# Western Fare Tables



## Anderson (Oct 31, 2011)

I was wondering if anybody had fare tables for the pre-Amtrak "big four" western routes (i.e. the California Zephyr, Empire Builder, Super Chief/El Capitan/Grand Canyon, and Sunset Limited) in either the late 1960s or early 1970s. I'm hoping to do something similar to what I did on the Florida services...though I know these were money losers (well, mostly...I know the CZ was still seasonally profitable, and I'm not sure of what the exact state of the top two Santa Fe trains happened to be at the time), I'm still trying to get a feel for the long-term fare trends compared to "back in the day".

The other thing I would wonder about is Amtrak fares circa 1980, 1990, and 2000...does anybody know where those samples tended to be in the older timetables (I've been told they existed) so I could dig through them and root out some old city pair comparisons?


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## MrFSS (Oct 31, 2011)

Anderson said:


> I was wondering if anybody had fare tables for the pre-Amtrak "big four" western routes (i.e. the California Zephyr, Empire Builder, Super Chief/El Capitan/Grand Canyon, and Sunset Limited) in either the late 1960s or early 1970s. I'm hoping to do something similar to what I did on the Florida services...though I know these were money losers (well, mostly...I know the CZ was still seasonally profitable, and I'm not sure of what the exact state of the top two Santa Fe trains happened to be at the time), I'm still trying to get a feel for the long-term fare trends compared to "back in the day".
> 
> The other thing I would wonder about is Amtrak fares circa 1980, 1990, and 2000...does anybody know where those samples tended to be in the older timetables (I've been told they existed) so I could dig through them and root out some old city pair comparisons?


Might try this *LINK*.


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## Anderson (Oct 31, 2011)

Ok, that _seems_ to have most of the lines taken care of. I suspect, given their "active discouragement" policy, SP's tables will be obnoxiously hard to find...but I seem to at least have found likely tables for base fares for a few trains.

Did the California Zephyr or Empire Builder command an extra fare at this point? And did the Super Chief ever lose its extra fare vs. these lists?


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