Amtrak Express LD Trains?

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Every stop has the chance of causing a delay if you arrive early and have to wait. But every stop also has a certain value when it comes to R & R. Pittsburgh and Harper's Ferry do not have the same value. Is Harper's Ferry worth stopping by? Amtrak can tell you. What if two trains follow the same route? Do both have to stop at Harper's Ferry? Why not just one?

 

[jebr]

How often does a train actually arrive early enough at a small intermediate stop for it to be a noticeable wait? I see it westbound at SCD (mainly because the schedule hasn't been adjusted for the shorter station stop at MSP) but I don't recall having an experience of waiting at a small intermediate stop anywhere else.

 

[Ryan]

If we ever get two LD trains on the same route, maybe we can examine that. Until then, you'll just have to suffer the indignity of stopping at all of those crappy little hovels that you don't care about.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

If we ever get two LD trains on the same route, maybe we can examine that. Until then, you'll just have to suffer the indignity of stopping at all of those crappy little hovels that you don't care about.

My original proposals back on p. 1 were to use two routes where service exists now and were meant to be on top of the current existing equivalent services.

 

[neroden]

Here's the thing: the entire "LD" thinking is ****. New York - Chicago trains are just as viable as Boston - Washington trains. So if Boardman or Amtrak management is ignoring "LD" trains, it's because they're allowing a legal classification to override common sense.

Jis, if you do have the right contacts... how can we tell them not to be *money-wasting fools*?

If they'll release sufficient "confidential" information to make proper cost and revenue estimates, I'm willing to do the work for them to present a business plan to prove that they're leaving money on the table if they don't plan for through cars in 2018.

I understand not making improvements which cost money, but improvements which *make* money? Pennsy-Cap through cars were calculated to have a net cost $0.7 million/year in the PIP using *2009* ridership and ticket yields. Recalculate with 2018 ridership and ticket yield numbers and they will definitely be profitable.

Across the system, ticket yields are up from 24.58 cents/passenger-mile in 2009 to 32.00 cents/passenger-mile in 2015, a 30% increase.

We can start with the PIP numbers ($3.9 million in added revenue, $4.6 million in added operating costs) and escalate to the present day, adding 30% to ridership and increasing costs by 2% annually to account for inflation ($5 million in added revenue, maybe $5 million in added costs).

This isn't right, though. I'm pretty sure the PIP is using a ridership estimate which is too low for present-day operations. We have 22386 people making the appalling middle-of-the-night waiting-room-sucks connection from the CL to the Pennsy right now. The PIP estimate would have that go up by 20,400. This is... low. I'd expect ridership on the connection to increase by 22000, at least. This adds another 10% ($0.5 million) to revenue.

The sale of sleeper tickets rather than coach tickets should also increase the ticket yield, though I don't know how to estimate that.

And ridership/revenue should continue to grow faster than costs going into 2018, if only thanks to all the upgrade projects finishing in 2017, many of which are on the Keystone route and some of which are in Chicago.

It just looks to me like this is a profitable move, at least in 2018, which is the earliest it can be done in any case due to the Viewliner delivery schedule.

The LSL schedule switch can't be done before 2018 anyway, because most of the major delay-inducing construction on Poughkeepsie-Albany, Albany station, Albany-Schenectady, Schenectady station, Rochester station, Springfield station, PTC installations, Indiana Gateway, and preferably even MBTA Worcester Line improvements, need to wrap up before it's worth trying to negotiate a new schedule with the host railroads. By 2018, the Empire Builder mega-delays really should have cleared up as well (BNSF's upgrade plans are supposed to be finished end of 2016).

For ADA purposes, it would be a lot better if the CL were switched to single-level equipment. Consider this with the Pennsy through cars as a *baseline*:

This would require:

-- 3 (3 * 1) single-level dining cars -- ORDER MORE VIEWLINERS

-- 9 (3 * 3) single-level coaches -- with seating rearrangment, this should be available when the Horizons become spare

-- no additional cafe cars over the baseline

-- no additional baggage cars over the baseline

-- 9 (3 * 3) or 12 (4 * 3) sleeping cars (Load factors on the CL are persistently low so you probably don't need to replace the full current capacity.) -- ORDER MORE VIEWLINERS

This would free up enough bilevel sleepers and lounges to keep the money-sucking Western trains creaking along.

But hey, there doesn't seem to be a long-term planning department at Amtrak. The connections between the "NEC and branches", Amtrak's best-performing region, and the "Chicago Hub", Amtrak's third-best performing region, should be prioritized for their network effects alone. (California is the second-best-performing region, but it's hard to improve the connections from California to anywhere else.)

OK, this is rail advocacy forum. How can we put together a serious advocacy push to make Amtrak take the "Northeast-Chicago nexus" seriously, along with the "Northeast-Florida nexus"? These trains are completely different animals from the West-of-Chicago situation. They go through areas with more population density than France, and they are held back *entirely* by lack of investment.

 

[Seaboard92]

The days of the express train are gone and will likely never come back. The two expresses you cite are the route of the Broadway Limited, 20th Century Limited. And for Florida the Orange Blossom Special. Back in the 40s the 20th Century Limited ran with two intermediate stops both close to the terminals of the train. It made other stops for crew changes too. But let's look at it's market. The 20th Century Limited catered to the Chicago to New York market only. But when it was doing this there were about 24 direct trains a day(1952) running on six different routes. In those days the train was also the train for businessmen who had meetings in the other cities. They got two productive days in both cities. Now a days it isn't used for that as much. So the express adds no value. The day it had a market is gone. What we should focus on more is growing what we have. I'm not saying we can't miss the trains of the past. But we should work on increasing service on the Waterlevel Route if there is demand. But only if there is demand. And the route of the Broadway Limited should be brought back. But not at the expensive of trains that are already running. We're trying to grow the network. Not cut the network where there is an existing market. That's cutting your nose to spite your face.

 

[neroden]

. But we should work on increasing service on the Waterlevel Route if there is demand. But only if there is demand. And the route of the Broadway Limited should be brought back. But not at the expensive of trains that are already running. We're trying to grow the network. Not cut the network where there is an existing market. That's cutting your nose to spite your face.

What he said. But the thing is that we *know* there's demand on both routes. Grrrrr.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

. But we should work on increasing service on the Waterlevel Route if there is demand. But only if there is demand. And the route of the Broadway Limited should be brought back. But not at the expensive of trains that are already running. We're trying to grow the network. Not cut the network where there is an existing market. That's cutting your nose to spite your face.

What he said. But the thing is that we *know* there's demand on both routes. Grrrrr.

Right. More demand than on some of the routes Amtrak still runs.

You can say all you want about not cutting anything. But the fact is that you have limited resources and you have to make choices (unless a bunch of money and/or extra cars comes falling out of the sky).

Like it or not, I feel Amtrak does make poor choices when it comes to maximizing R & R.

Consider Georgia.

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/GEORGIA14.pdf

Atlanta: 95,630 (ONE train)

Savannah: 63,016 (THREE trains)

If that's not misallocation of resources, I don't know what is.

And just for the record, the whole state of West Virginia: 55,712.

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/WESTVIRGINIA14.pdf

 

[Ryan]

The sooner you understand that Amtrak's goal is not to maximize revenue the better.

 

[Anderson]

There are probably four markets in the Amtrak system which could support an "Express" train. One is the Capitol Limited, another is the Lake Shore Limited, the third is the Crescent north of Atlanta, and the final is the Silver Service (likely the Meteor). Let's examine each of these routes in turn:

-The Capitol Limited runs CHI-WAS and serves a key connecting role in the system (you have a lot of passengers traveling from the Midwest to Florida for whom this is the only workable connection, and a decent number aside who use the train to connect between the Western LD trains and the Northeast). The result is something like 40-45% of the traffic being end-to-end and another 21% being PGH-turnover traffic.

-The Lake Shore Limited runs CHI-NYP/BOS. There isn't nearly the amount of endpoint traffic on this train that there is on the Cap, but I'm going to blame that on three reasons: First, the LSL simply doesn't connect well on the eastern end. The evening arrival into New York is undesirable and makes for, quite bluntly, crappy onward connections. Second, the LSL is usually more expensive than the Cap due to constrained capacity (and the capacity constraints probably jam end-to-end travel up a bit as well...). Finally, there's simply a lot more "local" traffic on the LSL's route, generating a lot of turnover in coach (e.g. BUF-NYP, CLE-CHI). WB, the train has better times going to CHI than the Cap does, and EB it occupies a very nice slot BUF-NYP. The Cap doesn't have the "internal markets" at present that the LSL does.

-The Crescent is an odd duck, but it shows up here because of heavy demand north of Atlanta. Though there are well-discussed issues with the Atlanta station, the basic gist of a service here is that south of Atlanta there are a number of scattered markets while north of Atlanta there is a lot of traffic heading to the NEC. Here what you'd want is one train to run "express" along the northern end of the route (probably only stopping at ALX, CVS, LYH, and CLT) while the other makes most or all stops and then have the trains follow different routes to New Orleans (one via Birmingham and the other via Montgomery). The headache is that you'd either need to trade off a bunch of city pairs (though they might indeed be small in the scheme of things) or find some way to crossload passengers.

-The Silver Service. One of the frustrating things is that in the PIPs, Amtrak focused on specific city pairs, but the whole block of NYP-WAS to JAX-MIA traffic ("endpoint region" traffic, if you will) on those trains is quite large and lots of space turnover on these trains (especially the Meteor at present) will only occur on the relatively extreme ends. So an "Orange Blossom Special"-esque train probably has a market, even now so long as you've still got a train keeping (roughly) the Meteor's/Star's stopping pattern.

It's been my contention that NEC-Chicago and NEC-Florida services could benefit from multiple-daily service on a given route...there's a proposal for this that's pretty well thought-out for NYP-CHI via the LSL's route (the plan, while not cheap, would offer 4x daily service from end to end with only 8 sets of equipment which could be more or less standardized) and I think a similar setup could be developed for the Silver route (although you'd probably be looking at 12-14 sets needed). The Capitol Limited is really on here because of the inherent problems in trying to do almost everything once per day with spotty OTP. Having only one train combination capable of making it from the Midwest to Florida is a problem; even if a direct train is a non-starter for various reasons, there really needs to be more service here.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

The sooner you understand that Amtrak's goal is not to maximize revenue the better.

I think you are still living in a dream world where Amtrak only exists to serve the public and they aren't a business at all. And even if they are 100% a public service, shouldn't it to be their public duty to serve as many people as possible? You know they can't serve everybody. Shouldn't they strive to serve as many people as possible?

 

[Anderson]

. But we should work on increasing service on the Waterlevel Route if there is demand. But only if there is demand. And the route of the Broadway Limited should be brought back. But not at the expensive of trains that are already running. We're trying to grow the network. Not cut the network where there is an existing market. That's cutting your nose to spite your face.

What he said. But the thing is that we *know* there's demand on both routes. Grrrrr.

Right. More demand than on some of the routes Amtrak still runs.

You can say all you want about not cutting anything. But the fact is that you have limited resources and you have to make choices (unless a bunch of money and/or extra cars comes falling out of the sky).

Like it or not, I feel Amtrak does make poor choices when it comes to maximizing R & R.

Consider Georgia.

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/GEORGIA14.pdf

Atlanta: 95,630 (ONE train)

Savannah: 63,016 (THREE trains)

If that's not misallocation of resources, I don't know what is.

And just for the record, the whole state of West Virginia: 55,712.

http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/WESTVIRGINIA14.pdf

West Virginia is a bad situation, but that's more due to being horridly under-served than anything: You have two relatively small towns on the Capitol Limited route (daily service) with 16k riders. The other 39-40k riders are on the Cardinal, which doesn't run daily (in a horrid handling of equipment, among other things) resulting in stations with operating schedules which occasionally look like they were planned for a Terry Gilliam film. If the Cardinal were daily, the state would probably have ridership in the range of 100-125k (depending on what presumptions you use concerning how ridership would increase in line with the increase in service...the same amount of traffic per frequency gives a statewide total of about 110k, for reference).

As to Atlanta, the rub there is that there's a lot of traffic for ATL-north and not nearly as much for ATL-south, creating heartburn about even extending the Crescent's current consist (e.g. do you have lots of cars run empty south of Atlanta or end up with horridly expensive fares and squeezed capacity north of Atlanta?).

 

[Ryan]

And even if they are 100% a public service, shouldn't it to be their public duty to serve as many people as possible?

It is, which is why I'm opposed to the service cuts that you lobby for. Taking the only train away from some people because they live in a small town so that people that live in a big city and already have multiple trains can have even more of them is pretty much the exact opposite.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

As to Atlanta, the rub there is that there's a lot of traffic for ATL-north and not nearly as much for ATL-south, creating heartburn about even extending the Crescent's current consist (e.g. do you have lots of cars run empty south of Atlanta or end up with horridly expensive fares and squeezed capacity north of Atlanta?).

Let me revisit one of my ideas:

The southbound Crescent arrives in ATL 8:13am and the northbound Crescent leaves ATL at 8:04pm.

The approximate travel from CLT to ATL is about 5.5 hrs (2:45-8:13am, 8:04pm-1:21am).

Extend the 73 southbound Piedmont from CLT to ATL (arriving before 4pm). Extend the 76 northbound Piedmont as well (leave ATL around 11:30am).

From the southbound Crescent, detach 2 cars and put them on the 76 heading to Carolina.

From the 76 southbound Piedmont, detach 2 cars and add them to the northbound Crescent.

You can't take off trains in ATL and leave them there. And you can't store trains in ATL and attach them back before heading north. But could those "extra cars" be used for the Piedmont and increase service from ATL to CLT (and add new service between ATL and Raleigh)? If there is a second train between ATL and CLT, maybe demand between NYP and ATL isn't as high on the Crescent so they wouldn't need the fifth car.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

And even if they are 100% a public service, shouldn't it to be their public duty to serve as many people as possible?

It is, which is why I'm opposed to the service cuts that you lobby for. Taking the only train away from some people because they live in a small town so that people that live in a big city and already have multiple trains can have even more of them is pretty much the exact opposite.

If you go by that logic, why not move one Acela or NER and have it serve Nashville or Louisville or other cities without service at all? You know the answer as well as I do. Amtrak is at least somewhat a business so they aren't bad people IMHO if they want to make money.

There are many businesses that want to provide a service AND make money. I don't think it is wrong to want to be able to do both unless there is a clear cut conflict of interest where pursuing money comes at a huge drop in level or quality of service. I liken Amtrak to any airline. They provide a necessary service and a public good (transportation) but you can't tell me American, United, Delta, and Southwest aren't in it for the money. Should Amtrak be the PBS to the airlines CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX? I kind of like Amtrak as more of a company than a public service but that's my opinion.

 

[CCC1007]

Amtrak is not an airline, passenger trains are not the same as passenger planes, and their reasons for being are not the same either. A plane goes endpoint to endpoint, usually without stopping, while a train is best used in a semi frequent stopping service. Please take these simple facts into account the next time you try to rationalize eliminating service on a route. It should change your analysis greatly

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Amtrak is not an airline, passenger trains are not the same as passenger planes, and their reasons for being are not the same either. A plane goes endpoint to endpoint, usually without stopping, while a train is best used in a semi frequent stopping service. Please take these simple facts into account the next time you try to rationalize eliminating service on a route. It should change your analysis greatly

OK let me clarify myself as I feel some are misinterpreting some of my statements.

When I proposed my two express LD trains (New York-Florida and New York-Chicago) they were proposed as trains ON TOP OF similar existing trains. I in general would not support simply cutting stops from the Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Capitol Limited, or Lake Shore Limited. Is there a stop or two on these trains that might cause more harm than good and is bottlenecking a train? Maybe. Would I support cutting half of or even 1/4 of the stops on any of these trains? No.

I was proposing that if Amtrak could afford a third New York-Florida train would having an express train as the third one be better than a "regular" third one? Would the faster service be a selling point? Could a faster fewer stop train have more R & R than a similar regular train? Is there a market for customers from the NEC to get to Florida or to Chicago faster and with fewer stops as opposed to the current services? That is the question I ask about NEC to Florida or Chicago, not should we cut half the stops from the SM or CL? I would support any addional NEC to Florida or NEC to Chicago train service comparable to the existing services, especially a revived Broadway Limited/Three Rivers type route. I believe these routes would significantly improve Amtrak's R & R.

I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal. I do understand that rubs people the wrong way. We can agree to disagree. On the other hand, I would rather people not misinterpret some of my statements and say I would propose things I have no interest in proposing.

 

[Seaboard92]

Instead of an express train from Atlanta to the NEC I think we could all support a Palmetto like day train from Atlanta north. But then we need to find a place to store the equipment. By adding service there we would somewhat reduce the passenger loads on 19/20 and increase ridership. I frequently meet the passengers boarding in Clemson station. Most are traveling to VA points. So there is a market for a counterpart train. But what we can't do is strip services from communities like Dilion, SC, Selma, NC, Charleston, SC to serve city markets. Amtrak is a national operator and as such it needs to cater to the nation not the Northeast. I don't agree with The way amtrak has been run to forget the LD trains and promote the corridor. LD trains serve the nation. And the nation if you like it or not is a bunch of small towns. And to these small towns to be on the system is a boost to their economy. And it's good for them. Camden, SC for instance is proud they are an Amtrak served city. And just rebuilt their station. I'm opposed to striping the Small towns of service. We exist for midpoint to midpoint. That's the beauty of the train. When you get on there are people from everywhere going anywhere with many stories to tell. Flying is mostly people coming and going from where you are. Once the Midwest Bilevels come on line. I think if the Amfleet set on the Surfliner gets redeployed. The Atlanta route would be a good place to redeploy it. And the second set made up of excess Horizon cars.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

But what we can't do is strip services from communities like Dilion, SC, Selma, NC, Charleston, SC to serve city markets. Amtrak is a national operator and as such it needs to cater to the nation not the Northeast. I don't agree with The way amtrak has been run to forget the LD trains and promote the corridor. LD trains serve the nation. And the nation if you like it or not is a bunch of small towns. And to these small towns to be on the system is a boost to their economy. And it's good for them. Camden, SC for instance is proud they are an Amtrak served city. And just rebuilt their station. I'm opposed to striping the Small towns of service. We exist for midpoint to midpoint. That's the beauty of the train. When you get on there are people from everywhere going anywhere with many stories to tell. Flying is mostly people coming and going from where you are. Once the Midwest Bilevels come on line. I think if the Amfleet set on the Surfliner gets redeployed. The Atlanta route would be a good place to redeploy it. And the second set made up of excess Horizon cars.

Again, I am not proposing removing the stops you stated on the Silver Meteor or Silver Star. I have mentioned cutting the Palmetto but that is a second train covering most if not all of the Meteor and if any stops are on the Palmetto and not the Meteor, I would add them to the Meteor.

 

[Seaboard92]

I can personally say that the Palmetto is fairly full south past Florence. Its not about end points in the railroad it's the intermediate stops. And the times the Meteor calls on that route aren't good. No one is going to want to catch or meet a train at those hours. The daytime frequency is needed. And 90 is fairly full north of Florence too. The train isn't broke let's not try to fix it. Now when the horizons get free from the Midwest.... But even those aren't the best for winter operation.

 

[keelhauled]

Again, I am not proposing removing the stops you stated on the Silver Meteor or Silver Star. I have mentioned cutting the Palmetto but that is a second train covering most if not all of the Meteor and if any stops are on the Palmetto and not the Meteor, I would add them to the Meteor.

You endlessly whine about how the poor people from Pennsylvania are forced to transfer in Pittsburgh at unpleasant hours, yet seem to be perfectly happy to suggest making people in the Carolinas board trains in the middle of the night. Seems odd, that.

 

[Bob Dylan]

While I enjoy your proposals and posts Amtrak Philly Fan, as has been said, you can't have your cake and eat it too!

You should be thrilled to live on the NEC and also to have so many ways to travel to/from PHL! Most of us have little or none so the answer to is to expand the coverage of Rail, not take it away from others for your personal convienence!

 

[railbuck]

I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal.

If you were the President of Amtrak in 1995 you still wouldn't have had that choice (though perhaps you could have saved the Broadway and cut something else). The decision to keep the Cardinal was made by Sen. Byrd years earlier.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

While I enjoy your proposals and posts Amtrak Philly Fan, as has been said, you can't have your cake and eat it too!

You should be thrilled to live on the NEC and also to have so many ways to travel to/from PHL! Most of us have little or none so the answer to is to expand the coverage of Rail, not take it away from others for your personal convienence!

Got any money? Me neither.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I am not going to deny my premise that certain existing routes are not effective routes and others would increase R & R. I will continue to say if I had a choice in 1995 to save either the Broadway or the Cardinal I would've cut the Cardinal.

If you were the President of Amtrak in 1995 you still wouldn't have had that choice (though perhaps you could have saved the Broadway and cut something else). The decision to keep the Cardinal was made by Sen. Byrd years earlier.

Honestly I would've first tried to terminate the ALB-NYP portion of the LSL and make it an exclusive CHI-BOS train through the BUF-ALB part of the Empire Service. I believe I once heard this was discussed. LSL to BOS/Upstate NY, BL to NYP/PHL/Pa, CL to WAS. I might even have rerouted the CL to the Keystone Route then along the NEC to BAL and WAS before killing the BL especially if I knew they weren't going to honor the CL/SS connection in WAS anyway.

You could say this "hurts" NYP because they then have to take longer on the BL if you consider an extra 2 hours on a train no big deal (and some people have said having an express train instead of a regular train doesn't really save them that much). In Amtrak logic, it isn't acceptable to force NYP passengers west of BUF to spend an extra 2 hours on a train but it is acceptable to force PHL, HAR, and LNC to transfer (or in the case of PHL spend an additional 6 hours on a train).