Amenities Being Eliminated from Long Distance Routes

[crescent2]

Yes, very interesting post. Can you provide a link to your discussion of the western LD trains?

 

[neroden]

I'm afraid my discussion of the western trains was much more fragmented and less coherent, and not all in one place.

 

[M]

There is an excellent article in the July 2014 issue of Trains magazine that details the amenities cuts as applied to the Coast Starlight.

Any hope of posting a quick rundown here for those of us who don't get Trains magazine and none of the local bookstores/newsstands carry it?

You can get it on iOS (waiting for mine to come in the mail)

And if we also don't have a smartphone and therefore can't use apps?

 

[Paulus]

There is an excellent article in the July 2014 issue of Trains magazine that details the amenities cuts as applied to the Coast Starlight.

Any hope of posting a quick rundown here for those of us who don't get Trains magazine and none of the local bookstores/newsstands carry it?

You can get it on iOS (waiting for mine to come in the mail)

And if we also don't have a smartphone and therefore can't use apps?

iPad. Or digital download from their site. Or wait till it shows in my mail

 

[D.P. Roberts]

There is an excellent article in the July 2014 issue of Trains magazine that details the amenities cuts as applied to the Coast Starlight.

Any hope of posting a quick rundown here for those of us who don't get Trains magazine and none of the local bookstores/newsstands carry it?

You can get it on iOS (waiting for mine to come in the mail)

And if we also don't have a smartphone and therefore can't use apps?

http://trn.trains.com/digitaleditions

 

[Paul Dow]

I read through this thread, and didn't see any actual reports about the eastbound Lake Shore.

Is the sleeper boarding procedure now just to get on the train at 9:15 PM? Oops, I almost forgot. I was writing about the Lake Shore.

Is the sleeper boarding procedure now just to get on the train at 11:15 PM?

At least I'll be on the section to Massachusetts on my planned trip, so I'll get dinner.

They could save a lot more money by not publishing schedules. The trains don't pay attention to them anyway.

 

[jis]

I read through this thread, and didn't see any actual reports about the eastbound Lake Shore.

Is the sleeper boarding procedure now just to get on the train at 9:15 PM? Oops, I almost forgot. I was writing about the Lake Shore.

Is the sleeper boarding procedure now just to get on the train at 11:15 PM?

At least I'll be on the section to Massachusetts on my planned trip, so I'll get dinner.

They could save a lot more money by not publishing schedules. The trains don't pay attention to them anyway.

The problem of "trains not paying attention to schedules" applies mostly to just the LD network, which is a minority of trains run by Amtrak. Most corridors where by numbers most trains are, do adhere to schedules quite nicely most of the time.

 

[philabos]

I live on the Keystone line and in the last 6 years have been late once averaging 12 trips per year.

Service is very reliable.

 

[[email protected]]

I recently took the northbound Silver Star from Ft Lauderdale and Amtrak has a lot of problems to deal with in the dining car besides the flowers on the table. But really, how much could fake flowers in a vase cost? Hell, send someone to the Dollar Store and the problem is solved. For a little class, buy some extra ones for the washrooms too! $30 should do it.

Hopefully, the Lake Shore will move to an earlier eastbound departure soon.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Excellent idea,faux flowers for the diner, bathrooms, cafe and coffee/ juice stand in the sleeps would be a classy move but of course the "Financial Excellence" Bean Counters wouldn't approve spending the pocket change it would take!

 

[I always rode the Southern]

I recently took the northbound Silver Star from Ft Lauderdale and Amtrak has a lot of problems to deal with in the dining car besides the flowers on the table. But really, how much could fake flowers in a vase cost? Hell, send someone to the Dollar Store and the problem is solved. For a little class, buy some extra ones for the washrooms too! $30 should do it.

Someone did. Michelle was the LSA on our southbound star trip at the beginning of May, and had purchased flowers/vases for the diner herself. They were nicer than the original ones amtrak had.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I recently took the northbound Silver Star from Ft Lauderdale and Amtrak has a lot of problems to deal with in the dining car besides the flowers on the table. But really, how much could fake flowers in a vase cost? Hell, send someone to the Dollar Store and the problem is solved. For a little class, buy some extra ones for the washrooms too! $30 should do it.

Someone did. Michelle was the LSA on our southbound star trip at the beginning of May, and had purchased flowers/vases for the diner herself. They were nicer than the original ones amtrak had.

That sounds like a smart move to me. The more Amtrak diners revert to their generic fiberglass and vinyl cores the more they risk subconciously aligning with diner level tipping. About half of my tip is a conscious decision based on the quality of the meal and the service but the other half is partially an emotional reaction. If I felt like I just dined in a rolling McDonalds then my tips are likely to suffer, even if the staff was top notch.

 

[oregon pioneer]

I recently took the northbound Silver Star from Ft Lauderdale and Amtrak has a lot of problems to deal with in the dining car besides the flowers on the table. But really, how much could fake flowers in a vase cost? Hell, send someone to the Dollar Store and the problem is solved. For a little class, buy some extra ones for the washrooms too! $30 should do it.

Someone did. Michelle was the LSA on our southbound star trip at the beginning of May, and had purchased flowers/vases for the diner herself. They were nicer than the original ones amtrak had.

Poor Michelle probably has to pack them all up and take them off the train at the end of the trip! I watched Charles in the PDX sleeper do that with the stuff he bought on to make everything nice for his pax. But good for Michelle anyway, it probably does help with the tips for the crew.

 

[I always rode the Southern]

All the OBS we encountered were trying really hard to do what they could to alleviate the loss most of us were feeling. Kumar, our SCA had little Kit Kat Bars, both white and dark chocolate in the rooms. I really admired both the crew of the northbound auto train and southbound star(no car coming home) for their efforts.

 

[Anderson]

Good posts, Nathanael and philabos.

A couple of thoughts:
(1) There is a big chicken-and-egg problem with service in various areas. The question of whether ridership begets service or service begets ridership is not an easy one to answer in a lot of cases. For a good example, look at Virginia over the last decade or so: Regional ridership in VA was 446k in FY09. By FY13, it was about 892k (or almost exactly double four years earlier). In that interim, service only increased by 50% (there were four Regionals in FY09 vs. six in FY13). This was not exactly a service-starved area, either, yet a modest increase in service triggered a surge in ridership. The same phenomenon occurred in North Carolina when a second Piedmont was added. Ditto the Illini/Saluki
-It is probably telling that every private-sector proposal for rail service which I see proposes, when unconstrained in frequencies, high-frequency service. AAF wants to run more-or-less hourly service from Miami to Orlando, and Iowa Pacific's proposal for Tulsa-Oklahoma City service kicks off with something like 5-6 daily frequencies.
-There's also the fact that even Amtrak's own report suggests that adding a single daily NCH to the LD system would add several hundred thousand riders to the system. IIRC, adding that one train would add close to 10% to LD ridership.

So with all of this in mind, it is quite arguable that there's so much of Amtrak's ridership in the Northeast simply because there happen to be trains there. The other point is that service there is fast...Regionals seem to average 55-60 MPH in most of the region. By comparison, the Surfliners (the largest non-NEC service) average about 45 MPH LAX-SAN and 40 MPH SLO-LAX. Regardless of the reasons for this, the fact is that faster trains will rack up ridership. As a serious question, if the Superliners were covering LAX-SAN in 2:15 instead of 2:45, does anyone want to take a stab at how much ridership could be added?

(2) The Eastern LD trains really, really need more equipment. When you look at the LSL, the Silvers, and the Crescent north of ATL, all three regularly run into capacity jams in the summer. This is even with exceedingly expensive fares (a roomette for one can run close to $600 at top bucket). The Capitol Limited also runs into frequent capacity issues on the sleeper side as well (Amtrak apparently once produced a report showing that adding an additional sleeping car for part of the year would improve the bottom line by something like $500k), and let's not even get started on the Auto Train.
-As a sub-point, a daily Cardinal could probably support an extra coach or two per train. You might well be able to support a Silver Star-sized consist (2 sleepers, 4 coaches) on the route on a daily basis, something that would probably reduce the projected losses.
-There is probably a substantial case for adding frequencies (and/or routes) to part or all of the Eastern LD system. A number of major cities have badly-timed train service (Ohio suffers from this, with lots of late-night service and not much during daylight) while others lack service at all (Dayton, Columbus, etc.). You could probably close to double service in the East without doubling losses in the East, especially since increased frequencies would allow some trips which would otherwise be awkward/inconvenient on one leg or another. Increased frequency equals increased convenience, which tends to equal increased ridership.
--You even have examples of this in Virginia. Service to Lynchburg (and to a lesser extent Charlottesville) is presently set up so that if you're spending the weekend there, you have to lose almost all of Sunday because the trains leave in the morning. In Hampton Roads, things are a bit better because of train 83 (there's a reason this train runs), but trying to get into Hampton Roads in the morning is still impossible (67 gets inot NPN at 1150).

(3) Cuts on either side of Chicago present serious problems. East of Chicago, the problems stem from the trains not losing much money to begin with (and with those losses being controllable). West of Chicago, the problem is more political: There are a lot of Senators and Representatives willing to protect "their train" but who, if deprived of service, will turn on Amtrak writ large.

 

[neroden]

(2) The Eastern LD trains really, really need more equipment.

Well, I see one relatively short-term solution for this. As the new bilevels come into service, a lot of Horizons and a few Amfleet Is will be freed up. The Amfleet Is will probably sink into Virginia service immediately.

The Horizons, however, should be converted to Amfleet II long-distance "recliner" seating, have their lighting (which everyone hates) replaced, and be used to add capacity to the Eastern LD trains. 79 coaches should be enough to add a coach to every overnight train (17), run the Cardinal daily (4), run the Capitol-Pennsy through cars (2), make the Palmetto all-LD-seating (2), re-extend it as the Silver Palm, albeit wihout sleepers (8), and add 20% spares to the newly expanded LD running fleet (31), with some left over.

Of course, at this point the LSL is getting too long and will have to be made into two trains. That's OK.

-There is probably a substantial case for adding frequencies (and/or routes) to part or all of the Eastern LD system.

Oh yeah.

A number of major cities have badly-timed train service (Ohio suffers from this, with lots of late-night service and not much during daylight) while others lack service at all (Dayton, Columbus, etc.). You could probably close to double service in the East without doubling losses in the East, especially since increased frequencies would allow some trips which would otherwise be awkward/inconvenient on one leg or another. Increased frequency equals increased convenience, which tends to equal increased ridership.

Yep. One example is the Cardinal, where I have repeatedly tried to plot out a trip to Indianapolis and I just can't make it work out right because of the less-than-daily frequency from the east. Another example is Columbus, where I would likely go to a convention yearly if I could get there by train, but instead I don't go at all. There's also the missing service from Michigan eastward -- I know there's a bus to Toledo, but nobody wants to change to a bus at 1 AM.

--You even have examples of this in Virginia. Service to Lynchburg (and to a lesser extent Charlottesville) is presently set up so that if you're spending the weekend there, you have to lose almost all of Sunday because the trains leave in the morning. In Hampton Roads, things are a bit better because of train 83 (there's a reason this train runs), but trying to get into Hampton Roads in the morning is still impossible (67 gets inot NPN at 1150).

Yep. Evening departure / morning arrivals are needed in these places.

(3) Cuts on either side of Chicago present serious problems. East of Chicago, the problems stem from the trains not losing much money to begin with (and with those losses being controllable). West of Chicago, the problem is more political: There are a lot of Senators and Representatives willing to protect "their train" but who, if deprived of service, will turn on Amtrak writ large.

Perhaps it is time for the latest revision of my "six Amtrak long distance trains west of Chicago" essay.
The political situation (my analysis which may be wrong in places):

• The Empire Builder has heavy political support. Montana and North Dakota Senators and Representatives are big Amtrak supporters, as are Congresspeople from Minnesota, and until recently, also Wisconsin.
• The California Zephyr attracts strong Amtrak political support from Nevada and Colorado, but not so much from Utah, Nebraska, or Iowa.
• The Southwest Chief attracts solid political support in the part of Arizona it goes through (Grand Canyon/Flagstaff), and strong support in New Mexico, and a surprising amount of support from Colorado, but truly weak support in Kansas; Amtrak gets more support from the Congressmen on the Amarillo-Wichita route. I do not think it would create a backlash in Colorado if service was lost, since the CZ is much more important to the state, and there is no Representative who supports Amtrak who represents a "SWC only" district (I checked this recently). There is strong support in Missouri.
• The Sunset Limited seems to attracts very little political support for Amtrak, except in Louisiana and Texas east of Houston. West of there, there are Representatives who vote for Amtrak, but it's strict party-line voting in this region (Democrats for Amtrak, Republicans against, regardless of service).
• The Texas Eagle attracts solid Amtrak support along its entire route and is the only Amtrak train in the districts for most of its run.
• The Coast Starlight goes through districts of strong Amtrak support for practically its entire distance, and all three states are big Amtrak supporters. However, would any of these Representatives turn on Amtrak if it was cancelled? Probably not; Washington, Oregon, and California support a lot of Amtrak corridor serivce. OR-2 and CA-1 are only served by the Coast Starlight, but the other Congressional districts the CS goes through are all served by other Amtrak trains.

Bear this political analysis in mind as you read the rest of this.

• Three of the routes have a "mountain problem". The Empire Builder, Coast Starlight, and California Zephyr have to cross big mountains, and they do so *slowly*. Airplanes just go straight over the mountains. The time advantage of flying can be beaten by the comfort of a train from Chicago to Denver, at high speed on flat land; it's much harder to beat it when crawling over the Rockies or the Cascades. The Southwest Chief has a lesser version of this problem at Raton Pass (would be fixed by going via Amarillo and Wichita...)
• All of the double-overnight routes have severe timekeeping problems, the least problematic being the SW Chief which is all on one host railroad. This is because "trouble begets trouble"; if you hit trouble out of the gate, recovery time is two days away. I doubt that double-overnights are actually a good idea. (The Coast Starlight, and Texas Eagle not counting the through cars, are single-overnight routes.)
• The Coast Starlight takes the wrong route through southern Oregon; it should stop at Medford, although this would require the state of Oregon to spend a lot on track upgrades.
• The Coast Starlight connects three regions (Southern California, Northern California, Pacific Northwest) which are extremely supportive of passenger train service and whose demographics are more favorable to passenger trains than average; and it's the only service serving the Salinas region as well, which should be fertile ground. And it's actually a single-overnight train. The CS really should be doing better, and I'm not sure why it isn't. Maybe it's just too slow, due to those mountains.
• The Texas Eagle has only two problems: it's too slow and too unreliable. There's plenty of online population and it's close enough together and it's a single-overnight; it's a route with great potential. It's just too slow. The extremely high speeds and enormous numbers of lanes of the highways in the area don't help.
• Assume that the current Empire Builder mess is fixed eventually. MSP-Chicago still needs its own train for timekeeping reasons if nothing else. So does Spokane-Seattle. Both would improve ridership on the Empire Builder by providing multiple frequencies per day.
• Montana really would like a train which stopped at its major cities, and it should have one; unfortunately it hasn't been willing to pay for it. Similarly, I'd go to Bismarck if it had a train (I have friends there). The North Coast Hiawatha would probably do as well as the Empire Builder... trouble is that still requires a substantial subsidy.
• The California Zephyr is suboptimal and should be several separate trains; see below. This won't be possible unless Colorado puts money in, though.
• The Southwest Chief takes the wrong route from Albuquerque to Newton KS; the Wichita-Amarillo route not only has more online population and uses less fuel, it's also got more Amtrak political supporters along it. Really.
• The Heartland Flyer should connect to the SW Chief at Wichita. I think this is the best which can be done here. With well-timed connections, this would actually provide faster Dallas-LA service than the Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited currently does!
• If we are trying to provide network connectivity with the transcons, the SW Chief is the most important; it is the fastest, requires the fewest trainsets, and it connects the 2nd largest conurbation in the US (Los Angeles) with the 3rd largest (Chicago). When the ocean liner market dried up, the survivor was NY-London, between the two strongest markets. Likewise, the "will not fly" market in the US is going to be strongest in the NY-Chicago, NY-LA, and LA-Chicago markets; this is already apparent in the solid ridership from NY-Chicago.
• The Sunset Limited has a lot of problems.
• The first Sunset Limited problem is of course the three-a-week running, which is no good.
• The second Sunset Limited problem is that it doesn't stop at Phoenix; if the Arizona state government supported train service and purchased the tracks, this section would have great potential, but as-is with a hostile Arizona government, it seems hopeless.
• The third problem is the vast emptiness between El Paso and San Antonio; this has no potential whatsoever. The Sunset Limited takes approximately the worst possible route through Texas.
• The fourth problem is the emptiness between San Antonio and Houston, though at least that's short.
• If we had to lose a long distance train due to budget cuts, I really wouldn't miss the Sunset Limited in its current form.
• A daily LA-Phoenix-Tucson-El Paso train would be quite viable.
• A daily Houston - New Orleans train would probably be pretty successful.
• Texas could really use a Dallas-Houston route.
• Texas in general has lots of potential and just isn't being served properly.

So, I think that double-overnights are a bad idea. But where would you split them? It's not really possible for the SW Chief, Empire Builder, or Sunset Limited; none of them have a logical or appropriate place to change trains, since well over half the passengers are continuing through any given point and there aren't any midpoint cities suitable for layovers.
In the case of the California Zephyr, however, it's obvious: change trains at Denver. Half the train empties at Denver in each direction anyway. It's quite a decent place to change trains now. Amtrak would have to reserve hotel rooms in the immediate vicinity for missed connections, but there are going to be a huge number of hotel rooms in the immediate vicinity. (There's a reason the old railroads built and operated their own hotels at train stations, and it wasn't just profit: it makes it much easier for them to handle train delays.) Splitting the train at Denver would simplify the timekeeping problem substantially by keeping each train on a single host from end to end (UP west of Denver, BNSF east of Denver). For the bean counters, this would also eliminate two meal services -- but there's multiple good restaurants available at Denver Union Station, so it would be OK for the passengers. This would be better if some servicing were available in in Denver, but frankly, that's a good idea anyway...

If the timekeeping is more reliable, the ridership on both legs should rise. If it were possible to cut off cars in Reno/Sparks, it would also be possible to better align consists with demand.

A Denver hub has a lot of potential. If Colorado suddenly decided to put in a lot of money, my fantasy plan would involve:

- 2/day Denver-Chicago

- 1/day Denver-Grand Junction

- more/day Denver-Glenwood Springs

- 1/day Denver-Greeley-Cheyenne-Laramie-Salt Lake-Reno-Oakland

- several/day Denver-Boulder-Ft Collins-Cheyenne

- several/day Denver-Colorado Springs-Pueblo

- 1/day Denver-Pueblo-Albuquerque

Not likely, sadly. But a Denver hub might be the best way to deal with the train which is most expensive (in direct losses) to run.

If budget cuts require cancellation of trains, the Sunset Limited should be the first to go. It's worth trying once again to get daily service -- I believe the agreement with UP to not discuss daily service for two years just expired -- but if daily service can't be arranged, it's time to give up and try something else. Maybe a daily train could be arranged over parts of the route. The way it is now, it's not providing much transportation, and it's not providing much political support either, and it has pretty poor potential. Connectivity is valuable, but it's not worth $23 million/year (direct losses) and 4 trainsets, and three-a-week provides pretty poor connectivity. Those sleepers and coaches could make more revenue on other routes, and more spare lounges and diners are needed (for the Auto Train if nothing else).

Frankly, one of the problems facing the western trains is that there is a status quo bias, partly due to the state of the politics; it's very hard to start a new train service.

I'd happily cancel the Sunset Limited ($25 million direct losses in 2012, $29 million in 2009) and put the operating funds into a daily North Coast Hiawatha (Amtrak estimate of direct losses $31 million in 2009 -- I think that's an underestimate of revenue), but that's not really possible, even with the political support in Montana. I'd happily reroute the Southwest Chief to the equally-fast route with more people on it, but there seems to be a strong bias against the reroute. Extending the Heartland Flyer to Wichita should have been done long ago.

On an even more frustrating note, the Iowa corridor service (Quad Cities-Iowa City-Des Moines-Omaha) has been planned for many years and would be an excellent service; but it can't seem to attract the necessary political support. This would not only be an excellent corridor route on its own; rerouting the Denver-Chicago train to this route would benefit the Denver-Chicago train massively. But it seems to be prevented by shortsightedness in the state legislature. The local business interests in the Quad Cities and Iowa City have been very frustrated.

East of Ohio, and also in Illinois/Michigan/Missouri, there seems to be much more political backing for service expansion. The same is true on the West Coast.

How shall I sum this up?

• There are portions of the Western routes which should be frequent corridors with the same potential as the eastern corridors, but (west of Illinois) it seems there isn't the political support for running those corridors.
• This includes the whole of the Texas Eagle, which would be great if it weren't so slow and unreliable. Any improvement here should pay off big time.
• Without the higher frequencies and fast service on the "good bits", the transcons are doomed to poor performance, and double-overnights are problematic period.
• The "bad bits" (the depopulated segments) of the Western routes mainly exist for network connectivity and political support; but some of them aren't really providing either of those and have no value.
• For instance, the Southwest Chief would be better off stopping in Amarillo and Wichita.
• Eastern route cuts cannot improve the bottom line significantly, and would probably make it worse; the only cuts with any chance of improving the bottom line are to routes with great potential (the Cardinal). The Western routes, the expensive ones, are therefore where any forced cuts should be.
• The Sunset Limited is hopeless in its current form, attracts no political support (presumably because the existing service is too terrible) and if cuts are needed, it should be cut before anything else.
• On the other hand, if money is available for expansion, it should be focused on building up corridors which overlap existing routes... corridors where political support can be gained. Right now the best such options are probably in the East, but if the political winds changed in Iowa or Minnesota or Mississippi or Texas, such projects would be well worth it politically as well as financially and in terms of riders.

 

[CHamilton]

There are a lot of good ideas here, but I will confine my comments to the EB and the CS, since they are my "home trains" in Seattle.

The political situation (my analysis which may be wrong in places):

• The Empire Builder has heavy political support. Montana and North Dakota Senators and Representatives are big Amtrak supporters, as are Congresspeople from Minnesota, and until recently, also Wisconsin.

Mostly true, although support for Amtrak is increasingly partisan. Rail advocates need to try reversing this, but it will be a hard slog.

• The Coast Starlight goes through districts of strong Amtrak support for practically its entire distance, and all three states are big Amtrak supporters. However, would any of these Representatives turn on Amtrak if it was cancelled? Probably not; Washington, Oregon, and California support a lot of Amtrak corridor serivce. OR-2 and CA-1 are only served by the Coast Starlight, but the other Congressional districts the CS goes through are all served by other Amtrak trains.

You may be right, but if I were Amtrak, I wouldn't want to do anything that would annoy Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, and other powerful western Senators. Several of us have been thinking about scenarios in which the west coast "secedes" from Amtrak and runs our own trains, and we calculate that such a scenario is quite viable. I, for one, don't want to see a fracturing of the national system, but frankly, Amtrak needs the west coast more than vice versa.

Bear this political analysis in mind as you read the rest of this.

• Three of the routes have a "mountain problem". The Empire Builder, Coast Starlight, and California Zephyr have to cross big mountains, and they do so *slowly*. ...
• All of the double-overnight routes have severe timekeeping problems, ...
• The Coast Starlight takes the wrong route through southern Oregon; it should stop at Medford, although this would require the state of Oregon to spend a lot on track upgrades.

That would be a huge project. Even in the good old days, Portland to Medford and Ashland took over 12 hours. So to be time-competitive with driving, you'd need higher-speed service than anything currently happening on the west coast (not counting CAHSR...which is another discussion entirely). And AFAIK, there has been no passenger service south of Ashland for a long, long time.

• The Coast Starlight connects three regions (Southern California, Northern California, Pacific Northwest) which are extremely supportive of passenger train service and whose demographics are more favorable to passenger trains than average; and it's the only service serving the Salinas region as well, which should be fertile ground. And it's actually a single-overnight train. The CS really should be doing better, and I'm not sure why it isn't. Maybe it's just too slow, due to those mountains.

Parts of the CS do well enough. But SEA-EUG is covered by the Cascades corridor, and SAC-SJC-SLO has other corridor service, as does SBA-LAX. We need Coast Starlight/Daylight frequencies, and timekeeping that is as reliable as the corridor services, but that's very hard to do on the coast line. As things stand, unless they are going to places outside the corridors, very few riders will choose the CS over the local services. Especially now that amenities like the wine tastings have gone away.

Note also that the areas that are not covered by other corridors have miserable station times. A Seattle friend has been wanting to visit her mother in Redding for several years now, but she just can't face the 2-3am schedule.

Oh, and by the way, there is a Thruway bus from KFS to Medford, Ashland and Brookings, but it only connects without an overnight to 11 southbound and 14 northbound, and it has to be one of the longest bus schedules in the system: 10 hours from Brookings to KFS, with a 3-hour layover in Medford. This is a schedule that only Swadian could love

• Assume that the current Empire Builder mess is fixed eventually. MSP-Chicago still needs its own train for timekeeping reasons if nothing else. So does Spokane-Seattle. Both would improve ridership on the Empire Builder by providing multiple frequencies per day.

Absolutely. WSDOT definitely wants another SPK-SEA train (possibly via Stampede Pass to serve college town Ellensburg); it's just a matter of coming up with the money, something that isn't likely to happen fast in our current deadlocked legislature. And Minnesota has a Wisconsin problem: they aren't going to put up the money unless Wisconsin does...not likely at present. (Although it has been suggested that a MN-supported train could be called "The Golden Gopher" and painted appropriately. That might annoy the WI folks enough to get them to pony up some support.)

• Montana really would like a train which stopped at its major cities, and it should have one; unfortunately it hasn't been willing to pay for it. Similarly, I'd go to Bismarck if it had a train (I have friends there). The North Coast Hiawatha would probably do as well as the Empire Builder... trouble is that still requires a substantial subsidy.

Yes, although if the EB's timekeeping problems continue for 5+ years, I wouldn't be surprised if the states start looking seriously at the NCH (and the Pioneer) as alternative services.

• So, I think that double-overnights are a bad idea. But where would you split them? It's not really possible for the SW Chief, Empire Builder, or Sunset Limited; none of them have a logical or appropriate place to change trains, since well over half the passengers are continuing through any given point and there aren't any midpoint cities suitable for layovers.

You're right that the EB has no logical place for a split. Whitefish comes closest in terms of location and schedule time, but it's hardly a teeming metropolis.

Frankly, one of the problems facing the western trains is that there is a status quo bias, partly due to the state of the politics; it's very hard to start a new train service.

I'd happily cancel the Sunset Limited ($25 million direct losses in 2012, $29 million in 2009) and put the operating funds into a daily North Coast Hiawatha (Amtrak estimate of direct losses $31 million in 2009 -- I think that's an underestimate of revenue), but that's not really possible, even with the political support in Montana.

Indeed, yes, although the NCH may be looking pretty good right now, as there seems to be no end to the EB's problems.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

If we're going to cancel the Sunset Limited then we may as well cancel the perpetually disconnected Empire Builder along with it. If and when the Builder can maintain a schedule we can talk about bringing it back. Should probably cut the CZ route west of Denver since that's where most of the traffic seems to die off. Then circle the wagons around a rerouted Southwest Chief.

 

[EB_OBS]

Well, even a late or very late EB is better than no EB at all for a lot of people that live on the highline.

 

[CHamilton]

As EB_OBS says, the Builder's strength, historically, is that it serves a lot of people who are not going end to end. If the EB goes away, ND, WA and MN are going to have to figure out a way to serve the workers who are commuting to the Williston area -- since there are a lot of these folks from Puget Sound and the Twin Cities.

In an ideal world, we'd have a twice-daily Builder, a twice-daily NCH, and at least a daily Pioneer. These trains would give sightseers and long-distance travelers who aren't in a hurry plenty of choices, while serving all of the thriving communities along all three routes. And I think a reasonable case could be made that whatever funding is needed for these trains would be less than what it would take to build and run services using other modes.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

But a chronic late train will cause people to start looking for a different transportation means.

Just as chronic late freight shipment cause shippers to look for a different carrier.

 

[Paulus]

As EB_OBS says, the Builder's strength, historically, is that it serves a lot of people who are not going end to end. If the EB goes away, ND, WA and MN are going to have to figure out a way to serve the workers who are commuting to the Williston area -- since there are a lot of these folks from Puget Sound and the Twin Cities.

In an ideal world, we'd have a twice-daily Builder, a twice-daily NCH, and at least a daily Pioneer. These trains would give sightseers and long-distance travelers who aren't in a hurry plenty of choices, while serving all of the thriving communities along all three routes. And I think a reasonable case could be made that whatever funding is needed for these trains would be less than what it would take to build and run services using other modes.

The cost to benefit ratio on that would be amazingly bad. Even if it costs less than other modes, that's not necessarily an argument for doing it.

 

[SarahZ]

But a chronic late train will cause people to start looking for a different transportation means.

Just as chronic late freight shipment cause shippers to look for a different carrier.

True, but assuming we move to Seattle next year:

My boyfriend refuses to fly, and Seattle to Chicago is a stupid-long drive, so if the EB were eliminated, we really wouldn't have another option for visiting my family, other than taking the CS to the CZ.

The CS/CZ combo is approximately 71 hours. The EB is 45 hours, 15 minutes. So, even if the EB is 10 hours late, we're still coming out way ahead, and we wouldn't have to switch trains at 6:15 AM.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I think it's pretty clear at this point that the "can't fly, refuse to drive" crowd is not nearly large enough to keep the Western trains operating within the realm of what America's government is willing to fund. That's not a knock against you so much as a reminder that Amtrak has to do what it can to remain relevant in today's market. I think we can all agree that Amtrak will have fewer and fewer government dollars to spend as time goes on. I think we can also agree that there is only a finite amount that Amtrak can raise fares before they will begin to price themselves out of the market. Assuming we can agree on those two points then over a long enough timeline some of the current routes will need to be cut in order to save other routes.

 

[SarahZ]

I think it's pretty clear at this point that the "can't fly, refuse to drive" crowd is not nearly large enough to keep the Western trains operating within the realm of what America's government is willing to fund. That's not a knock against you so much as a reminder that Amtrak has to do what it can to remain relevant in today's market. I think we can all agree that Amtrak will have fewer and fewer federal dollars to spend as time goes on. I think we can also agree that there is only a finite amount that Amtrak can raise fares before they begin to price themselves out of the market. Assuming we can agree on those two points then over a long enough timeline some of the current routes will probably need to be cut in order to save other routes.

I know. I admit I was using a particularly whiny example of why I don't want the EB to go away.

Honestly, if the EB went away, we'd either suck it up and drive or take the CS to the CZ. We just wouldn't LIKE it, hence the whining.