The "Sunset Limited" is gone indefinitely

[jccollins]

But again, that's neither here nor there. I'd hope Amtrak at least starts a thruway bus connection to Houston from San Antonio in the mean time.

Yup, that would really make the most sense. Currently Houston passengers can only use a thruway connection to Longview, TX scheduled to connect to the eastbound Texas Eagle for Chicago. Passengers from Houston wishing to travel westbound on the Texas Eagle toward Los Angeles must leave a day earlier to use the same thruway connection and then stay overnight in Longview, TX waiting for the westbound Texas Eagle the next day. Why is Amtrak even bothering to keep the Houston station staffed when that thruway is the only thing that arrives and departs (no trains)?

While a direct Houston to San Antonio thruway connection would be the most logical solution, it won't happen. Amtrak has shown how much they truly care about the Sunset Limited's usefulness when they didn't even initiate a thruway shuttle from the "new" (3 years old) Maricopa, AZ station to the Phoenix metropolitan area 30-45 miles away. Instead they have forced passengers arriving in Maricopa to rely on private auto transportation or an unreasonably high $50/person one way taxi ride into the city. If the Sunset Limited had even a small, dedicated team of employees working with the towns it passed through to make it more accessible to passengers it could really shine. It clearly holds the most potential for increased ridership of all the Amtrak routes.

 

[sechs]

No sightseer lounge on the Eagle, that stinks.

I was thinking that maybe they could swap the Sunset equipment to the Eagle for the three days that would run through. Perhaps there's a good reason that they don't do that?

 

[jccollins]

That wouldn't really help things since the Sunset is currently operating without a sightseer lounge as well. Equipment was being run through from the Sunset to the Eagle, but that has ended (effective immediately according to the release in Amtrak's ARROW reservations system) due to "numerous problems" that were encountered - see my recent thread about the Sunset returning for a copy of the release.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

And while most of this thread has been talking about stuff NOL and to the west, it is also true that now there is no train service covering Jacksonville west through Tallahassee (State Capitol) through the Florida Panhandle to Pensacola (and no connex west or north from there, either), which is also a bummer. We stil have north and south through Jax but nothing west from there.