Saving the Eagle, Sunset, or more?

Trains Magazine Passenger
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Texas has the second highest population, estimated to be nearly 24 million in 2007. Given the population, Texas needs to be part of an Amtrak national system; and ways need to be found to make services more viable. What can be done?

Even limited improvements for $10-million passing sidings on the Sunset and Eagle routes in Texas is hard to justify in order to raise short-distance travel on unreliable long distance trains. Would a basic and complementary 2-train corridor services between Dallas and San Antonio and Houston and San Antonio attract 150 or more passengers per train and begin to justify even more the investment in sidings for faster an more reliable schedules?

According to Wikipedia, the Amtrak Texas Eagle serves three of the four largest metro areas in Texas: Dallas-Fort Worth (6.1M), San Antonio (2.0M), and Austin-Round Rock (1.6M). The Eagle also serves the 15th and 20th largest State areas of Longview (0.23M) and Texarkana (0.13M-TX); and a re-route through Waco adds the 14th largest area. The rest of the Eagle route links in order of population Chicago (9.7M), Saint Louis (2.8M), Little Rock (0.84M), Springfield (0.19M), Texarkana (0.14M-AR), and Bloomington-Normal (0.12) metropolitan areas and numerous non-metro areas.

The Sunset serves Houston (5.6M) and El Paso (0.73M) as well as San Antonio. Together, Amtrak provides service, and I use the term loosely, to 2/3 of the Texas’ population and roughly 5% of the US total.

As Samantha pointed out in the NC thread, the Amtrak Texas Eagle route is a circuitous 39 miles longer from Dallas to San Antonio than by driving. This may not be as serious a handicap as it first appears, inasmuch as the circuitry can be attributed to a necessary 34-mile dog-leg at Fort Worth for the convenience of the large metro area.

The BNSF seems to have the better-engineered line between Fort Worth and Temple. The UP hacked up the MP and MKT south of San Marcos; but the MP seems to have

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UP is currently running directional between San Marcos and Taylor with Austin being on the north-bound line. Thus the south-bound Eagle is “swimming upstream.” There is a lot of talk about a new dedicated freight line Austin to San Antonio to open the current line for more passenger operation. But IMHO it is just talk. Nobody is going to front the 2 or 3 billion that would take.

dd

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Amtrak or its hoist carriers are not likely to make the investments required to improve the performance of the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited.

As long as the political winds support running Amtrak’s long distance trains, the Eagle and Sunset services are likely to be with us. Amtrak could improve them with a seemingly minimum investment.

Last year I sent a proposal to Alex Kummant with some thoughts on how to bring it about. He sent me a nice reply acknowledging that the proposal had some merit. The gist of what I proposed is discussed below.

Discontinue the Sunset. Run the Eagle on its current route from Chicago to Fort Worth, but beyond Cow Town run it on the T&P to El Paso and the Sunset route to Los Angles as a daily train. Extend the Heartland Flyer from Fort Worth to San Antonio and the City of New Orleans from the Crescent City to San Antonio as a daily train.

These changes, forgetting for the moment whether they are doable, would result in several improvements. Service would be provided to Abilene, Texas (area population 125,000) and the Permian Basin cities (Midland and Odessa) with an area population of 250,000. The cities between New Orleans and San Antonio would get a daily train in both directions that called at a reasonable hour. The cities between El Paso and LA would get a daily train and better calling times. Moreover, the Heartland Flyer could be scheduled to arrive in San Antonio and Oklahoma City at a reasonable hour. Passengers would be able to transfer to or from the Eagle and Heartland Flyer in Fort Worth.

There would be some losers in the above described scenario. Del Rio, Sanderson, and Alpine would lose service, although connecting bus service could be provided to San Antonio and Midland. These three communities have a combined population of approximately 40,000 compared to more than 375,000 along the T&P route. El Paso would

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or take bus San Antonio to El Paso. I’d expect that to be more reasonable, just not palatable for railfans.

The thread title is “Saving the Eagle, Sunset”. There are those who would argue that this proposal is destroying the village in order to save it. I tend to lean towards 3 days a week is close to no service, so I’m willing to grant that daily Chicago-Texas-LA and daily New Orleans-San Antonio is an improvement over what we have today. Any thoughts on sending your extended Heartland Flyer to Laredo instead of just San Antonio?

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Samantha,

You have some interesting ideas.

Extending the City of New Orleans at least to Houston makes a lot of sense.

I like the T&P route through Abilene, Midland and Odessa serving a much larger population which is good for Texas. I’ve given some thought to working it and other extensions into a Texas Triangle service. The T&P shaves some miles off the Sunset Route and quite a few hours off the time to Tucson and Los Angeles. I’m a little concerned that people from Chicago, Springfield, and St Louis may be more inclined to go to Austin and San Antonio.

Extending the Heartland Flyer to San Antonio preserves intra-state travel between Ft Worth and San Antonio. Currently, the Heartland Flyer feeds into the Eagle to San Antonio, so the sb Eagle would need to be scheduled to arrive Ft Worth earlier and the nb to depart later.

A Kansas City - Ft Worth train would have flipped the schedule; but both trains would double the service between Ft Worth and Okahoma City.

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The overwhelming majority of people going from San Antonio to El Paso on a commercial carrier fly. It is 553 miles from SA to El Paso via I-10.

My proposal envisioned two bus connections. One would be from San Antonio to Del Rio. The other would be from Alpine to Midland. This might reduce the angst amongst the Del Rio and Alpine residents over the loss of the Sunset. Frankly, I don’t think the bus connection would last very long. Most people in these communities drive to San Antonio or Midland and, if they are traveling long distance, they fly from those communities.

For several years Amtrak ran the Inter American to Laredo. It did not attract many passengers. Moreover, the track south of San Antonio would only permit 50 mph running, so it took seemingly forever to get to the border city. The UP has probably improved the track since then, but I don’t think there is a market for service south of San Antonio.

Amtrak is not going to expand its long distance train network unless the Congress gives it a lot more money than has been proposed or the states pony up a lot of money. I don’t see that happening in Texas.

My proposal is all about improving the existing service without the incurrence of significant additional cost. About a decade ago TXARP proposed running the Eagle over the T&P to El Paso and on to Los Angles as a second train. They did not want to touch the Sunset. They also wanted to add a new train from Kansas City to San Antonio and Houston, if I remember correctly. To me this illustrates one of the problems of the rail advocacy groups. They want to expand a lightly patronized system, without saying how they would pay for it other than to get more government money. This is self defeating. Most people know that frequently you have to give to get. If advocates show no willingness to compromise, most executives, managers, and poli

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This is not entirely correct. Tell the MFWSA crews that, along with several other southbounds that utilize the line through Austin. Yes, the majority of traffic is northbound, but the lion’s share of the delay to No. 21 occurs well before the train hits Taylor, and recent run times are in the 2 hour 10 minute to 2 hour and 20 minute range range between Austin and San Antonio.

No. 21 does tangle with northbounds regularly at Bergstrom, where a road crossing shortens the effective length of the siding, and at Kyle where crews “lay off crossings”, generally preferring not to move their trains until No. 21 is between siding switches and the freight can get a green signal some 5200 feet down the line. Grade crossings within the limits of these sidings cut the effective length of the siding, making efficient meets almost impossible. Once past these two locations, No. 21 generally runs pretty hot straight and normal to San Antonio.

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While Laredo itself is not large, the combined Laredo-Nuevo Laredo area population was estimated at 718,000. Laredo would not be a bad extension for the Texas Eagle in itself; but turning the train reliably could be an obstacle. Do not underestimate the potential Mexican market for a train from Chicago to the border and connections with the NdM. The impact of bus and even plane being less expensive as well as faster is another consideration.

Another possibility is a route to Brownsville-Harlingen (408,000 pop) and Matamoros (423,000 pop) through Corpus Christi-Kingsville (445,000 pop) from San Antonio. The combined metro areas have a population of 1,276,000, 78% greater than Laredo-Nuevo Laredo. The route would be even longer and slower, making scheduling between Chicago even more difficult.

Currently the Texas Eagle schedule with Chicago midday arrivals and departures compliments the commuter schedules of the Lincoln Service.

I’d like to look into the possibility for rerouting the Sunset New Orleans - Houston - Dallas-Ft Worth - El Paso. Dallas-Ft Worth is larger than San Antonio for a National system route; but the question again is of a schedule fit. Any thoughts in the meantime?

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Connections with NdeM is a no-go unless Nuevo Laredo still has passenger service. One of the conditions of attracting US investors south of the border was allegedly no Mexican version of Amtrak. So, no passenger connections in Laredo unless you are talking about bus connections. I also like Samantha’s idea of reducing the office personnel and going even more toward phone / internet reservations.

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Geez, give Midland and Odessa their separate stops.

I like the idea of agent-less stations where a smaller number of passengers passengers board, and where the work involved to check identification, to tag and stow baggage, and to operate lift devices or ramps would not delay the train for more than a couple minutes.

Amtrak already has some ticket kiosks for self-serve ticketing and will-call for on-line reservations. A system is in place that could be improved. For a person without a bank card; a phone card could be purchased at a vendor such as a Walmart or supermarket where cash is handled significant volume. Pre-paid parking could be assessed on the same charge or debit as the ticket.

Ideally, boarding and alighting passenger should be divided as evenly as possible for each car in order to minimize boarding and alighting time. Computer-generated space assignments wouild including platform boarding position to give passenger a clue.

Realistically, there may be fewer conductor and assistant conductors and car attendants on a long-distance train than the number of coaches and sleepers. Certain cars can be filled for particular destinations, eg, Chicago - Dallas, and a car for short trips between Chicago and St Louis may first become a St Louis - Dallas car, then Dallas - San Antonio.

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Sorry for all the typos in the previous post.

I can see why the Eagle/21 doesn’t attract many riders westbound: arriving in Los Angeles on the fourth morning and in Tucson and Maricopa very late, if near on-time, the third evening.

Similarly, the westbound Sunset/3 doesn’t do much for Texas, arriving in San Antonio in the dead of night. Furthermore, the over-night layover imposed in New Orleans for connections from Chicago and New York must discourage connections in addition to the poor timing at San Antonio and Arizona.

Samantha’s suggestion for an Eagle reroute serves the Midwest-Arizona market better with third morning arrivals in Tucson and Maricopa, a late afternoon arrival in Palm Springs, and an early evening Los Angeles arrival on the third day.

Interestingly, an evening Sunset/3 departure from New Orleans connecting with both the Crescent/19 and earlier City of New Orleans/59 would put the train into Dallas and Fort Worth by way of Houston at the same time as the Texas Eagle/21. Houston would be reached early the third morning from New York on 19 rather than late the third evening, beating a possible connection through Chicago even if the Eagle split at Marshall. Arizona and California arrivals would be on the fourth day from New York. The Sunset/3 could continue between New Orleans and Los Angeles via Dallas with the timing of a re-routed Eagle/21.

The Eagle/21 could continue to San Antonio or to either Laredo or Brownsville connecting with a Sunset/3 re-routed through Fort Worth. Although smaller, Laredo is the shorter route to Monterrey and Mexico City while a Thruway express currently operates between San Antonio and Brownsville. A second bus might be added to Corpus Christi and provide continuing service to Brownsvill.

Does anyone know if rail passenger service is still provided between Laredo and Mexico City? If not, connecting buses to Monterrey and Mexico City would avoid another transfer an

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According to Seat61.com, almost all mexican passenger train service was discontinued between 1997 and 1999, following the privatization of the National Railways of Mexico. So, no train service to Nuevo Laredo.

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“My proposal is all about improving the existing service without the incurrence of significant additional cost.”

Unfortunately, there is/could be significant cost in the restructuring of crews, layovers and additional personnel required for such a reroute.

San Antonio is currently the point for the mandated 1500 mile inspection on the Sunset, and the Eagle recieves repairs and maintenance/cleaning and servicing there as well. Crewing the Eagle from the T&E side is problematic at best, since relocating crews from San Antonio to man the rerouted train would be expensive if not cost-prohibitive altogether. Watering and fuel are issues, as well with delays causing fuel levels to get to an unacceptable level. Also, given the grades on the west end, a second unit may have to be added to maintain schedules with the current 8 cars. Add an additional one and you will need that second unit for certain, driving fuel costs way up. There are no places to obtain potable water in quantity for passenger cars on the route, and trash disposal is another issue that would require more cost, although minimal. Locomotive maintenance forces and such are virtually non-existent enroute.

Currently, the Eagle runs with a single Engineer on the Ft. Worth-Austin and Austin-San Antonio segments, using a total of 4 regulars plus protection of 1 extra board space for a total of 5. A reroute of this train would cost 8 Engineers, at a minimum and without accurate run times available, could run the total to as high as 10. The layovers on such a train would run up HAHT and could potentially run into true service outages and delays, as the railroad follows Toyah Canyon, and that part of the T&P has seen significant washouts in its lifetime.

Elimination of the ELP-SAS segment of the Sunset likely would not kick in C2 protections, but it would create a mess with crew relocations as has been demonstrated in the past.

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Sometimes ya gotta break a couple eggs to make an omlette.

If the service can be made more convenient to attract more passengers, this would seem to trump costs of dislocations of staff and relocated facilities. The alternative may be to discontinue the Sunset which would allow staff to stay home without a job. How many jobs are there between New Orleans and Los Angeles?

I don’t see how extra crews are needed with Samantha’s proposal: an eastern leg of the Sunset would operate New Orleans-San Antonio, the San Antonio-Ft Worth leg of an extended Heartland Flyer would replace existing Eagle service, and a 4 mile longer rerouted Eagle between Ft Worth and El Paso should be comparable to current San Antonio and El Paso crewing without exiling people to a remote outpost.

How many times in the last ten years has the line washed out in Toyah Canyon?

I would think UP would rather have the Sunset off the Alpine-Houston route, notwithstanding that they are said to be interested in diverting St Louis and Memphis traffic to the T&P and are adding capacity with new and extended sidings and CTC.

First, the Texas Eagle needs to make its current schedule (eg, within 1/2 hr) between Ft Worth and Chicago 86% of the time, six of seven trips each way. The UP agreed to the current Texas Eagle schedule, implying that it is doable. A Ft Worth-San Antonio train needs a 6-hour schedule that averages a modest 47 mph. Five hours would be better, but we’re dealing with Superliners and single-track operation.

An earlier and reliable schedule would facilitate a rescheduled connecting bus service that arrives in Brownsville late at night rather than expecting customers to wait in San Antonio until the early morning departure. A separate bus to Corpus Christi would save half and hour to McAllen, Harlingen, and Brownsville. An earlier San Antonio arrival also would permit extending the Eagle or a connecting bus to Laredo before midnight

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4merroad4man and HarveyK400

As I said in my first post, there are four or five barriers that would have to be overcome to implement my recommendations regarding the City of New Orleans, Eagle, Sunset and Heartland Flyer. Clearly, I don’t have access to the inside information necessary to determine if they could be overcome.

Others have made similar proposals. However, the ones that I reviewed envisioned an expansion of the long distance train system, i.e. keep the Sunset Limited and extend the Eagle to LA as a daily train, whereas I am only advocating a change of service along most of the existing routes, i.e. daily service between New Orleans and San Antonio as well as west of El Paso. I don’t think there is any real support for expanding the system, but there could be support for making the existing system better if it only require a relatively small investment.

Rerouting the City of New Orleans, Eagle, and Heartland Flyer, as well as discontinuing the Sunset, would produce two improvements. It would open up a substantial Texas market to train service. But most importantly, it would improve the calling times and frequency at most of the major cities along the existing routes. Most people, who might consider taking the train, are not going to get up in the middle of the night to catch one. Only the diehards will do so.

The key question is whether improved scheduling and frequency would generate enough incremental revenues to offset the incremental costs. I don’t know. But an organization that will not experiment with its service patterns will never know if there are better ways to do things. And in the business world, where I spent my working career, those who won’t experiment and change die on the vine.

Having grown up in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which at the time was the home of the heavy works of the Pennsylvania Railroad, as well as a crew change point for all freight an

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I agree that the ideas put forth are not only admirable, but well intentioned and designed to assist the long distance system rather than tear it apart. I also agree that the problems involved in creating proposals from these ideas revolves around significant logistical and financial issues contained in the information which is well beyond the authorized grasp of the public and a lot of Amtrak employees.

I do not believe that Amtrak personnel are any more resistant to change than anyone else, and in fact their history shows them in many cases to be more accepting of change, starting with their coming to Amtrak from relatively secure freight jobs, and goes through acceptance of an hourly wage when such was not common, train offs during the Carter Administration and on and on.

The trains mentioned could be placed on the routes suggested and in fact many of these ideas have been investigated internally over the years, most recently when Amtrak crews were sent out on KCS freight trains to qualify in anticipation of the proposed service between Dallas and a Crescent Connection via Shreveport and Vicksburg. I still have my KCS timetables and special instructions from that event. That fell through due to funding issues, and the Amtrak folks stopped the qualifying, but the intent was there.

For many years there has been talk of rerouting either the Sunset or the Eagle via Ft. Worth and Dallas, but the issues I mentioned earlier and a host of others have always put a damper on things. I am certain the idea will be revisited again, in different configurations and maybe one day a solution which is logisticaly and financially viable will appear.

Harvey, leave it sufficient to say that the crewing issues ARE significant, especially when you speak of eliminating a tri-weekly train between San Antonio and El Paso and replacing it with a daily train on a new route. Just by frequencies alone, the number of crews increases, not to mention logistics in promotin

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[quote user=“4merroad4man”]

I agree that the ideas put forth are not only admirable, but well intentioned and designed to assist the long distance system rather than tear it apart. I also agree that the problems involved in creating proposals from these ideas revolves around significant logistical and financial issues contained in the information which is well beyond the authorized grasp of the public and a lot of Amtrak employees.

I do not believe that Amtrak personnel are any more resistant to change than anyone else, and in fact their history shows them in many cases to be more accepting of change, starting with their coming to Amtrak from relatively secure freight jobs, and goes through acceptance of an hourly wage when such was not common, train offs during the Carter Administration and on and on.

The trains mentioned could be placed on the routes suggested and in fact many of these ideas have been investigated internally over the years, most recently when Amtrak crews were sent out on KCS freight trains to qualify in anticipation of the proposed service between Dallas and a Crescent Connection via Shreveport and Vicksburg. I still have my KCS timetables and special instructions from that event. That fell through due to funding issues, and the Amtrak folks stopped the qualifying, but the intent was there.

For many years there has been talk of rerouting either the Sunset or the Eagle via Ft. Worth and Dallas, but the issues I mentioned earlier and a host of others have always put a damper on things. I am certain the idea will be revisited again, in different configurations and maybe one day a solution which is logisticaly and financially viable will appear.

Harvey, leave it sufficient to say that the crewing issues ARE significant, especially when you speak of eliminating a tri-weekly train between San Antonio and El Paso and replacing it with a daily train on a new route. Just by frequencies alone, the number of crews increases, not to m

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Eagle only, for now.

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4merroad4man,

I did not intend to impune train service employees regarding resistance to change. My complaint, which I did not make clear, derives from now long-past experiences with Amtrak planners and managers related to services in Illinois and Indiana.

I understand the personnel relocations are a hardship; but this seems to be an unavoidable aspect of the transportation industry and railroads in particular. Let me repeat that relocation would seem to beat bidding on a job somewhere else because the Sunset is gone. If more ridership can be gained with a reroute and rescheduling, the Sunset will not be the loser it is now.

Adding jobs with daily service would seem to be a good thing.

I only read that UP was upgrading the T&P for more West Coast - South Central traffic. If it is greater than the SP to Houston, I would understand a reluctance of UP in rerouting the train from Houston through Fort Worth to El Paso. Even so, Amtrak could ask.

Toyah Canyon may be an occassional and more frequent problem than I envisioned. This is something the UP would want to improve. In the meantime, a yearly event should not be a deal-breaker.

Laredo would be nice; but if line capacity is too tight, buses to Laredo and to Monterrey and Mexico City would offer an alternative more congruent with the border situation.

As it is, extending the Heartland Flyer to San Antonio would require a second trainset. I haven’t taken a look at the affect rescheduling the Sunset would make; but saving half a day has got to be a good thing. However, daily service would take more equipment; and I would agree that expanding capacity to meet higher demand on existing routes through rolling stock repairs should be considered. Maybe the Sunset could continue tri-weekly on the new route to validate greater investment and asset utilization.

With a Sunset rescheduling, connecting bus service to Phoenix, Flagstaff, and the Grand Canyon c

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[quote user=“HarveyK400”]

4merroad4man,

I did not intend to impune train service employees regarding resistance to change. My complaint, which I did not make clear, derives from now long-past experiences with Amtrak planners and managers related to services in Illinois and Indiana.

I know that…gotta defend my coworkers, y’know. No impuning taken…

I understand the personnel relocations are a hardship; but this seems to be an unavoidable aspect of the transportation industry and railroads in particular. Let me repeat that relocation would seem to beat bidding on a job somewhere else because the Sunset is gone. If more ridership can be gained with a reroute and rescheduling, the Sunset will not be the loser it is now.

Having relocated to Oakland, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, New Orleans, Seattle, Oakland and back to San Antonio during my Amtrak career (this does not address relocations while with SP) from a personal standpoint, I will take my chances as relocation is less frightening for me than for others. There are too many options for “saving” the Sunset (didn’t know it needed “saving”) and frankly, when one hires out with Amtrak, one knows movement is almost mandatory.

Adding jobs with daily service would seem to be a good thing.

Indeed. But adding jobs that cost so much more in terms of total overall expense may not be, except see above. Of course, long term this might work itself out to be beneficial.

I only read that UP was upgrading the T&P for more West Coast - South Central traffic. If it is greater than the SP to Houston, I would understand a reluctance of UP in rerouting the train from Houston through Fort Worth to El Paso. Even so, Amtrak could ask.

Union Pacific has its hands full right now, and I am sure Amtrak has no qualms ab