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Arlington wrote:This emphasis on "Cardinal was full" doesn't really tell us anything, particularly given that the train takes in only $8m vs $24m in costs. It could mean:
1) Prices were too low
2) The train can only sustain/fill a short consist (poor efficiency locomotive, track, slot costs)
3) People tend to report their train was full (people's similar needs create peak loads; on empty trains there's so few people there's less of chance of getting a trip report here)
mtuandrew wrote:How much equipment moves to BEE on the Cardinal nowadays?
David Benton wrote:My point is , The majority of people in Chicago, Cincinnati, Washington, New York , couldn't give a toss if the Cardinal was scrapped.
CComMack wrote:A lot of the discussion around the timing of the Cardinal has to do with the trade-off between being able to make connections in Chicago to/from the western trains, and the ability to serve Cincinnati at a reasonable hour. Question for those in a position to know: how much of the Cardinal's ridership is connecting in Chicago to once-daily trains?
Philly Amtrak Fan wrote:Population within 25 miles of the following stations:
Cincinnati: 1,748,725
Ashland: 323,357
Huntington: 299,913
Charleston: 279,421
Staunton: 239,551
Connorsville: 214,866
Montgomery: 206,420
S. Portsmouth: 199,942
Prince: 160,758
Thurmond: 149,762
Hinton: 149,621
Maysville: 100,580
Alderson: 67,325
Clifton Forge: 64,972
White Sulphur Springs: 59,028
ALL of WV has a population of 1.8m. From this subtract populations well north of the Cardinal, for whom Amtrak is a Capitol Limited-or-nothing proposition:
- 0.28m in eastern panhandle
- 0.18m in Morgantown-Fairmont
- 0.05m in Weirton
- 0.77m in Wheeling
Taking out these 1.3m across the northern tier of WV, that leaves, at best,just 0.5m West Virginians "within range" of the Cardinal.
ALL of WV has a population of 1.8m. From this subtract populations well north of the Cardinal, for whom Amtrak is a Capitol Limited-or-nothing proposition:
- 0.28m in eastern panhandle
- 0.18m in Morgantown-Fairmont
- 0.05m in Weirton
- 0.77m in Wheeling
Taking out these 1.3m across the northern tier of WV, that leaves, at best,just 0.5m West Virginians "within range" of the Cardinal.
Philly Amtrak Fan wrote:I'm glad someone here actually cares about population. Others say let's just let the Senate (or who's in charge of the Senate) decide who gets trains and who doesn't and who gets stuck with the graveyard shift.
Philly Amtrak Fan wrote:CComMack wrote:A lot of the discussion around the timing of the Cardinal has to do with the trade-off between being able to make connections in Chicago to/from the western trains, and the ability to serve Cincinnati at a reasonable hour. Question for those in a position to know: how much of the Cardinal's ridership is connecting in Chicago to once-daily trains?
Well ridership in and out of Chicago for...
LSL: 164,470
CL: 143,411
Cardinal:45,495
The most popular city pair on the LSL is CHI-NYP and the most popular on the CL is CHI-WAS (second is CHI-PGH). The three most popular city pairs on the Cardinal are CHI-IND, CHI-Lafayette, and CHI-CIN, nowhere near the full distance. So the LSL and CL are more likely to attract the LD passenger who is more likely to make the cross country trip than the Cardinal (and even if the people of Indiana want to transfer west just have the Hoosier State stay in the Cardinal slot). People in Cincinnati would probably rather a train at a good hour than the ability to transfer west. And NYP and WAS have other trains if they want to transfer.
CComMack wrote:Given what the present schedule is, one of the few incentives to take Amtrak to/from Cincinnati is a connection in Chicago. So, I'm less interested in speculation, and more interested in hard data about how many people would need a hotel stay in Chicago (not cheap) if we broke the Cardinal's connections. If we want to speculate, the raw boardings in Chicago are not strong evidence that the Cardinal has less transferring passengers than the Lake Shore or Capitol Limited. This way lies madness, and is not worth pursuing without data.
CComMack wrote:Philly Amtrak Fan wrote:CComMack wrote:A lot of the discussion around the timing of the Cardinal has to do with the trade-off between being able to make connections in Chicago to/from the western trains, and the ability to serve Cincinnati at a reasonable hour. Question for those in a position to know: how much of the Cardinal's ridership is connecting in Chicago to once-daily trains?
Well ridership in and out of Chicago for...
LSL: 164,470
CL: 143,411
Cardinal:45,495
The most popular city pair on the LSL is CHI-NYP and the most popular on the CL is CHI-WAS (second is CHI-PGH). The three most popular city pairs on the Cardinal are CHI-IND, CHI-Lafayette, and CHI-CIN, nowhere near the full distance. So the LSL and CL are more likely to attract the LD passenger who is more likely to make the cross country trip than the Cardinal (and even if the people of Indiana want to transfer west just have the Hoosier State stay in the Cardinal slot). People in Cincinnati would probably rather a train at a good hour than the ability to transfer west. And NYP and WAS have other trains if they want to transfer.
Given what the present schedule is, one of the few incentives to take Amtrak to/from Cincinnati is a connection in Chicago. So, I'm less interested in speculation, and more interested in hard data about how many people would need a hotel stay in Chicago (not cheap) if we broke the Cardinal's connections. If we want to speculate, the raw boardings in Chicago are not strong evidence that the Cardinal has less transferring passengers than the Lake Shore or Capitol Limited. This way lies madness, and is not worth pursuing without data.
Philly Amtrak Fan wrote:Why do I pick on the Cardinal? Every other LD train serves a specific purpose.
Philly Amtrak Fan wrote:This report uses FY 2014 data (NARP is FY 2015)
https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/873/180/Ch ... Report.pdf
63,195 passengers that passed through Chicago Union Station transferred. That's more than the entire FY 2015 ridership in and out of Chicago on the Cardinal. If you assume the same % of LSL passengers transferred that would be even higher. If even 30% of LSL passengers transfer (the CL has more than 40% transferring) that is still higher than the entire ridership of the Cardinal.
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