If you had to cut an Amtrak route, which one would you cut?

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Amtrak is now running a Thruway Bus from Phoenix to Maricopa, the Maricopa station is only 45 min-1 hour away from the airport and 1.5 hours from the Phoenix Metro Center.

https://media.amtrak.com/2017/04/new-amtrak-thruway-shuttle-service-maricopa-maricopa-connecting-sunset-limitedtexas-eagle-passengers-phoenix-tempe/

I wonder if that could help with ridership at Maricopa and the SL in general. You do arrive westbound in LAX early (as Devil's Advocate said as early as 4:30am) but Maricopa-LAX) is almost a perfect overnight trip between the Phoenix metro and Los Angeles in both directions. Unfortunately you can't arrive in LA on Saturday or Sunday (just MWF). The best case would be to spend a Wednesday or Friday in Los Angeles and come back the same day.

The schedule going east unfortunately forces you to leave Phoenix during the graveyard shift (3:15/3:45am) to catch the eastbound SL #2 so if Phoenix residents wanted to go east or anyone east of Phoenix wanted to visit there I don't know if that's much better than just having a train there.

I posted a report from the 1970's about the PM/TM about most LD train lines. Most of the trains still running have better PM/TM than back then but the SL's PM/TM is a lot lower (and back in the 70's I believe it was also 3x/week). If the SL had the PM/TM it had today back then, it would have been canceled (unless some Senator demanded it run of course). The biggest difference I would think between the 70's and today would have to be not serving Phoenix.

 

[cpotisch]

It would be great for the Sunset to serve SAS during the day, as that would allow TE through-pax to explore San Antonio and see the sights. Most people don't want to wake up at 2:00 AM or whatever and tour San Antonio in the middle of the night. It would also make life easier for pax transferring from the westbound TE to the eastbound SL (and vice versa). Currently those passengers need to spend the night in SAS, which is less than ideal.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

It would be great for the Sunset to serve SAS during the day, as that would allow TE through-pax to explore San Antonio and see the sights. Most people don't want to wake up at 2:00 AM or whatever and tour San Antonio in the middle of the night. It would also make life easier for pax transferring from the westbound TE to the eastbound SL (and vice versa). Currently those passengers need to spend the night in SAS, which is less than ideal.

I agree that it would probably help a lot to fine tune the schedule a bit. Most people are resistant to traveling in the dead of night and it's a bit of a social overreach to request pickups and drop-offs between 10PM and 8AM. Unfortunately Union Pacific was reported to have demanded 700 million dollars in return for a single one time schedule change. When a host is so hostile that they'll hold a schedule change hostage with absurd levels of punitive funding it's no longer in Amtrak's interest to continue fighting them. Better to abandon the line and use those limited resources to help shore up other routes with more support and less resistance. Every time you read about some mentally challenged cowboy logic truck driver causing yet another collision Amtrak needs to take any damaged hardware offline, allow detectives/lawyers/regulators time to inspect it, and finally repair it again. Having the Sunset Limited hardware ready and waiting might help other routes recover quicker and more dependably from adverse events and conditions.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

Not a route, but a train. I have never liked the idea of the Acela (a fast business train for the corporate well-to-do and the heck with the rest of us), and I would like to see that discontinued.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

If Amtrak were to extend the Crescent to SAS, they could schedule the additional service roughly...

19: NOL: 11:00pm, HOS: 8:18am/8:55pm, SAS: 2:05pm

20: SAS: 2:25pm, HOS: 7:10pm/8:10pm, NOL: 5:40am

They'd need two additional sets. I would feel better about canceling the SL if the Crescent is extended to San Antonio to make up for it so Houston maintains service (hopefully with a Crescent extension, daily service).

 

[cpotisch]

Not a route, but a train. I have never liked the idea of the Acela (a fast business train for the corporate well-to-do and the heck with the rest of us), and I would like to see that discontinued.

I'm pretty sure Acela is very profitable because of its high ridership and high fares. Additionally, Amtrak has thrown so much money at the banked tracks and everything, so I don't feel like it makes much sense to throw that away. That said, AE is a bit of a gimmick, given it only reaches its (not that impressive) top speed of 150 mph for a couple miles of the trip, so it's not much faster than NER (and in fact Acela is sometimes slightly slower). People take Acela because it seems fancier and faster, but it's really not that special. But the fact is that it doesn't matter how stupid a route is, just that it makes money.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Not a route, but a train. I have never liked the idea of the Acela (a fast business train for the corporate well-to-do and the heck with the rest of us), and I would like to see that discontinued.

I'm pretty sure Acela is very profitable because of its high ridership and high fares. Additionally, Amtrak has thrown so much money at the banked tracks and everything, so I don't feel like it makes much sense to throw that away. That said, AE is a bit of a gimmick, given it only reaches its (not that impressive) top speed of 150 mph for a couple miles of the trip, so it's not much faster than NER (and in fact Acela is sometimes slightly slower). People take Acela because it seems fancier and faster, but it's really not that special. But the fact is that it doesn't matter how stupid a route is, just that it makes money.

At a great expense. I say cut the whole North East Corridor. Imagine what you could do with the money you saved on infrastructure expenses alone!! You could finance a ton of trains to people without a lot of public transportation options. The Cardinal and Sunset could operate daily, we could hourly service to Albany, we could cut time off the B&A and probably but the line.

We could have tons of supplements to the LD network!

Clip the catenary, grab some Chargers and power up!

 

[railiner]

Regardless of what happens to the rest of Amtrak, or if Amtrak ever followed the above example, rest assured, the Northeast Corridor Region would survive, in one form or another....

Either a new Federal entity, or a consortium of the local transit agencies that operate upon it.....

 

[railgeekteen]

Not a route, but a train. I have never liked the idea of the Acela (a fast business train for the corporate well-to-do and the heck with the rest of us), and I would like to see that discontinued.

I'm pretty sure Acela is very profitable because of its high ridership and high fares. Additionally, Amtrak has thrown so much money at the banked tracks and everything, so I don't feel like it makes much sense to throw that away. That said, AE is a bit of a gimmick, given it only reaches its (not that impressive) top speed of 150 mph for a couple miles of the trip, so it's not much faster than NER (and in fact Acela is sometimes slightly slower). People take Acela because it seems fancier and faster, but it's really not that special. But the fact is that it doesn't matter how stupid a route is, just that it makes money.

At a great expense. I say cut the whole North East Corridor. Imagine what you could do with the money you saved on infrastructure expenses alone!! You could finance a ton of trains to people without a lot of public transportation options. The Cardinal and Sunset could operate daily, we could hourly service to Albany, we could cut time off the B&A and probably but the line.

We could have tons of supplements to the LD network!

Clip the catenary, grab some Chargers and power up!

The anti Philly Amtrak fan

 

[Eric S]

How are you defining a route? For example, would a route such as the Palmetto count even though it's entire route is covered by the Silver Meteor? If you were to cut the Carl Sandburg/Illinois Zephyr would both trains be lost or just one? Also, is this from a purely selfish perspective or should we consider Amtrak's point of view as well?

Named route. Car Sandburg and Illinois Zephyr count as separate routes.

So in this strange scenario Illinois can avoid having one of its "duplicate routes" cut by renaming both of those trains the "Sandburg Service" and renaming the Illlini and Saluki to both be either "Illini Service" or Saluki Service" and no longer being duplicates?

 

[Eric S]

Thanks for the EB fact sheet, for some reason or other I found it very interesting. I was surprised how low Milwaukee ridership was, but of course, it's part of corridor service so there are plenty of options between Chicago and Milwaukee. But it definitely looks like both ends of the route are crying out for another train or two, and probably corridor service.

Anecdotally, I can report that although there is fairly significant awareness of the Hiawatha in the Milwaukee market, there is much, much less awareness of the Empire Builder. To many in Milwaukee Amtrak=Hiawatha.