The absolutely abismal time keeping of Amtrak trains west of Albany/Rensselaer REEKS of an effort to get rid of everything beyond A/R. NYS and Amtrak apparently have decided on an issue they can agree on, Neither party (and CSX,too) wants to keep service going.(includes 48-49).
Remember that JetBlue is kicking Amtrak’s a** in the the NYC to the big upstate cities beyond Albany( Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse).
So something got be done I don’t know what.
So continues the eternal question. Amtrak - to be, or not to be.
Without looking at a lot of different numbers, none of which I have, it’s hard to decide what’s up. Is Amtrak trying to dump the service? Is CSX trying to get rid of the thorn that is scheduled service? Is somebody just not paying attention? Is Amtrak trying to call NYS’s bluff and get more funding out of the state (remember, NYS pulled funding on the turbo rebuild)?
Certainly plays well into the hands of Amtrak opponents.
Let Metro North Railroad Run Amtrak Route from New York to Albany. They do better job than Amtrak Now. They know how to run Railroad.[2c]
Isn’t CSX doing a lot of trackwork and isn’t that what is impacting Amtrak’s schedules?
You’ve GOT to be joking! (unless Metro North has undergone a complete metamorphasis in the past 15 years)
The west of Albany service ran pretty well under Conrail. CSX really isn’t handling any more traffic up there than in the CR “heyday”, but they don’t seem to be handling what they have as well. That double track mainline was less densely trafficed then the Cleveland - Chicago piece, so there is no excuse for poor timekeeping.
For goodness sakes; there is nothing wrong with Amtrak itself. The problem lies with the governments and their laws and funding formulas for the passenger railroad.
Notice how nobody else’s passenger railroad seems to have a problem running their trains as much as Amtrak-figure out why…
The competition from Jet Blue may be the key here. Since it doesn’t serve Chicago (yet), I know little about Jet Blue’s service and fares, but I get the impression that it is comparable to Southwest Airlines, which provides cheap and frequent service just about everywhere it goes.
I stopped at the Syracuse station last September when I was driving through. It had the look and feel of a grimey bus terminal, and the Lakeshore was listed as being four hours late.
With the advent of small, short-distance, fuel-efficient jets and the rail system’s vulnerability to terror, the passenger train has an even tougher row to hoe. And I’m a train fan.
Maybe some additional services could be added to a few commuter trains to satisfy the hankering for some top-notch trains?
There are likely many issues here, but I’ll bet none are insurmountable and most are likely just a matter of paying attention.
Condition of equipment and stations belong to Amtrak. That’s probably the first thing they can fix.
Timekeeping a bit tougher, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed by holding CSX’s feet to the fire. If I were Amtrak, I’d require a data stream of all OS’s for all trains on the route, not just the Amtrak trains. That way they could have an intelligent, fact based discussion on what’s actually going on and not just have to listen to the same-old same-old RR hot air about how “we’ll try harder” - while sickering under their breath.