Using buses to make Sunset and Cardinal daily?

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Paulus

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Just throwing this one out into the wild yonder: Is there anything (legally or otherwise) to prevent Amtrak from running buses on the Cardinal and Sunset Limited's off days, clearly marked and forewarned of course, such that some form of daily intercity service is provided, while simultaneously gauging passenger demand for a daily train? Amtrak California is restricted by law from selling bus trips that do not connect to a train, but is there any such restriction upon Amtrak itself?
 
Just throwing this one out into the wild yonder: Is there anything (legally or otherwise) to prevent Amtrak from running buses on the Cardinal and Sunset Limited's off days, clearly marked and forewarned of course, such that some form of daily intercity service is provided, while simultaneously gauging passenger demand for a daily train? Amtrak California is restricted by law from selling bus trips that do not connect to a train, but is there any such restriction upon Amtrak itself?
Amtrak California's restriction (save one exception) is based on the fact that the state finances the bus service and legislators didn't want to undercut private bus companies that might have competing routes. If I could just take the EMY-SFC bus, I'd do it easily just to collect quick points while doing stuff I'd normally do like take my kid out.

If there's no particular federal financing for the bus service, I'm not sure there's any legal restriction outside of California.
 
Amtrak California has nothing to do with the Sunset Limited and Cardinal.

That said, I believe Amtrak Thru-way buses in general have to be "connected" to a train and can't compete directly with existing bus lines/routes in most locations.
 
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The not-bus-only rule, I believe, is California-specific.

While it would probably be able to be done, I doubt it's feasible or a good indicator of what train ridership would be like. Having to go off the highway to where each station is would eat up quite a bit of time, so the schedule would likely have to be adjusted to be longer than the current schedule. There'd also be a lot less ridership because there aren't the amenities on a bus that a train has, so people traveling that want or need those amenities won't travel. (This would be seen especially in the longer-distance travel.)
 
Are there laws that legally prevent Amtrak from shuttering scheduled rail services and replacing them with buses? Perhaps reinventing itself as a bus company might give Amtrak a chance to survive future defunding efforts. I wonder if Amtrak could find a way to turn their Superliners into double decker buses. If they start with the Sunset Limited they could begin gauging passenger acceptance of conversion to rubber and road.
 
Just throwing this one out into the wild yonder: Is there anything (legally or otherwise) to prevent Amtrak from running buses on the Cardinal and Sunset Limited's off days,
(1) There's no appropriate route. Believe it or not, a bus on the roads parallel to the Cardinal would probably actually be *slower* and unable to maintain the schedule. How long would a bus take from Huntington to Cincinnati? No expressway there....(2) The train bias is real. A bus would get much less ridership than a train, particularly over the longer distances. (Assume at least a 20% difference, maybe as much as 50%.) And of course buses are fuel-intensive compared to trains. You'd have to do a serious business case analysis to see whether doing this would even break even on a marginal basis.
 
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There ought to be a daily Del Rio-El Paso bus since Valley Transit stops at Del Rio. Valley Transit is now a subsidiary of Greyhound. They had cut the route but reinstated it this year.

Huntington to Cincinnati might not actually be that bad because of US 52 which is a US Highway, not a state highway. Greyhound has no bus there. Greyhound runs Detroit-Jacksonville via Huntington and Charleston (actually both Charleston, WV and Charleston, SC). That one's 2x daily. Also no Greyhound from Charlottesville to Charleston. Greyhound has the big old Richmond-Dallas which runs to Charlottesville then turns south heading for Lynchburg. That one's 3x daily, I think they occasionally had a short-turn at Memphis but probably not right now.

I wish the EPA didn't come out with those heavy anti-emissions rules because to reduce emissions lowers fuel efficiency and that's why a 2014 Big D gets less MPG than a 1995 Big D. Those 1995s could easily get 350 or 375 PMPG but now it's down to about 300 (about the same as it was in the 1980s). All-time low was about 2004 model year, those would be, like, 280 PMPG.
 
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Are there laws that legally prevent Amtrak from shuttering scheduled rail services and replacing them with buses? Perhaps reinventing itself as a bus company might give Amtrak a chance to survive future defunding efforts. I wonder if Amtrak could find a way to turn their Superliners into double decker buses. If they start with the Sunset Limited they could begin gauging passenger acceptance of conversion to rubber and road.
If bus companies could put the pressure on the California legislature to prevent it, I would think they would pressure the feds and/or other states to prevent something like this.
 
Yeah but their isn't bus service along the entirety of the SL or Cardinal routes, AFAIK. But yes, Oakland-San Francisco would be a very good Greyhound points run. :)
 
Just throwing this one out into the wild yonder: Is there anything (legally or otherwise) to prevent Amtrak from running buses on the Cardinal and Sunset Limited's off days,
(1) There's no appropriate route. Believe it or not, a bus on the roads parallel to the Cardinal would probably actually be *slower* and unable to maintain the schedule. How long would a bus take from Huntington to Cincinnati? No expressway there....
Google Maps says about three hours following US 52. Probably somewhat slower in reality.

(2) The train bias is real. A bus would get much less ridership than a train, particularly over the longer distances. (Assume at least a 20% difference, maybe as much as 50%.) And of course buses are fuel-intensive compared to trains. You'd have to do a serious business case analysis to see whether doing this would even break even on a marginal basis.
I'm not doubting that the train bias exists, but so does "There is no transportation at all today" bias. As for buses being more fuel intensive than the Cardinal and Sunset Limited, you might want to recheck whatever numbers you're using there.
 
Are there laws that legally prevent Amtrak from shuttering scheduled rail services and replacing them with buses? Perhaps reinventing itself as a bus company might give Amtrak a chance to survive future defunding efforts. I wonder if Amtrak could find a way to turn their Superliners into double decker buses. If they start with the Sunset Limited they could begin gauging passenger acceptance of conversion to rubber and road.
If bus companies could put the pressure on the California legislature to prevent it, I would think they would pressure the feds and/or other states to prevent something like this.
Unless they are given the opportunity to physically operate the bus, either branded under the Amtrak banner, or maybe even as a codeshare.
 
Are there laws that legally prevent Amtrak from shuttering scheduled rail services and replacing them with buses? Perhaps reinventing itself as a bus company might give Amtrak a chance to survive future defunding efforts. I wonder if Amtrak could find a way to turn their Superliners into double decker buses. If they start with the Sunset Limited they could begin gauging passenger acceptance of conversion to rubber and road.
Yes, that's a great idea. Use the superliners as buses, and I would propose using Irish babies as the drivers.

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US 52 is not a treat to drive,,,

but if you have to go from Huntington to Cincy via Maysville

you have no choice,,,,
 
Amtrak is chartered AFAIK to be a passenger rail company, not a general transportation company. A bus service running the long length of either route could have a lower cost recovery percentage than the trains do. If this were to be done, in the case of the Cardinal, would be smarter to run the train between NYP to at least Charlottesville on the 4 "off" days and run the bus from there. Although how that would work with the 750 mile rule is a question for the legal staff. But Amtrak is not a bus company and it would undermine the reasons for the LD trains.

The question for the Sunset Limited should be: Is Amtrak pursuing an expansion to daily service yet? The deal with UP to not ask for daily service was in effect for 2 years after the implementation of the schedule change. Says so in the signed letter agreement which was made public. The agreement was was dated February 28, 2012 and the schedule change was implemented in May, 2012. So Amtrak is allowed to open discussions again with UP on daily service.

Anyone seen recent stats on how much of the LA to El Paso route is now double tracked or is expected to be by the end of 2014? Once UP is close to completing the double tracking project, they can't ask for large sums of money from Amtrak for the double tracking.
 
Anyone seen recent stats on how much of the LA to El Paso route is now double tracked or is expected to be by the end of 2014? Once UP is close to completing the double tracking project, they can't ask for large sums of money from Amtrak for the double tracking.
January 2014 presentation said 183 miles left to double track, plan to add another 43 miles this year.
 
Amtrak is chartered AFAIK to be a passenger rail company, not a general transportation company. A bus service running the long length of either route could have a lower cost recovery percentage than the trains do. If this were to be done, in the case of the Cardinal, would be smarter to run the train between NYP to at least Charlottesville on the 4 "off" days and run the bus from there. Although how that would work with the 750 mile rule is a question for the legal staff. But Amtrak is not a bus company and it would undermine the reasons for the LD trains.

The question for the Sunset Limited should be: Is Amtrak pursuing an expansion to daily service yet? The deal with UP to not ask for daily service was in effect for 2 years after the implementation of the schedule change. Says so in the signed letter agreement which was made public. The agreement was was dated February 28, 2012 and the schedule change was implemented in May, 2012. So Amtrak is allowed to open discussions again with UP on daily service.

Anyone seen recent stats on how much of the LA to El Paso route is now double tracked or is expected to be by the end of 2014? Once UP is close to completing the double tracking project, they can't ask for large sums of money from Amtrak for the double tracking.
No...they'll ask for money to triple track;)

One of the big problems with long-haul buses versus trains is the food situation (you can't exactly have much in the way of a cafe on a bus). That slowly shifts from being a mild inconvenience to a deal killer the longer the trip is.
 
I think companies like Greyhound and who ever else might operate along these routes would have a lot of trouble with direct competition from a government-subsidized competitor. Besides Amtrak is the National RAILROAD Passenger Corp., not the National BUS Passenger Corp.
 
FWIW, Greyhound vs Amtrak from LAX to SAS based on 11/21 departure:

Amtrak:

Leave Fri 10 PM, Arrive Sun 4:50 AM. Total trip time, 28 hours, 50 minutes. Cost in coach, $182. Meals available for purchase on board.

Greyhound:

Leave Fri 11:50 PM, Arrive Sun 6:05 AM. Total trip time, 28 hours, 15 minutes. Cost, $230. Meals are on your own whenever the bus stops. 2 hour transfer layover in El Paso.

My first immediate question is: Why is Amtrak not charging $50 more??? Better value, it's worth it at $100 more.
 
Yeah but their isn't bus service along the entirety of the SL or Cardinal routes, AFAIK. But yes, Oakland-San Francisco would be a very good Greyhound points run. :)
SFO-OAK used to be a bookable trip on United Airlines flying big jets (I think a 727 or 737). It was actually SFO-OAK-DEN, but the first segment could be booked. Very popular among those trying to make a frequent flyer tier since it counted as one segment and for the minimum 500 miles. I heard they got a lot of people flying that route near the end of the year to try to make a tier.

From what I understand, it was a far different path and the plane never got higher than 3000 feet.
 
I think Amtrak could justify bus service due as a commitment to daily service. A more or less permanent "bustitution". This could also be done to "restore" service New Orleans to Florida.

It is unlikely that Amtrak would finiancially break even (or the dawg or someone else would be serving the routes), so the question becomes one of where federal subsidy of operations goes to best use... which is rail operations. So a no-go, unless Amtrak were to have a funded plan for daily service and wanted to build ridership prior actually implementing rail service.

Could bus amenities be improved... sure, think 1x2 seating with superliner coach seat pitch. That limits capacity and restricts fare recovery so also is a no-go.
 
Amtrak California has nothing to do with the Sunset Limited and Cardinal.

That said, I believe Amtrak Thru-way buses in general have to be "connected" to a train and can't compete directly with existing bus lines/routes in most locations.
It may not be applicable since it's another state funded route, but Amtrak buses run on most of the Cascades route in competition with Greyhound.

I sure wouldn't want to take a bus the length of the Sunset Limited, no way.
 
FWIW, Greyhound vs Amtrak from LAX to SAS based on 11/21 departure:

Amtrak:

Leave Fri 10 PM, Arrive Sun 4:50 AM. Total trip time, 28 hours, 50 minutes. Cost in coach, $182. Meals available for purchase on board.

Greyhound:

Leave Fri 11:50 PM, Arrive Sun 6:05 AM. Total trip time, 28 hours, 15 minutes. Cost, $230. Meals are on your own whenever the bus stops. 2 hour transfer layover in El Paso.

My first immediate question is: Why is Amtrak not charging $50 more??? Better value, it's worth it at $100 more.
Surprisingly close between Amtrak and Greyhound in total trip time. Don't know how much Amtrak is really competing against Greyhound over this distance because someone taking the Hound for this long a trip may be doing it to stay off the radar or not aware of the Amtrak option. But 3 days a week limit the SL as a viable transportation option. If the SL was daily, could Amtrak charge more?
According to Google Maps, the driving time is about 20 hours without stops. Since few will drive that distance with only the shortest pit stops, the train is not much slower than driving. A dedicated Amtrak bus over the SAS-LAX route could be markedly slower with pit stops for food and slow station stops.

The current SL trip time is rather padded. Checking Status Map archive, the SL #1 arrived at LAX more than 1 hour early 6 times out of 21 trips since the 1st of October. It was over 1 hour late twice. Looking at those 2 late trips, #1 got hit with the large delays between El Paso and Palm Springs. Don't know if the delays were on the remaining single track segments. As UP gets close to completing the double tracking from LA to ELP and California continues to fund improvements on the Southern California end for freight trains from Long Beach and Metrolink, Amtrak should be able to work with UP to trim the schedule times from SAS to LAX. But a 3 AM arrival at LAX is not going to be well received. At some point with trip time improvements for the Texas Eagle (CHI-STL, over TRE tracks Dallas-FTW if they can ever get that done) and a double tracked LAX-ELP corridor, the SL and TE schedules could see a large shift.

Get the SL to daily service, trim the padded schedule, and lose less money per passenger or seat mile and maybe even lower overall losses. A better plan than buses 4 days a week, IMHO.
 
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