Shortest route should have been given initially imo, but SER preferred it's own route.
However routing via ASN-PRR would have made the train quite dependent on ASN & DGR for patronage, and with the plethora of Volvo buses and other options, it would be a risky affair.
PRR & RNC would have had to provide the bulk of the passengers.
Having...
more... said that the shortest and fastest routes often have the habit of surprising you. See the RNC-PNBE VB for example, almost everybody including yours truly had given up on that train initially and that train ended up surprising us all.
Had it been routed via PRR-ASN originally, the halts could have been limited to PRR,ASN,DGR,BWN.
Instead we got Kotshila as a halt!