Post A Reply
my profile
|
directory
login
|
register
|
search
|
faq
|
forum home
»
RAILforum
»
Passenger Trains
»
Amtrak
»
Which ones were the BEST?
» Post A Reply
Post A Reply
Login Name:
Password:
Message Icon:
Message:
HTML is not enabled.
UBB Code™ is enabled.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Doodlebug: [QB] It hadn’t occurred to me until your post, Train Lady, but competition was certainly a factor in driving up the service levels on many of the trains being discussed in this thread. What would the [i]20th Century Limited[/i] have been like between New York and Chicago without the rival [i]Broadway Limited[/i]? How about the three competing flagships between Chicago and Seattle, the [i]Empire Builder, North Coast Limited[/i] and [i]Olympian Hiawatha[/i]? The [i]City of San Francisco[/i] vs. the [i]California Zephyr[/i]? Even shorter runs such as the Chicago-Minneapolis [i]Hiawathas, Zephyrs[/i] and [i]400s[/i]? What is remarkable is that the Southern Pacific, which eventually came to be regarded as anti-passenger, operated highly regarded trains such as the [i]Lark[/i] and the [i]Daylights[/i] that were in monopoly markets. One has to acknowledge the role competition played in producing the winning trains, how each railroad approached market challenges and sought to win passengers to its service. Corporate pride as well as economic survival depended on it. Amtrak has no standards to meet other than what it sets for itself or Congress decides to impose in willy-nilly fashion. I ride and enjoy Amtrak, but a business without competition can never realize its full potential. Of course, Amtrak only exists because of a business consensus by 1971 that competitive passenger rail was no longer viable and that a single subsidized operator was somehow the path to a new business model. That consensus may be evolving to belief that passenger rail, like all other transportation modes, needs subsidy in some form to survive. The question is whether government will create a permanent funding mechanism for rail – such as road, air and water transportation already have – to replace Amtrak’s annual begathon before Congress. If such a mechanism existed, it could provide competition to Amtrak or even replace Amtrak with new, competing operators. I don’t forsee any private operator stepping in without some degree of government support. I return to Hamlet at least annually, David. I feel like I grew up at the Seaboard depot. Artists’ renderings of it hang in my home and office, and a photo of the restored building is my computer desktop. The computer photo can be found at http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=124783 . A twin DVD documentary of the restoration project, which includes footage of the depot’s move from its original to its new location, is available at City Hall or the depot for about $20. Many nights – most nights in summer – my father would take me there to watch the passenger trains come through. The southbound [i]Silver Star[/i] arrived about 9:30, the northbound [i]Silver Meteor[/i] about 10:30 and the southbound [i]Silver Comet[/i] to Atlanta and Birmingham about 11:30. If we stayed for all three trains, there was a newsstand restaurant to get a bite in and plenty of railroad men to talk to between arrivals. Occasionally an engineer would give us a ride on the downtown switcher that worked the trains. In high school I rode the Seaboard Air Line's [i]Silver Comet[/i] ($17.85 round trip) to Atlanta to see the Braves play and the [i]Silver Star[/i] on a school trip to Miami for a Bahamas cruise. I remember the smells and taste of a delicious dining car breakfast after waking up in Florida. The Seaboard Coast Line and later Amtrak [i]Silver Stars[/i] were also my way home from Chapel Hill in the early ’70s when I was in college. I’d ride the bus to Raleigh where my uncle, who’d been promoted from passenger conductor to an office in the passenger station, would put me on the train in time for a dining car steak enroute to Hamlet. I also took the [i]Star[/i] to Penn Station in New York, located beneath Madison Square Garden, to see the Tar Heels play basketball. That was 30 years ago. More recently I took my son to the East Coast where we Amtraked from New York to Disney World on a series of trains over a period of a week, the last of which was a [i]Silver Star[/i] Viewliner trip beginning in Richmond. A couple of years ago I began a cross-country trip from Hamlet to the Bay Area on the [i]Silver Star, Capitol Limited[/i] and [i]California Zephyr[/i]. What North Carolina has done in restoring the Hamlet depot and many others around the state is far-sighted, in my opinion, and will pay off as the state slowly develops its own rail service. [/QB][/QUOTE]
Instant Graemlins
Instant UBB Code™
What is UBB Code™?
Options
Disable Graemlins in this post.
*** Click here to review this topic. ***
Contact Us
|
Home Page
Powered by
Infopop Corporation
UBB.classic™ 6.7.2
Copyright © 2007-2016
TrainWeb, Inc.
Top of Page
|
TrainWeb
|
About Us
|
Advertise With Us
|
Contact Us