aricat Such an elaborate station for such limited service. He said that if his Member of Parliament proposed such a station in Britain for this limited service; HE WOULD LOSE HIS SEAT IN PARLIAMENT.
Such an elaborate station for such limited service. He said that if his Member of Parliament proposed such a station in Britain for this limited service; HE WOULD LOSE HIS SEAT IN PARLIAMENT.
I think this is part of the problem... Why does a commuter rail station need to be more than timber and asphalt platforms with a graded gravel parking lot? The passengers are there for all of 10 minutes a day, at the most.
We do these projects all backward. Instead of identifying the benefits and then seeing how cheap we can capture them, like a "for profit" would do. We identify the benefits and then see how much of that we can spend w/o jeopardizing the money flow.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Next May we will "celebrate" the 40th anniversary of Amtrak. Pardon me if I don't attend the party. Amtrak,except in the Northeast corridor and to a lesser extent in California, has not improved passenger rail service in America one bit. Basically you either fly or drive. Even commuter rail is suspect. A friend of mine was visiting from Britain last September and I took him train watching. I wanted to show him the new Northstar commuter rail in the Twin Cities and took him to the Fridley Minnesota station. I thought that he would be impressed; instead he was shocked. Such an elaborate station for such limited service. He said that if his Member of Parliament proposed such a station in Britain for this limited service; HE WOULD LOSE HIS SEAT IN PARLIAMENT. Minnesota does not have the money to buy more equipment for Northstar, yet we talk about rail passenger service to Duluth and debate what route it will use. America will be sadly in 2030; in the same spot it is today in regards to rail passenger service; Behind the 8 ball!
Paul Milenkovic oltmannd: Th final stunt was the NYC jet propelled Budd car. The next day, they petitioned the ICC to drop their LD trains. The petition was denied. I don't know if it is fair to characterize the jet-powered Budd car as a stunt. The rationale for the jet was a quick-and-dirty solution for running a rail car at high speeds, to collect data on whether high speeds were possible with conventional equipment or if some exotic truck designs were required. Perhaps a more exotic thing on the NYC jet-powered demo was the use of cylindrical wheel profiles instead of the usual cone taper. The purpose of that is/was to suppress hunting, which would be dangerous at high speed. Jerry Pier recently let on that the Amtrak Turboliners, used in the Midwest and on the Empire Service, had cylindrical wheel treads. One problem of cylindrical wheels as that you rely more on the flanges for steering, although there are some flange-fillet profiles that obtain gradual flange steering without a hard contact. The second problem is the effect of wear -- the cylinder can wear into a hollow, which can be very unstable at speed. My understanding is that maintaining low cone-angle wheel treads requires a lot of frequent wheel maintenance.
oltmannd: Th final stunt was the NYC jet propelled Budd car. The next day, they petitioned the ICC to drop their LD trains. The petition was denied.
Th final stunt was the NYC jet propelled Budd car. The next day, they petitioned the ICC to drop their LD trains. The petition was denied.
I don't know if it is fair to characterize the jet-powered Budd car as a stunt. The rationale for the jet was a quick-and-dirty solution for running a rail car at high speeds, to collect data on whether high speeds were possible with conventional equipment or if some exotic truck designs were required.
Perhaps a more exotic thing on the NYC jet-powered demo was the use of cylindrical wheel profiles instead of the usual cone taper. The purpose of that is/was to suppress hunting, which would be dangerous at high speed. Jerry Pier recently let on that the Amtrak Turboliners, used in the Midwest and on the Empire Service, had cylindrical wheel treads.
One problem of cylindrical wheels as that you rely more on the flanges for steering, although there are some flange-fillet profiles that obtain gradual flange steering without a hard contact. The second problem is the effect of wear -- the cylinder can wear into a hollow, which can be very unstable at speed. My understanding is that maintaining low cone-angle wheel treads requires a lot of frequent wheel maintenance.
oltmannd Th final stunt was the NYC jet propelled Budd car. The next day, they petitioned the ICC to drop their LD trains. The petition was denied.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Dragoman Just a few comments, in my opinion ... (1) Have you actually done some research, to say that "... no one goes from, say, Barcelona to Stockholm on a train."? I believe that you are not completely correct. While most passengers probably use the high-speed corridor services (I say probably based on logic, since I have not done any research), there is evidence, even to the casual observer, that there are long-distance passengers -- the fact that there are long-distance services in Europe! Not all trains in Europe are TGV, Eurostar, Thalys, ICE, Pendelino, AVE, and the like. In fact, just a few weeks ago, a new conventional (not high-speed) through train was re-instituted between Moscow and Nice -- not exactly "city pairs that are 200 to 300 miles apart ". (2) I understand from Amtrak materials that most passenger-miles logged on a train like the California Zephyr are not going Chicago - San Francisco. Rather, there are people going SF to Truckee, Reno to Winnemucca, Granby to Denver, Omaha to Chicago, and the like. In fact, Amtrak has in the past had extra cars between Emeryville & Reno, and between Denver & Chicago. An Amtrak LD train takes passengers between many, many city pairs -- for some of which, it is the only public transport available. Not exactly "a land cruise ".
Just a few comments, in my opinion ...
(1) Have you actually done some research, to say that "... no one goes from, say, Barcelona to Stockholm on a train."? I believe that you are not completely correct. While most passengers probably use the high-speed corridor services (I say probably based on logic, since I have not done any research), there is evidence, even to the casual observer, that there are long-distance passengers -- the fact that there are long-distance services in Europe! Not all trains in Europe are TGV, Eurostar, Thalys, ICE, Pendelino, AVE, and the like. In fact, just a few weeks ago, a new conventional (not high-speed) through train was re-instituted between Moscow and Nice -- not exactly "city pairs that are 200 to 300 miles apart ".
(2) I understand from Amtrak materials that most passenger-miles logged on a train like the California Zephyr are not going Chicago - San Francisco. Rather, there are people going SF to Truckee, Reno to Winnemucca, Granby to Denver, Omaha to Chicago, and the like. In fact, Amtrak has in the past had extra cars between Emeryville & Reno, and between Denver & Chicago. An Amtrak LD train takes passengers between many, many city pairs -- for some of which, it is the only public transport available. Not exactly "a land cruise ".
I quite agree with you. It's not just about the end points. Volume is generated by medium and small intermediate markets that have higher non-local travel generation rates than large cities. Ridership is weighted being found empirically to be related to the sum of the squares of the town or city pairs inversely related to the distance and time.
Jack_S In a recent article in, I believe, Trains, I read that the Empire Builder has room for 300 passengers, but sells an average of 700 tickets for each trip. Obviously a lot of those 700 people are not taking the train from Chicago to Seattle. I have taken the Coast Starlight from LA to Oakland, and from LA to Santa Barbara and back. And that's a route that could be sped up a lot by just improving the ROW and eliminating some scheduling glitches. Inevitably the LD trains serve many intermediate stops. And many of these stops are hard to get to by any other means. Take La Plata MO. Either one flies to KC or St. Louis and take a puddle jumper plane or drives for four hours. Or gets off the Southwest Chief right in the middle of town. Improve the speed and regularity of LD trains and many more will ride it on intermediate trips. Jack
In a recent article in, I believe, Trains, I read that the Empire Builder has room for 300 passengers, but sells an average of 700 tickets for each trip. Obviously a lot of those 700 people are not taking the train from Chicago to Seattle.
I have taken the Coast Starlight from LA to Oakland, and from LA to Santa Barbara and back. And that's a route that could be sped up a lot by just improving the ROW and eliminating some scheduling glitches.
Inevitably the LD trains serve many intermediate stops. And many of these stops are hard to get to by any other means. Take La Plata MO. Either one flies to KC or St. Louis and take a puddle jumper plane or drives for four hours. Or gets off the Southwest Chief right in the middle of town.
Improve the speed and regularity of LD trains and many more will ride it on intermediate trips.
Jack
While generally agreeing with you; I would argue that quite a few passengers drive some distance to or from places like La Plata, MO for whom the center of town has little relevance. Now taking the train to downtown Chicago is relevant because of road congestion, high cost of parking, and ability to get to places like Wrigley Field without a car in addition to the costs of gas and tolls to get there and back.
Thank you all for sharing your opinions on this issue. Passenger train travel is both a political and emotional issue. Neither of which bodes well for good decision making. I'm sure that votes have been traded for routes and that is not good. In my opinion, the threat to the entire Amtrak system is real and we are saddling NRPC's management with routes and issues that are detrimental to long-term viability. When Class 1 railroads were allowed to abandon under-performing lines many of them were kept alive by companies like MRL and KYLE. Those companies have figured out how to provide service that bigger roads couldn't address profitably. It may well be that getting to La Plata, Mo. may be in company with someone who has figured out how to do without the overhead of dining cars, sleepers, and high speed locomotives.
The hypothesis for the past 60+ years has been that there is a niche for passenger trains in densely populated corridors and that service could cover it's operating costs.
In the 1950s, the RRs played around with lightweight trainsets to support such service. NYC tried with Train X in Cincy, Columbus, Cleveland service. There was the Aerotrain demo in NYP-Pittsburgh, the Keystone in NYP-WAS service and many others. None of these panned out, largely because the RR's weren't allowed to bail on the LD trains in order to support new, corridor service.
Later, the Fed DOT bankrolled the Metroliner/TurboTrain NEC project, which was by and large, successful.
The creation of Amtrak envisioned a future where the original LD network would be pared down as new corridor service was initiated and that the surplus from the corridors would cover the operating losses from the remaining LD trains. Whether this was overly optimistic, we'll never know, because what happened at Amtrak was exactly the opposite. The LD lines on the map grew in the first decade in response to political pressure and no new corridor services were introduced or improved.
Some of the poorest LD lines were pared during the last Carter Admin years and there have been bits and pieces of corridor development along the way, mostly NEC and NEC extensions plus some west coast stuff.
Now, we're investing in various types of corridor development more vigorously than ever, in a wide variety of ways. The proof will be in the pudding. It's put up or shut up time!
I bet that very few people take the train from Boston to DC either, but the Northeast Corridor carries more people every day than all the airlines combined. The secret? Fast, frequent, and on time.
As long as Amtrak runs one slow train a day, they will never be useful as transportation.
Trains are more convenient than the airlines and will remain so until the paranoid Department of Homeland Security brings their Gestapo tactics to train stations.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Hear, hear!! Some of us have been saying that about most of the LD train routes for quite some time. They make little sense.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Let me start by saying that I love passenger trains. I’ve ridden a lot of them, but I’ve got to be realistic about what those trains can and should do. I often hear about the train service available in Europe and it is great. But no one goes from, say, Barcelona to Stockholm on a train. That is about the same distance as Chicago to Las Vegas. They go between city pairs that are 200 to 300 miles apart and they do it quickly, conveniently, and safely. It is possible to travel longer distances, but you must change trains to do it.
In North America, we have a number of city pairs that make sense for this kind of high-speed travel. But, we run passenger trains between city pairs that simply don’t make sense. Realistically, the long distance passenger train is a land cruise and should be treated as such. Let some entrepreneurial group assemble top-notch equipment, establish appealing schedules and destinations and let demand determine the frequency. Again realistically, if anyone needs to get from Chicago to San Francisco for an important engagement, they will fly. And, if they really want to make the trip by train, they can likely find an appropriate cruise to book and travel at leisure from here to wherever there is. We simply can’t saddle a quasi-public corporation with the responsibility of making long-distance passenger service as luxurious, affordable, and convenient as the small number of long distance train riders want it to be.
As for those city pairs where trains should be promoted as the best way of getting between them, we need use the funds that are currently being channeled into the cruises to obtain the right of way and build the kind the high-speed infrastructure that we love to hold up as the ideal way to travel in Europe and Japan.
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