Arlington wrote:Empire Builder is another one where there might still be an overnight spine, but it might only run SPK-MSP, and might not involve a meet in SPK, and might only be 3x/wk
MSP-SPK is a fine "see the Rockies" land cruise, maybe 3x/wk. Do a deal with the airlines to get people to/from MSP & SPK. Southwest Airlines serves both cities, keeping flights abundant and reasonable. Cunard & QE2. Cruises & Southwest. Or maybe run cycle of full and partial trips CHI-SPK-CHI, CHI-MSP-SPK-SEA, SEA-MSP-SEA, SEA-SPK-MSP-CHI and pair it with corridor service:
CHI-MSP-Fargo is 662 miles. Run it as a daily corridor.
First, Fargo ND, with a population of 240k, is basically 1/3 the population of all North Dakota. Today the Empire builder serves it at 3:24am westbound and 2:18am eastbound. Bad politics.
Instead, depart CHI Westbound no later than 10am, stop as soon as you get to North Dakota (11pm), turn around overnight, and run back the next morning at 7am. These are not only radically better times for Fargo itself, but means you serve MSP at 6pm and Noon and create Fargo-MSP trips. 1/3 of ND will love you.
Feeling like you'd like the love of 40% of ND? (340k out of 755k) Extend one stop more to Grand Forks. Depart for CHI at 5:40am and return by Midnight.
PDX-SPK-Whitefish MT is 600 miles & 13h. Run it as a daily corridor
Libby MT + Whitefish MT = 120k, or about 12% of the population of Montana. Not great, but you can still say that Idaho and Montana keeps daily trains. Might even add an infill station closer to Coeur d'Alene.
Depending on how much $ are saved with a much smaller Rockies Cruise, you might fund additional infill corridor trains, at least on MSP-CHI and SPK-(Coast).
If you are going to turn trains in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, or eastern Washington - Amtrak is going to need sidings and maintenance facilities to get the trains off the main lines. Preferrably, they will be located where Amtrak switches the crews and already have road crews.
But Amtrak will have to spend more expanding the maintenance staff these new "day" trains require. Check out Amtrak's facilities in Fort Worth to turn the Heartland Flyer or in Saint Louis to turn the River Runner. These are excellent examples of what Amtrak would need as a minimum at one of the turnaround locations for each day train created. Amtrak's crew turnover locales are not always in large cities, sometimes they are in just large towns. Will Amtrak be able to find enough qualified maintenance staff at some of these locales?
If you are only going to run one "day" train a day, why not continue to use the long distance train?
I'm sure any 18 to 30 hour duration train trip is going to have to visit some stations in the middle of the night somewhere.
I've suggested this before, and I'm going to suggest it again. Amtrak needs to look at interconnecting the most populus states, California, New York, Illinois, Texas, and Florida; you know the states that have more than 20 votes in the electoral college. Or if you wish, states with double digits in the electoral college, there are only 21 of them, 8 of those barely in double digits with 10 or 11 votes.
California 55
Texas 38
New York 29
Florida 29
Illinois 20
Pennsylvania 20
Ohio 18
The last two should be included with any New York to Illinois, or New York to Florida train.
This could be done with just four long distance trains:
1) New York to Florida
2) Florida to Texas to Southern California
3) New York to Illinois to Northern California
4) Illinois to Texas
And one route that could be considered a corridor, Northern to Southern California.
I leave it to you to pick the four long distance train routes....