Illinois Amtrak Service

I can't comment personally on the procedures in Illinois, but I assume that it is the same as the issues that come up in Ann Arbor for the Wolverines. Usually, the train crew will only open two doors (sometimes three). It is a low-level platform, so passengers alighting have to walk down steps (often requiring the assistance of the conductors), and passengers boarding have to walk up. Plus, there is no checked baggage anymore, so a good number of the passengers are hauling substantial pieces of luggage through this process. On a busy day, with maybe 15 people alighting from a WB Wolverine and 100+ boarding, the station stop can easily exceed 15 minutes.

One benefit of the California Car/Surfliner equipment is that it allowed station stops to be shortened significantly. Until new equipment is acquired (or the new ADA regulation is enacted requiring level boarding at all stations), I don't see this situation improving much in general. I'm less sure why it would be a problem in Carbondale, however; presumably they could open the train early enough to get everyone on board for an on-time departure.

mkellerm wrote:I can't comment personally on the procedures in Illinois, but I assume that it is the same as the issues that come up in Ann Arbor for the Wolverines. Usually, the train crew will only open two doors (sometimes three). It is a low-level platform, so passengers alighting have to walk down steps (often requiring the assistance of the conductors), and passengers boarding have to walk up. Plus, there is no checked baggage anymore, so a good number of the passengers are hauling substantial pieces of luggage through this process. On a busy day, with maybe 15 people alighting from a WB Wolverine and 100+ boarding, the station stop can easily exceed 15 minutes.

Yep, that's EXACTLY the problem I was referring to. In Champaign's case, I would have the train crew notify the station that they are about ten minutes away. By this time people are usually lining up in the waiting room, and the two ticket agents are far too busy to leave the counter. However, there is usually someone there who works for the CUMTD, and assists with getting luggage on board when the train arrives. That person could start taking tickets and letting people onto the platform about ten minutes before the train arrives, and as soon as it arrives just hand off all his stubs to the conductor. By that point there could be 40 people already on the platform, and the CUMTD employee could go begin helping people with getting luggage up the steps.

Obviously this wouldn't work in areas where an extra "station employee" isn't available, but larger stations with that extra person could see their loading times halved, and might actually have trains leaving on time.

Mattoon Ridership up 68%

The Mattoon Amtrak passenger station has more than 2,000 people passing through each month, an increase by several hundred over the past two years.

rest of the article at: http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2 ... 022546.txt

bmichel5581 wrote:Mattoon Ridership up 68%

The Mattoon Amtrak passenger station has more than 2,000 people passing through each month, an increase by several hundred over the past two years.

rest of the article at: http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2 ... 022546.txt

Now, if only someone does something about the embarrassing condition of the Mattoon Amtrak depot!!

jg greenwood wrote:

bmichel5581 wrote:Mattoon Ridership up 68%

The Mattoon Amtrak passenger station has more than 2,000 people passing through each month, an increase by several hundred over the past two years.

rest of the article at: http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2 ... 022546.txt

Now, if only someone does something about the embarrassing conditon of the Mattoon Amtrak depot!!

www.projectdepot.org

*edit* .org NOT .com

bmichel5581 wrote:

jg greenwood wrote:

bmichel5581 wrote:Mattoon Ridership up 68%

The Mattoon Amtrak passenger station has more than 2,000 people passing through each month, an increase by several hundred over the past two years.

rest of the article at: http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2 ... 022546.txt

Now, if only someone does something about the embarrassing conditon of the Mattoon Amtrak depot!!

www.projectdepot.org

I've noticed the banner stretched across the south-end of the building when running north. Hopefully there will be successful results.

Here are the station on/off numbers for the Jan-Feb period at the 20 busiest stations in Illinois (incl. St. Louis), as well as the percent change from Jan-Feb 2006. These are all Amtrak riders, not just those on state-supported trains.
I'm a little surprised that Carbondale and Galesburg aren't higher; I guess that has to do with their LD service both increasing the denominator, and causing a substitution effect. I would imagine that a fair number of people who used to ride the City northbound are now taking the Saluki at a more civilized hour.

Illinois March ridership numbers are out (state-supported only), and are really good for the new trains:

Chicago-Carbondale: 22,134 (up 86%)
Chicago-Quincy: 18,076 (up 84%)
Chicago-St. Louis: 23,780 (w/o Ann Rutledge, probably up about 60% if it were included)
Chicago-Milwaukee: 49,663 (up 4.6%)

The full report probably won't be out for a few months at the rate things seem to be going, but I would guess that both the Carbondale and Quincy routes hit their ridership budget targets for the first time since the new services were introduced. This is extremely promising if it keeps up.

*edit*

These numbers, which came from Illinois DOT, appear to be wrong; it looks like they switched the actual and budget columns. The correct numbers are:

Chicago-Carbondale: 20,875 (up 75%)
Chicago-Quincy: 14,107 (up 44%)
Chicago-St. Louis: 33,875 (up 57.4%, including Ann Rutledge)
Chicago-Milwaukee: 47,863 (up 0.9%)

Those are REALLY impressive numbers. I checked one possible reason they could be skewed -- if Spring Breaks fell in March this year vs. April last year. That doesn't seem to be the case. U of I is in April this year (so not even included in those numbers) and Southern and Western are squarely in the middle of March, which makes me think that they wouldn't have been in April last year, because I doubt they'd fluctuate by 3 weeks.

I think we're still in the upswing, because there are certainly still a lot of people who don't know about the service increase. It would be extremely impressive if doubling the service actually led to doubled ridership. That's within reach considering the current growth rate.

There is an argument to be made that many people consider once-day service so inflexible that it's not even worth considering, while twice-day, expands the options significantly enough that it stays on the radar screen, meaning that doubling the number of trains could lead to more than doubling the ridership. That too is within reach considering the growth curve we've witnessed in just a few months.

mkellerm wrote:Illinois March ridership numbers are out (state-supported only), and are really good for the new trains:

Chicago-Carbondale: 22,134 (up 86%)
Chicago-Quincy: 18,076 (up 84%)
Chicago-St. Louis: 23,780 (w/o Ann Rutledge, probably up about 60% if it were included)
Chicago-Milwaukee: 49,663 (up 4.6%)

The full report probably won't be out for a few months at the rate things seem to be going, but I would guess that both the Carbondale and Quincy routes hit their ridership budget targets for the first time since the new services were introduced. This is extremely promising if it keeps up.

That is definitely good news.

Now, lets talk about some new equipment!

ne plus ultra wrote: There is an argument to be made that many people consider once-day service so inflexible that it's not even worth considering, while twice-day, expands the options significantly enough that it stays on the radar screen, meaning that doubling the number of trains could lead to more than doubling the ridership. That too is within reach considering the growth curve we've witnessed in just a few months.

For relatively short trips, I believe this is a strong argument. Once a day service is fine for long distances (applies to both planes and trains), but people going short distances require both flexibility and convenience; once-a-day service provide neither.

Someone had posted numbers for California trains that showed that, as the frequencies increased, the number of riders went up more than the linearly in proportion to the number of trains. Of course you need a certain population base for this to work, but I'd imagine Chicago of all places should be able to supply that base.

bmichel5581 wrote: Now, lets talk about some new equipment!

Yes! I'm basically just dreaming here, but I wish they could get some sort of inter-city bilevels for some of these routes - something similar to what C&NW used to run on its long-distance passenger trains. The extra capacity would be very appreciated, along with trainline door controls and doorways that are wider and permit quicker unloading/loading.

Northbound Illini topped out around 225 onboard friday evening......lot's of baseball fans on board for the cubs cardinal series.

Interesting; do all of the Illinois trains run with the standard four-car (business class/dinette and three coaches) consist, or is there some variation?

I believe there were five cars on the train I took home for spring break (Four Horizon coach + one Amfleet cafe/business) but other than that it's been the standard 3+1 consist.