Everyone knows America’s passenger train system is pathetic by international standards, so President Obama’s $13 billion commitment to build a national high-speed rail network has come as a wonderful surprise.
It also raises the question of whether a reinvigorated rail industry could, with the car industry and several airlines drifting into bankruptcy, be the next great hope for keeping people employed in this country?
Though the U.S. is the world’s largest economy, the market for passenger rail vehicles and services has shrunk dramatically over the past several decades. European and Asian countries have invested heavily in expanding their rail offerings but Washington has done little more than keep national operator Amtrak on life support. As a result, rail accounts for only 0.3% of total transportation usage in the U.S., compared to 6% in the U.K., 10% in Austria, and 27% in Japan. Because of the lack of adequate train services, automobiles and airplanes provide the only medium-to-long distance commuting choice for the majority of Americans.
This has meant that US companies have largely missed out on participating in a major global industry. The competitive market for rail manufacturing and services in Europe accounted for more than 20 billion euros in 2005. The market in the Nafta zone of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico was only one-quarter as large, even though the two areas have equivalent populations.
There has been some increased recent investment in urban rail networks in the US: there are several foreign factories that make vehicles for commuter and light rail systems in stateside facilities. But there are no plants making intercity trains, as Amtrak hasn’t ordered new rolling stock in a decade and no passenger rail manufacturers are headquartered in America.
In the world passenger rail market, three companies currently dominate: the Canadian Bombardier, the French Alstom, and the German Siemens. In Germany, railway manufacturers collectively employ 45,000 individuals who produce new trainsets for large markets in that nation and abroad. Bombardier alone provides jobs for 34,000 people in the rail industry.
But none of these companies employs the mammoth 200,000-plus person workforce of a major auto company like Ford or GM.
Even in fully-developed rail markets such as those in Europe, train production doesn’t create as many jobs as making cars. Yet rail vehicles, unlike automobiles, need a staff to operate them, and that’s where a passenger rail industry could prove its value in creating new jobs.
France’s TGV high-speed trains, which criss-cross that country, carried 100 million people in 2008, and the national rail company employs about 200,000 people (that number includes people working on commuter trains). France is 1/5th the size of the U.S. in population.
One can extrapolate: an equivalent American rail network could transport 500 million passengers a year on fast rail and provide jobs for one million people operating trains, maintaining track, and serving customers. There are about as many people working in motor vehicle and part manufacturing in the U.S. today. A vibrant rail industry would mostly be a service-oriented one, rather than a manufacturing one.
The U.S. isn’t close to providing anything of the sort today: Amtrak’s 18,000 employees served only 29 million passengers in 2008. It’s hard to imagine an $8 billion dollar investment from Washington being enough to stimulate the 20-fold expansion of a transportation sector, but it’s a start.
Perhaps America should look for an example in its success in transporting freight by rail. Since 1980, the railroad industry has invested $420 billion of its own funds for locomotives, rail cars, tracks, bridges, and tunnels, and today freight companies like CSX and Norfolk Southern manage more than 140,000 miles of track and transport more goods than do truckers. More than 180,000 people work in the field.
There’s no reason equivalent success couldn’t arise from a passenger rail industry.
Yonah Freemark is an independent researcher currently working in France on comparative urban development as part of a Gordon Grand Fellowship from Yale University, from which he graduated in May 2008 with a BA in architecture. He writes about transportation and land use issues for The Transport Politic and The Infrastructurist.
SEE ALSO: AMERICA’S STREETCAR RENAISSANCE (MAP)
and COMPARISON SHOPPING FOR TRANSIT SYSTEMS (CHART)
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May 19th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Does ‘employs more people’ mean ‘costs more money’?
May 19th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
$420 billion since 1980 comes out to about $14 billion/year.
So, we just need to duplicate the stimulus’ HSR funding each year. Seems like a modest proposal.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Any way you slice it, there’s just no reason for America not to have a world-class rail system. Cheers to President Obama for his high-speed rail proposals. It’s just a start - and one that should have been embarked upon 20 years ago - but I’ll take it.
May 20th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Anon - Complicated question, no? What does the car industry “cost”? It’s not a zero-sum game between the industries of course. We should have both.
Ed - Yes. The possibilities are very exciting.
May 20th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
[...] More Trains, More Jobs: [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
We’d make tons of jobs if we built this or something similar: http://img171.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hsrnetworkjx3.png
May 20th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
I think this is a smashing idea. What with mean population density and geography in the West, South, and Midwest basically identical to Japan, Germany, Austria, etc. Not only that, but if there’s a better way to identify best-use-of-resources, it’s in the number of jobs created, rather than getting bogged down on artificial statistics like productivity gains and GDP growth. And I assume, because they’d be the best investments of all, that these new train employees would be Federal workers, and members of at least one union to boot?
I agree. Let’s go replicate Japan’s and Germany’s economic growth these last twenty years. Upward and onward!
May 20th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Chris -
The eastern US and the west coast together have population density virtually identical to Spain. Nobody is talking about Butte to Sandpoint high speed rail. It’s corridors, sir. And the population density in those is *ample* to support a passenger rail buildout.
More here:
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/03/17/how-much-would-it-cost-to-have-high-speed-rail-network-like-spains/
-Jebediah
May 20th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Well, thank you for that. A few points:
(1) Amtrak is not exactly a financially exciting proposition where historic train use and population density have come together, unless it’s suddenly started turning a profit in the Northeast. Not to be too snide, but that “profit” thing is kind of important. Heck, breaking even would be kind of cool, too.
(2) “The Eastern U.S. and the west coast” covers a lot more ground, much of which is extremely sparse, and has the benefit of being poorly defined. Does the Eastern U.S. include rural Georgia and Carolinas? Alabama? Mississippi? In the West, do we include Oregon?
(3) The post at issue lauded the idea of moving 500 million Americans annually. I’m aware that California and the Northeast have large (if declining) populations, but seems to me you’d need, even with replication, to expand outward from there.
(4) I appreciate that you’re pushing for rail corridors, which presumably would skip cities you either don’t like, don’t feel would want to use the trains, or have insufficient population to support the thing. As I followed President Obama’s proposed plan, though, he intends rail corridors to run into the Midwest, obviously for some Chi-town love, but moreover, to spread outward from there. Even that notwithstanding, and even given how much land involved is Federal land, you’re talking a lot of takings there.
(5) Last but not least, my primary purpose here was to gently note that employing government employees to run trains through the great American car land is probably not the most economically productive use of resources. I understand I’m the heretic here, but “jobs” does not mean “best use.”
May 20th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
And how much profit does your local road system make? Oh right, our roads are heavily subsidized by federal, state and local governments too… Why don’t we get big government’s meddling hand out of the way and let the inanimate asphalt pay for itself!
You know how to use Google Earth, don’t you? Here’s a hint: look for places where there’s more grey than green.
500 million passengers–or 500 million rides, if you prefer. Sorry if that was unclear.
The fact that people are moving from the northeast and SoCal (where land is expensive, since so many people live there, what with them being hubs of commerce and all) to places like Texas, Arizona and Virginia means that those places are going to get a lot more crowded themselves, which is all the more reason to build transit linking such places in the south.
I’m not quite sure what your argument is here. Are you simply venting your soreness that your city wasn’t picked? You could always just ask nicely…
Do you also object to employing government employees to build the roads and highways that make American car land possible? Do you think manufacturing 8 million cars a year and having to pay for insurance, law enforcement, road and vehicle repairs, highway expansion, parking, accident cleanup and hospitalization for road victims is a better use of resources than fuel-efficient, high-density, high-speed mass transit?
May 20th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Well, thank you for that. A few points:
(1) Amtrak is not exactly a financially exciting proposition where historic train use and population density have come together, unless it’s suddenly started turning a profit in the Northeast. Not to be too snide, but that “profit” thing is kind of important. Heck, breaking even would be kind of cool, too.
Why? Do you expect roads, airports, and airlines to turn a profit as well? How about other public services such as police/fire departments and schools?
(4) I appreciate that you’re pushing for rail corridors, which presumably would skip cities you either don’t like, don’t feel would want to use the trains, or have insufficient population to support the thing. As I followed President Obama’s proposed plan, though, he intends rail corridors to run into the Midwest, obviously for some Chi-town love, but moreover, to spread outward from there. Even that notwithstanding, and even given how much land involved is Federal land, you’re talking a lot of takings there.
“He” doesn’t intend for corridors to run anywhere. The HSR corridors were decided upon at least as early as 2002 by Congress, and do not in any way represent a preference for or against a particular corridor. Obviously the California and Northeast Corridor plans make the most economic sense in terms of ridership, but given proper planning other corridors are feasible. Eminent domain may of course be necessary, but this is no different from any other large public works project.
(5) Last but not least, my primary purpose here was to gently note that employing government employees to run trains through the great American car land is probably not the most economically productive use of resources. I understand I’m the heretic here, but “jobs” does not mean “best use.”
Why? Other countries seem to be able to do a good job using public employees to operate HSR. What makes you automatically assume that the same couldn’t be true in the US?
May 21st, 2009 at 12:15 pm
[...] New “Train Economy” could employ more than auto sector in the future: Interesting post by a transportation researcher over at the Infrastructurist blog- the post claims that if the United States makes big investments in passenger rail, high speed or otherwise, hundreds of thousands and potentially millions of new service and maintenance jobs could be created. What’s this got to do with Santa Clarita? Well everything is still on the drawing boards, but someday we could have two additional train systems passing through town. The California High Speed Rail system would fly through but not stop in Santa Clarita, while the Orangline MagLev commuter train system would have a stop in Santa Clarita as it carries passengers as far south as Orange County. The author says that one need only look at freight rail to see the potential job-creation engine: freight rail employs 180,000 people nationwide, nearly the amount of people who work for GM & Ford. Come on Santa Clarita, do the locomotion with me [...]
May 21st, 2009 at 1:28 pm
No decent rail system is the world is privately run for a profit. All the systems we so admire are fully or quasi-public and were built and are run with massive subsidies from their respective governments. They are considered necessary public infrastructure, just like water lines, sewers, and, yes, roads. As has been stated many, many times - freeways are not free. Their costs have been systematically buried through decades of carefully crafted policy and budget manipulations.
I stil argue that HSR is nowhere near as crucial as plain old “R.” The US is pitifully underserved in that department, and we need to build that network to connect more people and places, not a select few like a true HSR network would. HSR requires special tracks, unique equipment, and they aren’t cheap. A ticket on Germany’s ICE express from Berlin to Frankfurt is about $230 each way.
July 31st, 2009 at 9:02 pm
It’s so train!
August 4th, 2009 at 11:46 am
“Not only that, but if there’s a better way to identify best-use-of-resources, it’s in the number of jobs created,”
Gaaah!
Please, get it the right way around! Jobs are a cost of a scheme, not a benefit! What you have just said is an inane fallacy!
It’s fully explained here:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-14795-Page-One-Examiner~y2009m8d4-Economics-101-Jobs-are-a-cost-not-a-benefit
September 4th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
[...] early to hazard a guess on how many of these would see the light of day and when. But, given the potential for growth in railways (manufacturing and services) and an auto industry that isn’t looking all too [...]
September 24th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
the foto has been taken in the spanish railway, the best fast train in the world
your president is coping our fast train sistem
September 24th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
visit spain
January 28th, 2010 at 10:48 am
To Chris Says: Not sure where your figures are coming from about declining population in the Northeast and in California. Maybe there’s a slow down for the moment with the recession. But from 1998 to 2008, NY picked up about 750,000 people, NJ about 400,000, MA about 200,000, CT 150,000, PA 200,000, MD 400,000 and Virginia, if you want to throw them in, as well, 750,000. California in the same period picked up about 3.7 million people. That’s a bit less than 7,000,000 increase.
January 28th, 2010 at 11:41 am
By the way… cf http://nyliberalstateofmind.blogspot.com/ on this same subject