NARP Campaign to make the Cardinal Daily

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This is a worthwhile effort. The fact sheet makes it easy for writing letters, too. I will be sending one to NARP in support of a daily Cardinal.
 
I heard an interview with Charlie Monte Verde, one of Amtrak's governmental affairs people, where he discussed this.

http://www.urbancincy.com/2016/10/episode-65-the-cardinal/

He seemed optimistic but he said it would depend very much on West Virginia. He *still* seemed optimistic because apparently the state officials in WV are actually showing signs of caring about this.

The more interesting thing he said was that thanks to the 750-mile rule in PRIIA, he thought that it was at least sometimes easier to start up a long-distance service -- fewer entities had to agree -- than a shorter corridor service, and that that applied to the Cardinal. (He didn't say this, but I suspect an *incrementally profitable* long-distance service would be easier to start, while something which was a definite money-suck like the Pioneer would not be.)

He also said that their rule of thumb is that going from 1 a day to 2 a day causes ridership to triple. (He didn't remember any examples of going from 3 a week to 7 a week, but I would take the implication that ridership would probably multiply by even more than a factor of 3. Please note that I have estimated that a daily Cardinal would be profitable before overhead, but I was only estimating ridership increasing by af factor of 2.3, so this would be even better.)
 
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Since if I ride Amtrak it must start with the Cardinal at WSS daily would be fantastic. The 3 times a week really limits my ability to use Amtrak. thanks
 
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