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Mrjoshua
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Username: Mrjoshua

Post Number: 1385
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 12:07 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

...I think Chicago-Detroit might be a real possibility. There, we could create a 100-mile-per-hour corridor city to city, except for about for a 35-mile stretch through Indiana which is highly congested. There, you might put in a separate line. It might cost $500 million to $1 billion.

'It's Not Luxury Service'
Amtrak CEO Alex Kummant
On Service Strategies, Solutions

August 23, 2007
The Wall Street Journal

Nearly a year after becoming president and chief executive of Amtrak, Alex Kummant is taking on some of the railroad's most nettlesome problems. In June, he struck a deal with Union Pacific Corp. that will prod the freight railroad to hurry repairs on deteriorating tracks in Utah and Nevada that are used by Amtrak trains and contribute to a woeful 30% late-arrival rate.

In addition, to show that Amtrak is trying to think more like a for-profit company, Mr. Kummant agreed to attach luxurious dining, sleeping and lounge cars owned by a private rail-tour operator to Amtrak's Silver Meteor train between Washington, D.C., and Miami, starting in November. Traveling in the upscale car will cost $789 to $1,299 a person one way, compared with $569 for the largest Amtrak bedroom and give Amtrak a chance to spiff up the grubby image of its train service.

A stylish 46-year-old who carries a blue backpack instead of a briefcase, Mr. Kummant has surprised skeptics who weren't expecting much when he came to Washington. His predecessor, David Gunn, fought constantly with the Bush administration before being fired after three and a half years on the job. Some members of Congress worried that Mr. Kummant, who worked at industrial companies and Union Pacific, would rubber-stamp efforts to slash Amtrak's funding.

So far, Mr. Kummant has maneuvered skillfully through the politically charged debate over Amtrak's future. While he insists that long-distance train service should remain, some of the worst-performing routes may have to be overhauled. To win more control over its fate, Amtrak needs to become more financially transparent, he says. Still, he hasn't resolved one of Amtrak's thorniest challenges -- reaching agreement with about two-thirds of Amtrak's work force, which hasn't had a new contract for about seven years.

Mr. Kummant, who at 18 joined a "track gang" that cleaned and fixed lines at the U.S. Steel Corp. plant in Ohio where his dad worked, spoke with The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Machalaba about how he plans to get the railroad on track. (See related article.)

* * *

WSJ: What are Amtrak's biggest strategic issues?

Mr. Kummant: Our growth is going to be 100- to 500-mile corridors, and to do this we need capital for track and equipment. We have aging equipment, and we have to replace [it] and provide for future growth.





WSJ: Amtrak critics point to Amtrak's 15 long-distance trains as sadly outdated. What do you plan to do with the long-distance trains?

Mr. Kummant: I'm very reluctant to simply end some of these services. The cost of keeping the long-distance network is something like $450 million a year. That's $1.50 per year a head in order that we even have a long-distance train network five years from now. In other words, a cup of coffee and a cheap one at that.

WSJ: Which ones would you like to modify?

Mr. Kummant: We will always be working on a couple of our lowest performers. It is logical to have a dialogue about splitting the California Zephyr, which operates from Chicago through Denver to the Bay Area, into an eastern and western service. The Chicago-Denver service runs very well. You can get on the train in the mid-afternoon in Chicago, have a nice dinner and wake up in Denver. The western part is slower, more of an excursion train, where the real selling feature is the dramatic landscape it crosses.

WSJ: Is Amtrak considering other changes?

Mr. Kummant: You might add six or eight cars to one of those trains and folks pay $6,000, $7,000, $8,000 a ticket and cross-subsidize the rest of the [train]. There are private operators that run excursion trains, very high-end, Ritz-Carlton-type service. I would call us more a national motel chain, and I don't mean that in a bad way. That's the reality. I've heard the comment, "Why should the taxpayers pay for this luxury service?" Guys, it's not luxury service.

WSJ: Where are opportunities for creating shorter-haul corridors?

Mr. Kummant: We need to look at any place that has a large population. It's Phoenix to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Los Angeles to Oakland. It could be expanding service between Seattle and Portland, and on almost any route from Chicago. Texas clearly has large population centers, and Florida is a good example of growing population. I would love a major new intercity corridor to catch fire outside the eastern seaboard. It would clearly demonstrate the wisdom of capital investment in passenger rail. I think Chicago-Detroit might be a real possibility. There, we could create a 100-mile-per-hour corridor city to city, except for about for a 35-mile stretch through Indiana which is highly congested. There, you might put in a separate line. It might cost $500 million to $1 billion.

WSJ: Who would pay for a Chicago-to-Detroit corridor?

Mr. Kummant: This could be done through a coalition of stakeholders, including three states, the federal government and, perhaps, the freight railroads, which are eager to mitigate congestion in the Chicago region.

WSJ: Do you think the U.S. will get high-speed trains like France and Germany?

Mr. Kummant: That is a goal we could all aspire to, and the question is how and when the country will be ready. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars, or euros, for a single corridor. I think we could get there in a couple of steps. I believe we could build an incremental approach where we could develop 100 mph corridors with conventional equipment. You build ridership and consciousness. Let's not forget that before the TGV [train à grande vitesse -- high-speed train] was there in France, there was a lower-speed train. There was a natural evolution from lower to higher speeds, and there is no reason we can't do that in the U.S.

WSJ: Why did you take this job if the guy before you had such a difficult time?

Mr. Kummant: I have been involved in a lot of different types of operations. I am sort of a combination of a marketing, strategy and operations guy, and I find nothing quite as engrossing as rail operations. The other piece is that public service and Washington, D.C., have always been interesting to me. I don't want to give sort of a tear-jerking, immigrant-son story, but that's a little bit of it. My office overlooks the Capitol dome. I never thought I would have an opportunity to be a fly on the wall in Washington. Look, I am like a kid from Ohio walking around, and in Congress, I go: "Wow, there's Lieberman!" I unabashedly say I enjoy that kind of thing.
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Lefty2
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Username: Lefty2

Post Number: 30
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 12:39 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

As long as Illinois pays 100% for it.
This will make it much easier for Detroit to deplete it's population base, no?
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Cinderpath
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Username: Cinderpath

Post Number: 154
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 12:45 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"His predecessor, David Gunn, fought constantly with the Bush administration before being fired after three and a half years on the job."

Ironically, the "Liberal" WSJ :-) fails to mention David Gunn was a Republican and Bush appointee, and was an extremely smart person. ( A first for a Bush appointee, after such winners as "Heck of a job brownie"?) Bush canned him, as Gunn started telling administration officials things they did not want to hear (Just like Bush has done to several military leaders who have told the truth about Iraq) and made some great progress at reforming Amtrak, and was turning it around very well. We'll see how far Kummant goes. God forbid he be successful, it is against Republican creed to have a government run institution actually be successful, even though, government run institutions run fine elsewhere on the planet.
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6nois
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Username: 6nois

Post Number: 439
Registered: 11-2006
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 12:55 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think the high speed Detroit-Chicago route is great. They have a section west of Kzoo that is already at that 95-100mph mark and its great. As for it depleting Detroits population base I don't understand that. This will just allow the train to compete better with air traffic in this market, which is only a good thing. It could bring down costs for both things.
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 677
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 12:57 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Well, from the article I'm impressed by two things. First of all, he knows that rail service in this country needs to focus on medium-distance trips (which I pointed out earlier today in another thread), so he understands where passenger rail best fits into the overall North American transportation picture. Second of all, he understands politics enough to know to admit some things aren't working well, and to make easy-sell comparisons ("In other words, a cup of coffee, and a cheap one at that").

Hmm.
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 3805
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 12:59 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Working on the assumption that few ever come to Detroit, why not have Amtrak contract Detroit industry to build complete trains--including their locomotives-- thrice daily and have them run one-way only from Detroit to Chicago.

This would create much needed manufacturing jobs in Detroit, and Amtrak wouldn't have to run a nearly empty train back to Detroit after Detroit's refugees arrive in Chicago daily. Amtrak could use planes to fly their crews back to Detroit from O'Hare to DTW, and then they can catch a SMART bus there to eventually get them back to Pontiac to start a new run in a brand-new train.

Of course, after a while, there will not be any more residents in the Pontiac to AA axis to send over to IL. Then the last train can pick up the stragglers, including the SMART bus driver, and turn off the lights.

(Message edited by Livernoisyard on August 23, 2007)
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Detroit_stylin
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Username: Detroit_stylin

Post Number: 4769
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 1:45 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Why the fuck is your negative ass here LY?
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 678
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 2:03 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

You know, there are still nearly ten million people in Michigan, and half of them live within sixty miles of Detroit. I don't know why people keep prodding us to justify our continued existence.

I wasn't born here; I came here and I like it here. Y'all don't like it, take 75 or 94 the hell out. Y'all want to stay, well, live with it.
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Novine
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Username: Novine

Post Number: 68
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 2:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If train service to Chicago is improved, that makes it more likely that people will STAY here. If you can get to Chicago in a couple of hours, you're more likely to visit but also less likely to feel the need to move there if you become a fan of the city.
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Scs100
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Username: Scs100

Post Number: 1430
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 9:12 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

LY, you idiot, every time I take the train back here it is usually full, or should be full (meaning one of the west coast LD trains was incredibly late, usually the CZ).

As for the corridor itself, the first 35 miles, like Kummant said, are impossible to upgrade at the moment owing to heavy freight traffic in the immediate area. After the train reaches Porter, IN, the high speed portion of the corridor starts. Speed limit is 95 MPH at the moment from there to Kalamazoo. According to Amtrak's website, the line should be upgraded to a 115 MPH limit within the next year (not likely).

Not to be pessimistic, but the only way that they are ever going to get the whole corridor up to speed is buy the whole route from NS (which would have to be within the next year), Watco, and CN, get a ton of money from congress, and not have any more equipment failure (their Cascades Talgo sets just failed out west do to suspension cracks). That could be a while. They would also need to find a ROW to bypass the Conrail section of the line between Dearborn and Detroit, where there are 10-20 MPH slow orders throughout the whole area.

As much as I would love to see all of this happen, I am not holding my breath. Maybe some day...
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 3808
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 10:31 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sarcasm...
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 3627
Registered: 02-2005
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 11:14 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Wow. The WSJ once again gives us the news our local papers should. This would be huge. If this can be done, surely commuter rail from Detroit to AA could.
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Danindc
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Username: Danindc

Post Number: 3078
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 11:22 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mrjoshua, thanks for sharing. It's refreshing to see a WSJ piece on Amtrak that does not include the requisite bashing.

Except for the fare increases in the NEC, I've been very surprised with Kummant so far. Initially, I thought he might be a typical Bush peon--a industry -type committed to gutting any sort of government role/regulation in said industry. That he recognizes where the strengths of rail lie is very important in developing the system we deserve.
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Parkguy
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Username: Parkguy

Post Number: 98
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 5:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If I fly to Chicago--
30 min to park at Metro and get to the terminal; 90 min before my flight; 60 minute flight; 30 minutes to get off the plane and get my luggage; 45 minutes to the loop. Total: 4 hours, 15 minutes, if there is no delay at Metro. By train (currently): 20 minutes from my door to the station in Dearborn, five hour trip-- right in the loop. Total: just over five hours. Plus, I can get up and walk around on the train, and even coach seats have more room than first class on a plane. I like it, and so do thousands of others. The trains are always full. Once they have full high-speed service going, and the trip is down to 3-1/2 hours, it will be vastly superior to flying, and you won't have to take off your shoes.
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Focusonthed
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Username: Focusonthed

Post Number: 1268
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 5:14 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

And significantly cheaper than flying, somewhere around 50% or less of the lowest common fare.

Same cost as driving if you have a compact, significantly cheaper otherwise. And it WILL be faster than driving.
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Douglasm
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Username: Douglasm

Post Number: 918
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 5:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

S

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