blue streak 1 JPS1 And many of them, I suspect, have experienced business class on the airlines, so similar pods on Amtrak’s long-distance trains might be an acceptable alternative to a room car. It is a shame that this proposal is an indication of the desire of most people including this poster to place all persons into one big common pool. Instead there are many persons who all want different ways of doing a function. And in many cases each different ways at different times.
It is a shame that this proposal is an indication of the desire of most people including this poster to place all persons into one big common pool. Instead there are many persons who all want different ways of doing a function. And in many cases each different ways at different times.
First or business class, especially on an international flight, does not have anything in common with coach or premium coach. Moreover, the pods in first and business class offer a reasonable degree of privacy. Or at least for most people, I suspect.
For those who insist on a private room, no problem! Pay for it. The problem, however, is that most sleeping car passengers cannot or will not pay the fully allocated cost of a room.
The name of the game for a competitive business is to scope its product to the market, i.e. what people want and are willing to pay for.
Private rooms are not high on the agenda for most of Amtrak's passengers. Only 2.2 percent of system passengers buy a room, but they cannot or will not pay the fully allocated cost of it. Or at least I have not seen any studies to refute the findings of the 2005 IG study on long-distance train subsidies, which showed that the subsidies for first class passengers was substanially higher than those for coach passengers.
BaltACDThe optimal Amtrak car according to many -
That's only if you get the military discount. Others get this popular option with Superliner double-deck for the 'attendants'. Or this:
If 11 million paperclips fit into only HALF this car, imagine how spacious the remainder will be!
Balt, I know you remember better about Cinder Dick and the white boxcars with shackles and sound insulation. Everyone knows those AutoMax cars only had the attach points for the shackles installed with the Obama FEMA stimulus funds, right nest to the hardpoints for the boxes of armor-piercing ammunition. Look it up!
Other posters have lauded these high capacity cars
https://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/fema-ordered-102000-boxcars-with-shackles/24057
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
JPS1 And many of them, I suspect, have experienced business class on the airlines, so similar pods on Amtrak’s long-distance trains might be an acceptable alternative to a room car.
The optimal Amtrak car according to many -
MidlandMikeSo you cut out the sleepers, lounge, and diners (don't coach riders eat?) and just carry coaches.
Amtrak has already cut the diners out of day-only trains. The substitutes are somewhat better than the newsbutches of days gone by (there wer still some in the fifties; I knew one who worked between Bristol and Chattanooga on the Pelican--and there was a diner on the train), except that you have to go to the car that has the food in it; no one comes by your seat to offer you his wares.
Johnny
Paul MilenkovicThe counter-intuitive thing is that a long-distance Amtrak service, the Empire Builder is cited as the prime example, is a lifeline to all the communities up and down its rail line, communities that are in many cases not served by adequate airline service or good highways. The question is, "Who even embarks or disembarks from an Amtrak stop served at 2AM", and there is evidence that a lot of people do. However inconvenient the sparse train service, the alternatives may even be more inconvenient. That infamous Inspector General report pointed this out and also pointed out the "land cruise" aspect of the first-class sleeping car service provided on these trains. The report observed that the long-distance trains have heavy coach-class patronage, from passenger travelling between intermediate points and recommended that Amtrak could save a great deal in operating expense by leaving the dining, lounge and sleeping cars along with the second (or third) locomotive back in the coach yard or the Diesel service facility. The report claimed that the revenue from the higher-priced first-class service far from covered even the incremental cost of the extra cars and extra locomotive. ... At the time I suggested, "Maybe this isn't such a bad idea? We could give up the sleeper service in trade for trains on the pattern of the Cascades Talgos up and down the Intermountain West?" What I suggested was for the train advocates to be open to "horse trading", that is, if day-training the long-distance routes could save substantial money, some of that money could be used to expand service frequency (such as the long talked-about Chicago-St Paul "2nd train" day train on the Empire Builder route).
So you cut out the sleepers, lounge, and diners (don't coach riders eat?) and just carry coaches. Did the IG also say just run in daylight, or is that your proposal? Only operating the train 12 hours a day cuts utilization in half. So you will need twice the number of coaches, but only get half the revenue to support that capital cost. Of course you will not need so many coaches, because passengers who need to travel beyond the daily endpoints will probably not stick around. And some of the segments (someone suggested Salt Lake City-Reno) will fail like the previous WP Zephyrette which could not even fill a RDC. Some states will not support these now corridor trains. With the national system falling apart there is no hope for continued federal support of passenger rail. You would end up with a Balkanized disconnected passenger rail collection of fragments.
Backshop Those are for-profit private companies. The Alaskan State Ferries are mainly used to transport vehicles and cargo to small communties, many of which don't have airports.
Those are for-profit private companies. The Alaskan State Ferries are mainly used to transport vehicles and cargo to small communties, many of which don't have airports.
Yes the cruise lines are private companies, but I answered your original question, if there needs to be some sort of alternative to flying over water. Alaska State Ferries provide auto ferry service to communities with isolated road systems, and I suppose to people who don't want to fly. Towns without an airport are pretty rare in Alaska, and if they have a port, then they have a seaplane landing area.
charlie hebdo The proponents of LD services ignore the facts that throughout Amtrak's history there has been no service to large cities like Columbus, Ohio. They focus on service to small towns in places in Montana, etc. Amtrak's mission is to provide service to people, not empty places with huge distances that make rail uncompetive on time and cost. I hypothesize that surveys of small towns served by Amtrak in the plains, mountain areas and intermountain region would show they would prefer to drive or fly to destinations over 700 miles away. I think their real desire is to maintain a heavily subsidized nostalgia land cruise for a small segment of our society.
The proponents of LD services ignore the facts that throughout Amtrak's history there has been no service to large cities like Columbus, Ohio. They focus on service to small towns in places in Montana, etc. Amtrak's mission is to provide service to people, not empty places with huge distances that make rail uncompetive on time and cost. I hypothesize that surveys of small towns served by Amtrak in the plains, mountain areas and intermountain region would show they would prefer to drive or fly to destinations over 700 miles away.
I think their real desire is to maintain a heavily subsidized nostalgia land cruise for a small segment of our society.
The counter-intuitive thing is that a long-distance Amtrak service, the Empire Builder is cited as the prime example, is a lifeline to all the communities up and down its rail line, communities that are in many cases not served by adequate airline service or good highways. The question is, "Who even embarks or disembarks from an Amtrak stop served at 2AM", and there is evidence that a lot of people do. However inconvenient the sparse train service, the alternatives may even be more inconvenient.
That infamous Inspector General report pointed this out and also pointed out the "land cruise" aspect of the first-class sleeping car service provided on these trains. The report observed that the long-distance trains have heavy coach-class patronage, from passenger travelling between intermediate points and recommended that Amtrak could save a great deal in operating expense by leaving the dining, lounge and sleeping cars along with the second (or third) locomotive back in the coach yard or the Diesel service facility. The report claimed that the revenue from the higher-priced first-class service far from covered even the incremental cost of the extra cars and extra locomotive.
The people in the passenger-train advocacy community I would "hang with", online and in my community, "popped a cork" over these recommendations. "What do you mean, they would have Amtrak run the train with a single locomotive" as if Delta would fly out across an ocean with a single-engine aircraft. The shock of a single locomotive on a long-distance train from veteran riders supports the hypothesis that Amtrak Diesels are not all that reliable and that often times the extra locomotive units are a necessary redundancy like the time where you wouldn't fly any distance over water without four engines?
At the time I suggested, "Maybe this isn't such a bad idea? We could give up the sleeper service in trade for trains on the pattern of the Cascades Talgos up and down the Intermountain West?" What I suggested was for the train advocates to be open to "horse trading", that is, if day-training the long-distance routes could save substantial money, some of that money could be used to expand service frequency (such as the long talked-about Chicago-St Paul "2nd train" day train on the Empire Builder route).
My advocacy associates would have none of this because long-distance trains always meant sleeping cars and on-train amenities and who wants to turn the Empire Builder into a stainless-steel Greyhound bus?
Which brings around to the original topic of this thread, Whither Greyhound? It used to be that Greyhound was "stealing" traffic from the passenger trains, but it seems that Greyhound and Amtrak passengers are in the same sad situation of sparse service.
There is a social need for a surface ground-transportation option, but the most vocal community supporting trains are the "land cruise" patrons, hence some of the political resistance to trains from outside the train-riding public.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Backshop Should we also bring back ocean liners for those that don't want to fly transocean?
Should we also bring back ocean liners for those that don't want to fly transocean?
There are liners/ferries to Alaska. There are cruise ships to Hawaii. Trips beyond to foriegn countries would not be a federal concern.
Overmod. Your ideas about paratransit and supplemental bus service make great sense. In a way, they are applied today, by people who know how to make the arranements which are not always obvious or easy to arange. Thanks.
Should not be rough-riding, and was not when I rode LDTs regularly. Most LDT riders I met and knew, and cerainly myself, regarded LD train trips as a pleasurable mini-vacation and certainly no bringer of medical problems.
Elderly and infirm people would not regrard transpotation by ambulance as a mini-vacation, and your cost comparisons are just plain reduculous. And others use the LDTs, many in ways that directly bnefit the economy.
charlie hebdoI think with the miniscule number of people who would be served by these services, we might well be better off (cost and convenience) flying them on demand in private medical evacuation-equipped jets at altitudes under 8,000 feet with a few exceptions.
Autonomous jets. Hybrid-electric autonomous jets. Operating out of the extended FAA general-aviation system (about 4200 improved airports with staffed control facilities) and, presumably, connecting with appropriate paratransit or other high-amenity road service at either end.
See Zunum for enough of a good operating model to see how the trick could be done.
I think with the miniscule number of people who would be served by these services, we might well be better off (cost and convenience) flying them on demand in private medical evacuation-equipped jets at altitudes under 8,000 feet with a few exceptions.
Overmod JOHN PRIVARA Re: People not served directly can access [LD service] by a 2 or 3 hr drive. John, can you edit this post? It appears to be missing considerable information or its formatting is perturbed.
JOHN PRIVARA Re: People not served directly can access [LD service] by a 2 or 3 hr drive.
John, can you edit this post? It appears to be missing considerable information or its formatting is perturbed.
JOHN PRIVARARe: People not served directly can access [LD service] by a 2 or 3 hr drive.
It's easy for many people to ride even a couple of hours in a car, or more comfortable vehicle, to get to a train that has room and amenities for them. It might be interesting to see how the necessary or desirable amenities increase with trip time or vehicle type, too.
By extension providing shuttle service, or even shuttle buses of suitable type, between intermediate towns on the railroad to reduce the necessary number of stops for a LD train might (probably 'would') improve service quality, and reduce some of the problems inherent in middle-of-the-night dropoff at unattended facilities, in perhaps very dangerous weather conditions.
Likewise, providing even 'paratransit'-like assistance to get the registered handicapped the 'last mile' or even many miles to a train is a sensible public priority, one that could be argued to have 'better bang for the buck' than many alternative methods of demonstrable reasonable accommodation provision.
This is far from 'grasping at straws'; it's developing the greatest potential passenger 'generation' from cohorts that are currently only technically served, or potentially very underserved. Whether there is adequate new traffic to justify the cost of the service, let alone allow it to cover above-the-line expenses or whatever, is a different discussion.
Paul of Covington Deggesty charlie hebdo: Or Zeppelins? Only if we use helium, and not hydrogen to lift them. Where's your sense of adventure?
Deggesty charlie hebdo: Or Zeppelins? Only if we use helium, and not hydrogen to lift them.
charlie hebdo:
Or Zeppelins?
Only if we use helium, and not hydrogen to lift them.
Where's your sense of adventure?
Hydrogen is reasonably fine ... with reasonable care taken in its use ... as long as you don't dope the skin with thermite.
Re: People not sesrved directly can access it by a 2 0r 3 hr drive.
Unless they're handcapped. Seems your "logic" is variable.
(I get it tho. Grasping at straws is all the LD supporters have left. I've been there too, I used to be with ya... But, after 50 years of no progress, I've changed my mind).
Paul, I'm sorry, I lost my sense of adventure.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
charlie hebdo Backshop Should we also bring back ocean liners for those that don't want to fly transocean? Or Zeppelins?
Belated answer to: "should LDTs be subsidized for the minscule number of people who cannot fly?" The answer I give is YES. 1. The number is not that minscule, and (2) that, to me, is what a cvilzed society is all about, minority rights. but LDTs serve other inportant putpses also, and I have discussed them many times before.
People not sesrved directly can access it by a 2 0r 3 hr drive.
Sam, the January, 1930 issue of the Guide has the schedule of the Tat-Maddux Airline (ever hear of it elsewhere?) that shows its connections with the PRR and Santa Fe which provided coast-to-coast service with two overnight trips by train.
Lv NYC 6 05 pm ET on the PRR's Airway Limited; arrive at Port Columbus, O. at 7:35 the next morning.
Lv Poert Columbus at 8:15 amon Tat-Maddux for Waynoka, Okla, arriving at 6:24 pm CT .
Lv Waynoka at 11:00 pm on SFe's Missionary, and arrive in Clovis, N.M. at 8:20 am CT.
Lv Clovia at 8:10 am MT on Tat-Maddux, ariving in Los Angeles at 4:54 pm, and San Francisco at 7:45 pm.
The eastbound service was similar.
MidlandMike charlie hebdo It seems the nostalgia buffs, who often oppose a modern passenger rail system (HSR, HrSR, and conventional), are so desperate to preserve an archaic, miniscule portion of what we have that they now justify it with service for folks with medical conditions who cannot or won't fly (and probably shouldn't travel), along with the handicapped, Scouts, graduating high school students. Who's next? Those folks with a fear of flying? Not sure who you are talking about. I don't oppose HSR, and hope to see it here some day. Judging from the people I have talked to on the trains, if Amtrak only hauled nostalgia buffs, it would have gone out of business long ago.
charlie hebdo It seems the nostalgia buffs, who often oppose a modern passenger rail system (HSR, HrSR, and conventional), are so desperate to preserve an archaic, miniscule portion of what we have that they now justify it with service for folks with medical conditions who cannot or won't fly (and probably shouldn't travel), along with the handicapped, Scouts, graduating high school students. Who's next? Those folks with a fear of flying?
It seems the nostalgia buffs, who often oppose a modern passenger rail system (HSR, HrSR, and conventional), are so desperate to preserve an archaic, miniscule portion of what we have that they now justify it with service for folks with medical conditions who cannot or won't fly (and probably shouldn't travel), along with the handicapped, Scouts, graduating high school students. Who's next? Those folks with a fear of flying?
Not sure who you are talking about. I don't oppose HSR, and hope to see it here some day. Judging from the people I have talked to on the trains, if Amtrak only hauled nostalgia buffs, it would have gone out of business long ago.
I was not referring to you, but generally to others on here. There seems to be little support for HSR on the Trains Forum.
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JPS1No one knows how the savings from discontinuing the long-distance trains might be redirected. No one!
I do.
That's my point: It wouldn't be "redirected" at all; it would simply be absorbed into the federal budget. So much for improving the corridors or anything else. Do I "know" this? How can anyone know the future? Nevertheless, I'm confident that I can predict what Congress will do in any given situation. Give them a choice of a) Progress; b) doing nothing; or c) doing the wrong thing, and they will almost never choose a).
Any purported savings could only happen after all the current debts are paid for, employees laid-off with severence, lots of equipment sold (at a loss to the taxpayer), real estate disposed of, etc.
The American public would then have no national LD service, and shortly afterward the truncated Amtrak probably would be gone too.
Mission accomplished?
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