Trying to Improve Amtrak Schedules in Ohio

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I'm suspicious that Buckingham Branch might not actually be the bottleneck on the route, however.

Then what is?

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

I'm suspicious that Buckingham Branch might not actually be the bottleneck on the route, however.

Then what is?

Good point. I'll take a look at the older schedules again.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

As expected, before 1984, the Cardinal ran in different times of day on the BBRR. Unless CSX removed sidings since then, there's no reason they couldn't handle the Cardinals at different times of day.

 

[jis]

Unfortunately CSX has removed a lot since 1984, including the entire route between Petersburg and Raleigh via Henderson, at least between Norlina and Petersburg, leaving the rest as a slow secondary. Who knows what they managed to remove or let rot away when they decided to essentially downgrade what is BBRR today?

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Max, can you post maps of the tracks between Cincinnati and Cleveland and between Columbus and Pittsburgh?

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Ok. If I have time, I guess I could list the sidings if they're online.

 

[afigg]

As expected, before 1984, the Cardinal ran in different times of day on the BBRR. Unless CSX removed sidings since then, there's no reason they couldn't handle the Cardinals at different times of day.

How long were the typical freight trains that operated over what is now the BBRR line in the early 1980s? The issue is likely not that sidings were removed or shortened, but that the freight trains got longer than the sidings on the line. The freight railroads have been modernizing their main and more active lines by extending sidings to 10,000 feet or more to accommodate ever longer trains. But the single track secondary line may not get upgraded. Extending the sidings may be one of the bigger cost items that a freight railroad will want to get paid for before agreeing to run passenger service or increased frequencies over a route. That likely goes for many of the proposed fantasy routes discussed in this thread. Just because passenger trains ran on the route 30, 40, 50 years ago, doesn't mean that a passenger train can run on it now w/o paying for significant upgrades first.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Well. . . make more longer sidings then? Will that cost billions of dollars?

You would think, if they have long coal trains, they would upgrade the line. . .

And what do you think of my schedule? I think it serves all the cities (except Indy of course) at fairly reasonable times. Even so, Indy is 615A going eastbound (not too bad, later than the current 851 departure time), and 110A arrival westbound (that's a bit late, but not absolutely unbearably late IMO). Even if we did a CHI-IND-CIN day train, passengers would still need to go overnight in CIN on their own money to continue. I think a regular Hoosier State is good enough for this, maybe adjusting the schedule *slightly*.

 

[royalc]

I agree with districtRich, leave the Capitol Limited Schedule alone. We board the train in Alliance Ohio at 1:39 a.m. Is this an inconvenient time? A little, but we board the train, go right to sleep, wake up refreshed, have breakfast and are ready for whatever we want to do in Chicago and then can board any western bound train with no worry of a missed connection.

Somewhere along the line, someone will have to board the train during the night. If we in Ohio are the ones, so be it since the end arrivals are better for connections.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Yes! I tried to get Indy and Cincy at better times, but really! I didn't like missed west-coast connections. So I made a schedules which completely abandoned the connections. I took it too far. I got tired of worrying about Indianapolis, so I made my final schedule. I think it incorporates all the stations nicely, all except Albany (which can easily transfer to NYP). The only problem is it *technically* takes 2 nights to do it, but you depart sooo late and arrive sooo early, that I think it's worth it.

110A Arrival and 155A departure isn't that bad. For Cincy, a previous 317A arrival and 327A departure is bad, that's REALLY graveyard shift. 110A and 155A is baddish, but I think it's good enough. I await others' opinions.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I agree with districtRich, leave the Capitol Limited Schedule alone. We board the train in Alliance Ohio at 1:39 a.m. Is this an inconvenient time? A little, but we board the train, go right to sleep, wake up refreshed, have breakfast and are ready for whatever we want to do in Chicago and then can board any western bound train with no worry of a missed connection.

Somewhere along the line, someone will have to board the train during the night. If we in Ohio are the ones, so be it since the end arrivals are better for connections.

My proposal actually had my new Liberty Limited leave Alliance at 12:39am so that would be the train for you to make it to CHI by the morning (an hour earlier). Essentially for Ohio, the Liberty would replace the Capitol and the Capitol would then arrive in Ohio at better times and allow better southern transfers to/from WAS.

All Aboard Ohio suggested a route between PGH and CLE via Youngstown and Ravenna-Kent. Is that closer to Massillon than Alliance or farther away?

I feel if I had to choose I would keep the Capitol at the same times and run the Liberty Limited with the Ohio friendly schedule rather than make the CL the "Ohio train" and the LL the "transfer train". It then puts the two CHI-NYP trains on opposite schedules. The one benefit to shifting the Capitol would be that if I treat the Liberty Limited as an extension of the Pennsylvanian then Amtrak would only need to add the PGH-CHI legs as opposed to a whole new NYP-CHI train (although that would be a 2nd train between NYP-PGH so there is some gain there).

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Yes! I tried to get Indy and Cincy at better times, but really! I didn't like missed west-coast connections. So I made a schedules which completely abandoned the connections. I took it too far. I got tired of worrying about Indianapolis, so I made my final schedule. I think it incorporates all the stations nicely, all except Albany (which can easily transfer to NYP). The only problem is it *technically* takes 2 nights to do it, but you depart sooo late and arrive sooo early, that I think it's worth it.

110A Arrival and 155A departure isn't that bad. For Cincy, a previous 317A arrival and 327A departure is bad, that's REALLY graveyard shift. 110A and 155A is baddish, but I think it's good enough. I await others' opinions.

I would support this schedule from Cincinnati's perspective. If the Hoosier State is kept on the same schedule and made daily, Indy would still have that for travel to CHI and maybe they can negotiate those times. Right now, IND passengers have to leave at 11:59pm and arrive at 5:20am so leaving at 6:15am and arriving at 1:10am seems to be not much worse if traveling east. IND/CIN passengers are trading in WAS/PHL for the rest of Ohio and upstate New York.

You said you extended breaks to get the endpoint times before midnight/after 6am. If we did CHI-CIN-CLE-PGH-PHL-NYP would that eliminate the need to extend breaks and get the same or similar times for NYP-CHI? I do realize that would be a wacky route but in reality almost no one would travel the whole route (similar to the Cardinal).

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

From CHI and CIN

CLE 500P

PGH 815P/830P

HAR 155A/205A

PHL 355A/425A

NYP 550A

NYP 1145P

PHL 115A/130A

HAR 320A/330A

PGH 700A/715A

CLE 1030A

4 hour layover, If this is eliminated, then Chicago arrival is in the graveyard shift.

CLE 250P

CHI 600A

I relied on Albany to delay the westbound train a bunch (90 minutes) with the excuse that the train was waiting for the connecting train 451 from Boston. Otherwise the train would depart NYP past 1230A.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

From CHI and CIN

CLE 500P

PGH 815P/830P

HAR 155A/205A

PHL 355A/425A

NYP 550A

NYP 1145P

PHL 115A/130A

HAR 320A/330A

PGH 700A/715A

CLE 1030A

4 hour layover, If this is eliminated, then Chicago arrival is in the graveyard shift.

CLE 250P

CHI 600A

I relied on Albany to delay the westbound train a bunch (90 minutes) with the excuse that the train was waiting for the connecting train 451 from Boston. Otherwise the train would depart NYP past 1230A.

Thanks for reading!

Then I would go with via the Empire route. I don't think a four hour delay is worth arriving/departing PHL in the graveyard shift.

It is sad that to bring a daily train from CIN to the NEC you'd have to go all the way north to CLE. Then again, it would give you 3-C service.

Probably the best solution would be two separate trains serving CIN, one to CHI and one to the NEC. Having one train serving both ways is a minimum 28 hr trip (even longer by Max's schedule which requires padding to serve NYP and CHI outside of the graveyard shift). Maybe they could extend the Hoosier State to CIN as All Aboard Ohio has campaigned for. The problem is there would be no way to have a train serve CIN, IND, and CHI at good times and allow for western transfers.

 

[neroden]

I'm suspicious that Buckingham Branch might not actually be the bottleneck on the route, however.

Then what is?

Good question. There's quite a lot of single-tracking on the CSX line throughout West Virginia. Possibilities include:

Between Clifton Forge and Covington;

West of Covington through "Backbone";

Ronceverte through Rockland;

up the Greenbriar River through Alderson all the way to Browning, south of Hinton (this looks like a very long section with no sidings);

Hinton to Meadow Creek in the New River Gorge;

Meadow Creek to Prince in the New River Gorge;

Prince to Thurmond in the New River Gorge;

Thurmond to Sewell in the New River Gorge;

Hawks Nest to Deep Water along the Kanawha River;

Without knowing the schedule of freight trains I can't really say, but my guess would be the Greenbriar River section (the longest), or the section from Covington to Clifton Forge (with nearly all the branch lines funnelled into it).

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I'm suspicious that Buckingham Branch might not actually be the bottleneck on the route, however.

Then what is?

Good question. There's quite a lot of single-tracking on the CSX line throughout West Virginia. Possibilities include:

Between Clifton Forge and Covington;

West of Covington through "Backbone";

Ronceverte through Rockland;

up the Greenbriar River through Alderson all the way to Browning, south of Hinton (this looks like a very long section with no sidings);

Hinton to Meadow Creek in the New River Gorge;

Meadow Creek to Prince in the New River Gorge;

Prince to Thurmond in the New River Gorge;

Thurmond to Sewell in the New River Gorge;

Hawks Nest to Deep Water along the Kanawha River;

Without knowing the schedule of freight trains I can't really say, but my guess would be the Greenbriar River section (the longest), or the section from Covington to Clifton Forge (with nearly all the branch lines funnelled into it).

So the tracks in West Virginia aren't good and Buckingham Branch has its own problems. It's one thing for a NYP-PHL-CHI train to detour that far south but the added trouble of being slow as well? Are the tracks between CIN-Columbus-PGH really that worse compared to WV/Buckingham Branch?

 

[jis]

Yes

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Uhh . . . could you expand on that a little bit please?

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

test

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Good idea. Would you have good west-coast while IND in the graveyard shift, or IND in daylight, and bad connections? There's no compromise, as then CIN would be in the graveyard shift.

Wow. This thing doesn't want to quote. Look at post #114 on this topic please.

Maybe get IND padding even longer, to make it out of the graveyard shift enough (barely). I think an 1145P departure from CHI is as far as I can push it.

50/51 CARDINAL

CHI 1145P

IND 550A/629A

CIN 947A/1007A

HUN 149P (service train at HUN, if at all possible)

HUN 504P

CIN 901P/926P

IND 100A/155A

CHI 600A 2 train sets to do this (daily service)

350/351 BUCKEYE STATE

CIN 1045A

COL 145P/200P

CLE 500P/530P

BUF 920P/945P

ALB 330A

(ALB 400A)

(BOS 900A)

ALB 415A

NYP 730A (padding)

NYP 950P

ALB 1230A

(BOS 745P)

(ALB 1245A)

ALB 115A

BUF 730A/800A

CLE 1150A/1220P

COL 300P/315P

CIN 645P (padding) 3 train sets to do this (daily service)

850/851 (possible) HOOSIER STATE

IND 600A

CHI 1005A

CHI 545P

IND 1150P

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

This is the map of trains in Ohio,

Cincinnati OH - Columbus OH

Columbus OH - Cleveland OH

Columbus OH - Pittsburgh PA

Along with existing routes

Capitol Limited

Lake Shore Limited

Cardinal

 

[neroden]

Uhh . . . could you expand on that a little bit please?

The Columbus-Pittsburgh tracks are in appallingly bad shape with very low speed limits. They would practically have to be rebuilt from scratch. (All new rail, all new ties, mostly new ballast.)

If Ohio was throwing big capital money in, that might be fixed, but if you're on a budget...

 

[andersone]

Dear Philly Fan

if you have never heard of the New River Gorge you have no right to discuss the Cardinal at all. I would be like running the Zephyr through Gore Canyon at midnight.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

HAHAHA

But seriously, Cincinnati needs better schedules. I was thinking about a WAS to HUN day train, but you would have to stay overnight in HUN to continue to Chicago. Do you have any other ideas?

 

[Bob Dylan]

Who would want to go to HUN and spend the night, no, who would want to just go there period!