neroden
Engineer
In answer to Andersons's Budd Fairy question. In priority order.Let's run an exercise (and pardon any sarcasm here; I couldn't resist):
Assume that the Budd Fairy came to Amtrak and said that they'd been a good intercity railroad, and that if Amtrak left its retired Heritage cars under its pillow then the Budd Fairy would replace them with brand new sleepers!
So, Amtrak wakes up in the morning with another 75 single-level sleeping cars...what should Amtrak do with them?
(1) Daily Cardinal (needs more coaches too)
(2) Added sleepers on every existing single-level sleeper train
(3) Broadway Limited / 3 Rivers (needs more coaches too)
(4) BOS-WAS sleeper on 66/67 (to Newport News or perhaps Norfolk)
(5) Palmetto -> Silver Palm (needs more coaches too)
(6) Split the LSL into two trains (it's getting too long for the platforms); maybe separate Boston and NY trains, maybe not; needs more coaches too. This should wait until we see whether enough traffic is diverted to the Broadway Ltd. and Cardinal to shorten the LSL. But if not, if it instead keeps growing, then it needs to become two trains.
(7) Single-level Capitol Limited (so as to dispatch the Superliners to other trains); needs more coaches too
The above do not require station or track improvements or revival of "freight only" track for passengers. The below do.
(8) Service down the Florida East Coast on one of the Florida-NY trains
(9) Toledo-Detroit-Ann Arbor-Chicago service via one of the Chicago-east coast trains
(10) Service via Columbus, Ohio, via one of the Chicago-east coast trains
(11) Service via Fort Wayne, Indiana, via one of the Chicago-east coast trains
This is arguably a modest list. It focuses on beefing up services on a limited collection of corridors which are mostly already served. And it reserves Viewliners for services which *must* be single-level, with the exception of the Capitol Limited.