How We Developed Our System Vision
Last month, Lunatrain released for the first time our plans to bring overnight passenger trains between major destinations in North America. One of the most important pieces of our vision is the system map. This map represents an ambitious future network that we want to achieve, and where we think our service will work best. Our network vision includes some of the largest cities in the United States, like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas. It also includes destinations with major attractions like Orlando, Miami, New Orleans, and Nashville. And it includes growing metropolises like Charlotte and Atlanta.
We received a lot of questions about why we decided to focus on these cities and leave out others. Today, we’re explaining a bit about our selection process for target cities and routes.
When evaluating city pairs to operate between, we looked at several factors that would impact the quality of Lunatrain’s service: the total travel time between the cities, the quality and location of the intercity rail station, connections to regional transit, and city and state plans for future rail expansion.
At Lunatrain, our vision for overnight rail service is rooted in the idea that train travel can be more comfortable and more convenient than flying or driving by allowing travelers to sleep through most of their travel time, and depart and arrive in city centers. Therefore, we’re focused on routes where trains can depart in the late afternoon or evening, and arrive in the mid-morning hours. This vision has led us to some of the largest and densest cities in the East Coast and Midwest. It’s also why we have not included any multi-day, cross-country trips or West Coast cites in our plans for Lunatrain.
We looked closely at the intercity train stations in each city. Being the gateway that travelers will pass through and wait for the train in, it was critical that stations have appropriate amenities and be a comfortable waiting space. Since a key part of Lunatrain’s value is not needing to waste large amounts of time traveling to and from the airport, it was important that stations be located in city centers, either within walking distance of major attractions or with a fast connection to them.
Along with the station itself, we took care in understanding the role it plays in the surrounding region. The destinations we intend to serve need to have excellent connections so that travelers can get off Lunatrain and easily continue on to their final destination. Both New York and Philadelphia, for example, have speedy connections to surrounding neighborhoods and suburbs via rapid transit and regional rail. Cities that lack these connections are unsuitable for the kind of service we want to provide.
The final consideration we made, and perhaps the most important, is how the cities and their surrounding state are planning long-term for rail. Virginia and North Carolina have taken leaps forward in envisioning an efficient transportation system for their growing populations. Their joint S-Line project will bring higher speed rail service between Richmond and Raleigh, and they have already made major investments by purchasing the right of way. While the project is intended for daytime trains, major infrastructure improvements like this unlock new capabilities for Lunatrain, allowing us to operate at higher speeds and reach further distances within our ideal overnight timeframe.
Even though we can’t operate on every route in our vision with today’s infrastructure, we’re optimistically following along with federal- and state-led projects and we intend to provide new services as infrastructure improvements come online.
We’re also excited to continue to share updates on Lunatrain’s progress and what we’re working on behind the scenes in our Insights newsletter. To get the newsletter straight to your inbox, sign up for the waitlist below.