Trains in rural areas

[oregon pioneer]

It is really hard to explain what the Great Basin is like until you have been there. Between Lakeview, OR and Pendleton, OR, someone can drive 335 miles and pass through one* town large enough to have a supermarket. (Although @oregon pioneer might correct me on that).

*Actually, there are two: Burns (Safeway) and John Day (Thriftway). They are 73 miles apart. The rest of that road is a whole lotta sagebrush and mountains with trees. Very scenic, though!

Now back to our regular programming.... where those of us who live in the remotest areas wish we had a closer train, and we are glad for the rural stations that we do have.

 

[MARC Rider]

Here is a (slightly dated) map if anyone is interested. My town qualifies as a "Frontier and Remote" area.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/51020/52626_farcodesmaps.pdf?v=9372.8

Hey, our summer place in Maine is in a FAR county. And because that county lies on the US-Canada border, it's really a "frontier" county!

 

[Matthew H Fish]

*Actually, there are two: Burns (Safeway) and John Day (Thriftway). They are 73 miles apart. The rest of that road is a whole lotta sagebrush and mountains with trees. Very scenic, though!

Now back to our regular programming.... where those of us who live in the remotest areas wish we had a closer train, and we are glad for the rural stations that we do have.

I actually knew about the John Day Thriftway, but considered it a "grocery store" and not a "supermarket"---but perhaps that is getting a bit too technical.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

I simplified what I said about North Carolina, but I am not wrong. About 74,000 people in North Carolina live in FAR areas. This is about 0.8% of the population. From looking at the map, that is mostly in a few areas on the Atlantic, and one small area in the western part of the state (around Murphy).

Since you mentioned Madison County, I looked it up. It has a population density of 46 people per square mile. For comparison against some counties on Amtrak's long distance routes in the western states, Elko County, Nevada has a density of 2.8 people per square mile. Humboldt County (Winnemucca) has a density of 1.8 people per square miles. In Oregon, Klamath County (Klamath Falls and Chemult) is relatively populous with 11. Phillips County, Montana (Malta) is 0.8. Hill County, Montana (Havre) is 5.6. Coconino County, Arizona (Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon) is 7.8.

So I am not wrong--- objectively, we can look at population densities, and its pretty easy to show that even the more rural parts of the Eastern US usually have high population densities compared to areas like the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin.

Not that you're wrong, but one needs to also look at the size of the counties - it wouldn't surprise me if some of the mentioned counties are as big as or bigger than the entire state of North Carolina. And thanks for posting those charts (oops, that Ex valley). Of course, Asheville is like 400k metro if wikipedia is to be believed.

Despite being a Chicago native and resident, I've also lived in places that are truly tiny, 10k doesn't cut it as tiny. I'm talking gas station and convenience store for like maybe two or three dozen houses with not much more around it.

Anyway, not sure what my point was (going to be) here, so back to the regularly scheduled programming to quote the pioneer from Oregon!

 

[Matthew H Fish]

Not that you're wrong, but one needs to also look at the size of the counties - it wouldn't surprise me if some of the mentioned counties are as big as or bigger than the entire state of North Carolina. And thanks for posting those charts (oops, that Ex valley). Of course, Asheville is like 400k metro if wikipedia is to be believed.

Despite being a Chicago native and resident, I've also lived in places that are truly tiny, 10k doesn't cut it as tiny. I'm talking gas station and convenience store for like maybe two or three dozen houses with not much more around it.

Anyway, not sure what my point was (going to be) here, so back to the regularly scheduled programming to quote the pioneer from Oregon!

Not bigger than the size of North Carolina, but for example, Harney County in Oregon is larger than New Jersey, and one-fifth the size of North Carolina, and has a population of 7500 people.

 

[joelkfla]

I actually knew about the John Day Thriftway, but considered it a "grocery store" and not a "supermarket"---but perhaps that is getting a bit too technical.

Their web page says:
Chester's Thriftway John Day
"Whatever you are looking for, you'll find it at Chester's. Visit our supermarket and see what we have to offer. "

 

[Matthew H Fish]

But I wasn't just being pedantic and elitist when I talked about the different type of rural. As far as train and other transit service goes, they also are very different service/business models.

If it is the type of service that Amtrak currently has in places like Michigan or Illinois, a lot of those towns and small cities are not that small. If you have a place where you have 100 miles of rail, and you have a city of 5-20,000 people every 10-20 miles, then you have enough population where you have a lot of people who want to travel. In a city of 10,000 people, if 1% of people want to travel to a metro hub per day, you have 100 possible riders. If you have five cities in 100 miles, then you can have 500 riders---enough to easily fill a train. Obviously not everyone is a train rider, but the basic fact is that those "small, rural" towns add up to a large population.
(Even within that, because Amtrak is a subsidized service, I imagine some of it is also political, that stations are kept where they are underutilized to get support, but I don't know a lot about that)

But the situation on Amtrak's long distance routes has a different rationale. Other than tourism, the main reason that there are stops in places like the highline of Montana and northern Nevada is that it is the only way that some people there can access basic services. If you live in Havre, Montana, there are times when you might need to go to Seattle or Minneapolis to see a medical specialist. And a lot of the people in those areas would have no way to reach places like that without subsidized transit, either through Amtrak or the EAS program. (Which towns on the Empire Builder also have). I don't actually know the numbers here, but I think that is one of the reasons why there are stops in so many small towns on that route. And even conservative politicians realize that closing down subsidized transportation for those areas would not be a popular move.

So with rural trains, there are two rationales--- for "soft" rural areas, they are there because, despite appearances, those rural towns function more like exurbs, and they have sufficient populations to create demand, and that for "hard" rural areas (FAR areas and the like), they are supported as a social service, both for providing transportation and creating jobs/tourism.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Hey, our summer place in Maine is in a FAR county. And because that county lies on the US-Canada border, it's really a "frontier" county!

Where I live Washington County ME has a density of around 4.8 per sq. mi which rivals some Western state areas. Northwestern Maine is even more deserted, where the townships don't even have names, just numbers on a map. Definitely more moose than people.

 

[MARC Rider]

Where I live Washington County ME has a density of around 4.8 per sq. mi which rivals some Western state areas. Northwestern Maine is even more deserted, where the townships don't even have names, just numbers on a map. Definitely more moose than people.

Our camp is in Oxford County in a township called Adamstown. This "town" is what they call "unorganized," and I think my dad pays his property tax to the state. There's not much there, but we are on a paved highway, about six miles to Oquossoc, which has a post office, small food market, and a couple of restaurants, and and about 12 miles to Rangeley, which has all the basic town services including an IGA supermarket. We have telephone service and internet, though there was no phone service when my parents bought the pace in 1971.

The thing is that about 35 miles away, there's a town called Rumford, which has a large paper mill, supermarkets, and even a Wal Mart. About 40 miles away in neighboring Franklin County, which is also a FAR county, is the county seat of Farmington, which supports, in addition to the court and county government, a hospital, a couple of supermarkets, at least one of which is pretty large, a Wal Mart, restaurants, and car dealers and even an Enterprise car rental office. So even a FAR country can support a lot of economic activity. Whether there are enough people to support train service, if there were tracks, is another story.

 

[tricia]

I simplified what I said about North Carolina, but I am not wrong. About 74,000 people in North Carolina live in FAR areas. This is about 0.8% of the population. From looking at the map, that is mostly in a few areas on the Atlantic, and one small area in the western part of the state (around Murphy).

Since you mentioned Madison County, I looked it up. It has a population density of 46 people per square mile. For comparison against some counties on Amtrak's long distance routes in the western states, Elko County, Nevada has a density of 2.8 people per square mile. Humboldt County (Winnemucca) has a density of 1.8 people per square miles. In Oregon, Klamath County (Klamath Falls and Chemult) is relatively populous with 11. Phillips County, Montana (Malta) is 0.8. Hill County, Montana (Havre) is 5.6. Coconino County, Arizona (Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon) is 7.8.

So I am not wrong--- objectively, we can look at population densities, and its pretty easy to show that even the more rural parts of the Eastern US usually have high population densities compared to areas like the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin.

Well, I still have an hour's drive to the nearest supermarket, and will pass only one traffic light on the way. And the nearest Amtrak station, alas, is about 2 1/2 hours away. Whether it fits the technical definition of "FAR" or not, it's still pretty remote here---and more so in NC counties to the west.

A key difference between the eastern US and remote parts of the west is that networks of villages/towns were built here before trains or cars, so they needed to be spaced so that a horse could cover the distance between them in a day. Usually 10 miles or so apart.

 

[MARC Rider]

Our camp is in Oxford County in a township called Adamstown. This "town" is what they call "unorganized," and I think my dad pays his property tax to the state. There's not much there, but we are on a paved highway, about six miles to Oquossoc, which has a post office, small food market, and a couple of restaurants, and and about 12 miles to Rangeley, which has all the basic town services including an IGA supermarket. We have telephone service and internet, though there was no phone service when my parents bought the pace in 1971.

The thing is that about 35 miles away, there's a town called Rumford, which has a large paper mill, supermarkets, and even a Wal Mart. About 40 miles away in neighboring Franklin County, which is also a FAR county, is the county seat of Farmington, which supports, in addition to the court and county government, a hospital, a couple of supermarkets, at least one of which is pretty large, a Wal Mart, restaurants, and car dealers and even an Enterprise car rental office. So even a FAR country can support a lot of economic activity. Whether there are enough people to support train service, if there were tracks, is another story.

Oh, yeah, Farmington has s branch campus of the state university, too, so it's also a college town.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Our camp is in Oxford County in a township called Adamstown. This "town" is what they call "unorganized," and I think my dad pays his property tax to the state. There's not much there, but we are on a paved highway, about six miles to Oquossoc, which has a post office, small food market, and a couple of restaurants, and and about 12 miles to Rangeley, which has all the basic town services including an IGA supermarket. We have telephone service and internet, though there was no phone service when my parents bought the pace in 1971.

The thing is that about 35 miles away, there's a town called Rumford, which has a large paper mill, supermarkets, and even a Wal Mart. About 40 miles away in neighboring Franklin County, which is also a FAR county, is the county seat of Farmington, which supports, in addition to the court and county government, a hospital, a couple of supermarkets, at least one of which is pretty large, a Wal Mart, restaurants, and car dealers and even an Enterprise car rental office. So even a FAR country can support a lot of economic activity. Whether there are enough people to support train service, if there were tracks, is another story.

As you are probably aware, Farmington and the area Northwest of there was once the home of the largest of Maine's famed 2 foot gauge railroads, the Sandy River which extended into some fairly rural areas. Of course it was able to thrive at a time when the private auto, trucks, and good roads were few and far between; once that changed the railroad disappeared.

 

[Northwestern]

Here is a (slightly dated) map if anyone is interested. My town qualifies as a "Frontier and Remote" area.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/51020/52626_farcodesmaps.pdf?v=9372.8

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I have a problem with the terms "frontier and remote", and arbitrarily using distance from populous, other cities as a criteria. There seems to be an ongoing and significant migration shift, in our country, from populous areas to smaller towns and hamlets by many folks. If "frontier" or "remote" towns signify people of a lesser culture, affluence, or intelligence the picture is muddled, I think.

I've read some posts, in other train forums, who use the term "flyover country" in a pejorative sense. I don't have a problem with the term if it refers to smaller or less populated areas between the east and west coast, without major cities or hubs for airline travel. But to some, flyover country might take on a cultural meaning. Flyover country might contain "flyover people", people who might be considered unimportant, uninteresting, and not worthy of visiting. Possibly people not worthy of having a long distance train come into their town.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

But to some, flyover country might take on a cultural meaning. Flyover country might contain "flyover people", people who might be considered unimportant, uninteresting, and not worthy of visiting. Possibly people not worthy of having a long distance train come into their town.

In my experience if someone mentions "flyover country" it's usually an appeal for sympathy or a justification for toxic retaliation. My roots are in the Midwest and what they say about coastal cities would get this post deleted, so please forgive me if I struggle to sympathize with their proud hypocrisy.

 

[joelkfla]

********************************************************************
I have a problem with the terms "frontier and remote", and arbitrarily using distance from populous, other cities as a criteria. There seems to be an ongoing and significant migration shift, in our country, from populous areas to smaller towns and hamlets by many folks. If "frontier" or "remote" towns signify people of a lesser culture, affluence, or intelligence the picture is muddled, I think.

Nobody (except you) mentioned culture, affluence, or intelligence. It's simply what it is: a designation of areas that are sparsely populated. I see no negative connotation.

Maybe you've been watching too many reruns of Green Acres & Newhart.

 

[Northwestern]

Or maybe the Beverly Hillbillies

No, I define "flyover country" as simply remote areas with a lesser population. I never suggested otherwise. My point was that when reading posts, in other forums, the term might imply , for some, that people in those areas maybe not as affluent as people in more populated areas.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Maybe you've been watching too many reruns of Green Acres & Newhart.

Hey! Hooterville had corridor service!

 

[MARC Rider]

As you are probably aware, Farmington and the area Northwest of there was once the home of the largest of Maine's famed 2 foot gauge railroads, the Sandy River which extended into some fairly rural areas. Of course it was able to thrive at a time when the private auto, trucks, and good roads were few and far between; once that changed the railroad disappeared.

Oh, yes. By the way, a group of people has rebuilt a short stretch of the original Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes RR near Phillips (maybe a mile or half a mile) and has a small collections of rolling stock, though not any original steam locomotives. Here's some pictures from my trip in 2019:







It would be nice to be able to ride a train all the way to Rangeley, but I'm not holding my breath. The closest train is in Portland, about a 3 hour drive, but usually when I go up there, I just ride to Boston and rent a car there. That's about a 5 hour drive.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

Nobody (except you) mentioned culture, affluence, or intelligence. It's simply what it is: a designation of areas that are sparsely populated. I see no negative connotation.

Exactly. The FAR methodology, even though it has flaws, is meant to define areas that might not have access to basic services. (And yes, sometimes a very small town might have more basic services than a larger town, but it is basically a good guide).

Right now in the United States, being "rural" or "urban" is more a description of lifestyle, and talking about it usually involves lots of connotations about how a person dresses, acts, thinks, votes etc. that don't have little to do with the intrinsic facts of being rural. And one reason for that is that for around 90% of people in the US (that more or less follows the non-FAR population, even if we might draw the lines a little different), basic services are such a fact of life that people don't think about not having them. If someone is living in a trendy neighborhood of Manhattan or in Fargo, North Dakota, they have about the same level of resources if they need to buy a washing machine, visit a dermatologist, or take a training class on how to use Microsoft Office. The differences are in cultural opportunities. Someone living in Rugby, North Dakota, is further away from Fargo than the people in Fargo are from New York City, as far as what type of services they have access to.

The entire point of the FAR standard is to avoid "culture war" questions about who is rural, and try to form an objective standard that defines where people don't have access to basic services.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

Just for comparison, I made a table of Amtrak stops between Kankakee, and Carbondale, Illinois, with the distance in miles and the populations of the towns/counties served, and the same for the Empire Builder between Fargo and... , to show the difference in the sizes and distances of the towns.

Kankanee City (24,000) County (110,000)
28 Miles
Gilman (1700) (29,000)
36 Miles
Rantoul (13,000) (205,000)
16 Miles
Champaign-Urbana Together= (116,000), (205,000)
48 Miles
Matoon (17,000), (47,000)
28 Miles
Effingham (12,000), (34,000)
60 Miles
Centralia (12,000), (37,000)
40 Miles
Du Quoin (5800), (21,000)
20 Miles
Carbondale (22,000), (53,000)

So in this 280 miles after the train has left the Chicago area, it serves towns with a population of about 240,000 people, and counties with a population of 510,000 people. I don't know if the half a million people across those counties can all easily reach the train station, but also there might be people outside of those counties that can.

So lets look at the same thing, from Fargo westward on the Empire Builder.

Fargo, North Dakota City (126,000), County (185,000)
80 Miles
Grand Forks (59,000), (73,000)
90 Miles
Devils Lake (7,000), (11,000)
60 Miles
Rugby (3,000), (4,000)
65 Miles
Minot (50,000), (70,000)
55 Miles
Stanley (1500), (10,000)
70 Miles
Williston (30,000), (40,000)
95 Miles
Wolf Point, Montana (2500), (10,000)
50 Miles
Glasgow (3,000), (7,500)
70 Miles
Malta (2,000), (4,000)
90 Miles
Havre (9,000), (16,000)
100 miles
Shelby (3,000), (5,000)
60 Miles
Browning (1,000), (14,000)
90 Miles (I am leaving out the GNP stops because they aren't really towns)
Whitefish (8,000), (100,000)



In 420 miles, the Empire Builder in North Dakota goes through cities with a population of around 280,000 people, and counties of around 390,000 people. In 460 miles in Montana (I am ending in Whitefish because Flathead County is the first county with more than 100,000 people after Fargo), the Empire Builder goes through towns with about 27,000 people and counties with about 160,000 people, and 2/3rds of those are in Flathead County (Kalispell and Whitefish). Together, in about 980 miles, counties with a population of about 550,000 people are served, and about half of that population is in Cass and Flathead Counties, almost 1,000 miles apart. One county served in Illinois (Champaign) has more population than all the counties served in Montana.


I might have made some slight errors in math, I used google maps to calculate mileage based on roads, which isn't the same as the rail routes. There are simplifications in how I calculated things, but hopefully these numbers communicate a little bit of the difference in scale between what a "rural" route means east of the Mississippi and in the Great Plains/Rocky Mountains.

And I should probably find a better way to spend my Sunday.

 

[Willbridge]

But I wasn't just being pedantic and elitist when I talked about the different type of rural. As far as train and other transit service goes, they also are very different service/business models.

If it is the type of service that Amtrak currently has in places like Michigan or Illinois, a lot of those towns and small cities are not that small. If you have a place where you have 100 miles of rail, and you have a city of 5-20,000 people every 10-20 miles, then you have enough population where you have a lot of people who want to travel. In a city of 10,000 people, if 1% of people want to travel to a metro hub per day, you have 100 possible riders. If you have five cities in 100 miles, then you can have 500 riders---enough to easily fill a train. Obviously not everyone is a train rider, but the basic fact is that those "small, rural" towns add up to a large population.
(Even within that, because Amtrak is a subsidized service, I imagine some of it is also political, that stations are kept where they are underutilized to get support, but I don't know a lot about that)

But the situation on Amtrak's long distance routes has a different rationale. Other than tourism, the main reason that there are stops in places like the highline of Montana and northern Nevada is that it is the only way that some people there can access basic services. If you live in Havre, Montana, there are times when you might need to go to Seattle or Minneapolis to see a medical specialist. And a lot of the people in those areas would have no way to reach places like that without subsidized transit, either through Amtrak or the EAS program. (Which towns on the Empire Builder also have). I don't actually know the numbers here, but I think that is one of the reasons why there are stops in so many small towns on that route. And even conservative politicians realize that closing down subsidized transportation for those areas would not be a popular move.

So with rural trains, there are two rationales--- for "soft" rural areas, they are there because, despite appearances, those rural towns function more like exurbs, and they have sufficient populations to create demand, and that for "hard" rural areas (FAR areas and the like), they are supported as a social service, both for providing transportation and creating jobs/tourism.

One factor that affects travel has been sort of raised here. People in the low density areas tend to travel longer distances, generating revenues per mile. That's one of the reasons that LD trains show up as well as they do. Recently I checked the Denver Broncos broadcast areas and found that radio stations are situated as far north as Calgary. Then I checked on Philadelphia (I've heard they have a team) and its coverage area would fit between Denver and Grand Junction.

A note about medical care: Spokane is the likelier destination on the west end of the Empire Builder route. Some people go to Portland or Seattle for capacity reasons or very exotic treatments.

Most fascinating to me is that after rail service is discontinued, the bus and air service fades. When the Pioneer was discontinued there were three Greyhound runs daily. By the pandemic there was one.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

A note about medical care: Spokane is the likelier destination on the west end of the Empire Builder route. Some people go to Portland or Seattle for capacity reasons or very exotic treatments.

A lot of what I was saying was just guesswork. I don't know if there is any statistical research that breaks down what are the main reasons people are travelling through the Fargo/Spokane section of the Empire Builder. I imagine that many are tourists, and that some are people in small towns visiting slightly larger cities for basic services. No idea what the mix would be. Also, with Amazon and other on-line deliveries, the mix is probably changing for things like shopping.

Edit: I found a study by the Montana DOT that talks about it a little:

Who uses Empire Builder, and for what reasons? Several different groups use the Empire Builder. About 75 percent of the train’s passengers are tourists and the remaining 25 percent are Montana residents. People use it for health care; some travel to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and others travel to Seattle and Spokane, Washington. College students use the Empire Builder to get to Northern Montana College.

https://www.mdt.mt.gov/publications/docs/brochures/railways/empire-builder.pdf
But there isn't really a breakdown on what those 25% of Montana residents are doing.

 

[Willbridge]

A lot of what I was saying was just guesswork. I don't know if there is any statistical research that breaks down what are the main reasons people are travelling through the Fargo/Spokane section of the Empire Builder. I imagine that many are tourists, and that some are people in small towns visiting slightly larger cities for basic services. No idea what the mix would be. Also, with Amazon and other on-line deliveries, the mix is probably changing for things like shopping.

Edit: I found a study by the Montana DOT that talks about it a little:

Who uses Empire Builder, and for what reasons? Several different groups use the Empire Builder. About 75 percent of the train’s passengers are tourists and the remaining 25 percent are Montana residents. People use it for health care; some travel to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and others travel to Seattle and Spokane, Washington. College students use the Empire Builder to get to Northern Montana College.

https://www.mdt.mt.gov/publications/docs/brochures/railways/empire-builder.pdf
But there isn't really a breakdown on what those 25% of Montana residents are doing.

I've run into people who are "commuting" on the Empire Builder to or from remote jobs. For example, to work at Glacier National Park or in the North Dakota oil fields.

 

[oregon pioneer]

I've run into people who are "commuting" on the Empire Builder to or from remote jobs. For example, to work at Glacier National Park or in the North Dakota oil fields.

Hubby and I talked with a guy from somewhere between western Montana and Spokane whose wife said he could take the ND oilfield job, on condition he took the train and did not try to drive back home after a work week. I would guess that flying between the two small airports, if possible, would involve transfers at two hubs and at least as much time as the train, maybe more expensive than his roomette due to the small markets, to say nothing of the fact that the train is way more restful than a schedule like that.

 

[Palmland]

Apparently the Essential Air Service program is not so essential to the regional airline, Sky West. As you can see some of the airports losing service have Amtrak service so perhaps these smaller cities will generate a few more Amtrak passengers, if they can get a seat.

SkyWest EAS cuts