Within the month, Amtrak will consign the Capitol Limited and Silver Star trains to history, while cutting the latter train off at Washington, D.C. and leaving its riders north of there to take another train to New York or an intermediate stop on the way, and to lose connections going further north. The new combined train will be called the Floridian, a train that will bear little resemblance to its predecessor, which ran between Chicago and Florida through Louisville and Nashville until 1979. On Oct. 4, we took a close look at the “new” train, and its benefits and drawbacks, focusing especially on the riders.
Many advocates have expressed their opinions on the advocacy organizations’ websites, as well as in their personal capacities on blog posts. While we can’t find every comment made by an advocacy organization or an individual rider-advocate, we present some of those opinions in this article. They run the gamut, from full-blown support for Amtrak’s plan, to heated denunciation.
The most supportive comment on Amtrak’s plan came from the Rail Passengers’ Association (RPA), previously known as the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP). Jim Mathews, the organization’s President, made this comment on the RPA website, as Amtrak quoted it and I later did the same: “Our members have had a long-standing dream of restoring a one-seat ride from the Midwest to Florida, and we’re thrilled that a new generation of American passengers will be able to experience this service for themselves. This move will free up badly needed equipment while taking pressure off Northeast Corridor infrastructure during the renovation of the ERT [East River Tunnels in New York City] Project. Rail Passengers applauds Amtrak for this innovative solution to keeping passengers moving during critical state of good repair work. We believe riders will flock to this service.”
It is not surprising that Amtrak would quote such a strongly supportive comment, but such hyperbolic support might go beyond mere enthusiasm expressed by the head of an organization. Amtrak and RPA have had a business relationship at least since 1996, and RPA members currently receive a 10% discount on Amtrak fares, the same as seniors get. That discount is not offered to members of other groups or organizations who advocate for train riders, whether at the national, state or regional levels. Amtrak has acknowledged the discount tome and makes it available to RPA members when they reserve a room or seat through the reservation process on Amtrak’s website, or on the phone.
Other advocates and organizations that do not have a similar relationship with Amtrak have also spoken, and their opinions run a broad range: from support for the change, albeit less enthusiastic than RPA’s, to strong condemnation. Jim Tilley, President of the Florida Coalition of Rail Passengers (FCRP) told me: “First of all, many of us have voiced support for direct service to Florida from Chicago and we will achieve that goal next month with the service realignment, but it will be circuitous and time consuming. Time keeping, already a challenge, will quite possibly become even more so.” With only one Florida train running north of Washington, D.C., he cautioned: “there is a capacity reduction which continues to place upward pressure on pricing.” The ongoing shortage of Superliner equipment has been reported, and advocates noted it, too. Tilley said: “Amtrak continues to hold Viewliners out of service despite the increased demand being placed on this portfolio of equipment.” Other advocates mentioned the Superliner situation, as I will report later in this article.
On another issue, Tilley said: “The East River Tunnel project is long overdue, and I suspect many would agree with me that such a project cannot be undertaken without some service modifications.” He analogized to LaGuardia Airport in New York continuing to operate while being rebuilt, and continued: “In Amtrak’s case they telegraphed earlier this year that some long-distance trains would be redeployed off the NEC. But one can reasonably question if there were alternatives available that might have minimized customer facing impacts.”
The Silver Star currently provides several communities in both North and South Carolina with direct service to points north of Washington on the Northeast Corridor, service that will end soon. Those places include the two state capitals: Raleigh and Columbia. The Carolinas Association for Passenger Trains (CAPT) said on its website: “The trains currently known as Silver Star and Capitol Limited will therefore no longer exist (except in our memories).” With the length of the combined route (1944 miles), CAPT expressed concern about on-time-performance: “Let’s hope that the Floridian can make the trip reasonably close to being on-time all along the route, which the Silver Star has struggled with in the past.”
The Ohio cities of Cleveland and Toledo, as well as three other communities in the state, are on the Capitol Limited route, and the train stops there in the middle of the night. Ken Prendergast, former Executive Director of All Aboard Ohio, commented on the change on September 25 in NEO-trans.blog, which features articles about such topics as development and transportation in the Cleveland area. In his post, headlined Realities Behind Amtrak’s “New” train to Florida, Prendergast went into detail about the shortage of Superliner equipment that seems to be the primary reason for the demise and combining of the two trains, quoting FCRP’s Tilley often. Prendergast also said: “Amtrak has made little or no effort to secure funding for rebuilding or replacing the aging Superliners out west or the single-level trains common on eastern long-distance routes, which are also in short supply. All of Ohio’s five nightly Amtrak trains [that stop in Ohio] are long-distance routes of 750 miles or more, all are between Chicago and the East Coast.” Prendergast also noted that capacity on the trains passing through Ohio is down, so fares have risen. In addition, he quoted another local advocate: “‘Other than a one-seat ride to Florida, it’s still the same train in the middle of the night for us,’ said Cleveland-area resident Ed D’Amato. ‘The equipment shortage is definitely a reason for this [combined] train. The pandemic was the perfect time to work on rebuilding rail cars to get them back into service.’”
The Rail Users’ Network (RUN) is a national organization, some of whose members live along the routes of the trains that will soon be combined, and more of whose members live along the NEC, which will lose some of its through service to the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. In a statement originally sent to Congressional transportation committees and posted on its website, RUN said that the new combined train “will give travelers from the Midwest a direct, one-seat ride to the sunshine state. But this route is hardly the Floridian that everyone remembers.” After mentioning the demise of the now-doomed trains, RUN went on to say: “it removes the traditional Silver Star from service north of Washington, D.C. Riders from the Northeast have traditionally had at least two direct trains to Florida—the Silver Star and Silver Meteor. These were scheduled at different times of the day to give more convenient schedules to riders who needed to get to Florida, Georgia or the Carolinas. Amtrak’s new proposal will end the traditional Silver Star route, and riders from the northeast who wanted a morning departure to Florida will have to take a connection train from New York or points south to Washington, D.C.’s Union Station, where they will have to transfer themselves and their luggage to another train to get to Florida.”
RUN expressed a preference for the original Floridian route, which ran in the 1970s: “Another ridiculous aspect of this new ‘Floridian’, would be that it bypasses large population centers in the south, making it far less useful than it could be. Cities such as Louisville, Nashville, & Atlanta—obvious places a Chicago to Florida train should serve—would not get the train service they have been waiting for years. Ironically, the state of Georgia is very interested in their Savannah, Macon, Atlanta corridor, and having the Floridian serve that corridor on its way to and from Florida would cement the need for that important corridor to get the additional service it needs and deserves.” Like other advocates, RUN blamed the demise of the Silver Star on “the absence of viable long-distance Superliner coaches, which are sitting and rotting in the Beech Grove Yards, when they should have been refurbished and prepared for new long-distance service. What does this say about Amtrak’s supposed goal of expanding its long-distance network, and providing the U.S. with the important and necessary rail network it needs and deserves?”
At its conclusion, RUN contrasted the touted “gain” of through service between the two doomed routes with the actual loss of service that riders in the Northeast will experience: “we would hope that our elected officials and those serving in the U.S. Department of Transportation would see this for what it is—selling ‘new’ connectivity, while demonstrably cutting off those who have relied on Amtrak service for many years. While we believe restoring through service from Chicago to Florida is a worthwhile goal, it should not come at the expense of taking away service from other states.”
Other advocates were harder on Amtrak. John and Lisa Bishop from Colorado said in a blog post: “It’s Halloween, remember Trick or Treat? This is Amtrak’s version: Trick but no Treat!!!” They were responding to another post by Evan Stair, President of Passenger Rail Oklahoma and Passenger Rail Kansas. His post was more critical of Amtrak than the others I had reviewed. He headlined it “The Floridian ‘Trick’ – Amtrak Breaks the Law Again.” In his first paragraph, Stair said: “Amtrak executives are breaking the law by ignoring Congressional mandates. Excuses will rule the day as advocates marvel at the Floridian picture, painted with Amtrak’s revisionist paint.”
Stair blasted Amtrak for eliminating the NEC portion of Silver Star: “What happens to the New York City – Washington D.C. segment? Well, to Amtrak and its apologist set of followers, that is just a minor detail covered by the Silver Meteor and Palmetto (New York City – Savannah, Ga.). To us it is an illegal albeit stated ‘temporary’ discontinuance. Those on the Sunset Limited route east of New Orleans understand what that means.” Stair analogized to the elimination of service between New Orleans and Florida as the Gulf Coast extension of the Sunset Limited, and which ran between 1993 and 2005. That train still runs on its historic route between New Orleans and Los Angeles (modified by bypassing Phoenix), but it was extended eastward to a group of Florida destinations consisting of Sanford, Orlando, and Miami at various times during that twelve-year period. The entire portion of the route east of New Orleans was suddenly suspended, along with all the other trains that served New Orleans, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Crescent City and the Mississippi Gulf Coast in August 2005. The other trains came back, but the route between New Orleans and Florida did not. It has remained officially ‘suspended’ ever since, although the Mobile City Council’s approval of the agreement that will bring trains between that city and New Orleans back to the rails next year includes a provision prohibiting any extension of service north or east of Mobile, at least for the first three years of operation.”
Stair’s argument is based on 49 U.S.C. §24706(b), which concerns “Discontinuance or Substantial Alteration of Long-Distance Routes.” It states: “Except as provided in subsection (c), in an emergency, or during maintenance or construction outages impacting Amtrak routes, Amtrak may not discontinue, reduce the frequency of, suspend, or substantially alter the route of rail service on any segment of any long-distance route in any fiscal year in which Amtrak receives adequate Federal funding for such route on the National Network.” Subsection (c) concerns a lack of appropriations, so it is not pertinent here.
There seems little doubt that Amtrak is about to “substantially alter the route” of the Silver Star by cutting off the segment along the NEC, as well as eliminating same-day connections north of New York, even if a connecting train from Washington could get passengers as far as New York. There is also no emergency, since this change was planned, as demonstrated by Amtrak combining the trains and renaming the resulting train. If Amtrak were to assert the defense of “maintenance or construction outages impacting Amtrak routes,” such an assertion could be questionable. The purported maintenance situation has to do with the East River Tunnels between Penn Station New York and Sunnyside Yards in Queens. That segment of railroad is one of the busiest in the country, and will remain in operation and not shut down. If service must be reduced, it would be far less restrictive for Amtrak to eliminate one of the many trains on the NEC that run between New York and Washington or combine consists of two trains going to different destinations south of there. During peak commuting hours, Amtrak could agree with NJ Transit to alter schedules of trains to New Jersey. There does not seem to be a sufficiently urgent “construction outage” to discontinue a once daily through train, even if only on part of the route, a part that carries a significant number of riders.
In addition, this change is likely to last far beyond the sort of short-term outage envisioned in the statute. It will last for three years, according to Amtrak, maybe much longer. As we noted before, Amtrak’s assertion that the change will be “temporary” is also questionable. It is difficult to believe that Amtrak would have given a new brand to the combined and truncated route, if it was truly expected to provide “temporary” service. It appears highly unlikely that any entity, whether in the private or public sector, would build public recognition for a brand, only to abandon that brand after a limited time.
It is also unclear what steps Amtrak has taken to ensure that there are enough Superliner cars to continue running the Capitol Limited as it has been run lately. In his post, Stair listed other steps that Amtrak could have taken to make Superliner equipment available for the Capitol Limited, while keeping the Silver Star intact. That part of his post contained these bullet points:
- “Some Superliner equipment remains stored in the Beech Grove shop yard some four years after being ‘temporarily’ mothballed due to the pandemic. The mothballing move was a passive-aggressive response, taken by former Amtrak CEO William Flynn and current Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner, as Congress refused to pass a second pandemic bailout.
- “Some Superliner equipment remains under lease to LOSSAN in California [the corridor between Los Angeles and San Diego] in state supplemental service.
- “Some Superliner equipment runs as axle count cars in Illinois.
- “Some Superliner equipment runs in Oklahoma and Texas in state supplemental service.
- “Amtrak’s stated intent to replace this aged equipment seems to be simply a tepid promise, some ten years after Amtrak should have issued a ‘just in time’ order. So there is not relief in sight.”
So, did Amtrak violate its governing statute as Stair alleged? That’s a difficult question, and the answer could turn on whether Amtrak’s reasons, especially for truncating the Silver Star, fit into the statutory categories that would allow “substantially” altering its route, if the change is found to constitute a substantial alteration. Then next question would be about whether circumstances forced Amtrak to take that measure, considering existing circumstances. We can’t provide an answer, that usually occurs through litigation. Still, it appears that Stair has made a colorable allegation.
Longtime Chicago journalist and advocate and occasional Railway Age contributor F.K. Plous expressed his skepticism about Amtrak’s stated reasons. He posed some questions and told me: “Why did Amtrak confect the flimsy excuse that they had to lop off the D.C. – New York segment of the Star to avoid congestion in the East River tunnels? The Star runs through those tunnels twice a day while Amtrak’s NEC trains and Long Island Rail Road trains make hundreds of daily trips. How many of those frequencies have been dropped? The quality of Amtrak’s fabrications is deteriorating faster than the quality of its rolling stock.”
Not all the advocates whose posts I reviewed, except for Mathews, seemed pleased about this development, and some are downright indignant. There is reason to believe that riders who will no longer have a one-seat ride between somewhere on the NEC and somewhere else in the Carolinas or Florida will not like the new arrangement, either. There had been rumors that through passengers would be required to stay on the train during the standing time in Washington, DC, but Amtrak informed us that they will be allowed to get off during that time. That confirms a benefit of the new schedule, but it must be weighed against the loss of the current one-seat-ride between NEC points and places in the Carolinas as Florida that are not served by the Silver Meteor.
I have plans to take my last ride on the Silver Star and to ride the final departure of the Capitol Limited from Chicago to Washington, D.C. on Saturday, Nov. 9. These will be sad occasions for me, and I will report to you about those trips.
David Peter Alan is one of North America’s most experienced transit users and advocates, having ridden every rail transit line in the U.S., and most Canadian systems. He has also ridden the entire Amtrak and VIA Rail network. His advocacy on the national scene focuses on the Rail Users’ Network (RUN), where he has been a Board member since 2005. Locally in New Jersey, he served as Chair of the Lackawanna Coalition for 21 years and remains a member. He is also a member of NJ Transit’s Senior Citizens and Disabled Residents Transportation Advisory Committee (SCDRTAC). When not writing or traveling, he practices law in the fields of Intellectual Property (Patents, Trademarks and Copyright) and business law. Opinions expressed here are his own.
