Thanks for posting those websites, but I couldn't find a key to decode the route colors on the National Route Map.
Is there one?
I wonder if it is red=daily service or better, orange=less than daily service, and purple and yellow seem to be bus service.
But was there a daily train to Minneapolis/St. Paul back then when the EB didn't run every day? But I thought the EB ran every day by the time the website came out (it was once not daily, right? Or am I remembering wrong?), so I'm not sure.
The route map being referred to:
https://web.archive.org/web/19970305085117/http://www.amtrak.com/amtrak/travel/images/natlmap.gif
Plenty of non daily trains in the 90's (the cutback era):
April 1996:
Crescent: 4 days/week ATL-NOL:
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19960414n&item=0020
CONO: 6 days/week (Illini served CHI-Carbondale daily):
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19960414n&item=0028
California Zephyr: 4 days/week and Desert Wind: 3 days/week:
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19960414n&item=0030(Daily service between CHI and SLC)
Texas Eagle: 3 days/week:
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19960414n&item=0033
Pioneer: 3 days/week:
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19960414n&item=0031
Empire Builder: 4 days/week MSP-SEA/PDX (Daily CHI-MSP to answer Deni's question):
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19960414n&item=0034
I'm not sure how much money you gain running not running the CONO one day/week. The CONO arrived in CHI Tuesday morning and had to stay there until Wednesday night.
I think the CZ not being daily was a problem since you couldn't go CHI-Bay Area 3 days/week (although technically you could do SWC/CS).
I could see the EB/Pioneer alternating working if you can cycle the two trains between CHI-SEA. An Empire Builder could arrive in CHI and leave the next day as a Pioneer with the same thing happening on the West Coast and staff wouldn't have to be stranded overnight waiting for the next train to return.
Assuming the EB and Pioneer cycled the same schedule today, you'd still have daily service between CHI and SEA/PDX (it would just be a different train and route depending on day of the week). Assuming you did run CHI-MSP daily then you'd be trading three days of Shelby and Cut Bank for three days of Boise and Ogden. I'm sure Montana and North Dakota will hate losing service 3 days/week but Idaho and Wyoming will love 3 days/week service compared to what they have now. Maybe today you could do EB 4 days/week and NCH 3 days/week and CHI-MSP (along with CHI-SEA/PDX and Spokane-SEA/PDX will still be 7 days/week (the NCH is close to the EB's runtime while the Pioneer is a bit longer).
If only there was a CHI-NYP train you could run on the other 4 days/week...