Discontinued Amtrak Routes: Any Future?

[afigg]

He killed the CCC Route right?

And this guy is considered, along with Bush, the Sensible Moderate in the Circus that is The Donald,Snow White and the 15 Dwarfs Show!!

Yes, Gov. Kasich killed the 3C corridor route. Kasich also went to considerable lengths to try to kill the Cincinnati streetcar project. So long as Kasich is Governor of Ohio, don't expect any funding or support from the state for passenger rail at all.

 

[Ryan]

And between IND and Charlottesville would be Cincinnati and a bunch of irrelevant towns.

Where's "irrelevant" is defined as "any place that I don't personally live".

Stop being selfish, if you want to promote more rail service, go for it, but not at the expense of places that already have it.

And this guy is considered, along with Bush, the Sensible Moderate in the Circus that is The Donald,Snow White and the 15 Dwarfs Show!!

Way more sensible than Bush, and definitely the most sensible.

 

[jis]

At the end of the day though, at the present time I tend to agree with this p9ece of gem from DA....

Until I see a shiny unicorn shaking its glittery butt down the track I'm not counting on a single long distance route ever coming back.

I suspect at most the through cars from Pennsy to Cap might happen. Beyond that well... the unicorn thing kicks in definitely.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

And between IND and Charlottesville would be Cincinnati and a bunch of irrelevant towns.

Where's "irrelevant" is defined as "any place that I don't personally live".

Stop being selfish, if you want to promote more rail service, go for it, but not at the expense of places that already have it.

How about irrelevant meaning any town with less than 100,000 people living within a 20 mile radius of it?

 

[Caesar La Rock]

I can't expect any of these routes to be restored, until a favorable congress comes into play. Who knows when that will happen, maybe next year, maybe 10 years from now. Nobody knows, it's not like we can do a full Nostradamus prediction and say all of these routes will be restored by 2018.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Hey, I would love to have the BL and the Cardinal but if I had one you bet I'd rather have the BL. I think I deserve the right to a direct connection from PHL to CHI (that doesn't take 26 hours) than Thurmond West Virginia does. I think Harrisburg, Lancaster, Altoona, Akron, and Youngstown deserve a direct connection to CHI more than Thurmond does.

But you already have trains to take from Philly to Chicago three different ways in addition to the Cardinal.

You don't have any more right to anything than the folks in Charlottesville. So get rid of that delusion ASAP.

I am all for restoring direct connectivity from New York to Chicago via Pittsburgh, however, not at the cost of losing the Cardinal. That will not happen and I am sure most people will oppose your position.

Three different ways but all require connections. And the people in Harrisburg and Lancaster have only two options while the people in Altoona and Johnstown are stuck waiting in Pittsburgh's station either from 8:05 to 11:59pm or between 5:05 and 7:30am (assuming on time trains).

I would say if twice as many people travel from CHI to PHL than CHI and Charlottesville, then PHL deserves a direct line to Chicago more than Charlottesville. I would guess based on station numbers that more people go from CHI to HAR or CHI to Lancaster, PA than CHI to Charlottesville. No one wants to have to change trains but shouldn't a train carrier try to maximize the number of passengers with a direct connection?

 

[Ryan]

I think Harrisburg

Population 49,188

Lancaster

Population 59,325

Altoona

Population 45,796

Akron

Population 198,100

Youngstown

Population 65,184

How about irrelevant meaning any town with less than 100,000 people living within a 20 mile radius of it?

 

[Ryan]

Three different ways but all require connections. And the people in Harrisburg and Lancaster have only two options while the people in Altoona and Johnstown are stuck waiting in Pittsburgh's station either from 8:05 to 11:59pm or between 5:05 and 7:30am (assuming on time trains).

And the people in Cincinnati, Staunton, Huntingtown, et al have only one way and you're advocating to take it away. Get lost.

 

[jebr]

Looking at it as a "direct Chicago connection" minimizes what that train does. Philadelphia at least has other options that can get them from point A to point B, albeit with a connection. Many on the Cardinal route would not only lose a direct route to Chicago, they'd lose any route to Chicago. And any route to New York. And Washington. And Charlottesville. And Los Angeles. And Staples, MN. And every other community served by Amtrak.

We don't have the Cardinal to have a direct route from Huntington or Thurmond to Chicago. We have it so that Huntington and Thurmond have a rail route to the rest of the country.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Three different ways but all require connections. And the people in Harrisburg and Lancaster have only two options while the people in Altoona and Johnstown are stuck waiting in Pittsburgh's station either from 8:05 to 11:59pm or between 5:05 and 7:30am (assuming on time trains).

And the people in Cincinnati, Staunton, Huntingtown, et al have only one way and you're advocating to take it away. Get lost.

I would never advocate taking the train away from Cincinnati. You can always extend the Hoosier State there.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Looking at it as a "direct Chicago connection" minimizes what that train does. Philadelphia at least has other options that can get them from point A to point B, albeit with a connection. Many on the Cardinal route would not only lose a direct route to Chicago, they'd lose any route to Chicago. And any route to New York. And Washington. And Charlottesville. And Los Angeles. And Staples, MN. And every other community served by Amtrak.

We don't have the Cardinal to have a direct route from Huntington or Thurmond to Chicago. We have it so that Huntington and Thurmond have a rail route to the rest of the country.

Akron and Youngstown say hi. Was it fair that they lost service everywhere when the TR was canceled? Some trains get cut and some markets lose service. It happens.

You can say you shouldn't cut some service to add some others but there is precedence for doing so (1997 when they cancelled the Desert Wind and Pioneer and expanded the California Zephyr and Empire Builder to daily). Remember this cut cancelled all train service to Las Vegas and that market makes Akron and Youngstown look like Thurmond.

Remember the Cardinal has one of the lowest riderships of any Amtrak LD train. You can say it's because it's 3 days a week but then again the Cardinal has almost always been 3 days of the week to my recollection. If the Cardinal was that successful, they would've made it daily years ago. You assume that if the Cardinal is expanded daily that the number of passengers per train would remain the same. I do not. I would guess if the Cardinal went daily it would have less ridership/revenue than the Capitol Limited or what the Three Rivers had.

Give me a direct route from CHI to PHL that takes less than 24 hours and I'll leave the Cardinal alone. But of course if I don't have what I want, I'm going to say why does so and so have what I want and don't have? I would even go further any say the BL/TR has more potential ridership/revenue than the CL. Who lives between PGH and WAS?

I would say if Amtrak HAD to cut a LD train, the Cardinal is the obvious choice. Only the SL has less ridership and they serve larger states and markets.

 

[jebr]

I would never advocate taking the train away from Cincinnati. You can always extend the Hoosier State there.

And lose direct (or even relatively logical connecting) service to the Northeast Corridor? (And also lose that same direct service to Indianapolis.)

 

[Ryan]

I would never advocate taking the train away from Cincinnati. You can always extend the Hoosier State there.

But Staunton, Huntingtown, Thurmond, and all those other places? What about them?

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I would never advocate taking the train away from Cincinnati. You can always extend the Hoosier State there.

And lose direct (or even relatively logical connecting) service to the Northeast Corridor? (And also lose that same direct service to Indianapolis.)

Reroute through PGH? Is CIN/PGH possible?

 

[jebr]

I would never advocate taking the train away from Cincinnati. You can always extend the Hoosier State there.

And lose direct (or even relatively logical connecting) service to the Northeast Corridor? (And also lose that same direct service to Indianapolis.)

Reroute through PGH? Is CIN/PGH possible?

Possible. Probably nowhere near as cost-effective as keeping the Cardinal, though, and making it daily.

 

[Ryan]

If only there were already existing route that went from CIN to the east coast. That would be amazing!

 

[Bob Dylan]

And between IND and Charlottesville would be Cincinnati and a bunch of irrelevant towns.

Where's "irrelevant" is defined as "any place that I don't personally live".
Stop being selfish, if you want to promote more rail service, go for it, but not at the expense of places that already have it.

How about irrelevant meaning any town with less than 100,000 people living within a 20 mile radius of it?

In other words 95% of the towns in the United States!

 

[jebr]

Give me a direct route from CHI to PHL that takes less than 24 hours and I'll leave the Cardinal alone. But of course if I don't have what I want, I'm going to say why does so and so have what I want and don't have? I would even go further any say the BL/TR has more potential ridership/revenue than the CL. Who lives between PGH and WAS?

Through cars from the CL - Pennsylvanian. Less than 24 hours and about as direct as you can get. Doesn't need to be a separate train to make it a direct route, and Amtrak isn't trying to get rid of the Cardinal (or any other train) in order to get that running.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I can't expect any of these routes to be restored, until a favorable congress comes into play. Who knows when that will happen, maybe next year, maybe 10 years from now. Nobody knows, it's not like we can do a full Nostradamus prediction and say all of these routes will be restored by 2018.

The other issue with restoring any of these routes is that even if you somehow end up with the trifecta of a pro-Amtrak president, a pro-Amtrak Senate, and a pro-Amtrak House you're still only one election away from having to fight tooth and nail just to keep it funded again. On the other hand if and when the anti-Amtrak side ever achieves their own trifecta they can simply dismantle and defund Amtrak long before another election can save it again. I guess the pro-rail side could try starting over again from scratch but my gut says that once Amtrak is gone nothing else is going to replace it on the national level.

 

[TylerP42]

How about the Pontiac?

 

[Thirdrail7]

And between IND and Charlottesville would be Cincinnati and a bunch of irrelevant towns. Maybe expand the "Hoosier State" to Cincinnati and put CHI-IND-CIN on a better schedule.

They canceled Akron and Youngstown service and I'm sure they had more passengers than those tiny West Virginia towns do now.

Hey, I would love to have the BL and the Cardinal but if I had one you bet I'd rather have the BL. I think I deserve the right to a direct connection from PHL to CHI (that doesn't take 26 hours) than Thurmond West Virginia does. I think Harrisburg, Lancaster, Altoona, Akron, and Youngstown deserve a direct connection to CHI more than Thurmond does.

For the record, the "irrelevant towns" form the crux and the backbone of the Cardinal, crushing the amount of revenue from the top 25 city pairs along the route.

That being said, if I couldn't get another Pennsylvanian or Broadway Limited, I would bring back the Gulf Breeze, The Montrealer or the Cape Codder.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I voted for four of them, but the Broadway Limited/Three Rivers is by *far* the most important. And there are no serious obstacles in its way: all that's needed is rolling stock and agreements from the Class Is.

I'm surprised you didn't mention a few other discontinued routes in the poll:

...

-- The International Limited (Chicago-Toronto)

I agree that if any LD service is to be restored, the most logical is a Broadway Limited/Three Rivers going through CLE and TOL. Preferably with a schedule providing "daytime" service between CHI and TOL/CLE to capture the CLE-CHI corridor market.

The proposed Skyline Connection from an old January 2000 timetable (timetables.org):

West: PHL 1:05am, HAR 3:35am, PGH 8:53/9:05am, CLE 12:38pm, TOL 2:41pm, CHI 6:47pm

East: CHI 1:30pm, TOL 7:02pm, CLE 9:15pm, PGH 12:43/12:58am, HAR 6:17am, PHL 9:08am

The East schedule is pretty good except for PGH and HAR. If the CL and Pennsylvanian remained, it wouldn't be an issue for PGH. You could move it one hour later or one hour earlier depending on whether you want to help Harrisburg or Pittsburgh.

I would move the West schedule up two hours (maybe three if PGH can still have the CL and Pennsylvanian).

 

[MikefromCrete]

Don't count on any support from the State of Ohio as long as John Kasich is Governor.

Tom

Let us remember that presidential candidate Kasich killed the Three C project and called rail supporters "cultists."

 

[railiner]

Since we're dreaming.....how about a list of the most unlikely RR routes ever to return to passenger service....such as, The Wabash Cannonball from St. Louis to Detroit....?

Or....The Butte Special? Texas Zephyr? Rocky Mountain Rocket? Olympian Hiawatha? Erie Limited? Aztec Eagle?.......this is fun.....

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Since we're dreaming.....how about a list of the most unlikely RR routes ever to return to passenger service....such as, The Wabash Cannonball from St. Louis to Detroit....?

Or....The Butte Special? Texas Zephyr? Rocky Mountain Rocket? Olympian Hiawatha? Erie Limited? Aztec Eagle?.......this is fun.....

I have to ask... Butte Special?