A New – and Excellent – Idea for the Sunset Limited

Several posts back, I wrote about various proposals floating around out there that would, in effect, restore passenger train service between New Orleans and Florida. That segment, as most of you probably know, was provided by Amtrak’s Sunset Limited until Hurricane Katrina tore up miles of track in Mississippi and through the Florida Panhandle. CSX has long since rebuilt the track, but Amtrak has never reinstated that part of the Sunset’s route.

A bit of background: Pre-Katrina, the Sunset Limited ran three times a week between Los Angeles and Orlando, via New Orleans. I rode the train several times and, although it was a magnificent trip, ridership between New Orleans and Florida was never much to crow about. Most people agree there were two main reasons for that.

First, the train only operates three days a week, making connections inconvenient … indeed requiring in some cases a two-night layover.

Second, the Sunset runs on track owned and controlled by Union Pacific and CSX, and while things have improved the two freight railroads often made the Sunset wait while giving priority to their freight trains. So arrival and departure times were unreliable – and often a joke – resulting in inconvenience and often extra expense to passengers and Amtrak alike.

But, as a practical matter, any rail route of 3,000 miles is a difficult proposition. Even if the train runs on time, it will necessarily pass through some cities along the way in the wee hours of the morning.

The quarterly magazine Passenger Train Journal has come up with a proposal in their latest issue that seems to make a lot of sense. They suggest Amtrak should operate the Sunset between Los Angeles and Dallas-Forth Worth, and link there to a new train that would go on to Orlando. They even suggest a name for the new train – the Cajun King.

Having Dallas-Fort Worth as one terminus for both trains makes sense, too. The DFW area is a big market and that means lots of potential riders. The Sunset now goes much farther south, through San Antonio and Houston.

I’d love to link you to the PTJ story, but as far as I can tell the magazine itself isn’t on line.

The positive thing about all this is that, after years of cutbacks, there is finally some serious talk about expanding Amtrak service. That is indeed good news.