Oh, and my proverbial two cents on train names.
If I were the timetable king of Amtrak, I'd give the Sunset name to the daily Chicago-LA train, and name the stub train The Argonaut ... which was the name of the secondary train on the Sunset Route back in Southern Pacific days. It's a cool name, I think, and it would fit for the stub train.
Overall, I really like the legacy of the classic train names ... and the names Amtrak has constructed over the years just don't compare. In particular, I never liked the "hybrid" names, where Amtrak constructed its own names using phrases from the great historic names. They just seem awkward and forced to me: San Francisco Zephyr, North Coast Hiawatha ... Texas Eagle.
And though I can't find it now, I know I read it somewhere: I'm pretty sure that back in the 1890s (before the Golden State Route was completed) the Sunset LImited actually had a section that ran to Chicago!
The Sunset Limited was the poster child, and is the poster child, for how much money Amtrak can lose. Marketing to passengers isn't important. Its telling congress that they are discontinuing a money losing joke, and reconfiguring the whole set up so that it serves the same riders more frequently at lower cost. Amtrak has two customers- the public and congress. This is a marketing plan aimed at congress.
What Alan is saying is inaccurate. The convenience of no transfer made the Cardinal a more attractive option then it was relative to the Lake Shore Limited. If there were two trains serving NOL-LAX, one running through and one requiring a transfer, Alan would have a point and I'd concede it. But there isn't. There is but one train, and you can't get NOL-LAX with a one seat ride except by airplane. Greyhound does not offer a one seat ride, so there is no competition. Except the airlines. And if people were looking for fast, simple, service the airlines would have their business whether the train is one seat or two seats.
Lastly, I have it from very solid sources that there are currently five trains involved in this equation- Sunset East, Sunset West, the Texas Eagle, and the City of New Orleans. At the end of the day, you will have three trains involved in the equation. The tentative names I have heard are
Golden State Limited (CHI-SAS-LAX),
Texas Sunrise (NOL-SAS) and
City of Miami (CHI-NOL-MIA). All will run daily, and can be run tightly with no additional equipment whatsoever. Plans call for an additional trainset to make the run more comfortable and allow for better scheduling when the whole thing comes online.
Also keep in mind the accounting differences here. You are creating three separate entities long the route. The City is already a decently performing train, and internal thoughts within Amtrak are that its performance will be hurt a little- but not much- by the extension. The Texas Eagle is one of the better performing trains in the system, thanks in no small part to TEMPO. The section of the Sunset's run from SAS to LAX has always been the best performing segment of the route, so the change is supposed to actually improve the performance of the CHI-SAS-LAX train.
The Texas Sunrise is expected to be a money pit. But its a short, 573 mile money pit requiring only 2 conductors, 2 coach attendants, a chef, and an LSA, with coaches, money adding business class, and a cross country cafe. So even though it will have a bad fare box recovery, its cost per passenger should be much much smaller then the Sunsets, perhaps even under $150 a passenger.
Yes, the same money is going to likely be spent. Yes, the financial performance is not going to be hugely better- although there are some that disagree. But the fact is, the Sunsets $600+ a passenger loss will be a thing of the past. Because that loss will be spread over the three trains, two of them good performers, the losses will not be attributable to one single train. Word is there is pressure to simply discontinue the train altogether.
I also have it on the same solid sources that this is not a done deal. The source indicated the chances are about 50% that this will come to pass within the next 2-3 years. The Sunset dying is very important to Amtrak for the reasons I stated.
Granted it is part of it, but do you think that someone who is going to pay up to $1200ish for a bedroom on the CZ does so because the train name is nice? Or someone who is 14 hours late on the CZ at the moment is really pleased that even though he has missed the appointment/wedding/funeral he was going to, at least he is 14 hours late on the Zephyr, not just boring old train number 5? I suspect it is only foamers that get really worked up over train names, the other passengers just don't care much.
Do you remember when Jaguar was at its absolute worst, under British Leyland ownership, when the Jaguar plant in Coventry was referred to as "Large Car Plant 2"? (Rover being LCP1) The workers turned out crap, and why shouldn't they? They had no pride in working for a great car company producing stunning automobiles- they were working for a large, mostly government owned conglomerate with no sense of identity.
Naming the trains gives them an identity. Perhaps not as much for the riders as the workers that serve them. It gives the company a sense of pride, the workers a sense of pride. It gives the trains an identity. I think if you took away the names, slowly service standards would decline and ridership would go with it.
Assuming the name created, though, is nice sounding it shouldn't have much effect beyond that.
