One of the clear goals of Amtrak, and one that probably made sense at the time, was to move all services in big cities to one terminal. All of NYC moved to NYP. All of Chicago moved to CUS. Pre-2000, it wasn't a bad idea, as the common wisdom was that trains were an anachronism and on the way out. It was how grandma went.
Today, new starts like Rockford, Quad Cities, and Lehigh Valley are hampered by the need to get from one legacy route to another legacy terminal. How will a Rock Island train go from the Rock over to Union Station? How will an Allentown train get to NYP? it complicates planning and funding. It also requires more than one class 1 to be on board with new plans, which makes it orders of magnitude harder to start up.
You also have current corridor services like downstate Illinois trains making convoluted moves over connectors and adding 20-30 minutes that is valuable to regional travelers.
Perhaps it's time to face it that this policy of one city, one terminal is outdated. It would be easier to start new services by being a tenant at a Metra or NJT station that is a logical terminus. It would improve ridership on IC-legacy trains to terminate at Randolph street. Union Station and NYP are at capacity anyway. We've also seen significant success with the Downeaster going to BON. Imagine the joke of a train that would be if they had tried to make BOS work. Another hour ride time?
And then there's the comparison to Europe and Japan (and now China) we love to make. Most world cities have many stations. Paris, London, Barcelona, Tokyo, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Istanbul.
People lament that it wasn't possible for a human to go coast-to-coast on a train, but a hog could. The same is true in Europe, perhaps worse. But hogs get slaughtered, so perhaps we shouldn't be trying to emulate a hog anyway...
Today, new starts like Rockford, Quad Cities, and Lehigh Valley are hampered by the need to get from one legacy route to another legacy terminal. How will a Rock Island train go from the Rock over to Union Station? How will an Allentown train get to NYP? it complicates planning and funding. It also requires more than one class 1 to be on board with new plans, which makes it orders of magnitude harder to start up.
You also have current corridor services like downstate Illinois trains making convoluted moves over connectors and adding 20-30 minutes that is valuable to regional travelers.
Perhaps it's time to face it that this policy of one city, one terminal is outdated. It would be easier to start new services by being a tenant at a Metra or NJT station that is a logical terminus. It would improve ridership on IC-legacy trains to terminate at Randolph street. Union Station and NYP are at capacity anyway. We've also seen significant success with the Downeaster going to BON. Imagine the joke of a train that would be if they had tried to make BOS work. Another hour ride time?
And then there's the comparison to Europe and Japan (and now China) we love to make. Most world cities have many stations. Paris, London, Barcelona, Tokyo, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Istanbul.
People lament that it wasn't possible for a human to go coast-to-coast on a train, but a hog could. The same is true in Europe, perhaps worse. But hogs get slaughtered, so perhaps we shouldn't be trying to emulate a hog anyway...
The new Acela: It's not Aveliable.