Three in, Three out.

[Just-Thinking-51]

Random thought of the day.

If you were starting a commuter rail service, and all you could do was three trips inbound, and three trips outbound. What times for arrival, and departure for your city would be best.

Assuming it a hour long trip inbound, if that is important.

Arrive 7am 8am 9am

Departure 4pm 5pm 6pm

Sure a midday and late night would be helpful but for this question lets stick to Three trainsets, and three runs each direction.

 

[cpotisch]

I would go with a 6:00 or 6:30 AM for the people with a long commute, and then maybe an 8:00 and 9:00 for the people with a normal and/or shorter commute. On the way home, I would go with 5:00 PM, 6:00 PM, and 7:30 PM. Just a rough estimate.

 

[MattW]

For Atlanta, 6:30, 7, and 7:30. That gets you the bulk of the commuters as most jobs start between 8 and 9. Outbound is 5, 5:30, and 6:30 which gets the jobs letting out between 4:30 and 6..

 

[jis]

If all you could afford to do is three trips you should explore other options and skip trying to run a commuter rail service.

 

[cpotisch]

If all you could afford to do is three trips you should explore other options and skip trying to run a commuter rail service.

Yes, but I think you know that this is a hypothetical question and he does not have any actual intent to start a commuter rail service.

 

[jebr]

Eh, at that point I'd aim for interurban rail over commuter rail. If there's only the option for 3 trips a day, I'd rather try to serve the commuter market with more frequent buses and use rail for longer distances.

With that in mind, I'd probably go for 6 am, noon, and 6 pm from the smaller city into the bigger city. Outbound would be 7 am, 5:30 pm, and 10:30 pm (to try and catch those attending evening events in town.)

 

[jis]

If all you could afford to do is three trips you should explore other options and skip trying to run a commuter rail service.

Yes, but I think you know that this is a hypothetical question and he does not have any actual intent to start a commuter rail service.

My answer was completely hypothetical too [emoji41]

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Go big or go home.

No I am not starting a commuter railroad. In a random conversation with a waitress, discover she recently moved to Lamar CO, and her husband was driving 90 miles a day to work in Denver. Lamar to Denver is a single UP track. Denver proper has station limitations. If you cant afford to live in Denver and driving to work is 1.5 to 2 hours a day. I rather be on a train. Then of course the question is what arrival times work best for a limited capacity railroad/service. Got to have money to build a second track. What comes first the chicken or the egg? The arrival and departure times was the question, that was causing the scratch of the head. (It might time for some tar shampoo.)

Anyways thanks for the information.

 

[Maglev]

On Sound Transit's Seattle - Everett line, it is economical to run four trips, so I don't think three trips is unreasonable. The times to Seattle are 5:45, 6:15, 6:45 and 7:15 am (with Amtrak at 9:53 am and 9:07 PM), and from Seattle at 4:05, 4:33, 5:05, and 5:35 pm (with Amtrak at 7:45 am and 7 pm). There are no Sounder reverse runs for anyone working at (for example) Boeing in Everett.

 

[jrud]

How about another real world example that is close. MARC has four trains coming into Baltimore on the Camden line in the morning and three leaving in the evening. Yes, there is the Penn Line option but that is a treck to another train station. Often a light rail ride.

Arrive in morning at 7:43, 8:12, 8:48 and 9:08

Depart in afternoon at 3:40, 5:20 and 6:15

BTW - I work in DC and DC seems to start earlier in the morning than Baltimore.

 

[jis]

Depends on the semantics of "economical"

One of the reasons that transit gets a bad rap in the US is that they are funded just at the level where they come out looking like money hogs, and appear perennially to be on the verge of collapse, simply because there is not enough capacity or frequency of service to make them usable as transit. So the capital expenditure is made and then there aren't enough riders to cover that cost reasonably because there is not enough service to make it attractive enough for the riders to ride enough to make it worthwhile. Then we advocates go about inventing innovative meanings of the word "economical" which of course fools no one except ourselves.

I might add that it is reasonable to start at a reasonable level and grow from there, like North Carolina has been doing for example. But unfortunately, more often than not they just get stuck in the funding morass which does no real good for anyone.

Brightline for example defines economical for its purposes as at least 10 round trips per day but with something like 16 more preferable. They won't touch a corridor which has only the potential to support three or four round trips a day.

OK, now I guess I should put on my triple blessed Chain Mail and duck.

 

[NorthShore]

Historical Chicago commuter trains actually have some light to shine on such things:

https://www.chicagorailfan.com/mosw.html

Currently, the Heritage Corrridor still runs three trips inbound, four outbound. Though, this is the same route which Amtrak uses for the Texas Eagle and Chicago to St. Louis service, so there is some supplement at certain stations throughout the day. Further, Joliet is served by the Rock Island Line.

Dp Joliet 5:45 6:25 7:05

Intermediate stops at Lockport, Romeoville, Lemont, Willow Springs, Summit

Ar Chicago 6:52 7:32 8:12

Dp Chicago 2:50 4:50 5:25 6:12

Intermediate stops at Summit, Willow Springs, Lemont, Romeoville, Lockport

Ar Joliet. 3:51 5:56 6:31 7:18