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

[dgvrengineer]

It seems like an odd time to be cutting service. Patronage has been increasing on LD trains. In fact, LD trains have held up better than state supported or NEC trains. Service should have been cut when ridership dropped 90+% and be increasing now that things are picking up. My mistrust of the Amtrak board and senior leadership makes me think they are backhandedly trying to decimate ridership or they don't have enough equipment in a state of good repair to maintain the National Network and add enough cars to support increasing ridership.

[gokeefe]

They don't have enough money. ... Can't run something you can't afford even with the existing subsidies. It's a miracle we even have 3x. Let alone 7x in good times (no small miracle there either as we saw ... ).

I will buy conspiracy theories about "Sunset East" all day long. Amtrak clearly doesn't want to bother with that service. Congress apparently is fine with it. But the rest are untouchable ... They must run them.

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[David Benton]

Hopefully it will show that 3 times a week reduces patronage by more than 1/ 2 , although the Virus and remedies will obviously skew ridership anyway . Also that costs wont drop by 1/2 either.
Hopefully the upshot is that daily is shown to be less expensive overall than 3x weekly. Total expenses less total revenue .

[west point]

Tampa has more passengers from there to SE Florida than the Crescent has at Atlanta. Why not route the Meteor to Tampa as the Star does now ? That way that large contingent of passengers will not get reduced 4/7ths ?

[David Benton]

Are there any actual timetables out yet ? Passengers need to know which days are operating to plan effectively . Entering dates into the search feature would get pretty frustrating , particularly if trying to join up 2 or more l.d trips.

[Tadman]

I will buy conspiracy theories about "Sunset East" all day long. Amtrak clearly doesn't want to bother with that service. Congress apparently is fine with it. But the rest are untouchable ... They must run them.

I don't know if I would call it a conspiracy theory, it's accepted history. It was a lightly patronized, hyper-long, delay-prone, multi-host train that traversed some of the emptiest parts of the country. UP doesn't want it, CSX didn't want it, the riders barely wanted it... I mean short of a world plague, what other bad things can you add to the Sunset? It was a dog with fleas.

As for the others being untouchable, we saw the feds cut military bases all the time in the 1990's. Those are far more untouchable than a 3x train that has <1% of marketshare. We also saw with my map three pages back that you can touch most LD states with a regional train that actually carries people, ergo reducing pollution and managing traffic in a meaningful way. The minute we wake up to that, the long distance trains are toast.

[Matt Johnson]

We also saw with my map three pages back that you can touch most LD states with a regional train that actually carries people, ergo reducing pollution and managing traffic in a meaningful way. The minute we wake up to that, the long distance trains are toast.

Yeah, but can you do it within Amtrak's existing budget just by cutting LD trains? Are states going to come up with the money?

[Tadman]

It would certainly require some legislative changes to PRIIA. But if it's a win for the Freights, Amtrak, the general population, and politicians, why not got for it?

[gokeefe]

Because it won't be a win for the politicians. You can try and convince people all you want that they don't need a daily train to Chicago or [Insert major city here]. Unfortunately a lot of people feel that this is all they have left. And in some ways, especially with regards to public transportation, they're probably right.

You can't solve a political problem with good policy.

Amtrak's only real choice is to grow their way out of the deficit and in essence they have done exactly that (pre-COVID).

With regards to the Long Distance services the same rule applies. The only hope is ridership gains. Enhanced Thruway service (that is financially self supporting!) is the only long term means for improvement on the Long Distance network.

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[urr304]

Three days a week might be the new essential service level on many routes, think the 'accommodation' that most railroads had to run into the 1960s on some routes. It was the base service to satisfy the public service clause of the railroads' charters.

Amtrak was only to provide the essential or basic rail service other than the NEC. Anything else was to have state subsidies.

Sunset Ltd has been three days a week since 1970 [under SP then Amtrak], is its cars empty, half full, or sold out? I don't know, I am asking.

California Zephyr predecessors were less than daily too. Same with Coast Starlight and Empire Builder, Southwest Chief [earlier Southwest Ltd] was always daily.

Perhaps portions can be daily, such as how Cardinal route was until the last year.

[Gilbert B Norman]

In a column appearing in Today's Times, columnist Tom Friedman, while addressing unrelated matters, got in a "snipe" at the sorry state of Amtrak LD's and their virtual irrelevancy to transportation needs:

Fair Use:

It is not just that it takes about 22 hours on Amtrak to go from New York to Chicago, while it takes 4.5 hours to take the bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai, slightly farther apart. It’s not just that the pandemic has accelerated China’s transformation to a cashless, digital society.

To quote a one-time troll around here I had to deal with when I was "at the throttle" "Turn out the lights, the Party's over .

Zowie, wherever you may be nowadays, you were simply fifteen years too early.

Finally, let us not lose sight, The Times hardly has an anti-rail agenda. Just a guess, but betcha they put $1M into Amtrak's coffers with, albeit mostly, NEC travel.

[Tadman]

In a column appearing in Today's Times, columnist Tom Friedman, while addressing unrelated matters, got in a "snipe" at the sorry state of Amtrak LD's and their virtual irrelevancy to transportation needs:

Fair Use:

It is not just that China reportedly has fewer than 5,000 Covid-19 deaths and America has over 120,000 — and the virus started there. It is not just that it takes about 22 hours on Amtrak to go from New York to Chicago,

Spare me. There is no way China has only 5,000 covid deaths. The EU and US have roughly similar population sizes, infection rates, and mortality rates, a fact the former mainstream media loves to hide by reporting individual european countries in an attempt to make it look like we are incompetent butchers.

Because it won't be a win for the politicians. You can try and convince people all you want that they don't need a daily train to Chicago or [Insert major city here]. Unfortunately a lot of people feel that this is all they have left.

If Amtrak has <1% of the market for travelers to Chicago, how do all these voters have any idea where the trains go? Very few people in the midwest, west, or south know where any long distance trains go. This is called "projection" where we assume the folks in Toledo or Bismarck are just itching for a sleeper, full diner, and big dome to all points of the compass. They aren't. They don't even know such a thing exists. And they don't care because Southwest or United gets them anywhere in a few hours that their trucks or cars can't.

When I check in at hotels or rental car desks and mention I've just arrived on the train, the looks I get are stranger than if I just arrived in a Studebaker from outer space driven by John Lithgow.

[Pensyfan19]

If we're going to compare our severely underdeveloped infrastructure to China's expansive high speed railway system which was built from nothing over a period of over 10 years, China actually FULLY FUNDS THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE while 'Murica and its car culture would rather fund interstate highways and stadiums for teams which don't make the playoffs. There have been numerous attempts of rail proposals for the past few decades for high speed service similar to the rest of the world, (especially by the federal and state governments) but nearly all of them have either been denied or delayed into oblivion since most politicians (and NIMBYS) would not want their taxpayer dollars to by "wasted" by funding something which would boost the nation's economy.
In order for these LDs to eventually become high speed services, they would need a large amount of funding from the government, but most politicians are unwilling to give enough to build such a thing. Even though California is currently constructing theirs, it has been delayed for decades due to numerous funding battles which result in almost nothing getting done and the cost for the project (being paid for by taxpayer dollars) increasing.

About the Sunset Limited, if a New Orleans to Los Angeles service would have daily service rather than tri-weekly, then could it be possible for the service to have more riders since there are more opportunities for potential travelers to choose form along that route?

[gokeefe]

Friedman's number is off by an order of magnitude. He totally bungled the data. Even the official statistics from China admit about 80,000 deaths COVID-19 deaths until they "miraculously" plateaued flat.



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[gokeefe]

If Amtrak has <1% of the market for travelers to Chicago, how do all these voters have any idea where the trains go? Very few people in the midwest, west, or south know where any long distance trains go. This is called "projection" where we assume the folks in Toledo or Bismarck are just itching for a sleeper, full diner, and big dome to all points of the compass. They aren't. They don't even know such a thing exists. And they don't care because Southwest or United gets them anywhere in a few hours that their trucks or cars can't.

When I check in at hotels or rental car desks and mention I've just arrived on the train, the looks I get are stranger than if I just arrived in a Studebaker from outer space driven by John Lithgow.

Completely understandable point of view but that is not the audience I was addressing. The Chambers of Commerce and their local influence networks are the ones to whom end point connectivity probably feels most relevant. Significant to travel? Almost certainly not. Psychologically meaningful to those who know there's a train? Yes. Politically problematic for the Congressional delegations? Absolutely.

Regardless of whether we think these trains, could have died in '72, should have died in '74, ought to have died in '79, will die in 2020 or must die in 2021 it remains highly unlikely such will occur.

There just isn't a political consensus now or anytime in the future that is likely to emerge which will result in the termination (or even a permanent reduction) of those services. Absent a permanent reduction in travel by the public it's absolutely farcical thinking to believe these trains will not return to their previous service levels.

My point of view has nothing to do with whether or not it's sound policy. Tadman's map is more than a reasonable proposal. But it has no political support now nor in my judgment is it likely to in the future.

Given the political mandate to run the best way to grow ridership is to enhance the Thruway network.


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