Eliminate Jesup and Okeechobee

[Guest]

Who needs Jesup and Okeechobee? No one. They are like the middle of nowhere. They are lowly served. Jesup had just 9,106 and it is an unessecary station. Okeechobee has 3,536. These stations are unnessecary. Silver service would be faster if these stations were cleared. The Silver Meteor should have Yemassee and Kingstree off it's route since they are small cities and Palmetto already serves them. This would make faster service on Silver Meteor but Silver Star would terminate in Tampa.

 

[AlanB]

Closing Jesup and Okee would save about 5 minutes or so. Hardly worth the savings on a run that takes 28 hours.

 

[me_little_me]

Who needs Jesup and Okeechobee? No one. They are like the middle of nowhere. They are lowly served. Jesup had just 9,106 and it is an unessecary station. Okeechobee has 3,536. These stations are unnessecary. Silver service would be faster if these stations were cleared. The Silver Meteor should have Yemassee and Kingstree off it's route since they are small cities and Palmetto already serves them. This would make faster service on Silver Meteor but Silver Star would terminate in Tampa.

Hey! I'll have you know I took the train round trip from Jessup.

OK, so the station is a burned out shell (or was when we were there) and Jessup is not exactly the size of New York but it did have a nice bakery across the street!

 

[George Harris]

Here is one I did by checking mileposet 20 odd years ago on the City of New Orleans route for some of the Grenada Division stops: From 79 mph to stop back up to 79 mph takes 3 minutes plus or minus a few seconds plus dwell time at the station. Therefore, consider elimination of a minor stop to save at the most 5 minutes.

That becomes significant where you are eliminating multiple stops, particularly in the days when working mail and express could easily result in 5 minutes dwell time, but for two stops passenger loading/unloading only in a 20 hour plus schedule on a line with long sections of single track with the resultind delays due to meets, it is meaningless.

 

[saxman]

Who needs Jesup and Okeechobee? No one. They are like the middle of nowhere. They are lowly served. Jesup had just 9,106 and it is an unessecary station. Okeechobee has 3,536. These stations are unnessecary. Silver service would be faster if these stations were cleared. The Silver Meteor should have Yemassee and Kingstree off it's route since they are small cities and Palmetto already serves them. This would make faster service on Silver Meteor but Silver Star would terminate in Tampa.

Smaller towns are Amtrak's bread and butter. Without Amtrak, these towns have nothing, and it really doesn't cost anything for Amtrak to make stops there. At least nothing significant. Okeechobee served 3,536 passengers in FY2010. Lets say they paid an average fare of $50 (just a conservative guess) That's $176,800 in lost revenue that Amtrak would not get should they stop serving Okeechobee. Jesup, Georgia served 9,106 passengers in FY2010. That's $455,300 that Amtrak would lose out on, should they stop serving Jesup.

So if you were get your way, Amtrak would lose over $600,000 in revenue should they stop serving those two stations. And what would the savings be? You see why I get frustrated when I hear someone suggest that Amtrak stop serving small towns?

 

[Gratt]

FYI you might get a better reaction out of people if instead of making declaratory statements what things should be ask why things are the way they are.

As pointed out small stops are better for Amtrak's bottom line, and often outweigh lost time.

Please, in the future ask questions instead of making assumptions that you know best. The other people on this forum have been around, they could teach you a thing or two if you listen.

 

[VentureForth]

As politically right as This Week at Amtrak tends to be, there was actually a VERY good article about the economy of small towns that Amtrak serves - specifically speaking of Yemassee and its attraction to golfers. I'll dredge it out and post it here sometime.

But 9,000+ at Jesup is not bad as far as numbers go. You eliminate Jesup (already only served by the Meteor and not the Star) and those nearly 10,000 passengers a year really get eliminated. It's quite unlikely that anyone would drive from Jesup to Jacksonville or Savannah just to ride the train somewhere. I'm even looking at ways to get additional stops in Richmond Hill and Hardeeville - both communities that serve one of the largest Army posts in the state.

Back to Jesup. Their bombed out depot is a matter of pride for the town. Dollar by dollar, they are trying their dangest to restore it.

 

[afigg]

Who needs Jesup and Okeechobee? No one. They are like the middle of nowhere. They are lowly served. Jesup had just 9,106 and it is an unessecary station. Okeechobee has 3,536. These stations are unnessecary. Silver service would be faster if these stations were cleared. The Silver Meteor should have Yemassee and Kingstree off it's route since they are small cities and Palmetto already serves them. This would make faster service on Silver Meteor but Silver Star would terminate in Tampa.

We just had a thread discussing why it is a bad idea for the Silver Star to terminate in Tampa. The top city pairs for the Silver Star: Tampa-Miami 5%, Tampa - West Palm Beach 4%, Tampa - Fort Lauderdale 3%, then after Tampa-Orlando, Orlando-Raleigh, there is Tampa-Hollywood 2%, Tampa-Deerfield beach. You lose around 20% of the ridership by terminating at Tampa. That would do wonders for cost recovery, ignoring all the other problems.

As for the smaller stations in NC and SC, if are are only 2 daily trains, why shouldn't both trains stop there? At 30-50 miles between stations, they are not too closely spaced.

Yemassee SC has the coastal communities of Beaufort and Hilton Head nearby which have seen enormous growth over the past 20+ years. The Yemasse station has undergone some renovation lately and with a large enough & safe parking lot, the right marketing approach tapping into the coastal retirement communities could result in a lot of growth in ridership at Yemassee. To get those passengers, helps to stop at the station.

 

[VentureForth]

It wasn't Yemassee - it was Southern Pines - also only serviced by the Silver Meteor. Read more about it's value to Amtrak and the community here. Southern Pines only had a ridership in 2010 of 6,392 passengers.

 

[SCrails]

[Warning - anecdote ahead]

In the fall of 2009 I got stranded in Jesup. No car, phone running out of juice, just me and my backpack, almost sunset and getting cold. I found a cheap hotel on the edge of town for the night and recharged the phone so I could go online and find a way home over 200 miles away. On the web I learned that Greyhound does not serve Jesup but stops in a town 30 miles away. So, I'm thinking, a taxi or hitch-hike there tomorrow. I've never hitch-hiked anywhere in my life!

Then I found that Jesup had a train station! You can see where this is going now. I learned the Silver Star passed through in the wee hours of the morning but didn't stop there, but the Silver Meteor would stop just for me in about three hours, if I got a reservation. Which I did, and caught a taxi to the station, where I joined a crowd of 20 or so people also waiting outside the (burned-out) building. At least one of the groups had driven there from a town 100 miles away to catch the train for New York.

I was never before so glad for a train that stops in the middle of nowhere! A $35 motel room, a short taxi fare, and a ticket home - priceless.

 

[me_little_me]

But 9,000+ at Jesup is not bad as far as numbers go. You eliminate Jesup (already only served by the Meteor and not the Star) and those nearly 10,000 passengers a year really get eliminated. It's quite unlikely that anyone would drive from Jesup to Jacksonville or Savannah just to ride the train somewhere. I'm even looking at ways to get additional stops in Richmond Hill and Hardeeville - both communities that serve one of the largest Army posts in the state.

I should have added to my comment earlier when I said we took the train out of Jessup. We actually drove OVER 300 MILES from Western NC to catch the train out of Jesup. The train was not as early in the morning as Savannah and not as far to drive as Jacksonville. We were visiting friends in WPB. So if we can drive 300+ miles, the people in Jesup can drive their short distance if Amtrak decides to delete them (although I hop not).

 

[afigg]

It wasn't Yemassee - it was Southern Pines - also only serviced by the Silver Meteor. Read more about it's value to Amtrak and the community here. Southern Pines only had a ridership in 2010 of 6,392 passengers.

No, the Yemassee station has undergone a recent refurb. See Yemassee revitalization website. The town brought the station from CSX last year for $1 with the intent of fixing the station and parking lot up. Other news articles state they need around $500K to completely fix the station up and will be doing it in stages as they round up the funding.

The work on the station was reportedly part of a Lifetime channel reality show this past year. No idea if this show has aired or not.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

This would make faster service on Silver Meteor but Silver Star would terminate in Tampa.

As mentioned in another thread here pretty recently, Amtrak can't terminate a LD train in Tampa because maintenance, cleaning, restocking is only done down at Miami.

 

[Shawn Ryu]

Why would you take Amtrak's Long Distance trains if you are in any hurry? Relax, its not like train stops every minute or so.

 

[George Harris]

I have forgotten when or for what train or trains, but the conclusion was, and I think still valid, that as a proportion of the population served, the small towns provide far more passnegers to Amtrak than the big cities.

 

[chrsjrcj]

This proposal is absurd. The Okeechobee station is not manned and I don't believe the Jesup station is either. More stations on Amtrak's LD trains = more revenue.

Why would you eliminate the Star between Miami and Tampa? That has to be one of, if not the biggest market for the Star. In addition to the money lost from Miami-Tampa passengers you will also have to open a new maintenance base.

The best way to make any LD train faster is to improve capacity. CSX has talked about adding tracks and eliminating grade crossings along most of the Meteors route and I believe capacity is already being increased between DC and Richmond. With proper safety upgrades, the track between West Palm Beach and Sebring can easily be upgraded to 110 mph. Mainly straight track and hardly any highway crossings…most of which are in Okeechobee. The only way this will happen though is if FDOT provides the funds since CSX and Amtrak operate very few trains a day along this segment.

 

[Donctor]

I have forgotten when or for what train or trains, but the conclusion was, and I think still valid, that as a proportion of the population served, the small towns provide far more passnegers to Amtrak than the big cities.

It certainly seems like they provide more of the interesting table mates.

 

[stntylr]

For most people it's not the amount of time the trip take but that the train arrives resonably close to on time that's important.

Very few people take a LD train when they are in a hurry.

Although I'm sure there would be an AU member who has.

 

[Shawn Ryu]

Speed isnt that important on LD trains as long as they are going at a reasonable speed. Its getting to the destination on time that need to be focused on.

 

[xyzzy]

It wasn't Yemassee - it was Southern Pines - also only serviced by the Silver Meteor. Read more about it's value to Amtrak and the community here. Southern Pines only had a ridership in 2010 of 6,392 passengers.

Southern Pines is served by the Silver Star. The Silver Meteor runs a different route between Savannah and Selma, NC.

Another factor in serving small towns: politics. Every one of those small towns is represented by someone in the US House of Representatives. Sometimes a station stop represents the only Amtrak service in a particular congressional district.

 

[MiRider]

Who needs Jesup and Okeechobee? No one. They are like the middle of nowhere. They are lowly served. Jesup had just 9,106 and it is an unessecary station. Okeechobee has 3,536. These stations are unnessecary. Silver service would be faster if these stations were cleared. The Silver Meteor should have Yemassee and Kingstree off it's route since they are small cities and Palmetto already serves them. This would make faster service on Silver Meteor but Silver Star would terminate in Tampa.

Let's take a vote!

I volunteer to work with the Jesup station closing team since it's closer to my house.

First, I'll need tix to CHI and WAS so I can catch a Silver