Fifty years ago today, Amtrak operated its first passenger trains, a fact that President Biden celebrated a day early yesterday. Biden wants people to think that Amtrak is enough of a success that it deserves $80 billion in additional funding. But the reality is it is just a big loser.
Rail fans remember May 1, 1971, as the day America lost more than half of its passenger trains. On April 30, ten trains left the Midwest for the West Coast: the Empire Builder, Western Star, North Coast Limited, and Mainstreeter (all of which went to Seattle with sections to Portland), City of Portland, Portland Rose, City of San Francisco, San Francisco Chief, City of Los Angeles, and Super Chief. The next day, Amtrak killed all of them except the Empire Builder (and it killed the leg to Portland), Super Chief, and City of San Francisco (which was cut to three days a week). That’s a loss that’s hard to forgive.
Business analysts remember that the idea of a national passenger railroad was sold to Congress as a profitable enterprise. Rather than a normal government agency, Amtrak was created as a for-profit corporation with stockholders and, potentially, investors. The railroads were supposed to give it seed money based on the amount of money they claimed they had lost in the previous three years. After spending that to get started, as I noted six months ago, Amtrak was supposed to make money.
In fact, after quickly burning through its start-up cash, Amtrak went deep into debt and needed $1.5 to $2.0 billion a year (in today’s money) in federal support to keep going. Anthony Haswell, sometimes known as the “father of Amtrak,” admitted 30 years later that he was “personally embarrassed” by the railroad’s continuing demand for subsidies.
Transportation analysts know that Amtrak’s market share of U.S. travel has declined despite its billions in subsidies. In 1970, the private railroads carried a trivial 0.29 percent of U.S. passenger travel. By cutting so many passenger trains, Amtrak immediately dropped to around 0.16 percent. By 1991, Amtrak ridership had recovered to 1970’s levels, but other modes of passenger travel also increased, so Amtrak’s share was still 0.16 percent. After that, it declined to 0.10 percent in 2005, which is about where it remained in 2019.
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Amtrak is trying to sell itself as a solution to global climate change. How can you be a solution when you carry less than 0.1 percent of passenger travel and 0.0 percent of freight? Amtrak’s nearly empty Diesel-powered trains generate tons of greenhouse gases per hour without saving any anywhere else. Even before the pandemic, intercity buses emitted fewer greenhouse gases per passenger mile than Amtrak’s Diesel trains, and they aren’t getting any of the Biden money.
Amtrak’s electric trains may do better than its Diesels, but as economist Charles Lave pointed out more than 40 years ago, if you want to save energy, “the biggest components matter most.” This applies to greenhouse gases as well, and it means that making automobiles and planes more energy efficient will do far more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than increasing Amtrak’s share of travel from 0.10 percent to 0.11 percent, which is probably more than Biden’s plan would do.
Most of the $80 billion Biden would allocate to Amtrak will be spent digging tunnels, building bridges, replacing ties and rail, and other rehabilitation work in the Northeast Corridor. This work is all about maintaining the status quo, not improving service, so it would not increase Amtrak ridership. But it would generate huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
So Amtrak is a loser several times over. It lost most of the nation’s passenger trains; it lost market share of U.S. travel; it lost tens of billions of dollars; it lost most of its passengers during the pandemic; and it loses credibility when it claims to save greenhouse gases. It’s time to recognize that Amtrak is a loser and stop subsidizing it.
5 year anniversary of a loser post:
https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=12171
“People who remain skeptical of self-driving cars simply aren’t paying attention. The biggest news in the past week is that Ford’s chief executive, Mark Fields, has pledged that his company will have “fleets” of totally self-driving cars–with no steering wheels or pedals–in American cities by 2021. ”
Meanwhile in 2021:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90630440/tesla-admits-it-may-never-achieve-full-self-driving-cars
Prediction is hard. Especially about the future.
Prediction has two components — what and when. In my experience each is relatively easy taken alone. Both together is difficult.
See a lot of but hurt transit fans here. Why don’t you go and simp for Alon Levy or Demetrius Villa and leave this small blog alone. We see enough of you clowns everywhere else already.
It’s 1.85 tons of CO2 per ton of steel
It’s 0.9 tons per ton of concrete
A concrete railroad tie weighs 200 lbs average (1/10th of a short ton) with an average distance of 19 inches, requires 264,000 per 100 miles (33,000 tons of concrete) producing just shy of 30,000 tons of CO2 or 264 tons per mile. Steel rail weigh 115 lbs per yard, or 101 tons per mile or 374 tons of co2 per mile for the steel track. In other words 638 tons per mile (NOT including welding, transport, etc) average it 1000 tons per mile.
Aluminum (Planes) 11.5 tons per ton of aluminum with an airplane weighing 80 tons mostly aluminum, Boeing having delivered over 15,000 737’s.
The global aviation industry produces around 2% of all human-induced carbon dioxide.
Rail transportation emits about 0.2 pounds of greenhouse gases per passenger mile.
On average, a plane produces a little over 53 pounds per mile.
Air travel produces 265 times the emissions per mile.
US Airlines alone used 18.27 billion gallons of aviation fuel in 2019 producing 191 Million tons of emissions. That’s FAR greater than the construction co2 deficit of rail construction.
I’m not justifying one or other. I’m simply handling the “Big Math” Construction, The fact is building 10,000 miles of high speed rail would produce 10-15 million tons of CO2. GLOBAL Aviation emissions produce 1 Billion tons a year. Aviation’s fuel use produces 100x more emissions than rail construction.
Like many economists and statisticians; Antiplanner uses per capita and averages but ignores basic concept of Physics. Assuming you mean a tonne – ie a metric tonne, 1000kg – the energy required to lift one tonne to a height of one meter is given by the equation ‘mgh’ – mass times the acceleration due to gravity times the height, so that’s 1000 * 9.8 * 1, or 9,800 Joules. Trains are order of magnitude more fuel efficient than planes, even empty. An electric train which consumes 30 kWh per train-mile at 12¢ per kWh would have a fuel cost of only $3.60. 30 kwh is about the daily electric use of a US home. A 737 uses two CFM turbine engines each producing 24000 lbs of thrust producing over 60,000 horsepower. Or 50 Megawatts or uses 50,000 kilowatt hours per hour of flying or 13.8 kwh per second to go a mere 1/6th of a mile.
*Continued* That’s why electric planes will never manifest except maybe small ones. 13.8 kwh per second will drain a tesla batterry in 7 seconds! Storing 50,000 kwh in batteries with batteries that weigh 1200 pounds to store a mere 100 kwh; would require 300 tons of batteries to hold an hours worth of flying
Another thing. Railroads fragment ecosystems and trains create lots of noise on the ground as the travel. When all is said and done, air travel probably has the smallest environmental impact of any mode of transportation besides walking.
Another thing. Railroads fragment ecosystems and trains create lots of noise on the ground as the travel. Airplanes don’t do either. When all is said and done, air travel probably has the smallest environmental impact of any mode of transportation besides walking.
Antiplanner summed it up
“Smart infrastructure is infrastructure that contains the technology for whatever it is supposed to do within the infrastructure. Dumb infrastructure is infrastructure that incorporates minimal technology and instead relies on infrastructure users to supply their own technology”.
Diesel trains are dumb infrastructure, you only need a conductor and a person to tell you to stop at a certain point by radio or by phone. The advantage of dumb infrastructure is that it is technology independent. The reason cars and planes work, the user finances or provides their own technology, the provider only has the infrastructure. Flying requires NO infrastructure except a few thousand feet of runway. For roads, Drivers have to pay only for infrastructure when they chose to use it, and technology is paid by the owner.
Revised calculations
An electrically driven freigh train which consumes 30 Kilowatt-hours per train-mile at 12¢ per kWh would have a fuel cost of only $3.60. 30 kwh is about the daily electric use of a US home and equals 108 Megajoules or 20.45 kilojoules to go one foot that weighs over 3000 tons. A modern 737 uses two CFM-6 turbine engines each producing 24000 lbs of thrust That’s over 74,000 horsepower. Or 54 Megawatts or uses 54,000 kilowatt hours or 194.4 gigajoules per hour (at cruise speed of 550 mph or 806.66 feet per second) of flying uses 66.9 kilojoules per foot to move a mere 86 tons only about 6-7 tons are passengers and luggage.
Fact is a plane uses over 1000x more energy to move the same unit of mass the same distance.
As a whole, in 2019 The global fuel consumption by commercial airlines was 96 billion gallons. Not including small planes, charters, works out to about 100 billion gallons. With an energy density of about 132.3 Megajoules per gallon; aviation Industry used over 12.7 Quintillion joules.
Data by International Energy Agency In 2019, Global rail services consumed 0.6 mbd of oil (0.6% of global oil use), around 280 TWh of electricity or 4.715 Exajoules.
Global Aviation consumed 11.6 Exajoules
Since transit is largely subsidized it’s paid for regardless of whether or not you use it. As the Antiplanner stated…
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That’s why Amtrak and public transit in the US suck. Like Most public services; they have no incentive to do better. Nationally, more than 20% of public school teachers with school-age children enroll them in private schools, or almost twice national average.
In any case, the public employees’ willingness to pay full price or a sizeable chunk of their wages; for a competing product or service and forgo their employer’s product or service at a reduced price (or no cost) makes a strong statement about the low quality of said service.
*correction*
Since transit is largely subsidized it’s paid for regardless of whether or not you use it. As the Antiplanner stated…
“ Subsidies send the wrong signals to management and labor. Management interpreted the message to mean: efficiency was no longer primary. Labor interpreted the message as Management now has a sugar daddy that’ll finance us and pay for improving working conditions and wages rather than improve service”
That’s why Amtrak and public transit in the US suck. Like Most public services; they have no incentive to do better. Nationally, more than 20% of public school teachers with school-age children enroll them in private schools, or almost twice national average.
In any case, the public employees’ willingness to pay full price or a sizeable chunk of their wages; for a competing product or service and forgo their employer’s product or service at a reduced price (or no cost) makes a strong statement about the low quality of said service.
Amtrak gives me hope that the government will pay to bring back my beloved 8-tracks. Music median options is a human right, after all.
LazyReader,
Your calculations are interesting, but the DOE says that planes used 2,400 BTUs per passenger mile in 2018 while Amtrak used 1,500 — and that doesn’t account for generation and transmission losses for electric powered trains. So Amtrak may save a little energy over flying, but, if it carries less than 1 percent as many PM as airlines, is it really worth billions of dollars a year?