State Funding for LD Trains?

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Others have pointed out most of the flaws in your plan to add more LD Trains for PA @ the expense of W VA.

I notice you mention that PA had 2 Major Cities, PGH and PHL, that you feel deserve more trains despite already having the Daily Cap Ltd.

My State, Texas, has 4 Cities/MSMAs in the top Ten in Population.

The third biggest, Houston, has 3 Trains a week ( Sunset Ltd.) Eastbound to New Orleans and Westbound to LA via San Antonio.

The 7th Biggest, San Antonio, has a Daily Texas Eagle via Austin, (10th Biggest) Dallas/Ft Worth to Chicago and the three times a week Sunset Ltd. Eastbound to Houston and New Orleans and Westbound to LA.

There is no Train between Dallas/Ft Worth and Houston, one has to take a Thruway Ambus from Longview in East Texas( Texas Eagle) to Houston.

There is no rail connection between Austin and Houston either.

Perhaps they should stop all the Texas LD Trains ( there is also the Texas/Oklahoma supported Heartland Flyer between Ft. Worth and Oklahoma City) so Pennsylvania can have more trains! NOT!!

Were totally supportive of your idea to bring back the Broadway Ltd. and your other wish list Trains also, soon as the funding and equipment are found! ( Attention Pennsylvanian Officials)

But NOT at the expensive of any other Trains now running!
 
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I'm not quite sure why this is, but the California Rail Pass is accepted for the Coast Starlight within California. No other LD trains qualify. I was thinking that might have to do with something regarding state funding.
 
I'm not quite sure why this is, but the California Rail Pass is accepted for the Coast Starlight within California. No other LD trains qualify. I was thinking that might have to do with something regarding state funding.
I think that's probably a legacy item (CA helped fund the train's expansion to daily...it was only 3x weekly north of Oakland at the outset). However, the Starlight has a rather complicated history and it's the second most unique LD train in the system.
 
The Buckingham Branch is in Virginia. I'm sure VA would love if WV paid for it.

So essentially VA is the bottleneck. So much for VA taking care of its trains (or at least the Cardinal). I'm just glad we're at least behind the state argument.
<sigh> Rather than making a categorical statement, you could instead ask what has Virginia or more specifically Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation been doing for the Buckingham Branch Railroad tracks that the Cardinal runs over?

The answer would be quite a lot, over recent years, through the state's Short Line Railway Preservation Fund. I need to go back and add up the VA DRPT budget document, but the state has and is providing some $20 to $25 million in total funding for track maintenance, track replacement, signal modernization to the Buckingham Branch Orange and North Mountain subdivisions that the Cardinal runs over. The Short Line funds are nominally to get the BBRR tracks back to a state of good repair for freight trains (heading to and from the ports at Hampton Roads and Norfolk), but DRPT has also listed the Cardinal service as benefiting from the state funds. So, yes, Virginia is providing capital funding that helps the Cardinal service.
All great. But the bottom line is still three times a week only. I keep hearing the "if we can run the Cardinal daily we'd have more passengers than the Three Rivers/Broadway Limited". But the fact is YOU CAN'T. So I feel justified saying our 2004 Three Rivers numbers are well above the Cardinal's numbers back then. In fact, the 2004 Three Rivers numbers are well above the Cardinal's numbers in 2014 (107,391). Once someone fixes the Buckingham Branch and you want to multiply the Cardinal's numbers by 7/3 then you would have an argument. Until then, you cannot dispute that in 2015 the Three Rivers can give you a way higher R & R than the Cardinal would.

I personally like to thank those of you who have now disproved two of the great fallacies in comparing the Three Rivers to the Cardinal and strengthened my argument.

1) Their states fund the train, PA doesn't. Not true.

2) If we can run the Cardinal daily we'd beat the Three Rivers numbers. Well until you can run the Cardinal daily it means nothing.

No one here can tell me the Three Rivers/Broadway Limited/whatever would not be more financially successful to Amtrak than the Cardinal today. I think I have presented several arguments and data that prove my case. I make an argument and then I use facts to back up my argument. What a troll I must be!
 
Others have pointed out most of the flaws in your plan to add more LD Trains for PA @ the expense of W VA.

I notice you mention that PA had 2 Major Cities, PGH and PHL, that you feel deserve more trains despite already having the Daily Cap Ltd.

My State, Texas, has 4 Cities/MSMAs in the top Ten in Population.

The third biggest, Houston, has 3 Trains a week ( Sunset Ltd.) Eastbound to New Orleans and Westbound to LA via San Antonio.

The 7th Biggest, San Antonio, has a Daily Texas Eagle via Austin, (10th Biggest) Dallas/Ft Worth to Chicago and the three times a week Sunset Ltd. Eastbound to Houston and New Orleans and Westbound to LA.

There is no Train between Dallas/Ft Worth and Houston, one has to take a Thruway Ambus from Longview in East Texas( Texas Eagle) to Houston.

There is no rail connection between Austin and Houston either.

Perhaps they should stop all the Texas LD Trains ( there is also the Texas/Oklahoma supported Heartland Flyer between Ft. Worth and Oklahoma City) so Pennsylvania can have more trains! NOT!!

Were totally supportive of your idea to bring back the Broadway Ltd. and your other wish list Trains also, soon as the funding and equipment are found! ( Attention Pennsylvanian Officials)

But NOT at the expensive of any other Trains now running!
I would absolutely support Texas getting more trains. And you make a great argument about population. I would be totally on board with DAL to HOU and daily SAS to HOU and if Amtrak could pay for it nationally I would not complain if Amtrak used federal funding to start it.
 
2) If we can run the Cardinal daily we'd beat the Three Rivers numbers. Well until you can run the Cardinal daily it means nothing.

No one here can tell me the Three Rivers/Broadway Limited/whatever would not be more financially successful to Amtrak than the Cardinal today. I think I have presented several arguments and data that prove my case. I make an argument and then I use facts to back up my argument. What a troll I must be!
This is off-topic to "State Funding for LD trains." You are welcome to discuss it here (or a number of other threads that have had the same discussion.) Using a thread about something else to further a separate, unspoken agenda isn't necessary.
 
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If we're talking raw numbers, then looking back to 2003/4 when the Three Rivers was running the ridership was way below what we've generally projected a daily Cardinal to be. Even Amtrak broadly agrees with those numbers, actually (look up the Cardinal PIP from 2010 for those numbers).

The Three Rivers' ridership was 137k in FY03 and 152k in FY04. Granted, overall ridership is higher now than it was then, but at the time it was the daily LD train with the lowest ridership (the Cap was second-lowest at the time, though it should be noted that the Palmetto/Silver Palm wasn't broken out separately from the other Silvers...it may have had lower ridership, though this isn't clear). It also ranked low in terms of per-passenger revenue.
 
2) If we can run the Cardinal daily we'd beat the Three Rivers numbers. Well until you can run the Cardinal daily it means nothing.

No one here can tell me the Three Rivers/Broadway Limited/whatever would not be more financially successful to Amtrak than the Cardinal today. I think I have presented several arguments and data that prove my case. I make an argument and then I use facts to back up my argument. What a troll I must be!
This is off-topic to "State Funding for LD trains." You are welcome to discuss it here (or a number of other threads that have had the same discussion.) Using a thread about something else to further a separate, unspoken agenda isn't necessary.
Moved back to PHL-CHI options topic: http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/66254-phl-chi-route-options/?p=634353
 
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2) If we can run the Cardinal daily we'd beat the Three Rivers numbers. Well until you can run the Cardinal daily it means nothing.

No one here can tell me the Three Rivers/Broadway Limited/whatever would not be more financially successful to Amtrak than the Cardinal today. I think I have presented several arguments and data that prove my case. I make an argument and then I use facts to back up my argument. What a troll I must be!
This is off-topic to "State Funding for LD trains." You are welcome to discuss it here (or a number of other threads that have had the same discussion.) Using a thread about something else to further a separate, unspoken agenda isn't necessary.
New thread started: http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/66292-broadway-limitedthree-rivers-vs-cardinal/

Ok...I took the time to respond to your thread that was named Broadway Limited/Three Rivers vs Cardinal. The post said I didn't have permission to respond to the thread. It has been removed so I won't continue the conversation here out of respect for the mods.

However, I do note the thread was barely worthy of refutation due to the premise being flawed. After all, the Broadway and Three Rivers do not exist. They are gone. For better or worse, the Cardinal exists and continues to operate.

There is no competition. :p

Jealousy is a pretty ugly thing sometimes.
 
2) If we can run the Cardinal daily we'd beat the Three Rivers numbers. Well until you can run the Cardinal daily it means nothing.

No one here can tell me the Three Rivers/Broadway Limited/whatever would not be more financially successful to Amtrak than the Cardinal today. I think I have presented several arguments and data that prove my case. I make an argument and then I use facts to back up my argument. What a troll I must be!
This is off-topic to "State Funding for LD trains." You are welcome to discuss it here (or a number of other threads that have had the same discussion.) Using a thread about something else to further a separate, unspoken agenda isn't necessary.
New thread started: http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/66292-broadway-limitedthree-rivers-vs-cardinal/

Ok...I took the time to respond to your thread that was named Broadway Limited/Three Rivers vs Cardinal. The post said I didn't have permission to respond to the thread. It has been removed so I won't continue the conversation here out of respect for the mods.

However, I do note the thread was barely worthy of refutation due to the premise being flawed. After all, the Broadway and Three Rivers do not exist. They are gone. For better or worse, the Cardinal exists and continues to operate.

There is no competition. :p

Jealousy is a pretty ugly thing sometimes.
They moved it. See above.
 
I have previously said "daily or bust" for the Cardinal and the Sunset Limited. If there are infrastructure requirements, it would be worth doing a study and talking to the host railroads and *finding out exactly what those requirements are*. With the Sunset, it may just be a matter of waiting until UP finishes full double-tracking on the route, which they're doing on their own dime.

With the Cardinal... I am less clear on what the problem is. People have pinpointed the Buckingham Branch, but it's been getting a lot of upgrades; is it still the bottleneck? Large portions of the WV route are double track -- is there a single-track area which is a bottleneck here? Coal traffic is shrinking, so it can't be pure traffic load.
 
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