Can We Have A Better Cardinal Schedule, Please?

[railiner]

Well what can make things really confusing is when airlines recycle flight numbers for a turn. I'm working a Turn on Thursday that has the same flight number from CLT to BNA, as it does from BNA to CLT.

Probably because they didn’t want to have to go to five digit flight numbers…?

 

[jruff001]

Probably because they didn’t want to have to go to five digit flight numbers…?

Yep that's exactly the reason. The big int'l airline reservation computer systems can't handle more than four-digit flight numbers (plus the two-letter airline code).

Four-Digit Flight Numbers (LA Times Article)

Because of mergers and growth in the airline industry, it’s running out of numbers.

That’s because flight numbers cannot be larger than four digits.

Why not just make them bigger, like adding extra letters or digits to a license plate?

Easy for us to say, not so easy for airlines to do, Snyder said. Airline computer systems are hard-coded for no more than four digits. And that means the number of available numbers is finite.

When you tell people there are 10,000 flights a day, “most people think…10,000 is a lot for any given day,” Snyder said. “It’s not.”

Factor in that numbers are used only once a day and some numbers aren’t used at all, including 13 and, yes, 666 and….“We’re running out of numbers!” Southwest explains in a post called “The Science Behind the Numbers.”

“To start with, the numero uno industrywide-rule is that no flight number can contain more than four digits, meaning we only have up to flight number 9999 to work with,” Southwest writes.

“(No airline can use five-digit flight numbers! While this has been debated in the industry for years, the level of effort to make the change from four to five digits would be huge, and even the level of technology change to add alpha characters to published flight numbers would be gargantuan…although it would be fun to ‘name’ flights—‘Now boarding, Southwest Airlines Flight FRED to Los Angeles.’)”

Somehow, I just can’t imagine WN FRED. (WN is Southwest’s two-letter code. Many of those codes make sense — AA for American and BA for British Airways — but some do not.)

The numbers are becoming so scarce that one of the identifying factors of flight numbers — eastern and northern destinations were usually even numbered and western and southern were odd — are generally not used that way these days, Southwest noted in its post.

Some airlines with “there and back” flights use the same number going and coming in order to conserve.

Eventually, the numbers will be expanded, but it will be difficult and hugely expensive[.]

 

[west point]

It may be FAA an ICAO requirements.

 

[WWW]

PanAm solved that problem a long time ago with flight ONE and TWO the around the world flights (note spelling out the number!)
Just remember when crossing the date line that you may have two flights ONE and TWO operating at the same time.

 

[Asher]

Thanks for the summary. It’s a shame the Big Four route is gone. No question it’s a direct route.

Here’s what it looks like to “ride” it now. This was recorded yesterday about 13 miles north of Lebanon.

View attachment 22917

While I enjoy it as a bike trail - I’d rather it was a passenger line…

(sorry for the wind noise…)

Was that a battery assist bike, scooter, or pedal.

 

[IndyLions]

Was that a battery assist bike, scooter, or pedal.

Just a regular pedal bike. To be specific, a Trek Checkpoint “gravel” bike. Looks like a road bike - but better for gravel and dirt roads without being a mountain bike.

 

[acelafan]

If that link quits working, here's a link to an archive of them that should (hopefully) be around until the cows come home: Amtrak Timetable Archives - Home

IIRC we have Acela Fan to thank for these!

Yup! I intend on keeping them around indefinitely. We just need Amtrak to post updated PDFs.

 

[toddinde]

I don’t have a beef with the schedule. I spent a couple years in Indy and time in Charlottesville as well. I used the Cardinal often, especially in Indy, and occasionally for work. It needs to be daily, and as has been noted, the running time between Indy and Chicago needs to be reduced. My biggest improvements to the Cardinal would be a St. Louis/Kansas City section, and a Newport News section. Those additions would be amazing. Interesting Cardinal fact I just learned; the Beckley Airport is heavily subsidized and had subsidized air service. It serves roughy the same number of passengers annually as the nearby Cardinal
station in Prince, and that’s with a tri-weekly train. Rail can efficiently serve rural America.