(The following article by Eric Anderson was posted on the Albany Times-Union website on March 11.)
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — When Amtrak ended food service on local trains between the Capital Region and New York City more than two years ago, it blamed heavy financial losses.
Since then, the railroad has figured out ways to cut its food losses while improving service and quality.
But don’t look for a cafe car on the local trains anytime soon.
Emmett Fremaux, Amtrak’s vice president for marketing and product management, described a wide range of improvements that Amtrak is making to its trains systemwide. Fremaux was among several speakers at the annual meeting of the Empire State Passengers Association on Saturday afternoon at the Holiday Inn in on Nott Terrace in Schenectady.
The Northeast Corridor, he said, will soon get wireless Internet service, while leather seats and other improvements to passenger comforts also are planned. Eventually, these and other improvements could be rolled out to Amtrak corridors across the country.
But officials at Saturday’s event said a lawsuit over the state’s effort to rebuild quarter-century-old turbotrains, and Amtrak’s refusal to use them, is blocking improvements here.
A planned express service between the Capital Region and New York City has been blocked, and passengers on local trains originating or terminating in Rensselaer still have to bring their own food.
Still, local passengers can expect to see some improvements in coming months:
Amtrak is instituting an electronic ticket program to replace paper tickets. Passengers could print out their tickets at home, and skip standing in line at the ticket window at the station.
The passenger railroad is also working on ways to get more information off the train, everything from transmitting credit card transactions to sending information about its location, speed and other data that would let passengers up the line know when to expect it.
The railroad also has introduced food cart service on some trains, and those carts have performed well financially, nearly breaking even.
And despite the lack of amenities on local trains out of the Capital Region, ridership and revenues are rising, up 8.2 percent and 13.5 percent respectively, Fremaux said. Amtrak expects nearly a million passengers this fiscal year, and revenues of $40 million.
Meanwhile, plans are moving ahead for a new downtown Schenectady station. James Cartin of the Capital District Transportation Authority showed some preliminary designs that will be the subject of a public session to be scheduled next month.
One sticking point: So-called high-level platforms, such as those at the new Rensselaer station, that would let passengers walk directly onto the train without climbing steps. Wheelchair users could roll directly onboard.
But freight railroads oppose the platforms unless there’s a bypass track because their freight cars could bump up against them.
Another speaker, Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers in Washington, D.C., was asked whether the appointment of Joseph Boardman, the former state transportation commissioner, to the top post at the Federal Railroad Administration was “a good thing.”
Boardman brought the lawsuit that now stands in the way of improvements locally, and he’s now an official in the Bush administration, which has not been viewed as friendly to Amtrak.
“Joe is a class act,” Capon responded. “I think we’re very lucky to have him.”
But Boardman, who strongly opposed state subsidies of Amtrak service while he was commissioner, has apparently had a change of heart.
In an e-mail to Capon before the meeting, Boardman said New York state should be paying $20 million to $30 million a year toward the cost of operating Amtrak’s service here, Capon said. Currently, it subsidizes only the Adirondack service to Montreal.