NEC and Long Distance Trains

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Jun 15, 2018
Messages
7
Location
Connecticut
I remember only about 2 years ago all long-distance NEC trains (except the Palmetto) were recieve/discharge only on the NEC depending on the direction. I knew that discharge only usually helped late trains make up time by a lot or arrive into NYP about an hour early. I noticed recently that Amtrak seems to have scrapped that practice and now you can ride on trains such as the Meteor, Crescent, etc. solely to and from any point between NYP and WAS. Why would Amtrak allow this now if it axes a way of a late train making up sometimes a lot of time? Is this a temporary solution because of Penn's track work?
 
Well, LD trains carried local NEC passengers in the earlier Amtrak era, before they stopped doing so. So Amtrak has gone both ways on this depending on I don't know what
In 1972, I rode the "Southern Crescent" from New York to Philadelphia. They tacked on some corridor coaches for those of us making the shorter rides, which I guess were dropped in Washington. I somehow ended up in an ex-PRR P-70 coach (painted in Penn Central green, I think it had an air conditioning refit.). I'm not sure it was designed for the speeds they were running through New Jersey, it was a pretty rough ride. Should have shelled out the extra bucks for a Metroliner.

In 1975 I was traveling from Baltimore to New York, and the ticket agent mentioned that he could put me in a seat on the Champion (an old Florida - New York train) that was running late, but was going to arrive before the next NEC train. He sold me a coach eat, same price as the NEC train (all the fares on all the trains were the same back then.) That was a plush ride! Those Heritage long-distance coach seats had legroom that put an Amfleet 2 (which didn't exists at the time) to shame. I think the cars only had seats for 45 passengers, really deep seat recline, a full width restroom/lounge on each end of the car, you passed through a side corridor to get to the doors between the cars. This meaned you didn't hear the noise when someone opened the doors to pass between cars -- a very quiet ride. Then, a few weeks later, all the NEC trains were Amfleets.
 
In the early days of Amtrak, I used to enjoy riding the long distance trains over the Corridor, just to enjoy dinner in the diner...as well as the as mentioned more comfortable seating. Also the lounge cars. When they put on the Receive Only restrictions, you could get around them by booking to Alexandria, for the same fare as NYP-WAS.
default_cool.png
 
In the early days of Amtrak, I used to enjoy riding the long distance trains over the Corridor, just to enjoy dinner in the diner...as well as the as mentioned more comfortable seating. Also the lounge cars. When they put on the Receive Only restrictions, you could get around them by booking to Alexandria, for the same fare as NYP-WAS.
default_cool.png
You still can in most cases, until they got clever enough to make ALX receive only too, southbound I suppose.
 
As I understand it, the system used to be that if there were any short distance trains available as an alternative, you had to be taking at least a five trip to book an LD train. I used to love to take roomettes to and from the D.C. area, but the ride to D.C. was just a tad too short for it to allow me to, so I always booked to Alexandria going south, and then from either Richmond or Manassas coming back, since the northbound run is even shorter than the southbound.

You don't have to do that anymore to take an LD train short distances, however sleepers are not available to short runs.
 
The idea was to keep the long distance trains reserved for long distance passengers. You can’t sell anyone a ticket from New York to Atlanta if the train has already sold out with New York to Washington DC passengers.
Right. However I feel like it can be much more of a problem to allow short distance sleeper bookings, compared to short distance coach bookings, because there are so many fewer sleepers. I'm not sure what in particular prompted this change, but I think it makes sense, given the coach capacity a lot of these trains have.
 
They dumped the restrictive stops between New York and Poughkeepsie, and New York and New Haven, as well.
 
The idea was to keep the long distance trains reserved for long distance passengers. You can’t sell anyone a ticket from New York to Atlanta if the train has already sold out with New York to Washington DC passengers.
Right. However I feel like it can be much more of a problem to allow short distance sleeper bookings, compared to short distance coach bookings, because there are so many fewer sleepers. I'm not sure what in particular prompted this change, but I think it makes sense, given the coach capacity a lot of these trains have.
It's already been explained earlier in this thread. They're doing this to make up for cancelled Regionals due to the track work in NYP, which is the same thing that was done with the track work last year. I'm sure things will go back to being receive/discharge only after everything is complete.
The problem with allowing coach and sleeper shorts.... There are fewer sleeper rooms, yes, but demand is far higher for coach seats. Like.... How many passengers I carried on my 173 on Fridays during the track work last year could have filled both Silver trains...

Believe me, things are done the way they are for a reason.
 
The shortest ticket available on the LSL from NYP is currently to ALB (it does allow sleepers though). The minimum used to be Schenectady, so it is less restrictive than it once was, however Poughkeepsie and Croton-Harmon still seem to be too short a ride. It also looks you can not book an LD train from NYP to Newark. Trenton is the closet stop allowed. So there still are restrictions, just not quite as many.
 
It's already been explained earlier in this thread. They're doing this to make up for cancelled Regionals due to the track work in NYP, which is the same thing that was done with the track work last year. I'm sure things will go back to being receive/discharge only after everything is complete.

The problem with allowing coach and sleeper shorts.... There are fewer sleeper rooms, yes, but demand is far higher for coach seats. Like.... How many passengers I carried on my 173 on Fridays during the track work last year could have filled both Silver trains...

Believe me, things are done the way they are for a reason.
It's been like this for at least a year. I don't think it's temporary.
 
The PRR would place a cut of corridor coaches ahead of the LD cars on most trains, except the Meteor and Champions, and cut them off at Washington along with the power which had to be changed anyway. Just make the cut behind the corridor cars instead of the power.
 
The PRR would place a cut of corridor coaches ahead of the LD cars on most trains, except the Meteor and Champions, and cut them off at Washington along with the power which had to be changed anyway. Just make the cut behind the corridor cars instead of the power.
That is what Amtrak does with the Palmetto these days.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The PRR would place a cut of corridor coaches ahead of the LD cars on most trains, except the Meteor and Champions, and cut them off at Washington along with the power which had to be changed anyway. Just make the cut behind the corridor cars instead of the power.
That is what Amtrak does with the Palmetto these days.
Also (I believe) what they do with the Vermonter at New Haven. Occasionally they'll send a sixth car all the way to St. Albans but it's rare.
 
If asleeper or coach is booked south of WASH then why not sell a ticket to some one else NYP <> WASH ? Granted some seats should be saved out in case a south of WASH passenger cancelles.
 
If asleeper or coach is booked south of WASH then why not sell a ticket to some one else NYP <> WASH ? Granted some seats should be saved out in case a south of WASH passenger cancelles.
It's easier to have a booking system that blocks out certain accommodations/trains regardless of if that room is or isn't going to be used for the rest of the trip. You also have to take into account the possibility that the person who books south of WAS cancels, in which case the room would now be that much harder to fill.
 
Back
Top