I was talking to a kid yesterday at a store who saw my Glacier National Park jacket and mentioned that his uncle lived near there. Told him I'd taken the train to Montana, and he said he should look into that. Turns out his uncle lives in Whitefish, and I told him the EB actually stops there. He was really impressed. I guess it's not a myth, but so many folks have no idea that Amtrak serves cities they're supposedly familiar with...
Publicity can go a long way -- I hope Amtrak starts to do much more with this, targeted to local markets where awareness is low (I'm thinking Atlanta, Houston, and smaller places like Whitefish). Lynchburg has always had decent numbers on the Crescent, but with the publicity blitz surrounding the new Regional, hundreds of folks came to the inaugural celebration and more importantly,
hundreds are riding it on some days. With a second train, and more importantly with advertising, daily ridership from Lynchburg has probably, on average, gone up by at least a factor of five. (I'm eager to see the official statistics when they're published.)
The Saturday before Thanksgiving (not Thanksgiving weekend), 236 passengers boarded the Regional in Lynchburg. No, that's not a typo. That's straight from the station agent, who said it was an all-time record, but that it's several times been well above 100 and close to 200 since service began, and regularly much higher than predicted. It wasn't a one-time fluke (but it was connected to the start of Liberty University's absurd week-long Thanksgiving holiday).
Ridership has been high enough that (a) Kemper St Station may have to enlarge its parking facilities, and (b) there are already some quiet discussions among the VA legislature, Amtrak, and NS about whether it's possible to extend service to Roanoke ahead of the original "maybe in three years" plan.
There are some major logistical issues with that last one which make it extremely unlikely -- they just built new tracks and platform extensions in Lynchburg including the all-important overnight storage siding; hired additional station personnel and coach cleaners and maintenance crew based in Lynchburg; and most importantly have a wye right there to turn the train. In Roanoke, none of that exists (including no easy wye, so they may have to run two engines back-to-back and run them around the consist at the Roanoke end, not to mention the investment in trackwork in Lynchburg becomes somewhat wasted...). And of course, no current Amtrak station in Roanoke -- it's relatively easy (as these things go) to add a second daily frequency when you've got a great station like Lynchburg's already in place, but much harder when you're starting from scratch to add a first train!
But just the fact that they're already discussing at any level it is pretty astonishing. If you build it --
and advertise it -- they will come. People will come, Mr. Boardman. People will most definitely come.