Rethinking Amtrak and rail in the U.S.

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:

Welcome, RocketJet! Interesting proposal, one that may stimulate some debate.

Moderator's Note: Since this is an Amtrak-related proposal, I'm moving this to the Amtrak forum.

RocketJet wrote: 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.

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.

Thank you Rocket Jet. This post is not without its usefulness, so please excuse a brief hijack. I'll leave others to debate the wisdom of your plan and make the changes they want. Good luck funding this plan (just so you know, not all equipment can operate everywhere, so cutting trains out west doesn't necessarily yield equipment for other place) and nice touch eliminating service from the Northeast to Florida, the place where Amtrak REALLY wants to add service.

What I want to do here, is use your statement as fodder for another thread. Your statement is EXACTLY what I was referring to in this thread:

How to improve weak public support for Amtrak
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 46&t=96036

It's funny that you make that statement, yet want to continue operation of the Auto train, which is nothing but a vacation train.. I wonder how many people commute from LOR-SFA?

Ok, now I'm ready for the thread at hand!

RocketJet wrote: 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.

Sorry, right there you've just killed any chance of your plan working.

Call me cynical or a realist, but I think it's true.

First, with due respect to Greg's post, I'm prepared to grant you what we called in my high school debate days "affirmative fiat," which means assuming that some benign dictator would put your plan into effect without worrying about the politics in the middle, because debating "Congress will never pass it" is boring.

Second, Kennebunkport? There are no tracks in Kennebunkport, at all, (the Trolley Museum is in Kennebunk) and with the geography the way it is I strongly doubt there ever will be. I think you want that to be Portland.

Third, I have to wonder this: are you proposing the HSR be run on the current tracks, or on a new, dedicated set of rails (assuming for the sake of argument that the new system could be accommodated on existing ROWs)? If you anticipate running on the current tracks, how do you plan to deal with freight interference (or, rather, HS passenger interference on rails owned by the freight companies)?

Fourth, while the Texas Triangle is very interesting, and I've heard "Back to the Basics of Love" more times than I can count , no connection to Dallas?

Personally, so far as the service cutbacks go, I'm of the opinion that if the US wants to run a nationwide passenger rail system at whatever speed, then at the very least it should be possible to use it to travel in a reasonably direct line between any pair of cities that have a major league sports team (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and not counting the Canadian teams) on it.

Edited because I blew the lyric! Sorry, Waylon.

I wouldn't go for killing the long-distance trains.

Keep in mind that wherever Amtrak has expanded (generally with state-supported corridors), those areas of expansion have come on routes previously served by a skeletal Amtrak service. I don't know of anywhere (except Raleigh-Greensboro) where Amtrak has built a successful corridor where previously there were no trains at all. The long-distance trains serve as a starting point for future growth. The long-distance trains also serve some large population centers; think of them as once-a-day corridor trains over a very long distance.

For example, Charlotte-Atlanta is certainly a candidate for corridor status. The Crescent is the only train on this corridor. Keep the Crescent and just add more trains to the route. If you get rid of the Crescent, as in your map, there will be no basic infrastructure to start passenger trains again on that route, and Amtrak will be forgotten by people who live there.

If we are ignoring politics then building an Atlanta hub (very similar in geography to the Chicago hub) would solve many of the network problems created by the elimination of the long distance service.

Natural connections exist for Atlanta to:

*Charlotte/Raleigh/Richmond/DC (connection to the NEC)
*Columbia/Charleston
*Savannah/Jacksonville/Orlando/Tampa - Miami (<-- route splits at Jax) (connection to Key West and Havanah fast ferry!)
*Birmingham/New Orleans-Memphis (<-- route splits at Bham) (with potential connections to Texas via New Orleans-Houston and New Orleans-Shreeveport-Dallas)
*Chattanooga/Nashville/Louisville-St.Louis (<-- route splits at Nashville) (connection to Chicago hub via St. Louis and Louisville-Indianapolis)

Such a hub could effectively link (via corridor service) just about every "major league" town east of the Mississippi with a Texas gateway kicker. Too bad Georgia will never, ever, make such an investment in their capital city.

Great post SouthernRailway.

To OP - how is your plan significantly better than keeping the current LD routes and speeding them up to say, 110mph throughout? That seems the most likely thing to realistically happen. Plus when you start talking about traveling over 100mph that captures the mind IMO. Would capture a lot of the folks who currently say they would never ride "slow" trains. Plus they can later be upgraded to even faster speeds.

Would perhaps the opinions of the freight railroads whose RoWs we are planning to hijack for this plan be taken into consideration? Or should we ignore those too for this hypothetical discussion?

The thing that seems most unrealistic is building high speed lines through difficult hilly terrain when flatter terrain is available as an alternate. For example I'd almost bet that any high speed line between Denver and Salt Lake City will not head west out of Denver (unless wants to bankrupt oneself rapidly) and will head north towards Cheyenne/Laramie and then head west through Wyoming. Similarly, a New York - Chicago route is highly unlikely to go through Pittsburgh. Oh, and by the way, Amtrak has no particular plan to electrify to Pittsburgh anyway.

Using gas turbine powered engines would be another bit of boondoggle that no one would seriously consider I think. High speed above 125/135 mph will pretty much be electric.

A good part of this is completely unrealistic. For example, there are no rail connections from Las Vegas into Arizona. Another impossible connection is from St Louis to the south. You need to use the existing rail network as few or no new routes can be built with funds at hand. your plan completely avoids Kansas city. You may want to add enough of the big cities outside the NE to keep them in the national network. Take into account different markets like college students & other folks that use rail. There are other local markets like the Grand Canyon & other national parks where a decent train service can cut some of the auto traffic congestion.

It will be interesting to see what changes the Chicago -St Louis & Chicago - Detroit trains provide with the newer higher speed trains.

Apparently someone has never taken the empire service between NYP-ALB and Buffalo... Apparently you feel the 1x a day Indy-Chicago route is more worthy than the 13x a day NYP-ALB route.

Not to mention the removal of the popular Lynchburg service and service from NY-Atlanta.

I think it's very clear that amtrak needs to preserve the skeleton system it has today and improve it to 21st century HSR.

Besides, the political reality of the long distance trains (which is probably true more with the Western trains than the Eastern ones) I think the reality is that at least some of the trains you mention are well patronized, to the point that expansion, not cut backs probably makes more sense. (Yes, you might lose more overall, but less per passenger.)

For example, the LSL is well patronized as it is. But rather than cutting, I'd suggest adding a "day train' version, and extending the first Buffalo bound train of the day further west, perhaps not to Chicago, but adding to the current network.

The Crescent is another train that is highly patronized, at least as far as Atlanta. Again, additional service is probably far better than less.

I find it ironic (or disingenuous) that you argue against LD trains, but keep the Empire Builder ((because it provides access to Glacier National Park) but then argue that you want money to go to trains carrying passengers who go to jobs, not vacations. I don't think the employment possibility of the Glacier National Park are all that high, so you must be talking vacations.

Further, as for commuters, let the state and regional commuter focus on that population.

Overall, yes, increasing speed can help (and will help). But again, I think the proposed "network" is too large and not necessarily useful. What benefit is there to HSR on the Empire Builder? Sure, you might be able to cut off sometime, but honestly, for most of the LD unless you can improve overall velocity by greater than 2x (which permits twice as much use of the equipment) you're actually in some cases making the schedule worse for end-point to end-point travelers.

Take HSR to Atlanta, while higher speed might be useful, the current schedule of leaving DC at 6:30 PM and arriving at 8:00 AM makes for a decent one. Cutting that to 12 hours might help, but if you cut it to say 8 hours, now it's either leaving DC at an awkward hour, or arriving at Atlanta at an awkward hour.

Finally, I can't believe you have Kennenbunkport, but you leave Albany out of your map.

So, even beyond my "it won't work" I find this plan so full of holes that it's not worthy of any real support. Sorry.

The future:

Building 200 miles of high speed rail in a corridor takes you 200 miles. Building 200 miles of high speed rail to 2 miles of pavement gives you the world.

Radial 100 to 200 mile high speed rail lines to larger airports, either extant, or new airports if that makes more sense, with seamless connections (security checks performed onboard trains) could allow travel from many if not most places in the US to another in 8 or 9 hours or less.

It can be a useful exercise to ignore existing routes and right-of-ways to see how a modern system might be planned from scratch. If we were to build a separate passenger rail system like Japan did with the Shinkasen, what might it look like?

A likely outcome might be hubs in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles with electrified trains running at 200-300kph (125 to 185 mph), which is not far off from the original proposal. Long-distance trains with hybrid engines might be necessary to bridge the gaps between the hubs. That's a very big-picture, long-term vision, but it gives a useful perspective.

We have done quite a bit of planning for a New York hub and a Chicago hub. Planning for Los Angeles has included connections within the state of California, but the vision still needs to be built to connect LA to Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas. Rail in Texas gets repeatedly pooh-poohed, but the economics keeps getting more compelling. Planning for an Atlanta hub is still in its infancy.

In some places, trains sharing tracks with freight and running at 90 mph to 110 mph might be more appropriate. Even that is a vast improvement from the 45-50 mph that most passenger trains average today.

jstolberg wrote:It can be a useful exercise to ignore existing routes and right-of-ways to see how a modern system might be planned from scratch. If we were to build a separate passenger rail system like Japan did with the Shinkasen, what might it look like?

A likely outcome might be hubs in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles with electrified trains running at 200-300kph (125 to 185 mph), which is not far off from the original proposal. Long-distance trains with hybrid engines might be necessary to bridge the gaps between the hubs. That's a very big-picture, long-term vision, but it gives a useful perspective.

And to be fair, Amtrak has done that to a bit with their vision for HSR from NYP to BOS, bypassing the shoreline.