Iowa service?

[Anderson]

If you're going to extend to GJT, I have to wonder why you don't just bite the bullet and extend to SLC. At roughly seven hours between the two cities, departing GJT at 6 AM would permit a departure at about 11 PM from SLC. Not ideal, I know, but far better than 3 AM if the train is on time. Likewise, the SLC arrival would be around 6:00 AM (possibly a hair later). Again, it's not ideal, but it beats 11 PM (if you're lucky) as an arrival time. On the one hand, you'd burn an additional set; on the other hand, SLC is a larger city and I'm going to suspect that it would be easier to do any relevant crew basing in a city of that size than to do it in western Colorado.

Another note I'll add: While I wouldn't move the CZ over from the BNSF line to the IAIS line at the outset, I'd be open to doing so if ridership at the southern Iowa stations craters even with the presence of Thruway services. Right now, you're looking at around 60k at those stations. If that were to drop by 2/3 (to about 20k), I'd say reroute the train (particularly if doing so will increase overall ridership). The key, though, is that I'd wait for the ridership drop to move the train, since the shift will both complicate the dispatching situation and lose an existing slot along that route. The fact that there would, under such a scenario, already be a massive amount of service along the IAIS line (and that you could probably work out a decent Thruway network in the state that would be of net fiscal benefit to the network due to added ridership, and that could link to the CZ) would also weigh towards keeping the CZ where it is now, as would the stops on the route and connections to/from it in IL.

 

[Nathanael]

If you're going to extend to GJT, I have to wonder why you don't just bite the bullet and extend to SLC.

(1) Demand. There's a big "ski train" demand from Denver to Glenwood Springs. The Denver-SLC demand remains weak.

(2) Equipment usage. 4 trainsets to do Chicago-Glenwood Springs. ....Even more to do Chicago-SLC.

Thinking about it, it would make more sense to do Chicago-Denver with 2 trainsets and run a separate Ski Train for Denver-Glenwood Springs with one trainset, since there are basically two markets and this would avoid knock-on delays. Plus which the Denver-Glenwood Springs demand is seasonal.

Personally, I see little point in keeping the CZ on its current route in Iowa. The populations along here are tiny. Most of the people taking the train from the stations along the current Iowa route are actually driving from the cities along the IAIS line! The exceptions: there's Ottumwa, the biggest city along the current line, which deserves a Thruway Bus connection. And then there's Galesburg, for which Thruway service to Moline could be improved. (Or, in the long run, a Illinois orbital rail route, Moline-Galesburg-Peoria-Bloomington-Champaign.)

Perhaps I'm biased, because where I live there are many cities of 50,000 and 100,000 with no rail service, so I see little point in maintaining direct rail service to tiny burgs with 6000 people when there's good rail service an hour away. Around here, people from metropolitan areas with 200,000 people have to drive two hours to get to the nearest train station. Maintaining direct service to these nowherevilles should be a low priority.

Rail service benefits from volume, because rail is capital-intensive. Having the capital improvements benefit as many trains per day as possible is a very good thing. Separating passengers from busy freight lines is also a good thing. Until the line actually fills up, the IAIS line should host all the east-west trains through Iowa. It's worth sending a few of the trains from Chicago to Iowa City onwards to Cedar Rapids, and eventually Waterloo and Cedar Falls, though -- that area actually has population worth mentioning.

I'll accept Anderson's argument that the CZ should only be moved sometime *after* the IAIS line is in place, moving at full speed, with Thruway connections throughout the state, and with good connections at Omaha to the CZ. Perhaps it's only really worthwhile after the IAIS line is upgraded to 110 mph, but at that point it would definitely be worthwhile.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

If you're going to extend to GJT, I have to wonder why you don't just bite the bullet and extend to SLC. At roughly seven hours between the two cities, departing GJT at 6 AM would permit a departure at about 11 PM from SLC. Not ideal, I know, but far better than 3 AM if the train is on time. Likewise, the SLC arrival would be around 6:00 AM (possibly a hair later). Again, it's not ideal, but it beats 11 PM (if you're lucky) as an arrival time. On the one hand, you'd burn an additional set; on the other hand, SLC is a larger city and I'm going to suspect that it would be easier to do any relevant crew basing in a city of that size than to do it in western Colorado.

That's why I said to move the times so that thing are better at GJT. I also disagree with moving the CZ off the CB&Q becasuse I think those places need the service.

 

[PaulM]

Once the daytime trains are running from Omaha to Chicago (including dealing with getting across the river to Omaha), what would make sense would be to reroute the California Zephyr from its current route through Creston, Osceola, Ottumwa, and Mt. Pleasant to this route through Des Moines, Iowa City, and the Quad Cities. (Sorry, locals. Of the four stops on the existing route, only Ottumwa has enough people to justify rail service, and the advantages of the other route are large.)

Whoa! Just a minute there! Don't write off my station, MTP, so cavalierly. I don't know what the official statistics are, but every time I board or detrain, there are more than enough passengers to justify rail service.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Once the daytime trains are running from Omaha to Chicago (including dealing with getting across the river to Omaha), what would make sense would be to reroute the California Zephyr from its current route through Creston, Osceola, Ottumwa, and Mt. Pleasant to this route through Des Moines, Iowa City, and the Quad Cities. (Sorry, locals. Of the four stops on the existing route, only Ottumwa has enough people to justify rail service, and the advantages of the other route are large.)

Whoa! Just a minute there! Don't write off my station, MTP, so cavalierly. I don't know what the official statistics are, but every time I board or detrain, there are more than enough passengers to justify rail service.

Only Creston is too small to justify service IMO.

 

[JayPea]

Here are the ridership statistics for the four Iowa railroad stations in question for FY 2012, according to Great American Stations:

Osceola: 14,681

Mt. Pleasant: 13, 634

Ottumwa: 11,674

Creston: 4,531

And as a bonus, here are the ridership stats for FY 2012 for the other two Iowa stations:

Burlington: 7,646

Ft. Madison (yes, I'm aware that the SWC, rather than the CZ, serves Ft. Madison) :7,003

Make of these stats what you will.

 

[Guest]

Whoa! Just a minute there! Don't write off my station, MTP, so cavalierly. I don't know what the official statistics are, but every time I board or detrain, there are more than enough passengers to justify rail service.

Consider whether they're driving from points north along the IAIS line. I strongly suspect a whole lot of them are. Ask your fellow passengers at Mt. Pleasant how many of them drove down from Iowa City or even Cedar Rapids.

The ridership at several of these stations is larger than the city ("micropolitan area") population, which usually means people are driving to the station from some distance away.

If a _Denver Zephyr_ service on the IAIS line in both directions starts, this will become apparent pretty quickly as people choose to go to the stations closer to them. I'm happy to wait until the matter is proven, which it won't be until the trains are running on the IAIS line. At that point it will become obvious.

 

[PaulM]

Whoa! Just a minute there! Don't write off my station, MTP, so cavalierly. I don't know what the official statistics are, but every time I board or detrain, there are more than enough passengers to justify rail service.

Consider whether they're driving from points north along the IAIS line. I strongly suspect a whole lot of them are. Ask your fellow passengers at Mt. Pleasant how many of them drove down from Iowa City or even Cedar Rapids.

I don't know the answer to that question, but you could be right. I live about 75 miles south of MTP, but it's still the only (civilized) way to get to Denver and west.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

If their line was so bad, why did the CB&Q operate many trains over it and kept it in good condition through the hard 1960s? While the Rock Island line was downgraded and the company eventually collapsed?

 

[afigg]

Here are the ridership statistics for the four Iowa railroad stations in question for FY 2012, according to Great American Stations:

...

Make of these stats what you will.

Let's pretend we are the newly appointed LD train manager. According to the September, 2012 Monthly report, the CZ had a net operating loss of $71.6 million in FY2012, the biggest single loss of the 15 LD trains. If a 79 mph corridor is built to Omaha through the Quad Cities, Iowa City, Des Moines that provided good trip times, new nice stations with lots of parking, station personnel costs which could be shared with state supported corridor trains, and there is less freight traffic to contend with, it would be pretty stupid to not re-route the CZ to the new route. Much bigger population base, more revenue, better cost recovery for the IL to Omaha segment. No brainer to move the CZ.

Unfortunately a 79 mph corridor service with multiple daily trains though Iowa City, Des Moines to Omaha is a long ways off. Will likely cost 100s of millions of dollars to upgrade the tracks between Iowa City and Omaha if the cost of the Quad Cities to Iowa City extension is a valid guide.

 

[ArchBishop]

While I am all in favor of more trains, I just don't see why they don't just move the CZ to go through Des Moines. It would seem logical that there would be more travelers from Des Moines to Chicago or Des Moines to Omaha and points west than any of the towns currently on the CZ in Iowa. And adding Iowa City would make it even more viable.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

While I am all in favor of more trains, I just don't see why they don't just move the CZ to go through Des Moines. It would seem logical that there would be more travelers from Des Moines to Chicago or Des Moines to Omaha and points west than any of the towns currently on the CZ in Iowa. And adding Iowa City would make it even more viable.

Right now they can't 'cause of bad tracks.

 

[Nathanael]

If their line was so bad, why did the CB&Q operate many trains over it and kept it in good condition through the hard 1960s? While the Rock Island line was downgraded and the company eventually collapsed?

Freight revenue. The CB&Q route was better for freight, for whatever reason. During the '60s, the railroads with the best passenger lines collapsed, including the LIRR, NYC, the Pennsy, the New Haven, the E&L, the Milwaukee Road, and the Rock Island, and that's not a complete list -- while the railroads with the best freight lines survived.

 

[jphjaxfl]

If their line was so bad, why did the CB&Q operate many trains over it and kept it in good condition through the hard 1960s? While the Rock Island line was downgraded and the company eventually collapsed?

Freight revenue. The CB&Q route was better for freight, for whatever reason. During the '60s, the railroads with the best passenger lines collapsed, including the LIRR, NYC, the Pennsy, the New Haven, the E&L, the Milwaukee Road, and the Rock Island, and that's not a complete list -- while the railroads with the best freight lines survived.

Having ridden the Burlington, Rock Island, Milwaukee and Northwestern between Chicago and Omaha and various points, the Burlington had the best management, the best passenger equipment, the fastest schedules. The freight revenue was part of it, but not the total reason. There were too many granger lines competing for freight and passengers. The ones with the best management survived. The Burlington, Great Northern and Northern Pacific were under the same ownership for many years before they merged. A merger was attempted at the beginning of the 20th Century, but the ICC would not approve.

 

[Anderson]

I think Nathaniel and I are more or less on the same page. My main issue is that I'd rather not see all rail service get stuck onto a handful of lines with big gaps in beteween them (as is the case now). I'd rather see a bit more broad coverage and more networking in the system.

There's always been, and always going to be, a tension between breadth (i.e. how many lines have trains) and depth (i.e. how many trains are on each line) of network coverage. While I know there's a big issue with the cost of upgrading a line to X status (be it 60, 79, 90, 110, or 125 MPH), there's also a benefit to putting coverage in on several lines at slightly lower speeds.

In the case of Iowa, I'd like to see the OMA-DSM-CHI corridor get decent coverage...but I'd also like to see a serious look at extending the Black Hawk to Waterloo, for a good example. I'd also like to see a north-south MSP-DSM-KCY train put on the long-term agenda.

As to the Burlington line, the best way to "save" it would be to split a Zephyr at OMA and run a section through the southern part of the state (say, 2-3 coaches, a sleeper, and a cafe car of some kind). Of course, if that line is basically second fiddle to the DSM line, why not look at working with the towns along there to effectively run "a local" with a few more stops and see how much business that can generate?* Most of the riders on that segment seem to be CHI-oriented as it is, so you'd have a de facto corridor train on the line operating as a fig leaf to PRIIA (again, why I want to keep that line in the system: It's grandfathered in via the CZ).

And of course, that's something that has been lost over the years: I know I talk about dropping X stops from a train at times, but if you've got multiple stops on a train, why not run some as expresses and some as locals? With a CZ/DZ combo, consider having the CZ as an "express" only stopping at a few major cities (i.e. cutting most of the stops west of Lincoln), and run the DZ as more of a local train with additional stops and a transfer at Denver for folks continuing on. As it is, CHI-OMA and CHI-DEN are decent-sized city pairs, and I'm willing to be CHI-DSM is going to be pretty big as well. It would be nice if Amtrak could marginally upcharge the buckets on the express train as well, but that's also me looking at ways for Amtrak to get more money in the bank.

There's one other benefit to keeping the BNSF line around: If you've got active stations along it, when something forces a shutdown of one line, you can simply reroute the train and run Thruways (or ideally work something with an existing Thruway service) for the duration. Look at the headaches that CSX's work on the A-line has caused, for example (or, to be even more pertinent, look at the effects of the Zephyr's occasional re-routes effectively cutting service to Iowa)...with both lines in-system, you'd simply be able to shift DSM traffic to connect with a bus at OSC rather than dropping service for a few weeks.

I do get the issue with X area having service to small towns while big cities elsewhere lack it. But I also feel that's a lousy excuse for cutting service in one area or another. In theory, one could use that logic to cut service to either Norfolk or Newport News (both now have service) and run a bus to Norfolk or Suffolk from NPN, add a stop at Wakefield with a Thruway (or bus to RVM) for WBG...or go back to the old Thruway-only option for Norfolk and Virginia Beach. But both lines can also generate respectable business, I suspect (NPN and WBG generate close to 200,000 rides/year right now on 2x daily service; even excluding the Thruway rides, I think you're still over 150k), and so covering both areas and possibly adding a few stations all around is probably a better long-term approach, even if not all trains hit all stations.

*This has come to mind with the IAIS line as well...I don't know how many stops there are on the line, but if you got to 7x daily service, I wouldn't mind seeing one or two of those experimentally run with a batch of additional stops, or seeing 2-4 of the frequencies pick up a few stops each.

 

[afigg]

News update (of sorts) on the prospects for the possible service extension to Iowa City from a Quad City Times article "Iowa rail advocates concerned freight lines being overlooked".

The angle is that the Iowa Northern Railroad is emphasizing that the track upgrades are not just for passenger rail to Iowa City, but also would greatly benefit freight train service. That economic angle may have a positive effect on getting more support from Republicans to go ahead with the project.

The Governor and State House Republicans say they are opposed or concerned about the annual projected $3 million operating subsidy, although that is a very small amount compared to what Iowa must spend on roads, highways, etc. The interesting item in the article is:

McCoy said Iowa officials are negotiating with Illinois officials to see if they will shoulder a bigger share of the operating cost to acknowledge the benefit they will receive from nonresident University of Iowa students using the expanded Amtrak passenger service for trips to Chicago

Sounds to me as if Iowa DOT is looking for a way to trim the upfront operating subsidy amount to get the funds approved by the Governor and state legislature. After all, if the service succeeds, it may not need much of an operating subsidy after it gets established with increasing ridership.

 

[Anderson]

Well, it seems quite possible that those rides will tally up to 5-10% of the total ridership. Of course, this also seems like something of a fight over shared costs vs. shared revenue...I wonder where the revenue for an Iowa City-Chicago trip is getting credited? Does it "break" at Davenport? Does the whole thing go to Iowa but the return trip (Chicago-Iowa City) count entirely for Illinois?

 

[afigg]

Well, it seems quite possible that those rides will tally up to 5-10% of the total ridership. Of course, this also seems like something of a fight over shared costs vs. shared revenue...I wonder where the revenue for an Iowa City-Chicago trip is getting credited? Does it "break" at Davenport? Does the whole thing go to Iowa but the return trip (Chicago-Iowa City) count entirely for Illinois?

The lawyers and accountants for Amtrak and the state DOTs can work it out. A percentage breakdown of the revenue for all trips to/from Iowa by some formula to be agreed to, maybe based on mileage in each state. Illinois should have an incentive to offer generous terms to Iowa DOT as service to Iowa City should generate a lot of tourist & weekend trips to Chicago that otherwise might not take place.

 

[Anderson]

I'll agree, especially since it's likely to fill a lot of otherwise-vacant seats. Something akin to what VA got on the NEC would make a lot of sense...but IL is probably going to kick and scream about that, as states are wont to do. And geez...$3m/year for four trains? Is that all?

 

[John Bredin]

I'll agree, especially since it's likely to fill a lot of otherwise-vacant seats. Something akin to what VA got on the NEC would make a lot of sense...but IL is probably going to kick and scream about that, as states are wont to do. And geez...$3m/year for four trains? Is that all?

Illinois was a driving force behind this project* and has committed financially to it.** Iowa hasn't. And you're presuming that Illinois will be the source of trouble? :wacko:

*http://www.dot.il.gov/amtrak/pdf/QuadCitiesFULLREPORT.pdf and http://www.qcrail.com/Iowa%20City-QC%20feasibility%20study.pdf The operative sentence is on page 3 of the latter:

Soon after the Illinois Department of Transportation (“Ill. DOT”) requested Amtrak to conduct a feasibility study on proposed Amtrak service between Chicago and the Illinois Quad Cities, the Iowa Department of Transportation (“Iowa DOT”) asked that the study be extended to Iowa City and later to Des Moines.

**http://newstrib.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=27&ArticleID=24218 or http://www.midwesthsr.org/projects-illinois (middle of the page)

 

[Anderson]

Well, there's also the fact that as far as I can tell, there's not really much precedent for a multi-state train. Almost every train that is a candidate is either handled by one state (Carolinian, Wolverine, etc.) or is a split operation in some fashion (River Runner/Lincoln Service). The exception is the Cascades...and that was probably helped out by a more forgiving funding framework when it started up.

Please also understand that I wasn't assigning fault, merely noting that IL is unlikely to go along with a seat charge credit of any sort if they can fill enough seats on their own.

 

[John Bredin]

Well, there's also the fact that as far as I can tell, there's not really much precedent for a multi-state train. Almost every train that is a candidate is either handled by one state (Carolinian, Wolverine, etc.) or is a split operation in some fashion (River Runner/Lincoln Service). The exception is the Cascades...and that was probably helped out by a more forgiving funding framework when it started up.
Please also understand that I wasn't assigning fault, merely noting that IL is unlikely to go along with a seat charge credit of any sort if they can fill enough seats on their own.

Two other exceptions:

Heartland Flyer, funded by Oklahoma and Texas

Hiawatha service, funded by Wisconsin and ... Illinois. Couldn't come up with an odder "odd couple" as far as (present) state-government attitudes towards intercity passenger rail. Which state is Felix and which is Oscar depends on one's own view of intercity passenger rail.