Fixing it would be much better, of course. It really needs to be a daily, and splitting the route at New Orleans is worth serious study. Re-routing might be an option, but then you alienate towns that get bypassed.

Part of UPs problem is that the line is a heavily congested freight route, and I suspect that UP doesn't have the capital to make improvements. Sooner or later something there will have to give. Like David Gunn says, Amtrak is just the canary in the coal mine. The freight system has trouble, too, but it just isn't as obvious.

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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy

The Del Monte Club Car

San Antonio-Houston-New Orleans deserves better than thrice-weekly service. Same for New Orleans-Jacksonville. And to step farther afield, the Texas Triangle (San Antonio-Austin-DFW-Houston-San Antonio), though lengthy, is a corridor just begging for frequent service.

It seems that there has always been 'a red-headed stepchild' to attract the ire of those who seek an example of "everything that is wrong with Amtrak". We've all heard the arguments.......'the train is late', 'the train is empty', 'it would be cheaper to buy everyone on it a plane ticket' yada, yada, yada.

So over the years we've lost the 'red-headed stepchildren' trains one by one. The Floridian went away. The Mountaineer and Hilltopper went away. The National Limited went away. The Pioneer went away. The Desert Wind blew past. The Pennsylvanian west of Pittsburgh went away. The Kentucky Cardinal has flown the coop (and there had been some ridership interest until the sleeper was pulled). The International is retrenching......though it will be nice having the Blue Water back...

Point is that there has been too much 'killing it' and not enough 'fixing it'. If we lose the Sunset then the forces allied against rail passenger service will find another LD train to work on. I'm afraid that the system is so skeletal now that the next trainoff could be the beginning of the end.

But they, or their consultants, were more fixated on historical routes, and the potential for "end to end" business.

After all, when they "flew" about, wouldn't they likely have selected non-stop flights for their travels?

Lastly, lest we forget that during 1950 when Phoenix had a population of some 106,000, SP offered set-out sleepers to there from both Chi and LA. Never mind what you get today with an elevenfold population increase to some 1,371,000.

Houston/San Anton/Dallas service is not within the province of Amtrak under statute. That is 403(b) service ... where Amtrak is an operator on behalf of one of the States.

Houston - Denver (aka the Texas Zephyr redux): You may be right, but it's Kay Bailey who's going to get it for you. Write her, often...

To others: You're blaming the Union Pacific, but guess what: Prior to the UP/SP merger, SP had the Slow Boat to New Orleans!!! SP's running of the Sunset (which includes the precedent of tri-weekly service) as an unsatisfactory train is part of the evidence Congress used to create Amtrak.

Lest we forget: SP brought us vending machine cars!

John

It's also the first (and only) true coast-to-coast / trancontinental train in U.S. history.

1. The Golden State was already dead before Amtrak. The Super Chief was alive and well.

2. The Rock Island bankruptcy and liquidation occured post-amtrak. By A-day their track conditions were already pathetic. Remember Chicago to Peoria? Plugging along at 25 to 40 mph for 150 miles or for 250 miles across Indiana on Penn Central was one thing, but to have a run on the "Rock" at that rate for over 500 miles Topeka to Tucumcari, and then on to the tender lovig care of the SP? It would have killed the service outright.

Yes to lose Pheonix was a disaster, for which we can thank the myopic government of Arizona, including particularly one US senator. Which brings me to:

What is a crying need for Amtrak is for the congress critters to come up with a program to bring passenger lines with little freight up to good conditions. My thoghts would be, more or less in order of priority.

1. The Pheonix Line
2. The Santa Fe passenger line across New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas. This could be brought up to 110 mph for about the same cost that would get it into good condition for 90 mph.
3. The MoPac passenger line across Missours, St. Louis to Poplar Bluff
4. The Memphis to Jackson MS Illinois Central passenger line through Grenada MS, which is both faster and serves more people that the freight line currently used by the CNO. Maybe this should be No. 1 since it is in part up for abandonment.
5. Chicago - Indianapolis - Louisville

What I would think all here would find interesting is the Route Selection Criteria Report that was submitted by the Incorporators to the President pursuant to the RPSA 1970. (translated, we know that means from the consultants such as Booz Allen, Arthur Andersen, et magna alia, to some "lowerling" in the DOT).

This document contained reasone why a particular route was selected over an alternate. From once having reviewed this document over thirty years ago, it appeared the Incorporators, as I noted earlier, were "fixated" on end point business. Putting the CHI LA route aside, that was their reasoning for selecting the GN for the CHI SEA route over the NP which served a more populous area of Montana. I do not recall any mention of the meritorious argument that the GN (existing Empire Builder route) serves an area of Montana "underserved" by air and highway alternatives.

It was of course "C'est le vie" that I had to surrender my copy when I left the industry during 1981, but I can't think of any reason that information has been withheld from the Public Domain.

If you can find it somewhere, it makes interesting reading.

Yes, I agree with you totally on the weird fixations that seemed to be in the "studies" done by and for Amtrak. My opinion is that a major factor has always been the fixation on the northeast plus a few big cities. There has never seemed to be an appreciation that there are a lot of people that actually live in "the great flyover". I mention the ICRR Grenada district as an example. Even well into Amtrak, there would be 20 or more people on the platform for each of the City of New Orleans stops in these towns of 5,000 to 20,000 people that are now bypassed.

A lot of money was also burned in the early NECIP days in pointless studies by people with little or no railroad understanding. It would have been far better spent on rails, ties, ballast, and new turnouts. There seemed to be much more interest in developing pretty studies than in really determining what most needed to be done and then getting at it. Working at the time for a civil engineering company that had a small piece of design work for some of the facilities, I was astounded at some of the small minded "turf wars" that wasted time and money and the mulitudinous irrelevant issues that were plugged in that ran up costs.

Of course there was waste on the ties and rail side as well. I watched a tie gang pull out ties that had a lot of life left in them just to show high production rates.

Your comments regarding consultants (I never have been one) reminds me of an episode here in Chicago during the "interregnum" between Daleys.

During January 1979, the city got "pasted' with the white stuff and "the city that works" simply didn't.

In an effort to hang on to his job, and with a general mayoral election in March, the incumbent comissioned some consultants to write a report on efficient snow management.

Well, when the report was released (after, might I say the voters "retired" him in favor of a woman "reformer" best remembered as "Calamity Jane"), a local newspaper columnist commented that he would be happy to write the City a two word report for which he would chargre $100,000 a word and in the process save the City some "heap big wampum";

This material originally posted at another board was lost resulting from a server "crash". It remains available through archive.org, but I must acknowledge I am not complete certain who presently holds the rights to such. http://web.archive.org/web/20020829222424/www.railroad.net/forums/messages.asp?TopicID=638