In my job I travel along the Sunset Limited Route thur southern Texas (I-10, Hwy 90). Why does this train not head north at San Antonio and service more populated route, thur Dallas, Midland, Odessa?Bet it would boost ridership on this route.
For passengers riding between the West Coast and San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, etc., it would be a big delay and extra distance to route the train on a dogleg from San Antonio up to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The fact is that this route has enough unintentional delays, without adding planned ones.
However, it would be great to see some direct service (connecting with the Sunset in El Paso) between points west and Midland, Odessa, D-FW and beyond. There used to be such service in the pre-Amtrak days: UP’s former T&P route carried passengers.
At present, travelers between the West Coast and D-FW have a dogleg anyway, but not as big.
Your point is excellent.
Midland, Odessa, and Abilene have a combined population of more than 350,000 people compared to approximately 45,000 people in Alpine, Marathon, and Del Rio.
I proposed the following changes in a letter to Amtrak: Discontinue the Sunset Limited. Run the Texas Eagle over the old T&P route from Fort Worth to El Paso via Midland and on to the west coast via the Sunset Route. Extend the Heartland Flyer from Fort Worth to San Antonio. Extend the City of New Orleans to San Antonio as a day train. Provide bus connections from San Antonio to Del Rio and Midland to Fort Stockton, and Alpine. Schedule the trains to provide connection opportunities at Fort Worth for passengers to and from Oklahoma City, Austin, etc.
This scheme would improve service in Texas, except for passengers traveling from El Paso and points west to San Antonio and points east. And vice versa! It could also improve the calling times of the trains at major points along the way. Most people will not get up in the middle of the night to catch a train.
The question is how many passengers would be inconvenienced by the changes as opposed to the number of potential new passengers who would respond to improve service in Texas. For example, running the Heartland Flyer to San Antonio would result in better on-time performance, as opposed to the consistently late running Texas Eagle, and could be timed to offer a more convenient arrival time in the Alamo City as well a
When the new SP Sunsest Limited the one equipped with the Budd cars was introduced they had a through Los Angeles - Dallas Sleeping car that operated via the T&P between El Paso and Dallas. It ran this way for a number of years and don’t remember without looking it up when it was discontinued. Coach passengers changed trains in El Paso. There has not been any passenger trains on the old T&P route for many years between Dallas and El Paso even though the towns along this route are larger than those along the old SP route. At one time one could travel from Los Angeles to St. Louis with only one change of trains at El Paso or Dallas.
Al - in - Stockton
[quote user=“Sam1”]
Your point is excellent.
Midland, Odessa, and Abilene have a combined population of more than 350 million people compared to approximately 45 million people in Alpine, Marathon, and Del Rio.
I proposed the following changes in a letter to Amtrak: Discontinue the Sunset Limited. Run the Texas Eagle over the old T&P route from Fort Worth to El Paso via Midland and on to the west coast via the Sunset Route. Extend the Heartland Flyer from Fort Worth to San Antonio. Extend the City of New Orleans to San Antonio as a day train. Provide bus connections from San Antonio to Del Rio and Midland to Fort Stockton, and Alpine. Schedule the trains to provide connection opportunities at Fort Worth for passengers to and from Oklahoma City, Austin, etc.
This scheme would improve service in Texas, except for passengers traveling from El Paso and points west to San Antonio and points east. And vice versa! It could also improve the calling times of the trains at major points along the way. Most people will not get up in the middle of the night to catch a passenger train.
The question is how many passengers would be inconvenienced by the changes as opposed to the number of potential new passengers who would respond to improve service in Texas. For example, running the Heartland Flyer to San Antonio would result in better on-time performance, as opposed to the consistently late running Texas Eagle, and could be timed to offer a more convenient arrival time in th
Say what? I know Texas has an illegals problem, but the population of the entire United States is slightly over 300 million.
Did we have TWO typos on that post? 45 million?
I’ve been through Alpine, Marathon, and Del Rio a few times myself, and those are small, lonely places in a vast open sector of a big state.
If we change “million” to “thousand” in each case, that would seem to work.
I would think that now might be the perfect time to change some routes and introduce several others. The RRs all have freight traffic downturns and they might be willing to let additional Amtrak trains on there tracks. Sam the route you suggest parrallels I-35 for the most part where another route might not compete with Interstate traffic such as a Denver - Dallas routing via the BNSF. The population center of Montana along the lower half of that state has been trying to ressurect train service for years. For those people living along the Empire Builder route there is no other choice but Amtrak the air service and bus service along US 2 disappeared some years ago. There is still limited air service and bus service along the old NP Montana route where the states population lies. If the BNSF is opening a new route into the Montana Coal fields from the former NP mainline than I think Montana’s chances of opening up Amtrak train service along the southern route will be about as likely as snowballs chance in H***. I would rather see the old Pioneer route through Oregon and Idaho reinstituted.
Al - in - Stockton
Well I sure hope someone at Amtrak reads your reply. Snarkaz
I also do not remember offhand when the through Dallas-LA service was dropped, but it was a few years ago. It still existed in 1955–and if I had had the wherewithall I might have taken it the summer after my first year in college. It would have been wonderful to have gone back and forth and up and down across the nation. Alas, I was reduced to working to earn some of my expenses for the coming year.
As to service west of Ft. Worth, in September 1968, when I was making one of my ride-as-many-new-lines-as-I-can in the time-I-have-allotted-myself trips, I rode the Louisiana Eagle from Ft. Worth to New Orleans, and Ft. Worth was the farthest west that the MP (T&P) had passenger service. I had a seat in a roomette to Longview, and I had to ride coach from there on.
In the fall of 1970, the MP dropped all passenger service west of Texarkana. I made a round trip from St. Louis, and as we arrived in Texarkana about three in the morning, the passengers were asked if they were planning to continue on by bus. Apparently the MP was interested in learning how many passengers it might have been able to carry on west.
My wife never ceases to be amazed at the number of people who know nothing better that the uncivilized form of tran
I recognized the error and made the changes in my posting. I got carried away with the zeros. The correct figures are 350,000 and 45,000.
My letter to Amtrak regarding changes in the routing of the Texas Eagle was prefaced by this comment. “If you could run Amtrak like a business, without undue political interference, you would drop most of the long distance trains. But as long as Amtrak is dependent on the Congress for a third of the monies required to cover its costs, you will be required to hoist long distance trains. Accordingly you should provide the best service possible within the constraints imposed on you.”
The one place in Texas where increased passenger train service makes sense is the I-35 corridor between DFW and San Antonio. It has sufficient population, coupled with highway congestion, to make passenger trains
We were over a similar thread a couple months ago. Sam’s proposal has some good ideas and it’s better than the current routes and schedules.
I suggested an alternative New Orleans - Houston - Fort Worth via College Station and Corsicana - El Paso - Maricopa - Los Angeles connecting with the approximate current Eagle schedules at Fort Worth. Except for El Paso, major cities would be served at convenient daytime and evening hours which I am convinced is a principal cause of the poor ridership.
Maybe the connecion at New Orleans is too impractical and the Sunset should originate at Houston. There would be about 2 hrs between the Crescent and Sunset WB; and almost simultaneous arrival and departure EB at New Orleans. If the WB Crescent was reliable, a day of transit time and two brief overnights at New Orleans and San Antonio could be avoided. EB would take a day’s layover at New Orleans.
The Eagle and Sunset become an equivalent to the “City of Everywhere” at Ogden with Houston, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Chicago sections need to arrive reliably; and Fort Worth is not a a large station for trading sections of trains.
Rather than extending the Heartland Flyer to San Antonio, a separate round trip could be run from San Antonio to Dallas in the morning and return in the evening.
Now that I take a closer look at Sam 1s idea for the Heartland Flyer and the routing along the I 35 corridor I could not agree more. Kansas City has been seeking service to Oklahoma City and Dallas for some time. Now when I think about it more I would extend the Heartland Flyer North to Kansas City but via Tulsa hitting Oklahoma’s two major population centers.
The other routing talked about above the short route between San Antonio and Dallas is probably a great solution to some of the I 35 congestion and being an up in the AM and returning early PM makes a lot of sense.
Maybe another idea is to terminate the Sunset in Dallas and run a separate train from Dallas to Houston via College Station then onto New Orleans as also suggested above.
This will mean that Amtrak is going to need every Superliner needing repairs at Beech Grove back in service and ASAP.
The new government is showing much promise where Amtrak is concerned it is going to depend more on the Congress and Senate as to how much money is coming Amtraks way.
Over the New Years Holiday took a few days and went to Las Vegas on the only air service we have Allegiant. The flight time from Stockton was 1 hour 15 minutes and both flights were delayed two hours. So we spent extra time at the airports in both cases. Still it was five hours faster then Amtrak could provide via the San Joaquins and Amtrak Bus from Bakersfield. The airfare was $59 each way with a package deal including Hotel and a few other perks reaching a total of $500 per person for five nights. Amtrak service from Southern Cal to Las Vegas is badly needed. One only has to look at the traffic on I 15 on weekends to realize this.There were 270,000 people on the strip for New Years and most were from Southern Cal. Why can’t Amtrak operate the San Joaquins with a bus connection at Barstow from Bakersfield and schedule the bus to connect with a Los Angeles
Al: It still comes down to the matter of equippment. Not enough for at least 5 years ----unless ---- AMTRAK could borrow Metrolink equipment on the weekends to carry LV passengers. Fat chance of that happening.
The Union Pacific doesn’t want passenger trains on the DFW-El Paso route. While business may be down for now, the recession isn’t going to last forever and they don’t want to be stuck with a passenger train on this important and busy freight route. When the double tracking between LA and El Paso is completed the route will only become more important.
It’s the UP’s railroad and the Federal Government can’t just confiscate it without just compensation.
Long distance Amtrak service is largely irrelavent - but it won’t go away because of political pressures. There’s no sense screwing up an important freight line with something irrelavent.
Yes, it is the UP’s railroad; but they still have a responsibility to accommodate the Sunset. This is not the same as confiscation which implies an eviction of UP. Undoubtedly some compensation will be negotiated for capacity improvement.
The bottom line is a better route for the Sunset and schedule serving more populations at attractive hours and reduced transit time between Chicago and Los Angeles. The route will be more relevant for Texas with a commuter schedule from Odessa to Fort Worth-Dallas and for Arizona.
The daytime service between Houston and New Orleans might be retained. The current travel time of over nine hours needs to be reduced to seven to begin to be attractive as an alternative to driving. Six hours would be better still.
A Houston - Fort Worth section of the Eagle could be paired with a morning Fort Worth - Houston train returning in the evening. The latter round trip would provide a connection between New Orleans and Dallas-Fort Worth.
Sam1 suggested a New Orleans - Dallas route for the Sunset by way of Shreveport. This would afford a more reliable overnight connection with the Crescent serving Atlanta, Washington, DC, and New York. The alternative for a cross-country trek is an overnight hotel in New Orleans and either Houston or Dallas-Fort Worth.
Dallas - San Antonio poses some opportunities as this is the more populous Texas corridor. At a bare minimum, two round trips with morning and evening departures are needed. The evening departure from Fort Worth and morning departure from San Antonio might serve a greater demand than a continuation of the Heartland Flyer while still providing a connection. I would prefer to see the UP upgraded between Fort Worth and Temple in order to serve Waco, even if the BNSF was better engineered and somewhat faster. Here too, the running time needs to be reduced to six hours to begin to be attractive.
Al proposed a Kansas City - Tuls
The Union Pacific has no responsibility to accept, and is under no obligation to accept, Amtrak on this route or on any other new route. I’m of the opinion that it would be irresonsible for them to do so.
They’d probably be willing to do so if Amtrak would pay enough, but it never does. Forcing them to accept the train would be confiscation of their property in that it would deny them use of their property. It would be like the government taking a room in your house. A room that you needed and used.