Amtrak Expansion Plan

[Arlington]

I'd say most passengers on the Crescent either travel between the Northeast and Atlanta-ish, which is ideal for an overnight trip.

Self fulfilling. You drive in the same old ruts and you're only going to serve the same old passengers. 1964 thinking says you sleep past the SIX MILLION people 1.6M in W-S-Greensboro metro, the 2.6M in Charlotte, and the 2M GSP SC in the wee hours (12mid to 5am southbound or 11p to 4am northbound), so yeah, none of them are going to want to ride your sleeper train, leaving only end-to-enders even willing to consider it.

The whole point of trains is to connect people all along the string of pearls--many many O&D pairs...that's what corridor trains do, but the overnight LDs do not.

[lordsigma12345]

First of all this shouldn’t be black and white. Every long distance train is different and has different traits and different issues. I am not so sure they are going to propose dumping all 15 long distance routes. I think if you’re going to make changes it should be a route by route basis not this large decision about “the long distance trains.” I think you’ll see some of them stick around. I think the Florida trains will remain as well as east coast-Chicago. And I think the CS will stick around. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see a proposal proposing turning one western trans con route into a “Canadian” like service while ditching (or breaking up) the others. I think the proposal is going to focus on corridors yes but not necessarily elimination of all 15 routes. Frankly I don’t think congress is going to go along with cutting off the LD routes anyway based on the response to the SWC bus bridge. RPA will have a major rebuttal to Anderson and you could see an Amtrak - RPA war in the reauthorization process.

[Arlington]

The South is where the last 47 years have replaced the pine barrens with twenties of millions of people, but the LDs still sleep past them, while the planes do a better job of crossing them. Corridor trains would actually serve people all along all those route-miles.

In addition to the day-people of the Crescent corridor, Palmetto could get all the way to Jacksonville FL "by day," (the coastal corridor) and could conceivably tip the whole train into revenue-positive AND allow the Star to only be a corridor train intra-florida (maybe run it twice, even). Florida had 6.7M people in 1970. It has 21M today. An Intraflorida corridor is now "a thing" that no RR ever imagined (we talked in the Brightline thread if FEC ever had anything even remotely like 17x in southeast florida and the answer was basically: nope, mostly a small number, dominated by night trains)

EDIT: Best number I have for Florida East Coast operations is 1926 where they reached a zenith of 12 trains per day Jacksonville-Miami, many handling sleepers handed off at JAX. There's absolutely nothing in this history that'd tell you that 17x MIA-WPB would (soon) handle 1M a year.

[lordsigma12345]

The South is where the last 47 years have replaced the pine barrens with twenties of millions of people, but the LDs still sleep past them, while the planes do a better job of crossing them.

Palmetto could get all the way to Jacksonville FL "by day," and could conceivably tip the whole train into revenue-positive AND allow the Star to only be a corridor train intra-florida (maybe run it twice, even). Florida had 6.7M people in 1970. It has 21M today. Intraflorida is now "a thing" that no RR ever imagined.

I think you’re going to see AT LEAST the Auto Train stay. Auto train is a great concept that caters to a unique market of snowbirds and is an overnight route that if operated properly could show a profit. It is almost a concept by itself separate from the other long distance trains but I dont think it gets cut off.

[lordsigma12345]

Also I’m not saying they won’t or shouldn’t develop corridors down south. But again this is where I’m argueing against black and white thinking. I think northeast - Florida is still a market where it makes sense to have an overnight train regardless of what is done with corridors. It’s a huge travel market and it’s big enough where you have enough people that don’t like to fly, and they have already made the investment in the single level fleet. Yes Florida and south corridors make sense. But in a new Amtrak I think a silver meteor and auto train still make sense. The star on the other hand makes perfect sense to modify into a corridor setup. Maybe some long distance routes do make sense to change or rework, but I think auto train and meteor are still good concepts and I would suspect are not the routes targeted by Anderson. (But again could be wrong.) I think it is the superliner routes where you are going to see much more debate.

[lordsigma12345]

Here is an example of a non black and white thinking proposal on the subject of Florida. Have the Palmetto NYP to Jacksonville by day. Have the Silver Meteor at night. Discontinue the Star and develop a Florida corridor and a corridor covering the abandoned Star territory in the Carolinas.

[Arlington]

^ +1 Absolutely.

[SouthernRailway]

I'd say most passengers on the Crescent either travel between the Northeast and Atlanta-ish, which is ideal for an overnight trip.

Self fulfilling. You drive in the same old ruts and you're only going to serve the same old passengers. 1964 thinking says you sleep past the SIX MILLION people 1.6M in W-S-Greensboro metro, the 2.6M in Charlotte, and the 2M GSP SC in the wee hours (12mid to 5am southbound or 11p to 4am northbound), so yeah, none of them are going to want to ride your sleeper train, leaving only end-to-enders even willing to consider it.

The whole point of trains is to connect people all along the string of pearls--many many O&D pairs...that's what corridor trains do, but the overnight LDs do not.

That’s why the Carolinian and Piedmonts exist: service in areas where the only other Amtrak service is at night.

NY-Atlanta is such a long and populated route that it takes both an overnight train and day trains to adequately serve it. Get rid of the overnight train and Amtrak will lose passengers in some of its most important city-pairs along the route: NY to DC on one end and around Atlanta on the other end.

[Arlington]

^ Not really. Running the Crescent at night still means only crappy night service for all possible combinations of trips between:
6M SC+NC (the middle) and the 6M people of Atlanta
2M people of SC and the 6M people of Washington-Baltimore.
All of them ideal examples of the kind of pearls-on-a-string demand all long the route.

It isn't just that that's 18M people (about equal to 1 NY metro) but that there are so many many more convenient O&D pairs created among the 18M and they get created at nice 300 ~ 500 mile distances where train is really competitive.

[Arlington]

Empire Builder is another one where there might still be an overnight spine, but it might only run SPK-MSP, and might not involve a meet in SPK, and might only be 3x/wk

MSP-SPK is a fine "see the Rockies" land cruise, maybe 3x/wk. Do a deal with the airlines to get people to/from MSP & SPK. Southwest Airlines serves both cities, keeping flights abundant and reasonable. Cunard & QE2. Cruises & Southwest. Or maybe run cycle of full and partial trips CHI-SPK-CHI, CHI-MSP-SPK-SEA, SEA-MSP-SEA, SEA-SPK-MSP-CHI and pair it with corridor service:

CHI-MSP-Fargo is 662 miles. Run it as a daily corridor.

First, Fargo ND, with a population of 240k, is basically 1/3 the population of all North Dakota. Today the Empire builder serves it at 3:24am westbound and 2:18am eastbound. Bad politics.

Instead, depart CHI Westbound no later than 10am, stop as soon as you get to North Dakota (11pm), turn around overnight, and run back the next morning at 7am. These are not only radically better times for Fargo itself, but means you serve MSP at 6pm and Noon and create Fargo-MSP trips. 1/3 of ND will love you.

Feeling like you'd like the love of 40% of ND? (340k out of 755k) Extend one stop more to Grand Forks. Depart for CHI at 5:40am and return by Midnight.

PDX-SPK-Whitefish MT is 600 miles & 13h. Run it as a daily corridor

Libby MT + Whitefish MT = 120k, or about 12% of the population of Montana. Not great, but you can still say that Idaho and Montana keeps daily trains. Might even add an infill station closer to Coeur d'Alene.

Depending on how much $ are saved with a much smaller Rockies Cruise, you might fund additional infill corridor trains, at least on MSP-CHI and SPK-(Coast).

[electricron]

Empire Builder is another one where there might still be an overnight spine, but it might only run SPK-MSP, and might not involve a meet in SPK, and might only be 3x/wk

MSP-SPK is a fine "see the Rockies" land cruise, maybe 3x/wk. Do a deal with the airlines to get people to/from MSP & SPK. Southwest Airlines serves both cities, keeping flights abundant and reasonable. Cunard & QE2. Cruises & Southwest. Or maybe run cycle of full and partial trips CHI-SPK-CHI, CHI-MSP-SPK-SEA, SEA-MSP-SEA, SEA-SPK-MSP-CHI and pair it with corridor service:

CHI-MSP-Fargo is 662 miles. Run it as a daily corridor.

First, Fargo ND, with a population of 240k, is basically 1/3 the population of all North Dakota. Today the Empire builder serves it at 3:24am westbound and 2:18am eastbound. Bad politics.

Instead, depart CHI Westbound no later than 10am, stop as soon as you get to North Dakota (11pm), turn around overnight, and run back the next morning at 7am. These are not only radically better times for Fargo itself, but means you serve MSP at 6pm and Noon and create Fargo-MSP trips. 1/3 of ND will love you.

Feeling like you'd like the love of 40% of ND? (340k out of 755k) Extend one stop more to Grand Forks. Depart for CHI at 5:40am and return by Midnight.

PDX-SPK-Whitefish MT is 600 miles & 13h. Run it as a daily corridor

Libby MT + Whitefish MT = 120k, or about 12% of the population of Montana. Not great, but you can still say that Idaho and Montana keeps daily trains. Might even add an infill station closer to Coeur d'Alene.

Depending on how much $ are saved with a much smaller Rockies Cruise, you might fund additional infill corridor trains, at least on MSP-CHI and SPK-(Coast).

If you are going to turn trains in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, or eastern Washington - Amtrak is going to need sidings and maintenance facilities to get the trains off the main lines. Preferrably, they will be located where Amtrak switches the crews and already have road crews.
But Amtrak will have to spend more expanding the maintenance staff these new "day" trains require. Check out Amtrak's facilities in Fort Worth to turn the Heartland Flyer or in Saint Louis to turn the River Runner. These are excellent examples of what Amtrak would need as a minimum at one of the turnaround locations for each day train created. Amtrak's crew turnover locales are not always in large cities, sometimes they are in just large towns. Will Amtrak be able to find enough qualified maintenance staff at some of these locales?

If you are only going to run one "day" train a day, why not continue to use the long distance train?
I'm sure any 18 to 30 hour duration train trip is going to have to visit some stations in the middle of the night somewhere.

I've suggested this before, and I'm going to suggest it again. Amtrak needs to look at interconnecting the most populus states, California, New York, Illinois, Texas, and Florida; you know the states that have more than 20 votes in the electoral college. Or if you wish, states with double digits in the electoral college, there are only 21 of them, 8 of those barely in double digits with 10 or 11 votes.
California 55
Texas 38
New York 29
Florida 29
Illinois 20
Pennsylvania 20
Ohio 18
The last two should be included with any New York to Illinois, or New York to Florida train.
This could be done with just four long distance trains:
1) New York to Florida
2) Florida to Texas to Southern California
3) New York to Illinois to Northern California
4) Illinois to Texas
And one route that could be considered a corridor, Northern to Southern California.
I leave it to you to pick the four long distance train routes....

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I've suggested this before, and I'm going to suggest it again. Amtrak needs to look at interconnecting the most populus states, California, New York, Illinois, Texas, and Florida; you know the states that have more than 20 votes in the electoral college. Or if you wish, states with double digits in the electoral college, there are only 21 of them, 8 of those barely in double digits with 10 or 11 votes.
California 55
Texas 38
New York 29
Florida 29
Illinois 20
Pennsylvania 20
Ohio 18
The last two should be included with any New York to Illinois, or New York to Florida train.
This could be done with just four long distance trains:
1) New York to Florida
2) Florida to Texas to Southern California
3) New York to Illinois to Northern California
4) Illinois to Texas
And one route that could be considered a corridor, Northern to Southern California.
I leave it to you to pick the four long distance train routes....

I agree with the concept that Amtrak should be concentrated and emphasized on the states with the highest population and if Amtrak were controlled by the people voting or by the House of Representatives (you'd subtract two from each of those numbers), we'd be all set. But if you use the Senate numbers, those six states are dwarfed by the other 44. The six states are about 1/3 of the US's population but they're only 12% of the Senate. Guess whos' going to call the shots, especially if one of the other guys winds up in charge like Byrd and the Broadway Limited gets pushed aside to save Byrd Crap.

[Arlington]

I am assuming that since this is a negotiation about $B of fleet replacement procurement spending, that part of the deal maybe asking States like Idaho and North Dakota: for the same money would you rather have a siding built and get corridor service?

[electricron]

I agree with the concept that Amtrak should be concentrated and emphasized on the states with the highest population and if Amtrak were controlled by the people voting or by the House of Representatives (you'd subtract two from each of those numbers), we'd be all set. But if you use the Senate numbers, those six states are dwarfed by the other 44. The six states are about 1/3 of the US's population but they're only 12% of the Senate. Guess whos' going to call the shots, especially if one of the other guys winds up in charge like Byrd and the Broadway Limited gets pushed aside to save Byrd Crap.

As I included in my earlier response, states like Pennsylvania and Ohio would be included in either New York to Florida or New York to Illinois trains. Well, so would New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia; and Indiana; and Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada; and Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona; and Missouri and Arkansas. That would now bring the total of states serviced by long distance trains from 7 to 27, servicing more than half the states and more than half the Senate.
Yes, 27 states served with just four (4) long distance trains.

[SouthernRailway]

^ Not really. Running the Crescent at night still means only crappy night service for all possible combinations of trips between:
6M SC+NC (the middle) and the 6M people of Atlanta
2M people of SC and the 6M people of Washington-Baltimore.
All of them ideal examples of the kind of pearls-on-a-string demand all long the route.

It isn't just that that's 18M people (about equal to 1 NY metro) but that there are so many many more convenient O&D pairs created among the 18M and they get created at nice 300 ~ 500 mile distances where train is really competitive.

Arlington:

Would you please confirm your purpose in this (and similar discussions) in which you reiterate your wish for Amtrak to get rid of the overnight Crescent and replace it with one or more day trains:

* Are you trying to convince members of this forum to support the proposed change?

* Or are you trying to convince Amtrak and/or other govermental entities to support the proposed change?

A while back, there was a thread with a poll included, and members of the forum were given the chance to vote on whether or not the Crescent should be replaced with a day train. Members voted against the change.

Amtrak has certainly given conflicting signals, but I'm not aware of any concrete official proposals to drop the Crescent.

Please also note that the while the Crescent route has had numerous trains on it, it has never been a day train-only route. Even when it had numerous trains, scheduled every few hours, nearly all of them had sleeping and dining cars. Further, when the Southern Railway operated a Washington-Atlanta day train and the Crescent (in the 1970s), it eliminated the coach-only day train and kept the Crescent.

Could you please confirm what information you have, that the Southern Railway and Amtrak lacked, that made their decisions to keep and enhance overnight service on the route the wrong decisions?

Further, last time when you mentioned your location and rail use, you didn't live near the Crescent route and had never taken the Crescent. Have things changed?

I'm sincerely looking for a basis that validates your continued criticism of overnight trains and makes your criticism more legitimate than decisions made by private railroads and Amtrak for over 100 years and the observations of others in this forum who are Crescent riders.