# The Best Days Of Passenger Rail Lie Ahead



## dlagrua (Feb 22, 2012)

On a discussion forum of rail travelers, it is hoped that this subject will prove interesting and provoke thought. Of course the title of this post is all speculation and there will be different opinions but we are here to share these. Here are mine.

If we look at Amtrak's long term plans, there are many different ideas on expanding service and routes. There are often talked about here. It is also common knowledge that the organization is always short of funds to implement these plans. Despite some opposition in congress to passenger rail subsidies, the obvious shortfalls of the system and the lack of funds; Amtrak ridership continues to rise and will keep rising. I predict that a larger and improved national passenger rail system is inevitable. The price of oil continues to rise at record levels. This will have a dramatic effect on air, and auto travel. It should also bring about a new focus on passenger rail transportation.

Rail transportation is the most energy efficient form of transportation and if you've seen a CSX ad recently, that is clearly pointed out. Rail travel provides about 450 passenger miles/ per gallon (or there about) so in theory Amtrak can move 450 passenger, one mile on one gallon of fuel. That relates to less than 2,93 BTU of energy used per passenger mile. No other form of transportation comes close.

According to studies that I have researched on an energy per mile cost:

Amtrak consumes 16.1% and 31.1% less energy per passenger-mile than airlines and cars, respectively.

Here is a comparison on BTU's (energy) used per passenger mile. (Lower numbers are better)

Amtrak: 2,435 (#1 most efficient)

Rail Transit Systems 2,516

Commuter rail: 2,812

Domestic Airlines: 2,901

Automobiles: 3,538

If we complain about the current minimalist Amtrak routes and service this will need to change and the escalating price of fuel will force it to change. We also have the TSA to thank in driving away former airline travelers like myself. The point that I am making is that the growth of rail travel will continue unabated. Perhaps the best days of passenger rail in our time are about to come.

Is your opinion as optimistic as mine?


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## Ziv (Feb 22, 2012)

This is a great idea to bring up, the responses will be interesting to see. I am not sure that commuter rail will be that much more efficient than a Volt with 2 or 3 people in it, but any type of rail will definitely have an advantage over most transportation modes on the energy cost equation. And I agree with you that it would take incredibly poor planning for rail not to see significant growth in the next 10-20 years. As the passenger miles continue to rise, so will the popularity of rail, as long as Amtrak and regional rail can continue to improve their on-time performance. I have seen comparisons of transportation modes efficiency that make the Volt look like the most efficient performer out there, and another that made the A380 look the best. The study below is a pretty good one, it might not be right on everything, but it seems to be in the ballpark.

http://truecostblog.com/2010/05/27/fuel-efficiency-modes-of-transportation-ranked-by-mpg/


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## Tumbleweed (Feb 22, 2012)

You just made my day!


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## Bob Dylan (Feb 22, 2012)

:hi: Interesting Topic! My take: As they say in Chicago, Vote Early and Vote Often!!! :help: :help: :help:


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## dlagrua (Feb 22, 2012)

jimhudson said:


> :hi: Interesting Topic! My take: As they say in Chicago, Vote Early and Vote Often!!! :help: :help: :help:


Whether we get screwed by liberals or conservatives makes little difference. The Washington establishment is composed of members of the big club and Jim, you and I are not in it. The politicians work for the world bankers, globalists, wall street financiers, and monopoly corporatists. They will wage war at the slightest threat to their financial interests like the trillions of dollars of yet to be mined minerals in Afghanistan. Forget the guy in the Whitehouse. He's irrelevant, a puppet and a slave to the forces with all the money.

We will only get a much improved Amtrak when the American people finally come to realize; does government control us or do we the people control the government? Meanwhile, Amtrak will survive no matter who is elected. The cost of energy will be the guiding factor and the incentive for more people to take to the rails.


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## Ziv (Feb 22, 2012)

dl, it looks like Wiki agrees pretty closely with your numbers on BTU per passenger mile, though they don't have my favorites, the Volt and the PiP, in their calculations yet. But regardless of my personal car favorites, there is no doubt that trains will be grabbing a bigger portion of both commuting miles and travel miles. If we can slowly ramp up the frequency of service and the average speed of that service, all the while expanding the amount of stations served by rail, by 2025 we will probably be talking about the Renaissance of Rail! Or, more probably, be communicating subvocally with our sub-dermal Cray Computing, ultra high speed cloudbased communication/networking device with our fellow netizens from all over the Amtrak virtual domain. ;-)

Per Wiki:

US Passenger transportation

The US Transportation Energy Data Book states the following figures for Passenger transportation in 2006:[43]

Trnsprt mode -	Average passengers per vehicle - BTU per passenger/mile - MJ per passenger-kilometre

Vanpool - 6.1 - 1,322 - 0.867

Efficient Hybrid - 1.57 - 1,659 -	1.088

Motorcycles - 1.2 - 1,855 - 1.216

Rail (Intercity Amtrak) -	20.5 - 2,650 - 1.737

Rail (Transit Light & Heavy) -	22.5 - 2,784 - 1.825

Rail (Commuter) - 31.3 - 2,996 - 1.964

Air - 96.2 - 3,261 - 2.138

Cars - 1.59 - 3,512 - 2.302

Personal Trucks - 1.72 - 3,944 - 2.586

Buses (Transit) - 8.8 - 4,235 - 2.776


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## jis (Feb 22, 2012)

The interesting thing to observe is that Amtrak doesn't even try to be energy efficient particularly. It is not a metric on which their performance is measured by anyone. And yet, almost in spite of themselves they come out as good as they do.

Statistics is a such a wonderful thing, specially mindlessly rolled up statistics. Try running a vanpool with the legroom that you get on Amtrak and see what happens to their energy efficiency for example. Similarly, try running an Amtrak service with carefully scheduled service so as to minimize deadhead moves and using seat spacing same as in van pools and see what happens. The 20.7 per vehicle on Amtrak seems low. Perhaps corridor figures for Amtrak ought to be computed separately to get a more realistic number.


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## TexRail (Feb 22, 2012)

I find the charm of a train is mostly removed when you get into the electric and high speed area. We all have the little things about trains that we like and for me it is the large, loud and slow heavy equipment mostly in the West. It is inevitable that we will lose all of my favorite aspects of passengers trains. Someone may manage to keep a Rocky Mountain excursion here and there but most of the old fashioned horn wailing, crossing bells fading in and out and the clickety clack will be gone. I am surprised the equipment I used to ride as a young kid is the same that I ride today.

It might not be anytime soon, but eventually all passenger trains will be higher speed electric. I hate to see the diesels go but I'm sure the old timers felt similar when the diesels took over when they phased out steam engines. Superliners have been around 30 years. They could be around another 30 years or they could be condemned much sooner. It really is anybody's guess. Whether it is in my lifetime or not, the death of the big, loud and slow diesels will come to an end. I am in my 30s so I may be lucky enough to see diesels until the end.

Here is my idea. I view some of the bailouts as a waste of money. Why not use the billions for something tangible? A sort of 'New Deal' for the 21st century. Let's do a transcontinental railroad part deux. Maybe a NYC to LA (for starters) high speed train with new lines and cutting edge technology for the highest speeds possible. This would spark the economy, employ thousands but most importantly, you would be adding real value to America just like adding a pool adds to the value of a house. The price would be extreme, but worth it in my opinion. Keep in mind, I am arguing for this as a non-railfan since I have no more attachment to an electric train than I do an airport shuttle. America needs a big project. It's been far too long. Unfortunately, Congress is corrupt and the status quo (airlines, oil, you name it) will not stand for any transcontinental bullet train. There have been plans to build a triangle high speed line from DFW to Houston to San Antonio. Everytime it comes up, the airlines (yeah I'm talking about you Southwest) greases the politicians just enough to kill the silly idea. The line would be finished by now had it gone ahead in the 80's. We may see this eventually but almost certainly not in my lifetime.


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## PRR 60 (Feb 22, 2012)

It is alway interesting to me that everyone, including Amtrak, ignores this warning prominently posted by DOE at the top of the table:



> Great care should be taken when comparing modal energy intensity data among modes. Because of the inherent differences among the transportation modes in the nature of services, routes available, and many additional factors, it is not possible to obtain truly comparable national energy intensities among modes. These values are averages, and there is a great deal of variability even within a mode.


What this is saying is that differences in the 10% or even 20% range are statistically insignificant.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 22, 2012)

dlagrua said:


> Amtrak will survive no matter who is elected.


If that's true then what, exactly, would prevent Amtrak from going the way of _Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México?_


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## George Harris (Feb 22, 2012)

It would be very interesting to see what the vehicle weight per passenger is. The excessive obsession with crashworthiness that applies to rail far more than any other mode results in a lot of steel being carried around per person. While at a steady speed that does not really make that much difference it definitely does in energy consumed in acceleration. Also, the numbers really looked bad during the Warrington era because the energy per passenger was calculated without considering the huge proportion of the energy that was consumed in hauling around his freight.

It is also worthy of ocnsideration that, excluding short haul vehicles like the "Volt", only rail can reasonably be expected to run on fuel sources other than oil and coal.

I am saying this to say that the rail component looks much worse than it could be. Jis said it right. In fact, the constant slow down speed up required on the Northeast Corridor to get decent run times results in very high energy consumption for the average speed achieved.


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## City of Miami (Feb 22, 2012)

I'm surprised that transit buses rate so low relative to rail transit especially. I guess it is because they run so regularly and so often regardless of load and in most cities they are not packed except at rush hours. The service here in San Antonio is quite good - mostly because they have a schedule and run on it 99% of the time.


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## Grandpa D (Feb 22, 2012)

jis said:


> The 20.7 per vehicle on Amtrak seems low. Perhaps corridor figures for Amtrak ought to be computed separately to get a more realistic number.


Maybe not. Depends on what is counted as a "vehicle". Looking at the TE (mainly because I remeber the consist) you might say it has 3 coaches, 1 SSL, 1 CCC, 1 sleeper, 1 transdorm and 1 engine. That's 8 "vehicles". 8 x 20.7 = 165. Pretty close to the usual occupancy.


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## Texan Eagle (Feb 22, 2012)

TexRail said:


> It might not be anytime soon, but eventually all passenger trains will be higher speed electric. I hate to see the diesels go but I'm sure the old timers felt similar when the diesels took over when they phased out steam engines. Superliners have been around 30 years. They could be around another 30 years or they could be condemned much sooner. It really is anybody's guess. Whether it is in my lifetime or not, the death of the big, loud and slow diesels will come to an end. I am in my 30s so I may be lucky enough to see diesels until the end.


I don't see diesels going anywhere anytime soon. Mindless electrification of an entire nations's railway network is never a good idea. (This debate is currently very hot among rail fans in India, *jis* can fill in with his expertise). Rail routes with low to moderate traffic are best served by diesel locomotives. The whole infrastructure of setting up electric wires and letting electricity run through them 24x7 is very expensive and not justified for low traffic routes. A good mix of electric and diesel hauled routes can work fine for a country as large as united States.



> Here is my idea. I view some of the bailouts as a waste of money. Why not use the billions for something tangible? A sort of 'New Deal' for the 21st century. Let's do a transcontinental railroad part deux. Maybe a NYC to LA (for starters) high speed train with new lines and cutting edge technology for the highest speeds possible. This would spark the economy, employ thousands but most importantly, you would be adding real value to America just like adding a pool adds to the value of a house. The price would be extreme, but worth it in my opinion. Keep in mind, I am arguing for this as a non-railfan since I have no more attachment to an electric train than I do an airport shuttle. America needs a big project. It's been far too long. Unfortunately, Congress is corrupt and the status quo (airlines, oil, you name it) will not stand for any transcontinental bullet train.


Yes, America needs more passenger rail. No doubt about it. However, I don't think the idea of transcontinental rail travel will cut favor among anyone except hardcore railfans. Instead, what is required, to generate large scale employment and economy revival like the Eisenhower Interstates project did, is constructing lots and lots of corridor services across the country. Any route between major cities that is 1-2 hours by flight time (takeoff to landing) and 2 to 8 hours of driving time should get intercity moderate to high speed rail link. No need of insane talks like 200mph lines and bullet trains. NE Regional and Acela type service with 125-150 mph on improved existing (or new) right of way can work well, and if there are sufficient such "corridors", it can also help run a few high speed transcontinental trains for those who might be interested. For example, if there are 100-125mph passenger corridors Philadelphia-Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh-Columbus-Indianapolis, Indianapolis-St. Louis-Kansas City, Kansas City-Oklahoma City-Dallas-San Antonio, then you can have intercity trains running between individual city pairs, and then maybe one long distance train cutting across corridors and running, say, _Boston-San Antonio!_ Of course, as one goes further west, the distance between cities increases and it may not be feasible to run corridor services between say, Denver and Salt Lake City or Las Vegas, but say more or less east of the Rockies there can be a mesh of intercity passenger corridors and then another set of corridors in the West in SD-LA-SF-Seattle region. The connection between the two sets of corridors can be through few long distance trains.

Ok, end of daydreams. I know this is not gonna happen anytime in my life (and I am in my twenties), but no harm dreaming, ain't it?


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 22, 2012)

City of Miami said:


> I'm surprised that transit buses rate so low relative to rail transit especially. I guess it is because they run so regularly and so often regardless of load and in most cities they are not packed except at rush hours. The service here in San Antonio is quite good - mostly because they have a schedule and run on it 99% of the time.


I haven't taken the bus in years, but back when I did it took two hours or more to run a thirty minute errand by car. San Antonio doesn't seem to have much in the way of forward thinking traffic planning.

[rant]

Just look at all our after-the-fact convoluted spaghetti interchanges like those of 410 & 281 or I10 & 410 or 1604 & 281. Each one of those interchanges ran through a ten-year construction phase. Ten years of near constant interruptions. 1604 & 281 is still ongoing to this day. Several of these interchanges didn't come much better than when they started. A few were even worse than before they started.

Don't forget "new" roads like like the endlessly perplexing Wurzbach Parkway. How many decades has that thing been in the making? Or look at the 281 "Super Road" area where _all three lanes_ of every cross street must first turn right in order to eventually turn left in order to eventually turn right again in order to go straight! What on earth did that accomplish?

At one time you could actually live downtown and have most of what you needed close by. But now that our downtown area has been completely re-purposed as a chain choked tourist playground there are very few jobs that pay well enough to live there on their own. The people who _can_ afford to live downtown probably need to commute to someplace else, like the Medical Center. Which would be a great location for a light rail station, if we had even a single light rail line. Maybe we'll get one of those after we get our first carpool lane? I suppose we do have several "bus trains" to look forward to though. Yep. That's right. _Bus trains_. :wacko:

[/rant]


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## reefgeek (Feb 22, 2012)

If one's mind wanders occassionally in apocalyptic directions, as mine sometimes does, one eventually must examine the possibility that we have, for the last century or so, been using millions of years worth of "stored solar energy" in the form of fossil fuels. If this resource runs out, and is not replaced with a similarly concentrated alternative (nothing is close at hand that will really do) then we are bound for a period of energy scarcity lasting a long time, maybe decades, maybe forever. We have been spending energy like drunken sailors on payday, and now China and India are here to help us spend what's left.

When (and if, I can't really decide) the US enters this period, our rail infrastructure, what remains of it, will be critical to human transport once again, because it can operate at that higher efficiency than cars and especially planes. That will be the future "golden age" of rail! I shudder a little bit (I like to scare myself) to think of life in that possible future world, but people are adaptable and we will get past it.

This book is already a little outdated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Emergency) but the author sees a future where the entire national rail network would be electrified, perhaps even by nuclear power, as an alternative to a Chrysler minivan pulled by donkeys!


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## Montanan (Feb 22, 2012)

I definitely agree that the best days of passenger rail lie ahead ... but the question is, how far ahead?

There will be a point when our planet's increasing population, increased environmental threats, and increased energy scarcity all combine to make rail transit a deal that our political leaders simply can't refuse ... if only because eventually there will be no other viable options left. If we had even a halfway-sane political system, we'd be able to accept those realities now, and begin working towards dealing with the inevitable eventuality. But we don't, and so we'll continue thinking for the short term because it's the easy way out ... and because of that, we're in for some extremely rough times before those "best days" ever show up. :/


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 22, 2012)

reefgeek said:


> The author sees a future where the entire national rail network would be electrified, perhaps even by nuclear power, as an alternative to a Chrysler minivan pulled by donkeys!


There isn't enough radioactive ore of sufficient grade to feed the world with nuclear power for very long. Nor is it renewable. Mining minerals like uranium requires massive oil-burning vehicles feeding processing plants that consume even more energy. After that it's shipped around the world from places like Australia and Canada, generally handled by ships and trucks burning fossil fuels. Then it goes through additional refining that adds to the energy outlay before a single watt has been generated. Even when the nuclear fuel is finally in the power plant creating the world's most expensive hot water pot, fossil fuels are still being consumed by the control machinery, backup systems, and monitoring equipment. For every decade of nuclear power use we're creating another decade's worth of waste transportation to wherever we finally put all this stuff. Probably not Yucca Mountain however, as even if that site was approved tomorrow it's not nearly big enough to hold all the nuclear waste we've already created up until this point.

It's faster, cheaper, and easier to go with virtually any other power source. The only way nuclear comes out ahead is with major government backed subsidies and waivers. The insurance industry has estimated that a single Fukushima level event in the US could cost them as much as a trillion dollars if it was near a major population center. Guess how many of our nuclear power plants are near major population centers. Which is why they won't insure anything over the first 300 million of liability. The other $999.7 billion in payouts would mostly come from a government bailout like Japan's Tepco got and our own Wall Street screwballs received. Not to mention that the nuclear waste problem is likely to outlast virtually any other controllable calamity (including global warming) by about a million years. Just isn't worth the trouble for a few decades of non-renewable power.


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## The Davy Crockett (Feb 22, 2012)

Looking into the future is always pretty hard to do. While attending elementary school in the 1960s I remember watching infomovies created by the auto and oil industries about the future. By now we were to be driving in cars that drove themselves and highways that were built with one machine from start to finish. I was skeptical then, and I'm still waiting! Yeah, I know it was a sales job, but...

And then during one of the energy crises of the 1970s my family went to a transportation expo out in the countryside. It was at Dulles Airport, which certainly is not out in the country anymore. At the expo there were exhibits by - you guessed it - the auto industry about how by the year 2000 everyone would be driving cars that got at least 70 MPG.

I also recall an article claiming that by the year 2030(?) I-95 in southern Florida will need to be something like 25 lanes wide to handle the volume of projected traffic.

As a country, will we ever get over our love affair with the auto? Hard to say, but as sprawl has spread far and wide, and people commute ever greater distances from low density suburbs, it is hard to see how transport that is geared towards the 'lone' commuter is going to go away, in any meaningful way, anytime soon.

I guess I've grown a tad cynical over the years, so: "Beam me up, Scotty!" :unsure:


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## jis (Feb 22, 2012)

Grandpa D said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > The 20.7 per vehicle on Amtrak seems low. Perhaps corridor figures for Amtrak ought to be computed separately to get a more realistic number.
> ...


As I said, it is close to usual occupancy of LD trains possibly, but certainly not of NEC trains. That is why I suggested that perhaps two figures ought to be computed, one for LD and one for corridor trains. The figure for corridor trains will turn out to be way more favorable for rail.

It is kind of odd to compare the energy efficiency of relatively low occupancy vehicles by design against jam packed high occupancy vehicles and try to claim something based on that. That was my main point.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 22, 2012)

Ziv said:


> dl, it looks like Wiki agrees pretty closely with your numbers on BTU per passenger mile, though they don't have my favorites, the Volt and the PiP, in their calculations yet. But regardless of my personal car favorites, there is no doubt that trains will be grabbing a bigger portion of both commuting miles and travel miles. If we can slowly ramp up the frequency of service and the average speed of that service, all the while expanding the amount of stations served by rail, by 2025 we will probably be talking about the Renaissance of Rail! Or, more probably, be communicating subvocally with our sub-dermal Cray Computing, ultra high speed cloudbased communication/networking device with our fellow netizens from all over the Amtrak virtual domain. ;-)
> 
> Per Wiki:
> 
> ...



What about intericty buses? Why are they not included? I would think that they are quite efficient.


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## George Harris (Feb 22, 2012)

City of Miami said:


> I'm surprised that transit buses rate so low relative to rail transit especially. I guess it is because they run so regularly and so often regardless of load and in most cities they are not packed except at rush hours. The service here in San Antonio is quite good - mostly because they have a schedule and run on it 99% of the time.


Teh item missing from teh equation is, as you noted, passengers per vehicle. That information has been made available in the past, but I do not know about currently.

Here it is for 2009 calculated from USDOT's Bureau of Transportation Statistics: www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_transit_profile.html

It gives a column for million vehicle miles and a column for million passenger, but it does not do the simple division that it takes to get passenger miles per vehicle mile. When it comes to trains, there is a footnote that states that this number "Includes locomotives which make up roughly 10 percent of commuter rail vehicles."

Doing the arithmetic, we get:

9.23	Motor bus

24.53	Heavy rail

24.40	Light rail

12.92	Trolley bus

33.02	Commuter rail

there was no number there for Amtrak. I leave it someone with more time on their hand to find average vehicle weights and then take these numbers and calculate the weight of vehicle per passenger for the various modes.


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## reefgeek (Feb 22, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> reefgeek said:
> 
> 
> > The author sees a future where the entire national rail network would be electrified, perhaps even by nuclear power, as an alternative to a Chrysler minivan pulled by donkeys!
> ...


Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia....Breeder_reactor



Texas Sunset said:


> For every decade of nuclear power use we're creating another decade's worth of waste transportation to wherever we finally put all this stuff. Probably not Yucca Mountain however, as even if that site was approved tomorrow it's not nearly big enough to hold all the nuclear waste we've already created up until this point.


Yucca Mountain is a tiny facility. You could put 1000 of those on just the land the government owns in Nevada.

Will is everything. If you or I spend a few winters shivering in the dark, we would welcome nuclear plants, tar sand oils, anything.

You know what solar energy can't do?

Provide enough electricity to run a plant to make solar panels.

Ditto wind, ditto everything alternative except hydroelectric, and there isn't that much of that.

And hey, trains are swell!

/rant :lol:


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 22, 2012)

reefgeek said:


> Check this out: http://en.wikipedia....Breeder_reactor


Most breeder reactors built so far cannot create commercial scale power generation. Mostly they've been relegated to research projects. Their enormous market-leading cost is one reason. Potential for misuse or abuse of their products is another. And then there's the continued difficulty turning theoretical capability into actual performance.



reefgeek said:


> Yucca Mountain is a tiny facility. You could put 1000 of those on just the land the government owns in Nevada. Will is everything. If you or I spend a few winters shivering in the dark, we would welcome nuclear plants, tar sand oils, anything.


Perhaps. Then again, I would never presume that a few cold and dark winters would be enough to turn you away from staunchly supporting tar sands and nuclear power.



reefgeek said:


> You know what solar energy can't do? Provide enough electricity to run a plant to make solar panels.


Solar panels (photovoltaic cells) rarely compete with nuclear power plants. Solar-thermal installations, however, can be built to commercial generation scale and compete favorably to other power sources. They can continue running on cloudy days and even well into the night. They can also be combined with co-generation fuels such as natural gas to supply electricity during the low-load cycle at night.



reefgeek said:


> Ditto wind, ditto everything alternative except hydroelectric, and there isn't that much of that. And hey, trains are swell!


There is no one fuel that can handle every situation. Luckily in the case of the US we are blessed with areas appropriate for solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, bio-fuels and natural gas. We're also so inefficient with our energy usage that we could probably cut our current energy consumption by anywhere from a quarter to a half just by using our energy more efficiently and using it less often. That's where _real_ will power comes in, and that's why we'll probably never be weaned off our currently wasteful ways for as long as I shall live. So long as their is a drop of oil to extract or an ounce of uranium to be mined America will not hesitate to consume it.


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## reefgeek (Feb 22, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> 1329957479[/url]' post='349111']
> 
> 
> reefgeek said:
> ...


Dang, you're right, how could I have been so stupid?

Back to trains, I'm done with this stuff.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 22, 2012)

reefgeek said:


> So you criticize the breeder reactors as not having been built to commercial scale, but then invoke a type of power generation that has not been built to commercial scale. (solar thermal). Then you invoke natural gas, when I have plainly been talking about life AFTER fossil fuels. Enough. Back to trains, I'm done with this stuff.


Lack of commercial scale operations is just one of several caveats. Solar-thermal does not share the limitations of top-end cost and weapons grade material production. Nor has Solar-thermal enjoyed tens-of-billions of dollars in research funding with surprisingly little to show for it since the 1950's. Hundreds of years from now, when we've finally burned every last bit of fossil fuel into the atmosphere, I don't think it will matter much what we choose as our next power source. Heck, it will probably be chosen for us in the form of dead wood lighting the huts of our mutated hunter-gatherer offspring. :lol:


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## dlagrua (Feb 23, 2012)

I thought that the subject of this thread was The best Days of Passenger Rail Lie ahead. "What can we expect in the next decade?"


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## Ziv (Feb 23, 2012)

Texan Eagle, I think you are right about the probable direction of Amtrak over the next 10-20 years. A lot of us want 200 mph hsr zipping into every city of any size, but with the wide spread geography of the US, the best we can hope for is a much more widely spread InterCity service in the 100-125 mph range and a slow expansion of 150+ mph in the higher density areas. Who knows, if Amtrak can find a way to keep the Superliners super safe while lightening them up we could see higher efficiency and possibly a higher rated top speed to boot.

As ridership continues to climb, the efficiencies of scale come into play on routes that have a single train per day now could add extra trains as the trainsets are purchased thereby making the route much more attractive to more riders... And the one thing I would love to see is the Acela growing its route, first down to Atlanta, and then possibly from NYC to Chicago. It would be great if the Acela could then extend from Chicago to DC but I am not sure that the trackage there, with its twists and turns and low population density, would be the best for Acela. Maybe the Cardinal route?

Another possibility would be a return of 2 unit Budd cars in the west rated at 110-120 mph. Imagine a service that required just a team of two, engineer and conductor, and possibly a snack car attendant. Would the UTU accept it if they were an expansion of their numbers or would they demand that there be a fireman as well? ;-)



Texan Eagle said:


> TexRail said:
> 
> 
> > It might not be anytime soon, but eventually all passenger trains will be higher speed electric. I hate to see the diesels go but I'm sure the old timers felt similar when the diesels took over when they phased out steam engines. Superliners have been around 30 years. They could be around another 30 years or they could be condemned much sooner. It really is anybody's guess. Whether it is in my lifetime or not, the death of the big, loud and slow diesels will come to an end. I am in my 30s so I may be lucky enough to see diesels until the end.
> ...


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## jis (Feb 23, 2012)

dlagrua said:


> I thought that the subject of this thread was The best Days of Passenger Rail Lie ahead. "What can we expect in the next decade?"


In spite of the subtext in the tile most of the thread including the OP has been about energy efficiency and such AFAICT. So why suddenly change now? 

Actually I think the real rail revival that has been taking place and will continue to take place is not in the realm of Amtrak, but in the area of commuter service and light rail service, specially in the next ten years. Amtrak will make significant progress in corridors, but I do not expect there to be very significant growth in general LD service. Where LD-ish service can be put in place by stringing corridors end to end together, some progress will be made.

In the Amtrak and state supported Amtrak arena, I expect to see significant enhancement of service in :

1. Midwest corridors out of Chicago.

2. North East Corridor and its extensions south perhaps all the way to Jacksonville.

3. Empire Corridor

4. California Corridors - with an opportunity for a day train from San Fran to LA by stringing corridors together at San Louis Obispo.

5. Cascade Corridor.

6. Florida FEC Corridor.

Just my quick list of where I see significant action forthcoming in the near future.


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## LoneStarJeffe (Feb 23, 2012)

I have no clue where growth will happen.

I do think as part of infrastructure upgrades, improvements in rail access between cities including overhead electrification makes sense. That new track could be used for either freight or passenger. This would not necessarily be high speed rail. Instead it would allow transition from diesel/electric to electric engines across more track miles. I think dedicated passenger only high speed rail makes limited sense in most areas. Tracks with electrification supporting a mix of passenger and freight would be far more flexible and provide better long term value. Take a good look at semi truck traffic between city pairs and anywhere there is high volume between cities, adding new track along with efficient container handling at each end could make a difference. Passenger rail would just piggy back on new tracks designed mostly around freight needs.

I also think adding additional bridges across major rivers such as the Mississippi would be a good investment.

I think any plan driven only by analyzing passenger rail traffic needs and not including freight will fail.

My two cents worth...


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## Railroad Bill (Feb 23, 2012)

Yes, despite our hopes that rail service might improve out here in Ohio, I think Jishnu's evaluation is correct. There is little support to build passenger rail service where Interstate highways provide the majority of service to people in the Big 3 cities of our state. 

Just hope we continue to be served by our CL and LSL trains so that one might seek civilization in Chicago and the East Coast :lol:


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## Anderson (Feb 23, 2012)

jis said:


> dlagrua said:
> 
> 
> > I thought that the subject of this thread was The best Days of Passenger Rail Lie ahead. "What can we expect in the next decade?"
> ...


Generally, I tend to agree (note that the most talked-about LD additions are duplications of existing routes...the Silver Palm would basically be a differently-timed Meteor, for example, while the Capitol Limited-Pennsylvanian service doesn't technically add a train). I would put one caveat in here: I think it is _entirely_ possible that, if demand rises enough to push prices substantially closer to break-even on the LD side, we might see Amtrak examine running a second section on an LD route. The Auto Train is probably the best candidate here (though facility limits are likely to block this), but I could see it with the Lake Shore Limited or Empire Builder (the other option that comes to mind is a separate Denver Zephyr while the California Zephyr is D/R on much of the eastern part of the route). It's certainly more likely than virtually any completely-new route that I can think of.

In between a full new route being added and longer trains would come the possibilities of second trains on large parts of LD corridors with different schedules. There's a lot of precedent here (the NYP-CHI schedules during the late 1990s/early 2000s come to mind). The other "in the middle" possibility would be splitting more LD trains...there's been active consideration on both the Cardinal (to STL) and the Silvers (to MIA via the FEC) for this.

On the corridor side, I think you'll see an expanding net here. Looking at 2010 in context, a lot of the projects that got killed after those elections are likely to come back up once various states start running surpluses again. It strikes me that most of the rail projects that got derailed were collateral damage rather than major objects of public disdain (Wisconsin being the possible exception here...but even there, the project was poorly-sold). The Florida project was the other "odd hat"...canning it was very unpopular, but (and I've been over this elsewhere) I think it was ultimately the right move because of how that project was designed/handled.


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## WICT106 (Feb 23, 2012)

Anderson said:


> On the corridor side, I think you'll see an expanding net here. Looking at 2010 in context, a lot of the projects that got killed after those elections are likely to come back up once various states start running surpluses again. It strikes me that most of the rail projects that got derailed were collateral damage rather than major objects of public disdain (Wisconsin being the possible exception here...but even there, the project was poorly-sold). The Florida project was the other "odd hat"...canning it was very unpopular, but (and I've been over this elsewhere) I think it was ultimately the right move because of how that project was designed/handled.


My take on what happened with the Wisconsin project:



> "First, passenger rail is not some pet scheme of socialistic red termite liberals. Midwest Regional, developed by a consortium of nine states, was led by WisDOT under a Republican governor. ProRail, the large, south-central Wisconsin chapter of Wisc. Assoc. of RR Passengers, was founded by Pat Robbins, a lifelong Republican. (In fact, Mr Walker is lucky she's no longer alive, or he would be missing some skin, now.)
> Second, the project has nothing to do with Amtrak, beyond the presumption that it would operate the service; but maintenance would be out of Amtrak's hands (and out of Chicago).
> 
> Third, Amtrak is in no sense a "failed system", as its growing ridership would suggest (against all odds, such as too-many-cooks meddling by politicians and aging equipment and obstructionism by its landlord railroads). All the criticism I ever see against Amtrak consists of a recycled urban myths, plus almost defiant ignorance of the fact that ALL transportation systems enjoy large public subsidies, Amtrak's being peculiar only because of its size (small) and the annual noisy spectacle of begging for support for it for another year. No such noisy and unedifying wrangling surrounds subsidies for highways, or emerged over the past two fiscal years when the federal "highway trust fund" had to be topped off by $28 billion from the general fund.
> ...


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## afigg (Feb 23, 2012)

jis said:


> dlagrua said:
> 
> 
> > I thought that the subject of this thread was The best Days of Passenger Rail Lie ahead. "What can we expect in the next decade?"
> ...


The thread did get sidetracked into the minutia of energy efficient metrics for different methods of transportation which are difficult to get meaningful comparisons for given the complexities. Then went even further OT with Yuca Mountain and breeder reactors. Yes, every train should have a nuclear powered locomotive! :lol: More productive to discuss the need and metrics for energy efficient travel in a broader context rather than in BTU/furlong per fortnight - in another thread.

In the longer run, the next 10 to 20 years, I think we will see growth and expansion in intercity passenger trains, regardless of the outcome of the election this fall. The election this fall matters a great deal because it will be the difference between growth and expansion in the next few years with some coordinated planning. Or a setback with passenger trains and transit thrown under the gas guzzling SUVs with years lost which will have to be made up when the cold hard reality of the limits and the sooner or later declining daily world oil production finally breaks through the barriers of the anger and denial stage much of the US population appears to be in.

I agree with your list of the 6 regions or corridors where we are likely to see the expansion and improvements of Amtrak services concentrated in the next 5-8 years. Although I would add the New England states as a group for central New England and Maine with growth and improvements with New Hampshire not playing along.

edit: wording fixes.


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## jis (Feb 23, 2012)

afigg said:


> I agree with your list of the 6 regions or corridors where we are likely to see the expansion and improvements of Amtrak services concentrated in the next 5-8 years. Although I would add the New England states as a group for central New England and Maine growth and improvements with New Hampshire not playing along.


I agree with you. I missed that. The whole area of Boston and north even including possibilities towards Vermont and Montreal are intriguing.


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## Eric S (Feb 23, 2012)

WICT106 said:


> My take on what happened with the Wisconsin project:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


WOW. Very, very well put.


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## Gord (Feb 23, 2012)

jis said:


> The interesting thing to observe is that Amtrak doesn't even try to be energy efficient particularly. It is not a metric on which their performance is measured by anyone. And yet, almost in spite of themselves they come out as good as they do.
> 
> Statistics is a such a wonderful thing, specially mindlessly rolled up statistics. Try running a vanpool with the legroom that you get on Amtrak and see what happens to their energy efficiency for example. Similarly, try running an Amtrak service with carefully scheduled service so as to minimize deadhead moves and using seat spacing same as in van pools and see what happens. The 20.7 per vehicle on Amtrak seems low. Perhaps corridor figures for Amtrak ought to be computed separately to get a more realistic number.


Agreed, sdtatistics can be misleading, especilally if all the oil used by transportation modes is not considered. Start adding the oil used in tens of thousands of miles of road pavement and all the road maintenance, construction and patrol equipment, all paid for by taxpayers. Then look at railroads, the majority of which pay for their own right of way and structure costs. Maintenance and repair of railorad track and structures will always be more efficient and use less oil than roads. The steel wheel on steel rail reduces friction loss and is able to carry greater loads with less maintenance, this is a fundamental advantage over cars, trucks and buses. When all factors are considered, there is no way road and air are more enegy efficient than rail.

Gord


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## RCrierie (Feb 25, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> *snip stuff*
> 
> For every decade of nuclear power use we're creating another decade's worth of waste transportation to wherever we finally put all this stuff. Probably not Yucca Mountain however, as even if that site was approved tomorrow it's not nearly big enough to hold all the nuclear waste we've already created up until this point.


Each reactor unit at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant (CCNPP) in Maryland when originally brought into operation in 1974, used 93,480 kilograms of UO2; enriched to about 2.05% to 2.99%.

The average efficiency of this initial fuel loading was 12,000 megawatt-days per tonne (MWd/te).

Thus, if only 65% of that fuel loading was used up (you can't burn 100% of the uranium in a reactor due to critical mass issues), that loading would produce 729,144 megawatt-days of power, while producing about 100 tonnes of radio-active waste, which would take up 32.53 m3 of volume (dimension of reactor core).

Meanwhile, to produce this much power from a 35% efficient coal power plant (6.15 MWh/ton theoretical maximum * 0.35 = 2.15 MWh/ton); you would need 339,136 tonnes of coal.

To put all this in some 'scope of scale' terms that railroaders could understand:







*Department of Defense Railcar for transporting spent reactors*

vs

3,169 Hybrid Gon (Specs) railcars which if placed end to end would stretch over 30 miles.

Let's not get into the coal ash problem...


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## Traingeek (Feb 25, 2012)

I see a simple way to go high speed on the longer distance trains (at least 125) is to make all of the cars in the Superliners single level. They would use less Diesel because they are a lot lighter. They could also be able to take the higher speeds. You also have to improve engines, tracks and signals to get these speeds. I think the worst years are ahead of us on this front especially if there is a change in administrations this year. I could easily see more high speed rail or us down to the Northeast corridor by 2017 depending on this election.


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## NY Penn (Feb 25, 2012)

Traingeek said:


> I see a simple way to go high speed on the longer distance trains (at least 125) is to make all of the cars in the Superliners single level.


And how would you do that? Remember, Amtrak is (nearly) bankrupt.


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## Traingeek (Feb 25, 2012)

NY Penn said:


> Traingeek said:
> 
> 
> > I see a simple way to go high speed on the longer distance trains (at least 125) is to make all of the cars in the Superliners single level.
> ...


How is a bankrupt company able to place an order for all these new engines and Acela Cars? In this economy, you would think this would be impossible to do.


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## NY Penn (Feb 25, 2012)

Traingeek said:


> NY Penn said:
> 
> 
> > Traingeek said:
> ...


I don't know the details, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't out of Amtrak's operating budget.

So theoretically, yes it is possible to convert all the Superliners to single-level, but why would Amtrak waste the capital budget on that?


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## Traingeek (Feb 25, 2012)

NY Penn said:


> So theoretically, yes it is possible to convert all the Superliners to single-level, but why would Amtrak waste the capital budget on that?


Their design is a diesel guzzler. As the price of diesel (the exclusive fuel outside of NEC for Amtrak) rises, It makes sense to advance car design that reduces fuel. Much like the advances in Airplane designs over the last decade to try reduce fuel for airlines.


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## NY Penn (Feb 25, 2012)

If that was an issue, they wouldn't have ordered them as bi-level, especially considering that they were ordered a few years after the 1970s oil crisis.

Besides, they fit more people than the same number of single-levels.


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## Blackwolf (Feb 25, 2012)

I'm not all that convinced that Superliners cause 'fuel-guzzle' to a remarkable degree over Viewliners/Amfleets simply because of the space capacity differences between the cars. Since we are discussing LD services for comparison, just look at the two car types against each other for coach.

Superliner Coach: 74 passenger seats; 4 bathrooms; 1 changing room. Car weight: 148,000 lbs. Speed rating: 110mph

Amfleet II Coach: 59 passenger seats; 2 bathrooms; 0 changing rooms Car weight: 116,000 lbs. Speed rating: 125mph

So, for 32,000 extra pounds of weight (roughly equivalent to one fire engine for comparison; featherweight for a train) you get 15 more paying passenger slots per car, two more restrooms for passenger comfort, a changing room for passenger comfort, and only loose 15mph for top speed capability. Not to mention, a much larger capacity for on-board potable water storage and sewage retention, better reliability in cold-weather environments, a central vestibule that is much more separated from passengers (added comfort) as well as better-suited for mobility-impaired people (no big steps for low-level station stops.) The WOW factor of a two-level train for first-time riders helps matters too.

The economics of single-level vs. two-level sleepers are a no-brainier. The Superliners win every single time because they can haul up to 44 passengers instead of 30.

So, changing a train like the California Zephyr from Superliner to Viewliner/Amfleet without loosing any capacity, you would actually _increase_ the weight of the train by having to add more cars. And in doing so, you would make the train more uncomfortable to passengers by reducing the number of available restrooms, eliminating the changing rooms, reducing food service capacity, make the train longer, etc.

Superliner-style cars just make sense in the long run, and I believe if it were not for the clearance issues in New England, Amtrak would be a 100% Superliner-equipped service today, minus the Talgo's and Acela.


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## Traingeek (Feb 25, 2012)

Blackwolf said:


> I'm not all that convinced that Superliners cause 'fuel-guzzle' to a remarkable degree over Viewliners/Amfleets simply because of the space capacity differences between the cars. Since we are discussing LD services for comparison, just look at the two car types against each other for coach.
> 
> Superliner Coach: 74 passenger seats; 4 bathrooms; 1 changing room. Car weight: 148,000 lbs. Speed rating: 110mph
> 
> ...


I've only traveled along the east coast and have never experienced western long distance trains. More people riding can have just as important impact on reducing the carbon footprint than speed that. Those are points I didn't realize were important to this discussion. It isn't all about speed, but the ability to bring as good of an experience to people as possible.


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## TexRail (Feb 25, 2012)

Blackwolf said:


> I'm not all that convinced that Superliners cause 'fuel-guzzle' to a remarkable degree over Viewliners/Amfleets simply because of the space capacity differences between the cars. Since we are discussing LD services for comparison, just look at the two car types against each other for coach.
> 
> Superliner Coach: 74 passenger seats; 4 bathrooms; 1 changing room. Car weight: 148,000 lbs. Speed rating: 110mph
> 
> ...


Great post. I especially like the wording of the WOW factor for first time riders. I remember it was the grand presence of the superliner train that stuck with me the most as a young kid and I've been a fan ever since. The single level cars just don't have the same effect on me. To this day I am still "WOWed" by the old superliners. I probably wouldn't be half the railfan I am today without them.


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## Anderson (Feb 26, 2012)

Three thoughts on Superliners:

1) I know that production costs on Superliners tend to be about 40-60% higher than Viewliners (the per-passenger numbers are about the same); what does maintenance run on the two? Does anybody know?

2) Could Superliners, if there was track to support it, be reworked or redesigned going forward for 125 MPH rating?

3) Viewliner/Amfleet conversions of a few trains would probably work...but these tend to be the shorter ones (namely, the Sunset Limited, Texas Eagle, and CONO); the Zephyr, Builder, and a few others are just too long on a regular basis.

Also, if clearances weren't an issue, Amtrak would probably be at least looking at bilevel Acela IIs (the full sets, not the 40 supplementary cars), while the Talgos might well have been specced out for bilevel designs when the order was placed. We would probably still have a moderate pile of Amtubes running around (high level platforms and all), but there would be a transition underway there, and some platforms would probably be getting ripped up to allow low-level boarding on a few tracks in the NEC.


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## jis (Feb 26, 2012)

Some of the most heavily used bilevel high speed trains would fit within the loading gauge of NEC today. For example, TGV Duplexes are well within the NEC loading gauge, though there may be a slight problem with platform height if they are taken as is.

But the real fact of the matter is that since train lengths on the NEC are so much shorter than the max possible that bi-level is not really necessary as yet, though maybe sometime in the future. Simpler things like the ability to operate two Acela sets in tandem, maxing up Regionals to 12 or 14 cars, and increasing train frequencies, may be more cost effective for now, and possibly for decades to come.

BTW, if you look at world passenger train lengths the except for the Auto Train, all other Amtrak trains are downright puny in terms of length. So that is not a real argument for not converting to single level.

However, given that we have the Superliners and given that going forward we have a standard design for the next gen, and no reason otherwise not to use them on lines with the clearance, I don;t see why anyone would want to convert them.

Now then, prognosticating about LD trains, I suspect the following are likely to happen within the next 5 or so years:

1. Pennsy run through section on the Cap, possibly the number of run through cars growing after inauguration if it catches on.

2. Extension of the Palmetto at least to JAX.

3. Section of at least one Silver service going via the FEC JAX - MIA.

4. Southwest Chief via the Transcon, abandoning Raton Pass Route.

5. Oakland - LAX day train, unless California steps up to provide facility at 4th and Townsend to handle such a train, in which case San Fran to LAX. An example of corridors stitched together to create an LD -ish train.

Less likely but possible:

1. Daily Cardinal - this could happen if Virginia specifically accelerates passing siding work on the BBRR.

2. Daily Sunset Limited - negotiations need to start instead of the parties sitting at their respective corners just glaring at each other.

3. Boston and New York sections of the LSL running as separate trains, perhaps with some NY State and Massachusetts financial support.

4. Resurrected Montrealer, only if both Vermont and Quebec step upto it.

OK, that's my modest list.


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## The Davy Crockett (Feb 26, 2012)

On a note related to the SWC reroute over the transcon, I read on TRAINS' website that the commissioners of Garden City Kansas have allocated $20,000.00 for lobbying in an effort to keep the SWC over Raton Pass. Lamar and La Junta CO have passed resolutions to keep the SWC where it is. Sounds like these towns are taking a similar course of action that the towns in ND took over the Empire Builder's potential reroute away from Devil's Lake. I would think the cost of keeping the SWC where it is would be greater than the cost of keeping the EB where it is, and whether the towns on the SWC route are as successful obviously remains to be seen.

One thing I thought was interesting, and worth noting, is a quote from Garden City manager Matt Allan:



> Garden City manager Matt Allen said the remote cities of southwestern Kansas benefit from the daily Chicago-Los Angeles passenger train. “We’re fans of passenger rail,” he said. “The communities west of Newton [Kan.], we have the highest levels of ridership.”


IMHO it is great to see support for Amtrak in a "Red" state like Kansas. Maybe this is obvious, but the benefits to the communities it serves is a major reason why Amtrak has weathered so many threats to its existance.

Also from the article:



> Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman, said support from cities like Garden city is helpful as the passenger railroad continues its discussions with BNSF and the impacted states.


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## Eric S (Feb 26, 2012)

The Davy Crockett said:


> On a note related to the SWC reroute over the transcon, I read on TRAINS' website that the commissioners of Garden City Kansas have allocated $20,000.00 for lobbying in an effort to keep the SWC over Raton Pass. Lamar and La Junta CO have passed resolutions to keep the SWC where it is. Sounds like these towns are taking a similar course of action that the towns in ND took over the Empire Builder's potential reroute away from Devil's Lake. I would think the cost of keeping the SWC where it is would be greater than the cost of keeping the EB where it is, and whether the towns on the SWC route are as successful obviously remains to be seen.
> 
> One thing I thought was interesting, and worth noting, is a quote from Garden City manager Matt Allan:
> 
> ...


I agree with you regarding what seems to be growing support in CO and KS (and NM?) for keeping the _Southwest Chief_ on its current route. Hopefully Garden City (and Dodge City and Hutchinson) elected officials will continue to be vocal in their support of Amtrak service, both publicly and with their contacts in Topeka (and Washington).


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## afigg (Feb 26, 2012)

Anderson said:


> 2) Could Superliners, if there was track to support it, be reworked or redesigned going forward for 125 MPH rating?


The corridor bi-level cars will be 125 mph capable. If/when Superliner IIIs are ordered and delivered, they will be based on the new bi-level spec and will be 125 mph capable. Even though there are no tracks or routes to run them at 125 mph at the current time.

If in 10 years, there are a number of 110 mph corridors in the Midwest and some 125 mph corridors that the Superliner equipped LD trains run on, the simplest solution may be to equip the LD trains that run on the 110 and 125 mph corridors with the Superliner IIIs that have replaced and augmented the Superliner I fleet. The LD trains that don't run on the 110 and 125 mph corridors - AutoTrain, Sunset Limited, Coast Starlight?, and why not, new AutoTrain services that were added when gas hit and stayed above $5 a gallon - get the older Superliner I and IIs. Assuming, of course, that a complete set of Superliner III types have been ordered.

Besides, if the Superliner LD trains are restricted to 100 mph over the higher speed corridors, that is not that big a deal. They will have improved trip times over what they have now with many slow segments fixed. As older Superliner get phased out with new 125 mph equipment because the cost of expanding the fleet is modest compared to the cost of upgrading tracks over multiple corridors to 110 and 125 mph speeds, the 100 mph issue fades away.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 26, 2012)

jis said:


> 2. Daily Sunset Limited - negotiations need to start instead of the parties sitting at their respective corners just glaring at each other.


I hope this isn't a case of unsubstantiated false equivalency.



afigg said:


> If/when Superliner IIIs are ordered and delivered, they will be based on the new bi-level spec and will be 125 mph capable.


Just think how slow 125MPH will seem five decades from now when the Superliner III's are finally retired.


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## AlanB (Feb 26, 2012)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> What about intericty buses? Why are they not included? I would think that they are quite efficient.


They refuse to provide the data, no doubt because it would make them look bad comparative to the other modes.


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## AlanB (Feb 26, 2012)

Ziv said:


> Another possibility would be a return of 2 unit Budd cars in the west rated at 110-120 mph. Imagine a service that required just a team of two, engineer and conductor, and possibly a snack car attendant. Would the UTU accept it if they were an expansion of their numbers or would they demand that there be a fireman as well? ;-)


Many Amtrak trains currently operate without a fireman. Basically, if the engineer is going to be out on the road for less than 8 hours, no fireman is required.


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## AlanB (Feb 26, 2012)

The Davy Crockett said:


> I also recall an article claiming that by the year 2030(?) I-95 in southern Florida will need to be something like 25 lanes wide to handle the volume of projected traffic.


They're already up to 12 IIRC, so that 2030 goal is certainly attainable.


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## PRR 60 (Feb 26, 2012)

AlanB said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > What about intericty buses? Why are they not included? I would think that they are quite efficient.
> ...


The reason there is no data for intercity buses (and school buses) after 1999 it that the organization that provided it to DOE, the Eno Transportation Foundation, stopped collecting it. It is not a "refusal" by anyone to provide the data. DOE assembles the summary data by mode, but they do not collect and total the data for each mode. They rely on someone else to do that: Amtrak for intercity rail and APTA for transit, for example. Air data is collected by DOT, so DOE gets the data from them. Right now, there is no single group that represents intercity bus transportation and collects fuel use data, so there is no data for DOE to publish.

The last time intercity bus data was published (1999), the energy intensity was under 1000 BTU/PM, by far the lowest energy use of any intercity passenger mode.


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## Anderson (Feb 27, 2012)

jis said:


> Some of the most heavily used bilevel high speed trains would fit within the loading gauge of NEC today. For example, TGV Duplexes are well within the NEC loading gauge, though there may be a slight problem with platform height if they are taken as is.
> 
> But the real fact of the matter is that since train lengths on the NEC are so much shorter than the max possible that bi-level is not really necessary as yet, though maybe sometime in the future. Simpler things like the ability to operate two Acela sets in tandem, maxing up Regionals to 12 or 14 cars, and increasing train frequencies, may be more cost effective for now, and possibly for decades to come.
> 
> ...


On the first batch:

#1 seems almost definite. #3 seems extremely likely in conjunction with some corridor service, and #5 seems almost definite as well. #4 seems more likely than not. However, I haven't heard much (if any) serious talk of #2 on here or elsewhere (though that does surprise me...why was the Palmetto cut back from JAX to SAV?).

On the second batch:

#1 seems most likely. I don't see #2 happening, period.

#3 is plausible...but the problem is the small size of the Boston section. If you put a diner onboard it and joined it with one of the other Buffalo-bound Empire trains, however, you might be able to extend that (and effectively get a second NYP-CHI train on a different schedule in the process).

#4 is interesting. Is there a chance that Quebec might look into subsidizing some sort of operations here? You also raise a glaring point: Quebec wins from a Boston-Montreal train (for example), but I haven't seen much talk other than generic "we like this idea" talk from their end. The big thing there would be, IMHO, getting a Montreal-bound train operating either from somewhere south of NYP or that offered sane connections to somewhere south of NYP.*

*Actually, there might be a way to do this "on the cheap"...if Quebec was interested and the equipment made available, a sleeper and a coach could be run from 66/67 to the Adirondack. I'm not sure of the movements involved, but the idea might work. Clunky timing, yes. Also, if you could restore the old Meteor departure from NYP and get a ten hour Adirondack timetable, you could launch a 7-ish AM MTR departure and run a through car. Messy timing in Penn, yes, but it's at least there on paper.


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## Anderson (Feb 27, 2012)

AlanB said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > I also recall an article claiming that by the year 2030(?) I-95 in southern Florida will need to be something like 25 lanes wide to handle the volume of projected traffic.
> ...


Hmmm...as far as traffic goes, if you dedicate a given strip of land to passenger rail versus to an interstate, I'm wondering what the comparative capacities are in terms of passengers per day.


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## afigg (Feb 27, 2012)

jis said:


> Now then, prognosticating about LD trains, I suspect the following are likely to happen within the next 5 or so years:
> 
> 1. Pennsy run through section on the Cap, possibly the number of run through cars growing after inauguration if it catches on.


If the Pennsylvanian through section gets enough business, might possibly be enough to result in the restoration of the Three Rivers in some form with better equipment than it used to have. If PA is interested in a second daily PHL-PGH frequency (or 3rd by the time a Three Rivers resumption is floated), wonder if Amtrak could get PA to contribute to a Three Rivers LD train?



jis said:


> 2. Extension of the Palmetto at least to JAX.
> 
> 3. Section of at least one Silver service going via the FEC JAX - MIA.


Extending the Palmetto to JAX would make for a very long day train. Unless it provides a connection of some sort to a FEC corridor service, a Palmetto to JAX might not provide that much utility. At that long a distance, may be better to add some sleepers, baggage-dorm and extend it overnight on the FEC to Miami.



jis said:


> Less likely but possible:
> 
> 1. Daily Cardinal - this could happen if Virginia specifically accelerates passing siding work on the BBRR.


Provided there are not major cuts to Amtrak subsidies this fall as a result of the election, I would give strong odds on the Cardinal going daily. Amtrak will have the Viewliners they need in several years. With NYP-WAS-CVS growing as a corridor, VA could use a daily Cardinal to provide daily afternoon service options to CVS. VA might also see utility in improved direct VA service from CVS to WV and to a lesser extent Chicago.

There is political support in WV for daily Cardinal service. Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV) is the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He has called for daily Cardinal service to his district multiple times. if the Democrats win the House this fall, Rahall is in line to become the Chairman of the committee in place of Chairman Mica. When the Chairman of a powerful House committee wants some small or medium sized projects that benefits his district, he usually gets what he wants.

There is the additional complication of Indiana state support for the Hoosier State by the start of FY14. VA is putting up 70% of the funds to fix up the Buckingham Branch. VA may be willing to put up 70% of the funds to extend some sidings to 8500' or longer on the BB, the question who provides the matching 30%? Depending on the cost of extending the sidings, Amtrak might be wise to kick in the 30%.



jis said:


> 2. Daily Sunset Limited - negotiations need to start instead of the parties sitting at their respective corners just glaring at each other.


UP is continuing to build out the double tracking from LA to El Paso; UP is also getting considerable federal and state money for track and flyover projects in CA. As the double tracking approaches completion, UP can't demand $750 million any more. Amtrak could restart the process of negotiation for a daily SL with more leverage. Maybe a high ranking politician could point out to UP that it had not been for Gadsden Purchase which was mostly done for the rail ROW, they would not have a rail line there. Some debts last a very long time.



jis said:


> 3. Boston and New York sections of the LSL running as separate trains, perhaps with some NY State and Massachusetts financial support.


Is there enough ridership from BOS to ALB to CHI to support a stand-alone LD train? The slow trip times from BOS to ALB are a major hindrance on this service. BOS to SPG will eventually see improvements, but SPG to ALB higher speed upgrades are not on the agenda. Two separate LD trains would speed both up though with the time savings in ALB by eliminating the splitting up and combining the consist.



jis said:


> 4. Resurrected Montrealer, only if both Vermont and Quebec step upto it.


VT is not going to provide state funding for an overnight train that goes through VT in the middle of the night. The Vermonter would get extended to Montreal on a daytime schedule and stay called the Vermonter.


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## George Harris (Feb 27, 2012)

afigg said:


> . . . the cost of expanding the fleet is modest compared to the cost of upgrading tracks over multiple corridors to 110 and 125 mph speeds, the 100 mph issue fades away.


And it is not just upgrading tracks. It is alignment modifications. That is the primary reason that the Northeast Corridor cannot get much faster than it is now. They have just about squeezed all they can out of a line with multiple curves that was upgraded over a period of many years with 80 mph being the target speed.

For the long distance lines that will be even more of an issue. It is not just finding ways to straighten out curves, it is also adding tracks to make operation over a wider range of speeds among trains practical.


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## George Harris (Feb 27, 2012)

Do a search for Specification for PRIIA Bi-Level Passenger Rail Car. What you should come up with should be PRIIA Specification No. 305-001 Amtrak specification No. 962 Revision B Release Date: January 24,2012. It runs 588 pages.

You will see 125 mph liberally sprinkled through it.


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## trainviews (Feb 27, 2012)

Anderson said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > The Davy Crockett said:
> ...


Rail advocates here say that a double track railway has the capacity of an eight lane highway. I don't know where they have the numbers from and I also suppose this is for a dedicated passenger track with no freight on as mixed traffic has less capacity.


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## jis (Feb 27, 2012)

afigg said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > Now then, prognosticating about LD trains, I suspect the following are likely to happen within the next 5 or so years:
> ...


Anything is possible, however, I was assuming that any negotiation with NS and CSX for additional frequencies will be a long drawn out affair. Actually PA could conceivably step up to the plate for the second PHL - PGH frequency and that way Amtrak can use the train it funds to be predominantly a run through train, either as a standalone west of PGH or as a part of the Cap. The latter will of course be cheaper to operate since it won;t require additional slot.



> jis said:
> 
> 
> > 2. Extension of the Palmetto at least to JAX.
> ...


There was a period when it used to terminate in JAX. If it manages to get sped up by an hour or so in the north then the schedule becomes almost as viable as is the SAV schedule at present.

As soon as you add Sleepers and Diners and stuff, its cost recovery immediately takes a nose dive compared to that of a day train, notwithstanding how much you can charge for a Sleeper.

Richard Saunders in his _Main Lines - Rebirth of the North American Railroads, 1970-2002_ makes a very cogent case suggesting that historically trains with Sleeping accommodations always have had greater difficulty in being profitable when compared to day trains on heavily traveled corridors. He is a true insider and he ought to know what he is talking about.



> jis said:
> 
> 
> > Less likely but possible:
> ...


The primary problem with this one is to get the necessary infrastructure of lengthened and more frequent crossing sidings in place. No amount of operating subsidy will make this happen until the infrastructure is upgraded.



> There is the additional complication of Indiana state support for the Hoosier State by the start of FY14. VA is putting up 70% of the funds to fix up the Buckingham Branch. VA may be willing to put up 70% of the funds to extend some sidings to 8500' or longer on the BB, the question who provides the matching 30%? Depending on the cost of extending the sidings, Amtrak might be wise to kick in the 30%.


I agree, or some suitable son of TIGER. I doubt very much that Amtrak will kick in the 30% from its own funds. Does not make sense to do so given Amtrak's current priorities.



> jis said:
> 
> 
> > 2. Daily Sunset Limited - negotiations need to start instead of the parties sitting at their respective corners just glaring at each other.
> ...


The dearth of high ranking, or for that matter any ranking politician actually stepping up to the plate in support of the Sunset is the core problem. I doubt that the Gadsden argument will take anyone too far. 

As I have said before, the primary issue on this one is trackage charge. $750 million is a ruse to get pre-paid trackage charges. It is too bad that Amtrak has not seen it fit to at least negotiate the possibility.



> jis said:
> 
> 
> > 3. Boston and New York sections of the LSL running as separate trains, perhaps with some NY State and Massachusetts financial support.
> ...


BOS - ALB already support a seperate LD train, namely the LSL. The issue is - is there sufficient additional ridership to be had ALB - CHI if there were a second train.



> jis said:
> 
> 
> > 4. Resurrected Montrealer, only if both Vermont and Quebec step upto it.
> ...


I was thinking more in terms of a daytime train providing basic transportation, which would most likely have much better cost recovery than an overnight train with all its bells and whistles. If MA can step upto it, maybe they could run a Boston section which hooks into it a Springfield.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 27, 2012)

jis said:


> $750 million is a ruse to get pre-paid trackage charges. It is too bad that Amtrak has not seen it fit to at least negotiate the possibility.


You have made these claims again and again without a source. Do you have an actual basis for any of this or are you just speaking as a proud shareholder of Union Pacific stock?


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## jis (Feb 27, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > $750 million is a ruse to get pre-paid trackage charges. It is too bad that Amtrak has not seen it fit to at least negotiate the possibility.
> ...


I have already stated the basis for this opinion the first time I expressed it, and that has not changed. It is based on conversations I have had with people, further details of which I am not free to disclose. So in general it is just hearsay and my opinion. Take it or leave it. But since I believe it to be true, I hope you will grant me the freedom to state it as my opinion? 

Incidentally, I don't own any UP shares outside of any that incidentally happen to be owned by many mutual funds that I own shares in, and it has no bearing on this matter.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 27, 2012)

I would like to see a CHI-KCY corridor on the current SWC line and a NYP-ATL daytrain. I haven't seen people talk about it.


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## Anderson (Feb 27, 2012)

I'd be interested to see a serious breakdown of diner versus cafe costs (and revenues), as well as a breakdown on operating a sleeping car (or a set of sleeping cars) versus a coach/set of coaches on a train. I do not disagree with the analysis, but I would like to see more information here.

As to the Lake Shore Limited, I'd wonder if there was the business to upgrade 280 or 284 for the job eastbound (i.e. attach a set of cars at Buffalo and then run an "Empire Service" section down to New York). I'm hard-pressed to see "just" 448/449 have enough business to operate completely independently...but 48-448 and 49-449 is getting to be almost unwieldy, and the addition of much more to either section is going to cause some length-of-train issues sooner or later. If you operate a separate train entirely, you have to pay for an extra crew ALB-CHI that you wouldn't otherwise; combining operations makes for a headache in Albany, but it saves you a crew in Upstate NY.

The other thing to consider is that a stand-alone 448/449 would be a fourth CHI-East Coast train (alongside the Lake Shore Limited, the Capitol Limited, and the Cardinal). The big rub is that it would be the first such train to neither serve NYP/NYG nor WAS. I'm also not sure what the "intra-upstate" business situation looks like at /all/, but I can't see passing on allowing some sort of through-selection to NYP (and indirectly, more effective connections to New York-area destinations).

With the Sunset...not happening, not a priority, and frankly shouldn't be a priority.

As to the just-floated idea of NYP-ATL...I don't see that happening. Southern cut the Piedmont Limited at Washington and forced a transfer; the sheer time involved (and the resulting bad timing for either ATL or NYP, or both) is what kills here. Amtrak is also rather loath to stop trains at WAS or force transfers because so much business tends to be bound for PHL and NYP.

Another thread tackled this idea, and what we could see happening is extending a train down to Charlotte via NS's line with support from VA and NC. It's pretty clear that there business to be had for at least a second train out there (the Lynchburger is generating almost enough revenue to pay for a second frequency on the operating surplus alone); that plus the demand for a "reverse" train (that is, one that goes north in the evening and south in the morning) would support that particular notion.

KCY-CHI getting a second frequency is something that I could buy happening (IL and MO could probably work something out with one of the corridor routes there...I'm just not sure what), though I think MO and IL both have a lot of other irons in the fire (MO is looking at two or three other routes, and IL has two new routes "in process").

And while we're playing a version of the disclosure game, I have shares in both CSX and Norfolk Southern (and I fully intend to attend the latter's shareholder meetings on an annual basis for a long, long time as a matter of interest in the industry...I live in Newport News, and Norfolk Southern seems prone to holding their meetings in Williamsburg). I'd have looked at BNSF once upon a time, but Buffet beat me to them. As to UP, wouldn't touch their stock with a barge pole.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 27, 2012)

jis said:


> Texas Sunset said:
> 
> 
> > jis said:
> ...


I have heard folks say that they (UP) would be happiest if Amtrak simply fell off the face of the earth tomorrow. But, as you said, that's just hearsay and not admissible as proof of UP's bad faith negotiations. All we know so far is that UP wanted more than $700 million to make a one-time schedule change involving less than 1% of the Sunset Route's tonnage. To me that sounded a bit like a blunt GFY response meant to kill further discussions. To you it was a perfectly reasonable opening offer meant to spur more good-faith negotiating to get the job done between two equal partners. Unfortunately the negotiations appear to have stalled indefinitely. I guess Amtrak saw Union Pacific's high-cost, low-flexibility opening offer as less than promising and UP saw little reason to change it.


----------



## Anderson (Feb 27, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > Texas Sunset said:
> ...


I'm just wondering, but what do you think would have been a reasonable "high bid" for UP to start with?


----------



## Devil's Advocate (Feb 27, 2012)

Anderson said:


> I'm just wondering, but what do you think would have been a reasonable "high bid" for UP to start with?


Something in the ballpark to the actual tonnage that the new Amtrak trains would represent. Heck, you could even double or triple that amount and still be at a reasonable opening offer. At a minimum it should be something in the realm of what Amtrak could actually afford to pay. So far as I'm aware $700,000,000 isn't anywhere near either of those two criteria.


----------



## afigg (Feb 27, 2012)

> There was a period when it used to terminate in JAX. If it manages to get sped up by an hour or so in the north then the schedule becomes almost as viable as is the SAV schedule at present.
> 
> As soon as you add Sleepers and Diners and stuff, its cost recovery immediately takes a nose dive compared to that of a day train, notwithstanding how much you can charge for a Sleeper.
> 
> Richard Saunders in his _Main Lines - Rebirth of the North American Railroads, 1970-2002_ makes a very cogent case suggesting that historically trains with Sleeping accommodations always have had greater difficulty in being profitable when compared to day trains on heavily traveled corridors. He is a true insider and he ought to know what he is talking about.


Savannah to Jacksonville is about 2.5 hours on the Silver schedule. Even trimming an hour off the current Palmetto trip time still leaves NYP-JAX as a very long daytime run. Doable though, if the OTP performance was reliable enough to allow for consistent overnight turnaround in JAX.

Is there a specific reason for extending the Palmetto to JAX? Matches up for crew service stops? Is there enough business for daytime JAX to SAV, Charleston, Rocky Mount, RVR, WAS trips that is not well served by the Silver Meteor?

The Palmetto incidentally is not running today, nor from Monday to Thursday for the next month because of CSX track work. Maybe enough CSX track work will eventually allow Amtrak to trim time off the Palmetto and SM schedules.



> I agree, or some suitable son of TIGER. I doubt very much that Amtrak will kick in the 30% from its own funds. Does not make sense to do so given Amtrak's current priorities.


Amtrak is putting up a fair amount for the Empire Builder to help fix the Devil's Lake tracks, up to $30 million as I recall. Yes, the EB is a premium LD train, but it loses a fair amount of money in total annual dollars.

What I have not seen is any info on how much it would cost to extend the sidings on the Buckingham Branch. Would extending just 1 or 2 sidings be sufficient to allow the CSX empty coal trains to operate to CSX's satisfaction? The BB is getting a lot of track and signal improvements over the next several years. Those improvements should allow the EB and WB Cardinals to run over the BB more quickly and thus reduce the time the Cardinals are blocking the BB for the long CSX trains. Seeing a cost estimate for extending the sidings would give a sense on whether it is a easy to fix issue or one that is not.



> The dearth of high ranking, or for that matter any ranking politician actually stepping up to the plate in support of the Sunset is the core problem. I doubt that the Gadsden argument will take anyone too far.
> 
> As I have said before, the primary issue on this one is trackage charge. $750 million is a ruse to get pre-paid trackage charges. It is too bad that Amtrak has not seen it fit to at least negotiate the possibility.


I wonder if there is a long term strategy Boardman and Amtrak's upper management has in mind for the SL or they just shrugged their shoulders and figured they will let somebody else worry about it in a couple of years.



> BOS - ALB already support a seperate LD train, namely the LSL. The issue is - is there sufficient additional ridership to be had ALB - CHI if there were a second train.


The LSL to BOS is a stub train with only 1 sleeper, 2 coach cars, a cafe and a baggage car. To make it fully separate LD train would require a diner, more equipment, and, of course, have to pay for trackage fees from Schenectady to Chicago. The BOS LSL might draw more business from Hartford, new intermodal station in SPG, and the new Vermonter route stops once the NHV-SPG corridor sees more trains, and the Vermonter re-route is in place. Doubt if this idea is on Amtrak's radar, but if they were to run a separate BOS-ALB-CHI LD train, what is the best adjustment for the BOS-CHI schedule to provide sufficient spacing from the NYP-CHI LSL?


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## afigg (Feb 27, 2012)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> I would like to see a CHI-KCY corridor on the current SWC line and a NYP-ATL daytrain. I haven't seen people talk about it.


The NYP to ATL day train idea has come up here a lot. The problem is that on the current Crescent schedule, it is an 18 hour trip. So leave NYP at 6 AM, arrive ATL at midnight? As discussed in detail in the recent Crescent PIP report, the Atlanta station is in a poor location and needs a new station, which is another concern for a NYP-ATL daytrain along with storage in Atlanta.

We recently discussed the alternative of a Charlotte, NC to NYP day train over the Crescent route to provide additional service to CVS and a faster WAS-NYP train option for Charlotte, NC. If the Carolinian is getting sold out too often, a train between Charlotte and NYP via CVS would provide additional capacity and better CVS-LYN to NC Piedmont corridor connections. NC likely needs to build the new station with more overnight capacity in Charlotte first though.

As for CHI-KCY, the SWC provides ok daytime hours for KCY to CHI trips. The lack of major population centers between Kansas City and IL has to be taken into account. Is there enough demand for seats on the SWC between KCY and CHI that it creates a capacity problem?


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## PRR 60 (Feb 27, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > I'm just wondering, but what do you think would have been a reasonable "high bid" for UP to start with?
> ...


The current Amtrak law provides for significant penalties for railroads that are found to have delayed Amtrak by freight interference or dispatching. While that was implicit in the preceding laws, this most recent law made the requirement more specific and quantified what constitutes "delay" (2 calendar quarters with less than an 80% on time rate for Amtrak). If found in violation of that requirement, the STB can assess damages to be paid by the railroad to Amtrak. Amtrak has made it known that they will take actions to enforce that requirement, and have instituted just such an action against CN.

An unintended consequence of Amtrak's new-found power is that railroads are going to be very demanding in what they claim is required for capacity enhancements to accept new Amtrak service. If a railroad's feet are going to be held to the fire if they delay Amtrak with potential significant financial penalties for violations, then the railroad is going to do everything they can up front to ensure they can meet the requirements. What they will not do is forfeit any of their existing capacity to accommodate Amtrak (and the law says they do not have to do that). What they are doing is determining the full capacity of the subject line, applying that traffic in freight, injecting the proposed Amtrak trains on top of that, and determining what improvements are needed to retain the full line capacity with zero permitted Amtrak delays. That is a killer requirement.

Specific to the Sunset Line, the existing service is irrelevant. Once Amtrak asks for new service, the whole package of requested service is reviewed - 14 trains per week. Since Amtrak trains run at higher speed then freight and on a hard schedule, the impact of Amtrak much greater than simply running 14 trains on top of the freight service. It is a pretty big deal.

If Amtrak insists on delay-free operation per law (and they do), and if the owning railroad is allowed the right to all the capacity represented by the existing line after adding Amtrak (and they are), then adding new Amtrak trains to any freight railroad will be a very expensive proposition no matter what the existing service looks like. Whether that is "within the realm of what Amtrak could actually afford to pay" is of no relevance whatsoever.

If Amtrak thinks the UP or any railroad's capacity enhancement requirements are unreasonable, they can take their case to the STB for resolution. I don't see them doing that with the UP, so a reasonable presumption is that Amtrak recognizes that the UP's capacity requirements are not unreasonable given the operational ground rules of the Amtrak law.


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## jis (Feb 27, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> I have heard folks say that they (UP) would be happiest if Amtrak simply fell off the face of the earth tomorrow. But, as you said, that's just hearsay and not admissible as proof of UP's bad faith negotiations. All we know so far is that UP wanted more than $700 million to make a one-time schedule change involving less than 1% of the Sunset Route's tonnage. To me that sounded a bit like a blunt GFY response meant to kill further discussions. To you it was a perfectly reasonable opening offer meant to spur more good-faith negotiating to get the job done between two equal partners. Unfortunately the negotiations appear to have stalled indefinitely. I guess Amtrak saw Union Pacific's high-cost, low-flexibility opening offer as less than promising and UP saw little reason to change it.


Afterall I just spend a quarter of my time in such silly negotiations, except that it is in the space of large computer companies dealing with cross-licensing. So what would I know about such things? 

How would anyone know what their flexibility was except perhaps based on claims made by someone from Amtrak?

It was dream come true for Amtrak management, since they could just blame it on someone else and walk away.... something they are very adept at, practicing victimhood to the n-th degree and playing to the galleries like NARP who sit around clucking after them.

The fundamental problem is that it is Amtrak that is not willing to step upto the plate and do the necessary jawboning with UP. Blaming UP for being the typical dick that large corporations are in such situations is hardly a constructive thing to discuss or spend time on. What is necessary is to figure out how to make progress, and Amtrak's approach certainly ain't going to make any, and I believe they are perfectly content with that.

If you keep harping on tonnage it won't help make any progress since it is not the issue at all. The issue is disruption of flow of freight traffic by a service that travels at a different speed and demands higher priority and yet pays way less for said priority treatment than what UP would earn running a multi-modal on time. As long as one refuses to recognize that as the core business driven negotiating issue, there is next to zero chance of making progress. No one cares what the weight of Amtrak train is as long as it is heavy enough to trigger track circuits.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 27, 2012)

Both of you make some good points for why Union Pacific has no business-minded reason to work with Amtrak on additional traffic requests. Which I don't even disagree with. I just don't see what purpose there is to blame Amtrak for not meeting UP's sky-high demands with fees Amtrak has no hope of recovering. Unless you're saying that Amtrak is at fault for not pushing hard enough to "force" Union Pacific to lower their fees. Never mind the simple fact that Amtrak is already hanging by a thread politically, and that Union Pacific has far more support in our government than Amtrak has or ever will have. Regardless of whatever punitive powers are bestowed upon Amtrak they would be wise to leave those powers alone while their continued funding is under constant threat of severe budget reductions. Today's Union Pacific is no small fry. They're big enough and powerful enough to help bring an end to Amtrak if they ever find themselves backed into a corner. There is no way today's Amtrak wins over today's Union Pacific in all but the most trivial of matters. Anything more than a slap on the wrist and there will be hell to pay at budget time.


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## johnny.menhennet (Feb 27, 2012)

jis said:


> Some of the most heavily used bilevel high speed trains would fit within the loading gauge of NEC today. For example, TGV Duplexes are well within the NEC loading gauge, though there may be a slight problem with platform height if they are taken as is.
> 
> But the real fact of the matter is that since train lengths on the NEC are so much shorter than the max possible that bi-level is not really necessary as yet, though maybe sometime in the future. Simpler things like the ability to operate two Acela sets in tandem, maxing up Regionals to 12 or 14 cars, and increasing train frequencies, may be more cost effective for now, and possibly for decades to come.
> 
> ...



Jis, I like your list, but I have two changes to make. Move daily Cardinal to the top section. Once the Viewliner 2's start rolling out, it WILL happen. Also, add a number 7 (assuming daily Cardinal is #6) for an extended Heartland Flyer.


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## johnny.menhennet (Feb 27, 2012)

If there were a third category for possible corridor train updates other than the Illinois ones we know are happening, I would add a definitely to an extension of Capitol Corridor to Salinas at 2 RT's per day, and a possibly to one or two RT's per day (probably only one for capacity reasons) to Reno.

Other corridor projects that are possible but not all that likely are a corridor service from LAX-Coachella Valley, and Twin Cities-Chicago increased frequencies.


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## cirdan (Feb 28, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> I have heard folks say that they (UP) would be happiest if Amtrak simply fell off the face of the earth tomorrow. But, as you said, that's just hearsay and not admissible as proof of UP's bad faith negotiations.


UPRR seem amiable enough when dealing with Amtrak California.

Maybe it's a question of finding the right way to approach them and also to see things from their point of view rather than just painting them as the bad guy.


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## The Davy Crockett (Feb 28, 2012)

Since this thread has veered far and wide, I'll post this here...

Yesterday, while using my last 'companion coupon,' I visited MOMA in NYC to see an exhibit entitled "Foreclosed - Rehousing the American Dream." Here is a link to the exhibit's webpage: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1230

The exhibit looks at five communities across the USA and is



> ...an exploration of new architectural possibilities for cities and suburbs in the aftermath of the recent foreclosure crisis.


I know it seems like I've gone completely off topic, but what struck me was the fact that three of the five studies had a rail component or aspect to them.

I might be a cynic but I am still hopeful about the future. :wacko:


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## jis (Feb 28, 2012)

johnny.menhennet said:


> If there were a third category for possible corridor train updates other than the Illinois ones we know are happening, I would add a definitely to an extension of Capitol Corridor to Salinas at 2 RT's per day, and a possibly to one or two RT's per day (probably only one for capacity reasons) to Reno.
> 
> Other corridor projects that are possible but not all that likely are a corridor service from LAX-Coachella Valley, and Twin Cities-Chicago increased frequencies.


See message 20 in this thread. The list I had there was:



> In the Amtrak and state supported Amtrak arena, I expect to see significant enhancement of service in :
> 
> 1. Midwest corridors out of Chicago.
> 
> ...


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## George Harris (Feb 28, 2012)

cirdan said:


> Texas Sunset said:
> 
> 
> > I have heard folks say that they (UP) would be happiest if Amtrak simply fell off the face of the earth tomorrow. But, as you said, that's just hearsay and not admissible as proof of UP's bad faith negotiations.
> ...


The "right way" consists of an open checkbook. A strong leadership on the part of Amtrak Calif didn't hurt, either. But, also note that the San Joaquins spend most of their miles on BNSF tracks.


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## RCrierie (Feb 28, 2012)

Traingeek said:


> I see a simple way to go high speed on the longer distance trains (at least 125) is to make all of the cars in the Superliners single level.


No no no no NO NO NO O NO GOD NO.

In about 30 days, I'll be taking the Silver Star down to Orlando from Washington, and then the Silver Meteor up from Orlando to Washington, and in both cases, I wish that both trains had superliner consists. There is no substitute for the Superliner Lounge. None at all.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 28, 2012)

George Harris said:


> cirdan said:
> 
> 
> > Texas Sunset said:
> ...


On the plus side, I guess you could say we have the best damn railroad that spare change and lukewarm leadership can buy! :lol:



RCrierie said:


> Traingeek said:
> 
> 
> > I see a simple way to go high speed on the longer distance trains (at least 125) is to make all of the cars in the Superliners single level.
> ...


Oh, I can think of a single-level substitute I wouldn't mind having in place of an SSL. Put this puppy on the back of virtually any train and I'd be happy.


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## afigg (Feb 28, 2012)

RCrierie said:


> Traingeek said:
> 
> 
> > I see a simple way to go high speed on the longer distance trains (at least 125) is to make all of the cars in the Superliners single level.
> ...


No need to panic. As I posted earlier in this thread, the bi-level corridor cars will be capable of 125 mph speeds. Any Superliner III order will be based on the bi-level specification and design and the cars will be capable of 125 mph. Replacing the Superliners in the west and LD trains with 125 mph single level cars is not in the plans at all. By the time we get many corridors outside of the NEC and the east that have 110 or 125 mph tracks, there should be plenty of bi-level corridor and LD cars around. Meanwhile the Superliner trains will run at 100 mph when they can.

As for the single level Silvers, imagine if you will, an all Viewliner consist. The full service diner and the café/diner-light cars will have the double row of windows providing an airy feel and good views. The LD coach cars will have the bigger lower windows and more overhead storage space (I expect the coach cars won't have the upper smaller windows). The sleeper cars will look the almost the same as the current Viewliners, but if the Amtrak claims are correct, should have a lot less rattle and squeaks. The train will have the baggage-dorm for the crew. Maybe you don't get the Superliner Lounge, but I think most would regard an all Viewliner LD train as an improvement. It will take a few years and for Amtrak to place an order for Viewliner LD coach and café cars, but I think that will happen.


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## Anderson (Feb 28, 2012)

afigg said:


> RCrierie said:
> 
> 
> > Traingeek said:
> ...


The big thing I'd like to see is a Viewliner lounge-cafe or something in that vein. Even if it's just reconfiguring some seats in the cafe for a SSL-style setup, it would be a nice variation on the lots-and-lots-of-tables approach in use now.


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## The Davy Crockett (Feb 28, 2012)

Anderson said:


> The big thing I'd like to see is a Viewliner lounge-cafe or something in that vein. Even if it's just reconfiguring some seats in the cafe for a SSL-style setup, it would be a nice variation on the lots-and-lots-of-tables approach in use now.



I agree. IMHO the thing that is lacking in the single level trains, compared to the trains that use the Superliners, is a good lounge car. When I travel coach on the single level trains I'll sit in the cafe car for a 'change of pace' from time to time, but when I have a room I usually just 'hole up' in it between meals.

Not that Amtrak has the resources to change things, but I'm thinking that the dome cars on the B&O's Capitol Ltd. were 'low profile' and would fit through the Bal'more tunnels. Wouldn't something like them be nice?


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## RCrierie (Feb 29, 2012)

> Oh, I can think of a single-level substitute I wouldn't mind having in place of an SSL. Put this puppy on the back of virtually any train and I'd be happy.


Won't work, I think. Loading gauge restrictions would prevent it from going into NYP, which is important for the Silvers.



> As for the single level Silvers, imagine if you will, an all Viewliner consist. The full service diner and the café/diner-light cars will have the double row of windows providing an airy feel and good views.


I don't want double rows of windows. That made sense in the late 1980s when the Viewliner I's were being designed, as Amtrak was short of money, and had a huge pile of ready-made and FRA-certified Amfleet windows that could support the Viewliner Fleet.

Now? We've advanced a lot in FRA-compliant glass, allowing larger windows while still meeting regulations. So why are we sticking with Amfleet double rows of windows in 2011?


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## The Davy Crockett (Feb 29, 2012)

RCrierie said:


> We've advanced a lot in FRA-compliant glass, allowing larger windows while still meeting regulations. So why are we sticking with Amfleet double rows of windows in 2011?


Time and Money - which are basically the same thing in this instance. Instead of reinventing the wheel, and designing a completely new car type, it is quicker and cheaper to use the Viewliner Is as a prototype for the new cars.


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## jis (Feb 29, 2012)

The Davy Crockett said:


> RCrierie said:
> 
> 
> > We've advanced a lot in FRA-compliant glass, allowing larger windows while still meeting regulations. So why are we sticking with Amfleet double rows of windows in 2011?
> ...


I don't understand the comment about Amfleet double rows of windows. Is it being suggested that Viewliners use Amfleet windows?


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## The Davy Crockett (Feb 29, 2012)

I took this to mean "Why is Amtrak building more Viewliners, and not building new cars using large windows of the type like VIA is retrofitting into (some of?) the Budd rebuilds?" But that was just my guess...


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## jis (Feb 29, 2012)

The Davy Crockett said:


> I took this to mean "Why is Amtrak building more Viewliners, and not building new cars using large windows of the type like VIA is retrofitting into (some of?) the Budd rebuilds?" But that was just my guess...


Ah! Well that would be yet another different body shell design and would have to be a brand new development. The currently available body shells (that are current in some sense of the word) for single level cars that fit the NEC loading gauge basically are the following:

(i) Viewliner as used and on order from Amtrak

(ii) Standard Single Level Specification

(iii) Bombardier MLV as used by NJT, AMT and MARC.

(iv) Bombardier M-x cars used by LIRR and MNRR.

(v) Acela cars - Tier II and much heavier - currently used, and more soon to be ordered.

(vi) TALGO, thought there is a platform height issue to be dealt with - currently neither used nor contemplated for NEC.

It is unlikely that investment will be made in yet another type at this point other than perhaps a Tier III car for next gen Acela, if and when that happens, for operation on dedicated very high speed line.


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## Montanan (Feb 29, 2012)

Well, the double windows are pretty much needed in sleeping cars, because that way there's a window for each bunk. If there were a single large window, the upper bunk's mattress would butt up against it.

And with that necessity, it makes economic sense to use the double-window design in other car types, too, rather than re-engineer the car exteriors for different car types.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 29, 2012)

Actually, the viewliner Is use, iirc, Superliner and AmFleet 1 windows, which has par cOmanality advantages. Also, I believe the VLII uses larger primary window glass.


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## George Harris (Feb 29, 2012)

Texas Sunset said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> > cirdan said:
> ...


You are welcome to your opinion, adn you are equally if not more so welcome to keep it to yourself. As a fairly regular user of the California service, I would say it is one of the better things this state does. The trains and the stations are all quite nice, usually reliable, and the station and train people generally acting like they want to be helpful. As to teh "Lukewarm leadership" when it comes to Gene Skoropowski and the Capitol services, that is libelious. Few if anybody could have managed to get the sort of cooperation out of Southern Pacific and Union Paciifc that he managed.


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## PRR 60 (Feb 29, 2012)

George Harris said:


> Texas Sunset said:
> 
> 
> > George Harris said:
> ...


In fairness to *Texas Sunset*, I believe the "lukewarm leadership" comment was aimed at Amtrak corporate leadership, not Amtrak California or Capitol Corridor leadership. To that end, I agree with him. Amtrak has been led by a series of political hacks from both sides of the aisle, and the operation shows the results. The leadership by those in charge of the California operations, and what they have been able to do dealing directly with the UP and BNSF, shows that there are ways to get things done: Gene Skoropowski being a perfect example.


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## George Harris (Feb 29, 2012)

PRR 60 said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> > Texas Sunset said:
> ...


For Amtrak, absolutely true, with one exception. However, I stated that I was specifically talking about the California trains. Probably should calm it down a little, but this one I will leave alone.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 29, 2012)

George Harris said:


> For Amtrak, absolutely true, with one exception. However, I stated that I was specifically talking about the California trains. Probably should calm it down a little, but this one I will leave alone.


As already alluded to, I was indeed referring to the national Amtrak services outside of the commuter corridors. I have few if any qualms about California's position on passenger rail and my experiences there have been surprisingly good. In many respects the California experience is night and day compared to the Texas experience, but I believe that in most respects California is the exception while Texas is closer to the rule.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 29, 2012)

Does anybody care for a revived Lone Star and/or National Limited?


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## AlanB (Feb 29, 2012)

George Harris said:


> As to teh "Lukewarm leadership" when it comes to Gene Skoropowski and the Capitol services, that is libelious. Few if anybody could have managed to get the sort of cooperation out of Southern Pacific and Union Paciifc that he managed.


What Gene managed to pull off in California with the Capitol Corridor is nothing short of miraculous IMHO. While I begrudge him nothing and certainly wish him all the best in his future, it was a very sad day when he announced his retirement. And I for one could not think of a better man to lead Amtrak in DC than Gene. Not sure he wants the job; but he'd get my vote!


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## Anderson (Mar 1, 2012)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Does anybody care for a revived Lone Star and/or National Limited?


The former may come in a form if KS and OK go in for the super-extended Heartland Flyer, either in the form of a split in the Chief or a separate train with the same routing CHI-KCY. I'm not sure that there's a compelling desire to terminate the train at KCY regardless of what time it would pass through, and _not_ connecting at CHI would lose a lot of potential connecting business if they can't work out a good timing to connect with, at the very least, one of the Missouri River Runners or the Chief itself...while without a connection, you'd need to work out a plan to get those cars to CHI for servicing (maybe cycling coaches through Fort Worth to "ride" on the Eagle?).

The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present...and while Indiana isn't actively anti-rail, the best that can be said is that they're "non-obstructionist" (i.e. they were willing to submit an application for cleaning up the crossovers in the northern part of the state, but made it clear that they were doing this in cooperation with IL and MI and were not willing to pay for it themselves).


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## jis (Mar 1, 2012)

George Harris said:


> cirdan said:
> 
> 
> > Texas Sunset said:
> ...


Of the four major California corridors, two are BNSF (LAX - San Diego and OKJ - Bakersfield , well actually Martinez Bakersfield part of it) and two UP (LAX - San Louis Obispo and San Jose - Sacramento/Roseville)

George is exactly right. Just sitting around name calling on the guy who owns the property that you want access to seldom works. One has to sit down and negotiate. Figure out what is win - win for both and see what costs can be traded based on that. The restoration of the causeway outside Sacramento to double track is a clear example of such that was worked out with UP and resulted in a solution giving a better railroad for both UP and Amtrak California to use for decades to come.

Some other examples.... Virignia has worked out similar deals with the other railfan boogieman CSX on the RF&P corridor leading to triple tracking and other improvements that work positively for CSX and VRE and Amtrak. CSX has just signed off on a long term lease arrangement handing over the Poughkeepsie - Schnectady (Hoffmans) segmet of its water level route to NY State and Amtrak transferring maintenance and dispatching to Amtrak, just keeping trackage rights. UP is working with IDOT for upgrading the Chicago - St. Louis Corridor to 110mph.

When there is will, leadership and political support, things can be made to happen.

The problem with Sunset Limited is that there is close to zero local political support, specially in Arizona, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana to do anything about it, and given that it is understandable why Amtrak management does not want to stick its head out - though as I have stated before I hate that attitude on part of Amtrak management, but I can appreciate where they are coming from. With a little bit of push from a certain Texas Senator, the Texas Eagle managed to run 4 times a week to LAX for a period. If the current Texas political leadership steps upto the plate, such can happen again, or more. But Amtrak on its own is hardly likely to be able to pull it off. As it is, it is hard enough to operate LD trains in places where most of the political position locally is on how to go about de-funding Amtrak.


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## afigg (Mar 1, 2012)

jis said:


> Some other examples.... Virignia has worked out similar deals with the other railfan boogieman CSX on the RF&P corridor leading to triple tracking and other improvements that work positively for CSX and VRE and Amtrak. CSX has just signed off on a long term lease arrangement handing over the Poughkeepsie - Schnectady (Hoffmans) segmet of its water level route to NY State and Amtrak transferring maintenance and dispatching to Amtrak, just keeping trackage rights. UP is working with IDOT for upgrading the Chicago - St. Louis Corridor to 110mph.
> 
> When there is will, leadership and political support, things can be made to happen.
> 
> The problem with Sunset Limited is that there is close to zero local political support, specially in Arizona, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana to do anything about it, and given that it is understandable why Amtrak management does not want to stick its head out - though as I have stated before I hate that attitude on part of Amtrak management, but I can appreciate where they are coming from. With a little bit of push from a certain Texas Senator, the Texas Eagle managed to run 4 times a week to LAX for a period. If the current Texas political leadership steps upto the plate, such can happen again, or more. But Amtrak on its own is hardly likely to be able to pull it off. As it is, it is hard enough to operate LD trains in places where most of the political position locally is on how to go about de-funding Amtrak.


There is a big difference between the state corridors and the Sunset Limited. The corridor and commuter trains cover distances of up to a few hundred miles for multiple daily frequency trains and have both sustained and adequate funding to pay for track and capacity improvements. It is far easier to fund upgrades for a multiple daily frequency corridor trains for a route of several hundred miles. Paying for track improvements over a route of thousands of miles for a three day a week train, or preferably a daily train, can take a lot of money that Amtrak is not getting via the federal funding. Nothing like money to make for-profit companies and people cooperate.

The weakness of the SL is that only a small portion of its route is over tracks shared with corridor trains in CA. If there were daytime corridor services from LA to Phoenix-Tucson and San Antonio to Houston(-Beaumont), the SL would be a daily train with higher ridership numbers and lower overhead costs. If there was corridor service from Jacksonville to Tallahassee and Pensacola, the eastern SL would likely still be running. All of the other LD trains have better anchor corridors/cities in the NEC, Chicago, Empire State, Seattle/Portland Cascades, CA. With SunRail and if FL can start a corridor service over the FEC, the Silvers will have a stronger anchor at their southern end.


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## jis (Mar 1, 2012)

And the reason that there are no convenient corridor services to link together to help out the Sunset is again local politics. So whichever way you cut it, unless there is local political support it is very hard to provide an acceptable level of service.


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## cirdan (Mar 1, 2012)

jis said:


> And the reason that there are no convenient corridor services to link together to help out the Sunset is again local politics. So whichever way you cut it, unless there is local political support it is very hard to provide an acceptable level of service.


being the devil's advocate here (and I can assure you that I don't want to see any further routes being abandoned), but seeing the SL is the worst performing LD train financially, and any improvement would be unrealistically expensive, would a withdrawal from this service (at least West of San Antonio) not maybe be the lesser of evils in the circumstances? And the money saved and equipment released maybe be rededicated to something like the Kansas City extension of the Heartland Flyer and so to serve places that actually want a train service and where growth is possible.


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## jis (Mar 1, 2012)

Amtrak LD service lives in a fine state of balance in the hysterisis point between expansion and discontinuance. Even in the places where there is least political support, in the net there is not enough political support to either expand or discontinue. So they just live on. Sunset is no exception.

Where you get expansion is when this balance tilts ever so slightly in the expansion direction in the local politics. And you see explosive growth if it tilts a little bit more. Somehow the tilt towards discontinuance is always triggered either by a federal government act or by some Amtrak management idiocy, and not local politics.


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## Devil's Advocate (Mar 1, 2012)

jis said:


> And the reason that there are no convenient corridor services to link together to help out the Sunset is again local politics. So whichever way you cut it, unless there is local political support it is very hard to provide an acceptable level of service.


And therein lies the problem. We have ceased to be a country of factions united toward a common goal and are instead moving more and more toward a country of extremely divided partisans. The very idea of working together and spending our wealth on a common benefit has become anathema to us. I don't hold Amtrak at fault for that. I hold the top 1% who benefit from our divisions and our disenfranchisement at fault for that.


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## jis (Mar 1, 2012)

afigg said:


> There is a big difference between the state corridors and the Sunset Limited. The corridor and commuter trains cover distances of up to a few hundred miles for multiple daily frequency trains and have both sustained and adequate funding to pay for track and capacity improvements. It is far easier to fund upgrades for a multiple daily frequency corridor trains for a route of several hundred miles. Paying for track improvements over a route of thousands of miles for a three day a week train, or preferably a daily train, can take a lot of money that Amtrak is not getting via the federal funding. Nothing like money to make for-profit companies and people cooperate.


More similar is the case of Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle. If anything Texas Eagle was the one that was the step-child. It was on the verge of extinction when the grassroots movement to save it got the attention of Senator Hutchinson, who stepped upto the plate and played a key role in saving and enhancing it to become a daily train to SAS and for a period 4 times a week to LAX.

The Sunset Limited has never been bestowed with such local support, and consequent support from the halls of power. The politics of South Texas is different from that of Dallas and north I suppose, but very minor differences in attitude can get magnified in such situations. And I bet in Louisiana Mr. Jindal probably has illusions that Sunset Limited may be the name of a drink or something. 

Given that history, it is not surprising at all that Amtrak was busy dreaming up schemes of making the Texas Eagle a daily train to LAX, and replacing the eastern portion of the Sunset with a daytime shuttle service.

To paraphrase a past Majority Leader of the House..... at the end of the day all politics is local. And Amtrak service is as much an outcome of politics as anything else.


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## Bob Dylan (Mar 1, 2012)

Just for Discussion's Sake, let's say that the Sunset Ltd. was eliminated totally (not beyone the relm of possibility)and that the Heartland Flyer was Extended to KCY! That would Free up Superliner equipment for the other Superliner Trains (CL/EB/CZ/SWC)The Texas Eagle could continue to run Daily from CHI-SAS as it Presently does (with increasing ridership)and the CONO could then be extended to Florida Via NOL once a deal was worked out with UP! Of course there's all kinds of "Details" such as Depot Rehab/ADA etc. etc. but this Plan would do away with the Biggest LD Money Pit that Amtrak runs (the Sunset)and provide service from CHI to Florida, and Connections in Kansas for the West Coast on the SWC, and if a deal is ever reached with Host Railroads, even connections in Denver with the CZ!!!(This eliminates the trip to CHI to get to the West Coast for those of us down this way!) Too bad for Houston (sorry Henry!  )but the Ridership between SAS and NOL is very Low and there is plenty of Alternate Transportation to NOL and other Points from Houston! (puts them in the same Boat with Phoenix and Las Vegas!!!)


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## RCrierie (Mar 1, 2012)

jis said:


> I don't understand the comment about Amfleet double rows of windows. Is it being suggested that Viewliners use Amfleet windows?


The Viewliner I's do. They use Amfleet I windows for the topmost, and Amfleet II for bottommost IIRC. This was cheap since Amtrak had huge piles of them. Now? It makes no sense; why should we constrain ourselves to window sizes decided in the early and then late 1970s?

Remember, one of the reasons Amfleet I windows are so small is because of safety -- back then people liked to throw rocks at trains, and designing glass to resist that was hard to do back in the 1970s. Now, we have a lot better options materials science wise to make windows bigger with the impact resistance required, yet lightweight-ish.

Also, isn't one of Amtrak's selling points: "See America from ground level"? It would be easier to do that if more emphasis was placed on window size.


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## afigg (Mar 1, 2012)

RCrierie said:


> The Viewliner I's do. They use Amfleet I windows for the topmost, and Amfleet II for bottommost IIRC. This was cheap since Amtrak had huge piles of them. Now? It makes no sense; why should we constrain ourselves to window sizes decided in the early and then late 1970s?
> 
> Remember, one of the reasons Amfleet I windows are so small is because of safety -- back then people liked to throw rocks at trains, and designing glass to resist that was hard to do back in the 1970s. Now, we have a lot better options materials science wise to make windows bigger with the impact resistance required, yet lightweight-ish.


I would expect the CAF Viewliners to have window sizes at least as big as the Acelas. These are new production cars and they would have to be compliant with the more recent FRA requirements for minimum window size for emergency access. Big enough to get a stretcher through, that sort of thing. Go to the photos of the Viewliner production plant in Elmira in the local newspaper article that was posted and discussed here in late January.

Look at photos 17 and 18 to estimate how big the windows are.


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## eagle628 (Mar 1, 2012)

Anderson said:


> The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present


Wasn't that an idea proposed and dismissed in the Cardinal PIP? Or am I making it up?


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## Anderson (Mar 1, 2012)

eagle628 said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present
> ...


Not precisely. The Cardinal PIP assumed simply moving the terminus from CHI to STL (thereby breaking all of the CHI connections) and rejected _that_ (and I'll grant them the point: Regardless of whether they ran it to STL or KCY, those markets alone won't cut the mustard because of the loss of Chicago Hub markets plus the Builder, Zephyr, and probably the CONO and Chief as well), but left a clear opening to running a section to STL while running the bulk of the train to CHI in the vein of the BOS section on the LSL.

I'm honestly not sure if STL alone would _quite_ cut it as a market (it's possible, particularly if you start seeing a secondary hub emerge there with trains to Springfield, Jefferson City, and so forth such as has been mooted), but it might. STL+KCY would probably be sufficient to run at least a sleeper, cafe/lounge, and two coaches through.

Of course, let's not look at this in a vacuum: If the Heartland Flyer were extended up to KCY in some form, you'd allow a _lot_ of two-seat rides with the sole change at KCY (helping out a lot of intermediate destinations such as Baltimore as well). Now, could you get the Cardinal into KCY in time to link up with the Chief? Good question, and I don't have an answer.


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## jis (Mar 1, 2012)

RCrierie said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > I don't understand the comment about Amfleet double rows of windows. Is it being suggested that Viewliners use Amfleet windows?
> ...


Not that I I doubt your recollection, but could you please see if you can some citation validating this recollection? Thanks.


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## jis (Mar 1, 2012)

Anderson said:


> The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present...


What wrong with the track conditions between Indy and St. Louis? AFAIK If anything the problem will be freight volume that one would have to contend with.


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## Gfoley4 (Mar 1, 2012)

jis said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present...
> ...


The Indy-st Louis line would be the csx St Louis Line Subdivision, which seems to be in pretty good condition. No clue on freight traffic. Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Line_Subdivision


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## Anderson (Mar 2, 2012)

jis said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > The latter would probably simply run as a St. Louis (and/or Kansas City) set off of the Cardinal. I think that's in the list of long-term possibilities, but track condition on the old Indianapolis-St. Louis line probably preclude such an operation at the present...
> ...


Ok, I'll take the point; I was under the impression that there were speed limit issues, but this may be a false impression that dates from the umpteen Cardinal reroutes over the years due to deteriorating track conditions. I think I may have also been told this on some previous occasion when discussing IND-STL stuff before (but I've had so may conversations on here...)


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## RCrierie (Mar 2, 2012)

jis said:


> Not that I I doubt your recollection, but could you please see if you can some citation validating this recollection? Thanks.


Model Railroader, January 1997 indirectly references this -- it points out that the VL I Sleepers use Amfleet I and II glass; so it simplifies the difficulty of scratchbuilding a VL sleeper -- that issue also has some nice drawings of the inside and outside of the VL I sleepers.


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## jis (Mar 2, 2012)

RCrierie said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > Not that I I doubt your recollection, but could you please see if you can some citation validating this recollection? Thanks.
> ...


Thank you very much for taking the trouble to look it up for me.


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## Green Maned Lion (Mar 2, 2012)

It ain't an AmFleet II window. I was just eating a lunch on the card 10 min ago, and am now looking at my sleeper window. It's larger.


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## jis (Mar 2, 2012)

Green Maned Lion said:


> It ain't an AmFleet II window. I was just eating a lunch on the card 10 min ago, and am now looking at my sleeper window. It's larger.


Thanks GML. That's what I thought, but I can't find any documentation of it. Of course nothing better than one's own measuring tape and a short mileage run or two on an LD train by Sleeper, which is what I was thinking of doing to verify or refute. A Sunday trip Charlottseville by the Cardinal comes to mind  or a quick run down to Richmond or Petersburg by the Meteor returning by the Carolinian or the Palmetto.


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## PRR 60 (Mar 2, 2012)

jis said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > It ain't an AmFleet II window. I was just eating a lunch on the card 10 min ago, and am now looking at my sleeper window. It's larger.
> ...


Or, you could save a buck or two and run over to NWK and scope things out during station dwell.

If you do a photo search at railpictures.net for recent shots of the Cardinal, several photos show that the Viewliner windows are bit larger than the following Amfleet II windows in the vertical dimension.

Here's one example: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=375988


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## jis (Mar 2, 2012)

Darn! There goes my excuse for an enjoyable points run


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