For various reasons, I have grave doubts that all this talk about the breaking up of the LD intercity network will come to pass. Mr. Anderson will be very hard pressed to explain to his 500+ proxy owners that such a move is consistent with Amtrak's mission, and I suspect he is unlikely to throw a hissy fit over such a matter, even assuming that he believes that a trunk system is undesireable.
For those that like to hark back to his Delta and Northwest days trying to decipher him, he never harmed Delta's or Northwest's trunk network. Indeed he strengthened them.
So, a few thoughts based on the discussions I've seen/heard:
(1) The mention of MU sets does not necessarily foreshadow the use of MUs on Amtrak. What I think it /does/ foreshadow is the use of semi-fixed consists in a few forms on corridor trains. In terms of slamming out an RFP on the timeline he's talking about, I have to suspect that means hopping on the Brightliner wagon, especially since he's already going to be stuck operating a bunch of those in the Midwest and CA...but by the same token, there are probably Alstom and/or Talgo choices to be had as well. I suspect that N-S will be effectively hard-barred from any orders on account of the MSBL fiasco.
(2) With (1) in mind, I do see an opening to do something involving splitting/combining trains at Philly. Were the equipment available, I wonder if it would be practical to combine most WAS-NYP Regionals with a Keystone set out of New York (since IIRC load factors are quite high PHL-NYP), running (for example) a few more 6-car Regionals to Washington while a 4-5 car Keystone would split off at Philly and head for Harrisburg? Likewise, I can definitely see a case for DMUs for service into VA...one big constraint has been that VA can
not send a train out to LYH/ROA, NPN, or NFK within about 30-40 minutes of sending a train to either of the others.
(3) My read, possibly overly optimistic, is that Anderson is going to go in front of Congress and basically say "Look, I'm overstretched on LD equipment as it is. You're telling me to restore the Sunset East, among other things [1], I need a massive overhaul of the Superliners [2], and as it stands my Western trains are too short and my pricing model is a complete disaster area [3]. In the not-too-long term, I cannot perform this mission with the equipment and facilities I have. So, here are two options: One, I don't get an LD equipment order and I knock the following routes below daily service. Two, I get a major LD equipment order so that I can enhance the existing routes and add the ones you want me to add." It's a variation on the Washington Monument approach [4], but there is a painful amount of validity to it: I know we've had lurking concerns about equipment counts, and for as long as I can tell a lot of the need for more LD equipment comes down to a mix of "These trains are a bit too short, particularly on the sleeper side" and "The equipment is old and in bad shape".
(4) As an adjunct to (3), I think he's going to have a lot of trouble justifying cutting trains when they just gave him an extra $150m for the National Network even aside from the PTC money. The only way that really starts making sense is if he points to a lurking equipment crisis. If he tried cutting LD trains with that appropriation in place and without a justification other than safety or equipment shortages or something like that, the term "impoundment" comes to mind.
(5) Given that I've heard the same model repeated from virtually everyone within a light-year of the private sector, as well as from Bud Shuster once upon a time, I have to suspect that Anderson will overall be looking at a "fast, frequent service" model wherever he can implement it.
[1] There's also the agitation for an extended Heartland Flyer, the eternal NCH project, the Cap-Pennsylvanian through cars, the Daily Sunset, any Daily Cardinal, etc. Not all of these require Superliners.
[2] Let's face it, many of us have stories of Superliners falling apart.
[3] Compare, for example, the differential in cost between coach and sleeper products on the Caledonian sleeper or...well, almost any respectable operation in Europe. Also compare car counts in most of those cases. Even accepting that sections and couchettes are a non-starter in the US...well, take the new Caledonian sets (four sets of 18 cars each, albeit with splits in both trains to serve most of Scotland with two daily departures from London).
[4] And a lot more direct than Boardman's passive-aggressive approach to Congress of "Tell me what you want".
