Millions of highway miles saved.
https://youtu.be/9eo7XtQCags
The northeast would have been better served had the train been operated out of Newburgh N.Y. area at the confluence of Interstates 84 & 87. The worst part of the drive is between the north and northeast and Lorton VA.
Interesting. I wonder, are there showers in the coaches? A lady said that there are showers thorughout the train.
But Holy Hanna, how would you get it there? Up the Lehigh Line to some connection to the ex-West Shore, which is hundreds of feet below 84 in a restricted corridor all the way to north of the bridge? Around all the CSX freight traffic?
Situation even worse on the east side, where yarding a train that length to get the cars off would be an amazing exercise, let alone staging the vehicle traffic in a way that facilitates drive-off.
I do thoroughly agree that a ‘Northeast Extension’ version of the Auto-Train would be a sensible and intelligent thing, but I think we need a better ‘gathering place’ analogous to what Lorton is. I know Suffern/Mahwah is in a similar kind of hole relative to major roads, and the real estate values have blown out of sight since 287 was finished, but perhaps somewhere between there and the Moodna restriction might be a sensible destination. This might be more than usually facilitated if the consist could be made NEC-compatible as far as Secaucus (I won’t call it by its political name) where there is a transfer to the ex-EL trackage going northeast.
I stated “Newburgh area”, not knowing the track ‘geography’, in an effort to eliminate the miserable drive from the north and northeast. I can take the AutoTrain for free but do not. By the time I get to Lorton the worst part of the drive is over.
You can take it free, including the auto-hauling component? If so, that’s a nice perk, IMO.
I agree though; the worst part of the drive is certainly north of Lorton.
Also the most expensive part of the drive.
I don’t believe the coaches have showers. I have never seen them on the Superliner coaches that I have ridden on the Texas Eagle, Sunset Limited, etc.
As per the September 2019 Amtrak Monthly Performance Report, in FY19 the Auto Train lost $6.7 million before depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous items. In 2018 the loss was $15.6 million; in 2017 it was $4.5 million.
The average operating subsidy per rider in FY19 was approximately $28 compared to $69 in 2018 and $20 in 2017.
The average operating subsidy per long-distance rider in FY19 was $104. In 2018 it was $120; in 2017 it was $102.
They had to terminal the Auto-Train in Lorton. It wouldn’t fit through the tunnels in DC or Baltimore. Going further north was out of the question.
All things being perfect a terminal in the Hackensack Meadows right across from New York City would have been ideal. Considering the population density there imagine the size of the potential customer pool!
I have the impression that the perspn who mentioned “showers throughout the train” has not ridden caoch on the train–if that person has ridden Autotrain at all. and extrapolatted the presence of a shower for roomette passengers to also having showers for coach passengers.
You have to stop using paraquat-laced sinsy if you’re going to keep smoking blunts that size.
You could not possibly find a worse place to terminate or originate a practical Auto-Train than that. Right in the middle of a protected wetland, served by a network of roads already renowned for congestion, over convoluted rail routes subject to relatively heavy traffic (with the NEC not available either for your train or for any particularly heavy or stacked freight). None of the existing passenger services, the H&M/PATH, the bus service or commuter links through Secaucus do you any good, because you’re arriving and departing in a way that mass transit can’t use.
We can get into issues of precisely how much crime and panhandling would be attracted to the environs of the site, who would improve the local road access, etc. after that, as soon as I stop laughing.
Now, it is true that you might be able to get some of the Meadows engine house property rather cheaply … I think at least some of the necessary vast environmental remediation has been done … and railfans would just love being in there while waiting for their cars to be loaded or unloaded.
Jeez Mod-man, maybe YOU should try some of those blunts, you’ve got a nasty streak goin’ today! [:(!]
Look, I’m referring to back when the Auto-Train was first established, back in the '70s. There’s plenty of dry land around the periphery of the Meadows where a facility could have been established. At lot of those peripheral areas have been developed since that time, warehouses, truck terminals, apartments, you name it, it’s been done.
Traffic congestion? Tell me about Northern Virginia close to the DC area where Lorton is, I’ll give you congestion brother! I avoid that area like the plague!
Traffic flow to a Meadowlands terminal could have been planned for and figured out depending on the terminal location. It wouldn’t have been rocket science, and with the increased passenger traffic could have been paid for, if not overnight, then within a reasonable time. Look at all the people in the greater New York area who consider Florida the Promised Land and make regular pilgrimages thereto.
But, as I said, it wasn’t do-able due to those aforementioned tunnels. Any discussions on our part otherwise are essentially worthless hot air.
+hundreds of hiway deaths over the years of Auto-Train operation.
Auto-Train seemed to have more ‘medical emergency’ stops than any of the Amtrak trains that operated over the territories I supervised.
More people on board, and I’ll bet a good chunk of them are elderly.
The original Auto-Train lived and died before the Amtrak ownership and then the Chase wreck fallout made a high-speed freight corridor parallel to the actual NEC practical. That routing is what an ‘extended’ original purple people pleaser should have taken, not involving going through Ivy City or DC at all as there was no point in handling any general passengers. Alas! I well remember the sleepy wonder that was the B&O/Reading/CNJ approach in those years, and I don’t think I’d give those strings of carriers much time before they tried straying from the straight and narrow…
Now, just as Iselin was a nifty place to plot satellite office complexes, I have to wonder if there is some spot in east Jersey that would tie into the 287/GSP/Turnpike complex while it was still comparatively open and new, especially looking south. Then if demand … and track improvement … warranted you could go further north. But either way north of at least Ridgefield Park (and neither the Suskie or the Shore are really optimized for stops, despite all that unused 4-track ROW and space going up through Hackensack at 46 and 80 – note what a pain it would be to have THAT be your terminal connectivity today!) or further east. And I can tell you right now what I think it could have been, although the precise years might not quite line up for cause and effect: run it either by original Lackawanna or the proposed Garrett Mountain track to the Cutoff, give them a scenic pass through the Watchungs, and find a logical gathering place to the west. Remember that only temporary short-term parking would be needed, too. Preserves the Cutoff in the EL-Dereco priorities over the Graham Line and at least theoretically opens up some nifty thoughts about where the north end of an auto service might ultimately be run.
Of course once the long girder bridges across 80 at Fairfield were taken down, that would have been shot in the head. Would any of the other railroads int
The current Auto Train schedule allows just a shade over 7 hours to turn the equipment on either end. That schedule permits Amtrak to only need two sets of equipment, plus spares. Extending the train farther north would require at least one extra set of equipment to make the longer schedule work. Would Amtrak be able to command enough of a higher ticket price with the new location over what it charges now to cover the increased cost of the extra equipment? I doubt it.
Correct - and those medical emergencies, had they happened while the individuals were driving on I-95, would likely have ended in some form of automobile incident.
Now you’re thinkin’ about how to tie into that NYC marketplace Mod-man, I like those suggestions!
The thing is, I can’t come up with any better ones. Oh well. [:$]
As I said before, it’s all just speculation, like re-fighting Civil War battles and just as productive.
By the way, I remember billboard ads down in Florida in 1975 for the old Auto-Train. Very blunt and to the point…
“Dreading that dreary drive North? Take the Auto-Train!”
Remember, back in 1975 Route 95 wasn’t completed yet. There were still a lot of places where drivers heading south (or north) had to get off and drive on old US 1. Very tedious, and a bit of a culture shock for Yankees!
There are still a few Auto-Train billboards on I-95. Not as many as for ‘South of the Border’, but still a few.