(erielack) FW: Original Amtrak commuter/intercity debate (from erielack

["Duncan_Watry_@_ci.sf.ca.us"]

Following up on a debate on the erielack list about how it was decided which
trains would be commuter or intercity for purposes of inclusion in Amtrak:

The original Amtrak legislation had nothing to do with how many state lines were
crossed in terms of delineating what was commuter and what was intercity.  IIRC,
there were lots of debates at the time about what should be included, and what
should not, in the cases where there was some question about what the service
was.  Many were decided on a case-by-case basis.  Passenger train advocates
wanted as many of the locals and daytrains that Amtrak was slated to discontinue
to be termed "commuter", and thus continued by the railroads.  The RRs wanted
these same trains to be termed "intercity", and thus discontinued if Amtrak did
not include them.

The thing to remember about the creation of Amtrak is that it was an intensely
political process.  As such, hard and fast rules did not apply. Up until the
last minute, there were questions about certain services being retained as
commuter.  On May 1, 1971, we were CERTAIN that many of the trains that were
discontinued would be retained.  Shows how much we knew.

Congress looked at a multitide of factors in deciding what services to label
commuter:

1) Availability of multi-ride tickets  (this was the main factor, IIRC - this
usually meant commuter)
2) Scheduling - multiple roundtrips between the same endpoints generally meant
commuter
3) Length of trip (generally under 100 miles was considered commuter)
4) Prevalent trip types made by the riders of the service - (trip length,
timing)
5) Types of services traditionally offered onboard the trains (if it had
sleepers, lounges or diners, it was definitely intercity)

There were several services that could have gone either way, and caused a lot of
debate:

A) B&O's Wash DC to Cumberland "Potomacs" - several round trips a day, used
mainly for local travel (and I think even accepted multiride tickets in the
commute zone) - these were dubbed intercity, and were discontinued.

B) EL's Port Jervis trains - dubbed commuter, continued

C) PC's Boston-Providence trains -dubbed commuter, continued

D) C&NW's Chicago-Milwaukee trains - dubbed intercity and discontinued (even
though under 100 miles)

E)  B&O's Wash DC - Baltimore locals - all were RDC shuttles.  Those that
"connected" with a long distance train operating west of Washington were termed
"intercity" and were discontinued.  Those that operated without a western
connection were termed "commuter", and were continued.  In this case, there was
absolutely no difference between the service, equipment, trip length, scheduling
or ridership pattern between the trains called intercity, and the trains called
commuter.  All accepted multiride tickets, and all were 40 miles in length.
Half were discontinued on Amtrak day as intercity, and half were retained as
commuter.

F)  EL's Cleveland-Youngstown train - dubbed commuter and continued, even though
it was only one round trip a day, and did not really "look" like the other
commuter services (except maybe P&LE's Pittsburgh train)

I don't recall who made the final call on these - could have been ICC, or
Congress.

There were also some other oddities - like the Rock Island and the South Shore
opting out of Amtrak (because they couldn't afford the initiation payments),
even though it is fairly likely that Amtrak would not have operated either of
their "intercity" services.  The South Shore is a good example of the way
certain services did not fit the Amtrak legislation - the South Bend trains were
dubbed intercity, while the Michigan City and Gary trains were commuter.  I
doubt anyone today would call the South Bend trains "intercity".

BTW, I can think of one service that was dubbed commuter that crosses 2 "state"
lines, which initiated this whole debate on the EL list - MARC's former B&O Wash
DC to Martinsburg WVA service.  It crosses the DC/MD line and the MD/WVA line.
DC isn't a state yet, but it also isn't part of MD or WVA!

TAFN

Duncan J. Watry

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