All Things Empire Builder

Empire Builder ridership declined in 2015

The Empire Builder, which runs between Chicago and Seattle, suffered the biggest decline in ticket revenue this year for Amtrak. In the past year, ridership on the Empire Builder has declined nearly 3 percent, or roughly 12,000 riders, to 438,000 riders.

Experts say factors such as delays caused by trains serving the oil boom in North Dakota and cheaper gas have led to the drop.

Update on the possibility of a second train from Chicago to St Paul. They're moving forward with an environmental study.

Ramsey County officials have voted to provide up to $300,000 for the study of a second daily round-trip train between St. Paul and Chicago.

The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners voted 7-0 Tuesday to finalize a partnership with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and move forward with the first phase of a $600,000 environmental assessment. Wisconsin would fund the other half.

This just kills me. All the infrastructure is in place, and with the downturn in freight traffic, there's plenty of room for a second passenger train. Contact the powers that be, negotiate, and then run the damn thing. Forget the study.

$300K to study adding a 2nd train on existing tracks and infrastructure?
How about just add the bloody train.

Right--unfortunately, doing studies for adding to existing service just strengthens the precedent, making it more difficult to change anything at all without doing another study. I wish someone would "just do it" and fight off any NIMBYs who take it to court, if only to get a ruling that a study to expand existing service is not necessary. Spending $300K on a court action like that would really be value for money.

Greg Moore wrote:$300K to study adding a 2nd train on existing tracks and infrastructure?
How about just add the bloody train.

Read the article carefully. There are capital construction costs involved.

This is the same place that just spent millions of dollars renovating and reopening one of the finest passenger rail stations in the United States.

I think they have a great deal of credibility on this matter. They obviously weren't intending to run only "one a day each way" when they decided to renovate St. Paul Union Depot.

The real question in my mind is what are the construction costs involved? That to me points to something more significant than just "twice a day each way" on existing infrastructure.

So: there's a need to spend $600,000.00 on a study to decide if we should "construct"? This is ridiculous, but it's probably the law. I'm no expert there.
How about this, then, if we're going to spend money on construction? Run the train down the BNSF. It's two main track most of the way. Stop in Winona, Lacrosse, Savanna, and Naperville.

No, they're conducting the environmental review. That's generally a step that is taken after you've already decided to build.

No law that I'm aware of requiring market studies prior to a decision to build. But in general its a good idea to know what you're getting into before you commit major public funding.

Rockingham Racer: why switch to BNSF? I wouldn't mind having a Twin Cities Zephyr in the future, but for now I feel it's better to use the CP and its fixed Amtrak-ready infrastructure. After all, we're looking to amortize the station and crew base costs over two daily trains to reduce the costs.

Besides, there's some slight construction still needed at SPUD to support a second train (a third platform), and probably a few additional sidings on CP. It's nothing compared to what BNSF would ask for La Crosse - Aurora, and the on-line population is significantly smaller.

Studies are a mixed bag. They can be good policy, CYA, redundant, full of patronage for consultants, and interminable (see Danbury Branch Study, CtDOT). But these days even the most obvious proposal is going to get studied purely because it may reveal problems (unless you're NEC Future, where you pull out your ruler and draw lines on a map that doesn't have elevation contours).

Studies can also be manipulated. Concerning the aforementioned Danbury branch, a private Class III, Housatonic, is advocating an excursion service to the Berkshires. Suffice it to say that they did a survey that promised very optimistic passenger counts, if ONLY CtDOT would invest millions into upgrades to their rickety line.

The old joke: ask an accountant what 1 = 1 equals. The accountant will anser "What do you want it to equal?"

mtuandrew wrote:Rockingham Racer: why switch to BNSF? I wouldn't mind having a Twin Cities Zephyr in the future, but for now I feel it's better to use the CP and its fixed Amtrak-ready infrastructure. After all, we're looking to amortize the station and crew base costs over two daily trains to reduce the costs.

You're right of course. I wrote that in a fit of annoyance.

Rockingham Racer wrote:

mtuandrew wrote:Rockingham Racer: why switch to BNSF? I wouldn't mind having a Twin Cities Zephyr in the future, but for now I feel it's better to use the CP and its fixed Amtrak-ready infrastructure. After all, we're looking to amortize the station and crew base costs over two daily trains to reduce the costs.

You're right of course. I wrote that in a fit of annoyance.

Ahhh

Of course, we could make an end run around Wisconsin altogether if we use CP/ICE to Savanna and either BNSF or CP/ICE to Chicago... don't think I haven't been tempted to suggest it to MnDOT.

Balerion wrote:Empire Builder ridership declined in 2015

The Empire Builder, which runs between Chicago and Seattle, suffered the biggest decline in ticket revenue this year for Amtrak. In the past year, ridership on the Empire Builder has declined nearly 3 percent, or roughly 12,000 riders, to 438,000 riders.

Experts say factors such as delays caused by trains serving the oil boom in North Dakota and cheaper gas have led to the drop.

This is a little misleading. What are the measurement points - MSP to Chicago? Or the whole route? Reason being so far in Amtrak's FY 2016 operational report YTD, the Empire Builder Is up as much as 5% when looking at prior year and even budget. I have a feeling they are looking at ridership numbers from just MSP to Chicago for Jan to Dec 2015. The Empire Builder didn't start to rebound until March/April and even there I kinda question why the numbers wouldn't be higher because the Empire Builder was finally making MSP at descent hours (eastbound AND westbound. The westbound was never really too much of a problem. On many eastbound runs this year, the buses were called off. Granted it the Empire Builder still has a ways to go because it needs to recover 3+ years of disastrous results eastbound.

There's absolutely no reason why a second MSP - Chicago train shouldn't be operated. This was a highly lucrative market pre-Amtrak days. Eastbound (and potentially westbound as well), the height of the ridership is often this segment for the Empire Builder. Amtrak ran the Arrowhead - a second train - on this route at one time I think even up until the 1980s. Seems to me it ran as an overnight train and even a daylight train.

Instead of a study ask the freight RR's where potential passing track would need to be added. They would know the infrastructure. Use the study money to implement the train. I hate when they come up with "we have to do a study." Studies often get stonewalled until a grass roots supporter grabs a hold of it.

Most of the delays were between the twin cities and Spokane,and add in the detour that the WB builder had to run.
Then add all the late dept from Seattle due to late arrivals for equipment maintaince,cleaning,and restocking for
the EB run

A lot of those delays could be eliminated if there were enough equipment on hand to make up another train instead of waiting for the inbound equipment to turn for the outbound. But we all know that will situation won't ever obtain in a barebones operation such as what we have now. I'm not blaming Amtrak; it's the funding that's the problem.