Extending the Crescent to San Antonio.

[Ryan]

He's not talking about adding capacity south of Atlanta.

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.

That's not "blindly adding capacity onto the existing service", that's increasing capacity to meet demand in a way that doesn't increase your costs the way running a second train will.

 

[Anderson]

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.

Well, when I talk about adding capacity, it would be entirely possible to simply add the "second train" onto the back end of the existing one. Consider the following consist:

1901: Baggage/Dorm, NYP-NOL

1902: Sleeper, NYP-NOL

1903: Lounge/Diner, NYP-NOL

1904: Coach, NYP-NOL

1905: Coach, NYP-NOL

1906: Coach, NYP-ATL

1907: Coach, NYP-ATL

1908: Lounge/Cafe, NYP-ATL

1909: Diner, NYP-ATL

1910: Sleeper, NYP-ATL

1911: Sleeper, NYP-ATL

Cut the train between 1905 and 1906; 1903 would basically be a Cardinal-level unit rather than a full-blown diner...primarily use it for coach pax. Alternatively, you could (in a violation of standard Amtrak practice) drop all of the food service stuff in the middle. Mind you, this would be a long train by Amtrak standards, at least until it hit ATL. Even if you ran the equipment to BHM (and I think there's a case for doing something akin to a set-out operation in ATL, particularly if you manage to cut any more time off the timetable or have to move the train around a bit), you'd have two "cut off" consists and three "full trip" consists rather than three and three...if anything, you could use this to cut the train at the southern end of the line and improve load factors there.

 

[George Harris]

The reason I mention a second train is that with one train a day it that a second train will generally serve people whose schedules do not fit the current train schedule. Where it particularly is significant is for people that could use the train in one direction but the schedule does not fit their travel desires in the other direction. How much this is true for a long distance run, or more particularly this long distance run, I am not sure, but it has proven out in medium distance markets. the third carolina train resulted in more passengers per train on all their trains. A train out of the northeast with reasonable times at Charlotte NC should pick up a lot of passengers, plus service as a morning train south and afternoon train north for Charlotte to Atlanta passengers.

The Southern's daytime Piedmont was somewhat slow because it was also a piggyback train which meant slower acceleration and a 70 mph maximum speed.

 

[Anderson]

Well, let's consider the following:

1) The Crescent has lousy times for Atlanta-Charlotte.

2) Charlotte-Atlanta is about a five and a half hour turn if you push it.

3) Let us assume that having morning and afternoon service each way between LYH-WAS and CLT-ATL would be good.

So, assuming this, let's throw a Southern Piedmont into the mix. Assuming a 6:00 AM departure from NYP, you'd leave WAS at about 11:15 AM; LYH at 1:45 PM; CLT at 5:45 PM; and ATL at about midnight. That is...not great for WAS-ATL during the day or for your evening arrival in ATL. Still, it's what Amtrak would probably run...and though I could see them nudging the 6 AM departure back slightly, I don't see it moving much. Going the other way, we get ATL 6 AM, CLT 11:30 AM, LYH 4 PM, WAS 8 PM, and NYP at midnight. Again, it's lousy on the tips...but not too bad otherwise.

What this does give us is a middling evening train CLT-ATL and probably about the best timing you can hope for in the morning ATL-CLT. So we'd need a morning train CLT-ATL and an evenint ATL-CLT. The bright side is that the Piedmont schedule is only 3:10; pairing it with a break at CLT to change crews, you could either move the 6:45 AM Piedmont back a bit and run it through to Atlanta...or start a train in Charlotte going south (say, 6 AM/11:30 AM), turn the equipment in Atlanta for the evening train (4 PM ATL/9:30 PM CLT/12:30 AM RLH), and then use that set to displace a set of Piedmont equipment the next day to get it back to Charlotte (and there's probably room to do that in the schedule...none of the Piedmont equipment makes three trips per day when you could probably do a shuffled schedule to make one set do three trips while using a "juggled set" with this to balance things out).

At the risk of this becoming a rambling mess...I think you could juggle it as follows:

Set One and Set Two alternate between CLT-ATL-CLT-RLH and RLH-CLT-RLH-CLT on alternating days (think the Silver swaps). Set three does CLT-RLH-CLT to dill in the back. Both set 3 and set one or two end up in CLT at night...one to head to Atlanta in the morning and one to head to Raleigh in the morning.

And yes, I do think that NC could get a third daily Piedmont on the equipment they have now, but it would be at least partly redundant with the Carolinian. The above might well be a nightmare as well...it's more me trying to beat a set of equipment as hard as possible while also allowing at least a single daily trip one way ATL-RLH (while probably scheduling the counter-trip with a cross-platform transfer in CLT).

 

[TWA904]

Remember the Piedmont in NC is a state run train, so NC might not want to run that equipment

to Atlanta. Also, I think most of the equipment in the Piedmont is old refurbished cars that

were originally built back in the 50's and 60's.

 

[cirdan]

Remember the Piedmont in NC is a state run train, so NC might not want to run that equipment

to Atlanta. Also, I think most of the equipment in the Piedmont is old refurbished cars that

were originally built back in the 50's and 60's.

I'm sure they wouldn't object if somebody else wanted to chip in some contribution towards the costs.

 

[jis]

Remember the Piedmont in NC is a state run train, so NC might not want to run that equipment

to Atlanta. Also, I think most of the equipment in the Piedmont is old refurbished cars that

were originally built back in the 50's and 60's.

I'm sure they wouldn't object if somebody else wanted to chip in some contribution towards the costs.

Of course several other extremely remarkably positive things might happen before South Carolina decides to spend any money on rail

 

[had8ley]

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.

The 'lounge' was a buffet sleeper with the master room. They tacked the dome car on for NOL.

 

[Anderson]

Remember the Piedmont in NC is a state run train, so NC might not want to run that equipment

to Atlanta. Also, I think most of the equipment in the Piedmont is old refurbished cars that

were originally built back in the 50's and 60's.

I'm sure they wouldn't object if somebody else wanted to chip in some contribution towards the costs.

Of course several other extremely remarkably positive things might happen before South Carolina decides to spend any money on rail

True. I think Georgia is a more likely candidate; it's at least plausible that if GA gets on board with some rail plains, they and NC could get together on this and just arrange something without SC (as usual, I'll note that it might be fun if they more or less non-stopped the train through SC).