1@Ziv[/USER]:
I hear you on the question of whether a second Builder or Zephyr would make more sense. Practically speaking:
-Splitting the train, either at MSP or Fargo, raises the prospect of delays if one of the sections gets "stabbed" coming east. The split at Spokane involves much less route length, so the room for major delays is at least limited.
-There's also the issue of train length. A train splitting at MSP/Fargo would probably be running very long...sixteen or eighteen cars wouldn't be out of the question to accommodate a Seattle Builder, a Portland Builder, and a Seattle NCH. At that point, major operational problems such as power constraints rear their head.
Now, an NCH would be partially redundant with the Builder (notably between Chicago and MSP, and possibly also between Spokane and Seattle), but this is not a bad thing. If anything, the fact that in recent history (e.g. before the OTP meltdowns) CHI-MSP was able to put something like 50,000 riders/yr onto the Builder suggests a substantial untapped market.
As far as the "other" stations being served, there's definitely an added value to expanding the network in terms of serving more people (not to mention the political angle of serving the major cities in Montana), which should bring some folks who wouldn't otherwise be able to use Amtrak into the system.
Cost-wise, it might be cheaper to add a second Builder. It also might not, depending on what BNSF would want to charge.
Ideally what you would see, with a serious/major proposal, would be the NCH being added alongside another pair of trains CHI-MSP, with a reasonable suite of schedules (three daytime, possibly one overnight on that corridor) and solid connections to/from the proposed NLX project (MSP-Duluth) for most of the trains (if not full-on through-running for one or both of those two "local" frequencies).
FWIW, if the Pioneer and Desert Wind were to be fully resurrected (something I don't see happening), I've felt that you'd want/need to seriously look at a second CHI-DEN train as well (probably in conjunction with the IAIS routing project) in no small part due to the probable required length of that train (again, an 8-9 car Zephyr adding another four pass-through cars for those two now probably needs an extra CCC at a minimum...so now you're up to about 14 Superliners, minimum).
Edit: And I let myself go astray...
The issue isn't that the train would be good or bad...it's that Congress did a pretty solid job of asking for it back and Amtrak did the bare minimum of going through the motions in terms of complying before presumably doing their best to bury the attempt. That is the problem. If nothing else, I would think that they would try to get the extra train and then make it very clear that it was potentially on the block if funding gets slashed. Voila, you've got an added reason for a slate of senators not to mess with Amtrak's funding.