I'd like to note that the above chart probably underestimates the number of connections on both ends: Towards the end of FY14, there were a lot of pax force-splitting tickets due to OTP problems (e.g. breaking a reservation at either WAS or CHI and staying overnight to account for lousy OTP...I did this once many years ago after a "surprise" overnight and made a point of enjoying a nice steak lunch in Chicago while doing so). A large number of those would have been Builder pax (dealing with crap OTP on both trains) but once the Cap's OTP went in the tank due to the NS meltdown you'd have had those sorts of passengers showing up all over the place. There's probably a larger "tradition" of doing so on the NEC as well (I'm not entirely sure how the system handles a reservation where one switches to an earlier, perhaps technically "illegal", connection when the Cap hits WAS early) but I think I've booked a replacement leg WAS-RVR and then canned my existing leg. There have also been plenty of folks who've either gambled with the Star using a non-guaranteed reservation or switched over at the last minute once the train was more or less on time out of Cumberland.
You're probably looking at an underestimate of the number of connections in CHI of around 3-5k and probably 2-3k at WAS. Not a huge underestimate, but not trivial either. There are probably a similar number of "lost" trips in there as well (e.g. me in October 2014, when I did that f-word to get out to Salt Lake City) where the risk/cost of the extra night in Chicago killed a trip or forced someone onto the LSL, though the OTP issues probably hit non-connecting traffic by a good amount as well.
Edit: Ok, setting aside the question of connections on both ends, there's a painful fact that while the WB time is almost perfect for business travel (I once used it to travel to/from a conference in Chicago in lieu of flying...this was back in 2009 and I was giving a presentation at a political science conference), EB the time is less desirable. On the one hand, this was always the case (the time change helps WB but hinders EB so that the Broadway and 20th Century would leave NYP/NYG 1700 and arrive CHI 0800 but had to leave CHI earlier and/or arrive NYP/NYG later...the Century would leave at 1530/arrive 0830 and the Broadway leave 1500/arrive 0800...because of this swing).
I do understand why the schedule is as it is. That doesn't mean it doesn't stink from many perspectives; for example, there is no way to get from Chicago to New York without blowing a full day eastbound while you can manage a passable version of it westbound (leaving NYP at just before 1600 isn't ideal, but if you work anywhere in Manhattan you can still stay at work until 1400 or perhaps even 1500 if feeling adventurous and still hope to make your train...but cutting out an hour early/getting in an hour or two late because of scheduling is a lot more defensible than having to lose a full day).
In an ideal-but-fiscally-constrained world [1][2], you'd have (at least) two round-trips on each of the NYP-CHI routes [3]. Pairing them is partly a mechanism of equipment turning, but the short version is that you'd have a "morning arrival" train (aiming for getting to the desired endpoint sometime between 0800 and 1000) and an "evening departure" train (aiming for a departure after 1700). I've hammered out some timetables to this effect before, but the gist is that you'd have passable daylight service in all cities on the routes both ways save perhaps Buffalo and Pittsburgh (where you're probably going to be stuck with marginal times to some extent at least one way). You'd probably be able to have more-or-less Meteor-variant consists on all of the trains out of NYP [4] with the variations being on the "split sets" [5]. The big plus to doing this is that you'd have a lot less sets sitting dead at either end, so from what I can tell two of the three operations should "only" need five sets (the Cardinal might still need six; I'd have to check timings, but I don't think you can save a set there).
The main advantage to such a piled-up setup of trains is that you'd have very strong overall connectivity: The early-arriving Broadway ought to trigger a legal connection to the Palmetto (which, at present, doesn't connect to anything but 65/66/67) and a late-departing counterpart would likely manage this as well. Depending on your desires, you could probably pack the trains into/out of Chicago into a pair of pulses (which would at least reduce aggravation on NS's part). CSX would still raise unholy hell about the added demand on the New River line, but I suspect that a bunch of EPA mandates will erode that issue over time.
[1] Basically, a situation where there is more or less unlimited equipment available and we have the slotting privileges that Amtrak commanded at A-Day but serious consideration has to be given to containing direct operating losses...e.g. the stuff in that famous bar graph, ignoring almost all overhead considerations.
[2] Good grief, we do come up with the oddest concepts, don't we?
[3] Lake Shore routing, Broadway routing, and Cardinal routing. Each would have a split: Lake Shore to Boston, Broadway to Washington (even though this split would arguably dominate at least one of the trains in question), and Cardinal to either Hampton Roads or St. Louis/Kansas City.
[4] 1 Baggage, 3 sleepers, 1 diner, 3-4 coaches
[5] Boston and St. Louis would probably look pretty similar to the present Cardinal; Washington would be the "big one" because of various connection options; I'd actually see that one running a baggage car, 3-5 sleepers, a diner, and 2-3 coaches...that route is going to be sleeper-heavy and coach-light.
You're probably looking at an underestimate of the number of connections in CHI of around 3-5k and probably 2-3k at WAS. Not a huge underestimate, but not trivial either. There are probably a similar number of "lost" trips in there as well (e.g. me in October 2014, when I did that f-word to get out to Salt Lake City) where the risk/cost of the extra night in Chicago killed a trip or forced someone onto the LSL, though the OTP issues probably hit non-connecting traffic by a good amount as well.
Edit: Ok, setting aside the question of connections on both ends, there's a painful fact that while the WB time is almost perfect for business travel (I once used it to travel to/from a conference in Chicago in lieu of flying...this was back in 2009 and I was giving a presentation at a political science conference), EB the time is less desirable. On the one hand, this was always the case (the time change helps WB but hinders EB so that the Broadway and 20th Century would leave NYP/NYG 1700 and arrive CHI 0800 but had to leave CHI earlier and/or arrive NYP/NYG later...the Century would leave at 1530/arrive 0830 and the Broadway leave 1500/arrive 0800...because of this swing).
I do understand why the schedule is as it is. That doesn't mean it doesn't stink from many perspectives; for example, there is no way to get from Chicago to New York without blowing a full day eastbound while you can manage a passable version of it westbound (leaving NYP at just before 1600 isn't ideal, but if you work anywhere in Manhattan you can still stay at work until 1400 or perhaps even 1500 if feeling adventurous and still hope to make your train...but cutting out an hour early/getting in an hour or two late because of scheduling is a lot more defensible than having to lose a full day).
In an ideal-but-fiscally-constrained world [1][2], you'd have (at least) two round-trips on each of the NYP-CHI routes [3]. Pairing them is partly a mechanism of equipment turning, but the short version is that you'd have a "morning arrival" train (aiming for getting to the desired endpoint sometime between 0800 and 1000) and an "evening departure" train (aiming for a departure after 1700). I've hammered out some timetables to this effect before, but the gist is that you'd have passable daylight service in all cities on the routes both ways save perhaps Buffalo and Pittsburgh (where you're probably going to be stuck with marginal times to some extent at least one way). You'd probably be able to have more-or-less Meteor-variant consists on all of the trains out of NYP [4] with the variations being on the "split sets" [5]. The big plus to doing this is that you'd have a lot less sets sitting dead at either end, so from what I can tell two of the three operations should "only" need five sets (the Cardinal might still need six; I'd have to check timings, but I don't think you can save a set there).
The main advantage to such a piled-up setup of trains is that you'd have very strong overall connectivity: The early-arriving Broadway ought to trigger a legal connection to the Palmetto (which, at present, doesn't connect to anything but 65/66/67) and a late-departing counterpart would likely manage this as well. Depending on your desires, you could probably pack the trains into/out of Chicago into a pair of pulses (which would at least reduce aggravation on NS's part). CSX would still raise unholy hell about the added demand on the New River line, but I suspect that a bunch of EPA mandates will erode that issue over time.
[1] Basically, a situation where there is more or less unlimited equipment available and we have the slotting privileges that Amtrak commanded at A-Day but serious consideration has to be given to containing direct operating losses...e.g. the stuff in that famous bar graph, ignoring almost all overhead considerations.
[2] Good grief, we do come up with the oddest concepts, don't we?
[3] Lake Shore routing, Broadway routing, and Cardinal routing. Each would have a split: Lake Shore to Boston, Broadway to Washington (even though this split would arguably dominate at least one of the trains in question), and Cardinal to either Hampton Roads or St. Louis/Kansas City.
[4] 1 Baggage, 3 sleepers, 1 diner, 3-4 coaches
[5] Boston and St. Louis would probably look pretty similar to the present Cardinal; Washington would be the "big one" because of various connection options; I'd actually see that one running a baggage car, 3-5 sleepers, a diner, and 2-3 coaches...that route is going to be sleeper-heavy and coach-light.
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