Routes Amtrak shouldn't bring back?

[railiner]

What about the The Mountaineer which when from Norfolk to Chicago without going to Richmond or Indy it did join the James Whitcomb Riley which did serve Richmond.

Between powerful Senator Byrd, and Congressman Staggers, West Virginia did enjoy a lot from the 'pork barrel' when it came to Amtrak thru the years.

Remember "Harley's Comet" or whatever the wags called the TurboTrain to Parkersburg? Then there was the Shenandoah, the Mountaineer, the Hilltopper, etc.

Wasn't there this thing called "Tri-State Stationa t Cattletsburg KY" or some such in the middle of nowhere?

Indeed. Tht was where the Cardinal on the C&O rails combined with the Mountaineer on N&W rails. It was a convenient spot to combine the trains where the two lines had a junction.

 

[PaulM]

Any route west of Chicago. There are not enough people in that area (with the exception of California/Oregon/Washington maybe parts of Texas).

You're from Boston, right? When I lived there, people compared Boston to New York, and then pronounced themselves superior to the rest of the country. They were merely showing their provincialism because they had never been anywhere else?

 

[PaulM]

I thought there was an Autotrain that served Chicago and the mid-west, from 1974 to 1977? It was such a money looser, that it helped to drive the original Autotrain into bankruptcy. No?

Obviously, Amtrak shouldn't brink back such a proven money looser.

As much as I would like to see it, I'm not trying to sell a Midwest to Florida autotrain. But are you sure my "then is then and now is now" theory wouldn't apply?

 

[Eric S]

Any route west of Chicago. There are not enough people in that area (with the exception of California/Oregon/Washington maybe parts of Texas).

Care to elaborate? Is that a blanket prohibition on any new rail services in the states of AR, AZ, CO, ID, IA, KS, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NM, ND, OK, SD, UT, WI, WY, and most of TX?

 

[George Harris]

Whenever the subject of a new service comes up, naysayers will say that it failed back in .....; and it will fail again. I often think that maybe then is then and now is now. Case in point where I think demand is there: the Broadway Limited/Pennsylvanian/3 Rivers.

Yes, this should work. In the early Amtrak days the Broadway was a very large train. If it does come back, its schedule should be offset form the Lakeshore so that there are two services between NY and Chi at differing times.

Two that I would question are the Houston-Dallas section of the TE and the Gulf Breeze between Birmingham and Mobile, which also carried a through coach from the Crescent. I rode both back in 95, not long before their demise; and both were almost empty. So despite connecting the states' two (Texas) and three (Alabama) largest cities, they might not be worth bringing back.

Both these trains suffered from a case of the slows, and for the Texas train, at least, timekeeping problems. The Texas train took about 65 hours between point that could be driven in less than 4. The Mobile train, by running through Birmingham instead of directly between Atlanta and Montgomer, was much slower than the Atlanta to Montgomery and anywhere beyond driving time.