# New Routes?



## Crescent Mark (Sep 1, 2008)

Question -

If Obama/Biden win, do you think Amtrak will significantly get an increase in funding, to the point where they can start creating new routes? With that said, what parts of the country are in need for new routes? I'm biased because I live in the south, but I'd like to get some routes going down here, and I know Las Vegas needs to be included in a route too. If they do get a big increase, do you think they will go as far as to do things like continue the Sunset Limited again? Or do you think they'd spend it mainly for equipment upgrades? I'm interested in what everyone thinks.

What were the last few routes added to Amtrak?

Also, what were the last few routes that were discontinued by Amtrak?

If Obama gives a lot of support to Amtrak and commuter rail, do you think state-level governments will see that as something they should improve on also? An example is how developed the North Carolina, Washington (State) and California Transportation Departments are in terms of rail.


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## Shotgun7 (Sep 1, 2008)

My age makes me not too qualified to answer this, but a few route immediately come to mind. As for routes I think they definately need restored, they need to get the Sunset Limited running at least five times a week, with a connecting train down to Florida. As of now, the only way for people in my state to get west on the train is to go via Washington and Chicago. That being said, Chicago too needs to be connected to at least Jacksonville, despite the horrible track quality and if that's not possible, then Atlanta to Miami would definately be a profitable route with a huge market. So many government employees down here who need to get to Atlanta every month or so would prefer to take a train than fly. The Desert Wind is also a necessity to bring back.

I couldn't tell you what the last few routes were that were added, but ones recently discontinued do come to mind. Both the Pioneer and Desert Wind were abondoned in 1997 and the Sunset Ltd went to tri weekly service sometime in the 90s. The Three Rivers route from Chicago to New York via Pittsburgh was cancelled in 2002, eliminating the fastest route between the two hubs. Also around this time, the Silver Palm was discontinued, forcing many central and northern Florida cities to be reduced to bus service. IIRC, the Kentucky Cardinal was the last route to be canceled, ending rail service to/from Louisville.


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## the_traveler (Sep 2, 2008)

I think the Midwest Flyer (running from MSP down thru KC down to Texas would be a good addition. Also to improve the connections between the SL, CONO and Crescent to eliminate the necessary overnight stay. And of course the SL (east) - or at least some rail connection to FL from NOL.

I also agree that the Pioneer and Desert Wind need to be restored.

AFAIK - the SL (even in pre-Amtrak days) was always 3 days a week.


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## sky12065 (Sep 2, 2008)

Crescent Mark said:


> Question - If Obama/Biden win, do you think Amtrak will significantly get an increase in funding, to the point where they can start creating new routes? With that said, what parts of the country are in need for new routes? I'm biased because I live in the south, but I'd like to get some routes going down here, and I know Las Vegas needs to be included in a route too. If they do get a big increase, do you think they will go as far as to do things like continue the Sunset Limited again? Or do you think they'd spend it mainly for equipment upgrades? I'm interested in what everyone thinks.
> 
> What were the last few routes added to Amtrak?
> 
> ...


Politics aside, whatever funding is provided, let's hope that it's sufficient to get the ball rolling on what should be first priority, equipment repair & upgrading and new acquisition to adequately handle the growing demand for the routes we currently have; and in addition to that, improved promotion for current routes lacking in ridership. Once these priorities have been reasonably accomplished then new or re-established routes and full promotion can be saught!


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## jphjaxfl (Sep 2, 2008)

[ the Sunset Ltd went to tri weekly service sometime in the 90s.]

Th Sunset Ltd has been tri-weekly since Amtrak started in 1971 and the Southern Pacific operated it tri-weekly about 2 years before that. When The Sunset Limited last ran daily, in 1968, it was coaches only with vending machine food service. Espee offered to bring back sleeping car, dining car and lounge service if the Interstate Commerce Commission would allow the train to be cut back to tr-weekly.


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## lrdc9_metroplitan_sub (Sep 2, 2008)

Three Rivers need back. But the biggest thing they need is a purly a N-S route from WA to Denver south to the border through all the tourist cities in Colorado.

Also, new equipment should go #1 (not to replace but to add on) as well as more refurbs.

Also route from WAS/PHL to STL/KC w/ a timed connect to the Southwest Limited. Route south from Indianapolis would also be great!!!


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 2, 2008)

Shotgun7 said:


> My age makes me not too qualified to answer this, but a few route immediately come to mind. As for routes I think they definately need restored, they need to get the Sunset Limited running at least five times a week, with a connecting train down to Florida. As of now, the only way for people in my state to get west on the train is to go via Washington and Chicago. That being said, Chicago too needs to be connected to at least Jacksonville, despite the horrible track quality and if that's not possible, then Atlanta to Miami would definately be a profitable route with a huge market. So many government employees down here who need to get to Atlanta every month or so would prefer to take a train than fly. The Desert Wind is also a necessity to bring back.


Jacksonville is a much smaller city than either Orlando or Miami. The focus ought to be on the current population centers, not the historical railroad hubs.

In that corner of the country, I believe we ought to be building new, 300 km/h or better track from Miami to Orlando to Atlanta to Charlotte to Washington, DC. When I speak of 300 km/h, I'm thinking that once the train gets to the edge of the major city, the train would be able to accelerate to whatever speed is choosen, and not need to decelerate until it reaches the edge of the next city it's going to stop at. That would get us about to the level of technology the French were using 30 years ago.



Shotgun7 said:


> I couldn't tell you what the last few routes were that were added, but ones recently discontinued do come to mind. Both the Pioneer and Desert Wind were abondoned in 1997 and the Sunset Ltd went to tri weekly service sometime in the 90s. The Three Rivers route from Chicago to New York via Pittsburgh was cancelled in 2002, eliminating the fastest route between the two hubs. Also around this time, the Silver Palm was discontinued, forcing many central and northern Florida cities to be reduced to bus service. IIRC, the Kentucky Cardinal was the last route to be canceled, ending rail service to/from Louisville.


If the Three Rivers was substantially slower than 5 hours going from Chicago to NYP, then we again ought to be building new high speed track to become competitive with what the French were doing 30 years ago.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 2, 2008)

sky12065 said:


> Politics aside, whatever funding is provided, let's hope that it's sufficient to get the ball rolling on what should be first priority, equipment repair & upgrading and new acquisition to adequately handle the growing demand for the routes we currently have; and in addition to that, improved promotion for current routes lacking in ridership. Once these priorities have been reasonably accomplished then new or re-established routes and full promotion can be saught!


Without investment in new track, about the best we can hope for is 40 car trainsets on every route. And lengthening the trains like that is likely to make every stop take much, much longer than it does now.


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## JohnF (Sep 2, 2008)

What's needed here in Texas is a Texas to Colorado connection via the old Texas Zephyr route. Houston-Dallas-San Antonio-Houston corridor service. Daily Sunset Limited service. Extension of the Heartland Flyer north to KC and eventually to Minneapolis/St Paul and south to San Antonio. Send the Texas Eagle out west from Ft Worth on the UP(former T&P) Baird division to El Paso and connect with the SSL there. Houston to the valley(Corpus Christi/Brownsville/McAllen) corridor service. That is all for starters. They can fill in the blanks with thru-way bus connections.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 2, 2008)

Crescent Mark said:


> With that said, what parts of the country are in need for new routes?


I believe that all of the 35 biggest primary census areas (see the list here)ought to have 3 hour or less downtown to downtown service to adjacent primary census areas which are close enough to make such times possible if we could get our country caught up to late 1970s French high speed rail technology. (That would be roughly 500 miles.) Perhaps we should even contemplate going faster than the traditional French technology so we can include high speed Denver to Kansas City track.



Crescent Mark said:


> If they do get a big increase, do you think they will go as far as to do things like continue the Sunset Limited again?


I really hope that instead of a three day in each direction train, we see a high speed train with sleepers that does Miami to Orlando to Atlanta to St Louis to Kansas City to Denver to Salt Lake City to Las Vegas to Los Angles in about a day, which ought to be easily possible with 30 year old French technology. Phoenix should have a high speed connection to Las Vegas, and Dallas / Ft Worth a high speed connection to Kansas City and San Antonio and Houston, and everything else to the south of that high speed cross country route should be connected via daily daytime conventional speed trains. The longest route in terms of wall clock time in a modern system ought to be the Empire Builder, which mostly covers territory that's not very densely populated at all and thus isn't worth much investment in track upgrades west of Minneapolis.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 2, 2008)

JohnF said:


> What's needed here in Texas is a Texas to Colorado connection via the old Texas Zephyr route. Houston-Dallas-San Antonio-Houston corridor service. Daily Sunset Limited service. Extension of the Heartland Flyer north to KC and eventually to Minneapolis/St Paul and south to San Antonio. Send the Texas Eagle out west from Ft Worth on the UP(former T&P) Baird division to El Paso and connect with the SSL there. Houston to the valley(Corpus Christi/Brownsville/McAllen) corridor service. That is all for starters. They can fill in the blanks with thru-way bus connections.


What if, instead of the Sunset Limited, you had hourly departures of high speed trains from each of San Antonio, Ft Worth, Dallas, and Houston to Kansas City, and at Kansas City you could transfer to hourly high speed trains that went to places such as Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco; Minneapolis / St. Paul; St Louis, Chicago, Cincinati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, New York City, Boston, Montreal, Atlanta, Orlando, and Miami? If we imitate French definitions of high speed, any of those destinations are probably easily possible from any of those large Texas cities in well under 24 hours.


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## saxman (Sep 2, 2008)

This has always been my vision for the near future:

Crescent Star: split from Meridian to Dallas and Fort Worth

Another split of the Crescent from Charlottesville to Roanoke, Tri-Cities, Knoxville, Chattanoogo, Huntsville, Memphis, Little Rock, DFW or OKC.

Heartland Flyer Extension to either Witchita, Newton and KC and hopefully MSP. Also south to San Antonio.

Pioneer and Desert Wind of course.

North Coast Hiawatha brought back to cover Fargo, Bismarck, Billings to Spokane and Seattle.

Chicago to Florida via Atlanta with a split also via Birmingham or something like that.

South Dakota has always lacked any type of service, so something splitting from MSP down through Brookings or Sioux Falls, Pierre, and Rapid City to Denver.

Again, these are just long distance trains. Doesn't even begin to cover all the high speed corridors and conventional speed corridors that would also be in place to help out the network.


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## Steve Manfred (Sep 2, 2008)

I vote for a north-south train roughly on the I-35 corridor.


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## sky12065 (Sep 3, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> sky12065 said:
> 
> 
> > Politics aside, whatever funding is provided, let's hope that it's sufficient to get the ball rolling on what should be first priority, equipment repair & upgrading and new acquisition to adequately handle the growing demand for the routes we currently have; and in addition to that, improved promotion for current routes lacking in ridership. Once these priorities have been reasonably accomplished then new or re-established routes and full promotion can be saught!
> ...


By "investment in new track" I'm not sure if you mean new rails or new routes?

If you mean new rails, my thoughts included them as priorities. I just neglected to list them. If you mean't new routes, I used the term "reasonably" so as not to imply that the priorities had to be totally addressed first, but just enough to take care of most of the more serious tangible problems (i.e. equipment & rails) as freqently discussed on this web site. Amtrak can then, get into intangible things like route analysis, selections & acquisitions.

It's all good but Amtrak needs to live within their means and have priorities just as we all do!

ADDED ON EDIT: I can forsee some problems with 40 car trainsets but I think to describe using the term of "much much longer" is somewhat excessive. I can see problems in some places if the trainset takes too long to get through intersections.

It happened near where I am at the moment several years ago. The city (Mechanicville, NY) negotiated with the frieght company (or sued?) to shorten their trainset because the train was locking up one side of the city from the other. Eventually a bridge was built to alleviate that particular problem, but I believe that the unit limit still is in place today because of other problems long trains would create.

I am courious though as to why you think that any new route would resolve longer trains with longer station turnaround times! The only solution I could see to alleviate that kind of problem (longer trains to handle increased demand) is to add an additional trainset on the same track. i.e. The SWC having two daily departures insead of one. I don't (bearing any routes I'm not familiar with) see how another route would have any effect, at least under my example.


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## WICT106 (Sep 3, 2008)

New routes? Hmmm. We need to invest and upgrade the track on the existing routes, so as to allow for greater capacity and higher speed. Then, what about adding second or third frequencies of service along existing routes ? You need to make the train competitive with car driving times, or even faster or more convenient than a private vehicle, because that is what the non railfan public will compare the train.


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## frj1983 (Sep 3, 2008)

sky12065 said:


> Crescent Mark said:
> 
> 
> > Question - If Obama/Biden win, do you think Amtrak will significantly get an increase in funding, to the point where they can start creating new routes? With that said, what parts of the country are in need for new routes? I'm biased because I live in the south, but I'd like to get some routes going down here, and I know Las Vegas needs to be included in a route too. If they do get a big increase, do you think they will go as far as to do things like continue the Sunset Limited again? Or do you think they'd spend it mainly for equipment upgrades? I'm interested in what everyone thinks.
> ...


Amen Sky12065,

equipment repair/upgrading and acquisition should get top, toP, tOP, TOP priority.

Of course this has been my mantra for sometime!


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## Crescent ATN & TCL (Sep 3, 2008)

I say corridor service on all existing routes at least every six hours with the premium LD's every twelve, ACSES on all routes and top speeds raised to 110mph, and buy whatever is needed to bring this to fruition then expand to new routes from there. Then later on electrification of all passenger routes in the US, freight RR's aren't too far off from doing it them selves.


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## JohnF (Sep 3, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> JohnF said:
> 
> 
> > What's needed here in Texas is a Texas to Colorado connection via the old Texas Zephyr route. Houston-Dallas-San Antonio-Houston corridor service. Daily Sunset Limited service. Extension of the Heartland Flyer north to KC and eventually to Minneapolis/St Paul and south to San Antonio. Send the Texas Eagle out west from Ft Worth on the UP(former T&P) Baird division to El Paso and connect with the SSL there. Houston to the valley(Corpus Christi/Brownsville/McAllen) corridor service. That is all for starters. They can fill in the blanks with thru-way bus connections.
> ...



Interesting proposal........except why would anyone in Texas want to go through KC to get everywhere. It's just not a destination of choice. The most popular destination is Colorado followed by Orlando. The local corridor service would have to compete with SWA, a formidable competitor. Higher speeds would be the only way to compete in the local market. The long distance market is another animal, one the Europeans don't have to address. France, which you use as a comparison, is a tiny country compared to the whole United States. Then you can throw in Canada and Mexico. The only practical way to look at passenger rail in the US is to define local HS corridors between large population centers connected by long distance type services. There is no way we will build European type high speed service anywhere outside some specific densly populated corridors and even that will not occur in our lifetime.


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## Tony (Sep 3, 2008)

Crescent Mark said:


> Question - If Obama/Biden win, do you think Amtrak will significantly get an increase in funding, to the point where they can start creating new routes?


Sorry, nope. I do not think there will be a significant increase in funding. If anything happens, it would be due to Amtrak pulling itself up by its own bootstraps.


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## MattW (Sep 3, 2008)

The problem is the freight railroads. Even if the entire national budget was dumped into Amtrak, I doubt it could do more than have some real great passenger cars with some expanded services along the Amtrak-owned routes. Freight railroads do NOT HAVE to cater to the federal government, even if the government "forces" them to, they can still drag out the process and tie it up in all sorts of legal red tape.


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## JohnF (Sep 3, 2008)

MattW said:


> The problem is the freight railroads. Even if the entire national budget was dumped into Amtrak, I doubt it could do more than have some real great passenger cars with some expanded services along the Amtrak-owned routes. Freight railroads do NOT HAVE to cater to the federal government, even if the government "forces" them to, they can still drag out the process and tie it up in all sorts of legal red tape.


Freight railroads are a private enterprise that are in business to MAKE MONEY. That is what businesses do. If Amtrak wants to pay for a premium service, then they will get it. Passenger trains getting priority over everything else as in the 'good old days' is a premium service. That is why the official railroad timetables classified them as first class trains. Railroad timetables now days do not specifically list any class of service. All trains are treated basically the same. Sure there are some hotshot freights that get priority when it is available, but it is not scheduled. Priority freights are usually advertised as a third day delivery or something similar to that with no specific timetable, just a window of arrival. On a busy freight railroad a passenger train takes up a time slot that could be occupied by a freight train that generated much more revenue. In addition, to give a passenger train priority over all other trains ties up the line and delays trains all along the route. Amtrak simply does not want to pay for such service. They want a free ride.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 3, 2008)

sky12065 said:


> ADDED ON EDIT: I can forsee some problems with 40 car trainsets but I think to describe using the term of "much much longer" is somewhat excessive. I can see problems in some places if the trainset takes too long to get through intersections.
> It happened near where I am at the moment several years ago. The city (Mechanicville, NY) negotiated with the frieght company (or sued?) to shorten their trainset because the train was locking up one side of the city from the other. Eventually a bridge was built to alleviate that particular problem, but I believe that the unit limit still is in place today because of other problems long trains would create.
> 
> I am courious though as to why you think that any new route would resolve longer trains with longer station turnaround times! The only solution I could see to alleviate that kind of problem (longer trains to handle increased demand) is to add an additional trainset on the same track. i.e. The SWC having two daily departures insead of one. I don't (bearing any routes I'm not familiar with) see how another route would have any effect, at least under my example.


A 40 car trainset, if you assume 87.5' long cars (which happens to be the length of an Acela car), is 3500' long. I don't think there are any platforms out there that are 3500' long. You can either ask passengers to walk a quarter mile inside the train to the middle of the train at the time of their stop if they happen to be sitting near the very front or very back of the train, or you can have the train make several stops at the platform, one for each group of cars. Of course, that assumes platforms at through tracks; stub end terminals are more problematic, in that you can't make multiple stops to give everyone a chance to get out, and you may block the mainline for the whole time the train is in the station.

If you want to add a second SWC departure each day, you either need more track, or you need to clear a couple freight trains out of the way. (I suspect if you remove only one freight train from the daily schedule and run the second daily SWC at the same speed as the single freight train it's replacing, it's going to spend lots of time on a siding.) You can have close to 300 intermodal shipping containers on one freight train, so that's probably an extra 1000 trucks on the highway to make space for the second westbound SWC, and another extra 1000 truck on the highway to make space for the second eastbound SWC.

The only realistic way to add more frequencies on the long distance routes is to build more track, I think. And if we're going to that trouble, why not make the effort to catch up with where the French were 30 years ago while we're doing that, at least on all the major routes that connect one big city to another?


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 3, 2008)

MattW said:


> The problem is the freight railroads. Even if the entire national budget was dumped into Amtrak, I doubt it could do more than have some real great passenger cars with some expanded services along the Amtrak-owned routes. Freight railroads do NOT HAVE to cater to the federal government, even if the government "forces" them to, they can still drag out the process and tie it up in all sorts of legal red tape.


Remember, the tracks from WAS to BOS are owned by a mixture of Amtrak, New York State, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. If Amtrak were given $100 to $300 billion per year (less than the present military budget) and spent it wisely, there is no good reason why Amtrak couldn't have its own double track from one major city to the next, with an alignment that would support 250 MPH or 300 MPH operation. Amtrak could then switch to using the freight tracks only as a way of making daily runs to smaller downs that don't happen to be along the route of its own high speed tracks.

Amtrak's biggest problem is that we insist upon pretending that freight tracks and commuter rail tracks are a viable alternative to building proper high speed intercity tracks like the French were building 30 years ago, because we're too busy seeing the cost to notice the benefits of matching available labor to opportunities to create valuable infrastructure.


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## AlanB (Sep 3, 2008)

JohnF said:


> MattW said:
> 
> 
> > The problem is the freight railroads. Even if the entire national budget was dumped into Amtrak, I doubt it could do more than have some real great passenger cars with some expanded services along the Amtrak-owned routes. Freight railroads do NOT HAVE to cater to the federal government, even if the government "forces" them to, they can still drag out the process and tie it up in all sorts of legal red tape.
> ...


Well to be fair, Amtrak may want a free ride now, but it was Congress and the White House that set the terms and conditions that Amtrak currently operates under when they relieved the freight RR's of the responsabilities of running passenger service. So let's not blame Amtrak for what they were given.


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## AlanB (Sep 3, 2008)

MattW said:


> The problem is the freight railroads. Even if the entire national budget was dumped into Amtrak, I doubt it could do more than have some real great passenger cars with some expanded services along the Amtrak-owned routes. Freight railroads do NOT HAVE to cater to the federal government, even if the government "forces" them to, they can still drag out the process and tie it up in all sorts of legal red tape.


You're partially correct, but let's not forget that the Federal government has some cards that it too can play. The freight RR's still have to answer to the FRA. And the FRA can start passing rules that would severely hamper freight ops, or at least cost them big bucks to comply with. We could see increased fines for violations, a requirement that all trains operate with PTC, and so on.

And I'm sure that Congress would be more than happy to dump passenger service back onto the freight RR's and get that albatross off their backs. Remember that Amtrak was created to relieve the freight RR's of the burden of running pax service. So the freight RR's have to be careful too. Even if they eventually won in court, odds are most would be out of business by the time that happened. Granted that wouldn't exactly help the economy either, but Congress can always bring back Conrail too!

What's really needed is cooperation on both sides, along with some solid Federal contributions to both sides. That allows for new track on the freight side, to handle the increased services, and it allows for new equipment on the Amtrak side to increase service on existing routes, as well as to start up new services. idea!


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 3, 2008)

AlanB said:


> What's really needed is cooperation on both sides, along with some solid Federal contributions to both sides. That allows for new track on the freight side, to handle the increased services, and it allows for new equipment on the Amtrak side to increase service on existing routes, as well as to start up new services.


I've also found myself wondering if the attitudes towards long term investment of the freight railroad are a significant factor.

IIRC, the BNSF annual report talks about the need to balance capital investments against short term cash flow. What if most of the BNSF investors are choosing a price they're willing to pay for a share of BNSF based on the assumption that BNSF isn't really ever going to make long term investments, and what if Warren Buffet is buying up BNSF stock seeing the potential for how much money Berkshire Hathaway could be making off the BNSF right of way 20 years from now if Berkshire Hathaway buys up the whole railroad and starts investing major amounts of money in adding more tracks along the existing right of way? (I haven't quite gotten far enough along in investigating ths to figure out whether Berkshire Hathaway has enough money in the bank to add another track along, say, the entire Empire Builder route, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do. And then there's the question of which mainlines have space for additional tracks, but I suspect most do.)


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## daveyb99 (Sep 4, 2008)

I might add this:

Rather than split the Texas Eagle #421/#422 in San Antonio to join #1/#2, make that split in Fort Worth. The new route would to west to rejoin in El Paso The route is mileage shorter, and there is plenty of time to make the connection.

Equipment is the problem. There is one through Sleeper and Coach now. I see the need for another coach, one Trans sleeper, one diner and one Sightseer, plus one or two engines as needed. Of course, it is only three days per week. --- and more crew.


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## meatpuff (Sep 4, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> I've also found myself wondering if the attitudes towards long term investment of the freight railroad are a significant factor.
> IIRC, the BNSF annual report talks about the need to balance capital investments against short term cash flow. What if most of the BNSF investors are choosing a price they're willing to pay for a share of BNSF based on the assumption that BNSF isn't really ever going to make long term investments, and what if Warren Buffet is buying up BNSF stock seeing the potential for how much money Berkshire Hathaway could be making off the BNSF right of way 20 years from now if Berkshire Hathaway buys up the whole railroad and starts investing major amounts of money in adding more tracks along the existing right of way? (I haven't quite gotten far enough along in investigating ths to figure out whether Berkshire Hathaway has enough money in the bank to add another track along, say, the entire Empire Builder route, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do. And then there's the question of which mainlines have space for additional tracks, but I suspect most do.)


Looking at BNSF's financial statements from last year, they did make massive capital investments in 2007, $2.2B, an amount larger even than their net profit of $1.8B. I have been reading around various places, including quotes from Alex Kummant (old UP railroader) that freight rail capital expenditures have been historically high and growing for the last few years. So they are putting a large amount of money into expanding.

But they still have plenty of money left over. You make it sound like BNSF is in a cash crunch, and that if only they had the money available they would lay a massive amount of track so they could make tons more money. But that doesn't appear to be the case. BNSF bought back $1.1B of its own stock last year as well. This means the company had $1.1B in cash laying around that it generated last year that it didn't care to pour back into capital expeditures. I.e. it easily had the cash to lay more track, but considered (in a sense) investing in its existing operations likely to return more on its money than expanding might. I might add they made this large stock repurchase on top of burning cash paying out a decent dividend.

So BNSF apparently doesn't see it the way you see it. You have to imagine they're afraid that the current run-up in commodities is just a bubble, and once that runs its course they would end up with loads of spare capacity that costs money to maintain. In other words back to the bad old days of, oh, 1965 to 2000. That, and Wall Street doesn't reward spare capacity. It admires generating as much sales or income using as little assets as possible, and BNSF must first serve its shareholders.


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## Guest (Sep 4, 2008)

Well to go back to the original topic, I would restore the old City of Los Angeles. Chicago to LA by way of Des Moines, Omaha, Las Vegas.


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## jphjaxfl (Sep 5, 2008)

Guest said:


> [Well to go back to the original topic, I would restore the old City of Los Angeles. Chicago to LA by way of Des Moines, Omaha, Las Vegas.]


The City of Los Angeles did not go through Des Moines. It operated via the Milwaukee Road between Chicago and Omaha via Savannah, Illinois and Marion, Iowa from 1955 through 1971. Prior to 1971 it operated via the Chicago and Northwestern from Chicago to Omaha via Clinton and Cedar Rapids. Both routes were operated north of Des Moines.


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## amtrakwolverine (Sep 5, 2008)

MattW said:


> The problem is the freight railroads. Even if the entire national budget was dumped into Amtrak, I doubt it could do more than have some real great passenger cars with some expanded services along the Amtrak-owned routes. Freight railroads do NOT HAVE to cater to the federal government, even if the government "forces" them to, they can still drag out the process and tie it up in all sorts of legal red tape.


like UP for one. THEY HATE AMTRAK. if amtrak could gets lots of funding they could BUY the routes


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## Walt (Sep 5, 2008)

The correct way for this to all have happen, is that Congress should own, maintain, and build new track. That's for both freight and passenger.

That would make trains on par with all other methods of transportation, where taxes are used for all the infrastructure. Airlines own their planes, not the airports. Truckers own their trucks, and not the roads (though they drive like they own the roads.  ).


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## Kramerica (Sep 5, 2008)

Walt said:


> The correct way for this to all have happen, is that Congress should own, maintain, and build new track. That's for both freight and passenger.
> That would make trains on par with all other methods of transportation, where taxes are used for all the infrastructure. Airlines own their planes, not the airports. Truckers own their trucks, and not the roads (though they drive like they own the roads.  ).


I agree. That would truly put rail at a pretty even position with roads. To take it a step farther, if the tracks & stations were government owned, then there could be private operators of vehicles on that track, for both freight and rail. The equivalent of the FAA would control the dispatching. Passenger rail might become profitable then and we'd see private operators. Amtrak may still be needed to have a uniform reservation system, but maybe not.


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## WICT106 (Sep 5, 2008)

Under the current US Constitution, anything along the lines of a proposal to nationalize the railroad lines would promptly be met with demands from the stockholders and private RR's for Just And Fair Compensation for the taking of private property. It would cost in the multiple billions of dollars in order to accomplish this - and the stockholders would be vigorously howling in their demands for financial compensation.


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## JohnF (Sep 5, 2008)

Kramerica said:


> Walt said:
> 
> 
> > The correct way for this to all have happen, is that Congress should own, maintain, and build new track. That's for both freight and passenger.
> ...



This is nothing more than an appeal for European style socialism which I would oppose. We have the best and most efficient freight rail system in the world and the only one that makes money. No passenger rail system makes money. If the feds want to enhance certain routes and pay what it costs to run premium service level trains then the privately owned railroads would be glad to accomodate them and would run the trains much better and more efficiently than any quasi govt agency could. Right now Amtrak does not pay for more than just mediocre accomodation service, but expects premium service. Perhaps the way to go for the future is to turn operation of passenger trains outside the NE corridor over to the privately owned railroads and pay them to run them. Amtrak has been in existance for over 37 years now and it is still a mess. If you want to make passenger trains competitive financially, then start charging tolls for interstate highway use, raise the gasoline tax and make the airlines pay for their airports, air traffic controllers and other perks the feds provide for free. Take the NE corridor and make it stand alone as a separate operation. In case you haven't noticed the Europeans are abandoning government operated passenger trains just as fast as they can. They still maintain the infrastructure(but their infrastructure is mostly passenger oriented) but outsource the operation of trains. They also charge a lot more per mile than any US trains charge and their gasoline taxes are in the $4-5 per gallon range vs our pennies a gallon. In other words there is a huge huge difference between Europe and the US when it comes to how railroads are financed and operated. If passenger trains are so necessary and so efficient and convenient then the free market will take over and provide the service.


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## haolerider (Sep 5, 2008)

JohnF said:


> Kramerica said:
> 
> 
> > Walt said:
> ...


All well and good, but you must remember that the "free market" begged to get out of the passenger rail business 37 years ago and if this market is so anxious to get back into the business they will do so, but I fail to see anyone rushing to the table to negotiate for Amtrak routes - without a federal subsidy. you mention that Amtrak is still a mess, but I would argue that given the costs to run passenger service, versus the fares that the market will bear and the limited subsidies provided by the government it is quite amazing that Amtrak still exists at all.

You indicate that Amtrak is looking for premium service, but only willing to pay for mediocre service. If I am correct, there is still a requirement for the freight railroads to give priority access to the passenger rail service, but the reality is that since the freights own/control/dispatch the tracks, no matter what bonus payment Amtrak is willing to pay, the freights make more money by moving their own equipment and shipments.

I don't agree with the idea that the government should take over the tracks or dispatching, but there has to be a middle ground to allow for mutual existance of both passenger and freight traffic on the railroad.


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## JohnF (Sep 5, 2008)

> > This is nothing more than an appeal for European style socialism which I would oppose. We have the best and most efficient freight rail system in the world and the only one that makes money. No passenger rail system makes money. If the feds want to enhance certain routes and pay what it costs to run premium service level trains then the privately owned railroads would be glad to accomodate them and would run the trains much better and more efficiently than any quasi govt agency could. Right now Amtrak does not pay for more than just mediocre accomodation service, but expects premium service. Perhaps the way to go for the future is to turn operation of passenger trains outside the NE corridor over to the privately owned railroads and pay them to run them. Amtrak has been in existance for over 37 years now and it is still a mess. If you want to make passenger trains competitive financially, then start charging tolls for interstate highway use, raise the gasoline tax and make the airlines pay for their airports, air traffic controllers and other perks the feds provide for free. Take the NE corridor and make it stand alone as a separate operation. In case you haven\'t noticed the Europeans are abandoning government operated passenger trains just as fast as they can. They still maintain the infrastructure(but their infrastructure is mostly passenger oriented) but outsource the operation of trains. They also charge a lot more per mile than any US trains charge and their gasoline taxes are in the $4-5 per gallon range vs our pennies a gallon. In other words there is a huge huge difference between Europe and the US when it comes to how railroads are financed and operated. If passenger trains are so necessary and so efficient and convenient then the free market will take over and provide the service.
> 
> 
> All well and good, but you must remember that the \"free market\" begged to get out of the passenger rail business 37 years ago and if this market is so anxious to get back into the business they will do so, but I fail to see anyone rushing to the table to negotiate for Amtrak routes - without a federal subsidy. you mention that Amtrak is still a mess, but I would argue that given the costs to run passenger service, versus the fares that the market will bear and the limited subsidies provided by the government it is quite amazing that Amtrak still exists at all.
> ...


Well I have to agree with you on that point....it IS amazing that Amtrak still exists. I am not against passenger rail, in fact quite the opposite. I am just wondering out loud if it isn\'t time to try a different approach and welcome your discussion on that. I really don\'t think the freight railroads deliberately stab Amtrak even though we have seen posts to that effect. I believe that they are just so choked with traffic they have a problem dispatching passenger trains in a most efficient manner. If all your sidings are full or your double track rr is bumper to bumper is is really impossible to run Amtrak around a bunch of other trains. They have to just mosey along with the crowd until an opportunity comes along to make a pass. If you have ridden Amtrak anywhere except the NE corridor you can see examples of this all the time. I have to give CN credit, when I took the Canadian last May they managed to keep it pretty much on time inspite of heavy traffic in both directions. Many times though we had to take the siding as the opposing trains were just too long to do so. It really worked out better anyway as the long heavy freights did not have to stop and take the siding which would have created much delay for them and us. Once they passed we could easily make up the time.


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## puck71 (Sep 5, 2008)

JohnF said:


> Extension of the Heartland Flyer north to KC and eventually to Minneapolis/St Paul and south to San Antonio.


I second this. I think it's a glaring hole (admittedly among many glaring holes on the Amtrak route map) not having a North-South route through the middle of the country (Dallas-KC-Minneapolis would be the biggest stops). Supposedly some of this is underway, but connecting all the way to MSP would be great.


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## JohnF (Sep 5, 2008)

puck71 said:


> JohnF said:
> 
> 
> > Extension of the Heartland Flyer north to KC and eventually to Minneapolis/St Paul and south to San Antonio.
> ...


The other long distance glaring hole is Dallas/FW to Denver. Plus still no service between Houston and Dallas.....a natural HS corridor.


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## Guest_timetableflagman_* (Sep 7, 2008)

I vote for the _Midwest Flyer_, the_ Pelican_ or the _Tennessean_ continuing as the _Choctaw_ or_ Oklahoman _to Denver, the _Southwind_ alternating with the _Floridian_ extension of the _HOOSIER STATE_ and continuing as the _Fast Flying Virginian_ alternating with the _CARDINAL_ for daily service on that route, the _Shoshoni_ alternating with the _El Pasoan_, the _Gulf Wind_ and _TEXAS EAGLE_ alternating with the _SUNSET LIMITED_ (restored east of New Orleans) for daily service on that route, the _Idahoan_ and the _Utahn_. At any rate, all through trains need to depart at 6:31pm and arrive at 6:31am about every 300 miles from origin to destination.

I agree that AMTRAK must pull itself up. In order to ensure that AMTRAK can fund it's own renaissance rather than beg unsympathetic politicians or their supporters, replace non-revenue dining and lounge cars (I, too, love the diners and lounges) with a carry-out cafe compartment on the sleeper next to the coaches, partitioned from the rest of the car by a door, for coach class and one on the next sleeper for sleeping car class. Perhaps offer coach compartment seating and shower privileges on half of each coach for double coach fare. Sell a minimum of 68 inside advertisement spaces along top of insides of each revenue car at coach fare rates per trip and a minimum of 34 outside ads on all cars at sleeper compartment rates. Charge a reasonable rate for baggage and express enough, along with advertising, to cover the cost of such cars-- including strictly regulated carriage of pets. Charge only uniform fares, being the fraction of the cost of each train of the entire cost of AMTRAK's operation, including the full cost of operating on host railroad tracks, divided by the number of passenger spaces per train and the number of stations departed. Charge quadruple coach fares for roomettes and eight times for rooms. Charge fares only per party booked together, regardless the number of passengers per party, not per passenger (driving _divides_ the cost of travel by the number of passengers, current pricing of fares _multiplies_ the cost of train travel by the number in a party traveling together).

Taking AMTRAK's public statements of its revenues and expenses, these reforms could garner enough revenue to put AMTRAK on a course towards equipment and service increases. Certainly, any increases in revenue need to go toward increasing routes, capacity and compensation to host railroads, not bureacracy.


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## AlanB (Sep 7, 2008)

Guest_timetableflagman_* said:


> I agree that AMTRAK must pull itself up. In order to ensure that AMTRAK can fund it's own renaissance rather than beg unsympathetic politicians or their supporters, replace non-revenue dining and lounge cars (I, too, love the diners and lounges)


Amtrak last year got $1.3 Billion in subsidies last year and is looking for $1.7 or so this year IIRC. The losses on all food service cars was just over $100 Million two years ago, and I read somewhere once that a little more than half of that loss came from the short haul runs, not the long distance runs. So dropping the diners isn't going to do much to help the bottom line, a point that Congress didn't understand when they passed the legislation that ordered Amtrak to cut food service losses.

And of course with SDS and other programs, Amtrak has already cut that $100 Million down. So dropping diners and lounges isn't going to do much to help make Amtrak profitable. And profitability isn't an achievable goal anyway IMHO. At best, Amtrak with enough routes, proper management, and the gradually changing mindset of Americans, can achieve is to cover its operating expenses. That would be a laudable goal IMHO. But they'll always need help to cover the capitol expenses no matter what.


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## Guest_George Harris_* (Sep 7, 2008)

Much as I would like to see restoration of the Tennessean and several others on the list, it is not worth doing without major speed-up. I know I have more round trips by rail on the Tennessean between Memphis and Knoxville than any other route, and it was a nice overnight ride, but, even by the mid-1960's, Trailways could beat its time by 2 hours. With I-40 giving you a drive time of about 6 hours, there is no way that a train taking 11 hours can compete. That extends to the entire Memphis to Washington route, as well.

The Tennessean took about 24 hours end to end covering about 925 miles, giving it an average of something like 38 mph. I just don't see it having any ridership with that sort of run time. If the run time could be gotten down to something in the 15 to 18 hour range, in other words a 50 mph to 60 mph average, then it might be worth doing, but that would require major realignments in the Appalachian portion, which means a lot of the route.


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## jphjaxfl (Sep 7, 2008)

I have had discussions with members of congress on expansion of Amtrak routes. All of them seem to think that expansions of service will be the development of corridor routes where states paricipate in the funding of service along with the federal government's participation. This would include funding for Equipment and rail capcity expansion. The Amtrak California model that has seemed to work. Two or more states could form a coalition such as Midwest HSR if they wanted to develop a longer distance route. Getting mutiple states to agree may be difficult. Some states like Illinois and North Carolina are way ahead with their development planning but some states with larger populations have even started. Florida is a good example. There are 4 major population centers that would be perfect for corridor service in addition to expanded long distance service from outside the state. Florida voters approved a high speed rail plan a number of years ago, but the political machine was approved to get voters to un approve it by creating myths and non truths about what would happen. Most people in 2008 have no concept about what passenger rail is so they are easily influenced that it is not good.

In 25 years from now, I don't foresee an Amtrak or passenger rail system that will be like the 1950s including trains like the Tennessean and South Wind. It will likely be a national system of existing routes with a few additions or deletions, but a great many corridor routes with frequent service such as

Chicago-St Louis, Chicago-Detroit, Charlotte-Atlanta, Nashville-Chattanooga-Atlanta and many others where cities and states work with Amtrak and the freight railroads to develop routes.


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## Tony (Sep 7, 2008)

AlanB said:


> The losses on all food service cars was just over $100 Million two years ago, and I read somewhere once that a little more than half of that loss came from the short haul runs, not the long distance runs. So dropping the diners isn't going to do much to help the bottom line, a point that Congress didn't understand when they passed the legislation that ordered Amtrak to cut food service losses.


Does anyone know why Amtrak looses so much money on food service? Their prices for food and drinks seem to be on the high side. High enough that a stationary land diner could make money. Why can't Amtrak?

Is there some unusual, and rather major, expense that Amtrak has, that a land diner doesn't have?

I had thought that the problem might be inappropriate or insucient transferring of enough money from the sleeper's revenue to the dining car, for LD trains (especially when the LD train runs late and additional meals need to be served to sleeper passengers). However, if LD runs don't have a financial problem, that can't be it.

I am in agreement, that a solution can't be found until the root cause is well known. Crippling the dining car's service level and quality, can't be the right thing to do.


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## AlanB (Sep 7, 2008)

Tony said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > The losses on all food service cars was just over $100 Million two years ago, and I read somewhere once that a little more than half of that loss came from the short haul runs, not the long distance runs. So dropping the diners isn't going to do much to help the bottom line, a point that Congress didn't understand when they passed the legislation that ordered Amtrak to cut food service losses.
> ...


Sure, lots of them. They have to pay to overnight the crews, they have to pay higher salaries than a land diner in order to attract workers, the cars are more expensive to maintain, food has to be constantly loaded on and then off loaded, just to name a few. And then there is the expense of a late running train that now has to provide more meals that originally intended and covered by the sleeper fares.



Tony said:


> I had thought that the problem might be inappropriate or insucient transferring of enough money from the sleeper's revenue to the dining car, for LD trains (especially when the LD train runs late and additional meals need to be served to sleeper passengers). However, if LD runs don't have a financial problem, that can't be it.


I didn't say that the LD's didn't have some losses, and it might well be attributable to a failure to transfer enough sleeper money to cover the expenses. I don't know that that's true, but it is one thing that people have speculated about for years. But I'm betting that some of the other reasons above also contribute, if they aren't the sole reason.



Tony said:


> I am in agreement, that a solution can't be found until the root cause is well known. Crippling the dining car's service level and quality, can't be the right thing to do.


Even if one finds the root cause of food service losses, who cares? I'm reminded of the little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the dike trying to hold back the flood. A loss of $100 M is meaningless and a mere drop in the bucket when one is looking for $1.7 Billion to plug a hole in the budget.


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## Walt (Sep 7, 2008)

AlanB said:


> Even if one finds the root cause of food service losses, who cares? I'm reminded of the little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the dike trying to hold back the flood. A loss of $100 M is meaningless and a mere drop in the bucket when one is looking for $1.7 Billion to plug a hole in the budget.


Well, I care.

I care because without knowing what the true cause is, it appears to me that both Amtrak and Congress are guessing and taking "pot shots". And taking actions based on those guesses which are missing the target. I have personally seen how the "dining car experience" has declined over just the past few years, because of the cut backs Amtrak has taken. I don't think those cut backs have really reduced the food service's losses, at least not enough to out weigh the loss of the experience.

I am worried that pretty soon, the LD dining car experience will echo what use to be the coach airline food experience. One choice (ok, plus the veggie/kosher/diet alternate), on a small plastic microwave tray with a spork. You know, a diner roll size sandwich for super, and a package of two crackers as your side. Desert? One chocolate mint.

A loss of $100M might be meaningless, but it is that loss which is getting a significant attention.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 7, 2008)

JohnF said:


> We have the best and most efficient freight rail system in the world and the only one that makes money.


I suspect part of the reason the freight rail system makes money is that the less profitable freight hauling is handed off to the Interstate Highway system. It's quite possible that we're penny wise and pound foolish in letting that happen.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 7, 2008)

WICT106 said:


> Under the current US Constitution, anything along the lines of a proposal to nationalize the railroad lines would promptly be met with demands from the stockholders and private RR's for Just And Fair Compensation for the taking of private property. It would cost in the multiple billions of dollars in order to accomplish this - and the stockholders would be vigorously howling in their demands for financial compensation.


If we were going to nationalize the freight tracks, one way we could do it would be to pass a law that left each freight railroad with two options:

1) Continue to be private.

2) Give the track and associated land to the US government in exchange for rights to operate however many trains they'd been operating over that track each day at a fixed trackage fee that would be linked to inflation. The US government would be responsible for all maintenance, and if the track condition was improved or tracks added, the US government could then sell the rights to operate trains using that added capacity to any other railroad.

The only reason for a railroad to favor 2 would be if the trackage fees would cost less than the maintenance, though. And there may well be some subtle flaws in that scheme such that it ought to be refined further before carrying it out.


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## Guest_timetableflagman_* (Sep 7, 2008)

It is the cost of a non-revenue car such as the diner and lounge that is expensive. That's especially so if just compensation is paid to the host railroad for use of their tracks. By the way, meals should not be complementary as with First Class. Today's clientele are accustomed to fast food and eating out of their laps in their autos and trucks. If anything, the "forced" sit-down meals on the relatively fancy dining car (which I think is the gem and the jewel of passenger train service) is somewhat wasted on today's culture. Indeed, the usual approach to modern passenger trains is that of the 1950's. That is what is unusable and unaffordable.

I don't advocate shoddy or unsatisfactory service. On the contrary. I advocate frugal, efficient and sufficient service that only meets today's expectations and the desires of the majority of the traveling public-- not the whishful wants of us railfans.

Unless we railfans are able and willing to foot the entire bill for our rather 1950's-style luxurious "dinner and cocktail nostalgia photo-op excursion" trains arguably foisted as national railroad passenger service, we really shouldn't expect the government to coerce tax money from hard working taxpayers to finance trains that those workers can't even effectively use because the trains leave in the middle of the work day and arrive too late in the day for anything except a night's layover and another day for the purpose of the trip and yet another for return departure. An hour or two or even a few here or there in daytime arrival time makes no difference if the overall unnecessary loss of a day's or even more work time is effected.

Comparing rail travel to driving or flying ignores the advantages of conventional-speed and stunts the eventual success, usability, affordability and sustainability of future high-speed rail. By using nighttime sleeping car travel (especially if through-car service is provided to prevent the need to wake in order to change connecting trains), nights can be used for travel time, effectively reducing the number of days needed for travel by train and even allowing for slower, more freight-compatible speeds for passenger trains.

Seasoned rail travelers usually don't have trouble sleeping on trains. Many actually find the usually gentle motion and relative quiet of sleeping car travel to be rather sleep-inducing, after their initial wide-eyed expectations of something uncustomary. The transition from an automotive and aviation culture back to a rail culture, albeit with today's amenities such as laptops, cellphones, etc., is possibly the major element necessary for the renaissance of rail passenger service. Having good, usable trains to board and discover prvides that element.


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## jphjaxfl (Sep 7, 2008)

Even when private railroads operated passenger trains in the US and the passenger trains made a small profit, the dining cars or other food service cars did not cover expenses. In the days before dining cars, trains would have meal stops along the route at hotels with dining rooms or restaurants that catered to rail passengers. The meals were usually rushed and stopping for 30 minutes to an hour for a meal is not very efficient in getting to one's destination. I think dining and lounge car service is absolutely necessary on medium and long distance trains to allow passengers to dine and enjoy a relaxed beverage while they travel to their destination. As others have pointed out, dining cars or lounges cannot be compared to regular restaurants or bars. The staff must be trained in safety of passengers as well cook and serve meals as the train moves. I think Amtrak has cut all the excess out of food and bar service. Any more cuts will keep passengers from traveling again. Many members of Congress involved in providing funding for Amtrak including food service have no clue as to what food service on trains is like or what its needed. Many of them think of airplane flights which with the exceptions of international flights or flights to Hawaii are 3-4 hours and airlines have been able to cut out most of the food sevice. The same philosphy does not work for passenger trains.


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## sky12065 (Sep 7, 2008)

Guest_timetableflagman_* said:


> It is the cost of a non-revenue car such as the diner and lounge that is expensive. That's especially so if just compensation is paid to the host railroad for use of their tracks. *By the way, meals should not be complementary as with First Class. Today's clientele are accustomed to fast food and eating out of their laps in their autos and trucks.* If anything, the "forced" sit-down meals on the relatively fancy dining car (which I think is the gem and the jewel of passenger train service) is somewhat wasted on today's culture. Indeed, the usual approach to modern passenger trains is that of the 1950's. That is what is unusable and unaffordable.


For dietary or any other reason, why should us first class passengers be forced to eat fast food? And as for "complementary meals" why should we be denied regualar meals? After all we ARE paying for our meals; it's included in the price of the room.

Because the term "complementary" is used in some instances doesn't mean it's free. With Amtrak it's part of the price one pays for one's room, just as "completmentary" buses or trams are sometimes provided at amusement parks between the parking lot and the entrance. Rather than collect the fees upon boarding, the cost of the transport is indirectly paid through the price of the admission ticket.

The same can also be said for when an auto rental agency or a hotel provides "complementary" airport or train station pickup or dropoff service. They too say complementary, but guess who's is really paying? There are other examples that could also be included but I think I've provided enough to get the picture!

EDIT: I forgot to mention the fact that we first class passengers pay for our "Complementary" meals regardless of weither we eat our meals or not. Coach passengers pay a la carte! So in some cases first class passengers are paying more for meals than they're actually receiving. (Disclaimer: This excludes me. I get and enjoy each and every meal I paid for)


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## Guest_timetableflagman_* (Sep 7, 2008)

I agree completely that dining service is absolutely essential for rail passenger service, especially for overnight trips. However, if dining cars and lounges are truly drains on revenue-- and, being non-revenue, they must by definition be a drain on revenue from the other cars, hence a drain on the entire operation-- then those _cars_ need to be eliminated. That does not at all mean eliminate _dining service_ (in whatever form) from the overall operation.

My contention is that what is offered on lounge cars or even in the diner-lounges (carry-out service, enjoyed privately at one's seat-- airline or automotive style, apparently so enamored and favored by so many today) can be, perhaps even more so, provided in cafe compartments on sleepers as I've mentioned. This may destroy the romantic images of the diner that I too would like to preserve. But, the good of the overall rail passenger service is more important than arguably 1950's notions of attempted genteel dining service-- as lovable as that is. Meals to order, such as is somewhat provided on the diner-lounges, could also be served in roomettes or rooms if requested as a perk of sleeping car class. That, in effect, preserves much of the "gentility" of railroad dining service.

No, carry-out food does not have to be "slop" "thrown" at passengers (that could even be done in a diner!). If it is, no one, including I would ride that train. It is completely illogical to assume that frugal has to mean sloppy any more than it does in many fine and sufficient but frugal and scaled down fast food establishments. Some of the best fare is actually to be found in many a low-budget eatery, if done right and with pride by the operators thereof. Quality for the minimum (not to mean insufficient wages and benefits to employees) is the principle for success in future rail passenger service (or any other successful and truly private-enterprise business).

In reference to "new routes", I would suggest a new alternating _Royal Palm_ continuation of the _Fast Flying Virginian _and _Ponce de Leon_ extension of the _HOOSIER STATE_ through Cincinnati as alternatives to a new _Southwind_ and _Floridian_. As much as it is very desirable to have Louisville, Bowling Green, and Nashville on line with service, the old CNO&TP line might be more compatible with passenger service under current conditions than the old NC&St.L.


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## sky12065 (Sep 7, 2008)

Guest_timetableflagman_* said:


> I agree completely that dining service is absolutely essential for rail passenger service, especially for overnight trips. However, if dining cars and lounges are truly drains on revenue-- and, being non-revenue, they must by definition be a drain on revenue from the other cars, hence a drain on the entire operation-- then those _cars_ need to be eliminated. That does not at all mean eliminate _dining service_ (in whatever form) from the overall operation.
> My contention is that what is offered on lounge cars or even in the diner-lounges (carry-out service, enjoyed privately at one's seat-- airline or automotive style, apparently so enamored and favored by so many today) can be, perhaps even more so, provided in cafe compartments on sleepers as I've mentioned. This may destroy the romantic images of the diner that I too would like to preserve. But, the good of the overall rail passenger service is more important than arguably 1950's notions of attempted genteel dining service-- as lovable as that is. Meals to order, such as is somewhat provided on the diner-lounges, could also be served in roomettes or rooms if requested as a perk of sleeping car class. That, in effect, preserves much of the "gentility" of railroad dining service.
> 
> No, carry-out food does not have to be "slop" "thrown" at passengers (that could even be done in a diner!). If it is, no one, including I would ride that train. It is completely illogical to assume that frugal has to mean sloppy any more than it does in many fine and sufficient but frugal and scaled down fast food establishments. Some of the best fare is actually to be found in many a low-budget eatery, if done right and with pride by the operators thereof. Quality for the minimum (not to mean insufficient wages and benefits to employees) is the principle for success in future rail passenger service (or any other successful and truly private-enterprise business).
> ...


Thanks for the clearification! That leaves me with only a few issues that aren't even worth mentioning!


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## the_traveler (Sep 7, 2008)

sky12065 said:


> we first class passengers pay for our "Complementary" meals regardless of weither we eat our meals or not. Coach passengers pay a la carte! So in some cases first class passengers are paying more for meals than they're actually receiving. (Disclaimer: This excludes me. I get and enjoy each and every meal I paid for)


I agree. If I travel coach (and have to pay for my meals), I usually just have breakfast and dinner (if that) in the diner - and usually without the "extras" like desert. But if I'm in a sleeper and the meals are "complementary", I have all 3 meals with the "extras"!


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 7, 2008)

To pick some rough guesses, if Amtrak has 200 sleeping cars, if the average sleeping car has 15 compartments, and if Amtrak could do something that would make the average accomodation charge people were willing to pay go up by $90, that would provide almost $100 million a year in revenue.

It wouldn't surprise me if any savings in the food service area will not change Amtrak's overall operating losses given what such savings are likely to do to the demand for sleeping accomodations.

I wouldn't be surprised if I could rent a car and pay for the car and the fuel and a stationary hotel room for roughly what a roomette costs going between Boston and Chicago. That wouldn't help this fuel crisis that politicians supposedly want to do something about, and it would take me longer to travel by highway, but if the Amtrak experience is made worse by enough, I would certainly consider driving. I've certainly driven from Boston to Indiana in the past when I didn't want to fly and hadn't figured out how sleeping accomodations work on Amtrak.


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## AlanB (Sep 8, 2008)

Guest_timetableflagman_* said:


> I agree completely that dining service is absolutely essential for rail passenger service, especially for overnight trips. However, if dining cars and lounges are truly drains on revenue-- and, being non-revenue, they must by definition be a drain on revenue from the other cars, hence a drain on the entire operation-- then those _cars_ need to be eliminated. That does not at all mean eliminate _dining service_ (in whatever form) from the overall operation.


But dining and cafe cars are revenue producing cars. They just don't produce enough revenue to cover all of their costs, just like coach cars don't fully cover their costs. You wouldn't consider a coach a non-revenue car would you? It does generate revenue, just not enough to cover the full expense of running said car. And since coach service looses about $367 Million per year, if one is trying to cut the budget deficit, then clearly it would be better to cut the larger number first, not the smaller $100 M number.

And again, I've not seen any numbers that tell me where things stand since the implimentation of SDS and other changes in food service. I know that there has been progress towards reducing that $100 M number, but I've no idea just how well things have progressed. However it has progressed far enough to stay in compliance with what Congress ordered.


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## Walt (Sep 8, 2008)

Guest_timetableflagman_* said:


> My contention is that what is offered on lounge cars or even in the diner-lounges (carry-out service, enjoyed privately at one's seat-- airline or automotive style, apparently so enamored and favored by so many today) can be, perhaps even more so, provided in cafe compartments on sleepers as I've mentioned. This may destroy the romantic images of the diner that I too would like to preserve. But, the good of the overall rail passenger service is more important than arguably 1950's notions of attempted genteel dining service-- as lovable as that is. Meals to order, such as is somewhat provided on the diner-lounges, could also be served in roomettes or rooms if requested as a perk of sleeping car class. That, in effect, preserves much of the "gentility" of railroad dining service.
> No, carry-out food does not have to be "slop" "thrown" at passengers (that could even be done in a diner!). If it is, no one, including I would ride that train. It is completely illogical to assume that frugal has to mean sloppy any more than it does in many fine and sufficient but frugal and scaled down fast food establishments. Some of the best fare is actually to be found in many a low-budget eatery, if done right and with pride by the operators thereof. Quality for the minimum (not to mean insufficient wages and benefits to employees) is the principle for success in future rail passenger service (or any other successful and truly private-enterprise business).



I think there are some concepts, which do cause me concern.

There is "fast food", which to most people is a minimal (2 oz) hamburger or processed chicken parts. Sides are nothing much more than french fries. That is not what I consider to be a first class dinning experience.

There is "carry-out", which brings visions of chinese food or pizza. That is not what I consider to be a first class dinning experience.

There are "low-budget eateries", which to me would include the old fashion road-side diner, which brings visions of the blue-plate special, chilly, strong coffee, and pies. That is not what I consider to be a first class dinning experience.

All three of those, and probably some more examples, are simply places to ward off hunger.

What Alan has mentioned has gotten me to thinking a bit more. The financial problems of Amtrak's food service, has more to do with employee expenses and equipment expenses. However, since Amtrak can't significantly reduced those expenses (like pay waitstaff the minimum wage of $2.60 per hour), Amtrak is instead going after other aspects of their food service. Here, one can find some rather dramatic reductions in the "dining experience" that have resulted in very little reduction in costs.

Also as Alan has pointed out, more money is lost in short runs, and those are the runs with just a snack bar. So, I take that to be an example of "minimal food" that is eaten at one's seat, which does not by itself automatically yield low overall operating costs.

So, throwing "slop" at the passengers, would probably result in less than a 10% reduction in overall operating cost.

But with Congress pressuring Amtrak for that 10%, I fear it will happen. 

BTW, does anyone know how Acela's first class food service does financially?


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## puck71 (Sep 8, 2008)

sky12065 said:


> For dietary or any other reason, why should us first class passengers be forced to eat fast food? And as for "complementary meals" why should we be denied regualar meals? After all we ARE paying for our meals; it's included in the price of the room.


Maybe they shouldn't be included in the price of the room. It's always seemed kind of odd to me that all meals and desserts are included in a sleeper car rate. What does one have to do with the other? I'd rather they lower the sleeper car rates and make meals a la carte for everyone. Are they worried they wouldn't fill the diner car if they do that? If so, that should probably be a good clue that prices are too high and/or not enough people are interested in the service anymore.


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## Guest (Sep 8, 2008)

puck71 said:


> Maybe they shouldn't be included in the price of the room. It's always seemed kind of odd to me that all meals and desserts are included in a sleeper car rate. What does one have to do with the other? I'd rather they lower the sleeper car rates and make meals a la carte for everyone. Are they worried they wouldn't fill the diner car if they do that? If so, that should probably be a good clue that prices are too high and/or not enough people are interested in the service anymore.


Should cruise ships stopped including meals too? I kind-of always thought of Amtrak LD sleepers more like a land cruise.

And there are certainly parallels. Both are multi-day transportation, where passengers are basically "captives". Food is included, and passengers can eat or not.

If Amtrak dropped sleeper meals, imagine being on a LD train, that is 2 or 3 days, and you have to pay $50 for a hamburger? Of course, passengers will be strictly forbidden for carrying any of their own food on-board. I wonder if Amtrak could then, finally, turn a profit? 

Plus, if that LD train is running late (that never happens!), Amtrak gets to sell passengers even more $50 hamburgers.


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## frj1983 (Sep 9, 2008)

JohnF said:


> Kramerica said:
> 
> 
> > Walt said:
> ...


But there is one thing that I point out to you John,

At the end of the 25 year original contract with the private railroads in 1996, Amtrak had to renegotiate all of it's contracts with said railroads. After some drawn out negotiations, even UP signed an accord with Amtrak. How come they didn't ask for more money then? And, how come they didn't insist on a graduated increase per year? Seems very unbusinesslike if they didn't!

It's quite possible they all did/or some did, but methinks the railroads bear some responsibility for running these trains even if they "lowballed" themselves. After all, a contract is a contract!


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## JohnF (Sep 9, 2008)

frj1983 said:


> But there is one thing that I point out to you John,
> At the end of the 25 year original contract with the private railroads in 1996, Amtrak had to renegotiate all of it's contracts with said railroads. After some drawn out negotiations, even UP signed an accord with Amtrak. How come they didn't ask for more money then? And, how come they didn't insist on a graduated increase per year? Seems very unbusinesslike if they didn't!
> 
> It's quite possible they all did/or some did, but methinks the railroads bear some responsibility for running these trains even if they "lowballed" themselves. After all, a contract is a contract!


Yes I quite agree. They signed a contract and they should honor it. If you look at the Amtrak site, most of the delays are caused by the host railroads. But as I said somewhere in here I don't believe it is intentional. True there are incidents that could be handled better but for the most part it is just congestion. I have driven from Houston to San Antonio a number of times taking the back roads and the UP often has trains plugging most every siding. If Amtrak gets stabbed behind a slow freight there is no place to put it and Amtrak just has to follow along until space becomes available. On the BNSF transcon which is double track it is a constant parade of trains. I often detour that way on my trips to Colorado watching the action around Vaughn, NM and Abo Canyon and have followed the route all the way to California on occasion. Amtrak SWC has to somehow negotiate all this traffic west of Albuquerque so when they get stuck they just have to follow the crowd until the dispatcher can arrange a run around. I have ridden the Sunset Limited from LA to Houston and it is fasinating to watch the action even if you are getting behind. The time I rode the Empire Builder most of the delays were caused by having to double and triple stop at stations with small platforms. Last May I rode the Lake Shore and it ended up being an hour late into Buffalo......but the action all night was amazing. We were constantly passing trains so much that I got little sleep. The LD trains will always be subject to traffic congestion and just have to deal with it. Unless we decide to spend billions to upgrade tracks or build separate passenger routes Amtrak will always have problems even in the so called corridors. For instance, California has virtually taken over the LA to San Diego route and vastly upgraded it.


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## Walt (Sep 9, 2008)

JohnF said:


> If Amtrak gets stabbed behind a slow freight there is no place to put it and Amtrak just has to follow along until space becomes available.


While I sure that is true, on the east coast here, I know that many times Amtrak is the one who needs to pull over onto a siding, and either travel extremely slowly or stop all together, to allow a freight train priority. After all, it is an CSX train and they are on CSX tracks.


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## Guest_timetableflagman_* (Sep 9, 2008)

I think the usually accepted definition of "revenue" car would be one on which passengers pay a fare to ride. The bills paid by passengers for meals on dining and lounge cars are hardly to be expected to be paying for the operation of those cars. Those bills are merely, logically, only paying for the cost of the food. I would hope that pay for the staff comes out of general revenue. In reality, the cost of the food may actually be less than what is charged. Nevertheless, the modest "profit" charged for food on those cars shouldn't be expected to pay for the operation of the car.

In reference to “carry-out food”, I’m referring only to the cuisine currently served aboard either the lounges or diner-lounges. I don’t consider any exact meaning for any of the terms I’ve used for dining establishments other than a general difference between that of lounges or diner-lounges and dining cars.

Considering that AMTRAK has to hope politicians will tax money from taxpayers to pay for something they won't pay for voluntarily (since what is being paid for is apparently found by them to be largely unusable, judging by the amount of non-rail traffic along AMTRAK routes, especially at rush hours), any revenue received by AMTRAK is something like a drop of water to one thirsting in the desert. It is evident, therefore, that it is the taxpayer who is possibly paying for those complimentary meals along with, potentially, any other item in AMTRAK’s budget. The deficit includes something!

Someone might point out that even the fares on the revenue cars aren't paying the way for those cars. That's true. I won't go into why the cars are so expensive to run that the cost can't be affordably divided per passenger (or, can it?). I'm not convinced and I haven’t seen any detailed convincing proof that that unaffordable cost is unavoidable.

Nevertheless, with AMTRAK's stated revenues and expenses-- unless something is being left out-- it would appear that with fares left about where they are, with adequately increased revenue ridership and added sales of advertisement space onboard trains for roughly the same amount of revenue as the fares themselves gain, AMTRAK could accordingly approximately double their revenue without additional passengers or purpose-defeating additional cars and onboard service crew per train, pay the host railroads a mutually reasonable amount for using their tracks and break even. Now, there might be a temptation for bureaucracy to burgeon and gobble up all the black ink for irrelevant, non-essential, non-operating boondoggles, excreting red ink in its place and create new deficits.

The revised schedules I've mentioned should, in all logical likelihood, make AMTRAK service "screamingly" attractive as a transportation service-- not as a fine restaurant, a tour of railroadiana or any other tax subsidized frivolity (as much as I might revel in the fine dining or the railroadiana). Attractiveness and reliability as a serious and astonishingly efficient transportation option are more likely what will bring in revenue passengers—not offering breath mints or wine tasting, though those are nice and hopefully economical touches.

Why is advertising to those attentive passengers while they are either riding undistractedly aboard a train and able to copy information contained in an ad they see inside or when someone sees the ad on the side of a car while sitting at a crossing or some other stop and worth paying for by businesses not desirable? That, to me, defies business logic-- especially if the ad only costs the amount of a train ticket per trip. Isn’t that logic what largely funds television, radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet?

It is debatable as to whether trains would be greatly cheaper to ride than is driving—at least as long as fuel is affordable at all to the individual. As long as it is moderately equal in cost to driving there are several other logically important factors that make train travel more valuable to the passenger than mere financial cost.

There are people, however, that would pay much more and take much more time to drive along the very route of an AMTRAK train, even if the train schedule vaguely accommodated them, merely because that's all they know or believe in doing. How much, indeed, are people going to pay for that cultural habit and for how long? I’ll not get into the historically apparent overall greater survivability of train travel than that of driving or flying in the event of a major accident.

I do strongly suspect that when AMTRAK is out of business—except for expensively managed, short, dead-end, isolated corridors—resulting from the very reasons I've written against, and there are no through trains to use, then there will be no compl_i_mentary meals (as there are none now when driving) and driving, buses or flying will be the only option, no matter how onerous, if driving, buses or flying are even still available by being affordable. In the end, complimentary meals are somewhat negligible to the larger AMTRAK budget. The cost of running the dining and lounge cars, however, might not be that negligible. (It’s interesting how the suggestion of elimination of free meals, amounting to a relatively small amount of money to each passenger by comparison, is so opposed while my suggestion of potentially deeply discounting fares by the fraction of passengers per party, a potentially greater amount of savings for passengers, seems—along with other parts of my proposals—to have been overlooked. These concepts have to be taken in context. If AMTRAK charges $50 a hamburger, or maybe even anymore than $.50, if that’s all one is worth, or bans private stocks of food or beverage, then I would seek other transportation. Trying to “trap” customers into doing business with only one company is a sure way to drive away customers from that company.)

For now, I, and so many, many others, have to drive or fly along AMTRAK's routes, even if I or they might rather take the train, simply because so many AMTRAK trains leave before the majority of people get off work, even in major cities where AMTRAK runs (and even runs superfluously, it might be argued), and arrives after most people have to be at work. If AMTRAK is going to be salvageable, it must, one could reason, be by its own revenue. That was and largely is still the political expectation for AMTRAK—to be self-sufficient or disappear, just like anything else in truly free enterprise, including other things we depend on such as grocery stores.

It might be that politically controlled funding of AMTRAK will be only for political uses, not more and better rail passenger service accessible to the majority for their serious long and short distance travel needs. If AMTRAK is to maximize its revenue, it must utilize every means available, including offering commuting and other business travel to passengers when passengers can use it and, in the way of seeking subsidy in order to lessen the cost to passengers and to further ensure revenue when ridership is down, participating in the free enterprise system such as offering advertisement space for sale to other businesses—a “win-win” proposition for all—not by merely giving away “free” meals. AMTRAK does seem to do a good job in “partnering” with companies in the GUEST REWARDS program.

If dining and lounge cars are in any way sustainable, I prefer the ones such as Pullman's Palace Cars with chandeliers, varnished mahogany, paisley brocade, silver, brass and crystal—the works! If that can be provided to everyone affordably and equitably, the way that Pullman reputedly meant it to be available, even if it has to be with imitation materials, then that's my suggestion for every car's design. Maybe that’s another topic.

Otherwise, it looks like the Pelican might win out as the cross-Dixie connector instead of the Tennessean. That could put Roanoke, Bristol, Knoxville and Chattanooga in connection with Atlanta or Birmingham, or both, and Vicksburg, Jackson, Shreveport and Dallas/Ft. Worth. It would be good to have a southerly connection between the CRESCENT, CITY OF NEW ORLEANS and TEXAS EAGLE— a rail connection strategically between New Orleans and Chicago—as well as making rail passenger connections for all the points along the line with the rest of the AMTRAK system.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 9, 2008)

Walt said:


> While I sure that is true, on the east coast here, I know that many times Amtrak is the one who needs to pull over onto a siding, and either travel extremely slowly or stop all together, to allow a freight train priority. After all, it is an CSX train and they are on CSX tracks.


My understanding is that, in many cases, you have 10-20 mile stretches with no passing tracks whatsoever. If a freight train going in the direction opposite the Amtrak train has covered 3/4 of a 20 mile stretch of track at 30 MPH when the Amtrak train arrives at the passing siding, what do you expect the CSX dispatcher to do? I'd sort of expect the dispatcher to make the Amtrak train wait ten minutes for the freight to cover that last five miles.


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## JohnF (Sep 9, 2008)

Joel N. Weber II said:


> Walt said:
> 
> 
> > While I sure that is true, on the east coast here, I know that many times Amtrak is the one who needs to pull over onto a siding, and either travel extremely slowly or stop all together, to allow a freight train priority. After all, it is an CSX train and they are on CSX tracks.
> ...



In my trip accross Canada on the "Canadian" many times the CN dispatcher would put us on the siding because the opposing freight was either too long or struggling up a grade in which case it was actually more effient for us to take the siding and let him pass without having to stop.


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## MrFSS (Sep 9, 2008)

JohnF said:


> In my trip across Canada on the "Canadian" many times the CN dispatcher would put us on the siding because the opposing freight was either too long or struggling up a grade in which case it was actually more efficient for us to take the siding and let him pass without having to stop.


When I rode The Canadian a few years ago we pulled into a siding that didn't have a way out on the other end. So, after the freight passed, we had to back out and then go forward on the main track. That took some time it shouldn't have.


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## Walt (Sep 10, 2008)

Guest_timetableflagman_* said:


> I think the usually accepted definition of "revenue" car would be one on which passengers pay a fare to ride. The bills paid by passengers for meals on dining and lounge cars are hardly to be expected to be paying for the operation of those cars. Those bills are merely, logically, only paying for the cost of the food. I would hope that pay for the staff comes out of general revenue. In reality, the cost of the food may actually be less than what is charged. Nevertheless, the modest "profit" charged for food on those cars shouldn't be expected to pay for the operation of the car.


Good point. 

Let me add that the supervisor of the dining car, is also the supervisor for the sleeping cars. So, another reason to support those dining car salaries should come out of the general revenue.

BTW, are dormer cars and baggage cars "revenue" cars, or simply the general cost of running a train?


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## Larry H. (Sep 10, 2008)

I am still irritated that Amtrak or Rail travel is picked to pieces by Congress, Presidents, readers to this forum ect. When in fact the support given the highway systems, the airlines, or almost any other government program just rolls along spending into oblivion with no question of how the money is spent. If we are going to support rail travel as it was taken over from the railroads, then the diners and lounges were part of the deal. Its part of a train, always has been and always should be. If Amtrak is able to generate thousands of dollars a person for a room then meals that reflect that kind of price structure should be maintained which currently it is not.

As to long distance routes, I read with interest the Weekly Report above that mentioned that amtraks president reflected that short distance was the way to go. I think they are sadly missing the boat. People all over the country would flock to overnight trains if they were available going where or from where they wanted to go. However they are not. Connecting rail service always served the long distance trains and are still part of the picture, but not the whole answer.

I have seen little suggestions in the what routes are needed as to the center of the country being served from East to West, or for that matter in any direction.. A cross country New York, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, or Omaha would help, as would St. Louis and points south east and north west. Many of those overlaps would provide much needed shorter connections for travelers from the center of the country instead of lengthy travel and delays in Chicago.. (sorry Chicago Fans).


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## MrFSS (Sep 10, 2008)

Larry H. said:


> I am still irritated that Amtrak or Rail travel is picked to pieces by Congress, Presidents, readers to this forum etc. When in fact the support given the highway systems, the airlines, or almost any other government program just rolls along spending into oblivion with no question of how the money is spent. If we are going to support rail travel as it was taken over from the railroads, then the diners and lounges were part of the deal. Its part of a train, always has been and always should be. If Amtrak is able to generate thousands of dollars a person for a room then meals that reflect that kind of price structure should be maintained which currently it is not.


Remember, though, that before Amtrak, the price of meals was not included in the sleeping space cost for a passenger. If you paid for coach, then added on a room at an additional charge, you still had to pay extra for the meals in the dining car and snacks in the lounge car. Many sleeping car passengers, pre-Amtrak, probably didn't bother to eat full meals in the dining car.

Don't get me wrong, one of the main reasons I ride Amtrak, when I can, is for the dining car experience. But, there have to be a ton of coach passengers out there who wouldn't even know the diner were gone if Amtrak stopped putting them on trains.


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## Hamhock (Sep 10, 2008)

MrFSS said:


> But, there have to be a ton of coach passengers out there who wouldn't even know the diner were gone if Amtrak stopped putting them on trains.


There's probably a ton of mouthbreathers who wouldn't know if we closed all public libraries. Just because something could be done, doesn't mean that it should be done.


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## JohnF (Sep 10, 2008)

MrFSS said:


> JohnF said:
> 
> 
> > In my trip across Canada on the "Canadian" many times the CN dispatcher would put us on the siding because the opposing freight was either too long or struggling up a grade in which case it was actually more efficient for us to take the siding and let him pass without having to stop.
> ...


Actually we did that once also. But........if there is no way out, how is the freight going to get onto the siding?????????? It is much easier to maneuver a short passenger train than a mile long freight train. Your lucky the siding was there so you could make the meet.


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## Walt (Sep 10, 2008)

MrFSS said:


> Remember, though, that before Amtrak, the price of meals was not included in the sleeping space cost for a passenger. If you paid for coach, then added on a room at an additional charge, you still had to pay extra for the meals in the dining car and snacks in the lounge car. Many sleeping car passengers, pre-Amtrak, probably didn't bother to eat full meals in the dining car.


But doesn't including meals with sleeper accommodations _help_ the dining car? I mean, it gives the dining car a fixed, minimum, number of meals that will be paid for, even if not actually eaten.


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## Larry H. (Sep 10, 2008)

In reference to having to buy your meals pre amtrak in the sleepers, yes that was true! I know I am not totally senile but in comparison, even though eveything has gone up, the prices that were charged for a room or the dinner for that matter were much more within the grasp of everyday people. Now to take a sleeper you nearly have to take out a loan, or save for a long time. I wish I had my old tickets which I threw out some years ago thinking I would never need them, but I can distinctly recall how when comparing the charge for a coach seat to a pullman, the pullman was a small percentage more. So everyday people who wanted to step up to a bit more comfort onboard could do so. Yes I do it now, but the toll on the budget is much different as it is no doubt for many. Only those who have a lot of expendable cash can just travel all over at sleeper prices today. And maybe that is the way it should be. Still for a person who can't or won't fly and needs to make a long distance trip, the cost can be quite a jolt. Most of that stems from congress insisting that amtrak do what none of the other forms of transportation do, pay its own way if possible. To me it rather contradicts the whole idea of providing usable rail transportation. People are flocking to Amtrak now because the rates at least in coach are for the most part reasonable. Somewhere along the line the sleeper passenger got the short end of the stick.


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## sky12065 (Sep 10, 2008)

Larry H. said:


> In reference to having to buy your meals pre amtrak in the sleepers, yes that was true! I know I am not totally senile but in comparison, even though eveything has gone up, the prices that were charged for a room or the dinner for that matter were much more within the grasp of everyday people. Now to take a sleeper you nearly have to take out a loan, or save for a long time. I wish I had my old tickets which I threw out some years ago thinking I would never need them, but I can distinctly recall how when comparing the charge for a coach seat to a pullman, the pullman was a small percentage more. So everyday people who wanted to step up to a bit more comfort onboard could do so. Yes I do it now, but the toll on the budget is much different as it is no doubt for many. Only those who have a lot of expendable cash can just travel all over at sleeper prices today. And maybe that is the way it should be. Still for a person who can't or won't fly and needs to make a long distance trip, the cost can be quite a jolt. Most of that stems from congress insisting that amtrak do what none of the other forms of transportation do, pay its own way if possible. To me it rather contradicts the whole idea of providing usable rail transportation. People are flocking to Amtrak now because the rates at least in coach are for the most part reasonable. Somewhere along the line the sleeper passenger got the short end of the stick.


I have been thinking along the same lines for a few days now. I live on the east coast and my son has lived in LA for over 9 years now. I just got to visit him there for the first time this summer. I'm retired and on a fixed income, I have multiple disabilities, I cannot fly, driving would put quite a stress on me, I can't walk from the H room I've used to the dining car nor could I use it if I could and coach seats are out of the question for me. Even todays prices are quite a strain on our budget let alone if they went up. If prices shoot up much more or if long distance trains were eliminated, that would virtually mean that the next time I could travel to see my son would go from 9 years or less to probably never! There's more to this story, but as you can see, I definitely agree with what you've said!


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## Tony (Sep 10, 2008)

Larry H. said:


> Only those who have a lot of expendable cash can just travel all over at sleeper prices today. And maybe that is the way it should be. Still for a person who can't or won't fly and needs to make a long distance trip, the cost can be quite a jolt.


I don't find a roomette all that expensive.

My local airlines seem to do a "bucket" thing similar to Amtrak. However, as best as I can tell, there is only very few seats in the lowest bucket which is the fare they feature in their ads (4 per flight?). I have yet to ever snag one of those. So more practically, a round trip to Orlando for the two of us, comes out to $600 with everything. Well, everything except for something to drink.

A round trip roomette for the two of us, on a Silver, is $703 complete.

For that extra $103, I have a much more comfortable, stress free, and enjoyable journey. Yes, the food and the dining car experience is a rather significant part of that journey.


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## jphjaxfl (Sep 11, 2008)

In the pre-Amtrak days, the Western Railroads like the Santa Fe and Union Pacific offered a prepaid meal ticket. For example in 1970, a meal ticket on the Santa Fe from Chicago to Los Angeles was $20. On the Super Chief, that included 5 meals which were 2 dinners, 2 breakfasts and 1 lunch. You could chose just about anything on the menu, but it did not include alcholic beverages. Sleeping Car or Coach passengers could purchase the meal ticket. The Super Chief was all sleeping car and had a seperate dining car even when it was combined with the all coach El Capitain. The Super Chief has a more upscale menu in the dining car and passengers paid an "extra" fare. The meal tickets were convenient because it wasn't necessary to carry extra cash. You did need to tip for the normal cost of the meal and the service on all Santa Fe dining cars was superb so you wanted to tip well for the excellant service.


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## Walt (Sep 11, 2008)

Now, the meal ticket is an interesting idea. If Amtrak eliminated "walk ins", I wonder if that would help or hurt their costs vs revenue? Basically, it would eliminate the need for the dining car attendants to collect any cash, and therefore, eliminate any of them having to continue to "wait" on a table after the passenger's meal is done (ie, less payroll costs). Also, with tickets, Amtrak would know exactly how many meals would need to be loaded onto each train, ahead of time (ie, less food leftovers/ waste).

I guess passengers would have the opportunity to purchase a meal ticket when they purchase their seat ticket.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 11, 2008)

Larry H. said:


> In reference to having to buy your meals pre amtrak in the sleepers, yes that was true! I know I am not totally senile but in comparison, even though eveything has gone up, the prices that were charged for a room or the dinner for that matter were much more within the grasp of everyday people. Now to take a sleeper you nearly have to take out a loan, or save for a long time. I wish I had my old tickets which I threw out some years ago thinking I would never need them, but I can distinctly recall how when comparing the charge for a coach seat to a pullman, the pullman was a small percentage more. So everyday people who wanted to step up to a bit more comfort onboard could do so. Yes I do it now, but the toll on the budget is much different as it is no doubt for many. Only those who have a lot of expendable cash can just travel all over at sleeper prices today. And maybe that is the way it should be. Still for a person who can't or won't fly and needs to make a long distance trip, the cost can be quite a jolt. Most of that stems from congress insisting that amtrak do what none of the other forms of transportation do, pay its own way if possible. To me it rather contradicts the whole idea of providing usable rail transportation. People are flocking to Amtrak now because the rates at least in coach are for the most part reasonable. Somewhere along the line the sleeper passenger got the short end of the stick.


The problem really is the number of sleeping compartments Amtrak has in its fleet vs the number of coach seats. Given the failure to buy more sleeping cars, the only options are to either raise the prices of the sleeping cars to the point where the demand at the prices Amtrak chooses roughly meets the supply, or make it impossible to get a sleeper without reserving way in advance. And I think Amtrak is still operating under legislation that says it's supposed to be trying to make money, which means it has to take the former approach.

For the most recent trip I booked, it also looked like going airline coach instead of Amtrak roomette might have only saved me something very roughly around 25% of the cost of the trip, though the airline probably would have gotten me to a place about an hour drive from my actual destination, whereas with Amtrak I'm going to be about 2-3 hours from my actual destination (though I also could spend an extra 10-12 hours, mostly waiting in Chicago, if I wanted Amtrak to get me to less than a half hour from my actual destination).

If we were to decide that our national priorities favored reducing foreign oil dependency and/or our carbon footprint over worrying quite so much about infrastructure and operating costs, and if we had electrified trains on routes where sleepers made sense (#66/#67 sort of counts, except there aren't sleepers currently on that route), and some alternative to using coal to generate electricity if carbon footprint was the focus, then there would probably be a very good argument for making sure that sleepers were priced competitively with coach airline tickets. I'm not at all convinced that sleepers on diesel trains use any less oil per passenger mile than flying coach on an airplane; but if sleepers could be powered by the wind and airplanes were stuck burning Jet-A, the sleepers would be good for the environment and good for our trade balance, even if those sleepers were built by a foreign company (but our congresspeople are probably busy making sure we don't spend our dollars on foreign built railcars, and thus we'll be spending what may turn out to be significantly more dollars on foreign oil).


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## MrFSS (Sep 11, 2008)

Here are some interesting statistics I did very quickly. A page from the 1949 PRR timetable showing fares and rooms between NYP and CHI.


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## jphjaxfl (Sep 11, 2008)

Walt said:


> Now, the meal ticket is an interesting idea. If Amtrak eliminated "walk ins", I wonder if that would help or hurt their costs vs revenue? Basically, it would eliminate the need for the dining car attendants to collect any cash, and therefore, eliminate any of them having to continue to "wait" on a table after the passenger's meal is done (ie, less payroll costs). Also, with tickets, Amtrak would know exactly how many meals would need to be loaded onto each train, ahead of time (ie, less food leftovers/ waste).
> I guess passengers would have the opportunity to purchase a meal ticket when they purchase their seat ticket.


In pre Amtrak days, when meal tickets were sold to either sleeping car or coach passengers, they were not mandatory and anyone could use the dining cars and pay cash if they wanted. The meal tickets were really beneficial on beginning to end trips such as Chicago to California or Texas. They would not sell them to passengers that were going from Chicago to Kansas City.


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## Tony (Sep 11, 2008)

MrFSS said:


> The CPI (Comsumer Price Index) of $47.20 in 1949 compared to 2008 is $410.34 - That's what the roomette is 1949 would cost in today's dollar and means would be extra.


A quick check, one-way roomette between NYP and CHI, on the Cardinal, is $434.00.


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## MrFSS (Sep 11, 2008)

Tony said:


> MrFSS said:
> 
> 
> > The CPI (Comsumer Price Index) of $47.20 in 1949 compared to 2008 is $410.34 - That's what the roomette is 1949 would cost in today's dollar and means would be extra.
> ...



And that's not even the high bucket price of $571.00!!

I was using the low bucket in the example.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 11, 2008)

But then there's the question of how well the consumer price index really tracks the things that matter; this blog post expresses some skepticism about the accuracy of those numbers.


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## Larry H. (Sep 11, 2008)

MrFSS said:


> Here are some interesting statistics I did very quickly. A page from the 1949 PRR timetable showing fares and rooms between NYP and CHI.



Thanks for posting that fare schedule. I have a couple thoughts on it. Yes I did recall right in one sense. A sleeping car "step up" would cost the passenger about half more than the coach fare. Maybe the coach fares were too high? I don't recall thinking that however because there is a real difference in the way that comes down now.

First your dealing with bucket fares. In 1949 or till Amtrak, when you decided to take a trip that indeed was the price and you knew if there were a room, and usually there were since they were running three to five sleepers many times, that would be the cost and that was it. Now however yes you might get the roomette for 257 on a lucky day. That however is 3.5 times higher than the cost of a 80.00 coach ticket. So indeed the fares in sleepers are higher in real comparison. Some days the roomette is much higher. So for those who might need to travel for an emergency or other need, they get it socked to them. Something that didn't happen in the old system.

Right now the fare is when purchased in advance some time, set at 80.00. The bedroom can cost 475.00 to 712.00.

But it doesn't end there. Worse yet, the coach fare for the same trip can cost 106.00. The cost of a Deluxe Room for that date came in at 830.00. Nearly 8 times the cost of coach. By 1949 standards the room would have cost about 53.00. I would say that proves that rooms are much higher in real terms today than before. Actually 16 times higher!


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## Green Maned Lion (Sep 14, 2008)

However, they also charged you for meals, and from what I've seen of menus, their prices were in the highway robbery class.


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## jphjaxfl (Sep 14, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> However, they also charged you for meals, and from what I've seen of menus, their prices were in the highway robbery class.


The meals that private railroads charged in Dining Cars were very reasonable and in line with fine restaurants of the era. The food and service was superior to anything Amtrak has offered since the the first few years when Amtrak Dining cars were similar to private railroad operation. For many years private railroads used their Dining Cars to attract loyal customers that travel that railroad all the time. Each railroad had specialties the were unique to their Dining Cars. It made Dinner in the Diner a special occassion and getting your destinations a great experience.


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## Larry H. (Sep 14, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> However, they also charged you for meals, and from what I've seen of menus, their prices were in the highway robbery class.



Actually they were quite reasonable by today standards. In the early 60's the St. Louis Post Dispatch did an article on the Kings Dinner on the Panama Limited. For about 9.00 your could get a six course meal complete with the finest steak and desert, I believe including a before dinner beverage. We actually purchased it once before they discontinued the train. And of course everything was made up fresh. That was the highest thing on the menu so not a great deal. The real difference is that when they sold you a meal on a good diner, which all were not, you at least could depend on getting very tasty and fresh food, whereas today they charge a lot of money for cold and not too good a quality food, that is already prepared in most cases. Plus you were served with fine china and silver not plastic, real flowers and superb surroundings. Real tables and chairs, mirrored or etched glass walls and panels, decorative lighting. No comparison to todays spartan version.


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## Bill Haithcoat (Sep 14, 2008)

Larry H. said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > However, they also charged you for meals, and from what I've seen of menus, their prices were in the highway robbery class.
> ...



Larry,I never had that meal myself but I think it also included lobster..I think you got some kind of badge to wear if you did order it and finished most of it.


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## Larry H. (Sep 14, 2008)

Bill,

More than likely in its hey day that was the case.. When we ordered it it was past the point where service on the Panama had begun to decline and although they still offered it, it was not quite as fancy as when it was a status symbol of the chef on board. As a matter a fact, I recall the waiter asking if we really wanted that dinner and if we could afford it! I am not sure where that came from, I was quite young in those days but my grandfather always wore a suit and tie when ever we traveled by train. Perhaps it was more of a dinner that couples celebrating might have purchased? I had read about it and so we decided to try it. I rode that train numerous times but that was the only occasion when we ordered that meal.


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## CLAW (Sep 14, 2008)

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this thought, but I have to throw it somewhere. Why can't a new route come back through southwestern Montana? The only passenger railways are through northern Montana which are much less populated, though they lack the main interstate. A route paralleling the interstate (I-90) would pass through the densest parts of Montana; Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Missoula. I know that plenty of people would take the train from Bozeman to Missoula or vice versa for weekend trips. I also know that a growing portion of Montana universities are out-of-state students that travel home for holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. If there were a passenger railway for this route, I'd almost guarantee that at least around these holidays the train would be near-filled. These times there is also often multiple feet of snow with layers of ice on roads that prevent people from wanting to drive but still wanting to travel between these cities. It seems like suck a waste to have a fuel-efficient mode of transportation and then not be able to use it where it is extremely needed and wanted. Any answers would be appreciated.

Thanks!


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## Kramerica (Sep 14, 2008)

CLAW said:


> I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this thought, but I have to throw it somewhere. Why can't a new route come back through southwestern Montana? The only passenger railways are through northern Montana which are much less populated, though they lack the main interstate. A route paralleling the interstate (I-90) would pass through the densest parts of Montana; Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Missoula.


Here is a thread that talks about that very route. There is a proposal for one, and the thread has a link to an article.

It would be a great route to have.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 14, 2008)

CLAW said:


> I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this thought, but I have to throw it somewhere. Why can't a new route come back through southwestern Montana? The only passenger railways are through northern Montana which are much less populated, though they lack the main interstate. A route paralleling the interstate (I-90) would pass through the densest parts of Montana; Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Missoula. I know that plenty of people would take the train from Bozeman to Missoula or vice versa for weekend trips. I also know that a growing portion of Montana universities are out-of-state students that travel home for holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. If there were a passenger railway for this route, I'd almost guarantee that at least around these holidays the train would be near-filled. These times there is also often multiple feet of snow with layers of ice on roads that prevent people from wanting to drive but still wanting to travel between these cities. It seems like suck a waste to have a fuel-efficient mode of transportation and then not be able to use it where it is extremely needed and wanted. Any answers would be appreciated.
> Thanks!


Are there tracks that are in decent condition and yet not saturated with freight along whatever route would be used?

The list of primary census areas indicates that the greater Billings area has a population of roughly 150,000. Missouli has roughly 105,000, Bozeman roughly 87,000, Butte 32,000. I think that ought to put them rather far down on the list for getting federal funding for new passenger track; there are an awful lot of city pairs with 1.5 million or more people in each city in the pair that could be within a three hour train trip of each other if only Congress would choose to spend the money building high speed track. There are also an awful lot of cities with 1 million or more people that would benefit from better intracity transportation, which would probably be a much less capital intensive way to reduce oil consumption than bringing more intercity service to Montana.


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## Joel N. Weber II (Sep 14, 2008)

Kramerica said:


> Here is a thread that talks about that very route. There is a proposal for one, and the thread has a link to an article.
> It would be a great route to have.


And the article that thread links to says there have been several studies, but doesn't state what the running time would be if nothing is done to upgrade the tracks.

A conventional speed train basically just requires track, a diesel locomotive (of which Amtrak has an excessively large supply of spares), some coach cars (Amtrak has some spares that need refurbishing), stations of some sort (a concrete platform might be adequate, but it's not great for waiting for a train in the winter), and someone to pay the bill for the operating losses. Billings to Missoula is almost 5 hours by Interstate highway, and the train will probably be even slower; that means a cafe car would be nice to have, but Amtrak probably doesn't have spares of those.

Does that route connect to the Empire Builder route at all? One of the things that's good to have in a national system is enough interconnections that you can board a train at any Amtrak station, and come up with some route consisting entirely of Amtrak trains that will get you from there to any other Amtrak train station. (The current system doesn't quite work that way, because getting between the Downeaster and the rest of the Amtrak system requires taking the MBTA Orange Line, but that's the only current gap I'm aware of.)


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## WICT106 (Sep 15, 2008)

If we were to add this route to the national network, I recommend that this take the MRL trough the "Southern Tier" of MT, and act as a second frequency of service between CHI and Williston, ND, and between Sandpoint, ID and the west coast.



Joel N. Weber II said:


> Kramerica said:
> 
> 
> > Here is a thread that talks about that very route. There is a proposal for one, and the thread has a link to an article.
> ...


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## Guest_timetableflagman_* (Sep 17, 2008)

I agree very much that St. Louis and other points in the Midwest need cross-connecting service. The old National Limited and even the River Cities provided some such connection. One rather inexpensive and more readily accomplishable thing that could really help Western travelers is for Western trains to connect the same day at Chicago. Currently, departing Western trains leave before arrival of other Western trains. The current arrangement makes what could otherwise be a mere two-day or three-night North-South trip on AMTRAK trains in the West a three-day or potentially four-night trip at best because of the currently necessary, approximately 24-hour layover between non-overlapping trains at Chicago.

Congestion might be cited as a reason against same-day connections. However, if local commuter trains are the excuse, my contention is that AMTRAK trains should be locally and regionally usable as national commuter trains themselves—only with transcontinental reach! All conventional-speed AMTRAK trains should make all stops—at least as flag stops—as Inter-corridor Locals. Future (hopefully near future) high-speed (mostly 90-110 mph “Inter-corridor” and potentially 150-225 mph Transcontinental) service should be the new limited-stop Specials or “Expresses”.

All-stop Locals may be criticized as being “too slow’ for through service. In reality, the time should not be that much more. It’s the time of day of departure (such as after usual work hours for most) and arrival (before usual work hours for most) that is generally more important to passengers than how few hours less a train could arrive—and that, potentially, at a less usable time. Disciplined railroading should limit passenger stops to less than five minutes. Only service stops should be potentially longer, as scheduled. Generally, trains should only have as much dwell time at a station as they have in arriving earlier than their timetable departure time. If they’re late (but still on their time—up to halfway until the time the next train, freight or passenger, is due) a stop should only be for as long as passengers can be deboarded and boarded safely (not necessarily seated; that can occur down the track). If they’re going to be an extra on another train’s time (time “slots” are tantamount to timetable-scheduled train times), they need to follow that regular train (which would probably be a freight) as its last section or follow the next scheduled regular train having extra time available for following sections. There is a maximum capacity at which a single railroad track can operate. That includes lengths of trains. That’s basic railroading by simple paper timetable and it does work—as well as any computer program is going to work, and continue working when the largely unnecessary high-tech apparati has failed, only perhaps a little more slowly and safely. Anything other than that, such as running everything extra on each other’s times, is delaying to the schedules of other traffic and is an attempt at potentially hazardous and ultimately unattainable expedience as with driving and flying.

In making new routes possible, I too am “irritated” by the totally lopsided transportation priorities we have. Rail is by far the most efficient form of heavy overland transportation in so many ways. Yet, for the sake of perceived expedience, this culture has all but completely sold out to driving and flying. That culture is based on the lack of knowledge of transportation realities of “passengers in drivers’ seats” seeking unrealistically expedient transportation. Their majority encouragement of politicians to tax all of us to artificially fund such a system enables the wasteful and economically exploitative dominant driving and flying culture to exist.

I certainly think that the highways and airways should only survive on the revenues of their users. If train routes are to be shut down because they don’t earn their own way (a concept that shows a lack of knowledge of the nature of the mobile and complimentary interconnecting system of transportation routes) then so should roads or air routes be shut down that under-perform—a recipe for transportation collapse from a lack of connectivity.

In no way should onboard dining service be eliminated from passenger trains. Onboard dining service is essential to rail passenger service, especially overnight service that is so vitally the key to the usability of passenger trains by the traveling public. Potentially, combination kitchen-roomette sleeping cars (not dissimilar to old “hotel” cars?) could be configured to provide the current number of roomettes along with both separate café and kitchen compartments. The café compartment could sell current lounge car fare (even possibly more of it and with more selections) and the kitchen compartment could be the same as is currently on board dining cars. Only table seating is eliminated. Dining would be at coach or sleeping car compartment seats (all having the fold-down tables). Thus, privately enjoyed yet fully onboard-prepared meals, made to order, could be had on all through trains. Merely not having the kitchen open on such a car used for business first class for a local (commuter) train is an option. Most laudable for labor concerns: all the dining car staffs could be retained—including importantly the chefs—on board all through trains (as they should be retained with any arrangement—staffs should not be eliminated with the elimination of separate dining and lounge cars, perhaps only re-assigned to more trains on more routes). Only the separate dining and lounge car expenses would be eliminated. Accommodation is to the passenger train what potentially break-neck speed is to flying—and the driving habits of many.

It seems bizarre (and is perhaps revealing) that an apparent plea to entitlement has often been offered as the only available objection to the suggestion of merely charging the cost of the food for meals on trains. As I’ve pointed out, there is an argument for offering such a relatively insignificant “freebie” as free meals to passengers as an added value in riding the trains. Yet, in a climate of deficits requiring tax subsidy to rescue AMTRAK from insolvency, I think the recipients of all AMTRAK services, including that of separate baggage cars, should pay for those services. Rail is so inherently efficient, if operated correctly, that its services are affordable to its users if those services are efficiently and usably provided.

Rail freight shippers have to pay for the service they receive. They are also potentially paying for any service passengers are receiving for which the passengers do not pay. Passengers and freight are both users of efficient and economical rail service and should both pay their way, as should users of the arguably inefficient and uneconomical highways and airways, which should also have no subsidy from those who do not use them. Otherwise, there certainly is a good argument for general tax subsidized rail service, and everything else for that matter. There is, however, no incentive to provide good service, or anything else, if funding is guaranteed and the payer has no choice but to pay as with taxes. On the other hand, to retain payment for something not timely rendered in return could be treated as fraud.


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## CLAW (Sep 20, 2008)

Thanks for the link to the new forum and article. I have yet to meet someone who wouldn't be willing to take the train if they could to get between Missoula and Bozeman at least. Many people wouldn't use it as a daily commute, but more as a way to get between the main cities where students are from, as well as linking up to get out of state students home. Even with the smaller size of these cities, as mentioned earlier, many people would use railways since driving on ice and/or feet of snow and/or whiteout conditions for 5 months out of the year (my estimate from the last four years at least). Thanks again for the point in the right direction!


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