Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Empire Builder moved to a more southerly route?

Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="VerMontanan"][quote user="futuremodal"] Mark, it's been years since the EB was pulled by F7's.  [/quote]Of course, Dave.  But the official defiinition of "engine" remains about the same, which was my point.[/quote]????Two locomotives = two engines.  Nomenclatured semantics?[quote][quote user="futuremodal"] Thank you for acknowledging that the EB is a money loser, probably due to the fact that it travel's through sparsely populated territory.  Who knows, if the EB actually passed through Montana's more populous cities, it might come close to breaking even![/quote]Great example of how you take things out of context.  Yup, the Empire Builder loses money, as does every other non-tourist passenger train in the country.  But except for Auto Train, which serves almost an exclusive tourist market with only two stations (Lorton and Sanford), the Empire Builder loses less money than any other long distance Amtrak train when judged in the context of the figures I provided in the previous post.  Since the Empire Builder passes through the territory with the sparsest population, but loses the least amount of money, it is therefore illogical to assume that passing through more populous cities would mean the train would lose less money.  If your assertion were true, ALL the other long distance trains would lose less money than the Empire Builder, but they don't.[/quote]Wrong.  The EB loses less money because of the lack of passenger modal competition.  All other LD's go through more populous territory with state of the art airlline service - Salt Lake City, Denver, etc.[quote][quote user="futuremodal"] You are suggesting ridership would go down if EB was routed through more populous territory.  I am suggesting EB ridership would increase if rerouted through more populous territory.  Logic backs my ascertion, emotion backs yours.[/quote]No, Dave.  Logic and ridership statistics back mine.  I don't know what backs yours.  [/quote]So what's so logical about low population = better ridership?  It's an absurd, illogical acertion.  As I stated above, your precious EB gets riders due to lack of competition, not because of lack of population.  If the latter is the cause of the former, so what?[quote][quote user="futuremodal"] Last time I looked, Great Falls is closer to Helena than to Shelby or Havre.  Rerouting via MRL would make it more convient for GF folks as well as those from Butte, Bozeman, Helena, et al.  As for Lethbridgians, hey it's bad enough we subsidize Americans using Amtrak, we don't need to subsidize Canadians as well.[/quote]The thing that amazes me, Dave, is that not only do you ignore facts, you seem to have limited access to reference materials.  Great Falls is closer to Helena than Shelby?  91 miles to Helena, and 86 to Shelby (source: 2007 Rand McNally Road Atlas).  Not only is 86 less than 91, but the drive takes longer because of speed restrictions in Wolf Creek Canyon (55 instead of 75).  The drive from Great Falls to Shelby is also less likely to be affected by the weather, which can get nasty in the mountains between Cascade and Helena.  Just shows your limited knowledge of Montana.  As for people from Lethbridge riding Amtrak, as long as they pay the fare, who cares? Their number is not great, put the point is simply that more of them ride it than your earlier contention that most of the riders are from Southern Montana, which is not the case.[/quote]My knowledge of Montana is fine, despite the typo.  Of course, Havre was on the mind when I wrote it, Shelby an afterthought, neither of which degrades the main point - GF isn't served by Amtrak, and having to choose between going north or south to access it is basically a draw - roughly the same driving time to Shelby or Helena for a westbound boarding, and about a half hour less to Helena than to Havre for an eastbound boarding.  GF citizens will not cry if the EB is shifted to the MRL line, as their ridership opportunities are not diminished one whit.  Rerouting the EB to the MRL is a win/win for GF residents.  It's a win/win for Lewistown residents.  It's a win/win for Helena, Missoula, Bozeman, Billings, Butte, Miles City, Yellowstone NP tourists.  The only losers are the scattered High Liners.And who cares if US taxpayers such as I are subsidizing Canadians to use Amtrak?  Get a clue.[quote][quote user="futuremodal"] You're saying Amtrak ridership at Flagstaff should be higher than that at Whitefish due to the higher population base, but it's not which *proves* something.  Yet you acknowledge that Arizona has better flight connections than Montana cities, so doesn't that explain Amtrak's relatively low ridership numbers in Flagstaff?[/quote]Absolutely not.  Again, you're just fishing.  Southern Montana has excellent air service, clearly on par with that of Phoenix, considering the relative populations. [/quote]"Southern Montana has air service on par with that of Phoenix"?!  An absurd statement to say the least given the air fares Michael posted.  And that brings me to the main point of this thread, which is that (1)Southern Montana has a greater population base from which to draw Amtrak passengers, and (2)Southern Montana does not have decent air service, thus it is unlikely a Southern Montana rail service would suffer patranage loss to the airlines such as is the case on all other long distance trains.[quote] [quote user="futuremodal"] What would that alleged "threat" be?  Please explain yourself when you make such nonsensical statements.The reason I care about rerouting the EB to more populous areas is simply a desire to see my tax dollars derive better value, or in this case less of a negative value.  On a larger scale, I believe it is impossible to judge the value of passenger rail travel in the US as it relates to today's transportation scene if said passenger rail is an uninspired federally run entity stuck using 1930's logistics.  My objection to Amtrak isn't that the feds are enforcing a niche example of open access (whether you acknowledge it or not), it's that they are running it instead of supporting private enterprise running it.  The tax dollars spent for Amtrak would be better served if the money was used to support private passenger rail ventures getting established, and then see if it is possible for such enterprises to achieve self sustainment.And if a private firm was charged with running a Northern Tier passenger train service, you can bet your subsidized bottom dollar they'd route it through the most populous/least travel competitive client base.[/quote]I don't know what the threat would be, Dave, but then I don't know why you even started the thread.  [/quote]You stated on 04-25-2007 12:54 AM......[quote user="VerMontanan"]    Dave/Futuremodal started the thread and has said on numerous occasions that he sees no value in Amtrak, so why does he care?  Probably because the Empire Builder is well-patronized and that people along the route do see great value in the service, so therein is some kind of threat.  [/quote]You know what?  I don't even care why you implied the EB represents some kind of "threat" to me.  The tell is that you do percieve a threat to all that you've emotionally invested into the EB via the ex-GN, and thus implicitly transposed that phobia onto the rest of us.  Eventually, you're gonna have to get over it, whatever "it" is.  That being said, I do support the concept of a federal passenger rail oversight agency, just not the failed idea of running such trains as de facto arms of the government retaining 1930's logistics.  The fact is, the EB would have had a chance to be a profitable passenger train operation if BN had been allowed to retain private ownership of it, and subsequently rerouted it via the more populous portions of Montana.  Either that, or change the scheduling for a PM arrival in Seattle and an AM departure from Seattle, a move that would allow PNW patrons to board during normal hours.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag