User talk:Mackensen/Network Growth Strategy

Luxury Transcontinental

Regarding the Luxury Transcontinental, it was to go non-stop from Los Angeles to Hoboken via BNSF-Chicago-NS

Was that ever official? The GAO report doesn't mention it. Mackensen (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Getting this to article form

@Mackensen: since we're both working on Amtrak history a lot lately, want to see if we can get this ready to move to article space? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:44, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Pi.1415926535: Sure. Now that Superliner is in reasonable shape I was going to turn to Amfleet, but I can spent some time here. I had notions about drawing some SVG maps for the re-routes, particularly in Texas. Ed Ellis was involved and tried to justify the strategy last year. Not sure if it's possible to incorporate his/IPH's comments. Mackensen (talk) 02:01, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. This will let us clear up several of the few remaining non-northeastern redlinks on the route list. I'm on the tail end of both Metroliner and Keystone Service with vague GA intentions, and Budd Metroliner might be close as well. I don't know if this is worth bothering with GA, but getting it to article shape (plus maybe a DYK) shouldn't be a huge amount of work.

Speaking of SVG maps, I've been toying with the idea of creating a GIS dataset that would be useful for creating Amtrak maps. Sharemap is okay for some maps, but they're not particularly good-looking nor is there any real quality control. In order to create File:Amtrak network map 2016.png and its SVG version, I had to download a massive shapefile of every active rail line in the US and group all the Amtrak routes and stations, including a lot of error fixing. The actual GIS work to create lines for every past and present route, and points for every past and present station, would not actually be that difficult. The difficult parts would be:

Getting an accurate list of where and when every route operated. List of Amtrak routes is fairly complete except for the Empire Corridor and NEC, but I would need to go through every old timetable and then some to get dates for all of those services. And sometimes the timetables have errors or late-breaking corrections.
Getting an accurate accounting of when services were rerouted (without necessarily a change in endpoints). Chicago is definitely the big question mark here.
Getting an accurate accounting of when stations were opened and closed (which is also information that would belong in the list of Amtrak stations).
Finding some way to have a useful correlation of which services stopped at any given station at any given time. Most of that information would come out of the previous issues, but how to store it would be tricky.

It's probably not something I will do unless I have a truly substantial chunk of time (possibly this summer if there's a gap between graduation and employment) but it's something that I'm thinking about. Being able to map any or all routes at any point in time would be a very powerful tool to have at our disposal - and I'd be able to release the entire dataset to the public domain. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:08, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A note on terminology; both the GAO report and this report by the Inspector General refer to the "Market-Based Network Analysis." I believe it's accurate to say that the MBNA is the research which drove the Network Growth Strategy. The OIG also mentions the 2000 Strategic Business Plan. It's not clear to me as yet if that's a synonym for the Network Growth Strategy or if the strategy is just a component. Mackensen (talk) 13:25, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Pi.1415926535: Not strictly relevant, but this 1992 proposal for San Antonio-Monterrey service is insane. I think my favorite part is using LRC locomotives to pull (I think) SPV-2000 shells completed as normal rolling stock. Mackensen (talk) 01:06, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]