What he is saying is that first we need to cover as many cities as possible first with any form of service regardless of calling times, then come back and figure out how to give them service at decent hours.
Yes he is, the problem is the Broadway Limited in the TT printed here in this thread didn't offer much service in Ohio than the Three Rivers or the present situation does.
If somebody has a TT that shows the Broadway Limited making calls in Ohio with full service-- preferably the Amtrak incarnation of it-- I would love to see it.
The Broadway Limited MrFSS posted is a different train than I'm talking about. I wish we could bring back that train, too, but there is no chance of that. The
Broadway Limited whose schedule was posted by MrFSS was an all-Pullman, very limited service crack express, the famous primary competitor to the even more famous New York Central
20th Century Limited. The train I'm referring to is Amtrak's
Broadway Limited, which shares a name and the routing east of Pittsburgh, and very little else.
In order to make its schedule between NYP and CHI as fast as possible, the original PRR Broadway Limited didn't even stop in Philadelphia! It stopped at "North Philadelphia" (as did many of PRR's NYP-CHI trains), which saved them the manuever the Keystones/Pennsylvanian/Three Rivers (and presumably Amtrak's Broadway Limited) have to make, changing direction in downtown Philadelphia (at 30th St today, or Broad St Station back in the day).
North Philadelphia still exists and is still served by Amtrak ... on one Keystone per day in only one direction, I believe. It's still served by many SEPTA R7s (and R8s, I think). You don't want to get off there today. Trust me. The huge station platforms, longer and grander than any SEPTA station in that neighborhood has any need for, plus the enormous old PRR switching tower nearby (covered in graffiti), are all that's left of the once proud history of this station.
Any revived Amtrak route PHL-CHI or NYP-PHL-CHI would be significantly slowed down from those 1940s timetable speeds by having to come downtown and do the reverse (and engine change, of course). I believe the old engine and crew change point (from GG1 to K4 Pacific, I believe?) was Harrisburg, which didn't involve a direction change. Just pull the old engine off and couple the new one on and go!