Its schedule and stops were based on post WWII population and travel patterns.
http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track1/crescent195008.html
Between WWII and 1970, the interstate highway system was built out, Atlanta grew rapidly in response, but the Cresecent's schedule was virtually unchanged.
http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track1/crescent197104.html
In the 40 years since then, Altanta has become virtually unrecognizable, tripling in size to over 5 million people. However, the Crescent is virtually unchanged today!
Same stops. Same running time. Same schedule.
Atlanta. What was just one of several southern cities on the route, is now the number one city in the southeast outside of Florida. Number 9 in the whole country. Good for the Crescent? It should be, but it's not.
Atlanta has grown. Has the ridership? No. In 1971, the train consistently operated 12-16 cars. Now, it runs with 9 or 10 with the total available space roughly equal.
Well, then, has the profitability of the train grown? No. It consistantly ranks near the bottom of Amtrak's long distance trains in their monthly reports.
Why? It doesn't stop where the people live.
How many people live in Metro Atlanta? Take a look:
Atlanta MSA | |||
| year | population | change | growth rate per decade |
| 1970 | 1,840,280 | ||
| 1980 | 2,326,551 | 486,271 | 26% |
| 1990 | 3,068,975 | 742,424 | 32% |
| 2000 | 4,247,981 | 1,179,006 | 38% |
| 2010 | 5,268,860 | 1,020,879 | 24% |
Where do they live? They are sprawled out, north, south, east and west, but more so on the north side.
(scale on map below: The distance from Atlanta proper to Gainesville - in the upper RH corner is 50 miles)
 |
| 2010 Census by zip code |
| year | population | change | growth rate | % of Metro Region | |
| 1970 | 72,349 | 4% | |||
| 1980 | 166,815 | 94,466 | 131% | 7% | |
| 1990 | 352,910 | 186,095 | 112% | 11% | |
| 2000 | 588,448 | 235,538 | 67% | 14% | |
| 2010 | 805,321 | 216,873 | 37% | 15% |
The Crescent's currently makes one stop in Atlanta. The population in the surrounding area is a bit less than a half million people.
 |
| 463,000 people in shaded area that included Downtown, Midtown and Buckhead |
The next stop to the north, after passing through the whole length of Gwinnett County is Gainesville. A small, rural city centered around feed mills. The population of the surrounding area is less than 60,000.
 |
| 59,000 people in shaded area around Gainesville |
Duluth Georgia is about in the middle of the western edge of Gwinnett County, adjacent to the large, affluent suburbs of Alpharetta and Roswell in North Fulton County. The population of the immediate surrounding area is over a half million people. It is about 20 miles from the Atlanta stop and 30 miles from the Gainesville stop by rail.
 |
| 535,000 people in shaded area around Duluth |
Should these people want to ride the Crescent, they have to drive to Atlanta - with the potential for some serious traffic along the way - nominally a 40 minute trip. Or, they can drive up to Gainesville - an easy drive - about 40 minutes the other way.
Some personal observation at Gainesville leads me to believe than many, if not most of the riders who get on there are coming from the Gwinnett/North Fulton area.
Would these people want to ride the Crescent? It does go useful places at useful times of day. It's a day trip to Birmingham and New Orleans in each direction including a stop in the college town of Tuscaloosa. Its an evening trip up into the Carolinas, hitting the college town of Clemson and making a late night stop in Charlotte. It's an overnight train to Charlottesville, DC, Philadelphia and New York. Certainly, there are suburban Altlantans who would use the train if only they knew about it and it was convenient.
So, why doesn't train stop in Duluth? Tradition forbids it? Never thought of it? Nobody ever asked?
Amtrak loses nearly 30 cents per passenger mile running the Crescent. A lot of that is the fixed cost and overhead involved in running a train. It would seem that Amtrak would be hungry for every incremental dollar of revenue that they can get their hands on. There is more to marketing than setting fare levels and having a nice web site. Stopping where the potential riders are should always be the first consideration.
It is clear that Amtrak should create a stop in Duluth - and should have done it a couple decades ago.
How hard would it be to do that? Pretty easy. The current site of the Southeastern Railway Museum is in a nearly ideal spot and their management is open to the idea. It has really good highway access being adjacent to two major arterial roads. All that's needed is a platform a few hundred feet long made of timber and asphalt and a short, wooden high level platform for handicap access, and some street lamps and you're in business.
Build it, tell people about it and watch the ridership climb.
So, how about it, Amtrak?
Fascinating :)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the issue of the location of the station(s) that the Crescent serves, the train’s on-time performance is poor. In FY24 it was on-time at all stations an average of 55 percent. A typical rider was late on average by 1 hour 13 minutes. BTW, No. 20, the northbound Crescent, leaves Atlanta at 11.29 pm. Who wants to get on a train near midnight mystifies me?
ReplyDeleteA once a day, consistently late running train is not a good option. The Crescent, along with all the long-distance trains, with the possible exception of the Auto Train, should be discontinued. The equipment should be used for corridor trains out of Atlanta, as well as other locales, until more suitable equipment can be ordered.
I live along the I-35 corridor between Temple, TX and San Antonio. Due to the burgeoning population growth in Texas, it is rapidly becoming a moving parking lot. It would be ideal location for better passenger train service as an alternative to driving. Yet the in-charges have done little to relieve congestion on the roadway. The corridor is served by the consistently late running, once a day Texas Eagle.
Passenger trains make sense in relatively short, high-density corridors where the cost to expand the highways and airways is prohibitive. The once-a-day long-distance trains make no sense.
As bad as the Crescent's scehdule and timekeeping are, adding a northern suburban stop could only help.
ReplyDeleteMy "solution" for the Crescent is two make two separate trains out of it. A NYP to ATL "day" train and an Atlanta to NOL day train. Sell thru passengers a hotel room with a shuttle van for a seamless trip.
Other corridor routes out of Atlanta are a really good idea. Hard to implement, but worth the effort. All GADOT seems to do is light up studies to pay consultants (who used to be, and may yet be GADOT employees). Lately, some consultant has been collecting survey data about a train to Savannah. Okay...but unless you have a way to go through to Jax or Charleston, why bother? Connecting to existing Amtrak service? Haha. Savannah is a small city.
The current Crescent schedule (and the previous one) are a complete "fail" of my passenger train rule: Run the trains where the people are when they are awake.