Pennsylvanian may end

[afigg]

The Carolinian is enthusiastically (in comparison) supported by the state, and in terms of its future, they're talking about adding freqeuncies, making it faster and doing other pleasant things to it.In the case of the Pennsylavnian, the prospects look very much to be heading in the opposite direction.

The Carolinian was supported by previous state government. NC now has a new Republican governor and state legislature with a Tea party contingent. I don't think they will end support for the Piedmont, the Carolinian, or the current Piedmont corridor improvement projects, but I suspect there will be weak support in the next several years for anything more than that.

In the case of PA, if Ed Rendell was still Governor, the question of state subsidy for the Pennsylvanian would not be an issue. It would be a matter of how to fund it and the additional costs for the Keystones, not whether to do so. PA has been facing serious shortfalls in transportation funding for road, highway, repairing crumbling bridges, transit for years. If the state can finally address the revenue problem by raising the gas tax, albeit indirectly, then the question of the subsidy for the Pennsylvanian and Keystone is likely to be resolved. I think, after some political theater, that PennDOT will come through and provide the full subsidy needed to maintain the current level of service.

 

[Guest]

This is sad if it happens. I was hoping that they could increase the frequency, extend it to Chicago, and have Sleepers much like the Lake Shore Limited. Wishful thinking on my part.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

This is sad if it happens. I was hoping that they could increase the frequency, extend it to Chicago, and have Sleepers much like the Lake Shore Limited. Wishful thinking on my part.

I would want that too. I think NYP-CHI is a very important market. Doing that would actually save the train because then PA wouldn't have to fund it.

 

[jphjaxfl]

This is sad if it happens. I was hoping that they could increase the frequency, extend it to Chicago, and have Sleepers much like the Lake Shore Limited. Wishful thinking on my part.

I would want that too. I think NYP-CHI is a very important market. Doing that would actually save the train because then PA wouldn't have to fund it.

States need to support their passenger trains in conjunction with the federal government, much as highways are funded.

 

[Anderson]

Also, a point on the 2003/4 numbers: The Three Rivers was still running at the time, therefore diverting at least some ridership from the Pennsylvanian...but ridership probably also took a hit from the Warrington fare hikes as well. Ridership and revenue were largely stagnant from 2005-09 (there were drops in four of five years in terms of ridership, and revenue was flat in nominal terms and down in real terms over that time). That's what I walked into when I started doing those charts.

Correct. In fact, if one looks at the 2005 report, Amtrak actually added in the 3R's numbers to the Penny's totals. For that reason I didn't provide those numbers, but instead provided the numbers listed in the 2006 report under the 2005 column, since Amtrak had backed out the 3R numbers to provide a more valid comparison between the two years. The combined numbers for 2005 as shown in that report were 213,413 and $8,737,087. The combined 2004 numbers were 324,325 and $15,015,145.

Note the huge drop in revenue & ridership as the 3R's came to an end. Also part of the factors here and affecting the numbers too, is the fact that through 2005 the Pennsy picked up extra ridership because it ran all the way to Chicago.

Was the extra ridership to Chicago more than the ridership it picked up by running to/from New York?

That said, the Pennsylvanian did not run to Chicago through 2005. 2005 is when the Three Rivers was discontinued.

According to Wikipedia (because I don't feel like looking up other info), the train was cut back to NYP-PGH in January 2003 (this seems to coincide with my memory of some change happening in January or February of some year before the 3R went away). The Three Rivers continued to operate as it was. If memory serves me, the Pennsylvanian was briefly discontinued in late 2004 when Amtrak made the 180-day notice to discontinue PGH-CHI service along the Three Rivers route. During that period, there was only one train operating, which was the Three Rivers NYP-CHI. When the Three Rivers ended, the Pennsylvanian was restored on its NYP-PGH schedule.

That would explain why ridership was as low as it was during 2003, actually. I had attributed it to the 3R and Pennsylvanian doing something to one another's ridership (the combined numbers were quite close to one another in volume, even if the dollar value differed), but if only one was operating at a given time, that would make sense and the variations would mainly be down to timing/convenience of trains.

 

[cirdan]

Anyone know of any other similar lines that propered after being down to one train a day? The reason I ask, is I am going to write letters to my represenative and it would be nice to have a comparable example.

I think NC is the best example in this respect, with the Carolinian and Piemont services.

 

[VentureForth]

Anyone know of any other similar lines that propered after being down to one train a day? The reason I ask, is I am going to write letters to my represenative and it would be nice to have a comparable example.

I think NC is the best example in this respect, with the Carolinian and Piemont services.

If I read the question right, Benjibear was looking for services that IMPROVED when reduced to one per day. NC improved service by ADDING trains. "Prospered," if that was the original intended word, may not be the appropriate word. I don't know if the state's income has increased at all with the addition of service. Popularity has improved. Awareness has improved. But I don't think that the costs or return on investment have necessarily improved.

 

[Anderson]

I'm not totally clear on the question, either. There are a lot of routes that went down to once a day back on A-day (or in the years thereafter). Some have seen ridership rise, some have seen it fall, some have been more or less stagnant.

 

[afigg]

I had forgotten that it ran to CHI that late; for some reason, I thought it had been cut back before 2005. That is infuriating in some ways, since if the train still ran to Chicago we likely wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

On the other hand, if PennDOT comes through and provides a $5 to $6 million subsidy for the Pennsylvanian and fully funds the current level of Keystone service, that will free up funding from the annual federal subsidy. At this point, once the states are all paying for their corridor trains, we don't know what the annual federal operating subsidy will be, but let's say Amtrak gets Congress to keep providing $350 million a year. If Amtrak can keep the net cash loss of running the current 15 LD trains to comfortably less than the annual subsidy amounts, then they would have room to restore the Three Rivers to service.

Of course, Amtrak would need to have enough sleeper, diner, bag-dorm, LD coach cars in service to support the existing single level LD trains plus a daily Cardinal plus a Three Rivers. Much depends on what the FY2014 and beyond budgets look like and whether Congress can pass an Amtrak reauthorization bill which supports the LD train system.

 

[Jersey Jeff]

I travel back & forth between NWK and PGH a few times a year and the OTP of the EB Three Rivers was embarrassingly poor, especially when compared with the Pennsy's impressive OTP of today.

Flights between EWR & PIT are often $200+ one way and the last two times I flew from PIT-EWR, the flights have been cancelled AFTER I arrived at the gate and was probed by the TSA. :angry:

 

[benjibear]

First I didn't mean day trips between NYP and PGH. I meant that you can take a trip, lets say to Harrisburg from the west, and be able to return the same day. Alot of people have bussiness in Harrisburg, let's say from Lewistown or Altonna, that you can leave in the morning and return the same day. Like a "Keystone" west service.

I meant prosper and I meant, Amtrak cuts a train to one a day then it increases in frequency, and ridership increases more than the number of trains increased (i.e. from 1 to 3 trains a day and ridership is now 4 times on the line).

 

[jphjaxfl]

The more choices people have, the more they are apt to travel by train. Back in the mid 1960s, not that many years before Amtrak, PRR had 10 trains EB and 9 trains WB between NYP and PGH. One of them was the all sleeping car Pittsburgher which ran 6 nights a week and apparently had a good number of business travelers. Penn Central came along and let.the tracks deteriorate and now we have 1 train in each direction.....sad!

 

[John Bredin]

I meant prosper and I meant, Amtrak cuts a train to one a day then it increases in frequency, and ridership increases more than the number of trains increased (i.e. from 1 to 3 trains a day and ridership is now 4 times on the line).

Illinois is a good example. It essentially doubled the number of state-sponsored trains (other than the Hiawathas) in 2006: from one train to two on the Illinois Zephyr route to Quincy, from one sponsored* train to two on the Illini route to Champaign and Carbondale, and from two to four sponsored* trains on the Lincoln Service to Springfield and St. Louis. http://www.dot.il.gov/amtrak/amtrak.asp has the ridership statistics since then. Oddly, the one route that actually had only one daily train hasn't quite doubled its ridership, but the other two routes have more than doubled theirs.

The Hiawatha stats on the same page are interesting. While there is the same (or nearly the same)** number of trains on the Hiawatha now as 2006, the trains now are definitely longer everyday.

*The Illini has always had the City of New Orleans as a not-Illinois-supported companion, and the Texas Eagle uses the same route CHI-STL as the Lincoln Service. So in both cases, it's not a doubling of all trains but a doubling of the trains Illinois was paying for. Since the ridership stats in the link above are only for the state-sponsored trains, we're still comparing apples to apples.

**There might have been one less train a day back then, but I don't recall exactly when the schedule went from six round-trips a day to seven.

 

[AlanB]

In the case of PA, if Ed Rendell was still Governor, the question of state subsidy for the Pennsylvanian would not be an issue. It would be a matter of how to fund it and the additional costs for the Keystones, not whether to do so. PA has been facing serious shortfalls in transportation funding for road, highway, repairing crumbling bridges, transit for years. If the state can finally address the revenue problem by raising the gas tax, albeit indirectly, then the question of the subsidy for the Pennsylvanian and Keystone is likely to be resolved. I think, after some political theater, that PennDOT will come through and provide the full subsidy needed to maintain the current level of service.

From the sounds of this, it looks like maybe they're going to try to address the transportation funding issues. Unclear if this will help save the Pennsy though.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

The more choices people have, the more they are apt to travel by train. Back in the mid 1960s, not that many years before Amtrak, PRR had 10 trains EB and 9 trains WB between NYP and PGH. One of them was the all sleeping car Pittsburgher which ran 6 nights a week and apparently had a good number of business travelers. Penn Central came along and let.the tracks deteriorate and now we have 1 train in each direction.....sad!

You said it! This is a big plus for Greyhound, I can usually take a day bus instead of a night train.

 

[jphjaxfl]

The more choices people have, the more they are apt to travel by train. Back in the mid 1960s, not that many years before Amtrak, PRR had 10 trains EB and 9 trains WB between NYP and PGH. One of them was the all sleeping car Pittsburgher which ran 6 nights a week and apparently had a good number of business travelers. Penn Central came along and let.the tracks deteriorate and now we have 1 train in each direction.....sad!

You said it! This is a big plus for Greyhound, I can usually take a day bus instead of a night train.

A Greyhound bus is not in the same class with a passenger train. I don't do buses of any kind for more than 100 miles or 2 hours. My alternative to a passenger train is flying (not that much better than a bus, but gets you there lots faster) or driving on shorter trips.

 

[benjibear]

I would probably drive before taking a bus unless parking was an issue on the other end or really expensive.

 

[railbuck]

I would probably drive before taking a bus unless parking was an issue on the other end or really expensive.

Same here. Love trains, like planes, endure driving, hate buses. I'm getting bustituted for part of the route on my next LD train trip, and am none too happy about it.

 

[tricia]

Coming kind of late to this thread, I'd like to emphasize the departure times from Pittsburgh, for the one-and-only train each day going to these destinations:

to NYC: 7:20 AM

to Chicago: midnight

to DC: 4:50 AM

Now, Pittsburgh's downtown is nearly all business rather than residential. Most local folks who might take the train need to drive, or find someone to drive them, half an hour or more to get to the station, making these departure times even more daunting. (Don't know what the public-transport options are for getting to the station, but at those times I'd be surprised if there was much available. Heck, it's hard enough to get a cab at the Pittsburgh station when getting off the Capitol Ltd in the middle of the night...)

Pittsburgh is the largest intermediate market between Chicago and either NYC, Philadelphia, or DC. Ridership from/to Pittsburgh will remain below its potential unless/until trains offers better and/or more departure/arrival times.

 

[Anderson]

In general, any trip that would get serious bus consideration from me is more likely to be a driving trip. I'm disinclined to consider a bus for anything north of Fredericksburg (I-95 traffic) since if I'm driving, at least I can pull over and get a burger. 'course, if I'm on the train, I can also get lunch without stopping...

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I would probably drive before taking a bus unless parking was an issue on the other end or really expensive.

Same here. Love trains, like planes, endure driving, hate buses. I'm getting bustituted for part of the route on my next LD train trip, and am none too happy about it.

Nah, for me it's more like love trains, love buses, hate planes, hate cars.

 

[afigg]

Coming kind of late to this thread, I'd like to emphasize the departure times from Pittsburgh, for the one-and-only train each day going to these destinations:
to NYC: 7:20 AM

to Chicago: midnight

to DC: 4:50 AM

The departure time from Pittsburgh for #42 was shifted to 7:30 AM in the most recent timetable, which may help a bit in getting to the station. I don't think it has been given much notice here, but Amtrak did take 18 minutes off of the eastbound PGH to NYP trip time. Guess with the very good on-time performance of the train, that they decided they could take out some of the padding in the schedule. May get a small boost in ridership from the schedule change.

Old schedule for 42:

depart PGH 7:20 AM, arrive PHL 2:50 PM, arrive NYP 4:58 PM

New January 14, 2013 timetable

depart PGH 7:30 AM, arrive PHL 2:55 PM, arrive NYP 4:50 PM.

What presumably blocks a mid-morning departure from PGH, besides a even longer layover for connections from the CL is the arrival time at NYP. By getting to NYP before 5 PM, it allows for reasonable connections to trains to the northern end of the NEC to BOS, to Hartford and Springfield, and Empire service to Albany.

In the 2011 LSL performance improvement plan, the proposal was to move the eastbound LSL to an earlier departure from Chicago and flip the eastbound CL to a later 7:30ish PM departure. It was mentioned that one benefit would be a later arrival and departure time in PGH. Still early, but not the wee hours of the morning. No recent reports on whether the recommended eastbound LSL and CL schedule change has been dropped or put on hold until later.

 

[Anderson]

I would probably drive before taking a bus unless parking was an issue on the other end or really expensive.

Same here. Love trains, like planes, endure driving, hate buses. I'm getting bustituted for part of the route on my next LD train trip, and am none too happy about it.

Nah, for me it's more like love trains, love buses, hate planes, hate cars.

Here it's love trains, tolerate driving, hate flying, and have a low opinion of buses. There are a few cases where I'd opt for a frequent bus service over driving given the option, but I'm almost never anywhere that (A) frequent bus service exists that doesn't (B) have a more desirable rail option.

 

[JayPea]

As for me, I love trains, enjoy driving, don't mind flying, and avoid buses. I live in a sparsely populated area: my county is twice the size of Rhode Island and has a population of 40,000, of which 30,000 live in one city. So transit options for most folks here are few and far between. The nearest airport and Amtrak station both are about 60 miles away. The closest bus stop is right outside my front door. I still would much rather drive the 60 miles to the airport or Amtrak station, or drive myself, before I'd take a bus.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I would probably drive before taking a bus unless parking was an issue on the other end or really expensive.

Same here. Love trains, like planes, endure driving, hate buses. I'm getting bustituted for part of the route on my next LD train trip, and am none too happy about it.

Nah, for me it's more like love trains, love buses, hate planes, hate cars.

Here it's love trains, tolerate driving, hate flying, and have a low opinion of buses. There are a few cases where I'd opt for a frequent bus service over driving given the option, but I'm almost never anywhere that (A) frequent bus service exists that doesn't (B) have a more desirable rail option.

That kinda makes sense, but please note that note all buses are created equal. Many are extremly different from other models. I actualy don't like most "buses" but there's so much stuff that called a bus that it's really hard to explain.