The Incredible Vanishing Passenger Train Rescue Act

[Metro Jacksonville]

The Incredible Vanishing Passenger Train Rescue Act



Many have heard of  The Great Train Robbery,  but not even Jessie James could have pulled this job off.  With no Sheriff on the case, we are a state with as much promise as California, New York and Washington, but we continue to sit on our hands.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/909

[Trainman]

Is it all Amtrak's fault? Not hardly. I remember riding the Gulf Wind from Pensacola to Jax as a kid with those sleek L&N and SCL E units passing untold numbers of freight trains along the way. And yet somehow the train managed to arrive "on the advertised". I have a good friend who is a retired Amtrak engineer and his regular job was the Sunset Limited. He told me when the train was first put on that ridership was high and the train was usually close to being on time. But by the end of the 1990's it was not uncommon for the eastbound train to be 24 hours behind schedule. Ridership plummeted and subsequently the service was cut back to New Orleans with a bus connection to Jax. The problem didn't lie with Amtrak crews or equipment rather it was pitiful train dispatching by the host railroads. Holding Amtrak trains in sidings for low priority freights, etc. Here's a situation I personally witnessed in west Florida. A short westbound freight was in a siding with a longer westbound freight approaching from a few miles behind. The eastbound Sunset (already half a day late)went into the siding nose to nose with the short freight. The long westbound passed by. I heard the Amtrak crew radio for permission to back out of the siding and proceed on. The dispatcher said no contacting  the short freight to back out of the siding and proceed on it's way first. I thought he had lost his mind. I later found out that the short freight crew was close their end of hours of service and the dispatcher wanted to get them to Pensacola before they ran out of time. Believe it or not that is a common scenario facing Amtrak. People won't take transportation that they can't depend on for reliable service. Now top it off today with exponential freight growth on max capacity tracks and you can see how unlikely it is to get any new service.

[Abhishek]

Trains have always been the most efficient mode of transportation for the volume they carry. I wonder how much interstate construction and petroleum production has been subsidized to make people think it is easier and cheaper to drive than take the train.

Adding more rail lines solves the problem of delay of passenger trains. Is there a budget to do that? This is a good post and targets an issue close to my heart: auto dependency. I would like to not point fingers and see Amtrak focus towards a plan and a budget.

[Trainman]

Responding to Abhishek. I agree that rail is more efficient. I saw this first hand when I lived in Europe. Amtrak has been given a substantial shop in the arm recently to the tune of about $13 billion over 5 years but the host railroads govern capacity. Amtrak does own some track of its own i.e. the Northeast Corridor but has no power to make freight carriers expand capacity. Some good news for Jax is that CSX has an aggressive multi-billion dollar plan to add multiple tracks to the Florida-Chicago and Florida New York routes while adding bridges and eliminating grade crossings. This will require some funding from federal and states sources and will take years to complete but at least there is a plan. Considerable work is already under way between Waycross and Brimingham.

[Ocklawaha]

You right, the blame cannot fall completely on Amtrak. The State of Florida and the Cities have done NOTHING to make it happen. Maine, Vermont, New York, North Carolina, Illinios, Oklahoma, California, Oregon and Washington have all gotten into the game and MADE AMTRAK HAPPEN.

Certainly track capacity and dispatching is a major issue in this day of overloaded freight lines. But the cover of this months industry magazine "Progressive Railroading" defines partnering: "A way to increase capicaty, expand plant, add signals and sidings etc... (See Norfolk Southern)." So the industry is willing to work with the States if the States will help out. There is NO NEED to go out and reinvent the steel wheel or steel rail, nobody needs monorails or maglevs. The track is in place, but what is needed is the addition of second or third tracks in some places, others simply long higher speed sidings for meeting other trains at track speed. New signaling systems would increase speed and capicaty on some of the routes, and highway overpasses remove the legal burdens. These are all carrots we can dangle in front of the railroads and get their undivided attention.

Something else? Yep, how about an investment tax credit? The federal government is working on this why not the states? Say an 90% on-time record for state supported trains brings a 25% tax credit. That's cash the railroad can reinvest in plant.

Where Amtrak has failed is trying to make all trains into enlarged 737's. All blue, all alike, all coaches are alike, all food service, all sleeping service. This works great for the US Navy, but not for a passenger railroad. Amtrak already is set up in "regions" so why not at least regionalize the consist of the trains. Decor from Miami's Arts Deco, to the rustic Southwest in Arizona? Where are the speciality cars? Amtrak to this day has never ordered a single speciality passenger car, though it was happy to run the wheels off the old ones it gained on A-Day back in 1971. Glacier National Park, the Painted Desert or the New River Gorge have never seen an Amtrak (double deck - 2 story high - under glass) Dome car. They never ordered them. The Florida trains have lost their round end Tavern-Lounge-Observation cars. They never ordered them either. The famous Sun Lounge Cars, also missing. The Santa Fe's Turquoise Room, Western Grill cars... Gone from the West. The Pacific Northwest had some fantastic all dome trains... not any more. This is clearly AMTRAKS FAULT. Sure they were stretching the budget, but they made trade-offs that I argue cost them patrons.

Bottom line, Jacksonville will be the MIA - MCO - or TPA of Florida Rail - IF WE MOVE! We simply have to grab this flimsey and make a solid order of things.

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

A few more photos that didn't make the article cut, for the railroad types, they'll understand these... For everyone else, dig those cool trains.


Those super-cool connections for the Champion, through cars from New york/Boston to Ft. Myers, Venice, Sarasota, and Naples!


Still running in two sections south of Jacksonville, here we see the early Amtrak Floridian (former SCL Southwind) Tampa-St Pete section arriving at Jacksonvilles brand new Amtrak Station, already nicknamed "the Amshack" by the train crews, used to the lux of Union Terminal. Note the rare dome car, right behind the locomotives where it can catch all of the carbon on the dome windows (DUH?) Typical early Amtrak goof.



Shortly after the merger of the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line Railroads, a passenger train pulls out of the station with one locomotive from each company "on the point".


This photo is included for two reasons, 1. This is a very rare set of Baldwin Locomotive Works, "Baby Faces" or "Centipedes" (obvious name-just look at all those wheels) bracketing a Seaboard Air Line road switcher on a fast freight out of Jacksonville. The first ever high horsepower diesels, these 90 foot long Seaboard monsters were deliverd as passenger engines originally, and called "Rail Masters" by the SAL. They once were frequent visitors to our Union Depot where they were cut into the trains for the race over the SAL's hilly Piedmont mainline through the Carolinas. Sadly, not a single example of the engines survive, though both of our surviving Amtrak trains were once their charges. Worse still? It doesn't appear that any of us ever photographed one in Jacksonville! *(It also happens to be my favorite diesel of all time)


Odd arrival times in New Orleans or Jacksonville? Not to worry, the railroad set your sleeping car up as a mobile hotel, complete with taxi or shuttle services, and you could stay in bed until 8-9 AM. The old rule of thumb for engineers was, you can switch things around, cut the train, kick the cars, shove the spur, rejoin it all, BUT DON'T SPILL THE TEA!

OCKLAWAHA

[rjp2008]

Does slower transportation really appeal to the masses? The only way for trains to get back in the mix is to get faster. It's easier to just hop in the car if it's a short trip, and it's faster to fly.

Now, if you had a train that could get from here to WPB or ATL in 2 hours, THAT would shake things up and spark interest.

[Ocklawaha]

Now, if you had a train that could get from here to WPB or ATL in 2 hours, THAT would shake things up and spark interest.

...and

If you had an airplane that would stop in St. Augustine, Palm Coast/Bunnell, Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach, TItusville, Cocoa, Rockledge, Melbourne, Stuart, Ft. Pierce, and then West Palm Beach... THAT would shake things up and spark interest.

BTW, Enjoy those meals and the view of Stone Mountain, Mount Rushmore, or Mobile Bay on those planes.

Bottom line, how many planes would it take to cover the same corridor that one train on the Florida East Coast could cover?

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

Midway, here's how it appealed in California... Which remember is as long as the Eastern USA.

FROM JACKSONVILLETRANSIT.BLOGSPOT.COM

Amazing news keeps coming out of California. Remember a few years back when the world was saying the LAST STAND of the automobile would be in the "Golden State". The Los Angeles freeway system that attempted to replace a 1,200 mile electric interurban railway and failed. The growing frustration with smog, and endless pavement expansion, the greenhouse created by the sea breeze and the mountains that held a thick grey soup over the cities, burned the eyes and into the minds of the citizens. Rail advocates kept preaching the gospel of bring back the trains, mostly to deaf ears. On the positive side, California hadn't yet, removed any of its mainline railroad track (as Florida has) nor had they completely abandoned their largest passenger terminal Los Angeles, (as Jacksonville has).

But the situation would be confrontational from the start, even if California tried rail it would be with a minimal approach, no station infrastructure and used, begged or borrowed equipment. After all who in their right mind would think the only cities on the globe more sprawled then Jacksonville - Orlando - Tampa - Miami - Sarasota, would willingly abandon 12 and 16 lane freeways for a train ride.

Enter the Loma Preita Earthquake, which typical of most temblors crashed down everything above the ground level. The giant multi-level interchanges of the worlds finest freeway system lay in dusty heaps, countless bodies crushed beneath them. There was only one bright spot in this otherwise dismal history. The deep subterranean railroad tunnels under the San Gabriel Mountains were not touched. Suddenly thousands, if not millions of people desperate to keep working and living, were forced to take to the rail tunnels in quickly gathered equipment from around the Americas. It was to be a short lived experiment, only something strange started to happen. The worlds most auto-centric society rebelled when the political powers suggested removal of the trains and a return to "normal". Nobody it seemed wanted normal to ever come back again.

Now far be it from me to wish a similar natural disaster on my home state of Florida. Rather I would hope someone in Tallahassee or Jacksonville or one of the other major metropolitan areas would look at what has happened not just in Los Angeles but throughout California. In fact, here is the latest on their railway success story:

By Gene Skoropowski, Managing Director, Capitol Corridor JPB
California Intercity Passenger Rail ridership and revenue records continue to be “smashed” by these August statistics. Major ridership growth continues all across California, with the Pacific Surfliners growing at +9.5%, the Capitol Corridor at +21.2% and the San Joaquins at +27.5%. These three California intercity rail services carried 568,132 passengers in August, and the Pacific Surfliner (313,570) route has carried more passengers than Amtrak’s premier Northeast Corridor “Acela Express” (250,440) for the fourth consecutive month.

The Capitol Corridor was again rated by the riders across the country as Amtrak’s #1 route for customer satisfaction for the 7th consecutive month, and Capitol Corridor sustained its “best on-time performance” (at 91.6% on-time) of all but 2 intercity corridors offering multiple frequency services.

Capitol Corridor (August 2008):
158,309 passengers +21.2% vs. 2007 this is a new August record, and second-highest month ever and the Capitol Corridor is still the third busiest route in the country, by a wide margin.Passengers for 11 months YTD: 1,548,783 (11 months YTD: +16.1%)(total riders for the latest 12 months: 1,664,871, +15.7% above prior 12months)
$2,272,935 revenue +27.9% vs. 2007 (11 months YTD: +21.6%)
The farebox recovery revenue-to-cost ratio for July is 62.5% , andthe year-to-date revenue-to-cost ratio holding at 54.3%.

On-time performance for July: 91.6% (a record high for service reliability)The year-to-date on-time performance delivered to the customers after 11 months is 85.3%, among the best in the country. Only the Keystone Corridor and the Hiawatha Corridor have better on-time stats. The premier Acela Express service on the Northeast Corridor is 83.8% on-time for the same 11 month period, while Northeast Regional service is at 75.5%.

The Capitol Corridor (Sacramento - Oakland - San Jose with connections to San Francisco)
A Florida equal to this corridor, while missing the capitol maintains the distances and shape, and would run from Tampa - Miami / Orlando - Miami / Orlando - Tampa, the Florida triangle.

August on-time reliability numbers are exceptionally good, and most encouraging. Again, like last month, not since we went from 6 trains each way to 9 trains each way (back in 2000-01) have we seen ridership growth like we have seen in July and August. Union Pacific Railroad continues to deliver for us. UPRR performance in August was again 95%, and UPRR performance year to date is between 94% and 95%, the best of any Amtrak-operated intercity passenger rail service in the country, whether Amtrak-dispatched or freight railroad dispatched.__________________________________________________


Pacific Surfliners (August 2008): (From Santa Barbara - Los Angeles - San Diego)
One might say this route is roughly the California equal of the Florida East Coast Ry, From Jacksonville to Miami.

313,570 passengers +9.5% vs. 2007, still the second busiest route in the nation, by a wide marginPassengers for 11 months YTD: 2,683,362 (11 months YTD: +7.5%)As noted above, the Pacific Surfliners carried more monthly passengers than the Acela Express on the Northeast Corridor, for the 4th consecutive month
$6,173,776 revenue +14.8% vs. 2007 (11 months YTD: +9.8%)
On-time performance for August: 69.3%YTD on-time: 75.9%__________________________________________________


San Joaquins (August 2008): (From Oakland / Sacramento - Fresno - Bakersfield)
This is a long corridor through a farm belt that started with a tiny 2 car train. If Florida had such a service it would closely resemble our Jacksonville - Tallahassee - Pensacola line.

96,253 passengers +27.5% vs. 2007, keeping its slot as fifth busiest in the nation for the second consecutive month (outpacing New York State’s Empire Corridor Service)Passengers for 11 months YTD: 873,767 (11 months YTD: +18.2%)
$3,093,399 revenue +31.1% vs. 2007 (11 months YTD: +19.6%)
On-time performance for August: 66.4%YTD on-time: 82.4%__________________________________________________________





Total California Intercity Corridor Ridership for August 2008: 568,132
Total Northeast Corridor ‘Spine’ ridership for August 2008: 877,849For August 2008, the California Corridors are 64.7% of Northeast Corridor ‘Spine’ Boston-Washington ridership
Total Northeast Corridor ridership for August 2008with branches to Springfield, MA; Albany, NY and Harrisburg, PA: 1,104,113For August 2008, the California Corridors are 51.5% of the total NortheastCorridor ridership

OCKLAWAHA

[JeffreyS]

My three year old and I will be flying to St. Louis via Dallas thursday wish I could ride a train tht would take less than two days to get there.

[Ocklawaha]

Jeffery, in the days just before Amtrak, the CITY OF MIAMI would have gotten you there overnight with Sunset about Birmingham - Memphis in the dead of night (though the original City missed Memphis for a secondary line, that wouldn't work today, besides the Memphis metro is huge and the track is better) and Cairo in the wee hours AM, You'd roll to a stop on the St. Louis SECTION (after the train was split in central Illinios) just in time for a nice Brunch.

This is why I wrote the article. NOT TO ATTACK AMTRAK, but to point out the many, many, missing markets and the fact that Florida has taken bullet after bullet when places like Vermont, Maine and Oklahoma are adding services and destinations. THIS MUST STOP AND NOW!

My ire on Amtrak remains simply the "GI TRAIN" which is stupid in a railroad marketplace. Further, the idea that we now have only 2 trains a day, so how are they scheduled? One right behind the other OF COURSE! Did anyone in Washington ever think about a 12 hour flip? Maybe one at 11 AM and the other at 11 PM? Just how dumb are ducks anyway?

OCKLAWAHA

[Trainman]

I guess there's still hope for the Sunset Limited. HR 6003 requires restoring service to Florida. This info may have been posted before but this is for respondents to this editorial.

6/13/2008 exerpt from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers website.
What's different about Amtrak bill (HR 6003), is it contains a requirement that the national passenger rail service produce a plan for Congress that will include a projected timeline for restoring service between New Orleans and Sanford, near Orlando, as well as the associated costs for reinstating the service. Amtrak has nine months from the date the legislation is signed to deliver its proposal.

House Rsolution 6003: Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (Passed by a large margin in June)
Section 218 -
Requires Amtrak to submit to Congress a plan for restoring passenger rail service between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Sanford, Florida. Authorizes appropriations.

If the bill gets the Oval Office seal of approval the Sunset will be back!

[Ocklawaha]

Yes, but Congress or the Senate don't know much about railroads. They SHOULD restore the day train (GULF WIND) between New Orleans and JACKSONVILLE. Then send through cars south to Sanford-Orlando-Tampa or West Palm - Miami on a new overnight Palmetto (NEW YORK-FLORIDA).

They could also revive the "SILVER COMET" name and send it to Jax.

The Palmetto which is a day train that currently runs New York - Savannah, with a late evening arrival in Savannah, is missing a huge market by little over 100 miles. STUPID. Get that train to Jax, then when the Gulf Wind comes on, send them South with a combination of cars from both trains, Early AM arrivals in South or Southwest Florida.

This is a great opportunity to unscramble the mess Amtrak has made of the train names and routes.

NY-DC-Raleigh-Columbia-Savannah-Jax-South
Silver Meteor
Silver Star

NY-DC-Fayetteville-Charleston-Savannah-Jax-South
EXTENDED - Palmetto
NEW - Champion

NY-DC-Lynchburg-Greensborough-Charlotte-Columbia-Savannah-Jax-South
NEW - Silver Comet Route

What do you think folks?

Ocklawaha