Not a bad idea though the longer the route the more likely to have delays.I do like the idea of this. One thing worth considering, in the context of SEHSR, is that it would probably be plausible to extend the northbound morning/southbound afternoon pair through to Washington (if not New York). Per the SEHSR EIS, WAS-RGH (on the new alignment) would be 4:22 and NYP-RGH would be 7:25. Adding that to the 1500 departure from RGH would result in a 1030-ish departure from WAS and 0730-ish departure from NYP. (If these times seem vaguely like those of the Carolinian, that's because the SESHR project would shuffle the probable times for that service as well.) Northbound, adding this to the 1341 arrival into RGH would result in about an 1830 arrival into WAS and 2130 arrival into NYP.
I have my doubts but they have to see the success of the NC service and think to themselves it could work in their state as well. NC owning the NCRR certainly helps NC in ways that is hard to extend to other states.By the way, CAPT stands for Carolinas Association for Passenger Trains.
The Million Dollar question of course is will South Carolina step upto the plate with some money for subsidizing operations at least, leaving aside the cost of putting together the necessary stations and route improvements (that inevitably the host railroad will demand) assuming those will be covered by the feds.
The attached article says that Capital Cities will use Amtrak equipment.Also this would be running on NC owned equipment and I am not sure how much NC wants their equipment in other states. As a NC resident I am expecting SC to pay some upfront to offset the costs NC has put into the Piedmont years ago.
Wholly agreed.But more trains the better in this part of the country,
I obviously can't read my own posts. It does indeed say that and not with an "AND" that I first read. Does Amtrak have the spare equipment realistically?The attached article says that Capital Cities will use Amtrak equipment.
No I was not. I just joined.I obviously can't read my own posts. It does indeed say that and not with an "AND" that I first read. Does Amtrak have the spare equipment realistically?
That would save some wear and tear on the NC owned equipment and that would be a side benefit for us NC residents.
I must ask, are you a CAPT member? I assume so, but will ask you to join if not.
The equipment would probably ultimately come from the new Regional equipment order, but the possibility of temporarily "cascading" some Amfleets/Horizons onto a corridor like this isn't unreasonable.As for spare equipment, not currently, unless they choose to get some of those mothballed Horizons back on the road. But once ICTs start arriving they can always add on to the order. Basically they will require two sets for the Capital Cities and 2 sets for the Carolinian plus two sets, one for protect and one for PM/BO.
This does makes sense and has been discussed before. Charlotte is giving Atlanta a run for its money as fastest growing city in Southeast and the current routing to Florida is very convoluted requiring a trip to Cary/Raleigh.One thing which would probably also make sense is, if the Silver Star is re-routed over the S-line/SEHSR trackage, to reroute the Star via CLT.
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