New England Through Service to the South?

As I mentioned in another thread, former Amtrak president George Warrington had some interesting ideas.

One of them was moving the originating terminal for New York based long distance trains to Boston.

A passenger boarding between Boston and New York wishing to travel to any destination south of Washington DC has to transfer at some point. Mr Warrington surmised that when the OCS was completed on the Shore Line, New York would no longer have to be the final terminal for service to places like Miami, Chicago, New Orleans, etc.

I suppose the idea had merit. At the time, long distance trains carried mail/express. Passengers would no longer have to transfer trains, which would reduce the chances of a misconnection. Additional revenue could be generated from the sleeping car reservations as people add 4 to 5 hours to their trips.

A lot has changed since this idea was floated. The OCS is (usually) in service on the Shore Line, track and bridge upgrades press on and Metro-North is in the later stages of their overhaul of the New Haven Line. Amtrak has also ordered new equipment. The downside is the mail/express service is gone, and that is lost revenue potential.

If the new bridges along the Shore Line ultimately yield more capacity, it might be worthwhile to revisit this idea.

IF (and I think it's a big if) this idea were to get off the ground, I think it would have to wait until after the Viewliner II equipment arrives and the LD trains can run at faster speeds along the NEC. While it MIGHT increase sleeper sales, I'm not sure that matters. Firstly, as I understand it, there's not much of a problem already selling out the sleepers, which means few people will want to add 4-5 hours in coach.

BUT, if you can run the LD trains faster from BOS to WAS than you can now, that 4-5 hours is a bit shorter and might be more tolerable.

I do know at least one family from Portland Maine that bemoans the fact that they can't catch a sleeper in BOS directly to Florida.

I think ultimately, you may be better off only moving one of the Silver Service trains to BOS, and keeping the other in NYP. Or perhaps adding back a 3rd one.

Running all the LD's north of New York would be a waste of capacity, at least as long as you keep them pick up/discard only on the SB/NB respectively and that has a lot of other advantages.

But one or two might be worth it - especially if a third Florida service was ever to be reintroduced.

Could Amtrak run connecting sections out of BOS like is currently done with the LSL? Send a short receive-only train southbound, then add the main part of the train behind it at NYP. Similarly slice off the first few cars northbound at NYP. This keeps the official terminus of the train at NY, but still provides through service to points north. Plus it would be a decent way to test the waters for the popularity of BOS as an LD terminal.

I don't know if the necessary switching moves would really be possible inside NYP, though, and that could be a pretty big downside.

I like the idea of an "East Coast Express" train, but I agree that at this time there are more important things for Amtrak to consider.

ThirdRail7 wrote:...A passenger boarding between Boston and New York wishing to travel to any destination south of Washington DC has to transfer at some point...

I assume you mean sleeping car passengers, since trains 67, 93, 95, and 171 go from Boston to south of DC.

Greg Moore wrote:I do know at least one family from Portland Maine that bemoans the fact that they can't catch a sleeper in BOS directly to Florida.

Mr.Moore, I should defer to Mr. Weaver on this point, but Boston-Miami, The Vacationer, met its end during the '50's. As I recall, NY "Old Penn', was only an operational stop for engine and crew. Lest we forget, run through GG-1 motive power was a Penn Central (post NH, pre-Amtrak) innovation.

However, to address the underlying thought, twenty five additional Sleepers will do little beyond meeting existing demand on the present routes. While it should be noted that when the Viewliners were new and before they had to be rotated through the shops for their first "heavy", it was possible to offer additional routes such as the Silver Palm and Night Owl. However, as the cars had to be withdrawn for their "heavies", fewer cars became available for service meaning that the Silver Palm was discontinued South of Savannah and Sleepers withdrawn from the Night Owl (and it simply became Regional 66-67).

However, it has been reported that Amtrak intends to begin an extensive updating of the existing Viewliners as soon as delivery of the 'V-II's' is complete. That upgrading will reportedly include standardizing the configuration with the new cars as well as "weatherizing' the undercarriages to minimize frozen plumbing. If this plan moves forth, then there will be no temporary increase to the available Sleepers when the V-II deliveries are complete.

Finally, when the railroads ordered their "streamliners", there are add on orders made about three years later as the original cars had to be withdrawn for shopping. Examples coming to mind were a final Dome-Obs, Silver Lookout for the CZ and for the UP six additional Dome Coaches - both placed in service about three years after the original sets were delivered.

While it would represent a convenience for through passengers, constraints on track capacity argue against adding trains that don't carry local passengers north of Penn Station. Connecticut will be an NEC bottleneck for the foreseeable future. Aside from the drawbridge opening issue, there's the capacity crunch in Metro North territory that isn't going to go away.

TomNelligan wrote:While it would represent a convenience for through passengers, constraints on track capacity argue against adding trains that don't carry local passengers north of Penn Station. Connecticut will be an NEC bottleneck for the foreseeable future. Aside from the drawbridge opening issue, there's the capacity crunch in Metro North territory that isn't going to go away.

The limits for slots and number of Amtrak trains between NYP and BOS are the biggest issue with running a LD train up the NEC to BOS. Amtrak has the 39 train a day limit on the Shore Line east that they will have to get increased someday. As for the New Haven line, will Amtrak get more slots when the constant tension catenary replacement project is completed in 2015 and whenever the signal upgrades are completed? Or will MNRR stall on allowing more Amtrak trains through until all the bridges on the CT part of the NHV line are replaced and the entire NHV line is 4 tracked (which ever decade that happens).

if MNRR really wants to run trains to NYP via the Hell Gate line, Amtrak should have some leverage. Demand that in return for clogging up the Hell Gate line that MTA and MNRR provide substantial funding to replace the Pelham River bridge and more slots for Amtrak to New Haven. If Amtrak has not signed away the trackage rights, they also have some leverage with CDOT if CT wants to run commuter service on on the New Haven-Springfield line. It is a a two way street.

But if Amtrak gets the right to run, say, 5 to 8 more round trip daily trains to Boston, even then it could be difficult to justify using one of the still limited number of slots for a LD train when people can connect from a Regional or Acela.

In theory, the Meteor could be extended to BOS, with 97 leaving late AM and 98 arriving early afternoon.

In theory a lot of things are possible but to be practical running the Florida trains in and out of Boston is not practical at least at the present time and probably not in the reasonable future either. Track capacity issues exist on Metro-North and equipment shortages exist on Amtrak. The passenger travel in the NEC north of New York is practically all inter corridor travel from somewhere in the corridor to somewhere else in the corridor or close to the corridor by rail connections. What might be possible and practical as well would be a through sleeper or through sleeper and coach on one train in each direction to and from Florida and switched at Washington from a corridor train to a Florida train. This was done during the winter season on the Montrealer when they ran a through sleeper between Monreal and Miami. Running a LD train set handling local passengers between New York and Boston in addition to Florida passengers is a waste of needed cars as well as track capacity. Changing trains at New York or Washington might not be fun but it is not as bad as changing planes enroute and people do it all the time. When Amtrak gets more sleeping cars you might see a through sleeper out of Boston, who knows.
Noel Weaver

Would there be operational advantages for NYP and Sunnyside Yard by relieving them of one of their LD Florida trains?

As it stands BOS already handles 448/449 (which had it sleeper restored a year or two ago).

Mr. O'Keefe, I will acknowledge that if more Sleepers were turned and staffed at Boston, the cost allocable to the one line turned there would be greatly reduced. However, I continue to hold and will do so until someone presents strong inferences, or. even more convincing, substantiated facts to the contrary, that the 448-449 restoration as a BOS-CHI train, as well as the resumption of a Sleeper line on such, was done for any reason other than political, Amtrak will be "testing the water' to see if they can get rid of it.

A transfer at ALB from a BOS-ALB 449 to a 49 and vv, presented no real inconvenience to passengers, such as would that between 21 and 1 and vv at SAS, or 7 and 27 and vv at SPK.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Mr. O'Keefe, I will acknowledge that if more Sleepers were turned and staffed at Boston, the cost allocable to the one line turned there would be greatly reduced. However, I continue to hold and will do so until someone presents strong inferences, or. even more convincing, substantiated facts to the contrary, that the 448-449 restoration as a BOS-CHI train, as well as the resumption of a Sleeper line on such, was done for any reason other than political, Amtrak will be "testing the water' to see if they can get rid of it.

A transfer at ALB from a BOS-ALB 449 to a 49 and vv, presented no real inconvenience to passengers, such as would that between 21 and 1 and vv at SAS, or 7 and 27 and vv at SPK.

I completely agree that restoring the sleeper to 449/448 smacked of politics (in a way that we hadn't seen in quite some time for Amtrak, Harley's Hornet being one of the more memorable examples).

That being said Amtrak hasn't eliminated it yet.

My question remains: Is there any operational value to running the Silver Meteor or any other Silver Service train out of BOS for the sake of NYP operations?

I've always felt the Amtrak could utilize The Cardinal as an overnight WAS-BOS train. The train arrives in WAS at 6:00, it could have the diner and a few coaches head up/down to NYP on the current schedule and add/remove a coach and a sleeper to 66/67.

Equipment availability would not be an issue because as it stands #50(the NB cardinal) arrives into NYP and spends the next day sitting in the yard. This would create tri-weekly sleeper service on the NEC.

gokeefe wrote:

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Mr. O'Keefe, I will acknowledge that if more Sleepers were turned and staffed at Boston, the cost allocable to the one line turned there would be greatly reduced. However, I continue to hold and will do so until someone presents strong inferences, or. even more convincing, substantiated facts to the contrary, that the 448-449 restoration as a BOS-CHI train, as well as the resumption of a Sleeper line on such, was done for any reason other than political, Amtrak will be "testing the water' to see if they can get rid of it.

A transfer at ALB from a BOS-ALB 449 to a 49 and vv, presented no real inconvenience to passengers, such as would that between 21 and 1 and vv at SAS, or 7 and 27 and vv at SPK.

I completely agree that restoring the sleeper to 449/448 smacked of politics (in a way that we hadn't seen in quite some time for Amtrak, Harley's Hornet being one of the more memorable examples).

That being said Amtrak hasn't eliminated it yet.

My question remains: Is there any operational value to running the Silver Meteor or any other Silver Service train out of BOS for the sake of NYP operations?

How does restoring a through sleeper (and coaches) smack of politics, any more than any Amtrak decision? How did the Commonwealth turn the screws on Amtrak management? How does running a sleeper on one of the busiest trains in the nation equate to running a train to the middle of nowhere? I'm very confused.