Amtrak Southwest Chief Discussion

Thanks for your answer , what do you reckon the running time would be for the Chief over the downgraded section ?i.e , how many extra hours ?

At this point,with the current "padded" schedule and Amtrak's current crew change locations,any time lost under 1-1.5 hours could be made up
when #3/#4 hits the Transcon at Kansas city/ABQ. 2hours+ you miss the slots where commuter service runs in Chicago and LA areas.
#3 was 2+hours late on may 12 into ABQ,picked up the 2 display cars dropped on fri for NTD events here then left town around 6:00pm.
Nobody knew what was the reason for the delay.

Kansas city-Lajunta,556miles at 60mph, 9.5hours,at 40mph,14 hours+"dogcatch" crew(outlaws at 12 hours on duty)
this is a rough est.

I don't know what it means; but I recently happened to be following the BNSF line between Dodge City and Kinsley, about 40 miles; and piles of new ties were stacked every 10 feet. So somebody is doing something.

Would explain #3 current 1/2-1hour tardiness at ABQ,slow orders due to trackwork,Lajunta sub got pounded last year due to
flood related detours. At least,BNSF is tending to business.

http://www.kake.com/news/headlines/Pass ... ml?ref=586

their states may not be able to afford to maintain rails used by passenger trains.

Amtrak's Southwest Chief, which runs between Chicago and Los Angeles, currently stops at Newton, Hutchinson, Dodge City and Garden City. But changes in BNSF Railway's freight routes could force Amtrak to reroute the Southwest Chief at Newton, bypassing the parts of Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico it serves now.

A Wichita City Councilman believes Wichita needs to ensure it is a stop on the Southwest Chief, if it is rerouted at Newton. Though any decision about the future of the line is a few years away, Pete Meitzner said the city needs to be ready.

"Fortunately, for the past six months, we've focused a lot on personal capital -- not any dollar capital -- on looking into the expansion of passenger rail," he said.

Those efforts have focused on extending Amtrak's Northern Flyer, which now runs between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, to Wichita and Newton.

$100m is simply untenable for a 1x/day route when there is a fully viable alternative route (same was true for dealing with the Devils Lake problem in ND, but that's pretty baked in now). Let's just start the planning now to reroute the SWC to the Transcon, and do it sooner rather than later.

Station Aficionado wrote:$100m is simply untenable for a 1x/day route when there is a fully viable alternative route (same was true for dealing with the Devils Lake problem in ND, but that's pretty baked in now). Let's just start the planning now to reroute the SWC to the Transcon, and do it sooner rather than later.

To be fair, the Devils Lake Sub is the most direct BNSF route from Duluth to the West Coast, and has a fairly significant traffic base of grain shipments off the Westhope, Rolla and Mayville Subs. (See the subdivision map here.) North Dakota and BNSF both had good reason to want that subdivision to remain intact as a through route, whether or not Amtrak was using it. The Glorieta and Raton Subs, on the other hand, have almost no online traffic producers (maybe none at all), and BNSF doesn't seem to have a lot of overhead traffic from El Paso to the Denver area.

My solution: Amtrak moves the Chief to the Southern Transcon, the states add a Kansas City-Denver train with significant Federal support, and an enterprising Boy Scout alumnus starts a tourist train from Albuquerque to Raton.

A Wichita City Councilman believes Wichita needs to ensure it is a stop on the Southwest Chief, if it is rerouted at Newton. Though any decision about the future of the line is a few years away, Pete Meitzner said the city needs to be ready.

Good. I was beginning to worry that nobody in Wichita cared! Now how about Amarillo?

Worth noting: If the Southwest Chief moves to the Transcon it would actually make it cheaper for Kansas to establish the Heartland Flyer extension (as they could dispense with improvements between Wichita and Newton, and lay over in Wichita rather than Newton). It would also provide enough service to jumpstart the attempts to revive the fortunes of the Wichita Union Station building.

mtuandrew wrote: My solution: Amtrak moves the Chief to the Southern Transcon, the states add a Kansas City-Denver train with significant Federal support, and an enterprising Boy Scout alumnus starts a tourist train from Albuquerque to Raton.

Your solution is entertaining.

The tourist train proposal would definitely be fun, but it would be one expensive run what with the track maintenance involved, so you'd have to have someone rich and crazy to propose it. Could happen though!

It's also entertaining to imagine Kansas and Colorado collaborating on a Kansas City-Denver service which would provide the long-suggested Denver-Pueblo service while retaining the western Kansas service which the Kansas cities want, but avoiding the currently-anti-rail New Mexico government. I don't think this is actually likely to happen though.

neroden wrote:

mtuandrew wrote: My solution: Amtrak moves the Chief to the Southern Transcon, the states add a Kansas City-Denver train with significant Federal support, and an enterprising Boy Scout alumnus starts a tourist train from Albuquerque to Raton.

Your solution is entertaining.

The tourist train proposal would definitely be fun, but it would be one expensive run what with the track maintenance involved, so you'd have to have someone rich and crazy to propose it. Could happen though!

It's also entertaining to imagine Kansas and Colorado collaborating on a Kansas City-Denver service which would provide the long-suggested Denver-Pueblo service while retaining the western Kansas service which the Kansas cities want, but avoiding the currently-anti-rail New Mexico government. I don't think this is actually likely to happen though.

I know, definitely entertaining My grand plan actually includes an Amtrak train along the Front Range, Cheyenne - Denver - Pueblo - Santa Fe/Lamy - Albuquerque - El Paso, if anyone can spare a billion dollars for Mr. Buffett. Failing that, I figured that a tourist train would have a better chance of success if the state and BNSF ever figure out some ownership details. Santa Fe Southern and Iowa Pacific both come to mind as possible operators, or if New Mexico wanted something with more capacity, there's always a RailRunner set and crew.

As for Kansas and Colorado, I can't quite imagine that level of cooperation (read: funding), even if it would benefit Colorado a lot and preserve Kansas' service. Maybe they'll prove me wrong when Amtrak is forced to take away their free lunch.

NM Governor Richardson had a vision of rail service between El Paso-ABQ-Trinadad-Denver,the trick was getting Tx and Co
to "buy in" on the service. C&TS is funded by NM and Co,at times Co forgets to fund it's share of the tourist line, hate to
think what would happen if Co forgot to fund it's share of El Paso-Denver service.

NMRX has the capacity to move the scouts to Raton,but what would the cost be?? There is a rate card on "renting" NMRX for
Movie/TV shoots(last used by "In Plain Sight" tv series)
Santa Fe Southern is not in great shape at the moment,#93 was vandelised at the Depot back in Dec/Jan,
coolant and lube oil were drained while idling-prime mover's toast.
#07 is the only remaining working engine for now.( see "Breaking Bad" this season's opener)

Some shortline operators have inquired to revive freight service ABQ-Las Vegas NM- Raton,
BNSF retains "overhead" rights on the route.

It does seem that Colorado is the key to all this . Service to Denver would make service both east , west and south alot more attractive to passengers , but i guess that doesnt make it alot more attractive to the railroad or to the state governments , having to come up with the $$$$ to fund it .

Backshophoss wrote:NM Governor Richardson had a vision of rail service between El Paso-ABQ-Trinadad-Denver.......

The last thing I read about Bill Richardson, who pretty much disappeared from political life:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... print=true

Brief passage from the material immediately submitted by Marion Morrison:

• Even more startling was the way that a notorious incident involving former New Mexico governor and presidential candidate Bill Richardson resurfaced during the trial. Barack Obama, you may recall, had nominated Richardson to be commerce secretary – only to have the move blow up in his face when tales of Richardson accepting bribes began to make the rounds. Federal prosecutors never brought a case against Richardson: In 2009, an inside source told the AP that the investigation had been "killed in Washington." Obama himself, after Richardson bowed out, praised the former governor as an "outstanding public servant."

Mr Richardson has stepped away from public life at the moment,but the CDR Bonds that allowed the Railrunner and all the
Interstates in NM to built/rebuilt still live. Even the "feds" gave up on that problem.

From the Rolling Stone article about bid-rigging by banks:

"One of the biggest lies in capitalism," says Eliot Spitzer, "is that companies like competition. They don't. Nobody likes competition."

Can we have him back, please? I don't care whether he paid for sex.