If 1 new Amtrak route was to be added, what should it be?

The best thing for Amtrak to do is to make their existing routes more attractive than driving. This means purchasing of ROWs, increasing the speed to 150MPH (or as much as possible given curvature of ROW).

I think creating a HSRC between Atlanta and Washington, DC would provide for the best organic growth of the rail system. If possible, it would be great to be able to establish rail stations at the airports of the cities along the way, such as Raleigh, Charlotte and Atlanta (as well as the downtown).

wigwagfan wrote:

delvyrails wrote: As much as I'd love to agree, I just can't when Portland, Oregon is often cited as the "sustainability capital" of North America and yet for every Sustainability conference that is held here (with a bunch of people who are all Sustainability minded) the vast majority of them fly into Portland despite the availability of Amtrak services from California and from Chicago (the Empire Builder). (But, the Red Line MAX will save you a rental car!) Clearly, even the die-hard environmentalists/peak Oil cheerleaders aren't supporting Amtrak.

As a Sierra Club member, I demand this post be censored. It's both false and disrespectful. I think moderators should hold themselves to higher standards than this kind of sarcasm without factual basis. Clearly, the poster knows not what he's talking about.

I, too, have to protest. The attribution to me of "delvyrails wrote: 'As much as I'd love to agree, I just can't when Portland...' " is false. Another person wrote that.

As a point of reference, the post(s) in question are on page 2 of this thread.

Regardless of the origin, I believe the comments about "sutainability" say a great deal about what is going to happen when the lofty expectations of two generations raised in an atmosphere of "socoal consciousness" and activism clash (head on and within a tunnel) which the defensive stance of those on both the public and private sectors who have to deal in realpolitik of a daily basis.

Many of us here posesss both a strong set of personal values, and a strong interest in statecraft. While our individual orientations cover the entire political spectrum, most of us are in agreement that the current structure, founded on short-sight and false economy, cannot continue; the debate between us is mostly about what sort of response will evolve, and that depends largely upon the shaping of opinion, as expressed by an electorate with clear, but limited choices, into policies formulated by professional politicians. Amtrak, with its convoluted, and somewhat cyclical history is, in this writer's opinion, a textbook example of the best and worst in American politics.

Like a lot of mature males in the current economy (and we shouldn't forget that the larger view in this forum is distorted by the fact that the membership is almost exclusively male and predominately of mature years) I'm not as gainfully employed as I would like to be. I spend a fair amount of time at employment sites where the membership is much younger, the balance between the sexes is even, and the opinions are much more strident. Issues like radical feminism and "animal rights", which would be consigned to the "circular file" by a lot of us here, are advocated fervently by a few.

The men and women who will occupy the White House and the Congress come January 20th are going to have to deal with economic pressures of a severity unknown since the 1930's, and the dreams and stidency of those who are too ideologically-oriented are going to have a harder time fitting in. Mr. Hallstead's observation of othwerwise well-intentioned environmental activists who violate their own preaching in the name of expediency gets straight to the point of this issue.

Within the economic brawl that's likely to get under way this winter, the simple efficiency of the flanged wheel on the steel rail ramians one of the most effective, and versatile means of adjustment, and it will make istelf felt, through the free associations of entrepreneurship, wherever economic necessity allows it to do so. But as previuously pointed out, the high cost and immovabilty of physical plant, and the focus of both the managerial and financial community on the short-term, also make public-sector oversight a "given".

In short, ideologically-oriented planning, as embodied in nationwide systems planned within the Beltway, and economic reaility, as demonstrated by $120/bbl petroleum are about to have a "cornfield meet". A 230=-year history of settling our differences by peaceful discourse is at stake. Let us proceed at restricted speed.

Any route that serves an airport. Make multimodal trips easy and our transportation system gets much more efficient. There's the problem of airlines wanting everyone to fly, Greyhound wanting everyone to go by bus, and us wanting everyone to go by train, but surely there's a way to encourage efficient combinations.

that they didnt use Amtrak may be true . turning That into they dont support amtrak is false , as clearly they do . do we as rail supporters have to only go to places its practical to go by train , or we don't support passenger trains ???

It reminds me of the earth day celebrations back in the eighties . One group wrote a very good book on the subject . however a portion of their membership demanded that it be printed on recycled paper or not at all . the result was the book didnt get published in time for earth day , and missed out on 1000's of sales , and more importantly the chance to get their message across . I use my diesel truck to install solar power/shw , often driving long distances .

clearly , amtrak has a role in a sustainable transport mix . at the moment , it is not to provide transcontential transportation to people with time commitments .

Let's get back to pdxstreetcar's original request, "What do you think would be the single best route that could be added to the Amtrak system?"

My criteria were (a) additions that add to Amtrak's repertory the biggest long-distance travel markets it doesn't now serve or which it badly serves, (b) in so doing, economically piece together and revise and reschedule current operations.

1. As stated, my best choice is Washington-Atlanta-Dallas-Abilene-El Paso-Tucson-LA "Trans-American". The requested four other contenders to strengthen Amtrak's system and its public appeal for the increasing numbers (whatever their reasons) of non-flyers and short-distance-only drivers:

2. A Las Vegas-Barstow complex. A three-train rendezvous and car swap around midnight-4am at at Barstow. Requires a Bakersfield-Barstow route extension (#711 and #718) and new Barstow-Las Vegas and LA-Barstow trains. If carefully scheduled, the complex will allow overnight service in several large markets anchored at San Diego-LA, Emeryville, Sacramento, and Las Vegas.

3. Midwest-Georgia-Florida. Daily southward extension of Cardinal from Cincinnati via NS connecting at Atlanta with the Crescent. Extend overnight via Macon and Valdosta to Jacksonville to link with the Silver trains. Will serve several large new markets and as a substitute (via the Atlanta connection) for Sunset East.

4. Extend the Crescent overnight from New Orleans to Houston daily. Extend further via San Antonio to link with the Trans-American at El Paso. Replaces tri-weekly Sunset schedule.

5. Include the next four* largest unserved metro areas usefully into the Amtrak system with a Pennsylvanian extension overnight from Pittsburgh to Columbus*, then via Dayton*, Cincinnati, Lousiville*, Nashville*, Memphis, and Little Rock for joining with the Texas Eagle to Dallas and beyond. There's a huge bus and auto travel market along this corridor.

Constructive comments welcome.

5. Include the next four* largest unserved metro areas usefully into the Amtrak system with a Pennsylvanian extension overnight from Pittsburgh to Columbus*, then via Dayton*, Cincinnati, Lousiville*, Nashville*, Memphis, and Little Rock for joining with the Texas Eagle to Dallas and beyond. There's a huge bus and auto travel market along this corridor.

Constructive comments welcome.[/quote]

Linking Louisville-Nashville/Memphis brings back the old L&N Pan American, that split in Bowling Green KY to serve Memphis via Clarksville, then on down to Mobile & New Orleans.
AFAIK most of the former L&N main from Louisville to Nashville & south is in fine shape. I don't know about connections from Cincinnati. The short line from Indy to Louisville needs to be rebuilt if they want to try a new Cardinal.

The state has a study linking Nashville-Memphis. With some help, perhaps a train could connect with Little Rock. Most of the study relates to connections with the CONO.

I think there would be a good value in a mid continent route that avoids both Chicago or New Orleans as a way to get east/west. Service connecting Nashville-Chattanooga-Atlanta would help. Just need some $$ to make CSX happy.

Don't know how the revenue would work out, but my vote would to bring back the Pioneer #25 & #26 at least from Portland to Salt Lake City.
In two weeks, I'll be taking the Coast Starlight south to Sacramento to ride the CA Zephyr to Chicago. I'd love the option to go through Boise and Ogden to SLC.

ne plus ultra wrote:

wigwagfan wrote:

delvyrails wrote: As much as I'd love to agree, I just can't when Portland, Oregon is often cited as the "sustainability capital" of North America and yet for every Sustainability conference that is held here (with a bunch of people who are all Sustainability minded) the vast majority of them fly into Portland despite the availability of Amtrak services from California and from Chicago (the Empire Builder). (But, the Red Line MAX will save you a rental car!) Clearly, even the die-hard environmentalists/peak Oil cheerleaders aren't supporting Amtrak.

As a Sierra Club member, I demand this post be censored. It's both false and disrespectful. I think moderators should hold themselves to higher standards than this kind of sarcasm without factual basis. Clearly, the poster knows not what he's talking about.

ne plus ultra, do you have any evidence of that?

However, the Coast Starlight and the Empire Builder are not exactly fast, and my experience of the CS is that it's not even very punctual. So I'm not surprised that many of the attendees preferred to fly in.

Failure to use MAX is another story, especially if one is traveling light.

As to which Amtrak routes I'd like to see, I think some short-distance or medium-distance routes where they would be most worthwhile -- in the east-to-midwest and scattered places west of that, like California, the Pacific Northwest, Phoenix - Tucson, and Fort Collins - Denver - Colorado Springs.

As to the freight RR's, I don't like the idea of imposing on them; they've become rather good at what they do, and I don't think that they've made asses out of themselves the way that some other companies have -- or they themselves a century or so ago.

Most of the possible new or improved routes that I quickly think of have been mentioned by others here, like a Texas route or a 3C's route in Ohio: Cleveland - Columbus - Cincinnati.

I think that we ought to bite the bullet and recognize that it will be necessary to finance improvements in track and signals, like laying extra track. But many of the RR's had removed some of their track to scrimp on track maintenance and reduce property taxes, so there's likely at least some room to add track without an undue amount of construction.

And I think that the states ought to do more. Some states have shown commendable initiative -- and sometimes very successful initiative -- and other states could learn from their examples. Doing more also includes cooperating better, instead of looking worse than European nations.

lpetrich wrote:

ne plus ultra wrote:

wigwagfan wrote: As much as I'd love to agree, I just can't when Portland, Oregon is often cited as the "sustainability capital" of North America and yet for every Sustainability conference that is held here (with a bunch of people who are all Sustainability minded) the vast majority of them fly into Portland despite the availability of Amtrak services from California and from Chicago (the Empire Builder). (But, the Red Line MAX will save you a rental car!) Clearly, even the die-hard environmentalists/peak Oil cheerleaders aren't supporting Amtrak.

As a Sierra Club member, I demand this post be censored. It's both false and disrespectful. I think moderators should hold themselves to higher standards than this kind of sarcasm without factual basis. Clearly, the poster knows not what he's talking about.

ne plus ultra, do you have any evidence of that?

Why yes. Thanks for asking. I love people who live in an evidence-based, fact-based world.

I have the evidence of the Illinois Sierra Club, which encourages people to take Amtrak or carpool to lobbying day in Springfield (which I've done), and whose lobbyist regularly uses Amtrak to get to Springfield and back. There's also the fact that the Sierra magazine encourages train-riding in place of airline travel frequently.

Some posters find it more fun to pretend that such-and-such class of people must be hypocritical rather than consulting the evidence. I feel the need to call them out when they do so.

ne plus ultra wrote:

lpetrich wrote:

ne plus ultra wrote: As a Sierra Club member, I demand this post be censored. It's both false and disrespectful. I think moderators should hold themselves to higher standards than this kind of sarcasm without factual basis. Clearly, the poster knows not what he's talking about.

ne plus ultra, do you have any evidence of that?

Why yes. Thanks for asking. I love people who live in an evidence-based, fact-based world.

I have the evidence of the Illinois Sierra Club, which encourages people to take Amtrak or carpool to lobbying day in Springfield (which I've done), and whose lobbyist regularly uses Amtrak to get to Springfield and back. There's also the fact that the Sierra magazine encourages train-riding in place of airline travel frequently.

Some posters find it more fun to pretend that such-and-such class of people must be hypocritical rather than consulting the evidence. I feel the need to call them out when they do so.

I suspect Mr. lpetrick was inquiring about evidence that Sierra Club members took Amtrak to Portland. Besides, any organization can encourage people to take the train but whether they do so themselves is another matter.

To return to the original subject, I have to again point out that basing Amtrak expansions upon new routes, rather than expanding or lengthening existing services, or deliberately targeting areas not previously or recently served, plays directly into the hands of Amtrak's traditional opponents. Such a "strategy" naturally creates more opportunities for "pork and patronage" when compared to making better use of services and facilities alredy in place.

As an example, consider Amtraks biggest succes story -- California 403(b) servce.

The San Diegans were likely one of the most overlooked of the short-disance routes, but the rapid growth and increasing congestion of the area served made them a natural. Once the service had been successfully stabilized and promoted, expansion further north along the coast could be phased in with the facilities already in existence.

The San Joaquins were nearly lost due to a classic example of bureaucratic mismanagement based upon simple ignorance. The Bakersfield-based bus-feeder system had been instituted under Santa Fe operation well in advance of the inception of Amtrak, and was well-suited to the dispersed population of the "Southland", but was generally not well known outside the area. Despite a lifelong rail interest, I myself was not aware of it until I began to participate in this forum.

Finally, it should be recognized that the quantum shift in the energy economics of transportation has now been under way for several years. As there new realities become more apparent, both the economy and society as a whole begin to change in response -- in other words, people are going to concentrate where transportation alternatives are more readily available, and be less wiling to absorb the cost of a longer commute. Those trends inveigh further in the direction of both upgrading and extending existing services where population density is sufficient, rather than another "New Route to Nowhere".

MudLake wrote:

ne plus ultra wrote:

lpetrich wrote: ne plus ultra, do you have any evidence of that?

Why yes. Thanks for asking. I love people who live in an evidence-based, fact-based world.

I have the evidence of the Illinois Sierra Club, which encourages people to take Amtrak or carpool to lobbying day in Springfield (which I've done), and whose lobbyist regularly uses Amtrak to get to Springfield and back. There's also the fact that the Sierra magazine encourages train-riding in place of airline travel frequently.

Some posters find it more fun to pretend that such-and-such class of people must be hypocritical rather than consulting the evidence. I feel the need to call them out when they do so.

I suspect Mr. lpetrick was inquiring about evidence that Sierra Club members took Amtrak to Portland. Besides, any organization can encourage people to take the train but whether they do so themselves is another matter.

Why would I need to give evidence on Portland? The claim was that if environmentalists don't take the 4 day round-trip train ride from Chgo for their trip to a conference in Portland, they're hypocrites. That claim is ludicrous on its face. You don't have to endure a 4-day roundtrip on a train to cut your carbon consumption. But just to press home the point, I did give you several stories of environmentalists who TAKE trains, partly spurred by the urging of the environmental organization they're members of. I proved that environmentalists aren't hypocrites, because we do in fact take the train. I said that I had done it myself for the Sierra Club lobby day, that the lobbyist himself takes the train all the time. I could have added that when I took it, most of the people traveling from Chicago to the event were also on the train.

Is this really an argument you want to have here? Is there really a special need to defend environmentalists from an outrageous claim. Here's the thing. People need evidence when they make an outrageous claim of hypocrisy. The standard is not that an insulting claim of hypocrisy can be allowed to stand till someone pounds the last nail into the coffin as I've done. No evidence was given for the insult, so it should have been taken down by a moderator immediately. Let's keep this forum on track and get it away from the weirdo anti-environmentalist stuff that is allowed to pass.

2nd trick op wrote:To return to the original subject, I have to again point out that basing Amtrak expansions upon new routes, rather than expanding or lengthening existing services, or deliberately targeting areas not previously or recently served, plays directly into the hands of Amtrak's traditional opponents. Such a "strategy" naturally creates more opportunities for "pork and patronage" when compared to making better use of services and facilities alredy in place.

As an example, consider Amtraks biggest succes story -- California 403(b) servce.

The San Diegans were likely one of the most overlooked of the short-distance routes, but the rapid growth and increasing congestion of the area served made them a natural. Once the service had been successfully stabilized and promoted, expansion further north along the coast could be phased in with the facilities already in place.

The San Joaquins were nearly lost due to a classic example of bureaucratic mismanagement based upon ignorance. The Bakersfield bus-feeder system had been instituted under Santa Fe operation well in advance of the inception of Amtrak, and was well-suited to the dispersed population of the "Southland", but was generally not well known outside the area. Despite a lifelong rail interest, I myself was not aware of it until I began to participate in this forum.

Finally, it should be recognized that the quantum shift in the energy economics of transportation has now been under way for several years. As there new realities become more apparent, both the economy and society as a whole begin to change in response -- in other words, people are going to concentrate where transportation alternatives are more readily available, and be less wiling to absorb the cost of a longer commute. Those trends inveigh further in the direction of both upgrading and extending existing services where population density is sufficient, rather than another "New Route to Nowhere".

Interesting and good points. The Illinois trains, which could raise a challenge to your "biggest success stories", fit your model quite well.

Still, to press in a slightly different direction, others might say that the biggest success stories are the Downeaster and the Heartland Flyer, two short-distance trains whose routes were not on the Amtrak map a decade ago, that have seen spectacular ridership increases in the last year. I'm not convinced that today's map is the best map within the realm of probability, and so I think the premise of the question is fair, and that you're posing a different useful question -- something like 'what route could most benefit from one additional frequency?'

Illinois' experience suggests to me anyway, that part of the formula is having some anchor tenant, if you will -- state government on the Chgo Springfield corridor and the universities on the Chgo-Carbondale route provide the bulk of the new riders. On the other hand, the Quincy train, with no particular institution putting riders on the line, has also seen great improvement (still far and away the smallest of the local radiating routes, but growing nicely.)