Nationwide or High speed first?

[Larry H.]

Reading the new Newsletter this morning reinforced my thoughts of a few weeks ago of the need for extended service to more places. I was quite impressed by the suggestions of pairing to cities not now served but that would open convenient service to many more americans whom after all are paying for this system. Extending the River Cites route on the Omaha is exactly what the midwest would need to get easy access to Denver, an points west without two days extra travel though chicago. Only the most die hard anything goes supporters could possibly think that is a recipe for getting people to use rail.

So my real question is this. Shouldn't as I hopefully think I heard the new President of Amtrak mention that before all this expensive high speed rail projects we need to reinstitute rail service to places now totally left out of anything resembling reasonable service. I couldn't agree more. To spend billions on lines that are already serving passengers daily while ignoring all those americans who want to take rail, but not travel at great expense and loss of time out of their way to take the train, is in my view mostly unfair and only really pleases those who are hell bent on 300 mile an hour trains going exactly where they go now, while leaving the rest of us in the dust.

Agreed that after we have a real system those high speed corridors would be great, but not at the expense of a real nation wide easy to use system.

 

[the_traveler]

I agree! If rail travel were more available to more Americans, they may take trains more. Even things like DAL-ABQ requires a person to go to either LAX, CHI or maybe STL to travel between them. And if someone wanted to travel between HOS and CHI by rail, they must either connect in SAS (and stay up all night) or go to NOL (and stay overnight on their dime) - not even considering that the SL only operates 3 days a week. And if someone wanted to go from HOS to TPA, they can either get on Amtrak and go via CHI (eventually) and WAS and take 3+ nights - or get on a nonstop jet and be there in a couple of hours!

So would they chose to travel 2-4 days by rail, drive a few hours or fly a few hours? :huh: I think most would put rail last. However, if there were a convenient way by train, it may move up in more minds.

 

[Sam31452]

There are a few trains that Amtrak should add. Among those is a Houston-Fort Worth train (a day train, from Oklahoma to-Houston), a Las Vegas-L.A. train and a few thruway connections to shorten distances.

But then one should concentrate on important things like high speed trains in California, the Northwest, the Northeast and Illinois.

 

[sunchaser]

Reading the new Newsletter this morning reinforced my thoughts of a few weeks ago of the need for extended service to more places. I was quite impressed by the suggestions of pairing to cities not now served but that would open convenient service to many more americans whom after all are paying for this system. Extending the River Cites route on the Omaha is exactly what the midwest would need to get easy access to Denver, an points west without two days extra travel though chicago. Only the most die hard anything goes supporters could possibly think that is a recipe for getting people to use rail. So my real question is this. Shouldn't as I hopefully think I heard the new President of Amtrak mention that before all this expensive high speed rail projects we need to reinstitute rail service to places now totally left out of anything resembling reasonable service. I couldn't agree more. To spend billions on lines that are already serving passengers daily while ignoring all those americans who want to take rail, but not travel at great expense and loss of time out of their way to take the train, is in my view mostly unfair and only really pleases those who are hell bent on 300 mile an hour trains going exactly where they go now, while leaving the rest of us in the dust.

Agreed that after we have a real system those high speed corridors would be great, but not at the expense of a real nation wide easy to use system.

I certainly agree. The emphasis should be on fleshing out the existing services & extending them. Maybe reinistituting some of the old ones that have been discontinued would help boost ridership. After our recent plane trip, it reinforced our desire to follow thru with our scheduled train trip- I would have much preferred to take the train instead of plane. It was just such a hassle! But it still comes back to the desire to add to the existing & I'm assuming Amtrak would probably need more trains/sleepers/coaches, etc. at some point to do this. From all I have read here it seems they are not pushing the new equipment issue too hard, or even repairs for that matter, until recently.

 

[Larry H.]

It seems to me that the New Amtrak President mentioned he felt that the first step should be to get passengers able to connect from more places and then institute high speed rail. I think he thought as I do that in order to feed lots of passengers for the expense involved in high speed rail you needed a larger base of possible passengers than what now is available. That makes sense to me. I hope he is at least considering the suggestions of the NRP on restoring the lines to service that were a part of the system when amtrak took over and then a few years latter congress axed most of the routes leaving us with a few major hubs and nothing else. Thats wonderful if you live in New York or Washington, or Chicago, but if you don't, rail service anywhere else becomes nearly impossible unless your really determined to spend lots of money and time on going way out of your way. Only devoting a tiny part of the money to more connecting and long distance service would be a "disservice" in my opinion. Its supposed to the the National Rail System, not a few choosen large cities only.

 

[the_traveler]

Thats wonderful if you live in New York or Washington, or Chicago, but if you don't, rail service anywhere else becomes nearly impossible unless your really determined to spend lots of money and time on going way out of your way.

And even if you live in the northeast, it's not always convenient.

I live on the NEC. To go from KIN-CHI, here are my choices:

1. KIN-NYP-(ALB)-CHI = via a Regional and LSL
   
2. KIN-BOS-(ALB)-CHI = via a Regional and LSL
   
3. KIN-WAS-CHI = via a Regional and either CL or Cardinal, or
   
4. KIN-PHL-PGH-CHI = via a Regional, Pennsy and CL
   

None of these are very direct, some go miles out of the way! Unless someone is like me (and thankfully not too many are - one is enough ), most will choose to fly nonstop.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Maybe reinistituting some of the old ones that have been discontinued would help boost ridership.

If having another tenth of a percent of the American population riding trains is exciting, then maybe.

After our recent plane trip, it reinforced our desire to follow thru with our scheduled train trip- I would have much preferred to take the train instead of plane. It was just such a hassle! But it still comes back to the desire to add to the existing & I'm assuming Amtrak would probably need more trains/sleepers/coaches, etc. at some point to do this. From all I have read here it seems they are not pushing the new equipment issue too hard, or even repairs for that matter, until recently.

There's also the issue of track quality. The freight railroads typically have fewer tracks than they did along a given right of way in the 1950s. Also, some curves now have to be taken slower because of adjustments that were made to better accomodate relatively top heavy double stack container freight. And tracks currently used only for freight today are likely not presently being maintained for the speeds needed for decent passenger service. So you can't get 1950s train speeds today on the conventional rights of way with an investment of $0.

I'm not at all convinced that the track cost per passenger mile is any substantially better for conventional speed track than high speed track. I don't think bringing back a huge number of conventional speed routes with no high speed rail service will have any noticable impact on airport congestion.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

And even if you live in the northeast, it's not always convenient.
I live on the NEC. To go from KIN-CHI, here are my choices:

1. KIN-NYP-(ALB)-CHI = via a Regional and LSL
   
2. KIN-BOS-(ALB)-CHI = via a Regional and LSL
   
3. KIN-WAS-CHI = via a Regional and either CL or Cardinal, or
   
4. KIN-PHL-PGH-CHI = via a Regional, Pennsy and CL
   

None of these are very direct, some go miles out of the way! Unless someone is like me (and thankfully not too many are - one is enough ), most will choose to fly nonstop.

I didn't know there was commercial air service in Kingston. I'd somehow thought you had to somehow get to Warwick.

Do you have any reasonable concrete proposal for a one seat ride from KIN to CHI with conventional speed track? About the only thing I can think of that might work would be to have a through car on a Regional that got switched to the LSL at BOS or NYP. And even with a lot more rolling stock to drive down ticket prices, I'm not sure if there'd be enough demand.

I think with HSR there might be a reasonable chance of enough demand to justify a train (perhaps even a couple times a day) that would start at the southwest end of the Rhode Island part of the NEC, make all the local stops through Providence, and then travel towards the intersection of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to pick up high speed track to the edge of Chicago.

 

[Larry H.]

Its sad that some here still think rail service is for the few and only with certain conditions always unattainable it seems. Its folly to think that so few would ever ride if standard service were provided. What in the world do you think we have now! Hardly high class by rail standards now or in the past. If we can build high speed rail we can add a second track if necessary for some main lines and improve the quality of those existing if they had been left to deteriorate. Settling for an inconvenient system is not my idea of a rail system to serve the public as a whole. At the very least you need to connect all major points of the country with service that allows people wishing to go by rail that option.

Thinking that people won't ride that much by running on existing lines is silly. Look at the tremendous growth experienced on the Chicago St. Louis and Chicago Carbondale lines when additional trains were added last year and people had more convient choices for their trips. It isn't that people don't want to use the service but more that the system as it is is a skeleton of what it should be and people know it.

I have said before as a previous poster today did. If you want to go to a couple major cities or father from me you have to get up at 3 in the morning, PAY for a trip that takes Five hours out of your way. Layover for the better part of a day, and then reverse the five hour ride. All of which could have been done in a couple hours if a train only went east and west though the mid center of the country instead of only to Chicago. That is one reason why the old National Limited Route added with an extension on to Omaha would greatly increase the use of rain in the lower mid west. I think the demand would be more than a trickle as suggested if it were convenient with dual daily trips at least.

 

[manchacrr]

Here are a few more suggestions for Amtrak:

NOL-DAL via Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and Shreveport.

NYP-DAL via Crescent to MEI and then via JAN, Monroe, and Shreveport.

NOL-ORL via reinstatement of the Gulf Coast Route.

All three would be popular services, especially the first two between Shreveport and Dallas because of the casinos in Shreveport. Also, as in the first suggestion, routes have been proposed between New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana by the state legislature because they know that the route could have high revenue with the amount of people who travel between the two cities daily.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Settling for an inconvenient system is not my idea of a rail system to serve the public as a whole. At the very least you need to connect all major points of the country with service that allows people wishing to go by rail that option.

I think we're mostly in agreement here. We just have a difference of opinion as to whether serving people who want to get from New York City to Los Angeles (the two largest primary census areas in the country) with rail with service that takes three days is adequate and convenient.

I have said before as a previous poster today did. If you want to go to a couple major cities or father from me you have to get up at 3 in the morning, PAY for a trip that takes Five hours out of your way. Layover for the better part of a day, and then reverse the five hour ride. All of which could have been done in a couple hours if a train only went east and west though the mid center of the country instead of only to Chicago. That is one reason why the old National Limited Route added with an extension on to Omaha would greatly increase the use of rain in the lower mid west. I think the demand would be more than a trickle as suggested if it were convenient with dual daily trips at least.

And I think we agree that eliminating the need to board at 3 AM at certain stations is a worthwhile goal. I'm skeptical that we'll get the ridership to justify the frequencies to make this happen with conventional speed trains, and I think high speed track would help a lot here.

 

[sunchaser]

Maybe reinistituting some of the old ones that have been discontinued would help boost ridership.

If having another tenth of a percent of the American population riding trains is exciting, then maybe.

After our recent plane trip, it reinforced our desire to follow thru with our scheduled train trip- I would have much preferred to take the train instead of plane. It was just such a hassle! But it still comes back to the desire to add to the existing & I'm assuming Amtrak would probably need more trains/sleepers/coaches, etc. at some point to do this. From all I have read here it seems they are not pushing the new equipment issue too hard, or even repairs for that matter, until recently.

There's also the issue of track quality. The freight railroads typically have fewer tracks than they did along a given right of way in the 1950s. Also, some curves now have to be taken slower because of adjustments that were made to better accomodate relatively top heavy double stack container freight. And tracks currently used only for freight today are likely not presently being maintained for the speeds needed for decent passenger service. So you can't get 1950s train speeds today on the conventional rights of way with an investment of $0.

I'm not at all convinced that the track cost per passenger mile is any substantially better for conventional speed track than high speed track. I don't think bringing back a huge number of conventional speed routes with no high speed rail service will have any noticable impact on airport congestion.

Of course the regular tracks need work as well. But we are pumping so much $$$ into building new track & trains for HSR, that the regular tracks will, I assume be considered less important.

I know that if it were possible to have taken a train from SLC direct to SoCal, even though it could have taken 12 hours, would have been much better for both of us! I felt like I was in a bus in the air....wasn't as fun as I remember.

 

[the_traveler]

And even if you live in the northeast, it's not always convenient.
I live on the NEC. To go from KIN-CHI, here are my choices:

1. KIN-NYP-(ALB)-CHI = via a Regional and LSL
   
2. KIN-BOS-(ALB)-CHI = via a Regional and LSL
   
3. KIN-WAS-CHI = via a Regional and either CL or Cardinal, or
   
4. KIN-PHL-PGH-CHI = via a Regional, Pennsy and CL
   

None of these are very direct, some go miles out of the way! Unless someone is like me (and thankfully not too many are - one is enough ), most will choose to fly nonstop.

I didn't know there was commercial air service in Kingston. I'd somehow thought you had to somehow get to Warwick.

Yes, I was comparing taking a train from KIN (a 10 minute drive) and flying from TF Green (a 30 minute drive). If you want to compare apples to apples (somewhat), substitute PVD for KIN. (But driving from downtown Providence to TF Green is still a 15+ minute drive.)

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Yes, I was comparing taking a train from KIN (a 10 minute drive) and flying from TF Green (a 30 minute drive). If you want to compare apples to apples (somewhat), substitute PVD for KIN. (But driving from downtown Providence to TF Green is still a 15+ minute drive.)

There is supposed to be rail service at T F Green in the near future, but there doesn't seem to be a coherent KIN to T F Green rail plan. The initial service plan is for T F Green to be served only by MBTA trains which won't go to KIN.

Have you been bugging your local elected officials about this?

 

[the_traveler]

Yes, I was comparing taking a train from KIN (a 10 minute drive) and flying from TF Green (a 30 minute drive). If you want to compare apples to apples (somewhat), substitute PVD for KIN. (But driving from downtown Providence to TF Green is still a 15+ minute drive.)

There is supposed to be rail service at T F Green in the near future, but there doesn't seem to be a coherent KIN to T F Green rail plan. The initial service plan is for T F Green to be served only by MBTA trains which won't go to KIN.

There is a proposal to continue the MBTA line to Wickford Junction (in North Kingstown - if you've seen the WalMart on the north/west side of the tracks, that's it ) - about 1/2 way between T F Green and KIN "sometime". But nothing is currently planned south of there.

 

[birdy]

They aren't mutually exclusive goals. The low-speed options have the advantage of being cheap and easily implemented. But they are at the margins for relatively short distances, about 100 miles. Basically, commuter rail.

Adding more rolling stock to long distance lines here and there in an experiment to build ridership is OK. I think a reasonable surplus of rolling stock is useful for national security purposes for assisting in mass evacuations during hurricane season or in working around incement weather in the upper midwest in the winter.

But a major program to rebuild our system as it existed in 1938? I disagree.

 

[Rail Freak]

Here are a few more suggestions for Amtrak:NOL-DAL via Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and Shreveport.

NYP-DAL via Crescent to MEI and then via JAN, Monroe, and Shreveport.

NOL-ORL via reinstatement of the Gulf Coast Route.

All three would be popular services, especially the first two between Shreveport and Dallas because of the casinos in Shreveport. Also, as in the first suggestion, routes have been proposed between New Orleans and Baton Rouge in Louisiana by the state legislature because they know that the route could have high revenue with the amount of people who travel between the two cities daily.

Just curious, what was the Gulf Coast Route?

B)

 

[Larry H.]

They aren't mutually exclusive goals. The low-speed options have the advantage of being cheap and easily implemented. But they are at the margins for relatively short distances, about 100 miles. Basically, commuter rail.
Adding more rolling stock to long distance lines here and there in an experiment to build ridership is OK. I think a reasonable surplus of rolling stock is useful for national security purposes for assisting in mass evacuations during hurricane season or in working around incement weather in the upper midwest in the winter.

But a major program to rebuild our system as it existed in 1938? I disagree.

I might be mistaken, but haven't I constantly read that the long distance trains carry more passengers per mile and recover more of the money than the corridor trains. At least I think that has been an on going argument in the Newsletter section for some time. Its pretty obvious that when the public is provided half way decent rail service they will ride. What I and many others don't want to ride is lousy trains with lousy service that don't go anywhere we need to go. If its a great idea to go from point to point between New York and Chicago then its not a lot less important to those that live outside those areas to have a similar service which Amtrak inherited and was supposed to keep operating, at least in theory.

A hundred mile ride won't get you anywhere if your not in a big city hub of some sort. The reason the trains do fairly well out of the cities they run too now is because people will use them if they are available. There is no reason people in Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City, ect shouldn't have service that ties them with a reasonable route to other major cities. Not just going to Chicago or out of Chicago. We need at least a modified spider web kind of service where some lines cross one another allowing connections to many locations without going days out of your way.

 

[photoeditor]

I might be mistaken, but haven't I constantly read that the long distance trains carry more passengers per mile and recover more of the money than the corridor trains. At least I think that has been an on going argument in the Newsletter section for some time. Its pretty obvious that when the public is provided half way decent rail service they will ride. What I and many others don't want to ride is lousy trains with lousy service that don't go anywhere we need to go. If its a great idea to go from point to point between New York and Chicago then its not a lot less important to those that live outside those areas to have a similar service which Amtrak inherited and was supposed to keep operating, at least in theory.

There's a great deal of variation in farebox recovery on the corridor services. LA-San Diego is comparable to long distance trains, but Sacramento-San Jose isn't even close, for example (California's state rail plan has all the details). So it's quite possible to have corridor trains turning in performance comparable to long-distance ones if they're run properly. Timekeeping on the LA-San Diego Surfliner route is quite good. Not so on the Sacramento-San Diego Capitol, which I've also heard has some customer service issues. Another very successful corridor service is Chicago-Milwaukee. The watchwords on this issue seem to be punctuality, reliability and frequency, and in order to achieve those things you have to have the infrastructure to do it, the signaling, track, passing loops, multiple tracks if possible and so on. And 110mph enters into the equation because it's a) the first level at which rail speeds clearly beat driving averages and B) the highest speed attainable without either grade separations or waivers. And I might add it's still slow enough that integrating it with fast freights isn't unrealistic. In Britain, 125mph running in practice on mixed-traffic lines bumps most freight to night-time operations, except on routes where four-track operation allows slow and fast tracks.

With something like the Empire Builder, simply having a passenger train on the Hi-Line route fills a void served by no other public transportation, not the bus, not the plane. There's no bus line at all along US2 any more, and if memory services me correctly there really aren't any decent airports along the way between Grand Forks and Spokane other than Whitefish and possibly Minot. There's far more of a social need and a resulting market demand on this, and so it's no real surprise that it's Amtrak's top performer among the long-haul services. But all the long distance routes at least west of the Mississippi serve at least some destinations that lack air and bus service and generate surprising ridership as a result. With the corridor routes there is competition so it all depends on the reliability of the service.

 

[the_traveler]

the Sacramento-San Diego Capitol, which I've also heard has some customer service issues.

I always wondered why those going to San Diego on the "San Diego Capitol" complained when it ended in San Jose! :lol: (Now I know!)

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

There is no reason people in Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City, ect shouldn't have service that ties them with a reasonable route to other major cities. Not just going to Chicago or out of Chicago. We need at least a modified spider web kind of service where some lines cross one another allowing connections to many locations without going days out of your way.

Indeed, I think having a high speed train that goes from Chicago to St Louis to Kansas City to Denver would make a lot of sense.

Much of the reason I favor making trains as fast as possible is that I think there are cases where going indirectly at higher speeds so we need fewer miles of track will be cheaper than more direct routes at lower speeds, to end up with the same time from one city to another. For example, the FRA's ``high speed'' rail corridor list includes Boston to Montreal. I think we'd be better off with 220 MPH+ track from Boston to a bit north of New York City, plus 220 MPH+ track from a bit north of New York City to Montreal, and force Boston to Montreal trains to go nearly to New York City.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Adding more rolling stock to long distance lines here and there in an experiment to build ridership is OK. I think a reasonable surplus of rolling stock is useful for national security purposes for assisting in mass evacuations during hurricane season or in working around incement weather in the upper midwest in the winter.

As time goes on, I'm becoming less concerned about ending up with too much conventional speed rolling stock as high speed rail is phased in. Conventional speed coaches will work just fine in service along traditional speed commuter rail alignments (ignoring the question of whether commuter rail requires the coaches to be downgraded to have less comfortable seats than an entry level automobile in order to discourage even the middle class from preferring to help to eliminate highway congestion). A decent collection of conventional speed sleeping cars might enable an overnight set out sleeper train that would drop off one car at each minor stop along its route, to provide some degree of service to areas which don't have populations justifying high speed rail.

 

[birdy]

There is no reason people in Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City, ect shouldn't have service that ties them with a reasonable route to other major cities. Not just going to Chicago or out of Chicago. We need at least a modified spider web kind of service where some lines cross one another allowing connections to many locations without going days out of your way.

Indeed, I think having a high speed train that goes from Chicago to St Louis to Kansas City to Denver would make a lot of sense.

Much of the reason I favor making trains as fast as possible is that I think there are cases where going indirectly at higher speeds so we need fewer miles of track will be cheaper than more direct routes at lower speeds, to end up with the same time from one city to another. For example, the FRA's ``high speed'' rail corridor list includes Boston to Montreal. I think we'd be better off with 220 MPH+ track from Boston to a bit north of New York City, plus 220 MPH+ track from a bit north of New York City to Montreal, and force Boston to Montreal trains to go nearly to New York City.

I agree. How about Chicago-Milwaukee-Minneapolis? That's a lot of utility but it requires some optimization of speed. But we have to be realistic. 730 miles from St. Louis to Denver? That's about six hours on the train. The airplanes win. But that's OK. they are really useful for trips of that length.

 

[Larry H.]

I still don't think its a matter of Airplanes winning. People here have many stops along the way at which they wish to board or depart. An airplane flying to Denver will not stop nor give convient service to many towns along the route. A train isn't a plane and its not supposed to have to compete with it totally. I just read on the other thread that the Coast Starlight was Up 85%. Any passenger there could have flown Seattle to Los Angles in the time it takes the Starlight to get a hundred miles out of Los Angles. They aren't riding to get there in a huge hurry, and maybe they are bound for small stops the airlines don't want anything to do with. Thats the beauty of a rail system and why I think many people given the chance will return to rails, long distance and short. You just have to give them options to go where they want to go. Its like selling product, if you sell something people want the flock to it, if they don't want it they won't. Ridership is up big time in all the small towns along our route, 60% increase in ridership last year by adding one more daily train. It was the connivence of be able to get a train say in the morning for your trip instead of leaving at night. I have no doubt that if as in the days previous you could board and go to New York or Washington or Florida from here or Denver, and west there would be many people riding that don't want to today.

I think the Chicago Minneapolis route is fine for improved service, but my real point is how about the service that others from cities have for going places. That would mean growth of large proportions and would increase ridership on all trains overall due to connections that now aren't available. I think we pretty much agree here.

 

[RTOlson]

Timekeeping on the LA-San Diego Surfliner route is quite good. Not so on the Sacramento-San Diego Capitol, which I've also heard has some customer service issues.

Could you please cite a source to back up your claim regarding timekeeping (and perhaps the customer-service issues)?

The Capitol Corridor has a stellar record regarding on-time performance, above all but one other Amtrak service in the country. A recent report from the Capitol Corridor head noted that Captiols had a 92.1 percent OTP so far this fiscal year (compared to 82.7 percent for Surfliners and 89 percent for San Joaquins). This OTP has gone down from time to time when Union Pacific is doing track work, but Capitol Corridor usually tries to let riders know about the delays far ahead of time.

I can't dispute your claims about farebox recovery because I don't know what Surfliner's goal and performance are (although preliminary research indicates it is higher than Capitols). However, Capitol Corridors farebox recovery is 44.6 percent year-to-date shy of their goal of 50 percent (which they exceeded before the new labor costs got factored into it). Based on other preliminary research, this farebox recovery ratio is similar to some long-distance trains.

I could be wrong, please share your information.