This came up in the Charlotte-Columbia thread, and I think it bears a specific discussion of its own: With current facilities and the not-impossible idea of the Silver Palm being reestablished (right now, equipment seems to be the big issue here, as ridership on the Silvers has risen by about a third and would seem to justify the third train), would it be possible to split the Silvers at Orlando and run the "main" trains straight on to Miami, so as to get a 3/day round trip frequency on the ORL-TPA and MIA-TPA routes? Would it be worthwhile? I'm thinking of a LSL-style split (a coach or two, a sleeper or two, and perhaps a baggage car get taken off the train from NYP at Orlando and exchanged with some TPA-MIA coaches); the main purpose would be to get a "rhythm" of trains running to Miami instead of all of the trains getting there at once.
The run to Tampa from Orlando right now is about 80 minutes (74 according to the timetable, from Orlando departure to Tampa arrival). Assuming that it ran at the same speed then as it does now, you could at least turn the Miami cars in a four-hour window (I'll grant that the sleepers might be another story due to swapping the linen, but 80 minutes to turn around a small set of coaches would seem to be plenty [as they wouldn't need much cleaning, etc.] would likely be a workable proposition).
The through sleepers, the ugliest part of this arrangement, are mainly necessary because people don't like being kicked out of their seats...though LD Coach for an hour and a half is hardly torture. Even running the train without cafe service (something I'm not a big fan of omitting) doesn't seem too bad given the short duration, as long as you make it policy that sleeper folks get to eat prior to Orlando and are diligent about announcing the situation well in advance of Orlando so folks can take care of business before the split.
Of course, the biggest problem with this is that it's virtually impossible to have three well-spaced trains and not have at least one have a lousy Miami departure and have another with a lousy Jacksonville departure. The length of that run at present makes that a no-go (nine hours plus six hours of spacing means fifteen hours of train placement; nine plus eight is seventeen. Ew.), but if you eat those two bad times you can get two good Miami-Orlando-Tampa runs and three good Orlando-Tampa runs. You can also make a semi-daylight NYP-SAV train work if you "force" a delay at Savannah to stretch the time it takes to get to Orlando, stick in a delay at Jacksonville, or just run the train slowly (as was frequently done on sleeper trains in the MW to ensure convenient times).
And finally, none of this considers the Sunset East report, should that be put into action, which could be used to piggyback a fourth service in here somewhere if that were also extended to Miami and a split done. That is, of course, at least as complicated a matter as this is (personally, I favor the CONO option to the Sunset East, if just to do as much as possible without having to deal with UP, but such is another matter entirely).
The run to Tampa from Orlando right now is about 80 minutes (74 according to the timetable, from Orlando departure to Tampa arrival). Assuming that it ran at the same speed then as it does now, you could at least turn the Miami cars in a four-hour window (I'll grant that the sleepers might be another story due to swapping the linen, but 80 minutes to turn around a small set of coaches would seem to be plenty [as they wouldn't need much cleaning, etc.] would likely be a workable proposition).
The through sleepers, the ugliest part of this arrangement, are mainly necessary because people don't like being kicked out of their seats...though LD Coach for an hour and a half is hardly torture. Even running the train without cafe service (something I'm not a big fan of omitting) doesn't seem too bad given the short duration, as long as you make it policy that sleeper folks get to eat prior to Orlando and are diligent about announcing the situation well in advance of Orlando so folks can take care of business before the split.
Of course, the biggest problem with this is that it's virtually impossible to have three well-spaced trains and not have at least one have a lousy Miami departure and have another with a lousy Jacksonville departure. The length of that run at present makes that a no-go (nine hours plus six hours of spacing means fifteen hours of train placement; nine plus eight is seventeen. Ew.), but if you eat those two bad times you can get two good Miami-Orlando-Tampa runs and three good Orlando-Tampa runs. You can also make a semi-daylight NYP-SAV train work if you "force" a delay at Savannah to stretch the time it takes to get to Orlando, stick in a delay at Jacksonville, or just run the train slowly (as was frequently done on sleeper trains in the MW to ensure convenient times).
And finally, none of this considers the Sunset East report, should that be put into action, which could be used to piggyback a fourth service in here somewhere if that were also extended to Miami and a split done. That is, of course, at least as complicated a matter as this is (personally, I favor the CONO option to the Sunset East, if just to do as much as possible without having to deal with UP, but such is another matter entirely).
:help:
