Arlington wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2019 4:53 pm
Anderson nailed the # at 15. Your list omitted Capitol Limited and Palmetto
Thanks for the correction, I edited my earlier response to include them.
As for my own response to my earlier question, Amtrak should just connect regions with long distance trains. So let's identify the different regions within the first 48 states.
New England, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest (including Texas), Northwest, and California.
Then reflect where Amtrak has coach yards capable of hosting the long distance fleet.
(1) New York for New England
(2) Miami for Southeast
(3) Chicago for Midwest
(4) Seattle for Northwest
(5) Oakland for California
(6) Los Angeles for Southwest
Now let's connect these hosts.
Southwest via Texas, California, and Northwest connect to Chicago, that makes three trains.
Chicago connects to New England, four trains now
New England to Southeast makes five trains.
My sixth train would be the Auto Train.
The one existing fairly large coach yard Amtrak has access to not being served by my list of trains so far is in New Orleans. My seventh train would include it, but I'm having problems deciding where it should go, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, or New England. The only direction I would eliminate off-hand is Northwest. If New Orleans was linked to New England, I would take a second look where the Southwest train went - maybe switching it to New Orleans instead of Chicago might be a better solution - because New England generates more than half Amtrak's ridership.
The only duplication of service is between New England and Southeast, cause by the unique Auto Train. Any other duplication of service should be done by state subsidized corridor trains - not going the entire way.
And I woould not change the existing 750 mile legal definition of a long distance train. That 750 miles is based upon average train speeds not greater than 50 mph. 750/50=15 hours. That's about as far as one should go with a 7 am departure and 10 pm arrival for the shorter state subsidized corridor trains.