Well, what do I think of all this? I approach all such news with both excitement and skepticism, both with the validity of the story and with the possible results from such a change.
First of all, once again I say that just because somebody posted this on Trainorders does not necessarily make it true. Pointing to a newspaper article or a publication such as Trains Magazine or a website run by a passenger advocacy organization has a lot more merit.
With that out of the way, I've communicated by e-mail with Wayne Davis myself, and consider him to be a reliable source as well. Wayne is the founder and President of Train Riders Northeast, a NARP affiliate that handles much of the New England states. It was through his dedication of 13 years that the Downeaster came to be.
I've also done my checking with Amtrak's reservations site, and this does point to the new times mentioned above, as well as the splitting of the train at Washington, DC.
I find a few positives and negatives with all of this:
Positives
* Splitting the train into BOS-WAS and WAS-NPN segments helps the timekeeping of each section. No longer should the northbound overnight train out of Washington be subject to delays caused by CSX malfunctions to the south. You'll notice they allowed plenty of dwell time in Washington between #76 (NPN-WAS) and #66 (WAS-BOS) to allow for delays in Virginia.
* The name Twilight Shoreliner is gone, gone, gone at last. As was pointed out earlier, any name would be better. Night Owl comes to mind, but I guess that is considered used already. But then so is Federal. There's a whole gamut of names to choose from, since the train names along the Northeast Corridor itself were removed in favor of generics like NortheastDirect, then Acela Regional, and now soon Regional. Instead of the Federal, Amtrak could have just called this train Regional 66 and Regional 67.
* The train needs its sleepers, or it can and will fail. If the story about it keeping its sleepers is in fact true, then having them set out in Washington and Boston for boarding well before departure should help business. I think the adjusted arrival times in both Washington and Boston will make the need to allow occupancy of the sleepers after arrival time a moot point.
* The later arrival in Boston is just right for those who want to catch the first Downeaster of the day to points north. Before, the layover was agonizing in the morning hours, particularly on colder days. Now if only we could get that dedicated bus (or through fares on the Orange Line) between the stations we would be in still better shape!
* Continuing the second daily frequency (and 3 on Fridays) to Newport News is a wise move. There is particularly much reverse Washington-Richmond business that would have been lost if the frequency south of Washington had not been maintained.
Negatives
* Through service between the Boston-Washington NEC and Virginia points is lost, although it will be maintained on the daytime trains (such as 94, 95, etc.)
* I am skeptical about the premium service that has been discussed. The former Night Owl was reinvented as the Twilight Shoreliner (TS), and with this change (and the extension into Virginia) came a Viewliner sleeper, a pillow (and for a short while, a blanket) for each passenger including those in coach class, use of New York's then-Metropolitan Lounge for ALL boarding passengers including coach class, a special Twilight Lounge only for Business Class and sleeper passengers, and a special logo and matching motif painted on dedicated cars for this service. Well, much of that has been lost over the years -- only the one sleeper remains but it's now taken from the long distance pool, while the former TS dedicated sleepers appear on other trains. Now, we're talking of re-inventing the steel wheel again, and calling it the Federal with some added amenities. Just how long will they last, especially with continued equipment shortages?
* Back essentially to the hours of the old Night Owl, the departure times from New York go from approximately 1 AM to 3:15 AM northbound and 2:35 AM southbound. And the New York arrivals are about 20 minutes before those times, not much better. So in order to have better Boston or Washington calling times, the New York market loses here.
Change is good, but I would hope that Amtrak compared its ridership counts for the Night Owl with the Twilight Shoreliner to come up with this plan. Let's see how things develop.
With the return of some repaired Superliner equipment, I don't understand why the Cardinal isn't being returned to Superliner equipment thereby freeing up those Viewliners.
