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RTOlson
Lead Service Attendant
^^
But that wouldn't necessarily be the Sunset Limited would it? Isn't the fact that the Sunset was a true coast-to-coast transcon route part of the whole mystique?
Or is the greater issue just to have service on that stretch?
I would value service over that route more than it being part of Sunset Limited.
But that wouldn't necessarily be the Sunset Limited would it? Isn't the fact that the Sunset was a true coast-to-coast transcon route part of the whole mystique?
Or is the greater issue just to have service on that stretch?
I would value service over that route more than it being part of Sunset Limited.
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Green Maned Lion
Engineer
It could be, yes. I think when Amtrak gets some new Corridor equipment, they'd be wise to convert some Amfleet Is to LD coaches and some Amfleet IIs to sectional and roomette sleepers.
Why waste all that money converting two different car lines? Just convert the AMF I's to sectional's and roomettes. Of course one must also question the wisdom of pouring substantial monies into converting a 30+ year old car into anything.
George Harris
Engineer
Maybe not, considering that the Budd stainless steel body shell is only slightly less indestructible than the pyramids.
The trip from Jacksonville to New Orleans would take about 17 hours. If the train left Jacksonville at 7:00AM ET, it would arrive at New Orleans at about 11PM CT The connections at either end would not be good. An overnight schedule departing Jacksonville around 5PM ET and arriving New Orleans around 9AM CT would make much better connections. The return trip would leave New Orleans around 4PM CT and get to Jacksonville around 10AM. Using the same type of train set as the City of New Orleans with Superliner Sleeper, two Superliner Coaches and a cross country cafe would make sense. I have traveled on the Sunset LTD from Jacksonville to New Orleans on business because it was an overnight train and the cost of the Sleeper could be justified in lieu of a hotel room. I and others in Jacksonville who would consider an over night train to New Orleans would not consider spending 17 hours on a day train to get to New Orleans. There really isn't much to see in the Florida panhandle. The most scenic part of the route is between Mobile and New Orleans. The Gulf Wind was a fairly popular overnight train between Jacksonville and New Orleans. It carried a 6 section, 6 roomette, 4 DBR sleeping car right up until April 30, 1971 when Amtrak took over. It was combined with the Pan American between Flamaton, AL and New Orleans in the last few years. It also offered dining service both into New Oleans and into Jacksonville. There was a passenger mail and express coach only day train between Jacksonville and New Orleans way back in 1950s but that was long before I-10 and provided a type of train service that would likely not be needed in the 21st century. Jacksonville-Tallahassee would be perfect for corridor coach only trains and Mobile to New Orleans would be good for a corridor.
Ryan
Court Jester
The problem with that becomes that anyone wanting to use the train anywhere between JAX and NOL would have to get up in the middle of the night to use the train.
The obvious (but unlikely solution) is twice a day, a morning and evening departure.
The obvious (but unlikely solution) is twice a day, a morning and evening departure.
450 miles in 7 hours is about 26.5 MPH. Is that because of the track, the host RR, making a lot of stops, etc?
As I look at other Amtrak trains that run about that distance, they all seem to do it in 8 hours or less.
Just curious.
Just a little typo here--you said "sectional"---actually they were jsut called "sections".
ISTR that even Acela has a much-lower-than-you'd-expect average speed. I forget the exact metric (end-to-end, BOS-NYP, NYP-WAS, etc.), but for whichever calculation it was, the overall average was in the 70mph range, and maybe it was even less. Much of that is the stops, slowing down to the stops, accelerating from the stops, and traveling slowly through built-up areas.
I don't know specifically in the case of the SL or the NOL-JAX segment, but I suspect a good part of it is the long stretches of dark territory where the maximum speed is no more than 59mph in conjunction (so you don't have much speed to start with) with the stops and the curvy (and therefore slow) nature of parts of the line. 26.5mph is slow, but it's not surprisingly slow for a train.
[450 miles in 7 hours is about 26.5 MPH. Is that because of the track, the host RR, making a lot of stops, etc?
As I look at other Amtrak trains that run about that distance, they all seem to do it in 8 hours or less.]
Just curious.
The actual railroad miles from Jacksonville to New Orleans is 619 (See Amtrak schedule posted earlier in this thread). At 17 hours, the average speed would be 36.4 MPH. As George Harris has pointed out, the line between Jacksonville and Flamaton is largely single track and unsignaled. I believe that Amtrak or the State of Florida may have paid to lengthen some of the sidings before the Sunset LTD was extended to Miami in the early 1990s. Even back to the Gulf Wind Schedule in 1971, the schedule was around 15 hours or so. At 17 hours, the train might meet the schedule, which it often did not do with Amtrak.
As I look at other Amtrak trains that run about that distance, they all seem to do it in 8 hours or less.]
Just curious.
The actual railroad miles from Jacksonville to New Orleans is 619 (See Amtrak schedule posted earlier in this thread). At 17 hours, the average speed would be 36.4 MPH. As George Harris has pointed out, the line between Jacksonville and Flamaton is largely single track and unsignaled. I believe that Amtrak or the State of Florida may have paid to lengthen some of the sidings before the Sunset LTD was extended to Miami in the early 1990s. Even back to the Gulf Wind Schedule in 1971, the schedule was around 15 hours or so. At 17 hours, the train might meet the schedule, which it often did not do with Amtrak.
No way would the service be that slow, even for Amtrak. I think NOL-JAX could average 10-11 hours without any accident or incidences.
Ok, I see what you mean. That is awful. The actually distant is 445 miles.
[Ok, I see what you mean. That is awful. The actually distant is 445 miles.]
The highways miles from Jacksonville to New Orleans on I-10 is 547. The railroad miles are 72 longer because at Pensacola, the line goes north to Flamaton, AL where it has a junction with the former L&N main line from Louisville to New Orleans. I-10 heads straight west from Pensacola to New Orleans.
The highways miles from Jacksonville to New Orleans on I-10 is 547. The railroad miles are 72 longer because at Pensacola, the line goes north to Flamaton, AL where it has a junction with the former L&N main line from Louisville to New Orleans. I-10 heads straight west from Pensacola to New Orleans.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
I know they are called sections. I mean a car containing it, if my conjugation is correct, would be considered one containing sections, or sectional.Bill Haithcoat said:
Alan:
George made my point for me. I suggest using the Amfleets for sleepers for several reasons. One, Amtrak has tons of them and can select the best cars in the group for the job. Two, as George mentioned, their Budd shotwelded construction is essentially industructable- and I doubt anything newer would be even as good. Why built a new shell when an old one already exists?
Amtrak has them right now, doesn't need to go through the whole order process. Maybe even Beech Grove could handle doing a few of them a year. Sections in particular make a lot of sense- they don't require all that much modification to the car itself. Replace the luggage rack with a Pullman bed, put in the slide down seats, add some curtains, and you've got a decent set up. But if you want to go the whole way, even adding dividing walls doesn't require rewiring the entire car. Or redesigning the cars wiring, rather.
I mean, I'm not nutty enough to think this can be done for less than six-figures a car, in all reality, but I bet you'd just crest that number if you did it efficiently. Compared to $2 million + for a new sleeper.
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George Harris
Engineer
The only problem with a section in an Amfleet is the tube shape of the car body. That could result in a fairly narrow upper compared to those in the more ractangular body shells of the 1950's and earlier sleepers. (I have never been in a Viewliner, but they look far more squarish than the Amfleet.) On the other hand, Malaysian Railways manages upper and lowers in section type arrangements in a body shell that is certainly smaller, as the track gauge is only one meter (3'-3 3/8"), and and the car size looks to be on the order of British standards which are quite small. In spite of that, the upper was still big enough for me to stuff my 220 lb body into an upper and sleep comfortably.
the_traveler
Engineer
And what did any pax wanting to use the train anywhere between JAX and NOL do - before the SL was "temporarily suspended"? :huh:
Another idea is to combine this run (between NOL and JAX) with an extension of the CONO. (The overnight schedule mentioned by jphjaxfl seem to sort of match the CONO's schedule.) And since Superliners have run on this track before, I know there there are no height restriction in the way. And NOL is a stub end track, so that isn't a problem.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Eh, I'd think it has to be bigger than the upper berth on a superliner sleeper.
Rafi
Conductor
You're actually not the first to propose this possibility. In fact, according to NARP, this tends to be the most popular idea inside Amtrak when it comes to restoring service on the NOL-JAX line. What would happen would be that the Texas Eagle set would extend to Los Angeles for daily service, and the CONO set would extend to Jacksonville. Now, how likely this is to happen is anyone's guess, but it's an idea that's been popular over the past two years or so. The question then arises, obviously of how to continue service between SAS and NOL, and if I had to venture my own guess, that might be accomplished by just splitting the Eagle in SAS, similar to what happens now. The other concept thrown out there as a way to cover NOL-SAS has been to extend the Crescent to SAS, but the general consensus, from what I can gather, is that single level equipment would end up pretty well trashed by the time it made it to SAS all of the way from NYP without a cleaning.
Rafi
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JAChooChoo
Service Attendant
Does anyone have any pasenger counts between NOL and JAX on 1 & 2?
Anecdotally I recall they were low.
Then LA - Fla would require 3 train changes. Maybe run the SL 4 times per week and use the plan above to fill in the remaining days.
[Does anyone have any pasenger counts between NOL and JAX on 1 & 2?
Anecdotally I recall they were low.]
I don't have any statistics of the number of passenger traveling on Amtrak between Jacksonville and New Orleans, but from the 8 trips that I took between 1996 and 2003, the train was usually well patronized. Around 2001-2002, the service became much less dependable as UP often delivered the train late to NOL so it lost its alotted time slot on CSX east of New Orleans. The westbound train from Jacksonville was more reliable. There were also several lengthy (1 week to a month)suspensions by CSX due to track work. There were many passengers connecting to the City of New Orleans to and from points north with Chicago being a major destination. The CNO/Sunset route when it ran on schedule was faster than the Capitol LTD/Sliver Star. There were quite a few passengers traveling from points east of New Orleans to Houston, San Antonio and Tucson. I would say 50% of the people from points east of New Orleans went to New Orleans and the other 50% went thrugh New Orleans to points west. On my trips the head counts were probably over 100 on every trip. It was surprising to me how many people road the Sunset East of New Orleans specially from the cities and towns enroute considering how unpredictable the schedule was. But many of our representatives in Washington assume the long distance trains run empty the vast majority of the time.
Anecdotally I recall they were low.]
I don't have any statistics of the number of passenger traveling on Amtrak between Jacksonville and New Orleans, but from the 8 trips that I took between 1996 and 2003, the train was usually well patronized. Around 2001-2002, the service became much less dependable as UP often delivered the train late to NOL so it lost its alotted time slot on CSX east of New Orleans. The westbound train from Jacksonville was more reliable. There were also several lengthy (1 week to a month)suspensions by CSX due to track work. There were many passengers connecting to the City of New Orleans to and from points north with Chicago being a major destination. The CNO/Sunset route when it ran on schedule was faster than the Capitol LTD/Sliver Star. There were quite a few passengers traveling from points east of New Orleans to Houston, San Antonio and Tucson. I would say 50% of the people from points east of New Orleans went to New Orleans and the other 50% went thrugh New Orleans to points west. On my trips the head counts were probably over 100 on every trip. It was surprising to me how many people road the Sunset East of New Orleans specially from the cities and towns enroute considering how unpredictable the schedule was. But many of our representatives in Washington assume the long distance trains run empty the vast majority of the time.
Rafi
Conductor
Actually, that's not correct. Assuming the Eagle from LAX split in SAS with a section headed to NOL (similar to what's done now), then there would be one change of trains in NOL to the CONO.
Regardless, the hard fact is that all talk of reinstating service NOL-JAX has been focused away from extending the Sunset.
Rafi
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Then you would have Texas Eagle Superliners connecting to Crescent viewliners in SAS.
Rafi
Conductor
I think you misunderstood. Assuming the Crescent is not extended to SAS, and the Texas Eagle splits in SAS instead, then it's one transfer. In the Crescent scenario, it's two transfers: SAS and NOL.
Rafi
P.S. Just a minor correction: the Crescent runs with Viewliners, Amfleets, and Heritage cars (Diner/Baggage)—not just Viewliners.
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