@@arxligionhe said whomever got the other state, he had already mentioned Wyoming, that Amtrak doesn’t serve in the contiguous 48 states first gets to have the comment pinned. It’s about 2/3s to 3/4s of the way through the video that put that out there and I just so happened to get it first. If Cheyenne gets service via the connects us plan on 2030 then South Dakota is the last state left.
Scranton Service needs to happen!! The only route that will be completely publicly owned. Also wonderful video. As a Amtrak Engineer. We want this! We want more trains, to more places. We want everyone to travel with us (maybe not everyone 😅). In the most civilized way to travel.
Please tell Amtrak to buy SEPTA's regional rail bcuz septa has no clue on what they're doing lol. I'm an engineer myself seriously thinking about applying for Amtrak again
Columbus Resident here, it's been 45 years since we've had Amtrak service, and right now we're actually one of the largest cities without it , we're actually the largest city with no rail at all, including transit. So to have a governor thats actually supportive of rail expansion, gives me a lot of hope for our state. It says a lot because one of our previous governors turned down $400 million, because he thought the service was stupid. Also the other state without Amtrak other than Wyoming is South Dakota :)
Person who graduated from a Columbus area high school and still visits Columbus yearly, please continue to push your local representatives for rail. Your LinkUS plan is cool but it doesnt go far enough!! You need light rail bad. I still think with Intel coming to New Albany you all need a line that goes from downtown to the airport to easton, gahanna, new albany then to the new albany business district as a terminus. Columbus would do so good with a large light rail and heavy rail commuter system.
Seeing these routes proposed gives me hope for Ohio too. It's amazing and ridiculous that the state doesn't have any intercity rail outside of a few long distance trains passing through, and the Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati line seems like an instant win, even back in Amtrak's dark age. Keep fighting for it, and I can't wait to ride it when it comes along!
Getting Amtrak to Alaska is bold and sorely needed. The Alaska Railroad service is more of a tourist train but a lot of rural communities do get service to major population centers on it, but it's borderline prohibitively expensive for many people. Land is cheap in Alaska and Amtrak should make plans to lay their own electrified ROWs now and get the cities connected by reliable trains sooner rather than later. Plus think of all the connections to protected natural spaces like Denali! They could even coordinate getaway trips with the hospitality industry and do Denali National Park vacation packages or something; I would take that up in a heartbeat
I once took the Alaska Railroad from Fairbanks to Denali. Incredible experience, even if the train was limited in speed by geography and track geometry. There's so much potential for service up there, but building a whole new ROW would definitely be an undertaking. Not that I'm against it, just that it would be an eyebrow raiser for the entire rest of the world.
The only problem i see with Amtrak in Alaska would be the competitive market with The Alaska Railroad. State-run vs National-run could put a lot of people out of work. Or, it could add more work to the state population. That is a hard one to consider. But you are right, the Anchorage route to Fairbanks thru Denali seems to be more for the tourist, with their so-expensive one-way tickets. p.s... Way way WAY cheaper round trip on Alaska Airlines ANC-FAI-ANC.
G7G Railway (G Seven Generations Ltd.) has a proposal to link Alberta to Alaska and the Yukon Territory. The project will require bi-lateral support. It is unfortunate that many governments since the 1980s have shown no grande vision . The project would have been operational decades ago - which would do alot to provide economic development opportunities from Fairbanks to Fort McMurray. The vision was unleashed in 2008 - economic costing delivered in 2011 - all to deaf ears of the communities the rail corridor would serve.
The Lackawanna cut off in North West New Jersey is being rebuilt. The first part which is being rebuilt by New Jersey Transit is going from Port Morris to Andover New Jersey. And the missing 21 miles will come into play when Amtrak gets involved. It made it into the top 15 for the corridor ID program.
It's a fantastic map, and does a good job of showing what our rail network can look like if all of these routes come to fruition. Hoping to see updates down the line, since I expect more routes to be added, as routes that missed out try again, current contenders update their goals and brand new plans join in. Great job!
I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Francisco is probably the largest city that doesn't have Amtrak service. The nearest Amtrak stops are in Oakland (a half hour bus ride or ferry ride across the Bay) or San Jose (an hour south, fortunately it's connected to SF by commuter rail). There's been talk about rebuilding an old abandoned rail bridge across the Bay for possible Amtrak use, but nothing's ever come to fruition.
23:40 Im sad SLC-Vegas route was passed up, we get alot of tourism and innercity rail would help boost that even more. Hopefully my state can get its stuff together in time for the long distance funding I've heard is coming soon?
I certainly hope that's the case. I can think of a lot of services that can service SLC that should've stuck around to the modern day, or corridor routes that could serve the state more generally. Obviously there's FrontRunner, but that's a very different thing, even if one calls SLC to Ogden Intercity. One I'm definitely hoping for is the return of the Pioneer or even that corridor route I'd love to see out to Reno to connect the possible Capitol Corridor extension, and even the Desert Wind to go to Vegas. A lot of potential to be sure, just hope there's a drive to make it so. The push for the Rio Grande Plan gives me hope though.
Still hoping for the 10th largest metro in the US and 90 miles from NYC, the Lehigh Valley, to get their act together next year and actually make progress in getting passenger rail! PennDOT, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, and Norfolk Southern have all completely sucked here and should frankly be completely & utterly embarrassed by Scranton's & Reading's success.
As a rural Ohio resident (Near what would be a proposed Amtrak stop at Newcomerstown, OH), I’d LOVE THIS. it would allow me to take the train to Chicago, and then a train to Galesburg to see my friend who lives in the QC area. Saves me from driving, and I know a lot of people in the area that are actually looking forward to this route becoming a reality. Also, I’m hoping the Cleveland stop moves back to Tower City, rather than the little Amtrak station right off Route 2 across from the stadium. It would allow for people to directly exchange from the Amtrak train to the Rapid (Cleveland’s Rapid Transit System) and go to the airport (and Berea!). It would be so nice to see Amtrak come to Tower City. One thing I would wish for but would not probably happen is a route from Cleveland to Charleston WV via Akron, Canton, Cambridge OH, and Parkersburg and Ravenswood WV. It wouldn’t have a lot of popularity (maybe running by Athens for Ohio University would benefit it) but it would allow a connection for people living in SE Ohio to get to other places in the state without the need for cars. More north-south routes in the state would maybe be more beneficial (Detroit - Lexington via Toledo, Dayton, and Cincinnati, and Toledo - Parkersburg via Findlay, Marion, Columbus, Lancaster, Athens, and Marietta) again, all speculation and hopes but it would make getting around the state a lot easier, and frankly more fun. All in all, Ohio is ready for more rail service, and maybe Iowa can follow suit, as I’m looking to move there in the next couple of years.
The Ronkonkoma service will almost certainly be operated by dual-mode Airo trainsets when those start arriving in ~2026. Probably actually one of the easier services for them to start up once those are acquired.
Yeah, that's the big sticking point since besides those battery hybrid versions they ordered for the Empire Service, I haven't heard a third rail compatible version being considered. That would make it a lot easier for sure. Hoping that's the case at some point and we all just missed it.
I feel like for this service. It'll probably be a continuation of a Northeast Regional with Duel Modes Diesel/Electric. No need to use third rail, in the east river tunnels. Turn the diesel and drop the pantographs on the fly.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhillyAnd what's even more kinda funny is that someone is proposing a North Atlantic Rail (HSR) , NYC to Boston and run High Speed train not just VIA Springfield Corridor to Hartford and the Drectly to Providence but also VIA Ronkonkoma NY which IDK how they gonna figure it out, Tunnel is bit easy it just that using LIRR, maybe re electrified to an overhead Instead of third rail.
Dude, this is like a fever dream. This is what I gave up on ages ago and only recently started to have an inkling of stubborn hope for. It is, literally, a dream come true. Real, proper progress! Finally! Now if only Canada would follow suite, dammit.. VIA Rail need much more funding to expand service and add new necessary yet presently absent routes outside of the main corridor.
As a San Diegan, I'd love to see the Coast Starlight extended to San Diego and a new long-distance train to Chicago utilizing the old SD&AE railway going thru Northern Mexico and El Centro then connecting to UP's network in El Centro over the extension of the Surfliner to San Ysidro (and I do agree the Surfliner needs to be more reliable) Those routes would be cool as taking the unreliable Surfliner to LA from San Diego to go long distance via Amtrak is a pain.
The SD&A has a terrible right of way. There is no way that Amtrak would run anything on that crappy track. The rehabilitation would be prohibitively expensive and in the long run if San Diego really needed a direct rail link west (they don’t the SD&A was a commercial failure) they would be better off building a new base tunnel bypassing the horrible curves and rockslides.
I’ve got a conspiracy theory: The only reason Amtrak wants to go to Long Island is to build the catenary themselves force the LIRR to get rid of its third rail🥴.
@@expletivedeleted7853 because LIRR and Metro North are kind of the only regional rail operators in North America that use 3rd rail. The real problem is that LIRR seems to only be resisting it because they don’t want through running. Catenary is only marginally more expensive, while supporting higher speed and being more flood resistant. They seem to be so focused on keeping “Job”, and terminal rent revenue that they have actively ruined their services. Amtrak would benefit the most because Penn station is limited to 22 round trip now vs 44 one way transits. You can run the same number of trains but each one way transits cover more territory.
@@FreeJaffa92 And they each use their own different type of third rail as well. MNCR uses under-running (shoe pushes up on the third rail) and LIRR uses a more traditional subway style over-running (shoe pushes down) third rail. I assume that with hybrid transits Amtrak would de-energize the New York Central west side line to Penn Station 3rd rail, but then you still have two deal with the Lake Shore Limited. As I understood it, the battery packs were planned to be in or under passenger cars not the locomotives.
St. Joseph MO is associated with two things that people on the national level may have heard of: it's where Jesse James was shot, and it's the former eastern end of the Pony Express mail route. It's the 8th largest city in Missouri, but I suspect the plan is that the KC/StJo portion of the route will primarily serve commuters who live in St. Joseph and commute to work in Kansas City and there probably won't be THAT many people who want to go from Chicago to St. Joseph specifically.
Another thing im excited about for North Carolina is the expansion of amtrak service to ashville NC. In the past years railroads have been disappearing in the western half of the state and i hope that Amtrak will bring the return of rail traffic and better transportation in the mountains /western half of the state
The only problem is getting to Asheville. The old fort loops would be to slow for a reliable passenger service plus NS would be in the way almost all of the time. Would love to see the service though!
As a Hickory Native who grew up yearning to have a way out, a train going east from the western foothills and also going to Asheville for tourist reason is sick. Now I just need a rail going north/south going right down highway 321. Charlotte to Caldwell county is a massive commuter market. A slower extension to Boone in the future if they finish all that infrastructure up there
OMFG!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!! i can't STAND the idea of the San Joaquin being discontinued because of CAHSR!!! I take that train whenever i can to Fresno to see my Grandma and thought about how the line connects smaller areas that hsr wont and how much of a shame that would be if they cut it. It really should stay with hsr being Express like you said
Amtrak should look into buying Stadler FLIRT DMU's or EMU's because they are about 4 times cheaper to operate and only 1 person crew. This means that they could offer many more services. This is what we Europeans have done. We have EMU's EVERYWHERE. There are almost no locomotive hauled trains left because trains are a lot cheaper to operate this way, and a lot more people take the train because of the frequency.
@Yvonne-Bella yes it does. In Europe, we have THOUSANDS of rail lines for passengers. We connect a lot of so-called small communities with smaller cities and bigger cities. But we can actually make this profitable because we can make it more attractive and make operations cheaper.
Amtrak's biggest hurdle is operating on the ROWs owned by the freight companies like UP, BNSF, KCS, CSX, NS. They cause delays. The Sunset Limited between Florida and Texas is the biggest problem.
Adequate investment by passenger rail operators will increase access to both freight a passenger service. For instance - the return of double track with sidings increases capacity 10 fold. Believe it or not - most right of ways were double tracked - but the second track was pulled out - as the railroads in the 1970s could not afford to maintain both tracks due to declining rail volumes...and access to the capital markets. Railroads were no longer "sexy" during this period - as manufacturing was offshored. Today - upon reflection - we've identified our mistake - and are adjusting our path - what was old - is new again!
The delaware line will provide some much needed train service in the MD eastern shore as well. A train from the state capitol to ocean city may still be a pipe dream for now, but Salisbury is one of the largest cities on the peninsula, and is home to Salisbury University which is a major public university in the region. Extending any sort of train service to the city will be a good start, and could potentially drum up support for more delmarva rail service.
Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. must have left some deep pains in the southern mind. The Union General made it a point to tear up all the rail lines and the south never rebuilt them.
Tons of people live in Tijuana/Tecate and cross over the border into California for work every day, so that could be part of the idea behind extending to San Ysidro
Thank you so much for covering all of these proposals! It's great to see that so many routes are finally being considered in order to build a larger web of services, even though I feel a few lines could have better termini (extending the Carl Sandburg to Kansas City instead of Hannibal, MO for example). With the varying dedication from various state/local politicians in anti rail states, I would recommend privately-funded rail services like Brightline to fill in the service and frequency gaps, so this way they're not entirely funded by taxpayer dollars. High frequencies are absolutely key for efficient and even profitable service so that people are more likely to rely on it. Keep up the great work.
There's little benefit in extending the Carl Sandberg 200 miles past Hannibal to go to Kansas City when there's already two routes serving Chicago/KC passengers, the Southwest Chief and the Lincoln River Runner.
Thanks Urban! Definitely a fan of your stuff, so that means a lot! Got a few projects I'm in the middle of working on as I speak, so there's a lot more to come!
Will note, Brunswick to Rockland is owned by the State of Maine itself. They contracted operations of the line to the Montreal, Maine, and Quebec Railway, who got bought out by Canadian Pacific (and is now CPKC). CPKC has generally been very good about allowing passenger services, and it's a service that the state itself wants, so I could see Amtrak having an easy time there.
Alberta Regional Rail linking Yellowstone & Glacier National Parks in Montana to Calgary and Edmonton are being treated well by both CPKC and BNSF officials. Amtrak and US DoT are also actively supporting rail corridor grant applications from regional rail authorities including Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority and Integrated.Travel of Great Falls MT.
Stayed to listen for the Duluth/NLX mention, was not disappointed (though I can't say I'm enthusiastic about the pittance the feds gave us). Being a college student on the North Shore it will be nice to have a timely way to get to the Cities during holidays. It should also be mentioned that the bill which provided state money for the NLX also included provisions which lifted the 20-year gag rule on the Dan Patch Corridor (a route to a major private college town), though it isn't being studied to my knowledge. But about South Dakota, I can only see Sioux Falls getting any significant Amtrak service given its rapid growth, perhaps to Moorhead/Sioux City/Minneapolis, service to Rapid City would likely be a political nightmare too, knowing the history of the area and the current state government.
Stayed for the NLX mention, too. Personal opinion: The NLX should terminate in Superior WI and have a connecting bus finish the trip to Duluth. Reason: Everything north of 61st street in Superior (south end) is un-signaled yard track, nothing more than 20mph, all the yard/switching/transfer jobs and the swing bridge would wreck a passenger schedule. At 61st Street, there's a track that bypasses the yard on the east side called the "coal runner." Put the depot on there. The Superior Union Depot is there down town If Duluth needs to be the terminal, run the "Old Town Line" to East End and dig a tunnel under the bay from Connors Point to Grassy Point.
@@StillPlaysWithModelTrains1956 Local news reported that the feds are looking into putting Amtrak service out to Rapid City. I'll believe it when I see it, but living here in the Black Hills, those articles DEFINITELY got people's attention.
Wouldn't that just be a less useful (albeit slightly shorter) version of the North Coast Hiawatha? Trading Fargo, Jamestown, Bismarck, and Dickinson for Aberdeen and not much else doesn't seem like a good deal.
Hello from san diego. An extension to san ysidro is an extention to tijuana, would connect the surfliner to another large city, around 1 mil pop, 2 mil metro area. The station location would likely be right at the border because of this high ridership. The trolley between san diego and san ysidro is the single highest ridership light rail in the country, running at 7.5 min frequency, with plans for express services and for more service. If the surfliner gets extended to san ysidro, that segment of line between San Diego and san ysidro would be fully booked day one. People want a faster mode and have been needing it for decades. We need that funding asap to also get freight off of the blue line so we can run 24/7 services.
Another thing that's needed there is a route connecting San Diego, Escondido, and the Inland Empire, especially with the major problems currently confronting the Surfliner/Metrolink route in San Clemente, as well as the situation regarding the Del Mar bluffs. That's one of the two or three major missing links in rail travel in Southern California, and could eventually provide light rail service between San Diego and Escondido, a potential Metrolink route connecting Riverside and Escondido (I doubt they'd extend it all the way to San Diego), and even a potential Amtrak route from San Diego to Las Vegas via Escondido and the Inland Empire, and potentially using the old Desert Wind routing between Las Riverside and Las Vegas. The biggest problem for a rail line from San Diego to the Inland Empire would be the portion from Escondido to Temecula, which is hilly.
Props on the new, cool video. I live in a rural part of Virginia about 20 minutes from the Ettrick Station right near Petersburg. I’m paralyzed in a wheelchair and I’ve recently started taking the train up to Northern Virginia and DC in the past two years. The train allows a lot of stress to be taken off my shoulders for me to travel longer distances. I’m going to really enjoy being able to take it south now as well
A few thoughts about the North Coast Hiawatha, centering on Montana: 1. The route would run on Northern Pacific trackage, not the old Milwaukee Road, which unfortunately is almost entirely abandoned in Montana. Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority (a legal subdivision of the state) is working closely with BNSF on this route since it just resumed operations of the Montana Rail Link section this year. 2. In my view, one of the most exciting parts about this service restoration is the potential for augmented routes at either end. At the east, the route could form the proposed Chicago-Madison-Eau Claire-Twin Cities service. At the west, the route could restore service to Central Washington by taking its original Spokane-Pasco-Yakima-Seattle route over Stampede Pass. While service would likely be only once per day each way, using those routes as a long distance service opens them for future state supported passenger services. (The lack of a Seattle to Central WA & Spokane route is absurd.) 3. The biggest open question in Montana is which route it takes between Bozeman and Missoula. Pipestone (Milwaukee Road’s route) is long abandoned; BNSF‘s Homestake Pass trackage has been out of service for decades, and aerial images show at least one section of rockfall over tracks; so in either case, Butte would be a spendy route to reestablish. On the other hand, Helena, while making more sense for intrastate ridership as the capital, has to tackle Mullan Tunnel at the continental divide, which is apparently quite a bear and highly trafficked. Curious to see how it pans out, especially since Helena’s county refuses to join the Authority. (Same with Billings’ county, which would be rewarded with a stop anyway despite its obstinance.) 4. A similar choice plays out with multiple options between Missoula and Paradise, MT: either up a steep grade toward CSKT’s Bison Range and the Flathead River, or what appears to be a longer but mostly downgrade/downstream route along the Clark Fork past St. Regis. Pros and cons for each, but stunning views are inevitable for lucky riders. 5. Re. the Empire Builder and the Hi-Line, PEOPLE LIVE HERE outside the NEC. These services are not just about end-point throughput, but connecting communities between. (Livingston and Bozeman are also gateways to Yellowstone National Park.) Winter travel in particular is hazardous on our highways, there are no flights between Montana’s larger cities that don’t require 1 (or 2) connections, and bus service is basically nonexistent. One daily train would be a godsend for medical trips, tribal communities, conferences, etc. All of us deserve options to get between communities that don’t require windshield time or costly (and increasingly inconvenient) air travel. allaboardnw.org/site/assets/files/1525/people-live-here-vert.png
I live outside Pittsburgh the trainsit we we have bus system and a T line. Pittsburgh used to have good trainsit after P&LE railroad shut down their passenger rail and PA train commuter rail to. Pittsburgh needs to look at philadelphia commuter rail and become a good commuter rail system.
The Virginia extension to Bristol could be a really great service if Tennessee can get its act together and connect it to Knoxville and then on to Chattanooga
I'm with you there. Hoping that can come about at some point. Tennessee in general needs more rail connections, and if Atlanta to Chattanooga, Nashville and Memphis is pushed to fruition, that would be a great connecting route.
They are also looking at restoring the Pioneer from Denver-Cheyenne-SLC-Seattle and an extension of the Front Range Pueblo-Cheyenne to continue on to Douglas-Casper then either Gillette-Billings or Thermopolis-Billings.
I know there are some people in Maine fighting for a return of passenger service to Bangor. It's weird to me that they're talking about an extension to Rockland, a small town of a little over 7000 people, and not to Bangor, which has more than 4 times the population, the third largest city in the state. It's only another 60 miles, has a good sized airport, and is a good launching point for going to tourist destinations like Bar Harbor or Baxter State Park. I'm sure there's some reason. No doubt, a lot of NYMBYism. Lord knows, Mainers are at about San Francisco levels of NYMBYism. There are just far fewer of them, so their voices don't carry as far.
Restoring the Cardinal to daily service is critical to the smaller stops in Virginia and West Virginia. It also provides alternatives between New York and Chicago on one of the most scenic trains in the Amtrak system. The new east west state service from the coast to Roanoke, Christiansburg and potentially Bristol will also help boost the Charlottesville station as a great connection point for UVA students and VA Tech students. Virginia has proven that they will definitely use rail if it is an option. If Tennessee gets on board and gets service from Bristol to Knoxville and Chattanooga, that would be huge as well. The new service from Atlanta to Chattanooga would allow Virginians a great way to travel to Atlanta without going through DC.
I took my first trip on amtrak back in october, and it was to montreal using the northeast regional and the adirondack trains. Two things to say on that regard: 1. in my experience the border crossing wasn't too bad for me at least. They had a pair of customs officers go seat to seat scanning everyones passports, and they had a pair of agents in each train car, so once your car was finished they were generally ready to leave. And of course before and after they come to scan your passport you can just do whatever you were doing before in your seat. I found it much more relaxing than waiting in the lines at the airport, however a few people sitting near me were brazilian (ie not traveling on an american or canadian passport) and they had to deal with some issues from the customs agents and said they were pretty rude to them. Overall getting customs out of the way before the train ride would be very convenient for everyone. 2. I think the vermonter extension is INSANELY needed. I wanted to do all my travel in one day, so I ended up having to wake up at 3am to catch the 4:29am northeast regional due to the early morning departure of the adrionack, and on the way back i got stuck in nyc for 4 hours because of track issues, since the arrival of my adrionack train required me to book a late night weekend ticket for the northeast regional. I live in Maryland so if I had the option to hop on the train in maryland and not worry about transfers it would have made my life so much easier
Small correction: the Floridian didn't pass through Indianapolis. Instead, it bypassed Indy to the west, going from Lafayette due south to Bloomington. The Tucson-Phoenix line could be expanded to create a new route between those cities and Las Vegas. An existing former AT&SF freight line is already in place between downtown Phoenix & Parker, AZ on the Colorado River. About 120 miles of additional new "greenway" construction would connect Phoenix & Las Vegas, including a 12 mile segment between Topock, AZ & Needles, CA, used daily by Amtrak's SW Chief. This appears to be better, compared with using the highway median of a yet-to-be built Interstate 11 between Las Vegas & Phoenix.
continuing the Missouri River Runner to St. Joseph, MO would allow travelers from St Louis and Kansas City to connect with the California Zepher at St Joseph for continuination Westerward to Denver and on to the west coast.
A few brief observations... first, great video. Obviously long but thorough. To me, having grown up and lived most of my life in the midwest, it blows my mind that there is not still a train that goes from Pittsburgh to Columbus, OH, to Indianapolis to Chicago. Columbus is a booming city, growing steadily and there's Ohio State as you mentioned and major league sports too. You'd also have Dayton in the mix. A train running between those cities would have access to millions of potential passengers. It would be financially successful! Fun historical fact, the Quad Cities had the "Rock Island Rocket" in the mid 20th century. My dad and many, many WW II veterans rode that train to the Rock Island Arsenal for weapons training. It blew their minds how fast the train was! It ended service in the late 1970's. Lastly, all this is great but it will ALL come to a screeching halt if Trump is re-elected President and the Republicans get a majority in one or both houses of congress. Please, PLEASE, if you want rail expansion to continue in the USA, DO NOT vote for Trump in 2024!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Long Bridge was electrified, yes. By the Pennsylvania Railroad for freight trains to reach Pot (Potomac) Yard, in Alexandria, Virginia, which until Conrail dropped electric freight ops in the early 80s, was the southernmost point of the PRR catenary.
As for the Springfield Line, as someone who has explored the route in the Virtual New Haven Railroad route in Train Sim Classic, the route was double tracked from Springfield to New Haven in the days of the NH, so re-doubling the track could be feasible.
And then, the Delmarva Peninsula was once served by the PRRs Del-Mar-Va Express which was a passenger service that ran down the Delmarva Division. So, yes, it's about time service came back to the Peninsula.
It would be interesting to see what Pullman would do as far as high speed rolling stock if they were still around. Many railways in Europe still use Pullman cars, some are even on high speed services there.
For everyone in L. A. who lives (roughly) west of Fairfax, the Brightline trip to Vegas will take longer than driving or flying. That's because Rancho Cucamonga is a far eastern suburb of L. A.
Reinstatement of the "Blue Sky Blue" corridor between Yellowstone, Glacier and Banff National Parks - this daily service disappeared more than a hald century ago. The time is now to dust off this proposal and get residents and visitors on track through some of the world's most inspiring vistas.
Looks there is some confusion about the route for Atlanta to Savannah. Can't blame you, us local advocates are confused too. The Corridor ID map shows the route going south through Macon as your note in the video states. This would especially make sense given that the feds awarded GDOT $8 million to study HSR on that route just last year. However, the Corridor ID announcement is for conventional rail and not HSR, and lists Athens, Augusta, and Macon as potential intermediary stops. Presumably this means they are studying both a southern and northern route.
Memphis is looking at a new bridge over the Mississippi with a rail line also. This could be the start of the move west. Memphis to OKC puts you on the I 40 corridor and NM with the lowest crossing over the continental divide.
I'd love to see a New Haven - Hartford - Springfield - Albany - Buffalo train. It would be a different route, but it would have people on it. Connecticut might be a small state, yet we do love trains, especially if Amtrak bring back to Montrealer and id love to see another train back, The State of Maine New York to Bangor, Maine. You might have to upgrade the railline from Worcester to Lowell, where it would meet the Downeaster...
Coming back later, it's really unfortunate for the failure of the pioneer/desert wind route selection because the actual reason was that IDOT and UDOT for each route respectively submitted the applications to the wrong link so there was no way they would've gotten accepted
Indeed. I can hardly imagine a more embarrassing way of gimping yourself of a really valuable service like that. Just shows how important tech literacy can be, it seems. Sorry, Idaho and Utah.
Lincoln service runs 284 miles in 286 minutes. The Chief goes 298 miles to La Plata in 287 minutes. Speed is nice but totally undone by poor routes into Chicago and STL. A nice improvement but not the most effective use of government money.
However service gets implemented between Denver & Dallad-Ft. Worth, it MUST be named the Texas Zephyr . Also, make it an overnight Auto-Train style operation. It's virtually the same length as the current Lorton -Sanford service on the east coast. Relatively unpopulated between tetminals.
On the NC routes - the big omission I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is connecting Charlotte and Columbia SC. There’s already existing freight track and runs via Rock Hill SC (a huge urban area on its own with no passenger trains) and is around 70 miles. Not sure why they wouldn’t consider that given it would link the Silver Star with the Piedmont, Carolinian, and Crescent. Not to mention giving faster access to passengers from the south to Asheville when that line opens and Greenville. I’m in Charlotte and to go south, it’s either drive to Columbia or get the train north to Raleigh to come back down. Or fly. I hope Denver to Colorado Springs happens soon. That’s long overdue.
The State without Amtrak Service is South Dakota; however, you talked about extending Capitol Corridor Service from San Jose, CA to San Luis Obispo, CA. Is long overdue! Sure, we have the Pacific Surfliner which is an express service to Los Angeles, but San Luis Obispo to San Jose is only served by the Coast Starlight once a day, which frankly sucks! Another reason why we need this extended service is because more people in Paso Robles, King City, Soledad, Gonzales, Salinas, and Pajaro would like connections that aren't being offered. Originally, service between San Jose and San Luis Obispo was envisioned by Sacramento as being named the Coast Daylight Service but that service was originally envisioned to be an express CalTrain Service from 4th & King Street in San Francisco to Gilroy, then service south eventually to San Luis Obispo, giving San Luis Obispo County more direct access to the Bay Area. Also, a service that the Corridor ID Program should seriously consider Los Angeles to Mexico City via the former El Paso Southwestern Route via Douglas, NM.
We are ever hopeful in Nashua, NH. Nashua has already paved the parking lot for the downtown commuter rail station. Over 200 spaces. Handicap parking right next to where the platform will go. Bus stop and bus spaces for transfers to city buses. They also have land for a second station in southern Nashua. Nashua is antsy for commuter rail. Nashua has explored the option of going it alone, without the rest of NH. Just commuter rail service to Nashua. The parking lot is just down the track from the Nashua Rail Yard, behind the Makeit Labs maker space on Crown St.
I rode Amtrak in the early 80’s on the St.Louis Mainline from Parkersburg WV to Washington DC! Ripped the line up few years later thanks to Chessie! Great scenery several tunnels.
I'm with you on the San Ysidro extension. San Ysidro (which is a neighborhood not a city btw) is already served well by the Blue Line Trolley which runs every 7.5 minutes up to San Diego where you can transfer to the Surfliner. Extending the Surfliner would require either retrofitting the Trolley tracks or adding expensive new tracks along a corridor which already is doing just fine. I'd rather put that money toward the tunnels in San Clemente, Del Mar, and Rose Canyon.
Seen the trolley to San Ysidro brought up quite a few times, and it only makes me question it further. I don't think it's bad to extend there per say, but in context, with both the trolley service and the infrastructure and reliability problems plaguing the Surfliner stunting its true potential, that needs to be the main focus above all with that route.
In my view San Ysidro is only worthwhile if it is an intermediary stop on the way to Tijuana and points south (so mostly for customs purposes), and if it comes with grade separation through Downtown San Diego, which would greatly improve that neighborhood. At grade rail in a CBD is a nightmare with how long freight trains have gotten. Definitely not a high priority thought.
If the United States is serious about wanting to build a high-speed rail network? My take will be simple less federalized and more regionalize, localize for small communities, towns and cities if there is demand for one. Same can be said for projects focused on pedestrianization, mobility etc. Make sure that its done by the federal goverment but have much more local, regional and domestic support as well.
Restoring the Broadway Limited would be amazing! I agree- Just Do It! I enjoyed your ramble and glad you made this. Do you think it would be possible to continue the detailed chapter markers all the way through if you do a follow up? Also looking forward to your rail map thoughts on Pennsylvania! Do you know if there are any plans to restore the Sunset Limited service from New Orleans to Florida?
The group of Amtrak Midwest improvements is held back by the lack of a connection to the St. Charles Air Line (SCAL). For the Lincoln Service, it is needed to move the like onto Metra Rock Island District between Chicago and Joliet. This is needed because the current route along the CN Joliet Sub that the Metra Heritage Corridor uses which has a bunch of diamonds that is consistently blocked. The other solution is to build flyovers across the diamonds but due to the end goal being moving Amtrak off of the line, it would require IDOT to have a desire to fund it which is not likely as the state is pushing hard to expand I-55 that runs parallel to it. The SCAL would allow Michigan Service to be moved off the NS Main Line and onto the NICTD passenger line. This would make the entire Wolverine line publicly owned and open the door to electrification of the line since it is already electrified from Chicago to Michigan City. For the Illini/Saluki, the SCAL would remove the need to do a turn around to get onto the CN mainline which would easily knock 30 minutes plus off of the travel time.
A few more details about CHSR -Everyone seems to forget that the initial funding for the project was secured from a voter initiative. Meaning that we voted for this thing to be built. All the whining about CHSR seems to ignore that. -Another advantage to Siemens: they have a factory in Sacramento, CA. The trains would likely be built there. Bonus: the second part would connect San Diego and Sacramento to the main SF-LA line. Whenever the second part actually gets somewhere near completion, putting them on the main line gets easier. Even further bonus for Brightline West: I'm wondering if the line stopping in Rancho (which-yeah, that doesn't make sense) is only going that far because CHSR plans to electrify the Metrolink line to Rancho as a part of the project. This means they're just waiting for the electrification to take it into LA Union (it'll be a while, though). If that is a part of the plan, then there's a point where Siemens just runs a line from their factory to the main line.
The Capitol Corridor route in California makes sense to go to Reno. It also should go to Monterey, solidifying the original concept of connecting California's capitols plural. Even if only some trips went directly to Monterey, and the rest to Salinas. This same southern extension shares the eventual route with Caltrain's planned extension, Amtrak's Coast Starlight, and a lot of freight; and presents speed problems due to some winding sections and the speed limit through Elkhorn Slough. For many years, the plan for US-101 to bypass Prunedale would have permitted a median commuter rail corridor; but NIMBYs won. The end result has been that the present route became so dangerous that widening and new interchanges became necessary, encroaching on central Prunedale, no sign of a surface street main drag in sight, anymore. I hadn't heard of the San Joaquin service being threatened by high speed rail. That would be tragic and idiotic. Everyone with decision-making power needs to look at rail in Europe, where there are trains that stop at every station that provides service to all communities along a corridor, supplementing express and high speed service, and allowing the last to stop at fewer stations, all the while incentivizing train over car preference. I would LOVE it if the Fort Worth-OKC train extended to Newton. That would vastly improve my own ability to visit family through that exact expansion route. People in Newton and Wichita also lament their loss of service, over the years. Rails, rails everywhere, and nowhere for passengers to go.
What do you think about one day in the far off future, taking the Scranton line down through Bloomsburg to sunbury to Harrisburg to Mechanicsburg to Carlisle to Shippensburg to chambersburg to Hagerstown? Altogether this would connect about 325,000 people in the more suburban pockets of rural Pennsylvania
There's 1 route that should be considered (and I'm surprised it hasn't been thought up yet), a train route from Spokane WA to Vegas NV. It could travel all the way down with a stop in Reno.
Truncating the existing service when the new high-speed line comes online is what JR West did to their Thunderbird Limited Express Service that used to run from Osaka all the way to Kanazawa. The extension of Hokuruku Shinkansen came online on 16 March 2024 and the Thunderbird service was truncated to Osaka to Tsuruga only. That's why Kyushu Shinkansen has a weird service map with unconnected lines. People who live between Shin-Tosu and Takao Onsen know they would lose the standard services if the Nishi-Shinkansen were extended to connect with the main line.
Steve - I called your video to Chuck Walsh's attention - apparently he hadn't heard about what you'd included (beginning at around 2:07) - I think he appreciates the mention!
You should also metioned other Capitol Corridor plan 20:46 is that Capitol Corridor Joint Power authority is not only to ELECTRIFY their part of their line between San Jose to Sacramento, but also upgrade this line to 125 mph or as high as 150.
I actually talked about that one in my video on the long distance routes. That would be really cool to see in either case, whether it be a intercity corridor route or an overnight train. Definitely keeping an eye on that!
@SteveGettingAroundPhilly Would love to see it being a long distance route, as you'll get to see so much variety of the country. Whether that be the desert, flat rolling hills, cities in the Midwest, mountains, and then the biggest cities on the east coast. My special eye is on the S-line as I live in the suburbs of richmond, hopeful that they upgrade the RF&P to 90+ MPH speeds as it would be nice to have an official direct route from richmond to D.C with no hassle. After all, VDOT bought the RF&P
I live 1/2 mile from San Ysidro and that extension makes zero sense to me. I have no idea where they expect to put a ROW as the Blue Line already uses the SDAE tracks, and it takes you right to Santa Fe Depot anyway. That'd be a lot of money to spend just to get a 1 seat trip.
I'm a fan of passenger rail. Looking forward to the northern Hiawatha coming back. I just wish we could get the place of having dedicated passenger rail lines, so that freight trains don't delay and lowers accident rates. If they build it, and have on time and frequent services, people will definitely start riding. We love our cars, but we don't have rail options up here in the inland northwest. The empire builder runs two to three times a week through here and it's always in the middle of the night. I envy places like Japan and China who have very nice modern trains and frequent services. Both inter city and long trips.
I rode the Montrealer back in the 1970s. It was overnight . I traveled in a sleeping car and they even had a club car with a piano. Breakfast in the full diner. The train seemed to be well patronized but was discontinued. Seems that Amtrak, well it is sad that many services were discontinued because of poor and unreliable service. Let’s see if that doesn’t happen again.
The American train system went backward for generations. Even if we funneled trillions of dollars into it, it wouldn't catch us up to the rest of the modernizing world. Most of our train stations are exposed to the elements, no platform doors and it's not easy to book a ticket. Our service is not courteous and professional. Cleanliness, timeliness, are all big problems. Our entire culture has to change. This is one area, I'm socialist on. Making a profit should not be the government's concern. It's a service. Just like the highway system.
Honestly for Capitol Corridor I would much rather have it branch at Oakland Jack London and cross the bay to get to SF. Maybe then it could join the Caltrain line and then share the Diridon south terminus, but if I’m honest, I’d be less than enthused about any additional service on Caltrain’s ROW that doesn’t include tri- or quad-tracking as much of it as possible. Then it needs to get electrified. And maybe, maybe, pretty please, extended to Santa Cruz? 🥺 Edit: Actually, if Capitol Corridor were to be electrified, it might make more sense to extend Caltrain across the bay via transbay tube 2, meet the Capitol Corridor right of way at Jack London, and then both share tracks up to Sac (and maybe Reno!). Then you could easily do SF to Sac, which you currently can’t and which would be a huge game changer for both.
In all honesty from my perspective, I don't think getting a train to cross the Bay from Oakland to SF is a good idea. Instead, it should cross the Bay from San Rafael and go into Vallejo and meat back up on Capital Corridor lines. I know SMART is all through Marin County, but that area should get Amtrak or local services into SF since that's one of the few counties that denied BART when it was first being built
@@Yvonne-Bella That imo is a more ambitious plan, in that it would require more stuff to be built, but those are definitely areas that need way better service. You’d still get that connection to Sac while also improving connectivity in all the places you mention, including Vallejo, which *reeeeeally* could use it.
@@teuastoh believe I know it's ambitious. And my reasoning is BECAUSE of BART. There are two direct connections to Amtrak stations at Richmond and The Coliseum and soon Diridon. And close connections at JLK with the close proximity to Downtown and Lake Merritt Station. Along with the Ferry terminal a 10 minute walk from JLK, it just looks like we'd over connect Oakland and SF before giving good connections to the North and South Pennisulas. But these are my wishful thoughts Edit: I forgot that Transbay buses also connect Downtown Oakland to SF. It really seems like too much.
OK4 rep Tom Cole is a bit of a maverick. he heads up the house transportation committee and came out in favor of the failed budget cuts to amtrak last year. Enraging that ODOT isnt getting CID funds to study OKC-Tulsa as oklahoma state law requires the state to run passrail between the 2 cities
That's one route that would be a big success too. Just shows where ODOT and the states priorities lie. Hoping that a successful improvement to the Heartland Flyer can change their tone a bit.
If amtrak ends up replaces those aging p42 diesels with the Siemens diesel locomotives that looks like a diesel powered bullet train like what bright line has
I like your comparison between a grid system vs a radial system. Looking at a map, Amtrak suffers from running between city pairs and not having a truly usable network. Nashville is a major example of this. Nashville to Louisville allows for Atlanta to Chicago. Nashville to Memphis could be a critical link between 3C's to TX Triangle. There are so many routes that run nearly parallel but offer extremely few connections between the two. I get Chicago needs to be on the map, but it should not be the center. It's just not on the way to anything but MSP. I just imagine Cleveland to KC through Chicago makes complete sense, but doing the 3C and over to St. Louis creates a much more robust system that serves more than just the major cities. Air lines had to make this decision and this is by we don't see double decker plane often. People are better served by smaller more frequent direct flights over a spoke and hub model.
I hope we can get more than just two daily trips west of Harrisburg. I think I’m the only person that uses the Keystone Service from NYC to see sprint car racing at Williams Grove speedway. Next I want a stop at Port Royal PA. Go World of Outlaws!
I live in the Bucks County / Hunterdon county area and that PA fantasy passenger rail map at 2:06 is a thing of dreams. Can you provide to link to it? I would like to examine it in greater detail :)
If I had watched this with a pen and paper in hand, I'd probably have a slew of corrections for you, but as I didn't, I'll leave you with the one which really stuck in my craw. "Chattanooga Choo Choo" is a jazz standard by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon, and not a folk song, as you repeatedly called it.
Alstom's current state started way before they bought Bombardier and is the result of SNC Lavalin, the Ottawa Mayor and so much more. The O-Train Confederation Line will go down in history as quite possibly the biggest Transit blunder so far. Also, the Vermonter extension is actually a restoration of the old Montrealer, that ran between Washington and Montreal over the current Vermonter's route, and would likely be renamed back to the Montrealer.
South Dakota
What about it?
@@arxligion Other than Wyoming, South Dakota is the only other state in the contingous US that does not have Amtrak Service
@@WilliamCrew It's true - but that was not said in the comment
@@arxligionhe said whomever got the other state, he had already mentioned Wyoming, that Amtrak doesn’t serve in the contiguous 48 states first gets to have the comment pinned. It’s about 2/3s to 3/4s of the way through the video that put that out there and I just so happened to get it first. If Cheyenne gets service via the connects us plan on 2030 then South Dakota is the last state left.
@@ayindestevens6152 Ah
Scranton Service needs to happen!!
The only route that will be completely publicly owned.
Also wonderful video. As a Amtrak Engineer. We want this! We want more trains, to more places. We want everyone to travel with us (maybe not everyone 😅). In the most civilized way to travel.
NYC to Scranton via the Lackawanna Cutoff.......or Philly/Allentown/Beth/Scranton-W-B.
Please tell Amtrak to buy SEPTA's regional rail bcuz septa has no clue on what they're doing lol. I'm an engineer myself seriously thinking about applying for Amtrak again
They should extend it to Binghamton at minimum or even to Syracuse (or even up to Watertown but maybe I’m pipe dreaming at this point)
Columbus Resident here, it's been 45 years since we've had Amtrak service, and right now we're actually one of the largest cities without it , we're actually the largest city with no rail at all, including transit. So to have a governor thats actually supportive of rail expansion, gives me a lot of hope for our state. It says a lot because one of our previous governors turned down $400 million, because he thought the service was stupid.
Also the other state without Amtrak other than Wyoming is South Dakota :)
Person who graduated from a Columbus area high school and still visits Columbus yearly, please continue to push your local representatives for rail. Your LinkUS plan is cool but it doesnt go far enough!! You need light rail bad. I still think with Intel coming to New Albany you all need a line that goes from downtown to the airport to easton, gahanna, new albany then to the new albany business district as a terminus. Columbus would do so good with a large light rail and heavy rail commuter system.
Seeing these routes proposed gives me hope for Ohio too. It's amazing and ridiculous that the state doesn't have any intercity rail outside of a few long distance trains passing through, and the Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati line seems like an instant win, even back in Amtrak's dark age. Keep fighting for it, and I can't wait to ride it when it comes along!
Getting Amtrak to Alaska is bold and sorely needed. The Alaska Railroad service is more of a tourist train but a lot of rural communities do get service to major population centers on it, but it's borderline prohibitively expensive for many people. Land is cheap in Alaska and Amtrak should make plans to lay their own electrified ROWs now and get the cities connected by reliable trains sooner rather than later. Plus think of all the connections to protected natural spaces like Denali! They could even coordinate getaway trips with the hospitality industry and do Denali National Park vacation packages or something; I would take that up in a heartbeat
Alaska is a weird state.
Anchorage has such an opportunity with both an underused Airport and train terminal at the airport.
VIA Rail.
I once took the Alaska Railroad from Fairbanks to Denali. Incredible experience, even if the train was limited in speed by geography and track geometry. There's so much potential for service up there, but building a whole new ROW would definitely be an undertaking. Not that I'm against it, just that it would be an eyebrow raiser for the entire rest of the world.
The only problem i see with Amtrak in Alaska would be the competitive market with The Alaska Railroad. State-run vs National-run could put a lot of people out of work. Or, it could add more work to the state population. That is a hard one to consider. But you are right, the Anchorage route to Fairbanks thru Denali seems to be more for the tourist, with their so-expensive one-way tickets. p.s... Way way WAY cheaper round trip on Alaska Airlines ANC-FAI-ANC.
G7G Railway (G Seven Generations Ltd.) has a proposal to link Alberta to Alaska and the Yukon Territory. The project will require bi-lateral support. It is unfortunate that many governments since the 1980s have shown no grande vision . The project would have been operational decades ago - which would do alot to provide economic development opportunities from Fairbanks to Fort McMurray. The vision was unleashed in 2008 - economic costing delivered in 2011 - all to deaf ears of the communities the rail corridor would serve.
The Lackawanna cut off in North West New Jersey is being rebuilt. The first part which is being rebuilt by New Jersey Transit is going from Port Morris to Andover New Jersey. And the missing 21 miles will come into play when Amtrak gets involved. It made it into the top 15 for the corridor ID program.
Green Bay is home of the National Railroad Museum and it's just absurdly American that there is no way to get to there by rail
Glad to see people are putting the map i made for High Speed Rail Alliance to good use!
It's a fantastic map, and does a good job of showing what our rail network can look like if all of these routes come to fruition. Hoping to see updates down the line, since I expect more routes to be added, as routes that missed out try again, current contenders update their goals and brand new plans join in. Great job!
@@SteveGettingAroundPhillyty! I'm a bit biased, but I like it more then the FRA map, because this one actually shows Bristol and Salisbury, MD lol
Where’s the map?
@@ayindestevens6152 on their website about the Corridor ID funds
I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Francisco is probably the largest city that doesn't have Amtrak service. The nearest Amtrak stops are in Oakland (a half hour bus ride or ferry ride across the Bay) or San Jose (an hour south, fortunately it's connected to SF by commuter rail). There's been talk about rebuilding an old abandoned rail bridge across the Bay for possible Amtrak use, but nothing's ever come to fruition.
I love this detailed long format analysis, I'd love to see more into how America is finally competing with the rest of the world in rail service!
23:40 Im sad SLC-Vegas route was passed up, we get alot of tourism and innercity rail would help boost that even more. Hopefully my state can get its stuff together in time for the long distance funding I've heard is coming soon?
I certainly hope that's the case. I can think of a lot of services that can service SLC that should've stuck around to the modern day, or corridor routes that could serve the state more generally. Obviously there's FrontRunner, but that's a very different thing, even if one calls SLC to Ogden Intercity. One I'm definitely hoping for is the return of the Pioneer or even that corridor route I'd love to see out to Reno to connect the possible Capitol Corridor extension, and even the Desert Wind to go to Vegas. A lot of potential to be sure, just hope there's a drive to make it so. The push for the Rio Grande Plan gives me hope though.
LOL, "competing..." 😅
Still hoping for the 10th largest metro in the US and 90 miles from NYC, the Lehigh Valley, to get their act together next year and actually make progress in getting passenger rail! PennDOT, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, and Norfolk Southern have all completely sucked here and should frankly be completely & utterly embarrassed by Scranton's & Reading's success.
As a rural Ohio resident (Near what would be a proposed Amtrak stop at Newcomerstown, OH), I’d LOVE THIS. it would allow me to take the train to Chicago, and then a train to Galesburg to see my friend who lives in the QC area. Saves me from driving, and I know a lot of people in the area that are actually looking forward to this route becoming a reality.
Also, I’m hoping the Cleveland stop moves back to Tower City, rather than the little Amtrak station right off Route 2 across from the stadium. It would allow for people to directly exchange from the Amtrak train to the Rapid (Cleveland’s Rapid Transit System) and go to the airport (and Berea!). It would be so nice to see Amtrak come to Tower City.
One thing I would wish for but would not probably happen is a route from Cleveland to Charleston WV via Akron, Canton, Cambridge OH, and Parkersburg and Ravenswood WV. It wouldn’t have a lot of popularity (maybe running by Athens for Ohio University would benefit it) but it would allow a connection for people living in SE Ohio to get to other places in the state without the need for cars. More north-south routes in the state would maybe be more beneficial (Detroit - Lexington via Toledo, Dayton, and Cincinnati, and Toledo - Parkersburg via Findlay, Marion, Columbus, Lancaster, Athens, and Marietta) again, all speculation and hopes but it would make getting around the state a lot easier, and frankly more fun.
All in all, Ohio is ready for more rail service, and maybe Iowa can follow suit, as I’m looking to move there in the next couple of years.
The Ronkonkoma service will almost certainly be operated by dual-mode Airo trainsets when those start arriving in ~2026. Probably actually one of the easier services for them to start up once those are acquired.
Yeah, that's the big sticking point since besides those battery hybrid versions they ordered for the Empire Service, I haven't heard a third rail compatible version being considered. That would make it a lot easier for sure. Hoping that's the case at some point and we all just missed it.
I feel like for this service. It'll probably be a continuation of a Northeast Regional with Duel Modes Diesel/Electric. No need to use third rail, in the east river tunnels. Turn the diesel and drop the pantographs on the fly.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhillyAnd what's even more kinda funny is that someone is proposing a North Atlantic Rail (HSR) , NYC to Boston and run High Speed train not just VIA Springfield Corridor to Hartford and the Drectly to Providence but also VIA Ronkonkoma NY which IDK how they gonna figure it out, Tunnel is bit easy it just that using LIRR, maybe re electrified to an overhead Instead of third rail.
@@Daniel-hj8elseparate HSR tracks duh it’s not that hard buddy
7:17 - Alstom - formerly known as Bombardier of Canada
Dude, this is like a fever dream. This is what I gave up on ages ago and only recently started to have an inkling of stubborn hope for. It is, literally, a dream come true. Real, proper progress! Finally!
Now if only Canada would follow suite, dammit.. VIA Rail need much more funding to expand service and add new necessary yet presently absent routes outside of the main corridor.
As a San Diegan, I'd love to see the Coast Starlight extended to San Diego and a new long-distance train to Chicago utilizing the old SD&AE railway going thru Northern Mexico and El Centro then connecting to UP's network in El Centro over the extension of the Surfliner to San Ysidro (and I do agree the Surfliner needs to be more reliable) Those routes would be cool as taking the unreliable Surfliner to LA from San Diego to go long distance via Amtrak is a pain.
Personally I’d love to see the Coast Starlight go to San Francisco and stop in Ventura ( as a former Venturan)
Both.
The SD&A has a terrible right of way. There is no way that Amtrak would run anything on that crappy track. The rehabilitation would be prohibitively expensive and in the long run if San Diego really needed a direct rail link west (they don’t the SD&A was a commercial failure) they would be better off building a new base tunnel bypassing the horrible curves and rockslides.
I’ve got a conspiracy theory:
The only reason Amtrak wants to go to Long Island is to build the catenary themselves force the LIRR to get rid of its third rail🥴.
Why would they care about LIRR third rail?
@@expletivedeleted7853 because LIRR and Metro North are kind of the only regional rail operators in North America that use 3rd rail.
The real problem is that LIRR seems to only be resisting it because they don’t want through running.
Catenary is only marginally more expensive, while supporting higher speed and being more flood resistant.
They seem to be so focused on keeping “Job”, and terminal rent revenue that they have actively ruined their services.
Amtrak would benefit the most because Penn station is limited to 22 round trip now vs 44 one way transits. You can run the same number of trains but each one way transits cover more territory.
@@FreeJaffa92 And they each use their own different type of third rail as well. MNCR uses under-running (shoe pushes up on the third rail) and LIRR uses a more traditional subway style over-running (shoe pushes down) third rail. I assume that with hybrid transits Amtrak would de-energize the New York Central west side line to Penn Station 3rd rail, but then you still have two deal with the Lake Shore Limited. As I understood it, the battery packs were planned to be in or under passenger cars not the locomotives.
Oh god when you say build the catenary themselves all I can think of is the Jersey Raceway from Delco to Ham.
Looks like that line by Chicago to Pittsburgh can be a true HSR
St. Joseph MO is associated with two things that people on the national level may have heard of: it's where Jesse James was shot, and it's the former eastern end of the Pony Express mail route. It's the 8th largest city in Missouri, but I suspect the plan is that the KC/StJo portion of the route will primarily serve commuters who live in St. Joseph and commute to work in Kansas City and there probably won't be THAT many people who want to go from Chicago to St. Joseph specifically.
Another thing im excited about for North Carolina is the expansion of amtrak service to ashville NC. In the past years railroads have been disappearing in the western half of the state and i hope that Amtrak will bring the return of rail traffic and better transportation in the mountains /western half of the state
The only problem is getting to Asheville. The old fort loops would be to slow for a reliable passenger service plus NS would be in the way almost all of the time. Would love to see the service though!
As a Hickory Native who grew up yearning to have a way out, a train going east from the western foothills and also going to Asheville for tourist reason is sick. Now I just need a rail going north/south going right down highway 321. Charlotte to Caldwell county is a massive commuter market. A slower extension to Boone in the future if they finish all that infrastructure up there
OMFG!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!! i can't STAND the idea of the San Joaquin being discontinued because of CAHSR!!! I take that train whenever i can to Fresno to see my Grandma and thought about how the line connects smaller areas that hsr wont and how much of a shame that would be if they cut it.
It really should stay with hsr being Express like you said
Amtrak should look into buying Stadler FLIRT DMU's or EMU's because they are about 4 times cheaper to operate and only 1 person crew. This means that they could offer many more services. This is what we Europeans have done. We have EMU's EVERYWHERE. There are almost no locomotive hauled trains left because trains are a lot cheaper to operate this way, and a lot more people take the train because of the frequency.
@@StefanWithTrains3222 ????? What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with what I commented...
@Yvonne-Bella yes it does. In Europe, we have THOUSANDS of rail lines for passengers. We connect a lot of so-called small communities with smaller cities and bigger cities. But we can actually make this profitable because we can make it more attractive and make operations cheaper.
The only cities that will likely lose service will be Corcoran and Wasco, according to current plans.
@@expletivedeleted7853 but that is my entire point... They don't have to.
Amtrak's biggest hurdle is operating on the ROWs owned by the freight companies like UP, BNSF, KCS, CSX, NS. They cause delays. The Sunset Limited between Florida and Texas is the biggest problem.
Adequate investment by passenger rail operators will increase access to both freight a passenger service. For instance - the return of double track with sidings increases capacity 10 fold. Believe it or not - most right of ways were double tracked - but the second track was pulled out - as the railroads in the 1970s could not afford to maintain both tracks due to declining rail volumes...and access to the capital markets. Railroads were no longer "sexy" during this period - as manufacturing was offshored. Today - upon reflection - we've identified our mistake - and are adjusting our path - what was old - is new again!
The delaware line will provide some much needed train service in the MD eastern shore as well. A train from the state capitol to ocean city may still be a pipe dream for now, but Salisbury is one of the largest cities on the peninsula, and is home to Salisbury University which is a major public university in the region. Extending any sort of train service to the city will be a good start, and could potentially drum up support for more delmarva rail service.
Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. must have left some deep pains in the southern mind. The Union General made it a point to tear up all the rail lines and the south never rebuilt them.
Tons of people live in Tijuana/Tecate and cross over the border into California for work every day, so that could be part of the idea behind extending to San Ysidro
Should ask SANDAG and CLATRANS for updating that project.
Thank you so much for covering all of these proposals! It's great to see that so many routes are finally being considered in order to build a larger web of services, even though I feel a few lines could have better termini (extending the Carl Sandburg to Kansas City instead of Hannibal, MO for example). With the varying dedication from various state/local politicians in anti rail states, I would recommend privately-funded rail services like Brightline to fill in the service and frequency gaps, so this way they're not entirely funded by taxpayer dollars. High frequencies are absolutely key for efficient and even profitable service so that people are more likely to rely on it. Keep up the great work.
There's little benefit in extending the Carl Sandberg 200 miles past Hannibal to go to Kansas City when there's already two routes serving Chicago/KC passengers, the Southwest Chief and the Lincoln River Runner.
Great Video! I would love to see more of your stuff in the future!
Thanks Urban! Definitely a fan of your stuff, so that means a lot! Got a few projects I'm in the middle of working on as I speak, so there's a lot more to come!
Will note, Brunswick to Rockland is owned by the State of Maine itself. They contracted operations of the line to the Montreal, Maine, and Quebec Railway, who got bought out by Canadian Pacific (and is now CPKC). CPKC has generally been very good about allowing passenger services, and it's a service that the state itself wants, so I could see Amtrak having an easy time there.
Alberta Regional Rail linking Yellowstone & Glacier National Parks in Montana to Calgary and Edmonton are being treated well by both CPKC and BNSF officials. Amtrak and US DoT are also actively supporting rail corridor grant applications from regional rail authorities including Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority and Integrated.Travel of Great Falls MT.
Montreal, Maine and _Atlantic,_ actually. Canadian Pacific bought it out in the aftermath of the Lac-Mégantic disaster.
Stayed to listen for the Duluth/NLX mention, was not disappointed (though I can't say I'm enthusiastic about the pittance the feds gave us). Being a college student on the North Shore it will be nice to have a timely way to get to the Cities during holidays.
It should also be mentioned that the bill which provided state money for the NLX also included provisions which lifted the 20-year gag rule on the Dan Patch Corridor (a route to a major private college town), though it isn't being studied to my knowledge.
But about South Dakota, I can only see Sioux Falls getting any significant Amtrak service given its rapid growth, perhaps to Moorhead/Sioux City/Minneapolis, service to Rapid City would likely be a political nightmare too, knowing the history of the area and the current state government.
Stayed for the NLX mention, too. Personal opinion: The NLX should terminate in Superior WI and have a connecting bus finish the trip to Duluth. Reason: Everything north of 61st street in Superior (south end) is un-signaled yard track, nothing more than 20mph, all the yard/switching/transfer jobs and the swing bridge would wreck a passenger schedule. At 61st Street, there's a track that bypasses the yard on the east side called the "coal runner." Put the depot on there. The Superior Union Depot is there down town
If Duluth needs to be the terminal, run the "Old Town Line" to East End and dig a tunnel under the bay from Connors Point to Grassy Point.
Besides Wyoming, the only other state without Amtrak service in the contiguous U.S. is South Dakota!
Restore the Olympic-Hiawatha!
@@StillPlaysWithModelTrains1956 Local news reported that the feds are looking into putting Amtrak service out to Rapid City. I'll believe it when I see it, but living here in the Black Hills, those articles DEFINITELY got people's attention.
Wouldn't that just be a less useful (albeit slightly shorter) version of the North Coast Hiawatha? Trading Fargo, Jamestown, Bismarck, and Dickinson for Aberdeen and not much else doesn't seem like a good deal.
Hello from san diego. An extension to san ysidro is an extention to tijuana, would connect the surfliner to another large city, around 1 mil pop, 2 mil metro area. The station location would likely be right at the border because of this high ridership. The trolley between san diego and san ysidro is the single highest ridership light rail in the country, running at 7.5 min frequency, with plans for express services and for more service. If the surfliner gets extended to san ysidro, that segment of line between San Diego and san ysidro would be fully booked day one. People want a faster mode and have been needing it for decades. We need that funding asap to also get freight off of the blue line so we can run 24/7 services.
Another thing that's needed there is a route connecting San Diego, Escondido, and the Inland Empire, especially with the major problems currently confronting the Surfliner/Metrolink route in San Clemente, as well as the situation regarding the Del Mar bluffs. That's one of the two or three major missing links in rail travel in Southern California, and could eventually provide light rail service between San Diego and Escondido, a potential Metrolink route connecting Riverside and Escondido (I doubt they'd extend it all the way to San Diego), and even a potential Amtrak route from San Diego to Las Vegas via Escondido and the Inland Empire, and potentially using the old Desert Wind routing between Las Riverside and Las Vegas. The biggest problem for a rail line from San Diego to the Inland Empire would be the portion from Escondido to Temecula, which is hilly.
Props on the new, cool video. I live in a rural part of Virginia about 20 minutes from the Ettrick Station right near Petersburg. I’m paralyzed in a wheelchair and I’ve recently started taking the train up to Northern Virginia and DC in the past two years. The train allows a lot of stress to be taken off my shoulders for me to travel longer distances. I’m going to really enjoy being able to take it south now as well
the north carolina stuff is making me super excited
Getting that connection between Raleigh NC and Richmond VA on the S line will be a major upgrade and would get huge ridership
A few thoughts about the North Coast Hiawatha, centering on Montana:
1. The route would run on Northern Pacific trackage, not the old Milwaukee Road, which unfortunately is almost entirely abandoned in Montana. Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority (a legal subdivision of the state) is working closely with BNSF on this route since it just resumed operations of the Montana Rail Link section this year.
2. In my view, one of the most exciting parts about this service restoration is the potential for augmented routes at either end. At the east, the route could form the proposed Chicago-Madison-Eau Claire-Twin Cities service. At the west, the route could restore service to Central Washington by taking its original Spokane-Pasco-Yakima-Seattle route over Stampede Pass. While service would likely be only once per day each way, using those routes as a long distance service opens them for future state supported passenger services. (The lack of a Seattle to Central WA & Spokane route is absurd.)
3. The biggest open question in Montana is which route it takes between Bozeman and Missoula. Pipestone (Milwaukee Road’s route) is long abandoned; BNSF‘s Homestake Pass trackage has been out of service for decades, and aerial images show at least one section of rockfall over tracks; so in either case, Butte would be a spendy route to reestablish. On the other hand, Helena, while making more sense for intrastate ridership as the capital, has to tackle Mullan Tunnel at the continental divide, which is apparently quite a bear and highly trafficked. Curious to see how it pans out, especially since Helena’s county refuses to join the Authority. (Same with Billings’ county, which would be rewarded with a stop anyway despite its obstinance.)
4. A similar choice plays out with multiple options between Missoula and Paradise, MT: either up a steep grade toward CSKT’s Bison Range and the Flathead River, or what appears to be a longer but mostly downgrade/downstream route along the Clark Fork past St. Regis. Pros and cons for each, but stunning views are inevitable for lucky riders.
5. Re. the Empire Builder and the Hi-Line, PEOPLE LIVE HERE outside the NEC. These services are not just about end-point throughput, but connecting communities between. (Livingston and Bozeman are also gateways to Yellowstone National Park.) Winter travel in particular is hazardous on our highways, there are no flights between Montana’s larger cities that don’t require 1 (or 2) connections, and bus service is basically nonexistent. One daily train would be a godsend for medical trips, tribal communities, conferences, etc. All of us deserve options to get between communities that don’t require windshield time or costly (and increasingly inconvenient) air travel. allaboardnw.org/site/assets/files/1525/people-live-here-vert.png
I live outside Pittsburgh the trainsit we we have bus system and a T line. Pittsburgh used to have good trainsit after P&LE railroad shut down their passenger rail and PA train commuter rail to. Pittsburgh needs to look at philadelphia commuter rail and become a good commuter rail system.
At the very least rail to Sewickley, McKeesport, Washington, oakmont, and trafford would be cool
The Virginia extension to Bristol could be a really great service if Tennessee can get its act together and connect it to Knoxville and then on to Chattanooga
I'm with you there. Hoping that can come about at some point. Tennessee in general needs more rail connections, and if Atlanta to Chattanooga, Nashville and Memphis is pushed to fruition, that would be a great connecting route.
They are also looking at restoring the Pioneer from Denver-Cheyenne-SLC-Seattle and an extension of the Front Range Pueblo-Cheyenne to continue on to Douglas-Casper then either Gillette-Billings or Thermopolis-Billings.
I know there are some people in Maine fighting for a return of passenger service to Bangor. It's weird to me that they're talking about an extension to Rockland, a small town of a little over 7000 people, and not to Bangor, which has more than 4 times the population, the third largest city in the state. It's only another 60 miles, has a good sized airport, and is a good launching point for going to tourist destinations like Bar Harbor or Baxter State Park. I'm sure there's some reason. No doubt, a lot of NYMBYism. Lord knows, Mainers are at about San Francisco levels of NYMBYism. There are just far fewer of them, so their voices don't carry as far.
Restoring the Cardinal to daily service is critical to the smaller stops in Virginia and West Virginia. It also provides alternatives between New York and Chicago on one of the most scenic trains in the Amtrak system. The new east west state service from the coast to Roanoke, Christiansburg and potentially Bristol will also help boost the Charlottesville station as a great connection point for UVA students and VA Tech students. Virginia has proven that they will definitely use rail if it is an option. If Tennessee gets on board and gets service from Bristol to Knoxville and Chattanooga, that would be huge as well. The new service from Atlanta to Chattanooga would allow Virginians a great way to travel to Atlanta without going through DC.
One thing we HAVE to do is extend the Northerm Lights down to Rochester! After all, the biggest city in MN after the Twin Cities!
They should at least extend NL up to St Cloud or Little Falls. Idk how'd they'd get to Rochester, though.
@EWLR89 My bad I meant North Star 😭😭 but yeah true true, that service has got FAR bigger problems tho 😂
@@alexanderboulton2123 Sorry, I messed up and said Northern Lights, it's Northstar.
@@EWLR89 So I WAS right the first time!!!
I took my first trip on amtrak back in october, and it was to montreal using the northeast regional and the adirondack trains. Two things to say on that regard:
1. in my experience the border crossing wasn't too bad for me at least. They had a pair of customs officers go seat to seat scanning everyones passports, and they had a pair of agents in each train car, so once your car was finished they were generally ready to leave. And of course before and after they come to scan your passport you can just do whatever you were doing before in your seat. I found it much more relaxing than waiting in the lines at the airport, however a few people sitting near me were brazilian (ie not traveling on an american or canadian passport) and they had to deal with some issues from the customs agents and said they were pretty rude to them. Overall getting customs out of the way before the train ride would be very convenient for everyone.
2. I think the vermonter extension is INSANELY needed. I wanted to do all my travel in one day, so I ended up having to wake up at 3am to catch the 4:29am northeast regional due to the early morning departure of the adrionack, and on the way back i got stuck in nyc for 4 hours because of track issues, since the arrival of my adrionack train required me to book a late night weekend ticket for the northeast regional. I live in Maryland so if I had the option to hop on the train in maryland and not worry about transfers it would have made my life so much easier
I was curious how going through Customs is.
Nice job scooping Alan Fisher.
lol
All in good fun.
I can't wait for Amtrak Trains coming from Atlanta to Savannah Georgia
Small correction: the Floridian didn't pass through Indianapolis. Instead, it bypassed Indy to the west, going from Lafayette due south to Bloomington.
The Tucson-Phoenix line could be expanded to create a new route between those cities and Las Vegas. An existing former AT&SF freight line is already in place between downtown Phoenix & Parker, AZ on the Colorado River. About 120 miles of additional new "greenway" construction would connect Phoenix & Las Vegas, including a 12 mile segment between Topock, AZ & Needles, CA, used daily by Amtrak's SW Chief. This appears to be better, compared with using the highway median of a yet-to-be built Interstate 11 between Las Vegas & Phoenix.
Great video! Thank you for the wonderful coverage!
It was a pleasure to make it Chuck! Thanks for checking it out! Hoping to ride to Scranton on the Cut-Off some time soon!
continuing the Missouri River Runner to St. Joseph, MO would allow travelers from St Louis and Kansas City to connect with the California Zepher at St Joseph for continuination Westerward to Denver and on to the west coast.
The closest the California Zephyr gets to St. Joe is Plattsmouth Nebraska. Connecting KCMO to Omaha thru there is the only viable option...
There should be an expansion of services to all National Parks and many recreation areas
A few brief observations... first, great video. Obviously long but thorough. To me, having grown up and lived most of my life in the midwest, it blows my mind that there is not still a train that goes from Pittsburgh to Columbus, OH, to Indianapolis to Chicago. Columbus is a booming city, growing steadily and there's Ohio State as you mentioned and major league sports too. You'd also have Dayton in the mix. A train running between those cities would have access to millions of potential passengers. It would be financially successful!
Fun historical fact, the Quad Cities had the "Rock Island Rocket" in the mid 20th century. My dad and many, many WW II veterans rode that train to the Rock Island Arsenal for weapons training. It blew their minds how fast the train was! It ended service in the late 1970's.
Lastly, all this is great but it will ALL come to a screeching halt if Trump is re-elected President and the Republicans get a majority in one or both houses of congress. Please, PLEASE, if you want rail expansion to continue in the USA, DO NOT vote for Trump in 2024!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Long Bridge was electrified, yes. By the Pennsylvania Railroad for freight trains to reach Pot (Potomac) Yard, in Alexandria, Virginia, which until Conrail dropped electric freight ops in the early 80s, was the southernmost point of the PRR catenary.
As for the Springfield Line, as someone who has explored the route in the Virtual New Haven Railroad route in Train Sim Classic, the route was double tracked from Springfield to New Haven in the days of the NH, so re-doubling the track could be feasible.
And then, the Delmarva Peninsula was once served by the PRRs Del-Mar-Va Express which was a passenger service that ran down the Delmarva Division. So, yes, it's about time service came back to the Peninsula.
And the other state without passenger rail in the Lower 48 is South Dakota.
When is Des Moines going to get passenger rail 😢
I totally agree! The Iowa Interstate corridor is very under-utilized, but it's owner is opposed to ANY upgrades needed for passenger service!
Thank you for this hugely informative video!
It would be interesting to see what Pullman would do as far as high speed rolling stock if they were still around. Many railways in Europe still use Pullman cars, some are even on high speed services there.
I’m exited for your “massive NEC project”
For everyone in L. A. who lives (roughly) west of Fairfax, the Brightline trip to Vegas will take longer than driving or flying. That's because Rancho Cucamonga is a far eastern suburb of L. A.
Car and air travel can have delays. My experience with Burbank airport
Reinstatement of the "Blue Sky Blue" corridor between Yellowstone, Glacier and Banff National Parks - this daily service disappeared more than a hald century ago. The time is now to dust off this proposal and get residents and visitors on track through some of the world's most inspiring vistas.
The most ridiculous missing link:
Columbus-Indianapolis-St Louis.
Looks there is some confusion about the route for Atlanta to Savannah. Can't blame you, us local advocates are confused too. The Corridor ID map shows the route going south through Macon as your note in the video states. This would especially make sense given that the feds awarded GDOT $8 million to study HSR on that route just last year. However, the Corridor ID announcement is for conventional rail and not HSR, and lists Athens, Augusta, and Macon as potential intermediary stops. Presumably this means they are studying both a southern and northern route.
Memphis is looking at a new bridge over the Mississippi with a rail line also. This could be the start of the move west. Memphis to OKC puts you on the I 40 corridor and NM with the lowest crossing over the continental divide.
I'd love to see a New Haven - Hartford - Springfield - Albany - Buffalo train. It would be a different route, but it would have people on it. Connecticut might be a small state, yet we do love trains, especially if Amtrak bring back to Montrealer and id love to see another train back, The State of Maine New York to Bangor, Maine. You might have to upgrade the railline from Worcester to Lowell, where it would meet the Downeaster...
Enjoying your Septa footage; would love the Reading connection; and am looking forward to Scranton. Woohoo.
Coming back later, it's really unfortunate for the failure of the pioneer/desert wind route selection because the actual reason was that IDOT and UDOT for each route respectively submitted the applications to the wrong link so there was no way they would've gotten accepted
Indeed. I can hardly imagine a more embarrassing way of gimping yourself of a really valuable service like that. Just shows how important tech literacy can be, it seems. Sorry, Idaho and Utah.
Lincoln service runs 284 miles in 286 minutes. The Chief goes 298 miles to La Plata in 287 minutes. Speed is nice but totally undone by poor routes into Chicago and STL. A nice improvement but not the most effective use of government money.
However service gets implemented between Denver & Dallad-Ft. Worth, it MUST be named the Texas Zephyr .
Also, make it an overnight Auto-Train style operation. It's virtually the same length as the current Lorton -Sanford service on the east coast. Relatively unpopulated between tetminals.
On the NC routes - the big omission I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is connecting Charlotte and Columbia SC. There’s already existing freight track and runs via Rock Hill SC (a huge urban area on its own with no passenger trains) and is around 70 miles. Not sure why they wouldn’t consider that given it would link the Silver Star with the Piedmont, Carolinian, and Crescent. Not to mention giving faster access to passengers from the south to Asheville when that line opens and Greenville. I’m in Charlotte and to go south, it’s either drive to Columbia or get the train north to Raleigh to come back down. Or fly.
I hope Denver to Colorado Springs happens soon. That’s long overdue.
The State without Amtrak Service is South Dakota; however, you talked about extending Capitol Corridor Service from San Jose, CA to San Luis Obispo, CA. Is long overdue! Sure, we have the Pacific Surfliner which is an express service to Los Angeles, but San Luis Obispo to San Jose is only served by the Coast Starlight once a day, which frankly sucks!
Another reason why we need this extended service is because more people in Paso Robles, King City, Soledad, Gonzales, Salinas, and Pajaro would like connections that aren't being offered. Originally, service between San Jose and San Luis Obispo was envisioned by Sacramento as being named the Coast Daylight Service but that service was originally envisioned to be an express CalTrain Service from 4th & King Street in San Francisco to Gilroy, then service south eventually to San Luis Obispo, giving San Luis Obispo County more direct access to the Bay Area.
Also, a service that the Corridor ID Program should seriously consider Los Angeles to Mexico City via the former El Paso Southwestern Route via Douglas, NM.
We are ever hopeful in Nashua, NH. Nashua has already paved the parking lot for the downtown commuter rail station. Over 200 spaces. Handicap parking right next to where the platform will go. Bus stop and bus spaces for transfers to city buses. They also have land for a second station in southern Nashua. Nashua is antsy for commuter rail. Nashua has explored the option of going it alone, without the rest of NH. Just commuter rail service to Nashua.
The parking lot is just down the track from the Nashua Rail Yard, behind the Makeit Labs maker space on Crown St.
I rode Amtrak in the early 80’s on the St.Louis Mainline from Parkersburg WV to Washington DC! Ripped the line up few years later thanks to Chessie! Great scenery several tunnels.
I'm with you on the San Ysidro extension. San Ysidro (which is a neighborhood not a city btw) is already served well by the Blue Line Trolley which runs every 7.5 minutes up to San Diego where you can transfer to the Surfliner. Extending the Surfliner would require either retrofitting the Trolley tracks or adding expensive new tracks along a corridor which already is doing just fine. I'd rather put that money toward the tunnels in San Clemente, Del Mar, and Rose Canyon.
Seen the trolley to San Ysidro brought up quite a few times, and it only makes me question it further. I don't think it's bad to extend there per say, but in context, with both the trolley service and the infrastructure and reliability problems plaguing the Surfliner stunting its true potential, that needs to be the main focus above all with that route.
In my view San Ysidro is only worthwhile if it is an intermediary stop on the way to Tijuana and points south (so mostly for customs purposes), and if it comes with grade separation through Downtown San Diego, which would greatly improve that neighborhood. At grade rail in a CBD is a nightmare with how long freight trains have gotten.
Definitely not a high priority thought.
RESTORING NORTH COAST HIAWATHA would be huge
If the United States is serious about wanting to build a high-speed rail network? My take will be simple less federalized and more regionalize, localize for small communities, towns and cities if there is demand for one. Same can be said for projects focused on pedestrianization, mobility etc. Make sure that its done by the federal goverment but have much more local, regional and domestic support as well.
You’re a great commentator uncle Steve! Very educational.
Thanks Huck! Glad you liked it! Got more in the works too.
Restoring the Broadway Limited would be amazing! I agree- Just Do It! I enjoyed your ramble and glad you made this. Do you think it would be possible to continue the detailed chapter markers all the way through if you do a follow up? Also looking forward to your rail map thoughts on Pennsylvania! Do you know if there are any plans to restore the Sunset Limited service from New Orleans to Florida?
The group of Amtrak Midwest improvements is held back by the lack of a connection to the St. Charles Air Line (SCAL).
For the Lincoln Service, it is needed to move the like onto Metra Rock Island District between Chicago and Joliet. This is needed because the current route along the CN Joliet Sub that the Metra Heritage Corridor uses which has a bunch of diamonds that is consistently blocked. The other solution is to build flyovers across the diamonds but due to the end goal being moving Amtrak off of the line, it would require IDOT to have a desire to fund it which is not likely as the state is pushing hard to expand I-55 that runs parallel to it.
The SCAL would allow Michigan Service to be moved off the NS Main Line and onto the NICTD passenger line. This would make the entire Wolverine line publicly owned and open the door to electrification of the line since it is already electrified from Chicago to Michigan City.
For the Illini/Saluki, the SCAL would remove the need to do a turn around to get onto the CN mainline which would easily knock 30 minutes plus off of the travel time.
The Surfliner to San Ysidro can be covered by the Coaster Train.
A few more details about CHSR
-Everyone seems to forget that the initial funding for the project was secured from a voter initiative. Meaning that we voted for this thing to be built. All the whining about CHSR seems to ignore that.
-Another advantage to Siemens: they have a factory in Sacramento, CA. The trains would likely be built there. Bonus: the second part would connect San Diego and Sacramento to the main SF-LA line. Whenever the second part actually gets somewhere near completion, putting them on the main line gets easier. Even further bonus for Brightline West: I'm wondering if the line stopping in Rancho (which-yeah, that doesn't make sense) is only going that far because CHSR plans to electrify the Metrolink line to Rancho as a part of the project. This means they're just waiting for the electrification to take it into LA Union (it'll be a while, though). If that is a part of the plan, then there's a point where Siemens just runs a line from their factory to the main line.
The Capitol Corridor route in California makes sense to go to Reno. It also should go to Monterey, solidifying the original concept of connecting California's capitols plural. Even if only some trips went directly to Monterey, and the rest to Salinas. This same southern extension shares the eventual route with Caltrain's planned extension, Amtrak's Coast Starlight, and a lot of freight; and presents speed problems due to some winding sections and the speed limit through Elkhorn Slough. For many years, the plan for US-101 to bypass Prunedale would have permitted a median commuter rail corridor; but NIMBYs won. The end result has been that the present route became so dangerous that widening and new interchanges became necessary, encroaching on central Prunedale, no sign of a surface street main drag in sight, anymore.
I hadn't heard of the San Joaquin service being threatened by high speed rail. That would be tragic and idiotic. Everyone with decision-making power needs to look at rail in Europe, where there are trains that stop at every station that provides service to all communities along a corridor, supplementing express and high speed service, and allowing the last to stop at fewer stations, all the while incentivizing train over car preference.
I would LOVE it if the Fort Worth-OKC train extended to Newton. That would vastly improve my own ability to visit family through that exact expansion route. People in Newton and Wichita also lament their loss of service, over the years. Rails, rails everywhere, and nowhere for passengers to go.
What do you think about one day in the far off future, taking the Scranton line down through Bloomsburg to sunbury to Harrisburg to Mechanicsburg to Carlisle to Shippensburg to chambersburg to Hagerstown? Altogether this would connect about 325,000 people in the more suburban pockets of rural Pennsylvania
There's 1 route that should be considered (and I'm surprised it hasn't been thought up yet), a train route from Spokane WA to Vegas NV. It could travel all the way down with a stop in Reno.
Truncating the existing service when the new high-speed line comes online is what JR West did to their Thunderbird Limited Express Service that used to run from Osaka all the way to Kanazawa. The extension of Hokuruku Shinkansen came online on 16 March 2024 and the Thunderbird service was truncated to Osaka to Tsuruga only. That's why Kyushu Shinkansen has a weird service map with unconnected lines. People who live between Shin-Tosu and Takao Onsen know they would lose the standard services if the Nishi-Shinkansen were extended to connect with the main line.
Steve - I called your video to Chuck Walsh's attention - apparently he hadn't heard about what you'd included (beginning at around 2:07) - I think he appreciates the mention!
You should also metioned other Capitol Corridor plan 20:46 is that Capitol Corridor Joint Power authority is not only to ELECTRIFY their part of their line between San Jose to Sacramento, but also upgrade this line to 125 mph or as high as 150.
At 30:24, they actually plan on expanding past that to make a full on Dallas-NYC train, we'll see what happens.
I actually talked about that one in my video on the long distance routes. That would be really cool to see in either case, whether it be a intercity corridor route or an overnight train. Definitely keeping an eye on that!
@SteveGettingAroundPhilly Would love to see it being a long distance route, as you'll get to see so much variety of the country. Whether that be the desert, flat rolling hills, cities in the Midwest, mountains, and then the biggest cities on the east coast.
My special eye is on the S-line as I live in the suburbs of richmond, hopeful that they upgrade the RF&P to 90+ MPH speeds as it would be nice to have an official direct route from richmond to D.C with no hassle. After all, VDOT bought the RF&P
I live 1/2 mile from San Ysidro and that extension makes zero sense to me. I have no idea where they expect to put a ROW as the Blue Line already uses the SDAE tracks, and it takes you right to Santa Fe Depot anyway. That'd be a lot of money to spend just to get a 1 seat trip.
I'm a fan of passenger rail. Looking forward to the northern Hiawatha coming back. I just wish we could get the place of having dedicated passenger rail lines, so that freight trains don't delay and lowers accident rates. If they build it, and have on time and frequent services, people will definitely start riding. We love our cars, but we don't have rail options up here in the inland northwest. The empire builder runs two to three times a week through here and it's always in the middle of the night. I envy places like Japan and China who have very nice modern trains and frequent services. Both inter city and long trips.
I rode the Montrealer back in the 1970s. It was overnight . I traveled in a sleeping car and they even had a club car with a piano. Breakfast in the full diner. The train seemed to be well patronized but was discontinued. Seems that Amtrak, well it is sad that many services were discontinued because of poor and unreliable service. Let’s see if that doesn’t happen again.
Sorry to correct, but Norlina is pronounced "Nor-line-uh." It's a portmanteau of North Carolina.
The extension of the Heartland Flyer was a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
The American train system went backward for generations. Even if we funneled trillions of dollars into it, it wouldn't catch us up to the rest of the modernizing world. Most of our train stations are exposed to the elements, no platform doors and it's not easy to book a ticket. Our service is not courteous and professional. Cleanliness, timeliness, are all big problems. Our entire culture has to change. This is one area, I'm socialist on. Making a profit should not be the government's concern. It's a service. Just like the highway system.
Honestly for Capitol Corridor I would much rather have it branch at Oakland Jack London and cross the bay to get to SF. Maybe then it could join the Caltrain line and then share the Diridon south terminus, but if I’m honest, I’d be less than enthused about any additional service on Caltrain’s ROW that doesn’t include tri- or quad-tracking as much of it as possible.
Then it needs to get electrified. And maybe, maybe, pretty please, extended to Santa Cruz? 🥺
Edit: Actually, if Capitol Corridor were to be electrified, it might make more sense to extend Caltrain across the bay via transbay tube 2, meet the Capitol Corridor right of way at Jack London, and then both share tracks up to Sac (and maybe Reno!). Then you could easily do SF to Sac, which you currently can’t and which would be a huge game changer for both.
In all honesty from my perspective, I don't think getting a train to cross the Bay from Oakland to SF is a good idea. Instead, it should cross the Bay from San Rafael and go into Vallejo and meat back up on Capital Corridor lines.
I know SMART is all through Marin County, but that area should get Amtrak or local services into SF since that's one of the few counties that denied BART when it was first being built
@@Yvonne-Bella That imo is a more ambitious plan, in that it would require more stuff to be built, but those are definitely areas that need way better service. You’d still get that connection to Sac while also improving connectivity in all the places you mention, including Vallejo, which *reeeeeally* could use it.
@@teuastoh believe I know it's ambitious. And my reasoning is BECAUSE of BART. There are two direct connections to Amtrak stations at Richmond and The Coliseum and soon Diridon. And close connections at JLK with the close proximity to Downtown and Lake Merritt Station. Along with the Ferry terminal a 10 minute walk from JLK, it just looks like we'd over connect Oakland and SF before giving good connections to the North and South Pennisulas.
But these are my wishful thoughts
Edit: I forgot that Transbay buses also connect Downtown Oakland to SF. It really seems like too much.
OK4 rep Tom Cole is a bit of a maverick. he heads up the house transportation committee and came out in favor of the failed budget cuts to amtrak last year. Enraging that ODOT isnt getting CID funds to study OKC-Tulsa as oklahoma state law requires the state to run passrail between the 2 cities
That's one route that would be a big success too. Just shows where ODOT and the states priorities lie. Hoping that a successful improvement to the Heartland Flyer can change their tone a bit.
Loving the video! Would be nice to see the maps and pics up a little longer though
If amtrak ends up replaces those aging p42 diesels with the Siemens diesel locomotives that looks like a diesel powered bullet train like what bright line has
If I can only go back in time and ride the Milwaukee Road’s Olympian Hiawatha between Chicago and Seattle. ❤
I just don't get : we already have cusioncraft of 63 the flying car. We don't need Stroads and can let highways for HS train uses age only.
I like your comparison between a grid system vs a radial system. Looking at a map, Amtrak suffers from running between city pairs and not having a truly usable network. Nashville is a major example of this. Nashville to Louisville allows for Atlanta to Chicago. Nashville to Memphis could be a critical link between 3C's to TX Triangle. There are so many routes that run nearly parallel but offer extremely few connections between the two. I get Chicago needs to be on the map, but it should not be the center. It's just not on the way to anything but MSP. I just imagine Cleveland to KC through Chicago makes complete sense, but doing the 3C and over to St. Louis creates a much more robust system that serves more than just the major cities. Air lines had to make this decision and this is by we don't see double decker plane often. People are better served by smaller more frequent direct flights over a spoke and hub model.
Scranton service should be paired with the Spingield line service.
How awesome would a Via/Amtrak interline train from Seattle to Anchorage be?
I hope we can get more than just two daily trips west of Harrisburg.
I think I’m the only person that uses the Keystone Service from NYC to see sprint car racing at Williams Grove speedway.
Next I want a stop at Port Royal PA.
Go World of Outlaws!
I live in the Bucks County / Hunterdon county area and that PA fantasy passenger rail map at 2:06 is a thing of dreams. Can you provide to link to it? I would like to examine it in greater detail :)
If I had watched this with a pen and paper in hand, I'd probably have a slew of corrections for you, but as I didn't, I'll leave you with the one which really stuck in my craw. "Chattanooga Choo Choo" is a jazz standard by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon, and not a folk song, as you repeatedly called it.
Alstom's current state started way before they bought Bombardier and is the result of SNC Lavalin, the Ottawa Mayor and so much more.
The O-Train Confederation Line will go down in history as quite possibly the biggest Transit blunder so far.
Also, the Vermonter extension is actually a restoration of the old Montrealer, that ran between Washington and Montreal over the current Vermonter's route, and would likely be renamed back to the Montrealer.