Modified Silver Star schedule

[BobWeaver]

I was looking at rates on 91/92 from CLB for March and something caught my eye. 92's arrival time into Columbia would be 4:08 AM, a whole 2 hours and 56 minutes behind its normal schedule of 1:12 AM. I checked down the route a little, and it turns out that the departure time from Miami is being changed by 3 hours from 8:50 AM to 11:50 AM and the scheduled arrival time into NYP is being changed from 3:43 PM to 7:10 PM.

Anybody know the reasoning behind this?

 

[BobWeaver]

Nevermind, I found the answer. I've been told that it's for spacing between 92 and 98.

 

[The Metropolitan]

Wow, you're absolutely right!

I'm aiming to get the Star out of ORL on 3/29, and its time is now pushed back to 724pm, arriving BAL at 410pm.

My guess, and I do mean GUESS, is that perhaps there's an effort to give a wider range of times in the Orlando area, either for interstate or intrastate travel.

I would presume NARP may come forth with some reasoning behind this move.

Looking at the Southbound star, it appears to be 13 minutes earlier into BAL. Any other eastern LD trains I looked at all seemed to be the same or right about the same.

 

[battalion51]

As part of the quarterly time change they're pushing back the Star by a few hours. I think a large part of this is an attempt to not be getting out on the Miami Sub in the heart of rush hour. I'm seeing an 11:50 AM departure from Miami, 5:05 at TPA, 7:24 at ORL, and 10:37 at JAX.

 

[VentureForth]

I've always wanted to see those trains spaced apart a little better... But I wonder why they didn't mess with the SB? The time for the NB into SAV sucks now - 1:24 AM! Blech. I would LOVE to see the SB offset by 3 hours... It would provide a more desireable arrival time

 

[AmtrakWPK]

From purely a selfish standpoint, I'm happy to see the change - it means that everybody from Jacksonville through Orlando can now make a day trip to Tampa and return the same day. When they first added the dogleg to Tampa to 91/92, that was possible, but then they fiddled the schedule to where it is right now and you can usually get to Tampa but then pretty much just get on 92 and come right back. THe new schedule will mean we can take 91 over to TPA, have a nice lunch at the Columbia restaurant in Ybor City, visit the Tampa Aquarium, or do some other downtown sightseeing, and then catch 92 coming back. There should even be time to take 91 all the way to WTH for lunch at the nice restaurant on the lake by the station, or even to SBG for a quick turnaround return. Hmmmmmm.... We may even decide to get our Florida railpasses again this year.....

Of course, if they DID move 91 later, all that goes away again.....

 

[VentureForth]

Well, in all honesty, I am suprised that they made the change on 91/92 instead of 97/98.

Heck - day trips are great for building AGR points. Enjoy 'em, WPK.

Maybe they can push 97 back three hours... Heh heh. 92 and 97 schedule changes and keep the opposite directions of each as-is. That would be interesting!

Don't know how that'd affect the rest of the route, though...

 

[Superliner Diner]

In examining the future schedules from 1/21/08 and beyond, it appears that both southbound trains (91 and 97) are being pretty much left alone.

As has been mentioned, #92 is leaving Miami exactly 3 hours later than it does now. One reason the change is so drastic is that you have to avoid having the Star come into NYP during the evening rush hour. Its current arrival time (on paper anyhow) is 3:43 PM. It will come into NYP after 7 PM on the new timetable.

However here is something not yet mentioned. #98's schedule is changing too. It will depart from Miami at 8:40 AM rather than 7:17 as it does now. That effectively puts the northbound Meteor in the timeslot that is currently held by the Star, at least from Miami to Winter Haven before they split (where the Star goes to Tampa). And #98 appears to be running approximately one hour and change later all the way up to New York; it will still be in before 12 Noon.

So your differential between the two is not as great as it initially seemed. With #92 3 hours later and #98 1-1/2 hours later, since the current differential between the two is about 1-1/2 hours, the resulting space between them will be just about 3 hours

 

[The Metropolitan]

In looking at a possible Raleigh trip, I do notice a side effect: 92 and 80 are barely 2 hours apart through Raleigh.

May be a good thing, as the scheduled departure from Raleigh is a much more palatable 8:54am. Pseudo-down side is that the non-guaranteed connection to the s/b Piedmont is entirely broken.

Times from Hamlet, NC north are much better. For example: Hamlet currently gets the Star coming through at 3:25am. Under the new schedule, the train serves Hamlet at 6:29am.