One of the things I have been thinking about is what Amtrak's role will be with all these high speed rail proposals if they are to go through fruition and what Amtrak is to do with all of its routes as they are today. One of the problems with Amtrak is that it is expensive and has ultimately has substandard service in both speed and quality is most of the country. I will say that I am not one of those people who want to kill Amtrak, I just think that we should make it work a little better. With all the high speed rail proposals across the country including California High Speed Rail, XpressWest, The Chicago Hub Network, Next Generation High Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor, and even the Northwest Corridor, I think Amtrak needs to change its plans to evolve with the changing rail landscape. Assuming all the previously mentioned High Speed Rail projects occur as they are planned, I think Amtrak needs to make these things happen to become more sustainable and remain necessary and useful amongst the other high speed rail lines.
1: Congress needs to let Amtrak kill most of it's slow-speed long distance routes to save money. These include:
Silver Star, Cardinal, Silver Meteor, Capitol Limited, California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, City of New Orleans, Texas Eagle, Sunset Limited, Coast Starlight, Lake Shore Limited, Palmetto, and Crescent.
http://subsidyscope.org/transportation/ ... rak/table/
For all their long distance routes, I kept Empire Builder and Auto Train off the list as I think these routes serve functions outside just connecting large cities. Auto Train has an important function of moving cars and the Empire Builder provides access to Glacier National Park. Also, these routes require far less money in subsidies. The old equipment from these other routes can be recycled. The money saved from these routes can go to upgrade equipment to improve the northeast corridor and shorter routes used by commuters who actually use the trains to get to work rather than just go on a government subsidized vacation. In the long run, I would think it could be interesting to see if Amtrak could use Bombardier's JetTrain locomotives to power at least the Empire BUilder and upgrade it to the old Great Northern Livery, advertising it as a premier vacation.
2: With all of that money saved from ending long distance services apart from Empire Builder and AutoTrain, Amtrak needs to re-examine how it looks at running trains on tracks it does not own. California HSR, XpressWest, The Chicago Hub Network, Northeast and Northwest Corridors cover most of the populated parts of the United States apart from Amtrak's shorter and commuter routes in the northeast (outside the NEC), southeast, and Texas. I think Amtrak needs to shift its focus to connecting Chicago and New York with high speed rail. With their proposed extension of electrification from harrisburg to Pittsburg, they could go further west all the way to chicago if they got the funds for it. Also, there is a huge market in the southeast Amtrak is ignoring for high speed rail, or at least not considering enough. A study was recently done concerning connecting Atlanta and a few other cities with Richmond and DC, Amtrak should seriously consider being the one to build this, such a line could be very profitable as they learned form their DC to Boston line. Finally, the Texas High Speed Rail project needs to give it one more go, this time with more support to avoid being blocked by Southwest Airlines. There is a need in TExas for high speed rail as San Antonio, Houston, and Austin form a triangle that is so close together that air travel is not really needed and where HSR is especially feasible.
Therefore if I was allowed to decide what went where: I would want electrified Amtrak HSR between Boston-NYC-Philidelphia-DC, and DC-Pittsburg-Chicago, DC-Richmond-Charleston-Atlanta. I would have conventional service remain with updated rolling stock on other shorter northeast routes as they are becoming increasingly popular and thereby profitable. I would have Amtrak also invest in High Speed Hybrid Trains like Bombardier's Jet Train to connect Chicago and Seattle on their Empire Builder route including Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Bismark, and Helena while using the same technology to connect Chicago with New Orleans including St Louis, Memphis, Jackson, and Baton Rouge. Finally, I would have Amtrak continue to invest in the northwest corridor as they are now, possibly utilizing Hybrid trains but also looking into the possibility of going south of Portland and Eugene to San Francisco.
I would have private/public companies outside Amtrak operate CA HSR, XpressWest, The Chicago Hub Network, and the Texas Triangle.
What does everyone think? Some of this is probably unrealistic but it would be interesting to see if some of this does actually happen in the future.
Here is what my map would look like:
1: Congress needs to let Amtrak kill most of it's slow-speed long distance routes to save money. These include:
Silver Star, Cardinal, Silver Meteor, Capitol Limited, California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, City of New Orleans, Texas Eagle, Sunset Limited, Coast Starlight, Lake Shore Limited, Palmetto, and Crescent.
http://subsidyscope.org/transportation/ ... rak/table/
For all their long distance routes, I kept Empire Builder and Auto Train off the list as I think these routes serve functions outside just connecting large cities. Auto Train has an important function of moving cars and the Empire Builder provides access to Glacier National Park. Also, these routes require far less money in subsidies. The old equipment from these other routes can be recycled. The money saved from these routes can go to upgrade equipment to improve the northeast corridor and shorter routes used by commuters who actually use the trains to get to work rather than just go on a government subsidized vacation. In the long run, I would think it could be interesting to see if Amtrak could use Bombardier's JetTrain locomotives to power at least the Empire BUilder and upgrade it to the old Great Northern Livery, advertising it as a premier vacation.
2: With all of that money saved from ending long distance services apart from Empire Builder and AutoTrain, Amtrak needs to re-examine how it looks at running trains on tracks it does not own. California HSR, XpressWest, The Chicago Hub Network, Northeast and Northwest Corridors cover most of the populated parts of the United States apart from Amtrak's shorter and commuter routes in the northeast (outside the NEC), southeast, and Texas. I think Amtrak needs to shift its focus to connecting Chicago and New York with high speed rail. With their proposed extension of electrification from harrisburg to Pittsburg, they could go further west all the way to chicago if they got the funds for it. Also, there is a huge market in the southeast Amtrak is ignoring for high speed rail, or at least not considering enough. A study was recently done concerning connecting Atlanta and a few other cities with Richmond and DC, Amtrak should seriously consider being the one to build this, such a line could be very profitable as they learned form their DC to Boston line. Finally, the Texas High Speed Rail project needs to give it one more go, this time with more support to avoid being blocked by Southwest Airlines. There is a need in TExas for high speed rail as San Antonio, Houston, and Austin form a triangle that is so close together that air travel is not really needed and where HSR is especially feasible.
Therefore if I was allowed to decide what went where: I would want electrified Amtrak HSR between Boston-NYC-Philidelphia-DC, and DC-Pittsburg-Chicago, DC-Richmond-Charleston-Atlanta. I would have conventional service remain with updated rolling stock on other shorter northeast routes as they are becoming increasingly popular and thereby profitable. I would have Amtrak also invest in High Speed Hybrid Trains like Bombardier's Jet Train to connect Chicago and Seattle on their Empire Builder route including Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Bismark, and Helena while using the same technology to connect Chicago with New Orleans including St Louis, Memphis, Jackson, and Baton Rouge. Finally, I would have Amtrak continue to invest in the northwest corridor as they are now, possibly utilizing Hybrid trains but also looking into the possibility of going south of Portland and Eugene to San Francisco.
I would have private/public companies outside Amtrak operate CA HSR, XpressWest, The Chicago Hub Network, and the Texas Triangle.
What does everyone think? Some of this is probably unrealistic but it would be interesting to see if some of this does actually happen in the future.
Here is what my map would look like: