# FY12 ridership was 31.2 million



## afigg (Oct 10, 2012)

Amtrak has issued a news release summarizing the ridership and revenue numbers for FY2012. The bottom line was a total of 31,240,565 passengers, up +3.5%, and $2.02 billion in ticket revenue. All the LD trains and most corridor trains were up in ridership for the year. Of the corridor services that were down for FY12: Surfliner which noticeably pulled down Amtrak totals, Wolverine, Cascades, Carolinian; they should do better in FY13 if they are not disrupted by prolonged track work outages.

Excerpts from the news release:



> In addition, Amtrak system-wide on-time performance increased to 83 percent, up from 78.1 percent and its highest level in 12 years.





> Also, FY 2012 produced other ridership achievements including new records for 25 of 44 Amtrak services, and 12 consecutive monthly records with July being the single best month in the history of Amtrak. Since FY 2000, Amtrak ridership is up 49 percent.





> All 15 Amtrak long-distance routes experienced an increase in passengers resulting in their best combined ridership numbers in 19 years. Routes setting new ridership records include: Lake Shore Limited (Chicago – New York) up 4.3 percent to almost 404,000; Texas Eagle (Chicago – San Antonio) up 12.8 percent to nearly 338,000; and City of New Orleans (Chicago – New Orleans) up 8.5 percent to more than 253,000. Routes with significant percentage growth in ridership include: the Empire Builder (Chicago – Seattle/Portland) up 15.8 percent to more than 543,000; Coast Starlight (Los Angeles – Seattle) up 6.5 percent to more than 454,000; and Cardinal (New York – Chicago) up 4.9 percent to more than 116,000.


Of course, the EB numbers are in comparison to long outages due to flooding in 2011, so the EB Y to Y numbers are not really fair.


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## Acela150 (Oct 10, 2012)

I don't really know how to comment on this story. Because I personally think it's one we all saw coming last October. Next year the same topic will come up. Of course it's great to see 31 million riders. People are learning more and more about Amtrak which is great. I've never had a problem with ridership records. I simply think the MPR's and FY's keep getting better and we note it each month when a MPR is released.

If I had to make a statement for Amtrak here. It's that they keep getting better and better. The fares are competitive and the Northeast Corridor has Competitive times with Air Shuttles. They offer a great rewards program and the train is simply becoming the mode of transportation again!


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 10, 2012)

I am NOT surprised the numbers are up.

1. The number of boomers with disposable income gets larger and larger every year. Many boomers like me grew up near freight and/or passenger trains or saw movies with people riding trains in the 60s/70s or saw the ads and more and more are trying to get back to when life wasn't so "complicated" "Railing" is more relaxing than driving/flying LD.

2. The "economics" For me, the train is better going LD. For others it may be different. Going LAX-WAS or SPG I have to rent a car at SPG or WAS and put my truck in a parking garage at LAX, whether I rail or fly it. It's a wash. Now when I crunch the numbers and ALL the figures for train vs fly, it is ONLY $200-$300 more for the LD train. I use all the figures, ie: airplane tickets, fees, taxes, baggage, airport meals, tips, yada yada yada. It is worth the $200-$300 for my mental well being to train it. It is almost identical for me to LD versus drive my Toyota truck from Las Vegas back east and return. The difference is the wear and tear on me and the truck.

3. Personal unscientific survey- As I spoke with fellow (NON RAIL FAN) passengers in the dining car and sightseer lounge I came away with these reasons why they are "railing it" Price, scenery, the serenity, the train stops EXACTLY where they want to go, the TSA grope fest, flying like a sardine, nickel and dimed to death by the airlines, meeting new people and re-connecting with their youth. It all sounded reasonable to me.

That all being said, I expect ridership to continue to increase year to year. I think the airlines have lost a group they won't get back and I think my generation (the boomers) are going to retire earlier than they originally planned and are going to be one of the groups that impacts AMTRAK ridership more than others. We are ESCAPING the electronic world when we "train" it. We didn't grow up with remote controls, satellite/cable TV, DVRs. email. I Phone, I Pads, cell phones, Facebook, GPS, yada yada yada. We used in the work place and to stay "in touch"

I think it is my generation(and railfans) that hopefully can convince other boomers and the X, Y, Z and what ever the hell we are calling today's 20 somethings generation that there is more to the world than Justin Beiber, reality TV and texting someone who you just saw two minutes ago.

NAVYBLUE


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## sitzplatz17 (Oct 10, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> We are ESCAPING the electronic world when we "train" it. We didn't grow up with remote controls, satellite/cable TV, DVRs. email. I Phone, I Pads, cell phones, Facebook, GPS, yada yada yada. We used in the work place and to stay "in touch"


I think that's a pretty unsustainable way to look at rail travel.

Many people talk about the advantage of rail travel in the context that it _allows_ them to stay connected.

I have a couple of friends who truly see the value in travelling by train especially because they can get work done because they don't have to deal with the airport circus or concentrate on driving.

While it's great that the boomers find rail travel as a way to disconnect, i wouldn't recommend that that be something that should be necessarily advertised.

Granted, if you're on a LD train you will lose connection and I have learned how to enjoy that as well - but I think the places where you don't get reception are going to get less and less every year. It's a fact that our future will become more connected, not less. As a "20 something" I welcome it.


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## Anderson (Oct 10, 2012)

I'll get on this tonight, but the big numbers for me are that revenue broke $2 billion and PPR was up noticeably. I'll also try and extrapolate some August/September figures for comparison.

Worthwhile question for those with access to older data (though I might just invoke a press credential I have for a local online paper and ask myself at some point): Was the "best LD ridership in 19 years" figure for the 15 extant trains? Or for the whole LD network? This seems rather relevant since 19 years ago was FY93, and the LD network that existed in 1993 was substantially larger (to begin with, it had the Broadway, I believe the Sunset East, the Pioneer, and the Desert Wind; I _think_ the Niagara Rainbow might have still been around, and I can't recall when the Pennsylvanian went LD).

It would not surprise me at all if the smaller network was outdoing the larger, older one in sheer numbers: 1993 was before the Capitol Limited (and a few other trains) went to Superliners. But 1993 was a far, far different system. Also of note: The early 1990s were when LD passenger miles peaked, so if this is for the whole system then vs. the whole system now, we're likely on the cusp of outdoing those numbers from a 20-train LD system with a 15-train LD system.


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## afigg (Oct 10, 2012)

Anderson said:


> Worthwhile question for those with access to older data (though I might just invoke a press credential I have for a local online paper and ask myself at some point): Was the "best LD ridership in 19 years" figure for the 15 extant trains? Or for the whole LD network? This seems rather relevant since 19 years ago was FY93, and the LD network that existed in 1993 was substantially larger (to begin with, it had the Broadway, I believe the Sunset East, the Pioneer, and the Desert Wind; I _think_ the Niagara Rainbow might have still been around, and I can't recall when the Pennsylvanian went LD).


It is not clear from the phrasing whether the LD ridership comparison is for the 15 remaining LD trains or all of the LD trains running 19 years ago. It could be just for the 15 remaining, but even that would not be a direct comparison. Got different or longer routes for some, 3 days a week versus daily, combined with a former LD train route that used to split off which was dropped. Should pull up a schedule from the historical timetable website for 1993 and figure out what was running then, how often, and where in what could be considered the LD train category.

19 years ago, Amtrak had a lot more heritage equipment available. More sleepers, crew-dorms, etc for the single levels. There has also been attrition losses of the Superliners and Amfleet IIs. If Amtrak is matching ridership numbers from 19 years ago for the LD trains, even for the same 15 trains setting aside the differences, they are doing it with less equipment.

One thing to note from the revenue numbers:

NEC (Acela + NE Regionals): $1.046 billion

Other corridor services: $458 million

LD trains: $516 million

Pretty lose to a 50%-25%-25% distribution of paid revenue, not counting state corridor subsidies, etc. The state corridor services should see growth in the revenue share in the next 2-3 years with the corridor improvements, service expansions.

In the LD train ridership and revenue numbers, the Crescent had only +0.1% growth in ridership but +8.5% in revenue. With the NYP-ATL demand, getting aggressive on the higher bucket prices it appears.


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 10, 2012)

sitzplatz17 said:


> NAVYBLUE said:
> 
> 
> > We are ESCAPING the electronic world when we "train" it. We didn't grow up with remote controls, satellite/cable TV, DVRs. email. I Phone, I Pads, cell phones, Facebook, GPS, yada yada yada. We used in the work place and to stay "in touch"
> ...


My point is "training" ALLOWS me and others to disconnect if we CHOSE to. I don't have to see cable news ever where I turn on the train like at the airport. I don't have to watch as virtually everyone is on their computer/I Pad/I Phone/cell phone at the airport as if they are missing something REALLY important.. I have an air card I use with my Dell Inspiron Mini to check email and bank transactions once a day on the train. After that off it goes.

I don't want to talk to people electronically while on the train, I want to talk WITH people while on the train. I have a basic philosophy. If I haven't helped at least one person a day and learned something new that day, the day was not fruitful for me.

Outside of the NE Corridor, I don't think a large majority of the people are "working" as they ride the train. On my trip from LAX-CHI-WAS and return I saw very few people in the public areas glued to a cell phone, computer or I Phone. They were reading, watching the scenery and talking.

I unfortunately see the day where people hide in their sleeper or at their coach seat because it has a DVD screen to watch the news, movies, check email, SKYPE etc. I met some great people on the train and heard some funny, sad, entertaining and enlightening stories. I hope that never goes away.

NAVYBLUE


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## saxman (Oct 10, 2012)

Yay for my Texas Eagle having the highest increase of the LD trains! (The EB doesn't count)


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## NE933 (Oct 10, 2012)

sitzplatz17 said:


> It's a fact that our future will become more connected, not less. As a "20 something" I welcome it.


What we are getting connected to is regurgitaded static in small boxes made of plastic and computer chips. Connected means looking at real faces, eye to eye, talking over dinner, and sharing a laugh under the sunlight - far better than seeing these things on a screen and talking into a mouthpiece. Connectivity via cellphones and computer indeed was intended to open up new avenues of communicaton, not replace it. A common theme with mental health experts, clergy, and everyday shlubs like you and me is that people feel more isolated than before, and perhaps, just perhaps, there are psychosocial dynamics of trains that depowers the importance of that next cellphone call. After all, why the hell would anyone want to yak on their mobile devices when the people you wanna talk with are just across the table or sitting next seat?


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## NE933 (Oct 10, 2012)

I am glad for this news, yet there is a noticable malaise here. I see how this ever increasing number being misused towards convincing others new rolling stock is not all that urgent, since Amtrak is doing so splendid with what they got, we can delay next generation railcars and locomotives just another few months. And another few. Or until next fiscal year. Or until the effects of Hurricane Katrina are all cleaned up and the states say and pay and only if da little train elf does 17 cartwheels while eating peanuts and saying the "Our Father"...... and so on and so on........


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## NE933 (Oct 10, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> I think it is my generation(and railfans) that hopefully can convince other boomers and the X, Y, Z and what ever the hell we are calling today's 20 somethings generation that there is more to the world than Justin Beiber, reality TV and texting someone who you just saw two minutes ago.
> 
> NAVYBLUE


I know the world ain't those things. The world is listening to Madonna and Tom Petty on a cd player, checking out somebody's sexy curves in a tight pair of Levis (and their checking me out too), consuming beer or champagne (not together) with friends, feeling happy, and last but not least: listening to the great, great sound of the Nathan chimed sirens on my Amtrak train up front while being rocked and rolled.


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## dlagrua (Oct 10, 2012)

Ridership is up for a number of good reasons. Here is what is believe is driving the ridership number up.

1 The price of gasoline

2. The degrading treatment of passengers by the TSA Brownshirts at the airports.

3. The superior comfort of rail travel.

4. Air fares are rising rapidly. Amtrak is in many cases more economical than flying, especially in coach.

Here is a comparison based on our trip to Chi in 2013.

Air Fare $330 R/T per person + Baggage charge of at least $100 R/T for 2. Total fare $760. Airport parking $120 (8 days) Total ost $880

Amtrak (Bedroom Fare, at low bucket) $783.50 for 2 R/T Parking will only cost us $20 for 8 days as we will be parked at HFY a national park site. There is room for 700 cars there. We also need to add about $75 differential in fuel and wear and tear costs for the car trip to the point of departure. .

It comes out to $880 flying in coach to $878 for sleeper fare to CHI so for about the same cost (if we can book low bucket)we can travel leisurely to CHI on the train, eat breakfast and dinner each way and have our private room with a shower.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 11, 2012)

afigg said:


> Amtrak has issued a news release summarizing the ridership and revenue numbers for FY2012. The bottom line was a total of 31,240,565 passengers, up +3.5%, and $2.02 billion in ticket revenue. All the LD trains and most corridor trains were up in ridership for the year. Of the corridor services that were down for FY12: Surfliner which noticeably pulled down Amtrak totals, Wolverine, Cascades, Carolinian; they should do better in FY13 if they are not disrupted by prolonged track work outages.
> 
> Excerpts from the news release:
> 
> ...


It says that OTP is the highest in 12 years, So you mean the OTP was better in 2000? I remember that back then LDs got a lot more delays than now.



Anderson said:


> I'll get on this tonight, but the big numbers for me are that revenue broke $2 billion and PPR was up noticeably. I'll also try and extrapolate some August/September figures for comparison.
> 
> Worthwhile question for those with access to older data (though I might just invoke a press credential I have for a local online paper and ask myself at some point): Was the "best LD ridership in 19 years" figure for the 15 extant trains? Or for the whole LD network? This seems rather relevant since 19 years ago was FY93, and the LD network that existed in 1993 was substantially larger (to begin with, it had the Broadway, I believe the Sunset East, the Pioneer, and the Desert Wind; I _think_ the Niagara Rainbow might have still been around, and I can't recall when the Pennsylvanian went LD).
> 
> It would not surprise me at all if the smaller network was outdoing the larger, older one in sheer numbers: 1993 was before the Capitol Limited (and a few other trains) went to Superliners. But 1993 was a far, far different system. Also of note: The early 1990s were when LD passenger miles peaked, so if this is for the whole system then vs. the whole system now, we're likely on the cusp of outdoing those numbers from a 20-train LD system with a 15-train LD system.


This kinda connects to that old thread I started about Amtrak's old ridership. What was the ridership in 1993? Anybody know?



dlagrua said:


> Ridership is up for a number of good reasons. Here is what is believe is driving the ridership number up.
> 
> 1 The price of gasoline
> 
> ...


I think I have some important ones to add:

5. The decreased comfort of air travel. CRJs are taking over ex-mainliners, old regional routes are getting discountinued. CRJs are really uncomfortable, the bigger planes are getting more seats, smaller seats, thinner seats, harder seat, less legroom, etc. Mea;s have also been cut even on transcons, checked baggage gets more expensive, the problems don't just end at prices and security.

6. All the fees! Everything needs fees. I especially hate NK, they seem dirt-cheap but EVERYTHING cost extra money on them! Their planes are horrible, too! I bet people would not hate airlines as much if they didn't have so many fees and just charged high prices! But the airlines just won't stop, would they?!

Now about "connecting" to the "world," I think that it would be great for Amtrak to offer more connections (Wi-Fi) but passengers don't have to use it. Personally I woudn't use it much either, but Amtrak could just convince more pax to ride and hope they'll find out that trains are great even without using electronics, then that they come back again. This is already happening a lot but some young people just don't understand that it's OK to "disconnect" for two days.


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## Acela150 (Oct 11, 2012)

dlagrua said:


> Ridership is up for a number of good reasons. Here is what is believe is driving the ridership number up.
> 
> 1 The price of gasoline
> 
> ...


Isn't this stating the obvious? The only one I don't agree with is your third reason... Because there are a lot of First Time riders these days. They just hear about it from a friend who rode Amtrak. Sure there are repeat riders. But the reason it goes up is because of First Time riders.


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## Anderson (Oct 11, 2012)

Ok, now that I'm actually somewhere I can sit down and think, I've got some thoughts:

1) Pulling up the July Monthly Performance Report, Amtrak was projecting $1,968m in ticket revenue. The final numbers came out to $2,020m, $52m ahead of the budget, or about 2.5% above those projections. This is particularly interesting because it would, all else being equal, bring Amtrak to within $10 million of federal operating support, more or less erasing the variance projected in July. Moreover, it seems quite possible that this number closed a bit further with F&B. This is very, very good if it comes to pass, as it reduces the likelihood of at least some possible cuts in the short term.

2) Overall PPR was $64.66 for FY12, as opposed to $62.67 for FY11. This is an increase of about 3.2%, which isn't bad considering the rather sluggish economy. Going by category:

A) The Acela saw PPR rise from $145.50 to $149.64, an increase of 2.85%, slightly above the (rather bouncy) trend of the last few years; I will be exceedingly surprised if this doesn't break $150 in FY13 (another similar year would put PPR in the $153-154 range). Yes, this was less than the increase we saw last year; blame this on Regional cannibalization. It's good to see that the Acela eked out an increase for the year; it missed setting a record by about 3500 riders.

B) The NE Regionals saw PPR rise from $65.32 last year to $66.84, an increase of 2.33%, again in line with the last few years. At least some of the increase in ridership altered the market mix here, and I don't know how the PHL-PVD/BOS markets compare with overall average fares. Worth noting as well: Ridership on the Regionals alone jumped by barely under 500,000.

C) Short Corridors saw the biggest percentage increase in PPR, from $28.26 to $30.37, a jump of just under 7.5%. However, PPR increases were pretty tame on most routes; the exceptions were the Surfliner (from $19.85 to $22.19, up 11.79%), the Vermonter (an increase of somewhere around 15% due to un-truncation for part of the year), the Keystones, and the Piedmonts. The most notable laggard was the Wolverine (the only regional route to take a revenue hit, and one of only two to suffer a noticeable dip in PPR; the other was the Quincy route).

D) LD trains saw a shock-loaded jump in ridership and an associated boost to PPR and revenue. PPR rose from $106.43 to $108.95, a rise of 2.4%. Interestingly, ridership was up on all trains, and PPR was up on all but three (the Starlight, the Eagle, and the Chief; the last of these also suffered a revenue decline amid a slight increase in ridership). Naturally, this was all a bit of a muddle because of the disruptions last year.

3) Particular route observations:

A) The NEC is chugging along nicely, though capacity issues do seem to be setting in and Amtrak is now stuck balancing fare increases with pricing itself out of the market.

B) The Virginia routes' combined ridership broke 800,000. However...*drumroll*

-The WAS-NPN route had a better last two months of the year than its first ten months (110,248 riders vs. 92,442 riders for the two months this year and last year, an increase of 19.3%[!]). Some of this was likely "disruption rebound" from the hurricane last year, but it's still a doozy of a jump.

-The Lynchburger saw 29,399 riders in the last two months of this year 27,657 last year, an increase of 6.3%. It's not what we're used to seeing, but ridership growth seems to have resumed at a much tamer pace after a few rough months. Still, a caveat applies about the disruption last year. I suspect the Lynchburger will be in a stable holding pattern somewhere around 180,000-200,000 for a little while pending any service changes.

-Combined passenger revenue for the routes was about $45.7 million. What is staggering to consider, from what I can tell, is that the VA routes are likely both in the black AND are bringing in about 3/4 the revenue of the Surfliners with 1/3 the ridership. Granted, they're very different operations, but it's still staggering.

-Combined ridership was up nearly 90,000 (22,856 and 66,336 for the LYH and NPN routes respectivelt) Considering what happened with the WAS-NPN route at the end of this year, it seems quite believable that with the NFK extension coming on line as well, total state ridership could believably hit 900,000 next year (though my bet is for somewhere in the 860-870k range, as I think Norfolk is going to be a bit of a mediocrity given the pre-5AM departure).

C) The Carolinian may well have ended the year in the black as well...it almost assuredly spent the last two months there, given that it went from +0.6% in revenue to +5.3% in revenue in two months. Similarly, it all but erased the YTD ridership deficit (ridership in those two months was 52,262 vs. 41,727, an increase of 25.2%[!]). Barring another major disruption next year, this might be a third profitable corridor train even before the new accounting hits it.

D) I know I've said it before, but I'll mention it again: The Adirondack is increasingly limited not by demand but by space on board. The negotiations between NY State and Amtrak here should be interesting, especially once the new facility goes in at Montreal and the nominal schedule time likely gets cut accordingly.

E) On the LD routes, just aboute everyone got a chance to recover from disruptions and/or knock-on effects thereof. However, comparing results to previous years:

-The Star and Meteor are both light-years above where they were five years ago, with combined ridership being just over 800k vs. approx. 620k in FY07. That there is no mention of records is a hint of just how far this service's ridership must have fallen under Warrington.

-The Palmetto's ridership was flat...but PPR was up solidly alongside the Silvers. Overall, the ex-Silver Service trio BARELY missed out on one million riders this year (999,218).

-The Cardinal is also up about as much as can be expected, considering capacity constraints, delays, and scheduling issues. One wonders what a daily train with consistent(ly good) OTP and a more standard set of equipment would do on this route.

-The Builder's rebound brought it to within about 12k of its 2008 record of 554,266 (and safely above FY10). Assuming that things continue apace in North Dakota and there isn't another major disruption, the Builder should easily break that record next year. Looking forward, I can't help but wonder if the Builder is even capable of 600k riders with its current equipment. Likewise, if there are predictable worker travel patterns in the oilfields in ND, it might behoove Amtrak to make an extra coach appear on those days if they can scrounge the car for it. Unless you get a serious airline boom in the state as well, Amtrak should have a lot of mileage to get out of this.

-The Cap is basically in park. Ditto the Chief, though in the latter case it may be a function of already high fares (the Chief's PPR exceeded all other LD trains save the Auto Train until last year; since then, it's hit a wall) and/or capacity in some markets. Further analysis will need to wait until the PIP comes out.

-The CONO got a solid rebound...from a disruption that didn't even induce a ridership decline. 253k riders has it chasing the Auto Train in terms of ridership...

-...and chasing the Texas Eagle, which is just burning up the charts. Checking the footnote, about 1/4 of the riders here are on the IL corridor, which may also be helping the CONO (which seems to have about 50k riders on its corridor as well). The Eagle is on fire; though PPR was off, I'm going to guess that this is down to a rise in corridor ridership (which is likely driving the ridership jump here). Considering the situation on the Chief, it seems quite plausible that the Eagle could catch it in the next few years in terms of ridership, if just because of the corridor situation.

-The Sunset is the Sunset. It's back over 100k for the first time since FY03.

-The Coast Starlight finally broke through its FY03 ridership levels. That this wasn't listed as a record is another hint at Warrington damage.

-The LSL is up pretty solidly.

-The Crescent is up as well, albeit only barely. I'm not sure what hit the NS line in the last few months, but something sure did.

-Finally, the Auto Train...PPR was $274.59 vs. $263.98 last year. Can't wait to see the PIP here, since it's pretty clear that Amtrak is using increased fares to (desperately) manage demand.

4) Looking forward, it's going to be pretty hard to break 32 million next year. A lot of the growth for this year was "shock loaded" into the system by all of the problems last year (LD disruptions plus Irene). That and the political environment are going to make for a bit more "exciting" of a ride than I'd like.

The Acela (and increasingly the NEC at large) are gushing money, and might well be able to power Amtrak through some rough spots. With losses on the state routes likely vanishing to negligibility (and then only due to calculation quirks) in the next few years and equipment rental charges (and maintenance revenue for state-owned cars) coming in to Amtrak, I can envision the need for federal support dropping off slowly. It's going to be a nerve-wracking ride, but I can see a situation where the numbers ultimately work out for Amtrak to be able to cut its operating subsidy.

The biggest jam seems to be the Acela situation...but seeing as the Acela is bringing in something like 40% more than it costs to run, if a bid can be found this should be a big hit. Failing that, Amtrak really needs to press to move the Acela II project ahead ASAP given that it's not likely they can beat but so much more capacity out of the current equipment.

One thought: Boardman has said he's not going to order more Superliners until Congress decides what it wants done with the LD trains. Sooner or later, I think Boardman and Amtrak are going to need to either:

A) Come up with at least a midsized order plan (i.e. perhaps 100 cars to supplement the Superliners) to present absent a clear direction just to keep the lights on and meet increasing demand, or

B) Come up with a plan to beef up the Viewliner order and convert some options around (i.e. baggage cars to diners or sleepers) and get the Next-Gen coach orders in line (they're working on a mock-up of one at Wilmington now) to convert one or more trains from Superliners to Viewliners. The TE/SL/CONO "complex" is the only real candidate for this, but it might be worth considering absent an unforseen event.

Coming from this is a practical question: Where's the ceiling on various LD routes in terms of ridership? I'm not sure how much more room there is for increasing ridership with the current equipment allocations...the Meteor seems likely to get "stuck" at 400,000 or so absent added cars; the Star might get past 450,000 due to turnover at Orlampa (though the FEC is set to make a hash of this situation in a few years), but the 100,000 increase that Amtrak projects from the Amtrak-FEC service implies substantial extra capacity on that route. The LSL is doing better, but it also has a pretty solid mid-route turnover point at Buffalo. And of course, the Zephyr has all sorts of complicated issues that have come up elsewhere (where ridership demand west of Reno and east of Grand Junction and/or Denver are causing issues).

The same question begs on various corridors...the WAS-LYH corridor seems to be reasonably close to capacity (assuming a 7-car set most days, they're filling an average of around 2/3 of those seats by the time you hit the DC area...even allowing for some ALX turnover, considering how much boarding you get at WAS I can see the limit being seating rather than demand), and a number of other routes have seen explosive growth over the last few years (the Downeaster has added 140k riders in five years) and/or have known crowding issues and capacity limits (the Adirondack is squeezed on one side by border issues and on the other side by downstate traffic).


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## Acela150 (Oct 11, 2012)

Anderson said:


> Ok, now that I'm actually somewhere I can sit down and think, I've got some thoughts


Did you miss any letters in the alphabet in those thoughts?? :lol: Those are some thoughts..


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## afigg (Oct 11, 2012)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> It says that OTP is the highest in 12 years, So you mean the OTP was better in 2000? I remember that back then LDs got a lot more delays than now.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


The On-Time Performance might have used different metrics 12 years ago. I think the NEC OTP is likely much better than it was 12 years ago after the injection of funds for power system repair & replacement, maintenance starting around 2006. Without a detailed OTP report from 12 years ago, can't say much about FY12 OTP versus FY2000 OTP.

Yes, the total ridership numbers for each year are available and were listed in the Amtrak 40th Anniversary book. In FY1993, the official ridership count was 22.06 million, a number that was not reached again until FY2003 (using the Amtrak ridership numbers w/o the Clockers). The big growth since 1993 has been in the non-NEC corridors: California, Downeaster, Cascades, Midwest, and likely the VA Regionals & the revival of the Keystone service.

On air travel, the CRJ and regional jets are being dropped from service, not taking over. The 50 to 70 seat regional jets were the big new thing in the late 90s and early 2000's, but the economics of operating them have been hammered with $90 to $100 a barrel oil. The airlines are consolidating with fewer flights to connecting hub airports from the smaller to medium sized airports using 737s and A320 Airbuses with more seats in place of the regional jets. The total number of domestic commercial flights for all the commercial carriers has been trending downward since a peak in 2005. Oh, yes, the airlines are cramming more people in the shorter distance flights to squeeze the last drop out of revenue.


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## WICT106 (Oct 11, 2012)

It is good to see that folks are using trains, despite Amtrak's reputation for inconsistent service quality.


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## Anderson (Oct 11, 2012)

Acela150 said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > Ok, now that I'm actually somewhere I can sit down and think, I've got some thoughts
> ...


No, though I regret that I was unable to extend any coverage to umlauts or other Nordic variants.


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## PPorro (Oct 11, 2012)

When people talk about Baby Boomers and "seeing trains in movies" Etc. I'd like to add this bit of history...

Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964.

I was born in 1947. We still had street cars when I was a kid. We still rode commuter trains from Milwaukee to Chicago. (North Shore Line) I rode the Monon back from Indiana in the 60s, and the Milwaukee Road to MPLS, a beautiful scenic ride along the Mississippi.

Yes I am older and I have more time and I'm tired of going to the airport two hours in advance and waiting because of some flawed, fabricated security system that is hardly functional or practical. Short runs, like Milwaukee to Chicago, I can be there, before the plane takes off.  I'm still planning the Fall trip or Spring, still don't know where, but that doesn't matter. Albuquerque, Elko or Texarcana, I'll be going somewhere. Yes it's a vacation and everything will take one day longer to get there and one day longer to come back. So what? The rail portion is just as much an experience as the vacation part. I think people today forget that part.

The journey is just as important as the destination when traveling on rail. You aren't going someplace, you *are* someplace, and on a train. :lol:

But please don't assume that Baby Boomers recall the nostalgia from seeing it on TV or movies, not from experiencing it in person. Amtrak was former in 1970. Heck I was graduating from college and going into the Army in 1970!


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## afigg (Oct 11, 2012)

Anderson said:


> 4) Looking forward, it's going to be pretty hard to break 32 million next year. A lot of the growth for this year was "shock loaded" into the system by all of the problems last year (LD disruptions plus Irene). That and the political environment are going to make for a bit more "exciting" of a ride than I'd like.


I have a number of thoughts and comments of my own on your comments here which I may find time to post later. On the total ridership, I don't see why it would be hard to break 32 million in FY13. That would take a +2.5% increase over FY12. The NE and VA Regionals should continue to grow. The major track work disruptions are reportedly done for the CHI-STL corridor, so that should be able to get onto a solid growth path. I would expect the Keystone and Empire services to continue the steady 3% to 5% growth. Same for the Hiawathas at 2% to 3%.

On the down side, the Surfliner and Capital Corridor services may undercut the total system growth numbers. If the Surfliner ridership had increased by 2% or 3% instead of declining by -5.3%, that would have added 200K or more to the Amtrak totals. With a lot of LOSSAN track and route improvement projects in the pipeline, the Surfliner may be an underperformer for the few years for ridership growth. Major disruptions for HSIPR funded track projects may cut into ridership for some corridors such as the Wolverine and, depending on the plans for FY13, Cascades, Piedmont, Carolinian.

The other factor that may push down ridership growth are aggressive ticket prices, notably those for corridors that will need more state support funding in FY14. Maximize revenue over ridership to improve cost recovery. Still, 32 million in ridership for FY13 should be achievable.


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## cirdan (Oct 11, 2012)

Anderson said:


> One thought: Boardman has said he's not going to order more Superliners until Congress decides what it wants done with the LD trains. Sooner or later, I think Boardman and Amtrak are going to need to either:
> 
> A) Come up with at least a midsized order plan (i.e. perhaps 100 cars to supplement the Superliners) to present absent a clear direction just to keep the lights on and meet increasing demand, or
> 
> B) Come up with a plan to beef up the Viewliner order and convert some options around (i.e. baggage cars to diners or sleepers) and get the Next-Gen coach orders in line (they're working on a mock-up of one at Wilmington now) to convert one or more trains from Superliners to Viewliners. The TE/SL/CONO "complex" is the only real candidate for this, but it might be worth considering absent an unforseen event.


It's as you say, Congress are going to have to decide whether they actually want LD service, and if so, how much do they want. The present growth may be encouraging but there's still a huge revenue gap and its going to be a huge challenge to decrease that. So at the end of the day, LD service is going to survive because people want it to survive, not for reasons of pure accounting. The rather lame response to the proposed re-routing of the SWC shows that the places that will lose service are not up in arms about it, and the places that will gain service are not exactly singing and dancing either. Only by becoming an indespensible pillar of local communities can LD service build the support that will defend those trains against all threats.


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## Anderson (Oct 11, 2012)

afigg said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > 4) Looking forward, it's going to be pretty hard to break 32 million next year. A lot of the growth for this year was "shock loaded" into the system by all of the problems last year (LD disruptions plus Irene). That and the political environment are going to make for a bit more "exciting" of a ride than I'd like.
> ...


It's a combination of three things that I think will conspire against it:

1) As you mentioned, the CA corridors and a few others being hit with aggressive price increases. I hate to sound like Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I've got a bad feeling that there's some permanent damage on the Surfliner, and I'm worried about how much more it and a few other lines that saw major PPR jumps can bear.

2) For all that we had a strong finish to this year, we _really_ don't have anymore major disruptions to readily overcome in next year's ridership totals. On the LDs, I think there was 100k of growth "locked up" by disruptions; a similar situation likely exists on the NEC due to the Irene disruptions.

3) LD growth seems pretty restricted due to both rising fares and capacity limits (which are, for what it's worth, deeply linked). On a few corridors where there is growth to be had, there isn't much capacity left (the Adirondack leaps to mind). The same can be said of the Acelas to some extent...you're just running out of seats (or at least _affordable_ seats).

I don't see it as impossible; I just see it as potentially difficult in light of the constraints Amtrak is running into in a lot of places.


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## afigg (Oct 11, 2012)

Anderson said:


> E) On the LD routes, just aboute everyone got a chance to recover from disruptions and/or knock-on effects thereof. However, comparing results to previous years:
> 
> -The Star and Meteor are both light-years above where they were five years ago, with combined ridership being just over 800k vs. approx. 620k in FY07. That there is no mention of records is a hint of just how far this service's ridership must have fallen under Warrington.
> 
> -The Palmetto's ridership was flat...but PPR was up solidly alongside the Silvers. Overall, the ex-Silver Service trio BARELY missed out on one million riders this year (999,218).


The Silvers OTP has been getting hit in recent months due to frequent delays in central Florida which appears to due to track work for SunRail. That might be cutting into ridership (growth) for the FL city to city business which is a major part of the Star ridership. The Palmetto numbers were affected by the Monday thru Thursday cancellations in March (ridership down some 7K in March report) for CSX trackwork as was the Carolinian which was confined to the Piedmont corridor IIRC.

Depending on when the major trackwork is completed for Phase 1 of SunRail and if the Palmetto or the Silvers are not interrupted for longish periods for CSX trackwork in FY13, there should be a bump in 3% or 4% growth for the Silvers in FY13.



Anderson said:


> -The Cardinal is also up about as much as can be expected, considering capacity constraints, delays, and scheduling issues. One wonders what a daily train with consistent(ly good) OTP and a more standard set of equipment would do on this route.
> 
> ...
> 
> -The Cap is basically in park. Ditto the Chief, though in the latter case it may be a function of already high fares (the Chief's PPR exceeded all other LD trains save the Auto Train until last year; since then, it's hit a wall) and/or capacity in some markets.


The Cardinal OTP has been better in the past several months. Still not great, running an 1/2 hour or hour behind still common in WV and VA, but better with fewer 2-3 hour late NEC arrivals for #50 eastbound. I saw this report last week in Railway Age about the completion of CREATE project B15 which modernized signals and switches at a yard which improved track speeds from 15 to 30 mph for the route taken by the Cardinal and Hoosier State. Quote from the article: "With the improvements, Amtrak trains and freight trains operating on the IHB main line are expected to pass through in as little as six minutes. Trains used to experience 15 to 30 minutes of delay for every hand-operated switch they navigated as well as when waiting for other trains to navigate the project limits with manual switches." So there has been improvement on a small part of the long Cardinal route. Amtrak status maps archives shows that the Hoosier State has been getting in early a number of times recently.

The CL does appear to be leveling off at 227K passengers. It may be bumping up against the limits of capacity for peak travel days until another sleeper and coach car can be found. Or the Pennsylvanian pass-through cars are added.

What I notice about the Cardinal ridership of 116K, is that if it is extrapolated to 7 days a week w/o any ridership growth to 270K, that it would have more passengers than the CL and the CONO (253K). The Cardinal provides a number of local trips to turn seats over on the trip: Charlottesville to/from the NEC, VA to WV, WV/CIN/IND to Chicago for more revenue. If Amtrak can address the siding and track speed issues on the Buckingham Branch RR, get BBRR & CSX to agree to daily service, after the CAF Viewliners are available to add a baggage-dorm, sleeper, diner, a daily Cardinal should generate as much revenue as the CL or CONO.


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## Anderson (Oct 11, 2012)

I'd noticed the lousy OTP for the Silvers, but I hadn't quite connected the dots. That makes a lot of sense. I remember the disruptions further up the line, but I'd been dealing with that in discussing the Carolinian.

On the Cap, I think you're right about the capacity limits. The number there is low "on paper", but there's not a whole lot of turnover on the route (and most of that takes place at Pittsburgh). 227,000 translates into an average of 311 per train. That /seems/ low for an LD train, but IIRC close to half that is through traffic and most of the remainder turns over at Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Toledo.

Assuming three Superliner coaches at 74 seats each, that's 222 seats. With the sleepers, you have 13 in-service roomettes (14 total less 1 attendant) and 7 in-service bedrooms (5 normal, 1 family, and 1 handicap). Assuming two folks per bedroom and 1.5 per roomette, that's 33.5/sleeper. Times two sleepers would give you 67; plus another 10 roomettes in a transdorm gives you 82 slots.

So basically, you have 304 "slots" on an average train, assuming more-or-less optimal arrangements. In general, I would assume that you can successfully turn over about 30% of seats (mostly EB) since you have a net "bleed" in riders as you get east from CHI (CLE, and PGH add more riders westbound than they discharge, and discharge more EB than they add), and since over 40% of the seats are occupied endpoint-to-endpoint.

All of this taken together means that the Cap, in current form, is probably at about 75% of /theoretical/ capacity, which is probably close to as much as you can hope for (since there are always going to be weekdays in October and February that you just can't fill no matter what).

This actually dovetails nicely with the Cardinal discussion, since the Cardinal is a much more turnover-heavy train (with lots of traffic loaded onto the IND-CHI segment), hence it "beating out" the Cap with daily operation, even with single-level equipment. Moreover, the existing PIP assumed very little change in terms of OTP, etc. If you can get some improvements on that front, it's quite possible that going daily, which was expected to cost $2.1m net, would actually break even or go into the black.


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## AlanB (Oct 11, 2012)

Anderson said:


> plus another 10 roomettes in a transdorm gives you 82 slots.


At most Amtrak sells 6 rooms in the Trans/Dorm to the public. On the EB they never sell more than 4, and they sell zero on the AT.


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## Nathanael (Oct 11, 2012)

NE933 said:


> I am glad for this news, yet there is a noticable malaise here. I see how this ever increasing number being misused towards convincing others new rolling stock is not all that urgent, since Amtrak is doing so splendid with what they got, we can delay next generation railcars and locomotives just another few months. And another few. Or until next fiscal year. Or until the effects of Hurricane Katrina are all cleaned up and the states say and pay and only if da little train elf does 17 cartwheels while eating peanuts and saying the "Our Father"...... and so on and so on........


I wouldn't worry about that too much. The political forces which are simply anti-train will keep on attacking Amtrak, but I don't think the increasing ridership can be used as an argument against new rolling stock.... when the trains are FULL. And we've gotten to the point where many of the trains are, in fact, full.


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## afigg (Oct 11, 2012)

Anderson said:


> 1) Pulling up the July Monthly Performance Report, Amtrak was projecting $1,968m in ticket revenue. The final numbers came out to $2,020m, $52m ahead of the budget, or about 2.5% above those projections. This is particularly interesting because it would, all else being equal, bring Amtrak to within $10 million of federal operating support, more or less erasing the variance projected in July. Moreover, it seems quite possible that this number closed a bit further with F&B. This is very, very good if it comes to pass, as it reduces the likelihood of at least some possible cuts in the short term.


Getting back to this item on the $2.02 billion in ticket revenues, that is a pretty big jump over the projection for the end of the FY in the July report. The August monthly report should be posted in the next week, so we will see the numbers for August but August must have been a very good month for ticket revenues. If the expenses did not jump much, yes, that would be an additional $50 million or so in net revenue, to reduce the cash operating loss.

Remember Amtrak is getting $466 million in FY12 for operating subsidy while the budget goal was a cash operating loss of $345 million. If the cash operating loss for FY12 was $360 to $370 million, that provides Amtrak with around $100 million in extra operating subsidy that they can use to make progress payments on the CAF Viewliners. If the election outcome is favorable for Amtrak and the sequestration threat is disarmed, early next year might be a good time to exercise some of the CAF order option and, say order 10 more baggage and 10 more sleeper cars, to add additional capacity for the LD trains while figuring out how to finance large orders.


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## Anthony (Oct 11, 2012)

AlanB said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > plus another 10 roomettes in a transdorm gives you 82 slots.
> ...


Actually, on the Texas Eagle this summer, they were selling all 8 rooms in the non-crew section of the dorm car due to demand.


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## Nathanael (Oct 12, 2012)

Anderson said:


> Ok, now that I'm actually somewhere I can sit down and think, I've got some thoughts:





> -The Cap is basically in park.


Hitting the capacity wall. (The route has a lot of end-to-end traffic, and most of the rest is going to Pittsburgh.) Fares might go up.



> Ditto the Chief, though in the latter case it may be a function of already high fares (the Chief's PPR exceeded all other LD trains save the Auto Train until last year; since then, it's hit a wall) and/or capacity in some markets.


In the case of the Chief, it looks like it might have actually hit the pricing limit. The Chief is also heavy on end-to-end traffic. I would guess that without a faster schedule or bigger intermediate cities (um, Amarillo) it is probably going to stay steady.

I think it's the only train in that position. Every other train is going to see either a ridership increase or revenue increases, or both.



> -The LSL is up pretty solidly.


It's quite close to capacity limits, and the sleeper prices are already sky-high. I'd expect coach prices to rise...



> -The Crescent is up as well, albeit only barely. I'm not sure what hit the NS line in the last few months, but something sure did.


Hitting capacity limits hard from Atlanta to New York. The Lynchburg train "unlocked" demand. I'd expect to see passenger diversion to the Carolinian, and possibly even the Piedmont transferring to Silver Service, for travellers from Charlotte through Winston-Salem. (If the Crescent gets more cars, you might then see drops in the ridership on those trains.)



> 4) Looking forward, it's going to be pretty hard to break 32 million next year. A lot of the growth for this year was "shock loaded" into the system by all of the problems last year (LD disruptions plus Irene).


I don't think it will be too hard. While a number of routes are hitting capacity in peak months, growth in the ones that aren't yet, and growth in the off-peak months, are quite capable of getting Amtrak to 32 million. Plus which, there were (more!) Empire Builder disruptions this year!

The need for new cars will become desperately obvious next summer, though. Due to capacity limits, the ridership curve is going to start looking flattened across the course of the year, rather than the sine wave it currently looks like.



> One thought: Boardman has said he's not going to order more Superliners until Congress decides what it wants done with the LD trains.


I think he's going to need to change his mind about this. There's just too much demand and too few cars. And Congress has never been known to make clear, permanent decisions!



> Sooner or later, I think Boardman and Amtrak are going to need to either:A) Come up with at least a midsized order plan (i.e. perhaps 100 cars to supplement the Superliners) to present absent a clear direction just to keep the lights on and meet increasing demand,


Yep. Perhaps the simplest thing to do is to do a small add-on to the "state bilevel" order for some coaches which are exactly like the state order except with long-distance seats. That would at least make sure bilevel coach capacity didn't run out, and unlike sleepers they'd be guaranteed to have resale potential. The issue of sleepers, diners, and lounges could probably be kicked down the road a little bit longer....



> orB) Come up with a plan to beef up the Viewliner order and convert some options around (i.e. baggage cars to diners or sleepers) and get the Next-Gen coach orders in line (they're working on a mock-up of one at Wilmington now) to convert one or more trains from Superliners to Viewliners. The TE/SL/CONO "complex" is the only real candidate for this, but it might be worth considering absent an unforseen event.


Seems less viable (there's little value in converting routes from bilevel to single-level, unless it lets you run that route through Baltimore or New York City). However, Amtrak may need to take the options on the Viewliner order and start the Next-Gen coach order *just to meet demand for trains going through NYC*.



> Coming from this is a practical question: Where's the ceiling on various LD routes in terms of ridership?


Difficult to compute as it depends on the turnover level.

I think absolutely everything has a little room to grow in the off-peak months (February), and I expect this to happen in 2013, so I don't think we've quite hit the ceiling on any route. But we're very close on quite a lot of routes.

All the financial numbers in the PIPs need to be rerun to account for higher ridership and Amtrak's ability to charge higher fares. A whole bunch of the proposals which were expected to cost some money would probably now be net positive for operating costs.

It's probably worth it for Amtrak to run new projections on the marginal contribution which added cars (longer trains) would provide. It's perfectly possible that there's a pure business case for ordering new Superliners, executing the option on the CAF contract, etc. -- they might pay for themselves. The incremental cost of operation (adding a car to an existing train) is low while the incremental revenue seems to be very high these days. If Amtrak could provide evidence of this it might be able to get federal loan funding (as it did for the electric engines) to tide it across Congressional budget uncertainty.


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## Nathanael (Oct 12, 2012)

afigg said:


> Remember Amtrak is getting $466 million in FY12 for operating subsidy while the budget goal was a cash operating loss of $345 million. If the cash operating loss for FY12 was $360 to $370 million, that provides Amtrak with around $100 million in extra operating subsidy that they can use to make progress payments on the CAF Viewliners.


I will note that the delay in delivery of the CAF Viewliners has also meant a delay in Amtrak's payments for them.



> If the election outcome is favorable for Amtrak and the sequestration threat is disarmed,


Speaking of that. The sequestration business is grossly irresponsible behavior by Congress for any number of reasons; across-the-board cuts *never* make sense. However, it looks to me like Amtrak would be able to survive sequestration in operating terms because its operating loss is running so far below its FY12 operating budget. Amtrak would have to hunker down on the capital budget, though, which would be bad.

However, consider the more likely scenario where the lame duck Congress does not stop sequestration, but the new Congress cancels it. Amtrak will have no trouble riding out those few months.

If Amtrak gets a favorable election outcome, indeed, it needs to order more rolling stock.


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## Phil S (Oct 12, 2012)

Cardinal westbound for November shows only 4 days with roomettes still available and 2 days withh bedrooms available. If this doesn't indicate the need for additional sleepers........Or with yet more rolling stock, daily service.


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## Anderson (Oct 13, 2012)

Alright, what I'm getting from some of the back-and-forth is that three trains are starting to run up against limits:

-The LSL and CL are slamming into fairly hard capacity limits. Indeed, the LSL may be drawing some growth off of the CL's issues, but it's also running into a wall of its own. Both are trying to push fares up where they can, but the LSL is already extraordinarily expensive while the CL is somewhat limited by the amount of traffic that "follows through" onto another train.

-The SWC is limited by already high fares...and likely, also limited by capacity. It has more or less identical capacity to the Cap, and likely has a similar low-turnover situation. 355k comes to just under 490/train, and the consist is similar to the Cap. At three sleepers (and assuming no Transdorm space, which should allow for the seasonal on/off of the third sleeper), that is 323 "slots", implying an average of 1.5 uses of each slot.

Last year, there were 245,705 boardings and alightings at stations between KCY and California (ABQ was the biggest turnover station, with 75,779), implying that the remaining business (no less than 109,207...and probably somewhere around 130,000 or more) was either "bottled up" in the endpoints (likely CHI-KCY traffic) or "ran through" from IL/MO to CA, more or less barring "reuse" of their slot (ridership is fairly low at the CA stations until you hit the LA metro area, and I doubt there's much intra-LA area traffic, while only around 30k riders can be attributed to the SWC and the CZ combined within IL).

Basically, the SWC is in a nasty situation regarding capacity...and while it might be possible to pull some more revenue out of the coach side of things, the capacity problem is likely to be particularly acute on the sleeper side, since while there are a lot of folks who will take the train, there are only so many that will do two nights in coach on said train.

In general, I don't advocate switching trains to single-level because of inherent benefits in doing so (though potentially reviving the Crescent-Sunset sleeper to make through-NOL travel more enticing would be one potential benefit). Rather, the reason is nasty practicality: We currently have a Viewliner order and it might be possible to convert some of the baggage options to sleeper options. Exercising the 15 sleeper options plus a given sum of baggage options being "turned over" to sleeper options is a lot easier to envision than a dedicated Superliner sleeper order (a Superliner sleeper has 7BR and 13RM vs. 3-and-11, so it's 33.5 slots vs. 22.5 slots, so 60 Viewliners would roughly equal 40 Superliners while 75 would equal 50).

I can easily envision a situation where Amtrak is basically running single-level sleepers and bilevel coaches on some routes. This was, after all, done between A-day and the introduction of the Superliners on some Western routes, so it's not hard to see happening again...and by the same token, it's probably easier to envision that than Congress coming up with a decisive decision.

But...when you get down to it, faced with a choice between that or no more capacity because a large Superliner III order isn't in the offering, I'd choose conversion as the lesser of the present evils. At least two bilevel trains very much need more capacity, and the others probably aren't too far behind (especially on certain legs of their runs...EMY-Reno and DEN-CHI both leap to mind for the Zephyr).

As to the Eastern trains, after I did some back of the envelope calculations, the effective limit of a single diner is probably four sleepers (if you seat everyone in the diner) or five sleepers (if you push some coach passengers to be served full meals while sitting in the cafe car). Going by that, if you get much past four sleepers, six coaches, two FSCs and a bag-dorm (something that the LSL and Silver Meteor are probably well on their way to being able to fill a fair portion of the year, especially on the sleeper side), you start having to seriously look at doing /something/ different (either adding another train, such as a revived Silver Palm in some form for the Florida services or a revived Broadway/Three Rivers splitting off from the Cap eventually; or doubling up the diner on a route like the LSL).


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 14, 2012)

Nathanael said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > Ok, now that I'm actually somewhere I can sit down and think, I've got some thoughts:
> ...


If the CL gets lots of WAS-CHI pax, it should gain another Sleeper. Problem is, where do you get it?


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## Anderson (Oct 14, 2012)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Nathanael said:
> 
> 
> > Anderson said:
> ...


See my comments. My understanding is that Amtrak is actively looking at converting the CONO to Viewliners as the order comes in, so as to be able to redeploy the cars from it on other routes.


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## afigg (Oct 14, 2012)

Anderson said:


> I can easily envision a situation where Amtrak is basically running single-level sleepers and bilevel coaches on some routes. This was, after all, done between A-day and the introduction of the Superliners on some Western routes, so it's not hard to see happening again...and by the same token, it's probably easier to envision that than Congress coming up with a decisive decision.
> 
> But...when you get down to it, faced with a choice between that or no more capacity because a large Superliner III order isn't in the offering, I'd choose conversion as the lesser of the present evils. At least two bilevel trains very much need more capacity, and the others probably aren't too far behind (especially on certain legs of their runs...EMY-Reno and DEN-CHI both leap to mind for the Zephyr).


Putting single level sleepers on one side of the trans-dorm car would present the single level passengers with the prospect of climbing the stairs and going through the trans-dorm multiple times to the diner and lounger car on a longer trip. Won't be popular with those with bad knees and problems taking the stairs. Also would not be popular with the crews because people will be trampling through the trans-dorm at all hours. The through-car plan for the Capitol Limited is more palatable because it is less than a 10 hour trip between PGH and CHI. The train departs PGH late at night, arrives CHI mid-morning after breakfast.

Running combined trains with Superliners and single level cars could present an issue with the US DOT level boarding requirement. If stations between PGH and CHI eventually get a high level mini-platform, they might have to do 2 stops at the stations (with backup moves?) to disembark people with a combined CL. Even more challenging with a mixed CZ or SWC.

Amtrak is not flush with trans-dorms either. Adding Viewliner sleepers to the two day western trains will make those trains very dependent on having a trans-dorm available.

The more acceptable option to free up Superliners could be to convert CONO to all single level for an "interim" period. I put quotation marks around "interim" because it could be 5 years or more before enough Superliner I replacements are available. But with 25 new baggage-dorms and diners available, converting the CONO would stretch the fleet and might prevent a daily Cardinal if the daily option became available.

Th ideal plan would be to use the Pennsylvanian pass-through cars on the CL to demonstrate revenue and ridership demand to then justify a restoration of the Three Rivers in a couple of years when the political environment might be less volatile. What is going on, though, is marked cumulative growth in ridership on the LD trains in the past 5-7? years which looks to continue with increasing capacity issues projected 4-5 years out.

To get part of the single level LD fleet to sufficient capacity for the near to medium term, one approach would be exercise the CAF options to order 2-3 baggage-dorms, 2-3 diner cars, 10-15 sleepers so there would be enough of those types to support a CONO or restoration of a Three Rivers, sleepers on #66/67, peak season expansion to 4 sleepers on the Silvers. Order more baggage cars, whatever number is needed to meet projected use through 2020.

Let's say the total came to 30 cars (3 bag-dorms, 2 diners, 15 sleepers, 10 baggage) ordered from the option. The per unit price on the 130 car order is $2.3 million, but there may be a price bump on the options to cover inflation, small order size overhead. If the option works out $2.5 million per unit, 30 additional cars would cost $75 million. Amtrak probably could cover that from the annual capital grant, operating subsidy surplus and ticket revenue.

However, that would not address the problem of enough Amfleet II coach cars and Am II diner cars for a CONO or Three Rivers. Either convert Horizon cars starting in 3+ years, pull the Am IIs from the state supported day trains, or get federal funding or a RRIF loan (or combination of the 2) to put on a follow-on order with CAF for 140-150 LD coach cars and ~30 café/diner-light cars to be delivered starting right at the end of the 130+option cars to have an all single level LD Viewliner fleet. Nice idea, but getting the funding of course will depend a great deal on the outcome of the upcoming elections.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 14, 2012)

Anderson said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > Nathanael said:
> ...


Sorry for not reading everything, but you have so many posts and they are so big I just got overwhelmed after reading the first one.

I think that the CL, TE, and CONO are most in need of capacity increases. Each needs an extra Sleeper.


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## Anderson (Oct 14, 2012)

afigg said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > I can easily envision a situation where Amtrak is basically running single-level sleepers and bilevel coaches on some routes. This was, after all, done between A-day and the introduction of the Superliners on some Western routes, so it's not hard to see happening again...and by the same token, it's probably easier to envision that than Congress coming up with a decisive decision.
> ...


On the one hand, I can't see Amtrak needing gobs and gobs of baggage cars (frankly, I don't even know why they structured the option like they did unless we're all missing something...above and beyond the extant order, you're only likely to need, at most, one bag to every 3-4 sleepers)...but I'll agree that if the Three Rivers comes back and/or we get the Silver Palm extension back (and/or separate cars are needed for FEC services), that wouldn't be unbelievable.

As to the bilevel operation and/or single-level conversion, I do see your point. I'm trying to sort out what is feasible at the moment, considering what is going on with the LD trains.

I agree on the pass-through cars...that would seem to be the objective, at least, as well as relieving some pressure on the LSL.

The "problem" with the daily Cardinal is that the three-times-weekly train is already at capacity much of the time. In all candor, I can't see a daily Cardinal /not/ needing an extra sleeper and coach (since IIRC there's an estimate that you get about a 20% per-train boost in demand with daily service), putting its length on par with the Silver Star or the Crescent.

As to the ridership situation, LD ridership is up 26.93% since 2006 (when ridership bottomed out after the Three Rivers and Sunset East were both cut), and LD ridership has risen every year in that timeframe. Assuming 2% growth per year, we get the following:

FY12: 4.74 million

FY13: 4.83 million

FY14: 4.93 million

FY15: 5.03 million

FY16: 5.13 million

...and so on. Frankly, I'm not confident that the LD trains as currently composed can take more than about 5 million riders and change without either triggering either a nasty situation in the summer or adding more cars from...well, somewhere. Sliding a few Horizons in to stretch the fleet a bit further is one thing (and I think a Horizon-Viewliner CONO is actually a plausible option, too, for what it's worth, and I can see Horizons getting used on the Silvers as well), but that is very much a temporary fix as long as demand keeps marching. Not that the rest of Amtrak isn't running into this problem on a much grander scale, but the LD situation _is_ rather acute at the moment.

On the bright side in all of this, Wilimington _is_ doing that mock-up LD Coach, so a proposed order is probably in the works.


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## afigg (Oct 14, 2012)

Anderson said:


> On the one hand, I can't see Amtrak needing gobs and gobs of baggage cars (frankly, I don't even know why they structured the option like they did unless we're all missing something...above and beyond the extant order, you're only likely to need, at most, one bag to every 3-4 sleepers)...but I'll agree that if the Three Rivers comes back and/or we get the Silver Palm extension back (and/or separate cars are needed for FEC services), that wouldn't be unbelievable.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


The option, which was IIRC for a lot of baggage cars and not many of the other types, was odd. May have been internal politics to make it easier to get the order approved by the board.

To get a handle on the baggage car needs, lets add up how many baggage cars Amtrak uses in normal service that would get the new CAF baggage cars. Using the consist information in the FAQs, I get the following number of baggage cars for the Superliner LD trains based on the number of consists:

CZ (6), CL (3), Coast Starlight (4), EB (5, temporarily 6 sets; coach-baggage PDX section), SWC (5), SL (3)

CONO (0), Texas Eagle (0) get Superliner coach baggage cars but given the ridership growth on the TE and the photo posted here of luggage blocking a coach car door, maybe it will need a full baggage car in the future.

For the eastern LD trains with sleepers, the baggage car will be replaced by a baggage-dorm, so I'll ignore those. But the LSL runs with 2 baggage cars, one for NYP, one for BOS. Figure the NYP section gets the baggage-dorm, the Boston section gets a new baggage car with the crew either using the Viewliner sleeper or only using the bag-dorm between CHI-ALB. So LSL (3).

Eastern day trains with baggage cars:

Carolinian (2), Palmetto (2), #66, #67 (2)

Adding it up, I get 36 baggage cars. Ok, so 55 appears to be sufficient, figuring 80% availability providing 44 units. But, how about special trains for large groups traveling on a Silver train or SWC? Would Amtrak need a reserve of extra baggage cars to cover those occasions?

Possible new near term use of baggage cars:

Adirondack could get a baggage car with a customs facility in Montreal (2)?

Pennsylvanian with pass-through cars to Capitol Limited (3)?

Texas Eagle, CONO (6?)

Longer term or more speculative:

A second Carolinian or WAS-ATL train?

A daytime VA to WAS to BOS Regional with a baggage car to supplement #66, #67?

Daily SL?

Restored [insert name here] western LD train.

So 55 cars appears to be sufficient, but there is a active production line that will be building baggage cars. Buying a few additional baggage cars now should be less expensive than asking for a handful of baggage cars to be built later while building a large run of coach cars. Besides, an unused baggage car could probably be converted in-house to an office or service car later.

As I recall, Jis reported that the plan for the Cardinal is to upgrade it to a baggage-dorm and 2 sleepers. I imagine it would get a full service new diner too. That will ease the sleeper situation and make the Cardinal a fully equipped eastern LD train.

If Amtrak is evaluating a mock-up LD coach, they should also be building a mock-up café/lounge/diner-light car. Then line up $500 million in total funding and put out a RFP for 150 LD coach and 30 food cars. No problem. :lol:


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## Anderson (Oct 15, 2012)

Well, with cafes, Amtrak has been trying to _get rid_ of those, so I don't see them ordering too many of them. Mind you, what I'd like to see (particularly if the NE Regionals get any longer and we start hearing serious chatter of the trains going _over_ 10 cars on a regular basis) would be a return to more cafe-BC or cafe-coach cars for Regionals (since I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing Amtrak get an extra couple of thousand dollars on each run, and since having two of those on a particularly long consist could avoid exceedingly long walks without sacrificing seating space)...but I know Amtrak would prefer to phase out the mixed cars to save an extra floorplan.

By the way, we already have a daytime NPN-BOS train...but I see the point about adding checked baggage service (and per above, some sort of BC+ option would be nice...even BC gets a bit cramped after 6-8 hours). Converting the Twilight Shoreliner to LD wouldn't be a bad touch, either. What seems more likely, tbh, is adding checked baggage service into one or more trains going into NFK.

As to the baggage cars, I agree that there's room to use a few more (a split Cardinal would probably need one; the Silvers might end up needing them for the FEC split as well). What I was criticizing wasn't their presence in the "option pile", but rather that Amtrak got substantially more baggage options than other options.


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## AlanB (Oct 15, 2012)

While I have seen no info on this from Amtrak; I for one have to wonder if the "odd" option for more baggage cars was setup so as to allow Amtrak to be able to restore checked baggage on at least some, if not all, Regional trains. It was mainly a lack of serviceable baggage cars that caused the loss of checked baggage on the NEC.


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## afigg (Oct 15, 2012)

Anderson said:


> Well, with cafes, Amtrak has been trying to _get rid_ of those, so I don't see them ordering too many of them. Mind you, what I'd like to see (particularly if the NE Regionals get any longer and we start hearing serious chatter of the trains going _over_ 10 cars on a regular basis) would be a return to more cafe-BC or cafe-coach cars for Regionals (since I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing Amtrak get an extra couple of thousand dollars on each run, and since having two of those on a particularly long consist could avoid exceedingly long walks without sacrificing seating space)...but I know Amtrak would prefer to phase out the mixed cars to save an extra floorplan.


In the bit about 150 LD coach cars and 30 café/lounge/diner-light cars, I am referring to the LD and possibly the longer range day trains. Nothing to do with Regionals or the eastern shorter range corridor trains which would get Amfleet I replacements.

Amtrak has 120 Amfleet II coach cars and 25 Amfleet II diner cars. Replace those with maybe 150-160 LD coach cars and 30-40 food/lounge/diner-light cars. Provide a better food service option than an Amfleet I café car with an approximate Amfleet II equivalent on the Maple Leaf, Adirondack, Pennsylvanian, maybe the Vermonter and Carolinian.


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## Anderson (Oct 15, 2012)

AlanB said:


> While I have seen no info on this from Amtrak; I for one have to wonder if the "odd" option for more baggage cars was setup so as to allow Amtrak to be able to restore checked baggage on at least some, if not all, Regional trains. It was mainly a lack of serviceable baggage cars that caused the loss of checked baggage on the NEC.


I had wondered about the lack of checked baggage on the NEC, but just assumed that it had sort of always been that way. Adding in that service would be a substantial boon to the LD trains that "hub" off of the NEC...I wouldn't be surprised to see doing that generate another couple of thousand riders for the Silvers, the Cap, and the LSL, in addition to any benefits for the corridor. On the other hand, wouldn't multiple checked baggage stops slow those trains down substantially?

And afigg, I do like that option now that you laid it out. On the one hand, Amtrak would "suddenly" have a batch of spare Yum-Yum Cars to toss about (coaches can easily "vanish" into lengthened trains throughout the system or into proposed additional trains; FSCs are a bit harder to "dispose" of so easily, at least at the same rate unless PA decides to join NY in demanding food service on their trains), but I'm sure that the Amfleet IIs could be tweaked in any of a number of ways to generate a workable set of options (since I suspect that any suggestion of en masse car retirements, regardless of the order sizes, will likely get laughed out of court when it comes to Congress...if push comes to shove, I suspect Amtrak is going to get pressed to keep old cars on standby to deal with peak season issues for quite some time).

The biggest benefit with the new cafes, ideally, would be some more flexibility on the food service front for the longer trains that lack a full diner (though I will say that the cafe fare is noticeably improved since I started riding; the salads, in particular, are pretty decent).


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## jis (Oct 15, 2012)

Anderson said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > While I have seen no info on this from Amtrak; I for one have to wonder if the "odd" option for more baggage cars was setup so as to allow Amtrak to be able to restore checked baggage on at least some, if not all, Regional trains. It was mainly a lack of serviceable baggage cars that caused the loss of checked baggage on the NEC.


I think there is zero chance of *all* Regionals getting checked baggage service. It will kill their schedules comprehensively, and will increase staffing costs. They might create a slect set of slower Regionals with checked baggage service, but just a few each day at best.



> I had wondered about the lack of checked baggage on the NEC, but just assumed that it had sort of always been that way. Adding in that service would be a substantial boon to the LD trains that "hub" off of the NEC...I wouldn't be surprised to see doing that generate another couple of thousand riders for the Silvers, the Cap, and the LSL, in addition to any benefits for the corridor. On the other hand, wouldn't multiple checked baggage stops slow those trains down substantially?


Yes quite seriously one might add. But it should be feasible to create a class of checked baggage Regionals with slower schedule (LD like) than regular Regionals. When you have multiple frequencies per hour there is some flexibility in this sort of thing.



> And afigg, I do like that option now that you laid it out. On the one hand, Amtrak would "suddenly" have a batch of spare Yum-Yum Cars to toss about (coaches can easily "vanish" into lengthened trains throughout the system or into proposed additional trains; FSCs are a bit harder to "dispose" of so easily, at least at the same rate unless PA decides to join NY in demanding food service on their trains), but I'm sure that the Amfleet IIs could be tweaked in any of a number of ways to generate a workable set of options (since I suspect that any suggestion of en masse car retirements, regardless of the order sizes, will likely get laughed out of court when it comes to Congress...if push comes to shove, I suspect Amtrak is going to get pressed to keep old cars on standby to deal with peak season issues for quite some time).


Even though Congress thinks they should micro-manage everything, I don't think Amtrak needs their permission to dispose off cars. They might get yelled at at hearings, which they get no matter what they do, but that would be about it.

The biggest problem at present is keeping the food service cars adequately stocked. This problem is way more serious in medium distance trains than on the NEC, because NEC still has enough commissaries around to do a decent job. But Empire Service trains specially as they grow in length and with no commissary at the other end of the run are getting into serious problems more often than not, simply running out of food half way through the run back to New York. Seems like as soon as a train gets longer than 5 cars this problem starts appearing. We had this problem in spades on the Adirondack this weekend which ran with six cars.

Oh BTW, there was no more packing everyone into two cars to cross the border. four of the five coaches were open and with passengers in them across the border, and both times the border checks took less time than allocated in the timetable.

Also given the political situation around food service, I think at least for the time being Amtrak is not going to go out on a limb and create more food service cars unless someone else wants to pay for them. There really are bigger more serious fish to fry at present. In deed if PA says they want food service they will probably need to contribute to fix up adequate number of cars for their use. Fortunately NY does not face that problem since all Empire Service trains carry a food service car irrespective of whether it provides any food service or not.


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## Agent (Oct 15, 2012)

I was under the impression that Amtrak was getting new baggage cars to replace all or most of the old heritage baggage cars it has now. Has Amtrak ever gotten new baggage cars before?


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## afigg (Oct 15, 2012)

jis said:


> Yes quite seriously one might add. But it should be feasible to create a class of checked baggage Regionals with slower schedule (LD like) than regular Regionals. When you have multiple frequencies per hour there is some flexibility in this sort of thing.


I did a brief random check of the old Amtrak schedules on the Museum of Railway Timetables site. I did not see NEC trains with baggage markers except for the two overnight trains in 1984. In 1978, there were several daily other NEC trains with checked baggage such the Colonial departing BOS at 7:10 AM, the Minute Man departing WAS also at 7:10 AM, and another departing BOS at 11:45 AM. Have to go way back it appears to find "Regionals" class trains with checked baggage besides #66/#67.

Wouldn't the reason for dropping the baggage cars have been primarily because the Heritage baggage cars were limited to 110 mph while the new Amfleets were 125 mph equipment? So only a mere 35 years after the Amfleets were introduced, Amtrak is getting 125 mph capable baggage cars.

I agree it would not make sense to add baggage cars to most Regionals. Only add baggage cars to 1 or 2 daily north and southbound WAS-BOS Regionals with maybe one from/to Norfolk. Pick Regionals that would allow for baggage transfers to/from LD trains at NYP and WAS, so more passengers can check their bags at Providence, NHV, etc and get the bags at their LD train destination w/o going back and picking them up later. As for slowing down the Regionals, #66/67 only offer checked baggage at the major stops on the NEC. The long dwells at WAS and NYP should mean no schedule impact there. Might need to add a little longer dwells at other major stops.

Getting back to my previous post estimating the number of baggage cars in daily use at 36 not counting bagger cars that will be replaced by baggage-dorms, add 4 for NE Regionals, possibly 2 for the Adirondack, and the other possibilities I listed. Wouldn't a Boston to Montreal train be a candidate for checked baggage? Ordering 5 or 10 more baggage from the CAF option to the 55 ordered to have adequate reserve for growth looks like it could be justified, if the money is there.


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## PRR 60 (Oct 15, 2012)

Agent said:


> I was under the impression that Amtrak was getting new baggage cars to replace all or most of the old heritage baggage cars it has now. Has Amtrak ever gotten new baggage cars before?


No. All Amtrak's existing baggage cars are heritage cars obtained in 1971 from the railroads that joined Amtrak. Not all were baggage cars. Some were coaches that were subsequently converted to baggage cars by Amtrak. These Viewliners are the first baggage cars purchased by Amtrak. All the existing baggage cars will be retired.


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## jis (Oct 15, 2012)

afigg said:


> Getting back to my previous post estimating the number of baggage cars in daily use at 36 not counting bagger cars that will be replaced by baggage-dorms, add 4 for NE Regionals, possibly 2 for the Adirondack, and the other possibilities I listed. Wouldn't a Boston to Montreal train be a candidate for checked baggage? Ordering 5 or 10 more baggage from the CAF option to the 55 ordered to have adequate reserve for growth looks like it could be justified, if the money is there.


For the purposes of this discussion, which I presume is grounded in reality, I would not worry about the Boston - Montreal train for the time being. Just keeping the one train alive and adding the second one by extending the Vermonter should keep us thoroughly occupied for the time horizon covered by this set of baggage cars. I can see Boston to Montreal materializing as a Boston Springfield section added to the extended Vermonter as a remote likelihood, and that should not require a full baggage car.


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## afigg (Oct 15, 2012)

jis said:


> Even though Congress thinks they should micro-manage everything, I don't think Amtrak needs their permission to dispose off cars. They might get yelled at at hearings, which they get no matter what they do, but that would be about it.
> 
> The biggest problem at present is keeping the food service cars adequately stocked. This problem is way more serious in medium distance trains than on the NEC, because NEC still has enough commissaries around to do a decent job. But Empire Service trains specially as they grow in length and with no commissary at the other end of the run are getting into serious problems more often than not, simply running out of food half way through the run back to New York. Seems like as soon as a train gets longer than 5 cars this problem starts appearing. We had this problem in spades on the Adirondack this weekend which ran with six cars.


In my recent experience, even the café cars on the NE Regionals frequently run out of menu items between WAS and NYP. The Am I café car may leave WAS stocked on a WAS-NYP-BOS run, but if I head to the café car by the time it is pass PHL, often some of the menu items are already sold out. I think the refrigerated storage capacity of the Am I café car is a major factor. I've certainly seen the NE Regional food attendants go off and get boxes of non-perishable items from elsewhere in the car or train to get more napkins, sodas, bags of chips. But not for perishable items. The medium distance trains that can't get restocked 1/2 way through the trip are worse off.

In the July report, food & beverage sales were $100.3 million year to date, $9.7 million over the projected budget. Perhaps the improvements in the menu are leading to more food sales than expected (what? better food = more sales? Go figure.) in combination with the increase ridership with just 1 café car for the 5 to 7 coach cars. The roll-out of electronic point of sale systems should allow for better and more responsive inventory management to more quickly adopt and match supplies to demand for more revenue while cutting costs. Better cost recovery on food & beverage sales would temper or block Chairman Mica's attacks to an extent.

As for a Boston to Montreal train, that would be 4-5? years away at the earliest. Vermont plans talk about a second daily frequency to VT (on the Vermonter route) which, while the plans don't say, could be provided by a separate BOS-MTR train. A split at Springfield to BOS would not provide a second frequency, but agrred, there are a lot of other steps that have to be done first: complete the re-route over the CT river line, extend Vermonter to MTR, CSX may want double track upgrades between SPG and Worcester before allowing a second daily train and so on. Side item I should have left out when attempting to get a handle on whether 55 new baggage cars is enough in the near term.


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## AlanB (Oct 15, 2012)

jis said:


> The biggest problem at present is keeping the food service cars adequately stocked. This problem is way more serious in medium distance trains than on the NEC, because NEC still has enough commissaries around to do a decent job. But Empire Service trains specially as they grow in length and with no commissary at the other end of the run are getting into serious problems more often than not, simply running out of food half way through the run back to New York. Seems like as soon as a train gets longer than 5 cars this problem starts appearing. We had this problem in spades on the Adirondack this weekend which ran with six cars.


Actually as I learned on my recent trip from Toronto back to NY, this is a problem that is easily solved with proper food service management. I was traveling on the busy Labor Day weekend, or to be more correct, 1 day after Labor Day. That means that my train ran to Toronto on Labor Day, a very busy travel day for Amtrak.

Yet on my train, the attendant had requested extra food from the Commissary and it showed. She didn't sell her last pizza until we were south of Albany. She indicated to me that because of the holiday weekend, she was given some latitude in requesting extra food, latitude that she doesn't normally get. On a trip a few years earlier, and not on the heals of a holiday weekend, that cafe attendant had sold out of pizza by Buffalo. I had a breakfast sandwich for dinner, because that was all that was left on that earlier trip.

On this recent trip, I don't think that the first sold out sticker went up until Syracuse. By Albany there were maybe 3 or 4 things sold out. By final closing time after ALB, I'd say about 3/4ths of the true meal items were now sold out. I no longer recall precise counts, but I think she indicated that she had started with 3 times the normal number of pizza's that they're given.

Bottom line is that it is possible to do a better job of stocking these trains. Not sure that you wouldn't still run out of food, and frankly you really do want that to happen anyhow as you pass Albany, such that you don't have to return food to the commissary and worry about it expiring. But it most certainly is possible to stock the trains such that they don't run out of food 10 minutes after they cross the border back into the US.

The issue here seems to be planning in the commissary department. It's almost like they've looked at what gets sold on the trains, and then picked the day where the least amount got sold and used that as the model for every day so as to be certain to avoid any spoilage. IMHO, they need to be far more proactive in varying things to time of year, passenger loads indicated a day or two before departure, etc.

One other thing to consider here too, is the fact that on the Maple Leaf, Amtrak must leave at least 1 freezer and I think 2 fridges open by Niagara Falls for the VIA Rail attendant to use from the border to Toronto. In the case of the Adirondack, there is no such need. So the Adirondack should actually be able to carry even more food.


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## Anderson (Oct 15, 2012)

Huh...I can't help but wonder if they couldn't shake an extra couple of percentage points out of OBS CR with better management. I doubt they could get the cafes close to break-even, but even an improvement of 5% would be substantial. Then again, this might happen on some of the state services, since the states are paying for all OBS expenses and therefore have their own rationale to try and maximize cost recovery (rather than "just" minimizing spoilage).

As to car disposal...while technically you might be right, doing so could screw up future car funding. I can just hear the incredulous comments now: "We gave them money for new cars and they used it as an excuse to get rid of perfectly usable cars...and NOW they're complaining about capacity problems!" With the Heritage cars, you have real operating issues that are impeding the train's speed; likewise, you have the fact that the fleet is quite small. With the Amfleets, however..aren't the Is and IIs pretty much identical when it comes to fundamental mechanics? If so, you've got a fleet of something presumably over 500 cars [642 delivered less any attrition since then], which should be enough to keep a supply of parts coming (as compared with the Heritage cars, which at this point consist of about 20 diners and a miscellaneous mix of baggage and ex-coach baggage cars...less than 100 cars won't cut it, while 500-600 should be enough).

A final thought: Is there any chance that Amtrak will look into any coach-baggage single-level cars? I strongly suspect that on the shorter runs, a full baggage car isn't needed (consider how they're shifting to baggage-dorms on a number of single-level routes; that hints at a lack of baggage space needs), and (as usual) I can't help but see that as workable revenue space for another 30 or so passengers.


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## Eric S (Oct 15, 2012)

Anderson said:


> A final thought: Is there any chance that Amtrak will look into any coach-baggage single-level cars? I strongly suspect that on the shorter runs, a full baggage car isn't needed (consider how they're shifting to baggage-dorms on a number of single-level routes; that hints at a lack of baggage space needs), and (as usual) I can't help but see that as workable revenue space for another 30 or so passengers.


It's been a while since I've looked through the single-level car specs that were developed, but I seem to recall a number of different configurations, including a cab/baggage option, being mentioned.

OK, just quickly googled and found the specs at highspeed-rail.org do mention 3 configurations of single-level cars: coach, cab/baggage, and cafe/lounge.


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## AlanB (Oct 15, 2012)

Anderson said:


> A final thought: Is there any chance that Amtrak will look into any coach-baggage single-level cars? I strongly suspect that on the shorter runs, a full baggage car isn't needed (consider how they're shifting to baggage-dorms on a number of single-level routes; that hints at a lack of baggage space needs), and (as usual) I can't help but see that as workable revenue space for another 30 or so passengers.


The baggage/dorms hint more at the fact that Amtrak needs to get the crew out of revenue space and not so much a lack of baggage. In fact, I have to wonder if the Silver's aren't going to have issues with only half the car available to luggage.

Amtrak is putting in shelving units to these new baggage cars, something that the current cars don't have. Current cars just see the crews forming piles by destination within the car in an effort to get everything in and keep it straight. The hope is that the shelving units will allow them to compensate for the lack of floor space by being able to use more vertical space within the car. This however is untested in real life on Amtrak and it remains to be seen just how well it will work, if it does work at all.

It could well turn out to be a total failure and they could well have problems carrying checked bags on all routes save the Cardinal & the LSL.

Now, that said, it is quite likely that a coach/bag might well work very well on routes like the Adirondack, Carolinian, and others like them.


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## OBS (Oct 15, 2012)

AlanB said:


> The issue here seems to be planning in the commissary department. It's almost like they've looked at what gets sold on the trains, and then picked the day where the least amount got sold and used that as the model for every day so as to be certain to avoid any spoilage. IMHO, they need to be far more proactive in varying things to time of year, passenger loads indicated a day or two before departure, etc.


You are correct that the issue is planning, but the commissary just supplies the food. The quantities are determined by the Amtrak F&B dept. as well as the Train Manager for the train. This is where the lack of oversight arises. Kudos to the LSA who had the foresight to prepare properly for the trip. Unfortunately, you cant rely on all attendants to do this, especially if you have a replacement attendant filling in on a trip.


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## afigg (Oct 15, 2012)

AlanB said:


> The baggage/dorms hint more at the fact that Amtrak needs to get the crew out of revenue space and not so much a lack of baggage. In fact, I have to wonder if the Silver's aren't going to have issues with only half the car available to luggage.
> 
> Amtrak is putting in shelving units to these new baggage cars, something that the current cars don't have. Current cars just see the crews forming piles by destination within the car in an effort to get everything in and keep it straight. The hope is that the shelving units will allow them to compensate for the lack of floor space by being able to use more vertical space within the car. This however is untested in real life on Amtrak and it remains to be seen just how well it will work, if it does work at all.
> 
> ...


How much seasonal variation is there in the amount of checked baggage on the Silvers and the Crescent? I certainly don't know, but I would hope Amtrak managers have the numbers. If there are clear peaks during the holidays and vacation periods, the solution could be to add a full baggage car for just those peak periods if the baggage-dorm does not have enough room.

The PRIIA single level spec includes a cab/baggage car with a ~1/2 baggage, 1/2 coach configuration. Since a cab car is not needed in many medium distance corridors, a coach/baggage car minus the cab would be useful and should have enough baggage and bike rack space for the day trains. Obviously helps to have a 1/2 and 1/2 car generate ticket revenue over a baggage car with no direct revenue except for people paying baggage fees for extra bags. The Carolinian, Palmetto, Adirondack, others, maybe NE Regionals with checked baggage would be a good fit for a coach/baggage car at one end.

If the plans are to order some coach/baggage and cab/baggage/coach cars as part of a large coach car order with the full length baggage cars to be used only on the overnight LD trains, then the order for 55 baggage cars is sufficient to support the LD trains with a reserve for peak periods and restoration of an LD train or two.

Meanwhile, neither the August monthly report nor the 2012 PIP reports have been posted to the Amtrak website. Wonder what is going on with the 2012 round of PIP reports?


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## Nathanael (Oct 15, 2012)

Anderson said:


> In general, I don't advocate switching trains to single-level because of inherent benefits in doing so (though potentially reviving the Crescent-Sunset sleeper to make through-NOL travel more enticing would be one potential benefit). Rather, the reason is nasty practicality: We currently have a Viewliner order and it might be possible to convert some of the baggage options to sleeper options.


I don't think Amtrak will do this because of the current ADA requirements. Any station which is located on a siding (off freight tracks) and is served only by a single-level train might have to be provided with a 48" platform. Any station served also by a double-level train would only have to be provided with 18" platforms.

But perhaps Amtrak will decided that this can be worked around (perhaps every station on the CONO which isn't shared with the Illini/Saluki or Sunset Limited is directly on the freight main).

Unless Amtrak exercises the options, there are no "extra" sleepers for converting the CONO to single level. Nearly all the new sleepers will go directly into beefing up capacity on the existing single-level trains, and if you look at the prices, that's where they *should* go. Some will go for the Pennsylvanian-Capitol Limited through cars. Two will probably go to #66/67. If Amtrak can get agreement, some will go to a daily Cardinal.

Amtrak actually needs all the baggage cars it's ordering, too (believe it or not). They're trying to replace all of the current cars. (I think the 25 Heritage baggage cars being retained are intended for 'overflow' or large group conditions, not for regular use.) The number of baggage cars currently running surprised me when I actually counted it.

And the key thing is: people are taking MORE baggage, not less. The Cardinal may be able to take a bag-dorm *instead* of a full baggage car, but I'm not sure any of the other trains can -- it may be a full baggage car PLUS a bag-dorm. The LSL is going to need a full baggage car on the NY section in *addition* to the bag-dorm, at least during the summer months (and they'll both fill up). The same is probably true of the southern trains, though I haven't ridden them myself and couldn't say for sure.

(The Boston section of the LSL could probably suffice with a bag-dorm instead of a full baggage car. Current procedure appears to be, AFAIK, to use the Boston baggage car for all Chicago-Upstate NY luggage -- three full baggage floats, which I would estimate would be about 2/3 the capacity of a bag-dorm, got off in Syracuse on my most recent trip. Then there were the floats unloaded in Rochester, and the ones unloaded in Buffalo.... Chicago-Upstate NY traffic is practically filling a baggage car by itself. Not sure why people from Boston travel with less luggage than people from NY...)

(Thinking further about baggage cars, I suspect that the bag-dorms will run year-round, with full baggage cars added "as needed" during high usage periods, such as April-August. In February the baggage cars on the LSL run a lot emptier. This will still mean full baggage cars for most months.)

And there's barely enough new diners in the order -- not really enough for an additional train, not while maintaining the desired shop count.

But that's if Amtrak doesn't exercise any options. If Amtrak exercises the *options*, there might be enough sleepers and diners to allow for single-level operation of the CONO. But then you run up against the shortage of Amfleet IIs.

I suppose Amtrak could convert lots of the Horizons or Amfleet Is to long-distance seating in 2015-2016, and then combine them with options on the CAF Viewliner order, to assemble a single-level long-distance train. But by 2015-2016, I'm expecting any additional Viewliners or new long-distance coaches to be sinking right back into the trains which go into NY Penn, which will still need it. Lake Shore Limited demand isn't going down, it's going up, and the schedule changes will only improve that situation.

However, if there is a conversion to single-level equipment, the Capitol Limited is actually a more reasonable case for a conversion than the CONO because it already shares stations with single-level trains at multiple points (Chicago-Cleveland, Pittsburgh, DC) and it's planned to have through-cars for the Pennsylvanian (which will definitely be single-level).


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## Nathanael (Oct 15, 2012)

afigg said:


> The PRIIA single level spec includes a cab/baggage car with a ~1/2 baggage, 1/2 coach configuration. Since a cab car is not needed in many medium distance corridors, a coach/baggage car minus the cab would be useful and should have enough baggage and bike rack space for the day trains.


I suspect Amtrak would go ahead and order the cab/coach/baggage version. Soon the entire single-level fleet will be push-pull ready.

Amtrak

- has a shortage of diesel locomotives

- is getting close to having a shortage of NPCUs

- probably wants to replace the ex-Metroliner cab cars relatively soon. The CAF order will eliminate regular use of most Heritage cars and the Pacific Parlour Car replacement will eliminate the rest, after which the ex-Metroliners will be the oldest cars in regular service.

So there's a lot to be said for getting the cab cars. (And there's your NE Regional baggage solution.) They would probably be deployed on all routes where the locals will allow them to run cab-end first; avoiding wyeing saves trouble.



> Meanwhile, neither the August monthly report nor the 2012 PIP reports have been posted to the Amtrak website. Wonder what is going on with the 2012 round of PIP reports?


Amtrak's reports department first had to catch up on the revision of the monthlies which originally said "unavailable due to a financial system conversion", then had to do the annual report. I'm expecting there's a limited staff for producing reports; it seems like whenever there are a whole bunch of reports to do at once, they get backlogged. I'm not sure whether we'll see the August monthly first or the PIPs first, but I'm sure they're working on both of them.

---

The food business is interesting. I'm hoping that with the deployment of Point-Of-Sale it will become easier for the on-board staff to convince Amtrak that they need to be ordering more food. ("Look at your own records. We sold every single one of the pizzas -- before we reached Buffalo. We need to stock more.")


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 15, 2012)

Right now I think Amtrak's biggest issue is that they don't have enough Sleepers. The shortage of diesels isn't really that big of a problem. I can just point out train after train that has too little Sleepers, turning away pax that don't want to go coach.

So how do we solve this problem?


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## jis (Oct 15, 2012)

afigg said:


> Meanwhile, neither the August monthly report nor the 2012 PIP reports have been posted to the Amtrak website. Wonder what is going on with the 2012 round of PIP reports?


I have heard rumors that the organization that was doing the PIPs has essentially been disbanded. At least the two guys that I knew that were working on PIPs are doing something else now. That is not to say that eventually a PIP or two may not come out, but clearly it is not the highest priority in the broader scheme of things.


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## Anderson (Oct 15, 2012)

jis said:


> afigg said:
> 
> 
> > Meanwhile, neither the August monthly report nor the 2012 PIP reports have been posted to the Amtrak website. Wonder what is going on with the 2012 round of PIP reports?
> ...


*winces*

This...could be a problem, considering that the PIPs were required by PRIIA. That's going to be a nasty whipping boy for Mica et al to raise (if they think to).

As to the August MPR...give it until the end of the week and _then_ I'll say they're late.


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## jis (Oct 15, 2012)

Anderson said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > afigg said:
> ...


I am sure they will produce the requisite one more document that they are required to produce by some point this year. I am not so sure that they will do anything further with it. Afterall it is about trains that are already performing the best of the lot and not really at the risk of anything terrible happening to them.

I do think they will act on the several items from the two previous PIPs that are feasible. Irrespective of who becomes President of the US, I think Amtrak will have a tough time and they are preparing for it carefully. It really is going to be more about corridors and farebox recovery unfortunately. Some LDs that are stitching together of viable corridors will also do well, even in the absence of some of the corridors involved with actual corridor service. The others will carry on without much change.

Until there is much more significant grassroots efforts along the LD routes causing politicians to take notice, i don;t see much happening even with trains overflowing.


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## Anderson (Oct 15, 2012)

I tend to agree, though I can't help but wonder if there aren't some things that could be done on even the "best of the best" trains to improve overall farebox recovery. I know there have been proposals on both the SWC and EB to add cars, etc., and the CONO is going to get at least _some_ attention due to the sleeper situation. To put it another way, even a reduction in losses of $5 million through ramped-up revenue net of added expenses is still $5 million that Amtrak could put towards new cars, and another couple of percent of CR can take some more heat off of Amtrak. Properly executed, these PIPs in particular can probably lay out the best case for a Superliner III order, since it is quite probable that at _least_ three of the five trains in question could take extra cars (and I can actually see a report coming out suggesting demand for extra cars on all three services).

Likewise, I _am_ prepared to speculate that there might be some room to negotiate with CA, OR, and WA regarding doing something about the Starlight (and/or the "Sparks Cars" initiative), especially with the Daylight coming into the mix. I don't know _what_, but there seems to be some room for state support for improvements there. Similarly, there's definitely room for partial corridor operations (in the vein of the MSP cars on the Builder and/or the STL cars on the Eagle) getting bulked up on the SWC and EB (in particular...CHI-MSP might well merit a substantial "drop consist" of multiple coaches, while I could see adding the same thing to the SWC being a viable option), and potentially on the CS as well.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 16, 2012)

As far as sections of LDs with lots of SD pax, I'd point out the following:

CHI-MSP

CHI-OMA-DEN

RNO-EMY

OAK-LAX

LAX-TUC

DAL-SAS

SAS-HOU

CHI-MEM

CHI-IND-CIN

JAX-ORL-MIA

CHI-TOL-CLE

So yeah, AFAIK, plenty of room for "drop consists."


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## Anderson (Oct 16, 2012)

JAX-ORL-MIA is going to be interesting going forward due to FEC's projects, but the Star being extended down the FEC line should be a boon there, while the Coast Daylight is likely to take some pressure off of the Starlight. I'd be curious as to how much demand there is in coach CHI-DEN (versus the sleeper) considering the overnight nature of the run. Ditto CHI-CIN, considering the hours, though a daily Cardinal probably isn't the best option for dropping cars because of the business a daily train could generate CVS-NYP as well. CIN-CVS just isn't a long enough "gap" to justify such a move.

I suspect that the rub of several of those routes is that you could reasonably expect to fill a second train (at _least_ seasonally, and often for most of the year), if not more (Reno could probably fill a second train year-round and a third at peak season; there might well be a market for a dedicated DEN-CHI train, particularly if it could be routed CHI-Quad Cities-DSM-OMA). While it was a one-off, thinking about it now the _massive_ CONO running CHI-MEM last Thanksgiving seems like it might have been Amtrak "dropping a hint" at a workable market (particularly as Memphis makes up about 28% of the CONO's traffic (and indeed close to 100 passengers/train and over 180/day) despite _lousy_ times.


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## afigg (Oct 16, 2012)

jis said:


> I am sure they will produce the requisite one more document that they are required to produce by some point this year. I am not so sure that they will do anything further with it. Afterall it is about trains that are already performing the best of the lot and not really at the risk of anything terrible happening to them.
> 
> I do think they will act on the several items from the two previous PIPs that are feasible. Irrespective of who becomes President of the US, I think Amtrak will have a tough time and they are preparing for it carefully. It really is going to be more about corridors and farebox recovery unfortunately. Some LDs that are stitching together of viable corridors will also do well, even in the absence of some of the corridors involved with actual corridor service. The others will carry on without much change.
> 
> Until there is much more significant grassroots efforts along the LD routes causing politicians to take notice, i don;t see much happening even with trains overflowing.


With regards to the PIP reports, Amtrak should have a standing strategic planning or management group that periodically evaluates the individual LD and corridor services for improvements without Congress requiring Amtrak to write reports with recommendations and send them to Congress. Just good business practice, whether Amtrak does that or not. Even the best performing LD trains will have proposed schedule changes, equipment allocation adjustments, station upgrades, low hanging fruit changes that can be written up in a report and then implemented.

On the federal funding front, what is under pressure is the annual operating subsidy which was $466 million in FY12. That is what gets attacked, while the current levels of capital grant funding looks to be more secure. The July monthly report summarizes the appropriations that were passed by the House and Senate Appropriation Committees, so these funding amounts have cleared a major hurdle, even with a hostile fraction in the House. The appropriations process is getting jammed up in the end of year fiscal cliff and expiring Bush tax cuts food fight, but the numbers are not bad for Amtrak in either bill.

Senate Appropriations for Amtrak:



> The Senate Appropriations Committee on April 19 approved S.2322, Fiscal 2013 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations. It includes 1.450 billion for Amtrak, of which $400 million is for operations and $1.050 billion for capital. Of the capital amount, $20 million is for the Northeast Corridor Gateway program and up to $271 million is available for debt service.


House Appropriations:



> The House Appropriations Committee on June 20 approved H.R.5972, Fiscal 2013 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations. It includes $1.802 billion for Amtrak, of which $350 million is for operations, $952 million for capital, and $500 million for state-of-good repair infrastructure projects on segments owned by Amtrak or states. Of the capital amount, $50 million is for the ADA program and up to $271 million is available for debt service. Of the state-of-good repair funds, $80 million can go to Amtrak operations with DOT approval.


Yes, the House committee has $1.8 billion total for Amtrak. The cut is in the operating subsidy. The $500 million the House inserted for state-of-good repair (SOGR) funds is in place of the $500 million the Senate has for FY13 TIGER grants. If Obama wins and there is a more favorable atmosphere for transit spending in the next House, they could compromise with $500 million for SOGR for Amtrak and $500 million for TIGER grants, while using the higher Senate amount for capital grant.

if Amtrak were to get $500 million for SOGR, they could use that for the NEC, including the Portal Bridge replacement. That would allow Amtrak to then use some of the capital grant as down payments on an order for new rolling stock for the LD trains, such as Amfleet II replacements from CAF.

The odd thing about the $271 million in debt service is that Amtrak requested $212 million in debt service for FY13 because of the Treasury payments that are reducing the debt by exercising Early Buyout Options on Warrington era leases. Ok, so if there is $59 million leftover for debt payments, use that for new loan debt.


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## Anderson (Oct 16, 2012)

$59 million in debt service, using a mortgage payment model rather than a bond payment model, would allow for about 8-8.5x leverage on a ten-year loan. Or, about $450-500 million. Interesting options there...


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## CHamilton (Oct 22, 2012)

Sigh. Atlantic Cities has a good overview of Amtrak's increasing ridership at

Why Amtrak Keeps Breaking Ridership Records and Will Continue To Do So

but throws in this:



> The real drain on taxpayers is Amtrak's long-distance routes. Ridership may be up 4.7 percent on those services for the year, but the projected loss comes out to more than $111 per rider. If there's a substantive discussion to be had about the future of Amtrak, it's about the viability of these long-distance services, which unlike many local transit routes that lose money don't seem particularly necessary as a public service.


Amtrak is, of course, a very different animal in the NEC and the other corridors than it is in its long-distance services. But it's a shame that in an article filled with numbers, the author doesn't back up that last statement at all, even though he admits that "the missing context here is that intercity railroads universally require government contributions for capital expenses if they're going to run at all."


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## VentureForth (Oct 22, 2012)

CHamilton said:


> Sigh. Atlantic Cities has a good overview of Amtrak's increasing ridership at
> 
> Why Amtrak Keeps Breaking Ridership Records and Will Continue To Do So
> 
> ...


It's an easy solution. Raise the ticket prices on all first class & sleepers by $100 and that'll make up the difference.


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## Ryan (Oct 22, 2012)

If you assume that demand is perfectly inelastic (which it isn't) and that everyone riding a LD train does so in a sleeper (they don't).


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## VentureForth (Oct 22, 2012)

No. If I wanted to tax distribute the cost to everyone, then it would be about $44 per ticket. But those who travel in sleeper and first can certainly afford to pay $100 more to subsidize those travelling in coach, right?


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## Ryan (Oct 22, 2012)

Maybe then can, maybe they can't. Even if they can, maybe they'll choose not to.

Where are you getting the $44 figure from, and why do you think that $100 per sleeper and first class would generate enough to cover the gap?


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## VentureForth (Oct 22, 2012)

1.4 billion in federal subsidy divided by 31.2 million riders = $44.87 per ticket subsidized.

I don't know that $100 would FILL the gap. Let's make it $150. First class riders MUST pay their fair fare.


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## Anderson (Oct 22, 2012)

So, I checked some numbers to check out a hunch. As I think we figured might be the case, it would seem that the massive growth on the Eagle was mostly down to CHI-STL (versus other LDs), as I suspected. From what I can tell based just on the 2012 ridership report, about half of the ridership growth year over year was CHI-STL; ridership on that section grew by somewhere around 32% versus 12.8% growth for the train as a whole of 12.8% (and non-IL growth of roughly 8.6%). This would explain the PPR dip this year...intrastate traffic in IL added substantial share on the train (23% vs. about 19.7% last year), adding about 25 more passengers per train (it was 106.5/train, which is more than a Superliner can hold). Mind you, the 2011 numbers are approximate and based off of the percentage increases indicated in the end-of-year announcement, but that is still a lot of riders.

It will be interesting to see what time savings do on this front over the next few years...Amtrak might need to add another car or two to the CHI-STL section in coming years to cope with demand there. This might actually do wonders for the TE's CR figures: If the demand continues to rise, another two cars on that section could easily pump a few million into the operating side here, not to mention buffing the performance of the cafe and diner. Assuming a 10% premium on the Lincoln Service's fares over the same stretch, 100/day (73,000/year) with PPR of $25 would come to $1.82m/year. At PPR of $30 (granted, a steep premium over average Lincoln fares), it would be $2.19m/year for very little added operating cost (since I don't think these cars need a coach attendant).


```
2011	2012
CHI-STL Lincoln	549465	597519
CHI-STL Total	608373	675295	(2011 Approx)
CHI-STL Eagle	 58908	 77776	(2011 Approx
Eagle Growth		 38465	(+32%)
Of which in IL		 18868	Approx
Of which non-IL		 19597	Approx

Eagle Total	299508	337973	+12.8%
Eagle non-IL	239600	260197	+8.6%	
Eagle IL Share	19.69%	23.01%	+3.32%
Eagle non-IL	80.00%	76.99%	-3.01%
```


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## Ryan (Oct 22, 2012)

VentureForth said:


> 1.4 billion in federal subsidy divided by 31.2 million riders = $44.87 per ticket subsidized.
> 
> I don't know that $100 would FILL the gap. Let's make it $150. First class riders MUST pay their fair fare.


And what exactly do you think that would do to demand?


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 22, 2012)

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,2743486

IF these figure are accurate or even believable I get :

455,000 sleeping passengers (2011) times $50 per sleeping car passenger equals $22,750,000 million in added revenue

http://www.examiner.com/article/amtrak-to-receive-new-cars-2012

$298,000, 000 million new car contract divided by 130 new cars equals approximately $2,292,000 million per car

Yea, they are not all the same exact types of cars, but a "CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT FEE" added to the sleeping car ticket would help pay for about (10) cars per year of the approximately (26) per year being built.

Now you have TWO options:

Raise sleeper car prices to help pay for SOME of the new car costs OR

Do nothing, **** and moan, ask for more money from Uncle Sam and then watch as LD segments are curtailed or disappear due to budget cuts.

I asked people at meal time on my last LD trip LAX-WAS-LAX about their experiences and whether they (SLEEPING CAR PASSENGERS) would accept a capitol improvement fee of $50-$100 per passenger if it was to be used ONLY for the purchase of new sleeper, dining and coach cars and about 7 out of 10 said yes. Yes, this was a small scientific sample, bit I feel the support is there. Some would not return but as ridership history continues to increase, we would pick up new sleeper customers as others depart.

Sleeper passengers for the most part go that way because they can afford it. They are not stupid people. Most of them know what it would cost them to fly or drive. My only caveat (for me personally) is the CIF can ONLY be used for new car purchases.

Hey, people have watched their ice cream go from a gallon to 1.5 gals, their cereal go to smaller size boxes, their candy bar sizes decrease, all the while the price stayed the same or actually increased. I haven't seen them going into the streets with torches threatening to burn the comapnies down.

Here the price may increase for the sleeper, but you are ACTUALLY getting something of value in return instead of a smaller ice cream container.

NAVYBLUE


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## Anderson (Oct 22, 2012)

VentureForth said:


> 1.4 billion in federal subsidy divided by 31.2 million riders = $44.87 per ticket subsidized.
> 
> I don't know that $100 would FILL the gap. Let's make it $150. First class riders MUST pay their fair fare.


I don't have Acela First numbers, but on the sleeper front, the ridership was 671,056 in FY10. That fell by 1.1% in FY12 (to 663,947), but most of that was down to the Builder/Zephyr/etc. issues, but it was back up signifficantly in FY12, esp. on the Builder and CONO.. So, assuming a $150 bump in PPR on that front (which would be about a 60% jump), you'd raise $99.6 million _if you could get that sort of jump to stick_. Mind you, that's about 25-30% of the operating loss right there, but it won't come anywhere _near_ paying for the capital stuff. You just don't have the volume at

One interesting question would be, on some of the heavier corridors, could you make a worthwhile "upsale" class beyond BC as we generally know it and pitch that? For example, assuming a "something, anything, just get me a g-d track!" link over the mountains and the likely connected spike in ridership on the San Joaquin that not having to deal with the buses would likely bring, would you have enough folks on those trains to make something like Acela First (in terms of quality and the included meal) worthwhile attempting? Could you get the PPR in such a class to be sufficient to pay for the extra space such seats take up in a car, for the cost of added services, _and_ for some cross-subsidy of coach? I suspect I may end up asking the same question about the Coast Daylight (especially as the number of trains on that corridor is likely to remain restricted for quite some time), but I'd also look at the Carolinian and so forth as well.

Same song, different chorus would be whether on some of the longer corridor trains, expanding BC and/or hiking the accommodation charges (or even "bucketing" those charges in 2-4 tiers) would make sense. BC on some of the 2-1 trains has a habit of selling out; a second BC car (or even a full 2-1 BC car with the cafe either being left as-is or with a "normal" cafe/diner-lite being put on) might be in order.

Finally, I would wonder if there might not be a logic to, again on some of those packed corridors, trying to work in an "A Train" (i.e. one that, while making most or all stops, has upgrades and so forth) alongside the corridor at a peak time. The analogy from the past would be the Amtrak Merchants Limited in the earlier years; I consider that a general example, not an absolute in terms of amenities, but it's an example of a "better" train to go alongside the "regular" trains.


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## Ryan (Oct 22, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> Do nothing, **** and moan, ask for more money from Uncle Sam and then watch as LD segments are curtailed or disappear due to budget cuts.


Actually, since revenue is increasing, Amtrak is asking for less money from the government.


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## Paulus (Oct 22, 2012)

CHamilton said:


> Sigh. Atlantic Cities has a good overview of Amtrak's increasing ridership at
> 
> Why Amtrak Keeps Breaking Ridership Records and Will Continue To Do So
> 
> ...


It's not a terribly hard statement to back up. The long distance trains don't serve a transit function that cannot be better served, for cheaper, by subsidizing bus service from said communities to airports (with or without EAS funded service). It's not like those in sleeper or even coach can't afford airfare on those long distance hops.


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 22, 2012)

Ryan said:


> NAVYBLUE said:
> 
> 
> > Do nothing, **** and moan, ask for more money from Uncle Sam and then watch as LD segments are curtailed or disappear due to budget cuts.
> ...


Yes, that is true, but let;s get "back" to talking about trains like everyone seems to want to do and not about the government subsidies.

Do you agree or disagree with my premise to add a CIF to sleeper fees ?

NAVYBLUE


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## Anderson (Oct 22, 2012)

Paulus said:


> CHamilton said:
> 
> 
> > Sigh. Atlantic Cities has a good overview of Amtrak's increasing ridership at
> ...


The question isn't whether folks can afford the trip. The question is whether they'll _take_ the trip if forced to an alternative.

Speaking for myself, if I have to go through that horsecrap dance at the airports and deal with over-packed planes every time I go on a long-distance trip, I just stop taking casual long-distance trips and I drive to Florida once in a while. I know I'm not alone on this front. No, I won't take a bus (unless you can convince me that it's a full-on sleeper bus for an overnight trip) instead, and multiple-days-driving trips aren't an option, either...I hate driving. I just won't go, and while I will be exceedingly annoyed by the fact, that won't change my disinclination to travel.

As to the EAS/other subsidy bit, I've raised this before, but restoring a daily train into Denver (there's an old Burlington line on the map that would come close to 3-4 cities getting EAS money...I think it's Denver-Alliance) or Kansas City (or another locale), even as a bad-hour extension of a corridor train but with a switch-out in the cafe attendant at KCY or OMA, would probably run a smaller subsidy than the EAS currently does in a few cases. Likewise, axing the EAS subsidies to the airports in WV and western VA but making the Cardinal daily would likely also be a cost-saving measure (especially if you get a de facto cross-subsidy from increased ridership on the ends of the route). "Cheap" is relative, but from what I've gathered, the core costs of a day train that covers several hundred miles tend to run somewhere around $10-16 million to run: The Blue Water ran $13.9m, the Adirondack lists $12.9m, the Pennsylvanian $16.4m, and the Illini $20.3m for a twice-daily train (or $10.5m/train). That's costs before farebox and OBS revenue come into the mix.

And, as I noted, there are plenty of folks out there who just won't take The Dog. They'll drive 60 miles to a train station or 100 miles to the nearest decent-sized airport or they just won't travel before they'll take a bus. One of the problems with just looking at whether an option is cheaper in nominal terms is that you often ignore the question of "Will anyone use this?", and in a lot of cases the answer is "Only those who absolutely have to." This is why you get those situations surrounding light rail, for example, where the costs are about the same as the local bus system but the ridership is leaps and bounds above the bus system (even though the latter might have more reach): If you build a decent option, people will take it. If you build a POS option, you'll be stuck running mostly-empty buses.

Charlie: That article was written by someone who can't do math. They used on/off figures but didn't have the sense to divide by two to account for the fact that each trip includes an on and an off. The points are solid, but when someone bungles numbers so easily, it makes me cringe.


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## Paulus (Oct 22, 2012)

> "Cheap" is relative, but from what I've gathered, the core costs of a day train that covers several hundred miles tend to run somewhere around $10-16 million to run: The Blue Water ran $13.9m, the Adirondack lists $12.9m, the Pennsylvanian $16.4m, and the Illini $20.3m for a twice-daily train (or $10.5m/train). That's costs before farebox and OBS revenue come into the mix.


The LD routes average out at $63.58 per train-mile to run, might be a useful number for estimates.

I'm not a fan of driving or flying myself, but at the same time, I'm not seeing the point of subsidizing these particular trains to the tune of more than a half billion dollars a year. That's a lot of money, and more importantly equipment, that would be better spent investing in shorter routes and existing corridors. Certainly some trips will not be made, but induced travel that's a money loser isn't a good idea for Amtrak. If we're doing what are basically luxury trips rather than actual essential intercity connectivity, let's price it significantly higher and recover more of the money spent on it.

Now, I'll admit that I might be personally biased since I have absolutely no reason to any of the long distance routes that end up in Los Angeles, but on the other hand, that's for the same reason that the LD routes died off in the first place and aren't terribly well patronized today: Flying or driving is sufficiently faster, more reliable, better timed, and usually cheaper that it outweighs the discomforts of those modes.


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## PRR 60 (Oct 22, 2012)

Anderson said:


> ...
> 
> As to the EAS/other subsidy bit, I've raised this before, but restoring a daily train into Denver (there's an old Burlington line on the map that would come close to 3-4 cities getting EAS money...I think it's Denver-Alliance) or Kansas City (or another locale), even as a bad-hour extension of a corridor train but with a switch-out in the cafe attendant at KCY or OMA, would probably run a smaller subsidy than the EAS currently does in a few cases. Likewise, axing the EAS subsidies to the airports in WV and western VA but making the Cardinal daily would likely also be a cost-saving measure (especially if you get a de facto cross-subsidy from increased ridership on the ends of the route). "Cheap" is relative, but from what I've gathered, the core costs of a day train that covers several hundred miles tend to run somewhere around $10-16 million to run: The Blue Water ran $13.9m, the Adirondack lists $12.9m, the Pennsylvanian $16.4m, and the Illini $20.3m for a twice-daily train (or $10.5m/train). That's costs before farebox and OBS revenue come into the mix.
> 
> ...


I think you are missing the purpose of the Essential Air Services program. The purpose of the EAS grants is not to get people from a rural town to the endpoint city. It is to get people from a rural town to a hub airport where they can seamlessly connect to the mainline air system on a common reservation, including through baggage handling. EAS also requires multiple daily frequencies to allow convenient onward connections. A short EAS flight into DEN allows passengers to simply walk to their next flight inside the terminal with boarding passes in hand. Getting passengers to Denver Union Station after a once-a day, multi-hour train ride, still leaves them miles from Denver International Airport and onward flights, maybe at the wrong time of day, and does nothing for baggage.

I cannot think of a single instance where Amtrak could perform the role of an EAS carrier. Even the single situation where Amtrak is part of a through ticketing arrangement, UA at EWR, the Amtrak segment does not provide checked baggage and Amtrak does not provide the boarding pass for UA. Passengers coming off Amtrak at EWR still have to get a UA boarding pass and check luggage there. The UA/Amtrak arrangement is a codeshare in name only.


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## jis (Oct 22, 2012)

I haven't looked at the actual percentages, but it appears to me that Amtrak has been consistently raising fares a couple of times each year for the last couple of years. Maybe Amtrak is actually collecting the CIF by stealth, without calling it such. At the end of the day no matter what one calls it, it is money out of people's pocket, and AFAICT very few people get impressed because a part of the fare is given a fancy name, and thus show willingness to ignore the fact that the fare is higher. At the end of the the day the elasticity effect is the same. The trick is to figure out when you are at a point where you are milking all that you can get.

AFAICT, so far Amtrak has not explicitly asked for any money for the acquisition of the Viewliners or the ACS-64s, the latter of course being funded substantially through a RRIF loan, presumably to be paid for out of NEC revenue surpluses.


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## Trogdor (Oct 22, 2012)

I find it interesting that someone who has gone out of their way to tell us that they have expertise in economics can ignore the concept of supply and demand, and actually believes that Amtrak could just increase the cost of a ticket by $50-100 (regardless of what a non-scientific dinnertime conversation survey says, and regardless of whether it's called a "fee" or built into the fare) and not have any negative impacts on ridership (and, perhaps, revenue as well).


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## Ryan (Oct 22, 2012)

But he's got data that says that 70% of Amtrak travelers wouldn't mind!

Added in as a "fee" on top of the fare is a terrible idea. That's the kind of chintzy crap that makes people hate airlines.

And as Jis said, it seems as though Amtrak is doing what they can to increase revenue without adding a fancy title and making a big deal about it.


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 22, 2012)

jis said:


> I haven't looked at the actual percentages, but it appears to me that Amtrak has been consistently raising fares a couple of times each year for the last couple of years. Maybe Amtrak is actually collecting the CIF by stealth, without calling it such. At the end of the day no matter what one calls it, it is money out of people's pocket, and AFAICT very few people get impressed because a part of the fare is given a fancy name, and thus show willingness to ignore the fact that the fare is higher. At the end of the the day the elasticity effect is the same. The trick is to figure out when you are at a point where you are milking all that you can get.
> 
> AFAICT, so far Amtrak has not explicitly asked for any money for the acquisition of the Viewliners or the ACS-64s, the latter of course being funded substantially through a RRIF loan, presumably to be paid for out of NEC revenue surpluses.


I am sure AMTRAK has been consistently adjusting fares over the years. As does the airlines, etc. The federal excise tax (7.5%) and TSA fees had remained steady for a long time as the "fares" went up and down at the airlines. It stares you right in the face on the ticket. People kept on flying.

The CIF would be right there on the ticket added on to the rail fare and accommodation fare.

So what is your solution to keep the "SUBSIDY elimination wolves" at bay ?

NAVYBLUE


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## Paulus (Oct 22, 2012)

Trogdor said:


> I find it interesting that someone who has gone out of their way to tell us that they have expertise in economics can ignore the concept of supply and demand, and actually believes that Amtrak could just increase the cost of a ticket by $50-100 (regardless of what a non-scientific dinnertime conversation survey says, and regardless of whether it's called a "fee" or built into the fare) and not have any negative impacts on ridership (and, perhaps, revenue as well).



Price conscious travelers aren't really going to be traveling Amtrak first class in the first place, I'd be willing to bet that you could hike the fares fairly substantially, though the fee nonsense should be disposed of.


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 22, 2012)

Trogdor said:


> I find it interesting that someone who has gone out of their way to tell us that they have expertise in economics can ignore the concept of supply and demand, and actually believes that Amtrak could just increase the cost of a ticket by $50-100 (regardless of what a non-scientific dinnertime conversation survey says, and regardless of whether it's called a "fee" or built into the fare) and not have any negative impacts on ridership (and, perhaps, revenue as well).


Oh, I DO understand supply and demand.

So let me get this straight so I understand. People will pay a Red Cap $10-$20 for baggage transport/early boarding on a (4) segment LD train, $5 for a casino valet, $5-$10 for an airport Red Cap, a Maitre d' $20 for a good table, $25 for a checked airline bag or a $10 tip to a taxi driver that gets you to the station but in mass will quit using AMTRAK over a $50 CIF. I don't think so.

Not included with the fee, but a separate fee added on to the ticket. Don't you think AMTRAK passengers have a vested interest in insuring AMTRAK stays viable in that it is THEIR tax dollars that are going to the subsidies. Don't you think AMTRAK sleeper passengers would be willing to pay a little extra for riding in a brand new sleeper cars that actually have A/Cs, lights and toilets that actually work.

WE will never know until we try. Since the demand is INCREASING, AMTRAK can now afford to try the CIF (capital Improvement fee) fee added to the sleeper fare since they are a smaller portion of the rail service passengers. If AMTRAK has a good tracking system they can could see over a years period if the revenue received compensated for any loss in sleeper ridership.

I would only do CIFs for LD trains that end/originate in Chicago and West PLUS the CL and CARD,

OR, we could just do nothing and put AMTRAK at the mercy of the political winds.

NAVYBLUE


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## Ryan (Oct 22, 2012)

The A/C, lights and toilets have worked in every sleeping car I've been in.

Then again, I've only logged about 24,000 miles on Amtrak, so what do I know?

And still, people hate fees. Maximize revenue by adjusting fares (like it appears they are doing) and using that money to reduce their need for federal subsidy as much as possible.

Go read the Fleet Strategy Plan - you're not going to see a new order for Superliner Sleepers for many, many years. Why would Amtrak charge a fee for cars that they don't intend to order?


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## afigg (Oct 22, 2012)

Ryan said:


> Go read the Fleet Strategy Plan - you're not going to see a new order for Superliner Sleepers for many, many years. Why would Amtrak charge a fee for cars that they don't intend to order?


The v3.1 Fleet Strategy Plan calls for delivery of Superliner replacements to begin in FY2018. Which means the order would have to be placed by FY2016 or so. I expect the FY2018 date will slide, but I would not describe FY2018 as many, many years away.

On the idea of higher pricing and fees for sleeper passengers, what do people proposing this think Amtrak has been doing the past several years? Amtrak is already using an aggressive pricing to maximize LD revenue because of the high demand and limited capacity.


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## Eric S (Oct 22, 2012)

Ryan said:


> *Maximize revenue by adjusting fares (like it appears they are doing) and using that money to reduce their need for federal subsidy as much as possible.*


This.


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## AlanB (Oct 22, 2012)

VentureForth said:


> No. If I wanted to tax distribute the cost to everyone, then it would be about $44 per ticket. But those who travel in sleeper and first can certainly afford to pay $100 more to subsidize those travelling in coach, right?


As a NARP analysis from several years ago, prior the large spike in sleeper prices 3 or 4 years ago and the new revenue management going on, sleeping car passengers already do help subsidize coach passengers. Without sleeper revenues, coach passengers are subsidized at a rate of $0.01888 per passenger mile. Throw sleeper passengers & their revenue into the mix and the combined subsidy for both is $0.01870 per passenger mile.

Note, this is the subsidy for the coach/rail fare portion of the trip. The same study showed that sleeper pax cover all their above the rails costs for both the sleepers & their portion of the use of the dining cars.

Full NARP Report


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## Ryan (Oct 22, 2012)

afigg said:


> Ryan said:
> 
> 
> > Go read the Fleet Strategy Plan - you're not going to see a new order for Superliner Sleepers for many, many years. Why would Amtrak charge a fee for cars that they don't intend to order?
> ...


That's really semantics. It's far enough into the future that it isn't going to happen on the watch of the next President we elect, and we're going to elect 2 Congresses before that point. There's a lot that can change in ~5 years.


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## Trogdor (Oct 22, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> So let me get this straight so I understand. People will pay a Red Cap $10-$20 for baggage transport/early boarding on a (4) segment LD train,


Some people will. Most folks who use red caps actually need them because of mobility limitations. Still, it comes nowhere close to the total number of passengers who ride LD trains in sleepers. Take a look at the Chicago Metropolitan Lounge when they announce the boarding of a sleeper train. Those who wish for Red Cap assistance meet at the front, those who can walk out on their own head to the back to go directly to the train. By far, more people are at the back of the lounge than the front.



> $5 for a casino valet


What do Casinos have to do with anything?



> $5-$10 for an airport Red Cap,


I'd wager that far fewer airline passengers use red caps (or the airport equivalent, whatever they're called these days) than Amtrak LD sleeper passengers.



> a Maitre d' $20 for a good table,


Don't know what that has to do with Amtrak.



> $25 for a checked airline bag


Some do, many folks either 1) don't check bags and (try to) carry everything on, 2) have status with the airline that waives bag fees, or 3) just say screw it and fly Southwest, which doesn't charge for bags.



> or a $10 tip to a taxi driver that gets you to the station


Maybe. I've never tipped a cab driver that much. I have bought Amtrak sleeper tickets.



> but in mass will quit using AMTRAK over a $50 CIF. I don't think so.


It's a fare increase. If Amtrak felt they could increase fares by $50 (and, in some cases, they have, or by a lot more) and not suffer a net drop in revenue as a result, then presumably they'd do so. What Amtrak should be doing is charging the revenue-maximizing price (which, you being an expert on economics, I won't explain because you already know what that is). It just so happens that, for most Amtrak services, the revenue-maximizing price still does not yield enough total revenue to cover the total cost of operation.



> Not included with the fee, but a separate fee added on to the ticket. Don't you think AMTRAK passengers have a vested interest in insuring AMTRAK stays viable in that it is THEIR tax dollars that are going to the subsidies.


They certainly do. But if the service could pay for itself, then, presumably, it already would. Yes it is "their" tax dollars (along with the tax dollars of millions of others, whether or not those others ride), but if the service could take in more revenue than it cost to provide, it wouldn't need tax dollars in the first place.

Hell, maybe we should just tack on a "subsidy fee" to every ticket and eliminate the subsidy. Such genius!

Should airlines charge a "new airplane fee" to cover the cost of equipment purchases? Again, if Amtrak can increase the ticket price by $50, and not have any negative impacts from doing so, they should. But at some point, you price yourself out of a market.

A baggage fee is only assessed on those who check bags. Those who travel in sleepers already have a fee assessed on them. It's called the accommodation charge.



> Don't you think AMTRAK sleeper passengers would be willing to pay a little extra for riding in a brand new sleeper cars that actually have A/Cs, lights and toilets that actually work.


A few points:

1) The mechanical condition of the equipment isn't only dependent on its age.

2) "Paying a little extra" only works if you have something extra to give them. The numbers that you cited were for system-wide sleeper ridership. How would you justify charging a fee for someone "for riding in brand new sleeper cars" and then have them board one of the Superliner IIs that hasn't been touched since it was delivered (I won't use an unrefurbished Superliner I as an example, because the last of those cars, if not already done, is due to go to Beech Grove very soon)? It wouldn't make sense to charge such a fee on the Sunset Limited so that passengers on the Lake Shore can ride in new equipment. If anything, it would be a greater source of contention and complaint that passengers are given a line-item fee specifically for better equipment if they don't see any of that equipment.

3) You could limit the fees just to those routes that get the better equipment. Only, you're several years too late with that idea. Amtrak has already done that. One of the justifications for not switching the Empire Builder to SDS was that they could get higher total ticket revenue from offering the better service (and refurbished equipment) and charging more for it. Except, they didn't call it a CIF or any nonsense like that. They called it the ticket price.



> WE will never know until we try. Since the demand is INCREASING, AMTRAK can now afford to try the CIF (capital Improvement fee) fee added to the sleeper fare since they are a smaller portion of the rail service passengers. If AMTRAK has a good tracking system they can could see over a years period if the revenue received compensated for any loss in sleeper ridership.


Since demand has been increasing, Amtrak has been increasing fares. So, they're already doing what you're suggesting, but without the smoke and mirrors fee nonsense.



> I would only do CIFs for LD trains that end/originate in Chicago and West PLUS the CL and CARD,


Why randomly only do fees for those trains?



> OR, we could just do nothing and put AMTRAK at the mercy of the political winds.


I didn't realize the only two choices (presented as a dichotomy) are a CIF or do nothing.

Amtrak has always been and will always be at the mercy of the political winds. Why? Because it receives subsidies. Why? Because the cost of providing the service exceeds the revenue gained from those paying for it. If that wasn't the case, Amtrak wouldn't need to exist.

Yet you believe that somehow the magical fee fairy is going to come down and wave her magic wand and turn all of Amtrak's losses around just by charging passengers more, not by raising fares, but by calling it a "fee."


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## Trogdor (Oct 22, 2012)

Paulus said:


> Trogdor said:
> 
> 
> > I find it interesting that someone who has gone out of their way to tell us that they have expertise in economics can ignore the concept of supply and demand, and actually believes that Amtrak could just increase the cost of a ticket by $50-100 (regardless of what a non-scientific dinnertime conversation survey says, and regardless of whether it's called a "fee" or built into the fare) and not have any negative impacts on ridership (and, perhaps, revenue as well).
> ...


Everybody is "price conscious" to some extent or another. It's just a matter of what their limit is.

There are folks (including many on this very forum) who will book a sleeper if it's selling for low bucket, but choose not to travel (or go coach) if it's selling in a higher bucket.

If sleeper passengers weren't price conscious, then Amtrak would never have any reason to sell anything other than the S bucket rate.


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## Eric S (Oct 22, 2012)

As others have noted, Amtrak seems to be regularly adjusting (generally increasing) fares, at least for the last few years, presumably in an attempt to reach the fare levels where revenues are maximized. In light of the focus on Amtrak's annual federal support, continuing to increase fares to the extent Amtrak can while still increasing revenues would seem like a prudent course of action. However, imposing a blanket $50-100 fee would seem particularly unwise. Perhaps some fares could be increased $50-100 without hurting ridership enough that revenues actually fall, but in other cases that most certainly would not be the case.


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## Anderson (Oct 22, 2012)

Ok, let's talk about PPR changes on the LD. The Texas Eagle notwithstanding (primarily due to a massive jump in ridership within IL), all LD trains have seen a substantial rise in PPR. Between FY10 and FY12, PPR rose by:

11.94% on the Empire Builder

11.52% on the Crescent

9.93% on the Auto Train

9.21% on the California Zephyr

9.13% on the City of New Orleans

8.79% on the Silver Star

8.75% on the Cardinal

7.86% on the Palmetto

7.52% on the Lake Shore Limited

6.69% on the Coast Starlight

6.38% on the Capitol Limited

5.89% on the Silver Meteor

5.33% on the Sunset Limited

2.34% on the Southwest Chief

The Eagle's PPR slipped by 1.66%, but again...the intrastate ridership within IL played a major role here.

One other point: A $50 or $100 or whatever hike in fares would play hell with shorter-distance trips or trips on emptier routes where Amtrak is occasionally trying to fill rooms/seats. In practical terms, such a jump would likely instead play out as a percentage jump...so, for example, you'd get a $30 jump on a roomette RVR-NYP (which is basically gravy for Amtrak since they've already sold that room elsewhere along the line) but a $200 jump on one ORL-NYP and an even bigger one on the Builder.

I'm not sure what this would do to ridership, but I would point out that when you look at the LD ridership under Warrington, the following happened:

-PPR rose sharply year over year

-Ridership slid year over year

-Revenue was flat, only rising and falling minimally in spite of the revenue increases.


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## Ryan (Oct 22, 2012)

Anderson said:


> I'm not sure what this would do to ridership, but I would point out that when you look at the LD ridership under Warrington, the following happened:
> 
> -PPR rose sharply year over year
> 
> ...


Excellent point.

Contrast that with this year, where Ridership and PPR are both increasing. Amtrak is increasing fares in a well thought out way in order to maximize revenue. Something that a flat fee or surcharge on every reservation is incapable of doing.


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 22, 2012)

Ryan said:


> The A/C, lights and toilets have worked in every sleeping car I've been in.
> 
> Then again, I've only logged about 24,000 miles on Amtrak, so what do I know?
> 
> ...


http://www.examiner....e-new-cars-2012 "Amtrak to receive new cars in 2012"

OK, unless this article is wrong, AMTRAK will start to receive new cars in 2012. I don't know AMTRAK's financial plan, but the CIF could help pay for the new cars OR put the money back into the fund it comes from. The rail fares I believe are being used as operating funds to pay the daily bills. The CIF would be used to supplement/reimburse the capital funds used for new purchases to replace older cars.

I went from LAX-WAS-LAX and they worked so well when I wrote AMTRAK about what didn't work properly on every train segment they sent me a $500 voucher. Was it horrible and unbearable ? No. Was it less than I expected for $2,000 round trip. Yes. I do not have the rose colored glasses of a "rail fan". I am a rail enthusiast. I expect the facilities to operate as well as an airplane. I understand the cars are older than airplanes being used. That is not my problem, but I believe my plan could help the situation. Notice my CIF is for sleepers only which I feel are more able to pay the fee. Or we could just do nothing and take our chances with the political winds however they blow.

Therefore I am willing to pay a CIF to have better cars for EVERYONE. I talk the talk and walk the walk. Increased fares will never cover the subsidy.

NAVYBLUE


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## Trogdor (Oct 22, 2012)

This is seriously going in circles. But, as has been said numerous times:

A CIF is equivalent to a fare increase. Amtrak has been raising fares quite a bit in recent years. Further, as the presence of fare buckets shows, passengers are more price-sensitive to changes of $50-$100 than folks on here seem to want to believe.

And once again you give us the dichotomy of CIF or "do nothing," ignoring the obvious third option, which is what Amtrak has been doing, which is to manage revenues through fare changes and bucket allocation to maximize total revenue given the nature of the market.


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 22, 2012)

OK, there are so many questions about my CIF statements I'll try to cover everyone's replies en mass instead of individually.

1. For whomever asked whats does "x" have to do with AMTRAK ? Answer. Nothing. It has to do with "consumerism". I want everyone to pull out your water, electric, natural gas, cell phone service, garbage pickup, land line phone, cable, satellite, car maintenance, etc bills. Look at all those "fees" above and beyond the BASIC charge for the service. They are trying to recapture their capital improvement costs. Why shouldn't AMTRAK ?You probably pay $500-$1000 a year in extra fees. Not a peep. You still keep using those services. There are right there staring you in the face. Plus you have the tips to other services/goods in kind you receive daily throughout the year. And then you act like a $50 CIF is like taking your first born from you.

2. Some one asked about the CIF on a short run portion of a LD as a sleeper passenger. Never thought about that. I don't think they should levy the $50 CIF on any sleeper run costing less $500.

3, Yes I do understand AMTRAK is using revenue maximizing but that money is going towards daily operating costs. My CIF goes to the capital improvement fund to reimburse (partially) money spent for new cars, interest on a loan (if they took one out) or to refurbishing older cars.

4. Forgot to include the CONO, Crescent and Silver Service Palmetto

NAVYBLUE


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## Eric S (Oct 23, 2012)

If Amtrak is already "using revenue maximizing" then won't increasing the fare, or rather total ticket price, not result in total revenues to Amtrak?


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 23, 2012)

One of the things I like about Amtrak is that the price of a ticket is the actual price of going from one place to another. No games, no add-ons, no this that and the other.

Just tell me what the actual cost is for me and my reasonable amount of luggage. 

And IMHO, the more carry-on in the cabin of an airliner, the greater the chance the 'theater goons' at the airport won't stumble upon an actual problem. The one thing TSA/FAA could do to make folks possibly safer they don't, which is to ban airlines from charging for the fisrt piece - or even two pieces :excl: - of checked luggage.

As the airlines have proven, add-on fees are a slippery slope.


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## Peter KG6LSE (Oct 23, 2012)

The Davy Crockett said:


> And IMHO, the more carry-on in the cabin of an airliner, the greater the chance the 'theater goons' at the airport won't stumble upon an actual problem. The one thing TSA/FAA could do to make folks possibly safer they don't, which is to ban airlines from charging for the fisrt piece - or even two pieces :excl: - of checked luggage.


this is the most well thought plan( for airlines ) I have heard in a long time .. the # 1 reason I dont check my bags is the Fees I mean jeez up to 50 USD for my bags .

Less	peoiple with borderline carry-ons . faster boarding and the like ,	Less hassle .	Its a Win Win for every one.

Peter...


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## Anderson (Oct 23, 2012)

One thing I'll need a few weeks before I can deal with, data-wise, is the sleeper portion of LD revenue versus the coach portion. I need the September PIP, so that's probably going to be sometime in November. With that I'll update my sleeper file to go alongside my overall file and we can play with it from there.

Going to war with the data I have (that is, through July) rather than the data I wish I had, sleeper PPR is edging upwards slowly..but it is very noisy due to the chaos surrounding the Builder, Zephyr, and CONO. Truth be told, there's no clear overall pattern: In sleepers, PPR was down on the Star even though ridership was up. On the Meteor, ridership was up but revenue was down. On the Crescent, ridership was off slightly but revenue was up nearly 10%, for a PPR jump of over 10%. On the LSL, PPR was down slightly while ridership and revenue both rose. On the Auto Train, ridership was off slightly but revenue was up firmly, and PPR was up about 5%. And so on. It's a dartboard.

A key fact, however, is that on the Auto Train, the YTD PPR on sleepers was $265.68. While edging it up above the rate of inflation might be workable, going above inflation by double digits seems like a recipe for trouble. Only in the case of the Crescent does it seem to be working, and that's more an artifact of capacity constraints north of ATL.


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## cirdan (Oct 23, 2012)

Personally I wouldn't have a problem paying a little more to travel on Amtrak, especially on LD trains, which in my opinion are extremely low cost in relation to what you get and what the experience is worth.

I wouldn't complain if fares went up by 20 or even 30 percent.

I haven't ever done Iowa Pacific/Pullman Rail Journeys for example, but from their website description it's not too different from an Amtrak sleeper with maybe some extras thrown in, but it's much more expensive. If there's a market for that then I can only postulate that Amtrak is too cheap.

But I also understand there are college students and other people on low budget who would be hit hard by higher fares. And today's coach travellers are tomorrow's sleeper passengers, so don't scare them away.

So I hope Amtrak plays this carefully.


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## Ryan (Oct 23, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> OK, unless this article is wrong, AMTRAK will start to receive new cars in 2012. I don't know AMTRAK's financial plan, but the CIF could help pay for the new cars OR put the money back into the fund it comes from. The rail fares I believe are being used as operating funds to pay the daily bills. The CIF would be used to supplement/reimburse the capital funds used for new purchases to replace older cars.


Yes they are, on the single level trains that you've excluded from this "CIF". You very carefully singled out trains that run with Superliner cars (except for the Cardinal, which used to run with Superliners and some advocate returning to Superliners).



> I went from LAX-WAS-LAX and they worked so well when I wrote AMTRAK about what didn't work properly on every train segment they sent me a $500 voucher. Was it horrible and unbearable ? No. Was it less than I expected for $2,000 round trip. Yes. I do not have the rose colored glasses of a "rail fan". I am a rail enthusiast. I expect the facilities to operate as well as an airplane.


The problem comes when you take a single data point and assume that what you saw holds true across the system. Obviously, it doesn't.


> I understand the cars are older than airplanes being used.


I don't think that's an accurate assumption in all cases.



> Or we could just do nothing and take our chances with the political winds however they blow.


Again with the false dichotomy. Amtrak is already maximizing their revenue on a route by route, and day by day basis. Tacking a flat fee on top of that for sleepers without taking into account the impact that fee would have on ridership would be pants on head retarded.



> Therefore I am willing to pay a CIF to have better cars for EVERYONE. I talk the talk and walk the walk. Increased fares will never cover the subsidy.


As brilliantly smart as you are, I'm sure you understand the difference between anecdotes and data. The fact that you're willing to pay a fee doesn't mean that everyone that takes Amtrak is. Amtrak is doing the work in a far smarter manner than you're advocating for, and there's nothing magical about a "fee" that will let you bring in more revenue than if you just manage fares properly to maximize revenue.



Anderson said:


> A key fact, however, is that on the Auto Train, the YTD PPR on sleepers was $265.68. While edging it up above the rate of inflation might be workable, going above inflation by double digits seems like a recipe for trouble. Only in the case of the Crescent does it seem to be working, and that's more an artifact of capacity constraints north of ATL.


Thanks, I figured that you've built up enough of a data set to actually shed some light on this.


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## Ryan (Oct 23, 2012)

At the end of the day, you have to answer one simple question:

Amtrak has an office full of trained professionals whose job it is to adjust fares to maximize revenue. They have full access to all of Amtrak's data and can see firsthand the impact that adjusting fares has in how quickly they sell tickets.

Why is it that you think that a retired Navy _*MASTER*_ Chief living in the middle of the desert with no access to any real data, no formal training in revenue management and no experience in revenue management for transportation companies is going to do a better job?


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## VentureForth (Oct 23, 2012)

The Davy Crockett said:


> As the airlines have proven, add-on fees are a slippery slope.


...And yet people continue to willingly pay it.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 23, 2012)

VentureForth said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > As the airlines have proven, add-on fees are a slippery slope.
> ...


And we all know how EVERYONE loves :wub: the airlines.


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## AmtrakBlue (Oct 23, 2012)

The Davy Crockett said:


> VentureForth said:
> 
> 
> > The Davy Crockett said:
> ...


And I'm not sure WILLINGLY is the right word to use. Given the options for my travel, I may reluctantly choose an airline with add-on fees because the rest of the costs/dates/times/etc meet my needs.


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## Trogdor (Oct 23, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> OK, there are so many questions about my CIF statements I'll try to cover everyone's replies en mass instead of individually.
> 
> 1. For whomever asked whats does "x" have to do with AMTRAK ? Answer. Nothing. It has to do with "consumerism". I want everyone to pull out your water, electric, natural gas, cell phone service, garbage pickup, land line phone, cable, satellite, car maintenance, etc bills. Look at all those "fees" above and beyond the BASIC charge for the service. They are trying to recapture their capital improvement costs. Why shouldn't AMTRAK ?You probably pay $500-$1000 a year in extra fees. Not a peep. You still keep using those services. There are right there staring you in the face. Plus you have the tips to other services/goods in kind you receive daily throughout the year. And then you act like a $50 CIF is like taking your first born from you.


Many of those fees are regulatory fees/taxes. But nonetheless, some businesses decide to itemize their bills, some give a flat rate. Amtrak chooses a flat rate. At the end of the day, the total amount you pay wouldn't change if your bill was $100+$5+$3+$0.50, or if it was $108.50.



> 2. Some one asked about the CIF on a short run portion of a LD as a sleeper passenger. Never thought about that. I don't think they should levy the $50 CIF on any sleeper run costing less $500.


So, you're basically taking that $22 million in "free" fee revenue and reducing it to nothing. Half the roomette buckets on west coast trains fall below your cutoff. ALL of the roomette buckets, and most of the bedroom buckets on the Capitol Limited fall below your cutoff.



> 3, Yes I do understand AMTRAK is using revenue maximizing but that money is going towards daily operating costs. My CIF goes to the capital improvement fund to reimburse (partially) money spent for new cars, interest on a loan (if they took one out) or to refurbishing older cars.


And it amounts to a fare increase, which is going to then impact how many people are willing to buy a ticket. This will reduce the amount of revenue that will be available to pay for operating costs (which, then, will increase the operating subsidy required).



> 4. Forgot to include the CONO, Crescent and Silver Service Palmetto


CONO doesn't matter, since every sleeper bucket falls below your arbitrary $500 cutoff. Most of the Crescent buckets do, too.

Still, I'm curious to know how someone who is such an expert on economics believes that raising the cost of a ticket to the customer is not going to have an impact on quantity (of sleeper rooms) demanded.


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## jis (Oct 23, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> 3, Yes I do understand AMTRAK is using revenue maximizing but that money is going towards daily operating costs. My CIF goes to the capital improvement fund to reimburse (partially) money spent for new cars, interest on a loan (if they took one out) or to refurbishing older cars.


Amtrak is using current revenues to fund part of the Viewliner acquisition and future expected revenues as collateral for RRIF loans to cover ACS-64 acquisition. So to assume that all of Amtrak revenues go to cover operations is an incorrect assumption. They also plan to use similar funding mechanisms for the 40Acela cars if they can find any manufacturer for them that'd do it for any reasonable price. It is just they don't have anything called a CIF. That is why I think this CIF proposal is a solution looking very hard for a problem to attach itself to.


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## afigg (Oct 23, 2012)

VentureForth said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > As the airlines have proven, add-on fees are a slippery slope.
> ...


Yes, "willingly" is not the phrase I would use either. Grudgingly, with a lot of complaints, or forced to (if they want to check a bag that won't fit in carry-on or have acceptable leg room - depending on the carrier) might be more applicable.

The domestic commercial air travel market is still fairly stagnant in total number of domestic passenger flights. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the number of domestic passengers flights in (calender year) CY 2011 was around 6% below the CY 2007 peak and only about 6.5% above the CY2000 totals. So there has been little net growth over the 11 year span. The add-on fees may be making the difference between losing money and a small operating profit for the commercial airlines (as a group), but they are not growing their business by much in the US domestic market. In terms of growth in passengers, Amtrak is doing much better. The lack of solid growth for the US domestic airline industry does not make a good argument for the approach of add-on fees for almost everything.


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## jis (Oct 23, 2012)

afigg said:


> VentureForth said:
> 
> 
> > The Davy Crockett said:
> ...


Also take into account that airlines are aggressively reducing capacity across the board in order to sustain the higher fares. They have learned that mindless competition on lower fares is a path to destruction of all. Something that airlines in other countries like India are still trying to learn, I might add.


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## afigg (Oct 23, 2012)

Anderson said:


> One thing I'll need a few weeks before I can deal with, data-wise, is the sleeper portion of LD revenue versus the coach portion. I need the September PIP, so that's probably going to be sometime in November. With that I'll update my sleeper file to go alongside my overall file and we can play with it from there.


Since the August monthly report has yet to be posted, it will likely be later in November before the end of the FY monthly report is posted. The September report will be the interesting one to read for the FY totals and the route performance numbers. However, I noticed that Amtrak has posted revised monthly reports for each month going back to the start of FY12 with the financial and route performance numbers that were missing when the reports were originally posted.


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## VentureForth (Oct 23, 2012)

AmtrakBlue said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > VentureForth said:
> ...


Exactly my point. Willing is, indeed, the correct word. If they are not willing to pay it, they will not travel. Certainly different than "Happy" to pay it.

As for add on fees, etc., my preference is to set a price and charge it. The only price that really matters to me is what is sent to my credit card for processing. Include ALL the fees & charges. That's one thing I REALLY hate about cruise lines! When I see a rate of $120, I know that I first need to double it because I buy a cabin for two and pay for two whether two travel or one. Then I double THAT for port fees, taxes, parking, etc. That $120 is now closer to $500.

When Japan introduced their consumption tax a couple decades ago, people were used to paying prices rounded to the nearest 10-yen. Magazines and many other commodoties would now put the "after tax" price on the cover with the odd pretax amount just above it. People don't want to spend time doing math in their head. Just tell me what you're going to cost and charge me THAT amount. I'll let your accountant figure out the taxes from what you took in.

I digress..


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 23, 2012)

From the Bing dictionary:



> will·ing
> 
> [ wílling ]
> 
> ...



I don't think most people are 'willing' to pay extra fees based on the definition of 'willing' above .

If they fly, they have no choice. That sounds more like being forced.


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## VentureForth (Oct 23, 2012)

They have a choice. Don't fly.

Those guns that the TSA have are not used to ensure that someone who steps into an airport buys a plane ticket.

I think playing semantics on the 2nd definition of a word is silly now, especially since I stated that I would prefer to see all costs and fees bundled into one (small?) number. The point is that NO ONE is FORCED to BUY TICKETS on ANY MODE to go ANYWHERE. We are still a relatively free society and ANY decision we make is a CHOICE.


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## Ryan (Oct 23, 2012)

Sure, quitting your job or just choosing to not see family that lives across the country is a CHOICE, but it isn't really a viable one for most people.

Not everyone has the luxury of taking an extra week of travel time to take the train or drive when their presence is required far from home.


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## jis (Oct 23, 2012)

VentureForth said:


> They have a choice. Don't fly.
> 
> Those guns that the TSA have are not used to ensure that someone who steps into an airport buys a plane ticket.
> 
> I think playing semantics on the 2nd definition of a word is silly now, especially since I stated that I would prefer to see all costs and fees bundled into one (small?) number. The point is that NO ONE is FORCED to BUY TICKETS on ANY MODE to go ANYWHERE. We are still a relatively free society and ANY decision we make is a CHOICE.


That is just one step short of saying something like if you don't like to pay the taxes you have a choice. Leave.


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## Trogdor (Oct 23, 2012)

Arguing over the definition of "willing" or "choice" is semantics that ignores the real issue of the discussion. Namely, if you add on fees (or taxes, or whatever) will you still sell the same amount for a given base price as you would without those, or do you have to lower the price somewhat to compensate?

The airline argument is a bit misleading, in part, because airlines are required to quote the total, all-in price (excluding optional extras like baggage fees) up front. So, all taxes, security fees, facility charges, etc. are included in the price when you go search for a fare. Somewhere in the booking process, they might tell you what the breakdown is, but I doubt you'd ever find more than a handful of people that really notice, let alone care, what that breakdown is. What they care about is the final price paid, not how fancy of a title is given to each line item. And the airlines know this.

Case in point: Last year, due to congressional bickering, there was a brief period where certain airline taxes expired. Airlines immediately raised fares to cover the tax. This means that the taxes were forcing the airlines to charge a slightly lower fare in order to keep total ticket prices at a certain level. Once the tax went away, the ticket price remained the same, but the base fare was raised to cover the difference. I believe that once the taxes were reinstated a few days later, the base fares went back down (I can't find specific news article stating such, but I recall that being mentioned at the time).

This tells me that, whether certain folks want to believe it or not, it is indeed the total price that matters and not just the base fare.

To put it another way: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 23, 2012)

Ryan said:


> At the end of the day, you have to answer one simple question:
> 
> Amtrak has an office full of trained professionals whose job it is to adjust fares to maximize revenue. They have full access to all of Amtrak's data and can see firsthand the impact that adjusting fares has in how quickly they sell tickets.
> 
> Why is it that you think that a retired Navy _*MASTER*_ Chief living in the middle of the desert with no access to any real data, no formal training in revenue management and no experience in revenue management for transportation companies is going to do a better job?


Do you agree or disagree with my premise to add a CIF to sleeper fees ?

That was the question I asked you. So you disagree with my OPINION. I gave my opinion like everyone else whom I think a majority are not revenue managers for ANY kind of business.

I was assistant revenue manager for a consortium (7) of Northeast Pennsylvania McDonald franchises where each store's average gross receipts were $1.2-1.6 million per year. Not quite the glory job like AMTRAK, Greyhound or Southwest Airlines, but I did learn a little about revenue management, sales, marketing, pivot tables, data filters, weighted averages, standard deviation, distribution systems,and statistical trends. McDonalds is successful because they listen to their customers. Remember the Arch Deluxe? The people spoke and McDonalds listened.Maybe AMTRAK experts need to listen.

Thank you for your input. I don't think I would do a better job. YOU think I think I would do a better job. Didn't say it. Wouldn't be prudent.

Anyways, have a nice day and if you are going to highlight MASTER, please do it in my favorite color, navyBLUE.

And PLEASE, call me Mike. All my FRIENDS do. (LMAO)

NAVYBLUE


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 23, 2012)

Trogdor said:


> NAVYBLUE said:
> 
> 
> > OK, there are so many questions about my CIF statements I'll try to cover everyone's replies en mass instead of individually.
> ...


See 7:32 PM reply to Ryan.

NAVYBLUE


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## CHamilton (Oct 23, 2012)

Apparently one reason airlines like raising fees instead of fares is that the former are not taxed -- thus increasing our subsidies to the airlines.

As airlines raise fees instead of fares, taxpayers pick up the tab



> There’s a 7.5 percent federal tax on every airline ticket. The money goes into a fund that pays for the air transportation system: airports, capital improvements and the operation of the Federal Aviation Administration.
> 
> But in nine of the past 11 years, the amount of money flowing into that fund — mostly ticket-tax revenues — has fallen short of projections. When that happens, Congress can increase general fund contributions to cover the FAA’s budget. In both fiscal 2009 and 2010, Congress appropriated an additional amount of almost $1 billion.
> 
> When the airlines kept ticket prices down by shifting $12.8 billion to baggage fees, they also saved almost $964 million in federal taxes they would have owed if they had hiked ticket prices by that amount.


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 23, 2012)

CHamilton said:


> Apparently one reason airlines like raising fees instead of fares is that the former are not taxed -- thus increasing our subsidies to the airlines.
> 
> As airlines raise fees instead of fares, taxpayers pick up the tab
> 
> ...


"Fortunately" AMTRAK does not earn a profit so they don't pay corporate income tax. They used to pay state and local taxes. Does anyone know if they still do ?

N AVYBLUE


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## AlanB (Oct 23, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> CHamilton said:
> 
> 
> > Apparently one reason airlines like raising fees instead of fares is that the former are not taxed -- thus increasing our subsidies to the airlines.
> ...


You need to reread things more carefully, that wasn't corporate income tax that was being talked about in that story the Charlie linked to. That's a ticket tax that gets paid based upon the price of the ticket, by the airline to the Fed. So by having a lower base fee, and making it up with misc. charges, the airlines are now dumping more of the costs of the FAA onto the taxpayers.

And regarding that story you found on the new cars, it was correct at the time it was written earlier this year. But thanks to a stop work order that slowed production for a bit, the first car delivery date has now slipped to next year.


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## Anderson (Oct 23, 2012)

Alan and Charlie,

Thank you for revealing the last chapter of that mystery novel for me. I feel as though a mustachioed villain has suddenly been revealed lurking in the corner...and of course, it's inept federal regulations that are the ultimate culprit. When it it not?

I hadn't realized that the fees weren't subject to taxes that fares were. Mind you, this comes across as a loophole that ought to be fixed...but it does make things make a bit more sense in context (and it explains why they'd pick "variable items" such as baggage to slam with this, since I suspect they'd be slapped down if they tried to have a $1 fare and put everything else in as a set of "fees".


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 23, 2012)

AlanB said:


> NAVYBLUE said:
> 
> 
> > CHamilton said:
> ...


AlanB,

I did read it very carefully and understood very well as I did "tax avoidance" as an asst revenue manager for a McDonalds franchise consortium in Northeast Pennsylvania. You always try to shift as many expenses as possible in to tax credit column and as many profit points in to the "tax avoidance" column.

I also understand what the airlines have been doing because I did it. Legal ? Yes. Moral ? That's for others to decide. That is why I am 100% against lobbyists being allowed to meet with Federal legislators on federal property and believe in the flat tax versus the thousands of loophole in the lobbyist inspired tax code. There is $1,000,000,000+ in the "underground" (off the books"} economy that would capture $150-300 BILLION dollars (depending on who you believe) using a 15% flat tax paid at point of sale. If AMTRAK ever was to make a profit they would be at a disadvantage as all their profits would be taxable UNLESS they did a Capital Investment Fee ($50) for revenue enhancement IF the tax code doesn't change. INCOMING !!!!!!

What could we do with that additional income ?

NAVYBLUE


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## AlanB (Oct 23, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > NAVYBLUE said:
> ...


Ok, Mike, just wanted to be sure since all you mentioned in your post was corporate income tax and Charlie's post had nothing to do with that. So it appeared that you might have misread things.


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## Anderson (Oct 24, 2012)

NAVYBLUE said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > NAVYBLUE said:
> ...


In the department of tax avoidance, I've actually informed one or two groups that I donate to not to bother me for an end-of-year donation, but to talk to me after Jan. 1 instead. Why? If tax rates go up, I want my donations on next year's form, not on this year's.

With that said, I haven't taken tax accounting, but I think Amtrak is carrying about $28 billion in accumulated losses on their books. Even ejecting old losses, Amtrak would presumably have a couple of billion carried forward from the preceding years to "eat through". They'd then have to overcome depreciation on the fleet, on the NEC, etc. first, so you'd need an operating profit somewhere in the range of $600 million first (versus a loss of $350 million or so for last FY and of probably about $250 million once you "dispose of" short corridor losses). Good luck finding _that_ anytime soon, and the Viewliner II order should add another $5-10 million to the depreciation pile, while any government-sponsored car rehabs, car purchases, and/or RoW improvements will also go onto that heap. Every dime of capital funding that Amtrak gets now is depreciation fodder, even if completely funded by the federal government and even if the replacement(s) are expected to be similarly funded.

As to the point of sale bit you raise (horridly off-topic though this is), I don't buy it. I agree that there's a large underground market (I assume you were going for trillions of dollars...you missed a set of zeroes there), but I don't agree that going to a sales tax would capture it. Somehow, I don't think your friendly neighborhood dope peddler is going to file for a TIN for his "operation" and assess sales tax just because of a change in the law...he probably doesn't pay it to the state now, so why would a change in federal law cause him to do so? Likewise, I agree that you'd focus on several million businesses instead of hundreds of millions of taxpayers...but how do you deal with a mostly cash garage sale under these circumstances? Require people to file papers with the federal government to sell old clothes?


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## trainman74 (Oct 24, 2012)

VentureForth said:


> Those guns that the TSA have are not used to ensure that someone who steps into an airport buys a plane ticket.


Just wanted to note for the record that TSA agents are not armed.


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## VentureForth (Oct 24, 2012)

trainman74 said:


> VentureForth said:
> 
> 
> > Those guns that the TSA have are not used to ensure that someone who steps into an airport buys a plane ticket.
> ...


TSA Airport Cops


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## NAVYBLUE (Oct 24, 2012)

Anderson said:


> NAVYBLUE said:
> 
> 
> > AlanB said:
> ...


The point of sale scenario has to do with consumer purchases. When said drug dealer buys a new Cadillac Escalade he pays New State sales tax. With a point of sales 15% Federal Income Tax he pays $9,000 federal tax on a $60,000 Escalade at the time of purchase from his ill got money. It only works with a legitimate business like Sears, car dealer, McDonalds, etc who have to send sales tax into the states. No way to capture garage sales, Mom and Pop store who operate out of a cash box, etc who don't pay sales tax as a lot operate off the grid. BUT, the out of cash box people still need to make consumer purchases themselves as we would get the tax revenue from them at the end. It's for the regular retail business that you would capture most the revenue.

Smart move on the tax deferral. If the Bush tax cut and the Obama payroll tax decrease are allowed to expire it is estimated that people over $100,000 will pay about $6,000 more per year and those under $100,000 will pay about $600-$3,000 depending on income, tax bracket and deductions.

Back to AMTRAK. Although I am not an airline OR AMTRAK expert, I would think AMTRAK is at a disadvantage as to maintenance upkeep. While in the Navy, I qualified as an Aviation Warfare Specialist which required me to know the basics of all aircraft systems. I know a little about basic maintenance upkeep and it would seem that AMTRAK trains take a bigger beating than commercial aircraft.. Now I do understand the stress on the airframe, but was the most stress at take off and landing, I would think AMTRAK cars are stressed continuously and at a severe maintenance advantage as far as upkeep. Am I wrong here. ANY FAA certified A&P people out there or diesel train mechs who can help me out. It appears AMTARK will always behind the bubble, unless the new Viewliner and/or Superliners are better maintenance wise.

NAVYBLUE


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## Nathanael (Oct 25, 2012)

Paulus said:


> It's not a terribly hard statement to back up. The long distance trains don't serve a transit function that cannot be better served, for cheaper, by subsidizing bus service from said communities to airports (with or without EAS funded service).


You are are making blatantly false statements, you should be educated enough to know that they are false.

There are lots and lots and lots and lots of people who cannot fly, should not fly, or will not fly. In fact, that number has been *increasing* thanks to our new fascist grope-and-abuse procedure. But even if that were ended, my fiancee (for example) literally can't walk after an airplane flight, thanks to her arthritis. After a train trip? She's fine.



> It's not like those in sleeper or even coach can't afford airfare on those long distance hops.


It's not about the money.


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## Nathanael (Oct 25, 2012)

Paulus said:


> > "Cheap" is relative, but from what I've gathered, the core costs of a day train that covers several hundred miles tend to run somewhere around $10-16 million to run: The Blue Water ran $13.9m, the Adirondack lists $12.9m, the Pennsylvanian $16.4m, and the Illini $20.3m for a twice-daily train (or $10.5m/train). That's costs before farebox and OBS revenue come into the mix.
> 
> 
> The LD routes average out at $63.58 per train-mile to run, might be a useful number for estimates.


Averages are stupidly misleading. I suggest you look at route-by-route numbers. The ones which do really badly are the three-a-weeks. Several would do better if more cars could be added.



> If we're doing what are basically luxury trips rather than actual essential intercity connectivity, let's price it significantly higher and recover more of the money spent on it.


We're not; this is core intercity connectivity. Without Amtrak, my fiancee would simply have had to decide not to visit her dying father.


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## Nathanael (Oct 25, 2012)

Regarding sleeper pricing, two points:

(1) Amtrak prices the sleepers as high as they can while still filling them up -- that's the stated goal of their pricing system anyway.

(2) So far Amtrak is funding new sleeper cars out of the difference between the federal government's allocation to Amtrak for operating, and the actual Amtrak operating loss (which is smaller). This difference is partly due to those large prices for sleepers, which are much higher than they were a few years ago.

This is why it doesn't make sense to add an extra fee to sleeper accomodations; basically, to put it simply, Amtrak is already charging that extra fee.


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## Paulus (Oct 25, 2012)

Nathanael said:


> Paulus said:
> 
> 
> > It's not a terribly hard statement to back up. The long distance trains don't serve a transit function that cannot be better served, for cheaper, by subsidizing bus service from said communities to airports (with or without EAS funded service).
> ...


I'm fairly sure that Greyhound's incremental costs are lower than those of an LD train, but do please provide some factual basis for your assertions since you're asserting that my statements are blatantly false and I should be educated enough to know better.



> There are lots and lots and lots and lots of people who cannot fly, should not fly, or will not fly. In fact, that number has been *increasing* thanks to our new fascist grope-and-abuse procedure. But even if that were ended, my fiancee (for example) literally can't walk after an airplane flight, thanks to her arthritis. After a train trip? She's fine.


Physically cannot is one thing, personal unwillingness to fly is quite another.



Nathanael said:


> Paulus said:
> 
> 
> > > "Cheap" is relative, but from what I've gathered, the core costs of a day train that covers several hundred miles tend to run somewhere around $10-16 million to run: The Blue Water ran $13.9m, the Adirondack lists $12.9m, the Pennsylvanian $16.4m, and the Illini $20.3m for a twice-daily train (or $10.5m/train). That's costs before farebox and OBS revenue come into the mix.
> ...


If you had bothered yourself to click the link, you would have seen a route by route breakdown for every Amtrak route in the country, including long distance. And while the Sunset does quite poorly indeed (though the Starlight and Auto Train are even more expensive to run), the Cardinal is actually below average. Note that the numbers which I presented are highly relevant to the question of turning said thrice-weekly services into daily trains or extending day trains which is why I brought it up in the first place.



> > If we're doing what are basically luxury trips rather than actual essential intercity connectivity, let's price it significantly higher and recover more of the money spent on it.
> 
> 
> We're not; this is core intercity connectivity. Without Amtrak, my fiancee would simply have had to decide not to visit her dying father.


Except that the LD trains are not core intercity connectivity and this is readily apparent by its patronage.


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## Nathanael (Oct 25, 2012)

Paulus said:


> Except that the LD trains are not core intercity connectivity and this is readily apparent by its patronage.


Again, flatly false. Arguably they're only core connectivity for the physically disabled, but there are a hell of a lot of such people in the US.

Patronage is currently a function of available seats. And there aren't enough.

Greyhound? Have you every *looked* at Greyhound? Well, the trip she took would take a minimum of 4-5 hours longer on Greyhound than Amtrak, on a worse schedule, even after including the extra driving time on each end which Amtrak requires due to less geographical coverage. More transfers, too, and at least three different bus operators (Greyhound is unclear, there may be four). At least one of which *doesn't actually take reservations*, which mean you're *not guaranteed a seat*. Seriously; you show up with your Greyhound ticket and they might let you on, or they might not. And none of them actually publish their schedules, either.

This barely qualifies as connectivity at all.

Air? We've been over this before. Some people really should not fly for medical reasons, and it's a lot more than you think.

Sorry. I'm ticked off at you because your attitude is coming from what I can only call an ableist perspective.


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