Drivers cause all accidents not related to failure of the road, road systems or vehicle. There are contributing factors for sure, but the driver is supposed to adjust for those.
Absolutely. I wish the news media could come to terms with that fact.
So you are intimating that the ‘young’ people that won’t use it today, won’t age in twenty years and have the same reasons for using it as the ‘old’ people today have. The ‘old’ people of today are the ‘Boomers’ who have been the most ‘road obsessed’ of generations, subsequent generations have had more of a ‘green’ leaning and take more readily to public forms of transportation.
No, you have it right. Young people will ride useful trains - perhaps more so than Boomers. I’d be willing to bet that these older riders on the Crescent have been riding it since they were kids - and continue because it’s what they do. They are train-savvy repeat customers. You can tell by what they pack. When they are gone, so are the Crescent’s patrons…unless the train becomes more useful.
Purely anecdotal example, n = 1: I’m at the beginning of the retiring Boomer cohort. My experience as a child and teen up to age 24 included numerous rides on the private era LD trains. Even later, some Amtrak trips. And throughout, frequent, sometimes daily use of commuter trains. But for the past 30 years, almost no use of Amtrak other than some on the NEC and a few trips between Chicago and Champaign-Urbana. The reasons I don’t
I collected some figures from Amtrak’s State Fact Sheets about ridership related to the Crescent. Altogether I don’t think they support the proposition that large numbers of young people will, as they age, desert Amtrak but draw your on conclusions.
Alabama. Overall ridership up 5.3 % in 2011 and 0.5 % in 2012.
Georgia. Overall ridership up 4.2 % in 2011 but down 1.4 % in 2012. This includes all stations in Georgia for both Crescent and Silver Service Trains.
Atlanta. 2011: 114,938 passengers. 2012: 104,854 passengers. Down 10,084 or 0.9 %.
Toccoa. 2011: 3,826 " 2012: 4,434 " Up 608 or 15 %.
Louisiana Overall ridership up 5.1 % in 2011 and 5.1 % (same amount) in 2012. (Includes all Louisiana riders: Crescent, City of New Orleans and Sunset Limited. The Sunset Limited operates only 3 days a week. All other trains are daily.)
NOLA 2011: 210,465 " 2012: 222,828 " Up 12,363 or 5.8 % (This includes all passengers who use Amtrak at New Orleans Union Terminal on above trains).
Mississippi Overall ridership down 2.2 % in 2011 and 3.4 % in 2012. (This includes passengers on The Crescent and the City of New Oleans).
Hattiesburg 2011 12,771 " 2012 &nbs
And the charts you pasted show nothing that would confirm or disprove Oltmann’s proposition because they are irrelevant.
What they do show that there are several stops that have such low (and declining in one case) ridership they should be discontinued. And even though you only selected a few, these seem to have low ridership:
Picayune 2011 3,253 2012 2,971 8 riders per day
Toccoa 2011 3,826 2012 4,434 12 riders per day
Here are a few more in some states (2012) you used, sometimes for other trains like the Sunset:
New Iberia, LA 1670
Schriever, LA 1755
Lake Charles, LA 3438
Hazelhurst, MS 1960
Yazoo City, MS 3323
Amtrak continues to have trains stop at places with boardings + alightings of only 4.4 to 12 per day in 2012 and populations as low as 4400. One has to wonder if it is again a case of Amtrak just doing what they have always done. Obviously zero market analysis. Yet Amtrak does not serve Phoenix, AZ, with an MSA population = 4.2 million.
Schlimm,
I was only considering the Crescent route between Atlanta and New Orleans. However, three trains use New Orleans Union Terminal and only the totals for all three trains are available for that particular place. I do list all stops along the route I focused on and I agree some have very few boardings and alightings.
All of the stops are for cities along the route. I don’t know how Amtrak decides whether or not to stop at a particular place. Perhaps you have more insight into that than I do.
In Louisiana New Iberia, Schriever and Lake Charles are all on the Sunset Limited route. In Mississippi Hazelhurst and Yazoo City are on the City of New Orleans route. That is why I omitted them.
Actually, Amtrak does serve Phoenix, Arizona. It provides the “Arizona Shuttle,” a bus connection from the Flagstaff Station to Phoenix and other points. From Phoenix the bus is an hour and it meets the Southwest Chief.
John
Three trains use the New Orleans station–would it be proper to say that 2 3/7 trains use the station since the Sunset runs only three out of seven days?
As to why Amtrak picked Greenwood as stop, Greenwood is a terminal for train crews (perhaps for engine crews as well), and Carbondale is also a terminal for train crews. Why Yazoo City? Perhaps the thought was that enough traffic would be generated to warrant a stop. The other stops are historic stops, though the Panama did not stop at all of them.
I am tired of reading the whine about Phoenix. If I recall, SP/UP took up the track back to the mainline west of downtown didn’t they. If my poor memory is right, if there’s no track, there’s no train.
I have no idea, but it is just another example of the problems with relying on the freight lines
[quote user=“John WR”]
I collected some figures from Amtrak’s State Fact Sheets about ridership related to the Crescent. Altogether I don’t think they support the proposition that large numbers of young people will, as they age, desert Amtrak but draw your on conclusions.
Alabama. Overall ridership up 5.3 % in 2011 and 0.5 % in 2012.
Georgia. Overall ridership up 4.2 % in 2011 but down 1.4 % in 2012. This includes all stations in Georgia for both Crescent and Silver Service Trains.
Atlanta. 2011: 114,938 passengers. 2012: 104,854 passengers. Down 10,084 or 0.9 %.
Toccoa. 2011: 3,826 " 2012: 4,434 " Up 608 or 15 %.
Louisiana Overall ridership up 5.1 % in 2011 and 5.1 % (same amount) in 2012. (Includes all Louisiana riders: Crescent, City of New Orleans and Sunset Limited).
NOLA 2011: 210,465 " 2012: 222,828 " Up 12,363 or 5.8 % (This includes all passengers who use Amtrak at New Orleans Union Terminal on above trains).
Mississippi Overall ridership down 2.2 % in 2011 and 3.4 % in 2012. (This includes passengers on The Crescent and the City of New Oleans).
Hattiesburg 2011 12,771 " 2012 12,951 "
Maybe they have that market cornered. Perhaps they need to go after people who aren’t already riding.
It’s about a 45 minute drive from Toccoa to Clemson SC and to Gainesville GA. That’s no different than the drive from Atlanta’s northern suburbs to the two closest stations.
The difference is Atlanta’s northern suburbs have >1M people. The “metro Toccoa” has a few 10,000s.
Drop Toccoa. Add Duluth/Buford. QED
Agree: except no need to drop Toccoa
Adding either Duluth / Buford puts many potential passengers much closer to Amtrak and the ability to not have to drive to the downtown Peachtree Station or Atlanta airport. Many of the potential passengers would be 1/2 hr or less to this station verses the necessity of driving at certain times to the ATL airport of 2 hours + another 1/2 hr for parking. is it about 1 Hr on MARTA from Abernathy to the airport ?.
A problem for either station location is access / parking. Both locations are close to US-29 so parking would possibly be needed on the NW side of tracks. That might require a new crossing over or under the NS 2 track main. Certainly cannot build a grade crossing to access the station parking.
Have not studied these locations so do not know if station can be built SE of track between NS and US29. A high level station track would certainly speed loading, unloading and ADA and would be useable for a future HSR station.
Atlanta city needs to get off its rear end and build its proposed Amtrak station at Atlantic station. That would decrease the dwell time for present trains that occur due to Peachtree station being so passenger & train unfriendly. That time saved would be available for this new station. ATL station and this station could be built at same time and with the PRIIA proposed changes of capacity at ATL station would enable Amtrak to serve the additional passengers that
No, you probably wouldn’t have to…it’s a flag stop right now, anyway.
One possible site would be adjacent to SE RR museum. Lease parking from them. Access off 29 is OK. No major road Xing issues. Double track at that location. Might have issues shoe-horning in platform - some track superelevation on curve…
Oh, my, yes. With a signalled station track. It would be a big help to NS, too. Might even be able to get them to split the $$ for the track and signal work. Put Greyhound in there and let Megabus stop at the curb. (They make a mess of the traffic on West Peach at Civic Center as it is now during rush hour.)
Don:
Agree that SE RR museum is certainly a good location but having to use its grade crossing and going over the 2 industrial tracks might not be the best ? The vacant lot area just north east of the museum might be useable. By building an separate elevated station track & platform no super elevation needed ?
Agree that any new station tracks need full signaling where ever built. The help to NS in ATL will be great as they will no longer have to hold out freights from Peachtree station when a passenger train is in station. Those holdouts cost NS about 1:30 in time every day. Freight fluidity is very restricted at those times…
Good location for the intercity buses as well once the streetcar runs there. The Amtrak PRIIA proposal to run the Amtrak thruway buses would also have the necessary parking
A very good point, Johnny. I went back and added a note to my post about it. I did not comment about the City of New Orleans stops because I am only talking about the Crescent between New Orleans and Atlanta.
John
Don, I have no statistics over the past 20 years. I only have them over 2 years and it seems to me that the real problem with the statistics I gathered is precisely that they do cover only do years. Do you know of any statistics over a longer term?
John
Actually Amtrak does serve Phoenix. It uses a Thruway Bus connection between Phoenix and the Flagstaff Station where the Southwest Chief provides daily service.