There Are Amtrak Haters Out There

[thelakelander]

As for heritage equipment on the commuter rail, certainly it is not the main purpose of the mode Lake, but likewise, the very name "Commuter Rail" equally misleading. Who says those people have to be commuters? What about an elderly couple on the way to the doctors office? How about young mother and child going to the market? A family visiting from Detroit?

We were really talking about Central Florida's HSR plan but if you're making a trip (regardless of whether its for pleasure, work or whatever, you're a commuter in my book.  I don't necessarily relate the term "commuter" with home to work trips only. 

[FayeforCure]

As for heritage equipment on the commuter rail, certainly it is not the main purpose of the mode Lake, but likewise, the very name "Commuter Rail" equally misleading. Who says those people have to be commuters? What about an elderly couple on the way to the doctors office? How about young mother and child going to the market? A family visiting from Detroit?

We were really talking about Central Florida's HSR plan but if you're making a trip (regardless of whether its for pleasure, work or whatever, you're a commuter in my book.  I don't necessarily relate the term "commuter" with home to work trips only. 

Ah, so tourists by that definition are commuters too 

[thelakelander]

Sure they are.  They just aren't everyday regular Central Florida commuters.

[CS Foltz]

lake...........I think your splitting hairs big fella! Anyone who would ride rail should be considered a "commuter" and right fully so! If that word offends you........how about passenger? Slab of meat seems's a bit much to me! IMO.............LOL!

[thelakelander]

I think you're confused.  Ock separated the terms.  I agree that anyone traveling should be considered a commuter, passenger or whatever.

[DavidWilliams]

My favorite part of MJ...it keeps you thinking (and planning for the future).  I never had any knowledge or interest in rail as it never seemed a part of my reality (my original attraction to this sight was Downtown preservation). I grew up here in Duval in the 70's-80's and always took suburban sprawl as a given. Lots of credit to Lake and Ock (and a few others) for giving me something to think about.

[Dog Walker]

Commuter (same root as communion, commutator, communication) implies that someone is going back and forth over the same route at roughly the same time on a regular basis.  A traveler is going from one place to another with no implication that they would be returning.  No reason they both can't be on the same train, but the traveler might get impatient with all the local stops.

[Ocklawaha]

Amtrak doing "the commuter" Cleveland,

I think you're confused.  Ock separated the terms.  I agree that anyone traveling should be considered a commuter, passenger or whatever.

The definition of "Commuter," was excellent, THANK YOU. I'm really not splitting hairs or trying to start a discussion on semantics but here is the rub.

As you can see Commuter, is a closer fit to the 9 - 5 passenger that lives or works downtown. The systems are not really designed grandma or grandpa, mommy and baby, trips to the mall, etc. Surveys on a sample of all US "commuter" operations, have shown recently that as much as 1/2 the riders, are in fact, NOT going to and from work. This has been eye opening in the industry journals. We don't bother to market, schedule, or make accommodation for grandma's shopping cart. So rather then every passenger on Commuter rail or bus, being labeled as "Commuter", we could introduce another OCK concept. Every push-pull, or traditional commuter train/bus running into and out of Jacksonville, need to reach out
to this broader market view. So in Miami, Orlando or Tampa, the locomotive pulls into the terminal with a short train of 2 galley cars, and behind them a standard Amtrak style, long distance, "Florida Car." These coach-lounges would have bike storage aboard, room for light baggage, plush comfortable seats in the coach section. The lounge section consists of overstuffed sofas, tables, bar stools, small tables, electrical outlets and wi-fi. A similar bus concept is something I have in the works right now, with a few major builders, hopefully we get see the soft prices before the whole vanish into the FDOT/JTA web. Mike Blaylock was quite pumped over the opportunity to open new markets with a whole new type of vehicle. With the beaches both Fernandina and St. Augustine reachable by rail, Goldhead, National Forest, the Suwanee River and the Okefenokee all walking distance from the rails. This is an untouched market, and it is huge. We simply need a good term to call it by.


Brooklyn NY is planning a streetcar return, heritage system

The only cities I know of that have moved forward on this concept, did so in the 1918's through today. They are:

JACKSONVILLE TRACTION: Mayor Sebring went after a new car order like a bulldog. We got just what we wanted and had ourselves named "The most beautiful streetcar line in the world..." Sebring got JTCO to order 10? brand new custom built lounge cars. Built on our larger streetcar exterior, the interior was anything but the same. These cars hit the road in a firestorm of publicity. Stained Glass, at each end with a polished decorater, safety railing, the cars were based on the Pullman Private Cars of railroad (The Wild Wild West) type fame.

Overstuffed swivel chairs, brass railed observation deck, electric fans, vestibule doors to isolate the party, restroom, a small bar and galley. Several Hollywood-Jacksonville, actors, directors and producers quickly laid claim to the cars and had them chartered. One can only imagine the reaction people had expecting wood slat, or wicker seating! Billie Burke, Glenda from the Wizard of Oz, had a personal car assigned to her under a charter agreement. I'd love to know if Judy Garland or Margaret Hamilton, ever explored the City on Burke's streetcar lounge. Commuter traffic? Work?

CITY 2: New Haven or Hartford, CT. New York City's various commuter rail lines started trashing the heritage (pre Amtrak) back in the 70's. The deadbeats of NYC urban transit needs based the whole of the problems to the high quality of the Commuter Lounges. After a 30-40 year study with extensive data input, Daytona Beach, FDOT, JTA, discovered a truly great phenomenon, one that our City Officials should be visiting, photographing and taking names about.  Central Traffic Control or CTC could do. It is a generally known FACT that more high roller business deals have been agreed upon in the lounge cars of the New York Commuter Rail system, then any other single place on earth. You'd think a mid level City with first level ambition would want a piece of that action. So what do we get? HOV lanes and BRT.   

OCKLAWAHA

[Dog Walker]

It was interesting to see how the train system in the Netherlands accommodated both the commuter trips and the grandma shopping trips on the same system.

During the rush hours you could not bring your bicycle on board (in the Netherlands this is a real horror!), but after the rush hours you could.  Johan, the lawyer, rode his bike from home to the station where he chained it up with hundreds of others and rode the train into Amsterdam where he had ANOTHER bike chained up which he rode to the office.  Berthe, his wife, would ride her bike to the station at 10:00AM and take it on the train with her in the special compartment at the front of each car and get off and ride it to the department store to shop.

We visitors would go to the bicycle rental stall in each station and rent a bike for about $4.00 per day to ride wherever we wanted to go for the day and return it when we were done and get back on the train to go back to the city where our hotel was.

Needless to say, there are more bikes in the Netherlands and Denmark than there are people.  Everybody owns two or three.

[buckethead]

Too add to that, DW, there is no better way to actually see the world than by bicycle.

[Dog Walker]

Amen to that, except maybe for the Alps!  Had a Dutch friend of mine tell me that we had seen more of his country, riding bicycles from different stations every day, than he had.  The Netherlands are so compact and so well served by rail that we stayed in one city, Delft,  in the same hotel for a couple of weeks and rode the train to another part of the country everyday and bicycled from the station around the country side for the day.

[hooplady]

Needless to say, there are more bikes in the Netherlands and Denmark than there are people.  Everybody owns two or three.

For sure.  One of my fondest memories was having a beer one afternoon in Copenhagen just as rush hour began.  Gradually the streets were filled with commuters of all ages, on all sorts of bikes, with their suits and ties - and/or mini-skirts and high heels!  I'm pretty sure I just stared, gaped really, just like the tourist I was.  It was gorgeous!

[FayeforCure]

buckethead, Dog Walker and hooplady, thanks for the compliments.

I was a Dutch citizen until 1996, even though I moved to the US in 1980.

The public transportation system is excellent, and their bike paths are mostly raised just like the sidewalks, making it far safer to ride a bicycle than here in the US.

I lived in Amsterdam for 6 years and never owned a car, even when I got my first job right out of college as a Strategic Analyst at Nestle Corporation, I still used the "tram" to get to work.

[Dog Walker]

I loved the Amsterdam trams.  An especially neat feature are the mailboxes on the back of each one.  The boxes are emptied each time the tram goes through the main train station.  Neat and efficient!

[thelakelander]

What type of system?  An Amtrak corridor service on existing rail or Amsterdam style trams?