If the CL had been assigned to the B&O route and the BL to the NYC route, then my bet is that CL's performance would have been way worse than BL's on the B&O route. As it is CL's performance on the more favorable route isn't exactly stellar. So yeah, I agree. The 1990 reroute together with certain, shall we say, prejudices at Amtrak HQ, did the BL in. They tried mightily to kill the BA at that time, which remains unexplained to me. We fought hard. But Amtrak is Amtrak. they'll just do whatever random thing they and their paymasters come up with.