Replying to How is it decided where the train stops?

University of Delaware is one such college that has Amtrak service on weekends at the Newark DELAWARE station.

Sounds Good to me Jis! There is no Political or Religious Test (So Far! ) in this Country to Board a Train, if you Have the Money, They'll Sell you a Ticket! Bet Ridership would be like Other College towns, Heavy on Weekends/End of Semesters/Spring Break etc.

Wouldnt it be Worth Looking into for Liberty U. to consider running a Shuttle to the Present Station and put the Money into Fixing it Up, probably would be Much Cheaper and Quicker and Eliminate the Back-UP Move??

In times past there were stops at or near colleges where trains only stopped on Friday-Saturday-Sunday, and may early Monday. Why not here? The current service could terminate/originate here on high student travel days and the empty equipment back up to Kemper St. The rest of the time, simply terminate at Kemper St. This cuold be done now, or as near to now that anything that gets caught up in government processes can happen, and the Roanoke issue dealt with later when it starts to approach reality.

JIS, so far as I know, there in no connection of any kind between religious belief and practice on the one hand and position on riding trains on the other. It is more of a matter of frustration on the part of pro passenger rail people that are politically conservative that they are seeing a trasportation issue hijacked into a political issue. People of politically conservative but pro-rail perspectives tend to simply hold their nose and vote the conservative candidate. The fact that Mussolini made the trains run on time in Italy, was hardly consolation for all the other things he did, and while maybe not to that extreme, that is more or less the rationale behind a vote for a politically conservative but anti-rail candidate. In general, considering that much of the money spent on oil imprts goes to some of the most irrational and repressive political regimes on this plant, in addition to sending lots of money out of the country, anything that reduces our oil consumption is considered a good thing by those that are politically conservative. It is just what is seen now on efforts that will supposedly reduce our depenence on oil and that they are "Much sound and fury signifying nothing."

Sounds Good to me Jis! There is no Political or Religious Test (So Far! ) in this Country to Board a Train, if you Have the Money, They'll Sell you a Ticket! Bet Ridership would be like Other College towns, Heavy on Weekends/End of Semesters/Spring Break etc.

Wouldnt it be Worth Looking into for Liberty U. to consider running a Shuttle to the Present Station and put the Money into Fixing it Up, probably would be Much Cheaper and Quicker and Eliminate the Back-UP Move??

In a very timely fashion a specific case comes up to use as an example to discuss this issue....

Liberty University in Lynchburg VA wants to fund, build and lease to Amtrak, a station on its campus. See this article at wdbj7.com.

Now there are a few issues with the proposal. One is that the location is south of the junction where the line to Roanoke takes off, so this station if built, will not be able to be served by trains going to Roanoke, without a backup move. Since it is south of the Kemper Street station, it will probably need additional sidings for train storage.

OTOH, the construction is fully paid for by LU. Amtrak just leases the facility and operates it. No further permits from anyone else other than Amtrak and NS is needed to make this happen and in rather quick order.

Note that it is just several miles from Kemper St. Station, so theoretically one could start a jitney service of some sort from LU to Kemper St. and perhaps capture some of the potential ridership. Also note that this is Liberty University of Jerry Falwell Sr. from a demographic that many in this forum believe almost as a matter of knee-jerk to be anti-rail!

So should Amtrak turn up its nose and walk away from this offer? What do y'all think?

Mystic is also a tourist destination. Someone visiting Mystic wouldn't ride Amtrak if the nearest station was six miles away.

How about Mystic, CT?

• The stop is served by (IIRC) 2 or 3 trains a day (on the busy NEC)
• The "station" is the town information center
• I don't even think it has a QT and no shelter when the center is closed
• There is an Amshack - on the northbound side - southbound, there is none
• NLC - where almost all trains stop - is less then 6 miles away

Mystic CT has a Quik-Trak machine and had 23,091 passengers in FY2011. Up from 20,787 in FY10, by the way. If Amtrak did not stop there, some of those customers would get on or off in New London or Westerly RI instead, but some probably would choose other forms of transportation - and Amtrak would lose the business. The Shore Line East service does not extend east of New London, so Amtrak is the only train service Mystic gets.

Checking the wikipedia entry on the Mystic train station, the station was built in 1905 so it does not quite qualify as an Amshack building. The station has low level platforms which is a drawback. It could well be the last Amtrak stop on the NYP-BOS NEC to have low level platforms, but it could get upgraded with short high level platforms eventually.

I don't see what is the problem with having a few daily NE Regionals stop at Mystic CT.

So are we to believe that some Congressman from New Mexico said that they would vote against Amtrak if the Deming station was closed? Or was it the case that Connecticut Congressional delegation would oppose Amtrak funding if Mystic was closed?

I am always somewhat surprised whenever I see so called railfans and rail advocates who apparently try to come up arguments to get rid of stations that exist and serve at least some number of passengers, specially when the station itself is maintained by someone else, or adds only marginally to the overall cost of operations. Why would it be better to have fewer stations causing people to have to drive further on more crowded roads to get to another station, clearly raising a barrier higher for them to get on trains?

I could possibly come up with very cogent arguments for getting rid of as many as a quarter of Amtrak's existing stations? But in the broader scheme of things, why would that make sense?

Absolutely.

Except maybe on some corridor services, shaving some minutes off a journey time are not going to have a noticeable impact in terms of cost savings or additional ridership. But even if its just several hundred passengers a year who are joining the train there, those are additional customers served and income for Amtrak. Remember that every satisfied passenger is a potential ambassador who may encourage more people to use Amtrak in future. Amtrak has broken through its critical downwards spiral and is growing ist passenger base, albeit slowly. Now is not the time to stop that snowball from rolling.

So are we to believe that some Congressman from New Mexico said that they would vote against Amtrak if the Deming station was closed? Or was it the case that Connecticut Congressional delegation would oppose Amtrak funding if Mystic was closed?

I am always somewhat surprised whenever I see so called railfans and rail advocates who apparently try to come up arguments to get rid of stations that exist and serve at least some number of passengers, specially when the station itself is maintained by someone else, or adds only marginally to the overall cost of operations. Why would it be better to have fewer stations causing people to have to drive further on more crowded roads to get to another station, clearly raising a barrier higher for them to get on trains?

I could possibly come up with very cogent arguments for getting rid of as many as a quarter of Amtrak's existing stations? But in the broader scheme of things, why would that make sense?

Part of the answer, I believe, is that when Amtrak took over passenger operations, it simply decided to retain the stops its predecessors had when they ran passenger service.

Some other points that might have some influence:

- Amtrak stops because a station exists. That station represents a certain value which would be abandoned if that stop ceased.
- Establishing a new station at a different location is going to cost money to acquire land and build and would require studies to prove the new location is better. There would have to be a very strong case before that can even be considered.
- Amtrak cannot stop where it wants because there may be capacity issues with the host railroads.
- LD trains do need to stop periodically for such purposes as crew changes, refuelling or restocking. This may explain some of the stops that appear to be the middle of nowhere.
- Just because there doesn't appear to be a city immediately next to the Amtrak station, doesn't mean people don't use it. People may drive there and there might be connecting buses.
- If there is an overlay with a commuter service (as in Florida for example), Amtrak may want to share some of those facilities for the purposes of connections and also to share costs.