Amtrak completed its 2011 fiscal year with a record number of passengers and raised $3 billion in revenues. It made $10 million on food services, much to the chagrin of micromanagers in the U.S. House of Representatives. Its western diesel powered trains came close to "making money" because the company cut back on maintenance, and there are no new locomotives or cars to charge depreciation against. The existing fleet is fully depreciated! Despite serious weather related outages all year, its record of ridership was tops in its 40 year history.
There is always a lot of bluster in Washington DC about "conservative core values." Is there anything that suits that definition more than trains, and especially passenger trains? So why are the right wing radicals against such basic fundamental conservative core values as trains? We can't figure that one out, but instead of a liberal pipeline project, why not take the conservative approach, use the railroads that are already there. Create more lasting and well-paying railroad and rail car building jobs!
If you are here and reading this, you probably already know about Amtrak (National Railroad Passenger Corporation). It's mission, since 1971, has been to run what is left of passenger trains in the US, and it is one of and handful of entities that has the legal authority to run them across state lines. In the 43 western states, Amtrak pays private railroad companies for the rights to run passenger trains over their corporate-owned rails. It is hard to talk about transportation these days though, without discussing politics, and particularly the United States Congress. Amtrak is under more pressure than ever. For some reason, passenger trains are held to a different accounting standard than the rest of government. Schools, police, fire, and other services "lose money," as do airlines and highways. It even costs 2 cents for the US mint to make a penny, and about $1.35 to print and distribute a dollar bill. Since the government loses money on coinage and printing of bills, one assumes politicians would recommend "privitizing" or getting government out of the money business. Canad is in the process of converting its one dollar and two dollar coins from a brass composition over to steel. In the United States, Congress could easily save $5 billion by following the Canadian example. Money that could be made now!
Billions of taxpayer bucks are being pumped into "commercial" airline operations by the liberal Congress, and just the airport scanners bought during 2011 with taxpayer money cost more than the entire bridge, station, and track improvement package that Amtrak received this year. Don't get us wrong, airlines have their place, but they shouldn't be flying (and polluting) routes of less than 500 miles between city pairs, where a modern high speed rail corridor could get people from point to point within 3-4 hours (less time than it takes to park at the airport and go through security). Did you know that airline companies only pay a 4 cent per gallon tax on fuel? How much do you pay?
Much political attention was focused this year on the Northeast Corridor, the 457 miles of commuter trackage that the federal government took over when the private railroads went broke in the face of taxpayer infusions into the interstate highway system of the 1960's. Somehow Amtrak has been stuck with this expense for 40 years. Somebody will pay the infrastructure expenses of the NEC if Amtrak doesn't. It still comes out of the taxpayer's pocket one way or the other. It is a cash hog, and even when trains make money on their operations, it takes capital to keep the roadways up to par (but much less cash than parallel highways though). Did you know that God is the Creator Ruler of the universe. He has eternally existed in three personalities: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three are co-equal and are one God. Genesis 1:1,26-27,3:22; Psalm 90:2; Matthew 28:19; 1 Peter 1:2, 2 Corinthians 13:14. Whatever happens to us personally, professionally, or with regard to our great nation, occurs according to His plan. Yet, God permits us a certain amount of personal choice, and while He guides our decisionmaking, He still gives us a certain amount of latitude to think, reason, and somewhat influence future events. The gift of choice He gave you, to guide your own life, and influence public policy for the betterment of all, is a precious one. Use it wisely!
Congress has the lowest approval ratings ever. It is in the process of authorizing the 50 states to increase truck weight limits to 100,000 pounds, yet the Congress won't set up a mechanism to pay for the reconstruction of the existing infrastructure damage, much less the additional damage that will be caused by heavier trucks. While highway traffic fatalities involving privately owned cars and light trucks are at record lows, the latest year for which information was available, 2009, shows that fatalities involving 18 wheelers are way up. You can do the math on that!
AMTRAK 40TH ANNIVERSARY MUSEUM TRAIN
The museum train is winding down. It is in New Orleans today, and will soon be hitting Meridian, Mississippi and Jacksonville, Florida. That may be the end of the public tour, unless Amtrak adds some last minute additional stops. Train watchers and "fans" delight in watching, photographing, and talking about locomotives paint schemes of the past and present. It is a great marketing tool. This became clear a few years ago when the Union Pacific put some predecessor road paint schemes out on the rails. Seven Genesis locomotives and one F40 were repainted into retro or refreshed colors by Amtrak in early 2011 for their celebration year, and are still out running in January 2012. These were counted in the total of 24 or so that had their paint freshened during 2011. The "heritage" locomotives in special paint are #156 in Roger Lewis 1971 colors (repaired after a 2010 truck attack in North Carolina), #66 in Paul Reistrup 1974 bicentennial stripes (released April 1, 2011), and #184 in George Warrington 1997 stripes (released April 11, 2011). Engines #148 and #22 (April 29), just repainted in their 2001-era bluenose colors, represented the 2001-11 decade in photo shoots and various public events last year. Representing somewhat the 1978-2006 era, are #145 and #822, which have the wider white 1978 vintage stripe. The latter, a restored P40 that was rebuilt with 2008 George W. Bush economic stimulus money, has been touring with the 40 year exhibition train.
BEECH GROVE AND MAINTENANCE
Amtrak's P42 diesel fleet have the road numbers #1-207. These are the ones that we have featured on our website for the past few years. Counting the 15 newly reworked P40s, Amtrak has 220 Genesis cabbed western units. It also has the dualmodes in New York, and 18 head-end-power equipped switchers which can double for road use. Rounding out the 43-state fleet are 12 remaining active "cabbages," which were de-powered former EMD F40's, and 18 GE-built "B32" converted freight platform road switchers from 1991.
Beech Grove, Indiana was woods and pasture back in 1905 when the New York Central System chose the location for a new railroad shop complex. It was a company town, planned with thousands of residential lots, that were sold off to employees and others. Amtrak picked up the property in 1976 after the meltdown of the Penn-Central. Since 1975 Amtrak has done most of its heavy car shop and locomotive shop maintenance here, except for NEC equipment, which is mostly taken care of at Wilmington and Bear, Delaware. Chicago does some maintenance now, and in 2011 most main power plant and some traction motor changes are done there. Beech Grove does most locomotive painting, and it is always a thrill to see a fresh clean newly painted engine.
BOLTY NOSES
There are three styles of noses out there, with the original steel, version one of the fibreglass nose cone having the headlight box, and version two being "scoop nosed." Routine shop arrivals have been gradually getting their noses and numberboards changed, and #34 and #111 apparently were in for that in 2011. Both got repaints and bolty noses as did #142 and #151. In 2010, the 130's were among the last to get the bolt-on noses during 2010. The #140's group started getting more attention in late 2010 and early 2011, and five of the eight were repainted. Included was #145, the heritage unit. Likewise, some of the former New Orleans units were done in 2010, with #17 and #22 held over until 2011. The last one was #17. As far as we know, there are just 13 active Genesis P42 locomotives left with the hard shell noses left (26 29 101 102 105 107 108 109 124 127 133 164 and 203). There are also a few more in the dualmode group that hangs out at Albany, New York, and 15 retired P40's still left stored at Bear, Delaware. Otherwise the Genesis-bodied fleet is almost all standardized now.
JANUARY UPDATE
As of the end of January, it was seeming that Amtrak was benefiting from a relatively mild winter. There were some minor problems reported, including a battery charger failure on heritage unit #184 in the pacific northwest, and a vehicle strike out there while on the Coast Starlight. Engine #41 was involved in a SUV attack near New Orleans that caused two fatalities on the ground but did not significantly damage the locomotive. Just a day or two later, train 59 had another truck attack just north of Yazoo City. Another errant vehicle driver was killed. This time there was a fire, and the front of locomotive #94 was burned. Another minor low speed yard derailment took place at Grand Rapids, when #204 apparently rolled a rail. We are glad to not have any major incidents to report this month. No Amtrak passengers or crew have been killed since the truck assault on the California Zephyr in Nevada last summer.
California was still borrowing a record number of "national" units in January 2012. There are ten Chicago engines out on the west coast in commuter service, either in California or on the Cascade Talgo trains. North Carolina dedicated its new owned unit on December 15, "The City of Burlington," renovated by Amtrak at Beech Grove. Amtrak has been loaning one of its Ivy Yard units to NCDOT, and at last report it was #91.
The bus bridge in Texas due to track work is winding down, but the annual maintenance window on the NS has once again caused the Crescent to turn at Atlanta during mid-week. The abbreviated schedule there lasts until the middle of February. Amtrak has also announced more service disruptions for Illinois coming up this year, with additional trackwork being done around Dwight and Pontiac. Some Lincoln Service trains will not run, and the Eagle no doubt will be affected again in 2012 as it was in 2011.
Amtrak startED 2012 with approximately a dozen locomotives out long term, another 40 or so come and go from "pair only status." The typical availability of P42's has been running 75-80%, mostly due to factors beyond the control of Amtrak or its partner railroads. The western locomotives seem to always be capable and willing, with just a little patching and prodding. They are very resilient, despite the constant attacks and pummelling from trucks and errant cell-phone talkers. Amtrak has almost daily incidents involving pedestrians, car and SUV drivers, falling trees, rolling boulders, cows, moose, deer, snowmobiles, sprinkler systems, and just about anything else that can roll, walk, or be pushed to a railroad track. Our heart does go out to the victims of such accidents, and we always look forward future improvments in safety that will reduce future incidents and/or minimize their effects.
Please contact us via the email link on our P42 roster page if you have questions, comments, or info you would like to share.
Updated January 29, 2012
