Posted on 02/20/2019 2:51:40 PM PST by Publius
Seeking to attract millions more passengers, Amtrak is preparing a large-scale overhaul of its national network aimed at boosting passenger service in the South and West—but at the expense of long-haul routes beloved by train buffs and their allies in Congress.
The goal is to revamp the way Amtrak runs trains along the aging network of national routes it already maintains, with more frequent service between pairs of cities in the fastest-growing parts of the country, such as Atlanta and Charlotte, NC, or Cleveland and Cincinnati. Running more trains over shorter distances would allow Amtrak to better serve those commercial corridors where rail can compete with flying and driving, railroad officials said.
But that new service could come at the cost of curtailing some long-distance routes, where storied trains like the Empire Builder and the Southwest Chief have small but fervent bases of support and lineage stretching back to the golden age of railroads.
And any change in Amtrak’s management of the national network will require approval from Congress, which has aggressively defended the long-distance routes in the past, even as it presses Amtrak to prioritize improving its financial performance.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
On a family vacation in the early 1960s we took the California Zephier from Omaha to San Fransisco. What a memorable experience.
But I thought under the Green New Deal trains are gonna connect the whole country, everyone, and all the routes will be profitable?
According to AOC and her admirers, profit is for capitalist pigs. There is too much money in the wrong hands.
If by reform you mean cut off all long distance trains to middle America, so everyone in America can provide extra trains for the coastal animals.
Every single long distance train like the Southwest Chief is packed on every run. Sleeper cars too.
If we have 8-10 billion a year to squander in Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and Africa each year, we sure as hell got 1.4 billion to have Amtrak out west.
“Stop & wait in the middle of nowhere for we’ve-forgotten-how-long until Amtrak bring the relief crew out to the train - limits on crew operating hours.
Not at a station. The middle of nowhere.”
I like trains, but this exact thing happened to me on the Empire Builder to Seattle in the middle of North Dakota in the middle of summer. It originally started as a mechanical problem, but then blossomed into a crew shift and then they decided they needed a new engine which had to come from somewhere a long ways away. The only good thing about it is that we got to go through the mountains during the day, instead of at night.
” but I have yet to find where in the Constitution that Amtrak is a valid function of the federal government.”
Agree 100%. But I have a long and multi-trillion dollar lost of things I would cut first.
Amtrak gets 1.4 billion a year. Last fall we just GAVE Mexico 10 billion free gratis to help “create jobs”.
When the Southwest Chief was threatened with "bustitution" by Amtrak from Dodge City to Albuquerque, BNSF said it was "appalled" by Amtrak's decision. The old Super Chief was the Santa Fe's flagship train; thus the Southwest Chief was heir to a proud tradition at BNSF.
I asked a VP at BNSF in Fort Worth whether there was a price tag on being appalled. "How appalled are you? Are you appalled enough to take the train back from Amtrak and run it again as the Super Chief?"
"Wel-l-l-l," was the answer, "we're not that appalled."
Amtrak was a TEMPORARY solution to a bigger problem.
Today, it’s largest problems are incredibly bloated legacy costs, and a lack of equipment.
Chicago-Florida is a run that should have survived.
Ohio has already spent the money to upgrade the the routing for the Buckeye, Cinci-Dayton-Col-Cle, but Amtrak has no equipment.
I guess there used to be a route across the southern USA from the west coast to Florida, but it ended after Katrina. Someone told me it had to do with Amtrak wanting states to pick up a portion of the cost to re-establish, but they wouldn’t do it. True? Dunno. I love trains, and would like to be able to travel through the south.
“all the routes will be profitable?”
Have heard that Amtrak is a make-work project for minorities, and who are abusive to non-minority passengers.
First, Amtrak said that it wanted state subsidies to bring the route back east of New Orleans. This would have been the first time a long distance route was subsidized by one of more states, a dangerous precedent. Once that barrier was breached, Amtrak could demand subsidies from every state through which a passenger train traversed.
Amtrak retreated on that. Then CSX, the owner of the line, demanded a king's ransom to add capacity to permit the return of the train. That's still under negotiation with Amtrak, but the late Hunter Harrison's Precision Scheduled Railroading has thrown CSX into chaos. That will eventually straighten itself out, but it is problematic as to whether the Sunset will ever go east of New Orleans again.
Wow! Great information. Thanks.
In the mid 80s I took the train from Chicago to LA. Amazing ride.
Freight has priority over Amtrak passenger service. That priority causes over 96% of the delays.
The one exception is BNSF. That railroad collects $7 million per year from Amtrak to give passenger trains priority over freight trains.
I mean, does La Junta, Colorado, really need train service to Chicago and L.A.?
I’ve traveled quite a bit on Amtrak’s long distance services.
My first trip was the Southwestern Chief out of Los Angeles in March of 1975. In the middle of the first night as we were getting close to Kingman, AZ, a freight train traveling in the opposite direction had a car full of railroad rail. One of the rails had skewed to form a perfect lance, which impaled the lead locomotive right through the windshield, decapitated the driver, and shot partway out the top of the loco, with part of the rail still protruding from the windshield.
We were stopped for about three hours for an investigation, after which they shunted the damaged loco to a side rail, and we limped into Kingman for a new loco.
I have also ridden extensively on the Coast Starlight between Simi Valley, CA and Tacoma, WA. Scheduled for about 32 hours, it never took less than 35, and once took 40 hours.
Amtrak is a lot of fun if you are NOT on a schedule. As mentioned by others, between mechanicals and freight right-of-ways, You have a slim chance of arriving on time, which gets slimmer the further you are going.
Amtrak sleeper Portland to Union Station LA 2 of us., I let down with a fold out load with seam in the middle. Like pad you have when you exercise. Upper wa single version same pad. Couldn’t sleep n the seam and not big enough to avoid.. Everything else was fine.
Italy Rome to messina sleeper. Old train looked circa world war II first class service by attendant in the sleeper ca. Bed was like a mattress for a twin. So was upper. For sleeper and service, I’ll have Italian.
I never had a mattress with a seam in the middle. I actually thought the bed was quite comfortable considering its size and the fact it is a convertible couch.
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