The big ax just fell. Long distance to 3x/week.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:30 pm

John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Sun Jun 21, 2020 2:59 pm Two words:
RPSA ‘70.

The Class I (and what few Class IIs that might have had Passenger service) railroads were relieved in STATUTE LAW of the requirement to organize, sell, and operate interstate passenger service.

Colonel, allow me to clarify the captioned quote.

What the Amtrak members did was to cede their FRANCHISE to market and operate intercity (defined within the Act) passenger trains. That they were operating passenger trains was pursuant to regulatory action.

I'm willing to bet that with the continuation of LD trains now almost fifty years after A-Day, C-Suites at OMA, FTW, JAX, and ATL have wondered "why did we ever...". The Act called for any road declining to join the NRPC to operate their intercity trains for five years, or May '76, before petitioning a regulatory agency to remove them. I'll further bet the "weaks" like "my" MILW and the RI would not have had to wait those five years and, lest we not forget, during '80, regulation of railroad rates and services were "finito".

Not even sure the roads would have waited for an order of Adios drumheads to be filled.

Then why did Southern's Crescent last until 1979, and Rio Grande's Zephyr until 1983?

Pensyfan19 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 20, 2020 8:40 pm How so? Did his private rail car cause switching delays at WUT?

April 19th, 2011. "Amtrak Joe" decides to visit Union Station unannounced in the afternoon. This shuts down the terminal... but not the tracks.

Brunswick Line train P875 and Penn line train 532 leaves without any passengers, as the terminal isn't opened until after it's departure time, and there wasn't any communications telling any trains to hold. 150-200 passengers are pissed.

Washington Post has a paywall'ed article about it, saying "it's not Biden's fault." But if flashes too quickly and then removes key parts and... wait, it's pulling the article. *puts on ebil programmr hatz*

Sometimes, politicians deserve our ire. But other times, they just get a bad rap. This time, in the case of Vice President Biden, it’s the latter.

The vice president is being blamed by some in the Twitterverse for causing as many as 250 MARC commuters to miss their evening trains home Tuesday night. The only problem? Biden wasn’t even in the District.

About 4:20 p.m., just as the commute was ramping up, officials at Union Station received a report that a VIP was preparing to board an Amtrak train. As is protocol in such situations, all other boarding was halted to allow said VIP, complete with police escort, to board the train. But instead of allowing delayed passengers to board once the VIP situation was cleared, two MARC trains left the station without them.

Several commuters at the station immediately blamed Biden...

...Why so quick to suspect the vice president? Because it’s happened before.

“It’s kind of an unstated fact that if there’s a VIP delay, it’s got to be Biden,” said Bill Ballantyne, a MARC regular.

Gotta love the Web Developer tools in each browser.

Content redacted as off topic.

Mr. Pennsy, here is material to further your knowkedge regarding the Southern Crescent. Lest we note, SRY petitioned the ICC for "out" during "78. Another point to consider is that such was only tri-weekly ATL-NOL during the Amtrak era.

https://clemsonwiki.com/wiki/Southern_Crescent

The D&RGW was adverse to having a Daily operation until it simply became too costly to stay out.

Also a further point; the "measurement" for the entry fee to Amtrak was CY '69 avoidable cost loss. Between that measuring period and A-Day, both D&RGW and SRY were successful with "self-help" in discontinuing trains. As a result. the benefit for signing up would have been diminished for both roads as the entry fee had been fixed.

Admin note: Web developer tools are best discussed on web developer forums.

In that case, sorry for the off-topic post about Biden.

What were the attempts during the "current administration" of a private corporation trying to run Amtrak? (I'm assuming this would not be the Iowa Pacific since that service transferred back to Amtrak a few months after Trump is inaugurated, if we are talking about Trump's administration.)

Aren’t private corporations free to run passenger rail service? Amtrak is not a monopoly.

The fact that none have taken up long distance service ought to tell you something.

Private corporations are free to run passenger trains, but where? You can't just call up a Class 1 or Amtrak and tell them that you've decided to run a new train on their tracks. There are quite a few hurdles to jump over.

1. Get a trackage rights agreement, which will not be as cheap as Amtrak's.
2. Figure out who will operate and crew the train.
3. Find equipment that passes inspection and meets FRA and ADA requirements.
4. Find/build a shop for maintenance or contract out
5. Find/build stations
6. Build a profitable business model

So it would be pretty easy to call up a shortline and ask them for a trackage rights agreement A-to-B, and they might even crew and maintain your trains. But how to find paying passengers enough to make a profit between Fort Wayne and Gary?

Alternatively you could find enough passengers between Philly and Washington, but I bet Amtrak offers a sky-high trackage rights rate because they don't want competition, and where to maintain your trains? I doubt they offer up Bear or Wilmington.

Thus Amtrak is a defacto monopoly. The government created it as such to help railroads out, not really to help passengers. If the move now is to help passengers by allowing competition, it would take a government-led effort to kill the monster that is Amtrak. There are plenty of privatisation efforts to learn from, the Brits have done well by many definitions, the Swedes and Germans have some really interesting niche offerings, and the South American have had bad results.

Off the cuff, I would start with the continental model for perhaps five years and then transition toward the British model. That means a federally-encouraged low-budget and/or niche offering (the playbook would start with "Do not be Iowa Pacific") first. It could be like Flix-Train (IE megabus for rails) in Germany or Snalltaget and Thello (no-frills sleeper from Berlin to Stockholm and Paris-Venice). Then after a few wins there, transition to franchising out the NEC with "partial competition". In other words, don't have two carriers offering only the same thing in a race-to-bottom, but perhaps one franchise is ALB-NYP-PHL and one is NYP-PHL-HBG. At all times a national oversight agency is prepared to ensure safety and service standards, and operate directed service should one carrier fail or fail to meet standards.

David Benton wrote: ↑Sun Jun 21, 2020 1:49 am Seems like there's a Trump version of the truth going on here. Or maybe short memories.
Obama / Biden started billions of $$ of rail spending, curtailed by lack of really shovel ready projects, then Republican success in the 2010 mid terms

Absolutely not. This was a complete and abject failure.

The state has been controlled by Mike Madigan since 1984. The city of Chicago has been controlled by the Democrat machine since 1931. Obama-Biden had two terms. The fact that between Madigan, Obama, Biden, Mayor Emmanuel (Obama's #1 buddy), Secretary of State Clinton's home town, and all the other allies there and they can't get HSR running on even much of a trial basis?

It was the easiest possible slam dunk and they tripped over their shoelaces at half court, got a nosebleed, and were carried off the court for a participation trophy. That is, after plenty of amfleet cars that were well-refurbished under TIGER grants got a cool little Illinois HSR logo. That's the lasting legacy, a 12" diameter sticker on some train cars.

Mr. Dunville, with regards to the ostensible CHI-STL HSR "boondoggle", whomever within your "Rogue's Gallery", the Union Pacific "got to" to have an additional route accessing the Chicago Gateway built for them at taxpayer expense, is the culprit in the debacle.

disclaimer: author holds long position UNP

Upstream, er, thread, the moderator Mr. Stephens asked us to get back on topic about the thrice-weekly service, and not public v. private trains, A-Day, and such. There are other, existing threads to discuss "whither Amtrak or Private". It's a good argument in the proper thread.

Further such posts in THIS thread will be deleted summarily. Thank you.

In that case, Amtrak is cutting frequency of the Silver Meteor and Silver Star as of July 6.

You appear to be on target with your immediate, Mr. Pennsy.

If the intent is to have a fixed consist, comprising Sleepers, "First Class Lounge", Snack Bar, and Coaches, for both 91-92 operating Tri-Weekly over ACL-Selma-SRY-Raleigh-SAL-Savannah-ACL-Auburndale-SAL and 97-98 operating the other four ACL-Auburndale-SAL, then I concur with your thoughts.

Or shorthand, either route same consist.

The one advantage to 3x per week is it will free up cars for the remaining runs. It takes 4 consists to protect daily Starlight service. It takes two consists for 3x week. The Starlight can add coaches and sleepers to improve social distance of passengers.

That’s just one example.

John_Perkowski wrote:The one advantage to 3x per week is it will free up cars for the remaining runs. It takes 4 consists to protect daily Starlight service. It takes two consists for 3x week. The Starlight can add coaches and sleepers to improve social distance of passengers.

That’s just one example.

That is true, but ta the same time, this is limiting available opportunities for travelers along the LD routes to catch these existing LD trains. If nearly half of Amtrak's LD trains are cut, that leaves passengers who would usually take those regularly scheduled trains stranded and would have to wait for a later date to catch a train.