I don't know if it's just the media that likes mass transit. I've seen lots of polls in lots of places that say a majority of the public supports the use of taxpayer money for mass transit. They may not support a lot of things, but mass transit is pretty popular. Certainly more popular than pay increases for Congressmen.
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I don't know if it's just the media that likes mass transit. I've seen lots of polls in lots of places that say a majority of the public supports the use of taxpayer money for mass transit. They may not support a lot of things, but mass transit is pretty popular. Certainly more popular than pay increases for Congressmen.
My rail travel experience in the NE goes back to the early 70's and I found those trains (NYC area and Baltimore-Richmond) to be efficient and cost-effective (took the train due to not being able to buy gas for a rental car). More recently, I took Amtrak from Florida to Phoenix - a whole different experience. The first problem is the train passes through dense neighborhoods in the South and the damn horn blows constantly. Average speed is also very slow in those areas and the view is junk-filled back yards and industrial spewage. Once you reach Texas the scenery opens up and the speed increases, unless you meet a freight. The tracks are owned by the freight railroads and the passenger trains must give way for freights. Where the sidings are spaced a long way from each other it sometimes means a wait of an hour or more for the freight to pass before the passenger train can continue. This increases travel time immensely. But at least the train horn doesn't blow too often.
We stopped at the interesting little town of Marfa, TX for some reason and most of the people got off to visit a local tavern. The train was long enough that it blocked almost the whole town's length so we got to mingle with the locals who didn't seem to mind too much. The same thing happened in Tucson where we refueled. The train station isn't a full service place any longer so a fuel truck has to come and refuel the train. This took about an hour which gave plenty of time for most of the adult passengers to visit the tavern located right across the street from the station. This was the same station my mother used to take me and my sisters to sit on the train while they switched tracks back in the early 50's. Those railroad people were very nice and most of them continue to be in my experience.
Given that I began my journey at dinnertime one day and it took until 3AM two days later to reach my destination (which is actually the little town of Maricopa, 25 miles outside Phoenix) I doubt the railroad will ever compete successfully against the airlines. The fare was cheap at $76 one way but unless you have time to burn the trip seems to last forever.
I didn't sample the train food BTW opting instead to visit a fast food place in New Orleans during a stopover (which also gave me time to take a walk which was a nice break).
We stopped at the interesting little town of Marfa, TX for some reason and most of the people got off to visit a local tavern. The train was long enough that it blocked almost the whole town's length so we got to mingle with the locals who didn't seem to mind too much. The same thing happened in Tucson where we refueled. The train station isn't a full service place any longer so a fuel truck has to come and refuel the train. This took about an hour which gave plenty of time for most of the adult passengers to visit the tavern located right across the street from the station. This was the same station my mother used to take me and my sisters to sit on the train while they switched tracks back in the early 50's. Those railroad people were very nice and most of them continue to be in my experience.
Given that I began my journey at dinnertime one day and it took until 3AM two days later to reach my destination (which is actually the little town of Maricopa, 25 miles outside Phoenix) I doubt the railroad will ever compete successfully against the airlines. The fare was cheap at $76 one way but unless you have time to burn the trip seems to last forever.
I didn't sample the train food BTW opting instead to visit a fast food place in New Orleans during a stopover (which also gave me time to take a walk which was a nice break).
As we have booted the subject of "food service on the trains" much like a soccer ball the last few days, I wasn't paying attention, but there was this familiar odor in the air. I just ignored it. And then this afternoon it hit me that I know what that odor is!!!!
Back in the 70's and 80's as companies bought larger and supposedly better copiers, computers, executive air planes and began putting corporate logos on sports venues, something that had been mere pocket change in the previous decades became an 800 pound gorilla that was too big for any existing cages in the corporate structure. So we learned to put the big monster costs into some central budget, and then in the accounting department we simply divided the total expenses of this 800 pound gorilla by the total corporate head-count. So you have a research lab with a number of very highly paid, highly educated folks and your department has to eat the corporate gorilla charge per employee. With what the research department was paying their people and the money they were spending on lab equipment and materials, the gorilla was little more than a pesky gnat financially. But if you were the security detail for a small, low-traffic, low-tech part of the business, the gorilla charge for your little 6 person staff of "greeters" manning the front desk could exceed the cost of that entire department before applying the central office charge. If in a small remote corporate plant where there were virtually no restaurants in the neighborhood, the four person staff that put together a lunch counter to meet the needs of the 60 people working in that remote locations was not costly at all... it made just a little money... until you hit them with the gorilla charge.
Yup. Four minimum wage people fixing light lunches in Brinkley, AR got hit with the same "per employee central fund" charges as the four people who made up the corporate legal team working at a prestige location in Manhattan and those four people all were paid large six-figure incomes. I can see the phone call now from some vice president in Charlotte, NC to Brinkley, AR. "You have to get your food services costs in line, or we will close the cafeteria!!!"
Remember the heroes in the automobile business and some other lines of work in the 1970s and the 1980s. They discovered "outsourcing". We don't make that part in-house any more. We "outsource" it to a local plant. Folks were getting big bonuses. Folks were getting promotions. And then after a few years the smarter bean counters finally figured it out: They were actually paying a little bit more for parts made on the outside than what was the TRUE cost what it cost to make the parts in-house. The outside parts did not have to add in the gorilla charge for the corporate jet, the sports stadium logo, the monster computer system, and the monster Xerox and printing machines that were charge out of central office as a "head tax".
When I read that last link posted here about the congressional reviews I finally recognized the strange smell in the air. Food service on Amtrak Trains is likely having to absorb big central "gorilla charges" into their budgets making it look like they lose $66,666.66 PER EMPLOYEE, PER YEAR.
My observation: If they fire all the current food service employees and grant a franchise to IHOP or McDonalds or Marriott to do food on the trains, the financial picture at Amtrak will not change. All those "central office charges' will be reallocated to other departments and the overall operation will still lose money.
It happens in corporations. It happens in government. (Boys and Girls: Can you say "U. S. Postal Service"? ) A lot of publicly traded corporations have to work hard to figure out how to properly allocate expenses. Congress does not have the cajones to begin to deal with such accounting matters.
Back in the 70's and 80's as companies bought larger and supposedly better copiers, computers, executive air planes and began putting corporate logos on sports venues, something that had been mere pocket change in the previous decades became an 800 pound gorilla that was too big for any existing cages in the corporate structure. So we learned to put the big monster costs into some central budget, and then in the accounting department we simply divided the total expenses of this 800 pound gorilla by the total corporate head-count. So you have a research lab with a number of very highly paid, highly educated folks and your department has to eat the corporate gorilla charge per employee. With what the research department was paying their people and the money they were spending on lab equipment and materials, the gorilla was little more than a pesky gnat financially. But if you were the security detail for a small, low-traffic, low-tech part of the business, the gorilla charge for your little 6 person staff of "greeters" manning the front desk could exceed the cost of that entire department before applying the central office charge. If in a small remote corporate plant where there were virtually no restaurants in the neighborhood, the four person staff that put together a lunch counter to meet the needs of the 60 people working in that remote locations was not costly at all... it made just a little money... until you hit them with the gorilla charge.
Yup. Four minimum wage people fixing light lunches in Brinkley, AR got hit with the same "per employee central fund" charges as the four people who made up the corporate legal team working at a prestige location in Manhattan and those four people all were paid large six-figure incomes. I can see the phone call now from some vice president in Charlotte, NC to Brinkley, AR. "You have to get your food services costs in line, or we will close the cafeteria!!!"
Remember the heroes in the automobile business and some other lines of work in the 1970s and the 1980s. They discovered "outsourcing". We don't make that part in-house any more. We "outsource" it to a local plant. Folks were getting big bonuses. Folks were getting promotions. And then after a few years the smarter bean counters finally figured it out: They were actually paying a little bit more for parts made on the outside than what was the TRUE cost what it cost to make the parts in-house. The outside parts did not have to add in the gorilla charge for the corporate jet, the sports stadium logo, the monster computer system, and the monster Xerox and printing machines that were charge out of central office as a "head tax".
When I read that last link posted here about the congressional reviews I finally recognized the strange smell in the air. Food service on Amtrak Trains is likely having to absorb big central "gorilla charges" into their budgets making it look like they lose $66,666.66 PER EMPLOYEE, PER YEAR.
My observation: If they fire all the current food service employees and grant a franchise to IHOP or McDonalds or Marriott to do food on the trains, the financial picture at Amtrak will not change. All those "central office charges' will be reallocated to other departments and the overall operation will still lose money.
It happens in corporations. It happens in government. (Boys and Girls: Can you say "U. S. Postal Service"? ) A lot of publicly traded corporations have to work hard to figure out how to properly allocate expenses. Congress does not have the cajones to begin to deal with such accounting matters.
Then Amtrak food will be as good as airline food. They "outsourced" years ago (largely to Marriott). Doesn't sound like a big step up. The quality of air travel has declined even more since 1971 than the quality of rail travel.
In most they only serve meals in the front of the bus, with coach getting to buy a small selection of snacks and food items.
A friend of mine lost about 15 lbs. and I asked how he did it... he said he quit eating the airline meals. When you do get them, they are like glorified TV Dinners unless you fly international.
Just checked the Northeast Regional cafe menu. The Angus Cheeseburger is $6.75 - not $15.00 as previously claimed.
http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/70/163/Northeast-Regional-Cafe-Menu-2014.pdf
http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/70/163/Northeast-Regional-Cafe-Menu-2014.pdf
Mass transit in general is a needed service in most cities. Amtrak isn't really the same thing. There are tens of millions of people who live nowhere near an Amtrak station who still have to pay for it.
And it costs the taxpayers $16. Which is the point. Do you even read responses, or are you just trying to find math mistakes to try to create some "gotcha" moment?
How about they just spend our money responsibly? Is that too much to ask? You don't need to come up with a story for this one. A yes or no answer will suffice.
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That's not the point. Amtrak is forced to make a lot of compromises in order to win the votes of Congressmen in those areas.
You said Amtrak was a program the media likes. My comment was that it's not just the media. In fact, the best known members of the media don't actually use mass transit themselves. They have limos taking them to and from work. They have apartments in the city, rather than commuting from the suburbs. Personal selfishness isn't driving media coverage of mass transit.
Who said anything about the best known members? Everyone knows Brian Williams isn't taking Amtrak. But he doesn't work alone.
And let's not forget the politicians that use Amtrak, particularly the Northeast Corridor. Senator Carper was on the exact train that derailed and got off at Wilmington. Biden took the train every day. There are dozens if not hundreds of media types that use the Northeast Corridor to commute. It's their pet project. Personal selfishness drives a LOT of media coverage. Not just with Amtrak.
I don't think any of the coverage of Amtrak has been positive. So if there's a connection between media commuting and media coverage, it hasn't been beneficial for Amtrak.
My point remains that mass transit is an issue that is supported by a vast majority of the public, regardless of what they do or where they live.
If Congress wanted to spend our money responsibly, we would see fast, efficient trains criss-crossing the continent like we see in other parts of the world.
If Congress wanted to spend our money responsibly, we would see Obamacare cleaned up and medicine money would be spent responsibly in this country. (Please note I did not use the word REPEAL. There is no other proposed scheme for improving medicine in this country that is a suitable replacement.)
I don't believe the actual cost of a hamburger on the train in $16.00. My point was.... by the time they distribute the costs of running the Washington Bureaucracy with two different management systems (that was in the linked story) each passing down their rules and policies to the guys making hamburgers and then tacking on whatever you want to name the "central office charges" (I called them gorilla fees) maybe what you get on the train is a $3.92 hamburger with $12.08 of Washington Bureaucracy fees tacked on inside the expensive accounting process.
I'm sorry you don't enjoy conversation. Maybe you should leave DISCUSSION groups alone and join a quilting bee... and make sure it is one that frowns upon participants conversing while they quilt. Conversation by definition is a two-way process. When you post... we get to respond. Maybe you aren't interested in the total, big story with all the grimy details. Some of us are.
This is a place where people come to DISCUSS radio and what makes it work and what makes it fail. And that leads us to discuss communal organizations like government and the things government dips it's fingers into and then at the end, we walk away with some ability to determine whether broadcasting does a good job of dealing with such government affairs when radio chooses to do news or commentary. I learned as a farm kid: If you're going to fix the tractor, maybe you need to know what parts are in the engine... and what do they do in there. What this particular thread demonstrates is that we haven't the faintest idea how Amtrak works and how they do their accounting.
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This reminds me that democracy isn't efficient. Jimmy Carter ran for President saying he wanted to make government work more like a business. He failed. You can't make government work like a business. A business is not a democracy. A business is a dictatorship, ruled by the owner. In a democracy, you have many conflicting views and opinions on how things should be done. The end result often is compromise, which isn't very efficient. Maybe the lesson here is that maybe some of the people don't want democracy because it's too inefficient, too irresponsible. Bring back the king! Nothing more efficient or responsible than a dictatorship. Until the dictator becomes corrupt.
The hamburger costs Amtrak $16.00? Where did you get that? Stop making up stuff.
Follow the link given to us in an earlier post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/u...llion-on-food-in-last-decade-audit-finds.html
That link takes you to a NY Times article which quotes Ted Alves.
Then there is another snippet from Mr. Alves later in the article:
Then the NY Times article says (without making it clear who they may or may not be quoting) They attribute to "The Charts":
The Times article said, "charts shown by Republican committee staff members during the hearing." That makes it pretty clear whom they were quoting.
So undocumented and fabricated. Republican lackeys make up stuff and then Dittoheads repeat them.
Also note Mr. Alves was talking about long-distance routes, not the Northeast Corridor. He said the cause there was employee pilferage - not union contracts or mismanagement.
So undocumented and fabricated. Republican lackeys make up stuff and then Dittoheads repeat them.
Also note Mr. Alves was talking about long-distance routes, not the Northeast Corridor. He said the cause there was employee pilferage - not union contracts or mismanagement.
So you don't actually read the replies. Good to know.
Discussion is fine. Ten paragraphs to avoid a yes or no answer isn't discussion. I assume you worked in radio at one point. No one ever taught you word economy? Any point you may be trying to make is always buried in word puke.
Also, we know plenty about how Amtrak operates. It operates at a loss. Every year. For the past 40 years. Maybe you're fine with that, but most of us aren't.
Not that this will even get a single eyeball, but:
http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/160/780/Amtrak-FY14-Financial-Results-ATK-14-107.pdf
They lose about a billion dollars a year before they start the accounting tricks. Then they polish the turd by calling a loss an "operating cost recovery" shortfall. By far their largest expense is labor.
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It is not in your job description to give me orders when I MUST give a yes/no answer, and when I give a more inclusive answer.
I only give long-winded, boring, over-the-top replies when I see I am dealing with a conversationalist who refuses to do his/her homework beyond a "yes/no", a "go/no go" level of logic.
This isn't radio. This is discussion. Yes, when I did radio news, I squeezed and boiled down my words to fit the appropriate amount of time for the story. When I did a talk show with phone calls from the audience and guests in the studio, I used whatever number of words seemed appropriate, and when I had a guest who was not being upfront with us, I squeezed words out of him/her until I could see the pain in their pulsing earlobes.
What virtue is there in brevity if the message is lost? If the message is not accurately comprehended?
Ravens said:
Surprise, surprise. I put BOTH my eyeballs on your link. Are you enough of an accounted to take a yellow marker and highlight the "polished turds" and maybe a blue marker to mark the "take it to the bank" facts?
You and I need to have a chat: do you want to have discussion.... or do you just want to put other people down and then take a victory lap.... thinking you have won some Olympic oratory contest? Conversation has something in common the art of "making love". It's a lot more fun when the participants really desire to be participants.
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I'm sure that will sell to the Limbaugh Lame Brains who "think global warming is a "hoax" Obama is a moslem and the Clinton's murder people.
Outside of Dittoville no one would take that stuff seriously.
LCG
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