thoughts sparked by Boardman presentation

[Nathanael]

One issue with the Western LD trains is that they tend to have some very busy segments that cause Amtrak all sorts of fits. Going by route:

-Empire Builder: Minneapolis-Chicago

-California Zephyr: Reno-Emeryville, Grand Junction/Glenwood Springs-Denver, and Denver-Chicago

-Coast Starlight: Seattle-Portland and Sacramento-Los Angeles

-Southwest Chief: Chicago-Kansas City

-Texas Eagle: Chicago-St. Louis

In several cases, additional capacity can be added with cut-off cars, but in a lot of cases Amtrak gets stuck locking out sales to preserve through capacity. On some routes, Amtrak could probably sell a huge number of additional seats given the lack of another train, and indeed some of those pairs could probably fully support another train.

It's worth noting that the Coast Starlight segment you mentioned actually *got* additional trains (the Cascades), as did the Texas Eagle segment (Lincoln Service). The Southwest Chief segment (Chicago-Kansas City) sort of does, with the alternate routing via Missouri River Runner and Lincoln Service. (Also, the Empire Builder has the Hiawathas, and the SWC and CZ have the Quincy trains.)And of course California HSR is trying to construct an alternate route from Sacramento-Los Angeles, eventually!

So it seems to be a viable model for what to do with these segments.

I guess this is already going on for parts of most of the eastern trains -- the LSL has Empire Service, Silver Service have the NEC and Richmond and Norfolk services, the Crescent and Cardinal have the Lynchburg service, the Crescent has Piedmont service, the CONO has Illini/Saluki service.

The *west* end of the LSL now tends to fill up, implying a need for more service along the entire length. And as other people have noted, the *Florida* end of the Silver Service is very busy.

 

[Nathanael]

Cardinal doesn't seem to be able to pull in enough business for even its current schedule. How would increasing it to daily, help in getting it to break $40 per train-mile?

Here's an example: I've repeatedly considered a trip to Indianapolis on the Cardinal to go to a convention. But the days the Cardinal runs on are all wrong for it. (It's actually wrong in *both* directions, not running east the day I'd want to go east and not running west the day I'd want to go west.)
A large amount of traffic is simply being turned away because the Cardinal doesn't run daily. Many people can adjust what time of day they travel but not what day they travel. If they can't go one direction by train they may choose not to go either direction by train.

Furthermore, people who still decide to take the train will pay less for an inconvenient schedule. If you have to stay an extra night in a hotel due to the train schedule, you probably are willing to pay less for the train ticket...

Going from 3-a-week to daily (7-a-week) multiplies ridership by *substantially more* than 7/3, consistently. The riders who were travelling before will also pay more per ticket.

Meanwhile, since most of the costs are overhead, the costs go up by substantially *less* than 7/3.

And we have evidence of this. Sometime in the mid-1990s, Amtrak made a disastrous decision to change a whole lot of its routes from daily to 3-a-week. Ridership cratered, losses skyrocketed, and Amtrak reversed the decision in less than a year.

 

[Nathanael]

Same problem, I'd say, killed the Desert Wind, running

SLC-Las Vegas-L.A. thru the Big Empty. Much the same

for the Pioneer, SLC-Boise-Portland-Seattle. Granted

SLC, Boise, and Vegas have seen solid growth since

the plug was pulled on the Pioneer and Desert Wind,

but in between them it's still empty. Restoring those

trains is very, very low on my wish list -- even if we got

them to go much faster.

FWIW, these are also trains I do not want to see restored any time soon, because *they would add additional overhead*, and *lots of it*. They have very little shared routing with other trains (the Pioneer didn't even run on the same side of the Columbia River as the Empire Builder does).

There are a couple of moves which Amtrak made in the past whose value has been underestimated, I think. Moving the SWC to the Burlington route from Galesburg-Chicago. Consolidating the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited on the same route from Cleveland to Chicago. Even the removal of the southern end of the Palmetto, to my surprise, increased the runtime from Jacksonville to Tampa by only 20 minutes (from 5:00 to 5:20), while removing the overhead on four stations and some track from the system.

NARP tends to measure "how big" the Amtrak system is by route-miles, which isn't the metric I'd use. They do note frequencies on their historical maps, which is more useful.

 

[Nathanael]

BTW, thanks to everyone for the informative discussion of the Sunset Limited route, and populations thereon. I don't really have anything to add. It does seem that the situation has changed since 1970 to give the route a lot more potential, with bigger cities which now have urban rail systems. Well, hopefully it will be daily eventually.

 

[Anderson]

Nathaniel, I hate to break it to you, but CHI-DEN is 18:15 WB and 18:40 EB (the WB average speed is 56.9 MPH). If you could round up the money to get that track up to 90/110, you could probably drop the runtime by an hour or two (16 hours even would require an average speed of 64.9 MPH, while 15 hours even would require 69.2 MPH), move the departure time later out of CHI and make the arrival earlier, and add a substantial block of ridership. 16:30-17:00 ought to be doable with the upgrades and/or reroute that IA and IL have looked at for the long term.

As to Salt Lake City, the issue is one part runtime and one part arrival time. SLC has the absolute worst times on the Zephyr (midnight WB and 0300-ish EB), which likely reduces any appeal for folks coming/going there, regardless of direction.

 

[jphjaxfl]

Nathaniel, I hate to break it to you, but CHI-DEN is 18:15 WB and 18:40 EB (the WB average speed is 56.9 MPH). If you could round up the money to get that track up to 90/110, you could probably drop the runtime by an hour or two (16 hours even would require an average speed of 64.9 MPH, while 15 hours even would require 69.2 MPH), move the departure time later out of CHI and make the arrival earlier, and add a substantial block of ridership. 16:30-17:00 ought to be doable with the upgrades and/or reroute that IA and IL have looked at for the long term.

As to Salt Lake City, the issue is one part runtime and one part arrival time. SLC has the absolute worst times on the Zephyr (midnight WB and 0300-ish EB), which likely reduces any appeal for folks coming/going there, regardless of direction.

CB&Q's Denver Zephyr left Chicago at 5:30PM CT and arrived in Denver at 8:30AM MT so made it 16 hours. It arrived 10 min after the California Zephyr which left Chicago at 3:10PM CT, but the Denver Zephyr was a shorter train. That's when CB&Q's roadbed was in excellent shape with constant maintenance.

 

[Anderson]

Nathaniel, I hate to break it to you, but CHI-DEN is 18:15 WB and 18:40 EB (the WB average speed is 56.9 MPH). If you could round up the money to get that track up to 90/110, you could probably drop the runtime by an hour or two (16 hours even would require an average speed of 64.9 MPH, while 15 hours even would require 69.2 MPH), move the departure time later out of CHI and make the arrival earlier, and add a substantial block of ridership. 16:30-17:00 ought to be doable with the upgrades and/or reroute that IA and IL have looked at for the long term.

As to Salt Lake City, the issue is one part runtime and one part arrival time. SLC has the absolute worst times on the Zephyr (midnight WB and 0300-ish EB), which likely reduces any appeal for folks coming/going there, regardless of direction.

CB&Q's Denver Zephyr left Chicago at 5:30PM CT and arrived in Denver at 8:30AM MT so made it 16 hours. It arrived 10 min after the California Zephyr which left Chicago at 3:10PM CT, but the Denver Zephyr was a shorter train. That's when CB&Q's roadbed was in excellent shape with constant maintenance.

Huh. That sounds a lot like the California Zephyr got pretty badly screwed by a bunch of double spots (likely among other issues, but the spots couldn't have helped things in the least if they were having to double up at stops like OSC). If you have to add in five minutes for a spot, it's not hard to "lose" an hour along the way.

So 16 hours should be doable on paper, at the very least, albeit with a lot of improvements needed to make it happen.

 

[Tokkyu40]

Adding frequencies can have a disproportionate effect on ridership. When the Surfliner increased the number of trains by 50% it doubled the number of passengers because it became more convenient.
One point to consider is that the long distance routes are actually a string of corridors. I've read that average trip length is around 700 miles and a train like the Eagle sells each seat 3 times on a trip.
There's a lot of potential if Amtrak considers the trains in that light. Run 2 trains a day at 12 hour intervals, plus additional local corridor runs in the higher traffic sections, such as LA to Tucson and San Antonio to DFW.
This, of course, would work better if the on time performance is improved so a train isn't passed by the train 12 hours behind it.

 

[Anderson]

Adding frequencies can have a disproportionate effect on ridership. When the Surfliner increased the number of trains by 50% it doubled the number of passengers because it became more convenient.

One point to consider is that the long distance routes are actually a string of corridors. I've read that average trip length is around 700 miles and a train like the Eagle sells each seat 3 times on a trip.

There's a lot of potential if Amtrak considers the trains in that light. Run 2 trains a day at 12 hour intervals, plus additional local corridor runs in the higher traffic sections, such as LA to Tucson and San Antonio to DFW.

This, of course, would work better if the on time performance is improved so a train isn't passed by the train 12 hours behind it.

This has been observed in a few other cases:

-When NC added a second Piedmont, ridership spiked by something like 150% over three years, while ridership on the Carolinian also got a bump.

-When VA added the fifth Richmond-DC train a few years back, ridership on the relevant Regionals jumped by a third in two years (and 50% in three years, though the third year added Norfolk for much of the year).

12-hour intervals don't always make sense (you can end up with some really bad times at key stations; witness the old Pennsylvanian, for example), but there are often intervals that would make sense. I recall musing elsewhere that "inverting" the LSL's schedule (running a late evening train out of NYP and a mid-afternoon train out of CHI, for a later arrival in CHI and an early morning arrival into NYP) would make a bunch of additional connections (the Star would likely be legal both ways, as would the Meteor) and appeal to a different subset of markets (overnight BUF-NYP and daylight service CHI-CLE). You'd be trading the Silvers for the Western LDs, but it should be a sellable option.

With the western LD trains, a second frequency that at least connected to the Midwest Hub would make sense. The other key, of course, is that if you add a second daily train on a route, you no longer have to try and make everything work with one train. If you have two trains, one can focus on connections at one end and the other focus on the other end. With a second Zephyr, for example, one train could be timed to give SLC passable times each way and/or connect to the "other" Starlight.

 

[Nathanael]

Nathaniel, I hate to break it to you, but CHI-DEN is 18:15 WB and 18:40 EB

My calculations were clearly off -- I did those on the fly from the timetable while writing. :-(
Still, my main point stands: price of CHI-DEN is similar to price of DEN-EMY most times I've looked, but DEN-EMY is *much* longer. One has a lot more potential than the other. DEN-CHI looks "Palmetto-like", but with an anchor city on the west end. DEN-EMY... doesn't.

 

[Nathanael]

I recall musing elsewhere that "inverting" the LSL's schedule (running a late evening train out of NYP and a mid-afternoon train out of CHI, for a later arrival in CHI and an early morning arrival into NYP) would make a bunch of additional connections (the Star would likely be legal both ways, as would the Meteor) and appeal to a different subset of markets (overnight BUF-NYP and daylight service CHI-CLE). You'd be trading the Silvers for the Western LDs, but it should be a sellable option.

The earliest you can currently get to NYP from upstate NY west of Schenectady is 12:50 PM. The latest you can leave is 3:50 PM. As you may notice, this breaks connections with most of the southbound trains apart from NEC and Keystone; you can make the Silver Meteor, the Crescent, and the Norfolk train, and Richmond trains, but none of the other destinations (no Cardinal, no Carolinian, no Newport News).
On Sundays it's even worse, with the earliest arrival in NYC from upstate being 3:50 PM, breaking every single connection apart from NEC and Keystone. I've actually tried to work out train trips several times and given up because of this.

Staying overnight in NYC is truly expensive, so there will be a market for making same-day connections to the southbound trains even if you have to catch the train in the middle of the night in upstate NY. So your idea is very good, and probably captures even more markets than you might have thought.

It would still connect with all the corridor trains in the Midwest, except the Missouri River Runner.

FWIW, I'd be sorely tempted to run such a train via Dearborn and the Michigan line in order to capture another large market - Michigan to the east. If you're arriving and departing midday at Chicago, and so not worrying about connections at Chicago, the extra time (about an hour at last estimate I read) is a worthwhile tradeoff for the added markets served. (It would even connect with the Blue Water and the Pontiac trains.)

The other key, of course, is that if you add a second daily train on a route, you no longer have to try and make everything work with one train. If you have two trains, one can focus on connections at one end and the other focus on the other end.

Yep!

 

[WoodyinNYC]

... a daily Sunset Limited, the agreement that Amtrak signed with UP

on the schedule change had a clause that Amtrak would not make

a request to UP for SL daily service for 2 years after the implementation

of the schedule change. That agreement was signed in February, 2012

and the SL schedule change took place in May, 2012. So the 2 years

restriction will end this spring. Amtrak could resume efforts for a daily SL,

although they may want to wait until an opportune time to reopen

discussions with UP.

Since UP has been doing a lot of double tracking on the Sunset route

with the intent of making the whole LA-El Paso section double tracked,

I assumed that the "opportune time" that Amtrak would wait for would be

when the double tracking was finished. That might be why they so readily

agreed to a two year moratorium on discussions, since they knew that

project would take more than two more years anyway.

Problem I'm seeing is that UP isn't working consistently on this project.

They keep ramping up work and then scaling it back based on their own

traffic and whatever else they need to spend money on at that time.

Last thing I read was that they were 70% done with that whole section of line,

but that they were nearly halting the double track project to sink all of their

money into trying to meet the PTC deadline. With the final completion date

for this project such a moving target, Amtrak may just want to jump into

negotiations whenever they feel like they've got all their own ducks in a row. . . .

Maybe you mean when Amtrak gets its own railcars in a row.

At this moment, Amtrak doesn't have a locomotive to spare, nor

surplus coaches, sleepers, diners, baggage cars, or crew dorms.

Aside from that, they're ready whenever UP gives the signal!

So lessee. How to get some trains for a daily Sunset Limited?

Next generation diesels are almost, about to, well OK, "soon"

the contract will be signed for the corridor version, to be used

in the Midwest and West Coast corridors. And "soon" the

long-distance version of the next generation diesel engine

will be … oh, wait, where's the funding for that?

Already next generation corridor coaches have been ordered.

(I assume production has begun in Rochelle, IL, but I have seen

not a word in print to confirm that wishful thought.) So next-

generation long-distance coaches could be almost, about to,

well, OK, "soon" be ordered … but wait, where's the funding

for that?

Maybe some of the Superliners replaced by the new corridor

bi-levels could be rerouted to the Sunset Limited. Maybe

enough Horizons could be rerouted to Eastern long distance

trains, or a short order for Viewliner coaches could materialize,

to allow using single level cars on the Capitol Limited (or even

on the City of New Orleans). That could free up a few trains'

worth of Superliner equipment for the Sunset Limited and other

needful Western trains. But I doubt Amtrak will go that route.

Until it can go daily, the Sunset Ltd is the poster child of money-

losing long distance trains, the devil's gift to Randal O'Toole and

the other haters. But until Amtrak makes more progress on fleet

replacement/expansion, the Sunset ain't going nowhere. Alas.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Paulus said:

...

Furthermore, speaking solely of FRA defined costs,

every single long distance train except for the Auto Train

lost money . . .

As for the idea of expanding operations reducing the losses:

Nope. You need at least $40 per train mile in revenue for

one of those trains to break even on the marginal costs.

But the actual results were (approximately, going off

scheduled train miles with no adjustments for cancellations,

FY2013)

...

Cardinal: $24.03

...

Woody said:

...

Even a few more Viewliners could have a major impact

on the ability to upgrade service, or expand it, like

taking the Cardinal daily.

....

Cardinal doesn't seem to be able to pull in enough business

for even its current schedule. How would increasing it to daily

help in getting it to break $40 per train-mile?

A softball question! Thanks!

A big reason the Cardinal loses big money is that it's

so terribly wasteful: With the lousy 3-days-a-week

schedule, the equipment sits and works on its rusting

for the other 4 days. Daily service therefore, could be

added with virtually "free" equipment. A great deal.

Crew is wasted as well: Work 3 days a week, spend

4 days collecting "away pay" with hotel rooms paid for,

but doing no actual work. Daily service, therefore,

could be added with crews coming to work at a real

bargain rate-- the modest increase over the "away pay"

and hotel costs. A great deal.

​So with the Cardinal, if we had the equipment, it would

simply be, "Add the diesel fuel and go!"

But that's not all. Others have mentioned how the awful

​inconvenience of irregular schedules discourages many

travelers. What the advertising folks call "share of mind",

or "brand awareness", well, who pays attention to a train

that runs not every day, not even every other day? So

marketing and advertising costs are wasted.

Daily Cardinals then would feed more traffic to other

long distance and corridor trains at Chicago, at

Charlottesville, at D.C., and even in NYC.

And of course, with 3-day-a-week service, stations must

still be staffed, cleaned, lighted, heated or cooled, policed,

but services like checked baggage aren't offered, not even

in Indianapolis iirc.

Going from 3 days a week to 7 days, however, would

require another train (from three to four of them) --

a locomotive, sleeper, diner, coach, and the PRIIA study

mentioned the shortage of baggage cars as a big problem.

Where we gonna get the stuff? OK, baggage car, crew

dorm/bag car, a full baggage car, a sleeper and a diner

might come out of the Viewliner order. Especially if the option,

or part of the option, is exercised to get more cars in the

fleet to work with. And then a locomotive could get moved

here when the new next generation diesels arrive for use

on the Midwest corridor trains.

So going daily with the Cardinal is a sweet deal. But it still

won't be easy.

Of course, much the same case can be made for the

3-day-a-week Sunset Limited.

btw In the commotion over whether Indiana would pay for

the Hoosier State or not, a rough and ready study was done

for the Indiana DoT. For roughly $100 million, upgrades on

the route would take half an hour out of the schedule for

Indianapolis-Chicago. For a modest subsidy, a new corridor

train could run here with twice daily frequency, allowing

three trains a day each way (counting the Cardinal)

Indianapolis-Lafayette-Chicago. If Indianapolis gets into

the corridor game like this, it would help the Cardinal a lot,

adding passengers and sharing station costs.

 

[Anderson]

Woody,
The idea I had was to take a pair of existing NYP-ALB Empire slots and extend them to CHI (presumably with some agreement between Amtrak and New York to get at least a bit of cash out of New York given the intrastate traffic likely involved, not to mention the pre-existing train being coopted). You'd presumably add a few cars at ALB when you changed out the loco, so as not to affect the Empire service. The schedule looked something like this (with the existing Empire trains listed with their present numbers):

| 48 | 232 || 49 | 245 |
NYP | 1835 | 0826 || 1540 | 2245 |
ALB | 1540 | 0555 || 1905 | 0145 |
BUF | 0908 | 0005 || 2359 | 0650 |
CLE | 0550 | 2030 || 0345 | 1035 |
CHI | 2230 | 1330 || 1045 | 1735 |
Note the markets served well in each case: 232 is going to connect with just about anything you want to on the East Coast. The lone exceptions are the Cardinal and Palmetto, but the latter (at least) is doubled-up on by the Silver Meteor. Likewise, 245 connects with the Silver Star, and notably the two also allow for connections to/from the Adirondack and the Vermonter. Additionally, from what I recall of the Midwest timetables, 245/232 would allow connections to/from most of the Midwest Hub routes; you start getting into very specific combos there that don't have coverage.

(Before anyone objects, all times are Eastern so as to preserve my sanity, and are departure times unless at the end of a run. As a result, 245 has 30 minutes added at ALB to account for the loco switch, and CHI appears off from the existing timetables. You might also plausibly add in 30-60 minutes' pad at ALB for 232 to account for delays, like 48 presently has. Ironically, this would make the train better, since it would move BUF's time closer to 11 PM)

 

[Aaron]

Until it can go daily, the Sunset Ltd is the poster child of money-

losing long distance trains, the devil's gift to Randal O'Toole and

the other haters. But until Amtrak makes more progress on fleet

replacement/expansion, the Sunset ain't going nowhere. Alas.

In this post, you seem to say that daily Sunset is impossible because Amtrak doesn't have spare cars. Yet, in the very next post you say that making the Cardinal daily would be a piece of cake because the equipment's otherwise sitting idle while the train's not running. That's the case with the Sunset Limited, as well. The equipment just sits around for 2-3 days on either end instead of turning right around and going into use.

The PIP for the daily Sunset Limited actually calculated that combining the Sunset and Eagle and shifting the Sunset to daily service following that plan would use one fewer locomotive, 4 fewer baggage cars, 1 fewer trans-dorms, 4 fewer sleepers, 4 fewer diners, and 1 fewer lounge. The extra sleepers and diners would be sent on to the Capitol Limited where they're sorely needed. The TE/SL would then need 1 more coach, 1 more coach/bag, and 5 more CCCs, but those are plentiful.

That particular plan involving the combined CHI-LAX run and the stub train from NOL-SAS may not be the best way to do it, nor may it be what's eventually done, but any similar plan would work with the equipment already running. Conclusion: Availability of cars is a problem in general, but it's not an obstacle to a daily Sunset.

 

[afigg]

Going from 3 days a week to 7 days, however, would

require another train (from three to four of them) --

a locomotive, sleeper, diner, coach, and the PRIIA study

mentioned the shortage of baggage cars as a big problem.

Where we gonna get the stuff? OK, baggage car, crew

dorm/bag car, a full baggage car, a sleeper and a diner

might come out of the Viewliner order. Especially if the option,

or part of the option, is exercised to get more cars in the

fleet to work with. And then a locomotive could get moved

here when the new next generation diesels arrive for use

on the Midwest corridor trains.

Woody, you should read or re-read the PIP reports for the Cardinal and the Sunset Limited for the equipment numbers for daily service. As noted, the SL going daily on the revised schedule and stub train would free up Superliners for use elsewhere.
The 3 day a week Cardinal uses 2 trainsets, daily service would require a 3rd trainset. Once the new Viewliner IIs are available, there will be enough bag-dorms, sleepers, diner, Amfleet II cafe/lounge cars to support 3 Cardinal trainsets. The tight supply will be in Amfleet II coach cars, but there may be ways to be more efficient with Am IIs fleet utilization. And possibly convert some Horizon coach cars to LD configuration.

The new corridor bi-level cars will free up Superliners in corridor service in CA and the Mid-west. But they will only free up coach cars. More Superliner coach cars for the LD trains will be useful, but won't add to the short supply of Superliner sleeper, lounge, diner cars for the LD trains. Only a new equipment order can do that.

 

[Blackwolf]

Question on the talk of the "stub train" to/from New Orleans for the hypothetical combination of the Texas Eagle. It was mentioned that this potentially causes issues due to the 750-mile rule, but I'm reminded of trains like the Lake Shore Limited and the Empire Builder that on a daily basis both combine and split "stub trains" without issue. Last I checked the distance between Portland Oregon and Spokane Washington was much less than 750 miles, yet PRIIA does not interfere with that service. Why would a similar train to/from New Orleans be any different if it combined with the TE and ran through to Los Angeles on the time table?

 

[Eric S]

I imagine the Empire Builder and Lake Shore Limited situations are not considered stub trains, but rather just different sections (Boston and New York, or Portland and Seattle) of the same train.

Wasn't the Sunset Limited proposal to run a separate train San Antonio - New Orleans, rather than splitting the train in San Antonio into a Chicago section (current Texas Eagle) and a New Orleans section (current Sunset Limited)?

 

[Nathanael]

I am quite sure that, one way or another, the supposed 750 mile rule -- which isn't actually a "750 mile rule" -- would not be an issue. There are enough other issues preventing the restructure. :-(

 

[Aaron]

Question on the talk of the "stub train" to/from New Orleans for the hypothetical combination of the Texas Eagle. It was mentioned that this potentially causes issues due to the 750-mile rule, but I'm reminded of trains like the Lake Shore Limited and the Empire Builder that on a daily basis both combine and split "stub trains" without issue. Last I checked the distance between Portland Oregon and Spokane Washington was much less than 750 miles, yet PRIIA does not interfere with that service. Why would a similar train to/from New Orleans be any different if it combined with the TE and ran through to Los Angeles on the time table?

The big difference is that the connection between the stub train and the regular Sunset/Eagle would be a "cross platform transfer", i.e. get off one train and get on the other. No cars or parts of the train ever actually touch. With the LSL and the EB, individual pieces of the train are being taken off or put back together.

As Nathanael points out, that's not an issue though. His read of the law (which I assume is correct since I haven't read the whole thing myself) is that the "750 mile rule" only applies to trains run on designated federal high-speed rail corridors. San Antonio-New Orleans isn't one, so Amtrak is (legally) free to start or run any sort of train there. They could run a five times daily train just between Lafayette and Lake Charles without any state support if they really wanted to, although that seems like a colossally bad idea.

 

[Trogdor]

I am quite sure that, one way or another, the supposed 750 mile rule -- which isn't actually a "750 mile rule" -- would not be an issue.

Not sure what you mean by that, but the 750-mile rule is very much a real rule.

49 USC 24102(5)(D)

 

[Anderson]

My read of the rules is that there were four categories of service:
-The NEC

-The "National Network", which was defined as trains over 750 miles serving endpoints served at enactment*

-<750 mile trains

-Federal HSR corridors

Amtrak is only allowed to run the first two without state support.

*This means that the train connects two (or more) of the following cities:
-Boston
-New York

-Washington

-Lorton

-Savannah

-Sanford

-Miami

-Chicago

-New Orleans

-San Antonio

-Seattle

-Portland

-Emeryville

-Los Angeles

Presumably, limited variations would be permitted (i.e. Emeryville vs. Oakland, BOS vs BON), and sections going elsewhere might or might not be allowable (the Cardinal PIP seemed to imply that St. Louis would be allowable, while hypothetical discussions on a Newport News leg of the Cardinal seem to go negative on the grounds that VA would wind up on the hook for a large portion of the Cardinal). Completely unclear is whether a "subset" train would be allowable (i.e. CHI-DEN), particularly if being run strictly as a capacity supplement.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Going from 3 days a week to 7 days, however, would

require another train (from three to four of them) --

a locomotive, sleeper, diner, coach, and the PRIIA study

mentioned the shortage of baggage cars as a big problem.

Where we gonna get the stuff? OK, baggage car, crew

dorm/bag car, a full baggage car, a sleeper and a diner

might come out of the Viewliner order. Especially if the option,

or part of the option, is exercised to get more cars in the

fleet to work with. And then a locomotive could get moved

here when the new next generation diesels arrive for use

on the Midwest corridor trains.

Woody, you should read or re-read the PIP reports for the Cardinal

and the Sunset Limited for the equipment numbers for daily service.

As noted, the SL going daily on the revised schedule and stub train

would free up Superliners for use elsewhere.

The 3 day a week Cardinal uses 2 trainsets, daily service would require

a 3rd trainset. Once the new Viewliner IIs are available, there will be

enough bag-dorms, sleepers, diner, Amfleet II cafe/lounge cars to

support 3 Cardinal trainsets. The tight supply will be in Amfleet II

coach cars, but there may be ways to be more efficient with Am IIs

fleet utilization. And possibly convert some Horizon coach cars to

LD configuration.

. . .

Sorry. Late night stupidification. Or something.

Only 3 train sets needed for a daily Cardinal. But just barely

enuf Viewliner II diners will be available to replace the current

equipment and increase it by 50%. (I'd be more comfortable

if Amtrak exercised options for even 4 more diners. Period.)

-----------------------

Anyway, on re-re-reading the PRIAA study, I was much

reminded of the recent rough and ready study of the Hoosier

State. It claimed that roughly $100 million in upgrades (like

three or four sidetracks, etc) could get half an hour out of

the schedule Indianapolis-Lafayette-Chicago. That section

carries about one fifth (something over 19%) of the Cardinal's

total passengers.

Cutting half an hour out would get the train into Union Station

at 9:30 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. That's a more businesslike

arrival time. On the evening return, passengers could arrive

at Indianapolis at 11:20 p.m. How much nicer to get into

your taxi or parking lot before midnight instead of after.

Little tweaks like this could have a huge impact. And add

one or two roundtrips of the Hoosier State to further boost

ridership and share some station costs etc.

Simply going daily is figured to take total riders from 113,000

a year in 2013 to an estimated 275,000. That improves cost

recovery to 35% (up from an abysmal 17% for the Hoosier State

and 29% for the 3-days-a-week Cardinal), from a combined 27%.

Loss per passenger mile improves by 31%, from ($0.42) combined

Hoosier State/Cardinal to ($0.29). Passenger miles per train mile

would go from 109.2 combined to 125.5, a 15% improvement.

The splendid results would come because frequency would increase

by 133% (4 more days worth) while Train & Engine Labor costs would

only increase by 55% "primarily from the elimination of non-productive

“held-away” payments associated with tri-weekly service."

btw:

"The Cardinal [SIZE=16.104px]operating plan proposed . . . [/SIZE][SIZE=16.104px]preserves the possibility[/SIZE]
of a future St. Louis [SIZE=16.104px]gateway connection that could be achieved by [/SIZE]
[SIZE=16.104px]sp[/SIZE][SIZE=16.104px]litting the train at In[/SIZE][SIZE=16.104px]dianapolis or Cincinnati [/SIZE][SIZE=16.104px]and operating a section [/SIZE]
[SIZE=16.104px]west to St. Louis. That is not being recommended now because it:[/SIZE]
* Does not improve the cost recovery ratio as [SIZE=16.104px]much as daily service alone, [/SIZE]
[SIZE=16.104px]and would [/SIZE][SIZE=16.104px]require a substantial increase [/SIZE][SIZE=16.104px]in Federal funding,[/SIZE]
* Is not operationally feasible due to lack of equipment, and
* Would require operation over segments of ho[SIZE=16.104px]st railroad [/SIZE]
[SIZE=16.104px]right of way not currently used [/SIZE][SIZE=16.104px]by Amtrak."[/SIZE]

[SIZE=16.104px]We need to see an order for at least 5 more Viewliner II diners. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=16.104px]And for more Viewliner IIs [/SIZE][SIZE=16.104px]period.[/SIZE]

 

[afigg]

I imagine the Empire Builder and Lake Shore Limited situations are not considered stub trains, but rather just different sections (Boston and New York, or Portland and Seattle) of the same train.

Wasn't the Sunset Limited proposal to run a separate train San Antonio - New Orleans, rather than splitting the train in San Antonio into a Chicago section (current Texas Eagle) and a New Orleans section (current Sunset Limited)?

I don't understand the confusion over the EB and LSL. They are LD trains that split/combine at Spokane and Albany. with the cars going to different cities. The distance between Boston and Albany is irrelevant because the Boston section cars are going to Chicago.

The proposal for the SL was a little different as some cars would only run between New Orleans and San Antonio. But several of the cars from NOL would be connected to the TE and then run through to LA. If the service from NOL to LA is still called the Sunset Limited, but structured a bit differently in how the SL currently combines with the TE, then the 750 mile rule is not an issue. The SL is one of the "grand-fathered" LD trains anyway.

Amtrak wants a new station at Atlanta in part so it can drop & pickup cars there for the busier NYP-ATL segment. But that won't make those cars running only on the NYP-ATL section on the Crescent a corridor service.

If people want to understand the 750 mile rule, they can always search for and read the 2008 PRIIA act or read the summary explanation on the FRA website. However, the 2008 PRIIA act has expired, and who knows what the House might try to slide in an re-authorization act?

 

[afigg]

...

Only 3 train sets needed for a daily Cardinal. But just barely

enuf Viewliner II diners will be available to replace the current

equipment and increase it by 50%. (I'd be more comfortable

if Amtrak exercised options for even 4 more diners. Period.)

-----------------------

Anyway, on re-re-reading the PRIAA study, I was much

reminded of the recent rough and ready study of the Hoosier

State. It claimed that roughly $100 million in upgrades (like

three or four sidetracks, etc) could get half an hour out of

the schedule Indianapolis-Lafayette-Chicago. That section

carries about one fifth (something over 19%) of the Cardinal's

total passengers.

Cutting half an hour out would get the train into Union Station

at 9:30 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. That's a more businesslike

arrival time. On the evening return, passengers could arrive

at Indianapolis at 11:20 p.m. How much nicer to get into

your taxi or parking lot before midnight instead of after.

...

We need to see an order for at least 5 more Viewliner II diners.

And for more Viewliner IIs period.

Amtrak has 20 remaining Heritage diners plus the 8400. The LSL, Crescent, the Silvers use 15 diners in their 15 consists. The Viewliner II order of 25 diners will expand the single level diner fleet by 5. A daily Cardinal with diner cars (and bag-dorms) will expand the number of operating consists to 18, so the current order is enough to support a daily Cardinal. The number of diner, bag-dorms, and especially sleepers is tight if one wants to restore a Three Rivers/Broadway Limited or turn the Palmetto into a Silver Palm running overnight to Miami.
On the Indiana Hoosier State study, as I recall, the upgrades to cut 30 minutes from the trip time were only for improvements in the state of Indiana. Improvements and route changes in Chicago and Illinois under the CREATE program were not covered by that study, so there are more trip time reductions that are possible for the Hoosier State & Cardinal to Indianapolis without an expensive higher speed rail project. Whether Indiana will fund $100 million, even spread out over, say, 10 years for track upgrades for a passenger train service remains to be seen.