News on daily Sunset (incl older east of NOL discussion)

[neroden]

Revenue per train mile is far below the marginal cost per train mile and even gains from running daily won't bring it up over that threshold.

That doesn't make any sense. GIGO calculation?

The best model I've seen for this is to multiply the direct costs by 1.5 (for the increased number of trainsets to staff, since most costs are labor, and fuel is roughly similar) and multiply the revenue by 7/3. (Which seems to be a fair estimate based on past experience, though it could be better than that.) If you do this, the Sunset Limited still loses money, but it loses *less* money overall than it did when running 3 a week. The difference between total revenue and total cost drops.

Economically, it's really a "fish or cut bait" situation; daily or nothing. Less-than-daily makes no sense ever, unless you've completely abandoned all pretence of providing transportation (as VIA has with the Canadian, which is just a cruise train).

 

[CHamilton]

Coastal officials want passenger rail service back on track http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2015/06/all_aboard_what_the_gulf_coast.html

 

[dart330]

I will be pretty bummed to lose sleeper service on the HOS-NOL route, a roomette works great on this stretch. 9 hours in coach with no diner does not sound like a nice way to kick off a vacation when we can drive it in 6 hours. I may be willing to do business class, but then again there won't be a real lounge to enjoy either.

I do welcome the daily service as our current plans for the next trip are to fly there and take the train back, simply because we want to go on a Thursday and right now the options are Tue or Fri.

I will say this plan would probably keep me from taking the train to and from LAX again. The timing of the train changes in SAS would be pretty bad and that station is not a nice place to hang around.

 

[C855B]

IMO, restoring the NOL-JAX leg would do wonders for the train and Amtrak in general. So would daily service.

The daily service issue is a big one. I have rerouted several trips because I couldn't make the SL connection "hit" on the right days. Also can't ignore the problem with the 58/59 - 1/2 connection in NOL - you're on your own for the layover, and Amtrak will not book LAX-CHI via NOL as contiguous travel (try using points!). From my southern Illinois location I really would like to have a decent transcon connection other than CHI.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

I will be pretty bummed to lose sleeper service on the HOS-NOL route, a roomette works great on this stretch. 9 hours in coach with no diner does not sound like a nice way to kick off a vacation when we can drive it in 6 hours. ...

This is a slow route, about 40 mph, and passenger totals could grow substantially if upgraded.

Anybody wanna guess which segment will have the highest % gain in riders from going daily, the desert SW route to L.A., or the "shuttle" to New Orleans?

In an alternate universe, if Texas and Louisiana had leaders like VA and NC, they'd be building a corridor here.

San Antonio and Houston are two of the fastest growing cities in the nation. (And if the train from Houston made a sharp right turn just past the Alamo, less than 90 miles away is Austin, another large n very fast growing city.)

The distance Houston-San Antonio is only 210 miles, but it's scheduled to take 5 hours. Five (5) hours!

I know there's congestion near the two big cities, but... I grew up in between, a mile from the tracks. I can assure you there's still plenty of room -- Texas-sized space, and wonderfully flat -- to put in more and longer sidings, and then double track most of the route.

If the train moved at 50 mph that would cut the trip to 4 hours. Make it 60 mph and it's 3 ½ hours. And at 70 mph average speed it would clock in at 3 hours even. That would get most people off the short-hop flights between those cities, and off the increasingly crowded I-10.

How hard would it be to go fast between H-town and ole San Antone? Lessee, St Louis-Chicago is 284 miles, and those trains do about 51 mph now. After the Billion of Stimulus being invested in the current Phase One of the upgrades, they should go about 63 mph. So a Billion on this somewhat shorter Texas segment could bring trip times down to about 4 hours, even better than the Illinois corridor will take after its Billion dollar Phase One. (Wonder who's ready to pay for Phase Two to get down to 4 hours in Illinois?)

Heading east, New Orleans draws more passengers than its population would ordinarily support, because of the large vacation/tourism/weekend/casino traffic. Beaumont is ready to send many riders to H'town and back, and could probably support 8 commuter type trains a day each way if they moved fast. Then mid-way is Lafayette, with an 18,000+ university.

O.K., adding sidings, much less double tracking, could take serious money; there's plenty of empty here, but much of it is waterlogged. LOL. But if they could speed things up, from 40 mph to even 50 mph (wasn't a 55 mph figure once reported as the "Amtrak average" speed? -- where they got that I don't know) and then add a second and a third frequency, this route could really boom.

Look hard at taking the corridor further east. Not big on taking the train all the way to Florida anytime soon. The Florida Panhandle portion of the route would need too much work. And too much of the run used to be in the dark of night, which is never good, just ask Cleveland.

But see the Sunset Shuttle go east to Biloxi amid the strip of casinos along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and then on to Mobile. If they could get half an hour out of San Antonio-Houston, and an hour out of Houston-New Orleans, the train could get into Mobile before midnight. Then back into New Orleans early the next morning to keep that nice 6 p.m. arrival at Houston, and still get a little earlier before-midnight arrival in San Antonio. Need to add more frequencies to Mobile and to Houston, of course.

Much, much further down the line, the Sunset Shuttle should be rerouted thru Baton Rouge, another city growing nicely, with a huge LSU student population. The two stops that would be bypassed, Schriever and New Iberia, aren't even real stops, only flag stops. Baton Rouge (urban area 600,000 pop) is a monster compared to them. The segment New Orleans-Baton Rouge has been studied and studied. It could support 8 trains a day corridor service, and sharing would cut costs for the Sunset Shuttle. But no action, no money, no progress.

Then to get from Baton Rouge back down to Lafayette would require building a new connection -- almost a causeway thru swamps and spillway -- and a study will show the need for a lot of money.

Don't mention this in Louisiana, the state is like a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Oil, but that close-to-the-coast line may have to move anyway, due to alleged climate change and proven rising sea levels. (And in fact, isn't the Atchafalaya Basin actually sinking, due to massive extraction of underground petroleum, erosion along canals built to serve oil drilling sites, insufficient silt, etc.?)

If this Sunset Shuttle route fed into Chicago, instead of Houston, it would be high on the multi-Billion To-Do list. But sadly, nobody is talking about it now at all.

I do welcome the daily service as our current plans for the next trip are to fly there and take the train back, simply because we want to go on a Thursday and right now the options are Tue or Fri.

This example is exactly why going daily would add 100,000 riders.

I will say this plan would probably keep me from taking the train to and from LAX again. The timing of the train changes in SAS would be pretty bad and that station is not a nice place to hang around.

Relax. They already made the bulk of the changes in San Antonio that were discussed in the 2010 PRIIA study, so there's no longer an overnight "connection" between the Eagle and the Sunset.

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/970/304/PRIIA-210-SunsetLtd-TexasEagle-PIP,0.pdf

Anyway, that plan was for cross-platform changes from the Sunset Shuttle to the Sunset/Eagle. So NO LOITERING in the area, please. LOL.

Of course, the station area would probably become less deserted if it served daily Sunset Shuttles and not just 3 Sunset Limiteds every week. Some of those 100,000 new passengers would be using the San Antonio station, after all, and a lot more taxies would be stopping by. Already that side of San Antonio is getting the modern version of urban renewal (means "***** removal"), and another couple or three new hotels could change the station area altogether.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

The daily Sunset route is clearly the way to go. Improving the existing service will do wonders for it. Now, when new Superliner IIIs or whatever Amtrak will call them comes into the picture, we can see it going east to Florida. Now as to where to terminate this spin off of the Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle in FL, Orlando would be the ideal place for a few reasons.

We all know Amtrak isn't going to downgrade the spinoff of Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle to a single level train, so moving on, the reasoning Orlando would be a better terminus is because Sanford is not far from Orlando.

Sanford is where the Auto Train is maintained, which uses Superliner equipment. It would be wise to terminate it there. Also, Orlando has a commuter rail system, which will connect people to Lynx (the bus system in the area), the I-Drive Maglev, and the All Aboard Florida trains at the airport. Orlando is a major tourist destination too, so that's another big deal there.

Miami is out of the question, because why would you want to send another train to Miami? The Meteor and Star have that market covered, along with All Aboard Florida. Plus, if Amtrak decides to split any train at JAX, the Meteor or Star would be the ideal candidates. Not a bi-level train.

Jacksonville, while it would make the route shorter, there really isn't a place to do maintance on the train, unless Amtrak is willing to spend the money on adding one at the station. Just my two cents on the subject.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

The daily Sunset route is clearly the way to go. Improving the existing service will do wonders for it. Now, when new Superliner IIIs or whatever Amtrak will call them comes into the picture, we can see it going east to Florida. ...

We all know Amtrak isn't going to downgrade the spinoff of Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle to a single level train ...

I don't know any such thing. Did I miss the memo?

Amtrak is short of bi-level equipment and has no funding to get more.

But it will get a fair number of single-level Horizons when they are replaced by the new bi-levels coming to the Midwest routes by the end of 2017. It could rehab Horizons and put them on this warm, Southern route, where any lingering vulnerabilities to winter would not matter.

And why not have single-line equipment on the Sunset Shuttle New Orleans-San Antonio? The PRIIA plan is for cross-platform transfers. No sleepers on the Sunset Shuttle and so no thru cars, no mixing and matching of equipment between the Sunset/Eagle and the Sunset Shuttle, except for the locomotive.

So a line extended, or, ahem, restored, from New Orleans to Florida could also use the Horizon cars.

Why go to Miami? To get serviced at Hialeah. And because, Why not go to Miami? It will be interesting to see how things play out with All Aboard Florida. That could be crushing competition. Or it could raise mind-space for passenger rail and grow the market enuff to offset the effects of the partial competition. Amtrak will survive it. Amtrak will stop at a different pattern of South Florida cities that All Aboard Florida will skip past.

And Amtrak will carry passengers from Jacksonville and points north and west of the service area of All Aboard Florida, including some from St Augustine, Daytona, and the other stops at that end of the FEC route. I'm not expecting All Aboard Florida to try to drive Amtrak out of the market, because that is not in their interest. The All Aboard Florida plan is a real estate development atop a passenger railroad. From that point of view, the more trains into their Miami station the better, and the corporate owners of All Aboard Florida will welcome the additional passengers that Amtrak will bring them. And my hunch is that those passengers will come on single-level cars.

 

[C855B]

Personal take? Changing trains in SAS would flat nix LAX-NOL for us. On the current schedule? At 2 a.m.? Nuh uh. I'd hear about it for a month. :blink:

 

[xyzzy]

Yes, communities between NOL and Mobile inclusive want a passenger train again, and perhaps that desire extends into the Florida panhandle. But to quote their spokesperson, "communities across the Gulf Coast are not in support of bringing back the service the Sunset Limited represented". That's no surprise; the SL ran through the area in the middle of the night (when it was on time) in each direction. What they want instead is a day train similar to the Gulf Coast Limited that operated briefly. Of course, it the states would put their money where their mouths are, it could happen.

 

[railiner]

Allow me to play the devil's advocate on this one.

How about:

- Extend the Texas Eagle to Los Angeles on a 7/7 basis.

- Drop the Sunset as a contiguous train.

- Extend the Crescent from New Orleans onward to Houston and from there either to San Antonio or to Dallas.

Advantages

- No loss of sleepers between Texas and New Orleans.

- More passengers between Gulf Coast and NEC than Texas and California (how many Californians vacation in Texas or vice versa?, versus how many NECians vacation on Gulf Coast)

Might be an even better solution, if the Crescent were rerouted from Atlanta to New Orleans via Montgomery and Mobile.....(sorry Birmingham and Meridian).....unless someday they ever run a Dallas section of the Crescent....

edit: they could go via Birmingham and Mobile as the former "Gulf Breeze" did, but that would take longer.....

 

[AlanB]

Why go to Miami? To get serviced at Hialeah. And because, Why not go to Miami? It will be interesting to see how things play out with All Aboard Florida. That could be crushing competition. Or it could raise mind-space for passenger rail and grow the market enuff to offset the effects of the partial competition. Amtrak will survive it. Amtrak will stop at a different pattern of South Florida cities that All Aboard Florida will skip past.

And Amtrak will carry passengers from Jacksonville and points north and west of the service area of All Aboard Florida, including some from St Augustine, Daytona, and the other stops at that end of the FEC route. I'm not expecting All Aboard Florida to try to drive Amtrak out of the market, because that is not in their interest. The All Aboard Florida plan is a real estate development atop a passenger railroad. From that point of view, the more trains into their Miami station the better, and the corporate owners of All Aboard Florida will welcome the additional passengers that Amtrak will bring them. And my hunch is that those passengers will come on single-level cars.

But now if you go east of NOL, you're back to an overnight train. One that really should have sleepers. And one for which Horizon cars are not suitable. They're barely tolerable for short runs out of Chicago. I can't imagine sitting in a Horizon for 24 hours and trying to sleep in one.

 

[jphjaxfl]

Yes, communities between NOL and Mobile inclusive want a passenger train again, and perhaps that desire extends into the Florida panhandle. But to quote their spokesperson, "communities across the Gulf Coast are not in support of bringing back the service the Sunset Limited represented". That's no surprise; the SL ran through the area in the middle of the night (when it was on time) in each direction. What they want instead is a day train similar to the Gulf Coast Limited that operated briefly. Of course, it the states would put their money where their mouths are, it could happen.

The other problem was the Sunset Limited eastbound from New Orleans often ran very late so it was not dependable transportation for the panhandle. The west bound was more reliable.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

Yes, communities between NOL and Mobile inclusive want a passenger train again, and perhaps that desire extends into the Florida panhandle. But to quote their spokesperson, "communities across the Gulf Coast are not in support of bringing back the service the Sunset Limited represented". That's no surprise; the SL ran through the area in the middle of the night (when it was on time) in each direction. What they want instead is a day train similar to the Gulf Coast Limited that operated briefly. Of course, it the states would put their money where their mouths are, it could happen.

The other problem was the Sunset Limited eastbound from New Orleans often ran very late so it was not dependable transportation for the panhandle. The west bound was more reliable.

I hope someone can elaborate on this, but it's been mentioned a few times, that section of the route east of NOL isn't heavily used by CSX anymore. If that's true, the train being delayed won't be as significant issue, compared to what it was years ago.

 

[Caesar La Rock]

The daily Sunset route is clearly the way to go. Improving the existing service will do wonders for it. Now, when new Superliner IIIs or whatever Amtrak will call them comes into the picture, we can see it going east to Florida. ...

We all know Amtrak isn't going to downgrade the spinoff of Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle to a single level train ...

I don't know any such thing. Did I miss the memo?

Amtrak is short of bi-level equipment and has no funding to get more.

But it will get a fair number of single-level Horizons when they are replaced by the new bi-levels coming to the Midwest routes by the end of 2017. It could rehab Horizons and put them on this warm, Southern route, where any lingering vulnerabilities to winter would not matter.

And why not have single-line equipment on the Sunset Shuttle New Orleans-San Antonio? The PRIIA plan is for cross-platform transfers. No sleepers on the Sunset Shuttle and so no thru cars, no mixing and matching of equipment between the Sunset/Eagle and the Sunset Shuttle, except for the locomotive.

Horizon coaches are essentially commuter coaches. From what was already said by AlanB, they're not favorable on those short distance routes out of Chicago, what you makes you think they'll be any better on a long distance route?

Who knows if Amtrak has the money to reconfigure them, but keep in mind, they'd have to reconfigure 95 cars, not 14 like they did with the Comet I coaches from New Jersey Transit.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

The daily Sunset route is clearly the way to go. ...

We all know Amtrak isn't going to downgrade the spinoff of Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle to a single level train ...

I don't know any such thing. Did I miss the memo?

...

... a fair number of single-level Horizons ... by the end of 2017. ...

And why not have single-line equipment on the Sunset Shuttle New Orleans-San Antonio? The PRIIA plan is for cross-platform transfers. No sleepers on the Sunset Shuttle and so no thru cars, no mixing and matching of equipment between the Sunset/Eagle and the Sunset Shuttle, except for the locomotive.

Horizon coaches are essentially commuter coaches. From what was already said by AlanB, they're not favorable on those short distance routes out of Chicago, what you makes you think they'll be any better on a long distance route?

Who knows if Amtrak has the money to reconfigure them, but keep in mind, they'd have to reconfigure 95 cars, not 14 like they did with the Comet I coaches from New Jersey Transit.

There's been ample discussion of the Horizons previously, and more to come. The expectation is that the Horizon cars are gonna get a pretty heavy make-over to refresh them, no matter what. They've been heavily used and it shows.

So they'll get new and improved seats, and fewer of them, with more leg space, even foot rests are possible, whatever, along with LED lighting, more efficient heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and a toilet.

Amtrak will not have to rehab all 95 Horizons at once, tho that could be cheaper cost per unit.

But to equip the proposed Sunset Shuttle New Orleans-San Antonio, they're looking at three coaches and a cafe car, period. Amtrak will find a way to rehab four or five Horizons if that will get daily service going here.

 

[AlanB]

I hope someone can elaborate on this, but it's been mentioned a few times, that section of the route east of NOL isn't heavily used by CSX anymore. If that's true, the train being delayed won't be as significant issue, compared to what it was years ago.

While CSX wasn't exactly the greatest host for the Sunset Limited, the bigger problem was Union Pacific. Most of the delays east of NOL were simply due to the fact that UP couldn't get the SL into NOL anywhere near on time. There were times that the SL was arriving into NOL 2 days late and being terminated there with buses going the rest of the way. And most days it was at least 12 hours late, very often approaching 24 hours late.

A few years before Katrina hit, Amtrak in conjunction with the two hosts added 10 and a half hours of padding to the schedule in an effort to try to be more on time. The CSX side got 2-1/2 of the padding and the UP side got 8 hours of padding. And still the train ran late; often very late.

Things have since gotten much better on the UP side and some of that padding has now been taken out.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Yes, communities between NOL and Mobile inclusive want a passenger train again, and perhaps that desire extends into the Florida panhandle. But to quote their spokesperson, "communities across the Gulf Coast are not in support of bringing back the service the Sunset Limited represented". That's no surprise; the SL ran through the area in the middle of the night (when it was on time) in each direction. What they want instead is a day train similar to the Gulf Coast Limited that operated briefly. Of course, it the states would put their money where their mouths are, it could happen.

The other problem was the Sunset Limited eastbound from New Orleans often ran very late so it was not dependable transportation for the panhandle. The west bound was more reliable.

I hope someone can elaborate on this, but it's been mentioned a few times, that section of the route east of NOL isn't heavily used by CSX anymore. If that's true, the train being delayed won't be as significant issue, compared to what it was years ago.

The lateness was due to a multitude of small delays from L.A. accumulating over the long long route. And Union Pacific tracks were a mess. The UP has recently double-tracked most of the route from L.A. to El Paso, where much of its traffic splits north from the passenger line heading to San Antonio and New Orleans.

Apparently nobody is scared of that happening on the proposed long, long route from L.A. to Chicago. LOL.

Look at the PRIIA Performance Improvement Plan

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/970/304/PRIIA-210-SunsetLtd-TexasEagle-PIP,0.pdf

and the 2009 Gulf Coast Service Plan

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/904/671/GulfCoastServicePlanReport.pdf

Both are found under About Amtrak, Documents and Reports.

There's lots of problems with the eastern track. Lots of problems.

Installing Positive Train Control due to using the line for passenger trains, that was $20 million estimate back in 2009, and Amtrak would be obligated since without the passenger service, CSX freights would not require PTC.

Long long route, from New Orleans to Orlando, 769 miles and 18 hours vs 639 miles and 10 hours by car. Beyond Atmore, AL, and Tallahassee lies about 250 miles of "dark" or unsigned trackage, with 59 mph speed limit. Not cheap to install new signaling.

CSX had not put a price on needed upgrades, but stated there would be considerable work needed.

Sorry. Without quite a lot of money upgrading track speeds, the Eastern segments don't fit with the Western segment of the Sunset Shuttle, and therefor don't fit with the Sunset-Eagle.

 

[C855B]

Beyond Atmore, AL, and Tallahassee lies about 250 miles of "dark" or unsigned trackage, with 59 mph speed limit. Not cheap to install new signaling.

That track is dark? I was poking around Tallahassee about four years ago and the line appeared to at least have ABS, and the heads were not turned. Not that I would want to ride that bit of track. Condition was pretty grim, so no kidding that "considerable" work would be required.

 

[Anderson]

Just wondering, but is any of the dark trackage affected by the PTC mandate? That would seem to "un-darken" the tracks if it is affected. Still, the bigger problem is Mobile Bay (which the train has to go around while I think there's a tunnel on the interstate that cuts the runaround off of the route). That's where a non-trivial amount of the 130 extra miles come from (with a good share of the rest coming from going northeast to JAX before turning west).

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Personal take? Changing trains in SAS would flat nix LAX-NOL for us. On the current schedule? At 2 a.m.? Nuh uh. I'd hear about it for a month. :blink:

I get the same response from anyone who asks me about Amtrak here in SAS. Who in their right mind wants to gather all of their belongings and drag them onto a train in the middle of the night just to go back to sleep again? I think the current SL schedule is awful and it has reduced my annual SL trips from six to zero. I almost never ride the Sunset anymore because the lousy calling times make it annoying and impractical. At this point making the SL a daily operation isn't going to fix most of the problems I have with it. That being said I suppose I might be ignoring how critical markets like Deming and Biloxi feel about it.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

One thinks that Amtrak would adjust the timetable if there was a change that resulted in a stub train between San Antonio, TX and New Oreans, LA. A adjustment to a day light arrival and departure.

The real interesting side would be the 546 (road) miles between the two locations. Now how is that going to be handle. Even if they had run thur cars how would it be handled in the accounting, and Law of 750.

Sunset Limited number one creator of rumors.

 

[xyzzy]

The dark segment is Flomaton, Ala. to Tallahassee, roughly 250 miles per previous post. Building a new railroad tunnel/bridge combo across lower Mobile Bay that runs straight to Pensacola... one billion, maybe two. No way.

 

[neroden]

There's lots of problems with the eastern track. Lots of problems.

To be strictly accurate, the track is great from New Orleans to Mobile (Flomaton, actually), great from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, and completely hopeless from Mobile to Talahassee. :-(
If Amtrak is combining the Texas Eagle with the west end of the Sunset Limited, it might be sensible to extend the San Antonio-New Orleans train to *Flomaton*. It would get it over the 750 mile limit for federal funding, without getting into the problematic "dark territory" track, and it would pick up most of the most promising stations for ridership. A Mobile-New Orleans-Houston-San Antonio "Gulf Coast Limited" could be a reasonably successful train.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

One thinks that Amtrak would adjust the timetable if there was a change that resulted in a stub train between San Antonio and New Orleans. An adjustment to a daylight arrival and departure.

San Antonio's problem with the current SL schedule is that Westbound it works very well for the train originating in New Orleans at 9 a.m. and reaching Houston at 6:20 p.m. -- but not for getting into the Alamo City until just after 12 midnight. Eastbound it's a barely tolerable 6:25 a.m out of San Antonio, a nice 11 a.m. out of Houston, and a tolerable 9:40 p.m. arrival in New Orleans.

Between those Texas cities, maybe UP and Amtrak could squeeze minutes out of the 210 rail miles (EB that's 5:10 hours, or a dismal 47 mph). And the Houston-New Orleans segment is 363 miles in 9:20 hours, for a REALLY DISMAL 39 mph, where some improvement would seem possible.

If they can get better times for the Sunset Shuttle without spending money, then sure, it will happen. If the route needs Stimulus funds or the like, then San Antonio will remain out of luck.

Westbound is another kettle of fish. The San Antonio arrival on the Texas Eagle from Dallas-Ft Worth metro and points north dictates the departure time. The Eagle has good times into Texarkana 6 a.m., Marshall (Shreveport bus) at 8 a.m., Dallas at 11:30 a.m.. Then it leaves Ft Worth at 2:10 p.m., and 283 miles later arrives in San Antonio at 9:55 p.m. (making a dismal 39 mph over that segment).

The Eagle/Sunset plan aims to eliminate most of that almost 5-hours dawdling in San Antonio. If the service keeps the Eagle's 9:55 p.m. arrival, and it wants a cross-platform exchange of passengers from the Shuttle, then the Shuttle will have to get into the Alamo city around 10 p.m. A huge improvement.

Currently the departure for El Paso and L.A. is 2:45 a.m. So an 11 p.m. time for El Paso and L.A. would mean another huge improvement.

Can the Shuttle get into San Antonio at 10 p.m. without leaving too early from New Orleans? ("Please, I was on Bourbon Street last night and my head is killing me. I'll never take this dawn train again!")

It's certainly possible to imagine how service could greatly improve on a daily Sunset/Eagle and a Sunset Shuttle.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

... a stub train between San Antonio and New Orleans ...

The real interesting side would be the 546 (road) miles between the two locations. ... Even if they had run-thru cars, how would it be handled in the accounting, and Law of 750.

Doesn't the 750 rule apply only to any new routes? The Sunset Shuttle would have a very strong claim to being nothing new.

As for the accounting, Amtrak will account for it. Whether anyone outside Amtrak can understand it, I'm not promising. LOL.

btw According to the Sunset's timetable on Amtrak.com, the rail distance between San Antonio and New Orleans is 573 miles, so not much different from the road miles