Discontinued Amtrak Route You Want Revived.

[Seaboard92]

And soon to be extended from LYH to Roanoke

 

[MARC Rider]

I'd rather wish for service that will gain significant ridership. How many relevant markets do you gain by running the NCH that isn't already served by the EB?

Um, Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Missoula, more or less all of the major population centers of the state, with the exception of Helena and Great Falls.
A few years ago I took a trip to Yellowstone National Park(ing lot) by rail. It involved getting off the EB at Harvre, renting a car, and spend the night in Great Falls and Bozeman before driving into the Park. It would have been nice to get off a train in Livingston or Bozeman instead.

 

[jis]

Well you won't get Butte any more. You will get Helena instead. No rails in service through Homestake Pass anymore. You have to go by Mullens Pass and hence through Helena. But not bad hitting another Capital city.

 

[JayPea]

I certainly understand the point that as a practical matter, having service to places such as Phoenix, Columbus, and Louisville, to name three, would serve many more people than would those in Southern Montana. But the title of the thread, after all, is what discontinued route you WANT to see revived, not which route would benefit the most people. And I am still troubled by the notion that the state of Montana doesn't count for anything. Maybe not to someone living in their ivory tower in Philadelphia, but the million people living in Montana think they're significant.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

And I am still troubled by the notion that the state of Montana doesn't count for anything. Maybe not to someone living in their ivory tower in Philadelphia, but the million people living in Montana think they're significant.

We have around 1.5 million in Philly alone.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/032714_Census_Philadelphia_population_grows_again_but_rate_slows.html

Over 6 million in the Philly metro area alone.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Well Philly, take a look @ Phoenix,Nashville,Columbus,Ohio and

Louisville with Zero Amtrak Trains!

And Houston,San Antonio,Austin and DFW all with More People in the SMSA than Philly and only 1 Amtrak LD Train, in the Case of Houston only 3 times a Week!

The Prosecution Rests!

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Well Philly, take a look @ Phoenix,Nashville,Columbus,Ohio and

Louisville with Zero Amtrak Trains!

Never said they shouldn't have trains. In fact, you forgot this post:

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/66538-largest-metros-without-amtrak-service-how-to-serve-them/

And Houston,San Antonio,Austin and DFW all with More People in the SMSA than Philly and only 1 Amtrak LD Train, in the Case of Houston only 3 times a Week!

Again, I don't disagree they shouldn't have more trains. I have been on record saying Texas should have more trains as well. I have said I want to extend the Heartland Flyer to Dallas and Houston and I want to have a Dallas to San Antonio through car branch to a rescheduled Sunset Limited.

I hope by now most if you realize I am not just looking out for Philly. I want to see trains to serve areas with larger populations because in general it leads to higher ridership and revenue. If you want to fantasize about a bunch of trains, that's great. I'd like to have a train go from my backyard to Los Angeles as well. But if Amtrak does have a budget, you have to have priorities. Yes, if I have a choice between a train between Chicago and Pennsylvania vs. Chicago and Montana, I'd choose PA every time. Not just because I live there but because a lot more people live there. If we can have both, I don't mind. But where are we going to get the money from?

 

[jis]

But using your principle of serving population you should also choose to cancel the Empire Builder and reroute it via the southern route, since all the population centers are on the southern route. but then all those fewer people served on the current route who have no other public transport would lose out. So I don;t think that principle espoused by you is as black and white, at least in my mind.

Besides as far as Pennsylvania goes there are several trains between Chicago and Pennsylvania. Of you mean Philadelphia when you say Pennsylvania, don;t you?

 

[neroden]

But using your principle of serving population you should also choose to cancel the Empire Builder and reroute it via the southern route, since all the population centers are on the southern route. but then all those fewer people served on the current route who have no other public transport would lose out. So I don;t think that principle espoused by you is as black and white, at least in my mind.

It's pretty damn close. The Empire Builder route has several advantages because there's no interstate highway (whereas the North Coast Hiawatha route does have one), so there's less competition. This is a genuine advantage, the same thing which makes Vermont's Western Route punch above its population-based weight. (And incidentally... a reason a train to Ithaca would get more passengers than population alone would predict.) The national park traffic compensates somewhat for the lack of population.
Despite this, the higher population on the North Coast Hiawatha route means that it got nearly as many passengers as the Empire Builder when it last ran. So really population is a very solid predictor of ridership even with extenuating factors favoring the other route. Honestly, if the NCH had been kept and the Empire Builder dropped, I think the discussions would be quite similar and the ridership quite similar.

Specifically, the "gravity model" (city 1 pop)^2 * (city 2 pop)^2 / distance^2 is generally better at predicting ridership between two cities on a network than most of the more complicated models. (Network connectivity remains highly important because it means there are more possible city pairs; a divided network will lose a lot of possible city-pairs. This is my main reason for believing that the western transcons must stay intact, and it applies to Sunset East as well.)

If you look at the gravity model and consider where expansion is most desirable, the "3C" route in Ohio pops out as very important. I will never forgive that *** Kasich for cancelling it. Actually having a station in Phoenix, and daily service LA-Phoenix-Tucson, also becomes obviously a high priority. And Dallas-Houston is also clearly very important. (As well as connecting the huge cities on the southern border of Texas: McAllen and Brownsville.) But that's three states controlled by road warrior types, and I don't know how to break through the politics. Nobody can seem to figure out how to oust that *** Kasich from Ohio, and nothing will happen until he's gone. I keep watching Arizona, because both Phoenix and Tucson have built local rail, but apparently the state government is still hostile to intercity rail. And Texas seems hopeless for years to come.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

But using your principle of serving population you should also choose to cancel the Empire Builder and reroute it via the southern route, since all the population centers are on the southern route. but then all those fewer people served on the current route who have no other public transport would lose out. So I don;t think that principle espoused by you is as black and white, at least in my mind.

Well in the case of EB vs. NCH, there is the PM/TM data from Brock Adams' report so at least that data makes an argument for the EB vs. the NCH: http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/66476-passenger-miles-per-train-mile-metric/

 

[jphjaxfl]

The reason the Empire Builder route was chosen by Amtrak orginally was because of the lack of alternative highways and public transportation along US 2 which parallels most of the route.

 

[jis]

Yup. My point was often there are factors other than population along the route. Seems like people mostly agree.

 

[neroden]

Perhaps it's the Anglo bias on English-speaking forums, but nobody ever seems to discuss trains to Brownsville or McAllen much. Obviously current Texas politics makes both highly unlikely, but when I ran down the list of metro areas looking for where service was most needed, they popped out very clearly.

The existing railroad lines are suboptimal. A line from Houston - Bay City - Corpus Christi which splits at Harlingen into branches to McAllen (all the way to Rio Grande City) and Brownsville might be the best. Or perhaps a line from San Antonio-Corpus Christi-Harlingen-McAllen/Brownsville. Maybe the area could be served by a single station in Harlingen, to start with. Or, really, brand new ROWs might be best. But none of this will happen until Texas politics changes. (If the border wasn't auch a political issue, of course, the trains should really go all the way to Reynosa and Matamoros.)

Looking again at the current status, I'd say the ideal short-term win would be to extend the Texas Eagle from San Antonio to Corpus Christi and Harlingen. Though the alternative of extending it back to Laredo is also attractive, Laredo is a lot smaller.

 

[jis]

I think originally the Inter-Ameican went to Laredo to connect to the then existing FdeM passenger service from Laredo to Mexico City. Who know if there will ever be such a service. So re-targeting to Brownsville would make more sense, but would probably require more investment, than to just restore to laredo, since the international freight exchange still happens at Laredo AFAICT.

 

[west point]

An example of poor roads but high population between cities is the Lynchburg <> WASH. Look how successful that new train has become. The same way extending to Roanoke is another relative poor highway,

 

[neroden]

I think originally the Inter-Ameican went to Laredo to connect to the then existing FdeM passenger service from Laredo to Mexico City. Who know if there will ever be such a service. So re-targeting to Brownsville would make more sense, but would probably require more investment, than to just restore to laredo, since the international freight exchange still happens at Laredo AFAICT.

Laredo does take freight trains across the border:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Mexican_Railway_International_Bridge

But Brownsville has international freight train exchange as well, and in fact recently built a new, replacement international bridge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownsville_%26_Matamoros_International_Bridge

http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-texas-mexico-bridge.html

Now is the time to strike -- the old rail line to the border runs through downtown Brownsville, and this is the perfect time to buy it for passenger rail use, just after freight moves to the new bridge. Unfortunately, nobody's even thinking about such things. :-(

 

[Bob Dylan]

Mexico doesn't have any money to pay for it because they'll be paying for a Wall if Trump wins!

 

[jis]

Mexico doesn't have any money to pay for it because they'll be paying for a Wall if Trump wins!

A foot high wall should not cost that much. Afterall he didn't say how high

If you want to see a really operative border fence for keeping terrorists out, take a look at the fence along the India Pakistan border with guard posts, motion detectors, exceedingly brightly lit at night, which is a sight to behold from any flight passing overhead, as do the nonstop flights between Newark and Delhi.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Not to mention the DMZ on the Korean Border that separates the South from the North!(it's to keep the Northerners from leaving, similar to the Berlin Wall back in the Cold War Days!)

 

[Maglev]

I guess I am in a majority here, favoring the Floridian. I believe an Auto-Train consist would be successful would be successful on this route.

 

[FormerOBS]

I guess I am in a majority here, favoring the Floridian. I believe an Auto-Train consist would be successful would be successful on this route.

It's probably an exaggeration to say you could drive that distance twice in the time it would take the train to get there, but not a big exaggeration. There is no intact single-carrier direct rail route diagonally across the Appalachians. The most direct existing routes would use more than one carrier, rather than having the advantage of a single carrier. Much of the existing trackage would not permit the kind of speed required for any reasonable schedule. You add mileage (and time) if you go around. The Auto Train Company's demise can be attributed to a number of factors. I believe the expansion into the Midwest market was one of those factors. It might be possible to create a through routing for service between Chicago and Florida, but I suspect the way to do that is via a Chicago-New Orleans service, linked to a New Orleans-Florida service, or something similar. Putting automobiles on such a service would probably be prohibitively expensive because of the mileage, enroute switching, etc.

If you can figure out a way to surmount these hurdles, more power to you!

Tom

 

[Seaboard92]

One problem the Floridian would have now is the route from Chicago to Louisville. South of Louisville to Nashville and on to JAX is relatively decent minus the fact that route is CSX and very busy as well. But excluding that part Louisville to Indianapolis is a shortline railroad with a very low track speed. It almost would be faster to operate via CIN. If it's going to take an extra few hours due to bad track. Might as well detour to another large city and have equal time with a longer route.

 

[neroden]

My secret plan for the Floridian involves convincing Kentucky that they really want a train from Indianapolis to Nashville, and getting them to pony up to buy and improve the tracks. Once that's done, I think the Floridian becomes more possible.

But that won't be plausible until the Hoosier State route is made much faster. On the whole I doubt people from Louisville are going to Indianapolis; more would be going to Chicago.

Baby steps...

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

One problem the Floridian would have now is the route from Chicago to Louisville. South of Louisville to Nashville and on to JAX is relatively decent minus the fact that route is CSX and very busy as well. But excluding that part Louisville to Indianapolis is a shortline railroad with a very low track speed. It almost would be faster to operate via CIN. If it's going to take an extra few hours due to bad track. Might as well detour to another large city and have equal time with a longer route.

So would that be CHI-IND-CIN-Louisville-Nashville-ATL-JAX-ORL-MIA?

 

[Thirdrail7]

Since the Montrealer (or some version of it) has a good chance of returning, I'm voting for the Cape Codder. However, I want it running out of NYP again. I wouldn't even be against it starting West or South of NYP.