Extending the Crescent to San Antonio.

[Gratt]

The Mobile train that originated in B'ham didn't last too very long and I predict, if it happens, the same for a Meridian split. :lol:

I think that had a lot to do with excruciatingly slow Atlanta to Mobile times, thanks to an Atlanta - Birminghame - Montgomery time of about 7 hours compared to a direct driving time of about 3 hours. Plus, Mobile was not exactly a huge metropolis.

I would suspect that a Meridian - Ft. Worth train would do much better if set up to be a good overnight run with early morning arrival / late afternoon departure from Dallas.

Meridian is a tiny town how much demand is there to connect it to the DFW area, yes there is a connection to ATL but that is many hours away.

At least NOL-HOU we are talking about two major cities.

 

[eagle628]

The Mobile train that originated in B'ham didn't last too very long and I predict, if it happens, the same for a Meridian split. :lol:

I think that had a lot to do with excruciatingly slow Atlanta to Mobile times, thanks to an Atlanta - Birminghame - Montgomery time of about 7 hours compared to a direct driving time of about 3 hours. Plus, Mobile was not exactly a huge metropolis.

I would suspect that a Meridian - Ft. Worth train would do much better if set up to be a good overnight run with early morning arrival / late afternoon departure from Dallas.

Meridian is a tiny town how much demand is there to connect it to the DFW area, yes there is a connection to ATL but that is many hours away.

At least NOL-HOU we are talking about two major cities.

I believe the theory is that the Meridian-DFW train would consist of through cars from the Crescent, not be a stand-alone operation.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

What's the Crescent Star idea?

Just for the historical reference, you might look in your old Guide for Southern RR's Pelican. You will see that it had a through sleeper from Washington to Shreveport, via Birmingham, Meridian.

 

[jis]

The Mobile train that originated in B'ham didn't last too very long and I predict, if it happens, the same for a Meridian split. :lol:

I think that had a lot to do with excruciatingly slow Atlanta to Mobile times, thanks to an Atlanta - Birminghame - Montgomery time of about 7 hours compared to a direct driving time of about 3 hours. Plus, Mobile was not exactly a huge metropolis.

I would suspect that a Meridian - Ft. Worth train would do much better if set up to be a good overnight run with early morning arrival / late afternoon departure from Dallas.

Meridian is a tiny town how much demand is there to connect it to the DFW area, yes there is a connection to ATL but that is many hours away.

At least NOL-HOU we are talking about two major cities.

I believe the theory is that the Meridian-DFW train would consist of through cars from the Crescent, not be a stand-alone operation.

Exactly! It is the (New York, Washington DC, Charlotte) Atlanta, Birmingham, Jackson, Shreveport, Dallas and Fort Worth that are the main points. Meridian is just an incidental junction point.

 

[henryj]

These are all good ideas, but if you look at what existed before Amtrak and what we have now in the South and Southwest, you see that Amtrak has completely ignored us, even taken more from us. I don't see them changing anything in this regard. From the comments on the Crescent it looks like they are planning to downgrade our service even more by removing the diner and sleepers south of Atlanta. They will be also downgrading the Sunset route service by substituting the stub coach only trains NOL to SAS when everything goes daily(and of course I am holding my breath on that one. lol). They don't care about us down here and we have no political support so we continually get screwed. Antrak's mandate now is the NEC and corridor trains. They just don't really give a hoot about the western LD trains. They loose money and will always loose money with no hope for anything ever getting better and Amtrak has not even ordered any equipment replacements for them in years. I would like to be the optimist here, but I just see nothing good coming from Amtrak for the South and Southwest until the people and politicians start demanding change. We are starting to see just a little of that now with the debate on Houston to Dallas service coming about with the 15m grant for studies. Hope springs eternal. haha. But in who's life time will anything really change down here?

 

[Ryan]

If you'd support the trains that you had, and support politicians that supported the trains, you'd probably be in a lot better shape.

 

[eagle628]

[...] I just see nothing good coming from Amtrak for the South and Southwest until the people and politicians start demanding change.

Well, yes, obviously. Isn't that the case for the entire country? The burden is on the Southwest to start supporting passenger trains, because Amtak is not going to start throwing money away down there without some sort of financial aid that will only come from the government, be it state or federal. If the south wants more trains, the south needs new politicians.

 

[TWA904]

For a Cresent Star route, why not break the train in Atlanta and let it run a route

down thru Newman-LeGrange-Opelika/Auburn-Montgomery-Selma-Meridian-Jackson-Vicksburg-Monroe-

Shreveport-Dallas-Ft. Worth. You would open up so many more city pairs from Atlanta instead

of Meridian.

 

[George Harris]

For a Cresent Star route, why not break the train in Atlanta and let it run a route down thru Newman-LeGrange-Opelika/Auburn-Montgomery-Selma-Meridian-Jackson-Vicksburg-Monroe-Shreveport-Dallas-Ft. Worth. You would open up so many more city pairs from Atlanta instead of Meridian.

Atlanta-Montgomery is fairly slow. Even though shorter in milage, Atlanta-Montomery-Mobile-New Orleans was never as fast as Atlanta-Birmingham-Meridian-New Orleans. The Montgomery-Selma-Meridian part of the route is all a secondary line, I think mostly at 25 mph. Most (all?) of this is now part of the Meridian and Bigbee Railroad, a short line. Part of it has never had passenger service.

The entire point of the Meridian-Texas train was not that it be a free standing train, but that it be the westernmost part of a through service from New York to Dallas-Ft. Worth, giving you a through train with two nights and a day from the northeast to Texas. It would be several hours faster than the current routing though Chicago. It would of necessity be run with single level equipment, not superliners.

 

[had8ley]

For a Cresent Star route, why not break the train in Atlanta and let it run a route down thru Newman-LeGrange-Opelika/Auburn-Montgomery-Selma-Meridian-Jackson-Vicksburg-Monroe-Shreveport-Dallas-Ft. Worth. You would open up so many more city pairs from Atlanta instead of Meridian.

Atlanta-Montgomery is fairly slow. Even though shorter in milage, Atlanta-Montomery-Mobile-New Orleans was never as fast as Atlanta-Birmingham-Meridian-New Orleans. The Montgomery-Selma-Meridian part of the route is all a secondary line, I think mostly at 25 mph. Most (all?) of this is now part of the Meridian and Bigbee Railroad, a short line. Part of it has never had passenger service.

The entire point of the Meridian-Texas train was not that it be a free standing train, but that it be the westernmost part of a through service from New York to Dallas-Ft. Worth, giving you a through train with two nights and a day from the northeast to Texas. It would be several hours faster than the current routing though Chicago. It would of necessity be run with single level equipment, not superliners.

George; was this not a Warrington idea to move mail and express to Dallas/Fort Worth? The pax were second fiddle to the numbers of mail/express cars that I remember George W. spouting out that would travel the Speedway to the Dallas metro area. IIRC, the train would be dwarfed by the expected 15-20 daily car shipments of mail and express.There was an asst. GM, trainmaster, Road Foreman, secretary and salesman in a rented office opposite the Meridian (palace)station to handle a train that never ran. They even hired, trained and then laid off six A/c's they were so confident the train would roll.This was also at the same time mail was cut off of # 19 at Atlanta for unloading and I believe some of it actually was tacked on in Charlotte. Too much to remember of broken wheel ideas. :blink:

 

[GlobalistPotato]

George; was this not a Warrington idea to move mail and express to Dallas/Fort Worth? The pax were second fiddle to the numbers of mail/express cars that I remember George W. spouting out that would travel the Speedway to the Dallas metro area. IIRC, the train would be dwarfed by the expected 15-20 daily car shipments of mail and express.There was an asst. GM, trainmaster, Road Foreman, secretary and salesman in a rented office opposite the Meridian (palace)station to handle a train that never ran. They even hired, trained and then laid off six A/c's they were so confident the train would roll.This was also at the same time mail was cut off of # 19 at Atlanta for unloading and I believe some of it actually was tacked on in Charlotte. Too much to remember of broken wheel ideas. :blink:

Well why don't we bring back a Meridian-DFW route, but make the passengers the priority?

And yes, it'd have to be a single-level train. It'd probably work like a split train similar to the Empire Builder.

 

[jis]

George; was this not a Warrington idea to move mail and express to Dallas/Fort Worth? The pax were second fiddle to the numbers of mail/express cars that I remember George W. spouting out that would travel the Speedway to the Dallas metro area. IIRC, the train would be dwarfed by the expected 15-20 daily car shipments of mail and express.There was an asst. GM, trainmaster, Road Foreman, secretary and salesman in a rented office opposite the Meridian (palace)station to handle a train that never ran. They even hired, trained and then laid off six A/c's they were so confident the train would roll.This was also at the same time mail was cut off of # 19 at Atlanta for unloading and I believe some of it actually was tacked on in Charlotte. Too much to remember of broken wheel ideas. :blink:

Wait, so just because George W tacked on a plethora of MHCs onto the Three Rivers, therefore Three Rivers was also a bad idea? I think an idea for a passenger train should stand on its own merit, and IMHO the Crescent Star idea has merit. The fact that GW wanted to attach a bunch of MHCs and Reefers to it is quite irrelevant to the discussion IMHO.

 

[AlanB]

George; was this not a Warrington idea to move mail and express to Dallas/Fort Worth? The pax were second fiddle to the numbers of mail/express cars that I remember George W. spouting out that would travel the Speedway to the Dallas metro area. IIRC, the train would be dwarfed by the expected 15-20 daily car shipments of mail and express.There was an asst. GM, trainmaster, Road Foreman, secretary and salesman in a rented office opposite the Meridian (palace)station to handle a train that never ran. They even hired, trained and then laid off six A/c's they were so confident the train would roll.This was also at the same time mail was cut off of # 19 at Atlanta for unloading and I believe some of it actually was tacked on in Charlotte. Too much to remember of broken wheel ideas. :blink:

Wait, so just because George W tacked on a plethora of MHCs onto the Three Rivers, therefore Three Rivers was also a bad idea? I think an idea for a passenger train should stand on its own merit, and IMHO the Crescent Star idea has merit. The fact that GW wanted to attach a bunch of MHCs and Reefers to it is quite irrelevant to the discussion IMHO.

This was indeed a Warrington era suggestion, part of the Network Growth Strategy plan. However, oddly enough I don't believe that this was one train where Amtrak actually had any freight contracts lined up at all. In fact, it think that this was more Meridian Mayor John Robert Smith's (former chairman of the Amtrak board) idea, than Warrington's team's idea. But even if I'm wrong, it really was a good idea just on the passenger merits of the plan.

Dallas is a huge market and this plan managed to serve two markets at considerably lower expense than what it would cost to have 2 separate trains the whole way. This was a LSL type split that would serve to major markets for far less cost and improved the overall ridership of the Crescent. At the time, I and many others, considered the Crescent Star to be one of the smartest and most viable ideas in the Network Growth Strategy. Some of the ideas were downright looney, but this was a shining star!

 

[had8ley]

George; was this not a Warrington idea to move mail and express to Dallas/Fort Worth? The pax were second fiddle to the numbers of mail/express cars that I remember George W. spouting out that would travel the Speedway to the Dallas metro area. IIRC, the train would be dwarfed by the expected 15-20 daily car shipments of mail and express.There was an asst. GM, trainmaster, Road Foreman, secretary and salesman in a rented office opposite the Meridian (palace)station to handle a train that never ran. They even hired, trained and then laid off six A/c's they were so confident the train would roll.This was also at the same time mail was cut off of # 19 at Atlanta for unloading and I believe some of it actually was tacked on in Charlotte. Too much to remember of broken wheel ideas. :blink:

Wait, so just because George W tacked on a plethora of MHCs onto the Three Rivers, therefore Three Rivers was also a bad idea? I think an idea for a passenger train should stand on its own merit, and IMHO the Crescent Star idea has merit. The fact that GW wanted to attach a bunch of MHCs and Reefers to it is quite irrelevant to the discussion IMHO.

Jis,I think you are forgetting just why the mail and express took a hike~ the delay to pax in switching, spotting and coupling up to trains sometimes just outside of the terminal with pax screaming to get off. Not to mention the expense in switching and spotting ops. Atlanta handled two, maybe three cars of mail off of # 19. The switching costs? 12 hours for a crew to spot the # 19 cars and tack them back onto that evenings # 20.

 

[Guest]

Crescent to San Antonio and Houston to NYC, PHILLY, DC, ATL, would be an excellent idea along side the Sunset to LA.

The problem would be too much traffic on the track between Lake Charles and New Orleans. A solution would be a reroute

the Crescent through Baton Rouge. This would never happen, but it is fun to discuss.

 

[GlobalistPotato]

This was indeed a Warrington era suggestion, part of the Network Growth Strategy plan. However, oddly enough I don't believe that this was one train where Amtrak actually had any freight contracts lined up at all. In fact, it think that this was more Meridian Mayor John Robert Smith's (former chairman of the Amtrak board) idea, than Warrington's team's idea. But even if I'm wrong, it really was a good idea just on the passenger merits of the plan.

Dallas is a huge market and this plan managed to serve two markets at considerably lower expense than what it would cost to have 2 separate trains the whole way. This was a LSL type split that would serve to major markets for far less cost and improved the overall ridership of the Crescent. At the time, I and many others, considered the Crescent Star to be one of the smartest and most viable ideas in the Network Growth Strategy. Some of the ideas were downright looney, but this was a shining star!

Hehe, shinning star. I see what you did there.

A little thing about the Crescent star: I did some schedule work on the train and I found out that the eastbound Crescent Star would be arriving in Dallas in the middle of the night - around 3 am or so. Fine if you're a freight carrier, but that doesn't work if you're trying to serve passengers.

This assumes that the train was working about the Crescent's schedules. In all, it's about 18 hours from Fort Worth to Atlanta.

 

[jis]

A little thing about the Crescent star: I did some schedule work on the train and I found out that the eastbound Crescent Star would be arriving in Dallas in the middle of the night - around 3 am or so. Fine if you're a freight carrier, but that doesn't work if you're trying to serve passengers.

This assumes that the train was working about the Crescent's schedules. In all, it's about 18 hours from Fort Worth to Atlanta.

Making a 3am arrival become a 6 or 7 am arrival in the schedule is pretty trivial though.

I doubt that one would want to change the early morning arrival in Atlanta and late evening departure east bound from Atlanta.

 

[jis]

Jis,I think you are forgetting just why the mail and express took a hike~ the delay to pax in switching, spotting and coupling up to trains sometimes just outside of the terminal with pax screaming to get off. Not to mention the expense in switching and spotting ops. Atlanta handled two, maybe three cars of mail off of # 19. The switching costs? 12 hours for a crew to spot the # 19 cars and tack them back onto that evenings # 20.

Sorry, I still don;t understand what this has to do with this discussion. Is your point that Atlanta is incapable of splitting/joining two sections of a train? Or is it that there will be additional cost for a crew to couple/uncouple cars/engines? Afterall such is done in Albany for the LSL and in Spokane for the EB.

 

[had8ley]

Jis,I think you are forgetting just why the mail and express took a hike~ the delay to pax in switching, spotting and coupling up to trains sometimes just outside of the terminal with pax screaming to get off. Not to mention the expense in switching and spotting ops. Atlanta handled two, maybe three cars of mail off of # 19. The switching costs? 12 hours for a crew to spot the # 19 cars and tack them back onto that evenings # 20.

Sorry, I still don;t understand what this has to do with this discussion. Is your point that Atlanta is incapable of splitting/joining two sections of a train? Or is it that there will be additional cost for a crew to couple/uncouple cars/engines? Afterall such is done in Albany for the LSL and in Spokane for the EB.

Granted...BUT there is no train hold out of terminals to shuffle express cars and crews solely on duty, and paid accordingly, to handle just mail and express. The costs involved were prohibitive.Atlanta can divide a train anyway they need to at any time with just the crew on board. You will need a carman to disconnect the jumper cables and make a brake test.(I only used Atlanta as an example of costs involved; there is no switch engine left since the mail and express contracts expired) Albany has a yard crew that performs other duties. I'm not sure but I think the Spokane split is done with the inbound and outbound train crews. I just don't know where we're headed with this other than to say the mail and express was a bust as everyone already has witnessed.

 

[Anderson]

Well, I figured why it is that Amtrak would want to cut the Crescent's services south of Atlanta: It would free up the diner they need for the Cardinal to go daily (I think one of the issues there is needing an extra diner so they can run a full extra consist). Though if they want to extend anything else (i.e. Palmetto into Silver Palm), they're going to have to keep some Heritage diners in circulation...I think they might be able to get away with "run these until they each break down again" to keep an extra 2-4 in circulation for the interim, but a daily Cardinal would basically be able to happen on that and the new sleeper purchases without having to muck with the equipment retirement schedule.

Anyhow: Cut the Crescent's diner, etc. back to Birmingham (as it was under Southern in the 70s), and you've got enough time to turn the diner. Similarly, you could easily cut back one of the sleepers to Atlanta or Birmingham (I think the route has two sleepers, but it might have three...never taken the Crescent, but anecdotal evidence suggests they only need one to NOL) on each of three consists and you've got enough to do an extra sleeper through Atlanta/Birmingham...which would not coincidentally help with the capacity crunch north of ATL (what can I say? It's the one true solid overnight business train Amtrak has unless you count the Silvers going to Jacksonville).

 

[George Harris]

Anyhow: Cut the Crescent's diner, etc. back to Birmingham (as it was under Southern in the 70s), and you've got enough time to turn the diner. Similarly, you could easily cut back one of the sleepers to Atlanta or Birmingham (I think the route has two sleepers, but it might have three...never taken the Crescent, but anecdotal evidence suggests they only need one to NOL) on each of three consists and you've got enough to do an extra sleeper through Atlanta/Birmingham...which would not coincidentally help with the capacity crunch north of ATL (what can I say? It's the one true solid overnight business train Amtrak has unless you count the Silvers going to Jacksonville).

They did not cut the diner back to Atlanta during the 1970's. during this time the train ran three days a week Atlanta to New Orleans (or was it just Birmingham to New Orleans?) and there was a diner on it between Atlanta and New Orleans.

I do wonder with their equipment crunches why they do not reduce the number of sleepers and coaches south of Atlanta. It seems a horrendous waste in fuel and mechanical wear to haul empty cars several hundred miles.

The New York - Washington to Atlanta route cries out for an additional train, anyway. It would be good to have something similar to the 1950's Crescent schedule that left Atlanta early to mid afternoon and arrived in New York around 8:00am. Southbound, have one leaving later that hits Charlotte about 7:30 to 8:00am with the current southbound getting to Atlanta jsut before or about 8;00am.

 

[Anderson]

George,

We're not at the point that you can't achieve that end by simply slapping more cars on the Crescent for an overnight run rather than needing a second train, with all of the operating crew expenses that entails...but bringing back the Piedmont (Southern's Piedmont, not the same-name Amtrak train) is basically the "daylight Crescent" we often talk about, and it would be able to have a somewhat tighter timetable than Southern was running back in '72 because enough minor stops have been cut (or, naturally, if those towns want service they can restore stations...and I know at least one or two would probably jump at the chance).

Edit: Mea Culpa on the Atlanta bit. They cut the Lounge at Atlanta, along with a bunch of other cars (two sleeper cars, and one or two coaches as the day dictated). And they somehow ran a through coach and sleeper to Los Angeles at the same time, alternating those with through-to-Birmingham cars on days the train didn't go all the way to NOL.

 

[eagle628]

Anyhow: Cut the Crescent's diner, etc. back to Birmingham (as it was under Southern in the 70s), and you've got enough time to turn the diner. Similarly, you could easily cut back one of the sleepers to Atlanta or Birmingham (I think the route has two sleepers, but it might have three...never taken the Crescent, but anecdotal evidence suggests they only need one to NOL) on each of three consists and you've got enough to do an extra sleeper through Atlanta/Birmingham...which would not coincidentally help with the capacity crunch north of ATL (what can I say? It's the one true solid overnight business train Amtrak has unless you count the Silvers going to Jacksonville).

They did not cut the diner back to Atlanta during the 1970's. during this time the train ran three days a week Atlanta to New Orleans (or was it just Birmingham to New Orleans?) and there was a diner on it between Atlanta and New Orleans.

I do wonder with their equipment crunches why they do not reduce the number of sleepers and coaches south of Atlanta. It seems a horrendous waste in fuel and mechanical wear to haul empty cars several hundred miles.

The New York - Washington to Atlanta route cries out for an additional train, anyway. It would be good to have something similar to the 1950's Crescent schedule that left Atlanta early to mid afternoon and arrived in New York around 8:00am. Southbound, have one leaving later that hits Charlotte about 7:30 to 8:00am with the current southbound getting to Atlanta jsut before or about 8;00am.

Thinking off the top of my head here, what if you added a coach to the normal consist, then cut off one sleeper, the diner, and two coaches (I'm assuming it operates with three now) at Atlanta, turned them for an afternoon departure that would arrive next morning, and then stuck them back on the existing schedule the same day to head back to Atlanta? For an extra southbound departure...run a shorter consist leaving NY in the evening, arrive Atlanta midday, and return those cars on that evening's train from New Orleans?

 

[Anderson]

Anyhow: Cut the Crescent's diner, etc. back to Birmingham (as it was under Southern in the 70s), and you've got enough time to turn the diner. Similarly, you could easily cut back one of the sleepers to Atlanta or Birmingham (I think the route has two sleepers, but it might have three...never taken the Crescent, but anecdotal evidence suggests they only need one to NOL) on each of three consists and you've got enough to do an extra sleeper through Atlanta/Birmingham...which would not coincidentally help with the capacity crunch north of ATL (what can I say? It's the one true solid overnight business train Amtrak has unless you count the Silvers going to Jacksonville).

They did not cut the diner back to Atlanta during the 1970's. during this time the train ran three days a week Atlanta to New Orleans (or was it just Birmingham to New Orleans?) and there was a diner on it between Atlanta and New Orleans.

I do wonder with their equipment crunches why they do not reduce the number of sleepers and coaches south of Atlanta. It seems a horrendous waste in fuel and mechanical wear to haul empty cars several hundred miles.

The New York - Washington to Atlanta route cries out for an additional train, anyway. It would be good to have something similar to the 1950's Crescent schedule that left Atlanta early to mid afternoon and arrived in New York around 8:00am. Southbound, have one leaving later that hits Charlotte about 7:30 to 8:00am with the current southbound getting to Atlanta jsut before or about 8;00am.

Thinking off the top of my head here, what if you added a coach to the normal consist, then cut off one sleeper, the diner, and two coaches (I'm assuming it operates with three now) at Atlanta, turned them for an afternoon departure that would arrive next morning, and then stuck them back on the existing schedule the same day to head back to Atlanta? For an extra southbound departure...run a shorter consist leaving NY in the evening, arrive Atlanta midday, and return those cars on that evening's train from New Orleans?

Here's the thing: It's cheaper to run two consists on the same train than it is to run a second train on a route because of both track rental costs and operating expenses. A lot of your per-train costs are rather fixed (not 100%, but a fair share of them are). So if you got into a crunch, it would be cheaper to throw two more coaches, three more sleepers, and an extra diner on an existing train than to run a second train (or even a second section of the Crescent) with that consist.

A daylight Crescent would have the advantage of providing "reverse" service on the Lynchburger route (that is, down from DC in the morning and back in the evening), as well as providing a good round trip from Charlotte to Atlanta (which could be supplemented with a single extended Piedmont). It's not going to do anything for traffic past Atlanta...but that's not where the business is on the Crescent, anyway. There's definitely demand to work with in the Atlanta market, and probably in the Charlotte market as well. Birmingham and so forth just don't have the demand that exists elsewhere.

One point on demand bears mentioning here: I know a lot of these trains won't make money, but it's a lot easier to defend a train with 75% CR than one with 40% CR. It's also easier to defend a full train (and it might be worth trying to get Amtrak to start giving some more diverse capacity stats for boarding/alighting at different cities on specific trains). It is at least somewhat harder to kill off a packed train than it is to kill off an empty one...and let's not forget that every so often, the process of killing off the empty train can cause a fit for the full ones as well.

Edit: To be clear, I'm not poo-pooing the idea of a second overnight train...but I am looking at "what is the best use of a couple of pieces of equipment". In particular, two extra sleepers NYP-ATL will go a long way towards making the Crescent into a very good LD train in terms of CR...and it'll also do wonders for highlighting the type of market that it serves.

 

[eagle628]

One point on demand bears mentioning here: I know a lot of these trains won't make money, but it's a lot easier to defend a train with 75% CR than one with 40% CR. It's also easier to defend a full train (and it might be worth trying to get Amtrak to start giving some more diverse capacity stats for boarding/alighting at different cities on specific trains). It is at least somewhat harder to kill off a packed train than it is to kill off an empty one...and let's not forget that every so often, the process of killing off the empty train can cause a fit for the full ones as well.

So I'd have to wonder what the load factors/CR would be for a train twice as long as the current one operating south of Atlanta. If the present situation is that the train is well under half full through that section, doubling the length is going to make the financials there just awful. I mean, I'm thinking about something I read when the Crescent derailed a bit ago. 60 passengers leaving New Orleans. The train probably has a capacity of 200 to 250; I'd guess you're looking at about half full when it reaches Atlanta. "two more coaches, three more sleepers, and an extra diner" is going to come close to doubling the train's capacity, so you'd be looking at probably generally a load factor of between 10 and 20% into New Orleans, with a full dining car staff, three or four sleeper attendents and possibly a few more people chilling in the lounge and burning money. That has to be the most inefficient use of personnel and equipment ever. (Of course, you can always cut off a lot of the train in Atlanta, but then you have the staff chilling in Atlanta and burning money.)

So I really think that adding a second frequency, whether it's a day train or an overnighter, is a more efficient use of resources than blindly adding capacity onto the existing service.