Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) is pressing the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to take a greater role in ensuring that Amtrak and the freight railroads improve their rates for on-time performance.
In Oct. 22 letters addressed to FRA Administrator Ron Batory and Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson, Durbin suggested the FRA should “push” the freight railroads, particularly Canadian National (NYSE: CNI), to improve Amtrak’s reliability for riders.
Amtrak shares track for certain portions of the freight railroads’ rail network, including the U.S. Northeast corridor and a 310-mile stretch between Chicago and Carbondale, Illinois. When Canadian National is not operating freight trains on this stretch of track, Amtrak runs passenger rail service known as the Illini and Saluki routes.
The freight railroads have a statutory obligation to give Amtrak preferential treatment on shared tracks, but the freight railroads “ignore” that obligation, Durbin wrote, adding that as a result, freight interference caused roughly 60% of Amtrak’s delays in fiscal year 2018.
Durbin said he also has pressed Canadian National to resolve “repeated freight interference and speed restrictions” on the Illini/Saluki route. On-time performance has been as low as 6% for northbound Illini trains and 17% for northbound Saluki trains in 2018, compared with an on-time performance rate of 29% in 2017.
These delays result in Amtrak needing to pay financial penalties for crew staffing violations, he said.
“Unacceptable OTP [on-time performance] not only harms Amtrak’s passengers and its reputation, it is a key factor in driving Amtrak’s operating loss of $171 million in FY 2018,” Durbin wrote.
The FRA declined to comment on Durbin’s letter, but Canadian National, which goes by CN, said it has been working with Amtrak and the FRA to find ways for Amtrak trains to operate safely without the necessary speed restrictions on certain routes.
“Once an effective solution has been validated and implemented, the speed restrictions should be lifted,” CN spokesperson Jonathan Abecassis said. “There are still a number of steps to take in the testing process, but CN is dedicated to work as fast as possible with Amtrak on a solution that allows Amtrak’s trains to run safely without a speed restriction. Removal of the speed restriction will significantly increase on-time performance.”
Amtrak’s Office of the Inspector General releases report
Durbin’s letter comes on the heels of an Oct. 14 report by Amtrak’s Office of the Inspector General describing on-time performance’s impact on Amtrak’s financial prospects. An amendment that Durbin passed last year funded the report.
The report concluded that improving on-time performance by five percentage points on all routes could result in $12.1 million in financial benefits in the first year, with an estimated $41.9 million in cost savings in subsequent years. The report defines on-time performance as “how a train performs compared with its published, scheduled arrival time at each station and final destination on its route.”
The report also found that Amtrak doesn’t fully measure systematically how poor on-time performance affects its financials and so it has limited data it can use to address the issue with stakeholders.
M.E. Singer
What Senator Durbin is remiss in discussing this issue is how economic times have changed since the Railpax enabling legislation of 1970 created Amtrak in 1971 to operate on privately-owned rail infrastructure at a significant discount. Amtrak has continued this demand in disregard towards today’s market value for track access and priority dispatching.
Ironically, Senator Durbin should know how Amtrak acts just like the Class 1 freights wish they could when it comes to shaking down publicly-financed commuter rail agencies in Chicago (METRA-Chicago Union Station); Philadelphia (SEPTA-Northeast Corridor/Philadelphia-Harrisburg line); Virginia (VRE-Washington Union Station). Why is this economic manipulation tolerated by those in Congress who can only view Amtrak through their rose tinted glasses?
In actuality, it would behoove Senator Durbin to take a position to stop Amtrak’s shakedown of the state-supported passenger rail corridors, e.g., Illinois, California, etc.by relying upon the Passenger Rail Investment & Infrastructure Act of 2008 (PRIIA). Amtrak shaped this congressional act to charge states outside of the Northeast Corridor based upon a highly questionable, unaudited full cost methodology; plugged with non-GAAP cost shifting of costs specific to only the Northeast Corridor.
This formula has enabled Amtrak to overcharge those states in order to subsidize its deficit-ridden Northeast Corridor. Interestingly, does Congress and the state treasurers even realize how Amtrak does not charge the states along the Northeast Corridor for their Amtrak intercity trains, operating twice per hour, bi-directionally between Boston-NYC-Washington?
The real issue here is how the federal monopoly, Amtrak, has been allowed to foist its powers in a very uneconomic manner to throttle state commuter rail lines, as well as state-supported passenger rail corridors. Such actions are accountable for stagnating the mobility and economic development of these states.