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Amtrak Three Rivers route

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The Three Rivers was a daily Amtrak train running between New York, New York and Chicago, Illinois. It operated via Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Akron, Ohio. The Three Rivers replaced the Broadway Limited in 1996. The route was discontinued, with the last train running on March 7, 2005, due to loss of revenue from the loss of a United States Postal Service contract on the line.^[1]

Service east of Pittsburgh continues to be provided by the Pennsylvanian. The removed portion has no more passenger service, but the Capitol Limited provides service between Pittsburgh and Chicago via Cleveland, Ohio.

Highlights along the run included the famous Horseshoe Curve near Altoona, Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and the Allegheny Mountains. The entire trip took about 20 hours, with 2 hours between New York and Philadelphia, 2 hours between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, 6 hours between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, and 9 hours between Pittsburgh and Chicago.

Services included Reserved Coach, Sleeping Cars (morning wake-up with compilmentary meal and drink), Dinette (serving food, snacks, and drinks), and Amtrak Express Shipping for selected stations. Smoking was prohibited in all cars. Overnight service was provided.

Unlike most Amtrak trains East of Chicago, the Three Rivers' consist did not use any single type of coach. The Three Rivers' consist was usually made up of any combination of Horizon Fleet and Amfleet coaches and dinettes. In addition to this, there was usually a single Viewliner sleeper towards the back of the train. The train was pulled by AEM-7s, HHP-8s and E60s east of Harrisburg, with P42s and F40s pulling the rest of the way. In addition to this jumble of cars, there were usually a number of express cars and RoadRailers behind the passenger-portion of the train. Because the Three Rivers had such a varied consist, trains would look completely different from day to day.

Also unlike most other Amtrak trains with sleeper service, the Three Rivers did not have diner service. All other long-distance Amtrak trains - excluding the Cardinal - have dining cars, which made the Three Rivers unique. The reason for the absence of a diner was somewhat complicated; the most likely reason was that the Three Rivers started out as a coach-only train because there was not much long-distance traffic on the route. The traffic never increased very much, eventually warranting only one sleeper. One sleeper and a few coaches would not provide enough passengers for a dining car. As with any long-distance train, the Horizon or Amfleet café would have to stay on the train to provide a lounge and snacks for passengers, meaning that there would be two food service cars for only four passenger cars. The Three Rivers' schedule ensured that there would be very few meal times en-route, therefore a diner would not be used very much. Thus, the diner would be unnecessary, almost completely empty and unprofitable; in other words, the diner would be useless. Anther difficulty was that adding a dining car would necessitate the addition of a crew dorm. Once a crew dorm and a diner were added, an additional engine would be necessary to power the longer train. For an average trip of 60 people, there would be a staff of eight or nine people, which would make the route overwhelmingly unprofitable for Amtrak.

Amtrak had a contract with the US Post Office on the Three Rivers, explaining the usually long string of RoadRailers, mail, and express cars on the back of the train. For a fee, Amtrak would carry mail in cars on the back of the train to various destinations along the route. The money that the Post Office gave Amtrak helped to offset the money lost on the unprofitable route, which was the only reason Amtrak didn't discontinue the route. However, Amtrak ended up losing the contract. After losing the contract, Amtrak started losing too much money to maintain the Three Rivers, and the train was discontinued.

Another fact which made the Three Rivers unique was that, while the sleeper was a Viewliner in the later days of operation, the original sleepers were the last standard 10-6 sleepers in Amtrak operation. Whereas most 10-6 sleepers were either retired or converted to crew dorms, a few sleepers were painted in the Phase IV paint scheme and refurbished for use on the Three Rivers. Up to five years after all other sleepers were retired, the Three Rivers could be seen with a Heritage Fleet sleeper. Eventually, there were enough Viewliners to replace the 10-6 sleepers. Most likely, the Viewliners were freed up by the discontinuance of the sleeper service on the Twilight Shoreliner and the loss of traffic on the Lake Shore Limited which warranted the abandonbent of the Boston through-sleeper.

Even if Viewliners had not been free for the Three Rivers, the US Government ensured that the Heritage sleepers would leave the train. The reason for this was that the 10-6 sleepers were direct-dump, which meant that when someone used the bathroom, their waste was scattered on the rail below. There were problems with this, no doubt. Waste on the tracks was unappealing and unsanitary, made the rails messy and hard to clean, and lured more animals onto the tracks, which slightly increased the amount of railkill (train roadkill). Thus, the Government decided not to allow Amtrak to keep using the Heritage 10-6 sleepers.