What about introducing Harrisburg-Ronkonkoma trains?
The Keystone corridor trains don’t go past Pennsylvania Station. Ronkonkoma is a logical extension.
The Keystone line runs fully-electric trains (powered by ACS-64s) between Harrisburg and New York. It is currently impossible to run a service like that until Amtrak receives its dual-mode Airo sets to run them without having to do an engine change to diesel at Sunnyside Yard in Queens both going to and from Ronkonkoma. The swap can’t be done at Penn since diesels are banned there and neither at Jamaica since there’s no overhead power. This situation adds extra trip time and pulls diesel locomotives from Amtrak’s long-distance fleet to make the run from Sunnyside to Ronkonkoma. There’s also the issue of the coaches having no power during the engine swap and thus there is nowhere to discharge passengers if needed doing the hypothetical engine swap in Sunnyside.
The only other option is to run Keystone trains with a diesel at one end instead of a Metroliner cabcar so they can switch power without having to do a maneuver at Sunnyside, but again, this leads to the issue of pulling power from the long-distance fleet, but makes extending the Keystone route actually viable and something that can be done right now.
Running an electric and diesel locomotive is something NJ Transit did when they ran a New York to Atlantic City service so it is actually a viable solution provided locomotives can be allocated to such a service.
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How would a hypothetical Ronkonkoma-Boston service work?
Do the trains have the proper equipment to change directions at Pennsylvania Station?
I’d assume they would given that the new Airo sets will have cab cars, so it is just a matter of pulling into Penn and then going to Boston. There’s no need to turn the entire train around at Sunnyside or increase dwell times at Penn.
Even if the service was started tomorrow, a cab car could be employed which would permit this maneuver to occur although it’s less than ideal running a slower diesel on the fully-electric and high speed NEC.
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Can’t have a lawsuit outstanding if neither plaintiff nor defendant thinks there’s a live dispute.
If not dismissed by the court then I imagine the Heritage Foundation (dba DOJ) will simply withdraw it.
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August 29, 2025 is the 20th anniversary of the last time the Gulf Coast saw any Amtrak service.
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Definitely vaporware and it doesn’t look very fleshed out.
In case the Trains article is paywalled, here’s a bypass link.
I decided to dig a little deeper, particularly into who is behind it to see if they have any relevant experience or past projects…
While the idea isn’t bad and could have a chance at materializing with good backing, it’s literally one guy thinking he can start a long-distance train network with no backing from anybody. Not even any investors are backing it. You’d think there’d be some initial investment to get things going, but there’s nothing. The guy has no background or experience in anything, let alone anything railroad-related so I doubt it’ll go far. Quite a shame for an otherwise good concept.
Until we see an actual train, discussions, agreements, contracts or any other correspondence with the big Class 1’s about track use, or at the minimum, even a physical mockup of sleeping arrangements (basically anything tangible that isn’t a rendering), it’s vaporware and should be treated as such.
As with all vaporware, anybody can cook up a few nice renders in Blender or some other software (or just use AI), make a webpage, make some posts on LinkedIn, draw a map of a hypothetical service and promote it to media outlets looking for some puff pieces to farm interest or use social media to gather hype, but unless there’s actual tangible development, it’s nothing more than vaporware or a paper railroad.
This night train concept is much like the similar Dreamstar Lines one which was started around the same time and has yet to deliver as well although, unlike Lunatrain, they made some progress, actively negotiating with Union Pacific to discuss trackage use, but not much has happened since then and they’re pretty much vaporware as well at this point.
One thing about these vaporware “forward-thinking” proposals/startups is that they are almost exclusively used by the founders to steal investor money since they never really become anything other than concepts. Brightline obtained the Vegas route by buying out a similar venture for practically nothing.
Brightline is successful because they essentially are a subsidiary of the FEC, a regional freight railroad and decided they want to be a property developer that also runs trains and since the properties they have generate revenue, it can help cover the costs of running the trains. They also receive government subsides.
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I do think a model a la Spain where private companies run on the tracks. Unfortunately the tracks aren’t owned by the government.
I’m sure it’s doable but the big Class 1 railroads would put a stop to it.
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100% These companies are always the brainchild of some tech executive with no experience in transit who thinks they can just “do it better.” Or, like you said, they know it’s not going to be successful so it’s just a rug-pull scheme to collect investor dollars and dissolve a few years later.
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The compost can’t even spell his name right.
It’s “kind of embarrassing” how other countries have “way better passenger rail than we do,” Msuk said during a virtual appearance at a Morgan Stanley tech conference.
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Other countries transit service is so good specially because the governments own the lines. Privatizing Amtrak will do nothing
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The backbone of Amtrak’s single-level fleet, the Amfleet cars, are starting to get new livery decals when they get serviced.
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Anyone have access to Crain’s?
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/transportation/amtrak-acelas-new-high-speed-trains-set-hit-rails-spring