Well, and beyond that, doing so likely gives them use of the slot for a lower cost/with less hassle. Amtrak has always had trouble arranging any non-passenger moves (witness the Fast Mail headaches that Conrail was able to dish out).
Hoosier State in Jeopardy
- Thread starter TML
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The Hoosier state runs with Beech Grove equipment maybe twice per week. The Cardinal, on the other hand, almost never does.
Shift the days that the Beech Grove equipment gets shuttled back and forth to days when the Cardinal runs, and the justification for running the Hoosier State pretty much disappears.
Shift the days that the Beech Grove equipment gets shuttled back and forth to days when the Cardinal runs, and the justification for running the Hoosier State pretty much disappears.
NE933
Conductor
How many cars make a typical Hoosier train? And what are some sample average ridership station combos?
TCRT
Lead Service Attendant
I believe a typical Hoosier State consist would be two Horizon coaches (I have observed it as two Amfleet I coaches on one occasion). If the Cardinal is running, they are added/removed at IND, unless the comments by OBS indicate that this is no longer the case. As far as I can tell via YouTube, as of late May the Horizons still appeared on the back of the Cardinal from Indianapolis to Chicago on days when that train was running (
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I have traveled IND-CHI or CHI-IND a total of three times - twice, I was seated in one of the Horizons, as is the intended use of those cars, and once I was lucky and was placed in the long distance seating in an Amfleet II.
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I have traveled IND-CHI or CHI-IND a total of three times - twice, I was seated in one of the Horizons, as is the intended use of those cars, and once I was lucky and was placed in the long distance seating in an Amfleet II.
johnny.menhennet
Conductor
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Nathanael
Guest
Heh. I have a better one: announce a daily Cardinal service (long-distance, so exempt from PRIIA requirements) and then announce that "service has been suspended on four days a week east of Indianapolis", using the "suspended service" precedent of the Sunset Limited. Hell, it's even the same railroad (CSX)....
MikefromCrete
Engineer
You know guys, I don't think it's that easy to thwart the law, and why would Amtrak want to? If Indiana isn't interested in the train (and the state government under Mitch Daniels and the Republicans clearly isn't), then it's gone. Hook up the Beech Grove cars to the Cardinal and carry on. Indiana has the choice. It can be enlightened like Illinois, Michigan and Missouri or backward like Wisconsin and Ohio. And they don't call the Hoosier State the "south of the north" for nothing.
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Nathanael
Guest
Yeah, that proposal was just a Sunset Limited joke.
I have to say, retaining Beech Grove is beginning to seem seriously questionable for Amtrak; it's appallingly located now. What special facilities does it have? How hard would it be to relocate the entire operation?
I have to say, retaining Beech Grove is beginning to seem seriously questionable for Amtrak; it's appallingly located now. What special facilities does it have? How hard would it be to relocate the entire operation?
Hard, isn't the issue. Expense is the issue. It would cost a lot to move things.
And BEE has space, probably cheaper labor than other places, lots of shop buildings, paint shop, wheel shops and many other things that while movable it probably doesn't make sense to try to move. Especially from the $$'s side of things.
NE933
Conductor
So this train is essentially one or two operating coaches with a locomotive, pulling sick rolling stock. The ridership, judging by the anecdotal descriptions, is generally low. Perhaps then seeing the light it does make sense to put this up to a decision. Incidentally, where are the sick cars set out, and how far is it from there to BG? Miles? Time to get there?
NE933
Conductor
But the locaion of BG in relation to the system makes it strategic like no other: you want someplace that is centric so that no region would be stranded if several derailments were to afflict a particular line in a short period. Plus the place is a wizard scientist's workout room: paint and wheel shops and other crafts that have gone overseas, if Amtrak leadership messes with BG now it might be suicidal. Maybe consider something like this a decade down the road from now, if the fleet grows as desired and the environment in Congress stabilizes a bit. You never want to perform a major change when you're vulnerable.
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
I guess the Cardinal could be made daily CHI-CIN, then daily service extension to HUn and Charleston. They could bypass even Charleston on the old N&W route for dily servce on the entire route. How good is that line, though?
Honestly, I don't see Beech Grove as a terribly important reason to keep the Hoosier State. It's not all that terribly expensive to set up new maintenance shops and in the rest of the world, adding on a maintenance contract with a guaranteed availability rate is pretty much the norm when buying new equipment. With the requirement for a new Superliner replacement in the near future as well as the Amfleet and Acela replacements (which I'd prefer to be consolidated anyhow into a single NEC train set), it's not unlikely that you'd see new shops and whatnot built. I'd be rather surprised if California didn't opt for a shop regardless of anything else actually.
johnny.menhennet
Conductor
California has two maintenance facilities as is, with the one in LA being quite significant.
cirdan
Engineer
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Maybe that's what Amtrak should be telling the state governor (or whoever is responsible for approving the funding).
Tell them we have this facility in your state, employing this many people, with this much tax revenue etc. Do you want us to close it or will you help us fund it?
Even if they wouldn't really move (because it would be too expensive or they risk losing skilled people etc), in politics you sometimes have to bluff.
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OlympianHiawatha
Engineer
Ideally you want a facility like this to be as central as possible to minimize overall travel time and based on that along with what is there, Beech Grove is about as good as you can get.
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Nathanael
Guest
I found a very interesting brochure:
http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/533/3/Amtrak-Mechanical-Services-201109.pdf
Amtrak considers itself to have three "major back shops" (its term): one is Beech Grove. The other two are at Bear, Delaware (which does heavy work on Amfleets and Acelas), and shops/yards at Wilmington, DE (which deals with the electric locomotive fleet). Together, Bear and Wilmington have the expertise and equipment to handle practically everything except diesel locomotives and dining cars.
I don't know if Bear or Wilmington could be expanded. Bear is the logical place to expand.
The other 12 shops have much more limited facilities. Boston, New York, DC, Chicago, New Haven, and Seattle are on fairly cramped sites and probably couldn't expand too much. Some of the others might be able to expand quite a lot, including LA.
Most of the shops are very close to Amtrak stations. Notably, Beech Grove is about as far from Indianapolis station (~6 miles) as Bear is from the NEC; but Bear is on a branch line which is probably used more for Amtrak traffic than for freight, so shuttling cars to it is easy. (The cars coming and going from Beech Grove are set out at Indianapolis Union Station on a spare track, for the person who asked.)
Beech Grove has been isolated by the repeated drops in service surrounding it. Although it could get tolerable service if CSX was willing to do the shuttling to and from Chicago, it isn't even well located on the freight network any more; most of the lines north and south out of Indianapolis have been downgraded. (Also, notice the difficulty the Cardinal has finding a good route into Chicago.) With Bear and Wilmington already present and handling most of the NEC fleet, something closer to Chicago would be a lot better. I don't know if there are any redundant railyards in the cheap land on the South Side of Chicago -- or perhaps Gary -- but that would be the logical location (lots of connections to lots of lines, not *too* far to relocate Beech Grove workers, room to expand). The freight yards seem to be expanding in that area so there may not be any available space, though.
Perhaps the thing to do *is* to warn the governor and legislature of Indiana that their failure to fund trains to Indianapolis is threatening the viability of the Beech Grove location. If that gets more trains to Indianapolis, great.
Beech Grove is no longer "as central as possible to minimize overall travel time" -- it's now located so as to maximize overall travel time.
Amtrak's shops are already having a problem with "cars not arriving as scheduled" (due to intensive use of the fleet). Accessing Beech Grove only three days a week on one of the most unreliable Amtrak trains (to Indianapolis, followed by a switcher job to Beech Grove!) can only make this problem worse! It would then generally be faster to get to shops located in *Denver*, because the Zephyr runs daily!
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
I guess BEE could be moved from IND to CHI or MKE, but those places don't have space or support, and I love BEE, don't want it closed.
CHI might have some support given what IL has been doing with their services. Moreover, CHI is the hub for eight LD trains, at least six corridor routes that are in no danger of being dropped (plus an indirect connection to the MoRR), three new proposed corridors (Quad Cities, the Blackhawk, and MN's proposed additional MSP-CHI train), and can plausibly link indirectly into at least one or two other suggested corridors (the various MO corridors and the Northern Lights Express proposal). Note that I'm excluding the Hoosier State and anything involving Ohio.
I'm currently on the Cardinal that left Chicago yesterday with several PV cars (5?) on the back. The conductor said that at least one of them had been totally gutted. Apparently they were taken off at IND, although I slept through it. Does BEE work on PV?
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