Extending the CZ to LA

[jis]

OK time for a bit of history lesson

I actually lived through and participated actively in the real conversation that happened before the introduction of the Portland section of the Builder. Generally it was thought as very feasible. There was not a huge worry about servicing and turning the train since Portland did have some mechanical staff. It was not extending the running time of the equipment significantly from what it would do any way if it went to Seattle.

There was also not a huge worry about Diner as long as there was food service equivalent to what was on the Pioneer. Remember Pioneer mostly never had a Diner in its original Amtrak incarnation. No one had any doubt how the Sleeping Car passengers would get their food - they would do so exactly as the Sleeping Car passengers on the Pioneer got their food.

Back then there were no Cascades trains really. It was the Coast Starlight, the Pioneer and Mt. Raineer (Portland - Seattle). The Pacific International ran from Seattle to Vancouver BC and was inconsequential for the purposes of travel between Portland and Seattle.

The way that the Portland Section came about was the result of three events - 1. The cancellation of the North Coast Hiawatha, 2. moving of the Empire Builder off the Stampede Pass route to the Stevens pass route (which lost the North Coast Hiawatha., and 3 - BN's desire to downgrade Stampede Pass (thus making it impossible to keep the Spokane to Seattle service via Stampede Pass going with a section off of the Builder). This potentially ended service to Pasco (and actually ended service to Yakima and Ellensburg.. There was much hue and cry, and when discussing how to retain service to Pasco it occurred to a bunch of people that we could get a win - win by keeping service to Pasco by splitting the Builder at Seattle and sending one section down SP&S to Portland.

The route tradeoff was that BN got to downgrade Stampede Pass in exchange for letting the Portland section run on the SP&S. So they had an incentive to allow this to get themselves out of the business of keeping Stampede Pass fully maintained.

That is how the discussion went down. Nothing at all like your contrived example. There is no loss of service compulsion with the extension to LA thing. it is pure random what if. Granted it is not at all stupid to imagine anything. It would be at least inappropriate and expensive with cost recovery extremely unlikely, if not stupid, to act on said imagination for reasons articulated by Thirdrail.

 

[ScouseAndy]

"Status quo" being the operate term here. If the CZ already ran down to LA from the Bay area, I suspect people wouldn't be clamoring for it to be truncated to Oakland. In this case, the obstacles for extending it to LA are high. Much easier to stick with the status quo.

Imagine for a moment if the Empire Builder simply ran from Chicago to Seattle and did not have a Portland leg. And imagine if someone posted that it would be a great idea to split the train in Spokane and send half of it down to Portland. You can see how the response would go:

"What? You want to split/combine the train in the middle of the night in Spokane? Do you even know how much extra crew/equipment that would require? And would you need a second diner, or a second lounge car? How are the sleeping car passengers on the Portland leg going to get their meals? And don't you realize that people can just connect in SEA to a Cascades train to get down to Portland? Obviously this is a solution looking for a problem!"

But none of us here raise those objections since it already exists in the real word, and for the most part, works well. If the CZ ran to LA already, it would probably work well. But it doesn't, so we object. I'm among those who don't think it's a good idea, but I don't think it's "stupid" to imagine such things.

Ok how many people are calling to truncate the Cardinal at Washington, the TE at San Antonia and the Silver Starvation at Savanah, after all even if we cut the services at these stations there would be additional services for passengers to transfer to to get to any destination beyond these points and would save Amtrak millions over the course of the year? It amazes me that there is serious support for an overnight LA to the bay area service but people fail to see the point that by combining the two services would increase patronage on this service with passengers who wish to travel between LA and Denver/Salt Lake City etc (and reverse)

 

[fairviewroad]

OK time for a bit of history lesson

Thanks, that was interesting. Side note: You must be OLD.

I still think that if, in 2016, the EB did not split in Spokane, that people on this discussion board would raise the objections I posited in my hypothetical scenario. I'm just saying that it's easy to find reasons NOT to change something, even in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary. I agree that the change advocated for in the OP is perhaps not the best use of resources, but generally I find it fun to think about ways to improve/extend Amtrak's route system.