I said "interesting", not "convenient". With that said, the CHI-MEM times aren't that bad if you want to hit CHI in time to get to work tomorrow morning...well, there's exactly one train coming from that particular direction downstate before midday every morning.Yes, I believe that would make it 8 coaches. I assume that diner-lounge is CCC; I would be shocked to find it not be. Even though I think it's in the realm of possibility for Illinois to pay for those extra coaches, I disagree that the times are convenient fro arrival/departure into Carbondale (since that is the biggest college city along the route). Since it is a Sunday night thing also, I don't think that Illinois cares whatsoever about the northbound times, since it would be a weekday, and the again, neither the north or southbound trains are that convenient, but I guess if you're catering to college students, no time of day is unreasonable
Going with the jokes about college students and their sleeping schedules, I think you could argue that most of 'em just wouldn't sleep on the train...which might have made for an "interesting" lounge car ride.
A good question is how many extra cars Amtrak managed to flog into service this weekend. I know that 66/67 had a spare coach thrown on, and I suspect that most Regionals had something similar. Amtrak also smacked 2-3 spare NE Regional trains per day onto the schedule with some tight slotting (10 minutes' separation from the last train in one case I found in the Thanksgiving timetable), though at least on Thanksgiving proper these were replacing a lot of "not running for the holiday" trains, I believe. But if there were 5 extra cars on the CONO, then I'd be surprised if they weren't at least shuttling some extra cars to/from Denver and/or Minneapolis on the relevant LD trains, or running an extra coach or two on the Silvers, etc.
Johnny: It had two engines, not one. Also, even with the cars out to Glenwood Springs, you could just run two sets and run the cars down to Grand Junction (where I think there's some space to be had in the yard next to the station to stash the coaches overnight) or somewhere else along the line. I would suggest just running them through to SLC, but that would create problems when the train gets screwed up one way or another (which never happens..right?). In the same vein, at least seasonally, I think the Sparks Cars are probably a better investment of "spare" equipment.
