Richard Anderson - Bloomberg article

[sttom]

LA - Palm Springs would be a commuter route in some jurisdictions.

I would say the commuter vs Intercity route would be more a function vs length. A 130 mile route could be either, kind of stretching it for a commuter line.

 

[Rasputin]

the Sunset Limited REALLY needs to be a daily train, and not just only 3 times a week!

The Sunset links important areas of the country. Despite its 3 days a week schedule it seems to be very well patronized when I have ridden it, both in sleeper and overnight in coach. It is a great route. The Sunset does not deserve to be discontinued and it should not be discontinued.

 

[jloewen]

Nearly every flight is a nonstop flight from someone's perspective. Where I live we recently fielded more nonstop routes than anytime in the history of commercial aviation at my hometown airport, which dates back to the 1950's.

Yes, EVERY flight is nonstop to somewhere, or else it is still in the air, getting refueled by a tanker! Can't argue with that! Similarly, the Capital Limited is nonstop from DC to Rockville....

 

[dogbert617]

The Sunset links important areas of the country. Despite its 3 days a week schedule it seems to be very well patronized when I have ridden it, both in sleeper and overnight in coach. It is a great route. The Sunset does not deserve to be discontinued and it should not be discontinued.

I also don't want to see the Sunset split up into 2 different trains either, as I get the gut feeling Anderson wants to do. Ditto with the Southwest Chief, and of course that famously stupid bus bridge idea between western Kansas and Albuquerque a year or 2 back. Only someone as stupid as Anderson would propose splitting say the Southwest Chief or the Sunset Limited into 2 different trains, which'd inevitably really hurt their ridership a lot.

And back to contemporary/flex dining for a second, I'd love to see data on the number of people who opt to upgrade to a sleeper on Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited, and of course all the other eastern long distance trains that got it starting in October. Looking at both the data of the number of people who opted to upgrade to a sleeper before the flex dining change, and after. Sad to say, I will NOT be surprised if the introduction of flex dining, has caused the number of people who opt to upgrade to a sleeper to decrease. And that more people nowadays on such downgraded Amtrak trains either only ride in coach(and just either bring their own food onto the train, or do something like UberEats or GrubHub at one of the very longer smoke stops in the middle of a long distance route, i.e. Indianapolis, IN, Atlanta, GA, Meridian, MS, Charlotte, NC, etc), or drive instead and totally skip taking Amtrak instead. Of course there is NO DOUBT that for some stations you would need to know your way around that stop, and that not every station is say like Minot, ND, where you can drive right up to that station. Some stations are like Saint Paul, where I got the sense it'd be a little bit of a walk through the Union Depot building, to get to the street. And that naturally doing UberEats or GrubHub would be easier to do in Winona, MN, where you can drive right up to that station and drop someone/something off. Trickier thing is the dwell time of this smoke stop is shorter vs. Saint Paul, so you'd have to put in such an order before the train arrives into Winona, and have the driver waiting to give the food to you right when the train arrives, to avoid the risk of you being left behind while waiting for such an UberEats/GrubHub/etc. order to arrive.

SarahZ(on the Travelogue/Trip Reports board) briefly mentioned for her trip that someone obviously tried doing such an UberEats/GrubHub(or whatever, sounds like it was along these lines) online order of some sort in Raton, NM, which is a shorter smoke stop on the Southwest Chief vs. Albuquerque. And that one of the Amtrak staff was yelling at that person 'if you don't get your food within the next 2 minutes, we are leaving no matter what!'. Luckily that guy got his food order barely in enough time and reboarded, before the train departed.

 

[jis]

Yes, EVERY flight is nonstop to somewhere, or else it is still in the air, getting refueled by a tanker! Can't argue with that! Similarly, the Capital Limited is nonstop from DC to Rockville....

I suspect DA meant to say point to point routes rather than a routing that passes through one or more hubs. That is the general trend these days in the expansion of service that is happening in the International sector. Not so much in the Domestic sector yet except for airlines like Southwest. But then Southwest is one of the largest of the domestic operations these days as far as I can tell.

Oh and the name of that train is "Capitol Limited" not "Capital Limited" just for future reference.

 

[Barb Stout]

I also don't want to see the Sunset split up into 2 different trains either, as I get the gut feeling Anderson wants to do. Ditto with the Southwest Chief, and of course that famously stupid bus bridge idea between western Kansas and Albuquerque a year or 2 back. Only someone as stupid as Anderson would propose splitting say the Southwest Chief or the Sunset Limited into 2 different trains, which'd inevitably really hurt their ridership a lot.

And back to contemporary/flex dining for a second, I'd love to see data on the number of people who opt to upgrade to a sleeper on Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited, and of course all the other eastern long distance trains that got it starting in October. Looking at both the data of the number of people who opted to upgrade to a sleeper before the flex dining change, and after. Sad to say, I will NOT be surprised if the introduction of flex dining, has caused the number of people who opt to upgrade to a sleeper to decrease. And that more people nowadays on such downgraded Amtrak trains either only ride in coach(and just either bring their own food onto the train, or do something like UberEats or GrubHub at one of the very longer smoke stops in the middle of a long distance route, i.e. Indianapolis, IN, Atlanta, GA, Meridian, MS, Charlotte, NC, etc), or drive instead and totally skip taking Amtrak instead. Of course there is NO DOUBT that for some stations you would need to know your way around that stop, and that not every station is say like Minot, ND, where you can drive right up to that station. Some stations are like Saint Paul, where I got the sense it'd be a little bit of a walk through the Union Depot building, to get to the street. And that naturally doing UberEats or GrubHub would be easier to do in Winona, MN, where you can drive right up to that station and drop someone/something off. Trickier thing is the dwell time of this smoke stop is shorter vs. Saint Paul, so you'd have to put in such an order before the train arrives into Winona, and have the driver waiting to give the food to you right when the train arrives, to avoid the risk of you being left behind while waiting for such an UberEats/GrubHub/etc. order to arrive.

SarahZ(on the Travelogue/Trip Reports board) briefly mentioned for her trip that someone obviously tried doing such an UberEats/GrubHub(or whatever, sounds like it was along these lines) online order of some sort in Raton, NM, which is a shorter smoke stop on the Southwest Chief vs. Albuquerque. And that one of the Amtrak staff was yelling at that person 'if you don't get your food within the next 2 minutes, we are leaving no matter what!'. Luckily that guy got his food order barely in enough time and reboarded, before the train departed.

I really don't see UberEats/GrubHub being feasible in so many cases. Many times one can't get cell service until pretty close to the smoke stop which then themselves are usually pretty short. Plus I assume not every locale (thinking small towns) has such a service.