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Content of Shared-Use Access and Operating Agreements 57
4.3 Amtrak Intercity Service
4.3.1 Introduction
This section describes the principal items that should be included in agreements for an intercity
passenger rail service operated by Amtrak. As described elsewhere in this Guidebook, Amtrak inter-
city services are those for which Amtrak can exercise its right of access to the U.S. railroad network
at incremental cost. Appendix B discusses the definitions of commuter and intercity service, which
in essence state that intercity services operate over routes exceeding 100 miles in length and are used
primarily by intercity travelers rather than regular commuters. The following factors also influence
the content of agreements for Amtrak intercity service:
· Amtrak's rights to access and incremental costing are of major advantage in implementing
intercity passenger service on freight railroad corridors. No passenger rail agency to date has
attempted to initiate this type of service without working through Amtrak and having the ser-
vice operated by Amtrak. Note that Amtrak sometimes acts as a contract operator for com-
muter rail agencies but in this situation cannot exercise its access rights.
· Amtrak maintains liability agreements with freight railroads (the Amtrak umbrella) that
relieves the passenger authority of the need to negotiate liability issues with the freight rail-
road for each individual service. However, separate liability agreements may be needed for
station activities.
· Either Amtrak or the passenger rail agency may supply rolling stock for the proposed service,
depending on car and locomotive availability in Amtrak's fleet and service requirements. For
example, California purchased bi-level passenger cars and low-emission locomotives for cor-
ridor services and North Carolina purchased rebuilt Heritage (pre-Amtrak) cars for state-
supported services.
· In principal, Amtrak has broad rights of access at incremental cost to any rail corridor in the
United States, including railroad owned by state agencies and commuter systems as well as
freight railroads. In practice, the service requirements of new state-supported services (which
usually increase service frequency and seek to reduce journey times) have involved investment
in railroad infrastructure and sometimes ongoing additional expenditure to maintain passenger-
level track quality and signal system performance. Passenger rail agencies implementing a new
or expanded intercity service have often found such investments to be essential to achieving
high-quality services.
The involvement of Amtrak means that a three-way set of consistent agreements between the
passenger rail agency, the host railroad, and Amtrak are required, as illustrated in Figure 4-2.
Host
Capital Funding for Route Railroad Access to Route at
Improvements, Service Incremental Cost for
Parameters No. of Trips, Proposed Service
Journey Time, on-time
performance
Passenger Amtrak
Rail Agency Agreement Specifying
Service Parameters,
Provision of Rolling
Stock and other
Services.
Figure 4-2. Primary contract relationships for
Amtrak intercity service.
