Pennsylvanian

[Ryan]

Personally, I think the CL should be using single level equipment with through cars to both New York and Florida.

Using what, single level equipment conjured up out of thin air?

Stick to solving our budget problems, Henry and leave the railroading to the professionals.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Rather than continue through cars between New Orleans and LAX they proposed to send any surplus equipment to the CL so it can sit in DC for 27 hours each and every day.

First, there are only 24 hours in a day. Second that downtime cannot be avoided as it can't be used North and there's no route South of WAS that could use it. Third, it doesn't just sit there, it does a run to CHI and back and then sits tight. Fourth, when the train set is put together in CHI, it is not uncommon for them to pull gear from the CZ as well as any other coaches that may be sitting around. They are usually good about changing the line numbers in WAS, but not so in CHI-- Finally SAS is a much more logical choice for through-cars than NOL unless you can shave 5 hours off the CONOs schedule AND screw with the SLs schedule until it fits.

 

[henryj]

Personally, I think the CL should be using single level equipment with through cars to both New York and Florida.

Using what, single level equipment conjured up out of thin air?

Stick to solving our budget problems, Henry and leave the railroading to the professionals.

Actually Ryan, as they state in the report, none of this proposal can come to pass until the 'new' equipment shows up two years or so down the road. So I presume that is the thin air that the equipment would come from. I assume you mean that you, Ryan, are the professional. If so then you know something about equipment utilization. The CL's superliner equipment arrives in DC at 1:10pm. It is not sent back to Chicago until the next day at 4:05pm, 27 hours later. If the train were using single level equipment the through cars could be on their way down to Florida rather than just sit there. Since there are no other superliner trains entering DC or any east coast city the equipment is just wasted sitting there isn't it. The CL ties up three sets of equipment when it should only use two. I am not a transportation professional but I can see a lot of waste in the current system's equipment utilization. No privately run company would just sit on millions of dollars worth of equipment like that(as in the airlines for instance). If this superliner equipment were freed up it could be used on the western trains much more efficiently. In fact it could be used to make the Sunset Limited daily from NOL to LAX. I tend to be biased to Texas since we have next to nothing here in the way of passenger trains. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Pastor Dave]

Just have to wonder aloud if Amtrak has ever give thought to "transitional" coaches that would allow single-level and Superliners to connect without passengers changing cars.

Dave, just to be clear here, Amtrak already has what's called the Trans/Dorm. It's a car that allows one to transistion between Superliners & single level cars.

This current plan for combining the "two" trains would allow for passengers from the Pennsy to reach the dining car and sightseer lounge on the Capitol via that Trans/Dorm. The one issue that I see is having coach passenger walking through the sleepers. That of course could be solved by putting the Capitol's sleepers on the rear of the train.

I'd always thought of the trans/dorm being the sleeper between other sleeper cars and the baggage car. Has Amtrak ever run mixed trains of single level and superliner equipment?

 

[jis]

Actually Ryan, as they state in the report, none of this proposal can come to pass until the 'new' equipment shows up two years or so down the road. So I presume that is the thin air that the equipment would come from.

I am not sure I want to wade into this, what appears to be a personal altercation. But leaving that aside, just purely from counting of things perspective, here goes..... and BTW, I couldhave missed the obvious, so please correct me if I am missing something.....

The equipment that will become available in two years will be additional Sleepers and Diners. There will be no additional Coaches available. Hypothetically, if say a couple of sleepers, couple of coaches and a lounge were to head south on the Star off of the single level Cap, and return on the Star to get transferred to the Cap back to Chicago. Now also assuming the Cap were retimed to use only two sets between CHI and WAS, and the WAS section were say two coaches, diner and a sleeper. An additional consideration if we do not want to reduce the effective capacity of the Cap would be the need for additional sleepers, but that possibly can be managed with the new sleepers.

So the WAS section would require 2 diners, 2 sleepers, 4 coaches, and 2 bag-dorms. The through section to Florida would require 5 sets, which works out to 10 coaches, 10 sleepers, 5 lounges. So in all we will have to find 14 single level LD coaches. I think the point is that even after the new sleepers and diners and bag-dorms and bags come in, it will be hard to find that many coaches. Again hypothetically, if the Card were converted to a Superliner train and its two consists released for use as Cap, you can mine at most 8, and more likely 6 coaches from that. So while I agree that given equipment availability it would increase equipment utilization considerably, at least I cannot see where the necessary equipment will come from. Also it will considerably increase schedule risk with a short connection between the Cap and the Star in WAS. So it may not be as simple as it might seem.

Having read some of these Amtrak PRII's before and found them full of misstatements and errors(don't they ever proof read these things) I don't believe any of it, particularly the bottom line numbers.

So as you might have guessed, after giving careful consideration to what Henry suggests, I am tending towards believing Amtrak's analysis more than Henry's. Unless some more details are given as to what is wrong with the bottom line numbers, I cannot see why they should not be believed. Yes I do have minor quibbles with a few things, but overall they are not way off base.

 

[Trogdor]

Actually Ryan, as they state in the report, none of this proposal can come to pass until the 'new' equipment shows up two years or so down the road.

Actually, henryj, the report says nothing of the sort.

The report says:

Until Amtrak receives the new equipment, Amtrak’s implementation plan will include an option for temporary reassignment of existing equipment as an interim measure.

The report actually says this in two different places. This plan requires three additional Viewliners, three additional coaches, and one extra cafe car. It's a heck of a lot easier to come up with the three Viewliners needed for this plan, than it would be to come up with the nine or so Viewliners, three single-level dining cars, three extra food-service cars, and 12-15 coaches that would be needed if the Capitol Limited were converted to single-level equipment.

When the new equipment shows up, then I'm sure some consideration will be given to converting the Capitol Limited to single-level. However, this plan does not require the new equipment to be in place for it to be implemented.

 

[eagle628]

Personally, I think the CL should be using single level equipment with through cars to both New York and Florida.

Using what, single level equipment conjured up out of thin air?

Stick to solving our budget problems, Henry and leave the railroading to the professionals.

Actually Ryan, as they state in the report, none of this proposal can come to pass until the 'new' equipment shows up two years or so down the road. So I presume that is the thin air that the equipment would come from. I assume you mean that you, Ryan, are the professional. If so then you know something about equipment utilization. The CL's superliner equipment arrives in DC at 1:10pm. It is not sent back to Chicago until the next day at 4:05pm, 27 hours later. If the train were using single level equipment the through cars could be on their way down to Florida rather than just sit there. Since there are no other superliner trains entering DC or any east coast city the equipment is just wasted sitting there isn't it. The CL ties up three sets of equipment when it should only use two. I am not a transportation professional but I can see a lot of waste in the current system's equipment utilization. No privately run company would just sit on millions of dollars worth of equipment like that(as in the airlines for instance). If this superliner equipment were freed up it could be used on the western trains much more efficiently. In fact it could be used to make the Sunset Limited daily from NOL to LAX. I tend to be biased to Texas since we have next to nothing here in the way of passenger trains. Just my 2 cents worth.

"If this superliner were freed up..."--yes, it would be good for Western trains, but it would completely screw over the eastern trains, since without that equipment there's no CL, unless you steal cars from other long-distance eastern trains, which is a Very Bad Idea, since they're operating close to capacity already. Amtrak's hands are pretty much tied here until they come up with more cars, both single-level and bi-level. Which comes back to the CL/Pennsylvanian plan--it's the best Amtrak can do with what they currently have, given their equipment restrictions, and it's not impossible, though it is rather unlikely, that they can scrounge up the nessecary equipment to implement that without waiting for the new Viewliner deliveries, and if they do have to, than this would use fewer Viewliners than converting the CL to single-level operation would. Either way, you come out ahead compared to the alternatives.

 

[Ryan]

In addition to the corrections listed above...

The CL ties up three sets of equipment when it should only use two.

False. If the schedules were adjusted some, it would be possible, but risky to run the Cap with 2 sets. If you were to do that and the EB train were delayed, the WB train wouldn't be able to leave until the train arrived and was turned (it's far less of a problem since there are other Superliner cars in Chicago. This could set off a chain reaction of delays that could take days to recover from. You can see this happening occasionally with the Auto Train that has 6 hours to turn the train. Trying to do it in 2 would be foolish.

If the train were using single level equipment the through cars could be on their way down to Florida rather than just sit there.

Exactly - they could be on their way to Florida and that's it. No time to run down there and back, so you're looking at adding even more (currently non-existant) equipment to the mix.

I tend to be biased to Texas since we have next to nothing here in the way of passenger trains.

You're letting your bias get in the way of reason.
While you're proposing non-feasable solutions, are you ever going to get around to answering my questions about the debt, or are you just hoping that'll fall by the wayside? I ask for a reason other than just poking at you - your posts here are a litany of broad complaints about how mismanaged things are, how Amtrak is wasteful and inefficient and how private industry can do things so much better. Yet, when presented with actual facts of life and hard numbers, you're short on solutions that will actually work. I ask in hopes that you'll be able to provide a workable solution to anything, rather than just point out the problems ad nauseum.

 

[Ryan]

Just have to wonder aloud if Amtrak has ever give thought to "transitional" coaches that would allow single-level and Superliners to connect without passengers changing cars.

Dave, just to be clear here, Amtrak already has what's called the Trans/Dorm. It's a car that allows one to transistion between Superliners & single level cars.

This current plan for combining the "two" trains would allow for passengers from the Pennsy to reach the dining car and sightseer lounge on the Capitol via that Trans/Dorm. The one issue that I see is having coach passenger walking through the sleepers. That of course could be solved by putting the Capitol's sleepers on the rear of the train.

I'd always thought of the trans/dorm being the sleeper between other sleeper cars and the baggage car. Has Amtrak ever run mixed trains of single level and superliner equipment?

Not usually. Sometimes when Mr. Boardman is out and about in Beech Grove (Amtrak's single level business car) they'll hook that up to the trans dorm so that the rest of the train can be accessed.

 

[BuzzKillington]

Would they really try to replicate the Pennsylvanian's current schedule? This means they would sit in Pittsburgh for 2 hours eastbound and 4 hours westbound? That seems like a huge waste of time and makes the route time much worse than the LSL for New York passengers... 40 minutes should be plenty of time for the switching in Pittsburgh.

 

[Ryan]

Unfortunately, yes - they don't want to mess with the timing of the Pennsy at other stops:

Although maintaining the current Pennsylvanian schedule results in longer dwell times at Pittsburgh for the through New York-Chicago cars, preserving the current schedule times between Pittsburgh and New York is important because the Pennsylvanian is a corridor service that serves local markets between these points.

They don't say it, but I think that they're also not wanting to get into a situation where the Cap has to sit around and wait on the Pennsy to show up if it's running late.

 

[eagle628]

Would they really try to replicate the Pennsylvanian's current schedule? This means they would sit in Pittsburgh for 2 hours eastbound and 4 hours westbound? That seems like a huge waste of time and makes the route time much worse than the LSL for New York passengers... 40 minutes should be plenty of time for the switching in Pittsburgh.

Four hours is nothing compared to what people going east on Sunday, when the Pennsylvanian leaves Pittsburgh at 1:20 in the afternoon, would face...in any case, the westbound time, at least, depends on when the CL leaves, so you'd have to adjust its schedule to deal with that.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

It may be possible to run Superliner equipment from PHL through to CHI but obviously not to NYC. As far as I am aware the PHL to PGH route has no low clearance tunnels. As for combining the NYC-PGH train to the CL, that would mean that Sleeper passengers would need to detrain from coach and board a Superliner sleeper. It could be done but this would make for an extended stop at Pittsburgh.

Why wouldn't you read the report first before going on and on about things that are not proposed in the report.

Is it possible he is related to a guy whose name rhymes with Cal Capp?

Because he, recently honored by an unnamed rail advocacy group in a certain mid-atlantic state, does things like that all the time. To my amusement.

Also, I have heard several places (including here, actually) that the idea is to take the third sleeper off the Silver Meteor, providing 4 sleepers, one for a daily Cardinal, and three for this proposal.

 

[Anderson]

In keeping with the above: A lot of Amtrak's issues with long-distance services seem to be related to equipment shortages. Now, I understand that they can't keep running cars forever, but if this is the case then why are they cycling out Amfleet I? The Heritage fleet, I understand (though I would like to ride on a car built before my parents were born once or twice before they're gone), given that some of those cars are getting to around 60 years old, but given the capacity crunches, cycling Amfleet I out seems slightly premature. And yes, I do say this knowing that those cars are pushing 40 years old.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

They aren't cycling out the Amfleets, aside from inspections and damaged cars no Amfleets are out of service.

Now the 2-1 Amfleet car is a rather rare breed of Amfleet and there aren't many of those around. Still they had enough to cycle those through the Vermonter, Maple Leaf, Penny, Pennsylvanian, ect. ect. The switch seems to be geared towards bringing in more revenue by selling more BC tickets. The issue is it is a downgrade of service, and to some extent the seats aren't as nice as the AFII coaches-- but if people keep buying the seats they probably won't be changing them back anytime soon.

Personally I wouldn't mind the idea of a return of a three-class system. A consist of the Penny in this configuration would be:

Power

AFI coach

AFII coach

AFII coach

AFII coach

AFI BC

AFI 'First Class'/ lounge

I wonder if that idea would fly. Amtrak is gambling the increase in BC sales will more than pay for haulage of the extra car. Now there is a full AF lounge that isn't selling revenue space. Maybe using the clubs as 'First Class' cars you could have the lounge pay for part of itself without increasing the cost of hauling the train.

 

[jis]

it's the best Amtrak can do with what they currently have, given their equipment restrictions, and it's not impossible, though it is rather unlikely, that they can scrounge up the nessecary equipment to implement that without waiting for the new Viewliner deliveries, and if they do have to, than this would use fewer Viewliners than converting the CL to single-level operation would. Either way, you come out ahead compared to the alternatives.

As GML has mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it is possible to reduce the number of Viewliners on the Meteor from 3 to 2, thus releasing 4 Viewliners, 3 of which would be needed to make this proposal work, and the remaining one could be used to make the Cardinal daily, provided the additional Amfleet II cars (3 or 4), a Amfleet food service car, and a baggage car can be found. Also, it would sure be nice to find a baggage car for the Pennsylvanian (need 2). That combination is within the realm of distinct possibility, even before the new Viewliners arrive.

It is not clear, as I have mentioned earlier in this thread, that even after the Viewliner order arrives, there will be enough equipment to make the Cap single level with through service to Florida as proposed by Henry. Even making it a single level CHI -WAS service will be dicey at best, the problem being availability of Amfleet II Coaches. I suppose if all Amfleet II coaches were pulled back from all medium distance trains, a bad move in and of itself, then maybe. Haven't done the full analysis, so don't know for sure.

In addition to the corrections listed above...

The CL ties up three sets of equipment when it should only use two.

False. If the schedules were adjusted some, it would be possible, but risky to run the Cap with 2 sets. If you were to do that and the EB train were delayed, the WB train wouldn't be able to leave until the train arrived and was turned (it's far less of a problem since there are other Superliner cars in Chicago. This could set off a chain reaction of delays that could take days to recover from. You can see this happening occasionally with the Auto Train that has 6 hours to turn the train. Trying to do it in 2 would be foolish.

Moreover this is exactly a scenario that Amtrak considered to release the equipment from one of the Cap consists to have enough equipment to make the Cardinal a daily Superliner train. They backed off from that idea mostly due to the schedule risk issue, and the fact that it was very likely to affect the Cap's financial performance adversely. So it seems to me like an activity of beating a dead horse some more to propose this over and over Also another implication is that to make the Cap a single level train that would require even more Coaches, wince the computation I did was assuming 2 consists and not 3.

 

[BuzzKillington]

When the new Viewliners arrive, they should make this into a separate train altogether. Actually, if they have enough cars, they should do this now. Sitting 2-4 hours in Pittsburgh is ridiculous and will drive New Yorkers back to the late leaving LSL. I'd welcome an earlier leaving NY bound train from Chicago but if it doesn't get me back any earlier...forget it.

 

[jis]

When the new Viewliners arrive, they should make this into a separate train altogether. Actually, if they have enough cars, they should do this now. Sitting 2-4 hours in Pittsburgh is ridiculous and will drive New Yorkers back to the late leaving LSL. I'd welcome an earlier leaving NY bound train from Chicago but if it doesn't get me back any earlier...forget it.

Conceivably they could find enough cars to do that if they flip the schedule of one of the Florida trains enabling it to do a same day turn in Sunnyside. But that would require someone getting control over the miserable performance of Sunnyside. The second issue will be routing of this train. If it is merely going to chase the marker of the Cap, it might as well run joined with the Cap to reduce the fees paid to the host railroads, and eat up one less expensive passenger train slot on the route. OTOH, if some novel new routing like say on the Fort Wayne line became possible, that would be something else.

 

[Ryan]

As GML has mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it is possible to reduce the number of Viewliners on the Meteor from 3 to 2

Is that a realistic scenario, though? Looking at the monthly ridership numbers, the Meteor has consistently carried many more sleeper passengers than the Star has, suggesting that the 3rd sleeper is being heavily utilized. While it's certainly possible to "rob Peter to pay Paul" so to speak, that may not be the best plan of action.

When the new Viewliners arrive, they should make this into a separate train altogether. Actually, if they have enough cars, they should do this now. Sitting 2-4 hours in Pittsburgh is ridiculous and will drive New Yorkers back to the late leaving LSL. I'd welcome an earlier leaving NY bound train from Chicago but if it doesn't get me back any earlier...forget it.

Conceivably they could find enough cars to do that if they flip the schedule of one of the Florida trains enabling it to do a same day turn in Sunnyside. But that would require someone getting control over the miserable performance of Sunnyside. The second issue will be routing of this train. If it is merely going to chase the marker of the Cap, it might as well run joined with the Cap to reduce the fees paid to the host railroads, and eat up one less expensive passenger train slot on the route. OTOH, if some novel new routing like say on the Fort Wayne line became possible, that would be something else.

What about just making it a separate train from the Pennsy and still have it join with the Cap? Is there sufficient demand to support increased service from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg to have the Pennsy and what would effectively be a New York section of the Capitol Limited run just a few hours apart?

 

[jis]

As GML has mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it is possible to reduce the number of Viewliners on the Meteor from 3 to 2

Is that a realistic scenario, though? Looking at the monthly ridership numbers, the Meteor has consistently carried many more sleeper passengers than the Star has, suggesting that the 3rd sleeper is being heavily utilized. While it's certainly possible to "rob Peter to pay Paul" so to speak, that may not be the best plan of action.

I hear ya Ryan. I just said it is possible, and not that it is an overall best thing to do from the perspective of increasing revenues across the board. I don't know the answer, nor do I have the information handy to arrived at an informed conclusion.

When the new Viewliners arrive, they should make this into a separate train altogether. Actually, if they have enough cars, they should do this now. Sitting 2-4 hours in Pittsburgh is ridiculous and will drive New Yorkers back to the late leaving LSL. I'd welcome an earlier leaving NY bound train from Chicago but if it doesn't get me back any earlier...forget it.

Conceivably they could find enough cars to do that if they flip the schedule of one of the Florida trains enabling it to do a same day turn in Sunnyside. But that would require someone getting control over the miserable performance of Sunnyside. The second issue will be routing of this train. If it is merely going to chase the marker of the Cap, it might as well run joined with the Cap to reduce the fees paid to the host railroads, and eat up one less expensive passenger train slot on the route. OTOH, if some novel new routing like say on the Fort Wayne line became possible, that would be something else.

What about just making it a separate train from the Pennsy and still have it join with the Cap? Is there sufficient demand to support increased service from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg to have the Pennsy and what would effectively be a New York section of the Capitol Limited run just a few hours apart?

That would be more feasible I suppose since the 4 or 5 car train would just require an additional P42 x 2 to operate as a separate train to PGH, and one would need to find a bunch of Amfleet Is to make up for the lost cars on the regular Pennsy. But I suppose that will require some amount of contribution from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to support at least one of those two trains and eventually both unless the NYP - PGH - CHI train is absorbed into the national system.

 

[abcnews]

It seems to me that the Capital Limited really should remain Superliner. Otherwise, there is no premiere "East-West train to the midwest/west coast from the East Coast. Either that, or at least make the Cardinal a Superliner daily train from Washington.

The Superliner look is the new look of Amtrak - there should be at least one SL train running from DC to Chicago. Also - remember the old saying... "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Not sure that they should mess with the success of the Capital Limited. It seems to have big ridership numbers as it is.

*However, I would think Amtrak should start encouraging passengers to use a connection from the East Bound Cap Limited to the Southbound Silver Star- both on their website, and with their phone agents. Even if they were to miss the connection in DC - due to the Cap Limited running late, the transferring passengers can be rerouted on the Meteor. But with a two hour pad, how often would the two not connect? In that case - I don't think a thru Roomette is that important, if you only have to transfer over to the Star - and you also have access to the Acela lounge at Union Station. No different than changing in Chicago.

 

[Trogdor]

They aren't cycling out the Amfleets, aside from inspections and damaged cars no Amfleets are out of service.

That's not exactly true. A number of Amfleet Is were taken out of service a few years ago because Amtrak didn't have the money to do heavy overhauls and inspections on them. Those cars are being returned to service with stimulus money (some of them are even cafe cars being converted to full coaches, which are being renumbered into the 829xx series). After this program is finished, I'm not sure how many serviceable Amfleets will still be in storage, but I'd guess not many. Perhaps none.

 

[jis]

They aren't cycling out the Amfleets, aside from inspections and damaged cars no Amfleets are out of service.

That's not exactly true. A number of Amfleet Is were taken out of service a few years ago because Amtrak didn't have the money to do heavy overhauls and inspections on them. Those cars are being returned to service with stimulus money (some of them are even cafe cars being converted to full coaches, which are being renumbered into the 829xx series). After this program is finished, I'm not sure how many serviceable Amfleets will still be in storage, but I'd guess not many. Perhaps none.

All I can see is that there are almost no Amfleet Is in storage any more at Wilmington. Of course it is not easy to find out what is or is not still stored in bear or elsewhere.

 

[abcnews]

BTW - I also feel Amtrak should consider letting Sleeping Car passengers transfer from the East Bound Cap Limited to the North Bound Silver Star - for points along the corridor that are south of NYC, such as Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia and NJ. Again, a perfect connection window (about two hours). But only for Sleeping Car Pax, since there are many other Northeast Direct options in coach. Then a thru roomette to Philadelphia is somewhat offered, simply by changing trains in DC (and use of the Acela lounge). So not a major inconvenience, and no additional costs or equipment is needed.

 

[henryj]

In addition to the corrections listed above...

If the train were using single level equipment the through cars could be on their way down to Florida rather than just sit there.

Exactly - they could be on their way to Florida and that's it. No time to run down there and back, so you're looking at adding even more (currently non-existant) equipment to the mix.

I tend to be biased to Texas since we have next to nothing here in the way of passenger trains.

You're letting your bias get in the way of reason.
While you're proposing non-feasable solutions, are you ever going to get around to answering my questions about the debt, or are you just hoping that'll fall by the wayside? I ask for a reason other than just poking at you - your posts here are a litany of broad complaints about how mismanaged things are, how Amtrak is wasteful and inefficient and how private industry can do things so much better. Yet, when presented with actual facts of life and hard numbers, you're short on solutions that will actually work. I ask in hopes that you'll be able to provide a workable solution to anything, rather than just point out the problems ad nauseum.

I enjoy reading all the different ideas proposed on here and I am an avid supporter of Amtrak and passenger rail in the US. What I don't understand is why on here my ideas bring this constant stinging rebuke from this guy Ryan. Whatever Amtrak's current restrictions due to equipment shortages or whatever, this doesn not belittle any of the ideas discussed here. Everyone has a right to their opinion and many of these ideas have merit. Mr Ryan is not the sole perveyor of ideas on here nor the reigning 'expert' on everything Amtrak although he may think he is.

I believe any discussion concerning 'debt' has indeed fallen by the wayside as it has no bearing on this or any other discussion on here. If Mr. Ryan wants to have a reasonable discussion concerning politics or the national budget that can be done on some other venue. I have no interest in discussing anything with someone that punctuates the discussion with personal attacks.