There has been much talk lately about increasing participation by the private sector when it comes to running passenger trains in the United States. Brightline’s Florida operation and the company’s efforts to establish true high-speed service to Las Vegas through Brightline West have attracted attention, and we will be reporting on Brightline’s progress soon. RAILnet-21 has a plan to manage the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor (NEC) to an investor-owned Infrastructure Management Organization (IMO), while AmeriStarRail (ASR) has plans to lease trackage rights and run enhanced, frequent service on the NEC itself and nearby lines from Amtrak or anyone else with authority. There are also plans to make capital improvements on “transit railroads” through public-private partnerships (P3’s) in various places around the country. Nobody has proposed such an arrangement for operating a long-distance passenger train, though; at least not until now.
As the nation observed its 249th birthday, ASR has expanded its horizons to propose a transcontinental passenger train called the Transcontinental Chief. In an open letter dated June 30 (download below) to Amtrak President Roger Harris, elected officials, the Federal Railroad Administration, potential host railroads, and the media, ASR Chief Operating Officer Scott R. Spencer summarized the proposal: “The Transcontinental Chief will revolutionize rail passenger and express logistics services with the transportation innovation of operating a combined service for passengers, Auto Train capacity for cars, vans, motorcycles, RVs and charter motorcoaches, as well as intermodal express service to carry entire tractor trailers coast-to-coast in less than 72 hours. Utilizing the efficiency of roll-on, roll-off (RORO) loading of railroad flatcars for trucks at RailPorts, Amtrak’s statutory rights to carry express shipments will also offer a rolling truck stop solution for truckers to rest onboard Amtrak trains while covering 200-500 miles during their required 10-hour rest period.”
Spencer also says that ASR can operate profitably; a standard that few passenger trains have attained since the onset of competition from highways and airlines during the past century. His letter said: “AmeriStarRail has also developed innovative solutions to operate Amtrak’s long-distance trins profitably. We propose teaming with Amtrak to demonstrate our privately financed operation of a new long-distance train, coast-to-coast, to coincide with the celebrations of America’s 250th birthday next year. AmeriStarRail proposes that the train be named and operated as The Transcontinental Chief to honor the Native American heritage of our great nation.”
The Proposed Route
Spencer submitted a map of the route for the proposed train with his letter (top). The name and route also pay tribute to the historic Santa Fe Railroad with its iconic homage to Native people through much of the era during which the railroad ran its legendary trains that had the word “Chief” in their names. Spencer described the proposed route this way: “Utilizing Amtrak’s Superliner fleet, the new train would replace The Southwest Chief between Los Angeles and New York City via Chicago, Harrisburg and Reading. New York will be served from Hoboken Terminal due to the New York Penn Station tunnel restrictions for the bilevel Superliners. A single level train section from Harrisburg will also serve Washington, D.C., via Philadelphia.”
Looking more closely at the proposed route, the train would duplicate the historic Santa Fe trains and today’s Southwest Chief operated by Amtrak. Most of the route includes BNSF’s Southern Transcon and currently underutilized Raton Pass routes, and the portion between Galesburg and Chicago runs on a line that was historically part of the Burlington Route before the merger that created BNSF.
East of Chicago, the train would follow the current Amtrak route between the Windy City and Pittsburgh, through Toledo and Cleveland. East of Pittsburgh it would use the Pennsylvanian route, now part of Norfolk Southern, as far as Harrisburg. Proceeding east from Harrisburg, it would split into two sections.
The Capitol Section would run between Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., much like a section of the Broadway Limited did under Amtrak auspices, before it was discontinued in 1995. It would run on the Keystone Corridor between Harrisburg and Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, and then on the NEC the rest of the way to the nation’s capital.
The Broadway Section would use a route that, for the most part, has not hosted a scheduled passenger train since the 1960s. That route historically ran over the Reading Railroad between Harrisburg and Allentown (discontinued in 1963) and the current freight line that includes parts of the historic Jersey Central and Lehigh Valley railroads from Allentown through Bound Brook, N.J., on the Lehigh Valley RR and the Northern Running Tracks (now part of NS) to Oak Island. The train would then back up, using the Center Street Industrial Track, and conclude the trip on New Jersey Transit’s currently underutilized Waterfront Connection and the Morris & Essex Line (historically Lackawanna Railroad) into Hoboken Terminal. The route would bypass Amtrak’s NEC and would mark the first time a long-distance train would serve Hoboken since the beginning of 1970.
Spencer told Railway Age: “We chose the Norfolk Southern ex-Reading Lebanon Valley and Lehigh Valley route to Hoboken Terminal because it was the closest we could get to NYC with the 16’2” Superliners. We’ll have to use Tracks 15-18 at Hoboken Terminal because the canopy tracks’ clearance is too low.” Most of the trains that use those tracks today run to suburban towns on the M&E.
Spencer supports the use of that route in part because he came from Lebanon. He told Railway Age that Lebanon and other towns on the line in Pennsylvania are “a passenger-rail desert.” He said that the old Reading-CNJ line is “a route that was only served by regional trains, even in the 1920s. You had to go from the Reading station in Harrisburg to the Pennsy station in Harrisburg to go to the West,” and he plans to bring true long-distance to the region for the first time.
Regarding the whole route, Spencer said: “This will tie our nation together for its 250th birthday, and this route is double-tracked all the way. It could serve as a model for other routes. This will still be a 10- to 15-year effort because of the need for investment in the infrastructure and augmenting Amtrak’s long-distance fleet.” As we have reported, many long-distance cars are more than 40 years old, and the Horizon cars have been taken out of service, so Amtrak faces difficulties with equipment availability.
An All-Purpose Train
ASR’s proposed Transcontinental Chief would be more than a conventional passenger train. It would essentially be three trains in one. It would offer coast-to-coast passenger service, sometimes with “Chief Class” in a private railroad car. It would also offer intermodal service for trailer trucks, as well as the Auto Train-style of service for motorists who wish to have their vehicle travel with them to their destination, although those destinations would be limited. Current plans call for such service to be offered in the New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles areas, as well as near the Grand Canyon.
While Amtrak included express shipments on its passenger trains several decades ago, that experiment was not successful. ASR would treat the truckers and the “freight” differently. The train would carry entire trucks on channel flatcars and tiedown flatcars, while the truckers, along with the motorists whose vehicles are also on board, would ride in the train’s passenger cars with the passengers who are not bringing their own vehicles. Spencer called the train “a rolling truck stop” for the truckers.
He summarized the Intermodal Express service by saying that it “uses TTX flatcars and auto carriers for roll-on/roll off (RORO) operations.” RailPorts provide truckers with access to Intermodal Express flatcars and Amtrak passenger coach, sleeper, and dining services as they travel 200-500 miles during their required 10-hour rest period, and that RORO techniques mirror terminal times at the RailPorts for Intermodal Express shipments. He also said that his proposal would improve security against cargo theft for Intermodal Express shipments. In addition, he claimed that “Intermodal Express service on the Transcontinental Chief provides a rolling rest stop for truckers who need a safe alternative to the nationwide truck parking shortage for the federally required 10-hour rest period.”
In short, it appears that Spencer and his ASR team plan to combine the efficiencies of several related transportation modes by operating a single train: for passengers in the conventional manner, for other passengers who bring their automobiles with them, and for truckers who are able to move their cargo (and themselves with it) at a significantly faster speed than is attainable on highways or a conventional freight train. Not only would combining these efficiencies increase revenue over costs, but it would also create a premium-rate shipping service that could charge extra for fast shipping, including between the New York area and the Los Angeles area. At least that’s what ASR expects.
A Plan Long in the Making
Spencer told Railway Age that the idea for the proposed train goes back two decades. He said: “The origin of this method of operating long-distance passenger service with Intermodal Express began more than 20 years ago, after the demise of Amtrak’s Mail & Express service, when David Gunn [former Amtrak President, 2002-2005] killed the program. He made the right call, but Paul [Reistrup; former Amtrak President, 1975-1978, and now ASR Mentor/Senior Advisor] and I thought there was a way to make it operate successfully and profitably. That’s what led us to develop operating techniques that will allow passenger service to operate reliably and profitably with the Intermodal Express. We knew that we could run it much better. Fundamental to the reliable and profitable operations of passenger and express operations is RailPorts for running the combined service. Unlike Amtrak’s previous Mail & Express service, when they added or dropped cars all over the place, we’re going to have purpose-built RailPorts that will allow roll-on, roll-off service for truckers and motorists as with Auto Train. They will run with the precision and efficiency of a NASCAR pit stop.” He added that there will be no boxcars like Amtrak operated, only tractor trailers on flatcars. He also said that the Auto Train-like feature will only be offered at RailPorts, but only at a few of them. Buses connecting with the train for passengers going to nearby destinations might be operated in the future, too.
Speed is Key
Today, Amtrak’s advertised travel time for a trip from New York to Los Angeles on the Lake Shore Limited and the Southwest Chief is 68 hours. Going the other way, it’s 70:15, due in part to longer layovers. That’s about the time Spencer says it should take to move its Intermodal Express cargo across the country on the same train. One of the selling points he mentioned in the letter is: “ASR proprietary operating techniques will help prevent the chronic train delays and service disruptions of Amtrak’s previous inefficient operation of lengthy trains for Mail & Express services.” In short, while it appeared during the “Amtrak Express” era that Amtrak was lengthening running times to accommodate the shipping, ASR would speed up the shipping to avoid slowing the passengers’ trips.
The speed of the train is also a vital factor toward saving Amtrak’s long-distance network, which, as we have reported, is facing many challenges and a great deal of risk today. Spencer told Railway Age: “ASR had identified this route for over 20 years as a means to get from one side of the country to the other in 72 hours or less. We think this is a critical path, because we think Amtrak’s National Network is in danger. The viability of Amtrak’s long-distance network is at risk. Paul Reistrup and I are too committed to the Amtrak network to let it wither on the vine.” Reistrup was President of Amtrak in the 1970s, when the long-distance network had expanded. He also ordered the Amfleet I cars.
Saving the Trains
Spencer’s motivation for the AmeriStarRail proposal appears to go beyond merely the belief that he and his team can make money on the railroad in a novel way. He also wants to keep the nation’s passenger trains going. He said: “We have the private financing to get the Superliner cars back in service. We will have a standard nationwide fleet, starting with the NEC. That’s the key to maximizing profitability for Amtrak’s long-distance routes. It simplifies manufacturing and maintenance, and we will run a bilevel fleet that will fit inside New York’s Penn Station.”
Hopes and Challenges
“Hopes and Challenges” was part of the headline of an article about Amtrak’s plan to add new corridor-length routes by 2035 that ran in Railway Age in 2021. We are now almost one-third of the way from Amtrak’s proposal on the way to 2035, and no state-sponsored trains under the plan are running yet, although Mardi Gras service is slated to begin Aug. 18. It will be the first service under the plan.
In a sense, ASR has similar hopes, but they concern the long-distance network, rather than new corridor-length routes. Spencer said that ASR had talked to prospective host railroads BNSF and NS and assured them that the proposed train would not cannibalize their intermodal business. The Transcontinental Chief would carry the entire tractor trailer, so Spencer believes that truckers would support and use it. There would be no need for them to wait for their containers, or for their loads to be lifted off a flatcar, either. Therefore, the truckers would not lose time at the ends of their routes. Instead, ASR would move the cargo quickly. It would be a premium-price shipping service, because it’s faster. Spencer said that RailPorts can capture the 200-500-mile market for freight, which eliminates the need for some of the parking spaces where truckers get their rest, as required by regulations regarding hours of service. He added that the new electronic logs with GPS know where truckers are, and those truckers being able to rest while their trucks are on the train enhances safety. He noted that conventional freight operations don’t give truckers a place to rest, so the goods that ASR would haul are not on rail now. In that way, he said that ASR’s planned intermodal service that ASR is “additive.”
ASR is also interested in saving the long-distance trains which, to some observers, appear doomed to make their last runs in the not-too-distant future. Spencer said: “We’re stepping up because, in our opinion, the future of Amtrak’s long-distance network is at stake. Running money-losing trains without the certainty of an efficient future long-distance fleet is not an option.” While some advocates argue that Amtrak’s long-distance trains perform well financially, improving their performance from current levels would certainly not harm their prospects for continuing to operate. Spencer concluded our interview by saying that ASR could operate profitably, so it would not need the federal operating subsidy that Amtrak now gets for running the trains that ASR would run. He suggested using those operating subsidies to improve the critical infrastructure and maintenance needs of the freight side of the routes where Amtrak trains run, to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the freight side.
Those Are the Hopes, and There Are Plenty of Challenges
The ASR plan is innovative; perhaps revolutionary. It’s never easy to overcome conventional thinking to bring an innovative plan or an invention to financial success, as many inventors know. Spencer, Reistrup, and the rest of the ASR team have their work cut out for them to convince decision-makers to implement their plan and start running the Transcontinental Chief.
There is also the cost of the project. That has not been discussed, and it won’t be inexpensive to build the RailPorts and other new infrastructure for the Intermodal Express component of the operation. It might be a worthwhile investment in the long run to build it, but it’s up to ASR to convince investors of that, just as it’s up to them to repair and rehabilitate, or otherwise acquire, enough equipment to run the train that they are proposing.
Time is also of the essence, according to the ASR plan. At this writing, next year’s National Train Day is 10 months off, and the nation will celebrate its 250th anniversary less than 12 months from now. That does not leave much time to get the Transcontinental Chief onto the rails, especially since some of the proposed route in Pennsylvania and New Jersey has not hosted passenger trains since the 1960s.
This Fourth of July, I listened to music and ate ice cream on the lawn of a historic house museum in New Jersey. If the ASR plan succeeds, I might be able to spend next year’s holiday zooming across the country on the Transcontinental Chief. It looks like a long shot, but the ASR team is determined to make it happen. Maybe I’ll file a trip report after all. Time will tell.
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