Capitol Limited & Silver Star Connection

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Rail Freak

Engineer
Joined
Apr 5, 2008
Messages
4,968
Location
Tampa Bay, Florida
How is the CL/SS connection working out? A few years ago, agents were hesitant to book that because the two hours was cutting it too thin. Been many problems? I travel in sleepers &, once, I missed the connection & ended up in coach on the Meteor. I finally got the New Conductor (got on in Columbia, SC) to put me in a roomette! My SCA told me he had 3 available roomettes the whole way & the other Conductor was just too lazy to switch me!!! That was an expensive short sleep!!!
 
Using that website, I compared the connection data for the last year between the 14/28 connection in PDX and the 92/29 connection in WAS. I determined that if the 92/29 connection was guaranteed and 29 would be held 20 minutes for the arrival of 92, the connection success rate would be higher than that of the 14/27 connection. There is no backup connection in either case, and the 92/29 connection would add service between TPA/RGH and PGH/CLE/CHI as well as all cities which can be connected to from Chicago. Coming from TPA, any such routing now requires a bus to Orlando and a departure 7 hours earlier than 92 would provide. From RGH, a middle of the night connection in Greensboro needs to be made. The 14/28 connection serves few major markets that do not already have a simpler route, the only major example being California to MSP. I am not advocating that the PDX connection be dropped, but that the WAS connection be added. This would open up TPA and RGH to the national network and increase capacity on the SM. To be honest, I would be satisfied with a 20 minute hold for the connection and a free change to the next day's 29 with overnight access to the station in the event the connection is missed. However, this connection would attract enough passengers that I feel it should be treated as any other guaranteed connection with overnight accommodations if the connection can not be made. Another possibility would be to make a slight adjustment to 92's schedule so that Amtrak could feel more comfortable with such a connection.
 
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