The Pelican (FTW-NOL)

[NativeSon5859]

Amtrak train ???

"The Pelican"

* Daily service between Ft. Worth and New Orleans, via Dallas, Mineola, Longview, Shreveport, Alexandria, Baton Rouge

* Three-times-weekly connections to the Sunset Limited's Florida service

Has Amtrak ever looked into a service like this? Baton Rouge and Shreveport (and even Alexandria) are decent sized markets without Amtrak service (they do have thruway buses however). Seems to me like this would be a very good route for them...capture some of the Texas-Shreveport casino traffic, etc.

Any thoughts?

 

[P40Power]

In theory this train would work, given the decent populations of these citys and the relitive closeness of them.

Right now though I think Amtrak could improve service over existing routes to gain riders.

The Hoosier State for example. Make it daily and have it run to/from Indy at Decent times instead of the crazy times it runs now (though the westbound departure time isnt too bad anymore.)

Possibly extend it to Cincinatti

Boston - Albany. One more Daily Round trip to supplement the Lake Shore. Leave Albany in the early morning, get there before noon. Leave around 5 or so and get there at 930 or so. Many people ride the Boston Section locally so there is demand for local service between Boston and Albany.

How about a train, Chicago - Cleveland that runs at a decent hour making all local stops?

A Chicao - St. Paul train possibly, a morning train From CHI and an Afternoon depature from STP.

 

[Amfleet]

The idea of a second train between BOS and ALB is a good one, but I would have each train leave its origin late afternoon. Arriving at its final destination around 10-11pm. I think this would attract more of the business market, those needing to get from one city to the next for meetings.

 

[P40Power]

Heres a proposed time table of mine for ALB to BOS, with two additonal RTs added

Eastbound:              446                448                    446Albany, NY              545A              200P                  610P

Pittsfield,MA            645A              305P                  710P

Springfield,MA         753A              415P                  818P

Worcester, MA         855A              525P                  920P

Framingham,MA       923A              600P                  948P

Back Bay                950A               630P                1020P

South Sta              1010A              635P                 1025P

Westbound:             445                 449                    447

South Sta              700A                130P                   700P

Back Bay               705A                135P                  705P

Framingham           735A                205P                  735P

Worcester              803A                235P                  803P

Springfield             910A                345P                  910P

Pittsfield               1018A                500P                 1018P

Albany                 1120A                615P                 1120P

These proposed schedules of mine also have adjusted 448 and 449 Lake Shore times included. With additions of two more round trips on the line, you have a nice little mini corridor. An Amcafe and 3-4 coaches are all you need for a trip on the Boston Line.

One can get into Boston fairly early, around 10ish and have a choice of a short duration there and go back on 449 or wait around till the later 7 PM train leaves. This gives enough time for some productive business or pleasure to be done in Boston in just a day. Or vise versa for Albany.

I think a timetable like this would work out sweet.

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

I like your idea P40power. I think Amtrak should seriously consider the possibilities of a new corridor. If you had all these trains though, it could make large delays possible on the corridor, or does this line have a double track main? I am not very familiar with New York state so you have to forgive my ignorace.

 

[P40Power]

Uggh damn thing, I tried three times to get my proposed timetable all nice and spaced out and lookin nice but it keeps bunching it all up for some reason!! Well its a bit more difficult to read, but if ya try hard enough ya can :angry:

 

[Amfleet]

That's a good schedule, no complaining here. 444/445 and 446/447 could have a Amfleet I Cafe/Business Class (Club/Dinette), then 4 Amfleet I Coaches, and a NPCU so no y'ing at Albany would be necessary. 444 could become 447 and 445 could become 446. Only two trainsets would be required one laying over in each city every night to become the next mornings departure (444 or 445). In order for this to happen though, the fourth platform track in Albany would need to be installed and at least some of CSX's Boston Line would need to be double tracked.

448/449 could have an 3 Amfleet II Coaches, and Amfleet II Lounge, and 2 Viewliner Sleeepers. Connecting with 48/49 in ALB.

So, when's the start up date.

 

[P40Power]

Yes Congestion is a BIG problem on the Boston line, there is quite a bit of double track areas, but they are seperated by long streches of single track.

To make this work well, with few delays, double track would need to be installed throughout the entire line right up to the post road branch (the branch that connects the Boston Line to Albany Station)

Bottlenecks are all over the line, Pittsfield is one of the biggest because its the end of the double track over the berkshires and the start of a LONG strech of single track to Chatam, NY.

With All double track, the line should flow extremely smoothly. There isnt a huge amout of freight on the line, about 20-25 freights a day, but the current track set up causes delays all over.

Maybe CSX will double track it someday, hell why dont they do it during one of their summer maintence blitzes that close the whole line and force 448 and 449 to be canceled!

 

[AlanB]

First, in order for this to work, the line would indeed need to be largely doubletracked. Additionally the line would need to be rated for at least 90 MPH for most of the distance.

Now to the actuall times. Your Boston times aren't bad overall, however the first train out of Albany is way to early. Albany is your biggest market, so a more reasonable departure time is needed for 446. I also think that 447 is running a bit too late into Albany. If for some reason there is a delay, those passengers will not be arriving until after Midnight. Even if the train is on time, 11:20 is still a little too late. This train needs to run about a half hour earlier.

Finally, while I see what you were going for with evenly spaced coverage, 449 can't run that late. If 499 runs that late, then it pushes the arrival of 49/449 into Chicago the next morning back too far. You once again have the problem that any delay between Albany and Chicago for 49 will break the connections to other departing trains.

That's unacceptable, so 449 must run at least 1 hour earlier if not more. That one hour assumes that with double tracking, 449 will encounter less delays than it currently does.

Overall though I do think that increased service in this corridor would be a good thing and with a little tweaking to a few of your times this could work.

 

[Amfleet]

In that case, 446 could depart 6:45am; 449 could depart 12:00pm; 447 could depart at 6:15pm. If track is going to be upgraded, I think 79mph is a good goal, then times between stations would be less, thus final destination arrivals would be earlier than planned. I also think that there should be scheduled connections in ALB for Empire Service trains going to western New York and Niagra Falls.

 

[P40Power]

Well maybe some adjustments are in store with my schedule, Alan does make some good points.

As for 90 MPH I doubt that would ever happen, I mean its a curvy line all throughout, especially west of Springfield. 79MPH would be a good speed from Springfield to Boston, but again there would probably be slower spots such as the Charlton Hill near Worcestor. Speeds in areas over the Berkshires could be brought up to 50 probably and there could be some faster sections in eastern New York State.

The Post Road Branch at one time was a strech of 79MPH track, but the deteriation on that branch have brought the speed down considerbly. And if anyone has ridden over the branch recently, well you know how rough it is!

There is no real need to upgrade the line nowadays since there are only two trains that use the branch- 448 and 449, but if this service was put on, well I think that this would be a great strech for some quick running, maybe even a nice strech of 90! But someone would have to come up with funds to have CWR installed along the branch with all new roadbed.

The Branch has mostly level and straight running, so they could open em up pretty good through there.

 

[AlanB]

Uggh damn thing, I tried three times to get my proposed timetable all nice and spaced out and lookin nice but it keeps bunching it all up for some reason!! Well its a bit more difficult to read, but if ya try hard enough ya can :angry:

While it ain't perfect, I cleaned your time table up a bit for you.

Hope you don't mind.

 

[battalion51]

Well one of the big hurdles with 90 MPH operation is speed enforcement. Whenever track gets a Class V rating (or better) a speed enforcement system must be installed. For a freight railroad this is an expensive thing to do, especially if the main benefactor is Amtrak. As for Double Track, it is one of those things where you need to plan for two trains to try to meet in the middle of a long Double Track section, reducing the chance of delay for either train. Another important thing is to have high speed turnouts, either down to Cab Speed (60 MPH) or Limited Speed (45 MPH).

 

[P40Power]

Thank you Alan!! I dont know how you did it, but Im grateful that you got that all nice and neat looking!

Well 90 would be nice, but like I said before 79MPH operation over a good portion of the line would be more realistic, like Amfleet said. Rebuilding the Post Road back up to 79 MPH standards would be a start, and though Im not too familiar with the Worcestor - Boston segment of the line, I do know that the speeds are the highest along the line there - 60 MPH, possibly that could be raised to 79 MPH but like I said Im not too sure if that would work with the commuter line density down there.

CSX does try to run Eastbounds and westbounds in fleets to try to stop any congestion, but the fleets often meet and create a big mess. And if a train has to stop due to a hot box dectector or something along a single tracked portion, the whole section of the line is all jammed up, these situations could negitively effect the proposed trains, they even effect the Lake Shore of today over the route.

Running times are also a big factor on the route, the Lake Shore of today is slow compared to car or even bus (even if it runs on time and is early due to the padding it is still slow) If they could get the route down to 3 hours 30 mins - 45 minutes, I think that would make the line even more popular, but you would have to speed up the line a bit and eliminate a few bottlenecks.