Cal H
Train Attendant
I sure like that Crescent schedule better than today's version 
New Gulf Coast service (New Orleans - Mobile and Baton Rouge)
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jis
Permanent Way Inspector
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Short Line is Pensacola to Baldwin.
I don't understand why people keep dreaming about Sunset. It is not going to be restored to Florida. If any train happens it will be a separate self standing train, or an extension of the CONO, or the proposed FRA train from Dallas to Florida via Baton Rouge and NOL.
Whether a Short Line owns the tracks or a Class 1 has little bearing on whether it can host an LD train. The question always is funding the necessary infrastructure upgrade. Afterall the Cardinal would not exist if short lines could not host LD trains. And then there is the matter of Kansas City Union Station access
STB is not empowered to arbitrarily prevent sales of anything. They can prevent abandonment. A sale to a going concern that intends to and is capable of continuing the service that was extant on the segment on the sale date or soon before that, is sufficient proof of non-abandonment, so STB will typically not intervene, even though its permission is needed.
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Access to Kansas City Union Station is via the Kansas City Terminal Railway, officially a Class III. It is jointly owned by the railroads that serve the KC area. Something similar applies in New Orleans with the New Orleans Public Belt and St. Louis with the St. Louis Terminal Railroad Association (TRRA).
@jis is correct, it does not matter whether a shortline or a Class I owns a stretch of railroad, Amtrak access rights continue on any given line whether or not it is sold. It follows the line, not the owner, and Amtrak has access rights to any line that hosted passenger service in 1970 by a carrier that joined Amtrak. Amtrak or another entity (state, Federal grant, etc) must fund any improvements required to host Amtrak that the railroad doesn't need for its own operations.
Also, it is widely believed that Amtrak cannot operate on "dark" territory (without signals). It can, it is just limited to a maximum speed of 60 mph, as lack of signals would mean it could not be any higher than FRA Class 3. Significant stretches of the Adirondack's route are dark, for example.
Learn something new every day, thanks!
I believe that in the original agreement, Amtrak also had access rights to any other line owned by a railroad joining Amtrak, even if there was no longer passenger service on said line, prior to Amtrak takeover, as well as start service on a later date, such as they did on the Pioneer, and Desert Wind, which both had service prior to takeover.
I am not sure that right extended to new lines acquired after the start of Amtrak.
As an example, since the former Western Pacific was not an Amtrak member ( the CZ ended a year prior to Amtrak), the Union Pacific which acquired the WP later, was not required to host Amtrak over its lines, unless they agreed to it, in a separate agreement.
Access rights were limited to lines hosting passenger service by railroads joining Amtrak as of a date in late 1970, December, I believe.
As to the Pioneer and Desert Wind, the City of Portland, the Portland Rose, and the City of Los Angeles ran on those lines right up to AmDay. So they qualified, having had service in December 1970. Amtrak did not have to include line in its initial network for it to retain access rights, that is how the Pioneer and Desert Wind got access (while CoP ran via the Granger cutoff to Pocatello, Ogden-Pocatello had hosted the Butte Special which also lasted until AmDay).
New Orleans-Mobile (Jacksonville) had service up to Amday, which provides access rights for the new service as well as having provided rights for the Sunset East. The San Francisco Chief ran on Santa Fe through the San Joaquin Valley up to the end, providing the rights later used by the San Joaquins.
Amtrak had no rights on the SP mainline through Maricopa, it had lost passenger service years earlier, but SP offered the route as an alternative to the Phoenix West line when they decided to embargo the line. Amtrak couldn't have forced its way on.
Amtrak has no rights to run on the former WP (except the paired former WP-SP running between roughly Winnemucca and Wells), since it lost service in March 1970, prior to the cutoff date. UP acquisition does not change that, as I said, the rights follow the line, not the owner. WP did sign a secondary Amtrak contract that provided for temporary detours, though.
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