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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by artmark I'm afraid folks won't support any greater funding of passenger service because of their fear that it will be a lot more bad service. If there had been some extension of quality long distance service to use as an example perhaps there would be some hope of positive public pursuesion. For instance, using my favorite, Chicago to New York. If the thing ran like it did in 1973 when it left Chicago at 4pm and arrived in NYC at 10 the next morning ithout fail, people would use it. But it doesn't. It leaves late in the evening to insure the 12 or so connecting passengers from the west don't miss it and have to stay in a hotel at Amtrak's expense. So who wants to eat dinner at 9.30pm? It arrives sometime in the middle of the afternoon rush hour in NYC. No chance of a business meeting or anything else. Just a mad attempt to find a taxi to get to your place for your stay. Many times over the years I've heard people on the train say, "Never again!" In 33 years, train by train, the medium has been able to turn off almost everyone in the nation to train travel. To say the least of what foreign visitors must think of the country as a whole. I remember a quote that goes something like this, "You can tell the quality of a modern industrial nation by the way it runs its trains." Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, and all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put Humpty Dumpty together again. Why? Because they don't know how, they really don't want to and they're at seminars, meetings, focus group sessions, hiring consultants, taking trips to Europe to see how "they" do it, and getting brain storm ideas that goof things up. So the "show" stinks, and the audience is leaving the theater. Mitch [/quote] I still haven't heard how any of this is AMTRAK's fault. So Amtrak can cut say 2 hours off its CHI-NYC schedule. EVEN IF the hostile freight RR permitted that, how much more late - thanks to freight congestion and stabbing of Amtrak trains - do you think the train would THEN run? What dispatching does Amtrak control outside of the NEC? If it's normall 2-3 hours late now, would 6-7 be more likely? I was on the Calif. Zephyr when it recently detoured through Wyoming. Everyone thought that trip would be a lot shorter since it's around the mountains, not throught them. Despite the fact that UP had in some places a 3-track main, the train was constantly delayed. 40 MPH running over some parts. The train ran about an hour or two late into Salt Lake that night. Checking Amtrak's train status online, the train ran late and got latter, thanks to uncle ***, every time it ran on the UP Wyoming line. Amtrak doesn't have any control over the fregith tracks it runs on. Railfans ought to know this by now and stop whining about how bad Amtrak is.
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