Agree 100% with Dave. It is a good buisiness model.
Ovenight trains allow one to travel without taking any time to do so.
Done well and marketed well, t hey oould become popular agqin.
I can see myself using the Chief again on a transcontinental trip. Not with a bus bridge or stoppoers, however.
oltmanndSleepers would be surplussed - could be converted to coaches like PRR did long ago...
Everything could be surplussed - could be converted to scrap like was done at the start of Amtrak long ago. [/sarcasm]
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Deggesty Splitting the long distance trains into several segments would also increase the number of cars and engines required--unless the frequency of operation was reduced to every second or third day.
Splitting the long distance trains into several segments would also increase the number of cars and engines required--unless the frequency of operation was reduced to every second or third day.
Maybe. It would depend on you chopped things up. Two examples. SW Chief. The middle chunk might only be a loco and a couple of coaches. So loco and cars saved there might help with the other two segs. The Crescent would likely be 5 or six coaches, and a lounge car and a single loco north of Atlanta and a single loco, two coaches and a lounge to the south.
Sleepers would be surplussed - could be converted to coaches like PRR did long ago...
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Johnny
In the March 2009 issue of Trains magazine, Rush Loving jr mentions a "secret pact" between Richard Nixon and the class 1 freight railroads, that he would approve the creation of Amtrak as the instrument to relieve them of their passenger obligations, on the condition that Amtrak be done away with after a few years. Evidently "follow through" on that latter commitment was just one more of Roger Lewis' failures?
Loving also points out that turn-around on equipment is a cost burden on Amtrak long distance trains because the equipment is tied up for a number of days during the journey, compared to an airliner being able to serve a number of routes each day.
Seems to me that splitting long distance schedules into multiple segments with night time layovers would just compound this "car dwell" cost.
SunnylandI am interested in riding a train for the experience and not to stop over somewhere, I am going from point A to B.
Me too! But, remember that we are railfans, not regular travelers.
SunnylandAmtrak is working and I say just leave it alone, trains are packed and people seem to be enjoying the trip.
Here's the rub. The trains aren't working. Ridership is declining, especially when compared to population growth. Load factor remains under 60% even if certain segments on certain routes sell out seasonally. (Amtrak currently has space on the SW Chief tomorrow from LA to Chicago - lowest fare bucket coach, roomette and bedroom. This train is clearly not sold out)
The world has changed and moved since these trains were put in place as streamliners of the 1940s and 50s. It's time Amtrak repositioned these trains to the world as it is, at the very least.
Amtrak needs these trains and routes for their political survival. Amtrak needs the LD trains to become as relevant as possible and perform better economically if they are to survive.
SunnylandI am interested in riding a train for the experience and not to stop over somewhere, I am going from point A to B. I do not care to fly any longer, used to love it, but since TWA went down, not the same at all. I do not care if part of the trip is in darkness, used to happen all the time with my parents, althought there were more options. But we were restricted to take the ones allowed on Dad's pass, so we passed many places at night. Amtrak is working and I say just leave it alone, trains are packed and people seem to be enjoying the trip. Let propeller head move on back to another airline, they are messed up anyhow.
You are overlooking Congress's current unannounced motto 'If it isn't broken, break it; if it has problems, destroy it'. But do it in such a way as to have plausible deniability.
oltmannd Whether LD or shorter corridor routes, as long as the trackage is not controlled by Amtrak (or any other passenger train entity) fast, frequent and reliable service is unlikely. I agree. So, what's worse, a single LD schedule or one split into parts with overnight recovery dwell?
Whether LD or shorter corridor routes, as long as the trackage is not controlled by Amtrak (or any other passenger train entity) fast, frequent and reliable service is unlikely.
I agree. So, what's worse, a single LD schedule or one split into parts with overnight recovery dwell?
On a typical SWC journey between Chicago and LA, how much total time would be added to the schedule if the train were required to park during night time hours, and the passengers laid over at a motel for 8 hours?
I think a better solution would be for Amtrak to quit trying to accelerate the ammortization of it's sleeper cars, and then establish a pricepoint competitive with what one would exect to pay for a standard room at Holiday Inn (plus the cost of a coach ticket of course).
I am interested in riding a train for the experience and not to stop over somewhere, I am going from point A to B. I do not care to fly any longer, used to love it, but since TWA went down, not the same at all. I do not care if part of the trip is in darkness, used to happen all the time with my parents, althought there were more options. But we were restricted to take the ones allowed on Dad's pass, so we passed many places at night. Amtrak is working and I say just leave it alone, trains are packed and people seem to be enjoying the trip. Let propeller head move on back to another airline, they are messed up anyhow.
DeggestyI do know, personally, that in the sixties, at least, the IC engineers on the Tennesse and Louisiana Divisions did not always observe the ICC limits but would run as fast as they felt it was safe to run.
The 50's & 60's were much less legitious than today. Plain accidents happend then, not criminal activity.
Concerning the speed of the City of New Orleans, when the train was inaugurated, it was allowed to run faster than 79 mph wherever the IC determined it was safe to do so. However, when the ICC ruled that if you have nothing better than ABS then 79 mph was the fastest that you may operate a passengere train (59 mph was the fastest speed allowed for freights) the result was that the schedule had to be lengthened, for the IC had ATS only in an area in Illinois.
I found it interesting that on at least one section of track over which the IC had trackage rights--from Haleyville to Jasper in Alabama--the owning road had ATS, but did not have it on the rest of its track from Birmingham to Sheffield. I do not know if the Frisco or the GM&O (both used by the IC on its route between Corinth and Birmingham) had ATS.
I do know, personally, that in the sixties, at least, the IC engineers on the Tennesse and Louisiana Divisions did not always observe the ICC limits but would run as fast as they felt it was safe to run.
The track through the Mississippi Delta is not straight (and the track through Grenada has many curves, also).
CSSHEGEWISCHA 16-hour "City of New Orleans" as a day or evening train isn't going to happen. It requires more really fast running than the route allows.
Once upon a time it ran in 15:55 hours, later 16:30. The route needs a trackage upgrade. Since the southern portion runs on the flatter Yazzo District now, that should be possible, even if the Illinois limit were 79-90 mph, rather than 90-100 mph as in the early 60s.
One can dream? As a nation, we should strive for more than mediocrity. For starters, long before we get actual HSR, we should try to restore the schedules the fastest trains operated on in the 1950s-early 60s, such as a 15:30-16 hour LSL.
CSSHEGEWISCHThe Buffalo-Louisville routing sounds like connecting the dots. It would probably be too slow to attract many passengers.
I was thinking two complementary aspects.
One, it was less about endpoints than several potentially high traffic midpoints: BUF-CLE; CLE-COL; CLE-CIN; COL-CIN; CIN-LOU. If this became HrSR, even better.
Two, since this route would be interstate, funding beyond the Ohio budget would kick in.
Dropping the "Cardinal" sounds like a good suggestion.
The Buffalo-Louisville routing sounds like connecting the dots. It would probably be too slow to attract many passengers.
A second Chicago-MSP day train opposite the "Empire Builder" (WB in the morning and EB in the afternoon) is overdue.
A 16-hour "City of New Orleans" as a day or evening train isn't going to happen. It requires more really fast running than the route allows.
oltmannd charlie hebdo Whether LD or shorter corridor routes, as long as the trackage is not controlled by Amtrak (or any other passenger train entity) fast, frequent and reliable service is unlikely. I agree. So, what's worse, a single LD schedule or one split into parts with overnight recovery dwell? Fast, frequent, reliable ain't happening any time soon - unless Amtrak discovers a gold mine under 30th St Station. Better make the best of what we have. Chosing between a lesser of evils is all we have, for now.
charlie hebdo Whether LD or shorter corridor routes, as long as the trackage is not controlled by Amtrak (or any other passenger train entity) fast, frequent and reliable service is unlikely.
Fast, frequent, reliable ain't happening any time soon - unless Amtrak discovers a gold mine under 30th St Station. Better make the best of what we have.
Chosing between a lesser of evils is all we have, for now.
I can think of only one LD route (LSL) that wouldn't benefit from being split into two or even three (Western routes) day segments with overnights at those endpoints for those few wishing to travel the full distance.
Get rid of the Cardinal.
Add a Buffalo to Louisville day train via Cleveland, Columbus and Cincy.
Add a Chicago to Twin Cities day train.
And Amtrak should try to revert the CNO to a 16 hour day train.
charlie hebdoWhether LD or shorter corridor routes, as long as the trackage is not controlled by Amtrak (or any other passenger train entity) fast, frequent and reliable service is unlikely.
oltmanndEarly on in Amtrak's history, they ran Chicago to NOL as a day train. It was only after the IC went to pot and they couldn't hold the schedule that they flipped it to overnight.
The City of New Orleans was historically a good, day coach train, but went to pot before Amtrak, as the song tells us, and Amtrak switched to the schedule of the Panama in November, 1971. The train was renamed CNOL in 1981, AFAIK.
JRMDC oltmannd The overnight stop actually lets the train function better as a day train between the dwell points. It puts the train where people are when they are awake and imroves the timekeeping. A 4AM stop in Flagstaff is a non-starter for a Grand Canyon visitor. A morning train to NY from Spartanburg SC would be attractive. A 1AM train is not. An overnight dwell on an LD train keeps it competitive with driving. People stop overnight when they drive - usually. It functions better as a shorter distance train but much worse as a longer distance train; it still adds 8 hours or whatever to any LD trip. I have no idea which way the tradeoffs works better, in practice. Actaully, it also works worse as a shorter distance train for those station pairs that straddle the dwell point.
oltmannd The overnight stop actually lets the train function better as a day train between the dwell points. It puts the train where people are when they are awake and imroves the timekeeping. A 4AM stop in Flagstaff is a non-starter for a Grand Canyon visitor. A morning train to NY from Spartanburg SC would be attractive. A 1AM train is not. An overnight dwell on an LD train keeps it competitive with driving. People stop overnight when they drive - usually.
The overnight stop actually lets the train function better as a day train between the dwell points. It puts the train where people are when they are awake and imroves the timekeeping.
A 4AM stop in Flagstaff is a non-starter for a Grand Canyon visitor.
A morning train to NY from Spartanburg SC would be attractive. A 1AM train is not.
An overnight dwell on an LD train keeps it competitive with driving. People stop overnight when they drive - usually.
It functions better as a shorter distance train but much worse as a longer distance train; it still adds 8 hours or whatever to any LD trip. I have no idea which way the tradeoffs works better, in practice. Actaully, it also works worse as a shorter distance train for those station pairs that straddle the dwell point.
I generally agree. The trick is to pick the overnight dwell location wisely by analyzing the markets the train serves.
For the Crescent, you would lose lanes like Charlotte to Birmingham, but with an existing 3AM time in Charlotte, existing poor timekeeping and a running time 3 hours longer than driving, I suspect Amtrak's not really in this market now, anyway. You'd lose little.
But, you'd gain a good bit serving Charlotte and the Piedmont when people are awake.
Others have pointed out the the mid-route break won't work everywhere. The LSL being a good example. But, the CONL might benefit from a Memphis dwell. (even Fred F. himself suggested this one.)
Early on in Amtrak's history, they ran Chicago to NOL as a day train. It was only after the IC went to pot and they couldn't hold the schedule that they flipped it to overnight.
Schedules are arranged for the convenience of the biggest population centers, and consequently generally the stops with the most boardings/exits. Creating a second "other side of the clock" train, while some small stops will now have convenient times, the stistical probability is that the other end of most of those passenger's trips will happen in the wee hours of the morning.
This is a non-starter from the get-go. However, here goes.
All LD trains, where they are the only train on the route, should have a 'other side of the clock' partner. Where train A has a early morning departure from origin, train C should have an early evening departure from the same origin, thereby providing 'human hour' service where train A does not provide 'human hour' service.
Today, Amtrak doesn't have the equipment or crews to support such service, don't get the finances from Congress to make the attempt and the Class 1 carriers most likely would not provide the 'slot' to operate the service on the other side of the clock.
But if Amtrak were concerned about the SERVICE they provide to all the territories they operate in - they would attempt it.
JRMDC Putting aside whether a "toursist"-style operation withovernight intermediate stops could or could not work, is this something Amtrak should do? Remember, Amtrak is an operation intended to provide passenger service, with compulsory participation by freight railroads. One can make the argument that some level of federal government intervention is appropriate for transportation services. Elements of the right wing might disagree, the left will counter, ...But as soon as you go to a tourist operation, well, at least this person, sympathetic to both left and right, does not see a justification for the federal government to compel freight railroads to operate tourist trains. So to me the interemdiate overnight stop alternatives being raised here are non-starters.
Putting aside whether a "toursist"-style operation withovernight intermediate stops could or could not work, is this something Amtrak should do? Remember, Amtrak is an operation intended to provide passenger service, with compulsory participation by freight railroads. One can make the argument that some level of federal government intervention is appropriate for transportation services. Elements of the right wing might disagree, the left will counter, ...But as soon as you go to a tourist operation, well, at least this person, sympathetic to both left and right, does not see a justification for the federal government to compel freight railroads to operate tourist trains. So to me the interemdiate overnight stop alternatives being raised here are non-starters.
I live in the UK. Here we have a number of stations which are served on request (you might call them flag stops). They are to be found in places where the road network is limited and slow or the train makes a trip in minutes that takes significantly longer by road (e.g. train crosses the mouth or a river estuary and the road has to go 10 miles inland and then back again on slow roads.
Bear with me!
Some years ago I found myself in Havre MT when the westbound Empire Builder arrived. I'll quite happily admit my view of LDT had been colored by the film "Some like it hot" and the films starts who used to ride the Santa Fe Chief. I'd never really given the fact that trains still serve places like Havre any thought.
When I saw that train I began to wonder where the people getting off had come from and where those boarding were going to? Chicago to Havre? Havre to Seattle? Or maybe Glasgow to Havre and Havre to Spokane?
My point is that the LDT serve a mix of different people/markets and, in my view, it could be argued it does't serve any of them terribly well. I'm NOT talking about timekeeping or meals on board simply the city pairs (and Havre is not a city) served by the LDT.
The Builder I saw was passing Havre in daylight. A few years later I contemplated Washington DC to Indianapolis and discovered the train arrived at some ridiculous hour like 1 AM. No thank you and I would suggest Amtrak loses business because of the fact that LDT (almost by definition) pass through some places at times that are not passenger friendly.
It seems to me that while LDT have a place in the scheme of things a proper study of how those trains actually load is required. At the same time research is required to determine passenger requirements and why the LDT don't meet those requirements (and I'll lay odds 1 AM timings will figure in places). Only when you know how the trains are used and what their potential is can you really make sensible suggestions about tinkering with the network. My guess is that there is tourist traffic (and not simply end to end) but there will also be traffic between places like Glasgow and Havre. A bit more research might show that some of the longer intermediate journeys have both sleeper and basic, seated passenger requirements.
Coming back to the UK trains meet all sorts of market requirements. Sure we have our HST and Pendolinos rushing around at 125 mph in places but we also have much slower trains serving request stops, sometimes even on the same track. We've done the research (not always perfectly!) and run trains to meet the market requirements not because that's what Amtrak was handed by the railroads when it was formed.
Paul of Covington It's been my impression from the start that Amtrak was founded on the premise that passenger rail was going to die in a few years anyway, and this was just a way to ease it into the grave.
In my opinion it was a way to do for intercity passenger rail what government action had already been doing for some years with transit rail: shifting the responsibility for preserving a national system of passenger trains, or at least the semblance of one, from individual private railroads to a Federally-funded arrangement. In so doing it transferred the responsibility to keep passenger trains 'alive' from the equivalent of a compulsory unfunded mandate to something essentially under the continuous oversight and control of Congress. That it has not 'gone under' even temporarily in all those ensuing years is strictly attributable to Congress keeping it going ... for Congress's own reasons.
Heaven knows the railroads were made to pay through the nose for the "privilege", but I have to wonder how long the effective trade-in or scrap value of even the newer passenger power and fleets of rolling stock would have provided financial benefit for the early-Seventies railroads who coughed it up, had subsidized Amtrak operations not kept so much of it going.
Amtrak's LD coach fares are often (if not usually) cheaper than flying. I suspect many LD coach riders (especially those on overnight segments) are there to a) save money b) not have to suffer the bus, and/or c) get there faster than driving, where they'd have to stop to sleep. In other words, that overnight 'jump' actually has some utility which would be lost if you switched to day-only service with hotel stays in between.
Example: If I'm in Buffalo and want to be in Chicago by mid-morning tomorrow, I can a) fly out tonight and stay in a hotel - rather pricey option; b) get up super early and catch the first morning flight out; or c) take the LSL and maybe save some money.
I'm not necessarily advocating for the status quo. Probably it would be better to abandon the LD network and increase investment in shorter, high-density corridors where you can cover a higher proportion of costs. But if you have to maintain an LD network, I'm not sure that there's a radically better way to do it, scheduling-wise.
BaltACD. If in those 47 years Congress had actually acted like there was intent for Amtrak to not only survive but thrive there 'might' have been created a rail passenger system that the USA could have been proud of.
There was also a fairly good article written by Loving in the Feb 1974 issue of Fortune, detailing the efforts going into creating Conrail. The level of commitment congress put into creating Conrail vs Amtrak is remarkable. Of course there was a little more urgency in assuring that Conrail might succeed ......but the contrast between what they were willing to do in one instance versus the other tells a story all it's own.
Question: If there was a way to communicate back to congress at the time Amtrak was created, and prove to them that the entity they were about to create would still be draining hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually, two decades into the next century, do you think they would still pursue the path that they did?
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.