I've traveled a great many miles on Amtrak's long-distance trains and can tell you that most of the

In this last session of Congress, Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Republican from Georgia, introduced a bill that would prohibit any federal inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc dollars from being used to subsidize food and beverage service on Amtrak trains.
Does Amtrak lose money on its food service? Well, an accountant would probably say yes, and Congressman John Mica (R-Florida) has been ranting about it for years. But it’s not that simple. After all, serving an estimated 10,000 meals a day in rolling restaurants all over the country is just a wee bit more complicated and costly than serving up burgers and fries in your favorite local restaurant.
Typically, passengers on Amtrak’s long-distance trains are aboard for about 18 hours and that translates to four meals. Let’s start with the obvious: Amtrak can’t simply stop having food available for these paying customers.
I’ve traveled a great many miles on Amtrak’s long-distance trains and can tell you that most of the patrons in the dining inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc cars are sleeping car passengers. And for a very good reason: the cost of their meals is included in the fares they paid. Even taking that into consideration, however, it still costs top dollar to book space in an Amtrak sleeping car.
For example, if you were to travel from Chicago to Albuquerque on the Southwest Chief in the middle of next month, a coach seat would cost you $140. But if you step up to a roomette, the cost of your ticket inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc jumps to $484. That includes your room, a dinner on the first night, and breakfast and lunch the following day.
Here’s the unvarnished inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc truth, put in the simplest possible terms by a respected authority on passenger rail: “If the dining cars go, the sleepers go. If the sleepers go, the big revenue goes. If the big revenue goes, Amtrak goes.”
So what are these people thinking … the Phil Gingreys and the John Micas and the other anti-Amtrak Republicans in Congress? Some of them know perfectly well that proposals like this would mean the slow but inevitable death of Amtrak’s inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc long-distance trains … probably almost everything operating outside of the Northeast Corridor from Boston to New York and on through to Washington. Others might actually believe that Amtrak can be badgered and threatened and bullied into profitability. Still others are the ideologues who oppose any subsidy on philosophical grounds no matter the consequences.
Jim Loomis is the author of All Aboard-The Complete North American Train Travel Guide, with a revised and updated 4th edition due out at the first of the year. He also blogs about travel, particularly train travel, at www.takeatrainride.blogspot.com.
My reply to this piece is too political to post here. But these characters know what they are doing when they destroy the infrastructure. It s no accident they leave office way wealthier than when they went in.
I love Amtrak. Among the many times I ve taken it, I recently did a cross-country trip, Baltimore-Santa Fe, in both directions. Absolutely loved it. The roomettes are great, Amtrak staff are great, the service is great, inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc the food in the dining inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc car isn t gourmet but it s good enough, and the conversations with random passengers are fantastic.
Did you folks on the Left learn anything from the whole sordid Jonathan Gruber fiasco? Holding inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc voters in contempt and calling them stupid just because they disagree with how you think tax dollars should be spent isn t a winning inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc formula. You had a fair argument and then ruined it with naked partisanship.
For the record, I am one of those stupid Republican idealogues that you hold in contempt, and I do generally inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc oppose the use of subsidies period, especially economic development incentives, but am sympathetic to passenger rail generally. But my opinion is, if we re going to throw money at Amtrak, it can t be this piecemeal approach inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc we have now where unsustainable subsidies are thrown at a rail network that isn t large enough to ever possibly be self-sustaining, and that has become little more than pork for routes in influential politicians districts. If we re going to have a subsidized rail system, we should do it right and spend the money to build out the system to an extent where it would be useable to more of the country. But that would require a lot more money, and hey, we couldn t possibly tell the public how much that would be. We re too ignorant and misinformed, after all.
With all due respect, MM, you re quite wrong about Amtrak s long-distance trains. They are heavily used, particularly by people throughout the west and midwest. With the airlines cutting out more and more of their short haul flights, these trains are the only available public transportation. In fact, about 65% of the passengers on the long-distance trains are traveling from one mid-point to another. inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc Amtrak s puny annual subsidy is an infinitesimal fraction of one percent of the federal budget. If you oppose that as a matter of political philosophy, do you also oppose the subsidizing inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc of aviation? After all, the feds provide the air traffic control system, states and municipalities build and maintain airports, and many air routes west of the Mississippi, designated Essential Air Services, are heavily subsidized. Finally, Amtrak s own goofy accounting system allocates ALL the profit made by the Northeast Corridor (Boston-New York-Washington) to that portion of their system, creating a rosier picture for the NEC and an artificially negative picture for the long-distance trains. What Amtrak REALLY needs is enough of an infusion of funding to acquire more equipment so they can carry more passengers. The demand is certainly there because many long-distance trains are sold out months in advance.
Mr. Loomis, the crux of your reply is the point I was trying to make the puny piecemeal subsidies thrown at Amtrak are a waste. It should either be funded properly, as with the air transport and highway infrastructure, inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc or not at all. To your other point, though what s wrong with allocating all of the NEC profit to the route that actually inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc generates it? That s how it works in the real world. If a business line doesn t make money for the company, it eventually gets cut. If the long distance inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc lines can t make money on their own, then they either need to go, or have Congress make the case for why more funding ultimately benefits taxpayers. (For the record, I think the whole gimmick of cutting inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc funding for food service is stupid; if they want to kill Amtrak, inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc just introduce a bill to kill it entirely and be honest inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc about the motive.)
Should they subsidize the cost of airline sleeping seats for the first class? amtrack should charge whet it cost to provide inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc the service ..if the service can not pay its own way then it should be sut down. It is not a necessity.
Obviously, the writer is a democrat, and just found another way to try to trash Republicans. His obvious political slant in this message simply invalidates a the article! I guess he was so busy writing this short article that he didn t notice the results of the November election. Also, his careless/erroneous use of facts I wonder why he thinks that passengers need 4 meals in 18 hours; I don t think Michelle Obama would approve of that!
Whoa! As a point of fact, the government inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc DOES subsidize the airlines … and heavily! There is the Essential Air Service program which subsidizes service to hundreds of small cities all over the west and mid-west. The federal government provides the air traffic inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc control system for the airlines. Cities and states build and maintain airports inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc for the airlines. And the feds wrote checks for billions and just gave the money to the airlines when air service was shut down after 9/11. And what did you personally pay for the widening of that highway or the new interchange in your town? In fact, government subsidizes inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc ALL public transportation, including commuter trains, transit systems and bike lanes. Why should Amtrak be the lone exception?
They re trying to kill Amtrak to stop it from flailing around like a helpless dying fish. Amtrak has been dying a slow death for 40 years. Put it out of its misery and ours. Its benefit to cost ratio is about .05.
A lot of our airline services ARE subsidized especially to rural areas through the Rural Essential Air Services program. Often to the tune of hundreds of dollars per ticket. Not saying that this justifies Amtrak subsidies, but if rail passenger subsidies are indefensible, then so are these specific types of aviation subsidies.
Yes they do subsidize the airport. Rural airports seldom generate enough in gate fees and user fees and are subsidized through general fund Essential Air Service subsidies. inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc Often, some of the biggest beneficiaries of this type of subsidy is the private plane owner who flies into these airports. Think of it. A guy
who can afford his own airplane still gets subsidy money out of my pocket. What a deal!! And no, the government doesn t subsidize your meal on the bike path, it builds most of the bike paths themselves at taxpayer expense instead. You use the bike path, and I help you pay for it even if I don t use it myself. Maybe you should thank me. And you re right, maybe there shouldn t be Amtrak subsidies. But you can t decry Amtrak subsidies on one hand and then insist that I pay for your bike path that I don t use myself. You said that Amtrak inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc is not a necessity. Niether is your bike path.
Your hero Rush Limbaugh has his own private jet. Fair enough. If he can afford it, more power to him. Of course I don t know this for certain, but if I were a betting man, I would wager that he lands in this jet at some of theses heavily subsidized rural airports that I mentioned in previous posts. Money out of your pocket and mine to subsidize a gate fee and a landing fee for a guy who is wealthy enough to afford his own airplane! And then he gets off of the plane and preaches to the rest of us about the evils of socialism and subsidies.
What s the big idea? Consumer Traveler inns or bed and breakfast incolumbia sc is the policy site of Travelers United . This is a blog about travel and ideas