How to boost Cardinal Ridership?

[neroden]

And yet surprisingly we are having difficulty detecting any pulse from any serious passenger rail advocate in Pennsylvania

First of all, most of the PA rail advocacy organizations seem to range from defunct to moribund. Upstate NY is not very active but it seems to be doing better than non-Phildelphia PA.I'm not sure there are any advocates in Pittsburgh at all. If they are, they're probably focused on preserving PATCO service, which has been under constant threat.

Second, if any PA advocacy organizations do revive, PA has a long list of priorities which don't involve going to Chicago. Bethlehem/Allentown. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. A second frequency from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.

And of course effort in the Philadelphia area has been focused on improvements to SEPTA, which has only gotten on a stable financial footing *very* recently.

...unfortunately, the advocacy organizations in West Virginia seem to be even more dead than in Pennsylvania, which isn't good news for the Cardinal.

Ohio has multiple active and lively advocacy organizations. Unfortunately it has a hostile governor.

 

[jis]

Well over half the PA contingent in the NARP Council is from the western half of the state. DVARP around Philly is not exactly what one would call a moribund organization. They would be surprised to learn that. It is way less moribund than ESPA for example, these days.

But the point about other priorities is well taken, and therefore Pennsylvanians should get used to living with no through service to Chicago for a while yet.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Western PA for Passenger Rail exists (WPPR) in the Pittsburgh area. They did invite Ken Prendegrast of AAO to speak and seemed to support their ideas.

In terms of PA advocacy groups being selfish, maybe they are trying to push state and local government support and those groups are selfish. As jjs mentioned, you ask for too much you might not get what you want. Maybe the PA advocacy groups are pushing for what they think has a better chance of actually happening. And even I'll say more PA passengers rather would travel in state or to a nearby city like New York than to travel LD (this is the case for most train passengers and isn't unique to PA). As for Michigan, I think it's a case of one more state that can contribute to a train as opposed to going through Indiana (what incentive does Indiana have to pay for a BL like train on top of the CL and LSL)?

Getting back on topic, do you think if the schedule is adjusted to improve times in CIN and IND would that boost ridership (ignore daily vs. tri-weekly in your comparisons)?

 

[jis]

T produce any dependable answer to the CIN/IND question will take more that waving a finger in the wind here and coming up with ones favorite theory. We simply do not have either then statistics necessary or the linked trip models available to us to know whether the added ridership will balance out loss of linked trip ridership. So we can only guess, and guesses are notorious for being unduly influenced by ones pet theory.

As far as support from local folks goes, I think PA's current misfortune is that they have some service, counter-intuitive as it may sound. The reason that the Gulf Coast is able to put together a coalition today or the Eagle coalition was put together back then or even that a coalition to make the Cardinal daily gets significant traction, is that they were looking at or already have the stark possibility of no trains. That galvanizes people more than when they have one piddly train running around half way with an inconvenient connection at the other end.

 

[VKurtB]

I work for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. There is some discussion about advocating for a (note the parochial approach here) second daily through train to Pittsburgh (with its wonderful photogenic and historic station [cough, cough, choke]). Why can't something like that be a "new Broadway Limited"? After all, you don't have to tell the folks here in the Capitol that it continues on to Chicago, do you?

About that Pittsburgh station - the Greyhound station across the street is palacial compared to that embarrassment of an Amtrak station. Creature comforts? Depends - what kind of creature are you?

 

[VKurtB]

Now, as to the Cardinal - I've taken it end to end both directions. It never seems to run anything close to on time. Hours late. Eastbound if it misses its slot just south of Chicago, it can, and does, sit for over an hour waiting for a slot between the freights. The West Virginia scenery is nice, once. After that, the hassle of being in and near the great radio silence footprint is a pain. This is 2016, folks, people want at least occasional access to their tech. Cardinal offers too little to make it viable, to me. Reroute that equipment to bring back the Broadway Ltd.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

T produce any dependable answer to the CIN/IND question will take more that waving a finger in the wind here and coming up with ones favorite theory. We simply do not have either then statistics necessary or the linked trip models available to us to know whether the added ridership will balance out loss of linked trip ridership. So we can only guess, and guesses are notorious for being unduly influenced by ones pet theory.

For those who didn't know, my pet theory is to serve your biggest unique markets outside of the graveyard shift.

 

[abcnews]

I think the addition of the BC/lounge car was a tremendous improvement. Give that 6 months or a year, and see if it somehow makes an impact.

The scenery along this trains route has always been a draw, while the equipment/services allowed to the train has been minimal.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Cardinal offers too little to make it viable, to me. Reroute that equipment to bring back the Broadway Ltd.

Kill one train to restore another? Those are the terms of surrender we've been given by Amtrak's enemies. We don't have to accept them.

We need a Congress that will represent the people's expressed desire for "more and better Amtrak." Congress needs to immediately fund a follow-up order for another 50 or 100 Viewliner sleepers, bag cars, bag-dorms, and food service cars of some type. Congress needs to order 700 or more single-level coaches etc to replace and expand the fleet of Amfleets. Congress needs to fund modest expansions of the LD routes when the new equipment makes it available. Congress needs to fund more corridor service to expand the total national system. Congress needs to appropriate serious funds to complete, continue, and expand the upgrades of vital routes to 110-mph capacity.

If we don't demand serious investment from Congress, we won't get it. Saying, "Oh, OK. So we won't get new equipment. We can just kill off a few trains and keep things going, no problem" -- that's accepting the terms of surrender to the haters. Surrender will cause very big problems.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Find the money to support the Amtrak expansion you want without significantly raising everyone's taxes Woody and it's a deal. I consider it accepting the status quo of the current LD system vs. trying to improve it while remaining under budget. Would I just prefer expansion? Of course!

As for the sky is falling when one or two LD routes are cut, haven't we been through LD routes cut before? It didn't mean the whole LD system died. Is there a negative trend towards the gradual elimination of the LD system? Yes. But I don't think we're anywhere close even if we lose 2-3 routes now (unless they kill the "wrong" ones). Sure, if your route goes away it's bad for you (and I can speak from experience) but in the grand scheme of things it isn't going to affect the national LD system that drastically. I think some of you are using the sky is falling approach because one train lost its dining car as well. I'm not saying these aren't losses but I don't consider them the end of the Amtrak LD system either.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Find money to support the Amtrak expansion you want without significantly raising everyone's taxes and it's a deal.

It's preposterous to think that even doubling Amtrak's funding from $1.5 Billion to $3 Billion could "significantly" raise anyone's taxes.

A $3 Billion Amtrak budget divided by a U.S. population of roughly 323 million would come to less than $10 per taxpayer. In other words, it's about $5 per person for Amtrak's current budget. Please, double my taxes by $5 a year and double Amtrak.

Maybe Congress could find another $1.5 Billion a year for Amtrak by cutting the ethanol subsidies, like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz advocated, even during the primaries.

Jillian Kay Melchior explains for National Review. "... the federal government not only requires the use of ethanol; it also subsidizes it. Tax credits between 1978 and 2012 cost the Treasury as much as $40 billion. Moreover, numerous other federal programs, spanning multiple agencies, allot billions of dollars to ethanol in the form of grants, loan guarantees, tax credits, and other subsidies. …"

Congress has plenty of money. The problem is that Congress likes certain special interest groups, but doesn't much like Amtrak. We need to be more demanding of funding for Amtrak, and less accepting of the haters' terms of surrender.

 

[VKurtB]

Doesn't having CIN and IND not being at a bad time of day (a worthwhile concept) mean having the terminal cities at bad times of day, almost by logical necessity? Jus' askin'.

 

[jis]

Doesn't having CIN and IND not being at a bad time of day (a worthwhile concept) mean having the terminal cities at bad times of day, almost by logical necessity? Jus' askin'.

Yes, well sort of. The other constraint is whether the Cardinal will continue to connect to trains departing for other destination at Chicago on the same day. If you break connections and make Cardinal a dead ender train at Chicago then you can manage to keep the end points at reasonable times and make CIN and IND almost reasonable.

But since the network effect is a major factor in the success of a system like the LD system there is much opposition to the idea of breaking connections in Chicago.

 

[afigg]

Now, as to the Cardinal - I've taken it end to end both directions. It never seems to run anything close to on time. Hours late. Eastbound if it misses its slot just south of Chicago, it can, and does, sit for over an hour waiting for a slot between the freights. The West Virginia scenery is nice, once. After that, the hassle of being in and near the great radio silence footprint is a pain. This is 2016, folks, people want at least occasional access to their tech. Cardinal offers too little to make it viable, to me. Reroute that equipment to bring back the Broadway Ltd.

If you want more frequent access to the net through rural and remote areas, bring your own satellite phone. Yes, sure, pricey and slow and likely to have a lot of dropouts in valleys, but can't have everything. Amtrak did post a RFI for satellite based internet communication options on their procurement website not long ago, but I don't see Amtrak making that investment for the LD trains in the current funding climate.

As for the Cardinal's on-time performance, it has gotten much better in the past several years. Some of that can be attributed to the decline in freight traffic, for the Cardinal route especially the big drop in coal shipments. But CSX did some upgrades in Indiana to support a new customer and as I recall there was a Chicago CREATE funded project that speed up the train a bit on the Chicago end. On the eastern end, Virginia has been funding repair, maintenance, and signal upgrade projects to the Buckingham Branch railroad over the past few years.

Checking Amtrak Status Maps Database, from April 1 to date, the westbound #51 has arrived at CHI early (18 times) or on-time or less than 15 minutes late 22 out of 29 trips. Got in really late a few times, but still much better than the OTP of a few years ago. Eastbound #50 OTP, using WAS as the reference, is poorer, but it still arrived at WAS < 15 minutes late 13 times in the same period.

 

[Seaboard92]

Currently on a sold out 51. We are 30 behind and all from station work. No sidings

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Wow. So CHI connections are important. IND and CIN are important. There's no way to do that without messing up the NEC or something like that. But, do many people ride this thing end-to-end? I've heard that there aren't that many, considering the CL and LSL.

But still, it's difficult. You can't leave CHI in the evening and expect IND and CIN to be in daylight too, it just doesn't work. So what'll you do? I say get a morning train from CHI down to IND and CIN.

CHI 8:45A

IND 2:50P/2:59P

CIN 6:27P.

Great right?

Now if you sacrifice IND, CIN can get better times while preserving the connections. For that matter, you could keep your Hoosier States, then somehow? maybe? work out a different route to CIN or something like that. Now for CHI-IND, with the route improvements possible that I read about somewhere, a schedule close to 4-4.5 hrs is possible:

CHI 6:00P

IND 11:35P

IND 6:25A

CHI 10:00A

And then overnight to CIN, via IND b/c I can't find anything else right now. Of course IND-CIN is bad, but that can be solved later. Maybe via Fort Wayne or something? I have to research more about this.

CHI 10:00P

IND 3:35A/3:44A

CIN 7:07A

CIN 11:11P

IND 2:50A/3:00A

CHI 6:35A

Something like that? Am I taking it too far?

Oh, and then extending this CHI-CIN train to the NEC will screw over WAS and NYP, so this just isn't working.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Maybe remediate IND-CIN by flipping over the schedule.

IND 12:00N

CIN 3:17P/3:27P

HUN 7:09P/7:16P

HIN 10:34P

CVS 3:10A/3:19A

WAS 6:19A

NYP 9:58A

But of course CVS is in the dark. And then guess what? We're back to Philly's schedule, and why not just extend it to CHI.

CHI 11:40A

IND 5:20P/5:29P

and so on to

CVS 8:40A/8:49A

WAS 11:59A

NYP 3:58P

And there you have it. I can see why Philly's schedule is the way it is.

There are just too many restrictions for scheduling the Cardinal that someone has to get the graveyard shift or bad connection times. Can anyone think of something better or argue why one or some the scheduling restrictions can be removed? Thanks.

 

[west point]

So we are asked to cancel a sold out train during summers ( and sometimes other seasons ) to allow for another train whose ridership is unknown ?. What is needed s more operating and capital funds to start experimental trains. There are some in the government who agree to expand Amtrak. To paraphrase FDR " I agree now make me "

 

[jis]

Sometimes it is better to accept things as they are and let them be. The thing that needs to happen to the Cardinal to get it to run daily. There is at present no need to dick around with its schedule.

If there needs to be a separate regional train between CIN and CHI one can discuss what the ideal schedule for that should be.

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Midwest Regional is a nice name. Thanks jis. That's a good way to think about it. Yeah, if it's full on this schedule, then there's no need to change. I still want to incorporate Hoosier State schedule improvements, although I can't seem to find a link.

CHI 6:15P 9:50A

IND 11:50P/11:59P 5:50A/6:15A

CIN 3:17A/3:27A 2:01A/2:11A

WAS 6:19P 11:30A

NYP 9:58P 7:15A

So I would want the CHI-CIN regional to connect from as many other Midwest services as possible, even if that doesn't include the western LDs. Means the Blue Water can't connect, but maybe have a stop in Hammond-Whiting and get them over to Dyer on a bus or something. It's also only 1 train missed, all the others make it. Even with 20 mins at CHI, I don't think that's enough. (11:55A to 12:15P).

CHI 12:00N 3:05P

IND 5:35P/5:44P 11:05A/11:30A

CIN 9:02P 7:26A

 

[WoodyinNYC]

... get a morning train CHI-IND ... with the [proposed] improvements that I read about, a schedule close to 4-4.5 hrs is possible

Here's a link to the study paid for by the Indiana Dept of Highways.

http://www.in.gov/indot/files/Amtrak_CostBenefitAnalysis_2013.pdf

Scroll down to p 6-3 to the nice schematic, and look at a couple of the tables.

The not ambitious plan would be to invest $260 million or more to add several passing sidings, etc. The expected time savings came to 29 minutes within Indiana alone. Any extra time savings from CREATE projects in Illinois were not added here.

I have quibbles and quarrels with the report. Minor things, for example, no value is given to lives saved of people diverted to travel by rail instead of by car; I've seen other studies give more respect to the dead. And while some savings was seen from reduced air traffic congestion, it was dismissed as so small as to have no value at all. What amount of new and improved train capacity could be large enuff to give reduced congestion a value here? Sure, no single Midwest corridor would have a big effect, but taken together the Lincolns, other Illinois trains, Wolverines, Hiawathas, and even the Hoosier State could be worth something.

Most importantly, the report gives the scary $260 million figure for the proposed upgrades and then the annual subsidy required for one or two Hoosier State trains. On the other hand, the benefits of having one or two daily Hoosiers were considered. But NO CONSIDERATION AT ALL as to how a 29-minute faster trip could benefit the Cardinal.

Let's see, lower costs, WB CHI arrivals earlier in the business day, EB Indy arrivals earlier than midnight, choice of departure and arrival times from among several trains, an improved "Amtrak brand", etc. Worth nothing to the consultants for the Dept of Highways. And not a word of how a faster Cardinal, plus two daily Hoosier State frequencies at different day parts could feed traffic to/from connecting Amtrak trains at Union Station, gaining more riders for all trains, and giving better service to Indiana citizens seeking to take the train to far-off destinations like Milwaukee or St Louis or Denver.

But see for yourself.

 

[railgeekteen]

It should be made daily and have a St Louis branch. I would keep it on it's current schedule but extend to Hoosier state to Cincinnati to give it daytime service.

 

[west point]

Capacity control on the Cardinal needs more flexibility especially more in the summer and fall ! Even the second sleeper sells out during high season. Maybe a diner during the summer and fall seasons only ?

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

It should be made daily and have a St Louis branch. I would keep it on it's current schedule but extend to Hoosier state to Cincinnati to give it daytime service.

If you keep the Hoosier State on its current schedule and extend it to Cincinnati, Cincinnati's times would be its current graveyard shift times. Maybe you meant daily service. That would require Indiana and/or Cincinnati/Ohio picking up the tab and if you assume the same schedule you are paying for four additional days of service during the graveyard shift plus now you have to service and maintain the train in Cincinnati instead of Indianapolis those days. Plus it would require more equipment than it does now. Right now you can have the train in Indy, park it overnight, and run it back to Chicago the next day. You can't do that in Cincinnati since the northbound train leaves for Chicago (1:41am) before the southbound train arrives (3:17am). So you would need an additional set of equipment to serve Cincinnati vs. just serving Indianapolis.

 

[railgeekteen]

It should be made daily and have a St Louis branch. I would keep it on it's current schedule but extend to Hoosier state to Cincinnati to give it daytime service.

If you keep the Hoosier State on its current schedule and extend it to Cincinnati, Cincinnati's times would be its current graveyard shift times. Maybe you meant daily service. That would require Indiana and/or Cincinnati/Ohio picking up the tab and if you assume the same schedule you are paying for four additional days of service during the graveyard shift plus now you have to service and maintain the train in Cincinnati instead of Indianapolis those days. Plus it would require more equipment than it does now. Right now you can have the train in Indy, park it overnight, and run it back to Chicago the next day. You can't do that in Cincinnati since the northbound train leaves for Chicago (1:41am) before the southbound train arrives (3:17am). So you would need an additional set of equipment to serve Cincinnati vs. just serving Indianapolis.

I would separate the two trains.