What Would You Do If You Ran Amtrak???

[AlanB]

It would be nice to have a high-speed LA - Vegas route.  But it needs to be marketed - and it needs to make sense with typical schedules.  The train must have an early evening departure from LA / Anaheim, and it must leave mid-morning from Vegas going back.

Actually I believe that the original plans called for at least two runs per day in each direction.

Get the Sunset to an every day schedule.  Running it three days a week is almost as bad as not running it at all.  Just try to plan a trip that involves the Sunset and you'll understand.

This one's a biggie; it's that three-day a week schedule that makes the Sunset Amtrak's biggest money looser. It probably wouldn't hurt either if the Sunset started serving Phoenix again, and if they implemented the reroute in Texas that was being planned, that had the train serving Dallas.

It would have been nice to have a train that ran from Chicago to Atlanta.  Chicago to Louisville was a start. and I know there may not be any good trackage through that part of the country - but geez, everytime I tried to plan a trip that got me from LA to Knoxville, it was like trying to tie a shoe with my arm twisted behind my back.  I could get to Chicago - then drive/fly; go further to Memphis and drive just as far; or go on to Washington and drive just as far; or doing something totally absurd and get to Atlanta the back way and drive half as far.  But no matter, getting there was just ugly.  A train from Chicago that got to Nashville, or Atlanta, would have made me so happy.

I have no doubt that a train from Chicago to Florida, via the cities above would be successful. One only needs to look at the number of people from Chicago and western points who makes transfers in Philly and DC to one of the Silver Service trains. Then add in traffic from the intermediary cities and I'm sure that given decent track and travel times, this train can work. In fact there are those who fell that an Auto Train from just outside Chicago down to Sanford Florida would be equally successful.

Does anybody actually use the Autotrain?  If they do - great.  Otherwise.

You mention Auto train---I do not speak from personal experience but my impression is that it is extremely successful, one of Amtrak's biggest success stories. Well-maintained, etc.

To add to Bill's answer, yes they do. In fact I was just on the train at the end of May. We had over 300 passengers and something like 180 cars, vans, and motorcycles on board. The AutoTrain is Amtrak's premier train on the east coast. It gets the best crews (in fact I encountered the best sleeping car attendant I've ever had, on my trip), the best care and maintenance, and it's one of the few Amtrak trains that actually does come very close to covering it's operating costs.

Most importantly, make schedules that work with people's schedules.  And if that means doubling up routes that are promising (such as LA - SF), so be it.  Buy the equipment.  People work on their schedules, and when Amtrak can't deliver - the opportunity is lost.  The airlines dont run one flight a day to major destinations, and neither should Amtrak.

One only needs to look at Amtrak most successful trains to see the wisdom of this, the various California services, the Hiawatha service, the Downeaster, the Cascades, not to mention the Northeast Corridor. With the exception of the NEC, it's not speed that attracts customers to these trains. It's comfort and service, but mainly it's frequency. These trains all run more than once a day, giving people a choice of when to leave.

Heck even the Silver Service proves this. Despite the downgrading of the Silver Palm to the Palmetto, the Silver Service continues to be amongst the most popular of the Amtrak Long Distance trains. Why? Because people have a choice, in fact they have three choices. They can leave in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening. This makes planning their trip easier.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Reference to Auto train from Chicago....for a short time there was one from Louisville to Sanford. It was not very successful for the same reasons that the Floridian was not.....dangerous track, frequent wrecks, delays, etc. At times its equipment was on the rear of the FLoridian, which made for a double disaster, and meant the passengers on the auto train portion of it had to make all the same stops, etc as the Floridian made, though of course their cars were only on it for the Louisville-Sanford portion.

 

[Guest]

Adirondack,

You wrote:

"What I meant when I started this section was if you were president of Amtrak and had to control it budget wise, not be able to have a private train."

Oh, duh.

It was an attempt at humor. Sorry if it went right over your blue and white striped engineer cap.

Unregistered frank

 

[tp49]

So much to do so little money to do it with...

I'd love the SF-LA run especially if the infrastructure was there to make it something similar to the NEC, distance wise they are roughly the same (at least NY-DC), and could make interesting competition for the airlines in that market if done right especially if the train left from the CalTrain station in downtown SF indstead of Emeryville. Put a decent frequency on this line and I think you'd have a real winner.

I'd spend more of the funds on infrastructure improvements (stations, track, rolling stock, etc.) then on routes for the time being because you need fully functioning rolling stock before you could realistically expand.

As targets for new service or reroutes of existing service both Phoenix and Las Vegas would be very high on my list of markets to get back into.

 

[amtrakadirondack]

Adirondack,
You wrote:

"What I meant when I started this section was if you were president of Amtrak and had to control it budget wise, not be able to have a private train."

Oh, duh.

It was an attempt at humor.  Sorry if it went right over your blue and white striped engineer cap.

Unregistered frank

It's ok! I guess if you were the pres of Amtrak you could have a private train, I was just thinking about getting Amtrak out of the money problem, then I too would probably have a private train of my own! :lol: :lol:

Ps. You wrote "At taxpayer's cost", now you're talking, but lets let the taxpayer's take care of all of it!