# Amtrak Express LD Trains?



## Philly Amtrak Fan

There was a proposal way back in February 2000 for a New York to Los Angeles train making just eight stops in under 60 hours.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-02/28/001r-022800-idx.html

Of course the train never got off the ground. But it did have me wondering if "express" type LD trains were a good idea. Imagine a LD train going from Point A to Point B making fewer stops and arriving faster. Wouldn't this increase business?

Also the Auto Train doesn't make any passenger stops between Virginia and Florida and according to the last Monthly Performance Report it is the only LD train to still be running a profit this fiscal year.

I think New York to Los Angeles was too ambitious but I think there are two routes that I would consider if Amtrak had enough extra money to make them work:

Gold Star Express (As opposed to "Silver" service to Florida): New York to Florida

New York - Philadelphia - Baltimore - Washington - Richmond - Raleigh - Columbia SC - Savannah - Jacksonville - Orlando - Miami

Liberty Express (after the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell): New York to Chicago

New York - Philadelphia - Harrisburg - Pittsburgh - Cleveland - Toledo - Chicago or

New York - Philadelphia - Baltimore - Washington - Pittsburgh - Cleveland - Toledo - Chicago

There certainly is a place for trains that make more stops to serve local communities and allow for more city pairs. But I think these "express" trains will make traveling between the city pairs more attractive and certainly help passengers using these city pairs.

I am wondering if possibly replacing the Palmetto with the Gold Star Express and adding all of the stops along the Palmetto not currently covered by the Silver Meteor onto the Silver Meteor would work. It would cut service to most of the stops along the route but at least they would still be served by the SM. You could also run the Gold Star Express along the SM route and stop in Charleston, SC between Richmond and Savannah but you would miss Raleigh and the route would be further away from Charlotte and Greensboro and having the stop in Raleigh may allow a connection at Raleigh to the Piedmont.

How much time would be saved between New York and Florida and New York and Chicago if we only stopped at the locations suggested? Should certain stops be added or skipped?


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## Eric S

I can't imagine an "express" LD train working out better than "local" LD trains. Typically routes don't add express/limited-stop trains until there is a relatively frequent local service already operating. Perhaps if there is a 2-a-day service, some stops might be skipped on the overnight portion where the day train makes them, but I'm not sure even that would necessarily make sense as it would probably result in many city combinations no longer being served.


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## Ryan

Amtrak tried this on the NEC and it was a dismal failure. Can't see where LD would be any different.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Eric S said:


> I can't imagine an "express" LD train working out better than "local" LD trains. Typically routes don't add express/limited-stop trains until there is a relatively frequent local service already operating. Perhaps if there is a 2-a-day service, some stops might be skipped on the overnight portion where the day train makes them, but I'm not sure even that would necessarily make sense as it would probably result in many city combinations no longer being served.


That's why I suggested the two routes because there are currently two NYP to Florida trains and three trains from CHI to the East Coast. I think the demand is there and adding a PHL to CHI direct train whether it makes 10 stops or 30 stops is an improvement as long as it takes under 24 hours.


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## jebr

If it didn't work on the very frequently served NEC, why would it work on the much less frequent LD trains?


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## Eric S

If you consider the Acela to be the express and Northeast Regional to be the local, then the NEC is pretty much the only place where it currently works. And that's with dozens of trains a day. It's failed when tried on the Pacific Surfliners/San Diegans, with about a dozen trains a day.

Obviously there is some appeal of fewer stops if you happen to be traveling between two stops that are still served. But frequency is still more important. If we are in a position to add a 2nd or 3rd LD train, I just can't imagine that only serving the major stops is really going to save enough time to increase ridership from those major stops enough to offset what is lost from the dropped stops.

If we want to look at an express/local situation, work on getting the major corridors running frequently enough that operating some limited-stop trains starts to make sense.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

jebr said:


> If it didn't work on the very frequently served NEC, why would it work on the much less frequent LD trains?


The Auto Train works. Sure, they have a unique service but I'll bet the fact that it goes straight through doesn't hurt.


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## MikefromCrete

How much time would be saved by skipping local stops. I doubt if would make that much difference on a long distance schedule. An hour? 90 minutes? Such a change wouldn't attract any new riders and would reduce services to those smaller stations, with lesser ridership from those stations. An hour-90 minute faster trip wouldn't make any difference for LD riders who are obviously in no great hurry to begin with.


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## Thirdrail7

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> jebr said:
> 
> 
> 
> If it didn't work on the very frequently served NEC, why would it work on the much less frequent LD trains?
> 
> 
> 
> The Auto Train works. Sure, they have a unique service but I'll bet the fact that it goes straight through doesn't hurt.
Click to expand...

The auto train works because it yields high revenue as it carries passengers and their cars. It is a special operation. The question you'd have to ask in regards to any express service is will the stops support the train. In other words, will the stops the Liberty Express make be enough to help support the train? Will it generate the political clout that will certainly be needed to get funding for the train?

The answer is probably not. This of course assumes that the host railroads all of a sudden become cooperative and agree to run the train. Just because it makes less stops does not necessarily mean the train will yield a great deal of time savings. Congestion is still congestion and the hosts still may not expedite the train.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Thirdrail7 said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jebr said:
> 
> 
> 
> If it didn't work on the very frequently served NEC, why would it work on the much less frequent LD trains?
> 
> 
> 
> The Auto Train works. Sure, they have a unique service but I'll bet the fact that it goes straight through doesn't hurt.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> The auto train works because it yields high revenue as it carries passengers and their cars. It is a special operation. The question you'd have to ask in regards to any express service is will the stops support the train. In other words, will the stops the Liberty Express make be enough to help support the train? Will it generate the political clout that will certainly be needed to get funding for the train?
> 
> The answer is probably not. This of course assumes that the host railroads all of a sudden become cooperative and agree to run the train. Just because it makes less stops does not necessarily mean the train will yield a great deal of time savings. Congestion is still congestion and the hosts still may not expedite the train.
Click to expand...

Well in the case of the Gold Star Express, just replace the Palmetto which is basically the Silver Meteor without the Florida portion. So you'll have a third train going to Florida. No new trains.


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## Thirdrail7

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Thirdrail7 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jebr said:
> 
> 
> 
> If it didn't work on the very frequently served NEC, why would it work on the much less frequent LD trains?
> 
> 
> 
> The Auto Train works. Sure, they have a unique service but I'll bet the fact that it goes straight through doesn't hurt.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> The auto train works because it yields high revenue as it carries passengers and their cars. It is a special operation. The question you'd have to ask in regards to any express service is will the stops support the train. In other words, will the stops the Liberty Express make be enough to help support the train? Will it generate the political clout that will certainly be needed to get funding for the train?
> 
> The answer is probably not. This of course assumes that the host railroads all of a sudden become cooperative and agree to run the train. Just because it makes less stops does not necessarily mean the train will yield a great deal of time savings. Congestion is still congestion and the hosts still may not expedite the train.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Well in the case of the Gold Star Express, just replace the Palmetto which is basically the Silver Meteor without the Florida portion. So you'll have a third train going to Florida. No new trains.
Click to expand...


So, basically you want to bring back the failed Silver Palm? Additionally, if you leave out the Auto Train, the Silver Star and Silver Meteor service Florida. That is two trains to Florida. If you extend the Palmetto, that is indeed a third train to Florida.

That is an additional train past Savannah. CSX would likely call this a new train and what makes you think they will run it? What makes you think Congress will authorize it?


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## Devil's Advocate

jebr said:


> If it didn't work on the very frequently served NEC, why would it work on the much less frequent LD trains?


I've never understood why the forum always resorts to taking LD cues from the NEC. The NEC is nothing like the LD network. They use the same gauge, are run by the same corporation, and you can ticket between them. Other than that the hardware, the services, the scheduling, and the customer base are vastly different. They're basically two completely unrelated services that just happen to be connected by history and happenstance. What works for one has virtually no bearing on the other. Personally I agree that express services will continue to fail on both networks, but for entirely different reasons.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Thirdrail7 said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
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> Thirdrail7 said:
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> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
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> 
> 
> 
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> jebr said:
> 
> 
> 
> If it didn't work on the very frequently served NEC, why would it work on the much less frequent LD trains?
> 
> 
> 
> The Auto Train works. Sure, they have a unique service but I'll bet the fact that it goes straight through doesn't hurt.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> The auto train works because it yields high revenue as it carries passengers and their cars. It is a special operation. The question you'd have to ask in regards to any express service is will the stops support the train. In other words, will the stops the Liberty Express make be enough to help support the train? Will it generate the political clout that will certainly be needed to get funding for the train?
> 
> The answer is probably not. This of course assumes that the host railroads all of a sudden become cooperative and agree to run the train. Just because it makes less stops does not necessarily mean the train will yield a great deal of time savings. Congestion is still congestion and the hosts still may not expedite the train.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Well in the case of the Gold Star Express, just replace the Palmetto which is basically the Silver Meteor without the Florida portion. So you'll have a third train going to Florida. No new trains.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> So, basically you want to bring back the failed Silver Palm? Additionally, if you leave out the Auto Train, the Silver Star and Silver Meteor service Florida. That is two trains to Florida. If you extend the Palmetto, that is indeed a third train to Florida.
> 
> That is an additional train past Savannah. CSX would likely call this a new train and what makes you think they will run it? What makes you think Congress will authorize it?
Click to expand...

So if you can't run a third train to Florida, get rid of the Palmetto and use those cars and labor elsewhere where they are needed. Why have an LD train terminate in an area without a MLB, NFL, or NBA team?


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## jphjaxfl

In the pre-Amtrak days, the winter only Florida Special operated non stop at times from Richmond to West Palm Beach with an operating stop in Baldwin, Fl. It was still 24 hours from New York to Miami. That was before Auto Train and I think Auto Train has taken a lot of the Florida Special market.


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## Eric S

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> So if you can't run a third train to Florida, get rid of the Palmetto and use those cars and labor elsewhere where they are needed. Why have an LD train terminate in an area without a MLB, NFL, or NBA team?


What do 3 of 4 major sports leagues have to do with intercity passenger rail?


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Eric S said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> So if you can't run a third train to Florida, get rid of the Palmetto and use those cars and labor elsewhere where they are needed. Why have an LD train terminate in an area without a MLB, NFL, or NBA team?
> 
> 
> 
> What do 3 of 4 major sports leagues have to do with intercity passenger rail?
Click to expand...

In other words a major market. Under what criteria is Savannah a major market?


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## Eric S

We can certainly debate the merits of Savannah versus, say, Jacksonville. But the Palmetto is essentially a day train, anything beyond about Savannah or Jacksonville would change the nature to an overnight train.

As far as a major market, I'd say, depending on the context, something like 1 million or 0.5 million population in the metro area. (And, yes, I realize Savannah falls short.) But major market, mid-size market, or minor market - the choice of endpoint for an intercity passenger train might be driven by other factors than simply population, such as being a significant tourist market, required railroad facilities, reasonable operating endpoint, etc. Again, maybe Jacksonville makes more sense (or maybe not), if someone has cost and revenue estimates for that change let's look at them - but simply extending it because we don't like the idea of a train ending/starting at Savannah?

EDIT: I'd also point out that there are quite a few major cities without a team in the 3-4 major sports leagues. Now, they may not be logical endpoint cities for geographic or other reasons, but I don't think the lack of sports teams makes a difference.


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## jis

Palmetto is also the best financial performer among the three Atlantic Coast trains. IMHO it does not need to be "fixed".


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

jis said:


> Palmetto is also the best financial performer among the three Atlantic Coast trains. IMHO it does not need to be "fixed".


Oct. 14-Aug. 15 via Monthly Performance Report

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/525/92/Amtrak-Monthly-Performance-Report-August-2015.pdf

Ridership and Revenue:

Silver Star: 356,822 $31,092,782

Silver Meteor: 321,058 $35,946,702

Palmetto: 193,145 $15,702,225

How is the Palmetto the best financial performer?


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## jis

Add in the cost and P&L and it will become obvious. Revenue is not everything in financial performance.

Interestingly, historically, barring a few exceptions overnight trains have always been worse performers than daytime trains on the same route. The cost of running a daytime train is dramatically lower, even more so with the relative rise in labor cost. Unless one is able to allocate financial value to goodwill and prestige and such, the overnight trains with few stops have never performed well once the automobiles and interstates came about, and even worse with the jet age. OTOH, daytime trains with relatively frequent stops like the Palmetto have always had a role and have performed better. The exceptional situations primarily would be (a) Extremely high unit cost tourist operations for a special niche market and (b) truly overnight train connecting two major population centers, e.g. New York to Chicago in 15-16 hours. So I believe that the hypothetical "Liberty Limited" from NY to CHI could thrive if it could depart NY at around 6pm and arrive into CHI between 8 and 9 am. The CHI - DEN market also has potential, though in reality that might be unrealizable today. Realization of the overnight potential between CHI and DEN is what would strongly justify neroden's idea of using DEN as a connecting hub. The reason you would not want to run through such an overnight service is that it would destroy its reliability eastbound thus undermining its raison d'etre.

What should be done with the Palmetto for improvement is to somehow chop off an hour in its running time, not by reducing stops but by running it more tightly and taking advantage of track and time keeping improvements that can happen with improvement of the infrastructure, and then extend it to JAX again.

When the discussion started about cutting it back the last time I was involved in a to and fro with Amtrak, and it became pretty obvious that given the operating conditions then, running it to JAX had ceased to be viable operationally. Hence the cut back. Hopefully in the next several years it will again become feasible. We never thought that from a passenger service perspective it was good to cut it back, but then sometimes one has to deal with realities on the ground and swallow a bitter pill.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

jis said:


> Add in the cost and P&L and it will become obvious. Revenue is not everything in financial performance.
> 
> Interestingly, historically, barring a few exceptions overnight trains have always been worse performers than daytime trains on the same route. The cost of running a daytime train is dramatically lower, even more so with the relative rise in labor cost. Unless one is able to allocate financial value to goodwill and prestige and such, the overnight trains with few stops have never performed well once the automobiles and interstates came about, and even worse with the jet age. OTOH, daytime trains with relatively frequent stops like the Palmetto have always had a role and have performed better. The exceptional situations primarily would be (a) Extremely high unit cost tourist operations for a special niche market and (b) truly overnight train connecting two major population centers, e.g. New York to Chicago in 15-16 hours. So I believe that the hypothetical "Liberty Limited" from NY to CHI could thrive if it could depart NY at around 6pm and arrive into CHI between 8 and 9 am. The CHI - DEN market also has potential, though in reality that might be unrealizable today. Realization of the overnight potential between CHI and DEN is what would strongly justify neroden's idea of using DEN as a connecting hub. The reason you would not want to run through such an overnight service is that it would destroy its reliability eastbound thus undermining its raison d'etre.
> 
> What should be done with the Palmetto for improvement is to somehow chop off an hour in its running time, not by reducing stops but by running it more tightly and taking advantage of track and time keeping improvements that can happen with improvement of the infrastructure, and then extend it to JAX again.
> 
> When the discussion started about cutting it back the last time I was involved in a to and fro with Amtrak, and it became pretty obvious that given the operating conditions then, running it to JAX had ceased to be viable operationally. Hence the cut back. Hopefully in the next several years it will again become feasible. We never thought that from a passenger service perspective it was good to cut it back, but then sometimes one has to deal with realities on the ground and swallow a bitter pill.


Well the most expensive trains to run are the ones that bring in the most money. If you are considering net profit, the less popular trains like the Palmetto and Cardinal lose less money. If we have given up on Amtrak being profitable beyond Acela and the NEC, would you rather have trains that make more revenue or cost less to run?

As for daytime trains, how about when they extended the Pennsylvanian to Chicago as a day train without sleeper service? I remember really early departure times and really late arrival times at CHI and PHL (then the end of the Pennsylvanian). I believe when they restored the Pennnsylvanian to PGH to NYP ridership increased. That was probably another case of cutting back service being a good thing.


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## jis

Generally one would want trains that cost less to run and make more money I.e that have lower CASM and higher RASM so that the difference between the two is either less negative or more positive. That is the general principle. Applying it under different circumstances will yield different mix of service. It is better to look at a corridor in its entirety and figure out how to maximize RASM and minimize CASM rather than focus on a single train. What makes this exercise difficult with the limited info that we have is that we have no info at all on the cross elasticities between trains or between fare levels and RASM.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

jis said:


> Generally one would want trains that cost less to run and make more money I.e that have lower CASM and higher RASM so that the difference between the two is either less negative or more positive. That is the general principle. Applying it under different circumstances will yield different mix of service. It is better to look at a corridor in its entirety and figure out how to maximize RASM and minimize CASM rather than focus on a single train. What makes this exercise difficult with the limited info that we have is that we have no info at all on the cross elasticities between trains or between fare levels and RASM.


Sorry, not as familiar with the acronyms. CASM and RASM?


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## AmtrakBlue

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> 
> Generally one would want trains that cost less to run and make more money I.e that have lower CASM and higher RASM so that the difference between the two is either less negative or more positive. That is the general principle. Applying it under different circumstances will yield different mix of service. It is better to look at a corridor in its entirety and figure out how to maximize RASM and minimize CASM rather than focus on a single train. What makes this exercise difficult with the limited info that we have is that we have no info at all on the cross elasticities between trains or between fare levels and RASM.
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, not as familiar with the acronyms. CASM and RASM?
Click to expand...

Cost vs Revenue per available seat mile


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## neroden

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> But it did have me wondering if "express" type LD trains were a good idea. Imagine a LD train going from Point A to Point B making fewer stops and arriving faster.


The first thing to understand: The amount of time used making stops is minimal. At many stops, the train is in and out in under 2 minutes, with less than 5 minutes used including slowing down and speeding up.The exceptions are (a) busy stops with lots of passengers -- you don't want to cut these, (b) stops where the train has to stop repeatedly because of short platforms, and © stops where the train is delayed because of wheelchair loading / stairs at low platforms.

The second thing to understand: on many routes, the local stops have *already* been cut.

Look at the Lake Shore Limited. What could you rationally cut from that schedule? Stations are already over an hour apart on most of the route. Most of them are at significant metro areas with very large draws (Syracuse, for instance, draws passengers driving for hours from north and south) and the train already skips past dozens of local stops served by Metro-North and Empire Service.

You might, I suppose, cut Rhinecliff, Elyria, Bryan, and Elkhart. That saves you what, 20 minutes maximum? You can save more time than that with more efficient operations at Albany, or by getting CSX and NS and Metro-North to dispatch the train on time, or by building high platforms at various stations. It's just not a significant benefit.

(I actually *would* cut Bryan from the LSL schedule, because of the low and short platforms, and serve it with the Capitol Limited instead, since the CL is low-boarding and shorter. But that's specific to the delays caused by the substandard platform.)



Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> How much time would be saved between New York and Florida and New York and Chicago if we only stopped at the locations suggested?


Nothing significant -- an amount less than the typical delays caused by dispatching problems. And you'd lose vast amounts of ridership.
Now, I caution, this is an analysis of the LSL. It applies to the CL as well, and to the Florida trains, and to any other train where the stops are typically an hour or more apart. The Texas Eagle, which has lots of stops much more closely spaced, may be a different kettle of fish. Express service on the NEC makes sense because the NE Regional stops are a *lot* closer than an hour apart.


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## Anderson

I'd like to ask someone who knows...

The Silver Palm is indicated as "failed", but the cutbacks and ultimate discontinuation of said train are timed pretty closely with Amtrak having to phase out Heritage sleepers. Obviously once the Palm lost its sleeper, running overnight became a Bad Idea, but I've got some pre-MPR data on the Silver Palm that has ridership being not _that_ far behind the Meteor and Star. So did the Palm get the axe effectively because of equipment shortages (which cascaded down to making operation through FL non-viable), or was a good chunk of the issue skipping Orlando (the Orlando metro being the biggest traffic generator in Florida for Amtrak) entirely?


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

I found this. They almost have my exact proposal for the Liberty Limited but added South Bend, Fort Wayne (does Amtrak even serve them now?), and Lancaster.

http://www.nychicagorr.org/RouteMap.html


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## Anderson

Well, that's an awful website...and I'm not sure there's any "groundwork" being done for it (e.g. state/regional-level planning). There have been some discussions of a 90-125 MPH system (and they included the MWHSR map elsewhere on the site), but that site looks like a railfan project more than anything.


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## jis

Yup, good ungrounded mental exercise I suppose


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Anderson said:


> Well, that's an awful website...and I'm not sure there's any "groundwork" being done for it (e.g. state/regional-level planning). There have been some discussions of a 90-125 MPH system (and they included the MWHSR map elsewhere on the site), but that site looks like a railfan project more than anything.


This is from All Aboard Ohio

http://allaboardohio.org/2011/02/08/ohio-could-benefit-greatly-from-obamas-huge-hsr-program/


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## rrdude

Forgive me for not citing "facts and figures", but I thin even Ryan will agree without having a citation. Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I thought I have read report after report, issued by Amtrak, that show the bulk of LD riders do NOT ride end-point to end-point? So what would be gained by eliminating 2/3 or 3/4 of the intermediate stops on a slow LD train, just to "save" 2 hours, or 10 hours, or even 24 hours coast to coast?

I see NO BENEFIT, but then again, I had to take statistics 101 twice in college.......

IMHO, LD trains need to be increased in frequency, and add intermediate stops. "Getting there fast" is NOT a reason that I think ANYbody takes an LD train.

Amtrak marketing needs to sell what LD train travel offers, and one *cannot experience* traveling by car, motorcoach, or air.

Sell what you have, and "Flip" the disadvantages into benefits. It ain't rocket science.


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## Eric S

I agree that, with a few exceptions, cutting stops from LD trains in order to speed them up doesn't really make all that much sense. I think more is lost than gained by doing so.

Those few exceptions, as I see them, include where the LD train supplements corridor service or maybe when cutting a few stops makes the difference between hitting an important time point or not.


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## jis

Eric S said:


> I agree that, with a few exceptions, cutting stops from LD trains in order to speed them up doesn't really make all that much sense. I think more is lost than gained by doing so.
> 
> Those few exceptions, as I see them, include where the LD train supplements corridor service or maybe when cutting a few stops makes the difference between hitting an important time point or not.


I agree with this sentiment.

Those who are looking to run blazingly fast LD trains on the freight infrastructure of today are unfortunately living in another era that has passed by a while back. It is more important to serve as many points en route as one can, because that is where the real advantage of train travel lies. There is absolutely no way that LD trains can compete with planes on real long routes, and often they can't even compete effectively with cars on speed.


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## jis

Anderson said:


> I'd like to ask someone who knows...
> 
> The Silver Palm is indicated as "failed", but the cutbacks and ultimate discontinuation of said train are timed pretty closely with Amtrak having to phase out Heritage sleepers. Obviously once the Palm lost its sleeper, running overnight became a Bad Idea, but I've got some pre-MPR data on the Silver Palm that has ridership being not _that_ far behind the Meteor and Star. So did the Palm get the axe effectively because of equipment shortages (which cascaded down to making operation through FL non-viable), or was a good chunk of the issue skipping Orlando (the Orlando metro being the biggest traffic generator in Florida for Amtrak) entirely?


If you take a look at what equipment was available in say 1998 and then compare it to what was available in late 2002 after the dust had settled on the potty conversion and related effects on the fleet, the answer would become quite obvious. For example Amtrak basically went from some 75 or so Sleepers down to 50, from 25 Slumbercoaches to zero and from 42 or so Diners to 24 or so. There simply was not enough equipment left to run a third Sleeper train to Florida and even a Sleeper in the Three Rivers. That is primarily why the Silver Palm lost its Sleeper and Diner circa 2002. The discontinuance of the overnight part of the run involved to get to deep Florida followed somewhat naturally in 2004, as the availability of Coaches also dwindled. Cutback to Savannah rather than JAX basically had to do with minimizing the number of T&E crews needed. Basically one needs to have enough ridership between SAV and JAX to offset the additional cost of operation. Add to that the lack of reliable operation on schedule due to deteriorating time keeping on CSX. From the perspective of schedule reliability and potential ridership it may be time to consider an extension to JAX again.

Incidentally, Amtrak has offered the Florida DOT to run a Miami - Tampa - Miami daytime service (the original Silver Palm circa early '80s), but unfortunately FDOT has declined. The original Silver Palm ran as a 403b train for a couple of years and failed to meet FDOT's requirement of 60% farebox recovery. Again this may be worth revisiting as a PRIIA 209 train, but that will have to await a government in Florida that is a little less - pardon my characterization - anal, or until someone figures out a way of attaching a real estate deal with the train that puts some money in the pockets of a few key Florida legislators and executives - said with tongue firmly planted in the cheek.. Then again, now there are additional potential players in the game, specifically since Florida now has two thriving Commuter systems and has gained considerable experience on how to run things under contract with alternative operators.


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## Palmetto

I'd like to see how they're going to do South Bend to Ft. Wayne, since there's no really direct rail line between the two.


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## jis

Anything is possible in random fantasies.

Believing that all rail advocacy groups actually even vaguely know what they are talking about is something that one should indulge in only at ones own peril, I am afraid.

Frankly this is one of the more difficult struggles with rail advocacy groups - keeping them grounded in some semblance of reality instead of heading off on random flights of fancy.


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## jis

BTW, I have come to learn from various conversations that the through cars from Pennsy to the Cap are unlikely to happen in the near future.

I also came to learn that certain Republican Congressmen and Senators have asked Amtrak to consider a train on the New Orleans - Mobile - Florida route separate from the Sunset Limited, and also to reconsider the feasibility of the Crescent Star or something like it. of course there will be no extension of the LD network until Congress comes up with specific money for it, and the NOL - Florida route will most likely require funding from the states. So both are very long shots at the moment. Independent of the requests I also came to learn that part of the reason Sunset East has not returned may be that it was an absolute nightmare to operate and it is very very unlikely that the Sunset Limited will be extended east a a continuation to Florida. I got the impression that the same holds true for any other train that currently terminates in New Orleans.

But of course one can dream and things can change as time goes on....


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## Bob Dylan

Any inside dope on why the run through cars from the Pennsy to the Cap are on hold jis?

We know about the delay on the Viewliners and the track work required in PGH, but what other reason would delay this much needed addition?


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## jis

Lack of desire to deal with the complexity of operating a mixed consist train apparently. I don't know for sure. The last time this was done, apparently the Cap was not a Superliner train.

Although, during the transition from single level to Superliner equipment many western trains ran with mixed consist for at least a little while. However, they use the Hi-Level Transition Coaches to connect the two sections together, not the Trans Dorm Sleepers. Having several Coaches worth of passengers transiting through the Trans Dorm and possibly other Sleepers to the Diner and lounge would probably be somewhat awkward but not unheard of.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

rrdude said:


> Forgive me for not citing "facts and figures", but I thin even Ryan will agree without having a citation. Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I thought I have read report after report, issued by Amtrak, that show the bulk of LD riders do NOT ride end-point to end-point? So what would be gained by eliminating 2/3 or 3/4 of the intermediate stops on a slow LD train, just to "save" 2 hours, or 10 hours, or even 24 hours coast to coast?
> 
> I see NO BENEFIT, but then again, I had to take statistics 101 twice in college.......
> 
> IMHO, LD trains need to be increased in frequency, and add intermediate stops. "Getting there fast" is NOT a reason that I think ANYbody takes an LD train.
> 
> Amtrak marketing needs to sell what LD train travel offers, and one *cannot experience* traveling by car, motorcoach, or air.
> 
> Sell what you have, and "Flip" the disadvantages into benefits. It ain't rocket science.


More stops = More chance for a delay.


----------



## Eric S

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> rrdude said:
> 
> 
> 
> Forgive me for not citing "facts and figures", but I thin even Ryan will agree without having a citation. Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I thought I have read report after report, issued by Amtrak, that show the bulk of LD riders do NOT ride end-point to end-point? So what would be gained by eliminating 2/3 or 3/4 of the intermediate stops on a slow LD train, just to "save" 2 hours, or 10 hours, or even 24 hours coast to coast?
> 
> I see NO BENEFIT, but then again, I had to take statistics 101 twice in college.......
> 
> IMHO, LD trains need to be increased in frequency, and add intermediate stops. "Getting there fast" is NOT a reason that I think ANYbody takes an LD train.
> 
> Amtrak marketing needs to sell what LD train travel offers, and one *cannot experience* traveling by car, motorcoach, or air.
> 
> Sell what you have, and "Flip" the disadvantages into benefits. It ain't rocket science.
> 
> 
> 
> More stops = More chance for a delay.
Click to expand...

What? Seriously? That's the justification for cutting out stops?

What sorts of delays would be prevented by not making a station-stop?

- Delays due to greater numbers of passengers getting on/off the train perhaps - but isn't that a "good" problem of sorts (more passengers, more revenues) that, if common enough, can be dealt with by adjusting the schedule somewhat, rather than by cutting service to passengers at those stops?

- Delays due to poor Amtrak boarding procedures perhaps - but shouldn't those be fixed by changing the procedures, not by cutting service to passengers at those stops?

- Delays due to the need to double- (or triple-) stop because of short platforms perhaps - but shouldn't those be fixed by lengthening platforms when possible, not by cutting service to passengers at those stops?

What other delays would be prevented?


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## jis

Not if the timetables are prepared properly and station stops are managed properly and efficiently. There are many trains in the world that run regularly with 50 or more stops end to end that operate pretty much on schedule year in and year out. No reason that cannot be done here.


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## Eric S

jis said:


> Not if the timetables are prepared properly and station stops are managed properly and efficiently. There are many trains in the wols that run regularly with 50 or more stops end to end that operate pretty much on schedule year in and year out. No reason that cannot be done here.


This.

A much more succinct answer than I came up with.


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## Anderson

@Eric: Delays due to passenger loads may be a "good" problem, but a good problem is still a problem (if that makes sense). The main issue with "loads and loads of stops" is that it has the potential to make a mess of the schedule by potentially adding lots of stops along a train's route. If you add 30 stops to, say, the Capitol Limited you could easily add about two hours to the train's travel time due to stopping and starting. Some of that can be alleviated by making some stops flag stops, etc., but there's always a risk of effectively adding an hour to a schedule to add ten passengers...and, at some point, possibly lose either equipment rotations, connections, or desirable times in key locations. Add a dozen stops to the LSL in Upstate NY and suddenly Buffalo is well past midnight WB, NYP is closing in on 8 PM EB, and CHI is getting cut awfully close on the western end.

Would I like there to be a "local" of sorts alongside an "express"? I would, and there are some places where things like this could be managed in theory...but it involves adding additional trains and likely expecting transfer traffic to the expresses to subsidize the locals. A hypothetical example would be if you added a train MIA-JAX, had it make lots of stops (e.g. add some more Tri-Rail stops, Haines City, etc.) while trimming a few from the Star or the Meteor...and time the local train's arrival in JAX so that it would get there a shade before the train it would be transferring pax to (through cars would be optional but, from the passenger perspective at least, preferable). FWIW, this would probably work best with the Star (and maybe have the "local" skip Tampa) due to timing (trying to have a train leave Miami before the Meteor does gets a little early), though you could do it with either service. On the other end, having a Regional/SEHSR "local" making more stops and then transferring at WAS, RVR, or RGH would also work.

The main issue is structuring the trains to make transfers both effective and preferable to just driving up the line a station or two to catch the "express"...which means the local needs to leave well ahead of the express so as not to delay it (e.g. 5 minutes per added stop plus perhaps an hour to make sure it doesn't get jammed up so you get the trains chasing one another...so presumably at least two hours).

One other issue comes up with all those stops: There's a cost to maintaining even an unmanned "station" which is little more than a concrete slab by the tracks. If a locality is willing to take up that cost (and some towns doubtless would be willing to do so, and might even be able to get volunteer attendants to staff it) that's one thing, but having Amtrak fork over for stops that generate _maybe_ a thousand riders per year is not a winning proposition.


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## neroden

jis said:


> BTW, I have come to learn from various conversations that the through cars from Pennsy to the Cap are unlikely to happen in the near future.


Why? Because Amtrak management are fools? Or what?
It's one of the two best bang-for-the-buck things Amtrak can do, along with a daily Cardinal.

Or is it simply that by "near future" they mean "next two years"? I know at this point it can't possibly be done before late 2018 (you need the Viewliner IIs to arrive, you need the corridor bilevels to arrive and free up Horizon coaches, and you need construction to finish or at least ease up along the LSL route in order to do the schedule swap for the LSL and CL).

Congress ordered Amtrak to prepare the Performance Improvement Plans in order to *improve performance*, not in order to sit on a shelf somewhere. Someone needs their ass kicked for not implementing them. And it's a *really* easy target for Congress, too. "We ordered you to prepare these plans. You did -- they're good plans. Why aren't you implementing them?" Amtrak management had better have a damn good reason.

Bluntly, this sort of stuff is what gets Amtrak management a bad reputation. They propose a genuinely sound plan, and then proceed to ignore it because -- what? Laziness? Inertia??


----------



## Just-Thinking-51

Your problem neroden, is you think someone at Amtrak cares enough to make improvements to the LD network.

Everyone who want to make improvements have been given a early retirement. Boardman gave up on the LD long ago.

Start Viewliner comments now....


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

Eric S said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> rrdude said:
> 
> 
> 
> Forgive me for not citing "facts and figures", but I thin even Ryan will agree without having a citation. Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I thought I have read report after report, issued by Amtrak, that show the bulk of LD riders do NOT ride end-point to end-point? So what would be gained by eliminating 2/3 or 3/4 of the intermediate stops on a slow LD train, just to "save" 2 hours, or 10 hours, or even 24 hours coast to coast?
> 
> I see NO BENEFIT, but then again, I had to take statistics 101 twice in college.......
> 
> IMHO, LD trains need to be increased in frequency, and add intermediate stops. "Getting there fast" is NOT a reason that I think ANYbody takes an LD train.
> 
> Amtrak marketing needs to sell what LD train travel offers, and one *cannot experience* traveling by car, motorcoach, or air.
> 
> Sell what you have, and "Flip" the disadvantages into benefits. It ain't rocket science.
> 
> 
> 
> More stops = More chance for a delay.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> What? Seriously? That's the justification for cutting out stops?
> 
> What sorts of delays would be prevented by not making a station-stop?
> 
> - Delays due to greater numbers of passengers getting on/off the train perhaps - but isn't that a "good" problem of sorts (more passengers, more revenues) that, if common enough, can be dealt with by adjusting the schedule somewhat, rather than by cutting service to passengers at those stops?
> 
> - Delays due to poor Amtrak boarding procedures perhaps - but shouldn't those be fixed by changing the procedures, not by cutting service to passengers at those stops?
> 
> - Delays due to the need to double- (or triple-) stop because of short platforms perhaps - but shouldn't those be fixed by lengthening platforms when possible, not by cutting service to passengers at those stops?
> 
> What other delays would be prevented?
Click to expand...

I'm sorry Capitol Limited passengers. Even though we got to Harper's Ferry West Virginia at 5:30pm we have to wait here until 5:45pm. Those 15 minutes may not seem like a lot but maybe those 15 minutes are the difference between an accident or a freight train blocking your path and that 15 minute delay becomes an hour or more.


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## Eric S

So a train arriving early at a stop and holding until the scheduled departure is the problem? How is that any different than if it arrives early at Pittsburgh and holds until the scheduled departure? And then, as a result of not leaving early, faces some sort of service disruption down the line?


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

Eric S said:


> So a train arriving early at a stop and holding until the scheduled departure is the problem? How is that any different than if it arrives early at Pittsburgh and holds until the scheduled departure? And then, as a result of not leaving early, faces some sort of service disruption down the line?


Do I really have to answer that question?


----------



## Eric S

If I misunderstood your point, please explain or correct my misunderstanding.

If not, then I'd be interested in knowing how many major delays could be avoided by skipping your "irrelevant" stops because a major disruption would occur just after the train passes.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Every stop has the chance of causing a delay if you arrive early and have to wait. But every stop also has a certain value when it comes to R & R. Pittsburgh and Harper's Ferry do not have the same value. Is Harper's Ferry worth stopping by? Amtrak can tell you. What if two trains follow the same route? Do both have to stop at Harper's Ferry? Why not just one?


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## jebr

How often does a train actually arrive early enough at a small intermediate stop for it to be a noticeable wait? I see it westbound at SCD (mainly because the schedule hasn't been adjusted for the shorter station stop at MSP) but I don't recall having an experience of waiting at a small intermediate stop anywhere else.


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## Ryan

If we ever get two LD trains on the same route, maybe we can examine that. Until then, you'll just have to suffer the indignity of stopping at all of those crappy little hovels that you don't care about.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Ryan said:


> If we ever get two LD trains on the same route, maybe we can examine that. Until then, you'll just have to suffer the indignity of stopping at all of those crappy little hovels that you don't care about.


My original proposals back on p. 1 were to use two routes where service exists now and were meant to be on top of the current existing equivalent services.


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## neroden

Here's the thing: the entire "LD" thinking is ****. New York - Chicago trains are just as viable as Boston - Washington trains. So if Boardman or Amtrak management is ignoring "LD" trains, it's because they're allowing a legal classification to override common sense.

Jis, if you do have the right contacts... how can we tell them not to be *money-wasting fools*?

If they'll release sufficient "confidential" information to make proper cost and revenue estimates, I'm willing to do the work for them to present a business plan to prove that they're leaving money on the table if they don't plan for through cars in 2018.

I understand not making improvements which cost money, but improvements which *make* money? Pennsy-Cap through cars were calculated to have a net cost $0.7 million/year in the PIP using *2009* ridership and ticket yields. Recalculate with 2018 ridership and ticket yield numbers and they will definitely be profitable.

Across the system, ticket yields are up from 24.58 cents/passenger-mile in 2009 to 32.00 cents/passenger-mile in 2015, a 30% increase.

We can start with the PIP numbers ($3.9 million in added revenue, $4.6 million in added operating costs) and escalate to the present day, adding 30% to ridership and increasing costs by 2% annually to account for inflation ($5 million in added revenue, maybe $5 million in added costs).

This isn't right, though. I'm pretty sure the PIP is using a ridership estimate which is too low for present-day operations. We have 22386 people making the appalling middle-of-the-night waiting-room-sucks connection from the CL to the Pennsy right now. The PIP estimate would have that go up by 20,400. This is... low. I'd expect ridership on the connection to increase by 22000, at least. This adds another 10% ($0.5 million) to revenue.

The sale of sleeper tickets rather than coach tickets should also increase the ticket yield, though I don't know how to estimate that.

And ridership/revenue should continue to grow faster than costs going into 2018, if only thanks to all the upgrade projects finishing in 2017, many of which are on the Keystone route and some of which are in Chicago.

It just looks to me like this is a profitable move, at least in 2018, which is the earliest it can be done in any case due to the Viewliner delivery schedule.

The LSL schedule switch can't be done before 2018 anyway, because most of the major delay-inducing construction on Poughkeepsie-Albany, Albany station, Albany-Schenectady, Schenectady station, Rochester station, Springfield station, PTC installations, Indiana Gateway, and preferably even MBTA Worcester Line improvements, need to wrap up before it's worth trying to negotiate a new schedule with the host railroads. By 2018, the Empire Builder mega-delays really should have cleared up as well (BNSF's upgrade plans are supposed to be finished end of 2016).

For ADA purposes, it would be a lot better if the CL were switched to single-level equipment. Consider this with the Pennsy through cars as a *baseline*:

This would require:

-- 3 (3 * 1) single-level dining cars -- ORDER MORE VIEWLINERS

-- 9 (3 * 3) single-level coaches -- with seating rearrangment, this should be available when the Horizons become spare

-- no additional cafe cars over the baseline

-- no additional baggage cars over the baseline

-- 9 (3 * 3) or 12 (4 * 3) sleeping cars (Load factors on the CL are persistently low so you probably don't need to replace the full current capacity.) -- ORDER MORE VIEWLINERS

This would free up enough bilevel sleepers and lounges to keep the money-sucking Western trains creaking along.

But hey, there doesn't seem to be a long-term planning department at Amtrak. The connections between the "NEC and branches", Amtrak's best-performing region, and the "Chicago Hub", Amtrak's third-best performing region, should be prioritized for their network effects alone. (California is the second-best-performing region, but it's hard to improve the connections from California to anywhere else.)

OK, this is rail advocacy forum. How can we put together a serious advocacy push to make Amtrak take the "Northeast-Chicago nexus" seriously, along with the "Northeast-Florida nexus"? These trains are completely different animals from the West-of-Chicago situation. They go through areas with more population density than France, and they are held back *entirely* by lack of investment.


----------



## Seaboard92

The days of the express train are gone and will likely never come back. The two expresses you cite are the route of the Broadway Limited, 20th Century Limited. And for Florida the Orange Blossom Special. Back in the 40s the 20th Century Limited ran with two intermediate stops both close to the terminals of the train. It made other stops for crew changes too. But let's look at it's market. The 20th Century Limited catered to the Chicago to New York market only. But when it was doing this there were about 24 direct trains a day(1952) running on six different routes. In those days the train was also the train for businessmen who had meetings in the other cities. They got two productive days in both cities. Now a days it isn't used for that as much. So the express adds no value. The day it had a market is gone. What we should focus on more is growing what we have. I'm not saying we can't miss the trains of the past. But we should work on increasing service on the Waterlevel Route if there is demand. But only if there is demand. And the route of the Broadway Limited should be brought back. But not at the expensive of trains that are already running. We're trying to grow the network. Not cut the network where there is an existing market. That's cutting your nose to spite your face.


----------



## neroden

Seaboard92 said:


> . But we should work on increasing service on the Waterlevel Route if there is demand. But only if there is demand. And the route of the Broadway Limited should be brought back. But not at the expensive of trains that are already running. We're trying to grow the network. Not cut the network where there is an existing market. That's cutting your nose to spite your face.


What he said. But the thing is that we *know* there's demand on both routes. Grrrrr.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

neroden said:


> Seaboard92 said:
> 
> 
> 
> . But we should work on increasing service on the Waterlevel Route if there is demand. But only if there is demand. And the route of the Broadway Limited should be brought back. But not at the expensive of trains that are already running. We're trying to grow the network. Not cut the network where there is an existing market. That's cutting your nose to spite your face.
> 
> 
> 
> What he said. But the thing is that we *know* there's demand on both routes. Grrrrr.
Click to expand...

Right. More demand than on some of the routes Amtrak still runs.

You can say all you want about not cutting anything. But the fact is that you have limited resources and you have to make choices (unless a bunch of money and/or extra cars comes falling out of the sky).

Like it or not, I feel Amtrak does make poor choices when it comes to maximizing R & R.

Consider Georgia.

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/GEORGIA14.pdf

Atlanta: 95,630 (ONE train)

Savannah: 63,016 (THREE trains)

If that's not misallocation of resources, I don't know what is.

And just for the record, the whole state of West Virginia: 55,712.

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/WESTVIRGINIA14.pdf


----------



## Ryan

The sooner you understand that Amtrak's goal is not to maximize revenue the better.


----------



## Anderson

There are probably four markets in the Amtrak system which could support an "Express" train. One is the Capitol Limited, another is the Lake Shore Limited, the third is the Crescent north of Atlanta, and the final is the Silver Service (likely the Meteor). Let's examine each of these routes in turn:

-The Capitol Limited runs CHI-WAS and serves a key connecting role in the system (you have a lot of passengers traveling from the Midwest to Florida for whom this is the only workable connection, and a decent number aside who use the train to connect between the Western LD trains and the Northeast). The result is something like 40-45% of the traffic being end-to-end and another 21% being PGH-turnover traffic.

-The Lake Shore Limited runs CHI-NYP/BOS. There isn't nearly the amount of endpoint traffic on this train that there is on the Cap, but I'm going to blame that on three reasons: First, the LSL simply doesn't connect well on the eastern end. The evening arrival into New York is undesirable and makes for, quite bluntly, crappy onward connections. Second, the LSL is usually more expensive than the Cap due to constrained capacity (and the capacity constraints probably jam end-to-end travel up a bit as well...). Finally, there's simply a lot more "local" traffic on the LSL's route, generating a lot of turnover in coach (e.g. BUF-NYP, CLE-CHI). WB, the train has better times going to CHI than the Cap does, and EB it occupies a very nice slot BUF-NYP. The Cap doesn't have the "internal markets" at present that the LSL does.

-The Crescent is an odd duck, but it shows up here because of heavy demand north of Atlanta. Though there are well-discussed issues with the Atlanta station, the basic gist of a service here is that south of Atlanta there are a number of scattered markets while north of Atlanta there is a _lot_ of traffic heading to the NEC. Here what you'd want is one train to run "express" along the northern end of the route (probably only stopping at ALX, CVS, LYH, and CLT) while the other makes most or all stops and then have the trains follow different routes to New Orleans (one via Birmingham and the other via Montgomery). The headache is that you'd either need to trade off a bunch of city pairs (though they might indeed be small in the scheme of things) or find some way to crossload passengers.

-The Silver Service. One of the frustrating things is that in the PIPs, Amtrak focused on specific city pairs, but the whole block of NYP-WAS to JAX-MIA traffic ("endpoint region" traffic, if you will) on those trains is quite large and lots of space turnover on these trains (especially the Meteor at present) will only occur on the relatively extreme ends. So an "Orange Blossom Special"-esque train probably has a market, even now so long as you've still got a train keeping (roughly) the Meteor's/Star's stopping pattern.

It's been my contention that NEC-Chicago and NEC-Florida services could benefit from multiple-daily service on a given route...there's a proposal for this that's pretty well thought-out for NYP-CHI via the LSL's route (the plan, while not cheap, would offer 4x daily service from end to end with only 8 sets of equipment which could be more or less standardized) and I think a similar setup could be developed for the Silver route (although you'd probably be looking at 12-14 sets needed). The Capitol Limited is really on here because of the inherent problems in trying to do almost everything once per day with spotty OTP. Having only one train combination capable of making it from the Midwest to Florida is a problem; even if a direct train is a non-starter for various reasons, there really needs to be more service here.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

Ryan said:


> The sooner you understand that Amtrak's goal is not to maximize revenue the better.


I think you are still living in a dream world where Amtrak only exists to serve the public and they aren't a business at all. And even if they are 100% a public service, shouldn't it to be their public duty to serve as many people as possible? You know they can't serve everybody. Shouldn't they strive to serve as many people as possible?


----------



## Anderson

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Seaboard92 said:
> 
> 
> 
> . But we should work on increasing service on the Waterlevel Route if there is demand. But only if there is demand. And the route of the Broadway Limited should be brought back. But not at the expensive of trains that are already running. We're trying to grow the network. Not cut the network where there is an existing market. That's cutting your nose to spite your face.
> 
> 
> 
> What he said. But the thing is that we *know* there's demand on both routes. Grrrrr.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Right. More demand than on some of the routes Amtrak still runs.
> 
> You can say all you want about not cutting anything. But the fact is that you have limited resources and you have to make choices (unless a bunch of money and/or extra cars comes falling out of the sky).
> 
> Like it or not, I feel Amtrak does make poor choices when it comes to maximizing R & R.
> 
> Consider Georgia.
> 
> http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/GEORGIA14.pdf
> 
> Atlanta: 95,630 (ONE train)
> 
> Savannah: 63,016 (THREE trains)
> 
> If that's not misallocation of resources, I don't know what is.
> 
> And just for the record, the whole state of West Virginia: 55,712.
> 
> http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/WESTVIRGINIA14.pdf
Click to expand...

West Virginia is a bad situation, but that's more due to being horridly under-served than anything: You have two relatively small towns on the Capitol Limited route (daily service) with 16k riders. The other 39-40k riders are on the Cardinal, which doesn't run daily (in a horrid handling of equipment, among other things) resulting in stations with operating schedules which occasionally look like they were planned for a Terry Gilliam film. If the Cardinal were daily, the state would probably have ridership in the range of 100-125k (depending on what presumptions you use concerning how ridership would increase in line with the increase in service...the same amount of traffic per frequency gives a statewide total of about 110k, for reference).

As to Atlanta, the rub there is that there's a lot of traffic for ATL-north and not nearly as much for ATL-south, creating heartburn about even extending the Crescent's current consist (e.g. do you have lots of cars run empty south of Atlanta or end up with horridly expensive fares and squeezed capacity north of Atlanta?).


----------



## Ryan

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> And even if they are 100% a public service, shouldn't it to be their public duty to serve as many people as possible?


It is, which is why I'm opposed to the service cuts that you lobby for. Taking the only train away from some people because they live in a small town so that people that live in a big city and already have multiple trains can have even more of them is pretty much the exact opposite.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

Anderson said:


> As to Atlanta, the rub there is that there's a lot of traffic for ATL-north and not nearly as much for ATL-south, creating heartburn about even extending the Crescent's current consist (e.g. do you have lots of cars run empty south of Atlanta or end up with horridly expensive fares and squeezed capacity north of Atlanta?).


Let me revisit one of my ideas:

The southbound Crescent arrives in ATL 8:13am and the northbound Crescent leaves ATL at 8:04pm.

The approximate travel from CLT to ATL is about 5.5 hrs (2:45-8:13am, 8:04pm-1:21am).

Extend the 73 southbound Piedmont from CLT to ATL (arriving before 4pm). Extend the 76 northbound Piedmont as well (leave ATL around 11:30am).

From the southbound Crescent, detach 2 cars and put them on the 76 heading to Carolina.

From the 76 southbound Piedmont, detach 2 cars and add them to the northbound Crescent.

You can't take off trains in ATL and leave them there. And you can't store trains in ATL and attach them back before heading north. But could those "extra cars" be used for the Piedmont and increase service from ATL to CLT (and add new service between ATL and Raleigh)? If there is a second train between ATL and CLT, maybe demand between NYP and ATL isn't as high on the Crescent so they wouldn't need the fifth car.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

Ryan said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> And even if they are 100% a public service, shouldn't it to be their public duty to serve as many people as possible?
> 
> 
> 
> It is, which is why I'm opposed to the service cuts that you lobby for. Taking the only train away from some people because they live in a small town so that people that live in a big city and already have multiple trains can have even more of them is pretty much the exact opposite.
Click to expand...

If you go by that logic, why not move one Acela or NER and have it serve Nashville or Louisville or other cities without service at all? You know the answer as well as I do. Amtrak is at least somewhat a business so they aren't bad people IMHO if they want to make money.

There are many businesses that want to provide a service AND make money. I don't think it is wrong to want to be able to do both unless there is a clear cut conflict of interest where pursuing money comes at a huge drop in level or quality of service. I liken Amtrak to any airline. They provide a necessary service and a public good (transportation) but you can't tell me American, United, Delta, and Southwest aren't in it for the money. Should Amtrak be the PBS to the airlines CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX? I kind of like Amtrak as more of a company than a public service but that's my opinion.


----------



## CCC1007

Amtrak is not an airline, passenger trains are not the same as passenger planes, and their reasons for being are not the same either. A plane goes endpoint to endpoint, usually without stopping, while a train is best used in a semi frequent stopping service. Please take these simple facts into account the next time you try to rationalize eliminating service on a route. It should change your analysis greatly


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

CCC1007 said:


> Amtrak is not an airline, passenger trains are not the same as passenger planes, and their reasons for being are not the same either. A plane goes endpoint to endpoint, usually without stopping, while a train is best used in a semi frequent stopping service. Please take these simple facts into account the next time you try to rationalize eliminating service on a route. It should change your analysis greatly


OK let me clarify myself as I feel some are misinterpreting some of my statements.

When I proposed my two express LD trains (New York-Florida and New York-Chicago) they were proposed as trains ON TOP OF similar existing trains. I in general would not support simply cutting stops from the Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Capitol Limited, or Lake Shore Limited. Is there a stop or two on these trains that might cause more harm than good and is bottlenecking a train? Maybe. Would I support cutting half of or even 1/4 of the stops on any of these trains? No.

I was proposing that if Amtrak could afford a third New York-Florida train would having an express train as the third one be better than a "regular" third one? Would the faster service be a selling point? Could a faster fewer stop train have more R & R than a similar regular train? Is there a market for customers from the NEC to get to Florida or to Chicago faster and with fewer stops as opposed to the current services? That is the question I ask about NEC to Florida or Chicago, not should we cut half the stops from the SM or CL? I would support any addional NEC to Florida or NEC to Chicago train service comparable to the existing services, especially a revived Broadway Limited/Three Rivers type route. I believe these routes would significantly improve Amtrak's R & R.

I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal. I do understand that rubs people the wrong way. We can agree to disagree. On the other hand, I would rather people not misinterpret some of my statements and say I would propose things I have no interest in proposing.


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## Seaboard92

Instead of an express train from Atlanta to the NEC I think we could all support a Palmetto like day train from Atlanta north. But then we need to find a place to store the equipment. By adding service there we would somewhat reduce the passenger loads on 19/20 and increase ridership. I frequently meet the passengers boarding in Clemson station. Most are traveling to VA points. So there is a market for a counterpart train. But what we can't do is strip services from communities like Dilion, SC, Selma, NC, Charleston, SC to serve city markets. Amtrak is a national operator and as such it needs to cater to the nation not the Northeast. I don't agree with The way amtrak has been run to forget the LD trains and promote the corridor. LD trains serve the nation. And the nation if you like it or not is a bunch of small towns. And to these small towns to be on the system is a boost to their economy. And it's good for them. Camden, SC for instance is proud they are an Amtrak served city. And just rebuilt their station. I'm opposed to striping the Small towns of service. We exist for midpoint to midpoint. That's the beauty of the train. When you get on there are people from everywhere going anywhere with many stories to tell. Flying is mostly people coming and going from where you are. Once the Midwest Bilevels come on line. I think if the Amfleet set on the Surfliner gets redeployed. The Atlanta route would be a good place to redeploy it. And the second set made up of excess Horizon cars.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Seaboard92 said:


> But what we can't do is strip services from communities like Dilion, SC, Selma, NC, Charleston, SC to serve city markets. Amtrak is a national operator and as such it needs to cater to the nation not the Northeast. I don't agree with The way amtrak has been run to forget the LD trains and promote the corridor. LD trains serve the nation. And the nation if you like it or not is a bunch of small towns. And to these small towns to be on the system is a boost to their economy. And it's good for them. Camden, SC for instance is proud they are an Amtrak served city. And just rebuilt their station. I'm opposed to striping the Small towns of service. We exist for midpoint to midpoint. That's the beauty of the train. When you get on there are people from everywhere going anywhere with many stories to tell. Flying is mostly people coming and going from where you are. Once the Midwest Bilevels come on line. I think if the Amfleet set on the Surfliner gets redeployed. The Atlanta route would be a good place to redeploy it. And the second set made up of excess Horizon cars.


Again, I am not proposing removing the stops you stated on the Silver Meteor or Silver Star. I have mentioned cutting the Palmetto but that is a second train covering most if not all of the Meteor and if any stops are on the Palmetto and not the Meteor, I would add them to the Meteor.


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## Seaboard92

I can personally say that the Palmetto is fairly full south past Florence. Its not about end points in the railroad it's the intermediate stops. And the times the Meteor calls on that route aren't good. No one is going to want to catch or meet a train at those hours. The daytime frequency is needed. And 90 is fairly full north of Florence too. The train isn't broke let's not try to fix it. Now when the horizons get free from the Midwest.... But even those aren't the best for winter operation.


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## keelhauled

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Again, I am not proposing removing the stops you stated on the Silver Meteor or Silver Star. I have mentioned cutting the Palmetto but that is a second train covering most if not all of the Meteor and if any stops are on the Palmetto and not the Meteor, I would add them to the Meteor.


You endlessly whine about how the poor people from Pennsylvania are forced to transfer in Pittsburgh at unpleasant hours, yet seem to be perfectly happy to suggest making people in the Carolinas board trains in the middle of the night. Seems odd, that.


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## Bob Dylan

While I enjoy your proposals and posts Amtrak Philly Fan, as has been said, you can't have your cake and eat it too!

You should be thrilled to live on the NEC and also to have so many ways to travel to/from PHL! Most of us have little or none so the answer to is to expand the coverage of Rail, not take it away from others for your personal convienence!


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## railbuck

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal.


If you were the President of Amtrak in 1995 you still wouldn't have had that choice (though perhaps you could have saved the Broadway and cut something else). The decision to keep the Cardinal was made by Sen. Byrd years earlier.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Bob Dylan said:


> While I enjoy your proposals and posts Amtrak Philly Fan, as has been said, you can't have your cake and eat it too!
> 
> You should be thrilled to live on the NEC and also to have so many ways to travel to/from PHL! Most of us have little or none so the answer to is to expand the coverage of Rail, not take it away from others for your personal convienence!


Got any money? Me neither.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

railbuck said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal.
> 
> 
> 
> If you were the President of Amtrak in 1995 you still wouldn't have had that choice (though perhaps you could have saved the Broadway and cut something else). The decision to keep the Cardinal was made by Sen. Byrd years earlier.
Click to expand...

Honestly I would've first tried to terminate the ALB-NYP portion of the LSL and make it an exclusive CHI-BOS train through the BUF-ALB part of the Empire Service. I believe I once heard this was discussed. LSL to BOS/Upstate NY, BL to NYP/PHL/Pa, CL to WAS. I might even have rerouted the CL to the Keystone Route then along the NEC to BAL and WAS before killing the BL especially if I knew they weren't going to honor the CL/SS connection in WAS anyway.

You could say this "hurts" NYP because they then have to take longer on the BL if you consider an extra 2 hours on a train no big deal (and some people have said having an express train instead of a regular train doesn't really save them that much). In Amtrak logic, it isn't acceptable to force NYP passengers west of BUF to spend an extra 2 hours on a train but it is acceptable to force PHL, HAR, and LNC to transfer (or in the case of PHL spend an additional 6 hours on a train).


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## Seaboard92

Wait a minute. Wasn't the LSL the route you wanted to run an express from NYP to CHI why cut it. And what about poor Cumberland Md losing their train. We can't reroute from rural America. Rural America supports our trains. And the train is their only mode of transportation that is economical that isn't their car.


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## Thirdrail7

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> railbuck said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal.
> 
> 
> 
> If you were the President of Amtrak in 1995 you still wouldn't have had that choice (though perhaps you could have saved the Broadway and cut something else). The decision to keep the Cardinal was made by Sen. Byrd years earlier.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Honestly I would've first tried to terminate the ALB-NYP portion of the LSL and make it an exclusive CHI-BOS train through the BUF-ALB part of the Empire Service. I believe I once heard this was discussed. LSL to BOS/Upstate NY, BL to NYP/PHL/Pa, CL to WAS. I might even have rerouted the CL to the Keystone Route then along the NEC to BAL and WAS before killing the BL especially if I knew they weren't going to honor the CL/SS connection in WAS anyway.
> 
> You could say this "hurts" NYP because they then have to take longer on the BL if you consider an extra 2 hours on a train no big deal (and some people have said having an express train instead of a regular train doesn't really save them that much). In Amtrak logic, it isn't acceptable to force NYP passengers west of BUF to spend an extra 2 hours on a train but it is acceptable to force PHL, HAR, and LNC to transfer (or in the case of PHL spend an additional 6 hours on a train).
Click to expand...


Wow. It is nice to have fantasy, but I kind of tire of your internet railroad tycoon sense of running a railroad. There is a lot of uninformed bluster in your post about Amtrak logic and it is without basis, other than the fact that you are on the internet and say anything you want.

So, here is a dose of reality.

If you were president in 1995, you wouldn't have done DIDDLY SQUAT!

You would have ultimately done the same thing and here is why.

You left about a few important things in your post. First off, the reason the LSL operates to NYP is they can handle the entire consist without additional upgrades. Boston couldn't in 1995 and it can't now, particularly in the winter. Secondly, there is no way in heck you are running the Capitol along the keystone route after 1996.

Why?

That is when there was big push to retire the heritage cars or spends many, many millions converting ALL of them to have enclosed toilets. That order came DIRECTLY from our friends at Congress. It resulted in the loss of huge chunk of your single level fleet eastern fleet. The Capitol was one of the first trains to go Superliner to free up cars since it didn't have to worry about wire outside of WTC. WTC was a quick and relatively easy fix.

if you would have suggested that you route it through PHL and the NEC, you would have a person 9such as me) that would have asked if you're either spending BILLIONS to make the NEC accessible for Superliners or will we kill a few dozen people every time the train runs.

Then, the Board of Directors would have removed you when they heard that you were keeping a train that the host states didn't want to pay at the expense of two trains that states along their route contributed (and still do) to the operation.

Suuure.

But I'll take you at your word. You may have done what you listed above in 1995...but you wouldn't have been around in 1996!

If you think that is a joke, look at David Gunn and for the record, Thomas Downs and Alexander Kummant left before they were about to be shown the door.


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## jis

@neroden, as I understand it from those that have studied the legislative record of the adoption of PRIIA 2008, apparently the deal was that Amtrak would prepare the PIPs and then Congress will use that information to provide adequate funding to implement the ones that they chose to select for implementation, or at least that was the expectation created. Then as is usual in matters of money, the Congress reneged and did not follow through, so the PIPs were placed on the shelf.

There is very little that we can share with Amtrak they - the techies - don't already know. I know the guys, at least some of them, that worked on the PIPs. When Congress made it clear that there was going to be no additional funds for the LD side of things, most of them either got absorbed in other activities in Amtrak or left. From that experience I am very confident when I say that there will be status quo ante with slight improvement here and slight deterioration there over time, of the LD service until Congress actually states what it wants the LD system to be. In the meantime, the network will remain about the same. They will resist any shrinkage and they will opportunistically grow small bits if they can mobilize enough internal resources beyond what is needed for absolutely necessary replacement of rolling stock e.g. the Viewliners. And as we know Congress is more likely to say nothing while they intensely contemplate their navels. So nothing will happen until things change there. Meanwhile whatever the states can pull off under PRIIA 209 will be the main growth area, other than the NEC which BTW will also involve progressively more mobilization of resources that come through the states.

That in short is my perception of what is going down. I always wish that I am wrong, but I have not seen any evidence in support of that hypothesis so far.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

railbuck said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal.
> 
> 
> 
> If you were the President of Amtrak in 1995 you still wouldn't have had that choice (though perhaps you could have saved the Broadway and cut something else). The decision to keep the Cardinal was made by Sen. Byrd years earlier.
Click to expand...

Call me selfish all you want. I think Sen. Byrd was way more selfish than I am. He took service away from more people just so he can have a better train. Why can't he let Amtrak decide what's best for Amtrak?

I only talk about doing stuff. He actually did stuff which hurt Amtrak.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

We can talk about growth all you want. In my history of Amtrak I remember reading about the Amtrak expansion proposals of 2000. I believe only some were ever implemented and those that were (Kentucky Cardinal) were canceled almost as fast as they were introduced. Meanwhile, there were plenty of cancellations in the 90's and I believe there were in the 70's. If I had to bet money on whether there would be 16 LD trains in 2020 or 14 LD trains, my money would be on 14. Do I really trust Amtrak to try to grow the system? Not really.

I can tell you this, if I had an internet voice in 1995 you better believe I would've tried to save the Broadway Limited like I am now. I didn't realize this board existed in 2004 either or I would've done the same with the Three Rivers. I said once they knew the Silver Palm couldn't run to Florida, there's no point running it just for South Carolina and Georgia.

The way things have been going, I imagine Amtrak will be forced to cut before having the opportunity to expand. I can talk about All Aboard Ohio proposals all I want and they look good on paper. Do I hope they happen? Sure. Am I holding my breath? No.

And if you're not campaigning for the Cardinal or Palmetto to cut, the next LD train they cut might be YOUR train. I certainly can speak from experience.

If I had a boatload of money, forget about giving it to Amtrak. I'd try to start a second national train company. Maybe if Amtrak had some competition they may get off their butts to try to increase service. Why should Amtrak care now? They know if I ever want to go back to Chicago or the West Coast I'm either going to go through their connection (of course I'll probably just use NJT to NYP so they won't get any more money) or I'll have to take some uncomfortable bus. I know, you know, and Amtrak knows what's going to happen. So why should they care about increasing or improving service? I like the fact that All Aboard Florida will have rail service along the FEC. Someone needs to light a fire on Amtrak and tell them they need to run the trains where people demand them.


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## jebr

...you do realize that Amtrak isn't a solely "trying to make as much money as possible" business, correct? Since they get federal subsidies, and they're owned by the government, Amtrak is beholden to demands from Congress as much as it is to try and reduce losses. If Amtrak could start a service tomorrow that would make money, full stop (including cost of the tracks, equipment, etc.) I'd be surprised if they didn't do it.

We don't ask the USPS to deliver to the big cities multiple times a day while giving rural customers no service. The same should be true for Amtrak, at least on a baseline scale.

By the way, Amtrak does have competition. It may not be direct, but for most people the "steel wheels on steel rails" aspect isn't why they're riding the train; they're riding because they want to get somewhere. Amtrak has to compete for travel business from the airlines, from bus companies, and from private cars. If Amtrak isn't offering a good value proposition to customers, most of them (especially in the larger cities with more options) would switch to bus service, or planes, or drive themselves or carpool with someone.


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## Seaboard92

If you had that money you wouldn't have it for long. No form of passenger transportation makes a profit. So first off you have the huge Capital expense of buying equipment as there isn't much lease equipment you could use. And most of that is 1950s stock. New cars run millions a unit. Then once have all that equipment where are you going to run it. You have to negotiate with freight railroads and some of those are openly hostile to more passenger trains or don't have the capacity.

Let's take your pet project the Broadway Limited. First off New York to Harrisburg the track is owned and maintained by Amtrak. While it is a speedway if you're competing with Amtrak I doubt they would be willing to work with you. Of course with a cost maybe. Then you have to deal with the EX PRR mainline of NS across PA. That line is clogged with traffic. So now you have to convince them to use their track that is at capacity. More money. Then to the line west of PGH. The line isn't maintained to passenger train standards. Sure you could run the ex PRR but it would be so slow you wouldn't have any passengers. So you're going to have to finance the track improvements again more millions. To track you yourself don't own. And of course you're going to need signal work again not cheep and it's going to cost you.

Now that you have a decent run time you need to decide on a schedule for the train. And to plan one of those you need to figure out your market. Do you want New York and Chicago business travelers, do you want PGH to end points. As your theory that it's only about end points being the only stations that matter. But you still need operating crew changes Let's say you only do NYP- North Philly as it saves time-Harrisburg-PGH-Lima-Fort Wayne-CHI. And North Philly instead of 30th because it avoids the need to run the engines around the train. Passenger counts depend on schedule so I left off most of the population centers that fall in the middle of the night. Which is ok for the Carolina's as they don't matter. Now you have to have the track owners approve the schedule. Once they do that you have to market your train. As without marketing no one os going to know you exist except for railfans who see a train pass. And that costs about a million dollars to do it right. In the initial years you'll have to market it heavy as you don't have a brand. So millions of dollars over the long run. Ads aren't cheep.

Now that you have the word out they need a way to buy tickets. And most people aren't willing to go to a ticket office downtown to buy one. It's a hassle. But a ticket office costs money to run from staffing and leasing of retail space in the stations. Or building repairs for your own. But they are needed expenses so your paying let's say two million. And you're going to need a website. So you have to hire someone to design it and probably a year long IT person to maintain it. So probably 70 grand a year for that person. Several thousand for the IP address. Then you have to have a method to collect money which also costs you money.

Now that we have gotten this far we have all the background work in place. So now it's time to run a train. Oh wait you need stations. Your route as I identified uses two major Amtrak terminals and three other stations. Do you think they really want competition in their terminal. We've all seen the trouble IP has had with the HS. So your host isn't going to be friendly but should they let it happen then you have another issue.

For your maintenance you need a place to store your equipment and work for it. Amtrak yards are expensive why do you think IP is in Bensenville and A CSX yard. So you need to work out the land. Several hundred thousand.

Now we have everything ready for wheels to turn. Let's say you have a consist similar to the Silver Meteor. So we have 90 sleeper capacity if all rooms have two people. So more like 60 people. And 260 coach seats. That's eight passenger cars a train. So if each sleeping car needs an attendant. And the coaches need one for every two cars which stretches it. At 40,000 a year 240,000 a year for one obs crew. But you have two trains a day. And they work one round trip a week. So you need about fourteen obs crews so 3.3 million a year. Not counting benefits yet. So when we add that we're pushing four and a half million a year.

But wait obs can't actually operate the train and each crew should work about an eight hour shift or under as anything else is time and a half. So let's say six and a half hour districts. For a run of let's say 19 hours. You have four crew districts. And at competitive wages to attract good labor 149 for a conductor a day and 195 for an engineer. So 1192 for two conductors per run and 780 per run for engineers. Not counting benefits.

Remember a lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes so they come on duty before departure. After one run we need to have clean cars to keep passengers happy. So we need two cleaners probably in each end point. So at 15 an hour part time 27300 a year a person. 109,200 for the four man crew. But they can't work every day. So you need at least 12 total employees 327,600 a year. Then if something goes wrong you need shop crews on both ends. Probably one shift of four people both sides. 20 an hour. 332,800 not including benefits for eight shop employees. And don't forget the fixes they make cost money. And keeps equipment out of service for time. Which requires spares.

Now we can run a train. Your passengers run take your 19 hour train ride but there is an issue they get hungry and thirsty. And food service doesn't make money at all. Now we add that you need inventory and remember it's dated product. Then another set of obs for a lounge car with one member you need 14 members getting 20 an hour 582,400 a year without benefits. Let's say you want a dining car you need two waiters and one cool on the amtrak scale. But you're competing with them to force them to do something. So you have three waiters and two cooks. To make it easy 14 crew sets at 20 an hour. 2.9 mil a year. That's not including your inventory.

So now we have a train that's rolling but you're train is now running late because your conductors are having to handle the baggage and ticketing. So we have to hire several people for each station with decent wages. So we're looking in the millions.

Now that we have function stations, food services, on board services, maintenance, equipment, and other overhead. Now for each route you do you can do this equation again. Congratulations you have a function passenger train.

Now let's get into ticketing. You want to underprice amtrak to get customers. So let's say we run fares NYP-CHI at 90 for coach. 350 for a roomette and 550 for a bedroom. So you are making 23,400 in coach one way. And for roomettes 12,600 plus 4,950 bedroom. Each train makes 40,950 per train assuming a sell out which likely won't happen. Over the year 29,811,600 annually assuming it sells out every day. Which won't happen. Likely knock forty percent off that so around 15 mil a year estimate. Your expenses are equally high as even though the income is a big number so is everything else. But if you add intermediate stops in unpopulated by your standards rural America. You add several city pairs. And your seats are getting more then one use. So even though at reduced fare two or three fares in a seat or room can increase your money. So intermediate stops are critical. As most traffic as we've told you repeatedly is not end point to end point. Some is end point to intermediate. And some is intermediate to intermediate. Seats have many lives. I recommend you ride some trains and watch how many different butts are in seats. It's eye opening.

But what about the what if. You need insurance and I can tell you for what you're proposing takes millions a year. As if something goes wrong you and it will. You need a safety net.

My source I am a passenger train investor and I am in the process of buying my own train. So I'm actually an expert in this field. And you don't see me making a move in intercity market as it's a money loser. Why I run special event trains. And I didn't even run every part of the business for you either.

Now you're wondering how I make a profit. One I don't have to maintain my train to high speed intercity service my top speed with passengers is 25. Two I used no full time employees except me and my partners. Three I keep as much as possible in house. So that my expenses are low. Four I'm not having to pay for infrastructure improvements. Five as events I don't have as much marketing to do. Six I have low expenses. Seven my runs are short so I can turn my seats around and put more butts in seats.

And I left off supervisors, shrinkage of inventory, and special circumstance.


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## Seaboard92

I'm not trying to mean. But I'm trying to explain how the railroad works. And how business works. We all miss the Broadway Limited but we can't sacrifice one of three routes that makes a profit above the rails. And the comment your train. I'm from South Carolina. The Palmetto is my day train. The Meteor is my night train. And my hometown train is the Silver Star. My college train is the Crescent. So it's personal to me


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## Bob Dylan

It's evident that you don't know how powerful Senator Byrd really was, and just how political everything to do with Amtrak really is!

We're not opposed to your ideas at all, we all have dream Trains we'd like to see running ( I'm a fan of the Broadway Ltd. and,I live in Texas!), but the money has to be there, and believe it or not, Amtrak does have to answer to Congress which is the Owner of Amtrak's Stock in trust for we the people!


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## Thirdrail7

Since Seaboard and Jebr handled the operating issues, I will tackle the political end of Philly's whiny post.



Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> railbuck said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal.
> 
> 
> 
> If you were the President of Amtrak in 1995 you still wouldn't have had that choice (though perhaps you could have saved the Broadway and cut something else). The decision to keep the Cardinal was made by Sen. Byrd years earlier.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Call me selfish all you want. I think Sen. Byrd was way more selfish than I am. He took service away from more people just so he can have a better train. Why can't he let Amtrak decide what's best for Amtrak?
> 
> I only talk about doing stuff. He actually did stuff which hurt Amtrak.
Click to expand...




Bob Dylan said:


> It's evident that you don't know how powerful Senator Byrd really was, and just how political everything to do with Amtrak really is!
> 
> We're not opposed to your ideas at all, we all have dream Trains we'd like to see running ( I'm a fan of the Broadway Ltd. and,I live in Texas!), but the money has to be there, and believe it or not, Amtrak does have to answer to Congress which is the Owner of Amtrak's Stock in trust for we the people!


Make no apologies for Senator Byrd, because he did what he was supposed to do. He did what Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania failed to do and that is protect his train.

As such, he did exactly what you said Amtrak doesn't do: run trains where people demand them.

The constituents voted for Senator Byrd and he voted to fund the service. The residents of Ohio and Pennsylvanian that voted for members that refused to fund service obviously weren't demanding the service. If they were, they didn't want to pay for them.

Kay Hutchinson paid for her Long Distance train when they wanted to cut it and used her bully pulpit to make sure states along the Eagle's route funded it as well. Olympia Snow pushed and pushed for the Downeaster service and put her money where her mouth was, so service was expanded.

The reality of the situation is something you continue to ignore: Pennsylvania and Ohio are not likely to pay for a train to Illinois. Hell, Pennsylvania barely wants to fund SEPTA and almost let the Pennsylvanian go without funding!

So, Amtrak (which is subsidized by the government) is indeed unlikely to grow unless someone pays for it to grow....and the states along your route are unlikely to allow that to happen.

Just like they let it go in the past.

If you want to do something, you should rally your constituents to fund train service. Whining here is not exactly helping. Write your representative and encourage your neighbors to do so, because it really doesn't matter who you're dealing with. You'll need some sort of support to get a train into the area regardless of who the provider of service is.


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## Anderson

@Thirdrail7:
Setting aside the fact that Byrd could have likely re-saved "his" train in a pinch, I've heard two theories on the Cardinal law. One is that the law in question only saved the train for one FY in the 1980s (but that the train was never targeted again for a cut for obvious political reasons) and the other is that the law is "true until repealed". I've never been sure which was true (they have the same end result).

Honestly, in the 90s (recognizing the political constraints) about all I would likely have managed differently would have been trying to force a larger initial Viewliner order through (probably using still-available debt financing; I suspect I'd have tried to force a "floor size" of the order somewhere around 100 sleepers plus the diners and baggage cars) to avoid catastrophic consist-cutting in the East (IIRC the equipment situation cascaded into the less-than-daily fiasco out west) as well as bankrupting the car builder and then pulled a "dying duck" routine by throwing a hurricane of "impending cuts" at Amtrak West from the get-go rather than effectively "phasing down" the Desert Wind and Pioneer (while trying to work with Congress to round up the money to save the trains). If I still _had_ to make cuts, I'd likely have re-combined the Cap and Pennsylvanian at PGH alongside an extended Pennsylvanian instead of the Three-Rivers-as-it-happened...and even there, I would have been inclined to kill off the Broadway Route through OH/IN in favor of piling on frequency through Cleveland/Toledo. Basically, emphasizing network depth over breadth where possible, possibly fiddling with some bus links, and in the process dumping stations.

Beyond that, though, my actions probably would not have been _too_ much different short of some other handling of the package-and-express mess (which could probably have been handled better)...and likely trying to "mothball" the Heritage stuff rather than dump it entirely (possibly with an eye towards something like what we're seeing with the Viewliner IIs: Ditch the toilets in individual rooms and replace a single room with a toilet). But I know just enough on the realities to know what was likely open at the time, and beyond massaging an equipment order or two there's only so much that can be done.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Bob Dylan said:


> It's evident that you don't know how powerful Senator Byrd really was, and just how political everything to do with Amtrak really is!
> 
> We're not opposed to your ideas at all, we all have dream Trains we'd like to see running ( I'm a fan of the Broadway Ltd. and,I live in Texas!), but the money has to be there, and believe it or not, Amtrak does have to answer to Congress which is the Owner of Amtrak's Stock in trust for we the people!


To me that's not "right".

OK answer this statement: The states of Virginia and West Virginia contribute significantly more financially to running the Cardinal than other states along the route and other states in the country. True or False?

I constantly here Virginia and West Virginia support their trains and other states like Ohio and Pennsylvania do not. I think Pennsylvanians do support trains. I don't have state numbers but I'm guessing Pennsylvania is anywhere between 2nd-4th nationally when it comes to Amtrak ridership along with New York and Illinois (I'm pretty sure California is first and that Texas and Florida are nowhere near Pennsylvania). And just because Ohio elected and re-elected Kasich does not mean they don't support trains. Of course transportation is an important issue in the country but I would imagine most if not all of us would say there are many other more important issues (economy, education, health care, etc). I don't think voting for pro rail candidates is the only way to support trains. To me, the voices of passengers is the more important than the voices of voters.

It is clear as day that Pennsylvania contributes a lot of money to the Keystone State and Pennsylvanian and they have a huge financial responsibility to those trains (it says so in the timetable!). The same is true for the Carolinian, the Hoosier State, Illinois services, and other similar services. But Amtrak gets over 1 billion dollars a year from the federal government. So I think America should decide as a nation where that money is spent. I think we should decide especially if we can only afford 15 LD trains that they best serve the nation as a whole. If West Virginia is willing to pay more for trains than Pennsylvania, that's fair to me. But if I'm paying as much for the Cardinal as a resident of Prince with similar income, that's not. I'm not saying that every LD train has to serve PA to be beneficial to me. I think that the Southwest Chief doesn't just benefit anyone along the route. But anyone who can connect in Chicago benefits from the Southwest Chief. And people want to visit Los Angeles. Take away the SWC and think about how much harder it would be to get to LA. So to me, the SWC benefits America. Chances are good most people on this site either have or want to visit Los Angeles. That's why the Southwest Chief is important on a national level. Trains to New York, Washington DC, Florida, and Texas are the same.

As for Chicago to New York, there were two daily trains serving the route. One served the Keystone route between PGH and PHL, the other served (still does) the Empire corridor from Buffalo to Albany. Both the Keystone and Empire routes are huge money makers and very popular routes among Amtrak.I feel BOTH should be served with daily direct service to Chicago and my claim is that people from the west do benefit from these trains as well as those along the routes. Want to get from Denver to Philly? CZ/BL. Do we benefit more from the BL and LSL than people out west? Of course. But I think they are important on a national level. I don't feel the Cardinal and Palmetto are important on a national level. Are they important to their areas? Of course. But if they are, I think those regions should then pinch in more for services that I feel (and you can debate) benefit them far more than the rest of the country. I am well aware of the 750 mile rule. I don't think it should be 750 miles. I think there is a place for national Amtrak funding but I feel Amtrak and the nation should plan the network to serve the nation, not just small communities. I will claim many LD trains serve the nation (Southwest Chief, Lake Shore Limited, Silver Meteor/Star, etc) even though not all of them directly serve my area. I cannot say others do. I think if an LD train can be "proven" to be an asset to the national system, I don't mind paying federal money for it. But if a train serves a limited area much more, I think that's where the states need to put up more of the cash to make sure the trains run. I don't think there should be some magic number.

Like it or not, Amtrak like any national transportation has to begin and end with our nation's biggest cities. That's why I-95 runs through most of the biggest cities in the East Coast. That's why there are far more planes to major cities than smaller ones. If we truly are to have a national LD system, we have to start with New York, Chicago, California, and other large areas and make sure they are connected first. If Cumberland, Md is along a route that serves CHI to WAS, great. Again, Philadelphia is my primary concern but not my only. There are many major areas without Amtrak service. There are many holes in the national LD system. Let me give you this project: Plan a trip from Florida to Texas on Amtrak. Not pretty, is it? That's a problem. The city of Nashville? No trains at all. I remember taking Greyhound to Nashville once. Not fun. These are problems. No, PHL to CHI isn't the only problem with Amtrak's national system now. I do feel that we all know CHI is the East to West gateway on Amtrak and that for me to go direct to CHI from PHL (Cardinal does not count) is important. 3rd and 4th biggest markets for Amtrak and they aren't connected? Why? But only problem? Far from it.

Again, 15 LD trains. Do I feel they are best utilized for a national transportation system? Far from it. And if we are spending a significant portion of federal money for this system, it should be for service that benefits the nation, not just small states. We shouldn't decide who gets trains on a national level because Sen. Byrd is more powerful than Sen. Spector or Sen. Santorum (PA senators). If West Virginia spends more than other states on trains, they deserve better service. They don't deserve better trains because they have a more vocal senator. That doesn't help America.


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## Seaboard92

You do realize that West Virginia has far less public transit options then your precious Philadelphia. And for that they deserve a safe alternative to driving. Now that all of us have taken time from our days to explain operation and politics. Now I'll take my attempt at need.

Philly is a special circumstance. It sits in the corridor from Boston to Washington. Several trains a day. But Philly isn't the nation. And your numbers you cite are the state as a whole if I'm right.

West Virginia has crappy service a three day a week train and a sliver of the Capitol. And they have high ridership for crappy service. Go daily and they will do really well. Go twice daily the numbers improve. The difference between Philly and most cities in the routes you're wanting to cut is this. Philly has other modes of transit. For instance you have a major international airport, Decent bus connections, and several regional trains. Dillion SC only served by te Palmetto you want to axe. Nearest airport is Florence. Most of those flights only go to Charlotte. Should they be victims of no transportation options because some middle tier city doesn't have service no. Should the middle tier city not have service again no. But we can't strip trains that are needed and serve a purpose for a route that let's face it isn't proven.

And you say they have high ridership numbers. Most 85 percent are on corridor trains. And probably wouldn't ride a LD train. They ride the keystone to work or the NER. Or try ride it for a day trip. But to go to Chicago they're flying because it's faster. Sure there is always some percentage of a market. But it won't work. Don't strip cities that have no other options of their train for a pipe dream.

And don't get me wrong I love the Broadway Limited. And I would love to see it again. One day


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## Seaboard92

Now would a day train serve your need. As I can clearly see that there is a market. And I also know the PRR Broadway Limited did New York to Chicago in 15.5 hours. Averaging 60 mph. Of course there would have to be infrastructure improvements on the west end of the PRR. And adding more local stops in would eat up some time. As there is a lot of smaller cities on the route. If a day train operated it would cost less. And when the horizons come available might be a good deployment option. It leaves the Palmetto alone and gets the route back. And day trains cost less to run. See we're not opposed to the route. Just cutting other routes. As that's cutting your nose to spite your face


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## jis

Anderson said:


> Honestly, in the 90s (recognizing the political constraints) about all I would likely have managed differently would have been trying to force a larger initial Viewliner order through (probably using still-available debt financing; I suspect I'd have tried to force a "floor size" of the order somewhere around 100 sleepers plus the diners and baggage cars) to avoid catastrophic consist-cutting in the East (IIRC the equipment situation cascaded into the less-than-daily fiasco out west) as well as bankrupting the car builder and then pulled a "dying duck" routine by throwing a hurricane of "impending cuts" at Amtrak West from the get-go rather than effectively "phasing down" the Desert Wind and Pioneer (while trying to work with Congress to round up the money to save the trains). If I still _had_ to make cuts, I'd likely have re-combined the Cap and Pennsylvanian at PGH alongside an extended Pennsylvanian instead of the Three-Rivers-as-it-happened...and even there, I would have been inclined to kill off the Broadway Route through OH/IN in favor of piling on frequency through Cleveland/Toledo. Basically, emphasizing network depth over breadth where possible, possibly fiddling with some bus links, and in the process dumping stations.


The original Viewliner order plan as I recall was for 100 Sleepers and assorted other cars totaling 277 (50 order + 227 options). The first order was supposed to be for 100 cars but was slashed a couple of times based on funds available to what it finally came out to be.

At that point baggage cars were not a problem area so there was no reason to order new baggage cars.

MK's low bid for the Viewliners was considered to be non-sustainable by many when the bid was accepted, and of course reality followed like night follow the day. IOW it was almost a foregone conclusion from the getgo at least according to some.

As for working with Congress, the period 1995-2001 Congress was in one of its "hostile to Amtrak" phase together with confrontation with the President phase (specially the Newt Gingrich years upto 99), and it was quite apparent that the then Democratic President had other fishes much bigger than Amtrak to fry. It was not a period when "negotiations" with Congress was leading to anything remotely positive relative to Amtrak. We were lucky tos ave the trains that did survive that period, and what then followed under W. Been there, lived through it, done that. 

Just for context, the real massacre was between 1995 and 1997. In 1995 we lost the Broadway Limited, Atlantic City Service and the Montrealer. In 96 we lost the Cape Codder and service from Chicago to Springfield was halved with the discontinuance of the Loop. In 97 we lost the Pioneer, the Desert Wind and the Gulf Coast Limited, The lost Broadway Limited flickered on and off for a while as through cars, Three Rivers etc. but never really recovered. A similar thing was tried to revive the Pioneer, but what was gone was gone.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Seaboard92 said:


> Now would a day train serve your need. As I can clearly see that there is a market. And I also know the PRR Broadway Limited did New York to Chicago in 15.5 hours. Averaging 60 mph. Of course there would have to be infrastructure improvements on the west end of the PRR. And adding more local stops in would eat up some time. As there is a lot of smaller cities on the route. If a day train operated it would cost less. And when the horizons come available might be a good deployment option. It leaves the Palmetto alone and gets the route back. And day trains cost less to run. See we're not opposed to the route. Just cutting other routes. As that's cutting your nose to spite your face


I would be against the day train. That was the failed Pennsylvanian experience back in the early part of the century.

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=20000521n&item=0030

Leave Philly 6:35am, arrive in Chicago 12:26am? Leave Chicago 6:00am, arrive in Philly 12:52am? Notice I said Philly. This train did not go to New York (you can see why).

These trains did serve Cleveland, Toledo, and Pittsburgh at more convenient hours but if you have to leave Chicago at 6am to do it how much better is that than the LSL/CL? If you don't get into Chicago until after midnight, is that good either? As for Pittsburgh, luckily the Three Rivers still served PGH to NYP. But the Pennsylvanian went back to PGH-NYP in 2003 and NARP data showed the train went from 73,890 to 168,086 between 2002 and 2004 (I don't know how to attach a file to verify this).

It turns out the Skyline Connection schedule would have served Ohio much better than the Pennyslvanian did. I would be against the 1:05am departure from Philly, move it up 1-2 hours and that would be much better. It could start in New York then around 9-10pm. The eastbound could easily have served New York. Of course it required the precious sleeper cars that the Pennsylvanian did not so Amtrak stuck with the Pennsylvanian and never implemented the Skyline.

So while the intentions were good, the Pennsylvanian extension for Chicago hurt the route overall and my guess is it didn't help Chicago to Ohio like they had hoped. If you look at the Skyline Connection hours, they would've been much better for Cleveland and Ohio to Chicago (and to Pittsburgh).

To me, a long train as a day train leaving early in the morning in one location and arriving late in the evening in the other is not a good idea. Part of the selling point of an LD train to me is that while it is 18 hours you sleep a good 6-8 hours of it (if you can). 18 day hours would really be 18 hours. 18 hours overnight is not 18 hours in general.

All Aboard Ohio has on their proposal a new "Three Rivers" but with a "Skyline Connection" schedule. It would travel overnight through Pennsylvania both ways, leaving close to midnight from PHL or PGH and arriving in the other end early the next morning. This gives much better times to Ohio passengers and the CHI arrival time is in the middle of the day (too late for connecting to western trains but still great for Chicago). The bad news is that Harrisburg, Altoona, and Johnstown would have to board/leave at bad hours. Then the question is would you rather leave Harrisburg at 2am in the morning and go directly to Chicago or take the Pennsylvanian/Capitol route where you'd have to wait almost four hours in PGH. If I lived near Harrisburg, I'd rather board the train at 2am. I can just arrive maybe a half hour to an hour early. Even if I need 2 hours, it's still half the time I'd have to wait in PGH. Plus, once I get off I either go straight to my parked car or have someone pick me up. If you're traveling alone, a near four hour wait in PGH in an almost empty train station? No thanks.

I think there should be a "Skyline Connection" schedule and a "Three Rivers" schedule, but even a Skyline I feel would be an improvement for Pennsylvania.


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## jis

The problem with that entire piece of Warrington fantasy was that he managed to come out with no business case, none, to run those extra trains once you removed the freight traffic that Warrington was trying to hijack from the freight railroads, no matter how many timetable he published with various fancy schedules. Remember at that time he was on glide slope to self-sufficiency, which meant that he could not add any costs which were not paid for out of revenues and then some. Add to that the fact that there really was not enough equipment available to create credible consists for those trains beyond just a few coaches and a cafe, and the results were pretty much a foregone conclusion. Reality meets fantasy and the inevitable follows.

Even now for creating a viable Three Rivers on any schedule one has to wait at least until the Viewliner order delivery is completed and the Horizons become available from midwest, assuming that NS and CSX will just roll over and play "good puppy", which of course they won't, absent some significant moolah. That is the reason the through cars is the first alternative to consider if one wants any through service on the old Pennsy route east of PGH to Chicago. And apparently even the costs involved for that is not something that Amtrak management, for whatever godforsaken reason, does not want to contemplate. Hope that changes sometime soon.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

jebr said:


> ...you do realize that Amtrak isn't a solely "trying to make as much money as possible" business, correct? Since they get federal subsidies, and they're owned by the government, Amtrak is beholden to demands from Congress as much as it is to try and reduce losses. If Amtrak could start a service tomorrow that would make money, full stop (including cost of the tracks, equipment, etc.) I'd be surprised if they didn't do it.
> 
> We don't ask the USPS to deliver to the big cities multiple times a day while giving rural customers no service. The same should be true for Amtrak, at least on a baseline scale.
> 
> By the way, Amtrak does have competition. It may not be direct, but for most people the "steel wheels on steel rails" aspect isn't why they're riding the train; they're riding because they want to get somewhere. Amtrak has to compete for travel business from the airlines, from bus companies, and from private cars. If Amtrak isn't offering a good value proposition to customers, most of them (especially in the larger cities with more options) would switch to bus service, or planes, or drive themselves or carpool with someone.


Solely a business, no. But you better believe that Joseph Boardman thinks it is like one. Like it or not, I feel like when it comes to my suggestions, I am hoping to communicate not just with fellow rail enthusiasts but Amtrak itself. When you deal with people, you have to speak their language. You can't just tell Boardman you want a CHI-PHL train, you have to convince him that it will be good for Amtrak and will make them a lot of money. Otherwise, they won't do it. We might not speak in dollars and cents or want to but I guarantee most of the important people in Amtrak do.

In reality, no one "deserves" service. Whether you get services SHOULD (IMHO) depend on how much you intend to support the service (either by ridership and revenue or by state governments subsidizing costs like is true on many shorter routes). You would like to serve everyone but you can't. The USPS can support almost everyone. Amtrak can't possibly take care of America as much as the USPS.

And honestly train travel does have some unique features buses and driving don't have. You hate getting stuck on trains because they are blocked by host railroads? It's not like interstate highways don't get blocked. And I would take my chances with Amtrak from PHL to CHI over Greyhound any day of the week. As for flying, I personally don't want to fly so that's not an option for me and I assume a lot of people. I often see several Amish on trains. Perhaps they don't fly either? And if so, what's the Amish capitol of the US? Lancaster, PA. Right now no direct service to Chicago.

I feel most of you are saying your small towns need or deserve service. The question you should be asking is does your small town do enough to support Amtrak? If the answer is no, then I don't think you should have service. If you can supply X number of riders and another city can supply twice as many, if I'm Amtrak I go to the other city. You act as though the Broadway is just a duplicate service of the Capitol/Pennsylvanian but there were cities from the Broadway and Three Rivers that completely lost service too. Don't think that the Broadway/Three Rivers was an easy cut and the worst thing that happened was passengers were stuck in Pittsburgh for a long period of time.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Seaboard92 said:


> Wait a minute. Wasn't the LSL the route you wanted to run an express from NYP to CHI why cut it. And what about poor Cumberland Md losing their train. We can't reroute from rural America. Rural America supports our trains. And the train is their only mode of transportation that is economical that isn't their car.


The NYP-CHI route I proposed was through the Keystone corridor, not the Empire Corridor. I never said I wanted to cut the LSL, I wanted to cut the portion between Albany and NYP to keep the BL.

As for Cumberland, the reason why it works is because it is way faster to go from PGH to WAS through Cumberland, Md instead of through HAR, PHL, and BAL. The faster service helps CHI to WAS and CHI to WAS passengers transferring in WAS to southbound trains to Florida and the Southeast.

Often times to get from Point A to Point B there are two possibilities. One is to take a faster route that skips many cities. The other is to take a slower route but serve more cities and people.

I liken it to the Empire Builder vs. the Pioneer back in the 1990's:

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19951029n&item=0032

Amtrak didn't want to alternate days and probably felt they only could support one. The Pioneer served Denver, Salt Lake City, and Boise while the Empire Builder served Minneapolis and Spokane. Certainly the Pioneer served larger unique populations but the Empire Builder was way faster. So Amtrak chose the Empire Builder to keep. Was it the reason it was kept over the Pioneer? I can't say for sure it was but I'm guessing it was a big factor. I think you can make a similar argument for the Southwest Chief vs. Desert Wind even though the Chief was always a daily train. But once the Desert WInd was axed, Las Vegas lost train service that they still don't have today. Cumberland, Maryland dare wants to say "how can you take train service away from me"? The difference is many more people live in Vegas and many more people want to go there. Let me know the next time you say "I can't wait to go to Cumberland, Maryland!"

The problem is Broadway Limited vs. Cardinal is that one is/was faster AND the same train serves a larger unique population. Shouldn't you keep the train from CHI to NYP that is faster AND serves a larger unique population?


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## jis

Post facto one can dream up all sorts of reasons. But the main fact is that the Empire Builder survived because Montana was willing to go to the mat for it several times. The Cardinal survived because representatives on its route were willing to be the squeaky wheel in the process. And the Capitol limited survived because Amtrak staff like a nice way to get from their HQ to their premier hub other than New York.  I have always been of the opinion that the Broadway Limited was the wrong train to cut. But that is not relative to the Cardinal which provides service to too many unique population centers that would lose all service if it was axed, but the Capitol Limited. Capitol Limited has never worked out to be as well performing a train that any train routed NYP - PGH - CLE - TOL - CHI would be. The Broadway was destroyed by a thousand cuts by first putting it on the B&O and then slowly reducing service quality on it, while the Cap was upgraded progressively.

If Virginia and West Virginia had not been willing to save their service it is entirely conceivable that they would have been stuck with the Hilltopper doing a Oh dark thirty transfer to the Capitol Limited that ran via Cincinnati and the Broadway that continued to run providing NYP - PGH - CHI service. It didn't work out that way because neither New York, nor New Jersey, nor Pennsylvania reps bothered to fight for their train when the time came. They were more focused on the NEC and the Keystone Corridor east, which admittedly had a disproportionately large impact on their economy than whether a single train ran direct to Chicago or not.That is the way indirect representative democracy works. And representative democracy with protection for the causes of isolated minorities, which is deeply ingrained in the way the political setup in this country works, tends to favor keeping service to the little hovels that have service in place, by giving them political voice that is disproportionately large. In fact this is not necessarily a bad thing. I can vouch for that having been a minority of one sort or another all my life. Fortunately that is life the way it is.


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## Seaboard92

You don't seem to understand the markets that the long distance train has. And you don't understand the corridor train market either. As a business person let me explain how this works let me reiterate I run my own railroad excursion business so I feel like I'm qualified to discuss this. When planning a route you need to remember there is more to it then oh this is a big city lets hit that. First you need to examine a rail atlas to see where the routes are. Then track speed, as there can be a direct route from say Spartanburg to Cincinnati (Real world example Clinchfield Railroad now CSX). It's the shortest possible distance, but that route has a twenty mile an hour speed restriction for about fifty miles. Which eats into your time. Second off we have to look at the overhead traffic. The routes you want to run a train on for instance LAX-Las Vegas. Parts of that route especially Cajon Pass sees 90+Trains a day. There aren't enough slots to fit an additional train in which is problematic. So when you add track speed and capacity constraints you start running out of places you can run a train. It's an issue I face with my business.

Secondly did those cities support those trains in the past. If I'm Amtrak I'm not going to cut the trains with decent ridership as it's just stupid. You can have millions of people along a route but only a small portion of those are actually going to travel by rail. So the amount of people on a route means nothing. It is what I call the potential market, it is the amount of people around the station that might use a service. Doesn't mean they will support it, doesn't mean they won't either. The Las Vegas service for instance isn't really a LD service it's more of a corridor service that would be run out of LAX. But there are capacity issues still.

One thing you tend to forget about the Empire Builder route vs. the Pioneer is something I've mentioned before the route serves cities with limited transportation choices. The nearest Interstate along the route from MSP-SEA is running about fifty to a hundred miles south. The Intercity bus lines aren't serving these cities. If you take the service away from them they lose their only form of public transit. As you know they don't have much in the lines of airports.

Now maybe you can explain this to me how does cutting the LSL from ALB-NYP save the Broadway? If that was cancelled the LSL ridership would majorly go down as people like a one seat ride it's convenient. The more transfers the less likely you are to make a sale. And lets just say they did cancel the LSL section you wish for. The diner and at least two coaches, and a sleeper would move over to the Boston Section. Which would only free four coaches, and two sleepers total for your train. But you forget you need a protect fleet so you got to find another one from somewhere. You also forget that there is a CLE-NYP market a ERI-POU market that would be effected. So by doing that your cutting your nose off to spite your face. The economics of that don't work.

Now for rerouting the Capitol Limited via HAR. First off that adds time to the schedule. Then you are moving again to a congested mainline. And once you get to HAR you run into a routing issue. The lines from HAR down to WAS direct aren't maintained for passenger service and would all require being rebuilt. The infrastructure isn't in place. And I would have to research it but you would have to make the Capitol Limited single level again for clearance issues. And if that happens you can kiss the Broadway Limited goodbye as there goes whatever spare single level equipment there is for it being run. And it's not like there is not a train already covering HAR-PGH daily. Cumberland is just a rural town like every other one you have wanted to cut so far, very limited options for public transit. Plus you forget there is a market there too for people who like the mountains, bike riding, hiking, etc...

Now I'm going to take on your Broadway Limited route. I looked at the route last night as I was curious. First off your main stops are going to be Valparaiso, Plymouth, Warsaw, Fort Wayne, Lima, Bucyrus, Mansfield, Canton, Alliance, then PGH and whatever you want to add over there. The existing trains already draw these markets, as it's only about an thirty minutes to an hour away from the existing route. With the exception of Lima which is two hours. So the market is already being served. Could they be served better in their own cities. Yes but they are close enough.

The cities that have service already benefit from the service. Think of it like this people driving from say Lima to Toledo to board the LSL for Chicago they will probably buy a tank of gas in Toledo so thirty dollars. If they want to overnight in Toledo they are then spending about one hundred dollars somewhere. So the economy benefits. To a big city like Toledo that isn't much. But to a place like Clemson, SC that's a lot. Clemson is a better example as the train leaves at 1012 PM going north. The people normally drive into town around eight they get dinner in one of the restaurants so about 10 dollars a person. Then they go to the station, and their family drives home. It's bringing money to the individual economies, which is amazing. So these smaller cities have major benefits from Amtrak. And in truth everyone deserves to keep their economic engine. It may not be much but ten people coming in every night spending fifty dollars each 182,000 dollars into small town economies. And they need that badly.

If you want a lesson or two in how the railroad works I'm more then happy to teach. I've worked passenger trains before, and I know the operations end well. I'm more then happy to help. But see the bigger picture just because the towns are small and Philly is big. Doesn't mean that Philly should get more then them. Philly has many things going for it that the small towns don't. Like good transit options. I hope you can see it this way.


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## jis

Excellent points Seaboard. Your observation supports my contention that the choice was never between Broadway and Cardinal when it came to cutting one. It was between Broadway and Capitol, which had essentially a common service area west of PGH. And east of PGH only Cumberland and Connelsville were at the risk of losing service. But following the same logic, on the Broadway route east of PGH no place was at the risk of losing all service, so there is some logic to canceling the Broadway and not the Cap from that perspective, though I still think that was not the right choice.  Perversely, if there were no Pennsylvanian that would have worked in favor of keeping the Broadway!


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

jis said:


> Post facto one can dream up all sorts of reasons. But the main fact is that the Empire Builder survived because Montana was willing to go to the mat for it several times. The Cardinal survived because representatives on its route were willing to be the squeaky wheel in the process. And the Capitol limited survived because Amtrak staff like a nice way to get from their HQ to their premier hub other than New York.  I have always been of the opinion that the Broadway Limited was the wrong train to cut. But that is not relative to the Cardinal which provides service to too many unique population centers that would lose all service if it was axed, but the Capitol Limited. Capitol Limited has never worked out to be as well performing a train that any train routed NYP - PGH - CLE - TOL - CHI would be. The Broadway was destroyed by a thousand cuts by first putting it on the B&O and then slowly reducing service quality on it, while the Cap was upgraded progressively.
> 
> If Virginia and West Virginia had not been willing to save their service it is entirely conceivable that they would have been stuck with the Hilltopper doing a Oh dark thirty transfer to the Capitol Limited that ran via Cincinnati and the Broadway that continued to run providing NYP - PGH - CHI service. It didn't work out that way because neither New York, nor New Jersey, nor Pennsylvania reps bothered to fight for their train when the time came. They were more focused on the NEC and the Keystone Corridor east, which admittedly had a disproportionately large impact on their economy than whether a single train ran direct to Chicago or not.That is the way indirect representative democracy works. And representative democracy with protection for the causes of isolated minorities, which is deeply ingrained in the way the political setup in this country works, tends to favor keeping service to the little hovels that have service in place, by giving them political voice that is disproportionately large. In fact this is not necessarily a bad thing. I can vouch for that having been a minority of one sort or another all my life. Fortunately that is life the way it is.


Again, does "go to the mat" mean money? If the train benefits Montana and not other states, make Montana pay a significant portion of the cost. I think Virginia and West Virginia should pay a significant portion of money for running the Cardinal and South Carolina and Georgia for the Palmetto. We can debate the others.

Again, I feel certain LD trains like the Southwest Chief and the Sunset Limited do matter in the national transportation system even though they do not serve Philly/Pennsylvania. I would even feel a simple LAX-Vegas train or a 3C train are important enough to be funded nationally even though they aren't over 750 miles. I think there needs to be some discussion between Amtrak and Congress as to what trains should be considered national and what trains are regional. At the very least, a 750 mile rule is highly arbitrary. Who knows, maybe if we can't come to an agreement as to which trains should be funded nationally then maybe we should require all trains, LD or not, to be significantly funded by the states it goes through and directly benefits.

Remember WE are all paying for that billion dollars that goes to Amtrak. I think WE should have some say as to where that money goes to. Not ME, WE. As a nation. No, Senator Byrd or some senator in Montana shouldn't have more say than anyone else.

By the way, if I had a hometown Amtrak station it wouldn't be 30th St. Station but Cornwells Heights. I would love to be able to go from Cornwells Heights to Chicago, Florida, Washington, Boston, etc. but I know it wouldn't make enough economic sense. I know it's the Philadelphia area and if Amtrak has to choose one station for national service, it has to be 30th Street or somewhere in Philly, not Cornwells Heights.


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## Seaboard92

Thank you Jis. The Capitol Limited has some other things in it's favor too. The schedule the way it is serves really as a west coast/midwest train to the east coast trains. It's a good connection. It has some good benefits with it. Plus Washington-Chicago or Washington-PGH or any other city pair is it's own market. New York already has a Chicago train, two if you count the Cardinal. And the Cardinal it's real market isn't New York-Chicago it's more of a Virginia, West Virginia market.

I can agree with you the 750 mile rule is completely stupid, and I would like it to get thrown out. But if we ask the states to fund trains or the trains go away. You will watch the entire network disappear and almost over night. And your route the Broadway Limited we could say was really Ohio and Pennsylvania's job to pay for it. But they weren't willing. Pennsylvania if I remember right was debating the existence of the Pennsylvanian recently. So based on that you wouldn't get the service you want. And I would argue that the SWC is no more nationally important then the Empire Builder. Seattle/Portland is a long way from LAX. So you're saying passengers who want to go east from there need to go south 24 hours then east? All of the long haul routes are important. When the Desert Wind was dropped they didn't make a move for the Las Vegas corridor. Of which had they Nevada probably would have ended up funding by now and it would still be here. But something tells me the numbers just didn't add up. I haven't run them, but I could.

The 3Cs really aren't nationally important, I would say they are more on a regionalized basis. But I see some major benefits to them such as more city pairs, and it targets a different long haul route. I actually could safely say that restarting a train similar to the New York Central's Ohio State Limited would be great hits all the Cs then a night run to New York. And as far as senators that's just how it goes. Amtrak is political, nothing you, me, or Senator Byrd can do about that. And remember if we force the states to pay for the train. As most states can't afford it right now with the debt they already have, and crumbling roads. The train disappears. So that's beyond pointless. Again it's cutting your nose to spite your face. Gee that's like my motto.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Seaboard92 said:


> Thank you Jis. The Capitol Limited has some other things in it's favor too. The schedule the way it is serves really as a west coast/midwest train to the east coast trains. It's a good connection. It has some good benefits with it. Plus Washington-Chicago or Washington-PGH or any other city pair is it's own market. New York already has a Chicago train, two if you count the Cardinal. And the Cardinal it's real market isn't New York-Chicago it's more of a Virginia, West Virginia market.
> 
> And as far as senators that's just how it goes. Amtrak is political, nothing you, me, or Senator Byrd can do about that.



Well unfortunately Sen. Byrd did stick his nose where it didn't belong and did change Amtrak forever (IMHO for the worse).

Finally someone admits the primary goal of the Cardinal. So make Virginia and West Virginia fund the Cardinal then. Not the rest of us.


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## jis

We will do so as soon as Pennsylvania starts paying for the infrastructure and operation of all the NEC service it gets now for free.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

jis said:


> We will do so as soon as Pennsylvania starts paying for the infrastructure and operation of all the NEC service it gets now for free.


Well assuming PA would share costs with neighboring states, I think they would make the trade of paying for their portion of the NEC if they didn't have to pay for the trains that didn't go through their states and only had to pay maybe 5-10% of trains like the Palmetto and Cardinal that barely go through it.

Then again, wait a minute, NEC trains run a profit. They're paid for by passengers and then some.


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## Ryan

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Well unfortunately Sen. Byrd did stick his nose where it didn't belong and did change Amtrak forever (IMHO for the worse).
> 
> Finally someone admits the primary goal of the Cardinal. So make Virginia and West Virginia fund the Cardinal then. Not the rest of us.


Like hell he did, he did exactly what he was supposed to - advocate for the people that elected him.

I've said all along that the purpose of the Cardinal was to serve those people, and you seem to be under some ridiculously misguided notion that they don't pay taxes or something. They pay the same taxes that you and I do and are entitled to Federal support for their train.

Don't like it? Tough. Elect politicians that will go to work for you like Sen Byrd did for his constituents.


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## jis

NEC does not run a profit when you include the cost of the upkeep of the tracks and infrastructure that they run on, even after you fold back all of the above the rail surpluses into NEC. Far from it. It runs a profit only above the rails. Meanwhile I am sitting here in Florida and paying to maintain the NEC roadbed and getting nothing for it. So first pay for it yourself before whining about Virginia and West Virginia.  And moreover I am also paying for operating the LD network which I have no easy access to and therefore don't really have much use for. So shut it down or get someone else who is getting anything out of it to pay for it.  

Of course I don't agree with your whole stupid divisive position of this sort on this matter, but you already knew that, didn't you?


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## Ryan

> Then again, wait a minute, NEC trains run a profit. They're paid for by passengers and then some.


At the risk of sounding repetitive, like hell they are.

The magic track fairy doesn't pay for the infrastructure, and the revenue from passengers doesn't even come close to paying that.

A for effort, F for grounding in reality.


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## Seaboard92

What did I say earlier. If we give the responsibility to Virginia and West Virginia we would lose the train. Not states aren't going to be willing to get it going. And just like Ryan said Byrd did his job better then most. He fought for his constituents. Unlike PA.

I pay federal taxes too. The coast Starlight is fairly useless to me as I live on the east coast. But it's useful. I pay for a lot of things I don't need. But those trains are needed. Elect better people to congress and things change


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Ryan said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well unfortunately Sen. Byrd did stick his nose where it didn't belong and did change Amtrak forever (IMHO for the worse).
> 
> Finally someone admits the primary goal of the Cardinal. So make Virginia and West Virginia fund the Cardinal then. Not the rest of us.
> 
> 
> 
> Like hell he did, he did exactly what he was supposed to - advocate for the people that elected him.
> 
> I've said all along that the purpose of the Cardinal was to serve those people, and you seem to be under some ridiculously misguided notion that they don't pay taxes or something. They pay the same taxes that you and I do and are entitled to Federal support for their train.
> 
> Don't like it? Tough. Elect politicians that will go to work for you like Sen Byrd did for his constituents.
Click to expand...

They are paying the same taxes as I do. That's the problem. Why should I? It's their train, not mine. If a train serves the national good, the nation should pay. If the train serves a limited population, make them pay for it.

Again, when you choose politicians you have to look at the big picture. You may like Amtrak Joe's position on Amtrak but hate his views on other issues. So you vote for someone else. Doesn't mean you don't care about Amtrak.

Considering you live near DC Ryan I am guessing you know Congress and the Senate more than me. 100 senators, 2 on each state. There are many subcommittees including one on transportation. Some senators take leadership positions. Byrd took the initiative. I wish Byrd could represent PA. But he can't. Each state can only choose the senators and representatives that are running in their state. There are some Robert Byrds who take leadership positions in the Senate and others who don't. Byrd was President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the most senior member of the Senate for years. No one Pennsylvania or Ohio elects will have that much power or it would talk several 6 year terms to get it. I'm not saying Specter or Santorum did or didn't fight for their trains. But if Byrd is the leader, guess who wins.

To me you are saying it's fair West Virginia gets special benefits because their senator has power in the senate. I don't agree. No one disputes Byrd could do it. I'm just saying it's wrong. I don't think you can say Pennsylvania or Ohio doesn't deserve Amtrak service because their senators are weaker on the political scale than Byrd.

Does Congress control Amtrak? Of course. Should they? I say no.

My claim is the Broadway Limited is faster between CHI and PHL/NYP than the Cardinal and serves a much larger unique population base. I challenge anyone to dispute that. Byrd forced the Cardinal on us. I get it. But the Broadway Limited "was better".


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## Ryan

What're these "special benefits" that you're raving about?

You get a ridiculous amount of benefit from the taxpayers across the nation financing the NEC. Complaining about the "special" treatment that people in WV get from your tax money is somewhere between disingenuous and ignorant.


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## Seaboard92

I think the Cardinal is a national train it serves NY, NJ, Philly, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, KY, OH, IN, and IL that's ten states plus DC. I would say that's a national train. Now it's target market just so happens to be WV, and VA more so then the other states. And Virginia is paying for track upgrades for the route. So don't say they aren't funding it at all because they are. One place I can agree is more of a compromise everywhere deserves better rail service. The Cardinal for being a tri weekly train has great ridership. But lets say they cancel it but YOU have to go to WV, and VA and tell all the people who use this train as their method of transportation. How are you going to justify it to them to take away their train for a train that hasn't existed since the 90s. And seeing it's been gone so long it will take a long time to build up ridership. Not everyone is as lucky as you to live in a great city with lots of fun and interesting things to do. That doesn't mean they aren't people, and it doesn't mean they don't have the same needs that you do. And to them it's an important train. And it's a market that no other train serves. The Broadway Limited has the Lake Shore Limited to take the NY-CHI market. The Pennsylvanian to take the NYP-PHL-PGH Market. The Capitol Limited for the PGH-CHI market. And the PGH-CHI market on it's route remember what I said earlier most of it is thirty minutes to an hour from a station on the LSL/CL routes. Except for Lima, OH. But I have a feeling you would skip them as they are like WV citizens not important enough. It was never a choice between the Cardinal and the Broadway Limited. It was really the Capitol Limited and the Broadway Limited. And the Capitol Limited plays an entirely different market. It's market is WAS-PGH-CLE-CHI. I would rather have one train for every market then two for the same market. I'm sorry that way we have better coverage. But who am I to know just a lowly private passenger train operator.


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## AmtrakBlue

You forgot one state (mine) and you miscounted the ones you listed. So, it really serves 11 states and DC.



Seaboard92 said:


> I think the Cardinal is a national train it serves NY, NJ, Philly, MD, DC, VA, WV, KY, OH, IN, and IL that's nine states.


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## jebr

Legislators are supposed to be representatives of the constituency they are elected from. If the senator from WV is spending his limited time working to keep the Cardinal, that tells me it is important to him and his constituents that the train continues to run. If senators from other states are not making that effort to save their trains, that tells me they're not important to those constituents.


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## Seaboard92

AmtrakBlue said:


> You forgot one state (mine) and you miscounted the ones you listed. So, it really serves 11 states and DC.
> 
> 
> 
> Seaboard92 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think the Cardinal is a national train it serves NY, NJ, Philly, MD, DC, VA, WV, KY, OH, IN, and IL that's nine states.
Click to expand...

Sorry about that Amtrak Blue. I'll go in and correct that


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

jebr said:


> Legislators are supposed to be representatives of the constituency they are elected from. If the senator from WV is spending his limited time working to keep the Cardinal, that tells me it is important to him and his constituents that the train continues to run. If senators from other states are not making that effort to save their trains, that tells me they're not important to those constituents.


Maybe they are but Byrd's the boss and he rules.


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## Ryan

If they were, clearly they weren't doing a good enough job.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

Ryan said:


> If they were, clearly they weren't doing a good enough job.


You try challenging the Senate Majority/Minority leader/ President Pro Tempore. Rick Santorum was just elected to the Senate in 1994. I'm not saying Santorum cares about Amtrak. But if he did and tried to challenge Byrd you're telling me a newly elected senator can win a battle against the President Pro Tempore if they are debating as to which train they keep? I disagree with your premise that Byrd fought harder, he just had more power at the time.


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## Ryan

You forget (or conveniently left out) your other Senator at the time.

Ohio also had a pair of relatively senior senators, and Indiana had Dick Luger.

If they had cared, there was plenty of horsepower on the side of your beloved train that could have done something.


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## jis

The fact of the matter is that PA has not been blessed with a Booker, a Lautenberg, a Schumer or a Moynihan, a Hutchinson, a Byrd or a Staggers (remember Harley's Comet? Has a bit of relevance to the Cardinal discussion). That is their misfortune. And heck! Booker isn't even that senior yet. The fix is to be very careful about who you select to represent yourself in significant funding and decision making bodies.

Ah yes. Specter could have made a difference if he chose to. But he did not since he probably had other bigger fish to fry. I am not sure Santorum cares so whether he is junior or senior would not matter a lot. If you know otherwise, I'd like to know. And as I mentioned before, for NY and NJ whether another train ran through Pennsylvania direct to Chicago or not was way below their concerns about the NEC. It still is, even more so with the tunnel mess. Even within the rail advocacy community it is hard to find prime time for the LD trains in NJ politics. Kudos to Booker that he gives us the time of day and takes input from us and acts upon them. Menendez is too busy worrying about archaic blockades of Cuba and such to worry about real day to day issues other than trying to stay out of prison and such.  In NY both Schumer and Gillibrand are ready to go to the mat for passenger trains of all sorts.

And then there is my current home state. Nelson will act if we can get his attention focused on something. Rubio is useless since he is hardly ever present in the Senate. He is too busy doing other stuff. In the House Mica is intriguing. He has this thing up his rear end about Amtrak food service. OTOH when it comes to supporting development of passenger rail within Florida he is incredibly supportive. Some say it is because of associated real estate deals. Perhaps we should find more Congresscritters who are associated with real estate deals associated with passenger rail if that is how it needs to be played


----------



## Carolina Special

Naming the trains after the respective congress critters might be a way to get their support.

Byrd had many WV roads and buildings named after him and his wife for all the spending dollars he brought in. There is a whole Wiki page out there that lists those facilities.

I suppose we're lucky the Cardinal didn't renamed the "Byrd".


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## Anderson

There's nothing saying that Specter (or any of the others along the Broadway's route) would have to take on Byrd directly. In theory they could have "logrolled" something like "Daily Cardinal requirement (up from 3x weekly) in exchange for requiring a daily Broadway". Of course, that might have just triggered either dropping the Cap and/or converting it into a stub day train WAS-PGH (which would, to be fair, then be a train largely lacking in any real patronage in Washington and likely just get the ax later).

Edit: I've taken at least some of the fight over the Pennsylvanian to be related to Amtrak's costing (that's a repeated quibble in general, I find..._nobody_ is happy with that and there are quite a few "black box" issues all over that have, I believe, actually been crimping Amtrak's cash flow because Amtrak hasn't been supporting their bills with cost breakdowns.


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## neroden

Anderson said:


> There's nothing saying that Specter (or any of the others along the Broadway's route) would have to take on Byrd directly. In theory they could have "logrolled" something like "Daily Cardinal requirement (up from 3x weekly) in exchange for requiring a daily Broadway". Of course, that might have just triggered either dropping the Cap and/or converting it into a stub day train WAS-PGH (which would, to be fair, then be a train largely lacking in any real patronage in Washington and likely just get the ax later).


Capitol Limited ridership PGH-WAS is consistently anemic. We know that nearly half the riders are transferring to the Pennsylvanian. Looking at the numbers with overhead removed, I don't see a path to above-the-rail profit -- whereas the Auto Train, all of the Silver Service, the Cardinal, the LSL, and a revived Broadway Limited can all be made break-even before overhead.
Why? On the CL, the intermediate stations contribute basically nothing. (Perhaps this is because MARC runs as far as Martinsburg, meaning that Cumberland and Connellsville are the only unique stations.) The track is super-slow. I doubt that PGH-PHL-WAS (7 1/2 + 1 1/2 = 9 hours) can be made as fast as the Capitol Limited (6 hours), but if Pennsylvania High Speed Rail were ever built from PGH to PHL, the CL would probably be cancelled the week after it opened.

The LSL was originally advertised as a Boston-Chicago train, and has eventually become primarily a NY-Chicago train with a Boston branch. The CL should become a Philadelphia-Chicago train with a DC branch, because that matches the ridership flows.



> Edit: I've taken at least some of the fight over the Pennsylvanian to be related to Amtrak's costing (that's a repeated quibble in general, I find..._nobody_ is happy with that and there are quite a few "black box" issues all over that have, I believe, actually been crimping Amtrak's cash flow because Amtrak hasn't been supporting their bills with cost breakdowns.


I think we've all concluded that Amtrak's overhead allocation is gibberish.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

neroden said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> 
> There's nothing saying that Specter (or any of the others along the Broadway's route) would have to take on Byrd directly. In theory they could have "logrolled" something like "Daily Cardinal requirement (up from 3x weekly) in exchange for requiring a daily Broadway". Of course, that might have just triggered either dropping the Cap and/or converting it into a stub day train WAS-PGH (which would, to be fair, then be a train largely lacking in any real patronage in Washington and likely just get the ax later).
> 
> 
> 
> Capitol Limited ridership PGH-WAS is consistently anemic. We know that nearly half the riders are transferring to the Pennsylvanian. Looking at the numbers with overhead removed, I don't see a path to above-the-rail profit -- whereas the Auto Train, all of the Silver Service, the Cardinal, the LSL, and a revived Broadway Limited can all be made break-even before overhead.
> Why? On the CL, the intermediate stations contribute basically nothing. (Perhaps this is because MARC runs as far as Martinsburg, meaning that Cumberland and Connellsville are the only unique stations.) The track is super-slow. I doubt that PGH-PHL-WAS (7 1/2 + 1 1/2 = 9 hours) can be made as fast as the Capitol Limited (6 hours), but if Pennsylvania High Speed Rail were ever built from PGH to PHL, the CL would probably be cancelled the week after it opened.
> 
> The LSL was originally advertised as a Boston-Chicago train, and has eventually become primarily a NY-Chicago train with a Boston branch. The CL should become a Philadelphia-Chicago train with a DC branch, because that matches the ridership flows.
Click to expand...

You think if the CL can go an hour or two faster by going through Pennsylvania they would? If that were true, the Cardinal would have been canceled. The BR/TL got to PHL/NYP WAY faster than the Cardinal does now.


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## neroden

Yeah, but the Cardinal has always been all about the intermediate stations (Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana).

The Capitol Limited simply doesn't have much ridership from Connellsville and Cumberland, and probably never will.


----------



## Anderson

neroden said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> 
> There's nothing saying that Specter (or any of the others along the Broadway's route) would have to take on Byrd directly. In theory they could have "logrolled" something like "Daily Cardinal requirement (up from 3x weekly) in exchange for requiring a daily Broadway". Of course, that might have just triggered either dropping the Cap and/or converting it into a stub day train WAS-PGH (which would, to be fair, then be a train largely lacking in any real patronage in Washington and likely just get the ax later).
> 
> 
> 
> Capitol Limited ridership PGH-WAS is consistently anemic. We know that nearly half the riders are transferring to the Pennsylvanian. Looking at the numbers with overhead removed, I don't see a path to above-the-rail profit -- whereas the Auto Train, all of the Silver Service, the Cardinal, the LSL, and a revived Broadway Limited can all be made break-even before overhead.
> Why? On the CL, the intermediate stations contribute basically nothing. (Perhaps this is because MARC runs as far as Martinsburg, meaning that Cumberland and Connellsville are the only unique stations.) The track is super-slow. I doubt that PGH-PHL-WAS (7 1/2 + 1 1/2 = 9 hours) can be made as fast as the Capitol Limited (6 hours), but if Pennsylvania High Speed Rail were ever built from PGH to PHL, the CL would probably be cancelled the week after it opened.
> 
> The LSL was originally advertised as a Boston-Chicago train, and has eventually become primarily a NY-Chicago train with a Boston branch. The CL should become a Philadelphia-Chicago train with a DC branch, because that matches the ridership flows.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Edit: I've taken at least some of the fight over the Pennsylvanian to be related to Amtrak's costing (that's a repeated quibble in general, I find..._nobody_ is happy with that and there are quite a few "black box" issues all over that have, I believe, actually been crimping Amtrak's cash flow because Amtrak hasn't been supporting their bills with cost breakdowns.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I think we've all concluded that Amtrak's overhead allocation is gibberish.
Click to expand...

On the Cap, the issue is that there is _far_ more ridership CHI-WAS (40-ish percent) than CHI-PGH (14 percent). The train's connecting role between the Midwest and Florida (in particular) overwhelms all other roles. The train's operating "hole" comes from this as well: It's one thing to smack someone for $450-600 for a WAS-ORL sleeper. It's entirely another to try and hit them for $1200 for a CHI-WAS-ORL sleeper. Basically, the Cap cross-subsidizes trains on both ends due to its connecting role. As a similar issue, when the Builder/Zephyr/Meteor/Crescent/Star sells out (yes, I know not all of those are always legal connections) then the Cap runs the risk of losing through traffic...so adding capacity to the Meteor (for example) would likely add demand to the Cap.

Much of this is down to the fact that you really can't effectively connect to the present Florida schedules with a connection north of Washington if you're also picking up connections coming in from the west. Really, you can connect well on one end (e.g. WAS/NYP or CHI) but forcing both gets clunky...as we see now.


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## Ryan

neroden said:


> Capitol Limited ridership PGH-WAS is consistently anemic. We know that nearly half the riders are transferring to the Pennsylvanian.


We do?


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

neroden said:


> Yeah, but the Cardinal has always been all about the intermediate stations (Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana).
> 
> The Capitol Limited simply doesn't have much ridership from Connellsville and Cumberland, and probably never will.


I thought it was about one of them in particular and a certain senator.


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## Anderson

I'd like to note that the above chart probably underestimates the number of connections on both ends: Towards the end of FY14, there were a _lot_ of pax force-splitting tickets due to OTP problems (e.g. breaking a reservation at either WAS or CHI and staying overnight to account for lousy OTP...I did this once many years ago after a "surprise" overnight and made a point of enjoying a nice steak lunch in Chicago while doing so). A large number of those would have been Builder pax (dealing with crap OTP on both trains) but once the Cap's OTP went in the tank due to the NS meltdown you'd have had those sorts of passengers showing up all over the place. There's probably a larger "tradition" of doing so on the NEC as well (I'm not entirely sure how the system handles a reservation where one switches to an earlier, perhaps technically "illegal", connection when the Cap hits WAS early) but I think I've booked a replacement leg WAS-RVR and then canned my existing leg. There have also been plenty of folks who've either gambled with the Star using a non-guaranteed reservation or switched over at the last minute once the train was more or less on time out of Cumberland.

You're probably looking at an underestimate of the number of connections in CHI of around 3-5k and probably 2-3k at WAS. Not a huge underestimate, but not trivial either. There are probably a similar number of "lost" trips in there as well (e.g. me in October 2014, when I did that f-word to get out to Salt Lake City) where the risk/cost of the extra night in Chicago killed a trip or forced someone onto the LSL, though the OTP issues probably hit non-connecting traffic by a good amount as well.

Edit: Ok, setting aside the question of connections on _both_ ends, there's a painful fact that while the WB time is almost perfect for business travel (I once used it to travel to/from a conference in Chicago in lieu of flying...this was back in 2009 and I was giving a presentation at a political science conference), EB the time is less desirable. On the one hand, this was always the case (the time change helps WB but hinders EB so that the Broadway and 20th Century would leave NYP/NYG 1700 and arrive CHI 0800 but had to leave CHI earlier and/or arrive NYP/NYG later...the Century would leave at 1530/arrive 0830 and the Broadway leave 1500/arrive 0800...because of this swing).

I do understand why the schedule is as it is. That doesn't mean it doesn't stink from many perspectives; for example, there is _no_ way to get from Chicago to New York without blowing a full day eastbound while you can manage a passable version of it westbound (leaving NYP at just before 1600 isn't ideal, but if you work anywhere in Manhattan you can still stay at work until 1400 or perhaps even 1500 if feeling adventurous and still hope to make your train...but cutting out an hour early/getting in an hour or two late because of scheduling is a lot more defensible than having to lose a full day).

In an ideal-but-fiscally-constrained world [1][2], you'd have (at least) two round-trips on each of the NYP-CHI routes [3]. Pairing them is partly a mechanism of equipment turning, but the short version is that you'd have a "morning arrival" train (aiming for getting to the desired endpoint sometime between 0800 and 1000) and an "evening departure" train (aiming for a departure after 1700). I've hammered out some timetables to this effect before, but the gist is that you'd have passable daylight service in all cities on the routes both ways save perhaps Buffalo and Pittsburgh (where you're probably going to be stuck with marginal times to some extent at least one way). You'd probably be able to have more-or-less Meteor-variant consists on all of the trains out of NYP [4] with the variations being on the "split sets" [5]. The big plus to doing this is that you'd have a lot less sets sitting dead at either end, so from what I can tell two of the three operations should "only" need five sets (the Cardinal might still need six; I'd have to check timings, but I don't think you can save a set there).

The main advantage to such a piled-up setup of trains is that you'd have very strong overall connectivity: The early-arriving Broadway ought to trigger a legal connection to the Palmetto (which, at present, doesn't connect to anything but 65/66/67) and a late-departing counterpart would likely manage this as well. Depending on your desires, you could probably pack the trains into/out of Chicago into a pair of pulses (which would at least reduce aggravation on NS's part). CSX would still raise unholy hell about the added demand on the New River line, but I suspect that a bunch of EPA mandates will erode that issue over time.

[1] Basically, a situation where there is more or less unlimited equipment available and we have the slotting privileges that Amtrak commanded at A-Day but serious consideration has to be given to containing direct operating losses...e.g. the stuff in that famous bar graph, ignoring almost all overhead considerations.

[2] Good grief, we do come up with the oddest concepts, don't we?

[3] Lake Shore routing, Broadway routing, and Cardinal routing. Each would have a split: Lake Shore to Boston, Broadway to Washington (even though this split would arguably dominate at least one of the trains in question), and Cardinal to either Hampton Roads or St. Louis/Kansas City.

[4] 1 Baggage, 3 sleepers, 1 diner, 3-4 coaches

[5] Boston and St. Louis would probably look pretty similar to the present Cardinal; Washington would be the "big one" because of various connection options; I'd actually see that one running a baggage car, 3-5 sleepers, a diner, and 2-3 coaches...that route is going to be sleeper-heavy and coach-light.


----------



## Philly Amtrak Fan

I think All Aboard Ohio's proposed Three Rivers schedule would probably be the best to get an early morning arrival into NYP (leaving CHI 11:50am and arriving in NYP at 8:58am).

http://allaboardohio.org/2015/09/22/new-report-restore-passenger-rail/

http://freepdfhosting.com/38886f65ec.pdf

If we assume the Eastern trains are locked to leave in the evening from CHI, maybe we can move the trains from the west coast to arrive earlier.

SWC: Currently LAX 6:15pm to CHI 3:15pm. The time is good for LA (they can leave LA with little or no interruption in work schedules). If you move the train to arrive in CHI a few hours earlier then #4 arrives in Kansas City in the middle of the night. The only other possible schedule to serve KCY would be to leave KCY around 11:43pm for a 7:15am arrival in CHI. That's an 8 hour shift which moves the other big market of the SWC (Albuquerque) to 3:42am/4:10am.

CZ: Currently Emeryville 9:10am to CHI 2:50pm. You can't really move Emeryville much earlier (remember San Fran still has to take Thruway buses to Emeryville and they currently leave 7:00am). Any shift would have to leave SAC before midnight. But SAC at 11:09pm (12 hour shift) and it gets into CHI 2:50AM.

TE (Counting from SAS only): Currently SAS 7:00am to CHI 1:52pm. You need to take care of SAS, Austin, Ft. Worth, and Dallas. Overnight from SAS to Ft. Worth isn't possible and leaving DAL before midnight would have the train in CHI in the evening.

EB: Currently SEA 4:40pm/Portland 4:45pm to CHI 3:55pm. Minneapolis is probably the big intermediate market. With 8 hrs. between MSP and CHI, it might be possible to do leaving late night from MSP and arrive in CHI early. Let's do an 8 hour shift. That would be MSP 12:03am (not ideal but the CL out of PGH is close to that time now) and CHI 7:55am. You would then leave SEA 8:40am/PDX 8:45am. They would lose the workday in SEA/PDX but gain it back in CHI so I think that's a reasonable trade. Then Spokane would be ... 5:30pm heading east?????? WAY WAY BETTER than 1:30AM!

To me, the Empire Builder is probably the only train you can shift going eastbound without drastically affecting a "major" intermediate market. Considering the EB is the latest arrival into CHI of the four and I do remember the night I left CHI east the train was scheduled to get into CHI at 10:00pm, maybe they are the ones that are most forcing the LSL to be pushed back to the current times. I'm sure the CZ and SWC also cause troubles but I have ridden the SWC eastbound three times and don't remember a drastic delay (I know, too small a sample size). Of course you'd gain more moving the CZ or SWC (at least according to the CL graphic Ryan posted) but if you take the EB out of the picture when it comes to delays from the west coast it might be enough to allow Amtrak to not have to have a "cleanup train" and have the LSL leave earlier. I guarantee Spokane would favor the 8 hour shift and I don't think SEA, PDX, or MSP would object too much (tell me if I'm wrong).


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## neroden

Anderson said:


> In an ideal-but-fiscally-constrained world [1][2], you'd have (at least) two round-trips on each of the NYP-CHI routes [3]. Pairing them is partly a mechanism of equipment turning, but the short version is that you'd have a "morning arrival" train (aiming for getting to the desired endpoint sometime between 0800 and 1000) and an "evening departure" train (aiming for a departure after 1700). I've hammered out some timetables to this effect before, but the gist is that you'd have passable daylight service in all cities on the routes both ways save perhaps Buffalo and Pittsburgh (where you're probably going to be stuck with marginal times to some extent at least one way). You'd probably be able to have more-or-less Meteor-variant consists on all of the trains out of NYP [4] with the variations being on the "split sets" [5]. The big plus to doing this is that you'd have a lot less sets sitting dead at either end, so from what I can tell two of the three operations should "only" need five sets (the Cardinal might still need six; I'd have to check timings, but I don't think you can save a set there).


This is what we should aim for, arguably. Tie the Chicago hub to the NEC and you start to have a sustainably-sized system.

And yeah, Ryan, I toally misremembered the CL numbers. Half the passengers at *Pittsburgh* are connecting. :blush:

Adding it up, about 42K (a quarter) of the riders from Chicago would have a shorter trip on the Broadway -- everyone connecting to the Pennsylvanian or to the NEC. This is not counting people who made their own connections with overnight stays, who don't show up on the chart. Given that the lack of a direct through route is clearly deterring riders from Philadelphia -- these are just the diehards -- we can expect that a direct route to Philadelphia would have much more riders than that. Continuing to New York is obviously even better.

The CL has an extraordinarily high percentage of end-to-end ridership, something which is bad for the train financially. Trains thrive on intermediate-point ridership. The CL actually seems to have been *designed* as a "cleanup" train to carry connecting passengers from the west and the south. Therefore if there is to be a cleanup train, it should be the CL, not the LSL which has strong intermediate ridership.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan

neroden said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> 
> In an ideal-but-fiscally-constrained world [1][2], you'd have (at least) two round-trips on each of the NYP-CHI routes [3]. Pairing them is partly a mechanism of equipment turning, but the short version is that you'd have a "morning arrival" train (aiming for getting to the desired endpoint sometime between 0800 and 1000) and an "evening departure" train (aiming for a departure after 1700). I've hammered out some timetables to this effect before, but the gist is that you'd have passable daylight service in all cities on the routes both ways save perhaps Buffalo and Pittsburgh (where you're probably going to be stuck with marginal times to some extent at least one way). You'd probably be able to have more-or-less Meteor-variant consists on all of the trains out of NYP [4] with the variations being on the "split sets" [5]. The big plus to doing this is that you'd have a lot less sets sitting dead at either end, so from what I can tell two of the three operations should "only" need five sets (the Cardinal might still need six; I'd have to check timings, but I don't think you can save a set there).
> 
> 
> 
> This is what we should aim for, arguably. Tie the Chicago hub to the NEC and you start to have a sustainably-sized system.
> 
> And yeah, Ryan, I toally misremembered the CL numbers. Half the passengers at *Pittsburgh* are connecting. :blush:
> 
> Adding it up, about 42K (a quarter) of the riders from Chicago would have a shorter trip on the Broadway -- everyone connecting to the Pennsylvanian or to the NEC. This is not counting people who made their own connections with overnight stays, who don't show up on the chart. Given that the lack of a direct through route is clearly deterring riders from Philadelphia -- these are just the diehards -- we can expect that a direct route to Philadelphia would have much more riders than that. Continuing to New York is obviously even better.
> 
> The CL has an extraordinarily high percentage of end-to-end ridership, something which is bad for the train financially. Trains thrive on intermediate-point ridership. The CL actually seems to have been *designed* as a "cleanup" train to carry connecting passengers from the west and the south. Therefore if there is to be a cleanup train, it should be the CL, not the LSL which has strong intermediate ridership.
Click to expand...

The schedules proposed by the PRIIA were LSL 6pm, CL 7:30pm. That would still get the CL into WAS before 3pm so there would still be 3.5 hours before the Crescent and 4.5 hours before the Silver Meteor. It would also get into PGH at 6:35am, quite a bit better than now. They'd probably have to push the Pennsylvanian back slightly (maybe less time if they go through with the through cars).

Is there anything holding back the switch? Western connections being missed? Maybe my Empire Builder shift would help.


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## CCC1007

As far as I can tell, the only reason for holding this in reserve is that NS had a meltdown last winter and Amtrak wants to see if it will happen again.


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## afigg

CCC1007 said:


> As far as I can tell, the only reason for holding this in reserve is that NS had a meltdown last winter and Amtrak wants to see if it will happen again.


The track and station improvement projects on the Empire corridor in NY state also likely are a factor in holding off on a major shift in the LSL schedule. Once the current projects are done, Amtrak should be able to trim the LSL trip times on the Empire corridor and maybe even improved OTP for the NY segment. The NS meltdown in 2014 appears to be long over. However, the Empire Builder severe delays are not over, they are likely to come back next track work season. Then there are the summer track work delays for the CZ, SWC, and the bad year the Texas Eagle is having for frequent 2, 3 and 4 hour delays due to CHI-STL work and frequent delays in Texas.

By mid to late 2017, a lot of the track work improvement projects will be done. And by then, CAF should have completed delivery of the Viewliner IIs (right, CAF?). If the CL and LSL CHI departures are to ever get flipped, that might be when it happens.


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## Anderson

If you were to assemble a coalition of the Chicago Hub states, the extended NEC states, and add in West Virginia or North Carolina (take your pick) that's 21 states. Throw in the West Coast and you have 24 states, which is a pretty sustainable base for Amtrak (it's not 26, granted, but it's close and there's going to be room to round up other votes on the basis of the LD system).

I'm going to spin off a new thread...this has been bugging me for a while, but I really would like to brainstorm the concept of a "fiscally constrained expanded system" of some sort.


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## Seaboard92

The Capitol Limited does serve a purpose but like it's been said it doesn't have as much intermediate which it needs to thrive. What I would like to know is how much traffic the Cap has that it gets from CHI-thru CLE as thats a shared market with the LSL. It has better times to at least Toledo. Going east. I'm curious as to the breakdown. I wonder what would happen if we moved it back to the B&O route. And it's one railroad run. Which is good for on time percentages too.


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