Then you probably shouldn't have brought it up. In fact, if you're not willing to have your ideas critiqued, you should keep them to yourself.
I'm not sure how the Superliner got to be the "new look of Amtrak", after all the Viewliner cars are much newer.
I think the LSL is probably the most capacity constrained train among the LDs. If a few more sleepers and coaches could be added to the LSL, it would probably perform even better, but then unfortunately there is not the equipment needed available, so here we are where we are.
Part of that is the LSL serves NYP and BOS directly, while the CL serves WAS directly and NYP indirectly.
Actually the 5 bottommost performers were evaluated in the first year under PRIIA and that included the Cap. Next year is the turn for the next 5 and that includes all the single level LD trains, including LSL, AFAIR. One of the dubious distinctions that LSL has is the lowest customer satisfaction index. But still hoardes of people ride that train.
The revenue numbers for FY10 don't show that the LSL brings in far more revenue than the CL for sleepers. The LSL makes more total revenue, but it hits more cities during reasonable hours and probably has a sizable number of riders taking it between Buffalo - Albany stops to NYC and to Springfield, Worcester & Boston. The PRIIA report on the Capitol Limited notes that it has a very high percentage of overall endpoint ridership with 39% going CHI-WAS, and 14% CHI-PIT. If the CL could run between Cleveland, Pittsburgh and DC at hours that don't include 1:45 AM, 2:50 AM, 5:05 AM, it might attract more ridership in coach between those cities.
See that wouldn't make sense for pax between PGH and HAR, it would divide the pax load. They can take the Penny to PHL and board to Meteor, or board the Penny to PGH to get the Capitol-Star.
Sounds almost like an eastern "City of Everywhere"!
*blinks*
You'd loose the Capitol Limited in that mess. And that will never happen.
I assume that you're talking about this paragraph?
I couldn't find anything in the document that said that they would look into this option again when the cars become available. I'm pretty sure that they're going to come to the same conclusion next year that they did this year, that this is a bad move.
Dream on. And to repeat there is not going to be a single new Coach becoming available when the new cars start to arrive. But the more significant reason it won't happen unless it is an additional train beyond the Star and the Meteor is that no one is willing to give upthe lucrative revenue source that O/D from NY City and the NEC provided on the current Florida trains.
Dudes, I am not 'talking' about anything here, Amtrak is. It's discussed under the Executive Summary on page 5. I agree with you as I always thought that the New York to Florida market was one of Amtrak best and busiest. I don't see anything wrong with the Capitol carrying through cars for Florida as far as DC and hooking them to one of the Florida trains.
Well according to the report they may reconsider this option next year. The quote "(In FY 2011, Amtrak may reconsider this option further since all Florida/Carolinas long distance services will be due for review under PRIIA Section 210)". That doesn't sound like they have discarded it. I have no idea what ALC is talking about.
Yes, they will reconsider it and reject it again.
For a complete analysis they do have to reconsider it in the context of the Atlantic Coast Service. At present it has only been considered in the context of the Cap. But it stands a snowball's chance in hell to be actually accepted as a reasonable thing to do. That is all that some of us are trying to say.
Correct! And even if it did it wouldn't come to a different conclusion because even with all the new cars delivered there won't be enough of the right type of cars to make the Cap a single level daily train without significant loss of capacity. And trust me, they are *not* going to reduce the capacity of the Cap.
