Intermountain Rail

In previous entries, I discussed the history of rail/travel integration, how the airlines operate and how it could work with rail passenger service. However, there are some hurdles holding us back from getting to the optimized rail passenger service that needs to happen before we can have a truly world class rail passenger service.

One of the first hurdles we need to overcome is the attitude of Amtrak’s management. Amtrak management despite having several different CEO’s over the last few years has done little to change the way their do business. There was been little attempts to better coordinate service although there has been some talks with Metrolink in Los Angeles and they do take some agencies monthly passes such as the program in the Los Angeles area.

In addition Amtrak ticketing services are largely still in the dark ages as they do not even provide E-ticketing options that most of their competitors do. In fact if I order tickets were I live they will charge me $12.00 to ship me tickets because I have a manned station near my. However, that manned station is only open from 10:00pm to 5:00am, do you really think, unless I am actually catching the California Zephyr that I am going to go and pick up tickets during those hours?

Local politics is another item keeping us in the dark ages when it comes to rail passenger service. Commuter railroads do not look at the big picture and do not see themselves as part of a bigger transportation system. Transit planners and politicians often have a hard time seeing beyond their service area and many times are too caught up in turf ward to care about effective transportation policy.

One good example is in Santa Barbara and San Diego in California. In both cases local politicians are calling for (or have talked about) cutting of Surfliner service so they can provide start up commuter train service between Santa Barbara and Oxnard or expanded service on the Coaster between Oceanside and San Diego. However you only have to look at the present situation in Oceanside to see how poorly service would be coordinated with other agencies. In Oceanside both Coaster and Metrolink trains terminate, however there is no coordination of schedules, no through fares, and no mention of services beyond their service area. In effect, they there is a commuter railroad from Los Angeles to Oceanside and then you cross an imaginary border at Oceanside and can travel from Oceanside to San Diego although you may have a wait an hour or three. If Pacific Surfliners were to be cut do you think Coaster and Metrolink would work better to provide coordinated service? Chances are just as slim that if there is new service from Santa Barbara to Oxnard that it would have coordinated and/or through service to Los Angeles on Metrolink: slim to none.

Another stumbling block is the unions and their adversarial relationships. If we were to create a more integrated rail passenger system, there would be MORE need for employees because of the increased demand for rail passenger service. However, the unions see any change as an attack on them and their establishment and are often not willing to look at ways to make rail service more efficient and effective.

The issues facing the creation of an effective rail passenger service are more complicated, but this gives some ideas of the issues keeping rail passenger service in the United States in the dark ages. If we are to have a world class rail passenger system we need to move the system into the 21^st Century and that is going to take both local and national attention to the issues.

Part 1: Poor Integration History

Part 2: The Airlines-Code Sharing

Part 3: The Airlines-The Regional Carriers

Part 4: How it can be applied to rail passenger service

Part 5: Integration of Schedules

Part 6: The California Thruway: It Can Work

Part 7: The Politics that holds us back

John Dornoff is a principal in the Dornoff Consulting Group.

How does the California Thruway Network fit into an integrated rail passenger system?

While it is kind of hard to classify how the Thruway network in California works, the best classification would be as a regional carrier. Even though they use buses instead of trains, the system works much the same. The buses are guaranteed revenue and provide the crew (driver) with the main carrier (Amtrak) selling the tickets and being responsible for marketing (OK, the people of California get the real credit for the marketing but that is another story).

The system works well for much the same reason as regional carriers work for the airlines. The rail system is expanded by creating new markets and opportunities for the parent organization, while the operators get guaranteed revenue and do not have to assume the overhead of their own reservations and marketing.

The opportunities for this kind of expansion are virtually unlimited. While there was been limited expansion of thruway service across the country, it is only the tip of the iceberg compared to what is possible. The best areas to start expansion would be in the Cascade Corridor, the Chicago network and the northeast were there are already enough trains to feed an extensive network of connecting buses.

One of the many downfalls of the current Amtrak system is the lack of feeders. There are not enough routes feeding into the lines to create a synergy of a network.

Then you could expand this to the rail network. You can create a network of regional services using the Flexliner or DMU’s connecting to the main train network. For example out of Chicago you could add regional routes on the old Black Hawk line to Dubuque, the existing line to Grand Rapids, Green Bay, Peoria, Indianapolis and others.

These types of routes would feed into your core long distance routes, your main short distance corridors and other regional routes. That will allow the rail system to serve enough markets to build a truly useful rail passenger network.

Next week will be the final part of this series dealing with the politics keeping us from achieving.

Part 1: Poor Integration History

Part 2: The Airlines-Code Sharing

Part 3: The Airlines-The Regional Carriers

Part 4: How it can be applied to rail passenger service

Part 5: Integration of Schedules

Part 6: The California Thruway: It Can Work

Part 7: The Politics that holds us back

John Dornoff is a principal in the Dornoff Consulting Group.

In this entry into the Integration of Rail Passenger service I am going to discuss the integration of schedules. It seems that scheduling is something that many agencies still have trouble with despite the availability of technology to help.

Lets take a look at Southern California were you have the trains of Metrolink and Amtrak plus the Coaster in the San Diego area. While there has been some talk of integrating schedules, there has been little progress in this area.

Not only should schedules be coordinated when they operate on the same section of track but connections should be designed so that a person could move from a train that came from Lancaster to the Pacific Surfliner or Metrolink’s San Bernardino service with ease. Today if you arrived on a train from Lancaster at 1:20pm, you would have a 40-minute wait for the next Amtrak Surfliner and you would be required to go into the station, wait for the lines to open and head back to the platforms.

If you want to transfer to the San Bernardino line you would have to wait an hour because your train arrived at the same time as the San Bernardino train left so connections are difficult. If you were heading to Riverside via UP you would have a 3 hour wait because the train to Riverside left 5 minutes before you arrived. If you are traveling to Santa Barbara you are really left out since you can transfer Glendale but the train from Lancaster arrives in Glendale at 1:04pm and the train for Santa Barbara left at 12:42pm. Next train will be at 3:07pm.

It is clear that the schedules are not well coordinated and are not integrated into providing convenient transfers.

The Northeast Corridor is another area where schedules should be coordinated and integrated. For example NJ Transit, Connecticut, SEPTA and other lines schedules should be integrated to provide maximum number of schedules available to the customer. For example if you are traveling to Trenton from New York the customer should be able to know that a regional train would leave on the hour, an Acela train would be leaving at the half hour and a New Jersey local would leave at fifteen after the hour. The customer should just have to decide what level of service he wants to pay for.

Integrating and coordinating schedules will be the first step toward creating a world class rail passenger service. There is many obstacles before we can start changing things and I will discuss those issues in the final entry of this series.

In the next entry I will discuss the California Thruway network and how this works into the ideas presented.

Part 1: Poor Integration History

Part 2: The Airlines-Code Sharing

Part 3: The Airlines-The Regional Carriers

Part 4: How it can be applied to rail passenger service

Part 5: Integration of Schedules

Part 6: The California Thruway: It Can Work

Part 7: The Politics that holds us back

John Dornoff is a principal in the Dornoff Consulting Group.