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Archive 1

Carter cuts not mentioned

That president cut the funding of Amtrak by two-thirds. But there is absolutely no mention of this. Very shoddy article and very uninformative about Amtrak.

71.173.7.68 (talk) 02:22, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

There may be something missing in history...

Excuse me, but in the history, shouldn't the role of the automobile industry in dismanting the railroads be mentioned? I think that is history that shouldn't be ignored 96.246.248.125 (talk) 22:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this a fair article? It does not describe how railroads serve a public purpose as well as a defense need. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ScottyBerg (talk • contribs) 15:51, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think that even though the bias here is very small, I think there is a bias against Amtrak in this article. Perhaps, it could be written with the aspects that Scottyberg mentioned (about the railroads serving a public purpose as well as serving defense) as well as mentioning the "Great American Streetcar Scandal", which I think will be very important.
The Great American Streetcar Scandal, basically, is summarized above: The quest of the automobile industry (mainly GM) to buy transportation systems, dismantle them, and replace them with buses, whcih given their uncomfortable ride, would lead to people buying cars. Though the powers that be insist that it is just a theory (repeating the valid possibility that they were going to die out anyway), there is too much suspicious (or at times, condemning) eveidence to dismiss it completely. In conclusion, I think that my suggestions and those of ScottyBerg should be taken into consideration. Any takers?
References:
[[1]]
[[2]]
96.250.152.58 (talk) 02:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

"Lowest Usage Rate" Rationale, Part 2

Someone inserted the phrase along the likes of: "due to extremely long distances between cities"

This is a generalization which does not reflect reality. Cities can be as far apart as 5000 miles or as close as 5 miles, the latter being a case of adjacent metropolitan cities, for example.

and then "thus making driving and flying a lot easier"

Flying presents an obvious advantage for cities 5000 miles apart, but again, not all cities are extremely distant. Driving shouldn't have even been mentioned. It is the shortest-range travel option in terms of convenience, unless you drink Red Bull for 12 hours trying to drive 500-600 miles on the Interstate in one shot, a distance that could be easily been covered by steam engines in the same time during the 1930s.Facial (talk) 21:15, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

That is the reason because Amtrak is a slow train system, it's too slow. You can be in a car and pass Amtrak trains but in Europe that is a different story. Going 180 to 210 mph is fast bnut I hear that Russia is building the world's fastest speed train in speeds at 310mph with inverted rails. What is Amtrak doing? It gets in accidents all the time and it can't perform fast trains like in Japan, Europe and Russia. We need to go electric that is one thing but running on gas trains that is silly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.69.155.2 (talk) 04:22, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Usage is low not because of any perceived lack of federal funding... it's because most people consider it a distant fourth behind airline, private car, and bus travel. 21-day advance fares are not significantly below those of airlines, and travel times compare unfavorably with autos and busses. Also, the schedules are often inconvenient even for fairly large cities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.105.72.35 (talk) 04:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Statistics Update

The energy efficiency / on-time performance table has been updated.

The BTS does a poor job at updating its database. For example, not all the CSVs and Excel files are in sync with its HTML statistics.

The on-time performance has been taken in 2008 for airlines, as the average of the domestic and international flights. The data for Amtrak is from 2009.

The efficiency is a real puzzle. For automobiles the latest data remains the same, at 2006, but for airlines and Amtrak, the latest appears to be around 2007.

I've decided to take the latest data for each mode, rather than relying on an obsolete base year (which has to be 2006, since the BTS won't update its automobile stats)Facial (talk) 21:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Removed Pennsylvania and Vermont templates

Removed Pennsylvania and Vermont templates. Amtrak is in far more states than those particular two, so I don't see the point of only those two. What do others think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dthomsen8 (talk • contribs) 3 May 2010

Probably autotagged by a bot. An argumemt could be made for PA, as the railroad's main operations office center (the real HQ, as opposed to the congressionally required Washington Union Station) is in Philadelphia. But removing both seems like a good idea. PS, don't forget to sign your posts by typing four tildes (~).oknazevad (talk) 14:56, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Lead-in

How about something like this: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak (reporting mark AMTK), is a government-owned corporation that recieves government subsidies, that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track".[2] It is headquartered at Union Station in Washington, D.C.[3]

All of Amtrak's preferred stock is owned by the U.S. federal government. The members of its board of directors are appointed by the President of the United States and are subject to confirmation by the United States Senate. Common stock was issued in 1971 to railroads that contributed capital and equipment; these shares convey almost no benefits[4] but their current holders[5] declined a 2002 buy-out offer by Amtrak.[6] </ref>http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=id&blobwhere=1249209905277&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername1=Content-disposition&blobheadervalue1=attachment;filename=Amtrak_Final_29441WDC_NRPC_Amtrak_Single_Audit.pdf</ref>

Amtrak employs nearly 19,000 people. It operates passenger service on 21,000 miles (34,000 km) of track primarily owned by freight railroads connecting 500 destinations in 46 states[7] and three Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2008, Amtrak served 28.7 million passengers, representing six straight years of record ridership.[7][8] Despite this recent growth, the United States still has one of the lowest inter-city rail usages in the developed world. Epione218 (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it sort of obvious that a government-owned corporation would receive government subsidies? I guess I don't see the necessity of including the bit about "receives government subsidies." Anyone who doesn't know what a government-owned corporation is can simply click the link and read that article. If others feel that it's necessary to make that point exceedingly obvious, I would suggest changing the wording to "...is a government-owned, publicly-funded corporation..." - I think that would flow better. –BMRR (talk) 16:32, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
The lead is already troublesome because of the last sentence of the lead section, on lack of ridership, improperly sourced to Wikipedia, which strikes me as POV. That gives the entire lead something of a slant. There are many public policy arguments to be made in favor of government subsidies, which are not reflected in the lead, which gives the overall impression of Amtrak as a waste of money. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:41, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

BMRR, the reason why I think it "recieves government subsidies" or something to the effect thereof should be included is, that while the federal government can own something, doesn't mean they necessarily fund it. Plus, the article it links to says something to the effect of "may receive government funds"

Ok, let's try this on for size: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak (reporting mark AMTK), is a government-owned, publicly funded corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track".[2] It is headquartered at Union Station in Washington, D.C.[3]

All of Amtrak's preferred stock is owned by the U.S. federal government. The members of its board of directors are appointed by the President of the United States and are subject to confirmation by the United States Senate. Common stock was issued in 1971 to railroads that contributed capital and equipment; these shares convey almost no benefits[4] but their current holders[5] declined a 2002 buy-out offer by Amtrak.[6]

Amtrak employs nearly 19,000 people. It operates passenger service on 21,000 miles (34,000 km) of track primarily owned by freight railroads connecting 500 destinations in 46 states[7] and three Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2008, Amtrak served 28.7 million passengers, representing six straight years of record ridership.[7][8] Epione218 (talk) 17:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

  • As the one that first reverted the addition, I guess I should explain that my objection wasn't so much to the mentioning of government funding, though I agree with BMRR that it is redundant to being government-owned. You'd be hard pressed to find a government-owned anything that doesn't get some funding by the government. In fact it's kinda the whole point of government ownership.
    No, my objection was to the characterization of it as "heavy". While it is true and undeniable that a large chunk of the Amtrak budget comes from government funding, that is true of almost every passenger railroad in the world. But calling it "heavy" also implies that it is a large amount of money, while rail advocates would point out that Amtrak receives far less per capita than other national rail carriers around the world. To call it "heavy", or even to point out the government funding in a redundant fashion is non-neutral.oknazevad (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I don't object to "public funding" being in the lead, but we need to address the other issues that the lead presents. There is the POV ending sentence that I mentioned earlier, and there is also a convoluted and somewhat esoteric reference to the capital structure of the company that doesn't belong in the lead. ScottyBerg (talk) 19:30, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree in regards to the term "heavily" being inappropriate. Sure, $1.4 billion is an enormous sum of money in the context of those of us who aren't billionaires, but it's actually a very small sum of money in the context of the amount of government funding received by other modes of transportation. I also agree that the entire lead section of the article needs some work... as does the entire article, really. I'm not saying we should attack it with a hatchet, but it would be good to give it a thorough examination and consider re-working or removing the parts that are unsourced or that aren't written from a neutral point of view. –BMRR (talk) 20:40, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Too many categories?

Amtrak is number 6 on the list of the pages with most categories. Can we do anything about this? — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 19:55, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I took a quick look at the categories and the only one that jumped out at me as possibly being unnecessary was "Vehicle electrification." We could probably also remove the category "Passenger rail transport in the United States" because the article is already in the category "Passenger railroads in the United States," which itself is part of the "Passenger rail transport in the United States" category. The rest of the categories are "___ railroads" (where ____ is a state or province in which Amtrak operates). Those seem acceptable to me. Also note that the list of the pages with most categories hasn't been updated in almost a year, so Amtrak may no longer be at #6. –BMRR (talk) 20:10, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I am appealing to see if I can move the "Operations and Services" section to the "Amtrak Trains, Operations, and Services" page. If I am successful, that should help. --Cmitchellichs (talk) 00:40, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

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Contradiction flag

RJV has placed a {contradict} flag on the line "consistent growth of ridership".

I just went through the article, and perhaps I'm missing something. While there is discussion of how ridership dropped during the 1950s (for example), there is nothing to contradict the statement that Amtrak's ridership numbers have not shown consistent growth. Unless someone can point to the contradiction, I'd remove the tag. Otherwise, I'd be glad to dig in and try to fix it.

I would love, however, to see ridership figures over Amtrak's operating history; that would be an interesting and useful bit of data here. Uberhill 20:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Amtrak network 2008.svg Nominated for Deletion

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System map

I gotta get to your attention that I had to remove the "system map" which is now the red link, and its associated caption. As I was writing the summary, I accidentally pressed the ENTER button instead of the shift which caused me to save the edit with an INCOMPLETE edit summary. I seriously hate pressing the enter instead of shift by mistake. Anyways, if anyone finds the existing and updated Amtrak system map on Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons, please feel free to put it in the infobox. NHRHS2010 the student pilot ✈ 20:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The system map was deleted due to it apparently being a copyright violation. Considering that this is the United States' national passenger railroad, I believe that creating a new map for this article should be a top priority. Unfortunately I have no idea how to make maps; is there anyone who can help? –BMRR (talk) 20:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Well someone did, and seems like the map on the infobox on the article is likely made by whoever uploaded it. NHRHS2010 the student pilot ✈ 00:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

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Phases

I'd like to see this part reworked somehow. I'm only counting three phases of livery, but this article makes reference to four. Sounds like the first phase could be any of a plethora of liveries, as Amtrak didn't really have its own stock back then. Neat idea to see some of the old colors back. YellowAries2010 (talk) 13:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

There are six (or five and a half, as some would say) main paint schemes for locomotives and cars, as well as numerous other specialty paint schemes used on certain trains or in certain regions. The Amtrak paint schemes article covers this subject pretty well. –BMRR (talk) 16:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

POV alert - biased history section

Seems to me that in some places, especially the government regulation subsection, this article is advancing a very misleading and very non-neutral "big, bad, government" view. Yes, in the early part of the 20th century, Congress finally got around to giving the ICC some teeth, enabling it to regulate railroad fares and operations. But it's not because Teddy Roosevelt was some squishy bleeding heart who had nothing better to do than interfere with a corporation's God-given right to make a huge profit. That was the Muckraking era, when all sorts of nasty monopolies and exploiters were cut down to size, to the great benefit of the public (no more chalk in the milk, no more sawdust in the sausage, no more 10-year-old factory workers, etc.). Railroads for many years had been gouging the public in all sorts of ways, and fought tooth and nail against all kinds of newfangled safety devices, like automatic couplers and air brakes, that would keep railroad workers from being sliced and diced in the course of performing their duties, as thousands had been - to mention all the passengers killed or maimed for life in crashes. That subsection, and maybe the entire section, needs to be rewritten without the POV - I don't have the time or inclination now to wade into it and find supporting sources, so I'm posting this note to alert, I hope, someone who does. Textorus (talk) 11:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree. It's hardly neutrally written. Yes, to some extent the regulation didn't keep up with the times, but it existed for a reason. And the railroads were in many ways creations of governments, so the decidedly "government always bad" POV herein displayed is even more disconcerting. oknazevad (talk) 00:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, more accurately the history of the railroad system in the United States was the creations of individuals, family empires, corporations that bought and used politicians who levied taxes against the citizens to fund privately-owned railroads. The history of the railroad system in the United States rather precludes a WP:NPOV since an accurate history is, well, rather bloody and treasonous. Damotclese (talk) 21:14, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

The "Government Regulation" section is highly biased with a political "regulation = evil" sort of propaganda message. The politics of the section jumped right out at me on my very first read. Someone (who, unlike me, has mass-transit/rail knowledge) needs to edit this, expunging the political POV and preserving the just the facts. I'd lend a hand but as a transit layman I'd be afraid of mangling up those very same facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AKeenEye (talk • contribs) 01:45, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The bias opinions in this section should be removed and replaced only with facts, which can easily be obtained from other reliable web sites such as this one: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h921.html Mistercontributer (talk) 20:00, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. This section needs an NPOV rewrite. -AlikaAlex 17:41, 12 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alikaalex (talk • contribs)

I'm not usually one to jump to the POV conclusion but I have to agree - the whole history section reeks of "big bad government" POV tone and content and badly needs rewriting. Splateagle (talk) 15:46, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, this whole section was obviously written by someone with an anti-government, anti-union agenda. It needs to be edited or deleted entirely. Unfortunately, I'm not an expert on trains so I'm unable to do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shquishay (talk • contribs) 01:27, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so I am a historian with an interest in railroads. I think the first paragraph in gov reg needs to go, because it doesn't explain how the government regulation hurt the railroads and it trys to say the USRA nationalization was a bad thing, which it was NOT. The railroads were incapable of functioning as a cohesive network, not because they couldn't because it meant they would have to share profits with competitors. Also the primary source is from 1925, there are many more modern and accurate histories of the rail industry. The second paragraph is about government taking appropriate steps to protect the traveling public's safety, something they still do today and for more than just railroads. The third paragraph on the ICC seems okay to me, the forth doesn't seem relevant to passenger trains. I'm going to try to clean this up. Someone take a look at it here in a few days and see if it seems biased free. I thing the controversy section seems a little biased as well, I might take a mild pass as it. Cheers. NGotwalt — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.229.210.95 (talk) 19:00, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

NGotwalt, it appears other changes were made to this section after you made your changes. However, the bias in the section was decreased by removing the following sentence: "The first interruption in passenger rail's vibrancy coincided with government intervention." It appears that you are on the right "track." Mistercontributer (talk) 20:16, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

This section is looking relatively good to me right now -- it reads to me as describing, in detail, poorly thought out or poorly implemented regulation, or unanticipated results of regulation (which I think is the general critical view) rather than "big bad government". 67.255.2.121 (talk) 05:10, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I just took another crack at the government regulation section, I basically just reworded what was said to eliminate some bias in that form. It's important to recognize that many of the actions the government took to regulate the railroads came from the railroad's own incompetence. I also clarified some remarks to take away some of the big bad government feel of that section, that I though it still had. Unfortunately, I did forget to sign in before editing it, so my username might not be tied to the edits. Cheers, NGotwalt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ngotwalt (talk • contribs) 18:55, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

POV alert - Labor Issues section biased

As with the Labor section in Government Regulation, much of this section reads like an anti-union rant and fails to cite references or verify claims in many instances. The first paragraph, in particular, should be deleted entirely, IMO. (talk) (UTC)

I took out "Still, though, the influence of unions is a strong force against change," which seemed to be one of the more egregious sentences. Hopefully that helps a bit. –AlikaAlex 07:18, 16 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alikaalex (talk • contribs)

History section - italics use

In the History section under "Causes of decline...: Labor issues": "Average train speeds doubled from 1919 to 1959, but unions resisted efforts to modify their existing 100 to 150 mile work days. Why is "mile" italicized? Is there some special significance to the word mile I'm unaware of? I would like to think this is someone attempting to present a neutral view towards unions, by highlighting a word, "mile," that displays the extent of the role unions played in railroad companies' downfall, just in case you missed or misread it. Of course, any other word you might mistakenly read there, like "hour," would not make any sense at all in that sentence, so I do question the success of this attempt. --Wikiperson0202 (talk) 05:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, the italicization of "mile" may have amounted to the injection of a small (and non-NPOV) editorial comment on the perceived harmful effect of the old union work rule which said that a work day consisted of some combination of an 8 hour day and 100 or 120 miles traveled. Regardless of how the rule is perceived now, it was what it was and both sides which voluntarily agreed to the rule and its implementation deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt when judging the rule by modern standards of fairness. On that basis, I have removed the italics. NorthCoastReader (talk) 22:39, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

History section - italics use

In the History section under "Causes of decline...: Labor issues": "Average train speeds doubled from 1919 to 1959, but unions resisted efforts to modify their existing 100 to 150 mile work days. Why is "mile" italicized? Is there some special significance to the word mile I'm unaware of? I would like to think this is someone attempting to present a neutral view towards unions, by highlighting a word, "mile," that displays the extent of the role unions played in railroad companies' downfall, just in case you missed or misread it. Of course, any other word you might mistakenly read there, like "hour," would not make any sense at all in that sentence, so I do question the success of this attempt. --Wikiperson0202 (talk) 05:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, the italicization of "mile" may have amounted to the injection of a small (and non-NPOV) editorial comment on the perceived harmful effect of the old union work rule which said that a work day consisted of some combination of an 8 hour day and 100 or 120 miles traveled. Regardless of how the rule is perceived now, it was what it was and both sides which voluntarily agreed to the rule and its implementation deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt when judging the rule by modern standards of fairness. On that basis, I have removed the italics. NorthCoastReader (talk) 22:39, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Non-participating railroads

The Chesapeake & Ohio RR carried passengers on its Lake Michigan car ferries until July 1, 1983. Why weren't those passenger operations included under Amtrak after 1971? Why isn't B&O considered a "non-participating railroad" in that regard?

Mmathu (talk) 08:23, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

A ship operated by a railroad would not have been considered a rail passenger operation under the Amtrak Law. Nor were commuter trains; several railroads operated commuter trains well into the 1980s and were not considered "non-participating railroads." For reference, see USC Sec. 24701 et seq. 49 USC sec 24306 discusses auto-ferry operations, but this seems to refer to Auto-Train, not ship ferries. -- Wlindley (talk) 17:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Commuter rail services

There's a piece of history here which isn't well-documented anywhere on Wikipedia. Amtrak only relieved the private railroads of their obligation to run "intercity" trains, defined in a particular way. For anything which was considered a "commuter" service, the private railroads were still required to operate them. They were relieved of the legal obligation to operate commuter service in 1983, at which point most of the commuter services were bought by local "authorities" like SEPTA, NJ Transit, Metro-North, etc. Notice that the C&O car ferries end in 1983 -- this is not a coincidence. I'm not sure what article is best to cover this topic -- probably the article about the law which set the 1983 end date for the private railroad obligation to provide commuter service, but I can't remember which law that was (was it the 3R law or the 4R law?)24.59.161.166 (talk) 14:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Commuter rail services were taken over by Conrail under the 3R Act. (For details, see United States Railway Association.) The Northeast Rail Service Act of 1981 authorized state or metropolitan agencies to acquire the commuter services from Conrail. Those transfers were completed by 1983. This topic is discussed, albeit briefly, in both the Conrail and History of rail transport in the United States articles. You're welcome to add to those articles. (Also, currently there is no separate article on the 1981 Act.) Caseyjonz (talk) 01:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the anon that this twilight period of commuter rail; essentially the twenty years before 1983, isn't well-covered. Commuter rail under Conrail might be a suitable overarching article. This doesn't have much to do with Amtrak, though at least two commuter services (Valpo Local and Michigan Executive) wound up under Amtrak. Mackensen (talk) 04:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Image quantity

The Amtrak article seems to have more images than necessary all over. The pre-Amtrak section already has four images, so two it enough for that section. Might look suitable to remove approximately half of these pictures to make it more of a factual page and less of a railfan's gallery. Ctempire (talk) 21:02, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I reduced them to default sizes, but otherwise that's not an unreasonable number of images. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:32, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Where's Maine?

User talk:Pi.1415926535 asked "Where's Maine?" Good question! The last I heard they had packed up and fled North in to Canada. Something about Southerners infesting their country or something. It's amusing because I also wondered where Maine had gone to in the map that Pi removed. Is Maine still part of the Union? :) Damotclese (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Ownership

In this article it states: "The purchase price could be satisfied either by cash or rolling stock; in exchange, the railroads received NRPC common stock."

I don't think this statement is true because I cannot find any solid evidence whatsoever that shows that Amtrak is a publicly traded company or even issued any class of common or preferred shares to anyone. In fact I checked all of the U.S. Stock Exchanges (i.e. NYSE, NASDAQ etc..) and none of them show an active or defunct ticker symbol. It should be noted that in the United States is it compulsory that any company which issues one or more of a class of stock are required to file various regulatory forms (i.e. 8-K, 10-Q, DEF14 etc..) with the SEC each quarter of the year or as needed and no filings either by National Railroad Passenger Corporation or Amtrak have ever been made. What I think happened here is the original poster of this paragraph has confused the issuance of bonds by the government with stock which is issued to the general public. Very likely the railroad companies were given a certain number of 5, 10, 15 or even 20 year bonds in exchange for their equipment and properties and not stock. As far as I am aware since Amtrak's inception in 1971 it has always been owned by and funded through the United States Government making it a quasi-government agency. I'd like to make some minor changes if there are no objections. TheGoofyGolfer (talk) 17:43, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I object. Even a cursory Google search will verify the issuance of NRPC common stock to the contributing railroads at the time of its formation. The government owns the preferred shares, which is why they have control over the board. But there are no bonds involved. Your idea is the very definition of original research, as you have no sources for your idea, just a misunderstanding of the correct situation. Please do not change it. oknazevad (talk) 23:12, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Addendum: here is the 2011 Amtrak annual report. See page 81. oknazevad (talk) 23:33, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
It's stated explicitly in Craig Sanders' Amtrak in the Heartland (a reliable source) that the railroads could receive "common stock" . Four did. Mackensen (talk) 23:23, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Ok. TheGoofyGolfer (talk) 14:57, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
The companies in question are American Premier Underwriters which was previous known as Penn Central Transportation, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National Railway. The redemption of these shares are still the subject of a major lawsuit in which they are trying to get the $10 par value per share whereas Amtrak only wants to redeem the shares at $0.03 a share. See American Underwriters Inc. v National Railroad Passenger Corporation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Floridafreddie (talk • contribs) 17:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Rivers

A while back, I began to expand the route templates to include rivers crossed by the trains. However, I got way too much involved, and added so many river crossings that the templates grew to a ridiculous size. While my original intent was to improve the accuracy of the templates (such as whether a station is elevated, at-grade, or in a tunnel, and handicapped accessibility), I just added way too much, and was reverted after a while. My question is, if I were to add more river crossings, to other templates, should they include only "major" rivers, such as Susquehanna, Savannah, St. Johns, Hudson, etc., or only crossings over state borders? BenYes? 15:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Copying some of my response to the previous discussion at Template talk:Amtrak Cascades for visibility here: Amtrak and similar articles - where all services run over lines that may (and should) have separate articles, and often have multiple services running on a single line - geography should be minimized. Articles on services should show only stations and other elements directly important to the service pattern (like future or past routings, or where services of the same type diverge). Geography - like rivers, bridges, tunnels - as well as connections to other lines, stations serving other services, etc should be kept to templates for the lines. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:55, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. I have included major rivers in some of the CSX line templates (e.g. Capital Subdivision) but not in the articles for the MARC services which operate on these lines. (The MARC articles currently do not have route templates.) Caseyjonz (talk) 01:22, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
OK, that sounds like a better plan. I agree in retrospect that the route templates should really contain information relevant to the route only. Would it be feasible, however, to indicate the borders of the railroad subdivisions (i.e. NEC to Keystone Corridor) on the route templates? BenYes? 13:15, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Moving "Operations and Services" section to the "Amtrak Trains, Operations, and Services" page.

I would like to move the majority or all of the information in the "Operations and Services" section to a dedicated page, the "Amtrak Trains, Operations, and Services" page. The page was originally titled "List of Amtrak Routes" and contained information on Amtrak trains, ridership, and the stations/locations that they serve. I feel that this goes hand-in-hand with what is presently housed in the "Operations and Services" section and I have already moved the information to the page. I am appealing to remove most of the information from the original Amtrak article except for the ridership statistics and list of trains/services and I would also like to add a

Main article: Amtrak Trains, Operations, and Services

link to the "Operations and Services" section. I feel that separating this information will be beneficial to the community as a whole because it will help to clean up the Amtrak page and it will group similar information together.

I would like your opinions in order to reach a consensus on this.

--Cmitchellichs (talk) 00:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not a fan. There are essentially two ideas:
  • Convert List of Amtrak routes into a prose-style article
  • Split out the content within "Amtrak operations and services" into a separate article
The first is a non-starter. A list that long always needs its own article and it would be awkward to combine a prose portion, tangentially related to the list, with the list itself. The second requires some thought. The whole "Amtrak operations and services" is at present awkwardly written and under-sourced. The opening section, in particular, is far too long. I think much could be done to tighten the content, and at that point spin-off articles might suggest themselves. Also, the proposed title violates WP:AT. Best, Mackensen (talk) 12:28, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Operations and services are the core of this article; it would be counterproductive to move them elsewhere. The list of Amtrak routes is a historical list of all named trains Amtrak has ever operated; it is not the place for prose descriptions of how Amtrak operates. If anything should be moved to another page it should be the history section - "History of XYZ" is a standard and well-accepted method of shortening lengthy articles. A 500-word-or-so summary of the history on this article would be kept, of course. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Recent reverted edit needs citations, not removal

To keep the controversy in perspective, Amtrak gets about $1.5 billion a year from the federal government for operations and capital investment. With a US population of more than 310 million, the Amtrak subsidy comes to less than $5 per citizen. Amtrak's total subsidy over more than 40 years is less than the transfers from the General Fund into the Highway Trust Fund in the past few years

That proposed text addition was reverted with a comment about being biased and lacking citations or references. However I reverted the revert and added the need for citation template since I find that the proposed text is not biased yet it certainly does require citations and/or references.

Would the original editor please provide suitable references? And if the reverting editor would like to explain his or her reasoning for determining the proposed text is some how biased, would you please comment here? Thanks! Damotclese (talk) 18:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe I've been involved in that text, so here's my thoughts. There's nothing wrong with having the information, but the wording is absolutely terrible and definitely POV pushing. Something along the lines of "In 20XX the total federal subsidy for Amtrak was $Y.Y billion, an average of $Z.ZZ per US citizen." with a proper citation for both figures would be appropriate. The comparison to the highway trust fund is only acceptable if an authority outside Wikipedia (a federal report about Amtrak's budget, or a well-regarded commentator, etc) is making it. Saying "To keep the controversy in perspective" is, while a pretty reasonable argument elsewhere, not acceptable in a neutral ground like Wikipedia. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:12, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, yes the "in perspective" should be re-worded, I didn't like that wording either. :) The text, I think, contains useful information that does put Amtrak funding in perspective which I think should be kept. What is needed is better wording and citations. I look at this kind of information from the perspective of people doing actual research rather than editors considering what should be included and excluded. Since I have a lot of my software running along cargo rail lines (not passenger rail) I watchlist rail-related pages, and the suggested text seems to be good information, it just needs better wording and suitable citations. Damotclese (talk) 16:39, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

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Firearms on Amtrak

An editor proposed a change which I reverted. Let's attempt to refrain from NRA rhetoric and stick with Amtrak's rules in the extant article, please. Damotclese (talk) 16:57, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Here is Amtrak's policy: http://www.amtrak.com/firearms-in-checked-baggage

There is nothing about licenses at all. Read it and see for yourself. It is not "NRA rhetoric" to state the truth: that the USA mostly does not have firearm licensing and that Amtrak's policy concerns lawful firearms, not licensed firearms. Sladuuch (talk) 15:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Cato Institute not valid reference

The Cato Institute was used as a reference which I see another editor has removed (thanks.) Cato is not a legitimate source for references and citations, it is a pay-for-play corporation which performs research tailored to produce results which their customers pay for. Damotclese (talk) 16:51, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

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Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Amtrak/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

46 images, 159 citations. Lacks sources and prose. JJ98 (Talk) 05:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Last edited at 05:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC). Substituted at 07:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Passenger-Miles are relevant

The article gives statistics on ridership in passengers per year, but lacks any figures about passenger-miles (except for some historical comparison and accidents). Anyone will agree that a passenger travelling 1000 miles is more relevant than a passenger riding 5 miles out of a city. Meerwind7 (talk) 12:38, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Track-access Charges

Where Amtrak is using private railroad company tracks, how much does it have to pay for that, and how does that affect Amtrak's profitability (and that of the track owners)? Meerwind7 (talk) 12:43, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Amtrak serves more than 500 destinations

I don't like the newly proposed update stating Amtrak serves more than 500 destinations since that is worded rather like a promotion. The word "serves" sounds too much like marketing HR rhetoric. Damotclese (talk) 15:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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Accidents

@Mackensen: - I undid your edit for the reasons stated in the edit summary. For the benefit of others, maybe you'd like to explain why you think that an unreferenced and depleted table is better than referenced, bulleted text. Mjroots (talk) 16:35, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Whilst we're discussing this section, I propose that the "pedestrian fatalities" subsection is removed. These accidents are not notable enough to be included. Mjroots (talk) 17:26, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Per consensus, I've removed it. Mjroots (talk) 19:36, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Sure. If the only issue is references, they could easily be restored. Inasmuch as every entry in the table linked to an article, it seemed like overkill. Regarding organization, Amtrak is a transportation company, first and foremost. It makes sense to me to handle accidents and incidents the way they're handled in peer articles, which would be other transportation companies. A chronological table seems more useful than a list subdivided into somewhat arbitrary sections.

Now, as to notability. I'm glad you agree that the pedestrian strikes aren't notable. Unfortunately, the present structure of the information invites those kinds of additions. I thought that my reorganization, which opened with "major accidents and incidents", was a real improvement over a series of bulleted lists with no explanation nor structure. I also found it dubious for that section to come directly after History, and before a description of the company's routes and operations. If Amtrak were an accident-prone organization, that might be justifiable. It's not. Or maybe it is, but in the absence of any prose we don't know (it's not). Most of the bulleted items aren't notable, or even important. They're the sort of minor incidents which will inevitably occur, and receive some trivial coverage. I think it offends WP:SUMMARY to take up a couple screenfulls and 16K worth of the article with this information. It's indiscriminate. If someone's really that interested in all the minor collisions and derailments that have befallen Amtrak over the years, they're already listed at the various chronological listicles.

If you'd like to talk criteria for table, I'm willing. I think any incident which merits a standalone article should be included. Any incident in which at least one passenger was killed will possibly merit a standalone article in the future and could also be included. But pedestrian strikes? Minor derailments in which no-one was even seriously injured? I don't think they belong in this article. Frankly, if I'd noticed the addition in early July I'd have reverted it then and there under WP:BRD, and opened this exact discussion. Mackensen (talk) 17:47, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

As you know, Mackensen, I added the section recently. You mention peer articles. I take this to mean other railway company articles, not airline articles. Please let us compare apples with apples, not pears. It seems to me that many major American railway company article lack an accidents section, as did this article until recently. I originally listed all accidents chronologically, Jumplike23 later split it by type and added the pedestrian accidents subsection.
I am happy to discuss the inclusion/removal of any individual incident listed. If there are any which an editor feels is not notable enough to be included, feel free to propose removal and we'll discuss. My basic criteria is that accidents involving fatalities on the train, or injuries to passengers are at least notable enough to be included in this article. Those involving fatalities or injuries to drivers or road vehicles may or may not be, depending on circumstances. Mjroots (talk) 18:21, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
So that there's no misunderstanding, you think that any accident in which a passenger was injured should be mentioned here? Mackensen (talk) 18:58, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
In a nutshell, yes. We have a company operating on a modern railway system in a first-world country. Such accidents will be relatively rare and therefore at least notable enough to be mentioned. Mjroots (talk) 19:07, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
That kind of accident is rather less rare than you think - minor grade crossing collisions (where Amtrak is not at fault) with a handful of passenger injuries happen multiple times a year. This is an encyclopedia; it should not be a compendium of every garden-variety grade crossing incident with a couple of whiplash injuries. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:17, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
I note that British Rail dealt with this by splitting out everything to List of accidents on British Rail. I have no particular objection to List of accidents on Amtrak. Mackensen (talk) 19:03, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
That would be acceptable to me. One of your concerns seems to be a size issue. Splitting off can be justified on these grounds. Mjroots (talk) 19:07, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, a separate list article sounds like the right choice - but even then, (as I wrote above) most pedestrian strikes and minor grade crossing accidents probably aren't worth including because of the sheer number of them. The list article should be for moderately significant incidents like the 1984 Montrealer derailment and the 2005 Acela grade crossing incident with multiple injuries and significant press coverage. Coverage in the main article should be limited to a handful of truly exceptional incidents like the Night Owl and Bourbonnais. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:17, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
I !vote for sortable table, with the criteria for inclusion being passenger death or standalone article, with everything else included in List of accidents on Amtrak. Useddenim (talk) 19:25, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Accidents of lesser notability -

collisions
  • May 6, 2003 - train driver killed
  • Aug 2, 2003 - 15 passengers injured
  • Nov 30, 2007 - 3 hospitalized
  • May 13, 2010 - 12 injured
  • Jul 11, 2011 - truck driver killed
  • Nov 29, 2012 - 7 passengers injured
  • Oct 28, 2014 - 24 injured
derailments
  • Sep 11, 2001 - 6 injured
  • Feb 1, 2002 - 10 injured
  • Oct 21, 2012 - 8 injured
  • Oct 5, 2015 - 7 injured
  • Jul 2, 2017 - several injured

The above are those accidents of lesser notability. Of those, I have no objection to the removal of the Jul 11, 2001 accident. The rest I think are suitable for the proposed stand-alone list. Mjroots (talk) 19:51, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Just to add my two cents here... I think that my bar for a notable incident would be one that caused the death of a passenger or a crew member. Collisions with pedestrians (even if fatal) and derailments in which no passengers were seriously injured are not notable. Also, I'll draw attention to the fact that on nearly every airline page and on the Greyhound Lines page the "accidents and incidents" section is located at the very bottom of the page. As Amtrak is a fellow common carrier of passengers, I think that location would be appropriate for this page as well. It feels *way* too high on the page at the moment. --RickyCourtney (talk) 20:49, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
One other possible threshold: did the NTSB publish an accident report. Generally the NTSB only investigates when there are fatalities or significant property damage, but they can investigate any passenger train incidents they deem to be consequential. The reports also give us a very reliable source of information on each incident. Just a thought. --RickyCourtney (talk) 14:07, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the split to List of accidents on Amtrak. Mackensen (talk) 23:38, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Refactoring of History section

I've just made a large change. Per WP:SUMMARY, I don't think what amounts to a background section on passenger service preceding Amtrak's formation should be twenty paragraphs long. Looking over Stover and Saunders, both of whom deal with the subject in depth, a couple common themes emerge:

  • subsidized competition in the form of airports and the interstates
  • outdated labor practices
  • rate regulation
  • loss of mail service (at the end, as a final precipitating factor)

I think it's possible to cover that without getting too far into the weeds. I think the section as cut down should probably expand some. Note that all the pre-Amtrak stuff is referenced now, where it wasn't formerly. I'm not sure whether consolidation (lack thereof) should be covered; that's more relevant to Conrail than Amtrak. Mackensen (talk) 23:17, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

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