Great American Railroad Journeys - Series 2

[ac6000cw]

Great American Railroad Journeys - Series 2, starts on BBC2 on Monday 23rd January at 18:30.

Full episode list here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08cb8gn/episodes/guide - Michael Portillo is starting in St Louis, Missouri and then slowly heading west to Colorado.

 

[47802]

Excellent I enjoyed his American series more than the UK ones.

 

[duncanp]

Thanks for letting us know.

I shall look forward to this, as I was in St Louis about 18 months ago.

I wonder if Michael will travel on the Metrolink in St Louis, which is the light rail system that connects the airport to downtown St Louis and various communities on the other side of the Mississippi in Illinois.

Michael is travelling on the Missouri River Runner, which is Amtrak's twice daily service along the Missouri River from St Louis to Kansas City, where it connects with the South West Chief towards Los Angeles.

 

[squizzler]

I've enjoyed the series so far, but it is very sad to see in the travelling scenes very low load factors and even an external shot of a Genesis loco hauling a train of only 3 coaches.

Portillo's enthusiasm of the USA as a country (he would have been in government in the Thatcher / Reagan "Special relationship) cannot disguise it being very backwards as a railroad nation.

 

[duncanp]

Part of the problem is distance.

The distances in the US are too great for rail to be competitive over air.

Another is timetabling.

When I travelled on the Texas Eagle from St Louis to Dallas, the train passed through Lille Rock, Arkansas. There is only one train per day in each direction at Little Rock, and the Southbound is supposed to depart at 03:15. Similarly for the Northbound train, which leaves in the small hours of the morning.

When I was on it, it was two hours late.

So if you lived in Little Rock and wanted to go to St Louis, Chicago, Dallas or Houston, are you going to hang around a railway station in the middle of the night, or find another means of transport.

The other is the level of service.

I also travelled Chicago to St Louis. It is 260 miles, there are only 5 trains per day, and the journey takes 5 hours 30 minutes, if on time.

Compare that with the level of service from London to Newcastle (247 miles)

The State of Illinois is investing in "high speed" (110mph) rail, but for a lot of the time there is only single track on the Chicago to St Louis line, and freight trains are always given priority.

I don't think the new president of the US is going to help matters either.

 

[47802]

Very much enjoyed this weeks programs, the stations at St Louis and Kansas are magnificent.

The station at St Louis used to handle 100K passengers a day at its peak apparently and now its a Hotel and Shopping Complex but at least it survives I don't think the program showed the massive train shed roof which also survives as part of the shopping complex.

The station at Kansas used to handle over 600k passengers a year at its peak but by 1973 that was down to 38K. It was closed in the 80's but a public/private partnership got it restored in the late 90's and Amtrak returned, along now with a interactive science centre and other businesses occupying the area. The platform area is a shadow of the past with only a single island platform with 2 tracks and through tracks without platforms for the freight to run through. But then it only has 2 trains per day each way to St Louis plus the daily long distance South West Chief.

I guess the decline experienced by the US railways passenger wise was much worse than the UK, and so many of these magnificent stations abandoned and replaced by amshacks at least some have found other uses.

The US has a long way to go to return to rail but there have of course been a number of commuter and metro services start up in various cities in recent years and then there is the new Brightline service starting up from Miami to Orlando Airport.

Also if you want a bit of dubious continuity Fridays program shows him traveling to Lawrence on a 3 carriage train although it doesn't actually show a train in the station. Well more likely he travelled there by car as the only train to Lawrence from Kansas arrives at 11:52pm in the evening and its the South West Chief which would be a much longer train with double deck carriages, and the 3 car train shown was likely to be the St Louis-Kansas train he travelled on earlier.

 

[duncanp]

This is on of the deterrents to rail travel in the US.

If you live in Lawrence and want to go to Kansas City for the day there is only one train a day in each direction, and at a not very convenient time.

Similarly for Salt Lake City, Utah, where the California Zephyr leaves at 23:30 Westbound, and 03:30 Eastbound. Trouble is, how do you timetable a train like the California Zephyr so that it calls at all stations along the route at convenient times.

 

[ac6000cw]

I've enjoyed the series so far, but it is very sad to see in the travelling scenes very low load factors and even an external shot of a Genesis loco hauling a train of only 3 coaches.

Portillo's enthusiasm of the USA as a country (he would have been in government in the Thatcher / Reagan "Special relationship) cannot disguise it being very backwards as a railroad nation.

The important part of US railroading was illustrated at the end of the 3rd episode (as he arrived in Kansas City) - it's the long-distance freight traffic, not the passenger trains.

The sprawling, scattered nature of many US cities doesn't lend itself to efficient inter-city train services - if people have to drive many miles to get on a train they are quite likely to just drive the rest of the way to their destination (or to the nearest regional airport).

To many Americans, trains are things that hold them up for long periods at road crossings, not things to ride on (many never have). They have little idea of the importance to the US economy of the freight traffic the railroads carry - e.g. coal traffic from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming averages a million tons per day (although that is declining slowly), and railroads are the dominant carrier of west coast to mid-west/east coast freight.

 

[47802]

The important part of US railroading was illustrated at the end of the 3rd episode (as he arrived in Kansas City) - it's the long-distance freight traffic, not the passenger trains.

The sprawling, scattered nature of many US cities doesn't lend itself to efficient inter-city train services - if people have to drive many miles to get on a train they are quite likely to just drive the rest of the way to their destination (or to the nearest regional airport).

To many Americans, trains are things that hold them up for long periods at road crossings, not things to ride on (many never have). They have little idea of the importance to the US economy of the freight traffic the railroads carry - e.g. coal traffic from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming averages a million tons per day (although that is declining slowly), and railroads are the dominant carrier of west coast to mid-west/east coast freight.

While that is true there are plenty of Medium Distance routes that the train could compete very well on as the North West corridor shows, but it will take substancial investment in a lot of cases. Clearly going long distance East to West the train is never going to compete.