You won’t find many of those types of commuters who DRIVE 5 miles to work in Atloona!
The only scenario that even makes a tiny bit of sense here is if it’s once a day deal that is basically an extension of the NY-Pitt train. The train arriving Pitt at 4PM turns to become the 5PM “commuter” to Altoona, arriving about 8PM. You might pick up some real Latrobe and Greensburg commuters, but it would certainly be slim pickings east of there. But, since your crew would be good to Altoona, why not go there? You have sevicing facilities there, too (NS maintains the business car fleet there). The train would lay over and depart for Pitt at 5AM, arriving Pitt at 8AM and then turn for a 9AM dept for NY.
Cost would be incremental wear and tear on the equipment, fuel, a single crew and $9/train mile to NS. Even with low ridership, the subsidy to keep it going might not be too bad.
Politically, you PA might even need to do something like this in order to get support for state funding for SEPTA. Eastern and Western PA fight all the time over this sort of thing.
…My distance from Pittsburgh is not close so I can’t know the details of daily requirements for transportation…I would think a commuter train from there on out east to Altoona is a bit much…as a commuter run. One would think a more reasonable run would be the bracket from around Latrobe on in to downtown Pgh…As for a train making a run along the former main line of the Pennsylvania RR would make some sense. From info I’ve read and actually did some riding on…the runs across Pennsylvania on that route have been fairly well pattronized in the past and perhaps would still be used if scheduled properly. Not built as commuter runs but across State transportation.
Isn’t it gratifying that when you examine these things unemotionally how readily the economics become clear? I agree – why run half the distance, and pay for some place to put the train, when you’ve already paid for the crew to run the whole difference and there’s a pre-existing place to put the train?
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This whole thing is starting to sound familiar - like deja-vu all over again. Didn’t this get tried for a few months in the early 80s shortly after when they put the Pennsylvanian on? Or, is my memory totally shot.
I always was fond of the idea of extending the train to Cleveland, even if that meant a pre-dawn departure eastbound. The same economic arguement would hold except you’d have to come up with a way to service the equipment in Cleveland. Of course, Ohio and PA would have to work out the $$, so the political complexity increases geometrically (or exponentially - I don’t know which).