johnny.menhennet
Conductor
I know that this may be annoying for some, and I'm sorry, but I find that my favorite posts/threads to read are the "What if's" (ex: If you could start one route, what would it be? -type things). So I was wondering what every member thought was the most underserved market in the United States. Whether you consider this to be a market entirely not served or something that's not served enough in your opinion, I'll leave it up to your discretion. If you'd like, a train service that would solve the needs of that city/area. I love the type of discussion that these threads produce rather than purely fact/number-based ones, and there is not likely to be argument, because we all have our own ideas of what would be best.
To start off, I'd say a few markets really worthy of more service would be:
1) overnight/more daytime frequencies SoCal-Bay Area - If you look at the best schedule times for the route, padding aside, you could make an LAX-SJC run in 8:10. Corridor services operating under 9 hours could be very successful here, as could an overnight so you don't waste a day. There is a lot of business travel between SoCal and the Bay Area, and an overnight service that would allow you to not waste a few hours in the morning/evening would be awesome. It is just not tapped well enough, because driving the 5 is god-awful, and on busy weekends you can have traffic jams literally in the middle of nowhere. CalTrans has 4 slots on the route, two of which are kind of being used already. Just extend those two to SF, add another frequency in between, and then an overnight. It would be SO nice. My dad had to drive his huge Expedition up to San Jose just for the weekend two weeks ago to pick up a lot of stuff for our house under construction in Phoenix. This was the week/weekend following the gas price spike, where at a few stations, it was $5.60, and almost could not be found below $5 for a few days. He had no other choice, because he had to pick it up and he was going to a football game. So if Amtrak had been an option overnight, I guarantee you he would have used it, and he would have been able to check almost all of the large boxes with little cost. I can't stress enough how sucky the drive is becoming on the 5 - worse and worse every year.
2) Bay Area-Reno
3) Phoenix-Tucson corridor (sheer lack of demand and proximity - I'm ignoring political climate)
4) Cascades service both directions from Seattle - low BNSF caps are frustrating
5) wish we could get even more frequencies out of the NEC, to continue generating more revenue to offset other losses
6) CHI-DEN. Needs more capacity for sure. I know at this point it's unrealistic to ask for a day train, given the sheer distance, albeit nice track. What would be nice would be an 10pm departure from CHI, leaving Omaha at 7am, Lincoln at 8am, arriving Denver at 3pm, then heading to Grand Junction arriving at 11pm. Not only would this provide an overnight ride from CHI to both Omaha and Denver, providing more capacity, it allows another frequency over the Rockies to accommodate and hopefully minimize the capacity demands currently straining the CZ. It would allow people to not miss a whole day travelling this section. Coming back, the consist could leave Grand Junction at 6am, arriving Denver at 1pm, it could get to Lincoln by 10:30pm, Omaha by 11:30pm, and then Chicago by 8:30am. Same reasons work for the frequency in the other direction.
7) maybe MSP-Williston day train
8) FTW-SAS, but via Waco. Many large cities but 1 daily train.
9) The OBVIOUS LA-Vegas run. 'Nuff said.
I'm going to stop calling out more services, because I don't want to start sounding even more ridiculous than I already do. I understand that all of these require cars Amtrak doesn't have, and I realize these plans cost money and often would not have political support. Some of these are obviously not as important as others, but they are ALL worthy of more service on some level. I'm open to hearing ideas either about what I suggested or your own. Hope I don't bother too many people with this.
To start off, I'd say a few markets really worthy of more service would be:
1) overnight/more daytime frequencies SoCal-Bay Area - If you look at the best schedule times for the route, padding aside, you could make an LAX-SJC run in 8:10. Corridor services operating under 9 hours could be very successful here, as could an overnight so you don't waste a day. There is a lot of business travel between SoCal and the Bay Area, and an overnight service that would allow you to not waste a few hours in the morning/evening would be awesome. It is just not tapped well enough, because driving the 5 is god-awful, and on busy weekends you can have traffic jams literally in the middle of nowhere. CalTrans has 4 slots on the route, two of which are kind of being used already. Just extend those two to SF, add another frequency in between, and then an overnight. It would be SO nice. My dad had to drive his huge Expedition up to San Jose just for the weekend two weeks ago to pick up a lot of stuff for our house under construction in Phoenix. This was the week/weekend following the gas price spike, where at a few stations, it was $5.60, and almost could not be found below $5 for a few days. He had no other choice, because he had to pick it up and he was going to a football game. So if Amtrak had been an option overnight, I guarantee you he would have used it, and he would have been able to check almost all of the large boxes with little cost. I can't stress enough how sucky the drive is becoming on the 5 - worse and worse every year.
2) Bay Area-Reno
3) Phoenix-Tucson corridor (sheer lack of demand and proximity - I'm ignoring political climate)
4) Cascades service both directions from Seattle - low BNSF caps are frustrating
5) wish we could get even more frequencies out of the NEC, to continue generating more revenue to offset other losses
6) CHI-DEN. Needs more capacity for sure. I know at this point it's unrealistic to ask for a day train, given the sheer distance, albeit nice track. What would be nice would be an 10pm departure from CHI, leaving Omaha at 7am, Lincoln at 8am, arriving Denver at 3pm, then heading to Grand Junction arriving at 11pm. Not only would this provide an overnight ride from CHI to both Omaha and Denver, providing more capacity, it allows another frequency over the Rockies to accommodate and hopefully minimize the capacity demands currently straining the CZ. It would allow people to not miss a whole day travelling this section. Coming back, the consist could leave Grand Junction at 6am, arriving Denver at 1pm, it could get to Lincoln by 10:30pm, Omaha by 11:30pm, and then Chicago by 8:30am. Same reasons work for the frequency in the other direction.
7) maybe MSP-Williston day train
8) FTW-SAS, but via Waco. Many large cities but 1 daily train.
9) The OBVIOUS LA-Vegas run. 'Nuff said.
I'm going to stop calling out more services, because I don't want to start sounding even more ridiculous than I already do. I understand that all of these require cars Amtrak doesn't have, and I realize these plans cost money and often would not have political support. Some of these are obviously not as important as others, but they are ALL worthy of more service on some level. I'm open to hearing ideas either about what I suggested or your own. Hope I don't bother too many people with this.
