idea; let’s sit down and figure out how we can make it work.”
It may be that the partnerships that Lujan cited are more the exception than the rule.
They occurred in states with a long history of paying to fund passenger service and its capital expenses. Those states also have agencies that have a history of working with Amtrak and its host railroads and understand that it takes time and money to get to “yes.”
Many, although not all, of the routes in the Amtrak ConnectsUS plans are in places where state governments have not funded intercity rail passenger service and which lack agencies with experience in overseeing and managing rail passenger service.
Railroads are accustomed to working with state transportation departments on public-private capital projects. But they see something in it for them in those projects.
Those also tend to be one-off projects that do not involve an on-going commitment to paying for such things as operating expenses as is typically the case with intercity passenger rail.
I doubt that Mathews would disagree with Lujan’s assertion that passenger rail development works best when you have a partnership of the willing.
It is just that Mathews is not convinced that railroads are all that willing to establish those partnerships to host new and additional passenger trains. These partnerships are far more difficult to establish than Lujan is willing to admit.
Ultimately, it comes down to control. Like anyone else, railroads don’t like being told what to do with their property and don’t want to be forced into doing something they don’t see as being in their interests or something they simply believe is not necessary.
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Senate Committee Puts Brakes on Amtrak’s Expansive Vision
June 21, 2021Last week the Senate Commerce Committee approved its own version of a new surface transportation authorization act.
What is noteworthy about the Senate bill is how it differs in one key area from a House surface transportation bill approved two weeks ago by a House transportation committee.
Although it boosts transportation funding generally and Amtrak funding in particular, the Senate bill would authorize far less money for both areas than the House bill.
That’s a critical point because much of the much ballyhooed Amtrak service expansion plans are premised on Congress approving a dedicated funding program to pay for that expansion.
The House bill does that but not so the Senate bill.
Before getting into the details about that, let’s get straight that both bills authorize spending but do not appropriate it. Those are separate processes and although they are related.
Think of the surface transportation bill as setting spending priorities that Congress will, presumably, follow.
As for those spending priorities, the Senate bill would authorize just 36 percent of what the House bill would authorize.
The Senate bill increased transportation funding for freight and passenger rail, but not as much as the House bill.
Over the five-year life of the Senate bill, transportation funding would be authorized at $34.2 billion. The current FAST Act level is $14.3 billion.
Missing from the Senate bill is the funding authorization for the grant program that Amtrak plans to use to develop its new corridor services.
The House bill would provide $25 billion for that while the Senate bill provides nothing.
Also in the House bill is $25 billion for grants for bridges, tunnels and stations. The Senate bill has no authorized funding for that grant program.
Senate authorizations for Amtrak funding in Senate bill are lower than in the House bill.
The Senate would authorize $6.6 billion for Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and $10.7 billion for the passenger carrier’s national network.
The House bill figures are $13.5 billion for the Northeast Corridor and $18.5 billion for the national network.
The Rail Passengers Association asserted on its website that the authorizations in the Senate bill will be “inadequate to meaningfully add or upgrade new service beyond a handful of routes.”
That, though, may be the point of the Senate bill. It may be a statement from the Senate Commerce Committee that support for a massive spending spree to expand intercity rail passenger service lacks political support in that chamber.
It remains to be seen what will happen once both bills reach the floor of their respective chambers.
There may be amendments offered in both chambers to increase or lower individual line item authorizations.
It seems likely that a conference committee will need to work out the differences between the two competing surface transportation authorization bills.
If the two chambers are unable to resolve their differences, that might lead to yet another one year extension of the FAST Act as happened last year. Some congressional observers believe it might happen this year, too.
Spending authorizations can be highly contentious and subject to partisan differences.
That brings up another noteworthy difference between the House and Senate surface transportation authorization bills.
The Senate bill passed out of committee with bi-partisan, although not unanimous support. The House bill was more of a partisan creation.
The Senate bill does contain a number of clauses that can be interpreted as pro-passenger rail.
These include mandates, for example, that Amtrak maintain a ticket agent at stations averaging 40 or more passengers a day.
Amtrak is also being directed by the Senate bill to provide a host of additional information about a variety of issues including any plans to change the operations of long-distance or other routes.
There is also language in the bill describing the importance of Amtrak service to rural America.
These mandates appear to reflect a likelihood of Congressional support for continuing funding of Amtrak service as it exists today with, perhaps, some modest service increases and enhancements.
The Senate committee, though, did not support the type of far-reaching and expansive additions to the Amtrak network envisioned by the carrier’s Amtrak Connect US plan.
What it all means is that despite the happy talk emanating from rail passenger advocacy groups about how intercity passenger rail service is on the verge of a transformational moment that is not a sure thing.
A lot of things are going to have fall into place and what happened last week in the Senate does not necessarily bode well for that process playing out the way some want to see it develop.
Tags:Amtrak, Amtrak funding, commentaries on transportation, intercity rail passenger service, On Transportation, posts on transportation, Senate Commerce Committee, surface transportation authorizations, Surface Transportation Investment Act of 2021
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