WASHINGTON – The Surface Transportation Board on Thursday announced that it has selected a senior staff member, Neil Moyer, to coordinate the board’s efforts in preparing to meet new intercity passenger rail on-time performance responsibilities.
Moyer will work closely with board members and staff to develop a plan for on-time performance investigations. Among the tasks: Forming a unit at the STB focused on passenger rail issues and analysis. In his role as passenger rail unit development coordinator, Moyer’s work will build on that of the Passenger Rail Working Group, an interdisciplinary group of board employees formed in April to evaluate the resources the board needs to fulfill its on-time performance oversight responsibilities.
Moyer, currently passenger rail advisor in the STB’s Office of Public Assistance, Governmental Affairs, and Compliance, formerly served as chief of the Intercity Passenger Rail Analysis Division and of the Financial and Economic Analysis Division at the Federal Railroad Administration, where he managed the Commercial Feasibility Study of High-Speed Ground Transportation and was primary author of the study report, “High-Speed Ground Transportation for America.” .
“The selection of Neil Moyer to coordinate development of a passenger rail unit at the Board, and marshal other important resources, is a critical step in ensuring the Board’s preparedness to meet its important oversight and adjudicatory responsibilities with regard to passenger rail OTP,” Chairman Martin J. Oberman said.
“With the Board’s planning efforts well underway, I remain as confident as ever in the Board’s ability to meet its upcoming passenger rail OTP responsibilities and play its part in ensuring the service quality of the Nation’s intercity passenger rail system,” Oberman added.
Section 213 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) authorizes, and on eligible complaint requires, the STB to investigate the causes of substandard passenger rail OTP, to identify mitigating measures, and, under specified conditions, to prescribe relief.
In late 2020, the FRA, in conjunction with Amtrak, promulgated a “Customer OTP” metric to measure passenger rail OTP, with a standard requiring 80 percent of passenger arrivals at stations to occur within 15 minutes of the scheduled time for any two consecutive calendar quarters. This standard began to apply on July 1, 2021.
Because PRIIA requires as a precondition for an STB OTP investigation that there be two consecutive quarters of substandard OTP, there is a possibility that a complaint requesting an STB investigation could be submitted as early as January 2022. Complaints may be brought by Amtrak, by an entity for which Amtrak operates intercity passenger rail service, by an intercity passenger rail operator, or by a host freight railroad over which Amtrak operates.
One note to my post above: That territory is not “dark”. It is equipped with block signals for following movements.
I want to see if the STB and its Chair, the well-regarded Martin Oberman, will recognize that priority handling is not the problem. The lack of mainline track capacity and operating flexibility is. Look at the NS line between Birmingham and the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway used by Amtrak Nos. 19&20. No ctc. It’s single track and from observations I made from my last trip in 2018, meets are made by paper authorities issued by the train dispatchers directly to train crews and the train authorised to take siding has to stop and hand-line their way in. I think the switches are spring switches for trailing point movements. Small wonder Nos. 19&20 have trouble getting over the road in that territory.
Let’s see the STB and Amtrak are government agencies and they are going to form another group to try and figure it out. Can’t see where this will go wrong. By the way the President has decided he wants to screw with the profitability of freight railroads Maybe that will allow Amtrak to be on time???.
What next?
Let me fix that. “Will NOT gain insight enough…”
Mr. Smith, I wholeheartedly share your skepticism. Unless the STB appoints someone who knows and understands railroads, has worked for a railroad in train operations perhaps, will they gain insight enough to make credible observations. Let’s at least be happy they didn’t appoint someone from the RPA.
I cannot count the number times Amtrak management and/or government regulators have taken on the task of getting Amtrak’s trains, especially the long-distance trains, to run on time. I am 82; I have been counting since May 1971.
This week No. 21, the southbound Texas Eagle, was late arriving into Temple by an hour or more on three out of seven days.
On August 9th I took Number 22 to Dallas. I was scheduled to return on No. 21 the following day. Unfortunately, it was more than four hours late. So I executed my backup plan. I jumped on Greyhound, which left on time and arrived into Temple on time.
I have zero confidence that Amtrak’s management or the government will be able to get Amtrak’s long-distance trains to run on time.