Brainstorming a rational LD route system

I think there is a need for some technology and operational improvements that make it less costly to do switching as well as better timekeeping, in order to support more LD.

BandA wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 6:27 am I think there is a need for some technology and operational improvements that make it less costly to do switching as well as better timekeeping, in order to support more LD.

Let’s start with an easy one. There’s a reason European railroads use double ended locomotives, or center cabs. If Amtrak isn’t going to hire switching crews at significant stations, at least it can be an easier task to switch.

BandA wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 6:27 am I think there is a need for some technology and operational improvements that make it less costly to do switching as well as better timekeeping, in order to support more LD.

Better timekeeping is key - having trains that are routinely hours late makes the network much less useable unless it is just treated as a cruise train for us old folks that don't need to be anywhere at a given time. Whatever this takes - financial incentives for the freight railroads, or cracking down on those that routinely delay Amtrak trains - probably both a carrot and stick approach is needed.

Jon

Yes. Good timekeeping would make any LD network more rational than what we have now. Having a LD trains that are like the Hudson Bay Line in the song ("I asked the station agent how soon my trip would end. / He said "You'll get to Churchill, boy, but only God knows when.") is bad enough for anyone who wants to make a trip on just one LD train, but's worse for anyone who wants to use two LDs, or an LD and a corridor.

To me, a rational LD network would be a seamless part of the network, with easy connections and through ticketing on every available train and a lot of buses, too. I would think first of routes a passengers could reasonably travel, and then of what routes make sense for the trains. Galesburg to Hastings is a long trip, and so is Carbondale to Port Huron. They should both be reasonably possible and I think they are both part of the concept of long-distance train travel. I know that's not what Col. Perkowski asked for, but I personally am not that interested in whether there are specifically Long Distance trains on particular routes, if it's possible to make comfortable long trips over those routes.

My main goal would be to make it possible to travel between most stations on the entire national and corridor network without having to wait too long to change trains, with whatever combination of types of equipment and length of individual train's routes worked.

Make CUS and other transfer stations easy places to transfer, with minor renovations and major changes in practices and staffing.

Replace some current LDs with day corridors connecting seamlessly with each other and with a few strategically placed 10-12-hour overnight trains without major food service on routes with a lot of potential overnight demand. Figure out the most cost effective way to sell people decent food (including figuring out what kinds of good food can be sold most economically on a train) in one pleasant car that serves hot food constantly (self serve or takeout), rather than the cheapest way to run a dining car on three-full-meals-at-stated-hours AND a cafe car with sometimes erratic hours and a heavy emphasis on snackish food.

Route highlights:
Western LD routes stay. I think that if they ran on time, had easier connections, and tamed the food costs, they could carry more pax at lower subsidy.

CONO stays, and gets a real connection from St. Louis somehow.

East coast-to-Midwest travel becomes easier and there are more possible routes, but some might require changing trains at Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Buffalo at some reasonable time of day.

Eastern trains to the South all still exist but start/end at Washington. This would allow more NEC trains and eliminate the oddity of trains running for two or three hours on the crowded NEC while usually not accepting short-distance pax. Possibly add a a coach or two with long-distance legroom to NEC regionals and price it between coach and business for ANYONE making a longer trip on the corridor. Allow pax to check luggage from points south to "deliver to platform for train x", or even add semi self-service baggage cars to regionals and have the baggage place there by staff at Washington.

Add a few of the missing links, like SLC to Vegas and LA, a good way to connect to get from Denver to St. Louis, and a couple of others.



Make the trains run on time, improve the hell out of the transfers at CUS, and you've got a useful network of trains for national travel.

It could even make sense to put long-distance coaches on some corridor trains and sell them for a little more as a category of seat between coach and business; that's effectively what happens on one corridor I know well: coach on the City of New Orleans between Illinois points is usually about 20% more expensive than coach on the corridor trains.

Amtrak always passengers to travel the NEC on LDs now, but the Silver Service is truncated to Washington DC then it would be, pending equipment availability, to run with Superliners. That would equal shorter trains and Amtrak would be able to use Miami Intermodel. I like the idea of strategically timed night trains.

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John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 12:10 pm Let’s start with an easy one. There’s a reason European railroads use double ended locomotives, or center cabs. If Amtrak isn’t going to hire switching crews at significant stations, at least it can be an easier task to switch.

It would be easy enough to run locomotives back to back... but I suspect union workrules might prohibit a road crew from performing switching duties, especially if those duties are in-scope for a different union or classification.

Re: road crews switching: Everyone has their price. It's got to be possible to negotiate work rules that allow/require road crews to do switching on certain routes. If the union's goal is to protect jobs, make the rules contingent on expanded service that creates more total jobs. If the union's goal is to avoid switching because it's onerous for work rules, pay a little more and point at the additional jobs the new service is creating.

Arborwayfan wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 1:10 pm
Replace some current LDs with day corridors connecting seamlessly with each other and with a few strategically placed 10-12-hour overnight trains without major food service on routes with a lot of potential overnight demand. Figure out the most cost effective way to sell people decent food (including figuring out what kinds of good food can be sold most economically on a train) in one pleasant car that serves hot food constantly (self serve or takeout), rather than the cheapest way to run a dining car on three-full-meals-at-stated-hours AND a cafe car with sometimes erratic hours and a heavy emphasis on snackish food.

This has come up before, and I know there's a discussion around here that covers an experiment done as I recall that basically had the diner open pretty much "all day" and how it did better cost recovery. I think a cafe car still has its place for simpler stuff, but say a later boarder wants a decent burger at 3:00 PM... sell it to them.

Also, what appeared to work better in the past was when foods were more regional. And this is an area where you can probably get states to pony up some money. "We can offer generic wines on the Coast Starlight, or feature California wines if you pony up some money..."

"Oh we want to offer New York Cheesecake on the LSL, Governor Cuomo, be awfully nice to serve that coming out of NYC.. What do you think?"

etc.

Regarding "regional specialties", the Downeaster serves many local Maine products, the Vermont once had Vermont unique menu items. For some time the Chicago/Midwest Corridor routes had White Castle. Since NY State already has a "Taste NY" program, would be logical to expand into onto the Empire Corridor trains.

PennDOT has an opportunity too: the Pennsylvanian travels through several regions and could have items from Lancaster County/Dutch Country and Philadelphia (Tastykakes, cheesesteaks, pretzels).

Alphaboi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 6:39 pm Amtrak always passengers to travel the NEC on LDs now, but the Silver Service is truncated to Washington DC then it would be, pending equipment availability, to run with Superliners. That would equal shorter trains and Amtrak would be able to use Miami Intermodel. I like the idea of strategically timed night trains.

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Take a long look at these links on ridership for the Silver trains.
https://www.railpassengers.org/site/ass ... 459/19.pdf
https://www.railpassengers.org/site/ass ... 458/16.pdf
Some interesting facts I would like to specifically point out from both links.
New York City to Miami is listed at ~1480 and ~1390 rail miles
19.8% riding the Meteor ride for1000 miles or more
10.3% riding the Star for 1000 miles or more
Meteor largest ridership cities:
New York 100,000+
Orlando 81,000+
Washington 57,000+
Jacksonville 36000+
Star largest ridership cities:
Tampa 110,000+
New York 76,000+
Washington 71,000+
Orlando 45,000+
Meteor longest distances by top 10 city pairs by ridership
8. Miami, FL - New York, NY 1389 mi
1. New York, NY - Orlando, FL 1127 mi
10. Jacksonville, FL - New York, NY 977 mi
3. Orlando, FL - Washington, DC 902 mi
Star longest distances by top 10 city pairs by ridership
6. New York, NY - Richmond, VA 334 mi
5. Raleigh, NC - Washington, DC 306 mi
4. Miami, FL - Tampa, FL 257 mi
7. Fort Lauderdale, FL - Tampa, FL 235 mi
2. New York, NY - Washington, DC 225 mi

The two trains basically follow the same route, but see some similar and some dissimilar results in the stats I posted above. The Star's inclusion of Tampa and it's high ridership can be attributed as being the only Amtrak train that actually goes to Tampa. Otherwise the ridership by cities are pretty similar. But the timing difference of the two trains affects how long passengers ride the train. The Meteor see twice as many riding the train over 1000 miles than the Star, half of the Meteors top 10 city pairs are over 350 miles in length while none of the top 10 city pairs of the Star are over 350 miles in length. One could almost state the Star ridership is much more like a "day" train than a "night" train - but it is in fact a long distancing night train.
Never-the-less, the most important fact I wish to point out is how large New York is for ridership for both trains. A "combined" 176,000+ ridership,. with Washington 128,000+ and Orlando 121,000+ combined ridership following. Stopping either or both trains short at Washington would harm both trains total ridership, a very bad idea in my opinion.

I'm still in favor of a greatly expanded Silver Service setup. Bring back the Silver Palm perhaps a couple more, with at least 1-2 more stopping in Orlando.

I think it's an untapped market, especially with good timing and timekeeping.

From an operations standpoint, I think it makes sense to create a nationwide network of regional corridors and let those influence your LD routes. Really, my ideal LD network would be a system of corridors that allow for maximum origin/destination flexibility. A traveler should be able to get daytime trains from, say, CHI to Louisville or DET to PGH by making connections along the way. Today's LDs should probably stay at once- or twice-daily frequencies (enough of this thrice-weekly nonsense) and sleeper-style service, with daytime service along most of the route from shorter corridor-style trains.

I would definitely create more N-S corridors west of the Mississippi. For example: MSP-Des Moines-KCY-TOP-Texas and/or ELP-Albuquerque-DEN-Cheyenne. You could also create corridors in southern MT (Billings to Helena/Missoula) and southern ID (Idaho Falls-Pocatello-Boise-Nampa) and have an LD connect them along I-15 down to Utah (and further north to the Empire Builder). Other than that, I'd reroute the Cardinal to go to STL rather than CHI from IND. I'd create three daily frequencies of the LSL: BOS and NYP as separate trains, and add PHL via PGH. There's other common sense things, too, which are less important than the overall vision for the system running LDs over multiple regional corridors.

TurningOfTheWheel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 21, 2021 5:15 pm
I would definitely create more N-S corridors west of the Mississippi. For example: MSP-Des Moines-KCY-TOP-Texas and/or ELP-Albuquerque-DEN-Cheyenne.

Traffic demand must drive where Amtrak creates routes. Amtrak needs to do it’s traffic demand homework.

TurningOfTheWheel wrote: ↑Sun Feb 21, 2021 5:15 pm From an operations standpoint, I think it makes sense to create a nationwide network of regional corridors and let those influence your LD routes. Really, my ideal LD network would be a system of corridors that allow for maximum origin/destination flexibility. A traveler should be able to get daytime trains from, say, CHI to Louisville or DET to PGH by making connections along the way. Today's LDs should probably stay at once- or twice-daily frequencies (enough of this thrice-weekly nonsense) and sleeper-style service, with daytime service along most of the route from shorter corridor-style trains.

I would definitely create more N-S corridors west of the Mississippi. For example: MSP-Des Moines-KCY-TOP-Texas and/or ELP-Albuquerque-DEN-Cheyenne. You could also create corridors in southern MT (Billings to Helena/Missoula) and southern ID (Idaho Falls-Pocatello-Boise-Nampa) and have an LD connect them along I-15 down to Utah (and further north to the Empire Builder). Other than that, I'd reroute the Cardinal to go to STL rather than CHI from IND. I'd create three daily frequencies of the LSL: BOS and NYP as separate trains, and add PHL via PGH. There's other common sense things, too, which are less important than the overall vision for the system running LDs over multiple regional corridors.

Few north to south rail corridors in America "west" of the Mississippi River are maintained well enough to support faster than 60 mph speeds for passenger trains, and the few that are maintained well head towards Texas or are on the Pacific coast. I placed west in quotes because Chicago and New Orleans are actually east of the Mississippi River. I'm not suggesting there are no other north to south rail corridors, I'm am suggesting passenger trains running on them will be very slow - slow enough no one would really want to ride a passenger train on them. The sad fact remains that the two largest freight railroad companies operating mostly west of the Mississippi River have two transcontinental mainlines, a north and south, with branches lines flowing off of them - mostly heading towards the Gulf coast ports in Texas.

Maximum flexibility concept is very interesting if someone wanted to run many long distance trains in a lattice arrangement with shorter regional trains providing additional services on the same route. That would be very expensive. I would prefer just the opposite, having fewer long distance trains and much more regional trains in a hub and spoke arrangement. Then connect the hubs with long distance trains. I believe I have stated this earlier in this thread, but here it goes again. I would place the hubs in these general areas; New York, Florida, Chicago, Texas, and California. Where I used name of states instead of cities, just pick one city of your choice in that state to be the hub. Then I would run day trains out in as many directions as possible from these hubs. At an average speed at most around 50 mph for most hubs, I would limit the day trains reach to around 6 hours or 300 miles from the hubs. If you wished to add more hubs into such a system, remember each hub needs to have the ability to maintain and marshal all the trains in its sphere. Which is why I proposed so few hubs.

The existing framework really is not creating a mass rush of passengers flocking to the trains, after 50 years it is time to reconsider and implement an alternate national passenger rail system. It is time to face the fact the existing one is not working well.

Unfortunately, a hub-and-spoke system requires an on-time-performance culture --all day every day -- that seems to elude us in this country. With hub-and-spoke, a significant delay to one train affects several others, with further delays spreading around the system. (The Swiss make it work consistently, but they're willing to spend the money it takes.)