Quote:
Originally Posted by Pedestrian
Your point about Surfliners is completely incomprehensible. I am talking about interstate service. You are talking about trains within CA. As to when trains might arrive in Mississippi or Alabama, the Sunset Ltd sits in San Antonio for hours connecting with the Texas Eagle. It should be possible to jiggle the schedule to eliminate this multi-hour station stop to arrive in NOLA much earlier in the late afternoon/early evening and then go on to Mobile, arriving before midnight (and leaving in the other direction in early morning).
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What you have failed to realize is that state lines have nothing what-so-ever to do with if an Amtrak train is a long distance or regional train. Regional trains generally require subsidies from states, while long distance trains do not. Cascades trains cross both one state line and one international border while remaining within the regional train category. The defining difference is stated in Congressional language, a specific
distance. New Orleans to Mobile is 144 miles, therefore well within the 750 miles classifying it as a regional train. FYI, Santa Barbara to San Diego is 215 miles, longer than the distance between New Orleans and Mobile. Who is incomprehensible now?
The issue of whether the Sunset Limited (east) should ever return or not, that bridge was burned down years ago. Amtrak started running the Sunset Limited east of New Orleans in 1993 and stopped doing so in 2005. The Sunset Limited extension existed for just 12 years. It has been dead over 15 years now.
Over the years, Amtrak has tried to make Mobile work on its national passenger rail system, every time it has died fairly quickly.
Per Wiki. "Amtrak left the
Sunset unchanged, while it dropped the Louisville & Nashville's
Gulf Wind, which operated between New Orleans and Jacksonville, Florida. The tracks between these two points remained unused by passenger trains until April 29, 1984, when an Amtrak train called the
Gulf Coast Limited, running between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, began service, seeking to regenerate some form of regional intercity rail traffic between large cities outside the Northeast. However, this train only lasted until January 6, 1985. Almost five years later, on October 27, 1989, the track segment between Mobile and Flomaton, Alabama, came into passenger train use as part of the route of the
Gulf Breeze. This was another attempt to regenerate regional inter-city rail traffic, this time between Birmingham, Alabama, and Mobile. The train was a reestablishment of the Mobile section of Amtrak's New York City—New Orleans Crescent. It branched from the Crescent's route at Birmingham, turning south toward Montgomery, Flomaton, and terminating in Mobile. The Gulf Breeze was discontinued in 1995."
As for the switching operations that occur in San Antonio, it is a miracle it happens at all. It occurs immediately adjacent to mainline tracks and not in a yard. There are no grade separations, downtown street grid with at grade streets intersections every 300 feet; bells, crossing arms, and train whistles constantly clanging; with manual turnouts for the entire switching procedure. It would make a great youtube video if it were not so dark in the wee hours of the morning. Here's someone's poor attempt at one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oB0JNl-Shg
it is done because both the sleeper and coach car making the transfer between trains are full, in both directions. It occurs in the wee hours in the morning in San Antonio because the city would not allow it during normal daylight or evening hours, it would kill traffic approaching downtown from the east. So forget about changing when the Sunset Limited visits San Antonio.