AutoTrain alternatives?

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George K

George K

Conductor
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Sep 7, 2014
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The Chicago Burbs
Always been fascinated by the idea of the AutoTrain.

Has there ever been any serious discussion or consideration of an AutoTrain between other cities than it now serves?

Chicago to Emeryville? Los Angeles?
 
I believe there was another Auto Train from Sanford to (I'm tempted to say) Louisville, Kentucky. I don't believe there has been any serious steps taken to add additional routes.
 
The Louisville extension overextended the AutoTrain corporation, and some ill timed derailments caused the company to run out of cash, to the point that their locomotives were repossessed by their creditors.
 
There has been discussion about another Auto Train for ages by rail fans (Chicago to Arizona seems to be a perennial favorite) but all the proposals ignore the unique advantages of the current route (two trainsets, attractive single overnight schedule, large market of people reluctant to drive) and presumably for that reason I don't think Amtrak has ever looked into another auto train.
 
The Auto Train apparently has a unique labor agreement that apparently gives it some cost advantages that I don't believe a second train could take advantage of.
 
There is a book in preparation by a now-retired former Amtrak engineer who ran the Auto Train and other trains. It is intended to cover the history of the old Auto Train Corporation under Eugene Garfield, and will probably answer a lot of these questions when it comes out.

The Louisville extension was a dismal failure for many reasons, just as the (non-auto) Amtrak Floridian on the same route was a failure.

Discussions about extensions of the current Auto Train, either farther north or farther south, are commonly heard on the Auto Train. They usually fail to take into account the extra equipment (which Amtrak doesn't have) that would be needed. They ignore the expense of the additional mileage, the practicalities of scheduling, the unwillingness of host railroads to add more passenger trains, and the logistics of supply. They also ignore the need to build new specially equipped terminals in locations where real estate prices and construction costs are high.

Additional routes have been considered, but various issues such as those mentioned above, have always popped up to prevent their implementation. The Chicago to Flagstaff option is one that got some attention at one time, but it never proved practical for a lot of reasons.

Tom
 
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Many cities in the lower 48 already have vehicle loading and unloading facilities as part of their freight infrastructure. Some major cities have multiple facilities that should be capable of handling the vehicular portion of an Auto Train style operation. Outside of major manufacturing plants it's rare for these facilities to be in constant use. Obviously it would require a lot of effort and luck to find an owner and a facility that could accept dual use scheduling as both a freight and passenger facility. It would also require substantial cost to setup an acceptable waiting area and to run the train for several years before it could recoup the initial capital outlay and operational costs. Unfortunately Amtrak's annual appropriations process and routine defunding threats severely limit their ability to establish new routes or services in a rational manner.
 
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There used to be quite a few similar services in Europe, but there are now only a handful of thes eleft and these too are threatened.
 
Auto Train depends on the oddity that Florida is a major *visitor destination* where people *really like to drive*. I was trying to think of another one in the US, and I can't.

This is probably why the other Auto-Train run was "midwest to Florida". Unfortunately it simply wasn't fast enough.
 
The sweet spot apparently is a service that can be run in about 18 or so hours overnight on any of the most heavily traveled corridors. It is hard to find a corridor as heavily traveled as the NEC South to Central Florida meeting those travel time requirements on the currently available route infrastructure. This BTW is the reason that it is unlikely that an Auto Train that is extended to say to North Jersey by some route is also likely to fail, since the incremental cost of doing so will be just huge.
 
neroden said:
Auto Train depends on the oddity that Florida is a major *visitor destination* where people *really like to drive*. I was trying to think of another one in the US, and I can't.

This is probably why the other Auto-Train run was "midwest to Florida". Unfortunately it simply wasn't fast enough.
Click to expand...
Auto Train depends on the oddity that Florida is a major *visitor destination* where people *really HAVE to drive*.

Fixed that for you.

Unless you are planning on catching a cab, van, having a friend meet you, or hiring someone to drive you to any florida destination(and it has to be within walking distance of every place you need or want to get to), you must have a car in Florida. Our motto is "you can't get there from here unless you drive" . Tampa Bay is a huge metropolitan center and there is no cohesive, quick transit system anywhere. In Pinellas or Pasco to catch the infrequent and slow buses you have to get to RT. 19. And there are no buses every 10, 20 or 30 minutes.

You cannot even get from Tampa to Orlando for a shopping trip unless you want to drive scenic I4(I say its scenic because no matter the time of day you will have plenty of opportunity to obseve Mickey's ears, or the exit signs for the stretch between Disney world and downtown Orlando), ride the Ambus and have part of the afternoon or spend 2 nights in Orlando. The star gets into Orlando around 7pm if on time, and leaves for Tampa around 10-10:30 in the am. South Florida has more options for car-free living, but not car-free vacations. When we took our train trip down, we still couldn't have done much of anything without renting a car. Had the same experiences in Daytona, and the panhandle.
 
There were other services pre-Amtrak that would carry a passenger's car with them. For example, the B&O operated a small service carrying autos of passengers between Washington DC and Chucago for a short time. It wasn't successful and I think it lasted less than one year in the 1960's.
 
CNs Super Continental carried cars between Toronto and Edmonton back in the mid 70s. The Auto-Carriers were just attached on the end of the train and were actually painted with the cut-away view showing the cars inside.....

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Midwest - Florida should not work because of the standard problem of no equipment and the need for 3 train sets. But someone pointed out a problem not previously considered. Build an Auto train terminal north of Cincinnati. There is a large segment of Florida travelers are fed up driving I-75. Consider Cincinnati, Knoxville, Chattanooga, & especially Atlanta where it can take 4 hours to go 90 miles 0530 - 2200. All are traffic nightmares. An Auto train would be slower but might work ? Only if the financials for new equipment can be found.
 
We ran through all the possible rail routes for a Midwest-Florida train a while back. There simply isn't a decent rail route crossing the Appalachians "northwest to southeast". That's the big problem.
 
Actually Neroden for an Auto Train type train there is an amazing route south out of CIN. The Rathole (named for it's tunnels) that runs straight south to Knoxville, CHAT. Then down to Atlanta. From Atlanta south it becomes more difficult. And that route is an intermodal speedway so it should have a great speed limit. It would be longer then the current auto train but it might work.
 
cirdan said:
There used to be quite a few similar services in Europe, but there are now only a handful of thes eleft and these too are threatened.
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There were even *airliners* that carried cars in Europe. There's a Carvair air ferry in Goldfinger, briefly. I'm not sure any of them made it past the 70s (sparing, of course, that the company continued on as a regular airline. Aer Lingus operated air ferries, but hasn't for a loooong time.).
 
I always rode the Southern said:
neroden said:
Auto Train depends on the oddity that Florida is a major *visitor destination* where people *really like to drive*. I was trying to think of another one in the US, and I can't.

This is probably why the other Auto-Train run was "midwest to Florida". Unfortunately it simply wasn't fast enough.
Click to expand...
Auto Train depends on the oddity that Florida is a major *visitor destination* where people *really HAVE to drive*.

Fixed that for you.

Unless you are planning on catching a cab, van, having a friend meet you, or hiring someone to drive you to any florida destination(and it has to be within walking distance of every place you need or want to get to), you must have a car in Florida. Our motto is "you can't get there from here unless you drive" . Tampa Bay is a huge metropolitan center and there is no cohesive, quick transit system anywhere. In Pinellas or Pasco to catch the infrequent and slow buses you have to get to RT. 19. And there are no buses every 10, 20 or 30 minutes.

You cannot even get from Tampa to Orlando for a shopping trip unless you want to drive scenic I4(I say its scenic because no matter the time of day you will have plenty of opportunity to obseve Mickey's ears, or the exit signs for the stretch between Disney world and downtown Orlando), ride the Ambus and have part of the afternoon or spend 2 nights in Orlando. The star gets into Orlando around 7pm if on time, and leaves for Tampa around 10-10:30 in the am. South Florida has more options for car-free living, but not car-free vacations. When we took our train trip down, we still couldn't have done much of anything without renting a car. Had the same experiences in Daytona, and the panhandle.
Click to expand...
If you're willing to use a cab, there are a number of Florida trips you can do without having to bring a car.

I've attended conferences in Tampa a couple of times, the only car I needed was the 10 minute cab ride/hotel shuttle to and from my hotel in Ybor City. Oh, and one evening I had to pay $6 for a cab ride home from the convention center because the TECO trolley had stopped running.

If you do a Disney trip, you can stay at on on-site hotel (they have them in all price points), and you never need a car while you're there.

But the most obvious is Miami Beach, which actually has pretty decent transit, but you will need a cab to get from the Amtrak station. In fact, on our last trip, in retrospect, we really didn't need to rent a car for the whole time we were there. We could have cabbed to our beachfront lodgings fright from Amtrak, we rode in a tour bus the whole next day we went to Key West, we could have just taken the bus down Collins Ave to visit South Beach, which leaves us with only needed the car for 2 days, one day for our trip to the Everglades and the other for knocking around Vizcaya, Coconut Grove and Coral Gables, though I think we could have done that on transit, too. Had we only rented the car from a local beach location for one day, we wouldn't have needed to spend the last night near the airport.

For the traveler, an Auto train makes sense only if it's cheaper than the cost of a rental car. One thing about Florida is that there are lots of seasonal travelers, who are bringing their cars down for an extended period of time. But I'm not sure if I were going to Miami, I'd be thrilled about having to drive from Sanford. The traffic on I-95 from West Palm Beach south looked pretty nasty, and of course, on the north end, you have to go through Washington.
 
MARC Rider said:
For the traveler, an Auto train makes sense only if it's cheaper than the cost of a rental car. One thing about Florida is that there are lots of seasonal travelers, who are bringing their cars down for an extended period of time. But I'm not sure if I were going to Miami, I'd be thrilled about having to drive from Sanford. The traffic on I-95 from West Palm Beach south looked pretty nasty, and of course, on the north end, you have to go through Washington.
Click to expand...
There are other advantages, for example if you have a special car of a type that you wouldn't typical find in a rental place (for example a classic), but want to have that with you.

Another reason may be that people going for several months might like to take more belongings than you can fit in luggable luggage and a car is a good way of stowing abd bringing all those extras.
 
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