Amtrak Guest Rewards - Loss of great train names in NEC

I was reminiscing recently about BOS - NYP and BOS - WAS trips taken in the '50s and '60s when many of the New Haven RR trains had wonderful names, in addition to their train numbers. Because we didn't live close to South Station, and didn't take the earliest trains, we usually took either the Yankee Clipper (1 pm departure) or the Patriot (3 pm). Earlier trains included the Colonial, the Murray Hill, the Bay State, and the Senator (which I think was previously known as the 42nd Street). Later trains included the Merchants Limited (and the Advance Merchants Limited on certain days), the Gilt Edge, and the overnight trains including the Pilgrim, the Federal, and of course the Owl. Not all trains were named, but service was not significantly less frequent than today.

I believe that many of the NEC Regional trains have the same numbers they did decades ago (the Colonial was train 175 (174 ex WAS), the Patriot was train 171 (170 ex WAS), and there are identical numbers today.

I can't help but wonder whether there would be any marketing advantage to reinstating some of these great names onto trains plying the exact same routes today. I honestly can't imagine fifty years from now anyone reminiscing about the Acela 2155 (versus Acela 2159) ---- and it's worth noting that most of the trains back then had identical rolling stock one to the other, and the only significant difference between them was their wonderful, evocative, memorable name.

Your thoughts/memories would be very much appreciated!

Over on Amtrak Unlimited (http://discuss.amtraktrains.com), many folks like to refer to overnight Regionals 66/67 as the Twilight Shoreliner. Today, it is different from the rest of the Regionals in that it always uses the Club-Dinette car, which features the business class seats with 2x1 pleather seats, but it used to feature the unique Twilight Sleeper class and Twilight Cafe.

I'm not sure that naming every Acela and even every Regional something different would be a good marketing move in today's age, when people aren't very aware of trains. I think perhaps renaming 66/67 as the Twilight Shoreliner would be a good move IF it were differentiated from regular Regional service by the availability of sleepers, but naming the 5:15, 6:15, 7:15, and 8:15 Acelas four different names would probably just engender confusion.

Example: some of the trains running in the Midwest can get confusing (at least they are/were to me). For example, the Illini and Saluki are the exact same trains--they both serve the Chicago-Carbondale route. But how would I know without doing a bunch of extra research whether they follow the same tracks, have different termini, operate on different days, etc., and if I'm looking at a list of Amtrak routes, it's an extra route I have to remember (which I often don't). The Kansas City-St. Louis corridor was also confusing with the Ann Rutledge, Kansas City Mule, and St. Louis Mule all serving the exact same route. (When the Ann Rutledge still continued through STL to CHI, it made a bit more sense, but it was still a bit confusing.) Consolidating all those trains under the Missouri River Runner name actually clarifies things, since people can now say, "Oh, I'll just take a Missouri River Runner to STL for the day" instead of having to remember three separate names.

I know there's history behind the names Illini, Saluki, Ann Rutledge, etc., and it makes it a difficult decision to consciously "lose" that history when renaming things. Perhaps a compromise could be reached: brand and market the service under a collective name but give each train its own name.

Even Canada's VIA Rail just recently eliminated almost all train names, other than the Canadian, because their marketing studies showed that the names are useless to most people. In fact, they found that many people are simply confused by the names. Now all their trains are named by origin/destination only, along with a train number.

When it comes to business people, they really only want to remember one thing, what time the train leaves. And they prefer what's called a "memory schedule", like what Acela has, where a train basically leaves every hour on the hour. A business person doesn't want to have to stop and think is the Congressional leaving at 4 going to provide the same service as the Senator leaving at 5. They just want to know that Amtrak has Acela trains leaving at 4 & 5, so that they can rush down to the station when their meeting is over and get on the train going home.

So no, I don't believe that we'll ever see a return to train names, and it wouldn't surprise me to find that some of the other names that we still do have fade into history too.

IMO:

Corridor names good (Keystone, Cascades, Pacific Surfliner, etc.)

Overnight train names good (Empire Builder, Capitol Limited, etc.)

Named "day" trains OK if only one per route (Heartland Flyer, Pennsylvanian)

Multiple named "day" trains on same route confusing (aforementioned Midwest routes, or returning to named trains on the NEC)

I recall that there was some outcry when the Northeast Corridor lost the classic train names, but I don't think that the typical business traveler who isn't a train fan cares, unfortunately.

Amtrak should NOT get rid of the long-distance train names though- taking a long trip on the Crescent or the Empire Builder just sounds a lot more exotic than taking a long one on the "New York-New Orleans Train 19".