Federal, Night Owl, Twilight Shoreliner (Trains 65, 66, 67)

Long distance trains have to run overnight on some part of the route. This service has multiple departures to the south. It's not a big deal, then, that DC gets a train at an awful time, IMO.

Getting to Florida from New England is not THAT hard to do. A couple of years ago my wife and I caught the 6 AM bus from Portland to Boston, then 9:30 train 93 to get to NYP well before the 3:15 departure of 97 Silver Meteor. Getting home was a little more challenging, we took the Acela to enable us to get back home at a decent time. My only gripe is that Concord Coach has poor arrival times in Boston with respect to train departures - usually either 10 minutes before or after the departure of a particular train. 10 minutes is way too close to ensure a connection.

I posted this a while ago on another thread:

We have used Amtrak many times to get to Florida cruises and, except for Tampa, the schedules just don't work. Many of the most desirable cruises leave from Miami/Ft Lauderdale and you can't arrive early enough southbound or leave late enough northbound to avoid overnight expensive hotels at both ends.

So how about killing two birds with one stone? Extend the Palmetto south to Miami and combine it with a new "Night Owl" with sleeper to Boston. Something loosely like this:

THE NEW SILVER PALM

SOUTH-----------------------NORTH
9:30PM BOSTON ---------- 8:00AM (66/67 schedule)
2:15AM NYC---------------- 2:40AM
7:00AM WASH ------------- 9:00PM
7:00PM Savannah --------- 8:30AM
9:30PM Jacksonville ------ 5:00AM (Semi 12 hour mirror of existing Meteor)
1:00AM Orlando ----------- 1:30AM
6:00AM West Palm Beach 10:00PM
7:00AM Ft Lauderdale ---- 9:00PM
8:00AM Miami ------------- 8:20PM

That creates a complimentary schedule about 12 hours between the existing Silver Meteor Schedule. Just some fun food for thought.

I have nothing against the scheduling, just wanted to point out one obstacle to overcome, Amtrak's lack of train sets to support it.
The Palmetto today, NYC to Savanah requires two (2) train sets . Lengthening it to either Florida or Boston requires four (4) train sets. Running it all the way from Boston to Florida will probably require six (6) train sets. So where are you going to find the other four (4) train sets?

Why not just attach coach(s) & sleeper(s) to 65 - 67 and drop add them at WASH to Palmetto ? Of course northbound Palmetto schedule would need to become more reliable. Would imagine the biggest problem is often night owl sold out and can more cars be added ? How would BOS handle a train more than 9 cars in the winter ?

In terms of the schedule, as I mentioned before I can't imagine a train stopping by Orlando during the graveyard shift.

To solve the train set issue, you would be saving the Night Owl sets. A 30 hour schedule would be at most 4 sets (2 north and 2 south). Even if you go BOS-MIA that's 36 hours and still just two sets (you should be able to turn the trains at both endpoints in 12 hours). So use the Palmetto and Night Owl sets and you're there.

east point wrote:Why not just attach coach(s) & sleeper(s) to 65 - 67 and drop add them at WASH to Palmetto ? Of course northbound Palmetto schedule would need to become more reliable. Would imagine the biggest problem is often night owl sold out and can more cars be added ? How would BOS handle a train more than 9 cars in the winter ?

From an operations standpoint this probably makes the most sense. The corridor trains would not make a good mix with a long distance train and that is the present operation at least south of Richmond. An extra coach and a sleeper could be added to 66 and 67 connecting with a New York - Florida train at Washington could provide two useful services - Boston - Washington sleeper and a through service between Boston and Florida. I don't think it makes a big difference what time such a operation arrives or departs Orlando, I think Orlando is a younger people's choice for Florida and those folks tend to fly anyway. The big markets are Tampa and Miami with some intermediate stops doing quite good as well. Problem is equipment, enough of it, and I don't have a clue as to their plans for new sleepers which will arrive someday. Problem in Florida is still the attitude of our state government which is mostly not pro rail. I don't know if money will come forth for any additional operation south of Savannah or not.
I have been reading old stuff regarding the passenger trains of a few years back when Florida had multiple trains on two completely different routes of 18 plus cars with all kinds of services. I rode a few of those luxury liners of bygone days, too bad there return is very unlikely at least on any sort of a regular basis. Seaboard, Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Coast Line ran service that Amtrak will never ever come close to matching. Some of the existing stations today still have platforms long enough to hold these monster passenger trains. Back in the railroad days most NY-Florida trains carried two dining cars with fantastic food, today one train does not even have a full service dining car any more.
Noel Weaver

If the Palmetto turned LD as the Silver Palm again, the states would be off the hook totally for support. Guessing Amtrak likes the current arrangement in re: bottom line.

Anyone here willing to support a sleeper line BOS-MIA, over any potential routing (including FEC JAX-MIA), departing BOS around 7:30p and arriving around 5:30a? It'd make a very good NEC sleeper, better than the Twilight Shoreliner for north-of-NYP southbound and south-of-NYP northbound.

I thought the Palmetto is LD/fully federally supported now.

It is. The driving distance New York City to Savanah is 800 miles, so the rail distance should easily be more than the 750 mile limit for Amtrak to consider it as a long distance train.

Ironically, a graveyard shift leaving of Orlando would work very well for us for our upcoming trip.

And I was going to say, "that's a unique situation" but then it just dawned on me, the House of the Mouse.

There are plenty of folks who wouldn't mind getting in one last day at Disney and rather than renting a hotel room for one more night and flying out the next day or waiting for a mid-day train, I can see a setup with Disney hotels, much like the airline setup where you check out in the morning, tag your bags for out of Orlando, and go to the park all day.

Then when the parks close, Disney provides a shuttle, takes you over to the station and you board, go to sleep with dreams of Mickey and Donald in your head.

For years I've advocated a Disney/Amtrak partnership because I think done right, starting the "Disney experience" while in NYP or WAS would have some value.

And when Disney steals my idea, I want some free tickets:-)

Most hotels in the world use a 12 noon as the time when they add an extra day/night to your stay. To save money, you check in after noon and check out before noon. So the ideal time for an Amtrak train to visit Orlando is noon.

I'm not sure if you missed my point or not. The point is you still check out before Noon, but can now add another day at a park, knowing your baggage is on its way to the station and you can meet it there later that night.

So effectively you get a whole 'nother day in in the Mouse House w/o paying more for a hotel.

I think that would work well, Mr. Moore. I'm picturing an extended Palmetto northbound from MIA (7p), ORL (1a), SAV (8:20a), NYP (11:45p), and (if CSX allowed) BOS around 6a via the Inland Route. With the number of electrons we've wasted on an NEC sleeper, it seems like a sleeper line ahead of the Twilight Shoreliner would be useful - and it could be a combined train with an extended Palmetto.

All of this depends on CSX playing nice, which, good luck.

An anecdotal update: I was scheduled to leave Washington this evening on the 5:05 to Bridgeport. I need to stay late at work, and was distressed to find upon calling Amtrak that no trains past Penn Station are available after the 5:05! Now I'm taking the 7:10 to Penn and will have to trek across Midtown to catch Metro-North back to Connecticut. I doubt I'm the only DC worker going home for Easter that would have liked a later departure. I really think there could be demand for this train.