Amtrak: Connects US // American Jobs Plan Infrastructure Legislation

Chicago-Twin Cities via Eau Claire. So a return of The 400. That I certainly didn't see coming.

Aren't Boston - Concord NH and Philadelphia - Reading too short for Amtrak? Both are <60 miles-- there are multiple NY-area commuter runs that are substantially longer.

My observation and thoughts: Overall, A-, which is pretty good for Amtrak. Why a minus instead of a plus? Some of the gaps, as others have noted.

-Some additional routes we knew about from recent news, such as Scranton, Reading, the "3C" Ohio routes
-A few routes which are "older news" such as the Ethan Allen extension,, the Quad Cities, the Mobile service, and yes, Long Island (Ronk) as part of the Penn Access deal with NYS, Vermonter extension (Montrealer)
-Newsflash: Vegas (a tad late), a Phoenix loop, Pueblo-Cheyenne, Detroit-Toronto, Green Bay, Nashville - Chatt - Atlanta - Macon - Savannah, Atlanta - Montgomery, College Station, Concord, Louisville, Asheville, Duluth, Baton Rouge

They missed or omitted some obvious, some not so obvious, ones:

-Not filling the Bakersfield - LA gap on the San Joaquin
-Why not connect the Pueblo route onto the SW Chief?
-Definitely, as noted upthread, the Montgomery - Mobile gap
-No mention of Sunset East Mobile - Jacksonville
-North Coast Hiawatha
-Why end in Baton Rouge? Would that just be a Crescent extension?

What do I like?

-Ronkonkama. With the 2nd track completed, and the 3rd track moving right along, yes. It might be easier to turn the train at Ronk than Jamaica, but what's the attraction of Ronk over Montauk?
-Detroit - Toronto
-Scranton and Reading
-One near and dear to me Savannah, mostly for the Atlanta - Savannah portion, but Nashville is great too

Ridgefielder wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:05 pm Chicago-Twin Cities via Eau Claire. So a return of The 400. That I certainly didn't see coming.

Aren't Boston - Concord NH and Philadelphia - Reading too short for Amtrak? Both are <60 miles-- there are multiple NY-area commuter runs that are substantially longer.

If they make them as through - run extensions, that might make sense. Although I tend to agree on Reading, that should be more SEPTA.

Also forgot to mention the "Inland Route". They show increased service Boston to Albany, which may be needed, but nothing on the "Inland".

I'll be very curious to read the real details behind all this. As you suggest, nothing on the Inland Route, when really I'd expect something. I think it does come down to what is enhanced vs. additional etc.

Some opinions on the various comments I see:

Montgomery to Mobile - Connecting two small and not growing metro areas through >150mi of nothing along a highway with little traffic and high average speeds, does not seem to be of particularly obvious value as a priority, and I imagine more frequencies on the existing Crescent route would make more sense if you were trying to grow ATL-NO traffic.

Louisville to Nashville - Does seem like a more conspicuous gap, but considering how extensive the build on the south side is (Atlanta-Chattanooga-Nashville), I wonder if it's more of not wanting to bite off too much/thinking that's too ambitious for 15 years.

Inland Route - I'll argue that if you have a more robust service schedule transfers are much less of an obstacle to ridership. It might involve a transfer for Springfield Line passengers, but I'll argue that new BOS-ALB service scheduled appropriately is going to develop ridership even so with the decent service already provided on the Springfield Line. (They may also be intending to extend Springfield Line trains to BOS as part of that "new service", it seems impossible to tell from this map?)

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While I won't claim to know too much about rail operational considerations, I wonder if some of the gaps getting attention reflect being likely to push round trip travel time beyond what a single crew could expect to complete in a shift (and thus, the economics of the service)?

Getting to Trinidad/La Junta instead of Pueblo adds 170/120mi (by car) for a round trip, for an example.

Meanwhile, Idaho and South Dakota have no service.

The building out of service in the Northeast should be the biggest priority and it looks like that is a big part of the plan. It is the easiest to build service where some levels of support infrastructure already exist.

John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:47 pm Meanwhile, Idaho and South Dakota have no service.

Um, Idawho has EB.

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:09 pm -Ronkonkama. With the 2nd track completed, and the 3rd track moving right along, yes. It might be easier to turn the train at Ronk than Jamaica, but what's the attraction of Ronk over Montauk?

Ronk is on the LIRR Main Line. Montauk is on the Montauk Branch. Heading east from Ronkonkoma you hit Riverhead, then Greenport on the north fork. East of Ronk is dark territory, single track. The connection between the Montauk and the Main Line is at Farmingdale, 20 miles to the west.

Going way back there was an East End connection, the Manorville Branch between Manorville and Eastport, but that was abandoned as long ago as 1949. So Ronkonkoma is about as far out East as you can and still have it make sense as an Amtrak run.

I wasn't clear on that; I do know the Main Line/Ronkonkama Branch, Scoot, etc. runs to Greenport on the North Fork, and there's no connection to the Montauk Branch. I actually did mean that they should use the Central branch to get over to the Babylon/Montauk branch. I think Montauk makes much more sense as an "LD" national network destination, albeit perhaps just during the summer. Ronk isn't bad, though, it is very central.

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 2:35 pm I wasn't clear on that; I do know the Main Line/Ronkonkama Branch, Scoot, etc. runs to Greenport on the North Fork, and there's no connection to the Montauk Branch. I actually did mean that they should use the Central branch to get over to the Babylon/Montauk branch. I think Montauk makes much more sense as an "LD" national network destination, albeit perhaps just during the summer. Ronk isn't bad, though, it is very central.

I think the "just during summer" is the key there as far as Long Distance service goes. In winter you're talking ~70 miles on single track for not a whole lot of passengers. The people who are out there in the winter tend to either retirees or people who also work out East. Summer is what brings the tourist traffic who might ride a train. But for year-round Ronkonkoma makes more sense, at least to me.

You know, had I given this more thought, this would have been an ideal lead-in to announcing new Am(phibious)Trak Service to Martha's Vinyard and Cape Code and to Boston via Ronkonkama.

<Dateline Ronkonkama>
Today Senators Chuck "I never found a Camera I didn't like" Schumer and Elizabeth "I coulda been a contender" Warren announced in joint news conference new high speed rail service between NYC and Boston via Long Island and Long Island Sound.

"Given that the citizens of Greenwich have more lawyers on speed dial than I have in my entire donation database, and the fact that so many folks were getting lost at the Mohegan Sun that they arrived to Boston broke, we've decided to entirely bypass the Nutmeg State. This new service will include new HSR from NYP to Ronkonkama at 212 mph. Once at Ronkonkama, the new Acela III trainsets (to be built in NYS Schumer shouted) will glide effortlessly onto high speed ferries that will traverse the sound in all weather, with a stop at Martha's Vineyard for our high roller political campaign donors to alight, before continuing to Woods Hole, MA. Once there, they will charge up the Cape Cod Canal before crossing under it via a new tunnel. From there they will glide into Boston's South Station," Senator Warren said.

"At these speeds, we expect to be able to host a number of double-header baseball games between the Red Sox and the Yankees, with each team getting a home field advantage on the same day. These trains will be separated into Working Class and Blue-blood Class with armored doors between the to sections to that the inevitably drunk fans can ride along with their teams between stadiums," Senator Schumer added.

Both Senators claimed this to be a no brainer.

Meanwhile Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut was unavailable for comment though his office did release a press statement indicating that their search for a Major League sports team of any sort continued.

You win the internet today!

^ Nice! Tis that time of the year.

Thanks.

BTW, did I mention the new updated Lake Shore Unlimited service?

In a press conference today, NYS Senator Kirsten "Don't call me Junior" Gillibrand announced new direct service between Buffalo and Toledo, bypassing Cleveland.

"We realized that the name Lake Shore Limited actually was a too true and we were limiting ourselves to just the land side of the lake shore. As a result, we will be employing the same high speed ferries that the new Ronkonkama HSR service uses to provide a faster, more scenic trip on the lake side of the Lake Erie Shore. Now we are truly unlimited to which side of the lake sure we use."

When asked about losing the stop in Cleveland she added: "We gain the advantage by bypassing Cleveland. After studying the market and passengers, we realized that no one actually ever wants to go to Cleveland, it's just a stop on a way to bigger and better places. However, we are exploring a connection to Cedar Point where, if engineering plans go well, the trainsets will be able to do a loop to loop in the latest roller coaster to be added there. We expect passengers to be thrilled by this new experience."

Ohio Representative Jim Jordan's office said he was not available for comment as he was out shopping for a suit jacket.

<late breaking news, this appears to be just one of several announcements the newly constituted Am(phibious)Trak corporation is announcing today. Later announcements are expected to include a new Phase 7C's paint scheme and a pending announcement of resumed service to Key West and possibly to the Bahamas.