According to today’s newswire, Amtrak will not be able to resume service Sunset Limited east of New Orleans until sometime in 2006 due the extensive damage to the tracks. Amtrak hasn’t even decided when to resume service from San Antonio back to New Orleans.
Even without the hurricane it seems service on the Sunset Limited was like a comedy of errors. As everyone knows, historically the ontime record of this train has been so poor, Amtrak out of desparation recently added five hours to its schedule. As a consequence of this action you can no longer get a same day connection from the Coast Starlight to Sunset Limited.
In the past it seems like Amtrak is constantly truncating the train service for long periods at a time to accomodate trackwork related projects on the freight lines. In fact Amtrak seems so agreeable to truncating the service for almost any reason that running this particular train is clearly not a high priority for Amtrak.
Finally, I understand that of all Amtrak’s trains, the cost recovery on the Sunset Limited is one of the worst.
I just wonder if maybe it is time for Amtrak to throw in the towel on the Sunset Limited and put their meager resources to better use elsewhere. At least until they can afford to run a daily train.
I believe they should cut the train off at New Orleans. They need those Superliner cars elsewhere. This does bring up two problems. I believe stopping the train at New Orleans would only save one trainset.The other problem is Trent Lott, the powerful Senator from Mississippi. Amtrak needs his friendship at this time and I’m sure he won’t want to see the Sunset leave his State.
Dropping the Sunset Limited would leave a large hole in Amtrak’s coverage of the South and Southwest. Many of the towns that this train serves between San Antonio and El Paso also don’t have nearby affordable air service. The train fills a real need in long distance transportation. When I rode the Texas Eagle, which has through cars for the Sunset Limited, I was surprised at how many people were headed to Sunset Limited destinations.
How about rerouting permanently from Jax to Jessup on CSX , the to Macon and ATL on NS, then west to Meridian on NS, KCS to Dallas and BNSF to San Antonio.
Would likely take some capital to get it done. CSX is likely to balk at Jax to Jessup. NS route from Jessup to Macon is unsignalled, but has lots of capacity. NS main route from Macon to ATL is clogged. Old Cent of Ga route is in terrible shape, but half of it is will be upgraded for commuter svc by end of 2006, with the rest of the way to Macon in the plans (but unfunded)
West from ATL, could combo with Crescent to NO or run separate to Meridian on NS, then KCS to Dallas and SA.
That route would bypass Houston - which for operations might be a good thing - but might not be looked upon with favor by Sen. Huchinson - a strong Amtrak supporter.
Playing with the Amtrak route structure is something akin to playing the railroad merger game. It is highly speculative.
From a strictly business standpoint, the elimination of the Sunset Route would by far be the easiest solution, but at this point I don’t think either Amtrak or Amtrak supporters are ready to make that move. That position could certainly change. Part of Amtrak management’s reform proposal to Congress is a suggestion that all long distance trains be subject to some sort of minimum financial performance. Any train below standard would be eliminated unless the states along the route wanted to provide funding to make up the shortfall.
This is an interesting strategic move for Amtrak. If Congress establishes standards for individual train performance, Amtrak gets out of a “***ed if you do, ***ed if you don’t” situation. Of course, politicians hate to be responsible for decisions that may not be popular with segments of their constituency, but then that is why we pay them the big bucks.
How about some input from those who travel all or part of the route on a frequent basis? Anecdotal submissions really aren’t of much use. Just sets up the nonsense that always follows wtih questions like this.
I would say yes. This is the worse of trains in the long distance network. The UP & CSX trwat the train as an unwanted stepchild. It only runs tri-weekly, is constantly late and the schedule padded to make up for lost time. I have talked with several folks who have ridden the Sunset and they said never again.
Very interesting idea. It would remove the train from the hurricane-damage-prone CSX line along the Gulf. One potential deal-breaker is that it would remove service from Tallahassee, the state capital, but AFAIK no Florida congress members are strong Amtrak supporters.
I’m not arguing with you because I have no first-hand knowledge, but is the old CofG route Macon-Atlanta really in terrible shape? That would be unusual for NS. Jesup-Macon definitely has ample capacity - it’s basically a very long branchline from Macon to Brunswick, about 200 miles. I’d be surprised if it had more than one train per day in each direction, if that.
One minor nit to pick - Jesup only has one “s”. When I was there, we called it the “half-a** Jesup”. There is a two-“s” Jessup in Maryland. Both have large prisons, Jesup is federal, Jessup is a state joint.
I hate to agree with this thought, but after seeing how Amtrak service has so markedly declined-no-FALLEN[xx(],Perhaps, the time has come to pull the plug on non-essential services. It can continue in California, so long as the state is willing to put the $ up,and in the northeast corridor. Without spamtrak there,the other public transportation providers will be forbiddingly expensive, and have poor/worse service. The empire corridor will die in Albany, since no one in a position of power will do #*$#@ [:0] for the parts of the state outside the lower Hudson Valley! The major railroads, espically CSX,NS and UP will party all night when Amtrak bites the big one[V].The Sunset is merely the poster child. By the way Amtrak says that service to New Orleans will resume 10/9 (see their web site).
You sit and wait for Amtrak for hours and no freights go through in any direction…then when Amtrak finally comes (hours behind schedule), they creep into the station at like 15 miles an hour, sit in the station for more than a half hour, then the engineer slithers up into the engine like he has better things to do, then he blows the horn signal for “proceed” but they sit around a few minutes longer, the engineer fiddles around with the windshield wiper and pours sand unnessisarily on the rails, THEN when they finally get to leaving they’ve added about 45 minutes more to their late train![banghead][banghead]
I still think Amtrak could have reliable service. One of the excuses why people think they can’t is because they don’t own the track, and therefore they don’t control traffic flow. Well, if you haven’t seen any freights go through in hours before Amtrak arrives, then why can’t they FLY into the station, THROW the passengers off, SHOVE the passengers on, and get on their way! It insn’t like trains can just “pop up” in front of them instantly! Unless the dispatchers just want Amtrak to kick the bucket and turn the signals red, which we all know isn’t true!
I don’t think Amtrak should “throw in the towel” so to speak quite yet. They ARE capible of providing fast and efficiant service. They just need to get their head in the ballgame!!
Why can’t they aquired temperary running rights from another railroad other than CSX if that is the railroad they exclusively use in Louisiana. NS is O.K and somebody else is-I can’t remember the others. According to the some of the news reports that Limitedclear was kind enough to post on the Hurricane Katrina thread, CSX was the last one to get their lines up and running again so Amtrak is going to have to adapt somehow like that.
What is up with all the Amtrak hating on this post? I rode Amtrak across North America this summer. Without doubt, some trains are better than others but just about every train I rode, from the California Zephyr to the Cascades was full up.
Pulling the plug on long distance routes is a bit draconian. We are not talking about that many long distance trains.
The current Senate proposal for Amtrak has the FRA trying to insist on priority for Amtrak trains. Not sure how the FRA would do that but it’s a start.
Also, Amtrak could do with funding to upgrade trains to the standard of the Coast Starlight–a second lounge car (Pacific Parlour) for sleeping car passengers, refurbished all Superliner sleepers to the new Superliner I rebuild status, and most important, get its crews up to the standard of the Starlight.
I know it’s popular to rip on Amtrak. But if they ever were dissolved, then I am sure some of you same people would post complaining that you can’t ride a train city to city any longer.
Those of us who live in Florida and HAVE ridden the Sunset will fight tooth and nail to keep our only connection to the West. Why should we have to go up to DC or the Carolinas to go West?
I never meant to rip Amtrak. Besides the fact that they’re always late at everything they’re a very nice way to travel, and they’re service has always been great (except maybe RIGHT at the beginning).
Now I am pleased at what Amtrak has done with the Empire Builder. The Coast Starlight has already had part of a facelift as well (with the Parlour car). They should try to, in the next few years, upgrade their other long distance trains to the Builder’s standards; cars used exclusively on that train, for instance. Hey, if they had the money to to it with the Empier Builder, they should have money to do it to another train in the next year or so. Amtrak may find more people riding, even though their trains are almost always full all the time anyways…
Amtrak has facilities for servicing trains in San Antonio but it does not have that capability in Houston. Also Houston still is seeing a lot of rail congestion that terminating in San Antonio avoids.