Amtrak Doesn't Go There

[Phila 30th St]

What was the name of the train that went NYC-DET?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

What was the name of the train that went NYC-DET?

During the few years it ran, Amtrak called it both "Empire State Express" and "Niagara Rainbow"

 

[volkris]

But although the economics favor well-conceived long haul trains, provincialism and populism tend to favor the short haul, state-oriented routes.

But what do the financials say?

You can have the most economical, most efficient, and most high-tech system in the world, but if nobody wants to ride it, it won't do much good.

As economical as long haul rail may be, I suspect that it makes more financial sense, and more economic sense in the bigger picture, to integrate rail with air for long distance service, taking into account the wants of huge numbers of people who prefer to get to their destinations fast even if their travel is a little less comfortable.

 

[George Harris]

Despite all the calculations, theories, and logic of people that would not ride a train unless somebody put a gun to their head, there is a real demand for long distance train service that is this time more constrained by equipment than by lack of interest.

While the NEC, the California trains, and the North Carolina traisn are considered the poster children for the short to medium distance service, they do not have the passenger miles per train miles of many if not most of the long distance services.

 

[volkris]

Despite all the calculations, theories, and logic of people that would not ride a train unless somebody put a gun to their head, there is a real demand for long distance train service that is this time more constrained by equipment than by lack of interest. G

Sure: expand LD service to satisfy the demand that exists for it, but keep in mind that there's definitely a place in the world for medium and short distance service. The two can benefit from each other, so long as one isn't expanded at the expense of the other.

 

[acelafan]

I want to take a moment and comment further on something that was raised in this topic, and Larry please don't take this personally as you are not the only one whose made statement's like you did above. Many other's have made similar statements in the past, so again Larry please don't think that I'm singling you out here as that is not my intention at all.
...

Alan,

Thanks for your post - we all need to be reminded that in any organization there are stellar employees and very far-from-stellar employees. I work for the Dept of Commerce and we are no exception, like any large organization. Appreciate your comments.

 

[taking the cars]

Some of us who live in or near Detroit like to travel elsewhere and COME BACK!

 

[BuzzKillington]

What was the route for the NYG to DET train? Did it go through Cleveland?

 

[George Harris]

Despite all the calculations, theories, and logic of people that would not ride a train unless somebody put a gun to their head, there is a real demand for long distance train service that is this time more constrained by equipment than by lack of interest. G

Sure: expand LD service to satisfy the demand that exists for it, but keep in mind that there's definitely a place in the world for medium and short distance service. The two can benefit from each other, so long as one isn't expanded at the expense of the other.

Very true. There also seems to be a lack of understanding of the system nature of things. That is, you cannot have all full trains everywhere. There needs to be trains that you know will not have huge loadings, but must be there to feed the major trains.

 

[DET63]

There also seems to be a lack of understanding of the system nature of things. That is, you cannot have all full trains everywhere. There needs to be trains that you know will not have huge loadings, but must be there to feed the major trains.

Isn't that related to the problem behind the Beeching Axe? Many railway branch lines in Britain were closed because they were deemed to be uneconomical, but they fed into a lot of the more profitable mainline services. When the cuts were implemented, the cost savings were offset by revenue declines and a general lowering of overall service quality.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Some of us who live in or near Detroit like to travel elsewhere and COME BACK!

You must be nuts.

What was the route for the NYG to DET train? Did it go through Cleveland?

Nope. New York - Albany- Buffalo - Niagara Falls - Windsor, ON, - Detroit. It ran internationally.

 

[George Harris]

What was the route for the NYG to DET train? Did it go through Cleveland?

Nope. New York - Albany- Buffalo - Niagara Falls - Windsor, ON, - Detroit. It ran internationally.

But that was before paranoia became the obsessive-compulsive disorder afflicting our government ovewhelmed rationality.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

But that was before paranoia became the obsessive-compulsive disorder afflicting our government ovewhelmed rationality.

Yeah, I know. We can rest assured that the Empire State Express/Niagara Rainbow will not be coming back.

 

[railiner]

Some of us who live in or near Detroit like to travel elsewhere and COME BACK!

You must be nuts.

What was the route for the NYG to DET train? Did it go through Cleveland?

Nope. New York - Albany- Buffalo - Niagara Falls - Windsor, ON, - Detroit. It ran internationally.

In addition to the Amtrak "Niagara Rainbow" on that route, there used to be a cross platform connection at Toledo from either the Lake Shore Limited or the Capitol Limited (I don't recall which), to the Lake Cities that ran up to Detroit then continued on to Chicago.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

A more realistic wish of mine would be to have all routes in the network offer service at least twice per day in both directions. A sort of Twice-per-day-each-way level of service, if you will. This would be before any discussion of new destinations or additional routes or itineraries.

How do you propose to handle the second westbound Southwest Chief in this scheme? Would you simply shift the schedule by 12 hours, departing Chicago at 3:15 AM and arriving in Los Angeles at 8:15 PM?

Also, how do you propose to get the Senators from Maine to vote for this scheme? I suspect Maine would prefer to have more route miles of Amtrak service before they focus on having more than five Downeaster round trips a day terminating at BON, and I'd certainly be surprised if they favored a plan that would get them no additional route miles for several years while waiting for a rolling stock order for the benefit of other states.

 

[DET63]

Joel's comment is, in a nutshell, the problem that Amtrak always faces. It is a federally supported system, which means you have to get the support of Congressmen and Senators in 48 or 49 other states to make improvements to service that serves only one or two states. Usually that is only achieved by getting something for them, which might or might not be as economically sensible.

Certainly I'd like to see more north-south connections in some of the western states, but they aren't likely to happen. I'd also like to see daytime services between major cities that have only nighttime services now, but I'm also not going to hold my breath for those.

 

[delvyrails]

Joel's comment is, in a nutshell, the problem that Amtrak always faces. It is a federally supported system, which means you have to get the support of Congressmen and Senators in 48 or 49 other states to make improvements to service that serves only one or two states. Usually that is only achieved by getting something for them, which might or might not be as economically sensible.
Certainly I'd like to see more north-south connections in some of the western states, but they aren't likely to happen. I'd also like to see daytime services between major cities that have only nighttime services now, but I'm also not going to hold my breath for those.

It is possible, of course, to make a route out of existing operations that serves many states and so will generate political support of many constituencies on the one hand, and will draw new passengers in many markets to make the new route very successful, too. Most of the major travel markets are east-west or diagonal in their orientation because of the country's physical layout. That is why most consideration of new routes should be in those directions.

Amtrak had an opportunity in the Sunset Limited, but they merely extended it in a less-than-optimal direction along the edge of the country to Florida. The optimal eastern end point actually is the Northeast, not Florida--bigger populations and more markets could be served. To operate in that direction, the route across northern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, etc, is shorter and more populous than the traditional Sunset route.

These factors suggest a partly-new routing for a Superliner train across 11 states from Los Angeles to Washington taking in both new and existing route miles. That routing would probably cross about one-quarter of our Congressional districts. The routing would be via Phoenix/Maricopa, El Paso, Odessa, Fort Worth, Dallas, Shreveport, Jackson, Meridian, Birmingham, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Lynchburg.

In an honest proposal, scheduling has to be demonstrated upfront. There are at least two alternatives for reasonably straight-through scheduling--either (a) connect at Los Angeles with the Coast Starlight and build the schedule eastward, diverging east of El Paso from the Sunset's route, or (b) assume the Crescent's schedule, diverge westward at Meridian and build new service westward that would not connect with the Starlight. Alternative (a) would allow a second, much-wanted daytime schedule between Washington and Atlanta. Alternative (b) would provide the second service west of El Paso, which at this point probably is excessive.

My personal preference would be for the former.

This method of looking for connections and the biggest and greatest number of markets to serve can be used on smaller scale elsewhere, too.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Joel's comment is, in a nutshell, the problem that Amtrak always faces. It is a federally supported system, which means you have to get the support of Congressmen and Senators in 48 or 49 other states to make improvements to service that serves only one or two states. Usually that is only achieved by getting something for them, which might or might not be as economically sensible.
Certainly I'd like to see more north-south connections in some of the western states, but they aren't likely to happen. I'd also like to see daytime services between major cities that have only nighttime services now, but I'm also not going to hold my breath for those.

Actually, a majority or supermajority ought to be plenty; you shouldn't need unanimous support for a bill adding new federally supported Amtrak service. But I think the key to getting more federally supported Amtrak service is going to be to come up with a single bill that adds some service in each or nearly each of the 48 states. (I'm not forgetting Hawaii and Alaska, it's just hard to give them meaningful Amtrak service.) Ideally, the new routes would also serve the majority of districts in the House, but figuring out what train serves which district is challenging. (And I believe Manhattan by itself exceeds the size of one district, and of them technically only the district in which NYP is located has Amtrak service. Then again, I don't think BOS is technically in my district, and I've certainly written to my Congresspeople asking for more service at BOS.)

The equation is made more complicated because some states may be against the expansion of the federal government, even if that expansion would benefit them to some extent, and there can also be issues with potential host railroads.

And then there's the question of how you account for Canada. I'd love to see an overnight BOS to Montreal train. But Montreal doesn't get a vote in Congress, and if the train were structured to serve Burlington, VT and Montreal and not much else on its northern end, I hear the rural Vermont folks might figure they aren't getting much of anything, either. (Which is why I think there should also be an overnight train that serves all the small towns in Vermont along the Vermonter route during the day, and spends its nights in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but then I get complaints that I'm proposing too many trains for Vermont.)