# News on daily Sunset (incl older east of NOL discussion)



## Aaron (Jun 9, 2015)

Of course this starts out as "I heard from someone who heard from someone that...", so don't get too excited just yet. However, Jim Loomis writes on his blog that he had a conversation with an Amtrak higher up regarding the Sunset Limited. Among other things, the Amtrak dude said the SL East study was "serious" (whatever that means). The bigger news is that the Amtrak person said the Sunset would go daily at the end of next year.

This is only slightly different from the usual "I heard from someone on the train who said..." stories. But Jim Loomis as a long time train writer and NARP board member should be at least slightly more reliable than the average internet poster. There's no telling about the reliability of his source, though, and whether that person is truly in the know or only repeating what they've heard idly discussed.

I think the Sunset going daily eventually is a foregone conclusion (unless it gets cut entirely), but I'm excited to see that it might happen relatively soon. I think it's very possible that this might be coming at least within the next few years based on what we know, or at least think we know.

Here's what we "know":


Amtrak and UP negotiated for a daily Sunset before, and supposedly had a intention to go daily in 2010, but one of the parties (reported to be Amtrak) somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by screwing up an almost done deal at the last minute.
UP asked for a ton of money (reported to be $750 million) for improvements to be able to accommodate a daily Sunset. This is widely reported to have been exaggerated high as UP's way of shutting down those previous negotiations after they fell apart.
UP was so peeved by Amtrak in those last negotiations that when they last changed the scheduling of the Sunset in 2012, they made Amtrak promise to _not even ask_ about a daily Sunset for two years as a condition of making that schedule change.
UP has in the last few years almost finished double-tracking the Sunset route between Los Angeles and El Paso with their own money, greatly adding to the capacity of this line.
A daily Sunset would initially increase the financial loss of this train in absolute total dollar amounts, but would likely decrease the loss per passenger mile. With time and more ridership increase, it's probable that the total loss could be a net decrease as well.
Amtrak's rolling stock is pretty much all in use, with not a lot of extra equipment anywhere.
Amtrak is continually under attack from some of the purse-string-holders in Congress, some of whom have targeted the Sunset specifically.
So, adding up all this "facts", I don't know if that means we're more or less likely to have a daily Sunset now, but I think the obstacles are more easily overcome. First, with regards to UP capacity, UP can't justify such a high cost for capacity improvement when the line's double-tracked now. Second, it's been five years since the last round, so there's a new set of people at the bargaining table, and UP has a new CEO. If the last round was a disastrous as believed, then they've got no where to go but up.

With regards to equipment, the PIP plan to consolidate the Sunset and the Texas Eagle into a daily Chicago-LA "Texas Sunset Eagle LImited" actually used fewer cars overall than what they were using at the time, although I don't know how it compares to utilization on the current schedule.

With regards to Congress, an almost assure guarantee in increase of the subsidy is tough to sell, and you have to rely on them seeing the business case for daily service and the eventual increase in revenue. That's hard. That's where I think the plan of combining the Sunset and the Eagle works, because they can give the train a new name and tell the congress-critters "Look, we're getting rid of those old money losers the Sunset Limited and the Texas Eagle. Of course, we'll provide some replacement service for some of those affected with this replacement train, the _Desert Prairie Frontier Scirocco"_ (or whatever). I'm not quite naïve enough to assume Congress would fall for that, but I wonder sometimes...


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 9, 2015)

For me the problem with the Sunset Limited goes much deeper than lack of daily service. The 2:45AM Westbound departure and 4:50AM Eastbound arrival are impractical for me. Same thing for the 4:30AM arrivals into LAX and loss of connecting service into Phoenix. I used to ride the SL several times each year but the last schedule change put an end to that. Supposedly the ridership was going to substantially improve after the last schedule change. Did that ever actually happen?

In any case we can assume that UP will be charging _something_ for any future schedule changes. Whether it's a hundred million or half a billion we know it's not going to be free. We also know that UP is in no way obligated to allow any changes at all. So far as I can tell UP holds all the cards here and unless Amtrak is willing and able to spend an obscene amount of money UP has rather little incentive to cooperate.

We also know that UP has bankrolled multiple anti-Amtrak politicians and may feel that it's far more useful to simply ignore whatever Amtrak may offer for a schedule change today in order to maintain the detrimental status quo while focusing on funding and promoting a more hostile political environment moving forward.

If UP plays their cards right they may eventually be able to rid themselves of Amtrak's interference altogether. Even with an extremely pro-Amtrak Executive Branch Amtrak continues to struggle to maintain what's left, let alone expand beyond it. If the next president brings a staunchly anti-Amtrak agenda with them we could end up with substantial changes in the near future.

That's my take on it anyway.


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 9, 2015)

In other news from "The Onion", the Republicans in Congreas passed a Resolution calling President Obama the Best President since FDR, the Yankees extended A- Roids Contract 10 years for $300 Million and Amtrak announced the resumption of service for Long Distance Trains the Broadway Limited, the Desert Wind, the Pioneer and the Olympia Hiawatha.

April Fool in June!!!


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## cirdan (Jun 9, 2015)

I don't know if the UPRR CEO even gets involved in this sort of decision. I would guess its handled lower down. After all, its just one train and thus a blip on the bigger picture of UP's operations control or balance sheet.

I wouldn't be surprised if some closed door negotiations are leading to deals which are not fully explained to the public. Maybe Amtrak could get a daily service in return for doing UPRR some other favor. maybe something on the Illinois Corridor (where UPRR are basically getting their line upgraded on Amtrak's dollar) or maybe cutting UPRR some slack on punctuality statistics.

In my view, a bigger barrier to a daily service in the timeframe you suggest is that Amtrak simly doesn't have the spare equipment any more and can't get it in the timeframe required. I don't know how many wrecked cars are sitting around in Beech Grove that could be returned to service, maybe with further TIGER money, but in the timeframe required, I don't see it happening.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Jun 9, 2015)

Pretty sure the plan was to use one less trainset with the current timetable, however the turn around was too tight. So a daily Sunset and daily Texas Eagle has the equipment assigned. It just moves more often.

Does need a fact check, and some boots on the ground to train spot. So the equipment issue maybe not be a issue for this route.


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## Aaron (Jun 9, 2015)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Supposedly the ridership was going to substantially improve after the last schedule change. Did that ever actually happen?


On the surface it appears so. For fiscal year 2013 (the first complete fiscal year under the new schedule), the ridership on the SL increased 1.7% compared to .4% for the long distance trains as a whole. Revenue was up 6% compared to 1.9% for the LD trains as a whole (probably due to more sleepers being sold since the overnight segments were moved to be between bigger population centers?)

For FY14, ridership was up 2.1% and revenue was up 2.6% compared to ridership decrease of -4.5% and revenue decrease of -2.9% for the LD trains as a whole.

Now, if you look at the five years before the schedule change, the Sunset was on a steep upward trajectory anyway. In fact, the _Sunset Limited_ as a whole is the most improved LD train in the system in terms of ridership numbers for the period 2007-2013. The _Sunset_ went from 62,200 riders in 2007 to 100,761 in 2013, an increase of 62%. The _Texas Eagle_ had a similar increase of 55.3% That compares to a 24.5% increase for the LD trains as a whole for that time period. You could easily argue that that's just the rebound mode for the Sunset, and it's just ridership returning after the giant meltdown in timekeeping earlier that decade.

That may be. But, if you really dig into the statistics of the ridership before and after the schedule change, there's a definite move in ridership away from the places with terrible scheduling (like San Antonio which has a slight net decrease in passengers boarding from that station) towards the places with better scheduling (like Tucson which has a modest net increase in passengers). Those changes are much more dramatic at unstaffed stations, by the way. So, the schedule change is most definitely having an effect on who is riding and where they're boarding or departing. It's just somewhat debatable whether there's an effect on ridership and whether that effect is equal to or greater than what ridership gains would have happened anyway had the schedule been left alone.


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## DryCreek (Jun 9, 2015)

I would love to see the SL extended east beyond NOLA. That would open up some of the other really neat Gulf destinations!

But, I realize that it is an uphill battle to add service these days.

If I was retired, it sure would be great to take two weeks to ride the train to WDW and back, while still spending my usual seven days "in the world".


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## neroden (Jun 10, 2015)

Devil's Advocate said:


> We also know that UP is in no way obligated to allow any changes at all.


We actually don't know that. Last I checked the STB can actually force a railroad to host a service.


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## neroden (Jun 10, 2015)

cirdan said:


> In my view, a bigger barrier to a daily service in the timeframe you suggest is that Amtrak simly doesn't have the spare equipment any more and can't get it in the timeframe required.


New bilevels arrive in 2016 for the Midwest and Califonia which should free up a bunch of Superliner coaches and probably a few cafes. "End of next year" may be a very deliberate timing choice. All the Sunset/Eagle proposals I've read have New Orleans-San Antonio as all-coach, which cuts the sleeper/diner usage.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 10, 2015)

neroden said:


> Devil's Advocate said:
> 
> 
> > We also know that UP is in no way obligated to allow any changes at all.
> ...


Fair enough. Common carrier status does come with some theoretical obligations. I probably should have said that I cannot envision a situation whereby Union Pacific is forced to provide Amtrak with daily scheduling for the Sunset Limited at a price substantially below astronomical.


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## jis (Jun 10, 2015)

neroden said:


> Devil's Advocate said:
> 
> 
> > We also know that UP is in no way obligated to allow any changes at all.
> ...


Wake me up when STB actually decides to do so.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 10, 2015)

neroden said:


> cirdan said:
> 
> 
> > ... a bigger barrier ... Amtrak simply doesn't have the spare equipment any more and can't get it in the timeframe required.
> ...


Would there be thru coaches with switching around the cars in San Antonio? Or would all the passengers get off, cross the platform, and get on the train going toward L.A.? Or a mix?

In any case, I guess, this New Orleans-San Antonio shuttle could be a good place to use a handful of Horizon cars when they cascade off the Midwestern corridors and then get a rehab/upgrade for LD service. No winter weather problems on this stretch of track. LOL. So if they won't use bi-level sleepers here, Amtrak could have enuff cars by the end of 2016.

--------------------

btw If I'm on a sleeper coming down on the Crescent, and in New Orleans I have to transfer to a coach-class only shuttle train, then in San Antonio I need to get a new sleeper compartment on a different train, well, I'm gonna be a rare such bird!


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## JoeBas (Jun 10, 2015)

WoodyinNYC said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > cirdan said:
> ...


Exactly. Looks like I'll be driving to San Antone or New Orleans from Houston going forward if this develops. :unsure:


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## Paulus (Jun 10, 2015)

Ugh. I'd rather have multiple daily LA-Indio. A daily Sunset is just going to increase losses even more without providing a substantially better train service.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 10, 2015)

Paulus said:


> Ugh. I'd rather have multiple daily LA-Indio. A daily Sunset is just going to increase losses even more without providing a substantially better train service.


Did you read about how the losses on Via's Ocean actually INCREASED when they dropped from 6 days a week to 3 days a week? Sure, their costs dropped, but their revenue dropped more. Do you have some substantiation on your point that losses would increase?


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 10, 2015)

Paulus said:


> Ugh. I'd rather have multiple daily LA-Indio. A daily Sunset is just going to increase losses even more without providing a substantially better train service.


Not exactly. The PRIAA study of the _Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle _estimated more than 100,000 additional passengers a year.

Equipment and crew can be used much more effectively. Currently, the crews from L.A. get hotel rooms and "held away pay". They can't go to work on the next day when there's no train the next day.

Consider the straightforward advertising and marketing improvements. If you get assigned to promote the _Sunset_, just shoot yourself. Nobody can sell seats on a train that runs Tues-Thurs-Sat, or is that Tues-Thurs-Sun, oh wait, is that the other direction?

Bus and limo services that work the Phoenix Airport-hotels runs said they would schedule trips to the train out at Maricopa -- if it were daily. But three days a week, what are they supposed to do with their drivers and empty vehicles on the other four days?

With daily service, we'd see loss per passenger, loss after avoidable costs, and similar metrics improve very nicely, bringing the _Sunset's _performance more in line with the other transcontinentals.

Total losses, however, could increase. Here's the sample math: A train currently runs three days a week, and loses $100 a day for every run. Total weekly loss, 3 x $100 = $300. The train's schedule is changed to daily, and loss per day is cut in half! So it loses only $50 a day. Total weekly loss, 7 x $50 = $350.

The 2010 PRIIA study foresaw a need for roughly $3 million a year to support the daily service. (Losses on the _Sunset/Capitol_ of about $4.5 million were to be offset by $1.5 million improvement on the _Coast Starlight, _due to 15,000 more riders making connections that have been made in part during the interim.)

Ridership should be better than when the PRIIA estimates were made, because of rapid population growth in cities on (or very near) the _Sunset/Eagle's _route: Dallas, Ft Worth, Austin, (Houston), San Antonio, El Paso, Tucson, (greater Phoenix), L.A.

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/970/304/PRIIA-210-SunsetLtd-TexasEagle-PIP,0.pdf

---------------------------

Like you, I'd be happy to see several trains a day down the Coachella Valley. But that would be a state project. Amtrak could do nothing about it yea or nay, so the proposals do not compete.


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## neroden (Jun 11, 2015)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Fair enough. Common carrier status does come with some theoretical obligations. I probably should have said that I cannot envision a situation whereby Union Pacific is forced to provide Amtrak with daily scheduling for the Sunset Limited at a price substantially below astronomical.


Fair enough.  The last time Amtrak really strong-armed a carrier was Vermont and the B&M.



WoodyinNYC said:


> btw If I'm on a sleeper coming down on the Crescent, and in New Orleans I have to transfer to a coach-class only shuttle train, then in San Antonio I need to get a new sleeper compartment on a different train, well, I'm gonna be a rare such bird!


So, look at it this way. What Amtrak loses is:

-- people who won't change trains in San Antonio

-- people who would ride sleeper, but not coach, from San Antonio to Houston/New Orleans

What Amtrak gains is:

-- people who need to ride on the other four days of the week when the current train doesn't run

The latter outweighs the former by a *lot*. The presence of *daily* service from New Orleans to Houston to San Antonio is going to attract a lot of people who wouldn't be attracted by the existing service under any circumstances. You would expect ridership to increase by roughly 133% (multiply by a factor or 2.33).

Suppose Amtrak loses all the sleeper passengers from Houston; this is 3770 per year. Now suppose that overall coach ridership from Houston increases by 133%; this is 22966 per year. Similar numbers apply at New Orleans and the other Louisiana stations.

Yes, the sleeper passengers pay a lot more, but

(a) Amtrak probably won't lose all of them; some will be willing to take coach to San Antonio and change trains.

(b) The increased sleeper ridership from daily sleeper service west of San Antonio will probably more than make up for the loss in Houston/Louisiana sleeper service.



Paulus said:


> A daily Sunset is just going to increase losses even more without providing a substantially better train service.


Well, last time I ran the spreadsheet estimating this, using the very rough rule of thumb of 7/3 times the revenues and 1.5 times the costs (this is how many more trainsets would need to operate), I found that a daily Sunset would DECREASE direct losses by about $2.3 million/year. That's $2.3 million in the *black*, a "daily service bonus" if you will.

It might be worse than that due to the loss of sleeper revenue on part of the route or due to increased wear-and-tear; but it might be better than that due to eliminating "held away pay" and other economies of scale, or due to network effects from more passengers making connections. Basically, however, it still looks to me like a break-even or positive change. It would certainly spread the same fixed overhead around more services.

And a daily service is *substantially* better than a three-a-week service. Ask me why I've never taken the Cardinal, despite (a) not flying, (b) trying to go to a convention in Indianapolis which is physically attached to the train station, and © having business in New York shortly before. The answer is that the Cardinal runs on the *wrong days of the week*. Sub-daily service is *terrible*. Daily service is minimal.

FWIW my estimates give a "daily service bonus" of about $6.3 million / year to the Cardinal, substantially better than for the Sunset, and enough to bring it into profit on a direct-costs basis.


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## neroden (Jun 11, 2015)

WoodyinNYC said:


> Bus and limo services that work the Phoenix Airport-hotels runs said they would schedule trips to the train out at Maricopa -- if it were daily. But three days a week, what are they supposed to do with their drivers and empty vehicles on the other four days?


This is a point I hadn't thought about which would make a big difference.


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## cirdan (Jun 11, 2015)

Allow me to play the devil's advocate on this one.

How about:

- Extend the Texas Eagle to Los Angeles on a 7/7 basis.

- Drop the Sunset as a contiguous train.

- Extend the Crescent from New Orleans onward to Houston and from there either to San Antonio or to Dallas.

Advantages

- No loss of sleepers between Texas and New Orleans.

- More passengers between Gulf Coast and NEC than Texas and California (how many Californians vacation in Texas or vice versa?, versus how many NECians vacation on Gulf Coast)


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## neroden (Jun 11, 2015)

cirdan said:


> Allow me to play the devil's advocate on this one.
> 
> How about:
> 
> ...


I love it, but

Disadvantages:

- You need two more trainsets for the Crescent. That's 2 diners, 2 baggage cars, and 4 sleepers -- which you would need to add to the Viewliner order. And 2 lounges -- which Amtrak can probably scrounge up. It's also 8 single-level long-distance coaches. Which are getting to be in very short supply. It would require ordering a bunch of single-level cars, in any case. Expensive!

- The Crescent increases its number of host railroads. Currently it's Amtrak / CSX over Long Bridge / NS / Amtrak. It would add the whole crazy mess getting out of New Orleans (Amtrak / KCS / NOPB / BNSF), plus BNSF and UP. This could cause delays, and that's an understatement.


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## Seaboard92 (Jun 11, 2015)

What I could see happening is this. The Texas Eagle goes CHI-LAX daily. Then a daily daytime coach train maybe with business class between SAS and NOL. But one or both states would have to cover the cost. Without that. It would probably have to be extended to somewhere in Florida. Of which case in thinking Horizon cars and new Viewliners


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## xyzzy (Jun 11, 2015)

cirdan said:


> - Extend the Crescent from New Orleans onward to Houston and from there either to San Antonio or to Dallas.


The longer a train's route gets, the more likely it will not be on-time because something will go wrong somewhere. Timekeeping on the Crescent is so-so already.


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## SanAntonioClyde (Jun 11, 2015)

Several years ago Amtrak had a proposal to run LAX to SAS, then split the train into two separate ones. One continuing on to NOL, the other assuming the Texas Eagle route. Through passengers had no need to change cars or wake up. If same schedule kept, would allow me to catch Astros afternoon games, arrive around 11am, game at 1, depart at 6:30 ish.


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## Anderson (Jun 11, 2015)

There have been plenty of proposals kicked about here. Honestly, if they could gear a NOL-SAS train as a daily day train it would probably pick up a lot of casual ridership (look at the Silvers within Florida) since NOL-HOS, NOL-SAS, and HOS-SAS are all city pairs that have room to grow (all three are good-sized cities and Amtrak is better than the dog if you don't want to drive and can't fly or vice-versa).

Further west...well, things are always going to be a bit touchy between SAS/ELP and Tucson. Tucson/Maricopa offers a lot of traffic to/from LAX (especially if they can get a good Thruway option there) with daily service; with decent OTP, this actually has some very good potential.

As to the Sunset East...Amtrak may be serious there, but they don't have the equipment for it as a bilevel train. If they can pull off another Viewliner order (one can pray that the next order won't get bogged down with change orders and the like) running that train as a single-level set would probably be a winner, especially since it ought to connect with the Silvers at JAX no matter where it actually terminates. Failing that, it'll need a Superliner III order and a more favorable Congress.


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## Paulus (Jun 12, 2015)

zephyr17 said:


> Paulus said:
> 
> 
> > Ugh. I'd rather have multiple daily LA-Indio. A daily Sunset is just going to increase losses even more without providing a substantially better train service.
> ...


Revenue per train mile is far below the marginal cost per train mile and even gains from running daily won't bring it up over that threshold.


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## neroden (Jun 12, 2015)

Paulus said:


> Revenue per train mile is far below the marginal cost per train mile and even gains from running daily won't bring it up over that threshold.


That doesn't make any sense. GIGO calculation?

The best model I've seen for this is to multiply the direct costs by 1.5 (for the increased number of trainsets to staff, since most costs are labor, and fuel is roughly similar) and multiply the revenue by 7/3. (Which seems to be a fair estimate based on past experience, though it could be better than that.) If you do this, the Sunset Limited still loses money, but it loses *less* money overall than it did when running 3 a week. The difference between total revenue and total cost drops.

Economically, it's really a "fish or cut bait" situation; daily or nothing. Less-than-daily makes no sense ever, unless you've completely abandoned all pretence of providing transportation (as VIA has with the Canadian, which is just a cruise train).


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## CHamilton (Jun 12, 2015)

Coastal officials want passenger rail service back on track http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2015/06/all_aboard_what_the_gulf_coast.html


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## dart330 (Jun 13, 2015)

I will be pretty bummed to lose sleeper service on the HOS-NOL route, a roomette works great on this stretch. 9 hours in coach with no diner does not sound like a nice way to kick off a vacation when we can drive it in 6 hours. I may be willing to do business class, but then again there won't be a real lounge to enjoy either.

I do welcome the daily service as our current plans for the next trip are to fly there and take the train back, simply because we want to go on a Thursday and right now the options are Tue or Fri.

I will say this plan would probably keep me from taking the train to and from LAX again. The timing of the train changes in SAS would be pretty bad and that station is not a nice place to hang around.


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## C855B (Jun 13, 2015)

IMO, restoring the NOL-JAX leg would do wonders for the train and Amtrak in general. So would daily service.

The daily service issue is a big one. I have rerouted several trips because I couldn't make the SL connection "hit" on the right days. Also can't ignore the problem with the 58/59 - 1/2 connection in NOL - you're on your own for the layover, and Amtrak will not book LAX-CHI via NOL as contiguous travel (try using points!). From my southern Illinois location I really would like to have a decent transcon connection other than CHI.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 13, 2015)

dart330 said:


> I will be pretty bummed to lose sleeper service on the HOS-NOL route, a roomette works great on this stretch. 9 hours in coach with no diner does not sound like a nice way to kick off a vacation when we can drive it in 6 hours. ...


This is a *slow* route, about 40 mph, and passenger totals could grow substantially if upgraded.

Anybody wanna guess which segment will have the highest % gain in riders from going daily, the desert SW route to L.A., or the "shuttle" to New Orleans?

*In an alternate universe, if **Texas **and Louisiana had leaders like VA and NC, they'd be building a corridor here.*

San Antonio and Houston are two of the fastest growing cities in the nation. (And if the train from Houston made a sharp right turn just past the Alamo, less than 90 miles away is Austin, another large n very fast growing city.)

The distance Houston-San Antonio is only 210 miles, but it's scheduled to take 5 hours. Five (5) hours!

I know there's congestion near the two big cities, but... I grew up in between, a mile from the tracks. I can assure you there's still plenty of room -- Texas-sized space, and wonderfully flat -- to put in more and longer sidings, and then double track most of the route.

If the train moved at 50 mph that would cut the trip to 4 hours. Make it 60 mph and it's 3 ½ hours. And at 70 mph average speed it would clock in at 3 hours even. That would get most people off the short-hop flights between those cities, and off the increasingly crowded I-10.

How hard would it be to go fast between H-town and ole San Antone? Lessee, St Louis-Chicago is 284 miles, and those trains do about 51 mph now. After the Billion of Stimulus being invested in the current Phase One of the upgrades, they should go about 63 mph. So a Billion on this somewhat shorter Texas segment could bring trip times down to about 4 hours, even better than the Illinois corridor will take after its Billion dollar Phase One. (Wonder who's ready to pay for Phase Two to get down to 4 hours in Illinois?)

Heading east, New Orleans draws more passengers than its population would ordinarily support, because of the large vacation/tourism/weekend/casino traffic. Beaumont is ready to send many riders to H'town and back, and could probably support 8 commuter type trains a day each way *if *they moved fast. Then mid-way is Lafayette, with an 18,000+ university.

O.K., adding sidings, much less double tracking, could take serious money; there's plenty of empty here, but much of it is waterlogged. LOL. But if they could speed things up, from 40 mph to even 50 mph (wasn't a 55 mph figure once reported as the "*Amtrak average*" speed? -- where they got that I don't know) and then add a second and a third frequency, this route could really boom.

Look hard at taking the corridor further east. Not big on taking the train all the way to Florida anytime soon. The Florida Panhandle portion of the route would need too much work. And too much of the run used to be in the dark of night, which is never good, just ask Cleveland.

But see the _Sunset Shuttle_ go east to Biloxi amid the strip of casinos along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and then on to Mobile. If they could get half an hour out of San Antonio-Houston, and an hour out of Houston-New Orleans, the train could get into Mobile before midnight. Then back into New Orleans early the next morning to keep that nice 6 p.m. arrival at Houston, and still get a little earlier before-midnight arrival in San Antonio. Need to add more frequencies to Mobile and to Houston, of course.

Much, much further down the line, the _Sunset Shuttle_ should be rerouted thru Baton Rouge, another city growing nicely, with a huge LSU student population. The two stops that would be bypassed, Schriever and New Iberia, aren't even real stops, only flag stops. Baton Rouge (urban area 600,000 pop) is a monster compared to them. The segment New Orleans-Baton Rouge has been studied and studied. It could support 8 trains a day corridor service, and sharing would cut costs for the _Sunset Shuttle_. But no action, no money, no progress.

Then to get from Baton Rouge back down to Lafayette would require building a new connection -- almost a causeway thru swamps and spillway -- and a study will show the need for a lot of money.

Don't mention this in Louisiana, the state is like a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Oil, but that close-to-the-coast line may have to move anyway, due to alleged climate change and proven rising sea levels. (And in fact, isn't the Atchafalaya Basin actually sinking, due to massive extraction of underground petroleum, erosion along canals built to serve oil drilling sites, insufficient silt, etc.?)

If this _Sunset Shuttle_ route fed into Chicago, instead of Houston, it would be high on the multi-Billion To-Do list. But sadly, nobody is talking about it now at all. 



> I do welcome the daily service as our current plans for the next trip are to fly there and take the train back, simply because we want to go on a Thursday and right now the options are Tue or Fri.


This example is exactly why going daily would add 100,000 riders.



> I will say this plan would probably keep me from taking the train to and from LAX again. The timing of the train changes in SAS would be pretty bad and that station is not a nice place to hang around.


Relax. They already made the bulk of the changes in San Antonio that were discussed in the 2010 PRIIA study, so there's no longer an overnight "connection" between the _Eagle _and the _Sunset._

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/970/304/PRIIA-210-SunsetLtd-TexasEagle-PIP,0.pdf

Anyway, that plan was for *cross-platform changes* from the _Sunset Shuttle_ to the _Sunset/Eagle_. So *NO LOITERING* in the area, please. LOL.

Of course, the station area would probably become less deserted if it served daily _Sunset Shuttles_ and not just 3 _Sunset Limiteds_ every week. Some of those 100,000 new passengers would be using the San Antonio station, after all, and a lot more taxies would be stopping by. Already that side of San Antonio is getting the modern version of urban renewal (means "Negro removal"), and another couple or three new hotels could change the station area altogether.


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## Caesar La Rock (Jun 13, 2015)

The daily Sunset route is clearly the way to go. Improving the existing service will do wonders for it. Now, when new Superliner IIIs or whatever Amtrak will call them comes into the picture, we can see it going east to Florida. Now as to where to terminate this spin off of the Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle in FL, Orlando would be the ideal place for a few reasons.

We all know Amtrak isn't going to downgrade the spinoff of Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle to a single level train, so moving on, the reasoning Orlando would be a better terminus is because Sanford is not far from Orlando.

Sanford is where the Auto Train is maintained, which uses Superliner equipment. It would be wise to terminate it there. Also, Orlando has a commuter rail system, which will connect people to Lynx (the bus system in the area), the I-Drive Maglev, and the All Aboard Florida trains at the airport. Orlando is a major tourist destination too, so that's another big deal there.

Miami is out of the question, because why would you want to send another train to Miami? The Meteor and Star have that market covered, along with All Aboard Florida. Plus, if Amtrak decides to split any train at JAX, the Meteor or Star would be the ideal candidates. Not a bi-level train.

Jacksonville, while it would make the route shorter, there really isn't a place to do maintance on the train, unless Amtrak is willing to spend the money on adding one at the station. Just my two cents on the subject.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 14, 2015)

THE CJ said:


> The daily Sunset route is clearly the way to go. Improving the existing service will do wonders for it. Now, when new Superliner IIIs or whatever Amtrak will call them comes into the picture, we can see it going east to Florida. ...
> 
> We all know Amtrak isn't going to downgrade the spinoff of Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle to a single level train ...


I don't know any such thing. Did I miss the memo?

Amtrak is short of bi-level equipment and has no funding to get more.

But it will get a fair number of single-level Horizons when they are replaced by the new bi-levels coming to the Midwest routes by the end of 2017. It could rehab Horizons and put them on this warm, Southern route, where any lingering vulnerabilities to winter would not matter.

And why not have single-line equipment on the Sunset Shuttle New Orleans-San Antonio? The PRIIA plan is for cross-platform transfers. No sleepers on the Sunset Shuttle and so no thru cars, no mixing and matching of equipment between the Sunset/Eagle and the Sunset Shuttle, except for the locomotive.

So a line extended, or, ahem, restored, from New Orleans to Florida could also use the Horizon cars.

Why go to Miami? To get serviced at Hialeah. And because, *Why not go to Miami*? It will be interesting to see how things play out with All Aboard Florida. That could be crushing competition. Or it could raise mind-space for passenger rail and grow the market enuff to offset the effects of the partial competition. Amtrak will survive it. Amtrak will stop at a different pattern of South Florida cities that All Aboard Florida will skip past.

And Amtrak will carry passengers from Jacksonville and points north and west of the service area of All Aboard Florida, including some from St Augustine, Daytona, and the other stops at that end of the FEC route. I'm not expecting All Aboard Florida to try to drive Amtrak out of the market, because that is not in their interest. The All Aboard Florida plan is a real estate development atop a passenger railroad. From that point of view, the more trains into their Miami station the better, and the corporate owners of All Aboard Florida will welcome the additional passengers that Amtrak will bring them. And my hunch is that those passengers will come on single-level cars.


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## C855B (Jun 14, 2015)

Personal take? Changing trains in SAS would flat nix LAX-NOL for us. On the current schedule? At 2 a.m.? Nuh uh. I'd hear about it for a month. :blink:


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## xyzzy (Jun 14, 2015)

Yes, communities between NOL and Mobile inclusive want a passenger train again, and perhaps that desire extends into the Florida panhandle. But to quote their spokesperson, "communities across the Gulf Coast are not in support of bringing back the service the Sunset Limited represented". That's no surprise; the SL ran through the area in the middle of the night (when it was on time) in each direction. What they want instead is a day train similar to the Gulf Coast Limited that operated briefly. Of course, it the states would put their money where their mouths are, it could happen.


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## railiner (Jun 14, 2015)

cirdan said:


> Allow me to play the devil's advocate on this one.
> 
> How about:
> 
> ...


Might be an even better solution, if the Crescent were rerouted from Atlanta to New Orleans via Montgomery and Mobile.....(sorry Birmingham and Meridian).....unless someday they ever run a Dallas section of the Crescent.... 

edit: they could go via Birmingham and Mobile as the former "Gulf Breeze" did, but that would take longer.....


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## AlanB (Jun 14, 2015)

WoodyinNYC said:


> Why go to Miami? To get serviced at Hialeah. And because, *Why not go to Miami*? It will be interesting to see how things play out with All Aboard Florida. That could be crushing competition. Or it could raise mind-space for passenger rail and grow the market enuff to offset the effects of the partial competition. Amtrak will survive it. Amtrak will stop at a different pattern of South Florida cities that All Aboard Florida will skip past.
> 
> And Amtrak will carry passengers from Jacksonville and points north and west of the service area of All Aboard Florida, including some from St Augustine, Daytona, and the other stops at that end of the FEC route. I'm not expecting All Aboard Florida to try to drive Amtrak out of the market, because that is not in their interest. The All Aboard Florida plan is a real estate development atop a passenger railroad. From that point of view, the more trains into their Miami station the better, and the corporate owners of All Aboard Florida will welcome the additional passengers that Amtrak will bring them. And my hunch is that those passengers will come on single-level cars.


But now if you go east of NOL, you're back to an overnight train. One that really should have sleepers. And one for which Horizon cars are not suitable. They're barely tolerable for short runs out of Chicago. I can't imagine sitting in a Horizon for 24 hours and trying to sleep in one.


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## jphjaxfl (Jun 14, 2015)

xyzzy said:


> Yes, communities between NOL and Mobile inclusive want a passenger train again, and perhaps that desire extends into the Florida panhandle. But to quote their spokesperson, "communities across the Gulf Coast are not in support of bringing back the service the Sunset Limited represented". That's no surprise; the SL ran through the area in the middle of the night (when it was on time) in each direction. What they want instead is a day train similar to the Gulf Coast Limited that operated briefly. Of course, it the states would put their money where their mouths are, it could happen.


The other problem was the Sunset Limited eastbound from New Orleans often ran very late so it was not dependable transportation for the panhandle. The west bound was more reliable.


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## Caesar La Rock (Jun 14, 2015)

jphjaxfl said:


> xyzzy said:
> 
> 
> > Yes, communities between NOL and Mobile inclusive want a passenger train again, and perhaps that desire extends into the Florida panhandle. But to quote their spokesperson, "communities across the Gulf Coast are not in support of bringing back the service the Sunset Limited represented". That's no surprise; the SL ran through the area in the middle of the night (when it was on time) in each direction. What they want instead is a day train similar to the Gulf Coast Limited that operated briefly. Of course, it the states would put their money where their mouths are, it could happen.
> ...


I hope someone can elaborate on this, but it's been mentioned a few times, that section of the route east of NOL isn't heavily used by CSX anymore. If that's true, the train being delayed won't be as significant issue, compared to what it was years ago.


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## Caesar La Rock (Jun 14, 2015)

WoodyinNYC said:


> THE CJ said:
> 
> 
> > The daily Sunset route is clearly the way to go. Improving the existing service will do wonders for it. Now, when new Superliner IIIs or whatever Amtrak will call them comes into the picture, we can see it going east to Florida. ...
> ...


Horizon coaches are essentially commuter coaches. From what was already said by AlanB, they're not favorable on those short distance routes out of Chicago, what you makes you think they'll be any better on a long distance route?

Who knows if Amtrak has the money to reconfigure them, but keep in mind, they'd have to reconfigure 95 cars, not 14 like they did with the Comet I coaches from New Jersey Transit.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 14, 2015)

THE CJ said:


> WoodyinNYC said:
> 
> 
> > THE CJ said:
> ...


There's been ample discussion of the Horizons previously, and more to come. The expectation is that the Horizon cars are gonna get a pretty heavy make-over to refresh them, no matter what. They've been heavily used and it shows.

So they'll get new and improved seats, and fewer of them, with more leg space, even foot rests are possible, whatever, along with LED lighting, more efficient heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and a toilet.

Amtrak will not have to rehab all 95 Horizons at once, tho that could be cheaper cost per unit.

But to equip the proposed Sunset Shuttle New Orleans-San Antonio, they're looking at three coaches and a cafe car, period. Amtrak will find a way to rehab four or five Horizons if that will get daily service going here.


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## AlanB (Jun 14, 2015)

THE CJ said:


> I hope someone can elaborate on this, but it's been mentioned a few times, that section of the route east of NOL isn't heavily used by CSX anymore. If that's true, the train being delayed won't be as significant issue, compared to what it was years ago.


While CSX wasn't exactly the greatest host for the Sunset Limited, the bigger problem was Union Pacific. Most of the delays east of NOL were simply due to the fact that UP couldn't get the SL into NOL anywhere near on time. There were times that the SL was arriving into NOL 2 days late and being terminated there with buses going the rest of the way. And most days it was at least 12 hours late, very often approaching 24 hours late.

A few years before Katrina hit, Amtrak in conjunction with the two hosts added 10 and a half hours of padding to the schedule in an effort to try to be more on time. The CSX side got 2-1/2 of the padding and the UP side got 8 hours of padding. And still the train ran late; often very late.

Things have since gotten much better on the UP side and some of that padding has now been taken out.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 14, 2015)

THE CJ said:


> jphjaxfl said:
> 
> 
> > xyzzy said:
> ...


The lateness was due to a multitude of small delays from L.A. accumulating over the long long route. And Union Pacific tracks were a mess. The UP has recently double-tracked most of the route from L.A. to El Paso, where much of its traffic splits north from the passenger line heading to San Antonio and New Orleans.

Apparently nobody is scared of that happening on the proposed long, long route from L.A. to Chicago. LOL.

Look at the PRIIA Performance Improvement Plan

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/970/304/PRIIA-210-SunsetLtd-TexasEagle-PIP,0.pdf

and the 2009 Gulf Coast Service Plan

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/904/671/GulfCoastServicePlanReport.pdf

Both are found under About Amtrak, Documents and Reports.

There's lots of problems with the eastern track. Lots of problems.

Installing Positive Train Control due to using the line for passenger trains, that was $20 million estimate back in 2009, and Amtrak would be obligated since without the passenger service, CSX freights would not require PTC.

Long long route, from New Orleans to Orlando, 769 miles and 18 hours vs 639 miles and 10 hours by car. Beyond Atmore, AL, and Tallahassee lies about 250 miles of "dark" or unsigned trackage, with 59 mph speed limit. Not cheap to install new signaling.

CSX had not put a price on needed upgrades, but stated there would be considerable work needed.

Sorry. Without quite a lot of money upgrading track speeds, the Eastern segments don't fit with the Western segment of the _Sunset Shuttle_, and therefor don't fit with the _Sunset-Eagle_.


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## C855B (Jun 14, 2015)

WoodyinNYC said:


> Beyond Atmore, AL, and Tallahassee lies about 250 miles of "dark" or unsigned trackage, with 59 mph speed limit. Not cheap to install new signaling.


That track is dark? I was poking around Tallahassee about four years ago and the line _appeared_ to at least have ABS, and the heads were not turned. Not that I would want to ride that bit of track. Condition was pretty grim, so no kidding that "considerable" work would be required.


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## Anderson (Jun 14, 2015)

Just wondering, but is any of the dark trackage affected by the PTC mandate? That would seem to "un-darken" the tracks if it is affected. Still, the bigger problem is Mobile Bay (which the train has to go around while I think there's a tunnel on the interstate that cuts the runaround off of the route). That's where a non-trivial amount of the 130 extra miles come from (with a good share of the rest coming from going northeast to JAX before turning west).


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## Devil's Advocate (Jun 15, 2015)

C855B said:


> Personal take? Changing trains in SAS would flat nix LAX-NOL for us. On the current schedule? At 2 a.m.? Nuh uh. I'd hear about it for a month. :blink:


I get the same response from anyone who asks me about Amtrak here in SAS. Who in their right mind wants to gather all of their belongings and drag them onto a train in the middle of the night just to go back to sleep again? I think the current SL schedule is awful and it has reduced my annual SL trips from six to zero. I almost never ride the Sunset anymore because the lousy calling times make it annoying and impractical. At this point making the SL a daily operation isn't going to fix most of the problems I have with it. That being said I suppose I might be ignoring how critical markets like Deming and Biloxi feel about it.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Jun 15, 2015)

One thinks that Amtrak would adjust the timetable if there was a change that resulted in a stub train between San Antonio, TX and New Oreans, LA. A adjustment to a day light arrival and departure.

The real interesting side would be the 546 (road) miles between the two locations. Now how is that going to be handle. Even if they had run thur cars how would it be handled in the accounting, and Law of 750.

Sunset Limited number one creator of rumors.


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## xyzzy (Jun 16, 2015)

The dark segment is Flomaton, Ala. to Tallahassee, roughly 250 miles per previous post. Building a new railroad tunnel/bridge combo across lower Mobile Bay that runs straight to Pensacola... one billion, maybe two. No way.


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## neroden (Jun 16, 2015)

WoodyinNYC said:


> There's lots of problems with the eastern track. Lots of problems.


To be strictly accurate, the track is great from New Orleans to Mobile (Flomaton, actually), great from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, and completely hopeless from Mobile to Talahassee. :-(
If Amtrak is combining the Texas Eagle with the west end of the Sunset Limited, it might be sensible to extend the San Antonio-New Orleans train to *Flomaton*. It would get it over the 750 mile limit for federal funding, without getting into the problematic "dark territory" track, and it would pick up most of the most promising stations for ridership. A Mobile-New Orleans-Houston-San Antonio "Gulf Coast Limited" could be a reasonably successful train.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 17, 2015)

Just-Thinking-51 said:


> One thinks that Amtrak would adjust the timetable if there was a change that resulted in a stub train between San Antonio and New Orleans. An adjustment to a daylight arrival and departure.


San Antonio's problem with the current SL schedule is that Westbound it works very well for the train originating in New Orleans at 9 a.m. and reaching Houston at 6:20 p.m. -- but not for getting into the Alamo City until just after 12 midnight. Eastbound it's a barely tolerable 6:25 a.m out of San Antonio, a nice 11 a.m. out of Houston, and a tolerable 9:40 p.m. arrival in New Orleans.

Between those Texas cities, maybe UP and Amtrak could squeeze minutes out of the 210 rail miles (EB that's 5:10 hours, or a dismal 47 mph). And the Houston-New Orleans segment is 363 miles in 9:20 hours, for a REALLY DISMAL 39 mph, where some improvement would seem possible.

If they can get better times for the _Sunset Shuttle_ without spending money, then sure, it will happen. If the route needs Stimulus funds or the like, then San Antonio will remain out of luck.

Westbound is another kettle of fish. The San Antonio arrival on the _Texas Eagle _from Dallas-Ft Worth metro and points north dictates the departure time. The _Eagle _has good times into Texarkana 6 a.m., Marshall (Shreveport bus) at 8 a.m., Dallas at 11:30 a.m.. Then it leaves Ft Worth at 2:10 p.m., and 283 miles later arrives in San Antonio at 9:55 p.m. (making a dismal 39 mph over that segment).

The _Eagle/Sunset _plan aims to eliminate most of that almost 5-hours dawdling in San Antonio. If the service keeps the _Eagle_'s 9:55 p.m. arrival, and it wants a cross-platform exchange of passengers from the _Shuttle_, then the _Shuttle_ will have to get into the Alamo city around 10 p.m. A huge improvement.

Currently the departure for El Paso and L.A. is 2:45 a.m. So an 11 p.m. time for El Paso and L.A. would mean another huge improvement.

Can the _Shuttle_ get into San Antonio at 10 p.m. without leaving too early from New Orleans? ("_Please, I was on Bourbon Street last night and my head is killing me. I'll never take this dawn train again!_")

It's certainly possible to imagine how service could greatly improve on a daily _Sunset/Eagle_ and a _Sunset Shuttle_.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jun 17, 2015)

Just-Thinking-51 said:


> ... a stub train between San Antonio and New Orleans ...
> 
> The real interesting side would be the 546 (road) miles between the two locations. ... Even if they had run-thru cars, how would it be handled in the accounting, and Law of 750.


Doesn't the 750 rule apply only to any new routes? The _Sunset Shuttle_ would have a very strong claim to being nothing new.

As for the accounting, Amtrak will account for it. Whether anyone outside Amtrak can understand it, I'm not promising. LOL.

btw According to the _Sunset_'s timetable on Amtrak.com, the rail distance between San Antonio and New Orleans is 573 miles, so not much different from the road miles


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## zephyr17 (Jun 17, 2015)

The 750 mile limit applies to everything, new and old. The only exception is the NEC. The whole country gets to pay for that.


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## trainviews (Jun 18, 2015)

zephyr17 said:


> The 750 mile limit applies to everything, new and old. The only exception is the NEC. The whole country gets to pay for that.


Yes and no. The 750 mile rule applies to operating subsidy only, and the NEC needs none of that.

Capital investments is of course a whole other story, but there's no 750 mile rule here, whether it applies to renewing track, new rolling stock or whatever. The difference is that the NEC has an (insufficient) appropriation in the yearly Amtrak budget for investments, while this is very small for the rest of the system, which instead relies on states and random stimulus or petty TIGER grants.


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## zephyr17 (Jun 18, 2015)

The NEC was specifically exempted in the legislation in any case, even if it ran at a deficit on the "above the rail" operating expenses. And money is money regardless of how you classify it. The NEC doesn't generate enough revenue to cover it's capital and infrastructure maintenance needs and so requires a subsidy and a pretty big one. To cover its real loss on its real costs.

If California and Washington owned tracks, with all maintenance paid for by federal subsidy, and all our rolling stock paid for by federal subsidy, and could build ridership and with frequent, reliable service on its own infrastructure, the corridor service such as Santa Barbara-Los Angeles-San Diego or Portland-Seattle-Vancouver could probably get in the black, too. On paper.


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## Paulus (Jun 18, 2015)

The Federal capital grants for the NEC are a result of 70 years of deferred maintenance. It covers more than enough to to pay for the normal upkeep of its trackage, a figure which is already included in the NEC route operating expenses.


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## neroden (Jun 19, 2015)

Paulus said:


> The Federal capital grants for the NEC are a result of 70 years of deferred maintenance.


We have _more_ than 70 years deferred maintenance on the New York Central mainline, but it's still in the grubby little hands of CSX.


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## CHamilton (Jun 19, 2015)

Commission wants Amtrak rolling along Coast again http://ow.ly/OxEeX


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## Caesar La Rock (Jun 19, 2015)

^

If the political environment is favorable (even then stuff does happen) in a few more years, I might be more enthusiastic about that.


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## nshvlcat (Jul 5, 2015)

Does anyone have a more recent update concerning this topic?


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## CHamilton (Jul 5, 2015)

nshvlcat said:


> Does anyone have a more recent update concerning this topic?


There have been several positive press reports stemming from the June 17 hearing, but nothing further that I've seen. If you're on Facebook, you may want to follow Friends of Sunset Limited to Florida.


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## Alex M. (Jul 5, 2015)

Everyone talks about the Sunset east going to central Florida. How practical would it be to run it on the old Crescent route via Mobile and Montgomery to Atlanta, provided they ever get around to building a new station there? Depending on the schedule, you could either combine it with the Crescent if you want to go further north, or run it as a separate train, or terminate it in Atlanta. Could such a service be feasible?


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## keelhauled (Jul 5, 2015)

Orlando can service Superliner equipment. Atlanta can't service anything.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jul 5, 2015)

Alex M. said:


> Everyone talks about the Sunset east going to central Florida. How practical would it be to run it on the old Crescent route via Mobile and Montgomery to Atlanta, provided they ever get around to building a new station there? Depending on the schedule, you could either combine it with the Crescent if you want to go further north, or run it as a separate train, or terminate it in Atlanta. Could such a service be feasible?


It could be a good route. But. Congress in its wisdom has limited where a new Amtrak route could go, and it ain't Atlanta.

A state-supported line could go anywhere the state support went, even Atlanta, if Georgia would build facilities there. Not happening.

And history tells us, a train that ran in the 1990s, briefly, very briefly, New Orleans-Biloxi-Mobile-Montgomery-Birmingham, planned to operate with help from the three states, couldn't get even two of them to keep the deal.

Deep Dixie states are still fighting for the Lost Cause. It hasn't been going well for them. But they can still stop a train.


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## Caesar La Rock (Jul 6, 2015)

The Sunset's East is the only LD train that could be restored with a minimal amounts of money, even with new equipment. The stations on the route still exist (except for Mobile, which was torn down by CSX), they need to be brought up to ADA standards.

North Coast Hiawatha, Pioneer, Desert Wind, Broadway Limited, Floridian, etc... have obstacles that need to be addressed before those routes could be brought back.


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## VentureForth (Jul 6, 2015)

keelhauled said:


> Orlando can service Superliner equipment. Atlanta can't service anything.


How do you figure? They haven't had Superliner service there since Katrina 10 years ago. Even Viewliners aren't serviced there. Perhaps, work can be done at the Sanford Auto Train station....


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## keelhauled (Jul 6, 2015)

VentureForth said:


> keelhauled said:
> 
> 
> > Orlando can service Superliner equipment. Atlanta can't service anything.
> ...


Yes, I was referring to Sanford, which is only a few miles away and is the Auto Train's primary maintenance facility.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jul 6, 2015)

THE CJ said:


> The Sunset's East is the only LD train that could be restored with a minimal amounts of money, even with new equipment. ...
> 
> North Coast Hiawatha, Pioneer, Desert Wind, Broadway Limited, Floridian, etc... have obstacles that need to be addressed before those routes could be brought back.


The _Sunset East _has been studied in some detail. Figures below are 2009ish, so adjust accordingly. But no realistic adjustment that I tried could make them look very good:

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/904/671/GulfCoastServicePlanReport.pdf

Let's take Option B. Daily service by extending the _CONO_ to Florida, with estimated 96,100 additional passengers and an annual operating loss of about $11.7 million. Sorry. Farebox recovery of 44% on revenues of only $9.2 million vs costs of $20.9 million. The operating loss exceeds total revenues. That farebox recovery is low- to mid-range with other LD lines, but is that good enuff to take on in this political climate? There's probably lots more bang for the buck elsewhere.

Just to crank up and get going -- crew training, fixing stations to ADA standards, purchasing new (or at least scavenging around for more) equipment, at least $20 million for Positive Train Control thru the dark Panhandle stretch, etc. (These expenses on top of an unknown capital cost for upgrades to be negotiated with CSX, which is in no mood to add passenger train disruption to this line.)

Amtrak does not include a loss per passenger in its Executive Summary of this study.

I'll do it, because it's the number the haters seize on to attack all Amtrak routes. So every year, a $11.7 million loss divided by 96,100 added pax would cost *$121* per rider.

In a nearby thread, we're discussing a proposal to add one train a day to the _Empire Builder_'s route Chicago-Milwaukee-LaCrosse-St Paul, to run at an estimated loss per rider of* $36*. If Congress ever said, "Hey, let's give Amtrak $1 billion to improve service with more trains across its system … would you rank the Gulf Coast revival above the beginning of corridor service in the North Woods? (btw I'm Texas born n raised, n love me some Gulf Coast. But when I do the numbers here …)

Of course, 2009 numbers are out of date. Let's adjust them a bit. A daily _Sunset West_ and a daily _Sunset Shuttle_ San Antonio-NOLA would feed some riders onto the _Sunset East_. Population growth continues, especially along the Panhandle Coast. Tourist traffic to the Biloxi casinos is still growing. Let's say the Amtrak brand has improved since 2009 and it will improve more when 110-mph running begins on St Louis- and Detroit-Chicago corridors, and some shiny new cars enter the fleets. Gas is probably well over 2009 prices, tho I'm too lazy to look it up. Perhaps by the time the _Sunset East_ starts up, the _Palmetto_ will be the _Silver Palm_ again, adding a third LD connection (sort of) at Jacksonville. To save $25 to $100 million in equipment costs, maybe rehabbed Horizon cars could be used here and on the San Antonio shuttle service. (Reusing Horizons could result in a bad winter-weather problem for the _CONO_, but maybe the rehabs can contain it.)

So let's be optimistic. With figures brought into the sunshine from a dark place, figures like, say a 50% increase to 140,000 pax a year, but costs up hardly at all, if that could slash the operating loss down to, say, $5 million a year, wow, the _Sunset East _would come in around $36 per rider, just like the single St Paul corridor train.

The reality lies between the wished-for $36 per rider loss and the estimated $121 loss of the study (in 2009 dollars unadjusted for inflation), but probably more to the $100 per rider end.

So priorities: Daily _Cardinal_, daily _Sunset/Eagle_ Chicago-San Antonio-L.A. And I've read a lawyer could make a good case for breaking the _Lake Shore Limited_ into two trains, not the two sections splitting at Albany as now. That could legally create a like-new Boston-Albany-Upstate NY-Cleveland-Chicago train to bring daylight service Cleveland-Chicago and a second frequency to the rest of the route.

Then let's start to think about other routes. I tend to agree with you that the _North Coast Hiawatha, Pioneer, Desert Wind, Broadway Limited, _and _Floridian_ have large obstacles. Maybe the _Sunset East_ route is ahead of them all. But let's not get our hopes up.

Now back to that study again:

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/904/671/GulfCoastServicePlanReport.pdf


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## jis (Jul 6, 2015)

THE CJ said:


> The Sunset's East is the only LD train that could be restored with a minimal amounts of money, even with new equipment. The stations on the route still exist (except for Mobile, which was torn down by CSX), they need to be brought up to ADA standards.
> 
> North Coast Hiawatha, Pioneer, Desert Wind, Broadway Limited, Floridian, etc... have obstacles that need to be addressed before those routes could be brought back.


What problems do you figure _Broadway Limited_ faces, other than of course getting trackage on NS? But then it is not like _Sunset East_ has access to trackage on CSX either. In other words I am not convinced that _Sunset East_ is actually more viable than _Broadway_ restored. A restored _Broadway _would any day blow the socks off revenue generated when compared to a potential _Sunset East_, simply because it is in what is today an almost saturated market with relatively large demand and that too at a generally higher price point on a per seat mile basis.

Frankly I think the priority of the through cars from _Pennsylvanian _to _Capitol_, which is essentially a restored Broadway is way higher than _Sunset East_ and is way more viable too. As a matter of fact I think it is more likely that a Gulf Coast service will happen is if it is funded by the involved states and it will be done with no specific equipment connection with either the _Sunset _or the _CONO_.


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## west point (Jul 6, 2015)

There are several population MMAs that do not have a hub Amtrak presence. Major ones are Atlanta, Dallas - Ft. Worth. Minor ones are Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver, Minneapolis - St. Paul, Indianapolis. Cincinnati, Pittsburgh. Cleveland, St Louis, Kansas City, Orlando, South Florida., Houston

within- 50 miles the Major ones have over 10M+ residences and minor 4M+. Most have a large population numbers outside the 50 miles as well Maybe not Phoenix SLC, Denver.

Nowhere does New Orleans - Jacksonville fit here

Anyway they will probably be the hubs in the future but not now due to political considerations. Notice how many are presently in the ® camp


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## WoodyinNYC (Jul 6, 2015)

Louisiana hasn't had a visionary leader since Huey P. Long, more than 75 years ago. His successors have usually got the power and corruption part down, more or less, but never much get the vision.

If the Pelican State ever got a visionary leader, a helluva lot could be done with passenger rail.

#1. Hourly departures New Orleans-Baton Rouge. This corridor has been studied to death. All it needs is leadership and funding. Lots of funding.

#1-A. Reroute the _City of New Orleans_ thru Baton Rouge. (Harder than it sounds. Probably require laying tracks north of town.)

#2. Many _Pelican Coast _trains a day on the Baton-Rouge-New Orleans-Biloxi-Mobile corridor. This three-state corridor would need support from two of the three states. If Alabama wouldn't pay its share, turn the train at Biloxi. If Mississippi wouldn't pay its share, follow the _Downeaster_ formula, where the deadbeat state of New Hampshire won't contribute, but passengers making on/offs at New Hampshire stops pay a full, unsubsidized ticket price.

#2-A. Not Louisiana's problem, but if Alabama wants to extend a _Pelican Coast c_orridor train Mobile-Montgomery-Birmingham-Atlanta, that would be a lot easier once the Baton Rouge-New Orleans-Mobile trains got running.

#2-B. Not Louisiana's problem, but restoring the _Sunset East _to Florida would be much easier once the Baton Rouge-New Orleans-Mobile trains got running, with connecting passengers from #3, #4, and #6 feeding that train or trains.

#3. Three or four trains a day on the _Sunset Shuttle _route New Orleans-Houston-San Antonio. If Texas will help support the _Heartland Flyer_ Oklahoma City-Ft Worth, why wouldn't it help Houston-New Orleans? (And if it won't support San Antonio-Houston-New Orleans, that's Texas' problem, not Huey P. Long's.)

#4. Two or three or four trains a day New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Alexandria-Shreveport-Marshall, TX -Dallas-Ft Worth. (Shreveport is a stronger market than you think: Riverboat casinos serving the Dallas Metroplex.)

#5. Help support the once-proposed _Crescent Star:_ Atlanta-Birmingham-Meridian, MS -Monroe, LA -Shreveport-Marshall, TX -Dallas Ft Worth.

#6. Build new connection Baton Rouge-Lafayette to strengthen _Sunset Shuttle _route, which becomes New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Lafayette-Beaumont-Houston-San Antonio.

It's a lot of trains. A network. But we know that ridership and revenues usually increase faster than costs when additional frequencies come on line. The more trains Louisiana would get, the lower the needed subsidies.

So where is a new Huey P Long when Louisiana needs him?

If you do see him, mention the sweetheart contracts, cost overruns, and other tasty aspects of this network plan that would surely please the powerful men in good suits who infest the Capitol in Baton Rouge.


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## Bob Dylan (Jul 6, 2015)

Louisiana is like Texas when it comes to Political Leaders. We used to elect Giants and now we elect Pygmies!


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## neroden (Jul 7, 2015)

THE CJ said:


> The Sunset's East is the only LD train that could be restored with a minimal amounts of money, even with new equipment. The stations on the route still exist (except for Mobile, which was torn down by CSX), they need to be brought up to ADA standards.
> 
> North Coast Hiawatha, Pioneer, Desert Wind, Broadway Limited, Floridian, etc... have obstacles that need to be addressed before those routes could be brought back.


Well, if you run the Broadway along the existing Capitol Limited route west of Pittsburgh, it would be by far the easiest to restore. Just to nitpick here. I think of the Broadway as providing Philadelphia-Chicago service, so I don't really care what route it takes from Pittsburgh to Chicago.



jis said:


> A restored _Broadway _would any day blow the socks of revenue generated when compared to a potential _Sunset East_, simply because it is in what is today an almost saturated market with relatively large demand and that too at a generally higher price point on a per seat mile basis.
> 
> Frankly I think the priority of the through cars from _Pennsylvanian _to _Capitol_, which is essentially a restored Broadway is way higher than _Sunset East_ and is way more viable too.


There's quite a lot of indications that a restored Broadway (following the Pennsylvanian / Capitol Limited routes) would preform a lot better than the Capitol Limited. It would probably be in the "profitable before overhead" category along with the Silver Star, Silver Meteor, Auto Train, and Lake Shore Limited.

It's frankly stupid of Amtrak management to not have restored it already, at least via the "through cars" option.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Oct 11, 2015)

neroden said:


> THE CJ said:
> 
> 
> > The Sunset's East is the only LD train that could be restored with a minimal amounts of money, even with new equipment. The stations on the route still exist (except for Mobile, which was torn down by CSX), they need to be brought up to ADA standards.
> ...


Getting off topic but All Aboard Ohio has suggested extending the Pennsylvanian to Chicago via Dearborn, taking advantage of the Wolverine route for which Amtrak does not pay usage fees (I believe it's their track). In addition to a direct route from PHL to CHI via PGH, it would also provide direct access from Dearborn and Ann Arbor to Pennsylvania and New York. The catch of course is you would need track between TOL and Dearborn. They also propose going to Youngstown which adds more expenses.

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


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## west point (Oct 11, 2015)

Sunset east ? Have many questions.

1. If it is extended as the SAS - HOU - NOL - JAX - Whatever with Horizons is the FRA going to require the stations east of NOL to have high level platforms ? Thinking of FRA ruling on Roanoke requiring a high platform. That requires station platforms served by movable platform ramps , a gauntlet track or separate platform tracks all to a high level platform.

2. Daily SAS - NOL Horizons will FRA try to require high level platforms ?

3. Extending City of NOL to JAX eliminates need for high level platforms. That would require Capitol to loose Superliners due to the failure of new Midwest hi-levels crush test.. Single levels short supply for capitol.

4. The question of loss per passenger is a false metric. Extreme example is loss of $5 per passenger on Hiawatha and $5 on the Auto Train . Average passenger stage length is much different.

5. IMO loss or profit per passenger mile is the proper metric.

Do not see any resolution for acquiring funds or changing Amtrak's various mandates. That is because of the at least 3 - way split in the House of Rep.


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## haolerider (Oct 12, 2015)

I think this issue is dead on arrival!


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## WoodyinNYC (Oct 12, 2015)

west point said:


> Sunset East ? ...
> 
> 1. If it is extended as the SAS - HOU - NOL - JAX - Whatever with Horizons is the FRA going to require the stations east of NOL to have high level platforms ? Thinking of FRA ruling on Roanoke requiring a high platform.
> 
> ...


1. Trains from Roanoke will run on the NEC where almost all the platforms and all the trains are high level. So I don't see any implications beyond Roanoke. The _Silvers_ at Jacksonville and the _Crescent_ at New Orleans probably have high level platforms as well. But otherwise, Tallahassee, Mobile, Lafayette, Houston, San Antonio, and smaller _Sunset Limited_ stations, there's no need for high level platforms at all.

2. Horizon cars have been serving corridors out of Chicago that do not use high level platforms. The Horizons would work well at any station that has used or is using bi-level Superliners, such as are used on the _Sunset Limited_.

...


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## JoeBas (Oct 12, 2015)

No high level platforms in New Orleans.


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## west point (Oct 12, 2015)

The implications of the FRA ADA Roanoke decision cannot be minimized. They indicate that all new ( and maybe restored service )will need level boarding to meet ADA requirements. This poster hopes not but who knows ?


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## Eric S (Oct 12, 2015)

Isn't the new/proposed Roanoke station going to be located on a side track? So any high level platform would not interfere with any passing high/wide freight traffic.

Maybe I'm completely mistaken or confused, but I thought that was sort of the guiding principle, that level boarding was required if the station is located on a track that sees little freight traffic (or something to that effect). So, New Orleans, with dedicated station tracks, would potentially be required to convert a platform to high level. But another station located on the main track would not be required to have full train length level boarding.


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## afigg (Oct 13, 2015)

west point said:


> The implications of the FRA ADA Roanoke decision cannot be minimized. They indicate that all new ( and maybe restored service )will need level boarding to meet ADA requirements. This poster hopes not but who knows ?


The issue with Roanoke is not new news. The US DOT issued its level boarding requirements for ADA compliance in 2011 and Amtrak has been been dealing with it since then. There are exceptions to the level boarding requirement starting with that if the platform is adjacent to an active freight railroad track, then the freight railroad clearance needs trump the high level or 15" ATR platform. Amtrak has been looking at mini-high platforms with retractable edges as an alternative for the stations in the east that get single level equipment that have platforms on the freight tracks. The Roanoke station will apparently be off on a side track or siding, so VA DRPT should not have been surprised by the requirement for a full length high level platform.


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## jis (Oct 13, 2015)

zephyr17 said:


> The NEC was specifically exempted in the legislation in any case, even if it ran at a deficit on the "above the rail" operating expenses. And money is money regardless of how you classify it. The NEC doesn't generate enough revenue to cover it's capital and infrastructure maintenance needs and so requires a subsidy and a pretty big one. To cover its real loss on its real costs.
> 
> If California and Washington owned tracks, with all maintenance paid for by federal subsidy, and all our rolling stock paid for by federal subsidy, and could build ridership and with frequent, reliable service on its own infrastructure, the corridor service such as Santa Barbara-Los Angeles-San Diego or Portland-Seattle-Vancouver could probably get in the black, too. On paper.


Not with their current fares. They are way below above the rail cash positiveness.
The argument about including capital costs to determine cash flow positiveness on operations is completely specious. That sort of accounting is not used for any mode of transportation. It is only trotted out by those who want to make the point that NEC needs capital money, which 0f course everything else does too, and none of the above rail computations include any consideration of the capital that goes into the operations of it. Such gets included only in the form of trackage charges and depriciations, as is also done on the NEC.


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## west point (Oct 13, 2015)

The 800 pound bear in the room on level boarding is for those stations that have both present superliners and single level trains. New Orleans, Chicago, LAX, etc. New stations cannot meet both types on a single platform requiring both levels. Another problem is what ever may happen with future trains or even equipment substitutions. .

WASH union station is an example of both. The rebuild plan has provision of all the upper level platforms to be high level + the future very lower level platforms if built. The present lower level will have both high and superliner levels for Capitol and VRE.


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## PerRock (Oct 13, 2015)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > THE CJ said:
> ...



There is track there to do the run (NKP765 does it...) I can't tell who owns the line from TOL to Dearborn (the MDOT map doesn't give enough detail). But it looks like the line is run by CN or NS/CR. Essentially it runs up the CN from TOL to the Detroit area, then there is a jog over (and an almost complete turn-around) that uses NS or CR (two routings, a third could use CSX)

The other 2 lines running from TOL to the Michigan Line are the CSX line & the AA, The CSX line does connect to the MI Line, but would require running thru a factory & a reversing the rest of the way to Chicago; or installing a switch allowing the train to go in the correct direction; either way, not ideal. The Ann Arbor RR option is aligned much better for the trains to make the connection; however the connection in Ann Arbor between the two railroads has been out of commission for a very long time & would pretty much need to be completely replaced. Not to mention it is a very steep, very tight curve on a hill the train has to take. It also connects just west of all (bar one unlikely option) the ARB station options.


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## jis (Oct 13, 2015)

Large terminal stations will tend to have separate platforms for single level high boarding and multi-level low boarding cars.

Chicago union Station is scheduled to get a pair of high level boarding platform tracks.

Miami Central will have high level for AAF and low level for Tri-Rail.

For smaller stations the least common denominator platform will be it, with lifts providing boarding of wheen chairs onto high level trains.


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## neroden (Oct 14, 2015)

west point said:


> The 800 pound bear in the room on level boarding is for those stations that have both present superliners and single level trains. New Orleans, Chicago, LAX, etc. New stations cannot meet both types on a single platform requiring both levels. Another problem is what ever may happen with future trains or even equipment substitutions. .
> 
> WASH union station is an example of both. The rebuild plan has provision of all the upper level platforms to be high level + the future very lower level platforms if built. The present lower level will have both high and superliner levels for Capitol and VRE.


This is going to be easy for the stations you named because they have lots of platforms. Chicago will have four high-level platform tracks and the rest low-level. New Orleans has four or five double-sided platforms; one will be high-level. Los Angeles will have some high-level platforms and some low-level platforms.

What's problematic is stations like Cleveland and Pittsburgh. There is a specific rule for what to do at those stations (platform at the lower boarding level, with lifts), but honestly it would be a lot easier if the Capitol Limited switched to high-floor equipment. These are not small cities.


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## neroden (Oct 14, 2015)

PerRock said:


> I can't tell who owns the line from TOL to Dearborn (the MDOT map doesn't give enough detail). But it looks like the line is run by CN or NS/CR.


Why yes.... in fact, you have a choice of:

CSX to Wayne

Conrail double-tracked to West Detroit

Grand Trunk Western (CN) single track on the west side of the Conrail tracks

Grand Trunk Western (CN) single track on the east side of the Conrail tracks

...with some other variants available as well.

http://knorek.com/RR/SAA/SAAIndex.htm

There's plenty of track available, from multiple hosts. There's even room for more tracks in the ROWs and this is all cheap land. It's just a matter of political will. The railroads are very tangled in the Detroit area with lots of unnecessary diamond crossings, and frankly need a project a bit like CREATE in Chicago to sort them out in any case.


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## DSS&A (Nov 4, 2015)

Hi,

Michigan DOT is currently performing a Phase 1 Environmental Assessment that analyzes route options from Chicago Union Station to Porter, IN. to add additional train frequencies between those two locations. The current information on the analysis can be found online.


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## jis (Nov 4, 2015)

DSS&A said:


> Hi,
> 
> Michigan DOT is currently performing a Phase 1 Environmental Assessment that analyzes route options from Chicago Union Station to Porter, IN. to add additional train frequencies between those two locations. The current information on the analysis can be found online.


Could you perhaps post a pointer to the online location where it can be found? Thanks.


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## WoodyinNYC (Nov 4, 2015)

jis said:


> DSS&A said:
> 
> 
> > Michigan DOT is currently performing a Phase 1 Environmental Assessment that analyzes route options from Chicago Union Station to Porter, IN. to add additional train frequencies between those two locations. The current information on the analysis can be found online.
> ...


This is one good site I watch:

http://greatlakesrail.org/

And it's been updated! The first page no longer reads that the draft EIS will be finished Summer of 2015. It now says "The Final EIS/ROD is targeted for completion *by the end of 2015*.The Service Development Plan is also underway and will be completed *by early 2016*."

Click "Take the Tour" bottom left of the home page.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Nov 4, 2015)

Caesar La Rock said:


> The Sunset's East is the only LD train that could be restored with a minimal amounts of money, even with new equipment. The stations on the route still exist (except for Mobile, which was torn down by CSX), they need to be brought up to ADA standards.
> 
> North Coast Hiawatha, Pioneer, Desert Wind, Broadway Limited, Floridian, etc... have obstacles that need to be addressed before those routes could be brought back.


I would say the biggest hole in the national LD system is the Sunset East. Think about it. You have the two largest states in the South and two of the four (soon to be three?) largest states in the country. Try going from Orlando to Houston on Amtrak or Miami to Dallas on Amtrak or Tampa to San Antonio. Yes, the old Sunset East wouldn't have connected all of them directly but at least you have opportunities to connect.

How would you go from anywhere in Florida to anywhere on Texas now? I think that's a big problem.


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## Palmetto (Nov 4, 2015)

If people in the area make enough noise, we may see a return of this train. Is there anybody along the Gulf States that's raising any dust on the issue?


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Nov 4, 2015)

Palmetto said:


> If people in the area make enough noise, we may see a return of this train. Is there anybody along the Gulf States that's raising any dust on the issue?


Did they ride it in the past? Was Amtrak satisfied with the ridership/revenue? I mean if Katrina hadn't happened, it would probably have not been canceled.


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## jis (Nov 4, 2015)

My guess is that we will never see the reinstatement of the _Sunset Limited East_. What we might see at some point is the introduction of what used to be the L&N _Gulf Wind_ - a New Orleans to Jacksonville service with possible extension to Orlando. But the local states will have to step up with funding for it, and I don;t at present see the level of enthusiasm for such in Florida that would divert scarce funding from other rail projects over the next 5 or 6 years.


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## Palmetto (Nov 4, 2015)

That was my real question, I suppose. There does not seem to be any signifcant enthusiasm along the route for a return of passenger train service to it.


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## Devil's Advocate (Nov 4, 2015)

Palmetto said:


> If people in the area make enough noise, we may see a return of this train. Is there anybody along the Gulf States that's raising any dust on the issue?


Here in San Antonio we amended the city charter to require voter approval before any proposal of passenger rail can use any public land and/or public money. Is that noisy enough for you?


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## jis (Nov 4, 2015)

Palmetto said:


> That was my real question, I suppose. There does not seem to be any signifcant enthusiasm along the route for a return of passenger train service to it.


Well, I think there may be a bit more enthusiasm at its western end than the eastern end at present I was told by a reliable source that certain Alabama and Mississippi congresscritters have asked Amtrak to explore the possibility of restoring service between New Orleans and mobile. Of course words ar cheap. The question is are they able to back it up with an ap[appropriate appropriation matching the numbers that Amtrak (or anyone else that is credible for that matter) comes up with.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Nov 4, 2015)

jis said:


> Palmetto said:
> 
> 
> > That was my real question, I suppose. There does not seem to be any signifcant enthusiasm along the route for a return of passenger train service to it.
> ...


Don't they need a station in Mobile?


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## jis (Nov 4, 2015)

I am sure they need all sorts of things including rebuilding of stations or reacquiring of facilities that have since been re-purposed. that is why a more upto date cost estimate is necessary before anyone can do anything about it.


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## neroden (Nov 4, 2015)

Palmetto said:


> That was my real question, I suppose. There does not seem to be any signifcant enthusiasm along the route for a return of passenger train service to it.


From Mobile to New Orleans, there's been quite a lot of local government activism. But not enough to shake loose money from Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana.  The state governments are uninterested -- which is probably a dynamic in these states, where the state capitols are in the interior and the Gulf Coast is culturally distinct. Upstate/downstate divides, maybe? I don't think the Gulf Coast will have any luck getting money from those state governments.


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## Palmetto (Nov 4, 2015)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Palmetto said:
> 
> 
> > If people in the area make enough noise, we may see a return of this train. Is there anybody along the Gulf States that's raising any dust on the issue?
> ...


No.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Nov 5, 2015)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Here in San Antonio we amended the city charter to require voter approval before any proposal of passenger rail can use any public land and/or public money. Is that noisy enough for you?


So off topic but why? Don't you elect city leaders? Why amended the charter? Seem a bit over the top. Someone working on a solution for a issue that does not exist? Or was it back by the local newspaper, radio, and TV stations. (Position Ads cost money.)


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## Hytec (Nov 6, 2015)

"The state governments are uninterested -- which is probably a dynamic in these states, where the state capitols are in the interior and the Gulf Coast is culturally distinct. Upstate/downstate divides, maybe? I don't think the Gulf Coast will have any luck getting money from those state governments."

This is especially true in Mississippi, even though the Coastal six counties include the State's second largest metropolitan area by population.

The majority of the Legislature and other elected state officials are from the northern two-thirds of our state. The "corrupt" Coast is where they always have gone to party, but not be seen. "What Happens on the Coast Stays on the Coast." (with apologies to Las Vegas.) Casino taxes are collected from our nine coastal casinos, but the majority of the money is distributed throughout the northern two-thirds which has all the Amtrak service the legislators feel is needed.


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## WoodyinNYC (Nov 6, 2015)

Just-Thinking-51 said:


> Devil's Advocate said:
> 
> 
> > Here in San Antonio we amended the city charter to require voter approval before any proposal of passenger rail can use any public land and/or public money. Is that noisy enough for you?
> ...


It's the noisy sound of haters. There's a cult that believes transit is Socialistic or something Evil.

So they oppose any and all: light rail, bus, Amtrak, whatever. Besides, us good people living in exclusive communities don't need transit, and who cares about "the others"?

History: San Antonio's first suburb was Alamo Heights. Its featured deed restrictions to keep it "exclusive". So no Jew could buy a lot and no buyer could later sell to a Jew. Or to a black,

of course. Or to any "Mexicans", tho they were the city's majority. (All Hispanics were called "Mexicans" in the day, even when I still lived in Texas. That was even tho most were "Tejanos", Texas-born descendants of Spanish soldiers and Native Americans who farmed irrigated land with help from Spanish missionaries, and many families still had their 200-year-old Baptism papers).

So the lines have been sharply drawn between the have and the have-nots. And transit is for the have-nots.

That's on top of issues of traffic congestion and historic conservation. The one-time main commercial street downtown was narrowed to one lane each direction, and lined with palm trees to tempt tourists to spend there. Now plans are to shrink the traffic sewer that flows in front of the Alamo, to give more respect to the historic site. _*"But where am I gonna drive my car?" *_

You can hear that cry from the self-entitled drivers at every election (and many of them are Hispanic, LOL, teaming up with the snobs and cult members).

Then plans were to put a light rail line down Broadway. That former highway to Austin is broad, and blighted. Plans were to upzone a stretch of former car dealerships, used car lots, and closed restaurants to permit high-rise housing. _*"You mean like in New York City?"*_

San Antonio is a beautiful city with gorgeous old train stations and a proud railroad history. It has many wonderful people. But it has plenty of folks, including some of my relatives, who vote to express their, um, passions, and vote against transit.


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## Palmetto (Nov 7, 2015)

When I lived in Brownsville, TX, the MPO there wasn't even aware there had been a published State Rail Plan. Didn't know quite what to think of that.

There was a Thruway bus connection up to San Antonio at one time, but it went away because it was a trip between the two cities in the middle of the night.


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## DSS&A (Dec 3, 2015)

Hi,

On December 4th, the Southern Rail Commission will hold a meeting to release the latest study by Amtrak on restoration of Gulf Coast passenger rail service. Here's a link to a news article yesterday about the meeting and the study.

http://www.weartv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/gulf-coast-residents-may-see-passenger-train-service-again-62629.shtml#.Vl_Qp8nnbqD


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## Palmetto (Dec 3, 2015)

Does anyone else find the redundancy here ridiculous? I mean: doing a study on a route the previously had service. Seems like a big waste of money.


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## Bob Dylan (Dec 3, 2015)

Palmetto said:


> Does anyone else find the redundancy here ridiculous? I mean: doing a study on a route the previously had service. Seems like a big waste of money.


Of course it is! But how else would "consultants" earn their living and how could government officials pay back those who finance their campaigns?

Cynical? Moi?


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## keelhauled (Dec 3, 2015)

No, I don't think its dumb at all. Unless the only way of restoring passenger trains is in the form of the overnight, less than daily service, but that's not the case. At least I should hope it isn't, because anyone can tell them right now that's a bad use of money. (Can I have my consultant's check now please?) There have been various proposals for the Gulf Coast (restoring the SL, extending the CONO, short service to Mobile, a stand-alone overnight) but they are all hand-waving hopefulness until things like trackage, ridership, infrastructure, etc are all examined, and which are all like to have changed in the decade plus since service ended.


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## benale (Dec 3, 2015)

Maybe something will actually happen this time. It's been ten years. Ideally, a train from New Orleans to Jacksonville, with connections to the Silvers and The Sunset. It's been way too long. A train connecting JAX and NOL is essential. It always has been essential.


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## cirdan (Dec 3, 2015)

WoodyinNYC said:


> of course. Or to any "Mexicans", tho they were the city's majority. (All Hispanics were called "Mexicans" in the day, even when I still lived in Texas. That was even tho most were "Tejanos", Texas-born descendants of Spanish soldiers and Native Americans who farmed irrigated land with help from Spanish missionaries, and many families still had their 200-year-old Baptism papers).
> 
> So the lines have been sharply drawn between the have and the have-nots. And transit is for the have-nots.


I don't know if this is universally true.

I can't find the link now but I once read a web page that analyzed the number of minutes a worker had to work to afford a transit ticket, and it appears that far from being constant over time, that this has come down massively over time. This is logical really, if you think about the way ratios of staff to passengers have evolved over time with vehicles becoming bigger and bigger while jobs such as ticket inspectors were increasingly eliminated. In other words productivity has gone through the roof. And of course in the day most companies were private whereas today they need subsidies to operate. So if you've gone from lower to higher productivity yet have gone from making a profit to depending on subsidy, the indicator is quite strong that fares haven't kept up with inflation.

In the day, the working classes walked or bicycled to work and transit was for the middle classes and hence served mostly middle-class neigborhoods, charging fares the working class couldn't afford.

To some extendt this is stil true today, at least for light rail. Light rail is built where it delivers the greatest change. Working class neighborhoods will not get significant change from light rail as a high percentage of people ride the bus anyway, so you're basically replacing a bus by a train but not taking many cars off the street. Move to a middle class neighborhood and you see many people who would not be seen dead in a bus gladly riding light rail. Hence that's where the investment delivers the biggest change and hence where most of it goes.

In fact even where light rail gets built into working class areas, it is often opposed in those areas because tenants see it as a tool of gentrification and fear that they will eventually be forced to move out due to rent increases driven by having to compete with the middle class. And in fact that is often what happens.


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## jis (Dec 3, 2015)

Actually, there are several examples where, when an LRT system was built through a working class neighborhood, soon after its inauguration the neighborhood got massively gentrified making it no longer affordable for the working class, and the middle class moved in. A prime example of this was Jersey City with the introduction of the HBLRT, which completely changed the composition and looks of Jersey City.


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## Tennessee Traveler (Dec 3, 2015)

Oh,futility! I think a Sunset East is just a futile a hope as a new Amtrak Floridian on new route connecting much larger cities of Nashville and Atlanta. CSX loathes passenger rail and is dominant in Tennessee. Plus State Republicans are highly anti State funding of Amtrak in any way.


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## tricia (Dec 3, 2015)

jis said:


> Actually, there are several examples where, when an LRT system was built through a working class neighborhood, soon after its inauguration the neighborhood got massively gentrified making it no longer affordable for the working class, and the middle class moved in. A prime example of this was Jersey City with the introduction of the HBLRT, which completely changed the composition and looks of Jersey City.


Gentrification was well under way in Jersey City before then, although undoubtedly this accelerated it. (I lived in Jersey City in the early 1980s.)


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## Lonestar648 (Dec 3, 2015)

It may be that the study is a mandatory pre-requisite for political support. So how much support may not be known until the study is published. Even with some support, if CSX isn't interested, and/or the cost to upgrade the line to full passenger speed exceeds what any political support could support, the deal is unlikely. Actually, with Amtrak's current inventory and the number of grade crossing incidents, any expansion is almost impossible without purchasing additional inventory.


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## DSS&A (Dec 9, 2015)

Hi,

Here's a link to an article about the December 4th meeting and the upcoming study.

http://www.sunherald.com/news/article48723825.html

The study is very important to determine the potential ridership projections for different levels of train service and the corresponding costs to upgrade the tracks, stations and rolling stock. When a remote controlled switch on a mainline costs around $1 Million EACH (approximately $3.5 Million+ for a passing siding with two switches and a mile of siding between them), the people who want train service need good information to justify the expense.

Because of the high cost of each remote controlled switch, I feel that it's better to build longer passing sidings so that you can have a rolling meet or the one train can at least advance more miles down the track before waiting for the oposing train to pass by. Long sidings allow the option for a freight train to be put on the siding ahead of a passenger train. Short siding result in the passenger train being always "parked" on sidings for every train meet.


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## neroden (Dec 10, 2015)

I do wonder what the source of overcharging for the switches is -- Class I railroad price-gouging, probably. Even including installation and electronics, the cost of a switch should definitely be less than $500K.

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/railway-switch.html

If I'm right about this, it gets back to the first rule of running passenger trains: *buy the right of way*. Otherwise the Class I owner will keep gouging you.


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## Anderson (Dec 10, 2015)

While I agree in principle about buying ROW, that really only applies if you're going to run substantial daily frequencies (unless the freight road in question is "throwing away" a line). Buying and keeping up a line for one or two daily round-trips doesn't make sense while doing so for a dozen trains per day in each direction probably does. In this context, buying the NOL-JAX line makes little sense (I really cannot see most of the line hosting more than two or three trains per day except in our wildest dreams). A stretch around NOL (perhaps as far as Mobile)? _Maybe_.

As to equipment...well, there's at least some ongoing ordering from AAF (which is, I believe, roughly compliant with Amtrak's single-level boarding standards) so if such a service was to be started up I see no reason that [insert entity here] couldn't have a talk with Siemens about piggybacking an order onto the likely second round of the AAF equipment order.


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## neroden (Dec 10, 2015)

Honestly I think you should always be running substantial daily frequencies: train service is all about the economies of scale. It seems worth it to buy the route for as little as six trips each way each day (ask VIA Rail about that), and that's a reasonable level of service.

In the Gulf context:

When I think of the Gulf Coast, I'm mostly thinking of the Mobile - New Orleans corridor. That's a *great* route and should support several trains per day, enough to be worth owning the track.

The route from Mobile to Pensacola is circuitous and I honestly wouldn't support restoring service on it at all. Decent service in that corridor requires a new right-of-way with a bridge or tunnel. So again, own the track.

Pensacola-Talahassee has essentially been dumped by CSX, relegated to low-speed dark territory, so it would have to be purchased in order to get decent speed passenger service.

I doubt that Talahassee-Lake City-Jacksonville is a good enough route on its own to restore service there any time soon, though after HSR reaches Jacksonville, that may change. This is the only segment where it would make logical sense to be a tenant of the freight railroad.

This is actually the bind you get into regarding being a tenant on a freight-owned line. If freight traffic is heavy, you want to own your own line because if you don't the freight hauler will abuse you in the dispatching. If freight traffic is light, you want to own your own line because if you don't the freight hauler will abuse you in the maintenance of the line. Only if freight traffic is "just right" in the middle can you make a decent deal.

When the passenger operator owns the line and the freight hauler is the tenant, the passenger operator is generally friendly and helpful to the freight operator. So there's an asymmetry there.


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## DSS&A (Dec 10, 2015)

Hi,

What makes the price of a mainline remote controlled switch so expensive is the CTC interconnect signal equipment and it's labor costs. These costs are equal to or greater than the price of the track material and trackwork installation labor. The +/- $1 million price "ball-park estimate" is not railroad price gouging.


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## neroden (Dec 13, 2015)

Signal equipment for a switch shouldn't cost that much, period. I don't know what's going on with that, but there's something fundamentally wrong in the signal design if the signal equipment is costing $500K per switch. This is electronics. Even failsafe electronics is *not that expensive*.

I could see $500K per *reconfiguration* for the labor to reprogram the CTC system, which would make a high cost for ONE switch.... but that would mean you'd get all the signalling on the entire refurbished line (as many switches as you need) for the same cost as adding one switch.


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## DSS&A (Dec 14, 2015)

Hi,

There are not many railroad signal companies that make the signal systems one contractor bought up one of its competitors a few years back. Supply and demand economic issues help to determine prices. Looking on the web, here is a link to an article about the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District spending $79.9 Million to have PTC installed on their railroad.

According to NICTD's April 2, 2015 on-line published meeting minutes, this is the second time that they went out for bids for a signal contractor. The first time they went out for bid in 2014, they only received one bid for $120 Million to install PTC on their railroad. Their consulting engineer had estimated the price would be about $40 Million.

Railroad signal equipment is very expensive. Automatic railroad/highway grade crossing signal costs are in the six figures.


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## DSS&A (Dec 14, 2015)

Hi,

Here's the link to the NICTD PTC news article.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-nictd-shutdown-resolution-st-1003-20151002-story.html


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## neroden (Dec 15, 2015)

DSS&A said:


> There are not many railroad signal companies that make the signal systems one contractor bought up one of its competitors a few years back.


Oho. Monopoly pricing. That will do it. And yes, that's price gouging.

Time for one or more of the railroads to start making their signal systems in house. It'll be cheaper to hire the skilled labor *without* the monopoly pricing overhead. I don't think an operation as small as NICTD could do it; not enough system to keep full-time hardware and software signalling experts permanently on staff. Metra might be large enough to do so; the MBTA probably is; NJT and the MTA are certainly large enough.

I would expect the Class Is to be doing signalling in house already, if an outside monopoly vendor is quoting prices that high. But the Class Is have been shedding expertise for decades, so reversing that trend might be hard for management to do.


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## jis (Dec 15, 2015)

Signaling equipment vendors are down to just a few major ones through the recent spate of M&A. They are several well known names like Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier, and now Hitachi though the acquisition of Ansaldo. And rumor has it that Bombardier may be looking at shedding its entire rail related stuff at least to a subsidiary if not in an outright divestiture. But I don't think they are at a position where they can really practice monopoly pricing in today's world. There is a price point which is not that high, at which the China's and Japan's start entering the market in a big way ( c.f. Hitachi). AFAIK at present all railroads in US contract out significant parts of at least new signal systems installation, testing and commissioning. Many do the day to day stuff in house.


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## west point (Dec 15, 2015)

A big signal cost is installation. Observation of one siding going to CTC was revealing. Installation took about 2 weeks with unknown number of personnel. There was at least 2 persons at each signal bungalow from far end of next CP to Far end of proceeding CP. So in that case 26 signal maintainers to test the system that took 2 days. and the sidings were only about 8 - 10 miles apart. Cannot imagine how many needed if siding are farther apart.


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## neroden (Dec 16, 2015)

Good grief. I understand the need for testing of failsafe systems, but I just don't believe that that's the optimal number of employees or length of time. Is there just something fundamentally wrong with the signal system design which makes it exceptionally labor intensive?


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## DSS&A (Dec 17, 2015)

Hi,

Here's a link to a December 16th article about the new study. Extending the City of New Orleans is a good idea or at least operate a few through sleepers and a coach on a new separate train with a very short layover.

http://m.newsherald.com/article/20151216/NEWS/151219311


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## Caesar La Rock (Dec 17, 2015)

If that plan happens, will the train be called City of Orlando?  Jokes aside, I like the idea to send the City of New Orleans to Orlando.


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## Anderson (Dec 17, 2015)

Well, I'm looking over this report and comparing it to the 2008-mandated report. Of the five options in this report and three in the old one:
Option 1 in the old report (tri-weekly Sunset extension) has no parallel in the new report.
Option 2 in the old report (daily CONO extension to Orlando) corresponds to Alternative A1 in the new report.
Option 3 in the old report (daily stand-alone train) corresponds to Alternative C in the new report.
Alternative 2/2A has no parallel in the old report.

So, comparing alternatives:
Option 2/Alternative 1A
Option 2/2009:
Ridership: 96,100
Revenue: $9.20m
Direct Costs: $20.9m
Operating Contribution: $11.70m (no capital charges indicated)
Direct Cost Recovery: 44%

Alternative A1/2015:
Ridership: 138,300 riders
Revenue: $12.25m
Operating Commitment: $5.48m
-Implied Operating Costs of $17.73m.
Capital Expense: $3.78m
Direct Cost Recovery: 69%

Option 3/Alternative C
Option 3/2009:
Ridership: 79,900
Revenue: $5.6m
Direct Costs: $24.0m
Operating Contribution: $18.4m
Direct Cost Recovery: 23%

Alternative C/2015:
Ridership: 69,100 riders
Revenue: $4.03m
Operating Costs: $18.43m
Operating Commitment: $14.4m
Direct Cost Recovery: 21.9%

The short version is that the stand-alone train stinks almost no matter what (and as an aside, the numbers for the state train options are absolutely horrid...B's ridership, with two trains, is on par with the Hoosier State and B1 is only marginally better). However, the stats on through-operation of the CONO improve markedly. There are a few things to explain this:
-Higher ridership. One notable change is that the putative times in Orlando provide for legal connections to/from Miami in the 2015 schedule, something not there in the 2009 schedule. [1] I don't see the connecting traffic as massive, but it is likely not insubstantial (especially since it would also implicitly allow CONO pax to catch the Meteor's Thruway bus to Tampa where that might not have been allowed on the older plan).
--Better times in Florida. The WB schedule trades a longer pad at NOL for better times where possible in north Florida (Jacksonville, Tallahassee, etc.). This is probably a good trade.
--Better times New Orleans-Mobile. The new schedule basically runs between the two cities on a commuter schedule (into NOL at 0930, out of NOL at 1700).
-Lower costs. There's a $3.2m reduction in costs between 2009 and 2015 for the CONO. Some of this is down to reducing the equipment need on the train (the old plan assumed 6 cars going to Orlando all year while the present one assumes 4 cars; this likely reduces OBS expenses somewhat as well as making a dent on maintenance assumptions).


[1] The CONO's planned arrival in Orlando is 1130; this connects with the Meteor southbound, which departs just after 1300. The CONO's planned departure is 1615, which would connect from the Meteor, which arrives at 1323. On the old report, the CONO was to arrive in Orlando at 1250 (no legal connection to the Meteor southbound); you'd have a one-way connection...which would likely scupper any round-trip business.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Dec 19, 2015)

CONO is the street sweeper (last train out) of a short haul route. By extending it to Orlando, even a few cars, are we not causing yeld management to kick in, and mess with ridership on the northern leg?

One thinks you need to block a few cars for the longs out of Chicago. Sure you can open those seats up closer to the departure date, however how many customer will be turned away? Or do we add equipment just for the Orlando section?

Like the Lakeshore Limited, if there was a Empire Service train going west after it, how would the numbers change. Sunday out of NYC full house, with people sneaking on board, or trying to.


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## WoodyinNYC (Dec 19, 2015)

DSS&A said:


> Here's a link to a December 16th article about the new study....
> 
> http://m.newsherald.com/article/20151216/NEWS/151219311


Here's the link to the study itself:

http://www.newsherald.com/assets/pdf/DA2111216.PDF


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## WoodyinNYC (Dec 19, 2015)

From the report, "At New Orleans, passengers could connect overnight with the _Sunset Limited _service to Los Angeles."

Of course, future daily service on the _Sunset Limited_ is an unhatched chick. But it might not be much help to the revived service east of New Orleans.

That phrase "connect overnight" reveals an awkwardness in the likely schedules. Currently, the westbound _Sunset_ departs New Orleans at 9 a.m. But the study has the extended _CONO_ arriving from Orlando at 9:30 a.m. That's temptingly close to a real same-day connection, but it would require tweaking the timetables by a couple of hours to make it happen reliably.

The PRIIA study of the _Sunset Ltd/Texas Eagle_ back in 2010 looked at a thru train Chicago-San Antonio-L.A., with a shuttle New Orleans-Lafayette-Houston-San Antonio. Their _Sunset Shuttle _would depart NOLA at 9:45 a.m. and arrive in San Antonio at 11:10 p.m. to meet the _Eagle_ for a cross-platform connection before the _Eagle_ headed west at 1:10 a.m. So there's not much room for tweaking the Shuttle schedule, unless it can be speeded up. (The _Sunset Ltd._ does about 45 mph over this segment now.)

Eastbound is even more problematic. The _Sunset_ now leaves San Antonio at 6:25 a.m., arriving in NOLA at 9:40 p.m. (In the PRIIA study, it was depart 7:50 a.m., arrive 9 p.m. Obviously the PRIIA team thought a faster trip was possible, but that was probably before talking with the UP and BNSF.) If the CONO will be departing NOLA at 5 p.m. to Mobile and Orlando, passengers from Lafayette, Houston, San Antonio, and points west will indeed be looking at an "overnight connection". Such a thing could happen in worse places, but most riders would probably prefer to keep on moving on.

The solution, of course, would be more Amtrak, or much faster Amtrak: A _Sunset Shuttle_ from San Antonio arriving reliably in NOLA by mid-afternoon would not be impossible with enuff investment. Or a second, earlier train leaving San Antonio without holding for the _Eagle_'s arrival from L.A. and El Paso. Those trains could be the basis of corridor service with several daily runs linking two big Texas cities with the two Louisiana cities. Wouldn't the population totals justify it? Well, I'll try to keep this corridor on my ranked To-Do list, if that worthy project comes back to life.


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## neroden (Dec 20, 2015)

Here's a different idea: suppose

(a) the PRIIA Texas Eagle / daily Sunset Limited combination was implemented (it'll be a while, so assume UP's built a lot of double track)

(b) the preferred option, extending the CONO to Florida, in the Gulf Coast study was implemented

© Sunset Shuttle was rescheduled to get good times on the New Orleans end.

CONO Eastbound arrive NOLA 3:32PM, depart 5:00PM

CONO Westbound arrive NOLA 9:30AM, depart 1:45PM

Crescent Westbound arrive NOLA 7:32 PM

Crescent Eastbound depart NOLA 7:00 AM

Hmmm. I don't see a way to get a good connection to all of those trains with a single train west. Just not possible.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Dec 20, 2015)

neroden said:


> Here's a different idea: suppose
> 
> (a) the PRIIA Texas Eagle / daily Sunset Limited combination was implemented (it'll be a while, so assume UP's built a lot of double track)
> 
> ...


I agree (and I tried): http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/65927-proposal-for-extending-crescent-to-sas-improving-te-schedule/

Even in 1977 when they had the through cars from NYP to LAX, the train waited overnight in NOL in both directions.

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19770622&item=0036

The combo from NYP to LAX via NOL was 4 days while the combo from NYP to LAX via KCY was 3 days.

This is back when the SL was LAX to MIA:

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19941030n&item=0030

You can choose to match up the SL with the Crescent or the TE but not both without drastically changing either the Crescent or the TE. I'd argue the NOL connection with the Crescent (and CONO) is more important than the TE connection at SAS.

This was the TE from 1994:

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19941030n&item=0031

First, it had through cars from DAL to HOU and second the train left CHI much later so there wasn't as long a delay as there is in 2015.

I still feel a train leaving SAS west at 2:45am and arriving in LAX at 5:35am is pretty bad. No wonder the train has such poor ridership.


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## WoodyinNYC (Dec 20, 2015)

neroden said:


> suppose ... Sunset Shuttle was rescheduled to get good times on the New Orleans end.
> 
> CONO Eastbound arrive NOLA 3:32PM, depart for FLA at 5:00PM
> 
> ...


Not possible. And not easy to make the _Sunset Shuttle _part work.

Maybe for a hundred million bucks you could upgrade the tracks to get a Westbound _Shuttle_ departure that would work with the _CONO_'s morning arrival from Florida.

But it would take _Lincoln/Wolverine_ corridors, Stimulus type money to get the Eastbound times to work, like, $2 Billion at least.

Meanwhile I guess some riders would take the train west, then fly back on Southwest or United out of Houston or San Antonio. But not too many would do it.

On the other hand, for people who insist on riding the train, on account of their claustrophobia or simple stubbornness or whatever, their trips will be greatly improved by the new schedule even with the "overnight connections". That's simply because there is no connection at all now, with no train from Florida to points west.

And of course, the _Shuttle_ will run daily, which will always beat the 3-days-a-week schedule that kills the _Sunset_ now.

Will it be worse to overnight in New Orleans than to ride to D.C., change trains to Chicago, change trains to the West Coast? Sleeper pax will have to ride coach on the _Shuttl_e, then get space in a Viewliner in San Antonio or NOLA. But despite it all, some riders will be delighted with the re-opened Southern route.

Keeping the focus on the new proposal, I've been persuaded. I'd been annoyed with NARP for pushing so hard for a train here. But the study's conclusions make it seem reasonable to extend the _CONO_. *So let's do it!*


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## neroden (Dec 20, 2015)

It'll only be extended if the states or local governments put up the money.  Frankly, with THESE states involved, I'd think the local governments would be more likely.


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## DSS&A (Dec 21, 2015)

Hi, If the CONO is extended , I would think that it would be considered a long distance train and the states wouldn't have to help cover the operating costs. The states and communities may be asked to rehab their station and parking facilities and some track related capacity costs to help sweeten the pot" to encourage the restart of service. Does Amtrak have enough out of service Superliner cars for this extended service that could be rehabilitated? The website on this link indicates that they may have enough.

http://trainweb.org/web_lurker/AmtrakSuperliner/


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## neroden (Dec 21, 2015)

Unfortunately, an extension of the CONO would be bad for Amtrak's bottom line, according to the report: $5.48 million/year. The states would not be asked to cover overhead (as they are asked to do under PRIIA), but Amtrak would want the actual avoidable costs to be covered. Because Amtrak needs that money for a lot of other higher-priority things.

$5.48 million per year might be within the budgets of the cities & counties, if Tallahassee, Pensacola, Mobile, Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport, and New Orleans all kicked in a little.


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## jis (Dec 22, 2015)

All that we have to do is ,milk the NEC customers another $5.48 million and Voila!  If the various Congresspeple and Senators asking for this have the balls they should tack on an addendum to the Amtrak appropriation to cover this. Originally they did say this is the reason they wanted the study done. Now we'll see if they were just bluffing Afterall it is the LD networks which should be the responsibility of the federal government in its entirety..


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## WoodyinNYC (Dec 22, 2015)

neroden said:


> Unfortunately, an extension of the CONO would be bad for Amtrak's bottom line, according to the report: $5.48 million/year. ...


Not a large number compared with losses on other Superliner trains that can run $30 or $40 million a year.

Not as close to breaking even or surplus as the single-level Eastern trains, but not a bad figure.

The PRIIA study on the _Texas Eagle/Sunset Ltd_ revamp to a daily schedule showed losses on the route increased by $4.5 million, or *0.5% of the total LD losses *at the time. Of course, that daily train instead of a 3-days-a-week train would enjoy enormous productivity gains from crew assignments. (The daily _Eagle/Sunset_ loss was forecast to be offset in part by a $1.5 million gain on the connecting _Coast Starlight._)

But that $5.5 million from an extended _CONO_ quickly gains 100,000+ passengers, adds considerable (if flawed) connectivity to the national system, and might neutralize some anti-Amtrak political sentiment in 3 or 4 states.


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## WoodyinNYC (Dec 22, 2015)

neroden said:


> Unfortunately, an extension of the CONO would be bad for Amtrak's bottom line, according to the report: $5.48 million/year.


You know I favor expansion of the system -- *the cure for what ails Amtrak is more Amtrak*. Any added "train miles" divide into a fairly fixed nut of overhead costs. So added train miles from new trains reduce in some little way the overhead burden on the trains already in the system. Of course, other trains only benefit if the operating results of the new or extended train are above the average for all existing trains.

But because of various Congressional restrictions, there's very, very few places where Amtrak can easily expand. A daily _Cardinal_, a daily _Eagle/Sunset Ltd,_ and restoration of the "suspended" _Sunset_ service between New Orleans and Florida, by an extended _CONO_ in this case.

Otherwise we'll need to get our additional "train miles" from more state-supported trains. At this point that's gonna be from California, Washington (and maybe Oregon), Illinois, Virginia, Connecticut, North Carolina, Maine, and Vermont. And except for the _Roanoker _and perhaps the_ Norfolker_, no new state supported train has been announced since the Stimulus.

With the outlook for any growth in "train miles" elsewhere so limited, we should line up behind this Gulf Coast _CONO_ and go for it.


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## Carolina Special (Dec 22, 2015)

It would be nice to know what the expected capital costs would be to get this extension running. I don't believe the Amtrak study covers those.

Covering $5.5 million a year in operating costs is relatively peanuts, but if the capital cost is several hundred million? There will have to be a funding source for that.


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## DSS&A (Dec 22, 2015)

Hi,

One other way to add connectivity and grow the system is the thruway bus connection between St. Louis and Centralia on the CONO. During peak travel times, a second bus would probably be needed. For a short time, this was the River Cities connecting train.

This connection can benefit the CONO with additional passengers from St. Louis to Kansas City who want to go to the Gulf Coast and Florida, especially Orlando! As ridership grows over at least a few years, a thru coach and sleeping car from Kansas City to Orlando is possible. I believe the River Cities was a sleeping car and a coach initially, but it was a single coach for many years. The ability to offer more destinations such as the also popular Gulf Coast, and Florida could be a game changer that attracts a larger ridership than in the past.


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## west point (Dec 22, 2015)

Woody and others: One item to consider. If additional train miles go on a present route some economies of scale become evident.

1. Cardinal and present Sunset will have less crew costs per train mile due to better utilization. There will only be a very small increase in station keeping costs. May need a few more ticket agents over a route. There will be track charges by freight RRs and on Amtrak tracks. All the previous can be shared with another train(s). Also add car and loco mileage charges.

2. Adding a train on a present route(s) or part of route has the same advantages of #1. Examples would be a day Crescent ATL - NYP, another NYP - CHI, NYP - Florida, CHI - Denver, CHI - MSP, Phoenix / Tucson - LAX. Adding any trains to multi train routes such as the NEC, Capitol corridor, Surfliners, Cascades, WASH - Richmond, will have very little of these incremental costs.

3. Any new route has all the expenses of # 1 without being able to share the costs with any other train.

4. All those additional trains will allow for more connections. The outstanding metric of connections is CHI that has on any day 30 - 40 % of arriving passengers board another train departing from CHI. More trains as listed above will make connections at other Amtrak hubs.

HOWEVER: New trains can may add more connecting passengers instead of adding trains to present routes. The PRIIA reports do not address this metric very well. Connections to / from CHI, NYP, WASH, PHL would be improved The Sunset and Sunset east do not add to connections except at SAS, LAX and JAX. New Orleans only with an overnight stay.

Whatever is done the critical need for locos and then passenger cars needs addressing


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## west point (Dec 22, 2015)

An overnight train departing NOL - JAX approximately at 2200 (10 PM ) might be a solution. Arrive NOL 0500

!. Maybe it could be called an extension of the CNO or Sunset but have a change of equipment ( Horizons ? ). Its been done before. Then at JAX you would have good connections both north and south on the Silvers. Leave to others to calculate JAX times.

2. Plus all three inbound trains could have connections.

a. Crescent can provide connecting passengers from ATL - BHM and intermediate stations south. Note: northbound Crescent cannot changed for a delayed schedule due to the important times for BHM and ATL passengers going north.

b. City of New Orleans would provide connecting passenger from Carbondale - Memphis - Jackson

c. Sunset connections ELP, SAS, HOU, and maybe farther west.

d. JAX has too many possibilities to even begin to list.


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## neroden (Dec 22, 2015)

Woody: the impression I got from the report is that the $5.48 million is actually incremental subsidy requirement. None of this overhead loading nonsense. Amtrak quite clearly states that with the route not subject to PRIIA, they aren't required to load the states' costs up with overhead, but that they still want the states to cover the real incremental operating costs.

My most recent estimates say that making the Sunset Limited daily should *reduce* subsidy requirement, and that making the Cardinal daily should *reduce* subsidy requirement. Slightly different situation; one where Amtrak should just do it as soon as possible.

Of course the wild card is capital costs, which haven't been estimated recently (for any of the above).


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## jis (Jan 1, 2016)

Caesar La Rock said:


> If that plan happens, will the train be called City of Orlando?  Jokes aside, I like the idea to send the City of New Orleans to Orlando.


I just pulled out my handy dandy 1965 _Official Guide of the Railways_ and discovered that the proposed timing of the CONO extension or the stand alone train between NOL and ORL closely parallels that of the _Gulf Wind_ which was a joint L&N and SAL operation between NOL and JAX. It connected with the _Silver Meteor_ in JAX providing connections to both Tampa and Miami. It of course did not connect to the _Sunset Limited_ in NOL eastbound using any reasonable definition of "connect". Westbound there was a two and a half hour connection at NOL.

Anyway, this train carried both Coaches and Sleepers, had baggage service and had a Diner (L&N from NOL to Mobile and SAL from Tallahassee to JAX), and an Obs-Lounge!

There was a train called _the Louisiane_ between CHI and NOL which connected nicely with _the Gulf Wind_. The premier _Panama Limited_ did not.

So I guess it is fair to say that the proposed NOL - ORL train basically is restoration of the _Gulf Wind_, extended to ORL (which of course in '65 was not as important a destination as it is today).


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## bretton88 (Jan 5, 2016)

Looking at this study, the presence of alternative A1 sure makes me think that Amtrak is going to try this, even without state support unless CSX asks for a boatload of money to get it started, and with the severe downturn in freight traffic, CSX might be willing to cooperate. Could Amtrak just use the slot they still have from the "suspended" Sunset Limited?


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## neroden (Jan 5, 2016)

Based on the incremental subsidy numbers, Amtrak is not going to do this without state or local support. I could actually see this being funded from local support, however, it's just not much cost.


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## bretton88 (Jan 5, 2016)

neroden said:


> Based on the incremental subsidy numbers, Amtrak is not going to do this without state or local support. I could actually see this being funded from local support, however, it's just not much cost.


Yeah, but an extension of a LD train does not require state support. If they weren't considering doing this by themselves, why even bother with alternative A1? Amtrak might finally be thinking of the network effect.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 5, 2016)

bretton88 said:


> Looking at this study, the presence of alternative A1 sure makes me think that Amtrak is going to try this, even without state support unless CSX asks for a boatload of money to get it started, and with the severe downturn in freight traffic, CSX might be willing to cooperate. Could Amtrak just use the slot they still have from the "suspended" Sunset Limited?


Let's assume that the SL East was "suspended", in a lawyer-approved word choice, in order to preserve the slot for it to be "unsuspended" in the future. So the slot won't be the issue.

Upgrading the route will cost something, if nothing more than the $20 million (estimated 2009 dollars) to install the PTC. The study notes that CSX will likely ask for upgrades, of course, to offset the effects on the freight schedules of adding the _CONO_ to this stretch. Then the bargaining begins, and the states could get involved. If the CSX needs or demands just happened to consist of four projects, one in each state, it might be possible to get each state to put up some money toward matching a TIGER grant of $25 million maximum per project. (The template for this is the _Southwest Chief_, where various public entities scrounged up the match to collect TIGER grants and upgrade the tracks.)

Agree that Alt A1 is how it's gonna go.

(I was quite disappointed to see the puny ridership figures estimated for a state-supported corridor run Mobile-New Orleans; forget it.)


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## neroden (Jan 5, 2016)

bretton88 said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > Based on the incremental subsidy numbers, Amtrak is not going to do this without state or local support. I could actually see this being funded from local support, however, it's just not much cost.
> ...


Amtrak was very specific in the report. They aren't required to charge the loaded-with-overhead overpriced rates if it's a longer-than-750-mile... so they won't. But Amtrak has also faced flat federal funding for many years, so it makes no sense for Amtrak to increase its deficit.

Therefore Amtrak estimated the *actual* incremental costs and incremental revenues. If the states or localities cover the difference (~5.3 million/year), Amtrak will run the train, otherwise not.

The loaded-with-overhead rate would have been $20 million or more.


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## TylerP42 (Jan 5, 2016)

Sorry if I've been living under a rock and missed a thread (I looked for one and couldn't find it), but someone just sent me this on facebook. For me it's a rumor. Anyone else know any truth to this?

He said he found the info in a trains magazine saying it'll be back.


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## lo2e (Jan 5, 2016)

Not exactly what you're seeing there, but there's an article in the Tallahassee Democrat from December 31 stating there's at least a group looking at the possibilities: http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2015/12/31/all-aboard-rail-service-could-returning-tallahassee/78131404/



> The Amtrak report looks at three possibilities of restoring the rail line, all with stops in Tallahassee.
> 
> One would be a daily trip from New Orleans to Orlando with 16 stops along the way. Another would extend the New Orleans line to two daily trips between Mobile where passengers would change trains on their way to Florida. The third would be an overnight trip from New Orleans to Orlando.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 5, 2016)

For the projected loss of Alt A1, we've been using the figure of "$5.48 million in combined annual funding needs for the long distance train extension (down from $5.71 million [for Alt A])". 

But the study also notes "Potential cost reductions of $654,000 annually are possible if the chef position in the Cross-Country Café is removed from the proposal, and food is instead prepared and served by the Lead Service Attendant and Service Attendant. A trial of this staffing plan is currently underway on the _City of New Orleans_."

Subtracting the $650,00 saved from eliminating the chef (sorry about that), a _CONO_ _sans chef _could be extended to Orlando for $4,930,000 *only $5 million a year*. Take the $5 million, divide by the estimated 138,300 new passengers, gets about $36 loss per passenger, in line with other Long Distance trains.

(Yeah, I know loss-per-passenger isn't the best measure. But it's the simplistic number that will be used by Amtrak's enemies on hate talk radio, so it matters. And it's good to be fairly low.)



I expect the overall results could turn out better. If Amtrak overestimates the ridership and underestimates the losses, it's hell to pay and forecasters' heads could roll. But nobody gets mad if ridership exceeds estimates and losses come in below projections.

Unless I missed it, the study made no reference to the _SunRail _connections at Orlando, or to the future _Brightline_ service to Orlando Airport. (Yes, I could easily imagine backpackers riding the _CONO _to Orlando, spending a day or three in theme parks, then taking the _Brightline_ from the airport to Miami if that seems most convenient.)

It's for another thread, but this _CONO_ makes me think about extending the _Palmetto_ to Jacksonville. It's just 2 hrs 20 min down the way from Savannah, so the SB arrival would be 11:20 p.m. That's later than we'd like, but so much better than none, when the _Meteor_ and _Star_ both arrive in the a.m. The NB departure would be at 6 a.m., earlier than we'd like, but both the_ Star_ and the _Meteor_ pass thru in the p.m. The extended _CONO_ and the extended _Palmetto_ would not connect exactly, but with an "overnight connection" as they say. Still some riders would use it to make a connection to the _CONO._ The network effect can be powerful even overnight.

I'm used to seeing talk about extending the _Palmetto_ to Miami, adding sleepers and a dining car and oh my! But I'd be happy to see it reach the Jacksonville metro area, a 1.3 million market. (No dining car, but I'd probably want a lounge with sandwiches n stuff; the current Palmetto offers "vending machines".)

There's probably good reason why the _Palmetto_ sleeps in Savannah -- limits on crew hours n stuff -- but I'd like to see it a day train to Jacksonville. Maybe the extended Palmetto would need to go to Orlando and arrive well after midnight. That way it could be serviced at Sanford, tho their skills are for Superliners. That degree of extension would require a third consist, and that would wreck the operating numbers. But if it could go just two hours further down the road from Savannah to Jacksonville without requiring a maintenance base (no sleepers, no diners keeps things simpler), that I'd like to see.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 5, 2016)

lo2e said:


> ... an article in the Tallahassee Democrat from December 31
> 
> http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2015/12/31/all-aboard-rail-service-could-returning-tallahassee/78131404/


I counted six factual errors, including an incorrect lowest projected loss (they give too high a figure) and the wrong train that was discontinued (it wasn't the _Gulf Coast Limited_ and it wasn't "popular").

But given the standards of today's press, it's not a bad article overall. LOL.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 5, 2016)

Am I the first to notice that the proposed _CONO_ extension to Orlando would pass thru the heart of Cong John Mica's Congressional district? Just saying'.

Mica's sure brought home the bacon with tens of millions of federal funds for his favorite homestate project, _SunRail_, which Wikipedia reports:

"During its first year of operation, _SunRail_ made a total of $7.2 million ... spent a total of $34.4 million ... ending it with *a $27.2 million deficit *and an average daily ridership of 3,700 passengers."

I'm getting a $20 to $30+ loss-per-passenger out of those and other statistics? guesstimates? found on Google. (Surely they are doing better. But I couldn't find any more recent or official financial figures on the _SunRail_ home page. What could they have to hide?)

The projected results for the extended _CONO_ -- 138,000 riders, possibly more, and a loss-per-rider of only $36, and probably less -- is not a bad deal at all.


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## bretton88 (Jan 6, 2016)

As much as adding to your losses is generally a bad thing, 5 million a year is a pretty small amount in their overall losses. If they schedule things right, they could increase ridership elsewhere with the network effect, making the impact to their bottom line low for running the train. Plus there's the added political benefit of putting a train in an area that would have previously not been inclined to fund Amtrak because they didn't have a train, with a train they might flip to funding Amtrak.


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## TylerP42 (Jan 6, 2016)

There should be no loss per rider...


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## bretton88 (Jan 6, 2016)

TylerP42 said:


> There should be no loss per rider...


In which case the entire LD network is doomed. All LD trains lose money, except occasionally the auto train.


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## jis (Jan 6, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> Am I the first to notice that the proposed _CONO_ extension to Orlando would pass thru the heart of Cong John Mica's Congressional district? Just saying'.
> 
> Mica's sure brought home the bacon with tens of millions of federal funds for his favorite homestate project, _SunRail_, which Wikipedia reports:
> 
> ...


Oddly Mica has been pretty silent about the Gulf Coast project even though the proposal does extend to Orlando. It is Congresspeople and Senator from Mississippi and Alabama that have been pushing this more than anyone else. That is the reason I believe in reality what will materialize is a NOL Mobile service and the Florida extension may wait for another day.

FDOT was offered am intra-Florida service by Amtrak and they turned it down because it would not meet their 60% farebox recovery threshold for intercity rail service that they have been using for decades, and which caused the original intra-Florida Silver Palm to go bye-bye. I doubt that FDOT could be convinced that a Tallahassee - Jacksonville - Orlando service will meet that threshold when they do not believe that a Jacksonville - Orlando - Tampa - Miami service would. Just the way things blow in Florida these days. I think FDOT will for the moment just concentrate on SunRail and Tri-Rail expansions and politically supporting AAF, and not be contributing to any Amtrak expansion in Florida for a while at least. Just my semi-educated guess of course.


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## Bob Dylan (Jan 6, 2016)

Perhaps when the people of Florida wake up and run off the health care criminal Rick Scott, the Absentee Senator Mark Rubio and like minded politicians, Florida's DOT will be more open to working with Amtrak on Rail service?


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## jis (Jan 6, 2016)

Bob Dylan said:


> Perhaps when the people of Florida wake up and run off the health care criminal Rick Scott, the Absentee Senator Mark Rubio and like minded politicians, Florida's DOT will be more open to working with Amtrak on Rail service?


Who knows? FDOT's 60% threshold was set way back when some of these guys were in cribs. But seriously, if Florida wants to setup and operate its own intra-Florida service operated by someone other than Amtrak using their own equipment, why should anyone complain? Whether that will happen or not is a different matter. The trend at present seems to be to just smooth the path of anyone that wants to do such exemplified currently by AAF. A lot will depend on how that pans out, since Amtrak hasn't exactly covered itself with laurels of efficiency, service quality and transparency either. We mostly seem to support Amtrak more because it is the only game in town rather than because it is really wonderful, after all.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 6, 2016)

jis said:


> WoodyinNYC said:
> 
> 
> > ... notice that the proposed _CONO_ extension … would pass thru … Cong John Mica's Congressional district?
> ...


The figures for Mobile-New Orleans train were dismal, low ridership working out to a high subsidy per passenger. The numbers work much better for the full distance train. So I hope that doesn't happen.

If Senators and CongressCritters can deliver federal funds to cover the costs of any upgrades CSX demands, then maybe states and cities could pick up the $5 million yearly loss for the _CONO _sans chef. Four states, $1 million each, with Tallahassee, Mobile, Biloxi/Gulfport (or their casinos), and New Orleans putting up $250,000 each. That $5m million is such a small amount that it's hardly worth making your neighboring states mad at you by refusing to share at all.

As for the Florida DOT, Tallahassee's delegation in the legislature, with a little help from Pensacola and the rest of the Panhandle, can make the simple pitch: Everybody us is getting trains but you oppose letting *our* train get a lousy million or two?

Florida could also make a large non-financial contribution by leaning on CSX to make it happen. The states seem much more effective at leaning on the freights than Amtrak can ever be.


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## jis (Jan 6, 2016)

I just don't see the Florida delegation doing much of anything about it, unless some miracle happens. Specially given the court ordered redistricting that is going to be forced which will put everyone on an edge specially in North Florida where the most egregious gerrymanderings are to be found, they will simply not shake the boat for for an election cycle or two until things settle down.

On the Senate side, if Sen. Nelson comes out strongly in favor there is some hope. The other hope would be Corrine Brown, but she could be threatened by the redistricting since she is in one of the made for Democrat gerrymanders. Absent that, Florida will sleep this one out for now. Again, just IMHO from the ground in Florida. I don't think anyone will actively oppose. They will just mostly do nothing. If the local communities can push a few legislators to shake lose some money from the state to support their local matching funds that might work. but who know? This is Florida afterall.

The results from the 2016 elections will be quite critical in determining which way the winds blow.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 6, 2016)

jis said:


> I just don't see the Florida delegation doing much of anything about it, unless some miracle happens. ...


I wasn't talking about the Florida delegation in the Congress. You already said the push in Congress was coming from Alabama and Mississippi Critters (as well it should).

I meant members of the state legislature from the Panhandle, that is, mostly from the capital city, when I said, "Tallahassee's delegation in the legislature". Unless all the rules of politics have been upended, they will push for $1 million or so a year out of the state budget for *their* train. South Florida has _Tri Rail_, and Central Florida has _SunRail_, they will share the _Brightline. S_o the Panhandle will have a very good argument that their part of the state has been completely left out. A lousy million or two for the _CONO sans chef_ would help answer that problem. 

While Jacksonville and Orlando already have Amtrak LD trains, they should be happy to go along with the plan and get another!

The Timetable works so well in this iteration, Alt A1. The _CONO sans chef _is set to stop in Jacksonville at 8:15 a.m. between the SB _Star_, at 6:39 a.m. and the SB _Meteor_, at 9:09 a.m. Then NB it would hit Jacksonville at 7:25 p.m., between the_ Meteor_ at 5:07 and the _Star_ at 11:03 p.m. The freights like the passenger trains to run only a couple of hours apart, to minimize disruption to their freight schedules. So the _CONO sans chef _would work well on the _SunRail _line, the former CSX A line which still carries some freight traffic.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 7, 2016)

Here's another article, in *USA Today*, that's very friendly to the project:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/nation-now/2016/01/01/officials-pushing-return-passenger-rail-gulf-coast/78175902/

Interesting choice of words that I put in *bold*:



> ... re-establishing a Gulf Coast line could produce ... nearly 154,000 annual passengers for round trip service to Orlando. ...
> 
> Money to pay for it ... would come from local, state and federal sources. Amtrak ... owns only the lines in its profitable Northeast Corridor and* uses subsidies from states in which it operates to fill the gap between revenue from passengers and federal funds*.


Apparently the reporter was told about the funding formula for the state-supported corridor trains. But he doesn't mention the subsidies of the other LD trains from Congressional appropriations, without any state contributions.

Makes me wonder if Congress is pushing Amtrak toward getting the states to pay part, or all, of the costs for the LD trains, with the _CONO sans chef_ extension as a $5 million test case.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Jan 7, 2016)

I think you give Congress too much credit.


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## jis (Jan 7, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> While Jacksonville and Orlando already have Amtrak LD trains, they should be happy to go along with the plan and get another!


AFAICT they don't give a rodent's rear end about whether they have one more Amtrak train or not. Actually if Amtrak tries to can the Star, only us rail aficionados would raise a stink about it. Most of the Florida legislature would not worry about it too much.

You are making the mistaken assumption that they think that a train is something important to have. They in general don't. They mostly think that Miami and Orlando are fools to be pissing away money on trains. That is the level of problem we face in Florida, and specially the north end of it.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 7, 2016)

But the _Mobile Press-Register_, aka AL.com, revealed an opening to change minds and votes, my *bold*:

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2015/06/all_aboard_what_the_gulf_coast.html

... U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope ... voted ... to eliminate Amtrak's funding. ...

...

"I don't want to take taxpayer dollars to subsidize a failed public transportation system," Byrne said. "... *But Amtrak doesn't operate down here. They abandoned us years ago. It really doesn't help the people in my district."*

This CongressCritter tells us that his vote might change if it were about something good for his District. That's how representative government is supposed to work. So if Amtrak "unabandons" southern Alabama, well, a million bucks or two in subsidy isn't really all that bad, now is it? LOL.


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## jis (Jan 7, 2016)

Yes, miracles can happen  however probabilities are low. 

The main means for funding such relatively small grants targeted to individual projects used to be a mechanism wherein a legislator could direct specific funds to specific project in his district by attaching them via amendments to a main bill, and these were hashed out in back room deals and appeared in the final bill. This process was gutted and is explicitly not allowed in Congress anymore, and is more or less difficult to pull off in the Florida legislature too. Now the whole thing has to be go through the subcommittee process and compete for attention among a whole plethora of other often much more pressing and bigger things, and hence get buried. That is the problem that is of the creation of Congress and various state legislatures which makes funding of such small projects difficult. They were generally characterized as "pork" and therefore as undesirable. Now the only path open is to try to land a CMAQ or a TIGER grant through a competitive process managed by the executive branch to dole out a relatively small pot of money in relatively small chunks, and the equivalent of that in states.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 7, 2016)

Wikipedia says, "Tallahassee has traditionally been a Democratic city, and is one of the few cities in the South known for progressive activism. It has had a black mayor and a black state representative." The city's population is 35% black, the county 30% black. That's quite different from other parts of northern Florida. (The state is only 16% black.) And Tallahassee is the ultimate college town, with more than 70,000 students mostly at Florida State and Florida A&M, out of the metro area's nearly 400,000 total population.

Wikipedia also says that Jacksonville is increasingly black, up to 31% in 2010. Again, it's politically different from the rest of northern Florida, the Deep Dixie counties.

I'm saying that the two Florida cities that will most benefit from the _CONO sans chef_ will support it. If their representatives in the legislature nag their colleagues enuff -- why does Southeast Florida get Tri Rail and Central Florida gets Sun Rail and we get nothing? -- they could probably get a lousy million or two a year in 'go away don't bother me' money. And that should be enuff.

Of course, as the headquarters of CSX, Jacksonville is a special case of its own. If CSX goes along with the _CONO sans chef,_ fine. If CSX hates the project, its strong voice in the city and state would be a huge problem politically.

Of course, the Mayors of Tallahassee and Jacksonville, as well as Pensacola and a dozen other towns along the way, have signed letters of support for the train. What that's worth in dollars, well, I wouldn't spend it til I get it.


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## jis (Jan 7, 2016)

Yeah, I know. That is the problem. City Mayors typically do not have a budget to serve even what they need to minimally do for their cities and they have very little control over what even the County Commissioner goes of doing, let alone the state legislature. And then Counties barely have enough money to do what they are supposed to do. Usually it boils down to should the school teachers get a raise or should we buy two buses, and such.

For example, in Palm Bay the Mayor strongly supports AAF, but the Commissioner (whose area covers all of Palm Bay and most of West Melbourne) strongly opposes. Fortunately Brevard County overall has been in balance supportive by one vote difference at the county level, so the project for getting an AAF station is moving along. But if the Commissioners had voted differently by one vote it is almost assured that there would have been no AAF station project in Brevard County. The state legislator from the constituency that Brevard County falls in is a T-Party person who is opposed to any investment in passenger rail and all for any infrastructure investment on roads. So it is almost a miracle what is happening in Brevard County. That is what I meant when I said "miracles can happen". But in this case all that the commissioners had to do was approve matching funds for grade crossing work and allow for the Bond issuance, and not really come up with any huge pile of money.


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## Palmetto (Jan 7, 2016)

If the truth be told, Florida is very blasé about rail service from what I can tell. Certainly the city of Miami has been, and they're now paying for it in spades: gridlock everywhere on the roads, including non-expressway streets.


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## jis (Jan 7, 2016)

Palmetto said:


> If the truth be told, Florida is very blasé about rail service from what I can tell. Certainly the city of Miami has been, and they're now paying for it in spades: gridlock everywhere on the roads, including non-expressway streets.


That is why now they are in a veritable panic tog et Tri-Rail expansion going, and get an LRT to South beach up and running. But still they seem to be unable to bring themselves around to extending the Metro line to Homestead.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jan 7, 2016)

west point said:


> HOWEVER: New trains can may add more connecting passengers instead of adding trains to present routes. The PRIIA reports do not address this metric very well. Connections to / from CHI, NYP, WASH, PHL would be improved The Sunset and Sunset east do not add to connections except at SAS, LAX and JAX. New Orleans only with an overnight stay.


Hopefully with my SL schedule change, the overnight stay will not be necessary for transferring from the SL to the CONO (east to Florida or north to Chicago) or the Crescent. It also gets rid of the late night times in SAS and the arrival in LAX before 6am.

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/65927-proposal-for-extending-crescent-to-sas-improving-te-schedule/?p=640928


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jan 7, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> Here's another article, in *USA Today*, that's very friendly to the project:
> 
> http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/nation-now/2016/01/01/officials-pushing-return-passenger-rail-gulf-coast/78175902/
> 
> ...


I think the federal government and states/cities should share the costs of trains. I don't think the current separation is the right way. I have complained in the past about why Amtrak/federal government demands states pitch in for new or expanded services while the current services get a free pass (as far as the states are concerned). I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some funding from states for at least some of the current LD routes. If a given route benefits one or two states more than others, they should chip in at least some of the money. On the other hand, maybe if some of those burdens shift to states, it could free up federal Amtrak money to fund new or expanded shorter distance services that would be more successful.


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## Devil's Advocate (Jan 8, 2016)

TylerP42 said:


> There should be no loss per rider...


There should be an explanation for how you came to this conclusion.


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## TylerP42 (Jan 8, 2016)

Probably just wishful thinking...


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## neroden (Jan 8, 2016)

Florida quite famously has the most unsafe streets & roads in the nation for pedestrians. You take your life in your hands crossing the street there. It's been spectacularly autocentric for a disturbingly long time. I hope the trend is changing.


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## GG-1 (Jan 9, 2016)

neroden said:


> Florida quite famously has the most unsafe streets & roads in the nation for pedestrians. You take your life in your hands crossing the street there. It's been spectacularly autocentric for a disturbingly long time. I hope the trend is changing.


Hate to say it but LV is worse, I think we averaged 1 every 3 days last year. I have almost hit several dressed in black walking down the middle of an unlit street.

Aloha


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## Caesar La Rock (Jan 9, 2016)

Along the road (highway) I live next too, every block has a road side memorial. There is one outside of my neighborhood, but that was a different matter.


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## Bob Dylan (Jan 9, 2016)

Pretty dangerous here in Austin for pedestrians and bike riders too!

We may not have the worst drivers and traffic, but as old Dizzy Dean used to say, "We're amongst them!"


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## jis (Jan 11, 2016)

http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/local_news/riding-the-rails-in-madison/article_0a153d09-131c-5675-a310-2ed3b6ecb426.html



> MADISON, Fla. — Moves are afoot which could bring passenger rail service back to the Valdosta region for the first time in more than a decade.
> 
> The Southern Rail Commission, a tri-state body representing Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, is working to convince Amtrak, America’s intercity passenger rail organization, to restore service across the Gulf Coast that was suspended in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
> 
> ...


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## Palmetto (Jan 11, 2016)

Interesting: Florida is not part of the coalition. Not surprising, though. Texas and Florida: two peas in a pod.


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## Bob Dylan (Jan 11, 2016)

Palmetto said:


> Interesting: Florida is not part of the coalition. Not surprising, though. Texas and Florida: two peas in a pod.


Yep, same kind of politicians and millions of tourists and immigrants mixed with the native rednecks and the working poor creating sort of a Mississippi/Alabama/Georgia with nice beaches!


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## Caesar La Rock (Jan 11, 2016)

I'm pretty sure Texas can't level up to Florida's tourism. With that said, a lot of people want to see something go east of New Orleans. Florida included, whether the politicians in this state see that or not.


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## jis (Jan 11, 2016)

Bob Dylan said:


> Palmetto said:
> 
> 
> > Interesting: Florida is not part of the coalition. Not surprising, though. Texas and Florida: two peas in a pod.
> ...


Interesting characterization.... sort of like Texas is more correct than anything like Mississippi, Alabama or Georgia as far as poverty goes.Actually the poverty rate in FL in the last year from which data is available was 17%, TX 17.5%, Alabama 18.76%, Mississippi 24%, Georgia 19%.

TX and FL are also similar in terms of the growing Hispanic population, and different from GA, AL, MS in that respect too. Florida is way more of a competitive state between red and blue at present than TX is though.

But as far as the Sunset East route goes, it is about as red as red can be except for a small area around Tallahassee and the center of JAX, leaving aside Orlando and Orange County for the moment. But on matter of passenger service there are several population centers around the route which locally support it irrespective of the color of the politician or his/her party. Unfortunately, not so much in the state house. I have given an example from closer to my neck of the woods on how the politics goes.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 13, 2016)

jis said:


> http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/local_news/riding-the-rails-in-madison/article_0a153d09-131c-5675-a310-2ed3b6ecb426.html
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This Southern Rail Commission is sure ambitious, considering the territory.

It was SRC that provided that nice little map of the route. If you squint, you can see another proposed route peeling off from the_ Crescent _onto the Meridian Speedway -- Meridian-Jackson-Vicksburg-Monroe-Shreveport-Longview-Dallas-Ft Worth (527 miles). And another split off from the _Crescent _-- Birmingham-Montgomery-Mobile-Biloxi-New Orleans (243 miles). Then New Orleans-Baton Rouge (82 miles) as well.

They seem to have overlooked the route Bobby Jindal's proposed before he learned that because Obama was for passenger trains, Repubs like him were supposed to be agin 'em. That one went New Orleans-Baton Rouge-Alexandria-Shreveport-Longview-Dallas-Ft Worth (540 miles).

The SRC lucked up with the proposal for an extended _CONO sans chef _getting around the 750 mile cutoff that would have put all their plans at the mercy of unfriendly legislatures.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jan 13, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/local_news/riding-the-rails-in-madison/article_0a153d09-131c-5675-a310-2ed3b6ecb426.html
> ...


How about New Orleans-Houston-Dallas? I proposed the possibility by extending the Heartland Flyer to Houston and having a change of trains there with a Sunset Limited with a new schedule for better connections in NOL, especially if the CONO extension to Florida happens (http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/65927-proposal-for-extending-crescent-to-sas-improving-te-schedule/?p=640928).


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jan 13, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/local_news/riding-the-rails-in-madison/article_0a153d09-131c-5675-a310-2ed3b6ecb426.html
> ...


I'm still not feeling the Meridian-Dallas route off the Crescent with the current timing (2:58pm into Meridian). Can they go 527 miles in 9 hours (including boarding/detraining in Meridian and the split if you don't do it in Birmingham?) Otherwise, it's a graveyard shift arrival into Dallas.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 13, 2016)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> WoodyinNYC said:
> 
> 
> > jis said:
> ...


The Meridian Speedway was upgraded for fast freight. Fast. But I don't have a guess what the timetable could be. Wikipedia gives some info:



"KCS and NS ... a joint venture… closed the deal on May 1, 2006. By September 2007, about $135 million had been spent on ... new and longer passing sidings ... along with a new CTC signaling system. The mainline was effectively rebuilt from the ground up with new ballast, crossties and heavier welded rail.

Soon after this first round of improvements, about 45 trains per day traversed the line ...

Today, the line sees fewer than 15 trains per day, mostly run-through Norfolk Southern/Union Pacific intermodal trains."

Seems like there should be room now for a couple of passenger trains a day.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

An alternative timetable, of course, would be to take the fabled Day Train to Atlanta and extend its schedule to Dallas. That would put Birmingham in the middle of the night, but can't please everybody. And Birmingham has good times on the Crescent (tho not to Dallas, LOL.)

However, as that GA DOT study you turned up demonstrated, ATL ain't ready for serious trains in any case. It also showed that upgrading the ATL-Birminham stretch thru the southern tail end of the Appalachian Mountains, which today features many curves and even tunnels, could cost Billions to get corridor quality, and naturally it is top of nobody's To-Do list.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

iirc, the PRIIA rules for any new Amtrak L.D. trains requires that they begin or end (or both?) in one of a list of named cities where Amtrak had, or could have had, an established maintenance facility of some level. Another train NYC-CHI, no problem. Of course, New Orleans is on the list, Miami, Sanford/Orlando, and San Antonio thanks to the_ Eagle_. iirc Houston was not on the list. Not sure if Ft Worth (_Heartland Flyer_) made the cut. Don't think ATL did. Well, Congress made that law, and Congress could change it, but I'm not counting on it until the Bill passes both houses.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jan 13, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> iirc, the PRIIA rules for any new Amtrak L.D. trains requires that they begin or end (or both?) in one of a list of named cities where Amtrak had, or could have had, an established maintenance facility of some level. Another train NYC-CHI, no problem. Of course, New Orleans is on the list, Miami, Sanford/Orlando, and San Antonio thanks to the_ Eagle_. iirc Houston was not on the list. Not sure if Ft Worth (_Heartland Flyer_) made the cut. Don't think ATL did. Well, Congress made that law, and Congress could change it, but I'm not counting on it until the Bill passes both houses.


The Heartland Flyer is not an LD train so I don't think the PRIIA rule you mention applies to it in terms of the HF terminating in Houston.


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## DSS&A (Jan 14, 2016)

The upcoming Tiger grants can be used to get this project moving. The various cities can apply for Tiger grants to rebuild their train station sites as multi-modal transportation facilities. Mobile and the next proposed town to the west can apply for a joint application to reach the minimum dollar threshold. The key to getting a Tiger grant is to have a good mix of local matching funds from more than one source. An example would be city funds, county funds, local transit agency funds and private operators such as a taxi company, bus tour companies and a local business or two that would operate in the building (if possible). The exact amounts of the different sources can very, but the important fact is as any multiple sources as possible, multiple beneficiaries AND some private funds in addition to public funds. Another idea is that the cities could include the project as a part of a 3 to 5 (or more) block downtown redevelopment project which could then gather more private investment funds and more total project beneficiaries. Project like this can definitely help get this Gulf Coast passenger rail service restarted.


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## fixj (Jan 14, 2016)

http://www.northescambia.com/2016/01/vip-train-will-roll-next-month-as-officials-study-rail-service-return-to-gulf-coast


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## west point (Jan 14, 2016)

The statement about PRIIA limiting any new LD trains to present maintenance bases cannot be found by this poster. Can you enlighten us ?


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 15, 2016)

west point said:


> The statement about PRIIA limiting any new LD trains to present maintenance bases cannot be found by this poster. Can you enlighten us ?


No. My google search was as fruitless as yours. Does it count as a "statement" when it began, "iirc"? As it is, I may have recalled it correctly, or not, but I can't find a source. I'll keep looking.

Dayum. I even seem to recall a map. Hmmn. That's a clue.


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## neroden (Jan 15, 2016)

That's from a subtle misremembering of the PRIIA rules. The definition of the "national network" is now, partly, "trains between endpoints which were served as of (some date)". The use of the term "endpoints" is the weird part. (Might have been "terminals" rather than "endpoints" but you get the point.) I forget the date but it's roughly the date of passage of PRIIA.

Amtrak is charged with running trains on the "national network" and is allowed to subsidize them with Congressional funding. If you run through the text of the law backwards and forwards, you eventually figure out that in order to run trains which are *not* on the "national network" Amtrak is required to not use Congressional subsidy (though Amtrak is not required to use the "PRIIA formula" used for the state corridors, so charging avoidable cost might be OK).

So Amtrak absolutely could start a new LD train between any endpoints if the train is profitable, or if the net costs are covered by an outside source. If Amtrak wants to start a new *federally subsidized* LD train, however, it has to use the same endpoints as the existing trains.

...which means that Amtrak can legally start a federally subsidized Broadway Limited, or North Coast Hiawatha, or Silver Palm, just in case anyone was wondering. I think this may have been written this way deliberately.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 15, 2016)

neroden said:


> That's from a subtle misremembering of the PRIIA rules. The definition of the "national network" is now, partly, "trains between endpoints which were served as of (some date)". ...
> 
> Amtrak is charged with running trains on the "national network" and is allowed to subsidize them with Congressional funding. ...
> 
> ...


Thanks, Nathanael, for the info to rescue me! LOL.

I was trying to warn some enthusiasts that when we draw our imaginary new routes, preferably they should not end in Houston, or El Paso or Cheyenne, or Winnipeg, because those were not "endpoints" on the date named, and probably Atlanta wasn't either. So to get the federal subsidy, stick to the tried and true endpoints. Of course, Congress made the law, and Congress could change it.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jan 15, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > That's from a subtle misremembering of the PRIIA rules. The definition of the "national network" is now, partly, "trains between endpoints which were served as of (some date)". ...
> ...


By the definition of past service, Houston should be OK (Lone Star).


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## neroden (Jan 16, 2016)

It was "endpoints served as of 2008" if I remember correctly, which shuts out Houston. But as I say, this restriction is strictly for trains receiving federal subsidy; if Amtrak can get any operating deficit funded by states or cities, anything's possible.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jan 16, 2016)

neroden said:


> It was "endpoints served as of 2008" if I remember correctly, which shuts out Houston. But as I say, this restriction is strictly for trains receiving federal subsidy; if Amtrak can get any operating deficit funded by states or cities, anything's possible.


Well no LD train was shut down since 2008 that I'm aware of so that would basically limit to the current endpoints of LD trains. And the extension of the CONO to ORL wouldn't qualify (they'd have to extend it to MIA).

Of course if states chip in, anything is possible.


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## railbuck (Jan 16, 2016)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > It was "endpoints served as of 2008" if I remember correctly, which shuts out Houston. But as I say, this restriction is strictly for trains receiving federal subsidy; if Amtrak can get any operating deficit funded by states or cities, anything's possible.
> ...


Orlando is an endpoint for both the SL (which is merely "suspended") and the Auto Train. Though I certainly wouldn't be opposed to NOL-MIA service.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 16, 2016)

neroden said:


> It was "endpoints served as of 2008" if I remember correctly, which shuts out Houston. ...


If we're drawing dream lines on a map, and we want Houston, just keep going to San Antonio in one direction or New Orleans in the other. Not really too restrictive.

I don't see any 2008 "endpoints" as close to Atlanta and those cities are to H'town. But there are so many problems with ATL that one problem more doesn't make much difference.


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## Caesar La Rock (Jan 16, 2016)

Since we're on this subject, I'm curious as to why the Sunset was cut back from Miami to Sanford (later it's terminus was extended to Orlando) in the first place? Was the ridership for it to go further south not there or did I just answer my own question?


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## greatcats (Jan 16, 2016)

I think one reason may have been that it took another set of equipment to run it to Miami.


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## Lonestar648 (Jan 16, 2016)

If I remember correctly, there were not enough passengers beyond Orlando to justify the extra consist and crew going to LAX-MIA.


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## WoodyinNYC (Jan 16, 2016)

New temporary schedules for the _Sunset_ and the _Eagle_ have been posted on amtrak.com. The eastbound departure from LA moves up from 10 p.m. to 4 p.m. (Which totally messes up the arrival times in Phoenix and Tucson, so this is gonna hurt ridership.)

Then in March, the present schedule will be restored.

Anybody know what's going on?


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## tomfuller (Jan 17, 2016)

No service to Phoenix. On the early Sunset I took a couple years ago we sat in Maricopa for over an hour so that we would be on time to Tucson.


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## blondninja (Jan 17, 2016)

Track work. I love the new schedule personally. Took it this past Friday to Palm Springs for dinner.


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## Hytec (Jan 26, 2016)

Amtrak press release, 25 Jan, with the Gulf Coast inspection train schedule, 18-19 February.

Apparently there may be a ray of hope for restoration of the SL, or extension of the CONO, or restoration of the Gulf Coast Limited, or something new. Keep your fingers, toes, and anything you have handy, crossed.

Thursday Feb. 18:


New Orleans, 8:45 a.m.
Bay St. Louis, 10:20 a.m.;
Gulfport, 11:00 a.m.;
Biloxi, 11:31 a.m.;
Pascagoula, 12:16 p.m.
Mobile, 1:25 p.m.;
Atmore, 2:41 p.m.
Friday Feb. 19:


Pensacola, 8:00 a.m.;
Crestview, 9:20 a.m.;
Chipley, 11:00 a.m.;
Tallahassee 2:47 p.m.;
Madison, 4:24 p.m.;
Lake City, 5:35 p.m.;
Jacksonville at 7:15 p.m.


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## jis (Jan 26, 2016)

I wonder who has been invited from Florida. Hope someone from FDOT is included.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jan 26, 2016)

I heard an Allentown to New York inspection train upcoming as well.

Have there been any inspection trains in the last few years? Should they be considered an encouraging sign?


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## jis (Jan 26, 2016)

They are at least encouraging to see lots of nice pictures in Railpace.


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## Seaboard92 (Jan 27, 2016)

If I lived closer I would probably chase it. But I'm too far away


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## Karl1459 (Feb 4, 2016)

News article on inspection train:

http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/local_news/amtrak-sending-train-through-valdosta-area/article_30c7662d-195b-59a4-b8e6-2d09a4e427d1.html


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## DSS&A (Feb 13, 2016)

Hi,

Here's a link to a detailed article dated February 13th about the inspection train, potential station facilities and local community interest in retarding train service.

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/02/10_years_after_katrina_amtrak.html


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## Seaboard92 (Feb 14, 2016)

Any idea which 19 Beech Grove is deadheading south on?


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## jis (Feb 14, 2016)

Here is the schedule for the special. I am sure NARP will not mind dissemination of this information widely. The document in the photo of course is © NARP.




If you can make it to any of these stops, please do try to down up to show support. I will be at Jacksonville.


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## Thirdrail7 (Feb 14, 2016)

Seaboard92 said:


> Any idea which 19 Beech Grove is deadheading south on?


19(16) will have the rest of the equipment that needs to make it down there.



jis said:


> If you can make it to any of these stops, please do try to down up to show support. I will be at Jacksonville.


Ooooo. You'll be in an ideal spot to capture footage. If you're not too busy, stay behind and watch/record them drill the inbound special for the trip back. I eyeballed the plan and it definitely looks like it is worth the time.


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 14, 2016)

jis said:


> Here is the schedule for the special. ... The document in the photo of course is © NARP.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I would if I could but I can't. *Thank you* for making the effort and representing for those of us who can't.


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## Chaz (Feb 14, 2016)

jis said:


> Here is the schedule for the special. I am sure NARP will not mind dissemination of this information widely. The document in the photo of course is © NARP.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Carolina Special (Feb 14, 2016)

There is a 2/12 article from Atlanta's NPR station WABE entitled "Amtrak considering One New And One Old Southern Route". Sorry, I've never worked out how to get links into these posts.

The old route refers to the former SL East line and the inspection train.

The new is a daily Atlanta-Dallas train that apparently would bypass New Orleans and be more direct. It doesn't sound exactly eminent, more like "someday": the Amtrak spokesman says "eventually" they want to do more research on it. I haven't heard that route being talked about before, although I'm not as up on the planning as some of this board's veterans are.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Feb 14, 2016)

Carolina Special said:


> There is a 2/12 article from Atlanta's NPR station WABE entitled "Amtrak considering One New And One Old Southern Route". Sorry, I've never worked out how to get links into these posts.
> 
> The old route refers to the former SL East line and the inspection train.
> 
> The new is a daily Atlanta-Dallas train that apparently would bypass New Orleans and be more direct. It doesn't sound exactly eminent, more like "someday": the Amtrak spokesman says "eventually" they want to do more research on it. I haven't heard that route being talked about before, although I'm not as up on the planning as some of this board's veterans are.


http://news.wabe.org/post/amtrak-considering-one-new-and-one-old-southern-route


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 14, 2016)

Carolina Special said:


> There is a 2/12 article from Atlanta's NPR station WABE entitled "Amtrak considering One New And One Old Southern Route". Sorry, I've never worked out how to get links into these posts.


http://news.wabe.org/post/amtrak-considering-one-new-and-one-old-southern-route


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## neroden (Feb 15, 2016)

A Dallas-Shreveport line was proposed a few years ago, and then an extended version from Dallas-Jackson was proposed a year or two later; presumably Dallas-Atlanta is a further-extended version of the same thing. It would most certainly require a new Atlanta station, but apart from that Dallas-Atlanta is easy. From Dallas to Jackson would require stations at Shreveport (or Bossier City) and Vicksburg. And of course new rolling stock, locomotives, and agreement with KCS would be required.


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## Seaboard92 (Feb 15, 2016)

Interesting read. Looks like I won't see the equipment on 19. But I will see it on it's northbound trip which I'm thinking will be on 92. I'm really not happy that I have to miss this but it'll do. On regards to the Atlanta-Texas route. I would think running New York to Atlanta running as a day train New York Atlanta would be wonderful.


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## pennyk (Feb 15, 2016)

jis said:


> Here is the schedule for the special. I am sure NARP will not mind dissemination of this information widely. The document in the photo of course is © NARP.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I am planning to be at Jacksonville also. I will be taking 98 (assuming it will be on time). I had an Amtrak Vacations gift card that I used for this short trip. After being on hold for over an hour trying to speak to an Amtrak Vacations agent and make a reservation, I am now waiting "patiently" for my e-ticket to arrive (which was supposed to be emailed about an hour ago).


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## jis (Feb 15, 2016)

I will drive up from Melbourne - a 2.5 hour drive on I-95. I will probably stay overnight in the JAX area and then take a leisurely drive back along Route 1 and A1A the next day. Which reminds me, I should probably get a place holder hotel reservation.


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 15, 2016)

neroden said:


> A Dallas-Shreveport line was proposed a few years ago, and then an extended version from Dallas-Jackson was proposed a year or two later; presumably Dallas-Atlanta is a further-extended version of the same thing. It would most certainly require a new Atlanta station, but apart from that Dallas-Atlanta is easy. From Dallas to Jackson would require stations at Shreveport (or Bossier City) and Vicksburg. And of course new rolling stock, locomotives, and agreement with KCS would be required.


There's a group in East Texas that's been campaigning for a train or trains Ft Worth-Dallas-Longview-Marshall-Shreveport for some years. From Ft Worth to Marshall is tracks used by the _Texas Eagle_. Dallas Metroplex-Shreveport/Bossier City is a likely corridor due to sin: Riverboat casinos along the Red River attract a considerable number of sinners from the wicked Big City, because Texas does not allow most gambling. In between are not-THAT-small towns left over from the great East Texas Oil Field.

Heading east from Shreveport there's Ruston, a town with 12,000 students at Louisiana Tech, Monroe with 170,000 metro pop. then Vicksburg n Jackson as you say. It would be nice to offer a connection at Jackson, north to Memphis and Chicago, south to New Orleans, Mobile, Orlando.

A second frequency, after the _Crescent,_ from Atlanta to Birmingham could be the beginning of corridor service on that slow and twisty route.

Another wish-list item would be to extend the train west, thru Abilene and Midland-Odessa-to El Paso, to join the route of the _Sunset Ltd_, or _Texas Eagle_ or whatever it will be called by then. But someone who sounded like they knew their stuff said that to get the _Eagle _onto the TRE line Dallas-Ft Worth, the UP bargained a provision that could block and future passenger train service on its longer route.


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## neroden (Feb 15, 2016)

Thankfully the Dallas-Marshall-Shreveport-Vicksburg-Jackson-Birmingham-Atlanta-(onward to NY) route could use the existing stations at Marshall (albeit with a new second platform), Jackson, Meridian, and Birmingham; the railroads are arranged correctly for that.

This reduces the problem to:

(1) agreement with UP for Dallas-Shreveport (rumors have been that they're OK with it)

(2) agreement with KCS for Shreveport-Meridian (no rumors whatsoever as to how they would react; they don't host Amtrak for more than a couple of miles now)

(3) agreement with NS for Meridian-east (they will *definitely* demand a new Atlanta station, but are likely to be pretty OK with it otherwise)

(4) station funding for Shreveport and Vicksburg (I think these are the minimum; Ruston and Monroe would be bonus)

(5) funding to buy locomotives and rolling stock

(6) any track & signal improvements needed for decent speed, or demanded by the railroads (no idea how much)

(7) operational funding

I like this route for a few reasons. It's an east-west route which is south of Chicago, avoids the Appalachians, and is north of the flood zone along the Gulf Coast. The downside is the need for money from Mississippi, but it may be easier than funding for the Gulf Coast route since it goes through the state capital.


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## west point (Feb 15, 2016)

Neroden: Good summary. However Birmingham - Atlanta actually goes thru the southern Appalachians. There are several NNE - SSW glacier carved mountain ranges. Even has a few played out coal mines. Road mileage 155, rail mileage 164, crow mileage ~ 122 miles. So the 4:10 Crescent schedule including the Anniston stop averages just over 30 MPH. If only there was a HrSR line between the two cities getting with a 2 hour enroute time. That would make your whole route very workable.


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 16, 2016)

west point said:


> Neroden: Good summary. However Birmingham - Atlanta actually goes thru the southern Appalachians. There are several NNE - SSW glacier carved mountain ranges. Even has a few played out coal mines. Road mileage 155, rail mileage 164, crow mileage ~ 122 miles. So the 4:10 Crescent schedule including the Anniston stop averages just over 30 MPH. If only there was a HrSR line between the two cities getting with a 2 hour enroute time. That would make your whole route very workable.


A long route has to have a dark segment somewhere, of course, and the slowest section usually works best. Like the plan for the extended _CONO sans chef_ would go between Mobile at midnight and Tallahassee at dawn (and reverse).
The long desired "_day train_" NYC-ATL could leave ATL in the evening and pass thru this 30-mph zone in the dark. Even if it was night time passing thru Birmingham and Meridian (they already have service from the _Crescent_), an early morning arrival in Jackson would allow (with a wait of several hours) an afternoon connection to the _CONO_ to Memphis and Chicago. Then a daytime ride thru on KCS's "Meridian Speedway" for evening arrival in the Dallas Ft Worth Metroplex.


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## Seaboard92 (Feb 16, 2016)

It really will be a mini gathering down in Jacksonville. Looks like I'm chasing Tallahassee to JAX. Me and another new AU member.


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 16, 2016)

neroden said:


> ... use the existing stations at Marshall (albeit with a new second platform), Jackson, Meridian, and Birmingham ...
> 
> This reduces the problem to:
> 
> ...


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## DSS&A (Feb 17, 2016)

Hi,

Okay, here is the link.

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/02/do_you_want_more_passenger_rai.html


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## neroden (Feb 18, 2016)

Huh. Woody, you're right and I'm wrong about the cities en route. Vicksburg is more of a transportation junction, but it's startlingly small for that role. It's also relatively close to Jackson.

You could definitely get by with just Shreveport, and Monroe would be the most valuable intermediate stop; in addition to the population it's roughly halfway between Shreveport and Jackson.


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## Shawn Ryu (Feb 18, 2016)

Personally I would prefer to see shorter route of Miami-New Orleans rather than extending Sunset all the way to Florida again.


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## Caesar La Rock (Feb 18, 2016)

Shawn Ryu said:


> Personally I would prefer to see shorter route of Miami-New Orleans rather than extending Sunset all the way to Florida again.


I'm pretty sure the Sunset itself isn't coming east of NOL again. Everyone wants daily service and tri-weekly is out of the question.


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## jis (Feb 18, 2016)

Shawn Ryu said:


> Personally I would prefer to see shorter route of Miami-New Orleans rather than extending Sunset all the way to Florida again.


What is planned is Orlando - New Orleans. No Miami. And no Sunset Limited extension. It is either a separate train or a CONO extension. No one wants tri-weekly service and it is impossible cost justify it anyway.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Feb 18, 2016)

If Amtrak goes through on its PRIIA, then the Sunset Limited (technically what's left of it, NOL-SAS) would be daily (then TE would be CHI-SAS and passengers would have to transfer in SAS during the graveyard shift to/from the TE, ughh!) If that scenario does play out, maybe they could do SAS to Florida daily? The "new" SL (NOL-SAS) would be less than 750 miles so if they can't do that based on the 750 mile rule, they then could do SAS-ORL or SAS-JAX.


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## keelhauled (Feb 18, 2016)

The Sunset Limited is irrelevant. It wasn't even an option in Amtrak's study. Frankly I suspect that any and all PIP proposals are irrelevant by this time as well, and the SL will continue to muddle along as it is regardless of what happens on the Gulf Coast.


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## jis (Feb 18, 2016)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> If Amtrak goes through on its PRIIA, then the Sunset Limited (technically what's left of it, NOL-SAS) would be daily (then TE would be CHI-SAS and passengers would have to transfer in SAS during the graveyard shift to/from the TE, ughh!) If that scenario does play out, maybe they could do SAS to Florida daily? The "new" SL (NOL-SAS) would be less than 750 miles so if they can't do that based on the 750 mile rule, they then could do SAS-ORL or SAS-JAX.


That is not what is planned and is unlikely to happen anyway. It will either be a stand alone NOL - ORL service or an extension of the CONO to ORL or God forbid, an NOL - Mobile train and then a Thruway bus from there to JAX.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 18, 2016)

As someone who lives along the Sunset Limited I would suggest Amtrak work toward making the SL daily, preferably with improved calling times for SAS and LAX. Either that or suspend the entire route and use the SL resources to improve or enhance a more productive route somewhere else. If Union Pacific is still demanding $750 million in exchange for a one time schedule change then maybe it's time to admit defeat and move on. It's not realistic to think Amtrak is ever going to have any functional leverage against a corporation of UP's size and the SL's resources could probably be used to greater effect elsewhere anyhow.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Feb 18, 2016)

Devil's Advocate said:


> As someone who lives along the Sunset Limited route I would suggest Amtrak work toward making it daily, preferably with improved calling times for SAS and LAX, or simply get rid of it altogether and use the SL resources to improve or enhance a more important route somewhere else. This perpetual limping along nonsense makes the current SL hard to use and even harder to support.


This was my shot at the SL reschedule.

Sunset Limited Heartland Flyer Reschedule Proposal January 2016.pdf


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## Matthew1551 (Feb 18, 2016)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Devil said:
> 
> 
> > As someone who lives along the Sunset Limited route I would suggest Amtrak work toward making it daily, preferably with improved calling times for SAS and LAX, or simply get rid of it altogether and use the SL resources to improve or enhance a more important route somewhere else. This perpetual limping along nonsense makes the current SL hard to use and even harder to support.
> ...


I like that schedule. It makes the San Antonio stop very doable while keeping the terminal ends at decent arrival/departure times. Nice job.
(Edited)

One thing to consider is the connection at LA to the Coast Starlight. How would that work out at the current schedule?


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 18, 2016)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> If Amtrak goes through on its PRIIA, then the Sunset Limited (technically what's left of it, NOL-SAS) would be daily.
> 
> _Daily would 133% better -- much better -- than 3 days a week. I've been calling that the _Sunset Shuttle_. What that segment needs is not rejiggering the schedules. It needs a second (or better a third) train, like the _Peidmont _Corridor has now. _
> 
> ...


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Feb 18, 2016)

Matthew1551 said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> > Devil said:
> ...


It would have to be an overnight in LA. My goal was to eliminate the overnight requirement in NOL between the Sunset and the Crescent/CONO and the transfer to the CS had to be a casualty. I think the transfers in NOL were more important and allowed for faster coast to coast travel along the south and between Florida and Texas. Even with the CONO extension, travel between the two states would require an overnight in NOL.


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## Matthew1551 (Feb 18, 2016)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Matthew1551 said:
> 
> 
> > Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> ...


That's unfortunate, but it isn't perfect, as we can see now. I can see your point about making for quicker C2C travel in the US and I might even agree with you, but I know there are people who like the short "layover" in LA when the CS gets in at ~9:00pm and they can board the SL at 10:00pm. Either way, it's going to be uncomfortable for somebody :/


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Feb 18, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> > If Amtrak goes through on its PRIIA, then the Sunset Limited (technically what's left of it, NOL-SAS) would be daily.
> ...


https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/970/304/PRIIA-210-SunsetLtd-TexasEagle-PIP,0.pdf

Westbound, the 1 would arrive in SAS at 11:00pm. If everything goes as planned, the TE will arrive in SAS at 10:30pm and passengers east of SAS could board the TE immediately.

Eastbound, the 22 would arrive in SAS at 6:50am with the 2 leaving SAS at 7:50am.

They should require the 2 to not leave SAS until the 22 arrives and passengers have the chance to board the 2. Otherwise, you've got stranded passengers if the 22 arrives late into SAS. Currently passengers don't have to worry about that scenario.

As for westbound, they should require that passengers should be able to stay in the 1 until the 21 arrives. Otherwise if the 21 arrives in SAS late, what happens to the passengers from the 1? Stuck in SAS's Am-shack in the middle of the night?

If Amtrak trains are on schedule, it's no big deal. You laughed after that first statement didn't you?

Why can't Amtrak just keep the through cars? Seems easier to me.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Feb 18, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> > If Amtrak goes through on its PRIIA, then the Sunset Limited (technically what's left of it, NOL-SAS) would be daily.
> ...


When I calculated a few weeks ago I saw more passengers east of SAS than north of SAS traveling west of SAS.

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/65416-the-gulf-sunset-limited-coming-back-again/?p=642846


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## Shawn Ryu (Feb 18, 2016)

jis said:


> Shawn Ryu said:
> 
> 
> > Personally I would prefer to see shorter route of Miami-New Orleans rather than extending Sunset all the way to Florida again.
> ...


I don't know. Figure train would be able to serve more people if it extended to Miami.


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## fixj (Feb 18, 2016)

Just noticed this on Facebook regarding the inspection train. Saw it had V1 diner 8400 and V New River in the consist. I plan to watch this go thourgh Chipley tomorrow.

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/02/after_10_years_amtrak_returns.html#incart_river_home


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## Matthew1551 (Feb 18, 2016)

fixj said:


> Just noticed this on Facebook regarding the inspection train. Saw it had V1 diner 8400 and V New River in the consist. I plan to watch this go thourgh Chipley tomorrow.
> 
> http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/02/after_10_years_amtrak_returns.html#incart_river_home


Hey that Viewliner Diner (8400) looks really nice. I haven't seen it before. Is it new? To my knowledge they don't generally use _that_ type of diner on Single Level trains.


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## AmtrakBlue (Feb 18, 2016)

Matthew1551 said:


> fixj said:
> 
> 
> > Just noticed this on Facebook regarding the inspection train. Saw it had V1 diner 8400 and V New River in the consist. I plan to watch this go thourgh Chipley tomorrow.
> ...


It's the prototype for the VII's. It's been in service on the single level trains for at least a couple of years. It just came out of Beech Grove after getting the new paint scheme and perhaps some maintenance.


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## Matthew1551 (Feb 18, 2016)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Matthew1551 said:
> 
> 
> > fixj said:
> ...


Ah okay. That makes sense. Thanks!


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## neroden (Feb 18, 2016)

fixj said:


> Just noticed this on Facebook regarding the inspection train. Saw it had V1 diner 8400 and V New River in the consist. I plan to watch this go thourgh Chipley tomorrow.
> 
> http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/02/after_10_years_amtrak_returns.html#incart_river_home


Wow. The crowds in Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi, Pascagoula, and Mobile are pretty impressive. (I have said before that these cities really REALLY want train service.)

I guess tomorrow we see what the crowds are like in Atmore and in Florida.

...apparently Ocean Springs wants a stop and had a party too, even though the inspection train went by without stopping. Seems reasonable to me.

http://www.sunherald.com/news/business/article60707071.html

Tomorrow's schedule:

*Feb. 19 (all times local)*

Pensacola, 7:30 a.m. media availability, 7:50 a.m. event; 8:00 a.m. departure

Crestview, 9:10 a.m. arrival; 9:20 a.m. departure

Chipley, 10:50 a.m. arrival; 11:00 a.m. departure

Tallahassee, 2:37 p.m. arrival; 2:47 p.m. departure

Madison, 4:14 p.m. arrival; 4:24 p.m. departure

Lake City, 5:25 p.m. arrival; 5:35 p.m. departure

Jacksonville, community event begins prior to 7:15 p.m. arrival

( http://ricksblog.biz/amtrak-lays-out-southern-rail-commission-tour-schedule/ )

I haven't seen any reports of turnout in Atmore, though.


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## fixj (Feb 18, 2016)

I'll be in Chipley tomorrow and will film and video what I can.


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## Agent (Feb 18, 2016)

neroden said:


> I haven't seen any reports of turnout in Atmore, though.


Facebook video of fire trucks greeting the special as it arrives in Atmore, Alabama.


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## fixj (Feb 18, 2016)

Another update from Facebook

http://www.wlox.com/story/31255266/hundreds-of-south-mississippians-turn-out-to-welcome-amtrak


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 18, 2016)

Any chance that what's left of the Sunset Limited gets dragged into a tug of war over limited resources between East and West halves of the country? Kind of like how the Southwest Chief was nearly dragged into a tug of war between Colorado and New Mexico?


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## Matthew1551 (Feb 18, 2016)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Any chance that what's left of the Sunset Limited gets dragged into a tug of war over limited resources between East and West halves of the country? Kind of like how the Southwest Chief was nearly dragged into a tug of war between Colorado and New Mexico?


Hah that's an interesting thought.. I don't know.. I'm just content on waiting for a bit and seeing what happens.


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## neroden (Feb 18, 2016)

Okay, so the cost of "option A1" is about 5.48 million per year. We already have *six*, count them, six cities on the route which came out with massive shows to cheerlead for the return of train service. (I'm including Ocean Springs but not Atmore; the fire trucks are nice but they didn't manage to pull a crowd of dozens-to-hundreds, like the others.) If similar support can be found in the next six cities, that's 12 cities to divide up the costs.

If they divided it 12 ways, $457,000 per year is quite a lot for a small city... but honestly, I think any of these cities could do it. If they divided the cost up by city population it would be even more evidently affordable. The cities may not need the state governments to get this up and running. Which would be good because the state governments, of course, are the problem.


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 18, 2016)

Devil's Advocate said:


> As someone who lives along the Sunset Limited I would suggest Amtrak work toward making the SL daily . . .. If Union Pacific is still demanding $750 million in exchange for a one time schedule change . . .


A lot has changed on the ground since the $750 million demand. UP didn't get any money from Amtrak. But the UP did agree to a rescheduling to speed up the train, by about 9 hrs iirc. That allowed a good connections with the _Coast Starlight _at L.A. It gave overnight times to/from L.A. and Maricopa (Phoenix), and Tucson. The new schedule also reduced the waiting time in SAS to make the _Texas Eagle_ connections. It also let Amtrak remove one set of equipment and send the cars to the _Capitol Ltd,_ greatly improving that train. That was not a bad compromise.

Meanwhile, the UP has spent hundreds of millions of its own money to double-track almost all the route from El Paso to L.A. It won't need $750 million from somebody else to do it, the UP did it.

Here's a signal that daily is coming: A 2015 TIGER grant will help pay for new station and platform, new station tracks, and a grade-separated crossing in Maricopa that will get the stopped Amtrak trains out of the way of the UP's passing freights.

As soon as the new bi-levels start replacing Superliners in California and the Midwest, Amtrak will be able to scrounge up enuff extra equipment for a daily _Sunset/Eagle_. Fearless forecast: Daily service should begin in FY 2018.


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 19, 2016)

fixj said:


> Another update from Facebook
> 
> http://www.wlox.com/story/31255266/hundreds-of-south-mississippians-turn-out-to-welcome-amtrak


Great video from local news and great pix.

The *Republican* Governor of Mississippi on board, along with one of the state's *Republican* Senators, to their great credit. Plus every mayor along the way.


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## Agent (Feb 19, 2016)

This video from RWayne Carman shows the crowd that greeted the special at the station in Atmore, Alabama. Atmore's mayor presented Amtrak with a key to the city.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 19, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> UP did agree to a rescheduling to speed up the train, by about 9 hrs iirc. That allowed a good connections with the _Coast Starlight _at L.A. It gave overnight times to/from L.A. and Maricopa (Phoenix), and Tucson. The new schedule also reduced the waiting time in SAS to make the _Texas Eagle_ connections. It also let Amtrak remove one set of equipment and send the cars to the _Capitol Ltd,_ greatly improving that train. That was not a bad compromise.


I'd say it was a bad compromise if you start or end your trips in SAS, which probably doesn't mean anything to Amtrak, but I have a similar feeling about LAUS, which in my view should be the number one scheduling consideration for the entire route.



WoodyinNYC said:


> Meanwhile, the UP has spent hundreds of millions of its own money to double-track almost all the route from El Paso to L.A. It won't need $750 million from somebody else to do it, the UP did it.


While that is indeed true, it is also true that Union Pacific is under no obligation to renegotiate in good faith or even to negotiate at all. They can simply name an absurdly high price and walk away with no practical recourse for Amtrak, as we've already seen. We all know that UP didn't have a legitimate reason to expect $750 million from Amtrak the last time they demanded it and they won't have a legitimate reason the next time they demand it.

Unfortunately they also have no reason to _refrain_ from demanding it. After all, there are another thousand miles of UP trackage on the SL route that have yet to be double tracked courtesy of the American taxpayer. When it comes to Amtrak, Union Pacific has no reason to be reasonable. They can call the shots however they like and there's nothing Amtrak can do about it besides pay up or walk out. Which is why Amtrak is probably going to need some help from folks with a bigger stick or more carrots.



WoodyinNYC said:


> Here's a signal that daily is coming: A 2015 TIGER grant will help pay for new station and platform, new station tracks, and a grade-separated crossing in Maricopa that will get the stopped Amtrak trains out of the way of the UP's passing freights. As soon as the new bi-levels start replacing Superliners in California and the Midwest, Amtrak will be able to scrounge up enuff extra equipment for a daily _Sunset/Eagle_. Fearless forecast: Daily service should begin in FY 2018.


I don't disagree that these are positive developments but I also don't see either of them addressing the primary impediment.


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## Anderson (Feb 19, 2016)

UP _does_ have a reason to negotiate, at least insofar as if they can increase the capacity of the route by at least one train beyond the net need of the Daily Sunset they derive a gain. That doesn't mean they need to be "reasonable"...but it does suggest that they have a reason to not give a "blow off" offer.


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## Palmetto (Feb 19, 2016)

It's evident that the people and the cities want it. What about the states [who are going to foot the bill]? I continue to have my doubts about Florida kicking in any money.


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## Dovecote (Feb 19, 2016)

Palmetto said:


> It's evident that the people and the cities want it. What about the states [who are going to foot the bill]? I continue to have my doubts about Florida kicking in any money.


I agree with your thoughts on the lack of financial participation by Florida. The Tallahassee mayor earlier this week was quoted as saying "

"We're not anticipating the local government will have to contribute anything," Mayor Andrew Gillum said. "I mean we contribute to the federal government vis a vis our taxes. We fully anticipate the federal government will again in this case put forth the appropriate subsidies to keep passenger line traffic operational in this part of the country."

Here is the link http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Officials-Consider-new-Orleans-to-Orlando-Rail-Service-Tallahassee-Among-Stops-366672141.html


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## Hytec (Feb 19, 2016)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Matthew1551 said:
> 
> 
> > fixj said:
> ...


I ate in 8400 about 20 years ago when it was assigned to the Crescent. The larger main windows and upper windows made it feel more open and friendly than heritage diners. I was disappointed that Amtrak didn't have the funding to manufacture a fleet of this design.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Feb 19, 2016)

Hytec said:


> I ate in 8400 about 20 years ago when it was assigned to the Crescent. The larger main windows and upper windows made it feel more open and friendly than heritage diners. I was disappointed that Amtrak didn't have the funding to manufacture a fleet of this design.


Or just the lack of willingness to fund this project.


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## cirdan (Feb 19, 2016)

Anderson said:


> UP _does_ have a reason to negotiate, at least insofar as if they can increase the capacity of the route by at least one train beyond the net need of the Daily Sunset they derive a gain. That doesn't mean they need to be "reasonable"...but it does suggest that they have a reason to not give a "blow off" offer.


Furthermore, big corporations like UP understand the need to be seen to be a good corporate citizen, to be making a positive contribution.

They could book the entire costs of accomodating Amtrak onto the goodwill and PR budget. If Amtrak wants to even pay anything extra for the pleasure, then of course they shouldn't say no.

UP seems to understand the value of PR, otherwise they wouldn't be restoring the Big Boy and running their steam program. So it seems incongruent to me that they should be stonewalling Amtrak.


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## jis (Feb 19, 2016)

FDOT seems to have had this long standing policy that they would be willing to chip in upto 40% of the cost provided farebox or something else cover 60%. The original Silver Palm intra-Florida service was funded for a few years with the Feds and farebox covering the rest. When the feds money went away FDOT canceled the train instead of picking up the balance of the subsidy that was covered by the Feds.

Now admittedly that was in the era of a different Governor, and this Governor will depart one of these days. So there is a possibility of pointing the precedent and getting FDOT to consider adding this sort of a thing to their budget. But under the wheeler and dealer that we have running our state at this moment, I don't see that happening unless there is some way that he and his cronies can be able to pocket part of the subsidy or some additional business resulting from that. It is actually quite simple understanding what does or does not work in Florida.


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## fixj (Feb 19, 2016)

Here is a video I took of the Amtrak inspection train arrving today at Chipley, FL. I was using a still camera tripod so there is a bit of shake.


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## west point (Feb 19, 2016)

Can you imagine ? Needed two locos to power the train ? Guess a single loco that failed would have been very embarrassing to JOE ! Was that a Bag-Dorm in the consist ?


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## CCC1007 (Feb 19, 2016)

No bag dorm from what I can see.


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 19, 2016)

fixj said:


> Here is a video I took of the Amtrak inspection train arriving today at Chipley, FL. I was using a still camera tripod so there is a bit of shake.


Thanks for the video. It was good to see that. And *thanks for being there* as part of the crowd.

Don't know if anyone told the good people of Chipley that the proposed schedule has that stop in the middle of the night. Maybe they know and accept it. After all, a train at 3 a.m. is much better than no train at all.


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## Devil's Advocate (Feb 19, 2016)

WoodyinNYC said:


> A train at 3 a.m. is much better than no train at all.


Simply having any train at all might be better for the region as a whole but I don't see it as having much of a benefit for the city that gets stuck with the 3AM stop. Once the Sunset Limited switched to 3AM departures and 4AM arrivals at SAS I simply stopped riding it. And so did a lot of other people. At that time of night there are no buses, no shuttles, no ride sharing services, and no acceptable excuses for dragging your poor friends and family out of bed. Which means I'm stuck with a lousy sleep schedule and I'm forced to spend up to $80 on our ridiculous Taxi Mafia. For the vast majority of airports it's extremely rare to have scheduled flights arrive or depart anywhere near 3AM, even including major international gateways. Same situation with the vast majority of modern passenger rail services. Late night trains might be of no particular concern to retirement age night owls, but for working age folks on a schedule 3AM services are a non-starter.


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## Thirdrail7 (Feb 20, 2016)

west point said:


> Can you imagine ? Needed two locos to power the train ? Guess a single loco that failed would have been very embarrassing to JOE ! Was that a Bag-Dorm in the consist ?


Did you notice the units were back to back? Gee...I wonder if it had to do with the runarounds the engine had to do on at least two occasions.


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## jis (Feb 20, 2016)

The two locos in Phase III back to back looked beautiful in Jacksonville yesterday. Couldn't quite get a good shot due to the platform canopy getting in the way though.


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## Greg (Feb 20, 2016)

Does anyone know what kind of celebration (IF ANY) was had in Lake City, Florida yesterday?


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## Palmetto (Feb 20, 2016)

Perhaps Thirdrail can answer this one: what kind of seniority was needed to successfully bid on this job? Was it even open for bid? Or were the T&E crew hand picked?


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## pennyk (Feb 20, 2016)

Palmetto said:


> Perhaps Thirdrail can answer this one: what kind of seniority was needed to successfully bid on this job? Was it even open for bid? Or were the T&E crew hand picked?


I heard yes, the crew was hand picked and everyone was superb. I am on my way home on 97 now and I think we picked up a few of the cars in JAX from the Inspection train that 92 did not take with it. I heard that our train is so long now that we will need double stops in every station. Since we have not stopped since JAX, I cannot verify that.


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## Thirdrail7 (Feb 20, 2016)

The crew was handpicked except the T&E crews were CSX employees piloting the train since there are no AMTRAK crews qualified on the territory at this point. I don't know if CSX hand picked them.


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## neroden (Feb 20, 2016)

Devil's Advocate said:


> WoodyinNYC said:
> 
> 
> > A train at 3 a.m. is much better than no train at all.
> ...


Well, if you have a spouse, *and* you're travelling alone, it is often possible to get your spouse to drop you off at the train station, bus station, or airport even at 3 AM. But yeah, 3 AM service will certainly suppress ridership.


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## neroden (Feb 20, 2016)

I'm looking forward to seeing reports from the rest of the Florida cities. I fear that Talahassee and Pensacola will be less excited than the Mississippi cities were. We'll see!


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## pennyk (Feb 20, 2016)

neroden said:


> I'm looking forward to seeing reports from the rest of the Florida cities. I fear that Talahassee and Pensacola will be less excited than the Mississippi cities were. We'll see!


I heard there was a large and enthusiastic crowd in Tallahassee, and the governor of Florida was not in attendance.


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## Greg (Feb 20, 2016)

There indeed was a very very large turnout in Tallahassee and all cities in Florida west of tallahassee. also Madison had a great turnout. The only one I have not seen a report on is Lake City florida.


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## Seaboard92 (Feb 20, 2016)

I tried to go to Lake City but the construction on 90 made it very hard. But I can say it seemed like the entire town of Live Oak was by the track.


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## neroden (Feb 20, 2016)

How was the turnout in Jacksonville?

Honestly, I think someone needs to talk in private to the mayors and city councils and warn them that they probably can't rely on the state governments. It would be great if the states did their part, and but the cities should have a backup plan for funding this at a city or county level.


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## Agent (Feb 20, 2016)

Here's a video of the special from YouTube user Chrisean Williams that shows part of the crowd that greeted the train as it arrived in Lake City, Florida.



This video from JaxRailfanner is of people making speeches at the station in Jacksonville. The only looks of the crowd come at the 6:34 mark and at the very end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJJTZNfKkwE


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## DSS&A (Feb 24, 2016)

Hi,

This article explains why the Govenor of Mississippi supports the proposed restoration of Amtrak service on this line. He has the correct understanding that all transportation systems are subsidized and that the subsidy should spur and support private economic development.

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/02/why_mississippi_is_tooting_amt.html


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## WoodyinNYC (Feb 25, 2016)

DSS&A said:


> This article explains why the Governor of Mississippi supports the proposed restoration of Amtrak service on this line.
> 
> http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/02/why_mississippi_is_tooting_amt.html


That site, al.com, has been *on* this story with excellent reporting.

The articles show that the reporter and editor actually understand how Amtrak works. (We've all read articles elsewhere that are just a bundle of words wrapped in confusion.

Thanks for the latest, DSS&A, and keep us posted.


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## WoodyinNYC (Apr 20, 2016)

Yes, they have evolved into two different topics. One continues to deal with an actual up-and-running 3-day-a-week train in Texas, NM, Arizona, and CA that may have an interesting future. The other is a proposed new service that would substitute for, but not continue, the former train, and it will operate in FL, Alabama, Miss., and Louisiana.

Now this thread is conjoined at the title, but mixing the posts in one thread is not good.


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## PRR 60 (Apr 23, 2016)

Recent discussion of the various proposals for restoration of service on the Gulf Coast east of New Orleans has been moved to a new topic.


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