Hoosier State Discussion (both Amtrak and Iowa Pacific)

[Tadman]

Which averages out to 23/day. That's about half the capacity of a intercity bus or 1/4 the capacity of a short-distance Horizon car.

[Suburban Station]

8,600 annual passenger boardings for a community with a population of 2,900.

welcome to america, where it's fine for the federal government to pay for train service to small towns but not large cities like cincy.

[Patrick Boylan]

That would be 23 per day if the train served Hinton, WV, 7 days a week. When I divide 8,600 / (3 * 52) I get 55 passengers per day

[Patrick Boylan]

And where do you get that short distance Horizon car capacity figure? 23 * 4 = 92. It's hard for me to imagine any 2 * 2 single level intercity railroad car that has 92 seats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_%28railcar%29 doesn't say
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amfleet says up to 84 seats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_%28r ... 9#Comet_II says 102-130, but I bet they all have 3*2 seating, I'm guessing the low number's probably cab car with wheelchairs and toilet.

[Tadman]

23 is 3 seats above 20, which is 1/4 of 80 seats.

I forgot the train doesn't run daily.

That said, if the new Virginia state trains are such a hit, why not run a WV state train. At this point, the argument in favor of the Cardinal seems to be "it's really useful for WV residents". I don't know enough to agree or disagree. But if you have enough traffic to fill 2/3 of a train car at Hinton on a 3x/week dog that has serious problems keeping schedule, imagine a WV-sponsored corridor train WAS-Charleston-Hinton with 1x/day and somewhat consistent service. There's no more timekeeping shenanigans on the west end to deal with, and there's daily service. There's also no sleepers to service or diner to support. Sounds like a far better idea to me.

[Station Aficionado]

That would be 23 per day if the train served Hinton, WV, 7 days a week. When I divide 8,600 / (3 * 52) I get 55 passengers per day

Well, assuming there are no service disruptions, there are 6 trains per week in Hinton (3 in each direction), or 312 for a year. I don't remember if the eb and wb Cardinal operates on the same days in Hinton, so I'll just go with a per train number of passengers (8600/312): 27.6. That's pretty good for such a small town, and with 3x/weekly service. But the ridership for the Cardinal for all of WV (that is all the WV stations except Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry [served by the CL]) was only 40,775 in FY11. That works out (40,775/312) to about 131 passengers per train. The numbers would certainly be much higher with daily service, and I agree with Tadman that the best way to get that would be a day train to NYP.

[Patrick Boylan]

so both Tadman and I have helped prove that the world has 3 types of people, those who can do math and those who can't.

[mtuandrew]

Frankly, I expect that the Hoosier State will go away for a season, Amtrak will coordinate behind the scenes with a few senators and reps, and all of a sudden the Cardinal will be daily. With the amount of work Virginia has put into improving the BB track, and Amtrak's continued need to access Beech Grove, that makes the most sense to me. Maybe a year of having only tri-weekly service will even convince Indiana to chip a few dollars into better Chicago to Indianapolis track.

[Gilbert B Norman]

From Marriott Key Center Cleveland--

You know in this world where any politician is high on opiates (you know, Opium=OPM=Other People's Money), Mr. Stephen's remark could be on target. State must by law, if anyone chooses to enforce it, now chip in, the state, Indiana, has only funded an intercity train once for six months over forty years ago, ergo, lets Federal fund the whoe thing, as Federal funds may only be allocated to existing Corridors and LD's. That The Cardinal is the "biggest loser" in the System who cares.

O tempora O mores.

(sorry bout spelling; this hotel's computer does not offer a spell chack)

[coalmine]

Trains 50 and 51 operate through Hinton on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday

#50 is due at 10:29 a.m., and # 51 at 6:03 p.m.

work safe

[jstolberg]

Amtrak and state officials plan meetings in the coming month on the estimated $4 million to $5 million a year it might cost the state to continue the service. ...

State Rep. Randy Truitt, R-West Lafayette, said community leaders needed to be ready to get involved after Amtrak and Indiana Department of Transportation officials meet.

http://www.pal-item.com/article/2012101 ... CFRONTPAGE

In other words, if the state doesn't agree to put up the money, perhaps Indianapolis, Crawfordsville, Lafayette, Rensselaer and Dyer could. This could become the first COMMUNITY-sponsored intercity passenger rail service.

[Station Aficionado]

Hmm. On the one hand, I'd hate to see a train tied the whims of a local government (see, e.g., Troy, MI), but on the other, a lot local governments might be more disposed to passenger rail than some state DOTs.

[afiggatt]

Amtrak and state officials plan meetings in the coming month on the estimated $4 million to $5 million a year it might cost the state to continue the service. ...

State Rep. Randy Truitt, R-West Lafayette, said community leaders needed to be ready to get involved after Amtrak and Indiana Department of Transportation officials meet.

http://www.pal-item.com/article/2012101 ... CFRONTPAGE

In other words, if the state doesn't agree to put up the money, perhaps Indianapolis, Crawfordsville, Lafayette, Rensselaer and Dyer could. This could become the first COMMUNITY-sponsored intercity passenger rail service.

Interesting that the local cities want to keep the train, even if it does get much not ridership. The challenge is that the Hoosier State loses the most money per passenger mile and seat mile of all the Amtrak trains. Any plans for the communities to provide the funding will take considerable flak for that.

Of course what the Cardinal/Hoosier service needs is better trip times between CHI and IND. It did get some help recently. There was a report several weeks ago in Railway Age about the completion of CREATE project B15 which modernized signals and switches at a yard and improved track speeds from 15 to 30 mph for the Cardinal and Hoosier State. Quote from the article: "With the improvements, Amtrak trains and freight trains operating on the IHB main line are expected to pass through in as little as six minutes. Trains used to experience 15 to 30 minutes of delay for every hand-operated switch they navigated as well as when waiting for other trains to navigate the project limits with manual switches." So there has been improvement on a small part of the long Cardinal route. A spot check of Amtrak status maps archives shows that the Hoosier State has been getting in early to CHI a number of times recently which might be due in part to the CREATE project completion.

There is this part in the newspaper article that I find odd: "Amtrak says states are responsible for fully funding routes shorter than 750 miles under a funding methodology established by Congress in 2008. But state officials in Indiana disagree." Umm, this was set in the 2008 PRIIA act and is not exactly news to the other states. Maybe IN DOT thinks IN doesn't have to provide a subsidy because the Hoosier State shares a timetable and route with a LD train?

[Station Aficionado]

There is this part in the newspaper article that I find odd: "Amtrak says states are responsible for fully funding routes shorter than 750 miles under a funding methodology established by Congress in 2008. But state officials in Indiana disagree." Umm, this was set in the 2008 PRIIA act and is not exactly news to the other states. Maybe IN DOT thinks IN doesn't have to provide a subsidy because the Hoosier State shares a timetable and route with a LD train?

I was struck by that, too. Hard to imagine that Indiana thinks that it gets the HS for free--lots of other corridors share track and timetables with LDs, and they're not getting a pass. I wonder if the reporter is simply referring to the fact that Indiana refused to sign on to the funding formula negotiated between Amtrak and the states. In any event, I don't see Indiana coughing up anything for the HS.

[Station Aficionado]

Of course what the Cardinal/Hoosier service needs is better trip times between CHI and IND. It did get some help recently. There was a report several weeks ago in Railway Age about the completion of CREATE project B15 which modernized signals and switches at a yard and improved track speeds from 15 to 30 mph for the Cardinal and Hoosier State. Quote from the article: "With the improvements, Amtrak trains and freight trains operating on the IHB main line are expected to pass through in as little as six minutes. Trains used to experience 15 to 30 minutes of delay for every hand-operated switch they navigated as well as when waiting for other trains to navigate the project limits with manual switches." So there has been improvement on a small part of the long Cardinal route. A spot check of Amtrak status maps archives shows that the Hoosier State has been getting in early to CHI a number of times recently which might be due in part to the CREATE project completion.

Good news certainly, but just a drop in the bucket compared to the remaining problems: no signals west of Indy to Crawfordsville, deteriorating track and antiquated signals north of Crawfordsville, the remaining bottlenecks in the Chicago terminal area, etc. I fear the patient will expire long before the treatment takes effect.