RETHINKING AMTRAK.

The carrier is going on fifty years old, and the average age of its coaching stock is now higher than that of the stock it acquired from the participating railroads.  It's still a political football, and Politico's Michael Grunwald takes the occasion of the latest pork-barrel proposal to hit Capitol Hill to get a few kicks in.  "Is there any reason for Amtrak executives to propose a new route from New York City to President Biden’s beloved birthplace of Scranton, Pa., other than the obvious reason?"  Strictly speaking, that project ought to be the purview of New Jersey Transit, but returning trains to the old Lackawanna Cutoff has long been on peoples' minds.

It might help if people would think about the value of dependable train service in other metropolitan corridors.

So before Amtrak fantasizes about new lines to Pueblo, Colo., and Eau Claire, Wis., it ought to focus on upgrading its most important and successful line, the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C.

It’s the only Amtrak route that runs an operating profit. It’s the only Amtrak route that runs primarily on tracks that Amtrak owns. And it includes four of Amtrak’s five busiest stations as well as the one named for the president. With top speeds of 150 miles per hour, it’s as close as Amtrak gets to high-speed rail. Its average speeds are less than 90 miles per hour, but if you ignore the frequent delays, spotty Wi-Fi and lousy food, it at least vaguely resembles the train service you might find in Germany or Japan.

The Front Range (Cheyenne - Denver - Pueblo) has long been on the list of emerging corridors, and a regional service with connectivity among the Wisconsin college towns and Chicago and the Cities is an improvement on the over-promised fast diesel trains of ten years ago.  You really wouldn't want to play ducks and drakes with the semis on Interstate 25 along the Front Range or 90-94 across Wisconsin.  Let the record show that the Acela corridor is not profitable, and most of the train service you find in Germany or Japan might be just the thing for the Front Range or the Driftless Area.

Yes, there's work to be done on the Northeast Corridor, and getting elected representatives to go along with fixing it might not be easy.

Amtrak already shuttles three times as many passengers between Washington and New York as the airlines do. Upgrading its aging infrastructure could reduce trip times and improve reliability enough to draw even more travelers out of planes or cars.

Amtrak seems to recognize the urgency of this problem, noting in its vision statement that the Northeast Corridor has “dozens of bridges, stations and tunnels … in need of immediate replacement or rehabilitation.” But by some estimates, just bringing the Northeast Corridor up to a state of good repair could vacuum up more than half the American Jobs Plan’s $80 billion rail budget. Upgrading the corridor to approach true high-speed rail could vacuum up all of it.

That's always been the problem, hasn't it? To continue the Metroliner demonstration project with federal money, national politicians must support it.  That's how we once had a second train through the northern tier of states; it served the major cities of Montana, which is to say Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield's base; and Harley Staggers and Robert Byrd took good care of West Virginia.  Without something for people who don't live along the coasts, there's no infrastructure bill.  "Politicians attack [the Postal Service and Amtrak] as money pits, but they also insist on propping up little-used money-losing train routes and post offices in their states. Congress will ultimately decide the details of the American Jobs Act, and some Democrats might like Amtrak’s plan for dubious new lines in swing states like Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania."  But those lines might not be so dubious.  "It’s to provide efficient and convenient passenger rail in some places that improves American mobility while reducing carbon emissions from cars and planes."  There's no secret to how this is done.  "Americans rarely even contemplate taking a long-distance train unless it’s faster than driving and departs frequently enough that it doesn’t require much trip planning."  That happens to describe the Hiawatha service between Chicago and the Milwaukee airport station, which boards more passengers than the downtown Milwaukee station, the trains take about 75 minutes, which is sometimes optimistic to drive between the Loop and Lake-Cook Road, and, until the corona tyranny began, the service was on approximately two hour headways.  It doesn't take California-style levels of investment in the 200 mph trains to get a train service with frequent, dependable, and connecting service.  Free rein to 110 or 125 mph with the diesels is also desirable.