MAKING THE CASE FOR FREQUENCY AND CONNECTIVITY.

The new management at Amtrak ... well, for now, former airline executive and current president Richard Anderson ... seems bent on shaking up the national network.  "The percentage of end-to-end ridership on our trains is not meaningless.  It points to the fact that the markets and customers that those trains attract should be better served by Amtrak."

The value of a train is often in those intermediate stops, and perhaps an overpurposed long-distance train playing the role of a day train, particularly when that one train might have a long run and be subject to delays, might be a signal to management to add frequencies, and develop additional corridors.

Trains correspondent George Hamlin elaborates.

On the passenger side, while long-haul seems to have fallen out of favor, particularly compared with growth in the population and economy since World War II, short-haul in the form of commuter service has undergone a Renaissance, and is now installed in places like northern Virginia and Nashville, Tennessee, where they had little, if any presence in prior times.  As I’ve noted previously, the same applies to short/medium-haul corridors under Amtrak, in a number of areas.

The question in my mind is not, should we get rid of the long-hauls, but rather, how can we play to the railroads’ apparent strengths in short and medium-haul in areas of significant population density?

Corridors work best when they don’t have to work in isolation.  Considering the ‘classic’ Northeast Corridor as Washington to Boston, it is fed by both the Keystone and Empire Service operations, both of which are corridors in their own right.  (They also are fed by commuter services, for that matter, and Empire Service also has feeders from Montreal and Vermont.)  Corridors also function well when they connect large population nodes, and are able to benefit smaller intermediate points, as well.

Let’s look at how the Corridor concept could be adapted to at least some portions of the current long-haul route system, using the Crescent as an example.  Traffic from the Northeast Corridor north of New York, as well as Empire and Keystone Service feed into the train at New York and Philadelphia, enhancing its traffic prospects.

South of Washington, portions of its route already are involved in corridor type service, including the Lynchburg-Washington segment of the Virginia-sponsored regional to Roanoke (which itself feeds the Northeast Corridor) and Greensboro-Charlotte, via North Carolina’s Piedmont service, with Amtrak’s Carolinian integrated into the Piedmont schedule pattern over this portion of its route.

We could add to that the Downeaster, at least on the runs that connect to the New Haven, and if the trains could all run into the same Boston station, that would help, and the Palmetto for Savannah is the beginning of a corridor frequency, or at least a mix of day and night services, south of the Missouri Compromise latitudes.  And yes, there are now day trains running through Washington for and from several Virginia destinations.

What about south of Charlotte?  I suspect that the Charlotte-Atlanta portion of the Crescent’s route is probably a good candidate for corridor-type service.  An extension from Atlanta to Birmingham might be a possibility also. Another one worth considering would be a Charlotte-Columbia extension of the Piedmont Service, if South Carolina could be persuaded to participate.

A daytime Washington-Atlanta train probably could reinforce the cluster of corridors contemplated here with service to and from Washington and Atlanta for points in the Carolinas and southern Virginia now served at undesirable times.   This could also apply to the Crescent’s schedule south of Atlanta, which already resembles a daytime corridor service; somewhat like that of the Palmetto along the Atlantic Coast.

Perhaps Washington - Atlanta - Birmingham is not yet a candidate for a Neubaustrecke, distances being comparable, but one of these days the truck congestion along Interstate 81 will become untenable, federal highway funds or not.

Mr Hamlin also contemplates a corridor closer to Cold Spring Shops headquarters.

Similar principles also apply to the Lake Shore Limited, which already is an integral part of Empire Service.  Daytime Cleveland-Chicago service would be high on my list; Buffalo-Chicago might also be considered.  For that matter, Cleveland-Buffalo-New York could be a possibility.  In the summer of 1953, the NYC’s Empire State Express required 12 hours and 25 minutes to travel from New York to Cleveland.  Surprisingly, as of Amtrak’s November 2017 timetable, the Lake Shore required slightly less than 12 hours to cover this route, albeit at an undesirable time in Cleveland.

The nodes that define corridor services work best when they have multiple frequencies in multiple directions.  Convenient daytime service on both the New York and Chicago routes, including their numerous intermediate points, would create more opportunities in Cleveland for Amtrak than the present schedules there; an extension to and from Pittsburgh on the Pennsylvanian’s route would provide even more reasons for Clevelanders to consider Amtrak for their travels.

Yes, once upon a time, Amtrak did offer multiple frequencies between Chicago and Cleveland.  Look, in particular, at the potential for the never-operated Skyline Connection mail trains, 45 and 46, as a Chicago and Cleveland day train.  A Cleveland - Pittsburgh corridor, let alone onward to Philadelphia, is an order of magnitude more difficult.

So, how do we find out if any of these might work?   I’d submit that an experiment might be in order.  Take either the Crescent or Lake Shore route and install a daytime overlay on the portion of these routes now operated at night.  See what happens.

There are a variety of outcomes possible, including the most optimistic, that traffic would be stimulated enough to support both the existing and new services.  Another alternative might be no stimulation of new traffic; while unlikely, in my opinion, it would be good to know this.  And finally, the daytime service could essentially steal most of the traffic from the overnight services; if so, the market will have spoken.  An advantage of conducting this type of experiment is that it would occur in locations where Amtrak already is a known quantity.

Is anyone at Amtrak even receptive to such a suggestion, though?