Just curious of your opinion, but if you were dictator of New Mexico and had the money, would you rather save the current SWC route, or allow the change and instead extend Rail Runner down to El Paso, assuming only one coa was possible?
This could just be Amtrak making a reroute seem worse to try and pry money out of the states hands, but it is the only official word on this that I remember reading.
(previous route from California to Albuquerque)
This is ridiculousness on the part of Amtrak's spokesman. I do not like this Magliari.
Oh, come on, *******. You gave the deadline for the existing route states to commit money as the end of 2014. Stick with that deadline, idiot. Start talking to Amarillo and Wichita and Albuquerque. I will lay bets that the money for the stations on the new route will come pouring out pretty damn fast. Stop fooling around with the clowns on the Raton route.
Amarillo would be, at minimum, a crew change stop. Though the city has already shown support for the reroute by the purchase of the Santa Fe depot with hopes of using it again.
The fact that the City of Amarillo spent $2.6 million on the depot ("and surrounding six acres") *preemptively* and out of their own budget, makes me believe that they will spend what it takes to get a platform, even if it's fairly expensive.
That is not necessarily true. Due to the elimination of the Wright Amendment there are less flights in and out of Rick Husband Intr. so flights are not required to stop in Amarillo and can have direct connections from big city to big city so this will more than likely be an instance where train travel is a very important part of the transportation in Amarillo. I know that it will also depend on other cities on the route but for Amarillo it is almost ideal for trains and you can almost bet that Amarillo and Wichita will promote the Chief in their cities and possibly farther out away from the metro.
It just depends on your taste. However we do have our own beauty with our sunsets, golden fields of grain and wind turbine farms. Also not the whole route is as flat as most people think as most of the route between Wichita and Amarillo goes through the Canadian River water breaks and looks much like the Abo Canyon area and eastern Cajon Pass. I just want to throw that out there.
That is an interesting proposal. The route you described is mainly over the UP's former Kansas Pacific line, except for the short portion from Limon to Colorado Springs. The former Rock Island line from Omaha to Limon (and on to Colorado Springs, as you mentioned), is mostly gone. The former Rocky Mountain Rocket used that line to reach Colorado Springs, and Denver (half the train split away at Limon and utilized UP trackage rights).
Wow..I'd love to see the Rail Runner extend to cover the whole North South corridor of NM. Considering what I saw as extreme drama and slowness in getting even the small route it currently runs, that is impossible to see ever really happening. I don't think the change is awful..but the Raton pass is a great trip and would be sorry to see it go. Why can't they just substitute Belen for for Alb? Do they need to use that track that exits Alb to get to LA? Actually, getting to Belen is a bit shorter for me, so that's fine in that sense. My biggest AMTRAK gripe is the Sunset Limited and its true to its name Limited service, and the fact that they never re established a route from New Orleans to Florida. That is a huge gap in country coverage that I think needs to be addressed.
I'm in Alamogordo, about 60 miles from Las Cruces, so Belen would be OK..
Checking SWA, there are no longer any flights direct to Amarillo from Houston. All seem to go through Dallas and take 3hrs. It's actually faster to fly to KC than Amarillo. Getting back to the route, they should have done this re-route years ago as the population is much greater on the Transcon and if you throw in a thru-way bus to Lubbock it's 1.2 million vs 300k(w/Santa Fe). The scenery is not that much different. Raton isn't that great.
