$66 billion for Amtrak

[Ziv]

Since my wish list for new cars built my CAF isn't going to happen, I will chime in here and say that another wish I have is for a train that would connect Wash DC to Kansas City, via Charleston WV, Cincinnati OH, Louisville KE and St Louis MO. Going from DC to St Louis to LA without going to Chicago or New Orleans would be a nice trip and it would make the trip worthwhile for a lot of people that otherwise would not bother to take a train that was going to haul them all the way up to Chicago or down to NO. Admittedly, this "mid-country" route probably doesn't have a high likelihood of happening, but it would be cool to see it pull other Amtrak routes (both present and future) together.
The route that is probably more wished for, from Chicago through Louisville (or Nashville?) and Atlanta to Jacksonville, would be even better but I am not sure that the tracks in that area would support a passenger route, especially not at a speed that most people would find useful.
Mostly, though, I hope that Amtrak finds a way to use the present windfall to make useful and lasting improvements in existing services and infrastructure, both in the NEC and the LD routes AND builds the supply of Amtrak rolling stock (and hires new crew) to allow for a few new routes and additional frequencies on the more popular LD routes. This is a once in a lifetime windfall, I hope they do a great deal of good with it, not just a few large ticket items.

They need to figure a way to get more hub cities so that every where you need to go doesn't means going mostly to Chicago which could be a day or more from you and then reversing on one of the few other western trains if you are lucky enough to be going to one of those cities on the line. And worse paying rail or room charges to go way out of your way to boot. People in say, KC shouldn't have to go overnight to Chicago in order to go to Minnesota or farther west.

 

[MARC Rider]

With that said, there are some legitimate business arguments for why that is happening the least of which is that the ROI for every $1 is high and IIRC the NEC is largely profitable.

It's not just "profitable" (and look up one of my rants about "Hollywood accounting" to see the "profitable" is a meaningless word.) It's that the NEC and the lines that branch off from it is probably the only place in the country where passenger rail is an actual practical, significant part of the transportation mix. And it needs a lot of money to keep it that way, as a lot of the critical infrastructure is very old and ready to fall apart. Anyway, it's official now. Amtrak is no longer a "business" with a mandate to "make money." It's purpose is to provide a transportation utility, preferably one that gets people out of their cars and short-haul airline flights.

Outside of the NEC, Amtrak's challenge is to increase the market share of intercity passenger rail to the point that political support for it comes from all parts of the political spectrum, just as funding for highways, waterways, and air traffic improvements are supported by all sides of the political spectrum. This probably means focusing on the midwest, the southeast, parts of the west coast, and the Rocky Mountain Front Range. And focusing on trips of 500 miles or less.

There may be some trains that run longer distances, but the vast majority of the passengers will be taking shorter trips. And, of course, the longer the train's route, the more chance there is for delays, so it might make sense to run most trains over shorter routes. Amtrak has actually been expanding such a network, and they need to keep doing it, but more effectively. I think their first priority is doing what needs to be done to have the trains run reliably on time with a competitive schedule. Dealing with the freight railroads is one thing, but they need to keep the infrastructure they do own in good repair, and, of course, keep the rolling stock up to date so it doesn't keep breaking down at inconvenient times in inconvenient places. Expanding long distance routes that cross the Rocky Mountains and unpopulated deserts is probably a much lower priority, and additional connections can be made there by means of expanded Thruway bus services, which can be put in place almost immediately.

 

[jis]

In this bill there is outright $28 Billion for the National Network and $30 Billion for NEC. There is no appropriated operations money. Only authorisation. It is an infrastructure thing. Operations money is in the Reconciliation Bill. Just to ground the discussion and keep it from taking flights of fancy.

 

[jruff001]

Think they'll bring back a full dining experience with that much money?

Is the dining car menu really "infrastructure"?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Don't think this will make it through the Senate. But if it does, I doubt seriously that we will ever see any marked improvement on Amtrak.

I just don't see that even spending $66B on Amtrak is going to improve the experience enough to build back ridership.

Where is this coming from and what exactly would it take for you see things in a positive light? Or is it the funding itself that primarily disappoints you?

 

[Tlcooper44]

Where is this coming from and what exactly would it take for you see things in a positive light? Or is it the funding itself that primarily disappoints you?

He did not read previous posts in the thread or pay attention to the news enough to know it (the biggest news ever for Amtrak) passed the senate months ago. How he sees the bill isn’t of too much concern.

 

[sttom]

In my mind, this order should (Ideally) be for a 1:1.5 seat for seat replacement of the Superliners,

I did the math for a Superliner single level replacement and the rough number is 3 single levels for every 2 Superliners just for the sleepers. And that's under the assumption that the Family Bedroom won't be replaced. Adding that in would make it a 2 to 1 ratio. Coaches it's less of an issue since the Amfleet 2s carry 59 and the Superliners carry 74. Which is roughly 5 single levels to replace 4 Superliner coaches.

 

[CraigInNC]

Is the dining car menu really "infrastructure"?

Amtrak will simply reallocate money to improve the amenities and replace that money with this new money. Amtrak will not have to budget as much current money for capital improvements and use it for now stuff. That is assuming the language in the bill does not specifically tie Amtrak's hands in such a regard. Occasionally I have seen "new" money with such strings that it can only be spent on stuff that the was otherwise unplanned but I am not seeing that is the case here. Its a lot of money, the accounts can move it around to make it look right as long as management knows what is going on.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

He did not read previous posts in the thread or pay attention to the news enough to know it (the biggest news ever for Amtrak) passed the senate months ago. How he sees the bill isn’t of too much concern.

Even after being corrected he simply doubled down on his dour nihilism. So is he unhappy with this news because he thinks we're not spending enough or because he thinks we're spending too much? Seems like a pretty simple question to me.

But if I get to allocate where MY taxes go, I'd put 97c of every dollar for transport into roads, 2c into trains, and 1c into air based on my usage.

I guess that answers it well enough.

 

[CraigInNC]

It's not just "profitable" (and look up one of my rants about "Hollywood accounting" to see the "profitable" is a meaningless word.) It's that the NEC and the lines that branch off from it is probably the only place in the country where passenger rail is an actual practical, significant part of the transportation mix. And it needs a lot of money to keep it that way, as a lot of the critical infrastructure is very old and ready to fall apart. Anyway, it's official now. Amtrak is no longer a "business" with a mandate to "make money." It's purpose is to provide a transportation utility, preferably one that gets people out of their cars and short-haul airline flights.

Outside of the NEC, Amtrak's challenge is to increase the market share of intercity passenger rail to the point that political support for it comes from all parts of the political spectrum, just as funding for highways, waterways, and air traffic improvements are supported by all sides of the political spectrum. This probably means focusing on the midwest, the southeast, parts of the west coast, and the Rocky Mountain Front Range. And focusing on trips of 500 miles or less.

There may be some trains that run longer distances, but the vast majority of the passengers will be taking shorter trips. And, of course, the longer the train's route, the more chance there is for delays, so it might make sense to run most trains over shorter routes. Amtrak has actually been expanding such a network, and they need to keep doing it, but more effectively. I think their first priority is doing what needs to be done to have the trains run reliably on time with a competitive schedule. Dealing with the freight railroads is one thing, but they need to keep the infrastructure they do own in good repair, and, of course, keep the rolling stock up to date so it doesn't keep breaking down at inconvenient times in inconvenient places. Expanding long distance routes that cross the Rocky Mountains and unpopulated deserts is probably a much lower priority, and additional connections can be made there by means of expanded Thruway bus services, which can be put in place almost immediately.

It would be nice to see Amtrak supplanting some of the airline short haul business outside of the NEC it would be a win-win both for the rail side and the air side. I am not familiar enough with the airline business model to know what their break even points are for various routes. There would be a lot of variables at play but I suspect just on an efficiency basis they would have the potential to have a higher profit margin on longer hauls than short. I am sure the legacy airlines would love to get out of the business of flying routes of under an hour. Flying is so capital intensive where the break even point is so high that the airlines lose a lot of money on small routes in order to gain passenger volume to feed longer routes that subsidize everything. I know some routes in obscure places receive government subsidies in order to provide connectivity options for remote populations. Yet despite all of that most of the airlines have collectively lost more money in the last 40 years than any other single industry ever.

 

[user 1215]

Even after being corrected he simply doubled down on his dour nihilism. So is he unhappy with this news because he thinks we're not spending enough or because he thinks we're spending too much? Seems like a pretty simple question to me.


I guess that answers it well enough.

I think $66B is too much money for a mere 32 million annual riders. If it makes a real difference, if it improves the reliability, if it improves the experience, if it increases ridership, then I'll be a happy camper. But I have yet to see any real action to limit the amount of wasteful spending that Amtrak has been accused by the IG over a decade ago.

So, I feel like I can be as dour as I want to be about how my taxes are being spent and whether there's value gained for it.

$110B: Roads, bridges
$39B: Public Transit
$66B: Railways
$73B: Power Grids
$7.5B: Electric Vehicles
$7.5B: Electric Buses & Ferries
$42B: Airports, waterways
$50B: Resilience, climate change
$55B: Drinking water
$65B: Broadband
$21B: Environmental spending
$11B: Transportation safety

That's only $547B or HALF of the bill. Where's the other $650B being spent? These are the BIG ticket items.

Mock me for my previous comment on the dining car being fully restored as not infrastructure, but one can suppose that if all this money is being spent on the infrastructure, then Amtrak's traditional $1.5B annual stipend (which is also used for infrastructure) can be allocated to operations.

At least I can be dour about something without personally attacking individuals for their thoughts.

 

[jis]

To be quite pedantic only $58 Billion over ten years is fully targeted for passenger rail infrastructure. That too if the so called Fed-State $36 Billion is entirely used for passenger service.

It is quite likely that a big chunk will be used for NEC and Midwest around Chicago infrastructure - tunnels, bridges, south shore separation of passenger trackage etc. Leaving that aside, the purely Amtrak amounts are $6 Billion for the NEC $16 Billion for National. They could get substantially expended just on rolling stock acquisition and upgrading maintenance facilities over ten years.

 

[Dakota 400]

But it's not just Amtrak. There is something for everybody in the bill which is by design. I am sure there will be plenty of road and bridge projects in your district he'll be happy to tout when the time comes, while trying to explain why he voted against it.

The gentleman does an excellent job in getting and keeping support for Wright Patterson AFB and other military installations in Ohio. When Amtrak's proposal to increase service in Ohio was first proposed, he was non-committal. But, when--if--that service does start and a new station is built in Dayton, I can almost guarantee you that he will be there for the ribbon cutting and praising the wisdom of starting the 3C service.

 

[Willbridge]

It's not just "profitable" (and look up one of my rants about "Hollywood accounting" to see the "profitable" is a meaningless word.) It's that the NEC and the lines that branch off from it is probably the only place in the country where passenger rail is an actual practical, significant part of the transportation mix. And it needs a lot of money to keep it that way, as a lot of the critical infrastructure is very old and ready to fall apart. Anyway, it's official now. Amtrak is no longer a "business" with a mandate to "make money." It's purpose is to provide a transportation utility, preferably one that gets people out of their cars and short-haul airline flights.

Outside of the NEC, Amtrak's challenge is to increase the market share of intercity passenger rail to the point that political support for it comes from all parts of the political spectrum, just as funding for highways, waterways, and air traffic improvements are supported by all sides of the political spectrum. This probably means focusing on the midwest, the southeast, parts of the west coast, and the Rocky Mountain Front Range. And focusing on trips of 500 miles or less.

There may be some trains that run longer distances, but the vast majority of the passengers will be taking shorter trips. And, of course, the longer the train's route, the more chance there is for delays, so it might make sense to run most trains over shorter routes. Amtrak has actually been expanding such a network, and they need to keep doing it, but more effectively. I think their first priority is doing what needs to be done to have the trains run reliably on time with a competitive schedule. Dealing with the freight railroads is one thing, but they need to keep the infrastructure they do own in good repair, and, of course, keep the rolling stock up to date so it doesn't keep breaking down at inconvenient times in inconvenient places. Expanding long distance routes that cross the Rocky Mountains and unpopulated deserts is probably a much lower priority, and additional connections can be made there by means of expanded Thruway bus services, which can be put in place almost immediately.

"...expanded Thruway bus services, which can be put in place almost immediately."

Then why isn't the DEN<>RAT Thruway operating? The answer, just like with new corridor OR long-distance routes is that a lot of organizations and interest groups are involved. Indeed, since May 1, 1971 there have been customers on the populous Front Range who wonder why there is no DEN<>LAJ connection with the existing LAJ<>KCY<>STL<>CDL<>NOL or LAJ<>NEW<>OKC<>FTW<>SAS schedule paths. When one gets into it it is not easy, including the political need to protect existing bus lines.

Some things are commonly overlooked when arguing that the middle of the country is empty:

1. Most of the population west of say the 90th meridian is located on current or past railway main lines (Denver Union Station is on the 105th meridian).
2. People in the West travel much longer distances than people in other regions, thereby generating more passenger miles. When I worked on the first study that led to the creation of Trains 27/28, I found that the average passenger on Trains 7/8 headed west of Pasco was traveling just over 1,000 miles. One graphic way of looking at this is to visualize the coverage area for broadcasting pro football or baseball. The Denver Broncos coverage area is bigger than many nation states.

This doesn't mean that the area does not have less population but it does mean that running train service that may also attract tourists and Amtrak Unlimited members is not as unreasonable as it may seem on the edges of the country.

Here are some eccentric sources that could help in developing ideas about rail routes:

Where do MLB Fans Live? Mapping Baseball Fandom Across the U.S. - SeatGeek - TBA

major league baseball radio station maps - Bing images

Denver Broncos radio stations outside of Colorado:

KANSAS

City	Call Letters	Station
Colby	KLOE	730 AM
Goodland	KKCI	102.5 FM
Great Bend	KZRS	107.9 FM
Hays	KRMR	105.7 FM
Salina	KDJM	101.7 FM
Wichita	KGSO	1410 AM/93.9 FM

NEBRASKA

City	Call Letters	Station
Chadron	KCSR	610 AM
Lincoln	KLIN	1400 AM/95.9 FM
McCook	KBRL	1300 AM
North Platte	KOOQ	1410 AM
Ogallala	KOGA	930 AM
Scottsbluff	KNEB	960 AM

NEW MEXICO

City	Call Letters	Station
Albuquerque	KQTM	101.7 FM
Farmington	KCQL	1340 AM
Ruidoso	KEDU	102.3 FM

NEVADA

City	Call Letters	Station
Las Vegas	KMZQ	670 AM

OKLAHOMA

City	Call Letters	Station
Alva	KRDR	105.7 FM

SOUTH DAKOTA

City	Call Letters	Station
Belle Fourche	KFBS	1450 AM
Rapid City	KOTA	1380 AM

TEXAS

City	Call Letters	Station
Abilene	KYYW	1470 AM
Dimmitt	KDHN	1470 AM
Lubbock	KKAM	1340 AM

WYOMING

City	Call Letters	Station
Buffalo	KBBS	1450 AM
Casper	KTWO	1030 AM
Cheyenne	KFBC	1240 AM
Cody	KODI	97.9 FM
Douglas	KKTY	1470 AM
Gillette	KXXL	106.1 FM
Green River	KFRZ	92.1 FM
Lander	KVOE	1330 AM
Laramie	KOWB	1290 AM
Pine Bluffs	KEZF	95.5 FM
Pinedale	KFZE	104.3 FM
Powell	KPOW	1260 AM
Riverston/Lost Cabin	KWYW	99.1 FM
Saratoga	KTGA	99.3 FM
Sheridan	KWYO	1410 AM
Sheridan	KSHW	87.7 FM
Sundance	KYDT	103.1 FM
Torrington	KGOS	1490 AM
Wheatland	KYCN	1340 AM
Worland	KWOR	1340 AM

CANADA

City	Call Letters	Station
Calgary	CFAC	960 AM

Or visit the tv football coverage maps. Here's Washington DC vs. Denver this year.



There are lots of ways of looking at these cultural sources but in general Westerners travel more miles. I began thinking about this in the Army, when I met a soldier from NYC who had once been as far west as Niagara Falls. I had felt deprived because before the service I had only been as far east from Portland as the Chicago area.

 

[sttom]

I think $66B is too much money for a mere 32 million annual riders.

The point of spending the money is to get more riders. The issue with the $66 billion is how much of that is getting spent on the NEC? Given that Amtrak's rosiest goals for the money is to not even double ridership in 15 years, $66 billion is way to much and the implication is that most of it is going to be used on the NEC and not much extra ridership is going to come from it.

Total	$126,500,000,000
Upgrade Existing Mileage	$14,000,000,000	20,000 miles
New Mileage Upgrades	$28,000,000,000	16,000 miles
Rolling Stock	$61,000,000,000	14,000 cars, 1000 engines
Facilities	$3,000,000,000	Heavy maintenance, turning facilities, commissaries
Workforce	$500,000,000
Stations	$20,000,000,000	500 stations
Buffer	$5,500,000,000

If you roughly double the money and spend basically none of it on the NEC or existing state services, you can get a lot out of it based on current cost figures. For nearly double the funding they got, you could "enhance" the existing services and nearly double the size of the network. But, all we are getting is more put into the NEC. And to put this into more perspective, their original ask was $80 billion and only $25 billion of that was going to the rest of the country. Proportionally speaking, if the rest of the country got the same as the NEC, they would have asked for an additional $469 billion. So basically, the NEC gets an interstate highway project level of funding and we get next to nothing in comparison. Which should also irk the representatives from places like Buffalo or Western Massachusetts since they won't see much of a benefit out of trains being faster between New York and Boston.

 

[Larry H.]

I find it a bit hard to understand how a Diner is a questionable expense and not a part of the infrastructure. This might be 2021, but trains for the most part always provided decent food even on shorter runs like Chicago / St. louis. The GM&O offered a fine diner right to the end. People need to eat, although I will say the cost of railroad food has been on the pretty high side compared to what a Union Pacific or other major railroad would have charged. So far as why is the diner needed, well, why is the engine needed? Its part of the train and when your on a trip wether short or long and meal times come up then should people not be able to eat at a table and not with rather questionable cafe car food? That GM& O Diner served great breakfast right out of Union Station and the same in return on the late train, but then they were rather odd in that they thought they should provide expected services to the customer.

 

[CCC1007]

I did the math for a Superliner single level replacement and the rough number is 3 single levels for every 2 Superliners just for the sleepers. And that's under the assumption that the Family Bedroom won't be replaced. Adding that in would make it a 2 to 1 ratio. Coaches it's less of an issue since the Amfleet 2s carry 59 and the Superliners carry 74. Which is roughly 5 single levels to replace 4 Superliner coaches.

That is correct mathematically.
I've worked out train lengths and car counts for this type of replacement. If anyone wants to take a look, I'd be happy to supply a link in PM's.

 

[Gemuser]

It’s been in the Constitution since the beginning. I first learned about this bit in fourth grade.

That is certainly a big hole in the course! I'd email the professor and point it out except he's been dead for about 20 years!

 

[west point]

What is puzzling is the emphasis that Amtrak puts on non revenue cars running up expenses. If the LD trains that could support many more passengers then the ratio of more passengers for the mainly 2 non revenue cars ( diner , Lounge , some BAGGAGES ) and some 3. Then why hasn't Amtrak pushed for more revenue rolling stock to support these non revenue cars. Have to recognize that some heavy use sleeper trains might require 2 diners but that would allow for at least one alternately to be open 24 hours a day.

 

[neroden]

And, he didn't. But, the Republican Member of Congress from Alaska, my Nephew's home state, Mr. Young, did! My Nephew was very surprised that he did support the Bill. But, as my Nephew said, there are some good benefits in the Bill for our 49th State. Senator Murkowski was part of the Republican group that got the Bill passed by the Senate.

Alaska's *very* interesting politically. It was solidly Democratic until the oil boom. Turned Republican due to oil, as far as I can tell. Now has the most "maverick", willing to fight the party leadership, Republicans in the country.

 

[neroden]

"Entire cities such as Phoenix with no convenient service"

PHX will be fine, with out a train stopping downtown. Those days are over. Just a matter of time for MCR to have a light rail link to PHX.

Check a map. Maricopa is WAY too far out from Phoenix for that.

Every advocate in Arizona wants to return Amtrak to Phoenix proper. The line west of Phoenix would have to be rebuilt by some government agency, but UP isn't using it so I'm pretty sure they would have no problem with Amtrak using it and running on it as long as someone else pays for it.

Many, many proposals are also to run regular several-a-day trains between Tucson and Phoenix. Some of those run on the existing UP line, others on a proposed new line because UP often is uncooperative. Either way, the Sunset Limited could share the line with the Tucson-Phoenix trains.

 

[neroden]

Fire the execs for their failures. They are paid to do a good job and, when they do so, are honored and get bonuses. They need to take responsibility for their failures and either quit or be terminated for cause. May not immediately help the worker employment situation but I could see morale rise, trained workers reconsider their not coming back, experienced freight engineers needing little additional training and tired of being screwed by "Precision Railroading" rethinking their position, and customers seeing light at the end of the tunnel with the idiots gone.

Like everywhere else, replacing a failed general who lost the battle doesn't mean an immediate victory but it does mean the future looks brighter and the troops are energized to do their part.

Amtrak needs new leaders that tell congress and the public "Here is why we failed and the failures are over. We can't promise immediate success but our way of doing business and our past hiding of failures is going to end. We intend to be open from now on as a publicly owned company should be and we intend to fix our problems".

Well, honestly, the top exec at Amtrak is brand new! Give Flynn a chance! People on the inside are saying very good things about him.

Stephen Gardner has made a lot of documented terrible mistakes and I don't think he brings anything special to the table, so I'm not against some *targeted* early retirements. Maybe he's straightened up and is flying right, but I don't trust that.

As for the "freight railroads", the current stock market incentives are for them to have terrible execs. They get bonuses for vulture capitalism, for wrecking the company. (Exception is BNSF which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway and not market listed.) They massively need to be replaced, but I don't see a clear path to it.

Buying the tracks off of them is the most plausible path I see for them. That will give the state governments who buy the tracks the power to pressure them into providing decent freight service and will give the same state governments the ability to simply order passenger service. And to the short-sighted execs, takes an expensive depreciating maintenance-intensive asset off their book and replaces it with a rental fee, which is the sort of thing these Wall Streeters have been trying to do to every company they get their hands on (as a means of cooking the books). So fundamentally they'll sell the tracks if the right offer is made to them.

 

[neroden]

They need to figure a way to get more hub cities so that every where you need to go doesn't means going mostly to Chicago which could be a day or more from you and then reversing on one of the few other western trains if you are lucky enough to be going to one of those cities on the line. And worse paying rail or room charges to go way out of your way to boot. People in say, KC shouldn't have to go overnight to Chicago in order to go to Minnesota or farther west.

OK, some passenger rail planning 101 here.

The number of riders between two metro areas can be roughly estimated by the "gravity model", which says that it's proportional to the population of metro area 1 times the population of metro area 2, divided by the travel time between them. This is very reliable. Certain locations (such as college towns) "punch above their weight", and there can be social aspects causing some cities to be more tightly linked than others, but on the whole it is the standard model used to predict ridership on a new line.

Chicago is the third largest metro area in the US (after NYC and LA), at 9.6 million people. Nothing else in the Midwest even comes CLOSE; Detroit is closest at 4.4 million, Minneapolis-St Paul next at 3.7 million, then St Louis at 2.8 million. Then Pittsburgh, then Cincinnati, Kansas City, Columbus, Indianapolis Cleveland.

This means that, for any given Midwestern city, a line going to Chicago can regularly expect 2.5 times as many passengers as a line bypassing Chicago to go to Minneapolis. Similarly, it can expect 3.4 times as many passengers as a line bypassing Chicago to go to St Louis. In order to beat the ridership bonus of going to Chicago, a line going to St Louis has to have a trip time which is less than 30% of the trip time to Chicago -- that's less than 1/3. A line to Minneapolis has to have a trip time which is less than 40% of the time to Chicago to have comparable ridership.

Other Midwestern cities are even *smaller*.

Now do you understand why so many lines go to Chicago? Eventually we will build out enough passenger rail that Chicago-avoiding lines will make a lot of sense.

But right now the biggest bang for the buck is mostly improving the lines to Chicago with higher speeds, more reliability, and more frequencies per day. It just gets so many more riders. And as we speed up those lines and add frequencies, the time penalty for going via Chicago and changing trains keeps dropping, making it less valuable to build direct lines bypassing Chicago.

So you're most likely to get that quicker trip from Kansas City to Minneapolis if there are six trains a day on a high-speed line from Chicago to Minneapolis and six trains a day on a high-speed line from Chicago through St Louis to Kansas City. The most direct route is unlikely to be the quickest, because the quickest route will be the one where the most money is invested to make it fast, which is probably going to be the one with the most passengers on the line.

There are some exceptions to the rule of thumb that all the best train routes in the Midwest should go to Chicago, though most of them are only sort-of-exceptions because cities are on the way to Chicago.

- Kansas City to St Louis because it can be made into Kansas City to St Louis to Chicago, and has been.
- Over east in Ohio, where Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cinncinati are near to each other and not near to Chicago. Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati are 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 million respectively and you can get all the combinations with one line. The gravity model shows this combo to have expected ridership equal to a line from Chicago to any one of those cities, assuming the same train speed -- which shows you how big a deal Chicago is.
- Toledo to Detroit, which is VERY short, and again, quite far from Chicago. The shortness means high expected ridership.
- Theoretically, Indianapolis to Cincinnati (which could and should be Cincinnati-Indianapolis-Chicago, as with Kansas City-St Louis-Chicago.) Yep, Cardinal Route should be improved as a corridor. Darn Indiana state government.
- And over further east, Pittsburgh-Cleveland (preferably via either Akron/Canton or Youngstown or both, which are on the way) ...continuing to Chicago. Yep, again, Capitol Limited route should be improved as a corridor.

Eventually you might do Indianapolis to St Louis, but improving the Indianapolis to Chicago line obviously takes priority. Indianapolis to St Louis is just a weaker route. Kansas City to Minneapolis has the same problem. Chicago's the 800-pound gorilla of the Midwest and you get the highest ridership by going there, almost every time.

Perhaps the most plausible Chicago avoiding line which might be reinstated is actually Bloomington-Peoria-Galesburg. This is not because it's a good line by itself, but because the direct routes from Peoria to Chicago aren't functional and the fastest way to connect Peoria to Chicago is via Galesburg or Bloomington or both. So if Peoria wants service this is how they may get it. Any avoiding-Chicago benefit would be incidental.

 

[neroden]

Outside of the NEC, Amtrak's challenge is to increase the market share of intercity passenger rail to the point that political support for it comes from all parts of the political spectrum, just as funding for highways, waterways, and air traffic improvements are supported by all sides of the political spectrum. This probably means focusing on the midwest, the southeast, parts of the west coast, and the Rocky Mountain Front Range. And focusing on trips of 500 miles or less.

I generally agree with this until you get to that last line. That is far too simplistic a number. Ridership follows the gravity model. There is no magic mile-number cutoff; for trips between very large cities, a longer route can generate very substantial ridership.

The Lake Shore Limited takes 959 miles from New York to Chicago, but they are the largest and third-largest metro areas in the country, so it's possible to generate huge ridership from them. In addition to the trips between intermediate cities, which are, agreed, probably more important. (I catch the train at one of those intermediate cities!)

Also, in "midwest, southeast, parts of the west coast, and Rocky Mountain Front Range", you left out Texas. The highest-ridership-potential city pair in the US which is totally unserved, going from metro area population data, is Dallas-Houston. Obviously Texas Central is trying to serve this. The Texas Eagle corridor through Texas also has huge potential from San Antonio to Dallas.

Second-highest-ridership potential unserved city pair is Atlanta-Miami. (Which would obviously be done so as to also supply Atlanta-Orlando.)

Phoenix-Anywhere and Detroit-Points East also pop out of the metropolitan area lists as obvious gaps in need of service.

 

[neroden]

To be quite pedantic only $58 Billion over ten years is fully targeted for passenger rail infrastructure. That too if the so called Fed-State $36 Billion is entirely used for passenger service.

It is quite likely that a big chunk will be used for NEC and Midwest around Chicago infrastructure - tunnels, bridges, south shore separation of passenger trackage etc.

I *really* hope they get "South of the Lake" (Amtrak passenger-priority tracks from Chicago Union Station to Porter Indiana) funded, as that would mean the Wolverines, Blue Water, Pere Marquette, Lake Shore Limited, and Capitol Limited would all run on time far more often, and cut at least 15 minutes and as much as an hour off their schedules. The Wolverines and Blue Water would probably be on time nearly all the time.

That is Midwest Around Chicago infrastructure, but of critical importance to the entire country. Sadly I am not sure it is going to get the money. :-(