Nostalgia Not in Amtrak’s Future

[the_traveler]

I think what is being said is that Brightline runs between Miami, Ft Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. It has nice terminals and fast and very frequent service. There is little or no freight interference. These cities are connected by I-95, which is very heavily congested. And still many people ride Brightline.

If Amtrak could do the same, perhaps more people would chose trains over driving.

 

[Siegmund]

Re the 750-mile rule:

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.

That is a heck of a bait-and-switch. The Carolinian started as a state-supported train *within North Carolina only* with through cars attached to the unsubidized Palmetto. I don't think the state paid anything extra when it became a separate section. (I don't know if Virginia also supports the Carolinian today; it didn't for the first ten years.)

Likewise, I think of the Vermonter as only state-supported north of Springfield, and in the ancient past, the Chicago-Minneapolis-Duluth train was supported only by Minnesota.

The longest distance any state-supported train travels within a single state is 450ish miles (NY-Niagara Falls); I think the Pennsylvanian is the only other that exceeds 350.

 

[MARC Rider]

[QUOTE="me_little_me, post: 833363, member: 4074" 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.[/QUOTE]

Bightline has showed this? How about the Northeast Corridor, where 75% of public transportation trips between New York and Washington are done by train? God knows what I-95 would look like if NEC service were discontinued.

But neither of these are long-distance trains. But lots of people do ride long distance trains, even in their current degraded state.

 

[west point]

Sorry that is not 75% of public transportation. It is 75% of air and train. Bus does carry many passengers.

Bightline has showed this? How about the Northeast Corridor, where 75% of public transportation trips between New York and Washington are done by train? God knows what I-95 would look like if NEC service were discontinued.

 

[Thirdrail7]

. I don't think the state paid anything extra when it became a separate section. (I don't know if Virginia also supports the Carolinian today; it didn't for the first ten years.)

You would be incorrect. NC supported the entire train from WAS-CLT without VA's involvement. NC picked the staff, which is why this train has its own attendants(it may be the only state supported train that has attendants) and even has an attendant for the business class. This is because NC pays for them. Indeed, the northbound Carolinian stopped carrying NEC passengers in the early 2000s and didn't even accept NEC passengers between WAS-NYP until last year. It didn't have the revenue from the NEC to lean on.

Likewise, I think of the Vermonter as only state-supported north of Springfield,

You are correct.

 

[me_little_me]

How so? Care to elaborate?

LD trains are as late as ever. Witness the Crescent.

 

[neroden]

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.

That is of course dumbassery. If you have a route it is more efficient to run one through train than a bunch of trains with bad connections between them. The broken, disconnected system loses through riders and does not make up for it by better stopping times. Basic rail ridership modelling, any commuter rail system gets this right. Hope he is not that dumb, but he may be that dumb.

 

[Thirdrail7]

LD trains are as late as ever. Witness the Crescent.

So are the corridor trains. Witness the Michigan and Illinois services. That is what makes me laugh when they mention pushing corridor service. Unless they are planning on buying up a lot of railroad or partnering with states to grab railroad, you are still at the mercy of the hosts.

How will they handle the additional trains?

 

[NeueAmtrakCalifornia]

So are the corridor trains. Witness the Michigan and Illinois services. That is what makes me laugh when they mention pushing corridor service. Unless they are planning on buying up a lot of railroad or partnering with states to grab railroad, you are still at the mercy of the hosts.

How will they handle the additional trains?

The Michigan tracks of the Wolverine are owned mostly by Amtrak and Michigan DOT.
I do think the Coast Line can be brought from UPRR. It doesn't see a lot of freight traffic (especially when compared to the San Joaquin line). Amtrak and Caltrans can modernize it for enhanced Surfliner services (and even an extension to San Jose and possibly San Francisco)

 

[Bonser]

So are the corridor trains. Witness the Michigan and Illinois services. That is what makes me laugh when they mention pushing corridor service. Unless they are planning on buying up a lot of railroad or partnering with states to grab railroad, you are still at the mercy of the hosts.

How will they handle the additional trains?

And where will they get all the additional train sets? They don't just appear in aisle 5 of the supermarket. And where will the money come from?

 

[Thirdrail7]

And where will they get all the additional train sets? They don't just appear in aisle 5 of the supermarket. And where will the money come from?

In brief, the provisions of the FAST Act and Amtrak's Reauthorization expire this year. As part of the process, the need for new equipment is being discussed since most of it is reaching the end of its serviceable life and a lot of it operates on waivers.

The questions are what to ask for and how much of it do you need? Those questions are based on " how much service and what kind of service do you plan to provide?" If you're planning to rid yourself of vast portions of the long-distance network, you don't need things like sleeping cars, dining cars etc. You may not need as much capital since there are fewer outlying points.

If you plan on pushing more corridor service, you look towards emus/dmus, dense seating, etc.

If you plan on operating both and/or expanding, you need both. Congress will have to decide what they are willing to fund. Will they fund both? Will they fund some? Will they fund what was asked for and nothing else or will they protect their favorite trains? In any case, we'll find out soon enough.

 

[neroden]

You need more capital to fund a bunch of corridor routes than you do to fund a long-distance system. Specifically, you need more outlying maintenance sites, which turn out to be expensive, and you need more locomotives, and you need more rolling stock due to the poorer utilization -- any corridor which doesn't have an anchor on both ends will end up with a lower passenger-mile/seat-mile ratio than a route which is anchored on both ends.

I always look at the Lake Shore Limited here. It makes more sense to run trains from New York to Chicago than to separately run trains from New York to Cleveland and from Chicago to Buffalo.

The Western Transcons are a different animal, but frankly they're not my worry here, since with the exception of the Sunset Limited, they have Senatorial backing. The trains under consistent attack right now are the Eastern long-distance trains. And that's *stupid* -- it shows a lack of understanding of the economics of Amtrak.

 

[Qapla]

The trains under consistent attack right now are the Eastern long-distance trains. And that's *stupid* -- it shows a lack of understanding of the economics of Amtrak.

True. With the number of people who actually do ride from Florida to/from New York who would you replace either Silver or the AT with "corridor" service? The shorter routes would need to meet or overlap frequent train transfers ... makes more sense to keep the LD routes ... like NYP to MIA

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

You need more capital to fund a bunch of corridor routes than you do to fund a long-distance system. Specifically, you need more outlying maintenance sites, which turn out to be expensive, and you need more locomotives, and you need more rolling stock due to the poorer utilization -- any corridor which doesn't have an anchor on both ends will end up with a lower passenger-mile/seat-mile ratio than a route which is anchored on both ends.

I always look at the Lake Shore Limited here. It makes more sense to run trains from New York to Chicago than to separately run trains from New York to Cleveland and from Chicago to Buffalo.

The Western Transcons are a different animal, but frankly they're not my worry here, since with the exception of the Sunset Limited, they have Senatorial backing. The trains under consistent attack right now are the Eastern long-distance trains. And that's *stupid* -- it shows a lack of understanding of the economics of Amtrak.

Like Senators care about the economics of Amtrak. They care about "my train".

 

[neroden]

And that's the problem! The Amtrak CEO is supposed to be the one who cares about the economics of Amtrak, and he doesn't have a frickin' CLUE.

 

[west point]

Neroden is correct about better utilization of LD end to end trains. That can be confirmed by the previous Amtrak mileage figures of Amfleet-1s and Amfleet-2s. Even though -2s are 10 year's younger they were listed as having about 30 % + more mileage than -1s That figure does have to be adjusted for the 50 + -1 cars that were out of service until the rebuilding of 2009 -2010 .

I have to accept the idea of others that a ~ 12 hour difference of schedule times would provide much better service to the present cities and towns that have 2300 - 0600 station times. It all comes down to the present reauthorization coming up that congress will provide a steady ( 10 Year+ ) delivery of new rolling passenger equipment and just retirement of a very few present cars ( retirement needed due to mechanical problems not age ! )

Here are some Trains that others have noted in this category. Lake Shore Limited including BOS section & Capitol Limited both of the mirror trips to connect at Toledo with one to route thru Michigan. Palmetto extended back to MIA with stop in TPA. I am worried that Palmetto would not be able to have enough cars based on day ridership and Florida potential. Remember it had to be separated from the Carolinian some years back. Arrival in Palm Beach about 0700 then south. Cardinal with both trips 7 days a week.
Cal Z , SW Limited, CNO, Texas Eagle, Sunset both trains daily. Empire builder.
Additional short turn trips of course . Tucson - PHX - LAX. DEN - CHI, FTW - Kansas City - CHI,

Exception would probably be just ATL - NYP day train thru RGH - RVR. However in future extend that train thru Montgomery - Mobile - NOL.

Note do not see all this being possible in less than 10 years even with good Congressional support,

Deliberately have ignored new routes both short and long distance as that is another consideration as well.

 

[neroden]

If it weren't combined with these weird attacks on existing critical network services, I'd be all in favor of what Gardner talked about in this article: we should have routes with multiple frequencies per day spanning different times of day. Three a day is ridiculously unsound, and daily is too low for most routes. Advocacy for new routes should, in my opinion, take a back seat to advocacy for higher frequencies on existing routes.

Frequency is freedom for travellers. So ridership goes up faster than frequency up to a certain point. In all but the least populated routes, this holds true up to three-each-way daily service morning, noon and evening; after that it gets iffier.

Amtrak has a few routes where you'd saturate demand before three each way, mostly the most desolate bits of the four transcons. But I'd say all the Viewliner routes can easily support three each way end to end -- even New Orleans to Atlanta, which is the weakest. Note that much of the Silvers' route already *has* this frequency, or higher! (Four a day from Richmond to just short of Raleigh!)

What bugs me is the irrational bias against sleeper services with decent food. Looking at Austria's highly successful Nightjet routes shows that there's a highly successful modern model for sleeper services.

I've made the pitch for service running overnight between Syracuse and New York on occasion (it would be a hit). Since everyone agrees that running through Ohio in the daytime makes sense, this could easily be a second frequency *with sleepers* all the way from Chicago to New York. There's your added frequency -- it does everything Mr. Gardner wants it to do *plus more*, without requiring a new turnaround point. I don't understand why Amtrak management can't see this.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

I've made the pitch for service running overnight between Syracuse and New York on occasion (it would be a hit). Since everyone agrees that running through Ohio in the daytime makes sense, this could easily be a second frequency *with sleepers* all the way from Chicago to New York. There's your added frequency -- it does everything Mr. Gardner wants it to do *plus more*, without requiring a new turnaround point. I don't understand why Amtrak management can't see this.

Political issue of less taxes, smaller federal government, power to the states.

 

[west point]

My opinion is that there are some things that power to the states is ridiculous. Can any of us imagine if the internet and telephone service went to the states ? The Balkanization of the states is not what makes this country great ! Highways and, waterways, and RRs also are part of interstate. Constitution founders could only anticipate post roads but the expansion of telegraphs, RRs , Telephone, airlines, and now internet should be only interstate and not Balkanized ! Let us keep the country together not the I've got mine to heck with you !

 

[Qapla]

Of course, there is still the problem of the "host" RR - they are not always open to adding more trains on "their" tracks.

 

[zephyr17]

The Michigan tracks of the Wolverine are owned mostly by Amtrak and Michigan DOT.
I do think the Coast Line can be brought from UPRR. It doesn't see a lot of freight traffic (especially when compared to the San Joaquin line). Amtrak and Caltrans can modernize it for enhanced Surfliner services (and even an extension to San Jose and possibly San Francisco)

That's been talked about on and off for over a decade. UP appeared to be a willing seller and CalTrans had at least provisional plans to run one Surfliner through into San Francisco 4th & King as a "Coast Daylight". All those plans appear to have been dropped, perhaps when CAHSR really got underway.

 

[zephyr17]

Of course, there is still the problem of the "host" RR - they are not always open to adding more trains on "their" tracks.

Why the quotation marks? They are host railroads and they are their tracks. They own and control them.

 

[Qapla]

Why the quotation marks?

I was merely emphasizing that the freight owned tracks are not public and therefore they have a say in what can and cannot run on their tracks. (I was cautioned not to use bold and/or underline - so, I used quotes)

Many posts seem to lay all the blame on Amtrak and the CEO for not expanding the routes and adding trains - when, often, they simply can't do that because the host will not allow it no matter how much we think such a route makes sense.

 

[NeueAmtrakCalifornia]

That's been talked about on and off for over a decade. UP appeared to be a willing seller and CalTrans had at least provisional plans to run one Surfliner through into San Francisco 4th & King as a "Coast Daylight". All those plans appear to have been dropped, perhaps when CAHSR really got underway.

Guess it's time to revive attempts at buying the Coast Line for an SD-LA-SF Surfliner.

 

[zephyr17]

Guess it's time to revive attempts at buying the Coast Line for an SD-LA-SF Surfliner.

CalTrans had already paid for signal improvements on the line (CTC up to somewhere between Santa Barbara and SLO. The CTC installation keeps creeping northward, unsure how far they've gotten. It used to be just all ABS ). If they are making major investments in it, they may as well buy it.