schlimm daveklepper or improving them so they are not antiquated but thought of as extended corridors having double or triple usefulness, Maine - Florida and New York - Chicago being prime candidates. By acquiring one of the unused or under used former RoWs between NYC and CHI and making it a dedicated HSR with 6-8 hour one-way times, a large chunk of the airline business could be diverted to rail. Specifically, which of the former RoWs (NYC, PRR, Erie, B&O, NKP-DL&W) could be candidates?
daveklepper or improving them so they are not antiquated but thought of as extended corridors having double or triple usefulness, Maine - Florida and New York - Chicago being prime candidates.
or improving them so they are not antiquated but thought of as extended corridors having double or triple usefulness, Maine - Florida and New York - Chicago being prime candidates.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Could the LA-SF current trip time be incrementally speeded up by double tracking Tehachapi and running over the San Joquin route?
Dragoman But, expanding on Dave's comment: there is so much improvement that could be done in the conventional rail area, with large incremental improvements at minimal cost. And, with a few (too few!) exceptions, it isn't happening, and that is what I believe many complain about.
But, expanding on Dave's comment: there is so much improvement that could be done in the conventional rail area, with large incremental improvements at minimal cost. And, with a few (too few!) exceptions, it isn't happening, and that is what I believe many complain about.
You have made a very good point. To expand to points on the east coast. The Palmetto takes 14:45 to go 829 miles from NYP - Savannah. The Crescent takes 18:00 to go 859 miles NYP - Atlanta. Granted the Palmetto takes just 4:00 NYP - Alexandria and Crescent takes 4:30. This is because the Pametto does not have the Heritage equipment that slows the Crescent.
But still reducing 3 hours travel time on the Crescent route that has less traffic than the "A" line should be a priority. The NC DOT has upgraded the Charlotte - Greensboro section NS line so that its Piedmonts and Carolinian can now travel that section 15 minutes faster than Crescent even though Piedmonts have 3 intermediate stops compared to Crescent's 2.
If the Palmetto's route could be upgraded to average 65 MPH then time enroute would be 13:00+.
How to upgrade ?
1. Some HrSR might help.
2. Eliminate the slow track sections by:.
a. faster Bridges and approaches
b. Grade crossing improvements
c. double track
d. Curves eased.
e. eliminate crossings thru the various towns and cities.
3. The above would be much less expensive instead of spending same amount of money for maybe 20 - 30 miles of HSR that would only save 15 - 20 minutes.
4. The same improvements to the Crescent route would save what ? 5 hours ?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
CSSHEGEWISCH I don't think that the market exists for an overnight schedule anymore when you consider that most business travelers consider redeye flights to be a hardship. Another problem with an overnight schedule is that it serves only the endpoints and maybe a suburban stop and also writes off any reasonable service to intermediate points.
I don't think that the market exists for an overnight schedule anymore when you consider that most business travelers consider redeye flights to be a hardship. Another problem with an overnight schedule is that it serves only the endpoints and maybe a suburban stop and also writes off any reasonable service to intermediate points.
Perhaps. But consider the following:
1) Redeyes are a hardship, but isn't that primarily because of the uncomfortable nature of most domestic aircraft, making real sleep almost impossible? Even Amtral caoches are generally much more comfortable, and then there would be sleepers. Also, being at the airport early enough for a 6 or 6:30 or 7am flight could also be considered a hardship!
2) Middle-of-the-night stops are inconvenient, but nearly half of all stops on long distance routes are Middle-of-the-night, and many of those have some decent patronage.
3) Sacramento/San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose at one end, and greater Los Angeles/San Diego are the major population centers of California -- not too much in between, population-wise.
4) SF Bay Area to LA area is one of the busiest air corridors in the world, and early morning flights (and security lines, etc., etc.) are increasingly congested. I can't believe that a tiny fraction of all of those travellers wouldn't find a reliable, well-equipped overnight train to be a preferable alternative -- and be enough to fill one train.
Especially for those with a morning meeting in that other area, it is either struggling with those very-early-morning flights (and with very little margin for error in case of delays, for example), or going the day before and spending the night. I would rather leave later, spend the night on the train, and arrive with time to spare in the AM. And given the volume of traffic between Northern and Southern California, and with proper marketing, I have to believe that there would be enough like-minded travellers to sustain an overnight train on that route.
The last such, the Spirit of California, was not (as I understand it) cancelled due to low patronage, but because a new governor did not like subsidizing rail projects.
Thanks. Leaving at an earlier time southbound could ease the mind of anyone wanting to change in Los Angeles to the Sunset or the Texas Eagle.
Johnny
DragomanHSR can be great if done right, and if you can afford it The California project has been legitimately criticized on both counts, though I remain hopeful. But, expanding on Dave's comment: there is so much improvement that could be done in the conventional rail area, with large incremental improvements at minimal cost. And, with a few (too few!) exceptions, it isn't happening, and that is what I believe many complain about. A California example: Capitol Corridor (Sacramento - Oakland - San Jose) and Pacific Surfliner (San Luis Obispo - Santa Barbara - Los Angeles - San Diego) trains are very popular, but a new train to run Los Angeles - San Francisco, connecting the 2 corridors and taking pressure off of the oft-unreliable and oft-fully-booked Coast Starlight, has been in the active planning stages for over 15 years!
I wonder if an overnight train, which was tried for a short time, between Sacramento and Los Angeles would be well-patronized now.
An observation made from eight years of watching and posting in the Passenger forum: for a forum that states it is about "Amtrak, the future of passenger rail, and high speed proposals" it often seems that the posts are quite anti-HSR and only for preserving antiquated long distance trains.
Excuse me for sounding cynical, but this guy was against spending $70 billion dollars until one day he was inconvenienced?
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Plus southwest is now operating in the northeast. Never a fun place with weather.
Sounds a bit like a one-off.
Southwest Airlines on-time percentage of departures and arrivals have eroded signifcantly since 2009. On time departures fell from 80 per cent in 2009 to 68 per cent in 2014, whilst on-time arrivals fell from 83 per cent to 72 per cent, as per the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
The average departure delay rose from 45.22 minutes to 48.33 minutes, and the average arrival delay rose from 47.03 minutes to 50.16 minutes.
Cancellations rose from .73 per cent in 2009 to 1.26 per cent in 2014.
Southwest was ranked 16th and 14th with respect to the percentage of on-time departures and arrivals. However, it was 2nd and 5th with respect to average minutes of delay. It was 6th re: percentage of flights cancelled.
Southwest says that its departure and arrival numbers have fallen because it is flying into more congested airports and, furthmore, because of the challenges of integrating AirTrans into it system. So, if you fly Southwest, you have a better than average probability of departing or arriving late, but not by much compared to the other carriers, and the probability of having your flight cancelled appears to be small.
Link to an article by a former critic of CA HSR.
http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/opinion/forum/x1147594295/Southwests-glory-days-heading-south
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