FRA L-D Study: Two Outreach Issues

Amtrak photo

On Feb. 21, I reported on 15 potential long-distance routes that Amtrak could operate someday, in theory, anyway. These routes resulted from a two-year evaluation and selection process sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), which will be completed later this year.

The suggested routes exceeded by one the number that Amtrak ran on its inaugural day of operation, May 1, 1971, and the number it runs today (both 14, not counting the AutoTrain, which duplicates mileage covered by the Silver Meteor and does not allow passengers to ride without a a vehicle to accompany them on the trip. Some of the proposed routes were once operated by Amtrak and were discontinued along the way, most commonly in 1979. Others date back to the pre-Amtrak era, having made their last runs on April 30, 1971 or earlier. Some came as a surprise, including one across South Dakota, which has not seen a passenger train since the mid-1960s. What they all have in common is that, except for some segments served by Amtrak, none of those routes have run in their entirety since 1979.

There is a plethora of information in a 163-slide presentation by the FRA from a recent meeting (#3) of the group working on the project (download below). The proposed new routes are shown on maps at slides 63-92.

In addition, a 73-page report to Congress issued in November 2023 (download below) contains a comparable abundance of numbers and technical information about the proposed routes.

Congress commissioned the study at issue with §22214 of the Infrastructure Innovation and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) in 2021. Subsection (a)(1) said: “The Secretary [of Transportation] shall conduct a study to evaluate the restoration of daily intercity rail passenger service along any Amtrak long-distance routes that, as of the date of enactment of this Act, were discontinued …” or were running less-often than daily, which included only the Sunset Limited and the Cardinal. The statute did not say anything about actually running trains on those routes in the future, but it specified rules for selection of routes and for outreach efforts, and set the time frame for the study at two years. Among the rules concerning outreach were requirements to consult with “host railroad carriers the tracks of which may be used for a service described in subsection (a)” (subsection (d)(4)), and “nonprofit organizations representing Amtrak passengers” (subsection (d)(6).

The FRA pursued that mandate and issued the November report under authority of the statute. Under §5.5.1.1 (at 5-5), the agency’s report introduced the section on outreach to potential host railroads by saying: “The majority of track miles to be assessed for the restoration or expansion of long-distance passenger rail service are anticipated to be on Class I railroad track, therefore, early outreach efforts were concentrated on engagement with the Class I railroads.” The report went on to say that the team consulted with six railroads: BNSF, CN, UP, CSX, NS, and CP. At the time of the study, merger talks between CP and Kansas City Southern were ongoing, but KCS was not hosting any Amtrak trains. Those contacts were “introductory meetings” held in October and December 2022, without substantive discussions at that time. There was also no mention of consultation with Class II or Class III railroads.

The report then went on to say: “Class I railroads were invited to the regional working group meetings that pertained to their respective regions. Representatives from Norfolk Southern, Canadian Pacific, CN, CSX, and Union Pacific attended the first series of stakeholder meetings. After the regional working group meetings concluded, FRA conducted a separate briefing with BNSF.” There were also “pre-briefings” with Class I railroads in June and July, along with another set of regional meetings in July.

The report said nothing further about consulting with potential host railroads, except in §5.5.1.2., which mentioned “future route-specific engagement” and specifically said: “Once a list of preferred routes is identified through the stakeholder and Study process, the Class I railroads and/or privately owned railroad(s) whose tracks are part of a route will be contacted to ensure they are aware of the route identification in the Study.” While it appears difficult to believe that they would not know about the results of the study so far, the report mentioned nothing about what sort of subject matter could reasonably be expected to be discussed with the prospective host railroads at those future consultations.

Talking With Host Railroads

We contacted the FRA for further information about the consultations with the prospective host railroads. Warren Flatau, the agency’s Deputy Director for Public Affairs, responded. He told Railway Age: “With respect to the Class I host railroads, FRA has briefed them on the study, and several have sent representatives to regional working group meetings. However, the technical outputs of this study will be very high-level (appropriate for a vision study, as opposed to something like a service development plan), and we have explicitly said that we’ll only be identifying ‘passenger-service specific’ capital projects that may be needed for a proposed preferred route.”

Flatau also said: “Due to the massive scope and time limitations of the study, we have not undertaken modeling or the type of host railroad coordination that could be needed to identify potential capacity-related projects on these routes. We have informed the Class I host railroads of this approach. Given this conceptual orientation, none of the Class I’s have reacted in a manner commensurate with what transpired regarding restoration of service along the Gulf Coast.”

Beyond that, he sent a screen shot of an FRA slide from a recent presentation that summarized Operations and Maintenance (O&M) and capital project technical outputs. It mentioned: “Develop robust market demand and and operations and maintenance (O&M) costs that emphasize the benefits and costs of both the existing and an expanded long-distance network” with a subhead: “Includes developing demand, revenue, and O&M cost estimates for specific routes under consideration.” It also mentioned: “Identify passenger-service specific Projects” which included three bullet points: “Examples: stations, rolling stock, track upgrades, Projects will be included as part of ‘prioritized inventory’ mandated by the legislation, and Decision to focus on identifying these types of projects was based on feedback from host railroads during initial LDSS [Long Distance Service Study] outreach.”

From this clarifying material, it appears that the FRA’s outreach to the host railroads was more thorough than the report to Congress indicated and seems to indicate that the FRA is laying a foundation for future negotiations on more specific topics.

Talking Two Advocacy Organizations

There was far less consultation with advocates, according to the report, the mandate of §22214(d)(6) notwithstanding. In contrast to its efforts with advocates, the FRA reached out to 347 tribes recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, of which 20 had expressed interest in joining the consultations (§5.5.3.1 at 5-6). To its credit, the FRA was thorough in reaching out to Native tribes, an appropriate gesture to a constituency whose voices should be heard. The agency also promised “future route-specific engagement” as with the prospective host railroads (§5.5.3.2. at 5-7). So where were the advocates? They were lumped into §5.6 (Id.), which listed other organizations to be consulted. The provision said: “In addition to the engagement activities described …, FRA has provided briefings to a variety of groups. These meetings were held at the request of the specific, nongovernmental stakeholder. They include:

• “American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials [AASHTO] Council on Rail Transportation – September 22, 2022.
• “I-20 Corridor Passenger Rail Stakeholder Convening – November 3, 2022.
• ”Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Committee – November 18, 2022.
• ”Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority – December 14, 2022.
• “Transportation Research Board – January 3, 2023.
• “Rail Passengers Association Rail Nation – March 10, 2023.
• “Southeast Rail Forum – March 21, 2023.”

The FRA also offered to provide similar briefings in the future.

Looking at who those organizations are:

• AASHTO is composed of State DOT officials, usually appointed by governors.
• The I-20 group is affiliated with the Southern Rail Commission, whose members are appointed.
• The MIPRC is affiliated with the Midwest Council of Governments.
• The Southeast Rail Forum is affiliated with State DOTs.

While these organizations also deserve to be heard, they are not citizen-advocates promoting trains.

In his reply to our inquiry, Flatau responded for the FRA with an updated list, which included other “official” agency-oriented organizations, but none composed of “citizen-advocates” of the sort known to Amtrak and to regional railroads that provide local service to and from major cities. He did confirm that there were meetings with the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority in December 2022 and with “Rail Passengers Association Rail Nation” in Washington, D.C. in March 2023 and at Meridian, Miss. in October 2023. RPA held its semiannual “Rail Nation” conferences in those cities at those times.

The Rail Passengers’ Association (RPA) is a re-branding from the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), which has been on the scene for more than 50 years. It is a large organization with a paid staff, and became a minor Amtrak contractor in 1996, a relationship that lasted at least until 2020. The organization is involved in political action and strongly supports Amtrak. Although it has sometimes drawn fire for supporting Amtrak’s positions at the expense of Amtrak’s passengers, it has consistently advocated for more trains, as have many smaller grassroots rider-advocacy organizations.

The only organization that has the look and feel of a locally-focused citizen-advocacy organization established to push for getting a train is the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority in Montana. Its purpose is to bring back the historic North Coast Limited, which was the flagship train for the Northern Pacific Railroad until 1971. Amtrak called it the North Coast Hiawatha when it came back in 1972 and until it was discontinued in 1979. The route went through the population centers in Montana, south of the Empire Builder route, which runs slightly south of the Canadian border through Montana and much of North Dakota. The North Coast served such places as Billings, Missoula, and Butte, along with Bismarck, N.Dak. Livingston, Mont. also had a connection to Yellowstone National Park.

David Strohmaier, the organization’s Chairman, is a County Commissioner in Missoula County. The town of Missoula is the home of the University of Montana. Strohmaier is a strong advocate and an elected official, an important asset when it comes to obtaining the support of legislators and state-level officials for your cause. Still, the FRA chose only the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority as worthy of consulting, an honor apparently denied other state or regional-level advocacy groups around the nation.

Why Host Railroads are Important

While the Interim Report to Congress promised future consultations with the six Class I railroads that could host restored passenger trains, it also gave the impression that prior consultations were limited and perfunctory. Fortunately, the FRA explained that the actual consultations were more thorough than the report claimed. Between the identification of a potential route and getting an actual train running, there are lots of potential problems and pitfalls with a host railroad that might not have been explored.

Without the approval of a host railroad, there will be no train. Whether or not a train ever comes back to life often depends on how much infrastructure improvement the railroad demands, and how much of it some sort of public authority will install and present to that railroad as a gift. With the advent of Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), there is less capacity on many of the nation’s rail lines today than when the former passenger trains ran, often more than a half-century ago. If there is less room for freight than there was in the past, it becomes very difficult to believe that a host railroad would be willing, or even able, to find room for a passenger train, which usually runs at higher speeds.

In 2022, we brought you extensive coverage of the “Second Battle of Mobile”, the slugfest at the Surface Transportation Board (STB) between the proponents of a new Amtrak Gulf Coast service that would run two round trips per day between New Orleans and Mobile, and CSX and NS, which opposed the new passenger service on the grounds that the level of infrastructure investment required was much higher than proposed by Amtrak and fought fiercely through an eleven-day hearing that resembled a trial. The case was eventually settled, and it appears that the trains will probably run, but this example demonstrates how difficult, and usually how expensive, it is to get a passenger train on the rails when the host railroad is willing to oppose having that train run.

This raises questions of the efficacy of spending money on a detailed study before having a reasonable confidence level that the prospective host railroad (or railroads) are willing to make a deal that would allow a new passenger service, even if the route had a passenger train on it in the distant past. FRA officials “know the railroad” and they need to make an adequate determination of the feasibility of restoring a long-discontinued route to service before embarking on an implementation plan. That should include a determination of how fiercely the potential host railroad would resist a passenger train.

This raises a number of questions, and the riding public deserves answers. Does it even make sense to study a route in detail, when the host railroad does not want the train on its rails? Is such a policy a wise use of limited government resources? Is is even fair to tease local potential riders and the governments where they live with the prospect of getting a passenger train, only to kill the proposal later because the host railroad refuses permission? Does it make sense to talk about a “new” train, when it would probably not run for decades into the future, if ever? The FRA study did not even consider such questions, much less taking a stab at answering them. Those answers probably await further FRA action beyond the study, if the trains at issue can ever start running again.

Why Advocates Are Important

The advocacy movement has struggled for recognition for decades. Local citizen-advocates throughout the country are pushing for more trains of all sorts and better transit in their states and communities, but government officials and railroad and transit managers often ignore them or treat them with disrespect. Such advocates are often among the strongest supporters for a restored service, but their effectiveness often depends on a level of recognition that they are seldom accorded. Advocates have been pushed so far into the background that other journalists on the passenger rail beat do not even cover their efforts.

The Rail Users’ Network (RUN) is a national organization whose members belong to such advocacy organizations and transit-appointed advisory committees. Despite having expressed interest in participating in the briefings and the FRA study, neither RUN nor regional or state-level advocacy organizations were allowed in the door. RUN Chair Richard Rudolph told Railway Age: “We had applied to be part of the process, but we were never told anything. We should have been selected. There’s also a whole issue of political will. It’s one thing for advocates and agencies to talk abut restoring 15 long-distance routes, but you need to get the politicians behind it.” Rudolph then turned to another FRA program: “It’s like with the FRA Corridor ID Program with its $500,000 grants, but the states must pony up 10% and 20% after the initial consultant’s study to achieve the objectives of the program. But where would states get that political will, especially conservative states or states that don’t have any passenger rail to speak of. Then there’s the cost of operations. It’s really a pipe dream.”

The FRA did make one exception: for the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority, as mentioned before. In the announcement about the service improvements to be considered next, the FRA mentioned upgrading the Sunset Limited and Cardinal from tri-weekly to daily operation, and the potential return of the North Coast train. Could there be a causal connection between consulting with one advocacy group and recommending that the train supported by that group is the only one that might return to the rails in the foreseeable future? Would more routes receive higher-priority treatment if more advocacy organizations had been consulted? Why were more of them ignored, rather than consulted?

We’ll leave those questions for you to ponder.

In the meantime, I will have some observations about the process so far, which I will present in another commentary regarding the FRA Long-Distance Rail Study.

David Peter Alan is one of North America’s most experienced transit users and advocates, having ridden every rail transit line in the U.S., and most Canadian systems. He has also ridden the entire Amtrak and VIA Rail network. His advocacy on the national scene focuses on the Rail Users’ Network (RUN), where he has been a Board member since 2005. Locally in New Jersey, he served as Chair of the Lackawanna Coalition for 21 years and remains a member. He is also Chair of NJ Transit’s Senior Citizens and Disabled Residents Transportation Advisory Committee (SCDRTAC). When not writing or traveling, he practices law in the fields of Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks and Copyright) and business law. Opinions expressed here are his own.