Seaboard92
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I've lost a train Silver Palm to Miami Tampa area. But I still have the palmetto but it's useless to go south on for me
Sunset Limited reopened again?
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jis
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They will be used for capacity expansion and restoring Sleeper service to one train that lost it due to equipment shortage. At least in the short term they will not result in any new trains. If we are lucky they might help in making one tri-weekly train daily, but I am not holding my breath for that. When we see Amtrak actually requesting and paying for restoring the crossover at PGH station we'll know that there is a possibility of the through cars from Pennsy to the Cap materializing. Until then, it is just Crickets.
west point
Engineer
Would like very much to see CHI - ATL - Florida service. But it is not going to happen. Both NS & CSX + some other lines have too many slow areas, short sidings, abandoned higher speed routes, too many trains to establish any schedule close to pre Amtrak.
IMHO the CNO either connecting at NOL or a thru train is a much better alternative. Only new is the mileage NOL - JAX. What is a very unknown is how many passengers would be thru Midwest - Florida ? Even though the pre Amtrak services were well patronized who knows ? These new passenger could overwhelm the route ? Could see the train having to go to single level to accommodate all the sleeper passengers( new V-2 sleepers ) and good use of displaced Horizon cars. Can you imagine a 20 car CNO ?
IMHO the CNO either connecting at NOL or a thru train is a much better alternative. Only new is the mileage NOL - JAX. What is a very unknown is how many passengers would be thru Midwest - Florida ? Even though the pre Amtrak services were well patronized who knows ? These new passenger could overwhelm the route ? Could see the train having to go to single level to accommodate all the sleeper passengers( new V-2 sleepers ) and good use of displaced Horizon cars. Can you imagine a 20 car CNO ?
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WoodyinNYC
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In the recent study, Amtrak had estimates of total ridership for the CONO extension, 138,000. Of course, to help estimate the Gulf Coast portion, they have ridership figures from before Katrina. We can figure they were adjusted upward because that old Sunset East was part of the worst train in the system, often horribly -- like 24 hours -- late. Adjusted upward for population growth. Added something for the thriving casinos at Gulfport and Biloxi and for larger student populations at Florida State and the Univ of Florida.
But I didn't see any mention of how many passengers might be new riders Chicago-Florida. For most LD trains, the end-to-end ridership is usually about 10 or 15% of the total; but might be higher if you count the entire state of Florida as one end. You're right to call this "a very unknown."
Anyway, Amtrak plans to start small. Only one P-42 locomotive, one sleeper, one coach, one coach-baggage, and one Cross-Country Cafe car (all Superliners) will leave the CONO in New Orleans to head east. If unexpected demand materializes, more cars can be added.
I get the impression that there will be a need to do some switching at New Orleans. I say this because only "a portion of the CONO" will go east from New Orleans, according to the report. Or at the very least, there will be a drop of a sleeper and a coach at New Orleans, those being on the rear of the train [since New Orleans is a stub end station, IIRC.]
Philly Amtrak Fan
Engineer
Sad because they very well could be the biggest new market between NOL and JAX. Several college towns do very well with Amtrak. Look at my alma mater Champaign, IL. Or Charlottesville, VA. Guess what city in Michigan has the highest ridership. It's not Detroit, it's Ann Arbor (with twice as much ridership as Detroit). You don't think Florida State students wouldn't use this train?
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/MICHIGAN15.pdf
jis
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Lot of the usability of passenger rail in northern Florida except for local travel does not quite work out until the AAF service to Jacksonville happens.
Any journey from north Florida to Palm Beach County and south is simply not time competitive with travel by road by a long margin at present. AAF will hopefully remedy that situation at least from Jacksonville some day. But NW Florida to Palm Beach and south will probably never be time competitive. So at least if it is comfortable quality service many might partake. Otherwise that service will be mostly for local use within its route, and to connect to Amtrak LD system.
Any journey from north Florida to Palm Beach County and south is simply not time competitive with travel by road by a long margin at present. AAF will hopefully remedy that situation at least from Jacksonville some day. But NW Florida to Palm Beach and south will probably never be time competitive. So at least if it is comfortable quality service many might partake. Otherwise that service will be mostly for local use within its route, and to connect to Amtrak LD system.
Devil's Advocate
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Has either Amtrak or AAF given any indication that they plan to work together on scheduling, ticketing, or marketing? If they don't make it simple, easy, and obvious to transfer then they're likely to lose a lot of potential business from low effort travelers.
jis
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No. And it is safe to assume that at least initially, in the context of the Orlando service they won't. The future Miami - JAX service may be a different matter since it does not travel on trackage that AAF claimed non-interest of STB about based on it being an isolated operation not connected with any interstate service. OTOH they might claim the same about the JAX service to avoid dealing with STB 180 day notification of cancellation rules etc. It will be interesting to see if and how they eventually evolve (or not) to get an integrated AAF service on multiple routes that can work together involving Amtrak as one of the interoperation partners. Apparently interworking with Tri-Rail and SunRail is OK since they are not interstate.
WoodyinNYC
Conductor
The route has very good student populations.
Tulane and other colleges in New Orleans have 30,000 students or more. U of South Alabama and others in Mobile 14,000. U of West Florida in Pensacola 13,000. Florida State 32,000 and historically black Florida A&M 10,000 in Tallahassee. U of North Florida in Jacksonville 16,000. Those figures from the report. Not included in it is U of Florida, 50,000, which used to appear on the Sunset Ltd. schedules as Lake City (Gainesville); the campus is roughly 50 miles from the Lake City station.
The route is also heavy on military bases, so the train would serve another favorable demographic.
The largest metro areas of Orlando, 2.2 million, Jacksonville 1.4 million, New Orleans 1.2 million, Daytona Beach 600,000, Pensacola 460,000, Mobile 415,000, Gulfport-Biloxi 390,000, Tallahassee 370,000, total 7,350,000. All based on 2013 Census estimates, so adjust upwards for continuing population growth.
This ignores Baton Rouge/LSU, Panama City, Fort Walton Beach, Dothan AL, Valdosta GA among other places not so near the tracks, but where the train could often compete vs puddle-jumping change-planes airlines.
And then some number of retirees who have no appetite to drive long distances.
neroden
Engineer
OK, then we need a champion for a daily Cardinal.
It would actually be *profitable* for Amtrak at this point (relative to the current situation). Perhaps the demonstration that Amtrak can do something which improves their bottom line will get people inside this scared, tired organization to be a little more proactive about such things.
Maybe talk to mayors and city councils in Cincinatti OH, Charlottesville VA, and Charleston WV? Or Congresspersons from those areas?
Likewise, we need a champion for the Pennsy-CL through cars, which should be a profitable move for Amtrak as well. Not sure who to look for for that.
And bluntly, it may be worthwhile and possible to get some of the typically anti-Amtrak Congresspeople working on this. The line "Amtrak won't do something which would improve service *and save money for the government*" would be red meat for them and might embarrass Amtrak management into actually doing it. That's if any of them are bright enough to understand why daily service makes more money than tri-weekly service.
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jis
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I would look at the Pennsylvania delegation since Philly stands to gain the most from it. It would also help if NARP would take up the cause like it did for the Gulf Coast service.
andersone
Conductor
Unfortunately my Congressman thinks a daily cardinal is a bird sighting,,,,,
WoodyinNYC
Conductor
The daily Cardinal has a champion: the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Virginia has been paying for upgrades on the Buckingham Branch short line that carries the Cardinal from Orange, where it leaves the NS line some miles north of Charlottesville, thru that city and up the mountains to Staunton and Clifton Forge. There the Cardinal joins the CSX line heading west. Until recently that was a busy line carrying empty coal cars uphill, while CSX used another line to carry full cars down to the ports. Doubt if the Buckingham Branch is quite so busy nowadays, but it may not be quite ready to handle the Cardinal seven days a week. That's OK, because Amtrak won't have enuff equipment for a third consist to run daily service until the CAF Viewliner order and the freed-up Horizons are in the LD fleet, about two years from now.
Meanwhile, back in 2010, the PRIIA study, p 20, said that 7-days-a-week service would cost, net, about $2.1 million a year more than the current 3-days-a-week schedule. Population growth and Amtrak's overall ridership increases since then, as well as the improvement to the NEC-DC-Charlottesville corridor from adding the Lynchburger, suggest that any increase in the loss would be less than that figure. You say a daily Cardinal would show positive results or at least break even.
If Amtrak announced a plan to add service on the route 4 more days a week, the haters could start to clamor against this modest expansion of the money-losing Amtrak system, and point to that projected $2.1 million loss in the PRIIA study.
Virginia could offer to cover any added loss from a daily Cardinal. If your calculations are correct, the results could be like its offer to subsidize the Lynchburger, and cost nothing at all.
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WoodyinNYC
Conductor
The study expects that the [CONO] extension would generate about 138,000 new passengers a year. . . [A daily] Cardinal [would add 135,000 or more] and a daily Sunset/Eagle would gain over 100,000 additional riders, Amtrak would be looking at nearly 400,000 in ridership gained. Such growth would strongly rebut the haters' claim that "nobody rides Amtrak."
[This growth could come shortly after] Amtrak's passenger totals will benefit by perhaps 500,000 a year or more . . .when added frequencies begin on Washington-Oregon's Cascades, NC's Piedmonts, the STL-CHI Lincoln service, and [faster trains and more capacity comes to the Wolverine corridor CHI-DET].
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Excuse me for quoting myself. I want to re-emphasize the good near-term prospects for Amtrak.
The Stimulus-paid upgrades for the state-supported corridors are baked in for FY 2018. Then adding the three LD service upgrades at once -- the CONO extension along the Gulf Coast, the daily Cardinal, and daily Texas Eagle CHI-San Antonio-L.A. -- would be a second big step toward a much more robust system.
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WoodyinNYC
Conductor
The thru cars could be an idea whose time has passed. (Maybe that's why no money has yet been spent on needed changes at the PGH station?)
Better to go for a third NEC-CHI train like the fabled Broadway Ltd. restoration. The little Stimulus-funded projects in the Indiana Gateway east of CHI, and now the drop-off in oil-car traffic, could open up a slot for the third train.
Then who would pay for that? The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania could do it, since their riders would most benefit by good connections to the west. OF COURSE the third train should be paid for by Congress. Or if not, OF COURSE other states should pick up their fair share. But OF COURSE life isn't fair. Already the Pennsylvanian has a very good farebox recovery. Not many more millions would underwrite a full NYC-PHI-PGH-CLE-TOL-CHI train -- if Amtrak can scrape together the needed equipment.
Yeah, it would be another bad precedent. But at this point we can't afford to stand on precedent. We need to get the job done. Down the way, we hope to see a stronger more successful Amtrak, and a less crazy political situation. Come that diddy-wah-diddy day we can get Congress to lift the unfair burden from states and towns supporting the Hoosier State, the Southwest Chief, the CONO extension, the Pennsylvanian/Broadway Ltd., and any others. Meanwhile, swallow our pride and get these trains running sooner than later.
neroden
Engineer
It would be worth it for Amtrak to spend a few days of staff time updating that study. I'm quite sure it would be net-profitable now but Amtrak should update the study to prove it.
There is a spanner in the works, of course. There are rumors that CSX may seek to downgrade the line from Cincy to West Virginia due to the decline of coal traffic. It may become necessary to start campaigning for someone else (Kentucky would be obvious, but...) to purchase and maintain it. Of course this does open up the opportunity for faster service especially if *all* the coal traffic goes away.
Devil's Advocate
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It's a suspended route. What sort of go-ahead was required to resume operation? So far as I am aware loss of this section was strictly an Amtrak decision and their unilateral stipulation was that any return to service required more funding. Which is fine by me, but it also makes it sound like Amtrak is giving itself approval to ask for more funding. Does changing the name/number/schedule/frequency mean that everything has to be renegotiated from the ground up again? If so that sounds like a mighty expensive and time consuming endeavor.
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Philly Amtrak Fan
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I couldn't find that announcement on the NARP website, could anyone else?
In my inbox this AM was an email from NARP stating the FAST Act was approved by Congress, the restoration of the New Orleans to Florida service was part of/included in the provisions of the FAST Act and NARP is asking members to write their respective Congress Members to FUND the FAST Act
From what I read, the restoration of Amtrak service from New Orleans to Florida was a given, it just needs funding. This was clearly stated in the NARP email I received.
Sorry, I'm not too "computer savvy" or I'd be able to copy/past the email I received to this post.
Surely, there are other AU members here who are also members of NARP??? ... and received the same email???
From what I read, the restoration of Amtrak service from New Orleans to Florida was a given, it just needs funding. This was clearly stated in the NARP email I received.
Sorry, I'm not too "computer savvy" or I'd be able to copy/past the email I received to this post.
Surely, there are other AU members here who are also members of NARP??? ... and received the same email???
jis
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I have been a NARP member for 30 years and haven't seen anything. That is because they are stating the obvious that an Authorization as in FAST Act means nothing without an appropriation and in the last decade Congress has never Appropriated anything even remotely close to Authorization for Amtrak.
Yes it is a good idea to write to your representative to support such appropriation. No it is not a done deal, not even close.
Yes it is a good idea to write to your representative to support such appropriation. No it is not a done deal, not even close.
Latest news that I can find on gulf Coast service resumption
http://m.staugustine.com/news/business/2016-03-25/amtrak-track-return-gulf-coast#gsc.tab=0
http://m.staugustine.com/news/business/2016-03-25/amtrak-track-return-gulf-coast#gsc.tab=0
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