Norfolk ridership hard to believe

[blue streak 1]

AMTRAK Virginia announces dec ridership of 11,200+ riders with service that started dec 12th.  That is an average of 280 riders on each train.  Boardings / alights  avg 162/train at Norfolk

http://www.wvec.com/news/local/Amtrak-11000-trips-made-in-December-on-Washington-Norfolk-route-186955231.html

This brings up several questions that need to be answered before any of us get too excited.

1.  How many of these are richmond & north passengers ?

2.  Has there been any loss of passengers on the Newport News trains ?

3.  Were the introductory low fares any factor ?

4.  How much has AMTRAK Virginia's marketing contributed ?

5.  Will this speed up the introduction of mid day service at Norfolk ?

6. How is business class selling ?

7.  Are there many Norfolk - Richmond short trips ?

8. If Jan holds up this number then Norfolk will pass Lynchburg's passenger count ?

9.  How will this affect the pro & anti rail spokespersons ?  

10.   this fills a time gap at PETERSBURG from the from the south so the # boarding and alightings will be interesting.

[oltmannd]

1. Some good questions.  The train is an extension of a Richmond train, so I'd hope it only includes boardings and alightings south of Richmond, but who knows?  280 per train is a big number.

Article has 6500 at Norfolk stop - or 170 per train.  That's a huge number!  Article states it's DOUBLE the projection.

5.  This is predicated on some more captial money coming available.  Probably different "pockets" in the state's suit of money.

There is supposed to be a schedule change once all the signal work on at Petersburg is complete.   It will set the departure up 10 minutes to 5:00 AM and move the arrival on the return trip up, too.  There are also plans to extend route a mile or so into downtown Norfolk as well as add a stop in Chesapeake.  Don't know the timing of these things, though.

It's worth noting that this is happening with 79 mph service using 35 year old coaches and 15 year old locomotives.  Don't need new.  Just need to use what you have to good effect.  Maybe Amtrak can put seats in some of the new high speed baggage cars they are getting!

 

[schlimm]

blue streak 1

9.  How will this affect the pro & anti rail spokespersons ?  

9.  Seems to confirm the pro-rail idea "If you build it, they will come."  If good marketing studies (ala henry6), decent service with speed and convenience, and decent, not necessarily new or lavish equipment is used (ala oltmann) then Amtrak can be successful.

[blue streak 1]

added an item 10 wondering how the Petersburg riders will be.  The Norfolk service will fill in a large gap of times for pass compared to the trains to / from south.

[oltmannd]

schlimm

Seems to confirm the pro-rail idea "If you build it, they will come."  If good marketing studies (ala henry6), decent service with speed and convenience, and decent, not necessarily new or lavish equipment is used (ala oltmann) then Amtrak can be successful.

Yes!  Gotta pick your spots and make it count.  These big, lavish ideas are all well and good, but all they do is waste time and effort.  "Grid and Gateway?"  No.  Greenfield HSR lines all over the place?  No.  Pick your spots...

[Train 26]

Some of these ideas are pie-in-the-sky, ergo extending the run a mile or so into downtown.  Also, rather than stopping the train in Chesapeake, would it not be better, if you want to add a stop, to make it Suffolk?  That's a pretty good sized city in itself and really a bedroom community for Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Newport News.  The train has a speed restriction there anyway...bunches of street crossings!          Train 26     

[ksman38]

Agreed!! Suffolk would make more sense than Chesapeake, and also either Wakefield or Waverly to help fill that gap between Suffolk and Petersburg. Currently the train is arriving 12 to 15 minutes early to Petersburg, so adding 1 or 2 3 minute stops would pose no problem with schedule keeping on the current schedule and offer additional convenience to the potential riders living along the southside corridor. The original reason for padding the schedule was because the ex- N&W Norfolk District is currently Rule 251 current of traffic ABS with sections of  Rule 2621 CTC on Norfolk Terminal and in the Petersburg area due to the split lines going either into downtown (Old Line) or bypassing it via the Belt Line, but is being upgraded to be ALL Rule 261 CTC which will offer some additional flexibility to the routing of the train to eliminate potential delays from freight trains that they don't have at present.