Busier Than Ever: Stations Above Pre-Amtrak Records

[gokeefe]

The thought that crosses my mind when I see all of these California stations is that Southern Pacific passenger service would have met a very different fate with those kinds of ridership figures.

Not saying they would have stayed out of Amtrak but they probably would have had a lot more at the end.

[ExCon90]

I think the SP (and also ATSF) had a long-haul mentality which led them to disregard shorter-haul traffic potential. The ATSF scheduled its LA-San Diego service primarily to connect to and from the East--to the extent of providing a reserved-seat coach on the San Diego trains that connected with the Super Chief and El Cap--but nothing suitable for a morning SD-LA and an evening LA-SD business trip. Back before WWII the SP had a morning train from Santa Barbara to LA and a corresponding evening return which they got rid of long before the major passenger train-offs began. Admittedly the population in that era was nothing compared to the postwar growth, but apart from San Francisco-Sacramento they didn't seem interested in anything shorter than SF-LA.

[mtuandrew]

The thought that crosses my mind when I see all of these California stations is that Southern Pacific passenger service would have met a very different fate with those kinds of ridership figures.

Not saying they would have stayed out of Amtrak but they probably would have had a lot more at the end.

Pacific Electric would have had a different fate as well, at least the system’s skeleton. (But that’s neither here nor there, since the worst obviously did happen.)

[Station Aficionado]

I think the SP (and also ATSF) had a long-haul mentality which led them to disregard shorter-haul traffic potential. The ATSF scheduled its LA-San Diego service primarily to connect to and from the East--to the extent of providing a reserved-seat coach on the San Diego trains that connected with the Super Chief and El Cap--but nothing suitable for a morning SD-LA and an evening LA-SD business trip. Back before WWII the SP had a morning train from Santa Barbara to LA and a corresponding evening return which they got rid of long before the major passenger train-offs began. Admittedly the population in that era was nothing compared to the postwar growth, but apart from San Francisco-Sacramento they didn't seem interested in anything shorter than SF-LA.

Yep. We’ve discussed before, but in the pre-Amtrak era, it was really only Al Perlman and the NYC that got the corridor concept.

[Ridgefielder]

I think the SP (and also ATSF) had a long-haul mentality which led them to disregard shorter-haul traffic potential. The ATSF scheduled its LA-San Diego service primarily to connect to and from the East--to the extent of providing a reserved-seat coach on the San Diego trains that connected with the Super Chief and El Cap--but nothing suitable for a morning SD-LA and an evening LA-SD business trip. Back before WWII the SP had a morning train from Santa Barbara to LA and a corresponding evening return which they got rid of long before the major passenger train-offs began. Admittedly the population in that era was nothing compared to the postwar growth, but apart from San Francisco-Sacramento they didn't seem interested in anything shorter than SF-LA.

Yep. We’ve discussed before, but in the pre-Amtrak era, it was really only Al Perlman and the NYC that got the corridor concept.

Re-California- in the 1940 census there were 6.9mm people in the state. In 2010 there were 37mm. The California of the 1940's and '50's might as well be a different country altogether. Tough to compare passenger loads.

Re-corridors- the New Haven also definitely "got it" on the NY-Boston route.

[mtuandrew]

How much of 1960s Empire Service was Al Perlman getting the concept, how much was a deal with Albany?

[Station Aficionado]

How much of 1960s Empire Service was Al Perlman getting the concept, how much was a deal with Albany?

Every thing I’ve read says that Perlman/NYC came up with the Empire Corridor concept as a way to, if not reach break even, at least make the passenger losses tolerable.

To bring this a bit more back on topic, I wonder if there is a database somewhere with pre-Amtrak station-by-station ridership?

[Tadman]

I think the SP (and also ATSF) had a long-haul mentality which led them to disregard shorter-haul traffic potential. ... they didn't seem interested in anything shorter than SF-LA.

Yep. We’ve discussed before, but in the pre-Amtrak era, it was really only Al Perlman and the NYC that got the corridor concept.

He was the best at it, but there were a few more corridor-oriented groups.

Illinois Central called it "mini-corridor" and it was Chicago to Champaign and Centralia. Most were trucated longer trains but it became the best of a bad situation and ferried students and locals downstate.

There were quite a few corridor trains to Saint Louis - Wabash, GM&O, and IC all had them.

Also, BN predecessors didn't skimp on the current Cascades route. There was something like three trains a day in pool service between NP UP and GN.

Finally, a favorite of mine - the Pere Marquette introduced the first post-war streamliner, the Pere Marquettes. There was something like 3-4/day between Grand Rapids and Detroit, and shortly after the GR-Chicago. The thing had "corridor" written all over it - the consist was obs/coach-coach-cafe-coach-obs/coach-baggage. Only the power and baggage were turned, the dual observations meant the train itself was left in the same direction.

Under later C&O the cars were sent to the C&O passenger pool and they used whatever was handy for the corridor trains, the derivative is the 371/72 that runs once a day.

[mtuandrew]

All above: such corridor mindset also excludes the pool trains, such as cross-honored tickets on GN, NP and Soo between St. Paul/Minneapolis and Duluth. Immediately pre-BN there were still 4 RTs/day to the Twin Ports, a fairly modest destination. (Granted, I-35 wasn’t complete yet.)

[Tadman]

That's an interesting operation and I can't wait to see it come back. I enjoy a Duluth visit every summer, and that boring drive on I35 is frustrating, although traffic is not that bad other than the near north side of MSP.

After A-day, there was 1 roundtrip per day and it's my understanding that it went north to Duluth in the morning and returned at night, which is puzzling. Usually the big city is the midday destination.

Also, for a while Amtrak leased steam gen-equipped SD9's from Missabe to be used only for trailing power on this corridor train. It was something like E8-SD9-coaches. Not sure why they needed that for a short train on flat land, especially when there were hundreds of spare E8's laying around at the time.