Amtrak Southwest Chief Discussion

Any move to the transconn,that plan has sailed away years ago, Now the transconn is close to max capy at this time of year.
BNSF tie gang spent last summer on the Raton sub,the last blades may have become color light signals.
A new choke point at Needles doesn't help.
Is this "new" wheel profile too narrow, creating part of the shunt problem?
GBN, the demand is always there for the SW Chief.

"Robust" to say the least Mr. Norman. Do you have any consists from your old records that would yield a comparison to Thanksgiving on the Super Chief or perhaps El Capitan?

Well, I’m stepping on a 2 hour late 4 in the morning here at Kansas City, so I’ll let you know if a car was switched on.

Does Amtrak even know what a timetable is anymore?

Two hours? Not anymore...

Mr. O'Keefe, your wish is thy command:

https://www.railroad.net/viewtopic.php? ... ef#p234198

Thank you Mr. Norman. Much obliged.

So would it be off the mark to say that in terms of capacity Amtrak is providing the same or very similar "amount" of inventory as the ATSF once did?

I chose my words carefully as it is perfectly clear to me that nothing about the Southwest Chief even begins to approach the service levels offerred on the Super Chief. I'm assuming the same probably is close to true for El Capitan as well.

Considering Trains 17 and 18 had diners AND lounges for each level of service, you bet Amtrak isn’t providing the level of service.

As to the quantity of service, for most of the run, Chicago to Barstow, there were two movements daily up to A day ... the SF Chief, and the Super Chief/El Capitan.

The service, as it exists today, should have BNSF withdraw the service mark of Chief.

John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:23 pmAs to the quantity of service, for most of the run, Chicago to Barstow, there were two movements daily up to A day ... the SF Chief, and the Super Chief/El Capitan.

Ok so they're running about half of what was once there. More than I thought but certainly less than what "once was".

With regards to the mark I recall reading previously in these forums of ATSF's withdrawal of permission for Amtrak to continue to use the "Super Chief" mark due to unacceptable levels of service.

I would note that Amtrak has possession of the Southwest Chief mark: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield ... g2v9gd.2.1 and I was unable to find a record for "Super Chief" (dead or live mark search). "Chief" also came up with no railroad use (current or former).

I believe that ATSF did have Super Chief registered as a protected mark somehow but my initial search did not find the registration.

I also recall reading that John Reed personally insisted that Amtrak stop using the name Super Chief.

gokeefe wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2019 2:16 am

John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:23 pmAs to the quantity of service, for most of the run, Chicago to Barstow, there were two movements daily up to A day ... the SF Chief, and the Super Chief/El Capitan.

Ok so they're running about half of what was once there. More than I thought but certainly less than what "once was".

This needs further amendment. Immediately before A-Day, ATSF ran three trains from Chicago to the West Coast: the Super Chief/El Cap (Chicago-LA), the San Francisco Chief (Chicago-SF), and 23-24 (the former Grand Canyon) (Chicago-LA). Also, these three shared tracks with a fourth frequency, the Texas Chief, from Chicago to Kansas City. West of KC, the Super Chief and 23-24 followed the traditional passenger route through Ottawa, Newton, Raton, and Albuquerque. The SF and Texas Chiefs ran via Topeka and Wichita (crossing the path of the other two at Newton). The SF Chief rejoined the main passenger route west of Belen. Notably, it carried a Chicago-LA sleeper that was swapped to 23-24 at Barstow. All in all, ATSF ran significantly more seats and bed than Amtrak does now. Note that for a summer or two in the early 70's, Amtrak ran a second section of the then-Southwest Ltd.

One summer, 1972.

Amtrak assigned it Santa Fe’s old numbers ... 19 and 20, the Chief.

It was, indeed, a clone of the Chief for TT.

it ran 3 HL coaches, a lounge, a diner, a slumber coach, and 2 sleepers.

I took this LA to Newton, RT.

Amtrak considering expanding this route to Colorado Springs!

https://gazette.com/news/state-receives ... 853e8.html

Just another study,oh-hum.
Pueblo is possible,C Springs forces a connecting service,and a fight with UP on Joint line access.
La Junta- Pueblo-Walsenburg-Trinidad is a doable loop with 1 point of UP to deal with(Walsenburg area)
the rest is BNSF.
the details are up thread.

Should be interesting to see how this goes. Seems to follow the approach taken with the Heartland Flyer. Connect service via a relatively short state sponsored corridor to the national network.

I would imagine this will initially be proposed as "once a day each way".

At this point, they should just reroute the Chief to Denver, bus bridge La Junta to ABQ, and day train LA to ABQ. It allows Amtrak to get out of their maintenance segment, provides better hours of connectivity ABQ to LA, gives Colorado a front range train and a connection to Denver is more useful to Kansas. I know Colorado looked at the option of rerouting the Chief to Denver, but the host RRs aren't keen. There would be some interesting network effects with possible connectivity to the CZ in this scenario too.