How much do freight delays cost Amtrak?

In a Jan. 23 filing with its bankruptcy judge, Delta Air Lines claimed that delays cost it "$38 per minute per flight."

Now we don't know how much an en-route delay costs Amtrak. But we do know how many minutes Amtrak trains are delayed. They're in Amtrak's own Monthly Performance Reports.

In the month of September 2005, Amtrak incurred 309,000 freight-related delay minutes:

• Amtrak operated nearly 1.76 million train miles over its major host railroads. Amtrak trains were delayed 1,594 minutes for every 10,000 train miles over this portion of its network. Total delay: 281,000 minutes.
• Amtrak ran another 268,000 train miles over smaller host railroads in September, over which it was delayed 1,041 minutes per 10,000 train miles. That makes 27,900 more delay minutes.
  

Over the whole fiscal year? 3.84 million delay minutes. How much do they cost Amtrak? Enter a figure and click "Calculate."

Cost to Amtrak for each minute of delay: $
Total estimated cost: $ million

Whatever cost figure you choose, there should be no question about these points:

• Delays cost Amtrak money.
• 3.84 million minutes is a lot of delay.

Bombs away - again

A contractor and an engineering firm are suing each other over problems with DFW Airport's Skylink train. Joining the fun is Bombardier, which is suing the contractor for

an unspecified amount of "additional costs, expenses and damages" that Bombardier said it incurred from not being able to use the bridge to test the Skylink train, according to court documents.

Bombardier, you'll recall, is the company that designed and built the Acela trainsets and pre-emptively sued Amtrak in November 2001, seeking $200 million in damages, before the final order was even delivered.

Many railfans found Bombardier's claim credible: that Amtrak ordered the Acelas four inches too wide to allow full active tilt over a portion of their route. Tilt is a passenger-comfort feature, not a safety feature; it allows trains to pass through curves at speeds that might otherwise be disorienting.

The suit was settled with no finding as to who was responsible for the extra four inches. Let me repeat that: no finding.

Recall also that Bombardier bought the Adtranz railcar maker from DaimlerChrysler in April 2001 for $725 million--then turned around the very next year and sued DCX for $1.4 billion claiming that the seller misrepresented the value of Adtranz's assets. (Wonder what part of "due diligence" BBD didn't understand.) This action was settled in 2004 by shaving $209 million off the sale price.

And by then, Bombardier could probably use the money. This chart shows the price of Bombardier's Class B shares over the last 5 years. Check here for their current price.

FT: Ryanair to charge fee for luggage check-in

The unbundling of passenger travel continues. The European discount carrier Ryanair will start charging £2.50 for each checked bag--while planning to cut each ticket by a like amount. The carrier estimates that half its passengers check only one bag. Those who carry on--up to 10kg, or 22 pounds, allowed--will save money.

Will this practice spread to other carriers? If it goes down OK with Ryanair's customers, the answer is probably yes.

Something tells me that the people who claim they want Amtrak "run like a business" didn't have this particular business in mind.

In China, passenger trains are mass transportation.

Newsweek reports that over the Lunar New Year period, some 144 million Chinese will travel by train. That's about 11% of the population.

Compare that with the United States. AAA estimated that 63.5 million Americans traveled at least 50 miles over the Christmas-New Year period. Of those, 12 million went by common carrier: plane, train or bus combined.

What makes China's mass holiday movement possible is that China continues to invest in its railway network: between expansion and modernization, some $20 billion this year alone. And we're not talking about a Riding the Iron Rooster network anymore. China's rail network includes a new rail line to Tibet as well as a 19-mile maglev line connecting Shanghai's airport and central business district.

Investment in the passenger-train network yields significant social benefits. You get what you pay for.