Ahhh.....the Montrealer! If it could return with the atmosphere it had in the ’70 and ’80. The “Le Pub” car filled with skiers out of Penn Station on a Friday evening......and on Sunday evening returning, the sleepers filled with those same skiers...hoping to get some rest before work on Monday.
People don't want to fly. And if you had to go 400-500 miles on a train, you'd rather an overnight than lose a whole day. The day train is more useful for intermediate traffic but if there isn't that much anyway, the overnight does make more sense. I doubt I would use Amtrak from PHL to PGH as a day train but probably would if it was overnight.
What? Obviously there are people who fly (and the numbers bear that out), and fly these routes rather than take a train. The Los Angeles-San Francisco air corridor is the second busiest in the US. If there's anything that's going to substitute for medium-length air travel, it's going to be high-speed rail.
Eh, not really. Going to be hardly any intermediate traffic thanks to the poor hours and end-point travel is going to be extremely limited in competition with CAHSR as well as flying. And for those who want to cite business travel and early morning meetings: Travel time is compensable in the state of California, which would make it quite an expensive train trip indeed.
Whenever I've traveled on company business I was salaried. I was under the impression that most people on business travel are salaried. I'm not sure how many employers would allow someone to take something like a SF-LA train until there's HSR.
Amtrak sure isn't going to do it. If one really wants to do it, there's the 4768/768 combination, and that's available right now.
Easy but problematic. As it is, the Zephyr is the longest straight standalone train in the system in terms of hours in transit; throwing another leg on would invite further delays. This isn't to say that the idea doesn't have merit...it assuredly does, since it would allow Amtrak to consolidate LD ops on the West Coast into LA and Seattle, leaving Emeryville/Oakland as a strictly California base.
Given that the Daylight has taken decades, that's not necessarily so.
Actually, the Starlight kept running for a relatively short while after they added coaches to the Lark, the trains weren't combined. They weren't one train, the Starlight was an independent train for its entire existence.
With the HSR line under construction, I can't see CalTrans pursuing or having any interest in leasing equipment and starting up an overnight SF-LA service with sleeper cars. Once a LA to SF HSR line opens with a circa 3 hour trip time, it will very quickly kill any end to end LA <-> SF market for a overnight sleeper service. Why make the investment and effort, given how long it takes to get anything started?(see Coast Daylight)
It's a question of timeframe. If CAHSR takes 20-30 years to happen, there would be enough time to buy the equipment, get a good service life out of it, and then drop the route (and perhaps sell the equipment to Amtrak or a third-party operator) after 20 years of operation and flip the slots to some sort of additional daytime service.
Of course what would make the most sense would be if UP would just allow two slots for the Tehachapi Loop for the San Joaquin. We know they'll never do it though.
CAHSR isn't going to take that long to build up and fat chance convincing the state to spend $100M or more for a train that historically was a miserable failure and which has no reason for existence with HSR in the mix. Even with the idea of flipping to an additional Daylight slot, let's not forget that, in addition to CAHSR, California has three existing routes with large capital desires (some of which would provide a more immediate use for the coastal communities like the Salinas Capitol Corridor extension) and at least two more additional routes which have been long studied and which would rather get meaningful rail service (Sacramento-Redding and Coachella Valley-Los Angeles).
Everything I've read about it is that BNSF gets special permission to use it and that UP specifically doesn't allow for Amtrak to use it. I don't know if it would require some sort of agreement or whatnot, but Amtrak doesn't get to use it unless there's track work on the coast line.
I bet that the State of California, if it really wanted it could get access for its trains on Tehachapi. They have enough leverage with UP and BNSF to make such things happen. But for now it is not clear that such access worth the number of chits they will have to cash in for it.
