Passenger Trains > Crescent #19 & #20 To Terminate / Originate In Atlanta

Beginning next Monday January 20, Monday thru Thursday for 5 weeks thru Thursday February 19 Amtrak Train #19 will terminate in Atlanta at Peachtree Station and #20 will originate from that same location at the scheduled departure time each evening at 8:04pm. This scheduled change is brought about by the scheduled 4 day a week daily 8 hour outage of the Alabama East End District while MOW crews perform required track maintenance. Both trains will operate their normal schedules Friday, Saturday and Sunday serving all stations on the 1,377 mile route during the 5 week period. 

Following up on a previous post related LD trains running with reduced cars. Pictured below is AMTK #19-11 running west bound just east of Douglasville Georgia on the Alabama East End with 2 engines and 8 cars on Sunday 1/12/2020. 

Thanks for stopping by and always be safe when out track side!!!

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/20 01:35 by NSSpike.

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At least 20 will have a chance of being on time for a few weeks.

Posted from iPhone

Peak45068 Wrote:
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> At least 20 will have a chance of being on time
> for a few weeks.
>
> Posted from iPhone

Well it did until you posted this and jinxed it!

Was this also the case back when Southern was running the train? They must have had to do track work back then. Sounds like NS is trying to screw over Amtrak. Just because they can. 

Been this way for several years, always this time of year.
Probably  to discourage anyone from taking Amtrak to the Mardi Gras.
In the past there used to be extra capacity and even extra trains were added for special events...now Amtrak management actively discourages rail travel.

Doesn’t start till MondayPHall Wrote:
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> Peak45068 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > At least 20 will have a chance of being on time
> > for a few weeks.
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> Well it did until you posted this and jinxed it!

79mph Wrote:
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> Been this way for several years, always this time
> of year.
> Probably  to discourage anyone from taking Amtrak
> to the Mardi Gras.
> In the past there used to be extra capacity and
> even extra trains were added for special
> events...now Amtrak management actively
> discourages rail travel.

Been this way for several years - for sure! Amazing that the track takes this much maintenance each and every year. Does anyone know why the track maintenance is so intense? And for five weeks - seems a little longer than usual. I guess if Amtrak doesn't run the train it has less of an overall loss? Not sure exactly how that happens or comes to be, but OK! The Crescent used to have extra Viewliner Sleepers and coaches when it ran it to Mardi Gras at one time. 

Southern operated the Southern Crescent to/from New Orleans only three times a week, at first south of Birmingham and later south of Atlanta. Track maintenance had nothing to do with this situation, but it did give rail gangs a little more flexibility.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/20 16:13 by ctillnc.

One thing that has changed since then is the Class 1s more and more embracing the theory of "maintenance blitzes."  That is, just turn the whole railroad over to the MOW forces for a few weeks, rather than have it be months' worth of work trying to squeeze the track teams on and off the line between trains.

And even as the most vocal LD proponents will tell you, the Crescent is very anemic west of Atlanta.  This one is a no brainer.  It would also point to the fact the Crescent probably shouldn't run west of Atlanta, so the equipment could be better utilized elsewhere.

 

That is a nice shot. Not to nit pick, but that train has 8 cars, not 6. Typical winter consist.

The 8 cars south of Atlanta are all but empty especially south of Birmingham.

ShortlinesUSA Wrote:
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> also point to the fact the Crescent probably
> shouldn't run west of Atlanta, so the equipment
> could be better utilized elsewhere.

Either terminate and turn it at Birmingham or redirect south to Florida from Atlanta to open the Atlanta-Florida market.

With the extra equipment you could break up the Lake Shore and run a NY-Chicago section via Detroit and sealed through Canada, and run the Boston section on today's schedule, maybe with a split to the Pennsylvanian in Cleveland.

New Orleans is not a real travel destination, its an intermediate service point.  Terminating long distance trains in New Orleands is like terminating them in Omaha or Raleigh.

> redirect south to Florida from Atlanta to open the Atlanta-Florida market

This makes a lot of sense, even if the train turns at Savannah or Jacksonville without dipping into central or south Florida.

> New Orleans is not a real travel destination, its an intermediate service point.  

Chicago would become the only connection point between east LDs and west LDs... for as long as LDs survive. I'm ok with that. Population of the New Orleans CSA is only 1.5 million. The next shoe to drop would be the Sunset Ltd east of Houston.

 How about splitting the train at Meridian, MS and have the "main" part of the train head to Dallas, TX? It could stop at Jackson and Vicksburg, MS, Monroe, and Shreveport, LA then join the Texas Eagle's route to Dallas? The New Orleans train could be the stub with a sleeper, a coach or two, lounge, and maybe a baggage car. True the train would have to originate in NY a few hours earlier, which wouldn't help Atlanta passengers. Would there be major capacity issues on the KCS?

chess Wrote:
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>  How about splitting the train at Meridian, MS
> and have the "main" part of the train head to
> Dallas, TX? It could stop at Jackson and
> Vicksburg, MS, Monroe, and Shreveport, LA then
> join the Texas Eagle's route to Dallas? The New
> Orleans train could be the stub with a sleeper, a
> coach or two, lounge, and maybe a baggage car.
> True the train would have to originate in NY a few
> hours earlier, which wouldn't help Atlanta
> passengers. Would there be major capacity issues
> on the KCS?

This would be implementation of the "Crescent Star" that had been proposed back with the "network growth stragey plan" that came out when Warrington was introducing the M&E expansion.  

Meridian-Dallas is about 500 miles. A passenger train will take at least 10 hours, absent a nine-figures investment. Westbound, with a 3:30 pm departure from Meridian -- the current schedule, with a few minutes extra to split the train -- arrival in Dallas would be 1:30 am. Eastbound, in order to arrive Meridian at 10:30 am, the train would have to leave Dallas at 12:30 am. Both times are awful for an endpoint. Also a new set of equipment would be required.

Of course, somebody could change the schedule of the NY-NO Crescent, but that would be the tail wagging the dog. The better idea would be to run the Crescent Dallas-Atlanta-NY and forget New Orleans, rescheduling the train in the process.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/20 08:23 by ctillnc.

ctillnc Wrote:
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> Of course, somebody could change the schedule of
> the NY-NO Crescent, but that would be the tail
> wagging the dog. The better idea would be to run
> the Crescent Dallas-Atlanta-NY and forget New
> Orleans, rescheduling the train in the
> process.  

The current times are good for Atlanta though. 

How about dropping the Houston - New Orleans segment of the Sunset and run the Crescent NY-NO-Houston (daily)?

Next, work on a redo of the whole Sunset / Texas Eagle complex.