Baltimore to Chicago?

[jis]

When Congress actually does something as opposed to being just obstructive, it has not been hard to get multi-state compacts approved in the past. One example is the Port Authority of NY and NJ. Another is the Delaware River Port Authority.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

When Congress actually does something as opposed to being just obstructive, it has not been hard to get multi-state compacts approved in the past. One example is the Port Authority of NY and NJ. Another is the Delaware River Port Authority.

Would the mid-west bi-level order fall under that as well?

 

[jis]

I don't know what the arrangement is in the midwest.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Is the Capitol still the top dog for end to end highest percentage of LD passengers ? If that is so then changing it would seem counter productive. As well Capitol was listed as having highest number of passengers connecting <> at CHI ?

According to this post (http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/68624-ld-trains-most-popular-stopscity-pairs/?p=674033), 39% of CL passengers go endpoint to endpoint.

I do think the faster ride is a benefit and potential connections should absolutely be a concern.

OK, let me throw this out there.

The ancient B&O route of the Capitol Limited is slow. Really really slow. It's practically impossible to speed up. And there are so few people along the line, nobody will bother.

Now suppose that serious work is put into upgrading Harrisburg-Pittsburgh. This shortens the time on the Pittsburgh-Harrisburg-Baltimore route.

The Port Road (Harrisburg to Baltimore) can be reupgraded to a reasonable passenger speed at reasonable cost -- though it may be faster to attach an electric locomotive and speed along the Keystone Line and the NEC.

At some point, the ex-PRR route no longer has the 1 1/2 hour penalty over the ex-B&O route.

------

I don't believe in the "serving small towns" argument as long as we aren't serving large towns. Where's my Ithaca service?

Small towns can punch above their weight, but from looking at the NARP data, generally only by a factor of 2x. (From eyeballing it, college towns can do 3x, though.)

Anyway, there is no virtue in serving Osceola when you could be serving Des Moines instead.

In actual practice, I think small towns are only served because they're on the way -- gotta get across the Appalachians, Great Plains, Rockies somehow.

(I do think the SWC should have been rerouted through Amarillo. It was almost guaranteed to cause a large ridership increase. Instead, taxpayer money was wasted on service to towns which are drying up and blowing away... *and the government doesn't even own the line*, so it's a subsidy to BNSF.)

The other problem with PGH-WAS is the dreaded three letters ... CSX. If the trains are operating normally, the CSX route will save time and distance. But if the train is delayed from the Midwest then it winds up out of slot into WAS and CSX can hold/delay it even further (which is what happened on my last trip). Being stuck on a train not moving sucks but it really sucks at the end of a long ride and after the lounge car is closed and you're stuck in your coach seats. Using the old BL WAS leg, you'd need NS from PGH-HAR but all Amtrak owned tracks HAR-PHL-WAS. Also, you can just discharge at each of these stops. If the CL is delayed before PGH, the time advantage of going straight to WAS could be negated (it's a lot easier to make up time on Amtrak routes).

So would you rather deal with NS from PGH-HAR or CSX from PGH-WAS (PGH-HAR is 249 miles vs. 299 for PGH-WAS and the 42 gets to HAR before the 30 gets to WAS even though the 30 leaves 2 hours earlier)? Would running a second train on the NS PGH-HAR route cost less than running the CL PGH-WAS? And could Amtrak go to CSX and ask them a favor on another line (LSL or a Florida train) if they vacate the PGH-WAS line to improve one of those trains?

 

[jis]

Suffice it to note that Amtrak itself is not terribly kind to its LD trains when they are out of slot on its own NEC. I have lost over an hour on NEC watching Acelas, Regionals and even commuter trains rattle by, while sitting in Silver Service trains that came onto the corridor significantly late.

But don't worry nobody is going to ask to vacate the PGH - WAS route on CSX. This is just Pennsylvania dreamin'

 

[Chessie]

Ah, another wish of mine, more LD trains stoping between Newark and Trenton in NJ, namingly NBK or Princeton Junction or even Metropark.

 

[neroden]

Interesting point about city vs. country (or urban vs. rural). I'd claim the urban vs. rural battle doesn't just affect Ohio train travel but national rail travel. My argument of one train vs. another is my preference to urban over rural.

Oh, it's a huge national divide. There is a very important third category, the suburban voters.

In states where the suburban voters vote with the urban voters, the rural voters can't elect city-hating governments. This doesn't mean they're unrepresented, partly because I've never seen a farm-hating government -- even the urban voters love farms.

In states where the suburban voters often vote with the rural voters, the rural anti-city interests can win.

The suburban voters often fantasize that they are rural voters. As a result of this disconnect from reality, they can actually be more anti-city than the genuine rural voters. You see this in Wisconsin and Minnesota, for example, where the actual rural voters tend to support the cities, but the suburban ring attacks them. The dynamic is visible in Vermont (no suburbs) where the rural voters support the cities and it's all good, and in New Hampshire where it's the suburban voters (not the rural voters) who keep voting down the MBTA rail service which would mostly benefit the suburban voters.

In New York and California and a number of other states, the urban voters outnumber the rural voters by such huge margins that it's practically impossible to elect a true city-hating government. The urban voters also outnumber the suburban voters in New York substantially (partly because many of NY's suburbs are in other states).

Pennsylvania has a similar dynamic: the urban vote of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Scranton is so much larger than the rural Pennsyltucky vote that it's hard to elect a truly anti-city government -- though they did so with the support of suburban voters for a while. The suburban voters have swung slightly more urban and it's not really possible any more.

By contrast, Ohio has a very high percentage of rural voters, nearly 50%, and a large percentage of suburban voters too, and the suburban voters tend to vote rural. It makes it much easier for them to elect an anti-city government.

 

[railgeekteen]

I need the Empire Builder to go to Boston. Chicago Union station is terrible and it's no fair that Whitefish gets a one seat ride to Seattle but Boston does not.

 

[Ryan]

 

[SarahZ]

I need the Empire Builder to go to Boston. Chicago Union station is terrible and it's no fair that Whitefish gets a one seat ride to Seattle but Boston does not.

Out of curiosity, what is terrible about it?

 

[JayPea]

I need the Empire Builder to go to Boston. Chicago Union station is terrible and it's no fair that Whitefish gets a one seat ride to Seattle but Boston does not.

You do realize that Whitefish in terms of ridership is the fifth busiest station on the EB route, behind Chicago, St. Paul, Seattle, and Portland, don't you?

 

[railgeekteen]

I need the Empire Builder to go to Boston. Chicago Union station is terrible and it's no fair that Whitefish gets a one seat ride to Seattle but Boston does not.

You do realize that Whitefish in terms of ridership is the fifth busiest station on the EB route, behind Chicago, St. Paul, Seattle, and Portland, don't you?

I am fully aware of that, I was just making a sarcastic comment.