Chicago to Miami Passenger Rail Service - Search for Board of Directors

[HIghSpeedRepublican]

Every idea has a start and I am ready to incorporate   Mine deals with re-instating, semi-privately, Chicago to Miami rail passenger service with enough new ideas that profitability can be a reality.  The use of two bilevel self propelled railcars and one unpowered bilevel railcar provide exactly the lost cost, efficient type of operating rolling stock such a rail concept would require, however this is just one idea.  I have spoken to the host railroad marketing department, they show some interest in hosting the trains as long as certain conditions are met; none of which are unreasonable.  Their routes encompass all trackage between Chicago and north Florida.

No exact route or city pairs have been selected, although track between Indianapolis, IN, and Louisville, KY, is generally in such poor condition that those two cities would most certainly not be in the route selection.  Probable routing would be Chicago, Terre Haute, IN, Evansville, IN, Nashville, TN, Chatonooga, TN, Atlanta, GA, then choosing routing through the Folkston Funnel in GA, into Florida.  The expected transit time is 30 hours for 1350 miles, averaging 45 mph running between stops at 55mph to coincide with 50 mph freight traffic for ease of dispatching.

The train concept would be two bilevel self propelled railcars and one unpowered bilevel railcar in each consist.  Control cabs would be required in each end of the consist to avoid wyeing at each end of the line.  One non-requirement would be a trade study on whether to include an auto rack in the consist. The study would have to determine whether car rental versus car transport is a money maker or a detraction.

Three depatures daily would occur from each terminus, at approximately 9am, 3pm and 9pm to avoid the commmuter congestion in both Chicago and Miami.  One car would be all coach, configured with seating allowing 50 inch pitch in four across seating; and a pair of shower facilities on the lower level.  The second car would be upper level coach, with food service facilities in the lower level.  There would be no dining car; passenegers can dine at their seat or in a small dining area in the lower level.  Ticket prices would include three meals ordered in advance of the trip and delivered to the train by caterers; as 9 hours of each transit would be during the night.  The final car would be first class and business class, with four rooms, each pair connecting into one and the remainder with upscale airline style business class lie flat and horizontal pods - no rooms.  The lower level would be baggage for the entire consist and shower facilities.

Six primary consists would be required with a back up at each end of the route.  Failures should be sufficiently mitigated to avoid most enroute issues.  The purchase goal would be a total of 8 consists with a possible 8 autoracks.

I certainly do not expect much excitement in the present, if the idea came to fruition first service would be in the 2017 or 2018 time frame.  I would contract with CSX for motive power or storage facilities enroute for catastrophic incidents.  I also would subscribe to a preventative maintenance schedule from the chosen manufacturer and would expect nothing less than a 99.5% dispatch availability of the equipment.

The entire concept is based on market research I did with online public information and word of mouth among travelers.  More detailed research of who would ride, how much they would pay and what the real route would be has to be conducted.  I am searching for a Board of Directors, four other people that would believe in the concept enough to do some work, uncompensated, until we secure financing - no promises!  In the present we would work preliminary cost and pricing data, and a goal of no U.S. Government funding or affiliation with current rail passenger networks would be sought.  State and local Governments' participation would be welcomed and encouraged.  If the concept cannot turn a profit in the private sector with local Government involvement, it is not to be.

Anyone interested?  For now, qualifications are a business or marketing background with a keen interest in private rail passenger service.  Current employment status is not a factor.  First order of business will be to select a corporate name and incorporate, and name the railroad.  Next will be to review the myriad of governing documents for the industry and devise processes to deal with them while we conduct marketing research and contact State Governments for their level of interest.

Please respond to the blog if interested, and I will contact you to discuss the entire concept.  Thank you for your time.

 

[Overmod]

More power to you if you can actually secure the operating agreements.

One note: you will probably not be using 'autoracks' for this kind of service, and even with modern 'smaller' cars, any substantial take rate for the vehicle service is going to entail multiple enclosed cars, much the same as for Auto-Train in its earlier incarnation.  That in turn is going to have a significant impact on your operating model, as I don't think it will be easy to get a couple of what are essentially DMUs to pull significant numbers of cars, and you already have one passenger trailer.

I think you are correct in presuming relatively low operating speed (to fit in better with freight operation) stressing other aspects and amenities.  I would still, however, pay SPECIAL attention to designing equipment that will not break down or fail in ways that have impact on 'the integrity of freight operations'.

I do presume that you have done preliminary pricing for equipment costing and maintenance requirements, and have demonstrated that the achievable revenue stream covers all costs plus reserve for the critical startup or 'chasm' periods.

[oltmannd]

HIghSpeedRepublican

The expected transit time is 30 hours for 1350 miles, averaging 45 mph running between stops at 55mph to coincide with 50 mph freight traffic for ease of dispatching.

This would be a rather ambitious schedule over this route.  45 mph avg speed would mean it would have to make many "passes" - which consume a lot of track capacity.

[billio]

Hey!  I'm available.  Umm, how much do you contemplate shelling out in director's fees?

[Bonas]

Sign me up....its a crazy idea but so was the lightbulb and the telephone...how di I contact you? I know people in Chicago

[CMStPnP]

I encourage you to persue this if you have a business plan with projections and timelines.    I would discourage you from publishing parts of it online as you have done her because if it is viable someone will likely steal your idea.

A few points I wish to mention:

A recent former CEO of CSX, believe it was Mr. Snow that it would be over his dead body before he hosts anymore long distance passenger trains between Chicago and Florida.     Don't let that discourage you because its only one person.

Your choice of bi-level equipment that is self-propelled will increase insurance costs a lot vs a conventional consist due to collision and collision damage concerns.     Not sure if you scoped the route yet but there are also some pretty steep grades and hairpin turns on the L&N  South of Louisville before you get to Nashville.     Self propelled cars will run slower on curve or grade intensive terrain.

Capital formation and attracting capital will be your toughest part.    You'll have no trouble attracting people that want to live off your dime to pursue their own goals, thats the case with most private businesses.    I know because I am about to start my own (not rail related).    No shortage of people wanting me to hire them but strangely enough........none of them want to invest their own money or bring equity to the newly formed company.       If I were you, the way to seperate the serious employees from those that will be living a fantasy is to ask them to contribute equity to the firm or require them to buy a specific amount of stock.    To be fair, you should also include them in profit sharing.    You can do that without losing control over the company.

[KCSfan]

HIghSpeedRepublican

Every idea has a start and I am ready to incorporate   Mine deals with re-instating, semi-privately, Chicago to Miami rail passenger service with enough new ideas that profitability can be a reality. 

You have obviously given much thought to this proposal but I am skeptical about its practicality. I'll give you some opinions which might suggest some points that should be considered (or re-considered).

The City of Miami, Southwind and Dixie Flagler (which ran on the route you are suggesting) made the Chicago-Miami run in about 30-1/2 hours. This schedule required running at much higher track speeds than 55mph over most of their routes and giving them top priority dispatching with rights over all other trains. This causes me to seriously doubt that the 30 hour schedule that you have in mind could be realized.

Perthaps you envision a 30 hour schedule by making stops at only the larger intermediate cities - Evansville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta and Jacksonville on the route you suggest. I think that relatively few passengers on todays longer distance trains travel between end point cities. A significant number are travelling between the smaller communities and the larger cities on the trains' routes. Eliminating stops at the smaller communities would, IMHO, reduce the pool of potential passengers to the point of making operation of the trains impractical.

I love train travel and have been riding LD trains since the early 1940's. In recent years my rail travel has been confined to trips between Longview, TX and Chicago on the Texas Eagle, a 19-1/2 hour journey. My wife and I eat two meals in the diner and make a couple of visits to the sightseer lounge for libations and a little card playing. Despite my love of trains I doubt we would take the train if we couldn't have these diversions and the opportunity to socialize with other passengers that they afford. Even 12 hours, much less 30, on a coach train with no diner or lounge, to me at least, would be out of the question.

A significant number of Chicago to Florida travelers are destined to or from Orlando and Gulf coast cities. Would the schedules of the trains you propose allow making connections in Jacksonville with Amtrak trains going to these points? Even it they did, the oft delayed southbound Amtrak trains would make such connections problematical. As a result the pool of potential riders to and from Florida's west coast would probably be miniscule.

I dislike being negative but for reasons such as these I think your idea of Chicago - Miami trains is unlikely to be viable.

Mark      

 

[V.Payne]

My rough estimate is $300 to $400 million in capitalization just for the passenger side of this project. Roughly on order with starting a small regional jet “commuter” airline, and much more complicated due to the number of parties and timeline. Both AEE and the original Auto-Train were victims of low capitalization when grade-crossing accidents forced them to suspend operations while equipment was repaired. More power to you if you control that amount of capital…

 

Maybe you are a visionary as we are in remarkably underperforming economy yet gasoline still hovers above $3/gallon. That price seems to be a floor, when/if the economy recovers around 2017, where will prices be? If you had asked people that question in 2007 they would have given you an answer that now sounds quaint. More importantly, what will it cost to run a Class 8 truck then? 

 

As to the business plan while I agree that three schedules a day is an optimal balance of trip generation and demand matching, may I suggest a much cheaper way to enter the market? There has always been a tension between the container based and trailer based freight intermodal products in regard to speed and price. Perhaps at the speeds you are talking about it would make more sense to first figure out what the number is from CSX to split the Chicago to Atlanta intermodal product offerings into two classes of trains, with the trailer based intermodal product offering a faster trip (later three departures a day, though some departures will have more demand than others, similar to the original sprint demonstration). You might even look into renting a captive pool of relatively surplus 48’ well cars to handle 53’ trailers in a low to the ground configuration or import HUPAC style cars with a reduce tare weight.

 

You then have a schedule that is doable and you don’t have to qualify crews for the mainline portion of the trip. Next, rent a power-by-the-hour freight engine capable of distributed power operations and place this at the head of the passenger consist. This would allow you to run the passenger consist from the boarding platform/station to a point where you would link up with the freight intermodal consist for the long haul and perhaps add the automobile carrier portion of the train. Contact one of the commuter railroads in Chicago to provide crews to the point where the trains couple. Since brake pipe and train buff/draft forces are equalized with the distributed power arrangement it should be a relatively good ride.

 

The distributed power feature would allow you to pull up behind the freight intermodal consist, couple, and set up communications and then the trains would continue on together for the long haul. Within your passenger cars, probably within the food service car, install two or three Capstone micro-turbine alternators for HEP. The turbines run on pretty much any fuel and are very low maintenance machines. This allows you to use a standard rented freight engine, and to incorporate automobile carriers at the head end of your consist without the need for pass through HEP electrical cables. But you will probably need a custom carbody design or at least premium trucks under the auto carriers.

 

So if you run the expedited intermodal setup above the trip would be: Chicago, Evansville OR (Indianapolis-shortline- Louisville), Nashville, Birmingham (Leave Freight Intermodal consist), Montgomery, and Pensacola, FL would be the best route. Make it a one night run, same day equipment turns. Lots of military bases and north-south traffic in multiple classes. Rough schedule, 4 PM, Chicago (Loop), IL to Noon, North Pensacola, FL. Most of the intermodal trailers could continue on a spur train to Atlanta or Jacksonville from Birmingham, and passengers could go there as well in through cars. There are plenty of upscale cottage villages like Seaside around there. If it is an auto-train you have gotten the customers to Florida and the Interstate is pretty quick from there on out to the east. There are also a lot of refrigerated containers coming off the gulf ports that need to move northward. Use existing intermodal terminals of course and leave the marketing up to CSX.

 

Then you still have to find station platforms that can take the train at the cities you mention, some of which haven’t had service in quite a while (for no real reason other than politics). I assume for the length of trip you are talking about intermediate service would be desired. So this would require negotiations. I guess you could play the what-will-you-give-me site location game to see what you can get from the local and state governments.

 

A simpler option still would be to just tack the cars onto the back of the City of New Orleans to Jackson and then run your own train on the rebuilt line to Mobile and then off to Florida on CSX. No new stations required. Seriously, if you are looking to build some creditability in the markets that would be the first move.

 

I still doubt you can overcome the implicit cross-subsidy to roadways. The lowest I typically get when I run some numbers for a lean train operation outside the NEC (in today’s travel market) is a loss of $0.03 per equivalent automobile mile, which coincidentally is the financial cost to the US (Medicaid, Medicare, SS, & SS-Disability) of the various automobile accident costs per mile. If fuel goes up again, we might push through that level in the market.

 

What you are doing is almost like trying to privately offer base medical insurance to seniors when Medicare is the law of the land. The interstate capital cross-subsidy is around $0.08/VM. So if you are running a long train carrying 200 automobile equivalents, you are running against a $22/train-mile subsidy to automobiles.

[Overmod]

I like the tech approach, but I see two potential complications that are left up to now unaddressed:

1.  The draft gear at the front/rear of the passenger consist, and perhaps between cars too, needs to be MUCH longer-travel and energy absorbing than normal tightlock standard.  There's an awful lot of slack even in intermodal consists, and this might easily translate into some snap-the-whip dynamics back there on the 'neglected end'.  Not cost-effective to re-equip even intermodal cars with full EP brakes (in the short run) or expect freight engineers to adopt something like power braking to add comfort to something relatively heavy (relatively very heavy, if the train has empties at the rear and these have reduced braking effort to prevent wheelslide) at the back end of the train.  

2.  How do you handle station stops?  Cut the pax consist off the rear -- perhaps in the 21st Century equivalent of a slip-coach! -- and then wait for the 'next' intermodal?  Provide an incentive to the intermodal crew to stop at stations (perhaps bribing them with cruise-style food or other train amenities, including after they've gone on the law but before the van meets them)?  I can think of a number of interesting possibilities here, but they have to be at least brainstormed through...

[V.Payne]

There would be some stuff to work through, the distributed power and brake application would have to monitored on some of the consist running that way to get a baseline acceleration and jerk rates. EP might be way to go.

[BaltACD]

Overmod

 

2.  How do you handle station stops?  Cut the pax consist off the rear -- perhaps in the 21st Century equivalent of a slip-coach! -- and then wait for the 'next' intermodal?  Provide an incentive to the intermodal crew to stop at stations (perhaps bribing them with cruise-style food or other train amenities, including after they've gone on the law but before the van meets them)?  I can think of a number of interesting possibilities here, but they have to be at least brainstormed through...

Emulate the old RPO mail pick up hook - pick up passengers on the fly - disembarking might be a bit difficult.

[Overmod]

BaltACD

Emulate the old RPO mail pick up hook - pick up passengers on the fly - disembarking might be a bit difficult.

No, you'd need some better technology in these potentially more litigious times.  And besides, the pickup cranes would be mounted in head-end, non-revenue cars (which we were only recently mentioning as a wrong priority for Amtrak -- far more for a new privately-capitalized service..)

What is needed for pickups is a variant of those aircraft bungee systems.  Hook is made on the end of a long elastic cord.  Customer(s) sit in a 'boarding module' second-sourced from the entertainment-park industry; it has wheels running on a minimalist pipe-based structure also taken from modern coaster design.   Bungee is a known length, so that the 'module' accelerates smoothly up to track speed, and then is directed neatly into an appropriately-equipped vestibule, where it locks and the tether releases.  I foresee a future for the technology in certain kinds of dinner-theatre train service ... other rides or carny attractions could be built to provide both food service and, er, additional income potential for the operating entity...

An alternative might be a modified autogiro, launched via the same bungee-style approach, this time attached at the rear of the consist.  Autonomic UAV flight-control software, combined with the programming used for the helicopter scene in that Mission Impossible movie, can use the additional high-accuracy NDGPS systems in the soon a'comin' PTC infrastructure to fly the boarding passengers under bridges, around obstructions, etc. regardless of weather or wind, and possibly use on-board targeting systems to 'address' a few vandals or trespassers while so doing.

You say "disembarking might be a bit difficult".  No, it is not.  As Eli Gilderfluke said, 'it is simplicity itself' as long as gravity pulls down and contact with the ground scrubs off horizontal motion.

Now, I'll grant you, disembarking might be somewhat UNPLEASANT using typical mail-drop procedures. But here again, the 'modern' low-cost NASA provides us with a perfect approach:  Mars Express Lite (it even has a railroady name!)  Each passenger is enclosed in a comfy shock-absorbing inflated structure, carefully padded on the outside to avoid collateral damage, as soon as they have signed the waiver paperwork and legal releases.  They can then simply be pushed into an appropriate 'deployment mode' where the laws of ballistics determine where the 'destination basket' is located.  If the technology can accommodate a high-speed re-entry from space, to a planet with less atmosphere than Garfield, NJ, it can surely accommodate a short-hop transfer move...

Some means of adjusting the terminal (or perhaps I need a better word, semantically) position of the polysphere would be needed, but I brush this away as trivial implementation only.  Again to paraphrase Gilderfluke, think of the time saved by not having to stop at stations...

This deserves at least as much serious consideration as the original proposal...   ;-}

RME

[schlimm]

Overmod

This deserves at least as much serious consideration as the original proposal...   ;-}

RME

Well (and very cleverly) said!!