The idea of re-equipping the Cardinal with single-level cars was recently proposed over at Trainorders and I thought I'd follow up with a more detailed proposal. The idea was to use single-level cars to free up Superliners for other assignments out west and allow the train to serve New York city. Some of the Amtrak domes could then be used to show off the spectacular scenery along the route. Unfortunately, the domes wouldn't fit under the Northeast Corridor's catenary nor through the tunnels of New York city. It was then proposed to just drop the domes at Washington or Charlottesville since they couldn't be used north of there. This would cause more switching enroute with would lead to delays and higher costs for the train. I've come up with an idea that would allow usage of the domes and provide a new route for Amtrak. Why not reroute the train east of Charlottesville via Richmond and terminate it in Newport News, Virginia? This would allow passengers from the west to access the popular vacation spots in that area (Williamsburg, Virginia Beach, etc.) in a more direct fashion. The schedules would only need a little adjustment to allow passengers to connect with the Twilight Shoreliner to reach northern destinations. This proposal would allow domes to operate on the Cardinal route, provide a more convenient way to reach costal Virginia destinations, and allow passengers more connection options than if the train continued to terminate in Washington. This plan would require a bit of work by the shops at Beech Grove, though. It would require more Heritage "10&6" sleepers to be rebuilt and more waivers for their operation to be issued. I'd assume that there would be two sleepers operated per trainset along with one spare to have for when maintenance is done on the regular cars. Beech Grove would also have to come up with enough dome cars for the service. Again I'd assume one per trainset plus an extra. Finally, there's the issue of finding suitable dining cars for the operation. I'm sure that some Amfleet cafe cars could be used to provide the tray meals that were used on my last Cardinal ride (which was in July of 1999). With the current and future deliveries of Surfliner and Acela equipment, there should be sufficient Amfleet cars available for this assignment. I imagine that a typical consist would have a heritage baggage car, two rebuilt "10&6" sleepers, an Amfleet diner, a dome/lounge car, and three or four Amfleet II coaches. The scheduling of the connection would be one of the problems of the idea. Using the current schedule, the rerouted eastbound train would arrive in Richmond at about 6:30pm. (This is figuring about an hour and a half for station stops and the route between Charlottesville and Richmond.) The northbound Twilight Shoreliner arrives in Richmond at 5:37pm, so by pushing back the departure of the Shoreliner from Newport News until 6 or 7pm the connection could be made for people traveling farther up the coast. Westbound, the Cardinal leaves Charlottesville at 1:18pm, so figuring an hour and a half travel time, it would be in Richmond at about 11:48am. The southbound Shoreliner arrives in Richmond at 9:04am so the connection there would work with the current schedule. I'd propose moving back the Shoreliner's departure in Boston an hour back to make for better boarding time in Washington, which is 7:00am now. Of course, I'm making this schedule change proposal without knowing any other connections that the Shoreliner already makes and what effect it would have on them. If the connection with the Shoreliner doesn't end up working, the Cardinal could always connect with the Crescent at Charlottesville or the Silver Star/Meteor/Palm and the Carolinian at Richmond. This wouldn't really change the service of the train very much. When I last rode the Cardinal, only one person that I spoke with was riding the train from Chicago to Washington. Most of the people on board were traveling between two intermediate points (Cincinnati and Charlottesville seemed to be the city pair of choice, actually.), so having to change trains to get to the Northeast shouldn't be too much of a problem. And, if someone was traveling anywhere in the Northeast except Washington today they'd have to change trains on the current routing anyway, so this isn't really that big of an inconvenience to thru travelers. Since the Capitol has a more direct and much shorter route, I'd assume that most through travelers and mail/express traffic would use that train, anyway. (Once again, on my last trip the Cardinal didn't haul any express cars.) Any ideas, thoughts, or comments on this proposal from the peanut gallery? Are there any key points that I'm missing with this idea? I guess the only ideas I haven't addressed are the usage of the Charlottesville to Richmond route and the availability of terminal space in Newport News. What do you guys have to say about this proposal? Thanks for taking the time to hear me out! ------------------ Brian Schmidt railohio@hotmail.com ICQ #21630753 AIM - railohio
You make some interesting proposals, don't know if they'd work but what the heck. As far as running the train on it's former NYP-CHI routing it wouldn't really add time in Washington as the diesels have to be switched to electrics anyway. Yours Reggie ------------------
