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.

   The majority of changes suggested here are targeted to cost about $11 million or less a year to operate, with income higher than expenses; in other words, each of these trains would make money because much of the infrastructure and other overhead costs are already in place and charged to the existing long distance routes. While these suggested trains would share those costs, the benefit is to both the existing routes and these changes; shared costs are always less than stand-alone costs, and more travel opportunities always provide higher ridership and higher revenue passenger miles. The typical train would consist of a locomotive, baggage car, premium coach, food service car, and four to five coaches, depending on demand.

   In this issue, we will look at the Crescent route, service in and out of New Orleans, and service in and out of Detroit, Michigan.

2. The Crescent is another route which fell victim to the transit-era Amtrak thinking of common consists and reduced number of sleeping cars. Prior to the introduction of the ruinous common consists in the mid 1990s, the Crescent regularly ran with 20 car trainsets north of Atlanta. The southbound Crescent would drop three to five cars (many of them sleepers) in Atlanta as it headed to New Orleans, and that evening’s return northbound run would pick them up. Crowds waiting at Atlanta’s Peachtree station often stretched out of the station, and along a fence bordering a street before entraining. Today, Atlanta has 96,891 passengers a year using Peachtree Station. That is about 30,000 more passengers a year than Jacksonville, Florida, which is served by two daily trains. In FY 2006, an average of 133 passengers either detrained or boarded every train which passed through the Atlanta station.

   The Mercer cuts trimmed the Crescent to less than daily service south of Atlanta, and pretty well killed much of its business. Slowly, the Crescent, under the able leadership of the now disbanded Gulf Coast Business Group based in New Orleans, rebounded with higher ridership numbers. The current FY 2006 load factor for the Crescent is just 49.1%, so there is plenty of room for growth on the Crescent which would be generated by second frequencies and greater travel opportunities for passengers. Keep in mind the current Crescent load factor is one of a train which is designed to serve New Orleans, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina at the end of Amtrak FY 2005, so the FY 2006 figures show a train which still came on strong despite serving a region declared a federal disaster area. In FY 2006, the Crescent carried 252,100 passengers for an average trip length of 537.1 miles, generating 135,393,000 revenue passenger miles at 16.99 cents per mile, the highest revenue per passenger mile figure in the traditional long distance fleet (the Auto Train is the only train higher).

   There are three major opportunities to improve the Crescent service with minimal investments using stored equipment.

   The Crescent makes a run of 634 route miles in just less than 14 hours between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta; running both directions during evening, night, and early morning hours. Many high population areas of North Carolina and South Carolina, including Charlotte, are visited by the Crescent during nocturnal hours.

   Create a daytime, 14 hour train running between Washington and Atlanta. This could easily be an 8 A.M. to 10 P.M. run in each direction (or any variation of that within a couple of hours). A highlight of this would be improvement of an emerging corridor between Danville, Virginia and Washington, which also serves Charlottesville, a busy stop on the Crescent line. Charlottesville is also served half-heartedly by the Cardinal, three days a week. Current passenger loads for Danville are 4,065 per year, for Lynchburg are 16,847 per year, and for Charlottesville, 45,708 per year. Danville and Lynchburg are both served either very late at night or very early in the morning.

   On the south end of the route, a second run of 518 route miles and just about 12 hours is available between New Orleans and Atlanta. The Crescent currently serves this part of the route northbound by departing New Orleans at 7:20 A.M. CST and arriving in Atlanta at 7:53 P.M.; southbound the train departs Atlanta at 8:38 A.M. EST and arrives in New Orleans at 7:23 P.M. CST. While this is an ideal daylight schedule, a second frequency, which would be a huge boon to ridership because of the additional travel choice, could depart each end about three to four hours later and still arrive at each train’s destination before midnight. Birmingham, Alabama is on this segment of the route, as well as fast growing Meridian, Mississippi. Birmingham has an annual passenger count of 24,376 patrons, and Meridian serves 10,732 passengers annually.

   Thinking creatively and playing off of a previous suggestion in TWA for extending service from Charlotte, North Carolina to Tampa, Florida, another suggestion is for a daytime train of approximately 15 hours which could run on the Crescent route from Washington to Charlotte, and then splice into the route of the Silver Star to continue south through Columbia, South Carolina and terminate in Jacksonville, where connections to the Florida trains would be available. Most likely, this train, which would provide a single train route to many major cities in the Southeast such as Columbia, Savannah, and Jacksonville, from other viable origination points such as Charlottesville, Lynchburg and Danville in Virginia, and Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury and Charlotte in North Carolina, would be a major addition to Amtrak’s southeast passenger station matrix.

   The Gulf Breeze was once a proud and viable part of the Crescent. Created less than 20 years ago, the Gulf Breeze operated as part of the Crescent from New York City to Birmingham, Alabama, and then split from the train and became its own service to Mobile, Alabama via Alabama’s capital of Montgomery. When the Gulf Breeze became yet another Mercer victim, the route was replaced by a Thruway bus connection, which ran to Atlanta instead of Birmingham. Alas, yet another Amtrak victim of Hurricane Katrina was the Thruway bus connection to Mobile; even that is gone, now, too.

   Even though the old L&N/CSX/Amtrak station in Mobile is mercifully gone (it possibly could have been listed in the annals of architecture as one definite way to NEVER build a building again, from an aesthetic standpoint), another old train station is still standing, and waiting for a new life. Further inland from the Sunset route on another edge of downtown Mobile is the old Gulf, Mobile & Ohio station. Before Hurricane Katrina, this huge old station, which is currently disconnected from any tracks, but is nearby the CSX yards in Mobile which was part of the route of the Sunset Limited, has great potential as a new station. The original GM&O station was a stub-end station.

   Instead of the current suggestion of only a short distance train between New Orleans and Mobile, or just a restoration of service between New Orleans and Jacksonville, strong consideration should be given to a New Orleans – Atlanta train via Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, Pascagoula, Mobile, Atmore, Montgomery, and Birmingham. This attractive route connects all of the tourism areas of the Gulf Coast west of Pensacola with the important markets of Montgomery, Birmingham, and Atlanta. New Orleans is already a maintenance and crew base for the Crescent, and the Gulf Breeze stations of Atmore, Evergreen, Greenville and Montgomery between Mobile and Birmingham are still in place, so again, this is a new/partial restoration of a route which opens up a large new matrix for Amtrak passengers.

3. New Orleans is a passenger train traffic buffet waiting to be devoured. The city on the rebound has a huge and vibrant passenger terminal, a good maintenance base that is currently severely underused, and a good crew base. New Orleans is tragically under served by Amtrak with only the Crescent from the east, the City of New Orleans from the north, and the three-time-a-week Sunset Limited from the west.

   New Orleans, during the full 11 months in FY 2005 before the unwelcome arrival of Hurricane Katrina, saw 147,955 passengers using New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal. That was with a daily Crescent and City of New Orleans serving the terminal, plus a tri-weekly Sunset Limited serving the terminal in both directions. That same fiscal year, Minneapolis/St. Paul, with just one frequency a day of the Empire Builder in each direction, alone served 132,528 passengers, a difference of only 15,427 passengers, which is a testament to the strength of the Empire Builder. In FY 2006, even after the devastation of Katrina and the grievous loss of the Sunset Limited east of New Orleans, NOUPT still hosted 103,616 passengers. Both Hammond, Louisiana on the route of the City of New Orleans, and Slidell, Louisiana, on the route of the Crescent, actually saw increases in passenger counts in FY 2006 over FY 2005.

   Studies have shown much New Orleans tourism business coming from Houston, Texas. Starting from the west, and following our same 14/15 hour criteria for an inexpensive daytime train to operate which will generate heavy traffic loads, but not add any new infrastructure, the first train to be added should be San Antonio-Houston-New Orleans. Even at the Sunset’s leisurely pace (and, taking into consideration the heavy rail traffic through the eastern end of this route working through the oil refineries and chemical plants in East Texas and Western Louisiana), this is still a 15 hour trip. San Antonio already provides a turn facility for the Texas Eagle, so two trains a day instead of one would be turned there.

   Even though any analyst outside of Amtrak will instantly tell you the Sunset Limited must be made a daily train immediately for it to realize its true potential, a daily second frequency along this part of the route will only enhance ridership, and lower the costs of the Sunset and Texas Eagle as shared facilities come into play.

   So much potential exists on the CN/IC route between New Orleans and Chicago. Since the City of New Orleans can be maintained in New Orleans (as it was done for years prior to the current reorganization of maintenance facilities) the first consideration is to extend the City to Detroit, another of Amtrak’s most under served terminals. This would require one more trainset than is currently being used. The City of New Orleans enjoys a load factor of 49.5%, within less than half a percentage point of that of the Crescent. This is remarkable considering that New Orleans is still rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, and demonstrates strong ridership demand on this route of 926 miles. The average length of trip on the City is 463.2 miles, almost exactly half of the length of the route. Strong intermediate stops such as Carbondale, Memphis, and Jackson, Mississippi contribute to this train’s ongoing success. Memphis serves 44,502 passengers a year, and Jackson sees 31,736 passengers pass through its renovated train station.

   Historically, and profitably, two great trains served Chicago, Memphis, and New Orleans. Both the overnight Panama Limited (named after all of the people who rode the train to New Orleans and then boarded ships bound for the work on the Panama Canal at the beginning of the 20th Century), and the daytime City of New Orleans of folk song fame provided the Illinois Central route with high service levels. It’s time to restore that level of service. Think of the New Orleans-Chicago route as the base of a “Y.” The right part of the top of the “Y” should be reserved for the City of New Orleans, traveling to Detroit. The left part of the top of the “Y” should be reserved for a revitalized Panama Limited, serving New Orleans, Memphis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis/St. Paul.

   Minneapolis/St. Paul is a high volume station on the route of the Empire Builder, serving 137,227 Amtrak passengers in FY 2006 with just one train. Adding a second frequency between Minneapolis and Chicago, a run of about eight hours, will dramatically increase ridership as travel choices expand. A coach which runs between Minneapolis and Chicago is added and subtracted to today’s Empire Builder and serviced overnight in Minneapolis. A second train would perhaps eliminate the need for this coach, but, it’s possible the increased travel choices would be enough to increase demand that the short distance coach may need to be retained.

   It would take four additional Superliner trainsets to create a new Panama Limited, which would depart New Orleans in the late morning, arrive Memphis in the early evening, and arrive in Chicago in the early morning, thus providing a morning train from Chicago to Minneapolis/St. Paul, which is an eight hour run. To balance the schedule of two trains, the City of New Orleans should depart New Orleans about an hour later than it does now at 1:45 P.M., which would still provide a stop in Memphis before midnight, a mid-morning stop in Chicago, and on to Detroit. Return schedules would be set accordingly, for a late morning departure from Minneapolis/St. Paul, an early evening departure from Chicago, a nocturnal visit to Memphis, and an early afternoon arrival in New Orleans. The City of New Orleans would operate about an hour later southbound than its present schedule to provide a better arrival/departure time for Memphis.

   Before yet, again, the Mercer cuts, a section of the City of New Orleans, dubbed the River Cities, operated on the City between New Orleans and Memphis, and then north of Memphis at Carbondale broke off onto its own service and on to St. Louis and Kansas City. This provided an excellent matrix for connecting Kansas City and St. Louis with Memphis and New Orleans.

   The River Cities needs to be resurrected as its own day train, with service between New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis (Kansas City is too far of a stretch to fit our criteria of trains running approximately 14 hour routes). Since New Orleans and St. Louis are both maintenance or turn bases, no new facilities will be required.

   Memphis is an important Mid-America city with a great train station and very little service. It generates high ridership of 44,502 passengers, despite its present scant service. By resurrecting the River Cities, Kansas City through connections to St. Louis, and St. Louis suddenly are directly connected to Amtrak’s eastern network without having to hub in Chicago. The gives passengers from the Southwest Chief and all of its matrix of station possibilities a whole new host of destinations available without the time consuming and often out-of-the-way Chicago connection.

   This brings us to New Orleans-Jacksonville service, in addition to what is needed by the restoration of the Sunset Limited, or an extension of the City of New Orleans from New Orleans to Orlando or Tampa.

   Amtrak would have us believe not much business exists between New Orleans, the Gulf Coast resort, casino, and vacation towns, Pensacola, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville. Keep in mind prior to the extension of the Sunset Limited to Florida in 1993, Amtrak recorded an annual average of 75,000 requests a year for train service between New Orleans and
   Jacksonville. The run between these two points takes 14 hours. New Orleans is an existing hub for the City of New Orleans, Crescent, and Sunset Limited. Jacksonville is an existing hub for the Silver Meteor and Silver Star. A new daylight train between these two points on a daily basis has a great potential for generating passenger business. There are no major airports between New Orleans and Jacksonville, just regional airports, and bus service is light. Interstate 10, which originates in Jacksonville and goes west all the way to Los Angeles via New Orleans is a busy highway. While we know not a lot of cross elasticity exists between the various modes of transportation, we also know the factors of other modes that are busy also generate interest in passenger rail travel. Sharing the costs of the existing stations between New Orleans and Jacksonville with the Sunset Limited would substantially reduce the overall costs of the Sunset, plus generate new business along the route because of more travel choices.

   Daylight trains operating from San Antonio to Houston to New Orleans and New Orleans to Mobile to Jacksonville, plus a daily frequency from New Orleans to Atlanta via Mobile, Montgomery, and Birmingham would create a new boom in passenger railroad traffic in a highly desirable tourism area, not to mention major areas with huge population bases that have a need to move about for the routine business of visiting friends and relatives. All of the infrastructure is in place to create a strong new dynamic in New Orleans, reaching out to almost every point of the compass except south (the Gulf of Mexico is too damp for train operations).

4. Detroit is a passenger rail plum waiting to be picked and rediscovered. Current Amtrak thinking dictates that passengers from Detroit, or those traveling to Detroit, only want to travel via Chicago. What a waste. Under this thinking, only 55,933 passengers a year originate or terminate in Detroit, one of America’s largest metropolitan areas.

   Three new daylight trains, all fitting our 14 hour or so criteria, jump to mind immediately, with only pioneering one roughly 60 mile segment of track between Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, which now serves both the Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited. Pontiac, Michigan, a far suburb of Detroit, currently provides turn maintenance and a crew base for the Wolverine services.

   The first suggested train runs between Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, tying Detroit passengers into the very middle of the southern section of the Northeast Corridor. Running about 15 hours, this train provides exciting daylight service to major metropolitan area stations such as Cleveland, which are only accustomed to the dead of night service. Current ridership at Toledo is 56,228 passengers, Cleveland hosts 29,334 passengers, and Pittsburgh comes in at 118,708 passengers. Adding a daylight train on this route will likely more than double Cleveland and Toledo ridership, plus have a significant impact on Pittsburgh, by doubling service between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

   The second train follows a similar route of Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany, and into New York City’s Penn Station, tying all of these cities with New England service. The same scenario as outlined immediately above for Toledo and Cleveland remains true here, plus adds a significant boost for Buffalo, New York, which is primarily served by trains between Toronto and New York City. Adding an additional daylight frequency from New York City to the west via Buffalo can only have a dramatic outcome for increased ridership.

   The third train runs Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and into Washington, D.C. on the Capitol Limited route. This provides a second frequency over much of the Capitol Limited route, with all daylight service. The current route of the Capitol Limited between Chicago and Washington hosts 198,000 passengers a year, with a high load factor of 61.6%, and generates revenues of $14,638,900 annually. Adding another frequency with intermediate stops at Toledo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh again exponentially sends ridership potential through the roof, especially since the average length of trip on the Capitol Limited is 496 miles. This suggested train connects Detroit with all of Amtrak’s southeast and Florida service.

   By adding the above mentioned extension of the City of New Orleans from Chicago to Detroit, suddenly, Detroit is connected to every major Amtrak hub on the east coast, and every route in the northeast and southeast, plus having same train service to Memphis and New Orleans.

   Two other extensions include making better use of existing Wolverine trainsets. As currently operated, the Wolverine service runs at a 51% load factor, but has very low equipment utilization, with trainsets on the road less than eight hours a day. Two of the Wolverine services could easily be extended from Chicago to St. Louis, and from Chicago to Kansas City. This would provide Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis service via the route of the Texas Eagle, and Detroit, Chicago and Kansas City service via the route of the Southwest Chief, thus enhancing both of those existing routes, create better equipment utilization, and substantially increasing ridership.

   Chicago is one of Amtrak’s mega-hubs, but that should not be a barrier to the concept of operating trains through Chicago versus originating and terminating all trains in Chicago.