Amtrak: Empire Builder and Borealis (TCMC)

[VacantLuxuries]

Let's see them actually get Brightline West up and running before we start imagining they're going to duplicate TCMC any time soon.

[Korh]

There are some issues with class 1 with the biggest imo is the companies and investors being obsessed with operating ratios since I think a lot of them still think it's a dying industry.
There was an interesting episode of a podcast called well there's your problem that went into a 3 hour discussion on this that has some interesting information
https://youtu.be/jNkYNjADoZg

Also think brightline coming to MN anytime soon is a pipe dream. The company will probably target southern routes like Atlanta to Charlotte or one of the legs in the Texas triangle when there done expanding in Florida and or LA to Vegas.

[grant1simons2]

Memphis to Nashville >:)

[Tom H.]

Memphis to Nashville >:)

Nah, every Ticket to Ride player knows Nashville to Atlanta is the perfect starting route

[StandishGuy]

Maybe this belongs in the Fantasy Maps thread, but someone asked about the best route to connect Minneapolis to Sioux Falls in this thread. IMO a route to Willmar, MN goes too far north before connecting with the BNSF line through SW MN. The Twin Cities & Western railroad angles southwest and connects to a wye in Hanley Falls at the BNSF. In fact, this wye was the first one in the world. I know this because I grew up in Hanley Falls, a tiny town of just 240 people in Yellow Medicine County.

Unfortunately, TC&W hasn't done a great job of maintaining the tracks and my understanding is that they generally use the tracks from Wood Lake to Hanley Falls for car storage.

[HuskyGrad]

Maybe this belongs in the Fantasy Maps thread, but someone asked about the best route to connect Minneapolis to Sioux Falls in this thread. IMO a route to Willmar, MN goes too far north before connecting with the BNSF line through SW MN. The Twin Cities & Western railroad angles southwest and connects to a wye in Hanley Falls at the BNSF. In fact, this wye was the first one in the world. I know this because I grew up in Hanley Falls, a tiny town of just 240 people in Yellow Medicine County.

Unfortunately, TC&W hasn't done a great job of maintaining the tracks and my understanding is that they generally use the tracks from Wood Lake to Hanley Falls for car storage.

I've assumed that it would follow this route since it would provide a connection to Mankato.

SiouxFalls.JPG

[Hero]

There are some issues with class 1 with the biggest imo is the companies and investors being obsessed with operating ratios since I think a lot of them still think it's a dying industry.
There was an interesting episode of a podcast called well there's your problem that went into a 3 hour discussion on this that has some interesting information
https://youtu.be/jNkYNjADoZg

The more I learn about the railroads the more I like nationalisation. What we need is a charismatic politician to champion and explain the issue to voters. From what I can tell it would benefit everyone in the country except the class 1 railroads (although if they continue to neglect track maintenance maybe they would benefit as well in the future).

[Korh]

Call me a cynic but the one knock against a national railroad system in the US I have is I fully expected it to be as fully funded and up to date on maintenance as the interstate highway system.
i.e. not at all.

[VacantLuxuries]

For all the faults of the interstate system, it takes incredible political will and effort to remove even the most redundant parts of the freeway network.

The Class 1 railroads will rip up a double track section of their routes the second they aren't being used to lower their tax burden. That wouldn't happen if the assets were publicly owned.

[Korh]

It's not ripping double track I would be worried about, it would be funding mainly going to the busiest lines where a lot of short lines getting the short end of the stick for maintenance.

We see it a bit with roads, the interstate, highways, and anything for suburbanites. If some side street is more pot holes or some bridge on a dirt road needs replacing, that's an issue for state or local bodies to manage not the US DoT.

[DanPatchToget]

It's not ripping double track I would be worried about, it would be funding mainly going to the busiest lines where a lot of short lines getting the short end of the stick for maintenance.

We see it a bit with roads, the interstate, highways, and anything for suburbanites. If some side street is more pot holes or some bridge on a dirt road needs replacing, that's an issue for state or local bodies to manage not the US DoT.

That's already the case. Most short line freight railroads don't have the revenue to build and maintain the quality of track that Class 1 railroads do on their mainlines.

Also Amtrak has been accused of focusing most of their resources on the Northeast Corridor. Whether that's true I don't know, but I wouldn't be too surprised since that's their bread and butter.

[thespeedmccool]

It's not ripping double track I would be worried about, it would be funding mainly going to the busiest lines where a lot of short lines getting the short end of the stick for maintenance.

We see it a bit with roads, the interstate, highways, and anything for suburbanites. If some side street is more pot holes or some bridge on a dirt road needs replacing, that's an issue for state or local bodies to manage not the US DoT.

That's already the case. Most short line freight railroads don't have the revenue to build and maintain the quality of track that Class 1 railroads do on their mainlines.

Also Amtrak has been accused of focusing most of their resources on the Northeast Corridor. Whether that's true I don't know, but I wouldn't be too surprised since that's their bread and butter.

AFAIK, the NEC is the only part of the system that makes money. The cross-country routes (Empire Builder, for example) would not be operated if Congress didn't require it, and the state-supported routes mostly only break even with state subsidies. The NEC is propping up the whole system.

I think. I'm not an Amtrak expert.

[HKM]

Per the WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/articles/amtrak-pla ... yURL_share):

"Am­trak’s long-dis­tance routes car­ried about 4.5 mil­lion rid­ers in fis­cal 2018 (Sept 30) down slightly from the pre­vi­ous year. Am­trak re­ported an ad­justed op­er­at­ing loss of $543 mil­lion on those routes in 2018, more than off­set­ting the $524 mil­lion in earn­ings com­ing from its op­er­a­tions on the North­east Cor­ri­dor."

I can't find operating loss/income broken down this way for FY2019 (the last period before covid), but ridership and ticket revenue is on page 10 here (https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/proj ... s-FY19.pdf).

[Silophant]

[Bakken2016]

360_F_448023511_zvZBPpPKc2Yv7H0ZFaNtJpPx6VVJpIxB.jpg

[DanPatchToget]

I would've preferred something like "Twin Cities Hiawatha", but as long as they actually get it going I'm fine with whatever they call it.

[Silophant]

I wonder if the name is an indication that they're serious about eventually extending it to St. Cloud or Fargo (or Winnipeg?). Maybe they think a "Twin Cities" name would be confusing if it keeps going past the metro?

[Korh]

Wonder if they could of called it the Milwaukee Road service but I'm assuming someone owns the rights to the name(?)

[Didier]

That name doesn’t make sense, right?

[Trademark]

Amtrak has told legislatures that their next priority after NLX for our state will be a second Twin Cities-Fargo Daily Train which the legislature is trying to use to also get a Northstar extension to St. Cloud. The feds are planning on paying for the Amtrak study.