Pepsi was a VERY early Soviet enthusiast!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do ya' like that logo???
Haha....
Posted on 08/02/2012 1:35:12 PM PDT by TigerClaws
Taxpayers lost $833 million over the last decade on the food and beverages supplied by Amtrak, which managed to spend $1.70 for every dollar that received in revenue.
“Over the last ten years, these losses have amounted to a staggering $833.8 million,” said Rep.John Mica, R-Fla., in a statement previewing a House hearing today. “It costs passengers $9.50 to buy a cheeseburger on Amtrak, but the cost to taxpayers is $16.15. Riders pay $2.00 for a Pepsi, but each of these sodas costs the U.S. Treasury $3.40.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Pepsi was a VERY early Soviet enthusiast!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do ya' like that logo???
Haha....
And yet the highway roadsides are packed to the gills with people who have figured out how to profitably sell you a cheeseburger for four bucks.
Willie Green would be proud.
How in blazes do you lose money selling food to a captive audience? Jack up the price, they ain’t goin anywhere.
I know someone who does contract work for Amtrak. It’s an amazing world there. There is an ginormous amount of resistance to doing ANYTHING that differs from what they are used to doing. That makes it very difficult to implement streamlining or cost efficiency measures.
Amtrak I am afraid will never make money unless there is a free hand to fire slackers and lean out the work force until you do have people willing to accept changes that improve efficiency.
I know someone who does contract work for Amtrak. It’s an amazing world there. There is an ginormous amount of resistance to doing ANYTHING that differs from what they are used to doing. That makes it very difficult to implement streamlining or cost efficiency measures.
Amtrak I am afraid will never make money unless there is a free hand to fire slackers and lean out the work force until you do have people willing to accept changes that improve efficiency.
But if we only had a bigger subsidy, we could finally have the resources to run a profitable service.
Three forty for a can of pop?
Relatives of the political elite must own that concession.
They buy soda cans by the hundreds of thousands at about 10 cents a can. Stroke of the pen law of the land and the middleman does not have to do anything but spend the money
I read somewhere that Amtrak has 20K miles of routes/track and 20K employees.
Huh. Where's that picture of the bunny with a pancake on his head when you need it?
Rush quoted Milton Friedman yesterday saying that if the government was in charge of the Sahara Desert, they would have a shortage of sand inside of two year. I will give you another one. In New York State, we have (government) Off Track Betting. Now, bookies have been making money hand over fist booking bets from time immemmorial. New York’s OTB routinely loses money. Go figure.
It does remind me of something...
Currently USPS subsidizes your income taxes by paying the government $5.3 billion per year taken from the hot and sweaty hands of hard working commercial mailers.
So, your point is what? Somebody left your mail where the dog ate it or something?
Currently USPS subsidizes your income taxes by paying the government $5.3 billion per year taken from the hot and sweaty hands of hard working commercial mailers.
So, your point is what? Somebody left your mail where the dog ate it or something?
Amtrak’s food service is too inefficient and too well paid. The waiters and cooks may be paid OK considering they travel and interact with the passengers, but the behind the scenes and buying must be broke. Fix it as we taxpayers can’t subsidize this.
Years ago, I spent time at the Pentagon documenting a multi-million dollar procurement deal (munitions fraud) involving armaments bought by the US Navy. Some of the players were major defense contractors listed on the NYSE. Before we got into it, the FBI had reported to the Congress that the deal in question was padded at least double, 100%, with ficticious costs, etc. We were retained to review the FBI report and dig deeper into what transpired. We reported to the same Congressional subcommittee, six months later. The deal was not padded 100%, but nearly 5000% i.e., for every dollar of real cost, the Navy was charged nearly $500.
When the subcommittee eventually reported on the fraud to the Congress, they used the FBI's dramatically lower figure of 100%, understating by hundreds of millions of dollars the waste and criminality on just this one contract in dollar terms. Apparently, someone took a call from the parties involved and our report was left on a desk in the anteroom.
There are several reasons for this ~ (1) Maintenance of the supply chain is a whole 'nuther game when the store moves on rails and the supply delivery point is a building ~ rather than the other way around, the store sits there and the trucks pull up.
Oh, did i mention the other reasons ~ customer reluctance to pay more than $10 for a $16 hamburger ~ you did see what the airlines did ~ they cut out those meals!
The best solution is to simply let local vendors sell at railstops ~ third world style. I noticed that the Russians have gone to that entirely, and they have some vast distances to be covered ~ no effort by their rail services to feed anybody. ,P>You drive one of those California roach coaches up on the platform and he'll sell stuff you never dreamed of at a much lower price. Then, he can drive away and there you are.
Amtrak could be profitable if they were allowed to reduce labor costs and stop servicing rural routes with only a couple passengers per day. Also, some of their higher volume routes were planned out based on going through powerful Congressmens’ districts rather than profit or need. There is a profitable market for rail travel in this country but Congress has completely screwed up Amtrak.
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