Unfortunately, the Shore Line continues west of New Haven to NYC.
Ooooh, that means that Amtrak can start planning a revival of the Royal Blue Route between Washington and New York?My mom used to ride it when she was a kid (circa 1940), and she said that even though it was slower than the PRR (and required a bus/ferry transfer from Jersey City), the service was much better than the Pennsy. The revived Royal Blue could stop in Mt. Royal Station in Baltimore, with a nice connection to light rail, and I think now because of the Aldene Connection, they could run straight into NYP instead of having to terminate in Jersey City. They could also revive the Wall Street and Crusader between Philly and New York.
As one who grew up in Wilmington, I can agree with the preference for the B&O. My parents always took the B&O because of its good customer service and connecting bus that took you close to your Manhattan hotel. Even for Philly it was preferred as 24th and Chestnut put you closer to downtown. PRR crews were considered unfriendly and they didn't like the older coaches (P-70's). Even though B&O equipment was of the same vintage, it seemed better maintained. Speed isn't everything.
I've always heard that the LSL is the one that needs a second frequency the most, not so much the zephyr. Why do you say the zephyr?
I've thought about bringing most of the long distance trains up to 2-3 times per day. I know people keep thinking that you can make the end to end run times convenient, the issues is you really can't. Either you space them out evenly and accept a weird departure and arrival time on some or have a weirdly long run time on some of them. If we did get that, having them spread out so the middle of the line has service during business hours.
The Coast Starlight works on a 12-hour offset for major cities and some of the scenery except at Portland. At Portland it would create a tough job for the security people contending with the homeless.
They could call it the "Capital Limited," as it connects the capital cities of 4 states (New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia) with the national capital city of Washington, DC.
That will result in no confusion at all between the Capitol Limited.
Of course, there wouldn't be any confusion. That train that runs between Washington and Chicago is called the "Capitol Limited," yet it doesn't run through or near any state capitals or capitols.That will result in no confusion at all between the Capital Limited.
Even the Cardinal runs through Charleston WV and Indianapolis.As you can see, I am excellent at typing.
And if Apple and Google are accurate, the SWC actually takes less time from CHI to Kansas City than driving, at 7h 10 minutes. Now, Apple is telling me the fastest is 7hr 26min and Google is saying 7hr 45min. But that's probably one of the only times outside the Northeast that the train is very close, if not faster than cars.
Some, but Chicago has a lot more track capacity. NY is slightly bursting with its commuter peak (though post-pandemic work-from-home may change that?) and so is more worried about it than Chicago. You will see worries about scheduling during commuter rush in Chicago and Boston as well as NY though.
Total equipment number to go up? Absolutely. It will take some kind of mandate that Amtrak not retire or sell any operatable equipment but just place more into the equipment pools. As well, keep all the present equipment into passenger worthy condition. Amtrak now appears to try to buy equipment with contracts that have all the maintenance expenses placed into the purchase contract. With Amfleets, Acela-1s, Horizons, and probably all View liners not under that kind of contract it appears that Amtrak wants buy only new equipment. Then get rid of the above equipment by not repairing and saving their bonus instead of increasing the total number of revenue producing cars.
