One of the most epic train rides I ever took was Amtrak’s Californian Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco. It goes through seven states, gliding serenely through spectacular sections of the wilderness, canyons and desert of Colorado, Utah and Nevada. With a traverse of the Rocky Mountains thrown in for good measure.
There’s a top-floor viewing car with windows for walls and sofa chairs to lounge in all day long, where you can chat with the interesting mix of people that take slow trains across America.
And boy are they slowwwwwwww. The Zephyr takes 51 hours. If everything goes to plan, that is.
I got lucky, my train was on time.
Others, not so lucky.
You see, Amtrak—the US’s public rail company—only owns 3% of its tracks. The other 97% are mostly owned by freight companies. This can pose a problem when a freight company decides to prioritize freight operations on a segment of track where an Amtrak train is scheduled to be. If this happens, delays can cascade down the line.
I was however surprised to discover that—legally—this is not meant to happen. From Amtrak:
"Most of Amtrak’s network consists of tracks owned, maintained, and dispatched by freight railroads, known as “host” railroads where Amtrak uses their tracks. In fact, the number one cause of delay to Amtrak customers is “freight train interference,” caused by freight railroads failing to comply with Federal law requiring that Amtrak trains be given preference over freight.”
From its takeover by the state in 1970, it was designed to fail by those who saw it as another overstep of federal government. Somehow it has survived, like a mountain climber left for dead in a blizzard who stumbles into camp like a frostbitten madman.
And that’s about where Amtrak is right now. As this blog post explains:
“After 2015’s deadly Amtrak crash in Philadelphia, former Amtrak CEO David Hughes put the problem in stark terms.
‘What Amtrak has is among the poorest I’ve ever seen given the level of use they get’, he told CBS News. ‘The accumulated deferred maintenance and lack of attention really makes it almost a Third World operation’.
“And that’s on its own tracks in the most popular region for the rail service in the country.”
But there are glimmers of hope on the horizon. Amtrak is currently trying to reverse its death spiral:
“According to Amtrak’s preliminary results for the 2019 financial year, the US national passenger operator set ridership, revenue and financial performance records towards achieving its goal of breaking even in 2020”.
Last year, they lost $US 170.6m. This year, only $US 29.8m.
For better or worse, much of this “improvement” is due to Amtrak’s new CEO, Richard Anderson, who comes from the aviation industry.
On the “worse” side, freshly-cooked dining car meals have now been replaced by microwave dinners to cut costs on trains to the east of Chicago and New Orleans.
No-one was pretending there was much old-school glamour remaining on Amtrak’s cross-country trains, but removing cooked meals isn’t exactly a step in the direction of bringing it back.
Now if they could actually make some money, they could start to improve the overall experience again (speed, comfort, on-time performance, food) and get a virtuous cycle running.
Because the trouble in the US is that if you’re not directly making money, you’re nothing.
In comparison, in France riding the rails is subsidized to a level of more than 200 € per person per year. Passengers only directly pay 20% of the true cost of a ticket, the idea being that mobility has a positive effect on the economy.
Then again, direct taxation is very high in France, so one might argue that passengers are paying the full price, just that it’s hidden from view.
To sign off for the day, let me also note that Amtrak’s carbon emissions still have a lot of work to be done. Taking the train is only 1/3 more efficient per person per mile than flying, due in part to the ongoing use of diesel trains across much of the country.