Chicago - East Coast Service

[Anderson]

Except that with the Cap the endpoint market clearly exists, and even Amtrak has noted capacity jams on the Cap on a seasonal basis (connected to the traffic surges on the western trains, unsurprisingly). Endpoint traffic is basically about 35-40% on the existing schedule. IIRC, about another 10-15% gets added for CHI-PGH (with a decent amount also showing up for PGH-WAS).

To be fair, this is because outside of Maryland, West Virginia, and Indiana the times on the train stink rather badly: Pittsburgh is served at midnight and 5 AM (Toledo is about the same) while Cleveland has even worse times. Give Cleveland and Toledo better times on trains headed to Chicago and those numbers should increase significantly, while through cars should add to the CHI-PGH traffic for obvious reasons.

My best guess (and this is only a guess) is that if you added a second Cap and gave it through card (or dressed it up as a Broadway with a Washington section splitting at Pittsburgh) you'd get something like this:
CHI-WAS: 25% (the train wouldn't have connections in CHI to the LD trains, but it would still connect to the Chicago hub trains)
CHI-PGH: 20% (through cars would more than make up for the bad time, since this would include traffic going through to New York)
CHI-CLE: 10% (Cleveland benefits the most from the bump in traffic to the west)
CHI-TOL: 10% (Toledo benefits a bit less, but it has more traffic to begin with)
CUM-WAS: 6% (Cumberland gets a bump from the second frequency)
CLE-WAS: 6% (another bump from the schedule switch)
CLE-PGH: 4% (...and another, this one down to the LSL's awful times here)

As to the question of the Second Lake Shore, what I would do there is keep one of the trains with a Boston section (probably the current one). The second one might have a Boston section as well (you get about 80k pax/yr on the Boston-Albany section, though some of that is probably internal to the section), though the temptation to add a Detroit section as well is quite strong since it might do better. I'm opposed to a complete reroute of either train due to the lost time fouling the Ohio-Chicago market, but a section to Detroit and then on to Chicago does make sense. Having two splits on the train (one at Albany and one at Toledo) is setting up an operational headache.

-------------------------

Jis: Would that Chicago-Indian-Ohio service run by way of Calcutta? Or would it be an extended Hiawatha?

 

[neroden]

I believe a daily Broadway Limited via Toledo - Cleveland - Pittsburgh - Philadelphia to New York should be the top priority.

I guess this would be as a replacement for the Pennsylvanian as I doubt there are sufficient passenger numbers to support both.

I think there are sufficient numbers to support both. Think about it:

- The Pennsylvanian serves, primarily, the intermediate points between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The new Broadway Limited reaches them in the wee hours so gets little traffic from them.

- The new Broadway Limited serves Ohio and Indiana in the daytime, acting as a superior "Ohio/Indiana - east coast" train, and a superior Ohio - Chicago train. This would bleed some ridership off of the Lake Shore Limited, but the LSL is bursting at the seams already, so that's good.

- Pittsburgh itself gets two usable frequencies in each direction, at very different times of day. The doubling of service should double ridership from Pittsburgh, making enough passengers to support the Pennsylvanian at its current level, and essentially adding brand-new passengers to the Broadway Limited.

- For endpoint ridership, the Broadway Limited would get new riders for two reasons: due to the different schedule, and because it becomes the best Philadelphia-Chicago train. It would also take some riders off the LSL and CL. Which is OK since the LSL is routinely very full and the CL can be seasonally full.

My best guess (and this is only a guess) is that if you added a second Cap and gave it through card (or dressed it up as a Broadway with a Washington section splitting at Pittsburgh) you'd get something like this:

CHI-WAS: 25% (the train wouldn't have connections in CHI to the LD trains, but it would still connect to the Chicago hub trains)

CHI-PGH: 20% (through cars would more than make up for the bad time, since this would include traffic going through to New York)

CHI-CLE: 10% (Cleveland benefits the most from the bump in traffic to the west)

CHI-TOL: 10% (Toledo benefits a bit less, but it has more traffic to begin with)

CUM-WAS: 6% (Cumberland gets a bump from the second frequency)

CLE-WAS: 6% (another bump from the schedule switch)

CLE-PGH: 4% (...and another, this one down to the LSL's awful times here)

I think you have badly underestimated the market through to Philadelphia. In my opinion, if you did this the (CHI/TOL/CLE)-PGH-PHL ridership would be the primary ridership on the train. Which is why the priority should really be a Broadway Limited with daytime Ohio service.
One way to look at it is this: currently both LSL and CL run through Ohio at night. If you're going to add *ONE* train to the east coast which runs through Ohio during the day (as opposed to two more), you want it to hit the east coast midway between the CL and LSL... in other words, the Broadway Limited. This way, it can be used by people heading in either the NY or WAS directions reasonably well.

There is also a convenient section for overnight travel between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh; on either of the other routes, there isn't really a convenient low-popuation section for overnight travel.

...though the temptation to add a Detroit section as well is quite strong since it might do better. I'm opposed to a complete reroute of either train due to the lost time fouling the Ohio-Chicago market,....

After staring at this repeatedly, I finally went "Oh heck, people can change trains". The westbound LSL arrives at Toledo during daylight (5:55 AM), as does the CL (5:08 AM). The eastbound CL departs at 11:06 PM. If the Performance Improvement Plan for the LSL is implemented (it should be implemented), the eastbound LSL will depart Toledo at 11:50 PM.

These times make for tolerable connections to day trains running between Toledo and Dearborn. Depart Toledo in the morning (7 AM, perhaps) and head to Dearborn, then onward to Ann Arbor and Chicago. Or Dearborn, Detroit, and Pontiac. Or, better, Dearborn, Lansing and Grand Rapids. Or multiple day trains going in various directions. The eastbounds should return by 10 PM.

It's OK if it's an entirely separate train with a transfer. It's simply not that far from Toledo to Dearborn or Ann Arbor (which would be the two biggest destinations), or Detroit, or even Lansing or Grand Rapids. What's not OK is forcing everyone to switch to buses, which is killing ridership. (Also the LSL eastbound NEEDS to run earlier as the PIP advised.)

There are enough platforms and enough waiting room space in Toledo station to make for a nice transfer, if some upgrades to the station are made. Just run a Wolverine to Toledo for now, and later run a Grand Rapids-Lansing-Dearborn-Toledo train as well.

Here's a hypothetical Cleveland to Chicago focused BOS-CHI train:

Westbound----------------Eastbound

Boston: 6:30PM-----------9:00AM

Springfield: 8:45PM------6:15AM

Albany: 12:00AM----------4:00AM

Buffalo: 5:00AM----------10:00PM

Cleveland: 8:45AM--------6:50PM

Toledo: 11:00AM----------4:10PM

Chicago: 2:45PM----------10:30AM

This allows good daylight service across Ohio as well as a convenient daylight frequency between Springfield and Boston.

The problem is that you lose the Rochester & Syracuse markets due to awful hours. And those markets are not only large, but have a lot of social links to Boston and New England. The "Broadway Limited" times, where the overnight is in the empty spaces between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, works better.

 

[Anderson]

(1) I think calling 0500-0600 "daylight" is a bit of a stretch when talking about a transfer. To put it another way, telling someone they need to wake up at 0430 to go into a train station and wait, presumably for an hour or more, does not seem to me to be a winning proposition. With that said, I'm not opposed to a cross-platform transfer and/or a through car here.

(2) With that said, I honestly think you're underestimating the market to/from Florida (and the Carolinas as well), a market which has been forcibly limited by a lack of space on both the Cap and the Silvers (the latter by virtue of lacking a legal connection to/from the Star...which has, in turn, hurt the Star as well as the Cap). I think you're also over-estimating the Philadelphia market (diversions on the New York market are another story).

(3) If you're going to run the LSL earlier you still need a later train for a slew of reasons, one of which is that Buffalo market (BUF-CHI is the #2 market on the route, and I'm hard-pressed to see you not smash that up if Buffalo's times get a lot worse. Right now the times are pretty close to ideal for that both ways. Another big one is the fact that yes, every so often the western trains have a timekeeping breakdown and you need a "cleanup train"...so I'd still want to see something in that 2130 departure slot even if it's a "B-train" that is basically an Empire Service train with a sleeper and some LD coaches thrown on.

 

[neroden]

(2) With that said, I honestly think you're underestimating the market to/from Florida (and the Carolinas as well), a market which has been forcibly limited by a lack of space on both the Cap and the Silvers (the latter by virtue of lacking a legal connection to/from the Star...which has, in turn, hurt the Star as well as the Cap). I think you're also over-estimating the Philadelphia market (diversions on the New York market are another story).

My point was that the poorly tapped market is Ohio - Northeast (including most of the NEC). You can't serve this at all with a DC-Chicago train, too much backtracking. You can serve this with a second LSL, but you don't want a second LSL on that schedule because it runs from midnight to 4 AM at the best stations in upstate NY. On the other hand, on the Broadway Limited, you can put midnight to 4 AM in rural Pennsylvania, and you can serve people heading to the entire NEC.

Think about it another way. If you run any train with daytime service from Ohio to the East Coast, the most popular destinations will be

NY

DC

Boston

Philadelphia

New Jersey

Connecticut

Baltimore

etc.

Ohio and the South do not have solid social links. Ohio and the Northeast do have solid social links. Focusing the daytime Ohio service on DC would simply be a mistake.

The Capitol Limited pretty much never fills up and is still shorter than every platform on the route. Capacity there is NOT a limiting factor (except insofar as there are rolling stock shortages). By contrast, the LSL is exceeding platform lengths routinely. Capacity on Silver Service is probably a limiting factor... and you should be able to make connections at Philadelphia to expanded Silver Service if you can run the trains on time.

Also, Florida-Chicago via DC is too many nights to be promising. Chicago-Carolinas is more promising.

(3) If you're going to run the LSL earlier you still need a later train for a slew of reasons, one of which is that Buffalo market (BUF-CHI is the #2 market on the route, and I'm hard-pressed to see you not smash that up if Buffalo's times get a lot worse. Right now the times are pretty close to ideal for that both ways.

SYR-CHI is a bigger potential market than BUF-CHI; if BUF is getting higher ridership it's due to bad timings at Syracuse. And indeed, the eastbound LSL is, in fact, getting into SYR much later than it should. Amtrak is correct in the PIP when it says that the earlier departure from Chicago -- which ran for *decades* -- would have more riders than the current one. Also, don't forget that due to demographics the Buffalo market s shrinking relative to the Syracuse market. Finally, people drive from *4 hours away* to the Syracuse station, which they do not do to get to the Buffalo station.

An earlier arrival in Buffalo will be just fine and will not cause significant inconvenience to anyone, while an earlier arrival in Syracuse will be EXTREMELY HELPFUL to a lot of people.

Another big one is the fact that yes, every so often the western trains have a timekeeping breakdown and you need a "cleanup train"...so I'd still want to see something in that 2130 departure slot even if it's a "B-train" that is basically an Empire Service train with a sleeper and some LD coaches thrown on.

This is letting the tail wag the dog: disrupting the promising, expanding eastern service to support the unpromising western services. Often when the western trains are REALLY late, Amtrak has the choice of delaying the LSL (ALWAYS THE WRONG CHOICE) or keeping people overnight. A midday train the next day would alleviate the pain of keeping people overnight.
If you do want a cleanup train, the LSL should most assuredly not be the cleanup train: this disrupts its function of Chicago-upstate NY-NYC/Boston service and angers the people who aren't connecting to transcons.

If you do want a cleanup train, the Capitol Limited, with its heavy endpoint traffic, low online traffic, and majority of passengers connecting to other trains, should be the cleanup train. Delaying it to pick up late connections inconveniences the fewest people.

However, regarding the western trains and connections in Chicago... it really would be better if almost all of them arrived in Chicago earlier in the day and departed later in the day. It's hard to figure out how to make that happen, though -- for each of the transcons, you want the daytime running on the section closest to Chicago and the nightime running in the emptier sections further west, which is a problem. But for example: if there were a separate day train from Chicago to Minneapolis, the Empire Builder could have its schedule flipped around to run overnight from Chicago to Minneapolis, and this would be an improvement for all Chicago connections. The same probably applies from Chicago to Denver and from Chicago to Kansas City . The Texas Eagle doesn't quite fit the same demographic pattern (since it goes south rather than west) and it could probably simply have hours squeezed out of its runtime.

 

[jis]

Yes I agree that if there is a resurrected Broadway that is the one that should be timed to provide Florida connection at Philly, and the Cap should be the sweeper train. Apparently the PIP believes so even absent a resurrected Broadway.

Incidentally, a second Cap could be a section of Broadway as it originally used to be, separated/joined at Philly perhaps as things stand at present. At a pinch it could just carry on with the diesels to Washington DC to have the diesels serviced at Ivy City.

 

[andersone]

It is a shame that Ted Strickland's 3C (Cincinnati - Columbus - Cleveland ) high speed never got built, could have connected the northern trains and the Cardinal ... and points east

 

[Paulus]

In terms of direct costs, Broadway and a second Capitol Limited will be about the same while another Lake Shore Limited will be about 2 million more ($28-30 million). I'm rather more trusting in the idea of good ridership with the strong intermediate market that the Broadway would have over the idea of catering to a sleeper market that requires multiple days of travel, transfers (with accompanying penalties), and was sufficiently weak to result in massive losses and the cancellation of the Floridian. Remember: Although sleepers have high fares, coach is where the money is at and, in terms of coach ridership and revenue, the Capitol Limited is the worst performing daily long distance train. East of Pittsburgh, the Broadway has much better coach potential running through the Keystone Corridor and up to New York than does a second Capitol.

It is a shame that Ted Strickland's 3C (Cincinnati - Columbus - Cleveland ) high speed never got built, could have connected the northern trains and the Cardinal ... and points east

A 79mph service is by no means high speed.

 

[wolfspirit]

Both the Keystones & the Pennsylvanian have outpaced total ticket revenue growth on the NEC from FY10-14 (36% on the Keystones, 35% on the Pennsylvanian, 33% Acela, 31% NER). In addition, they have better OTP than the vast majority of trains. If they could somehow get from CHI-PGH vaguely on time (I chuckle including Chicago and on time trains in the same sentence), they should be able to do well from that stretch onward. (There is SEPTA morning rush to deal with near Philly if they end up running late)

 

[Anderson]

You know, I can't help but wonder...you'd need a bunch of Viewliners and Amfleets to make it work, but why not just have the Cap also go to NYP? The B&O version of the Cap did so when it was started (back in the 20s), and it ran to Hoboken until the 50s (only being seen off by the Pennsy's clobbering of the B&O in their competition). Assuming the current schedule, the Cap would probably leave WAS around 1330 or 1400 and get into NYP sometime around 1730-1800 (you'd probably time it for the latter due to rush hour). Arguably, adding PHL, WIL, and BAL to the list of cities getting a single-seat ride would do Amtrak well (instead of "just" adding PHL) since those latter two occupy spots 11 and 7 on Amtrak's busy train station list. You'd still only need three sets for NYP-WAS-PGH-CHI (which you'd need for most NYP-HAR-PGH-CHI runs, as well as NYP-WAS-CIN-CHI), and consolidating the crew base would probably have some advantages as well. Moreover, Amtrak could at least sell space on the SB/WB trains NYP-WAS (like they did with the Meteor and Crescent a year or two back) as well as (arguably) selling capacity-controlled space in the other direction.

 

[Railroad Bill]

Just some information re: traffic on the Capitol. We just returned from our Fla adventure yesterday. NB Silver Meteor was nearly full with only a few roomettes available. But our Cap Ltd #29 was the shortest train we have ridden on our many CL adventures. Only 5 cars..( 2 sleepers, 2 coaches and one was combo bag car), no baggage car, no diner, no lounge car, just one CCC car and 1 locomotive. First time riding the Cap with only one P-42.

Dining staff slept in rooms in the 01 car,. no dorm sleeper on this train.

We only had about 8 people eating at our 5 pm seating and there were less at the 6 and 7 seatings. But interestingly enough there seem to be a large number of staff in the dining car doing something?

So I guess Amtrak did save some money on running this trip..? Light traffic on midweek winter runs certainly justify the repair schedule for the diners and lounge cars there.

And yes, we certainly would appreciate an LSL or Cap that arrived in CLE at a decent hour..

 

[jis]

It appears that the more we discuss this the more we realize that if we could restore the basic one train per route restoring a few patterns from pre-Amtrak timetable between NY and CHI we would be in the best situation. They would be:

1. Broadway Ltd: CHI - PGH - PHL - NYP, with a section PHL - WAS (3 long consist)
2. Capitol Ltd: CHI - PGH - WAS - PHL - NYP (3 regular consist )
3. LSL: CHI - CLE - BUF - ALB - NYP, with a section ALB - BOS (3 long consist)
4. Cardinal: CHI - IND - CIN - WAS - NYP (3 regular consist)

+ Run one Wolverine to TOL connecting with one or more of the trains through TOL.

If all this could be done daily then we have 4x CHI - NYP using different routes, 2x CHI - WAS using different routes. 1x CHI - BOS. And in addition if played right, with one change 1x DET - BUF - NYP, and 1x DET - PGH - WAS. Addtionally, the Florida connections could be suitably done either in NYP or WAS. If a connection from the LSL could be managed that would add some significant city pairs, which are not serviced now.

It would require a total of 18 regular and 6 long single level consists to run the entire single level LD service (not counting Palmetto/Silver Palm, wich would add 3 more regular consists if done right).

 

[Bob Dylan]

Excellent schedule jis! When you retire from your day job, Amtrak needs to hire you as a Consultant and give you carte blanche over scheduling and operations including negotiating the new schedules with the RRs and the various governments and fiefdoms involved! (the toughest part of the job!)

 

[afigg]

Both the Keystones & the Pennsylvanian have outpaced total ticket revenue growth on the NEC from FY10-14 (36% on the Keystones, 35% on the Pennsylvanian, 33% Acela, 31% NER). In addition, they have better OTP than the vast majority of trains. If they could somehow get from CHI-PGH vaguely on time (I chuckle including Chicago and on time trains in the same sentence), they should be able to do well from that stretch onward. (There is SEPTA morning rush to deal with near Philly if they end up running late)

The On-Time Performance of the CL improved to 61% in December, so it has been recovering. Before the 2014 NS meltdown, my impression of occasional looks at the CL at status maps was that time-keeping was generally pretty good on the NS segment between PGH and northern IN. The delays were usually on the Chicago/IN end, and of course, on CSX between WAS and PGH. But the Indiana and Chicago segment should get more reliable with the completion of the Englewood Flyover and $70 million of 3rd track segments & crossover improvements coming the Indiana Gateway project over the next 2 years.

The Pennsylvanian often achieves 90% OTP. With the improvements on the Chicago end and if NS can avoid future meltdowns, a Broadway Limited running on Amtrak from NYP to HAR and on mainline NS tracks from PGH to CHI could be one of Amtrak's most reliable LD trains for OTP. Which would help to attract solid ridership numbers for the CHI to Ohio and for NYC/Philly/SE PA to Chicago markets.

 

[afigg]

You know, I can't help but wonder...you'd need a bunch of Viewliners and Amfleets to make it work, but why not just have the Cap also go to NYP? The B&O version of the Cap did so when it was started (back in the 20s), and it ran to Hoboken until the 50s (only being seen off by the Pennsy's clobbering of the B&O in their competition). Assuming the current schedule, the Cap would probably leave WAS around 1330 or 1400 and get into NYP sometime around 1730-1800 (you'd probably time it for the latter due to rush hour). Arguably, adding PHL, WIL, and BAL to the list of cities getting a single-seat ride would do Amtrak well (instead of "just" adding PHL) since those latter two occupy spots 11 and 7 on Amtrak's busy train station list.

You are reaching here to justify adding service to the CL over a more direct route restored Broadway Limited. One problem that I think holds down CL ridership is that the WAS to PGH segment is slow with a 7:43 trip time over the winding tracks through the mountains.

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvanian has a 7:23 PHL to PGH trip time, which is padded as #43 often arrives at PGH 10 to 20 minutes early. With PA investing $200 million in upgrading the stations along with other track & power system improvement projects either underway or planned for the eastern Keystone, the PHL to HAR segment will be faster. The new PA Governor, Tom Wolf, stated his support during his campaign for more and better train service between PHL and PGH, so I anticipate that over the next 4 years that we will see initiatives get started on state funded improvements for passenger service for the western Keystone. So a BL service will be able to take advantage of those improvements. Not going to see those type of upgrades in the foreseeable future for the CSX WAS to PGH tracks.

Running a connecting train down the NEC also bypasses the stations and cities between PHL and PGH. Those are good established markets with people used to train travel in Lancaster (530K passengers in FY14), Harrisburg (499k), Paoli (171K), Elizabethtown (109K), along with the smaller markets in Altoona and Johnstown. A restored direct BL train service to Ohio and Chicago would draw solid business from those stops, not just in Philadelphia.

Sure, pass-through cars on the Pennsylvanian will provide that service. But at a cost of long layovers in Pittsburgh and occasional mis-connects or chance of getting bused from or stuck in Pittsburgh when the CL gets extremely delayed from either direction. That will limit the business from what a restored BL would attract with a possible sub 19 hour NYP to CHI trip time.

 

[Anderson]

Can you get under 19:00 on a Broadway, though? Right now you have 18:45 in timetable time eastbound on the Cap-Pennsylvanian, and 18:59 westbound. Adding 15 minutes at Pittsburgh (both being a decent-sized passenger stop and being a crew change) gets you 19:00 and 19:14, respectively. The LSL is 19:05 westbound (eastbound is almost an hour higher, but that's a function of an excessive hold somewhere if I'm not mistaken...and that's due to rush hour there). Additionally, if an extra LSL didn't have the Boston section you could arguably knock about 20-30 minutes out right there...you'd still need to swap engines but you'd omit the added move at the station to swap sections.

I'm assuming that the needed padding at the end of all routes would be about the same, but I could also see a need to pad a Broadway's schedule by an extra 15 minutes at HAR or PHL to reduce the risk of delays there. It seems quite possible that total runtimes on an LSL not running a Boston section (or running only a connecting train like 449 was at one time) would still beat out a Broadway, even with some track improvements thrown in...and IIRC, New York has its own track improvement plans moving forward that should knock time off an Empire Corridor route as well.

Edit: To be clear, I think the Lake Shore routing is capable of at least 18:45 if no fancy footwork has to happen in Albany. Beyond that I'm not sure, but there seems to be at least 15-20 minutes lost as a result of that.

Another issue is the question of what the Cardinal's numbers would look like if run daily. Simply multiplying ridership by 7/3 (i.e. assuming similar daily numbers) gets you about 255-270k (depending on if you work from FY12 or FY14); adding 10% (assuming that daily operation induces at least some additional ridership per train) to that gets you to somewhere in the 280-300k range...and considering the infamous discussions about capacity issues on this train outside of low season there seems to be a decent chance that this would run low...putting you to three "long sets" (the Cap would also be close to a long set were it a Viewliner set of equipment...which in turn re-raises the run-to-NYP option, if only because between three daily trains with runtimes in the 18-20 hour range you ought to be able to save a set somewhere).

 

[jis]

Frankly, what difference does it make whether it is 18:45 or 19:15 or even 19:45? I guess I don;t get it. How many more tickets would you sell for running a half hour faster? I think that is either a non-issue or a red herring issue.

Basically a Capitol extension to NYP would be a low priority AFAIC. It requires more equipment shuffling than just getting a self standing Broadway Limited going, and as mentioned by neroden, the Broadway serves a more populated corridor. Indeed adding a Washington section to the Broadway brings in more relevant new city paris than extending the Cap to New York.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

It's been an interesting discussion, but I've had a hard time

pinning down the time frame. Seems to me that adding new

trains and changing the schedules would come sometime after …

The "South of the Lake" project is to rebuild the highly congested

route between Chicago Union Station and the beginning of Amtrak's

110-mph section heading toward Detroit that now begins at Porter,

most of the way thru Indiana. Michigan DOT is doing the heavy lifting

on this study, because South of the Lake is crucial to making the

Wolverines truly competitive with drive times.

This segment also carries the Lake Shore Ltd and the Capitol Ltd,

and would carry any future Broadway Limited, or second or fourth

sections of the LSL, etc.

The Draft EIS was released a few months ago, and it gives a goal of

cutting 50 minutes from the run time. So when SOTL is completed,

a WB LD train could arrive 50 minutes earlier into Chicago, or an EB

train could leave Chicago 50 minutes later but keep the current

arrival time in NYC.

Cutting almost an hour off schedules could have a very nice impact

on trains on the Chicago-NYC corridors.

SOTL will cost about $1.5 Billion, or $2 Billion if things go badly.

Of course it's not clear where the funds will come from, or when.

Improvements of "independent utility" may be identified and built

as funding is located. So barring a new attitude among the haters

in Congress, that 50 minute time savings could come in minute-long

salami slices over many years.

By the time all the needed dedicated double-tracked route and the

accompanying infrastructure is completed, we can hope that work

will be underway for a 110-mph corridor Cleveland-Chicago. That's

the biggest missing link in the Midwest Regional plan.

Getting SOTL done on its own would take care of what would be

the single most costly section of Chicago-Cleveland. Looking at

the similar St Louis-Chicago route, another Billion or so might get

a 110-mph higher-speed line for most of the remaining distance,

Porter-Cleveland, and take an hour or so out of that part of the

schedule. Then another Billion would take out still another hour.

When Chicago-Cleveland gets down from the current 7+ hours to

a higher-speed 4+ hours, the Capitol Limited and the Lake Shore

will be transformed for sure. With passenger trains between those

cities taking only 4 or 5 hours, the demand will soar for long distance

service beyond Cleveland -- to Pittsburgh and D.C., and to Buffalo,

the rest of Upstate New York, and NYC/Boston. There'd be many,

many more passengers connecting at Chicago for trains heading

west as well.

Looks like that could happen 10 years out or more. At that point we'll

need to reopen the CAF plant in Elmira and build more Viewliners,

LOL.

Meanwhile, the best thing that could happen to Amtrak's long distance

system would be to build a 110-mph Chicago-Cleveland corridor.

 

[Anderson]

Honestly, if you whack three hours out of the schedules for the LSL and Cap, you can probably cut the equipment needs to two sets per train. The Cap could keep its current departure time from CHI and get into WAS at about 1010; on the other end, a departure from WAS at 1805 and an arrival into CHI at 0745 (or a departure at 1905 and the present arrival time) become possible. Put another way, you're cutting about six hours off of runtime, meaning that you go from 35:10 of runtime (17:40 and 17:30) to about 29:00 of runtime (14:30 each way). That is not an insubstantial change.

Translated over to the LSL, you're looking at a cut to about 16:00 each way (32:00 runtime)...and it's worth considering that Alternative 90B on the Empire Corridor knocks another 0:55 off of this (around 15:00 each way, or 30:00 of runtime round-trip). Not only would this enable clobbering the best runtimes of the 20th Century (and again, cutting the equipment requirement to two sets per round-trip), it would also notably allow an end-to-end run on a daylight timetable (0700 departure would result on a 2100 arrival into CHI central time, while an 0700 departure from CHI would arrive into NYP at 2300).

(Note: Had to adjust the times...I read the wrong line in the Empire Corridor EIS timetables and mistook the Niagara Falls times for Buffalo.)

Edit: As a note, I don't know what PA has in mind for improvements PHL-PGH (and/or if there's anything that can improve runtimes NYP-PHL). Still, these improvements should knock all of the CHI-East Coast trains down into the range of 16:00 or less each way, and in combination with other improvements can probably get them all down to about 14:00-15:00. This would be important because if you go to two NYP-CHI Viewliner trains right now, you could get a third for free (equipment-wise) as well as presumably reducing operating costs significantly.

 

[wolfspirit]

Edit: As a note, I don't know what PA has in mind for improvements PHL-PGH (and/or if there's anything that can improve runtimes NYP-PHL). Still, these improvements should knock all of the CHI-East Coast trains down into the range of 16:00 or less each way, and in combination with other improvements can probably get them all down to about 14:00-15:00. This would be important because if you go to two NYP-CHI Viewliner trains right now, you could get a third for free (equipment-wise) as well as presumably reducing operating costs significantly.

The local state senator has said that there are currently 3 waves of construction planned for PHL-PGH. The first is rebuilding stations from PHL-HAR as all high level platforms, the second is making at least stretches of PHL-HAR 125mph (He said the whole thing, but I don't think we are spending the billions to straighten the track), and the third is stations and speed improvements from HAR-PGH.

The 1st and 3rd phases will help with dwell times (from my SWAG at looking at stations, it seems like 2x the passengers can board a minute with high level platforms), while the 2nd phase is probably only going to slightly help speeds (the only sections that I forsee getting 125mph are already 110mph). I'd say maybe 30 minutes in total right now (unless some real crazy stuff happens and the state buys HAR-PGH and straightens, tunnels, and relays the entire stretch).

EDIT: This doesn't include the Keystone West study, whatever decade that is released.

 

[jis]

Considering that the HSR between CHI and CLE is a pretty long shot too, we could dream at equivalent levels for PA too.

 

[afigg]

It's been an interesting discussion, but I've had a hard time pinning down the time frame. Seems to me that adding new trains and changing the schedules would come sometime after

The "South of the Lake" project is to rebuild the highly congested route between Chicago Union Station and the beginning of Amtrak's 110-mph section heading toward Detroit that now begins at Porter,

most of the way thru Indiana. Michigan DOT is doing the heavy lifting on this study, because South of the Lake is crucial to making the Wolverines truly competitive with drive times.

The challenge with the SOTL project is that without a robust federal grant program for passenger rail, I don't see how Michigan pays for it. The problem is that the track upgrades are in another state, mainly Indiana, and spending a lot of MI money on tracks in IN is going to a difficult sell to MI state legislatures. Maybe a $20 million project here or there, but a billion dollars of MI funds for jobs in IN, even spread over 10 years? I don't think so. I don't see the SOTL project making substantial progress once the EIS is complete and approved until Ohio and Indiana are on board and will to contribute and there is a federal grant program to pay for at least 1/2 the cost. It could be a long wait. At least, the MI services, LSL, CL, (and a possible restored BL) will benefit from the 2009 stimulus funding with the Englewood Flyover and Indiana Gateway project track improvements, once those are completed.
In contrast, the routes in NY and PA (PHL-PGH segment) are contained within the state. Both states have contributed substantial funds over the years to intercity passenger rail in their state. Both states also have cities with large transit systems that the state government provides funds to, so there is a history of providing real money for public transportation. So the prospects for solid upgrades and improvements to the Empire corridor from NYP to Buffalo and the Keystone corridor from PHL to PGH over the next 5-10 years between what is already funded and follow-on projects are quite good. Although the trip time reductions might be the order of 30 to 60+ minutes total (NYP-BUF NYP-PGH), not multiple hours.

NYP to PHL will see improvements as part of the NEC, although the impact on trip time reductions for the Pennsylvanian or a restored Broadway Limited over the NYP-PHL segment will be modest at best.

 

[Paulus]

If you really wanted to improve the Broadway's speeds, you could try using Talgos or a tilting DEMU. Daylight, second Pennsylvanian, and Broadway would give you at least 7 sets and possibly a few more if the PNW wanted to tag along on an order as well or if you reequipped the current Pennsylvanian. That could probably cut an hour or more off Pittsburgh-Harrisburg. Wouldn't be able to do sleepers, but that's not a major loss in my opinion.

 

[Anderson]

I think it is quite possible that SOTL happens without IN being entirely on board. You'd need substantial federal funding, agreed, but I think this is an odd case where the state can probably see its way towards funding this...if only because all three routes the state runs (Wolverine, Blue Water, and Pere Marquette) run through there to Chicago (and IIRC Chicago is the biggest destination for all of them). On the other end of things, I don't think Indiana (even a pro-rail alternate universe version of Indiana) would have that much stake in SOTL...it is important for the east-west services, but virtually anything that Indiana actually runs would break off no later than Gary (CHI-Columbus, OH splits at Gary while CHI-IND splits somewhere in Illinois). From Indiana's perspective, a good portion of SOTL is going to be "somebody else's project", period.

The exception to this is if you were to use an ex-South Shore routing for most of the route, connecting to it with some flyovers to head south. At least with the ex-South Shore, it's mostly commuter/passenger already.

 

[jis]

Interestingly, one of the Chicago Cleveland HSR routes studied also splits off at Gary and travels along the old PRR ROW to Fort Wayne and then veers left to Toledo and Cleveland.

I think SOTL is another one of these conundrums like Gateway in New York, and some number of parties will have to come together to make it happen, or it will just be another wonderful EIS put on the shelf.

 

[Anderson]

Paulus: If I'm not mistaken, there's nothing saying that you couldn't do a Talgo set with sleepers. Talgo has built sleeper trains, if I'm not mistaken...we just haven't ordered them in the US yet.

That being said...NYP-CHI via BUF is slightly limited by distance and NYP-CHI via PGH is limited by alignment. That's a large part of why neither railroad (NYC or Pennsy) ever managed to outdo the other by more than about 15 minutes IIRC: You could bump the average speed on the NYC line up further but it has to go further (960 miles vs. 827 miles). If both averaged 60 MPH, the NYC alignment would run 16:00 while the Pennsy alignment would run 13:47. I don't believe the Pennsy ever got below 15:30 (53.4 MPH) due to alignment and slope issues in Pennsylvania.

Edit: Jis, it sounds like that alignment would work nicely with the Columbus project (since you'd share an alignment for a good portion of the route); you could probably manage to keep a train or two on the current alignment if the ridership still held up (I'm always loath to cut service anywhere that has at least modest ridership, and Northern Indiana and Ohio have about 75-80k/yr at the Cap/LSL-only stations that would presumably be cut), but it is quite possible that said ridership crashes hard at one or more stations (and keeping multiple trains there for 10-20k/yr wouldn't be worth the added station costs).