It's fun to sit and cook up new routes like this, with some slim chance that they may actually be implemented. Taking a WAS-STL route through WVA makes so much sense, providing a new path through the heart of Ohio Valley while maintaining essential service to the hills and hollers of Appalachia. Losing NYC service is trivial, since there are so many fast ways to get uo there on rails from DC.
My take on this is a little different, since last month I was a first-time passenger on No. 50, back on March 26. It was by far the worst Amtrak trip of my life (though I can claim much less mileage than most of you here). The Cardinal was packed with 80 extra pax from a cancelled Capital Limited. No extra staff or dining facilities were included in this last-minute development, so the train's poor Cafe Car staff, both of them, were overwhelmed from the start. In the first three hours out of Chicago, said the cook/clerk, they sold more food than a normal 24-hour trip. The lounge/dining car truly was a Lining Car, filled with pax lining up for up to an hour for dinner. We had 260 passengers leaving CHI: that meant each of us had a 1-in-15 chance of scoring a diner seat at any time during a meal. For about half the ride, the cafe car was closed down or sold out.
Back in my coach, the passengers in the seat ahead of me stayed up all night, watching laptop videos and carrying on long, loud conversations. Sure, it was the social magic of train travel, an instant overnight community, but it should have happened in the lounge car. But that was locked, of course, after the serving hours. It was a miserable night for me, and a hungover morning.
I'm trying to make a long story shorter here; the longer version will show up soon as a trip report. My point is simply that the Cardinal really needs to get Superliners back, or at least a separate lounge car and full diner. The current version has been pared down and cheapened so much that it's barely worth the misery. Today's Cardinal consist has no real public space for talkative night owls. It lacks sufficient dining space for a family picnic. It's equipped no better than an afternoon scenic excursion ride. It needs help, quick! It ambles through an incredibly scenic route, but I couldn't recommended it to anyone I know. I'd like to ride it again, but just not that train. The best thing I can say about the Cardinal is that it's so bad, any small improvement made would be a big improvement.