What Can We Do to Save the Southwest Chief?

Trinidad, CO

It is a good thing that people have started to organize to save the Southwest Chief because it looks like the entire route might be in danger. Congress has not given Amtrak the money that it needs to run its trains, so, as Fred Frailey points out, Amtrak may have to stop running some of its long-distance routes. He not only points out the five routes that lose the most money (Sunset Limited, Cardinal, Silver Star, Crescent, and Southwest Chief), he and commenters on his article point out that external factors influence how much a line loses money.

In the comments to Mr. Frailey's piece, people discuss both the fact that the Southwest Chief loses money because it is responsible for a greater percentage of maintenance of the track that it runs on than other long-distance routes, and the fact that the Cardinal and Sunset Limited both need large subsidies because not running daily only cuts a small portion of costs. Basically, there are fixed costs to running any route and to using any piece of track. If you double the number of trains that use a particular track, you do not double the costs to maintain that track. If you double the number of passenger trains that run on a particular route, you do not have to double the number of people that you need to hire to sell tickets and take care of passengers.

The Southwest Chief runs at 90% capacity through Colorado, so we can't sell more tickets to raise more money.

There are two things that we could do to increase revenue on this track.

For one, the states where this train runs could join together and fund a second daily train. Kansas is one of the states that is being asked to chip in to help fix the track, and so far they have not been very enthusiastic. Maybe that is because the Southwest Chief does not really work for the people of eastern Kansas. A lot of people get on the train for long-distance trips in Missouri which does not leave a lot of tickets for people in Kansas. And the train runs at night which means that it is not convenient for people who want to travel from Garden City to Hutchinson. A second train that would run through Kansas during the day would solve that problem. This would increase revenue more than costs.

We could also take action to increase freight on the line. If the BNSF abandons the line that runs through New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas, those states could encourage a Class 3 railroad to carry small loads of freight. It is my understanding that the state of Kansas already assists these kinds of carriers on other lines because they save the state money on road repairs. We could start looking into making it possible for refrigerated trains to run in Colorado which would make it easier to ship fresh foods, like cantaloupe, to market. Other states do so, why not us?


What do you think we should do to save the Southwest Chief and to make better use of the tracks that it runs on?