FRA Long Distance Service Study discussion

Cal said:

I think being optimistic is good. This is a big initiative with some federal support. Getting improvements takes steps, and I think this is a great step along the way. I wouldn't be surprised if none of it happens, but I'm still excited and happy that something is being talked about.

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Even if only half of this stuff happen, it will be a major improvement.

railiner said:

Sorry, but this is the biggest “pipe dream” I have seen on this forum yet…

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Some of these routes look way more feasible than others.
Dallas and Houston are two metropolitan areas that are about 250 miles apart---and each has about 7 million people, and there are no major terrain barriers between them. So it seems totally feasible that those two cities would have passenger rail service.
But sections like Denver to Billings seem much more difficult to implement, due to low population densities and terrain.

Matthew H Fish said:

Some of these routes look way more feasible than others.
Dallas and Houston are two metropolitan areas that are about 250 miles apart---and each has about 7 million people, and there are no major terrain barriers between them. So it seems totally feasible that those two cities would have passenger rail service.
But sections like Denver to Billings seem much more difficult to implement, due to low population densities and terrain.

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The plans being discussed here are for long-distance service. Dallas-Houston would be more of a corridor service, which would be part of a different program.

MARC Rider said:

The plans being discussed here are for long-distance service. Dallas-Houston would be more of a corridor service, which would be part of a different program.

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Right. Dallas - Houston would fall under the Corridor ID Program.

MARC Rider said:

The plans being discussed here are for long-distance service. Dallas-Houston would be more of a corridor service, which would be part of a different program.

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Although there is maybe a chance that some of these routes will be shortened if this ever comes to actuality.

Matthew H Fish said:

Although there is maybe a chance that some of these routes will be shortened if this ever comes to actuality.

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Dallas - Houston is already selected in the Corridor ID program both for High Speed and Conventional Rail. See the following PDF document:

https://railroads.dot.gov/about-fra...esident-biden-announces-82-billion-new-grants

The dashed lines are CID program selections. The solid lines are FSP program selections in the map. The AU thread to discuss this corridor and others shown in the document is the following:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/fras-corridor-id-program-and-possible-new-corridors.83238/

jazzharris said:

Please God, let me live long enough,,,

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Indeed. According to the presentation deck the earliest to start any service is 15 years out.
Conceptual Timelines for Implementation (pg 154):
Near Term: 2040 - 2050
Mid-Term 2050 - 2060
Long Term: 2060+

I'm still buying green bananas, but I'm not planning on being around to ride anything in the "long term." Or if I am still around, I probably won't be able to see well enough to care about dirty windows.

lrh442 said:

Indeed. According to the presentation deck the earliest to start any service is 15 years out.
Conceptual Timelines for Implementation (pg 154):
Near Term: 2040 - 2050
Mid-Term 2050 - 2060
Long Term: 2060+

I'm still buying green bananas, but I'm not planning on being around to ride anything in the "long term." Or if I am still around, I probably won't be able to see well enough to care about dirty windows.

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If they are going to double ridership by 2040 they need to move a bit faster on near term.

Of note I think is the proposal on page 157 to establish a “Long Distance Public Committee” and analysis of the network every 5 years for improvement. These would do wonders for even the current network without expansion.

lrh442 said:

Indeed. According to the presentation deck the earliest to start any service is 15 years out.
Conceptual Timelines for Implementation (pg 154):
Near Term: 2040 - 2050
Mid-Term 2050 - 2060
Long Term: 2060+

I'm still buying green bananas, but I'm not planning on being around to ride anything in the "long term." Or if I am still around, I probably won't be able to see well enough to care about dirty windows.

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I would get mid 2030s because of rolling stock and needing congress to agree but 2040s, is amtrak really that short staffed that they'll finish connect US stuff and then move onto LD

Equipment would mean 2030s would be the most likely earliest realistic for LD expansion. The new equipment will likely take till then to start showing up and expanded routes would likely be equipped through options.

AmtrakBlue said:

There are maps here: FRA Long-Distance Service Study

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There's some amazing stuff in there - thorough and imaginative thinking as far as what could be done and what the benefits would be in terms of new populations served, time saved by new routings, connectivity, stations needed, and so on and so forth.

I found this video which has a nice presentation discussing most of the proposed new/revived routes in the FRA proposal. Thought it might be of general interest here:

An interesting article about the alleged futility of attempting passenger rail in South Dakota

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/does-south-dakota-really-need-amtrak/

jis said:

An interesting article about the alleged futility of attempting passenger rail in South Dakota

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/does-south-dakota-really-need-amtrak/

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I kind of agree with the argument - it would be nice to have service everywhere, but we should start with big untapped ridership places, like Louisville, Indy, etc, first and then move on to the less populated areas.

jis said:

An interesting article about the alleged futility of attempting passenger rail in South Dakota

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/does-south-dakota-really-need-amtrak/

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He didn't directly address the north-south route via Sioux Falls.

jis said:

An interesting article about the alleged futility of attempting passenger rail in South Dakota

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/does-south-dakota-really-need-amtrak/

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The track argument to me was a bit strange. Like yeah its going to need to become at least class 3 60mph track but BNSF will also benefit from being able to run trains at 40mph.
and the special grant that they have access to really sounds like it just needs to be replaced with a short line improvement grant nation wide.

Here is a Video Report from the last and concluding meeting of the FRA Study Group, from Jim Matthews of RPA:



The latest document can be found here (PDF):

https://fralongdistancerailstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FRA_LDSS_Presentation-4_for_Web.pdf

jis said:

Here is a Video Report from the last and concluding meeting of the FRA Study Group, from Jim Matthews of RPA:



The latest document can be found here (PDF):

https://fralongdistancerailstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FRA_LDSS_Presentation-4_for_Web.pdf

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Whew! This is a lot of reading, but it's worthwhile. One problem with the long time-frame for this is that circumstances will change. As we know, that can be a justification for starting over again, rather than getting things done.

Here are the costs, parsed from the document, in millions.


Of the ones on the high side, maybe this adds some context:

• Denver to St. Paul runs the width of South Dakota.
• Dallas to NY runs though St. Louis and Pittsburgh.
• Dallas to Miami runs along the Florida panhandle.
• Houston to NY runs through Chattanooga.
• Phoenix to St. Paul runs through Amarillo and Kansas City.

The two trains to NY in the source table specify "single level," to explain the number of trainsets. The total trainsets for the Cardinal and Sunset are 4 and 7.

Seattle Chicago is additional service via southern Montana, and was not rated since it already qualified in Corridor ID. Same for the Cardinal and Sunset.

Some routes that were not selected here get the note, try state-supported. Little Rock-Memphis-Nashville gets the note, try Corridor ID.

Uses Dalllas Ft.Worth -Miami possible route as an example. Interesting read that will effect Amtrak.


https://www.trains.com/trn/news-rev...enefits-of-selected-routes-news-and-analysis/

Excerpt-

"The report’s extensive data sets the stage for prioritizing the routes under consideration, which may or may not be a part of the final report. Adding together an average of each route’s costs for stations, track and signaling, and equipment, Fort Worth-Atlanta via Shreveport, La., and Meridian, Miss., is the cheapest route to implement. This is primarily because it is the shortest (855 miles) and can serve many existing stations currently served by the Texas Eagle, City of New Orleans, and Crescent.

The service modeled, though, is not an extension of the Crescent, which has already been studied enough by Amtrak, the Southern Rail Commission, and the I-20 Corridor Council for those entities and cities along the route to have applied for several federal grants. Instead, the proposed overnight train evaluated here arrives in Atlanta in the morning and departs for Fort Worth in the evening. Running another round trip that would include a Crescent appendage, if money could be found to do that, would give travelers two daily options at stations from Fort Worth to Marshall, Tex., and from Meridian to Atlanta, on nearly 500 miles, or 58% of the route.

At this stage, the report makes no judgment about which routes have the most potential to be implemented. Yet the highest priority has to be elevating the Sunset Limited and Cardinal from tri-weekly to daily status, because the stations and crews are already there and the trains suffer financially from three days of revenue spread across seven days of route costs.

Not studied is an Amtrak plan from 2010 to make the Texas Eagle a daily Chicago-Los Angeles train with a separate New Orleans-San Antonio connection that, as proposed at the time, could have been accomplished with existing Superliner equipment instead of requiring four additional trainsets.

Another dilemma: the fate of prime population centers Amtrak no longer serves like Las Vegas, Nev., Nashville, Tenn., and Columbus, Ohio, are tethered to routes with possible built-in challenges. Columbus is on Detroit-New Orleans and Dallas-New York City routes that would need significant track and signal upgrades nowhere near the Ohio state capital. Nashville, on a key Chicago-Miami route, could be victimized by the thorny issues of finding a suitable station site in Chattanooga, Tenn., and an agreeable Atlanta-Jacksonville, Fla., host railroad. "

The study shows the tri-weeklies being advanced to the next study level as a given.

I was wondering about Chattanooga. The remaining station building, the Southern station would require a back-up move. When I was in Chattanooga for a veterans' reunion I wondered where the Union Station had been, so I went to the public library, The librarian reluctantly pulled out an envelope of clippings, from which I figured that I was sitting where the Union Station had been.

I walked around till I found this sign.



2015 - the Southern station, now a hotel.

Willbridge said:

The study shows the tri-weeklies being advanced to the next study level as a given.

I was wondering about Chattanooga. The remaining station building, the Southern station would require a back-up move. When I was in Chattanooga for a veterans' reunion I wondered where the Union Station had been, so I went to the public library, The librarian reluctantly pulled out an envelope of clippings, from which I figured that I was sitting where the Union Station had been.

I walked around till I found this sign.

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I used to use both Union and Terminal Station in Chattanooga, prior to Amtrak.

Having used Union Station during the late 1950s and occasionally during the '60s, the last time I rode a train into and from that Union Station was in July 1970. Just as with Terminal Station, Union Station also had been a stub terminal. On that return-trip Atlanta to Nashville (Tenn., as opposed to Nashville, IL, [Washington Cnty.], also passed through by the same train), I recall the conductor walking to the vestibule of the coach to assist with the reverse movement into Chattanooga Union Station.

By then the train was a mere two-car rump consisting of an L&N heavyweight baggage-express car and a streamlined Budd coach (ex-C&EI), the coach typically being oriented with its vestibule toward the rear for this purpose. Little had I known that this would be my last opportunity to ride a train in revenue service serving both Chattanooga Union Station and Atlanta Union Station (Forsyth St. SW). I went on to ride the same train that following December (1970), Nashville to St. Louis, for a connection to KCMO (via Missouri Pacific Lines).

The train was canceled with the advent of Amtrak, and is shown here on its last northbound run (by railroad direction) ─ Atlanta to St. Louis ─ at Chattanooga Union Station before departure, April 30, 1971. The night photo is all I had on-hand, and sadly it doesn't show much detail of the station. The Read House Hotel (which remains today) stands in the upper-left background (view facing east). No trace of past railroad activity at this site remains today ─ all totally obliterated. Both Chattanooga and Atlanta union stations were razed around 1971 ─ no time wasted by the railroad to unload those urban-core properties

[photo - courtesy, John Coniglio]

rookzie said:

I used to use both Union and Terminal Station in Chattanooga, prior to Amtrak.

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[photo - courtesy, John Coniglio]

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Great photo!

Thanks for the info. I was hoping that someone familiar with the area would contribute.

Today's travelers aren't offered much. Buses stop in Wildwood, eight miles from Chattanooga.

On the GL/Flix website tonight:
Greyhound bus tickets to and from Chattanooga, TN
This destination is currently unavailable.
The airport is closer to downtown than is the bus station.

Weren’t there a few cities that had both a “Union Station”, and a “Terminal Station”, in the South?