neony

No problem - we made the best of the situation. Thanks for hosting!

Brightline was never intended to be a commuter service. It was always aimed at the intercity traveler, be they tourists or not. That is especially the case since the W Palm Beach-Orlando segment was completed.

The tracks were not lengthened. The money spent by FDOT was used to revamp a road where it crosses the throat of the rail terminal.

Also, in regard to the nominees to the Amtrak board, those originally nominated were ALL from the Northeast (with one exception), which openly flouted a law which mandated geographical diversity. This was an obvious pro-NEC grab and was met by an outcry, which led to sacking several of these original nominees in favor of a new slate from around the country. This was a victory for those who want a national system.

The second quote reveals part of the reason why Amtrak is stepping away. I was present when the Florida Coalition of Rail Passengers was given a tour of the MIC and was shocked that for all the money spent, the rail station's tracks were too short and the waiting room far too small for intercity passengers' needs. An engineer was very proud of what they built, but was visibly deflated when I brought these concerns up.This is a classic case of not doing their homework and that, coupled with Amtrak's lukewarm interest in the project led us to this sad outcome. Please note that I am NOT siding with Amtrak. They are proving themselves to be an obstacle to progress and should be replaced by others who might do a better job. Their focus is on the Northeast Corridor first, foremost and always, that state services are great as long as someone else pays for everything and long distance service not so much. A casual look at their board meeting minutes reveals that they spend about 80% of their time on the NEC and management values cutting costs to the point where they now have a severe equipment shortage caused by their own actions. In the recent past, they also tried to kill the Chicago-Los Angeles "Southwest Chief", a defacto attempt to set policy contrary to the wishes of Congress. They are insular and resistant to change. Another problem is that current legislation has funds flowing to state programs, but nothing explicitly for needs on a national basis. If a state does not participate, nothing happens. Most routes cross state boundaries and states are not well suited to working in unison by their nature. Also, routes or parts of routes which are important from a national perspective may not be a priority of the state through which a national route passes. Finally, current law apportions Amtrak's very high overhead costs to state supported services, which is a real disincentive. There is definitely a need to address this.

At the rate things are going we will be very lucky to hang on to what we have now.

St. KJP sayeth: BEHOLD! I have seen the promised land!

Yep. Any discretionary programs will likely go away, except for those funded with monies already disbursed. If any state wants trains, they will have to pay. Socialist trains in blue states will be a no-no and long distance trains will be a goner. Amtrak will probably disappear and the right to run on freight railroad tracks along with it. Ditto transit for "those" people in blue cities. It's all tribal now.

I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. Probably toast.

Ah yes, I remember it well. Amtrak even wanted us to do marketing for them, something a small group could not possibly do. This was also the time when and Amtrak exec had the roof of the station painted with an Amtrak sign in hopes that the Goodyear blimp would show it on TV, never mind that the street level sign needed to be replaced!

Ohio: The hole of it all!

The QC-TOR Corridor is becoming more and more like Europe. No wonder you think about moving there.

So the Haslams are against Issue 1? That's another nail in the coffin for my support of the Browns. The oligarchy is ruining this country.

Worn out train, worn out station, middle of the night "service" in a transportation desert. We can and should do better than this.

< eyes roll>

Sounds to me that they will end up calling for a deep bore under the existing station and under the East River. Is that right?

It's even worse than that. Members of Congress begged them not to lay people off during the pandemic, but they did it anyway. And yes, there was money to keep things running. Management has been rewarding execs for cutting costs, so they parked the cars and let them sit. They also gave senior employees buyouts, whose skillsets can't be easily replaced. Now Amtrak is scrambling to hire replacements in a hot job market. These bonuses amount to $75 million per year and some members of Congress are not happy about that. Meanwhile, Amtrak teeters on the edge because they don't have enough equipment through their own actions. Logic tells us that a slowdown is exactly when to repair equipment to prepare for the return of business, but execs won't get bonuses for that. Amtrak has been babbling about new long distance cars since at least 2010. It may be years before an order is place and the equipment is delivered. It's also an open question as to whether shortages will force shutdowns over the intervening time. What we are seeing is not a growth strategy and stuff like this Amtrak makes advocating for more service a very frustrating experience. If I had my way, management would get their walking papers. Anymore I find myself looking for non-Amtrak workarounds.

You won't be able to do a run in 24 hours without an entirely new railroad. Also, Brightline is focused on corridors under 300 miles and won't be developing long distance services such as this. For now, the Amtrak on freight tracks is all we have. It's worth noting that even the direct Floridian schedule before its discontinuance in 1979 took two nights and a day to make the Chicago-Miami run. It was the longest run east of the Mississippi. By contrast, the Florida Special, an all Pullman seasonal train back in the old days made the run from New York to Miami in 24 hours and was in the latter city by noon the day following following its endpoint departure. Topography and distance make all the difference. This "new" train is not a serious attempt to penetrate the Chicago-Florda market. It's just a way for Amtrak to better utilize equipment in the face of a severe shortage of cars.

We have been in the dark for 30 years. I think we need to be a lot more vocal about that.

They were also rough riders. The Silverliners used in high speed testing rode more smoothly on the trucks they had, but the Pennsylvania RR insisted on another design, which was not near as good. The original Metroliners also underwent a rebuilding program to address some other issues as well. The Metroliners were the basis for the Amfleet cars which have been around for nearly 50 years now and are finally being replaced.

One would think so, but Amtrak sometimes does some odd stuff. That was just an educated guess anyway

They were probably doing a crew change for the engineer if you were just short of the platform. Once on board, the engineer has to boot up the PTC signaling system and that can take as much as 15 minutes. Before 1968, the New York Central used automatic train stop which was electro-mechanical as opposed to the hi-tech gadgetry we have now. ATS would bring a train to a stop if the engineer ran a signal and he would have to get out of the cab to reset it.

It could have been. Depew has been a problem for some time. The platform is too short to allow egress for passengers so they have to move it two or three times. They also had a problem with Homeland Security, who kept getting on, harassing passengers and delaying the train even more. That ended when an Amtrak official ordered the engineer to depart with them still ON the train. That prompted a mad dash for the exits (the train did stop at the end of the platform) and solved the problem.

The last time I rode was last August and was from Albany NY to Cleveland. I noticed there was a fair amount of room when I boarded, but more and more people got on at Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. It was packed leaving the latter city. Many Amish too. Lounge attendant was very friendly. Coming back, the train zoomed along to Buffalo, where it sat for quite some time. I later learned that stops at Depew are frequently very lengthy, due to having to move the train three times to allow passengers on or off and for a change of crew and to let the PTC cab signal system to boot up. This is a schedule killer. I have not been on a train since moving back to Ohio.

This is excellent. Thank you.