by RandallW
I think that New Orleans is a smart hub to develop services in the Gulf Coast region out of--Amtrak has the capacity to operate and maintain additional trains at New Orleans without major investment in the terminal and maintenance areas itself and (I think) New Orleans is the only such terminal that doesn't already have regional rail services operating out of it. As a plus, any regional train already has (albeit not necessarily convenient) three existing long distance / inter-regional routes as connections. I don't know what the cost of building out these services would be if Amtrak did not already have maintenance facilities in New Orleans, but I imagine it would be significantly higher than it already is.
In addition, given that national politics (and the Federal budget) is too often treated as a zero-sum game, when Amtrak can expand, Amtrak has to build out a national system that provides services in new regions if it wants support (there seems to be a group of coastal elites who would dismiss flyover country by withdrawing services outside the NEC and CA and a large population in flyover country who feel that since Amtrak doesn't serve them or their area, it shouldn't exist)--new regional services outside the NEC/Chicago/CA areas may be politically more valuable for Amtrak than some extensions of the existing core regions would be.
In addition, given that national politics (and the Federal budget) is too often treated as a zero-sum game, when Amtrak can expand, Amtrak has to build out a national system that provides services in new regions if it wants support (there seems to be a group of coastal elites who would dismiss flyover country by withdrawing services outside the NEC and CA and a large population in flyover country who feel that since Amtrak doesn't serve them or their area, it shouldn't exist)--new regional services outside the NEC/Chicago/CA areas may be politically more valuable for Amtrak than some extensions of the existing core regions would be.
