If there is to be a discussion on the most untapped travel markets in the US for Amtrak, one place to start should be with the top city/metro region air travel corridors. Here is a Brookings Institute list from 2009 that I found linked to on wikipedia with the
top 100 city/metro region pairs. It is not up to date - post-recession likely shuffled the order & numbers - and one should not get picky about the exact rankings. The busier corridors obviously also have a lot of connecting traffic, so it is not a clean city of origin to final destination list, but the list shows useful info to consider for a "untapped" market list for Amtrak.
Very useful list. Thanks. Allows me to correct my biases against Florida
The untapped markets really should be no more than 500-600 miles apart for a viable corridor service. That is not to say that LD trains can't be considered, but LD trains are more viable if they can operate over busy corridor segments for large portions of their route. The top city pairs are:
1. NYC/Newark to Miami/Fort Lauderdale: the Silvers
2. LA/Long Beach to San Francisco/Oakland: There is a market for the Coast Daylight and the CA HSR.
3. Atlanta to Miami/Ft Lauderdale: big gap in the Amtrak system.
Atlanta-Macon-Jacksonville-onward would do nicely. But Being In Georgia, it won't get state funded in the next 30 years.
4. Chicago to NYC/Newark: LSL; Bring back the Three Rivers?
Chicago-Ft. Wayne-Toledo HSR (yes, it's a proposal); Detroit-Niagara Falls sealed train through Canada; Broadway Limited revival; lots of good options.
5. Atlanta to NYC/Newark: One often maxed out Crescent.
Get a decent station at Atlanta and the Crescent can cut off cars there and match demand better. Then try for a second train. But again, it's Georgia.
6. LA to NYC/Newark: long trip on Amtrak.
Make NYC-Chicago service better, retain the Southwest Chief, and you'll get as much of the market as you're likely to.
7. NYC/Newark to Orlando: the Silvers
8. NYC/Newark to London: ok, difficult to do by train.
Interestingly, this is the route of the last regularly scheduled ocean liner service in the world (on Cunard). I guess it's the most popular route which can't be done by train, among people who don't want to take planes.
9. LA/Long Beach to Las Vegas: X-Train and Xpress-West are looking to fill this gap.
10. LA/Long Beach to Phoenix: An argument for a LA to Phoenix day train if UP were to cooperate and Arizona was interested.
Indeed. But... Arizona. UP. Ugh. I've wondered if one of the alternate railroad routes would be viable if Arizona was interested (specifically, the BNSF/ ARZC/ BNSF route).
Below the top 10 is where one finds a number of city pairs where there should be passenger rail corridor service.
11. Chicago - LA
Long, but justifies my argument for supporting anyone who wants to take trains from NY-LA with a Chicago-LA service.
12. NY - SF
Again long, but handled by California Zephyr (and NY-Chicago again). I wonder if the Zephyr route could be improved in any way. The Wyoming route is actually faster.
13. Dallas-Houston
Badly needs corridor service.
14. Atlanta-Orlando
More justification for filling the Atlanta-Florida service gap.
15. Dallas-LA
Again long. Further, the Sunset Limited is indirect and isn't daily. Hmm.
16. Boston-NY
Well, I think Amtrak's doing almost as well as it can here. Maybe Inland Regionals can be made faster than the Coast Line.
17. Denver-LA
Here's an interesting one. Long, but I wonder if it could be coherently served.
18. LA-Seattle
Coast Starlight serves this long route.
19. Atlanta-DC
More evidence that the Crescent needs to be beefed up.
20. Los Vegas - San Francisco
Seriously? This has to be connecting traffic. XPressWest + CAHSR will serve this, though.
21. Chicago-Denver
Could use a train which stopped in the major cities in Iowa, which has been proposed.
22. Hilo, HI to Honolulu, HI
Seriously?!? Get a ship! The ridership is cratering, however.
23. San Diego to San Francisco
Coast Daylight should perhaps continue direct to San Diego. CAHSR will also succeed.
24. Chicago-DC
And this is the Capitol Limited route...
25. NY-DC
Again, Amtrak's doing nearly as well as they can here.
26. Atlanta-LA
Long. And Georgia. Forget it.
27. Honolulu-Kahululi, HI
Again, I am shocked this makes this list. However, the ridership appears to be cratering as with the other all-Hawaii route.
28. Charlotte - NY
More evidence that the Crescent should be improved.
29. SF - Seattle
Coast Starlight for this long route.
30. Atlanta-Chicago
Finally we get to this fairly common request. It would require a massive amount of track improvement crossing mountains, through three or possibly four states which have shown no support for passenger rail. While I see the value in a Chicago-Florida train, notice how many common city pairs come far ahead of this in terms of demand.... Seems like back-burner material.