The Pennsylvanian has fairly few (400 a day) passengers between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh but those few are enthusiastic according to a February 17th article in The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. There are interviews with a several people who describe how important the train is to their lives. There are also descriptions and photographs of empty seats.
Reading the article makes it seem a little less impossible for Amtrak to come up with the funds and if it doesn’t the state of Pennslyvania to come up with the funds. It also mentions the fact that the House Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster’s 9th district includes part of the Pennsylvanian’s route.
Whether or not the train will continue after October 1 is anybody’s guess. If you’ve never rode over the horseshoe curve and you want to it might be a good idea to do it this spring or summer.
Schuster’s dad would have found quid-pro-quo pork to keep it going. It’s probably why the train managed to get from 403b status to part of the national network in the first place. Schuster will have heck-to-pay in his district if it comes off.
It just happens that the Pennsylvanian, which has been slated to have its Federal money zeroed out, comes from the district of the guy who is now Chairman of the Subcommittee that oversees Amtrak. It seems like a little more than a coincidence.
Do a little digging on his dad. He was the head of the same committee for years and years. Funnelled maximum pork toward his district (Altoona area). I’d bet he had quite a bit to do with the Pennsylvanian even existing in the first place.
I did some digging but did not find a connection between Bud Shuster and The Pennsylvanian or any of its predecessor trains.
Bud Shuster was very successful with pork barrel legislation in general. In Pennsylvania his name is associated with bridges and highways including I-99 which is also known as the Bud Shuster Highway. Repeating the same digits to number an interstate is against Federal policy but at Bud Shuster’s insistence the highway number was actually written into the law.
In general Bud Shuster was favorable to Amtrak. He himself said most of all he wanted to be remembered for his contribution to transportation in the United States. However, I did not find any direct link between him and any specific Amtrak route in Pennsylvania.
Is there a connection between the West Virginian and the Pennsylvanian? The West Virginian (derisively called the Patomac Turbo and other names) was introduced to try new high speed technology and satisfy Congressman Harley O. Staggers. It was ultimately withdrawn.
New York to Pittsburgh rail service began long before Amtrak. Up to several years ago there was through service from New York to Chicago via PIttsburgh and there was more than one daily train. The Pennsylvanian is a reduction of long standing service on the line. I don’t see a connection between these two trains.
The common factor is congressional pork to appease powerful committee chairs. The Pennsylvanian started in 1980 as a state-supported daylight train between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and was a resumption of the pre-Amtrak Duquesne. It ran to Chicago from 1998 to 2003. It had nothing to do with the NYC-CHI Broadway Limited, which ran as an Amtrak train from 1971-1995. Both trains were PRR ones. The Pennsylvanian represents two problems of Amtrak: 1. Legacy routes that worked 50 years ago. 2. Routes based on political favors and pork. No Way to Run a Railroad and no way to have a modern, useful passenger service.
A bit more about the Pennsylvanian and Bud Shuster.
The Pennsylvanian went on shortly after the route through PA lost the National Limited. That’s really the train it replaced, not the long dead Duquesne.
Bud Shuster directed as much pork home as he could. He used his position power to bend things to his will for his home district. For example, when Conrail consolidated backshops, guess which shop “won”? When NS and CSX were doing their Conrail deal, in included keeping Hollidaysburg car shops open for five years. Guess why?
Federal money for a train station in Altoona, for a Railroaders Memorial Museum, a state steam locomotive, etc, etc.
A second train connecting Altoona to the east appears shortly after the National Limited comes off. I can add 2+2…
I agree that pork barrel legislation is no way to run a railroad, Schlimm. But neither is it a way to run an interstate highway system. In Pennsylvania that has gotten a lot more pork than Amtrak and part of the reason Amtrak finds it hard to compete is the pork for the interstate highway system.
In the US pork goes back to the days when George Washington got money for the C&O canal. I doubt it will stop any time soon.
I didn’t intend to suggest anything different, Don. Everything I read about Representative Bud Shuster indicated he was big on sending pork home. However, I just could not find any specific reference that links him to the Pennsylvanian. John
400 passengers per day seems pretty good! Is this a round trip figure, or an average of 200 each way? Can’t help but think that additional frequencys would really grow that market.
The article says the average is almost 400 riders for the “segment” which I understand as Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. Since there are two trains a day – one in each direction – I think they mean the average is almost 200 between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh on each train.
Some people argue that a better connection with the capitol limited would increase the number of riders.
To paraphrase: “Never were so many words wasted for so few people.” I believe Don Oltmann made it quite clear on the other thread that the bulk of the Pennsylvanian’s ridership is Harrisburg and points east, with perhaps some from Altoona.
Okay. I estimated 100,000 a year. 400 a day is 140,000 a year. It’s not an order of magnitude difference. For $7M. That’s a $50 a passenger subsidy. Pretty steep. And, bus service is available everywhere on the route except Huntingdon.
FYI when Amtrak started on May 1, 1971 the NY-Pittsburgh service consisted of the BROADWAY & NATIONAL LIMITEDS running combined between NY-Harrisburg and as separate trains west of Harrisburg after picking up their respective thru cars from Washington D.C. There was also a day train between NY-Pittsburgh (The DUQUESNE). IIRC within a year or two Amtrak made the NATIONAL a separate train between NY-KC and the DUQUESNE was dropped. After the NATIONAL was dropped in October 1979 the PENNSYLVANIAN began in April of 1980.
The problem with the PENNSYLVANIAN IMHO is not that it is a legacy route (which it is that between July and September 2012 averaged 300 passengers per train) but that Amtrak has mismanaged the former BROADWAY NY-CHI line beginning with the less than well thought out rerouting west of Pittsburgh in 1990 and the final discontinuance in 1995.
The future of the PENNSYLVANIAN revolves around it being consolidated with the CAPITOL LIMITED while maintaining its present schedule and providing thru convenient service between Chicago and NYC via Harrisburg, Philadelphia and New Jersey
Yes there was. When Conrail advised Amtrak it wanted the BROADWAY & CAPITOL rerouted there was very little if any public discourse about possible alternatives. As a matter of fact an Amtrak official recently said of the 1990 reroute that they just “did it”. As part of the deal Conrail paid for (IIRC $1million) a connection just east of the Cleveland station so as to avoid an in/out back up procedure.
As for the BROADWAY it was put on the ex-B&O line which with the exception of the stops at Akron and Youngstown (which hadn’t had intercity rail service since 1971) there wasn’t much of a ridership base. The ex-PRR line over the decades had generated good ridership out of Canton, Lima and especially Fort Wayne. IMHO the best routing would have been the ex-B&O Pittsburgh to Fostoria and then Fostoria-Fort Wayne-Chicago over the NS (ex-NKP). The ex-NKP and ex-B&O line cross at grade just past the station. Amtrak should have requested a connection similar to what the CL got in Cleveland. Of course this was an OTB solution which Amtrak seems to always have trouble with.