United Rail Passenger Alliance

Volume 4 Number 23.

1. Continuing our series on how Amtrak can help itself to become close to self-sufficiency, we’re going to look at two other under-utilized routes and a severely under served major city and how each can be improved.Remember the rules of this exercise; this is about upgrading existing routes, using as many existing stations and maintenance facilities as possible, and using existing motive power and rolling stock out of Amtrak’s current pool of active and stored equipment. Under these rules, while many new routes or extensions of current routes to areas not served make sense, they are also expensive and beyond consideration for this exercise; those considerations will be addressed at another time.

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1. URPA’s William Lindley offers these thoughts.
   

   On the pattern for progress

   By William Lindley

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1. The dog continues to eat Amtrak’s homework. Mayor Robert F. Apgar, Mayor of the City of DeLand, Florida, has written two letters to Amtrak in favor of restoring the Sunset Limited east of New Orleans. DeLand, a far suburb of Orlando, and the Amtrak stop closest to Daytona Beach, is an active Amtrak stop. It is also served by the Silver Meteor and Silver Star, which operate between New York City and Florida.The letter was written to Mayor Apgar on May 9, 2007, and is reproduced here in its entirety. Continue Reading »

Volume 4 Number 20

1. Let’s continue our conversation about ways Amtrak can help itself - using current assets - to generate more revenue than expenses, widen its route matrix to provide a more appealing transportation product for its passengers, and lessen its long standing dependence on annual doses of free federal monies.The rules of this exercise are simple: Expand travel offerings by altering existing routes, terminals, and destinations without creating a need for many new stations (very expensive), or pioneering complete new routes (while desirable, new routes are an exercise for another time with another set of criteria and a lot of money), or creating a need for new equipment. A large part of this exercise consists of putting existing equipment to better use, or bringing warehoused equipment out of storage to become a product asset versus a stagnant asset.

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1. If you’re going to make a mistake, make an embarrassing one, don’t fool around with something trivial. In the last issue of TWA, a comment was made about the Silver Fleet of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, which consisted of three daily trains. Two of those were named correctly, but, the third was named in haste instead of in accuracy. The Seaboard’s train between New York City, Atlanta, and Birmingham was the Silver Comet, not the name applied in the last TWA. It’s tough getting a fact wrong you’ve know your entire life because of a simple typo. Thanks to the many friends who caught the embarrassing error, and apologies to all.
2. We know the Florida trains in pre-Amtrak days were always considered money-makers. Even up to the end the year before the advent of Amtrak, Seaboard Coast Line operated the Florida Special, a winter season, extra-fare train that always had good patronage. During the height of the Great Depression, this train and others of the Seaboard and Atlantic Coast Line would often run with extra scheduled sections.At the end of private passenger service, Seaboard Coast Line was operating daily into Florida from New York the Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Champion, Gulf Coast Special, and the Everglades.Between Jacksonville and New Orleans the Gulf Wind was operated, and between Chicago and Miami the City of Miami and South Wind alternated running one train on even days, and one train on odd days.

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1. Aboard Amtrak train number 92, the northbound Silver Meteor, Sunday, May 6, 2007 between Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville, Florida:Sitting in Viewliner roomette number seven, you realize you’re in a sleeping car that is only 12 years old, but looks much older. For those of us too young to have been alive at the end of World War II, you imagine the condition of this sleeping car must have been what it was like in a Pullman Company sleeper in 1945, when every piece of rattle-trap rolling stock was pressed into service to meet the demands of wartime traffic.

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