Amtrak may expand Autotrain beyond East Coast

[frequentflyer]

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,2173617

Notice this article over on Trainorders and it quotes an Amtrak spokesman stating Amtrak have looked at the CHI-FLA market and its the same as the NE-FLA market. Also studying CHI-TEX and CHI-PHX.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Baaaaaad idea.

 

[Hytec]

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,2173617
Notice this article over on Trainorders and it quotes an Amtrak spokesman stating Amtrak have looked at the CHI-FLA market and its the same as the NE-FLA market. Also studying CHI-TEX and CHI-PHX.

That's interesting. Amtrak ran an Autotrain in the mid-70s from CHI to somewhere in central FL. It was discontinued after 6-9 months because of dismal ridership. I sincerely hope for Amtrak's sake that the CHI/FL market has changed significantly in the last 35 years. From what I've seen over the past 50 years of living in south Mississippi, the Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, etc. markets come to the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida panhandle for Gulf and casino vacations, not to the Atlantic coast of Florida, that's an East Coast destination.

 

[MikefromCrete]

I doubt if anything will come of those studies. The Chicago Tribune writer had to justify his trip (and probably putting it on his expense account) to his bosses, so he added a Chicago angle. While Chicago-Florida and Chicago-Arizona are big traffic corridors, they probably wouldn't pass a revenue/expense cost. The Lorton-Sanford run is unique since it can be done overnight and the huge Northeast-Florida market.

 

[Amtrak839]

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,2173617
Notice this article over on Trainorders and it quotes an Amtrak spokesman stating Amtrak have looked at the CHI-FLA market and its the same as the NE-FLA market. Also studying CHI-TEX and CHI-PHX.

That's interesting. Amtrak ran an Autotrain in the mid-70s from CHI to somewhere in central FL. It was discontinued after 6-9 months because of dismal ridership. I sincerely hope for Amtrak's sake that the CHI/FL market has changed significantly in the last 35 years. From what I've seen over the past 50 years of living in south Mississippi, the Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, etc. markets come to the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida panhandle for Gulf and casino vacations, not to the Atlantic coast of Florida, that's an East Coast destination.

The Auto Train you are thinking of was run by the Auto-Train Corp. from Louisville to Sanford. Auto-Train had a contract with Amtrak to pull the Auto-Train cars behind the Floridian (which was easily done, as that branch of the Auto-Train was never more than a few cars long).

The article just mentions studies. We've known Amtrak has studied other Auto Train routes for a long time. Amtrak has studied many things. This means nothing. As Mike said, the Chicago Tribune guy probably needed to justify the article. It's not like Amtrak has lots of excess capital lying around to start this service either (and a new Auto Train route would take a big start up investment). Plus, you can be sure Amtrak is well aware the Louisville venture played a significant role in the downfall of the original AT, and is not eager to make the same mistake.

 

[Hytec]

The Auto Train you are thinking of was run by the Auto-Train Corp. from Louisville to Sanford. Auto-Train had a contract with Amtrak to pull the Auto-Train cars behind the Floridian (which was easily done, as that branch of the Auto-Train was never more than a few cars long).

Thanks, I had forgotten that the "CHI" Auto-Train was a private contract from Louiville. Oh well, the second thing to go is the memory....damn well forgot what the first was

 

[George Harris]

The Chicago - Florida Autotrain was also a victim of bad track and miserable lateness, mostly due to bad track, and rough riding track, same cause. I really don't know what sort of schedule would be possible now. The former ACL line between Montgomery AL and Waycross GA used by this train is unsignaled and for them mort part speed is limited to 40 mph or less for freight. Then, what do you do north of Nashville? Go through Louisville on the former Floridian route with the bad track between Louisville and Indy, or go up the line through Evansville, with its high freight volume?

It also appears that anything much beyond mid afternoon to mid morning overnight will not have significant ridership. Thsi factor also worked against the Mid-west Auto Train.

 

[wayman]

The Chicago - Florida Autotrain was also a victim of bad track and miserable lateness, mostly due to bad track, and rough riding track, same cause. I really don't know what sort of schedule would be possible now. The former ACL line between Montgomery AL and Waycross GA used by this train is unsignaled and for them mort part speed is limited to 40 mph or less for freight. Then, what do you do north of Nashville? Go through Louisville on the former Floridian route with the bad track between Louisville and Indy, or go up the line through Evansville, with its high freight volume?
It also appears that anything much beyond mid afternoon to mid morning overnight will not have significant ridership. Thsi factor also worked against the Mid-west Auto Train.

I don't see why you'd ever want the northern terminus of this train to be beyond Louisville. Louisville to Sanford is about 883 miles in the most direct highway route, or 935 going Louisville-Nashville-Montgomery-Waycross-Sanford like George is describing, so it's roughly the same physical distance as the Lorton-Sanford route. Given good track, you could do afternoon departure, morning arrival. Toledo, Chicago, and St Louis are each 300 miles from Louisville, in the same situation as New York City to Lorton. Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Nashville are closer. And of course, Louisville itself. Detroit's not much outside the 300 mile radius, and given that people from Boston drive to Lorton for Auto Train, Detroit-Louisville is probably something folks would do; heck, these are the same people that drive Detroit-Florida all the time. So the location is great for capturing maximum ridership while making the train ride the right length.

But the big problem is the track conditions, and the lack of any viable route using existing track. It has always stunned me that there aren't good tracks here (I think everyone just assumes "of course there are good tracks there" when looking at a map of the country). But if there aren't any, then it's clearly not valuable as a freight route, so I don't see why any freight railroad could be convinced to upgrade the tracks.... But on the bright side, for a Midwest Auto Train I really don't think you have to worry about tracks north of Louisville -- given marketing data from the Lorton-Sanford Auto Train, I think if the train goes north of Louisville you're probably losing ridership despite being closer to Chicago.

 

[railiner]

While there exists certain patterns of travel between the midwest and the south or the southwest, there is nothing that even comes close to approaching the very unique demographics that is prevalent on the Autotrain. I don't believe that any other route could provide a sufficient demand to be successful.

 

[jphjaxfl]

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,2173617
Notice this article over on Trainorders and it quotes an Amtrak spokesman stating Amtrak have looked at the CHI-FLA market and its the same as the NE-FLA market. Also studying CHI-TEX and CHI-PHX.

That's interesting. Amtrak ran an Autotrain in the mid-70s from CHI to somewhere in central FL. It was discontinued after 6-9 months because of dismal ridership. I sincerely hope for Amtrak's sake that the CHI/FL market has changed significantly in the last 35 years. From what I've seen over the past 50 years of living in south Mississippi, the Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, etc. markets come to the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida panhandle for Gulf and casino vacations, not to the Atlantic coast of Florida, that's an East Coast destination.

The Auto Train you are thinking of was run by the Auto-Train Corp. from Louisville to Sanford. Auto-Train had a contract with Amtrak to pull the Auto-Train cars behind the Floridian (which was easily done, as that branch of the Auto-Train was never more than a few cars long).

The article just mentions studies. We've known Amtrak has studied other Auto Train routes for a long time. Amtrak has studied many things. This means nothing. As Mike said, the Chicago Tribune guy probably needed to justify the article. It's not like Amtrak has lots of excess capital lying around to start this service either (and a new Auto Train route would take a big start up investment). Plus, you can be sure Amtrak is well aware the Louisville venture played a significant role in the downfall of the original AT, and is not eager to make the same mistake.

I saw the AutoTrain from Louisville to Sanford come through Madison, TN at Amiqui Jct many times as an independent train and as an addition to the Floridian and it was a lot more than a few cars. In the mid 70s, the Floridian was usually a sleeper, diner lounge, 3 coaches, baggage dorm and baggage car. When Autotrain was added to the Floridian, the combined train was about 22 cars according to my journals.

 

[wayman]

While there exists certain patterns of travel between the midwest and the south or the southwest, there is nothing that even comes close to approaching the very unique demographics that is prevalent on the Autotrain. I don't believe that any other route could provide a sufficient demand to be successful.

When I went to Florida for a week in March of ... 2001? ... my traveling friend and I kept a count of license plates from each state and province that we saw -- not just a checklist to make sure we saw one of each, but a tally of how many of each. I've long since lost the tally, but I can tell you the top three:

Florida

Michigan

Ontario

Cars from the Mid-Atlantic and New England were certainly in the top-ten -- I'm pretty sure New York and Virginia were represented there -- but so were cars from other Midwestern states like Ohio and Illinois. I think the only states we didn't at all were Arizona and maybe New Mexico, for obvious reasons. (Yes, we saw Alaska and Hawai`i, but no, I don't think we saw some of the western Canadian provinces either.)

The difference may well be that a lot of those Michiganders own second homes and come down, stay for two months and return, while a lot of East Coasters may own time shares or just get hotel rooms, and come down for a week and return. The East Coast model would produce a much higher Auto Train ridership than the Midwest model, since people are constantly rotating in and out from the East Coast. But the demographics may change with a train, too. If it becomes easier for more Midwesterners to get to Florida, more might come for weeklong trips. (Historically, this trend held true as the trains in the 1930s-60s were always longer, more frequent, and sometimes greater in number in the winter than in the summer, as Bill Haithcoat has shown us in the past. Whereas in that same era the big East Coast train like the Silver Meteor saw some variation, but I think not nearly as much variation, seasonally?)

But it's been a long time since we've had a Midwest Auto Train, or even a Floridian, long enough that I think people's ideas of where, when, and how long to holiday for have changed, and data from 20-30 years ago may no longer accurately reflect the demographics of today. (There's been almost 100% turnover in the population of people 60+ since there was last a Midwest Auto Train! And I would imagine retirees make up a large portion of potential riders. There's been 100% turnover in the population of parents of "Disney-aged" children, too, for that matter.) People have different amounts of leisure time and different amounts of money and place different values on their time and money than they used to. Marketing is different. Airlines are very different. The price of gas is different. The attractions in Florida are different now than they were then, too. Using the old marketing data to say "that train didn't have the ridership to succeed" shouldn't make it an open-and-shut case not to re-start the train. That's the sort of argument that still has a lot of strength after 5-10 years, but not 20-30 years.

 

[George Harris]

I don't see why you'd ever want the northern terminus of this train to be beyond Louisville. Louisville to Sanford is about 883 miles in the most direct highway route, or 935 going Louisville-Nashville-Montgomery-Waycross-Sanford like George is describing, so it's roughly the same physical distance as the Lorton-Sanford route. Given good track, . . .

The catch is, even given the best track quality possible, the Louisville to Sanford lines do not have near the maximum or average speed capabilities of the Lorton to Sanford line.

All the possible routes south out of Louisville run cross grain to the southern end of the Appalachian chain, while the line south out of Lorton spends much of its distance on long straight segments in the near flat coastal areas.

 

[Hytec]

Instead of Louisville/Sanford, consider a Lorton-like terminal somewhere in central or southern Illinois. The train would travel south on CN/IC, through New Orleans, then east on CSX to Jax, finally south to Sanford. I agree that it would be two sides of a right triangle, but it would be virtually flat territory all the way, with a pax track speed of 79 for 90-95% of the route, and no stops except for crew change. Therefore, it probably would be faster than the Louisville/Sanford route which, though more direct, is mostly Class-3 or Class-4 trackage, and, as someone said, a maximum pax track speed of 40, and less for much of the route due to considerable mountainous territory.

 

[abcnews]

I have always believed in "thinking outside the box". Don't get stuck on Auto Train idea as a Florida train. I think a new Georgia (to DFW to AZ/LAX) auto train would be a big success. Origin in GA or AL - near Birmingham. Depart to Texas, for a quick stop - drop auto racks for Texas, pick up freshly loaded Auto racks with passengers for Arizona (same train).

Basically a GA/AL area to Arizona - near Phoenix. It offers the cross country traveler an option, without having to drive 3,000 miles.

And... a Central PA - Nevada/Northern CA or Oregon train too... Great stimulus idea....

 

[abcnews]

I think a growing future for US rail travel could involve the "auto Train" idea. Like the current truck freight/rail (piggyback trains) shift in business, which has become a good source of income for freight railroads.

People like having their cars - so it gives Amtrak an edge over Air travel. Pack your car (very full too) and head to the nearest Auto Train terminal. For longer trips...

 

[wayman]

Instead of Louisville/Sanford, consider a Lorton-like terminal somewhere in central or southern Illinois. The train would travel south on CN/IC, through New Orleans, then east on CSX to Jax, finally south to Sanford. I agree that it would be two sides of a right triangle, but it would be virtually flat territory all the way, with a pax track speed of 79 for 90-95% of the route, and no stops except for crew change. Therefore, it probably would be faster than the Louisville/Sanford route which, though more direct, is mostly Class-3 or Class-4 trackage, and, as someone said, a maximum pax track speed of 40, and less for much of the route due to considerable mountainous territory.

The Louisville-Sanford route went almost due south from Nashville to Birmingham, then south-southeast to Montgomery, then east-southeast across Alabama and Georgia, if I understand it correctly, which completely avoids the mountains. It's a gentler, smaller bend presumably taken for the same purpose (maximum flatness). I don't think mountainous territory is to blame for the speeds on this track, just track class, signaling, etc. In other words, things that could be improved if it were actually in anyone's financial interests to make the investment or deemed an important enough public good to be worth public money.

The advantage to your New Orleans route is that the track class is already really good. The downside is, you probably lose all the Michigan, Ontario, and Ohio ridership (which may be substantial) while you probably won't gain much by being closer to Kansas City (where I'm guessing the Southwest is the more popular winter vacation). I don't know how those would balance out.

 

[wayman]

I don't see why you'd ever want the northern terminus of this train to be beyond Louisville. Louisville to Sanford is about 883 miles in the most direct highway route, or 935 going Louisville-Nashville-Montgomery-Waycross-Sanford like George is describing, so it's roughly the same physical distance as the Lorton-Sanford route. Given good track, . . .

The catch is, even given the best track quality possible, the Louisville to Sanford lines do not have near the maximum or average speed capabilities of the Lorton to Sanford line.

All the possible routes south out of Louisville run cross grain to the southern end of the Appalachian chain, while the line south out of Lorton spends much of its distance on long straight segments in the near flat coastal areas.

Looking at topographic maps of Alabama, it looks like the Nashville-Birmingham-Montgomery-Albany-Waycross route nicely skirts around the southern end of the Appalachians ... are there mountains on that line that I'm just not envisioning right? Or do I not have the route quite right in my head? I'll certainly give you that the Lorton-Sanford route is flatter by far, regardless, given its location.

 

[railiner]

While there exists certain patterns of travel between the midwest and the south or the southwest, there is nothing that even comes close to approaching the very unique demographics that is prevalent on the Autotrain. I don't believe that any other route could provide a sufficient demand to be successful.

When I went to Florida for a week in March of ... 2001? ... my traveling friend and I kept a count of license plates from each state and province that we saw -- not just a checklist to make sure we saw one of each, but a tally of how many of each. I've long since lost the tally, but I can tell you the top three:

Florida

Michigan

Ontario

Cars from the Mid-Atlantic and New England were certainly in the top-ten -- I'm pretty sure New York and Virginia were represented there -- but so were cars from other Midwestern states like Ohio and Illinois. I think the only states we didn't at all were Arizona and maybe New Mexico, for obvious reasons. (Yes, we saw Alaska and Hawai`i, but no, I don't think we saw some of the western Canadian provinces either.)

The difference may well be that a lot of those Michiganders own second homes and come down, stay for two months and return, while a lot of East Coasters may own time shares or just get hotel rooms, and come down for a week and return. The East Coast model would produce a much higher Auto Train ridership than the Midwest model, since people are constantly rotating in and out from the East Coast. But the demographics may change with a train, too. If it becomes easier for more Midwesterners to get to Florida, more might come for weeklong trips. (Historically, this trend held true as the trains in the 1930s-60s were always longer, more frequent, and sometimes greater in number in the winter than in the summer, as Bill Haithcoat has shown us in the past. Whereas in that same era the big East Coast train like the Silver Meteor saw some variation, but I think not nearly as much variation, seasonally?)

But it's been a long time since we've had a Midwest Auto Train, or even a Floridian, long enough that I think people's ideas of where, when, and how long to holiday for have changed, and data from 20-30 years ago may no longer accurately reflect the demographics of today. (There's been almost 100% turnover in the population of people 60+ since there was last a Midwest Auto Train! And I would imagine retirees make up a large portion of potential riders. There's been 100% turnover in the population of parents of "Disney-aged" children, too, for that matter.) People have different amounts of leisure time and different amounts of money and place different values on their time and money than they used to. Marketing is different. Airlines are very different. The price of gas is different. The attractions in Florida are different now than they were then, too. Using the old marketing data to say "that train didn't have the ridership to succeed" shouldn't make it an open-and-shut case not to re-start the train. That's the sort of argument that still has a lot of strength after 5-10 years, but not 20-30 years.

Your observations are very interesting. You do say that Florida has the most registrations on the train. One thing that I may point out is that a very large percentage of those Florida plated vehicles are owned by 'snowbirds' from New York, and other northeastern states whose owners make Florida their legal home in order to get the much cheaper plates and insurance then they would at their original home states...especially NY.

 

[wayman]

While there exists certain patterns of travel between the midwest and the south or the southwest, there is nothing that even comes close to approaching the very unique demographics that is prevalent on the Autotrain. I don't believe that any other route could provide a sufficient demand to be successful.

When I went to Florida for a week in March of ... 2001? ... my traveling friend and I kept a count of license plates from each state and province that we saw -- not just a checklist to make sure we saw one of each, but a tally of how many of each. I've long since lost the tally, but I can tell you the top three:

Florida

Michigan

Ontario

Your observations are very interesting. You do say that Florida has the most registrations on the train. One thing that I may point out is that a very large percentage of those Florida plated vehicles are owned by 'snowbirds' from New York, and other northeastern states whose owners make Florida their legal home in order to get the much cheaper plates and insurance then they would at their original home states...especially NY.

Oh, no, those weren't statistics from a trip on Auto Train -- those were statistics from a week of driving around Florida in March and whichever of us was the passenger jotting down lots and lots of tick-marks everywhere we went! So the Florida plates we were seeing, those were presumably mostly people who actually lived in Florida

(I confess: I flew to Florida and back for that trip. I promise I'll never do it again! )

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Auto Train is either an example of proof that Amtrak can do better than a private company, or proof of the sheer incompetence of Tom Rader. Or both.

 

[George Harris]

I don't see why you'd ever want the northern terminus of this train to be beyond Louisville. Louisville to Sanford is about 883 miles in the most direct highway route, or 935 going Louisville-Nashville-Montgomery-Waycross-Sanford like George is describing, so it's roughly the same physical distance as the Lorton-Sanford route. Given good track, . . .

The catch is, even given the best track quality possible, the Louisville to Sanford lines do not have near the maximum or average speed capabilities of the Lorton to Sanford line.

All the possible routes south out of Louisville run cross grain to the southern end of the Appalachian chain, while the line south out of Lorton spends much of its distance on long straight segments in the near flat coastal areas.

Looking at topographic maps of Alabama, it looks like the Nashville-Birmingham-Montgomery-Albany-Waycross route nicely skirts around the southern end of the Appalachians ... are there mountains on that line that I'm just not envisioning right? Or do I not have the route quite right in my head? I'll certainly give you that the Lorton-Sanford route is flatter by far, regardless, given its location.

Louisville to Nashville: 186 miles, fastest ever passenger schedule, the 1950's South Wind, 3.5 hours. everything else around 4 hours. maximum speed at that time, 70 mph. Numerous restrictions below that for curves. One major grade, Muldraugh hill jsut north of Elizabethtown KY that has always had a speed limit of around 30 mph.

Nashville to Birmingham: 202 miles, fastest ever passenger schedule, same train, slightly under 4 hours. Other trains around 4 h to 4h15m. Also 70 mph max. Most of the line upgraded in 1910 to 1012 time frame with a 55 mph maximum in mind. As a result, many of the curves are in that speed range. There is a long grade of about 0.9% north of decatur AL, adn a grade jsut north of Cullman AL that has a speed llimit of around 40 mph.

Birmingham to Montgomery: 90 miles, fastest ever 1h50 minutes. The 1912 rebuilds got about 1/2 of this section.

I know less about the ex ACL line souteast of Montgomery, but as said before, it has no signals. Between Montgomery and the Georgia line, it is fairly curvey and quite a bit longer than the highway distance.

The territory might not be the same as Salisbury to Asheville but it is anything but nice and flat.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

While there exists certain patterns of travel between the midwest and the south or the southwest, there is nothing that even comes close to approaching the very unique demographics that is prevalent on the Autotrain. I don't believe that any other route could provide a sufficient demand to be successful.

When I went to Florida for a week in March of ... 2001? ... my traveling friend and I kept a count of license plates from each state and province that we saw -- not just a checklist to make sure we saw one of each, but a tally of how many of each. I've long since lost the tally, but I can tell you the top three:

Florida

Michigan

Ontario

Cars from the Mid-Atlantic and New England were certainly in the top-ten -- I'm pretty sure New York and Virginia were represented there -- but so were cars from other Midwestern states like Ohio and Illinois. I think the only states we didn't at all were Arizona and maybe New Mexico, for obvious reasons. (Yes, we saw Alaska and Hawai`i, but no, I don't think we saw some of the western Canadian provinces either.)

The difference may well be that a lot of those Michiganders own second homes and come down, stay for two months and return, while a lot of East Coasters may own time shares or just get hotel rooms, and come down for a week and return. The East Coast model would produce a much higher Auto Train ridership than the Midwest model, since people are constantly rotating in and out from the East Coast. But the demographics may change with a train, too. If it becomes easier for more Midwesterners to get to Florida, more might come for weeklong trips. (Historically, this trend held true as the trains in the 1930s-60s were always longer, more frequent, and sometimes greater in number in the winter than in the summer, as Bill Haithcoat has shown us in the past. Whereas in that same era the big East Coast train like the Silver Meteor saw some variation, but I think not nearly as much variation, seasonally?)

But it's been a long time since we've had a Midwest Auto Train, or even a Floridian, long enough that I think people's ideas of where, when, and how long to holiday for have changed, and data from 20-30 years ago may no longer accurately reflect the demographics of today. (There's been almost 100% turnover in the population of people 60+ since there was last a Midwest Auto Train! And I would imagine retirees make up a large portion of potential riders. There's been 100% turnover in the population of parents of "Disney-aged" children, too, for that matter.) People have different amounts of leisure time and different amounts of money and place different values on their time and money than they used to. Marketing is different. Airlines are very different. The price of gas is different. The attractions in Florida are different now than they were then, too. Using the old marketing data to say "that train didn't have the ridership to succeed" shouldn't make it an open-and-shut case not to re-start the train. That's the sort of argument that still has a lot of strength after 5-10 years, but not 20-30 years.

Wayman, true, the Seaboard trains did not show as much seasonal change as some except for the Orange Blossom Special. That was a winter season train from NY to FL which last ran, I think,the Spring of '53 from NY to FLA.

The Atlantic Coast Line from the East did have three added winter trains: the Florida Special, the Miamian and the Vacationer. At times the Vacationer had through sleepers from Boston.I believe the Florida Special and the Miamian survived the first winter or two under Amtrak.

 

[rrdude]

While there exists certain patterns of travel between the midwest and the south or the southwest, there is nothing that even comes close to approaching the very unique demographics that is prevalent on the Autotrain. I don't believe that any other route could provide a sufficient demand to be successful.

When I went to Florida for a week in March of ... 2001? ... my traveling friend and I kept a count of license plates from each state and province that we saw -- not just a checklist to make sure we saw one of each, but a tally of how many of each. I've long since lost the tally, but I can tell you the top three:

Florida

Michigan

Ontario

Cars from the Mid-Atlantic and New England were certainly in the top-ten -- I'm pretty sure New York and Virginia were represented there -- but so were cars from other Midwestern states like Ohio and Illinois. I think the only states we didn't at all were Arizona and maybe New Mexico, for obvious reasons. (Yes, we saw Alaska and Hawai`i, but no, I don't think we saw some of the western Canadian provinces either.)

The difference may well be that a lot of those Michiganders own second homes and come down, stay for two months and return, while a lot of East Coasters may own time shares or just get hotel rooms, and come down for a week and return. The East Coast model would produce a much higher Auto Train ridership than the Midwest model, since people are constantly rotating in and out from the East Coast. But the demographics may change with a train, too. If it becomes easier for more Midwesterners to get to Florida, more might come for weeklong trips. (Historically, this trend held true as the trains in the 1930s-60s were always longer, more frequent, and sometimes greater in number in the winter than in the summer, as Bill Haithcoat has shown us in the past. Whereas in that same era the big East Coast train like the Silver Meteor saw some variation, but I think not nearly as much variation, seasonally?)

But it's been a long time since we've had a Midwest Auto Train, or even a Floridian, long enough that I think people's ideas of where, when, and how long to holiday for have changed, and data from 20-30 years ago may no longer accurately reflect the demographics of today. (There's been almost 100% turnover in the population of people 60+ since there was last a Midwest Auto Train! And I would imagine retirees make up a large portion of potential riders. There's been 100% turnover in the population of parents of "Disney-aged" children, too, for that matter.) People have different amounts of leisure time and different amounts of money and place different values on their time and money than they used to. Marketing is different. Airlines are very different. The price of gas is different. The attractions in Florida are different now than they were then, too. Using the old marketing data to say "that train didn't have the ridership to succeed" shouldn't make it an open-and-shut case not to re-start the train. That's the sort of argument that still has a lot of strength after 5-10 years, but not 20-30 years.

Agree that any argument made using the "We studied that B4 data" is NO argument at all. Keeping history in mind, and the massive derailment/insurance costs that really killed the original AT, I think there are at least 2, 3, maybe even 4 possibilities for Amtrak to successfully replicate the current AT. But trackage and routing are key.......Key, key, key. And NOT cheap.

 

[abcnews]

Actually - I had always heard that it was the derailment on the L & N (bad track) that really did them in. Up till then it was quite profitable. But I think they totaled a lot of cars - which hurt their cash reserves.

Hindsight is 20/20, but they should have just focused on the East Coast... when they expanded to the Midwest - they lost their edge - low ridership (losses) and then a major derailment on the L & N. Had they known this they could have just kept all that additional cash on hand - which was wasted on the midwest expansion.

 

[railiner]

Actually - I had always heard that it was the derailment on the L & N (bad track) that really did them in. Up till then it was quite profitable. But I think they totaled a lot of cars - which hurt their cash reserves.
Hindsight is 20/20, but they should have just focused on the East Coast... when they expanded to the Midwest - they lost their edge - low ridership (losses) and then a major derailment on the L & N. Had they known this they could have just kept all that additional cash on hand - which was wasted on the midwest expansion.

I agree. If they hadn't made that ill-fated expansion, perhaps the AT Corp. would still be running the Autotrain today. And perhaps they would have steadily improved the product to the point where ther pockets were deep enough to do a successful new route. Who knows?