Commuter Train proposal between Altoona and Pittsburgh, Pa

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

.......20 years of traffic probably has changed quite a bit....and maybe it's time for some rethinking. Not pipe dreaming, but thinking. Someone must think it has some merit to revisit.

still a pipe dream.... no matter how you cut it..... you have to keep in mind that pittsburgh is also shrinking in population....and alot of bissnesses that use to be in the city itself have started to relocate to the suburbs becouse of high taxes in the city itself...as well as higher proporty taxes in alleghany county....the demand for commuter service is not thier..... like i said befor...they had commuter trains in the past...and got ride of them....
oh yea... and i just had a thought about cost....not only is it going to cost capital to buy and run the trains themselfs.....its also going to take capital to rebuild alot of the station stops as well as put new station stops in locations that might want one should this happen... alot of the old PAT train stations along the old P&LE where PAT use to run commuter trains...have been torn down..or in such bad shape that it is going to take millions to rehubilitate the stations themselfs..let alone the cost to buy and maintain the rail eqimpment itself....and like i said befor...pittsburgh and the port authority are in no shape to spend any money on commuter trains....
for any of you that dont know it...pittsburgh..the city itself is under ACT 47 bankrupsy portection... the city is broke!!!!!!! they are cutting anything they can to try and make a buget work... thanks to the citys half baked ideas to try and bring people to the city....( 2 new sports statiums.... a new convention center) but none of it is drawing what the city planners thought it was going to draw....
so at this point in time..any talk of spending any money on commuter trains would never make it past the ACT 47 board.....and as far as amtrak.... they are one the brink of obivian...so i dough they would be considering funding commuter trains with questionable ridership.....
csx engineer

[Modelcar]

.....Sounds like they better start thinking of some forward thinking....and not pipe dreaming...!!

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

.....Sounds like they better start thinking of some forward thinking....and not pipe dreaming...!!

thats the point i am trying to make... the last thing they need to be even remotly thinking about is commuter trains... to many other issues that are faceing the city and region that need atttion.... have to have a reason to bring the people to the city befor you can even think about commuter services.....and as it stands right now..pittsburgh as a city has to reinvent itself first...and then think about commuter trains down the road..should the capital and "real" need arise down the road....
csx engineer

[Modelcar]

...To Scarbo: In giving credit to several points in the world of advancements in a recent post I also included...in error, Scandinavia....My mistake. I was thinking of Switzerland with the 35 mile rail tunnel they have under construction....And I'll say it again, there are places in this world that are making great advancements in rail transportation but here in our country we're not one of them. Freight hauling pretty good but rapid people projects...Almost none.

[88gta350]

QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd

QUOTE: Originally posted by 88gta350

I would be highly surprised if this commuter run ever happened. Altoona is not a large town by any stretch of the imagination, and there can't be more than a handful of people that commute from there to Pittsburgh. A Johnstown or Greensburg run might make more sense, and maybe tack on a weekend run from Altoona for those that want to travel to the city for the weekend, but other than that there would be no demand for this service.

Altoona has about 60,000 people. It's the largerst non-suburban city between H'burg and P'burg. I agree - small potatoes.

I don't believe Altoona has 60,000 people. i lived in Altoona for 2 years and you can drive from one end of it to the other in 10 minutes. Harrisburg has less than 60,000 people.

[Modelcar]

...Altoona, Pa. is listed as a population of : 49,523

[Modelcar]

....After thinking about the economic discription of present Pittsburgh discribed above....that is pretty sad. Yes, I know it was different when the smoke was rising from the many blast furnaces working around the clock but then it was gone....! But I thought the Golden Triangle City had made a big turnaround in the past 30 - 40 years to re do itself.....Now from CSX Eng's. post of it above it sounds like someone has dropped the ball...again....It's so sad for Pennsylvania's 2nd largest city. It bothers me as I'm a Pennsylvania native and desire to hear better of such places. Sad. Believe I just heard the President say at his news conference this morning that most economics were looking great in this country...Wonder what has happened there.....??

[cpbloom]

Poor Pittsburgh [:(] , I hear about how broke the city is everytime I talk long distance to my family, (especially my mother who works for Allegheny county and will retire this year).

And to think when I was a junior in highschool Pittsburgh was voted "The most livable city in America". But that was in 1985 when PAT still ran commuter trains from the B&O station downtown to McKeesport.

[bbrant]

Did anyone hear who would actually be running and funding the proposed commuter train between Altoona and Pittsburgh? I'd say if it's private money theres a small chance - probably smaller than the odds of winning the Power Ball - that it could happen. If it's government money then I'd say it's purely talk.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I'd seriously consider it if it ever happend and there are others who make the commute from Somerset to Pittsburgh each day The big problem is that everyone leaves at different times and having people rearrange their schedules to fit when the train would leave is a big hurdle the operator would have to overcome.

Whoever would operate this would have to depend on regular communters - not just those who go from Altoona to Pittsburgh once every 6 months for a doctor appointment - for it to be successful. While I mentioned that I and a few other do make a daily trip to Pittsburgh, I have to agree with Mark about finding the typical laptop/briefcase riders. Perhaps stops in Latrobe and Greensburg would get more riders but it still, in my opinion, wouldn't be cost effective to go to Altoona.

I could be wrong but I don't see this happening. As mentioned before, the PAT train stopped running years ago. There were other plans by the Allegheny Valley RR to attempt a communter train from the New Kensington area (perhaps even further) to Pittsburgh that never made it past the talking stage. In other words, commuter rail service for Pittsburgh seems to be that pipe dream that was mentioned in other posts.

For whatever it's worth, I believe the train they would use from Altoona is a Colorado Railcar DMU and I'm certain that's what was used on the test runs they made last year.

Brian

[oltmannd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

...Altoona, Pa. is listed as a population of : 49,523

If you add in the surrounding towns such as Hollidaysburg, Duncansville, and others whose names escape me at the moment, you get pretty close to 60,000.

[oltmannd]

You won't find many of those types of commuters who DRIVE 5 miles to work in Atloona!

The only scenario that even makes a tiny bit of sense here is if it's once a day deal that is basically an extension of the NY-Pitt train. The train arriving Pitt at 4PM turns to become the 5PM "commuter" to Altoona, arriving about 8PM. You might pick up some real Latrobe and Greensburg commuters, but it would certainly be slim pickings east of there. But, since your crew would be good to Altoona, why not go there? You have sevicing facilities there, too (NS maintains the business car fleet there). The train would lay over and depart for Pitt at 5AM, arriving Pitt at 8AM and then turn for a 9AM dept for NY.

Cost would be incremental wear and tear on the equipment, fuel, a single crew and $9/train mile to NS. Even with low ridership, the subsidy to keep it going might not be too bad.

Politically, you PA might even need to do something like this in order to get support for state funding for SEPTA. Eastern and Western PA fight all the time over this sort of thing.

[Modelcar]

....My distance from Pittsburgh is not close so I can't know the details of daily requirements for transportation.....I would think a commuter train from there on out east to Altoona is a bit much....as a commuter run. One would think a more reasonable run would be the bracket from around Latrobe on in to downtown Pgh.....As for a train making a run along the former main line of the Pennsylvania RR would make some sense. From info I've read and actually did some riding on....the runs across Pennsylvania on that route have been fairly well pattronized in the past and perhaps would still be used if scheduled properly. Not built as commuter runs but across State transportation.

[oltmannd]

Isn't it gratifying that when you examine these things unemotionally how readily the economics become clear? I agree -- why run half the distance, and pay for some place to put the train, when you've already paid for the crew to run the whole difference and there's a pre-existing place to put the train?