Talk:Coast Starlight

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Around 4/25/2005 (?), trains 11 and 14 no longer stop at Glendale and instead stop at Van Nuys.

[edit] The Starlate

Although there is a news article at the bottom of the page that discusses the Starlight's frequent tardiness, there need to be links from the specific references in the Wikipedia article as to the reasons for its poor on-time performance.

My guess is that Amtrak will eventually abandon most long-distance services and either split up into a few regional operations (Northeast Corridor, Chicago area, etc.), or go out of business altogether, with bus and air services (and private cars), taking up the slack (what little there is, since only a tiny fraction of all long-distance trips are made by rail anyway). The freight railway companies will be able to move their trains around track maintenance schedules without inconveniencing passengers (since there won't be any), while the government will be able to either reduce taxes (by about the cost of a long-distance bus or passenger trip for every taxpayer) or invest the money in road building, airport construction and security, and other infrastructure improvements that will benefit far more Americans.

Much as I like the idea of long-distance passenger trains (and believe there may be some use for them if we suffer another September 11 type terrorist attack), the fact is that few countries in the world (and none of the really large ones, save China and India) have any demand for long-haul passenger-rail service. Europe does not violate this assertion; in fact, it supports it, since rail service there is only surviving (albeit with large government subsidies) because the countries are small yet densely populated, making intercity rail travel competitive with air services. Yet I'll bet there are relatively few service corridors even there where point-to-point (not necessarily city center-to-city center) travel is any faster by train than by plane.

It's also hard to fault Union Pacific for the "Starlate's" non-punctuality. It probably makes good business sense from the company's point of view, since most passengers will blame Amtrak, rather than the UP, for any problems in keeping the passenger train's schedule, while shippers will rightly fault the UP if delays result in their shipments being damaged or spoiled by the company's failure to give the freight trains priority over Amtrak.4.243.227.12 00:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)