# What train discontinued before Amtrak would you like to see brought back?



## railgeekteen (Apr 17, 2019)

on or before A-day.


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## Amtrakfflyer (Apr 17, 2019)

Not exactly what your asking but the Desert Wind and Pioneer. Both are/were just as viable as the Texas Eagle which was on the list to be discontinued with the Pioneer and DW. 

The Texas Eagle was saved by grass roots efforts the other two obviously weren’t. 

Both the DW and Pioneer were one night trains. I’m sure bringing them back they would be right in the middle of the pack as far as LDT’s cost and ridership numbers. It’s a shame we don’t have them today.


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## jis (Apr 17, 2019)

Interestingly none of Pioneer, Desert Wind or Texas Eagle were in the A-Day map. The trains that were there, that are no longer with us in the LD category are Broadway Ltd., National Ltd., Lone Star and Floridian, and the North Coast Hiawatha (sort of). It would be good to have all of them back, though hardest to get back would probably be the North Coast Hiawatha and the Pioneer, and easiest might be the Lone Star, or at least some train on its erstwhile route.


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## chakk (Apr 17, 2019)

railgeekteen said:


> on or before A-day.



The Peninsula 400 on the C&NW between Chicago and Ishpeming, Michigan


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## PaulM (Apr 17, 2019)

Anything between the Midwest and Florida


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Apr 17, 2019)

Key word is before Amtrak. These are trains that never had equivalent Amtrak service

Cincinnati Limited (Cincinnati-Columbus-Pittsburgh-Harrisburg-Philadelphia-New York)
Ohio State Limited (New York-Syracuse-Buffalo-Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati)
Dixie Flagler (Chicago-Nashville-Atlanta-Jacksonville-Miami) and/or
South Wind (Chicago-Indianapolis-Louisville-Nashville-Jacksonville-Orlando-Tampa-Miami) (Merge these to serve all the big cities)
Lark (San Francisco-San Jose-Santa Barbara-Los Angeles overnight)
Anything from Detroit to the East Coast


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## Steve4031 (Apr 17, 2019)

There were a lot of option from before Amtrak east of the Mississippi that would be viable if these routes were restored using the methods that Brightline is doin on the FEC. This includes rebuilding the tracks and stations and newer equipment. 

The population density is similar to Western Europe. Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta is one corridor that could flourish with proper infrastructure investment and progressive planning with freight railroads.


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## neroden (Apr 19, 2019)

Well, this is easy. Local bias speaks now. 

The Ithaca & Owego, later Cayuga & Susquehenna, later Delaware Lackawanna & Western, later Erie Lackawanna, route from Ithaca to Owego.

Plus, of course, the DL&W's route from Owego to Binghamton to Hoboken.

Alternatively, the Lehigh Valley route from Ithaca to Jersey City.
Alternatively, the Erie route, though it kind of sucked compared to the other two.
Alternatively, any combination of the above which runs Ithaca-Binghamton-New York.

The Ithaca-Cortland Lehigh Valley route.

Unfortunately, the Ithaca routes were all lost circa 1958; both the DL&W route to Owego and the Lehigh Valley routes in five directions.

----
There's a lot of viable missing routes like this in the Northeast. Famous ones include Scranton-NYC (last train ran in 1970, before Amtrak) and Allentown/Bethlehem-NYC.

Allentown/Bethlehem-Philadelphia and Reading-Philadelphia would fall in this category but were actually discontinued *after* Amtrak by SEPTA, in 1981.

FWIW, there's hope for Scranton.
https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21075277/plans-for-passenger-train-to-nyc-chug-forward


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## neroden (Apr 19, 2019)

Outside my local bailiwick, some more obvious ones are:
-- the Cincinnati-Columbus-Cleveland routes

-- train service to Madison Wisconsin

-- the entire Rock Island route Chicago-Moline/Rock Island-Iowa City-Des Moines-Omaha. If the Rock Island passenger service cuts had been postponed until after Amtrak, and Rock Island's bankruptcy had been wrapped into the Penn Central/New Haven/Erie Lackawanna/Lehigh Valley bankruptcies, I'm quite sure the California Zephyr would have followed this route (which would have been part of Conrail) instead of the silly route it follows through Iowa today. At least the track still exists, though it needs massive upgrades for passenger service.

-- the entire Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension from the Pacific Northwest through Spokane and Montana. The Miwaukee Road was one of the better routes from the Pacific Northwest to Chicago, and large portions were electrified, and it was _*profitable*_. This was killed by the idiot Milwaukee Road management looking at phony accounting (much like Amtrak's management is today) -- they were double-booking expenses on the Pacific Extension and accordingly underbooking them on the midwestern "granger" lines. Management thought the granger lines were profitable and the Pacific Extension was unprofitable, but _*they had it backwards*_. They dismantled the Pacific Extension, the only profitable part of the railroad, and promptly went bankrupt; the accounting disaster was discovered by the judge during the dissection of the bankruptcy. This was unfortunately ripped out entirely and the ROW would have to be re-acquired. They discontinued passenger service in 1961, and they really shouldn't have.

The North Coast Hiawatha route is arguably better for service east of Montana, though.


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## zephyr17 (Apr 19, 2019)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Key word is before Amtrak. These are trains that never had equivalent Amtrak service
> 
> Cincinnati Limited (Cincinnati-Columbus-Pittsburgh-Harrisburg-Philadelphia-New York)
> Ohio State Limited (New York-Syracuse-Buffalo-Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati)
> ...


Actually, you are wrong on two counts when you say "never":
The South Wind was part of the original Amtrak network, it was later renamed the Floridian and died in the 1979 Carter Cuts.
The equivalent to the Lark was the Spirit of California overnight train between Los Angeles and Sacramento via the Coast Line and Oakland (AKA the "Medflyer") with the standard Amtrak cross-bay bus connection to San Francisco. It was a 403(b) train subsidized by the State of California and ran from 1981 to 1983 when California cut its subsidy for it . Unless you want to nitpick that the Bay Area service was provided into Oakland rather than San Francisco. By that standard, there was never an equivalent to SP's Coast Daylight, which the Coast Starlight clearly has always been.


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## zephyr17 (Apr 19, 2019)

neroden said:


> Outside my local bailiwick, some more obvious ones are:
> -- the Cincinnati-Columbus-Cleveland routes
> 
> -- train service to Madison Wisconsin
> ...


Not really arguing that the CZ routing could be better, it manages to miss population centers, but I want to note that this route over the former Burlington is the California Zephyr's historical routing, having been a Burlington train.


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## neroden (Apr 19, 2019)

Yeah, it's just a coincidence of history that BN hadn't discontinued passenger service and Rock Island had in 1971. Otherwise Amtrak would have picked the better route. :-( Similar with the Milwaukee.

The ICC was doing a bad job in the 1950s-1960s with discontinuance orders. I suppose they were supposed to do it on some sort of financial basis which didn't really meet the needs of the US public. The unfortunate result is that the network before A-Day had lost some of the best passenger lines due to stupid accidents of history, while retaining some awful passenger lines.


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## zephyr17 (Apr 19, 2019)

neroden said:


> Yeah, it's just a coincidence of history that BN hadn't discontinued passenger service and Rock Island had in 1971. Otherwise Amtrak would have picked the better route. :-( Similar with the Milwaukee.
> 
> The ICC was doing a bad job in the 1950s-1960s with discontinuance orders. I suppose they were supposed to do it on some sort of financial basis which didn't really meet the needs of the US public. The unfortunate result is that the network before A-Day had lost some of the best passenger lines due to stupid accidents of history, while retaining some awful passenger lines.


I pretty much agree there, had it been available on A-Day that would have been a decision much like that to route the Empire Builder via Milwaukee on the Milwaukee Road rather than stay on historic route on the Burlington. Otherwise Milwaukee would have lost service.

Rock Island actually still ran some Amtrak qualifying (non-commute) passenger services on A-Day, though only as far as the Quad Cities, and it made sense for them join Amtrak to be rid of it. My understanding is they could not afford the initial buy in. Amtrak did not want their cars, so it would have been cash and the Rock Island didn't have it. As it was, they were stuck maintaining their passenger services like other non-joiners, Southern and D&RGW, although for very different reasons.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Apr 19, 2019)

zephyr17 said:


> Actually, you are wrong on two counts when you say "never":
> The South Wind was part of the original Amtrak network, it was later renamed the Floridian and died in the 1979 Carter Cuts.
> The equivalent to the Lark was the Spirit of California overnight train between Los Angeles and Sacramento via the Coast Line and Oakland (AKA the "Medflyer") with the standard Amtrak cross-bay bus connection to San Francisco. It was a 403(b) train subsidized by the State of California and ran from 1981 to 1983 when California cut its subsidy for it . Unless you want to nitpick that the Bay Area service was provided into Oakland rather than San Francisco. By that standard, there was never an equivalent to SP's Coast Daylight, which the Coast Starlight clearly has always been.



I agree on the South Wind, my point was to combine the Dixie Flagler and the South Wind. If we just had a "Dixie Flagler", the train would miss Orlando and Tampa. 

As for the Spirit of California, the train never served San Fran as did any Amtrak train to my knowledge. We have Thruway bus service to San Fran now, it's not the same as a train.


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## zephyr17 (Apr 19, 2019)

As one who grew up in California and lived there until age 35, I disagree. The short bus ride over the Bay Bridge makes little difference, and through service to the north or east is impossible directly serving San Francisco. So overnight service to the Eastbay with short connections to San Francisco would qualify as equivalent service to almost any Californian. I certainly considered it equivalent service to the Lark when I rode it, at least in terms of getting to and from San Francisco.

By the way, try calling San Francisco "San Fran" in San Francisco. It isn't as bad as calling it "Frisco" but almost.


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## Anthony V (Apr 19, 2019)

I think there should be a new Southern Belle (KCY-NOL) (discontinued 1969). This would serve a market that has been largely overlooked by Amtrak. It would bring service to Joplin, MO, a second train to Texarkana, AR-TX, and would cut right through the heart of Louisiana, serving Shreveport, Alexandria, and Baton Rouge. This route would supplement the proposed NOL-Baton Rouge corridor train.


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## Maglev (Apr 19, 2019)

I would like to see the return of _The Alouette, _from Boston to Montreal via Concord, NH.


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## west point (Apr 20, 2019)

Extended from WASH - Lynchburg - Roanoke - - Bristol - Knoxville - Chattanooga - 3 way split to Memphis / Birmingham / Atlanta


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## Metra Electric Rider (Apr 20, 2019)

I'm thinking two: I'd like to see a train to Clarksville and a Cannonball to the Junction (along with a return of four door Lincoln convertibles).


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## railiner (Apr 20, 2019)

neroden said:


> Yeah, it's just a coincidence of history that BN hadn't discontinued passenger service and Rock Island had in 1971. Otherwise Amtrak would have picked the better route. :-( Similar with the Milwaukee.
> 
> The ICC was doing a bad job in the 1950s-1960s with discontinuance orders. I suppose they were supposed to do it on some sort of financial basis which didn't really meet the needs of the US public. The unfortunate result is that the network before A-Day had lost some of the best passenger lines due to stupid accidents of history, while retaining some awful passenger lines.


The ICC certainly blew it, when they dragged out the Union Pacific's application process to acquire the Rock Island for so long, that The Rock degraded to the point where the UP finally lost interest (and later acquired the North Western). As a result, the Rock Island went bankrupt, and was subsequently liquidated, a few years later. 
Had the UP + CRI&P happened, I would agree...the Chicago-Denver train would most likely have used at least the Rock Island's route from Chicago to Omaha. And perhaps a combination UP/BN route from Omaha to Denver via Lincoln, Grand Island, North Platte, Julesburg, Sterling, Union, Brush, Fort Morgan or other possible variation's available at the time...more or less parallel to Interstates 80 and 76.


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## sttom (Apr 20, 2019)

Bringing back the Coast and Cascade Daylights would be good, along with the aforementioned Lark/Spirit of California.


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## Amtrakfflyer (Apr 20, 2019)

I agree on the CZ routing now that I think about it. I live in the Quad Cities (Moline, Rock Island, Davenport, Bettendorf) population 400,000, progressive, with lots of industry and burbs. We aren’t the typical Iowa farmland. The biggest area no one’s ever heard of as I say.

It’s a pain driving the 50 mins to Galesburg for the CZ, SWC or any Chicago train.

Taking the CZ for example the Quad Cities (Moline) would be the biggest stop (population wise) between Chi and Omaha save for Naperville and about the 10th biggest stop on the route out of 30 plus.

All the current stops in IL and IA for lack of better words are podunk towns, equally important but tiny in comparison. If the CZ was routed through Moline ridership would rise significantly and the cities that loose service like Galesburg would still be within a 50 min drive.

I’m biased since I live here maybe the same could be said routing the SL through Phoenix to connect Tucson. I’m sure other examples exist. These are the kind of changes we should be examining for the LD network get the trains through major population centers as much as possible or in Gardner speak go where the millennials live.
Not this corridor at the expense of the network garbage.


Specially CHI-Moline corridor trains:

Chi- Moline corridor studies have been on the books since I’ve lived here 10 plus years and it ain’t happened yet. Even with the feds paying for the bulk of it. Iowa is a strong no and IL is a hesitant maybe. End result no trains. More ammunition against Amtrak’s delusional corridor plans.


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## sttom (Apr 20, 2019)

neroden said:


> Yeah, it's just a coincidence of history that BN hadn't discontinued passenger service and Rock Island had in 1971. Otherwise Amtrak would have picked the better route. :-( Similar with the Milwaukee.
> 
> The ICC was doing a bad job in the 1950s-1960s with discontinuance orders. I suppose they were supposed to do it on some sort of financial basis which didn't really meet the needs of the US public. The unfortunate result is that the network before A-Day had lost some of the best passenger lines due to stupid accidents of history, while retaining some awful passenger lines.



Not to mention a bunch of SP routes were discontinued before Amtrak was created. The Capitol Corridor was the states answer to the Senator which was discontinued in the mid 60s. Or the Shasta Daylight which took away a day train from Northern California to Oregon. Also we lost trains between San Francisco and Monterrey. Lots of trains were lost before we even got Amtrak, not to mention Amtrak not having adequate resources to keep useful lines it did get going.


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## dlagrua (Apr 21, 2019)

The way we now have it, is that people going West or even to many Mid West cities must go through Chicago to change trains and get to their destination. The way it was back in the day you could take a direct train West to Kansas City, St Louis, Omaha or catch a train that does't go through Chicago.. You could also take a single train ride from Chicago to Miami. Those are routes that I'd like to see restored but the probability of that happening is very low. 
What I would really like to see is the return of the Broadway Ltd. I believe that its possible as the Northern line to Chicago that the CL and LSL take has heavy freight traffic and I can't see another train added there. In contrast the old Pennsylvania mainline through OH, and IN was put back in service by NS a few years back and probably has the space to accommodate a passenger train. This is still very unlikely as there is no political will to build the system. Its sadly just kept on perpetual life support.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Apr 21, 2019)

dlagrua said:


> What I would really like to see is the return of the Broadway Ltd. I believe that its possible as the Northern line to Chicago that the CL and LSL take has heavy freight traffic and I can't see another train added there. In contrast the old Pennsylvania mainline through OH, and IN was put back in service by NS a few years back and probably has the space to accommodate a passenger train. This is still very unlikely as there is no political will to build the system. Its sadly just kept on perpetual life support.



What areas are between CHI and PGH then on this Pennsylvania mainline?


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## Asher (Apr 21, 2019)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> I'm thinking two: I'd like to see a train to Clarksville and a Cannonball to the Junction (along with a return of four door Lincoln convertibles).



The last train to Clarksville led to a Cannonball in Vietnam. Jack Kennedys last ride was in a Lincoln convertible, 4 door.
Glad that train has left the station.


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## Asher (Apr 21, 2019)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> I'm thinking two: I'd like to see a train to Clarksville and a Cannonball to the Junction (along with a return of four door Lincoln convertibles).



The last train from Clarksville led to a Cannonball in Vietnam, that was shortly after Jack Kennedys last ride in a 4 door Lincoln convertible. Glad that train left the station.


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## Willbridge (Apr 21, 2019)

sttom said:


> Not to mention a bunch of SP routes were discontinued before Amtrak was created. The Capitol Corridor was the states answer to the Senator which was discontinued in the mid 60s. Or the Shasta Daylight which took away a day train from Northern California to Oregon. Also we lost trains between San Francisco and Monterrey. Lots of trains were lost before we even got Amtrak, not to mention Amtrak not having adequate resources to keep useful lines it did get going.



Although I have had professional and personal reasons for supporting the Amtrak Pioneer, my favorite pre-Amtrak train would have to be the Shasta Daylight. I first rode it in 1960 when the railroad was transitioning from their slogan "the friendly SP" to the evil SP, so it was still a great ride. Until the PRIIA was introduced to slowly strangle Amtrak, some Oregonians considered redeveloping it as a state-sponsored Talgo train PDX - SAC via the Chico line. Stops would have been added at Crescent Lake, OR and at California's choice to serve Mt. Shasta resorts. (The original Portland -- Oakland ran via the less-populated, but faster, west side of the Valley and was weak in the winter. X-country skiing was not a factor then.)

It's possible that Flix will be running a daylight SFO-PDX run by the end of the year, but modern bus riders want to stick to the interstate highways, so I'm expecting it to run via Medford. Greyhound ran a fast SFO-PDX run on the Shasta Daylight schedule via KFS until the train was taken off. Then their service via KFS began to fade till it vanished.


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## sttom (Apr 21, 2019)

Willbridge said:


> Although I have had professional and personal reasons for supporting the Amtrak Pioneer, my favorite pre-Amtrak train would have to be the Shasta Daylight. I first rode it in 1960 when the railroad was transitioning from their slogan "the friendly SP" to the evil SP, so it was still a great ride. Until the PRIIA was introduced to slowly strangle Amtrak, some Oregonians considered redeveloping it as a state-sponsored Talgo train PDX - SAC via the Chico line. Stops would have been added at Crescent Lake, OR and at California's choice to serve Mt. Shasta resorts. (The original Portland -- Oakland ran via the less-populated, but faster, west side of the Valley and was weak in the winter. X-country skiing was not a factor then.)
> 
> It's possible that Flix will be running a daylight SFO-PDX run by the end of the year, but modern bus riders want to stick to the interstate highways, so I'm expecting it to run via Medford. Greyhound ran a fast SFO-PDX run on the Shasta Daylight schedule via KFS until the train was taken off. Then their service via KFS began to fade till it vanished.



Also having a train run up the valley would be a big improvement or trains down to Monterrey Bay, better service east of Sacramento, trains to the North Bay and Inland Empire. California needs to be a lot more serious about expanding train service than it actually is.


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## Siegmund (Apr 22, 2019)

The biggest-bang-for-buck options have already been mentioned, Cincinnati-Columbus-Pittsburgh or Cleveland-NY.

Talked about but never run has been anything from the Northeast to Dallas/Ft Worth. I'm flexible whether you run it through Memphis or Jackson, along the Crescent Line or through Roanoke and Bristol. (I've mentioned in another post that I'd like to see the whole southern tier service reorganized around DFW as the hub rather than NOL: this new train from NYC to DRW; Sunset running via DFW and Atlanta then down to Florida; Texas Eagle as it is now; Lone Star/Texas Chief restored and extended from Houston to New Orleans.)

In the pie-in-the-sky-dreaming category, I would love to be able to ride through Tennessee Pass and Royal Gorge. But I'll be the first to admit that a Kansas City-Pueblo-SLC-OAK train would not draw enough riders to be viable.


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## chakk (Apr 23, 2019)

Siegmund said:


> In the pie-in-the-sky-dreaming category, I would love to be able to ride through Tennessee Pass and Royal Gorge. But I'll be the first to admit that a Kansas City-Pueblo-SLC-OAK train would not draw enough riders to be viable.




I do believe all of the track between Just west of Royal Gorge and just east of Dotsero is now out of service, with most of the signal masts torn out and track rusted badly with trees growing between the rails in many spots.


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## zephyr17 (Apr 23, 2019)

sttom said:


> Not to mention a bunch of SP routes were discontinued before Amtrak was created. The Capitol Corridor was the states answer to the Senator which was discontinued in the mid 60s. Or the Shasta Daylight which took away a day train from Northern California to Oregon. Also we lost trains between San Francisco and Monterrey. Lots of trains were lost before we even got Amtrak, not to mention Amtrak not having adequate resources to keep useful lines it did get going.


Agree on the Shasta Daylight. However, I would actually like a companion train to the Coast Starlight, not just an Oakland (Eastbay) - Portland train. A through Los Angeles-Seattle train that is roughly shifted 12 hours from the Coast Starlight schedule. It would provide reasonable calling times at Seattle, Sacramento, the Bay Area, and LA, and also serve Sacramento, which the Shasta Daylight did not, using the West Side line.


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## Mark Meyer (Apr 25, 2019)

neroden said:


> -- the entire Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension from the Pacific Northwest through Spokane and Montana. The Miwaukee Road was one of the better routes from the Pacific Northwest to Chicago, and large portions were electrified, and it was _*profitable*_. This was killed by the idiot Milwaukee Road management looking at phony accounting (much like Amtrak's management is today) -- they were double-booking expenses on the Pacific Extension and accordingly underbooking them on the midwestern "granger" lines. Management thought the granger lines were profitable and the Pacific Extension was unprofitable, but _*they had it backwards*_. They dismantled the Pacific Extension, the only profitable part of the railroad, and promptly went bankrupt; the accounting disaster was discovered by the judge during the dissection of the bankruptcy. This was unfortunately ripped out entirely and the ROW would have to be re-acquired. They discontinued passenger service in 1961, and they really shouldn't have.



Sorry, but you have fallen for propaganda created by revisionist historians. The Milwaukee went bankrupt (again) before the Pacific Extension was abandoned. But no matter. When it comes to accounting, figures lie and liars figure. You can believe the Pacific Extension made money, but then you have to explain the WHY of abandoning it, and the why that the Milwaukee then didn't install CTC, install trackside warning devices, lengthen sidings and myriad other things that GN, NP, and later BN were able to do. But even this doesn't matter....what these revisionist historians fail to mention is that the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension was simply the high-cost route which would have been even more evident had it survived longer to see the even heavier trains that were operated today. The operational inferiority of the Milwaukee Pacific Extension is detailed here: http://trainweb.org/milwaukeemyths/

And also, it is completely logical that the Milwaukee Road discontinued its "transcontinental" passenger service (west of Deer Lodge) in 1961. The Olympian Hiawatha had no Portland section or connection, nor a connection to Vancouver, BC, and was served just about everywhere better by NP trains. This is outlined starting on page 32 of this document: http://www.gngoat.org/GN-MILW-NP.pdf


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## neroden (Apr 28, 2019)

Sorry, but I did check the data, Mark, and you're wrong. The accounting was being misbooked and the Milwaukee Road made a bad business decision as a result. Period.

The operational inferiority to the other railroads is pretty much irrelevant; the fact is that the Pacific Extension was the more profitable part of the company and the granger lines were burning cash like there was no tomorrow. You can argue about why. The answer, IMO, having studied lots of railroad economics. is that clusters of small branch lines are bad for railroads due to diseconomies of scales, and granger lines are especially terrible business due to low-margin goods which are highly seasonal -- true for pretty much every railroad everywhere.

We know why management abandoned it. They were literally looking at phony accounting. This was actually stated outright in the bankruptcy hearings.

You have fallen, Mark, for what I call "diversionary tactics"; your supposed citations are essentially *irrelevant* to my point. No railroad was doing well during that period; the Milwaukee failed earlier than the others due to mismanagement, whereby they threw away their economies of scale and their network connectivity, and focused on the lines with the least economies of scale. The accounting was proven to be incorrect; they also ignored professional advice repeatedly.

The NP and GN weren't doing particuarly well either, but their response was to strip the granger branch lines (many of which are gone now), which was the correct response.

Milwaukee management may have been obsessed with merger mania or window-dressing to the point where they never bothered to really figure out how well their lines were doing -- there is evidence for many further counterproductive and idiotic moves by the Milwaukee management.

The relevance of this to Amtrak is obvious. Amtrak management, like Milwaukee management, doesn't seem to actually know how well any of its lines are doing. You cannot make sane business decisions that way.


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## neroden (Apr 28, 2019)

Mr. Ploss's book may be overoptimistic about the Milwaukee Road...

https://www.biblio.com/9780961378813

...but the stories of the bad corporate culture, and dishonest accounting leading to gross mismanagement, are all verified.

http://www.trainweb.org/milwaukee/article.html

"The ICC carefully auditted the Milwaukee's own books, which none of the auditors commisioned by the trustee had done, for the years 1976 through 78 and the findings were startling.* They found that for some reason the Milwaukee had been double entering expenses on "Lines West". *It has never been discovered who authorized this or who was doing it, but the ICC auditors found it and were able to derive accurate figures for profits on "Lines West". *What they found was that instead of the terrible cash drain the trustee said it was, the Extension had actually contributed profits of $12.7 million in 1976, $11 million in 1977, and $2.9 million in 1978. *It should also be noted that these three years were well into the decline of traffic on the western lines due to deteriorated trackage and transit times and the refusal by the company to supply cars to western customers. The ICC was so startled by these findings, they had another group of auditors go over the books just to be sure the figures were right. They were."
"In 1978, lines west of Miles City MT had generated $150 million in revenues, but what is even more staggering is that the Road turned away $64 million in business due to a "lack of car supply" according to Paul Cruikshank, Vice President-Operations. If an adequate car supply would have been provided, "Lines West" revenues would have equalled those of "Lines East" while having only about 25% of the total route miles and 20% of the employees of the system.* The Bankruptcy Court found that, on average, a carload of transcontinental freight contributed $1000 towards overhead while the same carload, handled only on "Lines East", contributed only $100. *The ICC concluded that the drop from 1977 to 1978 was due to the trustee's practice of "discouraging traffic", which the Milwaukee's own management had started doing in 1974."
"Unfortunately, this information was found too late as by now it was the end January, 1980."


-----

So, specifically, the Milwaukee Road first discouraged traffic on, and then discontinued, the portion of its system which was contributing the most marginal profit to cover overhead while having the least maintenance and operational costs -- and simultaneously preserved the part which was contributing the least to covering overhead and had the highest maintenance and operational costs. This was because they were looking at phony accounting.

There were lots of other decisions which any accountant would scratch their heads at, detailed in the article. For example, the Milwaukee Road spent more to dieselize "Lines West" than it would have cost to close the electrification gap... during the 1970s oil crisis. A decision to raise costs of operation while reducing speeds.

"In 1975 the SEC would file charges in federal court charging that the management of the Milwaukee had "defrauded the company and it's shareholders by selling assets without informing the stockholders or the SEC, with deferring maintenance on the track facilities without proper disclosure, and of otherwise falsifying the company books."

Stories from people who worked inside the company show that the management had their minds made up and facts didn't matter to them. Gilbert Norman, who shows up here occasionally, worked there, and explains that the corporate culture was fixated on destroying Lines West, facts be damned:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=453101&sid=6417f975d06660972a7b2011b7290466#p453101

You've got nothing to counter any of this. So I conclude that you've been taken in by diversionary arguments -- and I know what I'm talking about. Consider yourself schooled.


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## sttom (Apr 28, 2019)

zephyr17 said:


> Agree on the Shasta Daylight. However, I would actually like a companion train to the Coast Starlight, not just an Oakland (Eastbay) - Portland train. A through Los Angeles-Seattle train that is roughly shifted 12 hours from the Coast Starlight schedule. It would provide reasonable calling times at Seattle, Sacramento, the Bay Area, and LA, and also serve Sacramento, which the Shasta Daylight did not, using the West Side line.



Another alteration would be having the Starlight depart at 8am instead of 10 am (north) and 9:45 (south). That way a 12 hour secondary run off the current schedule would put it getting into Seattle around 8 am and the early departure in at 6 pm (north). And at 7am and 7 pm for the south bound runs.


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## toddinde (Apr 29, 2019)

A couple things. First, love, love the discussion because when they invent the time machine, I will go back and ride two trains. The first is for sure the Olympian Hiawatha. I grew up in Milwaukee with the Milwaukee Road in the ‘70s. I’m also a lawyer and a student of the whole Milwaukee Road debacle. The reality is that railroads make money by hauling freight as far as possible. Period. The Pacific Extension was the only sensible way for the MR to do that. As soon as they abandoned the Pacific Extension, it was game over for the Road. Accountants will ruin any company if given free run. MR could have had through trains from the Pacific Northwest to Louisville. That’s a long haul! The truth is that Ben Heinemann has it right; a three way merger between the Milw, North Western and the Rock Island could have made a go of it with good management. From the late ‘60s on, the Milwaukee’s strategy was inclusion in BN and as much deferred maintenance as possible until accomplishing that goal. That killed them and the Rock. The talk of too many railroads is ludicrous because it again neglects the natural growth in the nation. We’re a country twice as large as we were in the ‘70s, and we need those rail lines back. Too bad we didn’t have the vision in the ‘70s to save the Milw and the Rock. 
To answer the question of a train I want back, it’s the Golden State. Midwest to Southwest makes sense. A variation today would be Minneapolis to Fort Worth version of the Twin Star tying in at Kansas City to the BNSF to Newton, down on the old Texas Chief/Heartland Flyer. The Texas Eagle from Chicago then heads west from Fort Worth through Midland Odessa to El Paso where the Sunset Limited consolidation would take place. The Heartland Flyer/Twin Star could be a St Paul to San Antonio train. The Sunset Limited Route has more population and faster growth than the Northeast Corridor. A daily schedule, good connections, rerouting through Phoenix again, and multiple frequencies in select corridors (Tucson - Phoenix - LA) (San Antonio - Houston - New Orleans), and you would see amazing things happen.


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## toddinde (Apr 29, 2019)

neroden said:


> Mr. Ploss's book may be overoptimistic about the Milwaukee Road...
> 
> https://www.biblio.com/9780961378813
> 
> ...


My friend, you are correct. Your reply is carefully researched, and spot on. Could the BN have competed against a well run Milwaukee Road? That is another question. Without coal, BN might have had some trouble. BN did everything to kill the Milw. That is a factor that cannot be downplayed. A lot of curious personnel transitions between those lines.


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## Mark Meyer (Apr 30, 2019)

neroden said:


> You've got nothing to counter any of this. So I conclude that you've been taken in by diversionary arguments -- and I know what I'm talking about. Consider yourself schooled.



Not schooled. Not fooled. This article has been around for years and I am very familiar with it. There simply is no reason to take it as the definitive description about "What Really Happened" and ignore everything else. And it has totally been "countered" at: http://trainweb.org/milwaukeemyths/

There are many things wrong with the article, such as the WHY of the supposed misrepresentation of the profits of the Pacific Extension and where the money went. And the salient point is that if the railroad was such a cash cow, why didn't someone step in and save it? Others in this thread have bemoaned the loss of the Rock Island, but its Golden State route was largely saved in spite of the condition of the infrastructure. Why didn't that happen with the Milwaukee? Additionally with regard to electrification in the article, nowhere does it touch on the three greatest costs of modifying locomotive power: Locomotive dwell, locomotive and equipment cycle time delay, and manpower to make the modifications. The article simply doesn't sufficiently address the most important aspect with regard to cost: Operations.

In spite of what this article states, it's important to remember the realities: The Milwaukee Road was in uniformly poor shape pretty much everywhere (so if the money was siphoned off the "profitable west end, where did it go, conspiracy theories notwithstanding?) In spite of the suggestion (in the article) that the Hill Lines were in poor shape financially, why where they able to upgrade their infrastructure (CTC, power switches, lineside warning detectors, longer sidings, etc.) and the Milwaukee didn't....anywhere?

The biggest problem with this article is it ignores the operational inferiorities of the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension: Very poor feeder network of branch lines and that its profile made it the high cost route. The Milwaukee had poor access to Portland, Great Falls, and Vancouver, BC, and no access to places like the Tri-Cities, Yakima, and Willamette Valley. Even if they "made" money on a shipment, BN (and predecessor lines) made more because prior to deregulation, competing railroads had to charge the same rate between the same two points and BN and predecessor lines almost always had the shorter, less steep route. Had the Pacific Extension survived beyond 1980 to deregulation, the situation would have been even more dire. When railroads were allowed to compete with regard to rates, BN and other railroads would have certainly been able to undercut what the Milwaukee would have needed to maintain its infrastructure, a situation that would have been exacerbated as trains grew in weight and length. Even if the Milwaukee magically could have sidings, double track,CTC, and lineside safety equipment appear comparable to that of BN, its route over St. Paul Pass, lack of a water-level crossing of the Cascade mountains, and continued poor access to markets like Portland and Vancouver, BC would have doomed it. 

One can certainly argue that certain routes that are no longer with us should have been kept for possible future use, such as the Big Four route from Chicago to Cincinnati for passenger trains. This, of course, would have required a national transportation policy that designated certain routes to be maintained (somehow) regardless of a carrier's desire to use them. That has merit, but is not where we are today.

In the end, the accounting aspect of the Pacific Extension in the 1970s is irrelevant. Strong routes survive, such as the ex-Rock Island Golden State route west of Kansas City as it is operationally comparable (or even superior) to the competition. It is irrefutable that the Milwaukee Pacific Extension was operationally inferior - the high cost route. That's why we won't see freight trains over Raton or Tennessee Passes again. It's also why UP doesn't operate transcontinental traffic via its ex-D&RGW route through Moffat Tunnel. (And if traffic increases the point that the route through Wyoming can't handle it, that route will be upgraded, not the inferior route.) 

So, unless you can show how the Milwaukee could have handled those copper concentrates off the SP and Portland to Butte in the 1970s cheaper than a routing on BN, or show how a 16,000-ton grain train today could operate from Sioux Falls to Kalama with less cost on a Milwaukee Road than today's BNSF, you cannot make your point.


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## fredmcain (Apr 30, 2019)

The one train that would be at the top of my list is not pre-Amtrak but from the Amtrak era itself: The _Floridian,_ discontinued during the “Carter cuts” of 1978.

Other than air travel, there is a real public transportation void between Chicago and the Upper Midwest and Florida. I have known people living in my area who have actually taken the train from Elkhart, IN to Florida but it involves a change of trains (and quite a bit of downtime) at Washington, DC. It is also very circuitous since it evolves going around two sides of a triangle to reach your final destination.

This is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. A direct Chicago-Florida train would be nice and most welcome. I seem to vaguely remember that near the end of the Graham Claytor Jr. period, Amtrak was studying this. But, sadly, it just never came to pass.

I am also a realist or at least try to be. I realize that as long as Anderson’s in there, there is absolutely _NO_ hope for this. He doesn’t even want to keep many of the current LD trains never mind adding a new one.

Still, it might happen someday but it will probably be too late to help me much.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain


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## fredmcain (Apr 30, 2019)

As an afterthought to my above post, there has been another thread running lately concerning the demise of the _Hoosier State_. A new _Floridian_, if it ran on that line, could also provide daily service in the Indianapolis-Chicago corridor. It is my understanding that the track south of Indy to Louisville has been rebuilt in recent years although the speed limit is prbly still 40 MPH.

Regards
Fred M.Cain


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## basketmaker (Apr 30, 2019)

fredmcain said:


> The one train that would be at the top of my list is not pre-Amtrak but from the Amtrak era itself: The _Floridian,_ discontinued during the “Carter cuts” of 1978.
> 
> Other than air travel, there is a real public transportation void between Chicago and the Upper Midwest and Florida. I have known people living in my area who have actually taken the train from Elkhart, IN to Florida but it involves a change of trains (and quite a bit of downtime) at Washington, DC. It is also very circuitous since it evolves going around two sides of a triangle to reach your final destination.
> 
> ...




Would agree 100%. Rode the Floridian to Miami in the waning days (Nov. '77) after moving my sister to Nashville. Moved to Nashville myself late '78 for 28 years. Hated the 3 hour drive to Fulton, KY to catch the City of New Orleans for east-west connections at Chicago and a couple at New Orleans. Specially in the middle of the night (01:02 north/03:12-south). Would make visits to family and friends more palatable both in Nashville and Miami. Chicago-Indianapolis-Louisville-Nashville-Chattanooga-Jacksonville-Miami would be great!

Been in the Denver/Ft. Morgan area since '06 so I have easy access to the CZ and it is about the same drive to catch the Chief at La Junta as to Fulton. I usually board at Ft. Morgan (free parking) same travel time (1-hour) after fighting traffic and finding parking in Denver. 

Will say I miss The Pioneer and the Desert Wind legs off the CZ. Both were nice rides.


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## Ziv (May 1, 2019)

fredmcain said:


> The one train that would be at the top of my list is not pre-Amtrak but from the Amtrak era itself: The _Floridian,_ discontinued during the “Carter cuts” of 1978.
> 
> Other than air travel, there is a real public transportation void between Chicago and the Upper Midwest and Florida. I have known people living in my area who have actually taken the train from Elkhart, IN to Florida but it involves a change of trains (and quite a bit of downtime) at Washington, DC. It is also very circuitous since it evolves going around two sides of a triangle to reach your final destination.
> 
> ...



Fred, what was the trip like? It seems like it would be really slow since the direction of travel is going through 2 or 3 mountain ranges, albeit small ones. Seems like they would make the trip really slow but scenic. It seems like the Crescent runs parallel to the mountain ranges while the Floridian ran right through them. Not that I know that much about the area, just looking at maps...


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## jis (May 1, 2019)

For a while the Floridian had the dubious distinction of being the LD train that is most prone to derailments. The tracks condition of the route that it ran was much worse than was desirable.


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## Ziv (May 1, 2019)

Just looked up the schedules for the Floridian vs. the older streamliner, The South Wind. Floridians route length was similar but average speed was right around 41 mph vs. the South Wind at 53 mph. Wow.


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## neroden (May 1, 2019)

Mark Meyer said:


> Not schooled. Not fooled.



Your reply makes it very clear that you were, and are, fooled.



> This article has been around for years and I am very familiar with it. There simply is no reason to take it as the definitive description about "What Really Happened" and ignore everything else. And it has totally been "countered" at: http://trainweb.org/milwaukeemyths/


Actually, that didn't counter ANY of it! Not one thing! It was a long list of unrelated and irrelevant stuff! I read all of it. Did you actually? Even if it's all true (and much of it has no evidence and is just vague assertions), it doesn't counter any of the detail in the article about the accounting errors at all.



> There are many things wrong with the article,


No there aren't.



> such as the WHY of the supposed misrepresentation of the profits of the Pacific Extension and where the money went.


The accounting SNAFU, while making the Pacific Extension lines look worse, artificially inflated the granger lines, causing the mismanagement to think that the granger lines were profitable. The granger lines were a money pit.



> And the salient point is that if the railroad was such a cash cow, why didn't someone step in and save it?


That's actually detailed in the article. First, they scrapped the electrification (which was crucial to the line's economics) during the exact decade when it became more valuable. Then, they actually refused one of the possible mergers which would have made it work.

Nobody wants to work with a nutty management. By the time the management was totally removed, it was the 1980s, everything had fallen into disrepair, and everyone was ripping out lines, even really good lines.



> In spite of what this article states, it's important to remember the realities: The Milwaukee Road was in uniformly poor shape pretty much everywhere (so if the money was siphoned off the "profitable west end, where did it go, conspiracy theories notwithstanding?)



It went to the massive money-drain of granger operations on the east end, as well as the usual corporate interest payments.

The problem was that Milwaukee management didn't know where the money was coming from or going to. They killed the best part of the railroad while retaining the worst dogs of the railroad, *because they had their accounting wrong*.

Consider, by contrast, an alternative world in which they aggressively petitioned to abandon all the granger lines in favor of trucking.



> One can certainly argue that certain routes that are no longer with us should have been kept for possible future use, such as the Big Four route from Chicago to Cincinnati for passenger trains. This, of course, would have required a national transportation policy that designated certain routes to be maintained (somehow) regardless of a carrier's desire to use them.


Agreed.

The Montana-PacNW section of the Milwaukee Road had a business model; it was viable. Maybe it wasn't super profitable, but it could have been maintained. State and local subsidies for passenger service are a thing which developed nationwide, and Montana cities would likely have ponied up. (Nobody was interested in subsidizing the freight-only granger lines, which had no business model.)



> In the end, the accounting aspect of the Pacific Extension in the 1970s is irrelevant.


You seem to have missed the point entirely. I think it's extremely relevant to *Amtrak*, which has been prone to making equally stupid decisions, cutting off more-profitable lines while retaining less-profitable lines *because Amtrak also has got their accounting all wrong*.

Maybe the Milwaukee Road would never have been "net profitable"; it might have ended up needing state support, as many railroads did (including literally every single railroad in the Northeast). Probably it would always have done worse than the BN -- I don't really care. But the management decision to keep the financially-worst parts of the railroad and dismantle the financially-best parts of the railroad is what doomed it to scrapping, rather than shortline or secondary line or mothballed-by-UP status. The management actions would be analogous to Penn Central dismantling the Water Level Route and the Broadway Limited Route while retaining all the commuter branch lines -- but Penn Central knew better.

Maybe you didn't understand what my point actually was. Since I've made and proved my point, but you seem to think I was arguing something else.

My point is they scrapped the part of the railroad they should have kept, while keeping the part they should have scrapped, largely because their accounting was all wrong. It would be very desirable if Amtrak did not repeat this mistake.


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## fredmcain (May 2, 2019)

neroden said:


> My point is they scrapped the part of the railroad they should have kept, while keeping the part they should have scrapped, largely because their accounting was all wrong. It would be very desirable if Amtrak did not repeat this mistake.



Neroden,

I wasn’t going to get into this discussion on the PCE at first because I argued about this at length a couple of years ago on both the TRAINS Magazine forum and the old Milwaukee Road Historical Association’s Yahoo! e-group.

But since you’ve delved into it (it’s kinda OT for Amtrak) I guess I’m gonna bite.

First of all, I believed in 1980 as I continue to believe today, that the loss of the Pacific Coast Extension (PCE) was and is a national tragedy that should’ve _NEVER_ happened. It reduced competition and now today we are paying for it with severe congestion on the BNSF lines that remain. Back when I argued this on those other forums the congestion was much, much worse that it is today. It has indeed subsided some. However, that severe congestion will no doubt just return in a few years I’m sure.

Look, probably 98% or better of the abandoned PCE right of way is completely intact sans rails. Most of the tunnels and viaducts are intact. I think that a good case can be made for rebuilding the line.

A rebuilt PCE by the UP, the CP or the CNR would be most desirable and would return a much higher level of competition to the Pacific Northwest. The added capacity would also make it easier to divert truck traffic to rail.

Putting us back on topic for Amtrak, the Empire Builder would make better time with reduced congestion. A new Amtrak LD operation over a rebuilt PCE would also be a dream come true but maybe I’m pushing my luck there.

I believe rebuilding the PCE is a good idea that would be good for the country but, unfortunately, also a very expensive idea. Surely the states would have to help some. But if given the alternative of rebuilding the PCE or adding more lanes to Interstate Highways, I think that would be a good way to go as well.

The final problem would be dealing with all the NIMBYs. Out in the wilds of Montana, that wouldn’t be much of a problem. Some Montanans even want the line back (I have determined that). But in central and western Washington state you’d prbly encounter NIMBYs. Then again, the state of Washington has become so liberal that perhaps a case could be made that the railroad could “reduce the carbon footprint” over trucks. Especially if it were electric.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain


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## fredmcain (May 2, 2019)

Ziv said:


> Fred, what was the trip like? It seems like it would be really slow since the direction of travel is going through 2 or 3 mountain ranges, albeit small ones. Seems like they would make the trip really slow but scenic. It seems like the Crescent runs parallel to the mountain ranges while the Floridian ran right through them. Not that I know that much about the area, just looking at maps...



Actually, I didn’t do this myself (take the train from Elkhart to Florida that is). My neighbors did it and from what I understand they enjoyed it pretty well. But if you get a sleeper, it does add a second night on the road which is a little salty.

A re-instated Floridian could probably do it in 30 hours or less which would mean two days and overnight with only one night in a sleeper.

I don’t know why more people don’t push for this. It seems like neither the RPA or other pro-rail groups in the Midwest are really on top of this issue much.

Then again, there has been a lot of political capital and energy put into the re-extension of the _Sunset Limited_ into Florida and they don’t even seem to be able to do that.

So, I am optimistic that this could well happen someday since I believe it’s justified but I don’t think it’s gonna happen anytime in the next ten years. But I could be mistaken. A change of government in the U.S. that would be more pro-rail might change the outlook on things – but – I’m speculating there, of course.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain


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## Anderson (May 2, 2019)

At least part of the issue with the _Floridian_ is that, IIRC, you'd need to do a _lot_ of work to get the tracks back up to decent condition.


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## fredmcain (May 2, 2019)

Anderson said:


> At least part of the issue with the _Floridian_ is that, IIRC, you'd need to do a _lot_ of work to get the tracks back up to decent condition.



Well, I'm not so sure about that. I think if you'd try to put it back on the *EXACT* same route it ran on before it was discontinued in 1978 then, well, yes, you might have an issue. But surely another good route could be found that's in good condition. What is the primary routing for mainline freight from the Southeast to Chicago? I don't know exactly; I don't keep up on that much but we could probably find out.

I think that a much greater problem would be that the station facilities have been gone and/or disused for decades and it would cost a shiny penny to rebuild all the passenger handling facilities on the ground. But that could be done *IF* people wanted it. Or, more accurately, want it enough to pay for it.

Regards,
Fred M. Cain


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## jis (May 2, 2019)

fredmcain said:


> Then again, there has been a lot of political capital and energy put into the re-extension of the _Sunset Limited_ into Florida and they don’t even seem to be able to do that.


There are absolutely no plans being worked on to extend the _Sunset Limited_ to Florida at this time.

The current plans are for a short shuttle service between New Orleans and Mobile. And eventually an overnight service between New Orleans and Orlando, which is explicitly not going to be connected with the Sunset Limited. It may be connected with the City of New Orleans, at least in equipment rotation if not in a through service.

The primary owner and driver of this entire Gulf Coast project is the Southern Rail Commission. Information is available at: http://www.southernrailcommission.org/gulf-coast-rail , including a pointer to the extensive study done by Amtrak for the SRC, which forms the basis for the plans being worked on.

Please stop misleading people by talking about re-extension of the _Sunset Limited_. That is not happening, as things stand.


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## VKurtB (May 3, 2019)

The route I’d like to see rejuvenated is the Broadway Limited. This would “kill two stirds with one bone”. It creates the desired second daily Harrisburg to Pittsburgh train, and by departing quite early westbound out of New York, combined with running the Pennsylvanian a bit later than it presently is, westbound, they’re not stumbling over each other.


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## Mark Meyer (May 3, 2019)

neroden said:


> Maybe the Milwaukee Road would never have been "net profitable"; it might have ended up needing state support, as many railroads did (including literally every single railroad in the Northeast). Probably it would always have done worse than the BN -- I don't really care. But the management decision to keep the financially-worst parts of the railroad and dismantle the financially-best parts of the railroad is what doomed it to scrapping, rather than shortline or secondary line or mothballed-by-UP status. The management actions would be analogous to Penn Central dismantling the Water Level Route and the Broadway Limited Route while retaining all the commuter branch lines -- but Penn Central knew better.
> 
> Maybe you didn't understand what my point actually was. Since I've made and proved my point, but you seem to think I was arguing something else.
> 
> My point is they scrapped the part of the railroad they should have kept, while keeping the part they should have scrapped, largely because their accounting was all wrong. It would be very desirable if Amtrak did not repeat this mistake.



Well, if you think actual operating expenses of the Milwaukee Pacific Extension compared to that of the competition is irrelevant, it is no wonder you have come to the conclusion you have. 

The accounting aspect is debatable, regardless of what you think. There are plenty of arguments both ways, so that's why the best measure of the railroad's viability is just to stick to the facts:

1. Unlike many Rock Island routes - many of which were in worse shape than the Milwaukee - were acquired by other railroads and upgraded. Strong routes survive. The Pacific Extension wasn't and didn't.

2. The argument that "they kept the part of the railroad they should have scrapped" is not born out in history. Thirty-nine years after the abandonment of the Pacific Extension west of Miles City, most of the railroad that was retained east of there continues to be used today. Of course there are small sections of track that were abandoned since 1980 east of Miles City/Terry (and even some retrenchment of the few lines which were kept west of Miles City), but overall core routes in South Dakota, between the Twin Cities and Chicago, Chicago to Kansas City (with some modification), and other routes in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota remain intact. Their continued presence after 39 years proves that people with foresight knew they were worth keeping, and they are.

3. The supposed "profit" of the Pacific Extension completely overlooks what would have been needed to keep the railroad viable if it was profitable. The millions of dollars needed to rehabilitate the deteriorated infrastructure notwithstanding, if a company is to continue into the future, it must have infrastructure to allow it to compete. Lack of CTC, power switches, signals, lineside inspection and warning devices, and lengthening of sidings were just some of the things that were needed to compete. Without addressing these important shortcomings, "profit" is relative and irrelevant.

4. Someone like you might say that it's all about accounting. Someone like me might say that operating folks were looking ahead to pending deregulation and how high cost routes would be even at a greater disadvantage. The facts and constants of the history of the Pacific Extension are that its horrible profile and circuitous routes always made it the high cost route - an untenable situation.

While I totally get your frustration with Amtrak accounting. But there is no intercity rail passenger service alternative to Amtrak. There were better alternatives to the Milwaukee Pacific Extension so the Pacific Extension is gone and the rest remain. Complaining about alleged accounting shenanigans and mismanagement can't overcome these facts.


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## Mark Meyer (May 3, 2019)

fredmcain said:


> I believe rebuilding the PCE is a good idea that would be good for the country but, unfortunately, also a very expensive idea. Surely the states would have to help some. But if given the alternative of rebuilding the PCE or adding more lanes to Interstate Highways, I think that would be a good way to go as well.



This is ridiculous. Say you have two factories, each producing widgets. One produces them for 30 cents each, and the other for 50 cents each. The cost for each widget reflects the production cost of each factory. Because of its inefficiency, the factory with the 50-cent widget closes because it cannot compete because people are buying the 30-cent widget.

Then say years pass and the demand for widgets increases and the demand is expected to remain constant or increase. Do you reopen the high-cost widget factory or expand the low-cost factory...especially if the cost to reopen the high-cost factory is greater? The answer is obvious.

I would definitely like to see our governments support railroad infrastructure in the same way they support infrastructure for all other modes. But whether this is done by private railroads or in the public domain, it will clearly be cheaper to add capacity to existing railroads....ESPECIALLY in the case of the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension where the operating profile would result in additional perpetual higher long-term operating costs due to its being the high-cost route. The exception, of course, could be over Snoqualmie Pass for westward trains, but to subject this tonnage to the grades at Loweth, Pipestone, St. Paul, and the Saddle Mountains versus existing railroads has no merit. It is infinitely less expensive (and more efficient going forward) to add capacity to the lower-cost route(s).


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## west point (May 3, 2019)

There are several routes needing more service in the east. Another NYP / Wash - CHI. one or two additional NEC to Florida trains. One or two additional NEC - ATL trains with one thru Raleigh. Reopening the "S" line important with the Long Bridge expansion complete.

Of course that means enough equipment available , reasonable fares, and seats for current and new trains that does not artificially limit number of riders.

All of the proposals in this thread has to recognize that enough reasonable priced seats are always available.


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## sttom (May 3, 2019)

west point said:


> There are several routes needing more service in the east. Another NYP / Wash - CHI. one or two additional NEC to Florida trains. One or two additional NEC - ATL trains with one thru Raleigh. Reopening the "S" line important with the Long Bridge expansion complete.
> 
> Of course that means enough equipment available , reasonable fares, and seats for current and new trains that does not artificially limit number of riders.
> 
> All of the proposals in this thread has to recognize that enough reasonable priced seats are always available.


What is the S line?


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## keelhauled (May 4, 2019)

The S line in this context is the ex-Seaboard Air Line route between, roughly, Richmond Virginia and northern North Carolina. It is abandoned but the right of way is still intact, and there have been plans on the drawing board for quite a while to rebuild it for passenger use as part of broader southeast high speed rail dreams.

Amtrak currently uses the A line (ex-Atlantic Coast Line route) south of Richmond, which is both CSX's frequently delayed primary freight route from the Northeast to Florida, and also requires a sort of dogleg back north for the Silver Star and Carolinian to reach Raleigh. An S line reactivation would solve both those problems.

The S and A line designations can refer to the entire ex-Seaboard and ACL lines in their entirety from Richmond into Florida, but they have long been officially superseded by CSX subdivision names, and generally the terminology is used to refer to the routes in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina these days.


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## Anderson (May 9, 2019)

Mark Meyer said:


> This is ridiculous. Say you have two factories, each producing widgets. One produces them for 30 cents each, and the other for 50 cents each. The cost for each widget reflects the production cost of each factory. Because of its inefficiency, the factory with the 50-cent widget closes because it cannot compete because people are buying the 30-cent widget.
> 
> Then say years pass and the demand for widgets increases and the demand is expected to remain constant or increase. Do you reopen the high-cost widget factory or expand the low-cost factory...especially if the cost to reopen the high-cost factory is greater? The answer is obvious.
> 
> I would definitely like to see our governments support railroad infrastructure in the same way they support infrastructure for all other modes. But whether this is done by private railroads or in the public domain, it will clearly be cheaper to add capacity to existing railroads....ESPECIALLY in the case of the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension where the operating profile would result in additional perpetual higher long-term operating costs due to its being the high-cost route. The exception, of course, could be over Snoqualmie Pass for westward trains, but to subject this tonnage to the grades at Loweth, Pipestone, St. Paul, and the Saddle Mountains versus existing railroads has no merit. It is infinitely less expensive (and more efficient going forward) to add capacity to the lower-cost route(s).


Though I read your point, I'd say that it depends a lot more than you give it credit for. For example, does reopening a second factory give you supply chain resiliency or potentially political leverage (e.g. negotiating for tax credits or with the union)? Is the first factory's location badly constrained? Have demand patterns (or supply patterns) shifted to affect those costs? All of these questions have valid, serious analogies in the context of railroads...some routes simply _can't_ be expanded (or can't be expanded at a reasonable cost) due to geographic and enviromental issues. Having network redundancy is a good thing (and something that the railroads have been ignoring in the chase to slash costs). And so on.


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## Seaboard92 (May 9, 2019)

Wow this thread has so many things I would like to get in on so where should I start. 

1. The train I would like to see back is the Southwind or some variant of the Southwind with the Dixie Flyer. That way you add Nashville into the network and get a second train into Atlanta. 

That would greatly speed up several city pairs from the Midwest to the southeast and my regular trip to the PNW. 

2. As many of you know I’ve been working on creating an interactive map of the 1952 Official Guide (which is nowhere near finished) but from that you can see the nations primary railroad hubs which I’ll break down by region. 

-Northeast
A. New York, NY/Northern NJ
B. Buffalo, NY
C. Boston, MA
D. Philadelphia, PA
E. Pittsburgh, PA
F. Washington, DC

Southeast
A. Atlanta, GA
B. Nashville, TN
C. Jacksonville, FL
D. Montgomery, AL
E. Birmingham, AL
F. New Orleans, LA

Midwest
A. Chicago, IL
B. St Louis, MO
C. Saint Paul, MN
D. Detroit, MI
E. Cincinnati, OH
F. Indianapolis, IN
G. Kansas City, MO
H. Omaha, NE
I. Denver, CO

Texas
A. Houston
B. Dallas/Fort Worth
C. San Antonio 
D. El Paso

West
A. Portland, OR
B. Seattle, WA
C. Oakland, CA
D. Los Angeles, CA

3. The primary route of freight from the Midwest to the southeast depends on the carrier. CSX sends stuff from Jacksonville to Chicago via Waycross, GA, Atlanta,GA/Montgomery, AL, Nashville, TN, Evansville, IN. NS will send stuff down the rathole from Cincinnati via Knoxville, Chattanooga, Atlanta. 

4. I believe the Pacific Extension should have been saved strictly because the PNW needs the extra capacity at times. As the closest mainland US port to China it sees significant intermodal traffic. Stevens Pass is limited to two trains per hour last I’ve heard, stampede pass gives some more space. And the Columbia River Gorge does as well. But there is only so much capacity you can have short of double tracking that route the entirety. 

5. The S Line is any former Seaboard track. The mileposts for former Seaboard lines on CSX begin with S. For instance the Monroe/Abbeville subs (Hamlet-Atlanta) are SG. While the Eastover sub from Columbia to Sumter is AKA. 

Who wants to see the work in progress map? Right now it’s missing the CNW, Soo, MP, and most of the Texas roads.


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## Mark Meyer (May 10, 2019)

post: 803639 said:


> Though I read your point, I'd say that it depends a lot more than you give it credit for. For example, does reopening a second factory give you supply chain resiliency or potentially political leverage (e.g. negotiating for tax credits or with the union)?


If the "second factory" is the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension, definitely not. No "supply chain resiliency" when you're adding a high-cost route. No leverage with any union because everyone knows that little or no traffic could be lost to the high-cost route because no one would want to pay to use it, especially when the lower-cost routes expanded to compete.



post: 803639 said:


> Is the first factory's location badly constrained? Have demand patterns (or supply patterns) shifted to affect those costs? All of these questions have valid, serious analogies in the context of railroads...some routes simply _can't_ be expanded (or can't be expanded at a reasonable cost) due to geographic and enviromental issues. Having network redundancy is a good thing (and something that the railroads have been ignoring in the chase to slash costs). And so on.



Redundancy is never a good thing. Adequate capacity is a good thing, and I hope that's what you meant. Yes, some routes have limitations on where they could be expanded, but the reality is that Snoqualmie Pass (Easton, WA to a connection to BNSF east of Auburn) would be the only location on the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension that would qualify as being a palatable alternate route to a current route which could not be easily expanded. And one only hears these fantasies of rebuilding the Pacific Extension during times we hear of capacity issues on existing lines, but that has been far from continuous since the Pacific Extension went away in 1980. In fact, during most of the 1980s traffic was generally light, and even beyond that, the existing capacity has more often than not been adequate. This country should have a national transportation policy which includes adequate railroad infrastructure, but even if it did exist, it would be inefficient, costly, and ineffective for this policy to include maintaining or upgrading high-cost routes, and the Pacific Extension would be the epitome thereof.


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## Anderson (May 10, 2019)

Mark Meyer said:


> Redundancy is never a good thing. Adequate capacity is a good thing, and I hope that's what you meant. Yes, some routes have limitations on where they could be expanded, but the reality is that Snoqualmie Pass (Easton, WA to a connection to BNSF east of Auburn) would be the only location on the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension that would qualify as being a palatable alternate route to a current route which could not be easily expanded. And one only hears these fantasies of rebuilding the Pacific Extension during times we hear of capacity issues on existing lines, but that has been far from continuous since the Pacific Extension went away in 1980. In fact, during most of the 1980s traffic was generally light, and even beyond that, the existing capacity has more often than not been adequate. This country should have a national transportation policy which includes adequate railroad infrastructure, but even if it did exist, it would be inefficient, costly, and ineffective for this policy to include maintaining or upgrading high-cost routes, and the Pacific Extension would be the epitome thereof.



What I mean by "redundancy" is "dividing capacity in such a way that you reduce the risks of a single point of failure, probably involving a modicum of extra capacity that can be activated in a pinch". On the one hand, doing so generally carries an inherent inefficiency with it insofar as a single facility would often carry economies of scale. On the other hand [1], it avoids supply chain meltdowns due to anything situational. Also, having only "barely enough" capacity can easily lead to situations where something goes wrong and you're totally screwed, so there's something to be said for having perhaps 110-120% of "needed" capacity available. [2]

For Amtrak, the best examples of this would be maintaining a second major east-west gateway in the Midwest (St. Louis is usually mentioned as the second choice here). Yes, such would arguably be "redundant" with Chicago, but I think that history has shown that while there are benefits to consolidating operations into a single place, you accrue a large number of risks running from weather meltdowns that effectively kill the network for a few days at a run to problems surrounding the yards themselves in Chicago and labor issues with said yards.

It is true that you can't avoid all such risks (for example, there's no good way to have an alternative to some closely-located routes, such as the Salt Lake-Reno line or the Salt Lake-Las Vegas line, so a bridge washout or a "regional" problem there is a problem no matter what), but having such risks is never _desirable_.


[1] And avoiding a rather aggravated discussion of "irrational rationalization".
[2] It may be marginally more profitable not to have it, but not being able to "adjust fire", so to speak, can leave you up a creek.


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## Seaboard92 (May 10, 2019)

Here is a great example of a railroad saving an out of service line just in case it’s needed. 

Look at Norfolk Southern‘s ex Saluda Grade (Spartanburg, SC-Biltmore, NC). The steepest mainline grade of any railroad in the United States. Currently the center segment from Landrum, SC to somewhere a few miles south of Hendersonville, NC is out of service. While the areas north and south are in service for local freight. The reason NS is holding onto this is in case Old Fort (Salisbury-Asheville) has a major problem in the loops they can reactivate Saluda. A washout or major derailment in the loops would be hard to reach, and time consuming to repair. Whereas Saluda just requires turning the signals back on, and fixing one washout. The next reason they keep it they own a fiber optic cable under the rail line that is profitable.


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## neroden (May 11, 2019)

Most of the Milwaukee Road's eastern granger lines were, in fact, scrapped after the bankruptcy. I have a rather nice map of all of the ripped-out lines.

The Snoqualmie Pass route is absolutely what which would have been valuable. Nobody's ever going to add another track to Stevens Pass, and the Stampede Pass route once it gets out of the tunnel... well, um. Circuitous, isn't it? Good enough for slow freight, I guess.

But the value of the alternate route does extend all the way east to Montana. You may not realize is that it's becoming impossible to add another track to Sandpoint, where all the existing lines funnel together. The Milwaukee Road route wasn't the only alternative to Sandpoint, but the other alternatives were ripped out too. Freight is now diverted via Pocatello.

(The severance and demolition of both of the non-coastal routes north of Seattle (SLSE, NP) to the Stevens Pass makes the Stevens Pass problem *much* worse, of course. The coastal Great Northern route is a goner, doomed, no chance, and that will kill the utility of Stevens Pass.)


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## Rover (May 12, 2019)

I'd like to see the return of service from Texas to Colorado, the *Texas Zephyr* service. 

https://discuss.amtraktrains.com/threads/a-texas-to-colorado-train.27758/


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## tomfuller (May 12, 2019)

Before Amtrak i remember going with my dad to go pick up my great aunt in Elmira NY. She got on the Phoebe Snow at the Port Authority in New York. I believe the train went onward across southern New York state to Buffalo. Phoebe wore white gloves because the locomotive used hard coal that burned clean.
The Phoebe Snow also had a stop in Scranton PA.


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## Seaboard92 (May 12, 2019)

Fun fact the two observation cars from the Phoebe Snow are owned by Metro North and make up two of the three car office car special of theirs.


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## Mark Meyer (May 12, 2019)

Anderson said:


> What I mean by "redundancy" is "dividing capacity in such a way that you reduce the risks of a single point of failure, probably involving a modicum of extra capacity that can be activated in a pinch". On the one hand, doing so generally carries an inherent inefficiency with it insofar as a single facility would often carry economies of scale. On the other hand [1], it avoids supply chain meltdowns due to anything situational. Also, having only "barely enough" capacity can easily lead to situations where something goes wrong and you're totally screwed, so there's something to be said for having perhaps 110-120% of "needed" capacity available.



I agree. The problem is that we have no national transportation policy to facilitate this. Freight railroads are private infrastructure that costs money to maintain, so there is little incentive to keep extra capacity (i.e. no return on investment for stockholders). But say that there was some kind of entity that would maintain infrastructure like the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension "just in case" (or "in a pinch" as you stated). Until "just in case" - with the exception of Snoqualmie Pass - it would not ever be used because the cost of operating over it when "just in case" is not occurring is too high. So someone would have to pay to maintain it to standards that would allow this "just in case" traffic to be handled "just in case." Then there would the really expensive proposition of repositioning and qualifying crews when the "just in case" happened, if it ever did. So, not a palatable situation (and really expensive). Overall, it would probably be more desirable to pay the low-cost railroad to operate a certain amount of traffic via the high-cost Milwaukee Road route just to have a crew base and other necessities in place "just in case." This all gets to be a pretty expensive and dicey proposition. The "just in case" scenario has merit IF the alternative is not a very high-cost route. Otherwise, it's just too expensive overall and would require a major shift in American transportation policy that we will like not be able to change. In the mean time, it's simply logical to add a capacity to low-cost routes. The good news is that things have changed a lot from even 40 years ago when there was a major wreck, and the notification went out to "Call the Hook" in reference to on-track derricks necessary to rerail heavy equipment. Nowadays, even the most nasty derailments are open within 24 to 36 hours which equates to the cost in delays being much less than maintaining a higher-cost route in perpetuity "just in case."


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## Mark Meyer (May 12, 2019)

neroden said:


> Most of the Milwaukee Road's eastern granger lines were, in fact, scrapped after the bankruptcy. I have a rather nice map of all of the ripped-out lines.



I have a large collection of Official Guides from the 1980s back to the 1940s, so I am very familiar with the devolution of the Milwaukee Road and other granger lines that abandoned many many branch lines in the Midwest. But your original statement was that the Pacific Extension was the part that should have been kept instead. The reality is that the core part east of Terry, Montana that was kept after 1980 is pretty much still in use today. The "eastern granger" routes that were abandoned would have been gone regardless of other circumstances surrounding the Pacific Extension, much in the same way large swaths of the C&NW, CRI&P, and even CB&Q in Missouri and Iowa disappeared.



neroden said:


> The Snoqualmie Pass route is absolutely what which would have been valuable. Nobody's ever going to add another track to Stevens Pass, and the Stampede Pass route once it gets out of the tunnel... well, um. Circuitous, isn't it? Good enough for slow freight, I guess.



Snoqualmie Pass is indeed the lone part of the Milwaukee which should have been kept. Indeed, it is good enough for "slow freight." And also for heavy freight, which is more of a priority than "fast freight" though the Milwaukee's infrastructure wasn't really great for that, either. That's why in 1961, the NP North Coast Limited and MILW Olympian Hiawatha were scheduled to depart Missoula at the same time (well, 1 minute apart) and though the NP route was 99 miles more, the North Coast Limited still was faster between Missoula and Ellensburg. Circuity can be an observation by looking at a map, but actually operating characteristics are all that matter. 



neroden said:


> But the value of the alternate route does extend all the way east to Montana. You may not realize is that it's becoming impossible to add another track to Sandpoint, where all the existing lines funnel together. The Milwaukee Road route wasn't the only alternative to Sandpoint, but the other alternatives were ripped out too. Freight is now diverted via Pocatello.



You might not realize that BNSF is going full steam ahead to add another track across the lake at Sandpoint. I have no idea about the Pocatello comment other than UP's route to the Pacific Northwest is easily competitive with that of the Milwaukee, as is the UP-CP route via Eastport/Kingsgate, which is used to move products like North Dakota grain and crude to the Pacific Northwest also on a much operationally-superior route to that of the Milwaukee Road.



neroden said:


> (The severance and demolition of both of the non-coastal routes north of Seattle (SLSE, NP) to the Stevens Pass makes the Stevens Pass problem *much* worse, of course. The coastal Great Northern route is a goner, doomed, no chance, and that will kill the utility of Stevens Pass.)



Goner? Doomed? No Chance? The Bellingham sub can see 20+ trains a day and that BNSF has raised the clearances in the tunnels south of Bellingham to eventually take some Deltaport container business away from CN and CP means that someone at BNSF thinks Stevens Pass still has utility, especially as they also explore technologies that can ameliorate some of the tunnel flush issues.

Beyond that, I agree in general that truncating the ex-NP between Black River and Sedro-Woolley was stupid. But its proximity and operating characteristics are much different than the Milwaukee Pacific Extension. In other words, and staying "on point": The discussion is not that all abandonments were justified, but some were, with the MILW Pacific Extension being a prime example.


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## Rover (May 12, 2019)

I'd like to travel by train from DFW to Galveston Island.


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## neroden (May 13, 2019)

I did leave information out.

The water level route north of Seattle is toast. BNSF, Sounder, Amtrak, and the state are still in denial, but it's hopeless. The continual mudslides are bad enough, but sea level rise dooms it. It is basically built on the beach, at the bottom of the cliff, with no room to move it horizontally.

The Hudson Line has similar issues but it's a river so it is above sea level; same with the lines which parallel the Mississippi. The NEC has a few trouble spots but they could be moved inland or elevated. The Coast Line to San Diego is mostly at the top of the cliffs and a lot of it is inland, and it is being raised.

The line north of Seattle is simply going to be in the ocean, and it will make no sense to try to build a gigantic causeway in the middle of the ocean. It is sunk within 20 years, and it will be interesting to see how they try to reroute the freight. Probably to trucks. That's what happened to New England when the last railroad bridge across the Hudson south of Albany burned. Or maybe to Stampede Pass.

Passengers will most likely go via Portland, which is all at higher elevations.


BNSF's new Sandpoint track is probably the last possible; environmental clearances for it were not easy. Of course this is also putting all eggs in one basket. PacNW traffic to Montana can be severed entirely in preety much one spot.

Of course, none of this was known during the abandonment era, and even if known, private company management would not have cared about it, so I agree with you that some long term strategic national thinking should have been happening. And was not.

From a private management POV, the MILW had not yet ditched all the no-good eastern branch lines when they broke their connection to the West Coast. Maybe this was the vagaries of the ICC, or maybe it was the management, but it was the wrong priority order.


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## Tirnipgreen (May 13, 2019)

I would love to see train service from Atlanta to Orlando. Orlando (Disney) is the #1 family vacation destination on the planet and Atlanta is the largest city in the southeast. Maybe Atlanta to Macon to Savannah, then transfer to Silver Star / Silver Meteor...? I can dream, can't I...?


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## Tirnipgreen (May 14, 2019)

Greensboro / High Point to Asheville. The State of North Carolina promotes rail travel and the service is wonderful. I see real potential in service to the Asheville / Biltmore area.


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## Seaboard92 (May 15, 2019)

If they wouldn’t have downgraded the NS S line to 25 mph that would have had potential. And the state of NC was working on it for some time. Now they seam to be only focused on the Piedmont corridor.


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