Nostalgia Not in Amtrak’s Future

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Rover

Rover

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May 13, 2015
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Nostalgia Not in Amtrak’s Future

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/nostalgia-not-in-amtraks-future/

Amtrak Senior Executive Vice President Stephen Gardner

The sweet spot for passenger rail is the 350-mile corridor, connecting major metropolitan areas and communities around them, over which we can produce multiple trips per day at convenient arrival and departure times,” he says. While market research confirms a place for long-distance service, what is missing, Gardner says, is connectivity within those routes, such as corridor trains that eliminate 3 a.m. arrivals.

“Across the country, we could operate corridors within the long-distance routes that look a lot like our state-supported trains in California and the Northeast,” Gardner says. “An example is multiple-trip, convenient-time corridor service linking Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo, building on the foundation of current long-distance service as we have in California, Downstate Illinois and the Pacific Northwest.
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A good start would be a train running Chicago to Buffalo in the day and Buffalo to NYC at night. I would use the overnight from Syracuse to NYC, save a hotel room in NYC. I think Gardner needs to learn about the short haul sleeper market, then he might understand what needs to be done...
 
Being the last NYS stop on the EA, my station (FED) has 2 trains a day. However, any farther north in NYS on the Adirondack has only 1 train a day. This gets to NYP late at night, with only 1 or 2 connections to WAS. So if you came from say PLB and needed to connect anywhere else, you MUST stay overnight!

And speaking of the Adirondack, you can connect to the LSL westbound to CHI in SDY, but you can not connect eastbound without an overnight stay. (It misses the connection by I think 30 minutes!)

I would love to see an overnight train, in addition to the current one, on this route. And many others too. (Why should a large city like SLC have trains at midnight and 3 am only?)
 
Gardner said most of the right things. Positive article overall.

The question is what wasn’t said and the degree of honesty in the interview overall. A place for long distance trains could and probably does mean in his mind elimination of most of them. If it’s truly use the network as a skeleton to build upon I’m all for it.
My first choice would be build up the Sunset route. Keep the entire route 3 days a week and add corridor trains on off days connecting LAX- PSP-PHX- TUS. I’m sure there’s other city pairs as well. The infrastructure is already in place and it would help the Sunsets numbers as well. Being only a 3 day a week train gives it a unique opportunity to fill in the holes.
 
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Amtrakfflyer said:
Gardner said most of the right things. Positive article overall.

The question is what wasn’t said and the degree of honesty in the interview overall. A place for long distance trains could and probably does mean in his mind elimination of most of them. If it’s truly use the network as a skeleton to build upon I’m all for it.
My first choice would be build up the Sunset route. Keep the entire route 3 days a week and add corridor trains on off days connecting LAX-PHX- TUS. I’m sure there’s other city pairs as well. The infrastructure is already in place and it would help the Sunsets numbers as well. Being only a 3 day a week train gives it a unique opportunity to fill in the holes.
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Problem being rolling stock. As has been discussed in other threads, western trains now are looking at refurbishing and maybe also acquiring other existing stock(in conjunction with California). It will be 10 years before any new orders are placed for new western cars.
 
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The 4 day a week corridor in addition to the Sunset I envision could be operated with single level equipment as well. Wouldn’t have to be Superliner compatible and unlike other corridors it would be cheaper to operate since its only 4 days a week requiring no new infrastructure. I envision it similar to how the Hoosier State operated on days the Cardinal didn’t.

It would be one step closer to making the tri weekly Sunset more viable long term.
 
Tom Booth said:
Problem being rolling stock. As has been discussed in other threads, western trains now are looking at refurbishing and maybe also acquiring other existing stock(in conjunction with California). It will be 10 years before any new orders are placed for new western cars.
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So how is that Amtrak is going to make rolling stock materialize for new corridor trains--but any new stock for long-distance trains is unobtainable for at least a decade?
 
Gardner is right about the sweet spot.
To make it work, you need frequency and reliability.
His main problem outside the NEC and Michigan, he has no railroad.
He mentions California, where infrastructure investments have been a success. Don't expect the Class 1's to pony up for
Infrastructure based on the rates they get from Amtrak.
Virginia seems to have figured this out. Pennsylvania has made the Keystone's a success from where they started years ago, but Amtrak already owned the Harrisburg line. Those are the ones I can think of off hand, in addition to a library full of studies that will never happen. There always seems to be more money available for new studies, new trains not so much.
 
Amtrakfflyer said:
The question is what wasn’t said and the degree of honesty in the interview overall. A place for long distance trains could and probably does mean in his mind elimination of most of them. If it’s truly use the network as a skeleton to build upon I’m all for it.
Click to expand...

I'd like that but I really think he is talking about running corridor trains along the long-distance route in lieu of long-distance trains.
 
Amtrakfflyer said:
My first choice would be build up the Sunset route. Keep the entire route 3 days a week and add corridor trains on off days connecting LAX-PHX- TUS. I’m sure there’s other city pairs as well. The infrastructure is already in place and it would help the Sunsets numbers as well. Being only a 3 day a week train gives it a unique opportunity to fill in the holes.
Click to expand...

Whilst a Phoenix-Tucson passenger rail line can be done under existing conditions, west of Phoenix the tracks are in such bad shape (as UPRR abandoned that line after 1996 and Amtrak couldn't afford to buy and upgrade it at the time) that completely new tracks would have to be laid. A new route can be built between Indio and Phoenix following I-10, as it would give Amtrak a faster and more direct route and would not have to be at the mercy of UP between those two areas (UP's been pretty oppositional towards adding more Amtrak trains on the Sunset Route)
 
Perhaps run it along the Arizona & California Railroad from Phoenix, AZ to Cadiz, CA. I think that line is still in service. It's probably too slow though because to go east the trains would first have to go north through Cajon Pass.
 
ParanoidAndroid said:
Perhaps run it along the Arizona & California Railroad from Phoenix, AZ to Cadiz, CA. I think that line is still in service. It's probably too slow though because to go east the trains would first have to go north through Cajon Pass.
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And Cajon is busy as is so Arizona & California is out of the table. We're gonna have to construct a new rail line between Coachella and Phoenix following I-10
 
Philly Amtrak Fan said:
Just get rid of the 750 mile rule. Amtrak would propose a lot of new routes then.
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And yet the propose of new routes is not hindered by the 750 mile rule. Anyone seen a list of proposed routes? Before the 750 miles rule, not much chatter of new routes. During the 750 mile rule, not much chatter of new routes, just a few studies here and there. With Anderson and Gardner we got the dislike of the long distance routes, but still waiting for a real plan from them. I guess it all about the money? Given funds with no assigned purpose is unlikely. Time for the put up or shut up thing.
 
I never could understand that arbitrary number...
You could exceed that number wholly within one state (Texas), or travel from Maine to NC passing through 12 states and DC, in less than that number...
 
Philly Amtrak Fan said:
Just get rid of the 750 mile rule. Amtrak would propose a lot of new routes then.
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They can propose anything they want. What they need is funding to operate the routes.


railiner said:
I never could understand that arbitrary number...
You could exceed that number wholly within one state (Texas), or travel from Maine to NC passing through 12 states and DC, in less than that number...
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As it was explained to me, it wasn't arbitrary. It was based upon state-supported service versus long-distance service. One of the main qualifiers of this number is the Carolinian, which is a state-supported service the covers 705 miles.
 
Just think - if you could build a controlled access road to join these city pairs:
  • Jacksonville to Tallahassee
  • Houston to San Antonio
  • Tucson to Phoenix
  • Tallahassee to Mobile
  • Phoenix to Los Angeles
  • Mobile to New Orleans
  • San Antonio to El Paso
  • New Orleans to Houston
  • El Paso to Tucson



Oh - they already did that ... It's called Interstate-10

Now, just imagine if you tried to tell people they couldn't drive from Jacksonville to Los Angeles or Houston to Tallahassee or Phoenix to New Orleans because that is "long distance" and the road was designed to join the more popular "city pairs" that are close enough together to "make sense".



Yet, that is want they essentially want to do with Amtrak
 
I hate to bring facts into this, but most long distance trips whether on train or by car or bus is under 200 miles. Having a train that runs across country and makes half it's stops at odd hours isn't going to draw riders. Amtrak needs to be allowed to and given the resources to focus on corridor services to compliment that national network. Right now, I won't take the train to LA or Portland because the train schedule is inconvenient or I have to take a Thruway bus for almost half the trip. At that rate, I can put up with Southwest and Oakland airport for 3-4 hours.

The problem with Amtrak, a lot of rail advocates and the people running Amtrak is that they seem to be married to service patters from 1949. The world has changed and we have other options for longer distance travel. Have one or two trains in each direction every day isn't going to cut it. Rolling the clock back to 1949 and bringing Amtrak to that level of service might bring back a few useful trains, but its not going to adequately serve urban areas that presently lack service. A daily Sunset Limited won't adequately serve the Inland Empire and that pattern would be repeated across the country with that mentality at the helm. Amtrak needs to change to stay relevant, but change without ruining the core of what it is or go back to some bygone era that can't be again.
 
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I don't believe anything was mentioned about all the delays caused by the host RRs. No system will be any better until that is resolved. 350 miles at the speeds Amtrak runs on the host tracks will still be a nightmare of late trains, connection problems, and unwillingness of people to take the train vs driving. Brightline has shown that with crowded freeways and fast, clean, ontime service, people will take the train. Amtrak still is getting nowhere with the host RRs on the present lines.
 

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