Amtrak may end service of its fabled Southwest Chief train from Dodge City, Kansas, to Albuquerque — affecting a slew of towns in northern New Mexico.
Instead, the 450-mile gap in the route would be covered by buses.
One of several Route communities that would be affected by the removal of passenger-train service is Las Vegas, New Mexico. Allan Affeldt, savior of La Posada in Winslow, Arizona, is rehabbing the historic Castaneda Hotel in Las Vegas for a fall 2019 reopening. The loss of the Southwest Chief would be at least an aesthetic blow to the former Harvey House.
The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reports:
The route runs 2,265 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles, cutting through Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. But its future is in doubt, with tracks requiring improvements estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars.
Communities up and down the line have banded together to try and save the service. And for a while at least, they seemed to be making progress. Counties have helped win several federal grants to upgrade tracks.
But the latest grant awarded earlier this year to Colfax County required matching funds from Amtrak. Members of Congress have said the government-owned train service may withhold those funds.
And in a meeting last month with Amtrak officials and a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers, agency leaders said they will consider discontinuing trains along the section of route that stretches from southwest Kansas through Colorado and Eastern New Mexico.
Lamy, New Mexico, close to Santa Fe, also would be affected. And the Southwest Chief passes through the old Route 66 towns of Ilfeld, Bernal, Rowe, Glorieta, Santo Domingo Pueblo, Algodones, Santa Ana Pueblo and Bernalillo.
The newspaper noted the Southwest Chief carried 363,000 passengers in 2017, a slight increase from six years ago. Trips on the train from Chicago to Los Angeles, Chicago to Kansas City, and Albuquerque to Los Angeles rank in the top five in popularity. But stops in northern New Mexico have declined.
Cutting the Southwest Chief into two pieces and using a bus service to connect them is a bad for the train-passenger experience. It’s likely Chicago-to-L.A. passenger counts would plummet in the wake of that move.
Passenger stops at Las Vegas likely will see an increase when the Castaneda reopens in less than 18 months.
And it’s disappointing President Donald Trump has been silent on this issue in recent weeks. One of his promises on the campaign trail was spending more on national infrastructure — a proposal I’ve supported for a long time. America needs to upgrade aging highways, bridges, water systems, power lines, rural internet and more.
So shoring up tracks on a popular train route would seem to be a no-brainer.
The Southwest Chief is the successor of the Super Chief train, which began service from Chicago to L.A. — much of it along the Route 66 corridor — in 1937.
(Image of the Southwest Chief in Las Vegas, New Mexico, by Don Barrett via Flickr)
That would be a disaster! Make the President aware of this, if he isn’t already.
Why not close Route 66, too? Yeesh.
@ Peter Woodman: Yes, this would be a disaster. The other bad news is that the trumpkin doesn’t give tinker’s tap — not about Amtrak or any other type of infrastructure that might benefit the American people as a whole.
The problem is that all US railroads are required by federal mandate to install “Positive Train Control” (PTC) by December 31st, 2018. Amtrak does not own the tracks over which it runs its trains. The tracks are owned by common carrier railroads while Amtrak is simply allowed to use them. Tracks in New Mexico are owned by New Mexico Rail-Runner (NMRX) and BNSF Rwy. NMRX has not installed PTC on the Rail-Runner line (SF – ABQ – Belen) because it will cost $50M and they don’t have the money. BNSF has little incentive to install PTC between ABQ-Lamy-Las Vegas because they are using that line for merely minimal freight traffic. The vast majority of transcontinental freight travels via the Belen cut-off and Amarillo, TX, because the Raton Pass is so high in altitude that train speeds go down while fuel usage goes way up. Going via Amarillo is just easier. So NMRX can’t and BNSF won’t and Amtrak is not going to pay $100M+ (which they don’t have, either) to upgrade tracks that they don’t even own. That’s the immediate question: Who’s gonna pay for all of this? The other questions are: Does PTC really work? Are the putative benefits of PTC so much greater than currently existing safeguards as to make it worth the tens of millions of dollars that must be spent to build it? Many industry insiders dispute these claims.
That’s the thing in a nutshell. I suspect that Ron Warnick is right. Once the bus service starts, bookings will plummet and that will be the pretext for doing away with the whole thing altogether. Good grief! What has happened to Can-Do Spirit of the United States of America?
Ever since setting up different organisations owning the trains and track there have been problems worldwide – mostly over who pays for what? Once again we see the DIS-United States of America in action. Federal law needs to be introduced so that one system of train control is used nationwide. In the UK, we have gone from train control systems that drivers can over-ride to those that they cannot. Surely, such a standard system can be implemented in the USA. As for where the money comes from, why are railways “subsidised” but roads are “investments”?
One problem with the PTC argument. The line from Dodge City to Lamy is already exempt from the PTC requirement because of how few trains use it on a daily basis. Amtrak had previously stated they would install it anyway. Now they are using the cost as an excuse to try and destroy the route.
The following blurb appeared in Mass Transit magazine this month. The substance of the article contradicts the headline. Amtrak and New Mexico Rail-Runner were not mentioned specifically but it’s a good bet that they’re still foot-draggers.
From: Mass Transit magazine; Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin; ISSN: 0364-3484
Date: February 2019; volume 45, issue #1.
Page: eight (8)
All Railroads Make PTC Statutory Deadline.
Train commuters across the U.S. can breathe a sigh of relief. All passenger trains are running following a statement by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) on Dec. 31 that all railroads required by Congress to implement positive train control (PTC) by the end of 2018 have either done so or submitted documentation to qualify for an alternative schedule, which extends the deadline to Dec. 31, 2020.
FRA says four railroads, including the Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH), North County Transit District, Portland & Western Railroad, and the Southern California Regional Transportation Authority (Metrolink), have self-reported full implementation of an FRA-certified and interoperable PTC system.
FRA says another 33 railroads and three tenant-only commuter railroads have submitted a written notification requesting FRA’s review and approval of an alternate schedule.
• MassTransitMag.com/20139112