Correction - almost no one! I would!
Bill: I also suspect that the schedule of the Dixie Flagler was wound considerably tighter than the City of Miami, and possibly tighter than the South Wind. The CofM had more frequent stops and longer dwell times than the other two despite having the same end to end time. for Example: The CofM stop in B'han was scheduled for 30 minutes compared to the South Wind's 8 to 10 minutes. Therefore, there was less time in the DF's schedule to make up for delays. Given the crookedness of the W&A, it is also likely that the run between Atlanta and Chattanooga had a lot of stay in your seat and hang on distance.
LOL George, "wound pretty tight" is probably a good description. The Dixieland was carded at around 23 hours through those hills whereas the Southern's Royal Palm was carded at around 31hrs between Chi and Jax. I doubt if you could sleep very well. Some good examples. Chattanooga to Atlanta, DL 3hrs, RP 4hrs. Atlanta to JAX, DL 8hrs and RP 9+hrs. Should service ever be restored on either route and since these are the only two viable routes left I would suspect the schedule would be in the 30+hrs range. If you have to wait for all the west coast trains to arrive then you are looking at a two nights out schedule between Chi and Jax with probably late evening departures from each end. The good news about this type of schedule is it would give good times through the major population centers such as Cincinnate, Lexington, Chattanooga and Atlanta via the NS or Evansville, Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta via CSX. Of course without Amtrak ordering substantial new equipment this discussion is just for fun. Run properly, the train could be as successful as any other Amtrak LD train and would fill an important missing link in Amtrak's network. But there are so many 'missing links' now days Amtrak would have to develop a whole new attitude toward LD trains to fill these needs and the traveling public would have to be retrained to use rail vs air or highway.
Oh, its possible. Anything is possible except for skiing through revolving doors, and don't you forget it. This is even easily possible. You can just have the train sit for many hours waiting for time to pass to make sure that the next city isn't served until after 6- this is done with the Cardinal in Indy for example.
No way. It was quite clear that this was the job of the freight roads to pay for this.
Don't all frieght RR's of a certain class of rail and higher have to convert to PTC? So they will have to do this either way.... unless Amtrak wants them to make a higher class for them to operate on, which would require large expenses anyway.
The departure time for a two nights service would be more like 11PM from both Chi and Jax. This is assuming that 30+ hours Chi to Jax is the best that could be hoped for. If you left early enough for a one night(before 9am) out you would go through Chatanooga and Atlanta at odd times and arrive in JAX in the early afternoon which would mean a very late arrival in Mia. When the Southern ran the Royal Palm it was exactly that schedule, two nights out with a morning arrival in Jax. They ran the Ponce De Leon on the opposite schedule with a morning departure from Chi one night out and an evening arrival in Jax with another overnight to Mia. With Amtrak only able to run single trains on these long routes you have to arrange the schedule so as to serve the large population centers at something like reasonable times. Currently to go Chi to Jax it's two nights out with a change of trains in DC and takes something like 36 or so hours depending on which silver service train you take from DC. This route would offer a one seat ride and would be slightly faster. But more importantly it would also serve Chattanooga and Atlanta which don't have north-south service or any service currently.
What about going from CIN to Knoxville to Chattanooga and south. NS tracks south of CIN to Knoxville are in great shape.
No, its to give it reliable leaving times as the Hoosier State.
Matt, by rail it is 810 miles via Cincinnati and the NS and 731 miles via Nashville and the CSX. That was my guess too, that the train would have an average speed of around 35mph with all the stops and such. When the Southern ran the Royal Palm it's average speed was around 37mph.
The dead time stopping for these trains was very brief, probably well under an hour when all the arrival/departure time gaps were subtracted.
Indy to Chicago is about the most important and well-patronised city pair on the Cardinal's route (ignoring the East Coast locations it picks up/sets down in); it would be mad for Amtrak to compromise the reasonably-timed departures and arrivals in both directions so that someone from Ashland, Thurmond or Clifton Forge could have a slightly shorter overnight journey into Chicago.
It would only require that if you judged passengers traveling from out west to be important enough that the amount of passengers received from the west - beyond those destinations that the Amtrak and Metra trains that reach CHI for rush hour serve - would be more passengers than would be put off traveling from CHI by the two-night schedule and the less appealing times serving cities intermediate cities.
