The Best Days Of Passenger Rail Lie Ahead

[Anderson]

Does anybody care for a revived Lone Star and/or National Limited?

The former may come in a form if KS and OK go in for the super-extended Heartland Flyer, either in the form of a split in the Chief or a separate train with the same routing CHI-KCY. I'm not sure that there's a compelling desire to terminate the train at KCY regardless of what time it would pass through, and not connecting at CHI would lose a lot of potential connecting business if they can't work out a good timing to connect with, at the very least, one of the Missouri River Runners or the Chief itself...while without a connection, you'd need to work out a plan to get those cars to CHI for servicing (maybe cycling coaches through Fort Worth to "ride" on the Eagle?).

The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present...and while Indiana isn't actively anti-rail, the best that can be said is that they're "non-obstructionist" (i.e. they were willing to submit an application for cleaning up the crossovers in the northern part of the state, but made it clear that they were doing this in cooperation with IL and MI and were not willing to pay for it themselves).

 

[jis]

I have heard folks say that they (UP) would be happiest if Amtrak simply fell off the face of the earth tomorrow. But, as you said, that's just hearsay and not admissible as proof of UP's bad faith negotiations.

UPRR seem amiable enough when dealing with Amtrak California.

Maybe it's a question of finding the right way to approach them and also to see things from their point of view rather than just painting them as the bad guy.

The "right way" consists of an open checkbook. A strong leadership on the part of Amtrak Calif didn't hurt, either. But, also note that the San Joaquins spend most of their miles on BNSF tracks.

Of the four major California corridors, two are BNSF (LAX - San Diego and OKJ - Bakersfield , well actually Martinez Bakersfield part of it) and two UP (LAX - San Louis Obispo and San Jose - Sacramento/Roseville)

George is exactly right. Just sitting around name calling on the guy who owns the property that you want access to seldom works. One has to sit down and negotiate. Figure out what is win - win for both and see what costs can be traded based on that. The restoration of the causeway outside Sacramento to double track is a clear example of such that was worked out with UP and resulted in a solution giving a better railroad for both UP and Amtrak California to use for decades to come.

Some other examples.... Virignia has worked out similar deals with the other railfan boogieman CSX on the RF&P corridor leading to triple tracking and other improvements that work positively for CSX and VRE and Amtrak. CSX has just signed off on a long term lease arrangement handing over the Poughkeepsie - Schnectady (Hoffmans) segmet of its water level route to NY State and Amtrak transferring maintenance and dispatching to Amtrak, just keeping trackage rights. UP is working with IDOT for upgrading the Chicago - St. Louis Corridor to 110mph.

When there is will, leadership and political support, things can be made to happen.

The problem with Sunset Limited is that there is close to zero local political support, specially in Arizona, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana to do anything about it, and given that it is understandable why Amtrak management does not want to stick its head out - though as I have stated before I hate that attitude on part of Amtrak management, but I can appreciate where they are coming from. With a little bit of push from a certain Texas Senator, the Texas Eagle managed to run 4 times a week to LAX for a period. If the current Texas political leadership steps upto the plate, such can happen again, or more. But Amtrak on its own is hardly likely to be able to pull it off. As it is, it is hard enough to operate LD trains in places where most of the political position locally is on how to go about de-funding Amtrak.

 

[afigg]

Some other examples.... Virignia has worked out similar deals with the other railfan boogieman CSX on the RF&P corridor leading to triple tracking and other improvements that work positively for CSX and VRE and Amtrak. CSX has just signed off on a long term lease arrangement handing over the Poughkeepsie - Schnectady (Hoffmans) segmet of its water level route to NY State and Amtrak transferring maintenance and dispatching to Amtrak, just keeping trackage rights. UP is working with IDOT for upgrading the Chicago - St. Louis Corridor to 110mph.

When there is will, leadership and political support, things can be made to happen.

The problem with Sunset Limited is that there is close to zero local political support, specially in Arizona, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana to do anything about it, and given that it is understandable why Amtrak management does not want to stick its head out - though as I have stated before I hate that attitude on part of Amtrak management, but I can appreciate where they are coming from. With a little bit of push from a certain Texas Senator, the Texas Eagle managed to run 4 times a week to LAX for a period. If the current Texas political leadership steps upto the plate, such can happen again, or more. But Amtrak on its own is hardly likely to be able to pull it off. As it is, it is hard enough to operate LD trains in places where most of the political position locally is on how to go about de-funding Amtrak.

There is a big difference between the state corridors and the Sunset Limited. The corridor and commuter trains cover distances of up to a few hundred miles for multiple daily frequency trains and have both sustained and adequate funding to pay for track and capacity improvements. It is far easier to fund upgrades for a multiple daily frequency corridor trains for a route of several hundred miles. Paying for track improvements over a route of thousands of miles for a three day a week train, or preferably a daily train, can take a lot of money that Amtrak is not getting via the federal funding. Nothing like money to make for-profit companies and people cooperate.

The weakness of the SL is that only a small portion of its route is over tracks shared with corridor trains in CA. If there were daytime corridor services from LA to Phoenix-Tucson and San Antonio to Houston(-Beaumont), the SL would be a daily train with higher ridership numbers and lower overhead costs. If there was corridor service from Jacksonville to Tallahassee and Pensacola, the eastern SL would likely still be running. All of the other LD trains have better anchor corridors/cities in the NEC, Chicago, Empire State, Seattle/Portland Cascades, CA. With SunRail and if FL can start a corridor service over the FEC, the Silvers will have a stronger anchor at their southern end.

 

[jis]

And the reason that there are no convenient corridor services to link together to help out the Sunset is again local politics. So whichever way you cut it, unless there is local political support it is very hard to provide an acceptable level of service.

 

[cirdan]

And the reason that there are no convenient corridor services to link together to help out the Sunset is again local politics. So whichever way you cut it, unless there is local political support it is very hard to provide an acceptable level of service.

being the devil's advocate here (and I can assure you that I don't want to see any further routes being abandoned), but seeing the SL is the worst performing LD train financially, and any improvement would be unrealistically expensive, would a withdrawal from this service (at least West of San Antonio) not maybe be the lesser of evils in the circumstances? And the money saved and equipment released maybe be rededicated to something like the Kansas City extension of the Heartland Flyer and so to serve places that actually want a train service and where growth is possible.

 

[jis]

Amtrak LD service lives in a fine state of balance in the hysterisis point between expansion and discontinuance. Even in the places where there is least political support, in the net there is not enough political support to either expand or discontinue. So they just live on. Sunset is no exception.

Where you get expansion is when this balance tilts ever so slightly in the expansion direction in the local politics. And you see explosive growth if it tilts a little bit more. Somehow the tilt towards discontinuance is always triggered either by a federal government act or by some Amtrak management idiocy, and not local politics.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

And the reason that there are no convenient corridor services to link together to help out the Sunset is again local politics. So whichever way you cut it, unless there is local political support it is very hard to provide an acceptable level of service.

And therein lies the problem. We have ceased to be a country of factions united toward a common goal and are instead moving more and more toward a country of extremely divided partisans. The very idea of working together and spending our wealth on a common benefit has become anathema to us. I don't hold Amtrak at fault for that. I hold the top 1% who benefit from our divisions and our disenfranchisement at fault for that.

 

[jis]

There is a big difference between the state corridors and the Sunset Limited. The corridor and commuter trains cover distances of up to a few hundred miles for multiple daily frequency trains and have both sustained and adequate funding to pay for track and capacity improvements. It is far easier to fund upgrades for a multiple daily frequency corridor trains for a route of several hundred miles. Paying for track improvements over a route of thousands of miles for a three day a week train, or preferably a daily train, can take a lot of money that Amtrak is not getting via the federal funding. Nothing like money to make for-profit companies and people cooperate.

More similar is the case of Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle. If anything Texas Eagle was the one that was the step-child. It was on the verge of extinction when the grassroots movement to save it got the attention of Senator Hutchinson, who stepped upto the plate and played a key role in saving and enhancing it to become a daily train to SAS and for a period 4 times a week to LAX.

The Sunset Limited has never been bestowed with such local support, and consequent support from the halls of power. The politics of South Texas is different from that of Dallas and north I suppose, but very minor differences in attitude can get magnified in such situations. And I bet in Louisiana Mr. Jindal probably has illusions that Sunset Limited may be the name of a drink or something.

Given that history, it is not surprising at all that Amtrak was busy dreaming up schemes of making the Texas Eagle a daily train to LAX, and replacing the eastern portion of the Sunset with a daytime shuttle service.

To paraphrase a past Majority Leader of the House..... at the end of the day all politics is local. And Amtrak service is as much an outcome of politics as anything else.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Just for Discussion's Sake, let's say that the Sunset Ltd. was eliminated totally (not beyone the relm of possibility)and that the Heartland Flyer was Extended to KCY! That would Free up Superliner equipment for the other Superliner Trains (CL/EB/CZ/SWC)The Texas Eagle could continue to run Daily from CHI-SAS as it Presently does (with increasing ridership)and the CONO could then be extended to Florida Via NOL once a deal was worked out with UP! Of course there's all kinds of "Details" such as Depot Rehab/ADA etc. etc. but this Plan would do away with the Biggest LD Money Pit that Amtrak runs (the Sunset)and provide service from CHI to Florida, and Connections in Kansas for the West Coast on the SWC, and if a deal is ever reached with Host Railroads, even connections in Denver with the CZ!!!(This eliminates the trip to CHI to get to the West Coast for those of us down this way!) Too bad for Houston (sorry Henry! )but the Ridership between SAS and NOL is very Low and there is plenty of Alternate Transportation to NOL and other Points from Houston! (puts them in the same Boat with Phoenix and Las Vegas!!!)

 

[RCrierie]

I don't understand the comment about Amfleet double rows of windows. Is it being suggested that Viewliners use Amfleet windows?

The Viewliner I's do. They use Amfleet I windows for the topmost, and Amfleet II for bottommost IIRC. This was cheap since Amtrak had huge piles of them. Now? It makes no sense; why should we constrain ourselves to window sizes decided in the early and then late 1970s?

Remember, one of the reasons Amfleet I windows are so small is because of safety -- back then people liked to throw rocks at trains, and designing glass to resist that was hard to do back in the 1970s. Now, we have a lot better options materials science wise to make windows bigger with the impact resistance required, yet lightweight-ish.

Also, isn't one of Amtrak's selling points: "See America from ground level"? It would be easier to do that if more emphasis was placed on window size.

 

[afigg]

The Viewliner I's do. They use Amfleet I windows for the topmost, and Amfleet II for bottommost IIRC. This was cheap since Amtrak had huge piles of them. Now? It makes no sense; why should we constrain ourselves to window sizes decided in the early and then late 1970s?

Remember, one of the reasons Amfleet I windows are so small is because of safety -- back then people liked to throw rocks at trains, and designing glass to resist that was hard to do back in the 1970s. Now, we have a lot better options materials science wise to make windows bigger with the impact resistance required, yet lightweight-ish.

I would expect the CAF Viewliners to have window sizes at least as big as the Acelas. These are new production cars and they would have to be compliant with the more recent FRA requirements for minimum window size for emergency access. Big enough to get a stretcher through, that sort of thing. Go to the photos of the Viewliner production plant in Elmira in the local newspaper article that was posted and discussed here in late January.

Look at photos 17 and 18 to estimate how big the windows are.

 

[eagle628]

The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present

Wasn't that an idea proposed and dismissed in the Cardinal PIP? Or am I making it up?

 

[Anderson]

The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present

Wasn't that an idea proposed and dismissed in the Cardinal PIP? Or am I making it up?

Not precisely. The Cardinal PIP assumed simply moving the terminus from CHI to STL (thereby breaking all of the CHI connections) and rejected that (and I'll grant them the point: Regardless of whether they ran it to STL or KCY, those markets alone won't cut the mustard because of the loss of Chicago Hub markets plus the Builder, Zephyr, and probably the CONO and Chief as well), but left a clear opening to running a section to STL while running the bulk of the train to CHI in the vein of the BOS section on the LSL.

I'm honestly not sure if STL alone would quite cut it as a market (it's possible, particularly if you start seeing a secondary hub emerge there with trains to Springfield, Jefferson City, and so forth such as has been mooted), but it might. STL+KCY would probably be sufficient to run at least a sleeper, cafe/lounge, and two coaches through.

Of course, let's not look at this in a vacuum: If the Heartland Flyer were extended up to KCY in some form, you'd allow a lot of two-seat rides with the sole change at KCY (helping out a lot of intermediate destinations such as Baltimore as well). Now, could you get the Cardinal into KCY in time to link up with the Chief? Good question, and I don't have an answer.

 

[jis]

I don't understand the comment about Amfleet double rows of windows. Is it being suggested that Viewliners use Amfleet windows?

The Viewliner I's do. They use Amfleet I windows for the topmost, and Amfleet II for bottommost IIRC.

Not that I I doubt your recollection, but could you please see if you can some citation validating this recollection? Thanks.

 

[jis]

The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present...

What wrong with the track conditions between Indy and St. Louis? AFAIK If anything the problem will be freight volume that one would have to contend with.

 

[Gfoley4]

The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present...

What wrong with the track conditions between Indy and St. Louis? AFAIK If anything the problem will be freight volume that one would have to contend with.

The Indy-st Louis line would be the csx St Louis Line Subdivision, which seems to be in pretty good condition. No clue on freight traffic. Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Line_Subdivision

 

[Anderson]

The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present...

What wrong with the track conditions between Indy and St. Louis? AFAIK If anything the problem will be freight volume that one would have to contend with.

Ok, I'll take the point; I was under the impression that there were speed limit issues, but this may be a false impression that dates from the umpteen Cardinal reroutes over the years due to deteriorating track conditions. I think I may have also been told this on some previous occasion when discussing IND-STL stuff before (but I've had so may conversations on here...)

 

[RCrierie]

Not that I I doubt your recollection, but could you please see if you can some citation validating this recollection? Thanks.

Model Railroader, January 1997 indirectly references this -- it points out that the VL I Sleepers use Amfleet I and II glass; so it simplifies the difficulty of scratchbuilding a VL sleeper -- that issue also has some nice drawings of the inside and outside of the VL I sleepers.

 

[jis]

Not that I I doubt your recollection, but could you please see if you can some citation validating this recollection? Thanks.

Model Railroader, January 1997 indirectly references this -- it points out that the VL I Sleepers use Amfleet I and II glass; so it simplifies the difficulty of scratchbuilding a VL sleeper -- that issue also has some nice drawings of the inside and outside of the VL I sleepers.

Thank you very much for taking the trouble to look it up for me.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

It ain't an AmFleet II window. I was just eating a lunch on the card 10 min ago, and am now looking at my sleeper window. It's larger.

 

[jis]

It ain't an AmFleet II window. I was just eating a lunch on the card 10 min ago, and am now looking at my sleeper window. It's larger.

Thanks GML. That's what I thought, but I can't find any documentation of it. Of course nothing better than one's own measuring tape and a short mileage run or two on an LD train by Sleeper, which is what I was thinking of doing to verify or refute. A Sunday trip Charlottseville by the Cardinal comes to mind or a quick run down to Richmond or Petersburg by the Meteor returning by the Carolinian or the Palmetto.

 

[PRR 60]

It ain't an AmFleet II window. I was just eating a lunch on the card 10 min ago, and am now looking at my sleeper window. It's larger.

Thanks GML. That's what I thought, but I can't find any documentation of it. Of course nothing better than one's own measuring tape and a short mileage run or two on an LD train by Sleeper, which is what I was thinking of doing to verify or refute. A Sunday trip Charlottseville by the Cardinal comes to mind or a quick run down to Richmond or Petersburg by the Meteor returning by the Carolinian or the Palmetto.

Or, you could save a buck or two and run over to NWK and scope things out during station dwell.

If you do a photo search at railpictures.net for recent shots of the Cardinal, several photos show that the Viewliner windows are bit larger than the following Amfleet II windows in the vertical dimension.

Here's one example: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=375988

 

[jis]

Darn! There goes my excuse for an enjoyable points run