Amtrak Adjusts Acela Express and Northeast Regional Schedules to Accommodate Track Work

From WebWire: "As Amtrak continues a number of track work projects to improve service in the Northeast, Acela Express and Northeast Regional (Washington – New York – Boston) passengers will see additional, temporary schedule changes beginning Monday, July 13, 2009.  The track work projects will improve the reliability of train service in the Northeast and will provide passengers with a more comfortable ride. To perform the necessary work, the number of available tracks will be reduced and trains will be single tracking — sharing tracks — as crews work to replace concrete railroad ties on the track that is not in service.The track work is located between New York City and New Brunswick, NJ where only three tracks instead of four will be available at any one time. Timetables - As a result of the numerous schedule changes that will occur this summer, schedules for service in the Northeast do not appear in Amtrak's 2009 Spring-Summer System Timetable. The printing of Northeast train schedules will resume in the 2009/2010 Fall-Winter Timetable."

Not sure if this is related to the Federal Stimulus funds or not but a good sign to see work being done on the tracks along the NEC. A hassle for regular users for a few months perhaps but this will lead to better future service. Now is probably a good time to do track work, ridership is down this year so Amtrak may have more flexibility in scheduling maintenance. When ridership picks up again and they start to see the volumes from 1-2 years ago (which will probably take a year or two to reach) Amtrak will be in a better position to service this load. The story did not make it clear how dramatic the disruptions will be or what the schedule impact is directly, I'll see if I can find that out.

Who railroaded the Amtrak inspector general?

Story from Michelle Malkin about the Amtrak inspector general Fred Weiderhold who "retired" last month.

From the article:

On June 18, Weiderhold met with Amtrak officials to discuss the results of an independent report by the Washington, D.C. law firm, Willkie, Farr & Gallagher. The 94-page report has been made publicly available through the office of whistleblower advocate Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). It concluded that the "independence and effectiveness" of the Amtrak inspector general's office "are being substantially impaired" by the agency's Law Department. Amtrak bosses have effectively gagged their budgetary watchdogs from communicating with Congress without preapproval; required that all Amtrak documents be "pre-screened" (and in some cases redacted) before being turned over to the inspector general's office; and taken control over the IG's $5 million portion of federal stimulus dollars.

Malkins alleges cronyism in the firing as a Eleanor Acheson oversees the Amtrak Law Department and Acheson is a good friend of Hillary Clinton and VP Joe Biden and they're looking to protect their people in Amtrak. Is it true? Probably, but whatever. Executives get sacked all the time and I refuse to cry my eyes out for some dude who was making huge money and now gets a sweet severance deal while millions are out of a job.  If Obama's people want to get some of their own folks in Amtrak so be it, that's the way politics goes when your administration injects $1 billion plus of tax payer money into a company. But I expect solid oversight to prevent waste and for Amtrak to deliver some noticeable upgrades by the 2012 election cycle now that they got major fed dollars. America needs to see results with improved Amtrak rail service along the NEC and across the US, I don't care who's in there as long as it gets done.

Work starts on rail tunnel between New York, New Jersey

Construction began Monday on the $8.7 billion tunnel that's expected to double the number of rail commuter capacity between New Jersey and Manhattan during peak rush periods. This is the nation's largest transportation project. The 8.8 mile-long fourth rail tunnel under the Hudson River will require the removal of 2 million cubic yards of rock and soil and will take eight years to build. Officials estimate the project will create 6,000 construction jobs and add another 45,000 new jobs after completion in 2017. The tunnel is the centerpiece of a project to expand the Penn Station transit hub in New York and fund track and signal improvements. The tunnel will benefit both NJ Transit and Amtrak customers and is a major piece of the Obama federal stimulus plan.

Amtrak Late to Station With Onboard WiFi

Amtrak does not offer WiFi on any of its trains. I've blogged that WiFi service is available at some train stations but is not offered when you're actually on the train. I'm seeing a lot of comments recently on the fact that Amtrak lacks WiFi service. It seems WiFi is gaining traction on all forms of transportation from airplanes to buses. I was on the Bolt Bus service recently (another travel option along the NEC) and the bus offered WiFi! The main reason why I took the Bolt Bus was because it was way cheaper than Amtrak, it took about the same time and I figured why not give it a try - I didn't even realize it had free WiFi to boot, another reason to prefer this service over Amtrak for some routes.

I wish Amtrak had WiFi when I was commuting regularly. They need to add WiFi service this year to the fleet (they are testing it on Acela trains), the competition is passing them by offering this service and Amtrak has been seeing ridership decline in 2009. If airlines and buses can add WiFi, it can be done on a train. Amtrak can spend some of that federal stimulus dollars to get this service up an running, without it they'll be at a competitive disadvantage.

Tampa's Amtrak ridership bucks national decline

Despite a 10 percent decline in Amtrak ridership in March compared with a year ago (down to 2.2 million passengers) Tampa ridership on Amtrak's Silver Star gained 3.8 percent.

Way to go Tampa! I hope this isn't due to all those people getting evicted from their foreclosed homes.

Amtrak to woo riders with discount fares

Amtrak last week announced that it will cut fares on Northeast regional trains by up to 25 percent during the summer in an effort to boost ridership. From June 2 through Sept. 3, Amtrak will offer passengers 25 percent off the lowest published coach fare on Northeast regional trains. Reservations are required and must be made at least 14 days in advance.

I'm a fan of Amtrak adopting pricing promotions to boost traffic but I don't like the two week advance purchase thing here. Why not make it a 2 day advance purchase? Or a floating reduction kind of plan; if you book 2 weeks in advance get 25% off, 1 week in advance 15% off, 2 days in advance 10% off. I'm assuming many Amtrak trips are fairly spontaneous and a majority of trips are booked a few days or less in advance. This will benefit the planners but I don't see this boosting ridership all that much and I'm sure there are lots of empty seats on Amtrak so why not adopt a more aggressive approach to fill those empty seats? If not, then Amtrak should cut capacity to save costs until ridership picks up again.

Obama unveils high-speed passenger rail plan

CNN story on President Obama unveiling his administration's blueprint for a new national network of high-speed passenger rail lines. Obama says such an investment is necessary to reduce traffic congestion, cut dependence on foreign oil and improve the environment. Highlights from the article:

• The president's plan identifies 10 potential high-speed intercity corridors for federal funding, including California, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, the Southeast, the Gulf Coast, Pennsylvania, Florida, New York and New England.
• Highlights potential improvements in the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor running from Washington to Boston, Massachusetts.
• Each of the corridors identified by the president's report are between 100 and 600 miles long. The blueprint envisions some trains traveling at top speeds of over 150 mph.
• The administration has dedicated $1.3 billion in federal funding for Amtrak. The money for the rail service, which carried almost 29 million passengers last year, will go primarily to infrastructure repair and improvement.

It's good to get more specifics of the plan and that the NEC is specifically mentioned for improvement.

Railroad Stimulus: How to Spend $14 Billion to Improve U.S. Rail

Popular Mechanics article about how to spend the federal stimulus money on US Rail/Amtrak infrastructure.The article talks about high speed rail in California. A good investment I think although I believe improving existing infrastructure so trains can travel at faster speeds is a better short term investment than the long term it would need to create a whole new high speed network/city-pair routes. Improving signaling technology and upgrading the NEC tracks so Acela can run at max speed a higher percentage of the time along with more trains running will give a boost to the East coast economy and benefit commuters to boot. This can be done pretty quickly I think, like within a couple years would be my guess.

Amtrak ridership declines for fifth straight month

Amtrak is seeing a decline in ridership as reported by the Detroit News. Ridership on the Northeast Regional trains between Boston and Washington fell 15 percent to 548,695, and passenger loads on the Acela line dropped 8.5 percent to 263,970. Travel is down across all forms of transportation due to the recession so I don't think too much can be read into this. It'd be nice to know how this drop in Amtrak ridership compares to car/bus/air travel.

Obama boosts Amtrak funding

The Boston Globe ran a story about the Obama administrations announcement the other day that the fed is pumping $1.3 billion into Amtrak, half of it directed to the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington. I'm happy to see the federal stimulus money is coming to Amtrak and into the NEC. Hope we can see some tangible improvements in the Amtrak over the next couple years.

Some points from the article with finance numbers and specific projects:

"Amtrak has been left out - in my opinion, much too long," said Joe Biden, who estimated that he has taken 7,000 trips on the rail line.

The $1.3 billion grant will double the size of the system's capital investment budget over the next two years, and will be used for capital improvements as well as safety upgrades, resulting in faster and more frequent train travel, lawmakers and transportation officials said. Amtrak's total annual budget is $3.2 billion, with $1.49 billion coming from federal subsidies.

The rail system plans to use $82 million to refurbish 68 passenger rail cars, returning them to service and increasing capacity on trains. Another $105 million is slated for replacement of the moveable bridge over the Niantic River near East Lyme, Conn. Without the bridge replacement, passengers between Boston and New York face delays or travel disruptions because the 102-year-old bridge cannot handle fast-moving trains, the White House said. Another $60 million will be used to install Positive Train Control, a technology that helps prevent collisions. The work will be done on the New York to Washington corridor and on the Porter, Ind., to Kalamazoo, Mich., route. Budget constraints have prevented Amtrak from making basic repairs in recent years and passengers have paid for it with overbooked trains, lower capacity, and slower speeds. The upgrades will make trains run faster, and added passenger capacity will save gasoline and commuter hours by encouraging more people to favor Amtrak over car travel.

The increased funding for Amtrak is "going to make America more productive," senator John Kerry said.