FY 2012 Ridership by Station

Station Aficionado wrote:Tadman made the suggestion a while back that the way Congress has structured route funding is backwards--i.e., the Feds should pay for short distance trains, and let the states fund the LDs. Not sure there would be many LDs left then, but it does seem foolish that many short distance route possibilities are left to the mercies of mercurial state governments.

To my knowledge there has never been a successful interstate compact for Amtrak service that included more than two state governments. As far as mercurial goes I think if you look at the records the state governments are remarkably consistent year in and year out once they run the trains they almost always keep them going. If you were to exclude any state operated services prior to the "Carter" cuts the state government operating records might look even better as I believe there were a number of experiments by state governments early on with Amtrak that ultimately were shutdown.

Station Aficionado wrote:That said, I wonder if corridor service to/from Cleveland is constrained by its location. Using the metrics supplied by Third Rail, I'm not sure that a "short distance" intercity train is possible. From the west, Cleveland is less than 125 miles from Toledo, but Toledo is over 200 miles from Chicago. Would Elkhart or South Bend count as an intermediate "large city"? If not, a Chicago-Cleveland train would have to operated according long distance specifications. From the east, it's 140 miles from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. Unless Alliance, Ohio counts as a "large city", then a train from Pittsburgh would have follow the long distance rules. From Buffalo-Depew, it's 182 miles to Cleveland. Does Erie count as a "large city"? If not, then a Buffalo-Cleveland train would have to be of the long-distance variety.

Keep in mind that he's indicated BOS-LYH is on the outer edge of distances that can be run as a "corridor" train and not have to worry about FRA rules for "Long Distance" operations. As such I'm pretty sure 325 miles is no big deal. The PRIIA specs., which had to do with funding of course have a "floor" of 750 miles so it wouldn't be "Long Distance" for funding purposes either.

electricron wrote: You will not see cities spending this much money on intercity rail for interstate services. I don't think you'll find many Ohioans willing to fully subsidize trains running through Indiana and Illinois, note they wouldn't do so for a train that never left Ohio.

Additionally, I would like to point out that the poor timing of Amtrak's long distance trains in Ohio is a decision Amtrak made. They easily could reschedule one of the two trains for daylight operations through Ohio if they so chose. They shouldn't be surprised how poorly Amtrak, and for that matter any passenger trains, is rated by most Ohioans.

Don't know about the cities, but Vermont, Maine, NC all fund interstate trains which provide service to major cities in other states. As to how much it would cost, if NS is willing to add a daily train w/o additional track upgrades, then the capital cost would be for purchasing or leasing the equipment. The annual operating subsidy might start out in the circa $10 to $15 million range to cover possible losses, but if the corridor service got good ridership numbers, it might not need much of a subsidy once it is established.

As for the timings of the LD trains in Ohio, how could Amtrak schedule either the LSL or CL for daytime hours in Ohio without seriously messing up the times and connections at the endpoint cities?

afiggatt wrote:As for the timings of the LD trains in Ohio, how could Amtrak schedule either the LSL or CL for daytime hours in Ohio without seriously messing up the times and connections at the endpoint cities?

How about an early morning departure with a late evening arrival? Similar to how Amtrak schedules the Palmetto. They're 20 hours or less traveling from end to end. Of course, they wouldn't need sleepers if they did follow such a schedule. Never-the-less, that's a decision made by Amtrak, not local Ohioans.

The last train to serve Ohio in daylight was the 1998-2003 edition of the Pennsylvanian, and the memory of that debacle (part of the Warrington M&E focus) might have burned some at 60 Mass on the idea of the North Coast as a fertile market for Amtrak service. Of course, there were other problems with that train, most notably the eastern terminal at Philadelphia without even the promise of a connection to the New York market. This press release from 1998 lists a 06:35 departure from 30th St, and a 00:25 arrival, but the timings at Chicago are just as useless for anyone not staying at a hotel in the Loop: 06:00 departure, 23:59 arrival. The problem was not the lack of demand for travel to or from the North Coast, but a complete failure to connect to any outside destination beyond Pittsburgh. I suppose the only thing to speak of for this train was that it didn't exacerbate the Viewliner shortage; it ran as a "day train", despite a schedule that began and ended in darkness on both ends. But I think that it demonstrates exactly why a Palmetto-style setup doesn't work Chicago-New York; the value is in the connections to the endpoints, and you need a convenient schedule for at least one of them, if not both.

In light of this, I stand by my usual position that the proper scheduling for a third Water Level Chicago-East train is to anchor the eastern terminal with a dawn/predawn arrival and a evening departure from NYP, even if the train initially begins service as a daylight CHI-CLE/PGH/BUF run with no service to the East Coast. lirr42's Buckeye Flyer proposal falls roughly into this timeframe.

I also suggest the heresy of running as an overnight service to NYP without sleepers, until later procurement makes sleepers available. It won't be favorable to this train's revenue/cost recovery, and Amfleets are nearly as scarce as Viewliners, but we're talking about a service that will live or die on the Chicago endpoint, running to New York for operational and mechanical efficiencies. While the primary readership demographics of this forum might recoil at the thought of overnight in coach (and well might they do so!), the demand for inexpensive overnight transportation to and from New York most certainly exists; the Dog, which is not in the business of running empty buses, runs 3-5 overnight schedules (depending on how one counts) between Buffalo and New York, 2-4 between Pittsburgh and New York, and 4-5 between Cleveland and New York; in that last case, that is just less than half of the available schedules. While Amtrak has completely abandoned the bottom of the market to deeply discounted bus service along the NEC, expanding the middle of the market in the Rust Belt may be a strategy worth pursuing, with airlines and buses contracting. And CHI-NYP is long enough to avoid the political hurdle that is the State of Ohio, which makes this at least as plausible as any Ohio-funded CHI-CLE service.

CComMack wrote:The last train to serve Ohio in daylight was the 1998-2003 edition of the Pennsylvanian, and the memory of that debacle (part of the Warrington M&E focus) might have burned some at 60 Mass on the idea of the North Coast as a fertile market for Amtrak service. Of course, there were other problems with that train, most notably the eastern terminal at Philadelphia without even the promise of a connection to the New York market. This press release from 1998 lists a 06:35 departure from 30th St, and a 00:25 arrival, but the timings at Chicago are just as useless for anyone not staying at a hotel in the Loop: 06:00 departure, 23:59 arrival. The problem was not the lack of demand for travel to or from the North Coast, but a complete failure to connect to any outside destination beyond Pittsburgh. I suppose the only thing to speak of for this train was that it didn't exacerbate the Viewliner shortage; it ran as a "day train", despite a schedule that began and ended in darkness on both ends. But I think that it demonstrates exactly why a Palmetto-style setup doesn't work Chicago-New York; the value is in the connections to the endpoints, and you need a convenient schedule for at least one of them, if not both.

I wonder how many riders the useless Pennsylvanian had in Ohio, as compared to the sleeper service trains? I'll admit I don't know, but it is a statistic that would be valuabe to this discussion. Not everyone riding the trains to Chicago and New York transfer to other Amtrak trains.

Before we get any further off topic, I'm going to try to turn this conversation south with data from a state that HAS supported intercity passenger rail, Virginia.





I've included Staples Mill station in the second graph even though it dwarfs the rest of the data so that you can see how much of the growth the last 2 years on the Washington-Newport News segment has been due to the additional frequency from Washington to Richmond. Now that additional frequency has been extended to Petersburg and Norfolk.

jstolberg wrote:Before we get any further off topic, I'm going to try to turn this conversation south with data from a state that HAS supported intercity passenger rail, Virginia.
...
I've included Staples Mill station in the second graph even though it dwarfs the rest of the data so that you can see how much of the growth the last 2 years on the Washington-Newport News segment has been due to the additional frequency from Washington to Richmond. Now that additional frequency has been extended to Petersburg and Norfolk.

Thanks for posting the VA, PA, and NY corridor station charts. The VA charts for CVS and LYH show how just how substantial the growth has been since the Lynchburg Regional was added. When the FY13 numbers are in, it will be interesting to see how the addition of the Norfolk service effects the numbers for NPN, RVR, and ALX. I expect many of the weekday travelers from NFK who make day round trips to DC will get off at the Alexandria station to cut over to the Metro station to go to the Pentagon and other stops on the Blue or Yellow lines. So ALX should get a jump in passengers from the new NFK service.

afiggatt wrote:

jstolberg wrote:Before we get any further off topic, I'm going to try to turn this conversation south with data from a state that HAS supported intercity passenger rail, Virginia.
...
I've included Staples Mill station in the second graph even though it dwarfs the rest of the data so that you can see how much of the growth the last 2 years on the Washington-Newport News segment has been due to the additional frequency from Washington to Richmond. Now that additional frequency has been extended to Petersburg and Norfolk.

Thanks for posting the VA, PA, and NY corridor station charts. The VA charts for CVS and LYH show how just how substantial the growth has been since the Lynchburg Regional was added. When the FY13 numbers are in, it will be interesting to see how the addition of the Norfolk service effects the numbers for NPN, RVR, and ALX. I expect many of the weekday travelers from NFK who make day round trips to DC will get off at the Alexandria station to cut over to the Metro station to go to the Pentagon and other stops on the Blue or Yellow lines. So ALX should get a jump in passengers from the new NFK service.

Yet another wave of passengers washed into the mix of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor behemoth. At this point these train services in Virginia are such winners nothing is out of the question anymore. We could see additional frequencies, additional stations, new routes, you name it.

If VA DRPT really wanted to get creative they could setup a train for WAS-CLT (perhaps call it the Virginian) and run it as a early morning departure from WAS with a mid afternoon arrival in CLT. The turn back to WAS would be a noon departure from CLT with an early evening arrival in WAS. The train could run either via RVR or LYH. Perhaps via LYH would be the best way to go but via RVR would probably produce better ridership.

Those VA numbers are truly astounding. It goes to show that if it can tie into the NEC (and serve multiple large markets with one train) it will be a sure thing for attracting ridership. I think this shows not only do more routes in VA and NC have promise, but the Inland Route and Knowledge Corridor in central New England show potential as well, with the same advantage of being able to tap into incidental travel to multiple large cities.

M&Eman wrote:Those VA numbers are truly astounding. It goes to show that if it can tie into the NEC (and serve multiple large markets with one train) it will be a sure thing for attracting ridership. I think this shows not only do more routes in VA and NC have promise, but the Inland Route and Knowledge Corridor in central New England show potential as well, with the same advantage of being able to tap into incidental travel to multiple large cities.

In all truth and honesty most of Amtrak still has yet to feel the full effects of the ARRA. The changes expected for the Springfield corridor alone are really going to crush trains at NHV. All of that of course is not to mention the even higher levels of ridership we can expect to see as the Vermonter drops about an hour or more off it's schedule during the next decade. All of this is going to lead to some pretty intense pressure on Amtrak to lengthen train consists throughout the Northeast Corridor. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to see 10 car trains becoming the norm within a year or two as the train services feeding the NEC at all points continue to grow.

M&Eman wrote:Those VA numbers are truly astounding. It goes to show that if it can tie into the NEC (and serve multiple large markets with one train) it will be a sure thing for attracting ridership. I think this shows not only do more routes in VA and NC have promise, but the Inland Route and Knowledge Corridor in central New England show potential as well, with the same advantage of being able to tap into incidental travel to multiple large cities.

The Piedmont had the strongest growth of any train last year. Here is the station data for the Piedmont and Carolinian stations.

I speculate that the reason Cary has taken more riders from Raleigh is that Cary was converted to a staffed station in 2011. Probably some people were using Raleigh instead of Cary because they had checked baggage and had no choice, but now Cary with its plentiful parking is a better option for them.

This was pretty close to the start of FY2012; I rode the Star from Cary in the end of September 2011. The station was staffed at that point but hadn't yet had its official grand opening.

I suspect that a new station in Raleigh will bring some ridership back to the City of Oaks.

For Cleveland-Chicago service during waking hours, start in Boston. Peel off the Boston split of the Lake Shore Limited, flop the schedule, and give it a new name.

The LSL cars to CHI are now scheduled to leave Beantown 5 minutes before noon, join the main LSL train from NYP in ALB between 5:30 arrival and 7 p.m. departure (!!!), get to BUF at midnight, pass almost uselessly thru CLE around 3:30 a.m., and arrive CHI at 9:45 a.m.

If the new train left BOS late evening, at 9 p.m. instead of noon, it would get to ALB around 2:30 a.m. and pass thru Syracuse and Rochester in the dark of night. (But they already get served by four trains in daylight). It would arrive in BUF at a businesslike 6:30 a.m., hit CLE a little after noon, and be in Toledo around 3 p.m. (That timing would give a good Thruway bus connection to Ann Arbor/Dearborn/Detroit). Then finally pull in to CHI at 6:45 p.m., after most of the rush-hour commuter trains have left Union Station.

Eastbound trains could leave ChiTown for Beantown at exactly 12 hours opposite of the current LSL schedule. So instead of departing at 9:30 p.m. it would leave 9:30 a.m., after the commuter train rush hour. Then arrive Toledo at 3:20 p.m., stop in CLE at 5:30 p.m., reach BUF at a not-too-late 9 p.m. It would make Rochester at 10 p.m (even Syracuse at 11:39 p.m. is not too awfully late), pass thru ALB around 3 a.m., and get to BOS at a businesslike 9 a.m.

Meanwhile of course, the regular Lake Shore Limited running NYP-CHI would continue.

O.K., the State of Massachusetts would need to step up and put a daylight train Boston-Worcester-Springfield-Pittsfield-Albany. But since they are planning for more trains on the Inland Route, Boston-Springfield-Harford-New Haven, pushing one thru to Albany shouldn't be too difficult.

Not to mention that Amtrak would need more locomotives and rolling stock. Maybe it will get more fleet renewal equipment soon. Sigh.

Woody wrote:Not to mention that Amtrak would need more locomotives and rolling stock. Maybe it will get more fleet renewal equipment soon. Sigh.

The potential for the changes you mention really isn't that far off. Amtrak is going to be getting this new equipment and deploying it around their single level routes. The number of cars, matched against the number of routes and the fact that they are only removing 25 cars from service (the Heritage Diners) implies a substantial expansion of both capacity in existing service and most likely some new additional service as well, even when counting only the initial order. There's an option for more after that and of course if things go really well Amtrak could simply execute another order after that as well. We will know rather quickly if this will all happen.

As mentioned elsewhere the Silver Service trains were profitable until literally "the last hour" pre-Amtrak. I think there is a very good chance that could happen again if Amtrak has enough sleeper and diner cars to accommodate the demand for travel to Florida.

Woody wrote:For Cleveland-Chicago service during waking hours, start in Boston. Peel off the Boston split of the Lake Shore Limited, flop the schedule, and give it a new name.

The LSL cars to CHI are now scheduled to leave Beantown 5 minutes before noon, join the main LSL train from NYP in ALB between 5:30 arrival and 7 p.m. departure (!!!), get to BUF at midnight, pass almost uselessly thru CLE around 3:30 a.m., and arrive CHI at 9:45 a.m.

If the new train left BOS late evening, at 9 p.m. instead of noon, it would get to ALB around 2:30 a.m. and pass thru Syracuse and Rochester in the dark of night. (But they already get served by four trains in daylight). It would arrive in BUF at a businesslike 6:30 a.m., hit CLE a little after noon, and be in Toledo around 3 p.m. (That timing would give a good Thruway bus connection to Ann Arbor/Dearborn/Detroit). Then finally pull in to CHI at 6:45 p.m., after most of the rush-hour commuter trains have left Union Station.

Eastbound trains could leave ChiTown for Beantown at exactly 12 hours opposite of the current LSL schedule. So instead of departing at 9:30 p.m. it would leave 9:30 a.m., after the commuter train rush hour. Then arrive Toledo at 3:20 p.m., stop in CLE at 5:30 p.m., reach BUF at a not-too-late 9 p.m. It would make Rochester at 10 p.m (even Syracuse at 11:39 p.m. is not too awfully late), pass thru ALB around 3 a.m., and get to BOS at a businesslike 9 a.m.

Meanwhile of course, the regular Lake Shore Limited running NYP-CHI would continue.

O.K., the State of Massachusetts would need to step up and put a daylight train Boston-Worcester-Springfield-Pittsfield-Albany. But since they are planning for more trains on the Inland Route, Boston-Springfield-Harford-New Haven, pushing one thru to Albany shouldn't be too difficult.

Not to mention that Amtrak would need more locomotives and rolling stock. Maybe it will get more fleet renewal equipment soon. Sigh.

Look into a thread I started a few years ago called the 21st Century Limited. (I've linked to it in the past, too lazy right now . I had a similar idea. Keep the BOS-CHI as the Lake Shore Limited, but create a new train NYP-CHI and call that the 21st Century Limited. Talk NYS into sponsoring as much as possible using completely new Viewliner equipment built IN NYS. Hit major cities with both trains and alternate on some smaller cities so both can still be "limited" but you can increase service.