Examining the Sunset Situation

I believe that some sort of rail service will return east of New Orleans, as Amtrak is still looking at options for this route. I emailed the Florida Department of Transportation, and I got a response saying that they are looking at options and want to implement corridor-type service from NO to Florida, replacing the Sunset. Amtrak wants the four states to pay for this service. Now someone tell me why there should be corridor service instead of the Sunset.

Currently, the Sunset arrives NO at 4. It could continue on east around 7, which gives it enough padding in NO. It would be able to serve the Gulf Coast at good times as well. The same could be said for the westbound Sunset with a few adjustments. It takes 21 hours from NO to Orlando, so any type of corridor service would have to travel in the middle of the night as well. I believe the best service would be just to restore the Sunset east, as many passengers traveling east of NO would travel through west on the Sunset. Thoughs, opinions?

That is good that Amtrak is exploring two options. One of them is corridor. Reason is that the SL is always so late into Orlando. It requires to turn the train around, service it, and then loading passengers. The longer the route is, the late it will be.

I understand that the corridor is very risky, depending on support from states, esp. with bankrupted Mississippi.

As for right now, more research is needed to find if corridor is possible or not, time schedule, cost, number of passengers, etc.

Having worked the Sunset end-to-end for almost eight years (ending pre-Katrina), I think restoring the service east of New Orleans is the least favorable of three options, the other two being a new train with daily service from Miami or Orlando to New Orleans or an extension of the City of New Orleans to Orlando or Miami.

From my experience, the bigger market is service from Fla/Ala/Miss. to New Orleans and on north to Chicago. When the Sunset was running to Orlando, the biggest passenger turnover by far (coach and sleeper) was at New Orleans. This was the case both eastbound and westbound.

The run from L.A. to Florida is simply too long, given the inability of the Union Pacific and CSX to get the train over the road on time. Many, many times the train would arrive very late in Florida, be terminated short of Orlando (at the Sanford Auto-Train terminal) with no station personnel on duty to assist disabled passengers to their buses and no wheelchairs or luggage carts to be had. There were plenty of carts on the platform, but they were always chained and locked. And the late arrivals often meant late departures, meaning we were behind the eight-ball again from the start! And that scenario was of course somewhat minor compared to arriving so late eastbound into New Orleans that the train would be terminated there and the passengers put on buses the rest of the way.

Having daily service New Orleans-Florida may even be more cost-efficient with the train and engine crews. When the Sunset was running, there was a lot of deadheading involved with crews based out of New Orleans and Jacksonville (Pensacola being the turnaround) due to the train being tri-weekly.

So, hopefully daily service Florida-New Orleans with connections to the City of New Orleans and the Sunset (westbound at least). But let the "Coast-to-Coast Adventure" rest in peace.

1702, how was ridership east of NO compared to west of NO?

Guest_Ben_* said:

1702, how was ridership east of NO compared to west of NO?

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IMO, our ridership varied from good to excellent to "packed to the rafters" on both sides of New Orleans.

I know that the time we took Sunset WPK-NOL-WPK several years ago, it was pretty full. It certainly didn't meet the administration's "Nobody rides trains" definition.

A daily NOL-ORL, or NOL-JAX (if timed both directions to connect well with Silver Service), or perhaps NOL-JAX-MIA on the FECRR, with the JAX stop each way timed to connect with Silver Service, would certainly improve ridership along that part of Sunset's route, and would give a daily connection between Chicago and Florida. It would also improve timekeeping since CSX would have better luck with it if it was daily than the way it was, thrice weekly. That last option ( NOL-JAX-MIA on the FECRR ) would also effectuate the tentative agreement Amtrak had made with FECRR several years ago to start up a Florida East Coast route that would finally get direct service to St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Cocoa, Melbourne, Vero Beach, Stuart, etc. And it should be fairly fast and smooth since FECRR I believe is all concrete ties.

I know that my one trip between JAX and NOL in early December saw decent ridership at a time that is about as off peak as you can get.

On my last (pre-K) trip from LAX on train 2, I was amazed that over half of the sleepers were booked to Florida points. The Chicago sleeper was also full, mostly going all the way to Little Rock, St. Louis or Illinois points (but not necessarily Chicago, because a faster route exists on the Chief). Obviously non-fliers were the backbone of that train. It did not deter any of these die-hards whether the train was late or not, only that it got there.

The way the train was run in pre-K, whether there were coaches or not was irrelevent. Those people who rode coach would never do so again, due to the extreme latneness and irregularity of service. So, while there was a good bit of coach business, it was on a "never-again" basis.

Within the Sunset route exists a number of what could be very productive commuter/short haul corridors, particularly if the speeds are ultimately increased at some point in the future, and train frequencies increased. For instance, 200 MPH trains between Tucson, Palm Springs and LAX, El Paso-San Antonio-Houston-New Orleans-Mobile and Tallahassee-Jacksonville-Orlando would absolutely finish off any remaining airline service in those markets that survives the fuel/environmental crises that are positively coming in the future. In these corridors, coaches could generate significant revenue, but only where frequent fast service is made available. Obviously, Southwest Airlines and their ilk are not going to tolerate this sort of thing ever happening in the United States, most particularly California, Texas, or Florida, where they own the present markets. But we can dream, can't we?

There would be nothing wrong with hanging a couple sleeping cars on the coach equipment, those sleepers would not mind relatively long layovers in Tucson, El Paso, New Orleans, and Mobile, we would hang in through anything, short of having to get on a danged airbus. Amtrak did this with a night train from Norfolk to Washington to Boston for a while, the train sat for a while in Washington, Philly, New York, and the locals used it for commuting. As long as there was enough padding built in so that it could leave the intermediate points on time, no problem. Hey, close or separate a bunch of road crossings (which is going to have to be done anyway), raise the speed back to what SP used to run, say what the GE's can do, 125 flat out, or 100 average, run at least 2 trains each way each day, and you can have both improved commuter corridors as well as keep some long distance "full service" routes such as the Sunset.

I ve taken the Sunset several times in both directions from LA to Jacksonville and it was always a pleasure to ride a coast to coast train for three days and nights. The sleeper prices were quite reasonable as well. I never minded the late arrivals since I did nt have any connecting trains.

It would be great for at least a service from NOL to JAX making connections with folks coming off the Crescent, the City of New Orleans and in Florida the Silver service trains. I do hope it happens, making Amtrak once again a true cross country service.

I was booked on Train 1 out of Jacksonville the day before Katrina hit, and it was cancelled. Eighteen months later there is still no service east of New Orleans.

Last year, David Laney said in a newspaper article that the Sunset may be "shortened or rerouted." If rerouted, where would it go? I have an idea that may work, although quit drastic and probably a little far out there. Reroute the Sunset on the Texas Pacific to Dallas and on the Meridian Speedway to Atlanta and onto Washington. Replace the current line with a day train from San Antonio to NO and another one from NO to Jacksonville.

People from LA that want to go to San Antonio east to Florida could transfer onto the Texas Eagle and take the day trains, although it would be somewhat inconvenient. By routing the Sunset to Washington, it would provide a connection from Atlanta west to Dallas and LA and Washington to Dallas. It would also provide a daylight service between Atlanta and DC, hitting the many medium-sized cities during daylight. Atlanta is the biggest metro in the Southeast and there is no direct train from there to Dallas and LA. The line from Dallas to Atlanta and onto Washington is much more populous than the current Sunset route to Florida. Was Laney referring to this as a "reroute"? Maybe, but seems like too big of a change. Thoughts?

If you're going to run it east to Atlanta, and since it's supposed to be the southern transcon, why not run it from Atlanta south and east to SAV or JAX? That makes a whale of a lot more sense than WAS. Why duplicate the Crescent once you get to ATL. Run it where it was supposed to end up in the first place. Why add a SIXTH train from the Washington area to the southeast, and still leave the southern transcon broken?

The existing FIVE:

1. Silver Star

2. Silver Meteor

3. Palmetto

4. Crescent

5. Auto-Train