Amtrak's Heritage

[nanaimo73]

When Amtrak dropped the Three Rivers between Chicago and Pittsburgh on March 6 2005 its route mileage fell below 22,000 for the first time in it's history. By my count the current system is using 21,745 miles of track. Here is a break down of those miles using the Classic Railroad names.
3,680 Southern Pacific
2,760 Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
2,464 Penn Central ( 1,435 NYC, 755 PRR, 272 NYNH&H )
1,591 Great Northern
1,243 Southern
1,132 Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
1,125 Missouri Pacific
927 Illinois Central
883 Atlantic Coast Line
759 Seaboard Air Line
726 Chesapeake and Ohio
571 Denver and Rio Grande Western
569 Northern Pacific
426 Baltimore and Ohio
416 Chicago, Milwaukee St.Paul and Pacific
399 Louisville and Nashville
397 Western Pacific
273 Gulf Mobile and Ohio
240 Spokane, Portland and Seattle
196 Delaware and Hudson
190 Grand Trunk Western
187 Central Vermont
164 Boston and Maine
133 Canadian National
121 Monon
112 Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac
74 Burlington Northern
40 Missouri Kansas Texas
29 Wabash
18 Union Pacific
15 Chicago and Western Indiana
9 Kansas City Terminal
9 Terminal Railroad Association of St.Louis
6 New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal
5 New Orleans Public Belt
4 Chicago and Eastern Illinois
3 Amtrak
3 Cumberland and Pennsylvania
3 Kansas City Southern
3 New York Connecting
2 Chicago Union Station
2 Minnesota Transfer
1 Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal

This list includes an extra 165 miles of paired track in Utah ,Washington and Nevada giving a total of 21,910 miles.

Dale

[Anonymous]

Only three miles of pure Amtrak? But my system timetable lists the stretch all the way from Niles to Kalamazoo!

[nanaimo73]

This is just a list of who owned the track before Amtrak came along. The segment in Michigan is listed as Penn Central (NYC). I gave Amtrak the 3 miles from Penn Station to the former NYC West Side line in New York City. For Burlington Northern I have the connection at Sandpoint and the new Latah line west of Spokane. I have also put the Flathead tunnel line as Burlington Northern.

[VerMontanan]

While certain aspects of this could be nitpicked, looks to me like a pretty good effort. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

[nanaimo73]

Nitpicking is fine with me.
I know there are some errors, but I don't know where they would be.

[VerMontanan]

Where are the 18 miles of Union Pacific?

[nanaimo73]

Salt Lake City to Smelter in Utah. The Western Pacific is also used here and it is basically double track now.

[Anonymous]

The man knows his stuff, that's for sure.

[VerMontanan]

Thanks for the info about the UP. While I knew that the ex-WP and ex-UP ran due west from Salt Lake City, didn't know they were operated as paired track.

Next, have to ask about Northern Pacific. The only way I could come close your figure of 635 miles is to include the mileage of the Empire Builder all the way from Minneapolis to Moorhead. If you included this mileage, a footnote is in order. Actually, this route between Minneapolis and St. Cloud (actually University and Sauk Rapids) was double track with one track owned by Northern Pacific and the other by Great Northern. And, it is probably more a Great Northern line (even though NP ran more trains on it) because it was originally built by GN predecessor St. Paul and Pacific. Initially, NP ran its trains on the St. Paul and Pacific (later St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba, which finally became Great Northern). GN retained ownership of one of the tracks up until the BN merger, and at merger time operated its Western Star over this route, as well as its St. Paul-Superior passenger trains. If you did not include this mileage as GN, it needs to be shown. As for SP&S, your mileage of 232 miles is very close to that from Kennewick to Portland. Did you also include the about 9 miles that the westbound Empire Builder uses from the line change near Latah Jct. to UP Jct where it joins the ex-NP west of Spokane? Also, where's the 133 miles of Canadian National (I can think of only Montreal to Rouses Point and less than a mile entering the station at Vancouver, BC)? I don't know if CN owned the bridge at Niagara Falls....

[nanaimo73]

Thanks Mark. I have moved 68 miles of NP to GN in Minnesota, given the 64 mile Flathead line to BN, added 10 miles of SP&S at Marshall Canyon and made the Pasco bridge NP instead of SP&S. For CN I have 1 mile in Vancouver (actually .7), 40 miles to Montreal and 83 miles on the Maple Leaf.

[VerMontanan]

Well speaking for myself, I wouldn't give the GN the entire 68 miles from Minneapolis to St. Cloud (Sauk Rapids), as the NP did own one of the two main tracks. However you counted the WP-SP joint track across Nevada would be a similar sitatuion. Such things have to be subjective at some point and the "new" trackage around the Libby Dam in Northwest Montana is a great example. True, the new track didn't open until just after the BN merger, but it was certainly constructed under the supervision of the Great Northern, and some of the "new" route was actually part of GN's original route over Haskell Pass (and through Kalispell). The route through Eureka, the best of all of them due to the lack of grades, was not the first. So, I'll say while I have difficulty with the "new" line being a BN route, too, it just shows that in creating such lists there has to be a certain amount of subjectivity because not everything is black and white.

As for the 83 miles on the Maple Leaf (Toronto to Niagara Falls, Ontario), I would not show this. Sure, it's Amtrak equipment, but it's considered a VIA train. I don't know if it's this way now, but used to be that someone ticketed from Toronto to Syracuse on this train actually received two coupons: one from Toronto to Niagara Falls and the other from there Syracuse. I recall the Amtrak tariff stating the the carrier between Toronto and Niagara Falls was VIA, not Amtrak. The same situation was in place on the International at Port Huron, Michigan, but of course this service is no longer a through international train. One difference on the International was that for awhile the train was actually operated with VIA equipment through to Chicago; but for this same reason, I would not have included Port Huron to Chicago as VIA route miles.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Having ridden the International on a Chicago-Toronto round-trip in 1983, I'm quite familiar with the two-part tickets. At that time, Amtrak and VIA each contributed one set of equipment to the pool. I rode eastbound on Tempo coaches pulled by an LRC and returned home on Amfleet pulled by an F40PH. Most of the Canadians with whom I spoke on the train preferred the Amfleet equipment to the Tempos.