Passenger rail was faillling across the country. Pretty much every private rail company was going out of business.
Amtrak was the rescue plan. Sounds good right? Amtrak took ownership of a bunch of money losing routes across the US and were required to keep the nationwide service. No track (except northeast), no reliable government funding. Can’t decrease service. Can’t raise fares much. No way back to profitability.
The additional funding signed by Biden was the way back. Currently Amtrak is profitable on the Northeast Corridor only, and that funds the rest of the system. Even that has several choke points that are over 100 years old. They desperately need upgraded infrastructure in order to function. That funding also included increased service in a few places, to try to make it useful to someone. All too much of Amtrak is useless stuff like one train per day. Of course they’re not selling any tickets
It’s fine at slower speeds but the track is so old that the trains can’t go very fast. Also, most of the track in America is owned by private freight rail companies which means AmTrack has to wait for the freight trains to go by and that increases the amount of time a train trip takes.
Amtrak technically is privatized. That’s why it sucks so hard.
There’s also the very real issue of rail priority: https://www.marketplace.org/2024/09/10/amtrak-spars-with-freight-train-industry-over-rules-of-the-railroad/
Yeah, I had no idea it wasn’t private. What’s the deal with that?
It was setup by the Nixon administration and that’s all you need to know
Passenger rail was faillling across the country. Pretty much every private rail company was going out of business.
Amtrak was the rescue plan. Sounds good right? Amtrak took ownership of a bunch of money losing routes across the US and were required to keep the nationwide service. No track (except northeast), no reliable government funding. Can’t decrease service. Can’t raise fares much. No way back to profitability.
The additional funding signed by Biden was the way back. Currently Amtrak is profitable on the Northeast Corridor only, and that funds the rest of the system. Even that has several choke points that are over 100 years old. They desperately need upgraded infrastructure in order to function. That funding also included increased service in a few places, to try to make it useful to someone. All too much of Amtrak is useless stuff like one train per day. Of course they’re not selling any tickets
fair
More or less it was set up to be a failure from the start
I knew it was kinda of poorly designed, I remember the rails aren’t smooth enough for commuter traffic but we did it anyway.
It’s fine at slower speeds but the track is so old that the trains can’t go very fast. Also, most of the track in America is owned by private freight rail companies which means AmTrack has to wait for the freight trains to go by and that increases the amount of time a train trip takes.
It also means the tracks owner has no incentive to keep things up enough to make the ride smooth or to allow fast trains. Cargo can be slow and bumpy