Amtrak and the Auto Train Concept

[JohnF]

I read with interest the Chicago to Florida Auto Train discussion and it brings up some thoughts I have had for a long time. And that is: why did Amtrak not expand on this concept or some variation of it? There are plenty of markets. Chicago to Denver comes up first but there are many more besides Florida. For instance, Texas to Colorado, the first choice for most Texans both winter and summer. Already mentioned is Chicago to Phoenix, or the SWC to LA, etc. I am sure you can think of many more such as Chicago to Glacier Park and up and down the west coast. The auto racks could even be tacked onto existing trains where capacity did not justify a separate train. It's just a way to earn more revenue. The Europeans, by the way, still run a number of auto trains. There are five pages of listings in Thomas Cook's European Rail Timetables, both international and domestic. Many of them are seasonal.

As for the Florida train, George Harris pretty much gave us the details on the various routes and the trains that ran on them. I happenned to have a 1977 Official Guide which has the Chi to Florida trains in it. It shows the Chicago Auto train leaving Louiville at 7:15PM and arriving the next day in Sanford at 6:10PM. The return train left Sanford at 1:10PM and arrived in Louiville at 12:40PM. All on ET. Amtraks "Floridian" left Chi at 8:30AM and Louiville at 7:15PM arriving the next day in Jacksonville at 3:05PM. From there it split into east and west coast sections with the west coast section arriving in Sanford at 6:10PM.....virtually the same schedule as the Auto Train. The return schedule was also identical. Did these two trains travel together?????????? Auto Train at that time was still a private operation I believe.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I don't think you have any idea of the trouble and complexity that hauling, loading, unloading, and switching auto racks adds to the train.

 

[George Harris]

I happenned to have a 1977 Official Guide which has the Chi to Florida trains in it. It shows the Chicago Auto train leaving Louiville at 7:15PM and arriving the next day in Sanford at 6:10PM. The return train left Sanford at 1:10PM and arrived in Louiville at 12:40PM. All on ET. Amtraks "Floridian" left Chi at 8:30AM and Louiville at 7:15PM arriving the next day in Jacksonville at 3:05PM. From there it split into east and west coast sections with the west coast section arriving in Sanford at 6:10PM.....virtually the same schedule as the Auto Train. The return schedule was also identical.

Did these two trains travel together?

YES

Auto Train at that time was still a private operation I believe.

YES

 

[JohnF]

I don't think you have any idea of the trouble and complexity that hauling, loading, unloading, and switching auto racks adds to the train.

Actually, I do. It's just a matter of setting it up and having the will to do it. If you want to add it to an existing train you would have to have the racks etc. loaded and ready before the regular train arrived, then just attach them. When you get to the unloading destination, you just unhook them. If Amtrak could add express box cars to their train they could do autoracks.

There are many inovative ideas that Amtrak has not pursued, probably because of the lack of funds. Also, when you look at the many many proposals that come out of all these passenger rail political action groups etc., many are just off the wall dream land ideas. It's difficult to sort out the fantasy from reality and a lot of these groups appear to be just "foamers"/rail fans with no practical knowledge or experience. Amtrak's problem is the same as many government run urban transit systems........there is just no inovative thinking going on and no incentive to do better. The goal it seems is to just keep your job, keep the government money flowing in and offer up some kind of basic service to justify their existance.

 

[Dutchrailnut]

When Amtrak started autotrain they took over a concept (developed by Autotrain corporation) allowed by one or two freight railroads.

The concept of hauling passengers and cars(freight) , todays railroads may not apporove of such operations as they see it as competition

 

[jackal]

I don't think you have any idea of the trouble and complexity that hauling, loading, unloading, and switching auto racks adds to the train.

I think adding on a set of auto rack cars at LOR onto a train from BOS or NWK or something would be a fairly easy task. Assuming the loading, etc. was done and the cut of cars was ready to be added before the through train arrives, a simple shoving move would do it and should take no more than 20-30 minutes, including the air test.

We've discussed other (cross-country) Auto Train-like ideas here and have come to the conclusion that those would be infeasible, primarily because you'd be having to do lots of switching to take care of people who want to get off at intermediate stops.

If the Boston-Sanford train only picked up passengers in Newark (or wherever) and Lorton and did not allow Boston passengers (and their cars) to get off at Newark or Lorton and Newark passengers to get off in Lorton (in other words, all stops are receive-only), it makes the whole process much simpler and very feasible (well, except for dealing with clearances, but that's a separate issue).

 

[JohnF]

I don't think you have any idea of the trouble and complexity that hauling, loading, unloading, and switching auto racks adds to the train.

I think adding on a set of auto rack cars at LOR onto a train from BOS or NWK or something would be a fairly easy task. Assuming the loading, etc. was done and the cut of cars was ready to be added before the through train arrives, a simple shoving move would do it and should take no more than 20-30 minutes, including the air test.

We've discussed other (cross-country) Auto Train-like ideas here and have come to the conclusion that those would be infeasible, primarily because you'd be having to do lots of switching to take care of people who want to get off at intermediate stops.

If the Boston-Sanford train only picked up passengers in Newark (or wherever) and Lorton and did not allow Boston passengers (and their cars) to get off at Newark or Lorton and Newark passengers to get off in Lorton (in other words, all stops are receive-only), it makes the whole process much simpler and very feasible (well, except for dealing with clearances, but that's a separate issue).

Actually, if you look at George Harris' answer to one of my questions, it is not only feasible to add auto train consists to existing trains but has already been done in the past on Amtrak's now long defunct Floridian.

 

[Ghost]

Actually, I do. It's just a matter of setting it up and having the will to do it. If you want to add it to an existing train you would have to have the racks etc. loaded and ready before the regular train arrived, then just attach them. When you get to the unloading destination, you just unhook them. If Amtrak could add express box cars to their train they could do autoracks.

I agree.

However, I wonder if there are really that many additional cars (say 12) to add to the train, if it would be simpler to simply run two separate trains all the way to the final destination.

I mean, what is cheaper, to have two independent trains or one train of twice the length? Of course, add in the costs, including time, of connecting up the two trains into one.

The current Autotrain is already Amtrak's longest passenger trainset. Doubling its size, by connecting up cars originating from say Chicago, would be one heck of a long train.

 

[GP35]

Amtrak Auto-train on other routes would be a huge success. I always thought a Florida to California auto-train, with an auto-train

load/unload midway in Houston, would sell out everyday.

The auto-rack loads in Florida, connect to the Sunset, run as a regular train. Arrives in Houston, pull Houston auto-rack cars

to a siding, add California bound auto-rack to Sunset, then go.

Houston crew unloads Auto-rack train while Sunset heads to California.

This could make Sunset a profitable train.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I think adding on a set of auto rack cars at LOR onto a train from BOS or NWK or something would be a fairly easy task. Assuming the loading, etc. was done and the cut of cars was ready to be added before the through train arrives, a simple shoving move would do it and should take no more than 20-30 minutes, including the air test.

BOS really does not strike me as the right station for this sort of thing. Maybe RTE or WOB. (Interestingly, this is a case where you may not need the North South Rail Link; a train from Woburn can probably take the Grand Junction Railroad to the Worcester Line, and the extremely slow speeds on the Grand Junction Railroad may not matter for an Auto Train. From there, you could take the inland route to New Haven via Springfield, or perhaps turn south to Providence when you reach Framingham or Worcester, or perhaps continue west at Springfield, though I'm not sure in that last case whether there's a viable route beyond that; on the other hand, heading inland might be an effective way to address tunnel clearances. If operating out of Woburn, you also potentially have the option of taking the Fitchburg Line west to skip the Grand Junction Railroad, and heading south at some point further to the west.)

We've discussed other (cross-country) Auto Train-like ideas here and have come to the conclusion that those would be infeasible, primarily because you'd be having to do lots of switching to take care of people who want to get off at intermediate stops.
If the Boston-Sanford train only picked up passengers in Newark (or wherever) and Lorton and did not allow Boston passengers (and their cars) to get off at Newark or Lorton and Newark passengers to get off in Lorton (in other words, all stops are receive-only), it makes the whole process much simpler and very feasible (well, except for dealing with clearances, but that's a separate issue).

I'm not at all convinced I agree with the above two paragraphs. If you have a Boston to Newark autorack car, and a Boston to Lorton autorack car, and a Newark to Lorton autorack car, is it really that hard to pull it out of the train at the appropriate point? Is it going to add more than five minutes to the switching time at each intermediate station?

 

[wayman]

We've discussed other (cross-country) Auto Train-like ideas here and have come to the conclusion that those would be infeasible, primarily because you'd be having to do lots of switching to take care of people who want to get off at intermediate stops.
If the Boston-Sanford train only picked up passengers in Newark (or wherever) and Lorton and did not allow Boston passengers (and their cars) to get off at Newark or Lorton and Newark passengers to get off in Lorton (in other words, all stops are receive-only), it makes the whole process much simpler and very feasible (well, except for dealing with clearances, but that's a separate issue).

I'm not at all convinced I agree with the above two paragraphs. If you have a Boston to Newark autorack car, and a Boston to Lorton autorack car, and a Newark to Lorton autorack car, is it really that hard to pull it out of the train at the appropriate point? Is it going to add more than five minutes to the switching time at each intermediate station?

I think you misread jackal's idea. There would be a Boston-Sanford auto car; at Newark, a Newark-Sanford auto car gets added; at Lorton, a Lorton-Sanford auto car gets added. At Sanford, everybody unloads. On the northbound, reverse. Nobody, and no cars, get off the train until Sanford. (By "a car" at each of these, I mean "one or more", of course. But as far as the switching operation goes, it's the same because whatever gets added just gets tacked onto the rear end of the train at each stop.)

 

[VentureForth]

AutoTrain was one of Rader's most successful concepts. They have tried to expand on it, but to no avail. There have been lots of discussions in here about trans-continental and other services. Basically, the one that is out there is barely keeping its head above water, and it's by far the most successful model.

Speaking of models, are there any Amtrak autoracks available in N-Gauge?

 

[guest]

America is the country of cars. I don't understand why there is only one auto-train in USA?

Even Europe has more! For great success there should be several transcontinental auto-trains.

Now when I suggest people to take Amtrak - they ask me - Ok, I will get there by Amtrak,

but I don't have a car - what do I do?

Is it so complicated to attach a few cars loaded with autos to the regular trains?

Even in my country in Europe there are several regular trains that have few cars attached with autos.

So if you want your car to go with you - just come earlier and let them to load it.

If you don't need a car - just buy a regular ticket. Is it so complicated?

We don't have special "terminals" for loading cars, it is done on the regular train station.

 

[Tony]

America is the country of cars. I don't understand why there is only one auto-train in USA?

Long those lines, being how spread out the country is over the continent, I have wondered why there isn't an Auto Train from like Washington to Alaska? Maybe Seattle Washington to Juneau Alaska. I think Seattle is already pretty well Amtrak connected.

That is quite a long distance for driving.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Tony, there is a very simple reason. An Auto Train requires a train. A train requires a track. There is no track between northern B.C. and Alaska.

 

[frj1983]

Actually, I do. It's just a matter of setting it up and having the will to do it. If you want to add it to an existing train you would have to have the racks etc. loaded and ready before the regular train arrived, then just attach them. When you get to the unloading destination, you just unhook them. If Amtrak could add express box cars to their train they could do autoracks.

I agree.

However, I wonder if there are really that many additional cars (say 12) to add to the train, if it would be simpler to simply run two separate trains all the way to the final destination.

I mean, what is cheaper, to have two independent trains or one train of twice the length? Of course, add in the costs, including time, of connecting up the two trains into one.

The current Autotrain is already Amtrak's longest passenger trainset. Doubling its size, by connecting up cars originating from say Chicago, would be one heck of a long train.

And I'm not sure any of the other Host Railroads would want to see a monster-sized passenger train like that on their tracks! :blink:

 

[Tony]

Tony, there is a very simple reason. An Auto Train requires a train. A train requires a track. There is no track between northern B.C. and Alaska.

Oh, no one ever built a railroad track to connect Alaska to the rest of the US, even for freight? I never knew that.

I guess shipping oil or walrus teeth by rail, is too impractical.

 

[MrFSS]

Tony, there is a very simple reason. An Auto Train requires a train. A train requires a track. There is no track between northern B.C. and Alaska.

Oh, no one ever built a railroad track to connect Alaska to the rest of the US, even for freight? I never knew that.

I guess shipping oil or walrus teeth by rail, is too impractical.

Too many mountain ranges in the way. Juneau doesn't even have a highway that connects it to the outside world. You get there by air or sea.

There are a number of barge/ferry services that ship railcars back and forth on via the inside passage from Seattle/Vancouver to Alaska. Very slow process.

 

[guest]

Actually, I do. It's just a matter of setting it up and having the will to do it. If you want to add it to an existing train you would have to have the racks etc. loaded and ready before the regular train arrived, then just attach them. When you get to the unloading destination, you just unhook them. If Amtrak could add express box cars to their train they could do autoracks.

I agree.

However, I wonder if there are really that many additional cars (say 12) to add to the train, if it would be simpler to simply run two separate trains all the way to the final destination.

I mean, what is cheaper, to have two independent trains or one train of twice the length? Of course, add in the costs, including time, of connecting up the two trains into one.

The current Autotrain is already Amtrak's longest passenger trainset. Doubling its size, by connecting up cars originating from say Chicago, would be one heck of a long train.

And I'm not sure any of the other Host Railroads would want to see a monster-sized passenger train like that on their tracks! :blink:

Just connect 1-2 cars for autos to each long distance train! (like Europeans do!)

I don't see why it is a problem.

 

[frj1983]

Actually, I do. It's just a matter of setting it up and having the will to do it. If you want to add it to an existing train you would have to have the racks etc. loaded and ready before the regular train arrived, then just attach them. When you get to the unloading destination, you just unhook them. If Amtrak could add express box cars to their train they could do autoracks.

I agree.

However, I wonder if there are really that many additional cars (say 12) to add to the train, if it would be simpler to simply run two separate trains all the way to the final destination.

I mean, what is cheaper, to have two independent trains or one train of twice the length? Of course, add in the costs, including time, of connecting up the two trains into one.

The current Autotrain is already Amtrak's longest passenger trainset. Doubling its size, by connecting up cars originating from say Chicago, would be one heck of a long train.

And I'm not sure any of the other Host Railroads would want to see a monster-sized passenger train like that on their tracks! :blink:

Just connect 1-2 cars for autos to each long distance train! (like Europeans do!)

I don't see why it is a problem.

Not sure where Amtrak would even load the cars in Chicago?

There's no room for a ramp in the Amtrak yards and there is no easy way for the automobiles to get there. And I'm also not sure Amtrak would want to have the trains sitting in the yard clogging up the tracks while waiting to attach automobile carriers. :huh:

 

[guest]

Not sure where Amtrak would even load the cars in Chicago?There's no room for a ramp in the Amtrak yards and there is no easy way for the automobiles to get there. And I'm also not sure Amtrak would want to have the trains sitting in the yard clogging up the tracks while waiting to attach automobile carriers. :huh:

Why Chicago?

Is Chicago the only city in USA served by Amtrak? Don't attach in Chicago, attach them on the next station.

How long does it take to attach on 1-2 cars? 5-10 minutes?

 

[JohnF]

Just connect 1-2 cars for autos to each long distance train! (like Europeans do!)I don't see why it is a problem.

Not sure where Amtrak would even load the cars in Chicago?

There's no room for a ramp in the Amtrak yards and there is no easy way for the automobiles to get there. And I'm also not sure Amtrak would want to have the trains sitting in the yard clogging up the tracks while waiting to attach automobile carriers. :huh:

Of course you would load them at some location trackside outside of urban Chicago such as Naperville for the CZ to Denver for instance and they train would just pick them up when it got there. Same for the drop off. For this to work it requires a little creative thought. Most auto train loading stations would lie outside the main originating city and they would only be at major terminals such as Chicago, Denver, Houston, etc or the national parks such as Grand Canyon, Glacier/Yellowstone. Some of these routes would probably be seasonal as are many of the European routes. You could run a separate train as a second section when traffic demanded. It's not hard to figure out. Amtrak just has no incentive to do things like this nor does it have any money. But the money situation could change after the election. The unknown is will Amtrak change?