Revived Spirit of California (Split from HSR for MSP)

[henryj]

Yes George, there is still a market there and probably few places where trains no longer run. But you know as well as me, that the once huge network of overnight trains is gone, never to return. Where you have one lonely NY to Chicago train there were once dozens on the NYC and Pennsy competing for passengers. St Louis market is virtually gone, with no trains to NY or DC or Colorado. Chicago to DC once had dozens, now the Capitol struggles to make it. That train, they should just convert back to single level equipment once the new cars arrive. Then they could market Chicago to Florida thru cars and pick up thru cars from the Pennsylvanian. The superliners could be used to bolster capacity out west where they are badly needed. The US is unique vs Europe in that we have vast distances to cover which makes the LD trains still viable in those markets. But most of the growth in the US will be in coach only corridor day trains. Diverting the CZ down to LA would be just a waste and it would never run on time. The longer these trains take to make their journey the higher their labor costs. They need to just re-route the SWC and get it over with and also speed it up. Re-routing adds over a million in population to the route with stops in Amarillo, Wichita, Clovis and a thruway bus to Lubbock. The most obvious missing link is the Texas to Colorado to Portland corridor and the Sunset Ltd east to Florida.

 

[Blackwolf]

For the record, I don't consider myself a "Foamer" in the literal sense of that word. I'm simply a fire department lieutenant who would much rather enjoy his trip when taken and not deal with flying when avoidable.

Besides, "foam" would mean dry-cleaning my uniform a lot more than I already have to! :giggle:

With this particular thread, the idea that this route (the hypothetically-revived Spirit of California) would be an Amtrak one is only half the truth. Considering it was born out of the discussion of corridors, this imagined train would be one carrying the Amtrak California title, and as such be really a state train being run under contract to Amtrak much like the Capitol Corridor or Pacific Surfliners. The CalComets are owned outright by CalTrans; the Horizon cafe cars and F-40 NPCU's are on long-term lease agreements to CalTrans from Amtrak and as such wear CDTX reporting marks. They are used currently on the first and last San Joaquin trains of the day, but only until the new order of BiLevel corridor cars show up. After that, they're orphaned in many ways and represent an investment with years of life in them potentially being laid up.

The original Spirit of California was a state train too, even if the formalities as we have them today did not exist 30 years ago.

California has trackage rights for a round-trip the full length of San Francisco <-> Los Angeles and is intent on using them even if Union Pacific, CalTrain and Metrolink maybe less than inclined to oblige. They legally have to, but there will be investment from the Public Sector into the Coast Line (CalTrain is getting full electrification paid for them, so they cannot really say a darn thing against it IMHO.) The state already has 80% of the train as seen in 1981 bought and paid for in terms of rolling stock. For the cost of 2 engineers, 2 conductors and 3-4 OBS employees, plus a locomotive you could run an overnight train by the Fall of this year. Retrofit a minimum of three of the CalComets with airline-style lie-flat seat modules and now you have a functional "upper-class" product. Retrofit an order of magnitude more and have double the product for double the price of coach. And for the truly bold, work with Amtrak and purchase some Viewliner sleepers as part of the 70-car option to really push this to the next level.

This is a full 12-hour offset to the Starlight. Keep that train, with its full amenities (well, not quite as full these days) as the day train. Provide a slightly above basic meal service from the cafe car (how many of you have seen the California menu's these days?) for a late supper option and arrival breakfast option.

This train will cost less than the alternative Daylight train, and likely run into far fewer chances of delay running at night. Between the the second daylight train (running only a few hours behind the Starlight, and thus prone to adversely impacting that train as well as running into the same delay issues it may encounter,) or an overnight train (running as a 2nd frequency on the route, 12-hours separated and providing flexibility for a traveler who the current schedule does not work for by many hours,) I choose the overnight. Best-case scenario is there is a third daily round-trip needed because demand outstrips all forecasts, much like a Lynchberger-West.

 

[chakk]

A full 12-hour offset to the Coast Starlight would NOT allow a connection with the eastbound CZ unless a GUARANTEED arrival of the new northbound train into EMY was provided by 8:45 AM.

 

[George Harris]

A full 12-hour offset to the Coast Starlight would NOT allow a connection with the eastbound CZ unless a GUARANTEED arrival of the new northbound train into EMY was provided by 8:45 AM.

Take the 12 hour offset as an approximation.

I think it should run with sleepers. The standard San Joaquin style meal service should be sufficient. Maybe do a couple more breakfast options.

The example New York Chicago would be a good place to discuss what should be there. Try about 3 trains each way: Westbound, one with an early morning arrival in Chicago, one a mid to late morning arrival in Chicago, and one with an early morning arrival in Buffalo, with arrival in Chicago from whatever that gives you. Reverse early morning arrival in Cleveland, then mid morning arrival in NYC, then an early morning arrival in in NYC. These ought to all have good patronage. There are many other routes that should have these games played.

 

[Anderson]

With the Enterprise, there are three underlying issues I could guess at:
(1) The difference in time. Right now, the late train from Toronto to Montreal via Kingston takes 4:49. The morning train takes 5:15. Padding that out to eight hours does make a percieved dent.
(2) VIA's cost. I can't say for certain what VIA was charging on the Enterprise, but their price per train mile for a seat tends to be very high next to Amtrak's, discount fares notwithstanding. I know some of this is a relic of when the CAD was cheaper, but right now a ticket for Montreal-Toronto costs $90-179 for Economy and $201-286 for Business Class on Monday. The Montreal-Toronto run is about 337 miles, meaning your short-notice fares run from $.267/mi to $.531/mi in Economy and $.596 to $.849/mi for Business. At those prices, I can't imagine what a comparable sleeper would have run, but I suspect the "sticker price" fares would have been in the range of $400 (adjusted for inflation).

This is connected to...
(3) Market size. VIA's longest corridor trains don't tend to be more than 6-7 cars long. The market is limited in size, and it should be noted that the numbers for "the Corridor" tend to include not only Quebec City-Montreal-Toronto, but also the Windsor, Sarnia, and Niagara Falls extensions. The reality is that the VIA Corridor has something like 1/6th the traffic of the NEC, if that.

In this vein, I would be curious to see data for 66/67 broken out from the NEC.

====================================

Moving on to the CA situation, I would largely echo George's comments in both situations:
-In CA, a three-train solution would be ideal:
(1 Northbound): An early morning departure from southern California, a bit earlier than the present 763/14 timing. The primary focus here would be LAX-Bay Area (and LAX-SAC), with San Diego mainly an afterthought.
(2 Northbound): A somewhat later departure, off by a few hours, aimed at both LAX-Bay Area and SAN-Bay Area; Sacramento would be the afterthought due to timing.
(3 Northbound): An evening departure from LAX to the Bay Area and/or SAC, arriving in the Bay Area in the morning.

-On the LSL, what George said largely prevails. One train would be oriented at a NYP-BUF overnight market and a daylight BUF-CHI market, and making connections at NYP. One would be what we have WB out of NYP now. The third would be oriented towards a closer-to-daylight run NYP-BUF WB (i.e. depart NYP sometime either in the morning or midday, hit BUF in the evening, and reach CHI extremely early in the morning).

-Other major markets for this:
--NYP-MTR. Do note that a large part of the downfall of the Montrealer was host RR mismanagement (Amtrak had to take over and resell one of the host lines because of track deterioration).
--CHI-MSP.
--WAS-CHI. Probably only needs two trains, but a third (especially if at least was a run-through heading south) could help. Could run in conjunction with...
--PGH-NYP (and PGH-CHI). One train on the 1990s Pennsylvanian timetable (daylight in the middle, mediocre times at the endpoints)
--JAX-MIA. This could probably be done with the present Silver Service setup getting only modestly amended. The Star would have the early morning departure (depart JAX about 0500, arrive MIA sometime around 1100-1200). The Meteor could either run on its present schedule with minimal adjustments (depart JAX 0700-0800, arrive MIA 1400-1600), or on something more like its 1990s schedule (depart JAX 1300, arrive MIA 1900-2000). The Silver Palm/Palmetto would leave JAX around 2330 and arrive into MIA around 0600-0700. It might be worth looking into a set-out sleeper for the JAX-MIA portion of this.

Please note something that all of these pairs have in common: The normal operating time for a train is between 7 and 16 hours, and in the longer markets there's at least one major subset market that's in the 8-12 hour range.

As another point, I would likely look into running some routes with at least one "premium" train and at least one "non-premium" train. You'd always have some sort of meal service available, but there would be room for some experimentation. There would be a clear differentiation in the marketing on the "premium" train, but at the very least the sleeper fares would also be raised at least enough to cover the dedicated cost of the amenities. Honestly, I would probably look at a clear differentiation between the two sets of trains in marketing...but ironically, having more of them would probably reduce any "confusion".

Edit:

Finally, as to the business/leisure markets:
(1) The leisure market is not something that should be dismissed outright in a lot of cases. New York-Montreal is a good example here, where you have a lot of people with a good amount of disposable income.
(2) On the business travel side of things, the "game" isn't about capturing 90% of the market. In a lot of cases, 5% of the market would support the sleepers on a given train.
(3) It's quite possible that we end up with a long-term scenario where the business community ends up on high-speed trains that tend to operate with fat margins and fares most of us can't afford (i.e. the Acela). Everyone else ends up on slower Regional-type trains, and overnight runs exist to either (A) connect corridors or (B) serve longer runs that the high-speed services would take a decent portion of a day to cover (mainly operating over routes that would take 8-16 hours to cover with conventional equipment, and which high-speed trains would still take 5+ hours to cover...basically picking up a mix of traffic that can't do an all-day train plus odd-and-end traffic that either needs to leave a given place pretty late or arrive pretty early compared with the other HSR services).

-For example, it's unlikely that you're going to see an HSR service in the foreseeable future that gets into BOS prior to 0900. Likewise, there's probably no foreseeable way to get an Acela-type train that leaves BOS for WAS after about 1800 or that arrives prior to 1030 (and even both of these would require travel times to get substantially under 6 hours). Any such service would probably be far enough in the future (even under optimistic projections) that overnight service in those niches would go through a full equipment lifecycle.

 

[henryj]

Dreams are nice, but there is no money, no equipment, and most importantly, no need. I wish I could turn back the clock also, but it isn't going to happen. Corridors are where the action is and will stay. Lets hope we can hang onto the little we have left in LD and overnight trains. Dreaming about capturing 5% of the business trade is false hope when the other 95% flies. We are scratching for a way to restore the past. The future is true HSR on new ROW's and fast corridor trains in limited markets. If you think the scenario in Atlas Shrugged will come to pass with $50/gal gasoline,,,,,,,,,,,maybe, haha. But I just don't see it.

 

[Anderson]

Dreams are nice, but there is no money, no equipment, and most importantly, no need. I wish I could turn back the clock also, but it isn't going to happen. Corridors are where the action is and will stay. Lets hope we can hang onto the little we have left in LD and overnight trains. Dreaming about capturing 5% of the business trade is false hope when the other 95% flies. We are scratching for a way to restore the past. The future is true HSR on new ROW's and fast corridor trains in limited markets. If you think the scenario in Atlas Shrugged will come to pass with $50/gal gasoline,,,,,,,,,,,maybe, haha. But I just don't see it.

Don't even get me started on how royally screwed up the equipment situation is. Long story short, the Superliner sleepers are the worst thing that ever happened to Amtrak's LD system, since it permanently severed the "New York-serving" LD trains from the "rest of the country" LD trains, making an order of either politically difficult and making an order of both economically infeasible, not to mention permanently fouling any ability to move equipment between the Florida trains and the non-Florida trains on a seasonal basis. It's on a modest-length list, but the Superliners are one of the decisions I wish Amtrak had never made. Bilevel coaches? Sure, you can piggyback on a commuter order in a pinch. But sleepers and so forth just don't work the same way.

 

[Woody]

Dreams are nice, but there is no money, no equipment. . . Corridors are where the action is and will stay. Lets hope we can hang onto the little we have left in LD and overnight trains.

. . .how royally screwed up the equipment situation is. Long story short, the Superliner sleepers. . . severed the "New York-serving" LD trains from the "rest of the country" LD trains, making an order of either politically difficult and making an order of both economically infeasible. . . . Bilevel coaches? Sure, you can piggyback on a commuter order in a pinch. But sleepers and so forth just don't work the same way.

Going off topic we am. But the only near-term solution I see

is to increase the number of single-level trains by converting

the Capitol Ltd and the City of New Orleans, and sending

their bi-level equipment out west to put a few fingers in

the dikes. So get started on much more new equipment for

the Eastern trains.

That would call for (1) a substantial increase in Viewliner II

diners, sleepers, bag/dorms, and baggage cars -- that's

the 70-car option right there -- and (2) a substantial new

order for single-level coaches.

Someone smarter than me -- many candidates posting here --

needs to tell us if the PRIIA coach specs could be met by

a Viewliner coach. That would allow another extention to

the order from CAF, say another 100 coaches. Otherwise,

Amtrak will need to find funding for 600 new single-level

coaches and 600 new bi-level coaches over six years into

the future to get the lowest prices, if I recall the Fleet Plan

correctly.

Good luck with that. The Obama/Amtrak Joe/Joe Szabo/

Joe Boardman team will lose most of the essential members

before any coaches from any such orders get delivered.

And then? Yeah, Hillary maybe; Scott Walker, we can just

shoot ourselves.

 

[henryj]

But the only near-term solution I see

is to increase the number of single-level trains by converting
the Capitol Ltd and the City of New Orleans, and sending

their bi-level equipment out west to put a few fingers in

the dikes.

I am glad you agree with me, that's what I had said up above. The CONO and the Capitol were originally single level equipped. With a single level Capitol you could carry through cars from Chicago to Florida connecting with the Star or Metor and you could pick up through cars from NY on the Pennsylvanian in Pittsburgh. The CONO could carry through cars for Atlanta, cutting off in Memphis through Birmingham finally giving Atlanta back it's north/south connection to Chicago. You could also continue on to Jacksonville thus giving another option for Chicago to Florida and also giving New Orleans back it's connection to Florida with little penalty in time. Going all single level in the Eastern half of the country opens up lots of possibilities. It also releases Superliners to shore up the western LD trains and make the Sunset daily. If only Amtrak had any initiative to do any of these things.

 

[Nathanael]

The afternoon train covered the 340 mile run in 3 hr. 59 min but the overnight run took 8 1/2 hours.

Well, there's your problem! I don't think an overnight train can possibly be successful when you can make the trip by day train in 4 hours. If driving or taking a day train already takes about 8 hours, then they start being worth considering. A fast day train is always preferable. (I actually don't see many good overnight routes in Canada. Windsor-Montreal and Toronto-Quebec City are the right length, but I suspect the nature of the travel market means these are low-demand city pairs. Montreal-Moncton should be good; Montreal-Halifax is too slow.)
There are a bunch of good routes in the US, though. Driving from Chicago to Minneapolis is 6.5 hours -- if you don't stop and don't hit traffic. So really, 8 hours.

The airplane? Well, my estimate says MSP-CHI takes 4 hours including all the trouble to get to downtown Chicago, security, etc. (I tend to be a pessimist on flight times. The nominal flight time from Philadelphia to Ithaca is 1 hr. 5 min. It is frequently faster to drive, at 4 hours, thanks to security, waiting for the plane, delayed planes, etc. These short puddlejumper flights are all "overhead time" and are not worth it.) So sure, a bunch of people will choose the flight -- but a bunch of people will not.

For Minneapolis-Chicago, next-day tickets are cheaper on Amtrak than in the air. The *roomette* is actually cheaper than most of the airline tickets. The roomette price could probably be brought up quite a lot and remain competitive -- all that is needed is that the train run on time.

(3) It's quite possible that we end up with a long-term scenario where the business community ends up on high-speed trains that tend to operate with fat margins and fares most of us can't afford (i.e. the Acela). Everyone else ends up on slower Regional-type trains, and overnight runs exist to either (A) connect corridors or (B) serve longer runs that the high-speed services would take a decent portion of a day to cover (mainly operating over routes that would take 8-16 hours to cover with conventional equipment, and which high-speed trains would still take 5+ hours to cover...basically picking up a mix of traffic that can't do an all-day train plus odd-and-end traffic that either needs to leave a given place pretty late or arrive pretty early compared with the other HSR services).

This is pretty much what I've been thinking. The overnight trains will end up on routes which are just a bit too long for good day trains, but where airplane service is unreliable, infrequent, expensive, and is taking up half the day anyway. There's actually a number of these potential routes out there; the best are through "second tier" cities like Syracuse & Rochester, which the airlines dislike serving. And the airplane service in such places isn't going to get better; that time has passed.
It's important to realize that these "best overnight routes" generally overlap the good corridor routes, for demographic reasons: they run through the same "second tier cities". For shorter trip times, you run day trains (example: Buffalo to New York City) and then once the chain of cities is getting a bit too long (example: Buffalo to Chicago) you *also* run an overnight train.

By all means, make improvements on the "corridors" your top priority. It will only benefit the overnight trains. If anyone remembers their history, this is how the passenger rail network was built up in the first place: little corridors were chained together, and eventually overnight trains were overlaid onto the longer of the routes. It would have been considered bizarre to run an overnight train without first running a bunch of local trains.

The formation of Amtrak was done in an ass-backwards manner, and the lack of underlying and connecting shorter routes hurts all the long routes. The shorter routes have since been rebuilt in a number of places, and it should make a difference.

I'll be particularly curious to see what happens in Denver, where the first urban rail line got to Union Station only in 2002, but in 2018 there will be seven plus a bunch of intercity buses. Denver's been bleeding Amtrak ridership for two decades, though I can't find the year-by-year numbers I'd like to look at. A lot of that is due to the unreliability of the Zephyr, of course. (I say, break the train at Denver to improve the OTP east of Denver.) Part of it is due to the cancellation of the Pioneer in '97, part of it is undoubtedly due to the loss of mindshare when Ski Train went away in '09, part of it is due to the "temporary station" since 2011. I do wonder what will happen when there are huge numbers of commuters walking through the station: I expect a fair percentage will say "We can get to Chicago by train? We should try that." Of course, if the train can't run on time, they won't try it twice.

 

[Nathanael]

Someone smarter than me -- many candidates posting here --

needs to tell us if the PRIIA coach specs could be met by

a Viewliner coach.

Yes.

 

[Nathanael]

There is evidence, both anecdotal and from numbers, that the business market for overnight train travel is alive from Buffalo, NY to Chicago, regardless of what it may be anywhere else. I think the niche is narrow but it exists.

BUF sleeper ridership amounted to ~10% of its LSL ridership (4,696/46,107), about six passengers per train.

I thought about this for a while, and realized that the business travel market from Buffalo to Chicago is probably not very large in total. The remaining Buffalo businesses are not rich, are not jet-set businesses, and are not gonna have vast quantities of business travel. I don't know how many business class airline seats sell from Buffalo to Chicago, and I can't find out, but I doubt it's very many. In that context, 6 per train could easily be 20% of the market.

 

[Anderson]

Nathanael, on 09 Feb 2014 - 12:34 PM, said:

Paulus, on 07 Feb 2014 - 12:50 PM, said:

Nathanael, on 07 Feb 2014 - 12:30 PM, said:There is evidence, both anecdotal and from numbers, that the business market for overnight train travel is alive from Buffalo, NY to Chicago, regardless of what it may be anywhere else. I think the niche is narrow but it exists.

BUF sleeper ridership amounted to ~10% of its LSL ridership (4,696/46,107), about six passengers per train.

I thought about this for a while, and realized that the business travel market from Buffalo to Chicago is probably not very large in total. The remaining Buffalo businesses are not rich, are not jet-set businesses, and are not gonna have vast quantities of business travel. I don't know how many business class airline seats sell from Buffalo to Chicago, and I can't find out, but I doubt it's very many. In that context, 6 per train could easily be 20% of the market.

Well, don't forget...you've got a good shot at three meals EB on the LSL and it's a long enough run...there are almost assuredly folks who get a sleeper NYP-BUF as well, so you're "exchanging" sleeper traffic at BUF. You'd likely see this on an overnight NYP-BUF/daylight BUF-CHI schedule as well.

 

[jis]

Also I'd suggest that don't just focus on BUF, take SYR, ROC and BUF as a group and the picture becomes much better.

 

[Anderson]

Point taken. Ok, here's what I get for sleepers:
BUF: 4,696 (of 46,107); LSL makes up 38.3% of business
ROC: 2,455 (of 47,555); LSL makes up 34.4% of business
SYR: 2,960 (of 54,198); LSL makes up 35.9% of business
Total: 10,111 (of 147,860); LSL

Looking this over, the LSL is over-represented at all three stations (it should, in theory, be only 25% of traffic). Some of this is the LSL's timing (which is pretty good both ways). Some of this is the timing on 280/288 (280 is obscenely early at some stops, while 288 doesn't hit NYP until 2345). And a small factor is the presence of BUX on the Empire trains, though even adding BUF+BUX, you still get 29.1% market share for the LSL at Buffalo...which is likely distorted slightly in favor of the Empire trains by virtue of them having a second (downtown) stop in Buffalo.

 

[NS VIA Fan]

The afternoon train covered the 340 mile run in 3 hr. 59 min but the overnight run took 8 1/2 hours.

Well, there's your problem! I don't think an overnight train can possibly be successful when you can make the trip by day train in 4 hours.

I realize that. As I said.......”Overnight train travel just doesn’t seem to be in the mind-set today when a fast day train will get you there or back to your own bed at night.”

Yes, Montreal<>Moncton is a good example of a reasonable overnight trip. It has always done well and continues even though the Ocean is now tri-weekly.

If a portion of the Ocean’s current route via Campbellton is abandoned as proposed and it is diverted to the National Transcontinental Railway through Edmundston......it has the potential of becoming a fast daytime train between Montreal and Moncton. The NTR is shorter and fast.

Then what becomes of the Moncton<>Halifax portion? Who knows! Perhaps a fast bus connection. Buses do it in 2 1/4 hrs now on the Toll-way compared to 4 1/4 hrs on the Ocean.

 

[Anderson]

I can't speak for the hours, but I can't help but wonder if VIA could support a daily (or 6x weekly) day train along there combined with an awful-time bus connection.

 

[NS VIA Fan]

I can't speak for the hours, but I can't help but wonder if VIA could support a daily (or 6x weekly) day train along there combined with an awful-time bus connection.

VIA once operated a Halifax-Moncton-Saint John-Fredericton "Intercity" RDC service that was even scheduled to become an LRC. But the train in the Maritimes is no longer time competitive with the bus or just driving. The train to Fredericton took 8 hours......I can drive it in 4 (the track into Fredericton is gone).

With the Ocean on a tri-weekly schedule between Halifax and Moncton...... I’m on the bus now at least in one direction. I enjoy the 4 1/4 hrs on the train to relax.....but I certainly have no complaints about the 2 1/4 bus ride.

 

[Nathanael]

Point taken. Ok, here's what I get for sleepers:

BUF: 4,696 (of 46,107); LSL makes up 38.3% of business

ROC: 2,455 (of 47,555); LSL makes up 34.4% of business

SYR: 2,960 (of 54,198); LSL makes up 35.9% of business

Total: 10,111 (of 147,860); LSL

Looking this over, the LSL is over-represented at all three stations (it should, in theory, be only 25% of traffic). Some of this is the LSL's timing (which is pretty good both ways). Some of this is the timing on 280/288 (280 is obscenely early at some stops, while 288 doesn't hit NYP until 2345). And a small factor is the presence of BUX on the Empire trains, though even adding BUF+BUX, you still get 29.1% market share for the LSL at Buffalo...which is likely distorted slightly in favor of the Empire trains by virtue of them having a second (downtown) stop in Buffalo.

A lot of this is purely the westbound traffic demand. Four trains east, but only one train to Cleveland and Chicago, so everyone heading west piles on the same train. There are stronger cultural links from upstate NY to Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois than may at first be apparent.

Some of it is probably the unreliability of the eastbound Maple Leaf (thank you, Customs!), which I suspect of punching under its weight in terms of upstate-downstate ridership (I suppose I could figure out those numbers, maybe).

 

[Nathanael]

*sigh* -- unfortunately there have been lots of *really sensible* proposals for improvements in VIA service from various passengers' advocacy groups in Canada (Transport Action Canada, for instance), as well as from localities and provinces -- but VIA has shown no sign of listening to any of them for a very long time. The situation with VIA depresses me.

 

[Tokkyu40]

We'll wake up this thread to add this: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,3038308
The thread mentions that the train usually consisted of a locomotive and baggage car, two sleepers (usually full) a Dinette and three AmCan coaches (Mostly empty).
UC Davis students may have been the single largest block of customers. The ticket agent would prepare tickets ahead of time and sell them to students on the platform to save time.

I've heard suggestions of extending some of the Surfliners to the Bay area, like they previously extended a handful of them to San Luis Obispo. That considerably increased the passenger base, and it is believed that enough people will want to run between the bay and SLO or LA to more than justify the longer run.

 

[Anderson]

We'll wake up this thread to add this: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,3038308

The thread mentions that the train usually consisted of a locomotive and baggage car, two sleepers (usually full) a Dinette and three AmCan coaches (Mostly empty).

UC Davis students may have been the single largest block of customers. The ticket agent would prepare tickets ahead of time and sell them to students on the platform to save time.

I've heard suggestions of extending some of the Surfliners to the Bay area, like they previously extended a handful of them to San Luis Obispo. That considerably increased the passenger base, and it is believed that enough people will want to run between the bay and SLO or LA to more than justify the longer run.

The Coast Daylight proposal is basically such an extension.

I think it's fair to also point out that I took BART into Oakland from SFO last month, and it was a rather long ride. On the businessperson perspective, I think it is fair to point out that hotels in and around SF seem to trend towards the "rather expensive", not unlike New York City (those two probably being the worst cities in the US for expensive hotels). This issue also came up w.r.t. the Gathering this year, if I'm not mistaken. There are going to be times when skipping two nights in SF is going to save somewhere around $500.

On the other end...yes, I know there's the Flyaway Bus service, but from what I can tell that is a "plan on at least an hour getting downtown" route. There's driving (something which I have done on two occasions in the LA area and regretted both times)...but ultimately, LAX is way out of downtown no matter how you slice it and the transit connections are lousy. I know we're prone to make things out to be worse than they are, but in the case of LA it really is that bad in many respects.

 

[Paulus]

FlyAway from UnionStation was about 30-40 minutes, even with heavy traffic, for me this past summer.

 

[neroden]

FlyAway from UnionStation was about 30-40 minutes, even with heavy traffic, for me this past summer.

Interesting. I rely on an hour when I use it. (I've used it to go *to* the airport district *from* Union Station.) Part of this is bus bunching; you can end up with a larger gap between FlyAway buses than you're supposed to have.

Come 2020 I'll probably take the Expo Line & the Crenshaw/LAX line instead. Even if it's slower, it's *rail*, and so more comfortable. And when I'm heading to an area hotel for a convention, not to the airport, it'll actually get me closer to my destination.

 

[Anderson]

Based on that anecdote from TO, it sounds like the Spirit of California was hurt by bad equipment allocation...if I had to guess, based on what I've seen with the Star and Meteor, it was probably doing somewhere close to half-and-half coach/sleeper business (40k in sleeper is about what you expect for a two-sleeper one-night train). Also, three coaches and two sleepers was supposed to provide 180k riders? Good God, what were CalDOT's people smoking! You'd need at least 6-7 coaches for that, or a lot more sleepers.