I’m not arguing your point of view. But millions of passenger buy tickets on these trains each year. Every one has a different perception as to thier valueand thier continued existence. Only time will tell.
In 2016, Amtrak LD ridership was 4.6 million (out of 31.3 million total).
In 2015, US airlines’ domestic ridership was 696.2 million.
.
http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/Fall10/byrd.html
NY Times, Oct. 1, 1979
Amtrak Hilltopper Given Last ‘All Aboard!’
WILLIAMSON, W. Va., Sept. 30 — The headlight of Amtrak Train No. 67, the two‐car Hilltopper, running late, brightened the clear track between the sidelined coal cars for the last time tonight. It will probably be the last time Mingo County sees a passenger train.
Less than 100 years ago, there were feuding Hatfields and McCoys in these southern West Virginia mountains, but there were no roads, and railroads opened up what the Tug Valley Chamber of Commerce calls “the million‐dollar coal field.” Now railroads are shutting it off again.
In addition, rural West Virginia has lost almost half its intercity bus connections in the
Other tidbits from the “final report” (I’ll refer to it as the “Brock Adams” report after the author, the former Secretary of Transportation):
There were several restructuring of routes suggested:
Combining the then Southwest Limited and San Francisco Zephyr into one train Chicago to Kansas City to Denver to Ogden to Los Angeles with a branch from Ogden to San Francisco (according to this 1978 schedule, http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19781029&item=0044, it looks like it actually did serve San Fran, was that true?). The Desert Wind (mentioned in the Tom Hanks movie Rain Man BTW) eventually came about from this restructuring while the Southwest Chief remained untouched so at one time CHI-LAX did have two trains. While I would like to have both trains and Vegas Amtrak service, I have ridden the Chief several times and it is faster than the Desert Wind between CHI-LAX. I do wonder if it was ever feasible to have had Kansas City-Denver service.
The Broadway Limited via Cleveland was mentioned and that certainly could have added some ridership to the route after the Ft. Wayne route was downgraded. Another reroute suggested that never came to plan was the Lake Shore Limited via Michigan but also via Canada and a “closed door”. I don’t know how practical that is today but All Aboard Ohio has suggested a Chicago-NEC route via Michigan now that Amtrak owns track in Michigan (it would be Chicago-Michigan-Toledo-Cleveland-Pittsburgh-Philly-New York). There were also rumors that Amtrak was considering rerouting the LSL via Michigan as well. There used to be a Lake Cities route which although a change of trains late night in Toledo to the LSL was required to get from Michigan to New York was required it was still better than the bus to train connection required now. I feel Michigan deserves a direct train to New York as much as Pennsylvania deserves a direct train to Chicago and AAO’s plan would kill two birds with one stone without
Philly Fan: A rational Broadway would involve Amtrak’s buying and rehabbing the former PRR RoW from Pittsburgh to Chicago (via Columbus) and run trains at a more competitive speed: ~100+ mph.
There is talk about Chicago-Columbus:http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/12/23/columbus-chicago-passenger-rail-moves-ahead-slowly.html
There is also talk about a second Pennsylvanian frequency. So all you would need would be Columbus-Pittsburgh and there you go. One suggestion which has been discussed would be exchanging through cars between the Pennsylvanian and Capitol Limited. It would be a step up from the current situation but westbound passengers would still be stranded for four hours westbound (although in a train is still better than in a station) and eastbound the Pennsylvanian would have to wait for the Capitol Limited which would hurt passengers boarding in Pittsburgh when the CL is delayed. Having two trains from PGH to PHL/NYP would allow one train continuing from CHI and one originating from PGH.
Talk is cheap.
And here is another inexpensive shot: I would rejoice to see passenger trains on all the routes they were on fifty-five years ago. But, I know that such will never be again.
Well the big difference between 55 years ago and today is back then you had private railroad companies providing passenger rail service vs. the government. If we had the level of rail service today provided by our government how high would our taxes be now?
With the amount of money our federal government wastes and or loses in a typical year, a decent level of rail service could be provided with no tax increases.
To a great extent, if US Mail had not been removed from rail passenger operations in the late 60’s - there might have been enough revenue in passenger operations for the carriers to have continued to operate at their late 60’s level for several years longer before the formation of Amtrak. The US Government in the form of the Postal Service hastened the creation of Amtrak.
I rode the Cardinal from Chicago to Philly and it does suck. I have also gone south to DC to get the Capitol to Chicago and I have jumped on the Pennsylvanian at 30th Street and changed at Pittsburgh. The third choice is the best. The Pennsylvanian actually runs on time. The 4 hours dead time in that abandoned dungeon in Pittsburgh is grim but it is not that far from some nice retaurants. The main point is well taken that Philly which is a huge Amtrak market deserves its own fast through train to Chicago. Does Amtrak even know the word"fast". F-A-S-T!
As I mentioned earlier, there was a reasonably fast (18-hour) Chicago-Philadelphia day train during the Warrington presidency. It usually had two coaches and a snack-bar coach but the real reason for its existence was the 20+ express boxes and RoadRailers behind the coaches which handled the mail. Like most passenger trains on the Erie, it probably handled more passengers to and from intermediate points than from end to end.
Philadelphia-Chicago is also reasonably served by the airlines, so I’m not sure how much of a market exists for end-to-end passenger rail service between these two points.
You mean the extended Pennsylvanian?
http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=20000521n&item=0030
Note the starting/endpoint times (6:35am-12:26am west, 6:00am-12:52am east). Absolutely worthless for endpoint to endpoint traffic and not very useful for either end. If I lived in CLE, I’d rather leave home in the middle of the night than arrive in CHI at 12:26am (later if delayed) since if I have to be out in the middle of the night I’d rather be close to home than away from home. The only usefulness of this schedule would be between South Bend and Harrisburg with Cleveland and Pittsburgh being the biggest markets. If they had ever used the “Skyline Connection” schedule, that would have made more sense (the 1:05am out of Philly westbound would suck but you’d arrive in 30th Station close to if not before midnight).
You could also say that about New York-Chicago, Washington-Chicago, New York-Orlando, New York-Miami, Chicago-Los Angeles, Chicago-Dallas, New York-Atlanta, etc. If there’s no point for Chicago-Philadelphia rail service, what’s th
When the train was extended to Chicago, it was to handle the mail contract. No consideration was given to scheduling. When the contract was cancelled, so was the extension.
Well this was the pre-Chicago schedule of the Pennsylvanian so there was a shift. http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19980517n&item=0028. Whether that was mail driven or to accommodate Chicago and Ohio/Indiana I don’t know:
By extending the train to Chicago they had to truncate the eastern end to Philly (unless they really wanted the train to serve New York in the graveyard shift) and the New York/New Jersey service was truncated. At that point, Pittsburgh had other two trains to Chicago (Three Rivers and Capitol Limited) and one other train to New York (Three Rivers) so the second New York train was probably more useful than the third to Chicago, especially if the third arrived in Chicago after midnight. If they wanted a daytime Ohio train, they needed the Skyline schedule and not the Pennsylvanian and the Skyline schedule worked better to extend to New York.
I think the Pennsylvanian schedule might have been chosen to avoid having to need sleepers (Palmetto for the same reason). I don’t think that an overnight train should require sleepers. Currently the Night Owl does not have sleepers. For a brief time the Three Rivers did not have sleepers either. I’d rather have a sleeper less Three Rivers than have to change trains and I am sure the Amish that ride the trains from Lancaster to the West Coast would as well. I have never ridden a sleeper anyway (too expensive). In FY 2016 only 39,560 of the 382,238 riders on the LSL did so on sleepers (that’s slightly more than 10%) so an overnight sleeper certainly is feasible. Lack of sleeper cars should not be an excuse for not running an LD train. Sure, I wouldn’t run a two overnight train without sleepers but one night why not?
Think about getting the Amtrak Guest Rewards credit card (MasterCard), and then you’ll be able to do as others do and ride in comfort in those sleeping cars for free.
Have you ever traveled by train overnight with a woman who is older than 30?
Women’s standards of cleanliness and desire for privacy increase rapidly as they get older; they tend also to prefer dining cars to eat-at-your-seat sandwiches. Many men do, too.
Sleeping cars on overnight trains are really about decency and comfort in travel. Without them you might as well take Greyhound or, as your wife will one day ask you, "Why don’t we just fly?