There was 1 or 2 hiccups around July 4th when they started. Since then there was 1 run in 1 direction with only 1 sleeper AFAIK and I have sighted almost all of them. Otherwise 2, and mostly the same 4 cars.
There is very strong evidence that there is also unfulfilled sleeper demand on the LSL route, the route of the Pennsy/CL from NY to Chicago (but not so much DC to Pittsburgh), DC to Atlanta, Denver to Chicago, etc... hopefully the Viewliner IIs will help some, but I suspect there aren't actually enough of them. About 25 *more* would likely be about right.
These are predictions about human behavior -- i.e., hard to get the data on. They make very fancy models to try to predict ridership urban rail systems, and they're routinely off by upwards of 20%.
Don't forget the Illini/Saluki are sucking up most of the loadings from Carbondale to Chicago.
One of the issues with setting off/picking up equipment enroute is the need for mechanical personnel (car inspectors) at that location. I can't say for certain, but there may be labor agreement issues requiring mechanical personnel to handle the air, signal, and HEP connections plus performing the necessary brake test on the cars being picked up and then the brake line continuity test on the train after the cars are added.
Besides local crew issues or storage tracks, on the current Crescent schedule, the turnaround time window at Birmingham is too short. The southbound Crescent arrives at BHM at 11:50 AM, the northbound arrives at 2:15 PM. That is less than a 2 and a half hour buffer. What happens if #19 is running 4 hours late because of a grade crossing incident or got stuck behind a broken down freight train? Do they delay #20 to wait on the equipment or tell passengers north of BHM, sorry some of you are going to be out of luck for seats or a sleeper room?
If they could make the Hoosier State its own train on the days that the Cardinal runs (instead of just throwing Horizon cars onto the rear of the train), this could be possible. The main problem though is that the Cardinal already leaves at an early time out of NYP (0600), and has a late arrival time (2200). In order for the Cardinal to arrive at Cincy at a more reasonable time, they'd either have to find ways to reduce travel time (unlikely) or truncate the train at DC (like it was during the Superliner era). A truncation at DC would allow for a lot more scheduling flexibility, but would be likely to hurt overall ridership.
Ridership to/from NYP isn't negligible, but it isn't a massive share of ridership either...and at least some of that ridership would probably hold on regardless of the train's arrival/departure times.
I haven't heard any news about the BBRR projects in a long time. How much of them is funded? Has any work actually been constructed?
Well, it's worth it for Amtrak to try to cross the ts and dot the is to deal with any remaining obstructions to daily service in anticipation of the BBRR work being done...
The Virginia DRPT finance page has all sorts of nuggets of information. The last section of the FY2015 SYIP (Six Year Improvement Plan) has the line item budgets for the passenger and freight rail projects. The BBRR has gotten a nice pile of funds over the years at about roughly $4-5 million a year via the Virginia Shortline Railway Preservation and Development Program. VDRPT provides 70% of the funding for each project, the railroad or others have to provide the remaining 30%. If Indiana had a rail improvement program funded at the same level as the small VA Shortline preservation program, the CHI-IND corridor could see a series of steady improvements.
This is ludicrous. 300 trips (in a given direction) along the route to be qualified? Absolutely absurd. No sane country in the world would have this regulation, because it's ridiculous. They don't have this rule for truck drivers, and for them it's much more important to know the territory. Abolish the rule, it's dumb. (Actually, in areas with cab signals and PTC and quiet-zone crossings, you barely need engineers at all.)
Unfortunately, I really doubt that one long siding is enough to reliably run the Cardinal opposite the "direction of traffic" on a daily basis. Has anyone done a needs analysis to figure out how many sidings are actually needed on that division?
Based on the current schedule, a daily Cardinal would likely need a third train set. That's a tall order indeed.
Yes, a daily Cardinal would require 3 consists. How much additional equipment that would be needed for a daily Cardinal (and replacing the Hoosier State) was discussed in the FY2010 Cardinal PIP report.
