What's the rationale behind Lake Shore Ltd. schedule?

[Paulus]

So I'm looking at the schedule for the Lake Shore Limited and I'm left wondering: Just how does it make any sense? It's not terribly badly designed for the Empire Corridor, but in the high travel zone it is receive or discharge only, so it really isn't actually useful for there. Not too big of a surprise, the NEC is similar for long distance trains. But while Ohio offers great potential for corridor use (which is where the frequent trips, and therefore the money is, as well as the potential for expanded Amtrak service), the schedule pretty much ignores that possibility. I can't really see a good reason not to push back the New York and Boston departures by about 2-2.5 hours and while the LSL acts to catch late or missed transfers Eastbound from Chicago to my knowledge, it seems to me that Amtrak would gain more money than it lost in forced hotel stays by having a useful service for Ohio.

The same pretty much goes for the Capitol Limited as well, though the schedule may work better for the West Virginia market.

 

[TimePeace]

I think the fact of waiting for late Eastbound Western trains instead of serving a specific Ohio corridor makes perfect sense. Even though some states help with costs, Amtrak is supposed to be a national railway, right?

 

[the_traveler]

The late eastbound CHÎ departure was not really meant to be a catch all for late arriving western trains, even though it does that. When it was rescheduled, it was meant to allow for a more reasonable arrival into CLE (around 7 am) instead of all 4 trains having middle of the night times.

BTW: There is a proposal to switch the schedules departing CHI for the CL to be the late train and the LSL to be the early train. Between CLE and CHI, both use the same route.

 

[henryj]

I thought the Lake shore's schedule was designed to make connections in Chicago in both directions. The overnight business traffic between NY and Chi disappeared decades ago with the advent of jet planes. If Ohio wants service then they should run a corridor train between Chi and Cleveland.

 

[SubwayNut]

We need second frequencies for Ohio, not to modify the already 6 coach car full Lake Shore Limited. I hope the timing switch happens soon. (Also better hours for Pittsburgh).

As a New York to Chicago Coach traveler the current westbound schedule is great you leave New York in the late afternoon, can enjoy the sunset up the Hudson, head to dining car for dinner after Albany, sleep a bit (getting on in New York with the tricks I know I can always snag a window seat, since they don't have time to assign them on the platform), enjoy breakfast and get to Chicago at a nice early hour, I wouldn't wan't it pushed back.

Westbound the schedule is awful, it needs to be earlier. The fact you basically waste a day on the trip coming into New York with a 6:35pm arrival, (and the fact that crews always assign seats getting on in Chicago) makes the Capital Limited (with the connection in Pittsburgh or Washington) my train of choice in that direction

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

For better or for worse, when Amtrak was founded 42 years ago it was not as if they knocked everything in the floor and started all new schedules,routes etc as if nothing existed before hand.

In many ways----, many exceptions to be sure---- many present day schedule resemble what had been the more prosperous schedules of pre Amtrak days----,though often slower.

 

[Anderson]

That's true, though IIRC there was an overnight coach train on the route with a schedule I don't know.

 

[CoachSlumber]

The late eastbound CHÎ departure was not really meant to be a catch all for late arriving western trains, even though it does that. When it was rescheduled, it was meant to allow for a more reasonable arrival into CLE (around 7 am) instead of all 4 trains having middle of the night times.
BTW: There is a proposal to switch the schedules departing CHI for the CL to be the late train and the LSL to be the early train. Between CLE and CHI, both use the same route.

Everything I read said they pushed the departure back to allow for late arriving western trains. They were losing a fortune paying for hotels and airfares for missed connections. Problem is, people like me in Chicago find it very unappealing now. I used to ride to NY at least once a year. Now, zero. Why would I want to board so late, not even get dinner on the train, one of its main pleasures, and lose the entire next day? I still can't believe Amtrak cannot field a legitimate train between New York and Chicago.

 

[jis]

As long as there is need to connect from trains coming in from the west, and as long as those trains have scheduled arrivals between 3pm and 4pm, there is no chance of an eastbound train leaving before 6:30pm, which means there is little chance of an LSL arriving in New York before 2:30pm even if they pushed the schedule to be as fast as they could possibly get at present. Whatever they do, it has to be scheduled into NYP before 3:30pm in order to stay well clear of Commission Hours even if delayed by an hour or so.

 

[TimePeace]

I still can't believe Amtrak cannot field a legitimate train between New York and Chicago.

They run one - and the schedule doesn't suit everyone. But it's legitimate - I know it is because I have taken it many times returning to New England from the West Coast.

 

[Paulus]

As long as there is need to connect from trains coming in from the west, and as long as those trains have scheduled arrivals between 3pm and 4pm, there is no chance of an eastbound train leaving before 6:30pm, which means there is little chance of an LSL arriving in New York before 2:30pm even if they pushed the schedule to be as fast as they could possibly get at present. Whatever they do, it has to be scheduled into NYP before 3:30pm in order to stay well clear of Commission Hours even if delayed by an hour or so.

So why not just break the connection and require an overnight hotel stay in Chicago instead?

 

[Shanghai]

I like the timing of the LSL in both directions. It is an afternoon departure in New York and a Chicago arrival the next day.

The eastbound departure at 9:30pm, allows trains from the west to connect and still arrive in New York at a reasonable

hour to make local connections in the metro area. I hope nothing changes. Still a one seat ride home.

 

[afigg]

So why not just break the connection and require an overnight hotel stay in Chicago instead?

Amtrak could lose a lot of business doing that. A while back, someone posted (on another rr forum) the number of connecting passengers over a few day period between the west and east coast trains in Chicago. It was more than I would have expected. Both ways. People do use Amtrak to travel and many don't want to spend an extra day in Chicago. The LD train system is now just a skeleton of what it once was, but it still functions as a connecting system. Hence the carefully constructed connecting schedules.

 

[jis]

So why not just break the connection and require an overnight hotel stay in Chicago instead?

Bad bad idea. There are way more people who travel between city pairs like Ottumwa and Toledo, and that ridership will disappear in a flash if you ask everyone to cool their heels in Chicago for a day to make that trip. Such a move will be a guranteed first step towards destrroying the LD network.
It is easy for those that believe that only leisure travelers use LD trains to travel mostly end to end, a favorite canard perpetrated by LD train haters, to make these sorts of argument (BTW, not implying that anyone here falls in that group BTW). The reality is very very different from that though.

One can do non-connecting trains with the third or fourth train on a route. But not with the first and second trains when each of them is providing connections between unique city pairs. It is the level of connectivity of a travel graph with convenient connections that provides the multiplier effect for ridership and revenues. Just running random trains at random time without taking convenience of connections into account does not.

 

[AlanB]

Well rumors continue to circulate that once the CSX track work on that tunnel is done, that Amtrak will flip-flop the LSL & the Capitol, making the Cap play cleanup. And to some extent, this is the better choice, since the Cap often has more rooms running empty than the LSL, meaning fewer downgrades to coach if the booked connection was missed.

 

[Nathanael]

So I'm looking at the schedule for the Lake Shore Limited and I'm left wondering: Just how does it make any sense?

*Sigh*. It's a long series of incremental changes made for many reasons.
The eastbound leaves out of Chicago several hours later than desirable, a change which was made in order to catch transferring passengers from late-arriving trains in Chicago, when most of the western trains were arriving late. Amtrak has plans to reschedule this earlier (to roughly 6:00 PM)... but that depends on rescheduling the Capitol Limited later to catch the late connections... which means they're waiting for the CSX construction in Cumberland to finish... etc. This is all in the 2011 "Performance Improvement Plan" for the LSL.

Eastbound, the Albany-NY section has large delays built in in order to deal with Metro-North's rush hour.

There is padding in other sections due to lack of track capacity, notably around Schenectady.

Westbound, the LSL is designed to arrive in Chicago in the morning, and the rest of the schedule is built around that. This makes plenty of sense. Unfortunately, due to slower-than-desirable speeds, this doesn't make for the correct departure times back east.

It's not terribly badly designed for the Empire Corridor, but in the high travel zone it is receive or discharge only, so it really isn't actually useful for there.

You're wrong about the high travel zone.
The LSL is not "receive or discharge only" until you get to Albany. The LSL is used for upstate NY to Chicago travel. In very large quantities. This is the bread and butter clientele for the train.

The PIP explained all of this. Top city pairs for ridership, in order:

(1) Chicago-NY

(2) Chicago-Buffalo

(3) Chicago-Syracuse

(4) Chicago-Albany

(5) Chicago-Rochester

(6) Chicago-Boston

(7) New York-Syracuse

(8) Chicago-Toledo

....

The LSL also provides the fourth frequency for upstate to NYC, and that attracts a fair number of passengers.

The "Western Empire Corridor" (west of Albany) has been the area seeing passenger growth in recent years. The "Southern Empire Corridor" (south of Albany) has been seeing flat and declining passenger counts; there are actually too many trains running purely from Albany-NYC, and some of them should be extended.

But while Ohio offers great potential for corridor use (which is where the frequent trips, and therefore the money is, as well as the potential for expanded Amtrak service),

The good Ohio corridor is Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati, which is not the LSL route. Detroit-Toledo-Cleveland would work too, but that also requires new service on currently freight-only tracks.
Toledo-Chicago is already well served westbound. And it will be well-served eastbound if the LSL gets back to departing Chicago at 6:00 PM, or even 7:00 PM.

With the current train speeds, there is no way to serve Cleveland in decent hours on the same train serving NYC-Chicago trips, Boston-Chicago trips, or upstate NY to Chicago trips. In fact, the only way to get better Cleveland service is to run a second frequency.

in the d I can't really see a good reason not to push back the New York and Boston departures by about 2-2.5 hours

This wouldn't improve Ohio service. Boarding at 1 AM versus boarding at 3:30 AM in Cleveland? Who cares? It won't make much of a difference to ridership.... except that it will make Toledo-Chicago service worse, which is a terrible idea.

Breaking the connections at Chicago is a non-starter. It's not just connections to the West Coast, remember: it's connections to downstate Illinois, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, etc. By having the overnight train from upstate NY (/ day train from Toledo) arrive in the morning, and by having the train back to the east leave in the evening, you connect to the *entire* midwest corridor network. The number of connections is enormous, and a required overnight hotel stay would break *all* of them.

You can tweak the schedule (and Amtrak does have plans to do so, as noted above), but there are some rules you should follow for the first frequency on the route:

(1) Arrive in Chicago in the morning -- preferably not too early, definitely not too late (connect to all on-time trains)

(2) Depart Chicago in the evening -- preferably not too late, definitely not too early (connect to all on-time trains)

(3) Serve Toledo-Chicago in reasonable hours if possible

(4) Serve upstate NY - Chicago with a reasonable overnight service

(5) Serve upstate NY - NYC with daytime service to fill in the trains which are emptying out as you go east through NY

(6) Forget about Cleveland, you can't serve it properly without a second frequency; serving Cleveland well breaks *everyone* else's service.

Someone has to be served in the middle of the night, and geography tells us that it has to be Cleveland and Erie; any other choice serves fewer city pairs.

Anyway, future improvements which are planned:

(1) The rescheduling of the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited eastbound, as I noted above (more details are in the PIP for the LSL); this should keep the timings into NYC out of the commuter peaks and allow for the removal of delay (although it will hit the Boston commuter traffic contra-peak eastbound).

(2) Englewood Flyover should clear a lot of delay/padding out of the westbound schedules when it's finished, and "Indiana Gateway" should clear out a little more.

(3) Schenectady-Albany double-tracking should remove a lot of delay/padding in both directions

(4) Albany-Poughkeepsie resignalling should remove some delay in both directions

(5) Albany fourth platform should remove a little more delay

The results should allow for better service everywhere except Erie and Cleveland, though Buffalo eastbound arrivals will end up being quite early.