Trying to Improve Amtrak Schedules in Ohio

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Well, Philly doesn't like long day trains. I think it's good enough, (it's for upstate NY not for NYP) so NYP can be a bad time, in my opinion.

I agree. Besides, New Yorkers have a huge problem catching a train at 6 am anyway. So why worry about New Yorkers? A good day train en route is a good thing to have. If Philly doesn't like it, well that is one opinion and that is fine. Does not mean everyone else has to fall in line.

The question then becomes if you assume minimal or no traffic to/from NYP is there enough traffic on the rest of the route to make it worthwhile financially?
Why is the 17 hours even relevant. It is not like there will be a huge number of people traveling end to end. I expect a lot of the traffic will be mid point to mid point or midpoint to one end or the other.
If you run a 17 hour train as a "day train" it puts the beginning of the train very early and the end of the train very late. So the train will be less attractive to those markets if scheduled that way. Any train that long will require someone to be stuck with a "bad" time. The question is who? I'm saying you find your target markets and schedule the train around them. If your target markets for a DET-NYP train are really BUF and ALB, then schedule it so they have good times. But if your target markets are DET and NYP, then schedule it so they have good times. That is what I feel is the largest fundamental problem with the Cardinal and the point of this whole thread in the first place. Your largest unique markets of the Cardinal are IND and CIN. IND's times are early morning and late night and CIN's times are in the middle of the night.

There is a lot of ridership along upstate New York but how many trains go through Syracuse or Rochester that don't go to New York? Only one I can think of is the Boston section of the LSL. I question whether upstate New York (ALB, SYR, ROC, BUF) can support a train without New York. I'm not even sure CHI to BUF or CHI to ALB would work without NYP or another large market like BOS or PHL and I really think you will get low ridership for CIN to BUF and/or ALB and DET to BUF and/or ALB. I think 3-C on its own will work and certainly will see traffic between the three cities. But if you extend it just to BUF or just to ALB, do you gain more ridership? And if the departure/arrival times in CIN then have to be bad, I think that hurts ridership there.

The Pennsylvanian between CHI and PHL failed. It gave better times to CLE and TOL but where did they want to travel to? CHI and PHL? Then they have to depart/arrive at bad times so it really wasn't much better than leaving home at 3 in the morning. And I think cutting NYP out of the Pennsylvanian was terrible. Once they made it PGH to NYP as opposed to CHI to PHL, ridership increased. How will these other trains that either leave on both ends close to or in the graveyard shift and/or do not serve NYP be able to do what the Pennsylvanian CHI-PHL didn't?

In terms of Amtrak finances, you can look at it in three ways:

1. The propose anything and hypothetically Amtrak will one day be able to fund it philosophy.

2. The Amtrak has no spare money and all of these are pointless philosophy.

3. It will come down to Amtrak can afford some new trains but not others and the question is which trains do you pay for? philosophy.

I have always looked at Amtrak from the last philosophy. As much as we want to have Amtrak have hundreds of routes Amtrak will never have enough money. They have to pick and choose which trains run and which don't.

I'd be upset if Amtrak started another train if I thought the money it spent could be used on a Liberty Limited/Broadway Limited train and the other train was less financially successful than the LL/BL would be (if it was more financially successful I would not object). I'm mad at the Cardinal now because I feel they stole the BL's spot. If Amtrak wasn't forced to restart the Cardinal after canceling it, I think the Broadway would've never been canceled.

Theoretically we shouldn't be competing for trains but realistically we are.
 
I'm with Nerodin can someone please out every proposed schedule on one document. Of everyone's schedule. Including my day trains to Detroit, my OSL. And Philly's trains and max's and maybe do them by route. So NYP-DET on one table. NYP-CIN on another one. I'm so confused.
 
51 Cardinal 50 Cardinal

NYP 1245P 358P

NWK 105P 338P

TRE 142P 302P

PHL 215P 226P

WIL 244P 205P

BAL 330P 116P

drifted too far to the left :/

92 Silver Star 91 Silver Star

MIA 1150A 558P

TPA 513P/527P 1223P/1237P

JAX 1043A/1103A 639A/659A

SAV 116A/122A 413A/418A

RVR 1207P/1216P 507/517P

WAS 238P 305P

97 Silver Meteor 98 Silver Meteor

MIA 810A 639P

JAX 447P/507P 909A/934A

SAV 723P/731P 634A/640A

RVR 422A/432A 934P/944P

WAS 707A 725P

51 Cardinal 50 Cardinal

WAS 500P 1219P

ALX 519P 1159A

MSS 552P 1110A

CLP 625P 1035A

CVS 743P 919A

80 Carolinian 79 Carolinian

CLT 700A 812P

RGH 1017A/1025A 442P/450P

RVR 205P 108P

90 Palmetto 89 Palmetto

SAV 820A 904P

RVR 504P 1219P

Connector Bus 4051 Connector Bus 4050

RVR 545P 1115A

CVS 715P 945A

51 Cardinal 50 Cardinal

CVS 752P 910A

STA 854P 804A

CLF 1013P 644A

WSS 1105P 539A

ALD 1136P 502A

HIN 1206A 434A

PRC 1243A 402A

THN 1259A 341A

MNG 150A 250A

CHW 229A 221A

HUN 344A/351A 109A/116A

AKY 414A 1235A

SPM 457A 1145P

MAY 552A 1052P

CIN 731A 927P

451 Buckeye State 450 Buckeye State

CIN 813A 802P

CLE 1250P 330P It's only a few coaches, come on :)

51 Cardinal 50 Cardinal

CIN 741A 917P

COI 936A 721P

IND 1115A 559P

Thru cars 751 Cardinal Thru cars 750 Cardinal

IND 1230P 430P

TIME CHANGE TIME CHANGE

STL 630P 830A

Thru cars 51 Cardinal Thru cars 50 Cardinal

IND 1200N 550P

CRF 1258P 431P

LAF 136P 357P

TIME CHANGE TIME CHANGE

REN 140P 146P

DYE 229P 1255P

CHI 405P 1145A

That's the Cardinal schedule.
 
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2 pending questions,

1. From CIN to CLE, whose schedule is accurate? Seaboard's is a bunch faster, but I don't know if that's accurate, when Philly has his.

And is there a place to access the freight schedules Seaboard92 got for his OSL?

2. Do you think 2 hours in CLE is enough?

Thanks.

By Seaboard92's schedule,

Cardinal 731A/741A

CIN 813A

CLE 1250P!

CLE 330P

CIN 802P

Cardinal 917P/927P

much faster :)

By Philly's schedule,

Cardinal 731A/741A

CIN 800A

CLE 145P

CLE 345P

CIN 900P

Cardinal 917P/927P

barely able to make it.

Philly's schedule isn't bad, just slow. There's nothing we can do if it's true.

So, AAO is paranoid about slow trains, or NS/CSX is fooling us.
 
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I went into an employee timetable and calculated run times in a best case scenario. Having access to them helps a lot. I used the current speeds on each route which is surprisingly high
 
There's a discussion going on at railroad.net about the CSX downgrading part of the route of the Cardinal. Not good, since all proposed schedules here will have to be redone if that happens. The reason is the downturn in coal traffic on the Cincinnati Subdivision. Norfolk Southern just consolidated into two operating divisions for the same reason, so speculation about the CSX downgrade is not unreasonable.
 
The question then becomes if you assume minimal or no traffic to/from NYP is there enough traffic on the rest of the route to make it worthwhile financially?
Why would you assume that? Is there any evidence that there is minimal or no traffic on the Palmetto from New York which departs at 6:05am? I am sorry you are creating strawmen based on nothing and knocking them down. So no I don't assume that at all, and question the sanity of anyone that does. That takes care of that objection :)
 
What about the Palmetto into New York at 11:36pm? That's kinda late night, too.

And how did Seaboard get the employee timetables? Did you work there or are they public or do you have to buy them or bribe them?
 
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As I said, Palmetto works as is with its somewhat less than ideal time at both ends. We should not decide not to run a service simply because they do not have ideal times everywhere. Specifically New York is such a huge O/D that an early departure or a late arrival works in spite of being somewhat inconvenient.
 
To the best of my knowledge, the last detailed public ridership data for the Palmetto was from the PIP report in 2011, which showed that at least 18% of its passengers passed through NYP, including the three most popular single station pairings. The Palmetto has also traditionally been among the best performing (or at least least money-losing) long distance trains, so it seems safe to say that an extended day schedule is feasible.
 
Ok. That's means 82% of the train is empty at New York.

But that also means a fifth of all Palmetto riders go to New York.

2 very different ways of thinking about it.
 
What about the Palmetto into New York at 11:36pm? That's kinda late night, too.

And how did Seaboard get the employee timetables? Did you work there or are they public or do you have to buy them or bribe them?
I work in the railroad excursion business. Especially in high volume sports charters that I'm working on starting up. I have a shelf of them all. But you can find them online. I'll send them your way when I find the links again if you like.
 
Ok. And is there an easier way to find what rail line is what subdivision and such?

It seemed fast to go from CIN to COL in 2 hours, 120 miles.
 
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Honestly reading those timetables is very hard at times especially out of the area. When I get back into my office today after a filling I'll let you know which subs I used. I know I used an all New York Central routing which is CSX to Columbus and Ns from there to CIN

That's an average speed of 60 mph between those two cities.
 
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That's an average speed of 60 mph between those two cities.
The question I have is, would that be a reasonable timetable speed, given allowances for delays due to congestion etc. Afterall, seldom does a train get a straight shot from one station to another anymore these days, except on the almost dedicated corridors.
 
The question then becomes if you assume minimal or no traffic to/from NYP is there enough traffic on the rest of the route to make it worthwhile financially?
Why would you assume that? Is there any evidence that there is minimal or no traffic on the Palmetto from New York which departs at 6:05am? I am sorry you are creating strawmen based on nothing and knocking them down. So no I don't assume that at all, and question the sanity of anyone that does. That takes care of that objection :)
What about the Palmetto into New York at 11:36pm? That's kinda late night, too.
Recent data: http://narprail.org/site/assets/files/1038/cities_2014.pdf

Silver Meteor: NYP 87,227, PHL 25,600, WAS 39,941

Silver Star: NYP 61,363, PHL 23,971, WAS 38,991

Palmetto: NYP 45,323, PHL 21,497, WAS 40,593

Almost twice as many NYP passengers ride the SM than the Palmetto. A lot more NYP passengers ride the SS than the Palmetto. You would think that would be normal because it includes Florida but WAS has slightly more passengers riding the Palmetto than the Silver Meteor. WAS ridership among the three trains is roughly even. Same with PHL. But huge gaps in NYP. Do you think it's a coincidence the worst scheduled train is the least attractive to NYP? If the lack of Florida is the reason for the drop, why don't we see similar drops for PHL and WAS?

And another train with more ridership further south...

Cardinal: NYP 13,651, PHL 6,590, WAS 18,752

The Cardinal also has an early departure and somewhat late departure.

Still believe trains scheduled at un-ideal times doesn't hurt ridership?

As I said, Palmetto works as is with its somewhat less than ideal time at both ends. We should not decide not to run a service simply because they do not have ideal times everywhere. Specifically New York is such a huge O/D that an early departure or a late arrival works in spite of being somewhat inconvenient.
Doesn't mean the train won't be more popular if better scheduled so the train departs/arrives peak markets at ideal times. Amtrak is short sleepers now and overnight trains tend to cost less than overnight ones so you certainly can run a day train with less cost. But an overnight train with better times will add ridership. Plus, sleeper service certainly can bring in big bucks.
 
Well! Where else would you end the train? ALB?

Do you really think the whole train shouldn't run just because of NYP? Part of the reason this train runs to NYP is there wasn't a better place to terminate it. Maybe shift the train even more and run it to BOS? All because NYP is bad? I don't know.

As an afterthought, ALB doesn't need a good time anyway. . . which then brings us to the OSL. . .

Yeah, just thought upstate NY could get better service going west. I guess that's not needed.

On another thing, I think I mentioned earlier doing a connecting train to BOS. To make that good too, then it would need 3 sets instead of 2.

CIN 243P

CLE 720P/750P

ALB 450A

(ALB 505A)

(BOS 1001A)

ALB 545A

NYP 823A.

NYP 840P

ALB 1120P

(BOS 550P)

(ALB something)

ALB 1205A

CLE 827A/845A

CIN 217P

I got interrupted though:)
 
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Adding sleeper service so far tends to make the train lose more money than it brings in. For sleepers to work adding just one or two is not enough, specially if it drags a Diner in with it. You have to be able to add half a dozen and actually fill them. Day trains have in general always performed better financially barring just a few exceptions. That is why the private railroads tended to kill sleeper service first on marginal routes.
 
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Max, would you consider for your day trains...

Westbound leave an hour later so NYP 7:07am getting into CIN at 11:02pm.

Eastbound leave a half hour earlier so NYP 7:13am getting into NYP at 11:41pm.

I would still prefer any of the others to the day train schedule though. I think your idea of linking your Buckeye State to the Cardinal at CIN is intriguing but I think you will have more potential ridership if you go the other way connecting through CLE to either an Empire Route train or a Pennsylvanian/Keystone Route train (especially with Palmetto's news about the Cardinal route). If you want to connect 3-C service to a train heading to the NEC, CLE is much closer to the East Coast than CIN. So it makes more sense for the train to connect there.

Now you do lose direct CIN-WAS service but my intention would be through cars to BAL and WAS off of the Liberty Limited but even without it, it is a simple transfer in PHL and most of the southern trains that serve WAS serve PHL so anyone who wishes to transfer south can do so in PHL instead of WAS.
 
Or both?

Connects to Palmetto and Carolinian too.

NYP 652A hur hur hur

CLE 545P/615P

CIN 1047P

CIN 713A i guess thats good enough

CLE 1150A/1200N

NYP 1141P yeah ok.

. . .
 
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