More east versus west bull. Surprise, followed by a yawn. jis, neroden and many others hate the idea of western service improvements and so do the moderators of this board, right inline with Big A top management. This idea, much as I agree with it, is a non-starter on this board.
Actually I don't hate the idea of improving western trains at all. There is a reason that such is not happening now, and that is because we have chosen to elect a bunch of folks who do not wish to finance such. The responsibility for funding the LD network has to lie with Congress, and it has chosen not to do so.
There is a fundamental demographic problem that cannot be easily surmounted to make the western LD trains, except the Coast Starlight self-standing as far as cost and revenue goes. This is illustrated very clearly in this population density map:
This map shows several things, which may or may not surprise someone:
1. The alleged East vs. West thing is not a conspiracy, it is plain demographics. Roughly speaking east of the dividing line runing through Minneapolis, Kansas City San Antonio, the population density is significantly higher than west of it except along the Pacific Coast. Indeed more than 75% of the entire population of the US lives east of that line. Consequently it is easier to sustain an LD network east of that line, purely based on the number of people available to avail of such service.
2. Pacific Coast service is viable if handled carefully.
3. If it were possible, a Chicago - Kansas City - Denver sort of service could be made to work. Even Chicago - Denver may be workable
4. Salt Lake City to the Northwest is probably more viable than Salt Lake City to Southwesst
5. Just because LAX - Las Vegas may be viable, indeed for multiple frequency, does not imply that Las Vegas to Salt Lake City will be. Incidentally we see a similar issue with the CZ between RNO and SLC. Now if we were to reduce CZ to less than daily, the ridership lost is unlikely to be regained via a less than daily train on a different route. Indeed prior to Amtrak, service from SLC to Oakland had been less than daily for quite a while.
Mind you this is not to say that such trains should not exist. It just points out that when push comes to shove, which would be more vulnerable.